Lawn's First Haircut

Yesterday evening Derek worked on siding on the pop out wall on the deck, I sat in the back yard pulling weeds, and Luke sat under the deck taste-testing river rocks. After about an hour of pulling weeds and planting a few wildflowers transplanted from Helene's yard, I was ready to go inside - especially since Luke had decided taste-testing rocks was overrated and he wanted to walk around the corner of the house where the neighbors just sprayed weeds.

Luke and I went inside and played with toys for a while and Derek stayed outside to work on a few other projects. I nursed Luke around 8pm and was going to give him a bath, but he fell asleep while he was eating! So we just sat together on the couch and I read my book. It's not very often this little guy falls asleep in my arms anymore and I wanted to enjoy it. Around 8:30 Luke woke up to a strange sound. It took me a minute to place it too - what was that? The lawnmower!

Hello lawnmower. It's been a very long time!

Inspirational Food

Lately I have been trying to cook out of the More With Less cookbook in order to eat more healthy, and save money. It hasn't been long enough to know if we are saving money, but I know that I am feeling better about how we as a family spend our grocery budget. And I feel better about what is going into our systems.

A while back I wrote about some delicious chow mein that I made that just got better the longer it sat in the fridge. And then last week I made Indian Chicken that got rave reviews from Derek, who is something of a picky eater. The More With Less cookbook has been wonderful the last few weeks in satisfying my desire for spicy curry and savory chinese, and satisfying the rest of the family's criteria for "edible food".

So here are the two biggest hits so far:

Indian Chicken(p186)
(I halved the recipe and still had lots leftover)

Heat in large skillet:
2T margarine
2T veg oil

Flour and fry until browned
1 3lb fryer, cut up
(I used leftover oven roasted chicken)

Remove from skillet and place in casserole dish. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In remaining fat, saute until golden
2 med onions, chopped

Combine and add to onions, stirring to blend well:
3T flour
2T curry powder
1t ground ginger
2t salt

Combine and add to onion mixture:
1/3 C honey
1/4 C soy sauce
3C chicken broth or bouillon

Cook over high heat, stirring until sauce thickens. Pour sauce over chicken and bake, covered, about an hour.
Options:
Add 3-4C cooked drained chick-peas to casserole before adding sauce

Serve over rice.


Chow Mein(p.133)

Prepare and have ready:
1 lb pork, beef, chicken or shrimp cut in thin slices (again I used leftover oven roasted chicken)
3C celery sliced diagonally into long, thin sticks
2C onions, sliced
3/4C mushrooms fresh or canned
3C fresh bean sprouts

Combine in a small bowl and set aside:
1T fresh ginger grated or chopped
(or 1/4 t powdered ginger)
1t sugar
3T cornstarch
5T soy sauce
3/4 C soup stock or reconstituted bouillon

Heat in a large skillet
1T oil

Add meat and stir-fry just until done (mine was already done so I immediately put it in a separate pan and started with the vegetables). In a separate skillet, stir-fry in 1T oil each vegetable just until slightly cooked. Add each vegetable to meat skillet after stir-frying. Just before serving, reheat meat mixture and add sauce. Cook just until sauce thickens and clears. Serve hot with rice.

Anniversary Cake

Yesterday we had an anniversary party for Harv and Helene - 35 Years! This is the cake we had made for them and the picture I took that we are going to put in the paper next week. The calendar was a secret surprise present for Harv and Helene, and they really seemed to like it. We had a great evening and tomorrow I will post the video of Luke and Cammy tearing around the house giggling.

Is he doing what I think he's doing?

Isn't this outfit adorable? He actually left the hat on the entire time I was photographing him!


Yes. He's sucking his toes. And then he washes it down with a little milk! What a nut. We were out in the front yard pulling weeds last week and Luke kept walking down the driveway towards the street, so finally I got out the big recycle bin (about two feet by two feet, rectangle), and put Luke in it. I tossed weeds in and he sat with his head barely peeking above the edge, tossing the weeds back out over the side. After about fifteen minutes he got tired of that, so he squatted in the box, grabbed a handful of weeds, stood up with his hands over his head and gracefully dropped the weeds...on his head. He did this over and over! It was nice not to have to keep chasing him down the driveway. I actually got quite a few weeds pulled, although you wouldn't know it if you hadn't seen it before.

Drinking Problem

Some might call this a problem. Luke calls it opportunity! God gave you two hands for a reason.

Too Busy!

Too busy to write much today. I am working on this calendar for a secret somebody's birthday. Here are a few of the backdrops. I am so pleased with the backdrops that I can barely bring myself to put pictures on them!

Blueberries for Sal

Blueberries for Sal is one of my favorite children's stories. Yesterday we had blueberries for Luke! I made blueberry pancakes for lunch and Luke fed himself, which means blueberries EVERYWHERE! He was so purple and messy by the end of lunch that instead of wiping him down with a damp cloth as I usually do, I stuck him in the tub, undressed him and hosed him down. His hands looked like a newborn's hands the rest of the day, all pruny and purple.

This morning Luke started waking up around 6am, so I nursed him and layed him back down. After that he slept until 9am! Hurray! I got a full night's sleep. Midnight to 9am. We don't have much planned for today since I was counting on being exhausted, so we're going to do some laundry and clean up the house. Somehow the housework has gotten neglected the last four or five days. I guess it's been kind of a whirlwind with something every evening. Tonight we are taking it easy.