Reading time?

Audrey has always been our curious, fast learner when it comes to letters (and their sounds), numbers, etc. In preschool this year, they are learning a few sight words. She seemed to catch on pretty quick, and was also showing interest in sounding out other words. We thought she might be enjoy actually finding familiar words in a book, and learning to read for herself. So we headed to the library last week in search of beginning reading books. Here's Audrey, enjoying the stack that we found.



She really likes finding words that "match" within the books, and likes that once she reads a word once, she knows that the "match" is the same word. She has several words that she's gotten pretty good at reading, which is neat to see. She's not consistent, by any means, but she still does a pretty good job. (The words she's learned include you, we, she, he, the, I, mess, it, in, is, would, could, ill, best, friend, will, share...etc)

Her interest in learning to read TOTALLY depends on her mood. If you know Audrey, you know she can sometimes have a very strong will. :) Sometimes she's impatient, easily frustrated and just not into it. Other times, she just wants to look at the pictures in the book, and recite the story from her memory. And then, there are those neat moments when she really likes trying to find the words, and seems happy to be able to try to remember them, or sound them out. Right now we are definitely not in any hurry, just in the phase of making sure it's something that is fun for her. So far, so good. She seems to like it more and more each time we do it. She keeps saying : "When I'm 5, I'll learn to read like you. Then, I can learn my kids to read, too!"

Some things are worth waiting for

(Please, laugh with me regarding the photo quality - and lets hope that we find our REAL camera soon! Hey, at least the curtains are in fucus, though...)

Audrey and Katelyn always like to make things in the kitchen with me. Sunday we were making cupcakes. Strawberry with white frosting. The reason for making the cupcakes was due to a great achievement by Katelyn. She left her blankie in the car during church for the past few weeks (instead of bringing it in and dragging it around church and nursery), so I told her we would make cupcakes to celebrate. I know, it's bribery - whatever, it worked. :)

So - We mixed up the batter (Thanks pillsbury) and put the cupcakes in the oven. Audrey was ESPECIALLY excited about these cupcakes. When the timer first went off she jumped up and ran to the oven. "MOM, they're DONE!!" Nope, Audrey they probably need a couple more minutes.

So, when they finally were done, We took them out of the oven and put them on the racks to cool. Audrey was READY to test them out. (By this point, Katelyn was indifferent on the whole issue, since "Max and Ruby" was on the TV so that I could make dinner....) I explained to Audrey that they needed to cool, and that they needed to cool completely, because we wanted to frost them. She agreed, frosting them was a good idea.

A -"But mom, this takes a long time!"
M -"Yeah, but is it worth it when they're done?"
A -"What's worth it?"
M -"When they're done, and we get to eat the frosted cupcakes, are they yummy?
A -"Yeah"
M -"So, sometimes we have to wait a long time, but it's 'worth it' because the cupcakes will be better when we can have frosting on them later. "
A - Pause, and a thoughtful look -
A -"So, that's like waiting to go to Grandma Smith's house, sometimes we wait a long time to go see them, but then it's fun!"

I thought it was a cute little connection that she made on her own, and of course Grandma Smith loved hearing about it, too!

Sleep deprived

This is how we found Katelyn one day last week. She had been playing with the laundry basket, putting all of her favorite toys inside. I guess she just eventually decided to climb in with them and take a nap. You can't really tell in the picture, but there is a LOT of other stuff in there with her. This girl makes us laugh every day with the silly things she does and says.

Bread!

Yes, you aren't seeing things, I'm actually posting on my blog again! I wish I could use the excuse that the "holidays" kept me from blogging, but the truth is - I'm just not very good at remembering to post! So, here we go again...

I thought I would come back to blogging with a bread recipe from my Grandma Smith. My mom gave me the recipe back in October, and I'm not even joking when I say that we haven't bought bread since. It is so easy to make bread, and by tweaking this recipe just a little I've been able to get a yummy, slice-able wheat bread out of it.

Before my mom gave me this recipe, I had NO experience making yeast bread. NONE. Of course, I've made dinner rolls, orange rolls, etc, but never just plain BREAD. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to catch on. To me, there seem to be different types of home made bread. There's the kind with the crispy crust and soft, airy inside that is good in thick slices straight out of the oven with butter and jam on it, or good for eating with a big bowl of soup. Then, there's the kind of bread with a slightly more dense, moist texture, that can hold up to thinner slicing and sandwich making. Since I was making bread for daily use, the latter is the texture I was going for.

My Grandma Smith was Mother to 15 children. Supposedly once a week she would have a bread making day and would make 16-20 loaves to get their family through the week...maybe. :) This is the recipe she used. I'll post the original recipe, and I'll put my modifications in ( ).

4 C Milk or water, heated/warm
2T yeast dissolved in 1 Cup warm water + 1t sugar (I use 1 1/2 cups water)
1/2 C veg. oil
4 t salt (I only use 2-3, and in my opinion, it's plenty)
2/3 C sugar
5 cups whole wheat flour
5 cups all purpose flour (I end up using a little more than this, see below)
3/4 cup gluten (I found "Red Mill" brand by the flour at wal-mart, I think it might be in bulk at Winco, too)

Mix together: Warmed milk, oil, salt, and sugar.
In a seperate bowl, mix together: Flours and gluten.

Add 3 cups of flours to wet mixture, add yeast, then add remaining flour mixture. (At this phase for me, the dough is kind of sticky. I add ANOTHER 1 - 1 1/2ish cups of flour and let it knead with the dough hook in my kitchen aid mixer for an extra 30 seconds or so, just to pull it together a bit. )

Grease a LARGE bowl, turn dough over into bowl and cover with saran or a slightly damp kitchen towel.

Rise 1 or 1 1/2 hours. Punch down.

Rise another 1 or 1 1/2 hours. Punch again.

Separate into four equal parts and put into loaf pans. (Before I put them into the loaf pans, I knead them just about 10 or so more times on a well floured surface, until they are nice and smooth and dense)

Let rise until the dough is above the top of the pan. (I don't let them rise for very long, maybe 10-15 minutes - my theory is that if you don't let them rise for too long at this phase, the bread will be slightly more dense, thus holding up to slicing and sandwich making better - I'm not sure if there's any truth behind this, but it works for me!)

Bake in 375 degree oven for 30-32 mintes.

Make sure to let them cool in the pans for 10-15 minutes before taking them out. After they have completely cooled, I put three of the loaves in twist-tie bags in the freezer for later in the week. This helps keep then from drying out. Enjoy!~

Perfect, yummy bread, ready for your next sandwich! (I apologize for the poor photo quality. We haven't been able to find our camera for the past two months, so we just have our 7-8 year old digital camera that is NOT very nice!)

I DID IT!!!

I finished my first half-marathon! I say "my first" because I hope to do one again someday, and possibly even a full marathon...someday.

I have to thank my sister-in-law Tawnya for talking me into it. I really enjoyed the challenge of training for it. I've been a steady gym-goer for the past 7 years or so, but I haven't ever taken anything like this on before. Having had 3 kids in the last 4 years, life is definitely busy. Forcing myself to get up off the couch and go for a 5, 6 or 11 mile run after a 12 hour day wrangling 3 girls wasn't always easy, but I'm glad to say that I pulled it off! That being said, I have to thank Tim for being so supportive in my training as well, hanging out with the girls when needed, and being there to cheer me on at the finish-line.


Here's the stats:
Miles - 13.1
Finish time - 1:50:30
Pieces of great harvest bread provided after the race - 3
Placing for women 25-29 - 4th (out of 57)
Placing for women overall -20th (out of 197)
Placing overall - I dunno, I think it was 50-something
Blisters - 2 (from the stupid time-chip thing)
Bathroom stops - 1 (ugh! I hated having to stop for that!)
Breakfast on race morning - Chocolate milk
Dinner the night before - 3 bowls of farina hot cereal - think cream of wheat. CARBS!!!
Hills - 2
Jell-o legs after hills - 2
Weather - Perfect!

The fair!!

Here are some random pictures from our trip to the fair a few weeks ago. We had a great time!

The night before we went to the fair, they were fighting over their magnet toys. I told them only happy girls will get to come to the fair in the morning. This is what I got - Happy faces!!
(Please excuse both of their ratty heads! Their hair was probaby brushed that day...probably.)


The girls and I in front of the beautiful, PVC pipe fountain.


Then, we went to see the animals. The girls thought that was fun for a while...but they couldn't resist the rides!


Katelyn was way focused on this ride, I think she thought she was really driving it! They only got to go on one ride, since tickets are a RIP OFF at $1 a piece, and 3-4 tickets per ride. But, they had fun! Katelyn almost had a meltdown, since she saw so many other rides she wanted to go on, but a grilled sandwich, fries, and ice cream fixed that problem in a snap! (I know, medicating with food is bad...whatever...the distraction worked that day!)


Audrey was so excited to see the "baby chicks" hatching. They had a bunch of quail eggs in a little incubator. It was fun to watch the eggs wiggle and shake around, and then eventially you'd see a little quail breaking through. Katelyn just marched around singing "Happy Birthday," which was fitting.


And, finally, this is how Sydney spent her day. She's my cuddle-bug!

The Upside of Downsizing

Last week, Tim and I moved into and older rental that he had bought before we were married. Since we've ventured off into self employment after layoffs at Micron, the super-low payment is the best option for us! The house is less than 1/3 of the size of our previous house, and we've had lots of "hiccups" along the way (smoke and pet smells, mouse poop, dead lawn, dryer not working...and the list goes on), but we know it's a good choice for us. I actually feel really good about being here, now that we're settled in. Here are some of the things we've enjoyed, since moving:

1. Older, established neighborhood makes for a large variety of big, cool leaves for crayon-rubbings. Our back yard has 4-5 different kinds, itself! There are also LOTS of pine-cones, which the girls think is SO cool.

2. Katelyn is now potty trained, just since we moved! She's seemed to like the toilets at the "little" house. It also helps that it's easier to monitor her more closely.

3. The mouse poop cleaned up easily, and I can hardly smell the smoke and pet smells left behind, since we were able to get new paint and flooring. :)

4. We have a nice back yard, or at least it will be nice when the grass (and probably weeds) comes in completely. There's lots of shade, and a sunny spot that I'm excited to put a BIG garden in next summer! I can't wait!! Who wants to teach me how to do canning?!

5. We should make some pretty good money selling things on craigslist. There's a good chunk of furniture and other stuff that just won't fit!

6. We found out the breaker for the dryer was the reason for our dryer not working. $8 fix - EASY!

7. There is a great park with a duck pond and volleyball net just a 10 minute walk away.

8. I really don't need to use a baby monitor - Sydney's room is across the hall!

9. If the girls need help with something while I'm busy, it doesn't feel like as much of an interruption when I only have to walk 10 steps instead of 50 to get them what they need!

10. It's neat to see that the kids actually really like our "little" house. It's fun for us to feel closer as a family. Audrey woke up the morning after the move and said "I love living at the little house, mom!" That makes it all worth it!

Sorry, there's no pictures! We can't find the little thing that you plug the camera cartridge into yet. It must still be in a box in the garage!