Happy 4th!

Hope you all had a great 4th of July!  We celebrated with a BIG bang!

We set off all these Fireworks! And had fun doing it.  We had good food including pies from all those blackberries...

I tried to get pictures of our fireworks  but our camera didn't cooperate so I really only have this pictures of Sugar Bug with the biggest sparkler ever!

That is one cool sword!  We had a blast and hope our friends will come out next year for the bash!

Happy 4th everyone!

Spring is coming Right???

So we've had winter hit hard late.  Here we are in March when it should be warming up and we are shoveling snow!  We've had 10 inches over the last few weeks in a couple bouts of ice and snow.  So... We've stayed indoors for the most part having fun snow days watching movies and challenging the kids to Monopoly.

Super D remains the undefeated champ in our house.  But it was a close game!  :)

So Yes, if you see the plants in the back ground I am hoping spring makes it soon!  Those were a gift from a friend but I hope to get mine started soon...

Thankfully the weather man says it is supposed to warm up this week!  So we will be out hiking and planting soon.

We had a few beautiful 60 deg. days before the cold that the girls and I went adventuring a bit.  I don't remember what Sassafras thought she saw that made her jump.  We are looking forward to playing in the river soon!

And because I missed it....

Super D surprised all his girls with roses for Valentine's Day.  We had a fun day even though it included loading up fire wood for the cold that was moving in.  :) 

Garden season is almost here.  I will probably be a bit behind but I'll try and keep you all updated.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!!

From the S Family...

   

So I know I'm a little behind.  My annual Christmas cards are becoming New Year's cards and most will probably get this in a email. Pray you all had a great Christmas and will have a good New Year's.
We had a good holiday season starting with spending Thanksgiving in Tulsa with my mom, grandma, sister and niece.  Sugar bug had the great idea to get us all footie pj's.

We realized later that Super D and I should have sat apart we kinda blend together. But I love that everyone was game and joined in on this picture.  And these PJ's are comfy and warm great for movie night with the family! 

We enjoyed dinner with extended family and I got this picture of Sassafras and our niece. Before the camera died as I forgot to charge the battery. 

  We had a great Thanksgiving and wonderful visit seeing everyone!  On to Christmas...

Does this picture not just say Christmas?  I snapped this on a quiet night after the kids were in bed the dogs just looked so content and I loved the the glow of the lights and fire.  Reminded me of the Amy Grant song I Need a Silent Night.  

We spent Christmas at home this year. Super D cooked prime rib and a turkey while I made all the other good stuff. We had Super D's side of the family over and some friends.  

Super D got a neat tool set....

Best part was he picked it himself. He took me into Sears one day and handed me the screwdrivers and picked up the box and told me " Just don't tell me what your getting me."  LOL!  I just laughed and paid for it.  Hey saved me wrapping paper.  I just stuck it under the tree.

Here's Sugar Bug still waking up Christmas morning.  Didn't take us long to open up our presents This year most of the gifts we too big to go under the tree.  Sassafras now has her drivers license and we gave her the jeep.  She is super excited!  Sugar bug got to travel to California to visit my sister by herself and that was her gift.  

I think one of the best gifts I got was meeting our new nephew! 

This little guy was born on the 21st.  He's just 4 days old here.  We loved getting to meet him. Congrats to Super D's  little sister and her guy! 

Wishing you all a great New Year!  I'm looking forward to it!

Thanksgiving Pumpkin...

So one item that did well in the garden this year was pumpkin.  I harvested probably close to 50 pumpkins from one sprawling plant!  (thankfully I only had one plant to contend with)  Now these weren't your Jack-o-lantern type but smaller pie pumpkins.  So here's the low down on how to can pumpkin. Oh and I did learn I was using my canner wrong in this post where I Failed canning poke.  So the secret in case anyone else needs to know is that you let the canner get to a boil and when you see steady steam coming from the vent you then put on the weights.  I wasn't doing this as I was using it like a pressure cooker and starting with the weights on and waiting for it to rattle and time it.  Well, when you do that it sucks the liquid out of your jars... So on to my success....

Canning pumpkin...option one

Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out seeds. (keep for roasted seeds!) Then cut in to chunks, they don't have to be to small and put into a big pot. (see background)  

 I just kept going until my pot was full.  Cover pumpkin with water and bring to a boil.  Cook until fork tender.  About as long as it take potatoes to cook.  

Here's the time consuming part peel, scrape, or any other way take skin off pumpkin.  Spoon pumpkin chunks out of water as you want to save the cooking water.  

Put chunks of pumpkin into canning jars.  After much research it is strongly suggested that for home canning of pumpkin you that you do not smash it.  Pureed pumpkin is hard (nearly impossible) to get hot enough to safely can at home so according to all I read you should can it in chunks.  It is easy to puree when you use it. 

Now fill the jar with cooking liquid. Remember to leave an 1" head space.  Put on lid and put in canner.

My canner has a line for where the water level should be which is only about a 3rd way up.  Then turn on the heat to high and wait! When you see a steady stream of steam coming from the vent let vent for 10 mins. then put on the weight as seen above. :)  Process (meaning cook) pints size jars for 55 mins and quarts for 90 mins.  At 10 lbs pressure.  For my canner that meant one ring.  (check your manual) 

And Viola...

Canning Pumpkin...option two

Option two is you can skip cooking the pumpkin first and peel the raw pumpkin pack in to jars and cover with boiling water and process the same.  This cooks pumpkin in the canner while canning but I will warn you they both take the same amount of time as peeling or cutting the skin off raw pumpkin is not easy.  As far as I can tell so far both yield pretty much the same result. 

Good luck

Happy Thanksgiving everyone... This makes really great pumpkin pie! or anything else you use pumpkin in.

Have a happy and safe holiday! 

Worms and Pirates...

Well, I hope you had a good Halloween if you celebrate.  As my family knows Halloween is not my favorite holiday.  For years we didn't hardly give it a passing nod but the kids got older and wanted to do more things changed a bit. Anyways, this year we were invited to a Halloween Bunco Bash.  It included a costume contest and creepy dish contest.  Well we had a good time and the costumes and food turned out great...

For the creepy yet edible dish I made a dirt cake with very real looking worms...

For the worms I used this recipe for Jello worms. I used the whole package of Knox Gelatin that's all 4 envelopes and it turned out great.   For the cake I used this recipe for Dirt cake Of course I used my jello worms instead of gummy worms. 
This dish grossed out my girls so much they barely tried it then said it didn't taste good but it was all in their head!  Everyone else loved it...

The brave party goers ate it up!

For our costumes Super D and I went as Pirates and the Sassafras was a Zebra and Sugar Bug Red Riding hood.  (Mostly it was an excuse for the girls to wear make up and dress up!)

We managed to get this decent picture with the timer on the camera right before we left.
But some of the best pictures were at the party.

Love the new addition!  They had a pet parrot and she actually flew over to me and climbed up on my shoulder! 

Our poor friend had a hole shot in her! But what an ingenious idea.

Sugar bug had a little competition with red riding hood.  But what a great couples costume.

We got all of us in front of the graveyard backdrop. And got Sassafras to put her hood up for this one.

Sugar bug and her silly faces!

My parrot friend even came with me to oblige a few more pictures. 

The nigh went great and my favorite was the wolf by the end of the night had a good representation of all our great costumes....

Thank you to our hosts for a great night.  Bunco (which is a dice game) was a lot of fun.  Especially since I won some good prizes.. :)  Hope to do it again next year!
Someone put a lot of planning and time into this and I am thankful we were included in the fun. 

 

A Quiet Christmas

For the first time ever I think, we had a quiet Christmas at home.  We didn’t go anywhere or even have company.  Just got to lounge around in our PJ’s all day!  We started out the day at about 7:20 with kids waking us up.  We slowly got out of bed to get the fire going…

Super D is standing in front of the real fire while we get the effect with music from the TV.    Of course next is presents…
 
Sassafras got a new hat from her sister. Can you tell she likes Pandas??  It’s an inherited trait, I collected Panda things as a kid too.
We then had a yummy Christmas breakfast of Eggs, bacon, and Cinnamon Rolls.  Bacon was a treat too as we haven’t had Bacon around lately as it is a bit more expensive.  Then we just hung out.  Watched a Christmas movie and played. 
Sugar Bug had all her clothed tried on and toys all played with before the day was over. 

Here she is coloring after working a couple pot holders on the loom, by the end of the day we all had our own pot holder.    And we played her new game together.  It was very funny…

The game is called Hedbanz Act up.. The game like charades, you act out what is on another players card and have them guess. Super D is acting out an earthquake here.


Sassafras pausing to take a picture of us.  With our game headwear .  It is a fun game that gets us all laughing!
We didn’t have a big dinner just a simple every day one and that was fine.  We had a family dinner with everyone a couple days after Christmas.  It was nice to just stay home and enjoy the family.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and Wish you all a Happy New Year!!

Merry Christmas From the Ozarks

I thought I’d share our Christmas Letter with you all with extra pictures…

It’s been another tough year for the S Family.  In July we lost Super D’s  Dad  to cancer.  Super D was able to take time off and spent 3 months in Colorado caring for his dad in his last days and taking care of the estate after he passed.   The girls and I made a quick week long trip up with my sister-in-law and her kids at the end of June.  We were all able to see Grandpa G and say our goodbyes.  It was a very trying trip but we made it, making a quick over night in Tulsa on the way.     

   
    In April I started working at the local store here.  It is about 10 minutes from home and is going pretty well.  I now know about half the town by name.   We are the only store/gas station/ restaurant for about 30 miles. 
       
    In June we celebrated Sugar Bug’s 10th birthday at blue springs, her favorite place on the river.  We had a lot of fun jumping into the icy water on the warm day.   In October my mom , sister , grandma E, and grandma B along with a couple family friends all made the trip to visit us and help celebrate Sassafras turning 15!  It was the first trip for any of them out here.  We rented a cabin on the river with a gorgeous view for everyone. 

    October was a crazy month as along with everyone visiting we moved again.  We didn’t move far.  We still love the Ozarks and have expanded a bit.  We bought another 4 acres practically next door with a mobile home on it.   We are all thankful to have running water with working toilets and showers for the winter!   We still have our other 6 acres with 10 acres separating the two properties.   Originally, when Super D was growing up the all 20 acres were combined.  His step dad had split it up to sell.  Maybe one day we will have it all back together.  For now we have put building on hold while we decide where we want to build and our next step. 

   Super D has been working installing solar systems with another guy who has decided to sell his business.  As a result, Super D is no longer working with him and planning to starting his own business in the new year. 

    Despite our crazy year our little farm has managed to grow.  We got a little milk cow named Sweet Pea who gave birth to a bull calf in August.  The girls named him Thor.  Thankfully she delivered with no help as Super D was still in Colorado when she had him.  So I got plunged into learning to milk our cow!  I am so glad she is a sweet thing and has been a great cow and we learned to milk together with no problems.  This was her first calf so we were both new it all!   We have loved the fresh milk and Super D has taken up cheese making.  Our chickens didn’t fare so well while we were in Colorado so we got a new set of chicks that should start giving us eggs again in the spring.
   

Here is one of the Christmas pictures of the girls.  I take pictures every year at Christmas our version of school pictures.  This one captures my girls personalities wonderfully!

 
  

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

A New Tradition

“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you look”   To quote the song.   We had a blast getting our Christmas tree this year.  I haven’t had a real live Christmas tree since I was a kid.  When Super D and I got married we didn’t have any extra money for a tree.   We were lucky to have a fake tree given to us and for about 10 years that was what we set us every year.  We’ll when we moved and downsized that was an item that got left behind.  Last year if you remember we didn’t have room for a tree.  So I was excited this year!

And the search begins.  It was a beautiful sunny day with just enough snow on the ground to make it fun.  This was contestant #1,  first tree we looked at and really looked good but we wanted to search a little more.  It was slightly on the short side. 

Contestant #2  nice and full and right height but too wide.  So we keep looking.  By the way we are looking on our 6 acres where we have several smaller cedars growing. 

Gotta play in the snow a bit while looking!  The snowball ended up showering Sassafras as soon as we got the picture.  Trust me she had it coming. 

And the winner is Contestant #3 Good height, a bit narrower, and full branches.  Down she comes.
We got her loaded up and home.  Sugarbug helped me decorate after Super D got it set up and adjusted just right.  Sassafras make cookies for us while we worked.

Ta Da...  Okay so we learned some lessons.  Cedar trees are a bit more pokey than the fake ones and they tend to grow once you get them inside.  We ended up tying some branches up a bit to narrow it up even more so it fit better and we ended up cutting a bit off as it was slightly too tall for our roof.  The tree wants to lean to one side but I love it’s imperfections and love having a real one that smells great too. Goliath our dog wanted in on the actions and posed for this picture too. 
Hope your having a Great Holiday Season!

1 Year!

It's a little hard to believe but we have been here 1 year.  It feels like we still just got here!  As I look back at the last year I do so with good memories.  I don't think we are as established as we wanted to be a year after getting here but we are well on our way.  We have had some discouragements like our well taking so long to get, the cost of some things being more than we expected and being low on funds at times, and weather not cooperating with our plans to get things done.  But on the whole we have been very blessed also!  Super D has work that he enjoys with flexibility, we did get our well in, we have friends and family supporting us, and we have been well fed and cared for.  As a family we are less stressed, more relaxed and happier. We certainly have less as the world may measure but that just means we have less to worry about. 
We still have along way to go but that is half the fun :)  We are still dreaming and making plans.
As I sit here writing this I am listening to the chickens crow outside which means we will have eggs and meat soon, the rain is on it's way which bodes well for a good garden this year, and my fire is stocked so we are warm.  I really could not ask for more.  Well, OK I admit I still want running, hot water but I can be patient as I know it will come.  

So again I am looking forward to spring as it brings the promise of hope for good to come!  Hope for a good garden, hope for a fun summer, hope for running water, and hope for unexpected blessings that amaze me continually.

We had a blessed Easter and I hope you did too.  Here are some highlights from our weekend. 

Sugar Bug dying eggs with the cousins.  They dyed 3 doz eggs and wanted more. The little one ended up with blue hands but they had fun!

  Cousin S here is Sugar Bugs little shadow.   The Go-Kart is the newest addition to our fun toys.  They have had a blast driving it around.  We were blessed with a beautiful Easter day in the 70's so we could picnic outside!

 This was the cousin's first Easter egg hunt.  They caught on quick and had a blast! 

The men have to gather around a car to chat right.  In this case the go kart to talk cars and of course how to make the go kart go faster! LOL.

And of course there is the test of strength.  :)  We had a great Easter with family and friends. Sassafras helped me out and made a wonderful Peach Cherry pie for dessert.

Looking forward to more fun times this summer!  Lot's of projects on the to do list.  :)