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.

Life...

Ok, So I have been very remiss in posting since Christmas.  Truth is life has been pretty slow around here.  Winter we spend most of our time indoors and Super D and I have been working and kids doing school.  And really that's about it..  Not a lot of interesting things going on right now. 

But summer is coming.  So anything you have questions about? Anything you all want to see posted?
Let me know!  See you all soon. :)

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. 

 

16!

Sassafras had a good but somewhat quiet birthday.  On her special day we started out getting up at the crack of dawn (which is quite a feat for my girls) to go to town and meet Super D for breakfast.

See the sun isn't even fully up! But we had a good breakfast before Super D came home to sleep.

Then we made cake and had a family dinner with one of her friends over.
 She requested a Panda cake...




 We played games and watched a little TV.  But the big event was on the weekend we drove to
Springfield to go ice skating.

We got to eat pizza with Aunt M who hung around to take pictures for us.  Being due with a nephew for us in December she wasn't skating.

 Sugar Bug claimed ice skating is not her thing! She did really well though. 

 Here's the four of us on the ice. We had a great time and finished our day with ice cream at the mall. 
Happy Birthday Sassafras.  I am so proud of the woman you have become.  You are an amazing gal who shines bright everyday! Keep standing tall like the sunflower.
(enjoy the pictures but this techy challenged mama could not figure out why it is putting my typing on the side of the pictures!  Just as when I want to do that I can't do it! Go figure.. Sorry)

Yikes!

Ok so time as gone into hyper drive again and left me in the dust.  Somehow a whole month has gone by since I posted anything.  I've had a couple ideas and thoughts but just been busy.  So what's been happening?
Well, besides Super D and I working opposite schedules which makes life crazy.  (He's working nights so he's headed to work when I get home)  Somehow we've managed to fit in a quick trip to Branson. I've canned pumpkin, green beans, and jalapenos from the garden. (the only things that did well this year.) Super D got a crazy infection that I will spare you pictures of as it was bad!! Seeing doctor, two different antibiotics bad! Then we welcomed October in with a the big 16 for Sassafras...
So after all the healing and running a month has passed without me noticing.
Ok to the good stuff... Pictures...

 Go Karts!! Please for give the fuzziness as I took this from my Go Kart that was super slow.  I got the defective one. 

 And my favorite... Bumper Cars!

 And last we did putt putt golf.  It was a great day and the next day we got some shopping in.

 

Next post Birthday for Sassafras...