Building Forts in the Woods

My children tend to be very creative and make use of existing materials when they want to build something.  So what do we have in abundance around here?  Dozens and dozens of empty coconut oil buckets. We usually take them to a local place to recycle.  But apparently the boys got “inspired” and decided to […]

Happy Birthday, Emery!

Emery celebrated his 14th birthday!  Since he is usually the one who bakes our breakfast birthday cakes, he decided he would rather enjoy donuts. Emery is such an amazing young man.  He told me that he was glad he was born in Spring and I agree – he has such a sunny attitude!    

Disney Wild Africa Trek

While we were in Disney World, we decided it was time to do something we’d never done before. The Wild Africa Trek! Indigo and Jade were too young, so while we were doing it, they went off and toured Animal Kingdom with some of Grandma’s friends. I can honestly say that this is one of […]

Cold Weather Seeds

With this insanely cold winter we’re having, I’ve been even more excited than usual to get back to gardening.  Gardening around here (zone 6) usually starts with my birthday.  My birthday is St. Patrick’s Day, so March 17th is when I always try to get my cold weather seeds planted.  It’s colder than normal this […]

Ice Hockey

Since it’s been so cold for the past couple of weeks, our creek is frozen solid. (Yes, completely solid.) So the kids decided that they wanted to have a little fun. What started as tossing an empty water bottle around on the ice turned into ice hockey, using an old water bottle and some sticks. […]

Kids Cooking – Baked Oatmeal

One of our favorite breakfast recipes is baked oatmeal. Its easy- all the kids are capable of cooking it. It can also make a good vegan recipe if you replace the butter and egg with applesauce or olive oil.  Before Emery started he pulled out the kid friendly recipe,  got out all the ingredients, and […]

How To Use Shaving Soap

Many men have only used shaving cream to shave.  In this video, Emery learns how to use our shaving soap to shave Jim.  Please be aware that even though we didn’t show the entire thing, Emery actually did shave Jim for the first time ever. (And yes, he was very nervous! LOL)    

Kids Cooking – Breakfast Birthday Cake

We generally don’t make a big fuss about birthdays around here, but we do have several traditions that are important to us. One of our birthday traditions is to start the day with Breakfast Birthday Cake. Emery has been trained to safely cook, and usually volunteers to make it the day before it is needed.  We usually make […]

New Toys

We were blessed to be invaded by family this Thanksgiving! Since there were quite a few extra children, Jim decided that all of the cousins were going to need some indoor activities to keep them occupied when they weren’t outside. He planned ahead and surprised everybody with a pool table and Foosball table!  Fortunately Poppy […]

How to Cook Artichokes

In my experience, most people have never eaten real artichokes.  Sure, they’ve had artichoke hearts or artichoke dip.  But the whole artichoke? Nope!  In fact, most people are very surprised to learn that portions of the artichoke leaves are not just edible, but yummy! Artichokes are actually a biennial plant.  That means that they don’t […]