Two Totally Different Recipes – had to share

Posted on August 16, 2013 by cpeezers

It’s Friday. I’m on the front porch watching Davey look for clues. He found a gem in the flowerbed (I think it’s a gumball machine kinda gem, but he’s having fun looking for more clues). He just discovered a roly poly and determined that he followed us from Colorado. Quite an imagination on this little guy (Davey – not the roly poly!).

I made two recipes this week that I had to share. First a friend mentioned that he was making “paleo pancakes”. Two ingredients. 1 Banana and 2 Eggs. (that’s two right? or three?) Anyway. Squish up the banana by itself. Beat the eggs by themselves. Mix them together. Make pancakes.

Really good. I suppose you could call them a banana omelette kinda? But no, they really tasted like pancakes – or maybe somewhere between pancake and french toast (one of my favorite foods).

Highly recommend!

Then I made Green Bean, Grape and Pasta Toss. I wasn’t sure what I thought about green beans and grapes together, but I thought I’d give this a whirl. David decreed that it was the best pasta salad he had ever had.

The recipes calls for fresh green beans. There were none to be found at the grocery store, so I steamed frozen green beans.

The recipe calls for roasted pecans. I like walnuts better, and they were about half the price so I used those. Didn’t roast them either.

I used apple cider vinegar instead of red wine. I always read about how good apple cider vinegar is for us, so I use it as much as I can.

Oh and I used turkey bacon instead of regular. I’ve gotten to where I like it just as much as regular (maybe because I haven’t had regular in quite awhile!). It worked great though.

That’s my recipe sharing for the day.

Now it’s time to head down to the 4-H horse fair. Davey is excited about seeing the horses and hopefully seeing his friend ride in some of the events!

In Which I Sing the Praises of Craftsy!

Posted on August 15, 2013 by cpeezers

I’ve decided I want to learn to sew. I got out my sewing machine and was prepared to have to try to find some instructions online on how to thread my 20+ year old Pfaff (which I love). But it all came back to me. Like riding a bike. Apparently, I have sewed more than I had initially remembered. So I thought about it and quite awhile back, I did make a couple of quilts which I machine pieced. I also made some flannel floppy Santa guys somewhere back in the 90s. So I have some sewing in my past. I’ve never made a garment though (by myself that is).

I decided to see what craftsy.com had to offer in the way of sewing classes. Turns out they have quite a bit to offer. I found a free mini class on how to make a tote bag. It was great. I can’t recommend this enough. The teacher explained every step so clearly, and I just followed along with the video. I learned to box corners. I made a pocket. I made handles. I made a lining, put the lining in the bag and successfully sewed it in!

The bag is not perfect, but I am pretty excited. I had actually bought this material back in 2006 at a quilting show in Nashville. I’d never gotten around to making the baby quilt it was supposed to become. I was happy to get to use it for the bag.

I asked Davey to take some pictures of me with the bag. It’s still hard for him to wield my good camera, but he loves to take pictures. He much prefers taking pictures of me over me taking pictures of him.

So I think I am ready (maybe) to take on my next project. I got some material on sale at Fancy Tiger (love that place) and a pattern for some pajama style pants and/or shorts. I won’t have a video to guide me through though. We shall see how it goes.

Painting River Rocks and Decorating the Garden!

Posted on August 12, 2013 by cpeezers

Davey and I have been wanting to paint river rocks. We did this once before when we were still in Arkansas (I’m sure he doesn’t remember it, but I have kept one of those rocks on the window sill ever since).

I was worried about the legalities of “stealing” too many river rocks. Apparently you can gather up to 250 pounds a day on federal land, but you can’t take rocks out of state parks. There is a state bill that has not yet been passed which would allow you to also take no more than 250 pounds a day (I think – that sounds like a lot) in Washington state parks. Apparently you have more leeway in Oregon. This information was gathered with a little google searching; I didn’t go too in-depth (so don’t quote me on this!).

So my moral dilemma was solved yesterday when David found a 2 pound bag of river rocks for $1.88 at Bi-Mart (local discount store here). Whew!

This morning we got out the acrylic paints and we started painting. Oh, prior to this I had gone to pinterest and done a search on painted river rocks. I now have a board devoted to river rocks. There were lots of examples!

Davey wanted to make a tomato rock.

David joined in as well.

After we were done painting the rocks, Davey put them all in the garden. He had the great idea of decorating the garden with them.

After making a tomato rock, Davey painted a volcano rock. I like his finished rock. Of course the red is the lava bubbling up out of the volcano!

Davey put the frog and ladybug together at first (painted by David).

But then he decided that the ladybug should sit up higher.

Here’s the tomato rock. Davey asked me to label it. Next to the tomato rock is my little guy. I call him Francois.

Buster was just taking it all in. Such a pretty boy (almost a year old!).

Link

Crafts for Kids!

I received an email yesterday about a post that I’d written about a year ago. Davey was into pirates at about this time, and we’d made a treasure map and pirate hats. So the lady who designs crafts for the website emailed me and wanted to include the picture of Davey wearing the pirate hat that we’d made from a guide on her website. I don’t know how she happened onto it, but I said sure. Anyway, I thought I’d share this because there are lots of fun crafts on this website. I plan to go back to it and find some more activities for us to do together!

(The title of the blog is the link and if you scroll all the way down there’s Davey with his hat!)

Knitting Baby Sweaters

Posted on August 8, 2013 by cpeezers

I’ve not blogged about knitting in awhile. I’ve not been knitting a ton since we moved, but I have been working on my Regrowth Shawl. Holy mackerel, it’s growing. I am approaching the last two charts, one of which is the edging chart. I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not completely sure though that I am going to have enough yarn either, but I can order some more if need be. At this point, each row takes me almost an hour to knit. It’s getting pretty enormous.

I finished my baby sweaters before we left home. The Little Ancolie was the one I had so much trouble with, but I did learn a ton from knitting it. I ended up making short i-cords for the button loops, and I liked that a lot.

After I finished this one and declared it a “semi-disaster”, I had to make another one for my sister-in-law’s friend’s daughter. I found another pattern that I liked called “Granny’s Favourite”. I knit it with a more practical washable yarn too. It’s a cotton/acrylic blend from Kraemer.

The little lace pattern at the top and on the sleeves was easy to follow. Everything about this pattern went as smoothly as the other sweater went unsmoothly. My only problem with this sweater was that I first knit a long sleeve. There is lace at the wrist, and I thought it looked too bulky and long for a sweater for an 18 month to 2 year old. So I ripped it back and made a 3/4 length sleeve. I liked this much better.

I took pictures of this while it was still on the towel I used for blocking. I meant to get some better ones, but my brain was in pre-move addled mode at that point!

Both of these patterns are good ones. The first one is more difficult in that you have to be really careful when you pick up the stitches for the edging or you will have a side that is longer than the other. I’d like to knit this second sweater again sometime, although it’s like reading a book for the second time – there is no time to do this because there are so many great patterns to knit and books to read!

Columbia River, Friends and Water Fun!

Posted on August 7, 2013 by cpeezers

We continued our exploration of our new home yesterday. Friends invited us to hang out with them at Wanapum State Park. It’s about a half hour from our house, and it’s on the Columbia River. I am amazed by the beautiful places we are getting the chance to explore here.

Davey had so much fun playing in the sand and then in the water.

He had several friends to play with, and they had a big time. It was the first time that Davey had ever had a lifejacket, and he did great with it. He didn’t want to take it off.

There were water battles. I think David is having the most fun in this one and the kids are taking cover under a raft!

David tried kayaking for the first time. He took off down the river, and we didn’t see him for awhile. Apparently around the bend there were a bunch of small caves where swallows have their nests. I want to kayak there next time to see that.

When he got back, he took Davey for a kayak ride.

I tried it out too and loved it. Little Davey was very concerned that I was not wearing a life vest though. I didn’t go out very far, but I promised that I would wear one next time.

I can’t wait to go back!

An Anniversary Kind of Day

Posted on August 5, 2013 by cpeezers

Today is our 24th wedding anniversary! Of course Davey wanted to celebrate. He suggested going to Hawaii, but we settled on a picnic lunch and swimming.

We tried a new burger joint in town. It’s not new; it’s just new to us. We grabbed hamburgers and fries and headed to a park on the Yakima River. Davey enjoyed his cheeseburger. I don’t know what he is looking at here, but I like his expression. He liked that we finished up with chocolate chip cookies that I made yesterday.

We had a nice view while we were eating.

After lunch, we walked along a trail in search of the Peoples Pond (I think it is called). Turned out there is a road that takes you right there, but we enjoyed exploring the trail. The trail went along right beside the river and ended up at the pond.

Davey enjoyed playing here. The water was so clear. He had fun looking for rocks again.

We want to go back out in a little raft and go floating. It’s such a pretty spot.

A nice way to spend our 24th anniversary!

First excursion: Leavenworth and the Wenatchee River

Posted on August 4, 2013 by cpeezers

Yesterday we decided to check out Leavenworth. It’s a Bavarian themed town up in the Cascades .

Friends of ours recommended that we have lunch at Andreas Keller. A great recommendation as this place was so good. Great German food. We had bratwurst, German potato salad and weinkraut (a really mild really delicious sauerkraut). It’s making me hungry for it again just writing that sentence. Davey’s heritage is at least 1/2 German, and his picky nature can not overcome that background. He really likes sausage of just about all types. So he had wieners – fancy hot dogs basically.

After that lunch we needed to do some serious walking around. There are many great shops to explore. We didn’t go into many, but one we liked was a Christmas store called Kris Kringl. It was 2 – maybe 3 floors of Christmas decorations of all types. Davey and I really enjoyed looking at the decorations.

Apparently there is a neat Nutcracker museum there too. We didn’t check it out this time. We should though sometime because Davey loved the ones we looked at in the Christmas store.

While Leavenworth is really fun, and I want to go back at Christmas when they just go all out with lights and decorations, I think our favorite part of the trip was walking down to the Wenatchee River. The river runs along the town, and we were able to easily walk down to it from the downtown area. My pictures don’t do any kind of justice to how pretty it is.

Davey could have played all day down here. Next time we will bring swimsuits and make a day of it. There was a great little swimming area that Davey played in for awhile.

The water was cold! but we got used to it fairly quickly. I’m not sure I’d want to immerse myself completely though.

Davey had great fun looking for unusual river rocks. He’d find a handful and then bring them to me for inspection. We’d look at them carefully and toss the ones that were not unusual enough. He thought this was a great game.

David is ready to explore the Wenatchee more to do some fishing. Davey and I ready to go back to Leavensworth to do some “tubin'”!

Leavensworth was very busy and “touristy”, but it was still a really enjoyable trip. Our drive from Ellensburg was really pretty too.

First excursion – great success!

All it takes is Sunshine, Water and Lots of Love!

Posted on August 1, 2013 by cpeezers

We are unpacking and unpacking some more, but a person has to take a break from that. So this afternoon, Davey and I started working on our garden. There are raised beds in the backyard, so I couldn’t resist planting immediately. It’s a little late in the year, but I did a little research, talked to some local gardeners, and I determined there are a few vegetables with which we might have some success.

After all, as Davey it explained to me, growing a garden is easy. All it takes is sunshine, water, and lots of love.

I went to this awesomely cool nursery this afternoon to get a few seeds and see if they had any remaining tomato plants. The nursery is called Dusty’s and apparently it is located on a 110 year old farm. It was really neat.

Our landlord loaned us a hand tiller. It’s one of those “as seen on tv” tillers, and it worked great. Davey was checking it out, but I did the tilling. That’s pretty much the pattern we established in the planting of the garden.

Davey marched into the garden ready to clean out the weeds. Mostly though he loved trying out his new white tiger stripe gardening gloves.

He helped me weed a little, but then Ron Weasley needed something and then there were Hogwart students needing to get into our gardening class, and he was off into pretend land.

He did insist on digging all the holes for the scraggly little tomato plants that I got for 50 cents each. He enjoyed digging.

He also liked planting the tomatoes (as Buster watched forlornly from outside the garden fence).

Davey was focused so I was able to take a few pictures of him. I like this one.

After that we planted the seeds. Davey wasn’t quite as into that, although he helped me a little. By that time there were Hogwart students who wanted to buy vegetables, and he was having to explain to them that they were not going to be ready for awhile.

We had fun getting our first garden going. David came out for awhile and took a few pictures for me. He’s not much into the gardening thing, although he’s very optimistic about and looking forward to some good vegetable yields. I planted some beets, kale, lettuce and carrots. We shall see. It’s good training for next spring as well!

First Library Card and Little Library!

Posted on July 31, 2013 by cpeezers

Before we moved here, I’d been reading about the Little Free Libraries. I thought it would be really neat to put one in our front yard here. Turns out I don’t have to!

This one is right across the street from our house! There were a couple of kids’ books in there, and Davey already chose one to borrow. As soon as I get to unpacking my books, I’ll try to add a few to their collection. So fun.

So then today, David, Davey and I went to the regular library to get library cards. Davey was excited to learn that he could get his own library card. He waited until they had it ready for him, and then he wanted to go pick out some books on his own. (He looked for a little bit, but then he saw their train set. It was time to play and pretend.)

We found him a Geronimo Stilton graphic novel. He set his card down carefully near his book.

When it came time to walk back home, I wanted to take a picture of Davey. He’s started to run when he sees me get ready to take a picture. Good thing my camera is fast! He tried to hide from me, and then he’d peek out. It was a good game.

The library is close to our house and it’s great to be able to walk over there. We will be doing a lot of that!

Cpeezers

Family, School and Yarn