Monday, April 23, 2012

Fun at the Dam!! :) By: Stella


Still slowly but surely catching up on pictures! Recently our family went to Franklin Falls Dam. We had so much fun there, and we look forward to our next visit!
There are tons of fun trails that you can go on, but you can also just walk on down to the dam. It takes your breath away to see the endless hills and the peaceful river flowing through the rocks; it's amazing fishing there too. :)
The hills are huge! They are in three sections, steep and then leveling down then steep, then leveling down, kind of like steps! :)
I'll post pictures so that you can see what I mean...

Here is a portion of the Dam, as viewed from the top of one of the three hills! Do you see Leo down there? He's tiny!
Rock walls, if you dare to climb them :) LOL!


As soon as we arrived, Leo and Rus began rolling down the hill! It was amazing ;) They couldn't stop once they got going. I was happy to just take pictures as they rolled :)


Tert and Filia looked on from the top of the hill for a little while, but soon they joined right in :)

Aaaaa! Look how big this hill is! Little Filia is slowly making her way down....
Walking down isn't the hard part: getting up is trickier! It is like walking up a mountain :D
Rus told me to 'take a picture of exhaustion.' :)

Time for a little football :)

There is also a gorgeous little gazebo, which Mom and Dad headed to after a little while...


Dad and Mom <3

We had an amazing time-HOORAY FOR FRANKLIN FALLS DAM! :)

By: Stella
Fun at the Dam!




Tert and Fila- Partners in EVERYTHING :) By: Stella

Hello Everyone! I have pictures piling up like crazy, so I thought I'd spend some time over vacation week checking pictures off of my Vacation To-Do List :)
I can't stop laughing at Tert and Filia's antics, therefore: the pictures... :D


 
 
Tert as Himself :)

Just lead me to the coffee....
 Filia :) 
TERT AND FILIA <3

Friday, April 20, 2012

SCHOOL DAYS

Rus loves teaching Tert! He asked me if he could 'be Tert's teacher.' :) How could I refuse?!


Monday, April 16, 2012

Cooking Fun- (Without an Oven) ;)

Hi All! This is Stella and I wanted to share with you some pictures and recipes. You might be reading this, curious about the title... This has been a challenge, but it has been kind of fun to see what we could conjure up for meals without an oven! We have even managed to do a few Regional Cooking Meals, like the Southwestern Dinner. (See Older Posts)

First-we would like to thank our Grandmas for the yummy cookies and muffins from Grandma Z. and the DELICIOUS cake from Grandma P. when she came to visit us!
We got to craving some desserts that we could make (cookies or brownies took 30-35 minutes instead of 5-10 and turned out rather off...)
Now we LOVE our crock pot and can make so many amazing meals in it!
The above book is in a series and gives gluten-free (or you can use regular flour) meals that are sure to be a huge hit. (Stephanie O'Dea has a website: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com if you want to check it out)
Anyway, while Mom was making supper, she was flipping through the pages and found this recipe:

Brownies in a Mug [in the Slow Cooker!]
We all were thrilled! Not quite sure how they were going to turn out, but eager to give it try, bought:

1 Brownie Mix (Pick your favorite, but we used Ghiradelli Double Chocolate)
And pulled out...
Mugs (the kind that you can throw into the dishwasher or microwave without worrying... :P)

Then we prepared the brownie mix, just as if we were going to put it in the pan (usually you have to put in vegetable oil, water, and eggs or something along those lines.)
Spray mugs with TONS OF PAM SPRAY! (Or your favorite non-stick cooking spray)
Now, her recipe says to put four mugs in the slow cooker, but since we have seven people in this family we tried to make five mugs fit. We succeeded, but some people have trouble with that in their particular slow cooker. This recipe needs some experimenting!
We cooked the brownies for 2 hours and 15 minutes and cooled them for half an hour in the slow cooker. If you make this recipe though, keep an eye on them or the brownies will start to get really crispy edges... :)

So- that's about it! The brownies are awesome plain, but AMAZING!!! when turned into sundaes with hot fudge sauce, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, or your favorite toppings!

Here's the brownies baking in the slowcooker. MMM! Let us know in a comment on this post if you decide to try it out or if you have any questions ;)


Next I found a recipe in the coupon section from the newspaper: DELICIOUS!
It is a yummy cake:
Do you like fruit, but aren't quite sure how to add a little something to it?
Then make this cake!

Ingredients:
1 Angel Cake (you can make it yourself, or to make it a 'without an oven meal' buy one at the store) :P
1 can crushed pineapple
1 container of Cool Whip (you don't need a huge one, the smaller container will do)
1 Vanilla Pudding Mix
Your Favorite fruit to top (we used raspberries and strawberries-my favorite!)

Take the pineapple and UNDRAINED!!! mix it with the pudding mix very well. Then gently (gently! so the Cool Whip doesn't lose its texture) stir in the Cool Whip. Take the cake and cut it into thirds, or halves, depending on how big your cake is. Take the pineapple frosting and spread it on the cake. Now this is the trickier part-you have to use your own judgement depending on how big your cake is to spread the whole thing with frosting, or just in between the layers and on the top. Just see how much frosting you have! If you have a huge cake you might want to get two cans of pineapple, 2 containers of Cool Whip and 2 pudding mixes.
Top with your favorite fruit! Since the angel cake was so light (and we had 7 people eating it) we ate the whole thing, so I'll spare you serving sizes. :)


Well, that's all the recipes for today, folks! And if you have any ideas for cooking without an oven, whether dessert or supper, LET US KNOW!

By: Stella

Daddy's [Little] :) Girl

Snuggling with Daddy...

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Happy Birthday to.... [By: Stella]



TERT!

Happy, happy birthday Tert! Tert turned four today-can you even believe it?
As everyone ate over his yummy birthday donuts...

...we all talked about how Tert has been such a blessing to our family! We certainly would have laughed much, much less without him. His crossed eyes, huge smile, or his fake guitar...
...which he makes out of his hands and sings Lion King tunes to- all make us laugh. That or his 'Lucky Fella' song, which he got from Veggie Tales: The Lord of the Beans.
It goes as follows:
I'm a lucky fella! I'm a lucky boy! I've got my new umbrella- and it's me fly (pride) and joy!
Today, 'Daddy' was able to stay home and watch him open his presents in the morning and enjoy his yummy birthday donuts! After donuts and the birthday song, everyone went to the living room to watch Tert open his gifts. Gift after gift was opened, and many "OH MY GOODNESS!" (es) came from our excited little Tert as he ripped away the wrapping paper and gave a warm hug to his siblings...

Hooray! Today our little 'lucky fella' got his new umbrella! :)

Now for the clothes....

Thank you so much to all for his birthday wishes and amazing gifts! :-)

Then came the biggest surprise...

HIS NEW IMAGINEXT CASTLE!

We got this on EBAY- and Tert received knights and warriors and horses from different family members! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa P. for the knight below, and to Aunt G. for the wonderful catapult and horse to go with his fun set!


Later today we did a marathon preschool lesson! We studied the letter C for Circus, again using some of Erica's (http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com) free preschool printables!



I left with the above sheet at the table for Tert to trace. I came back after grabbing my camera to find this...

He told me again and again that he had fixed his problem. I said he certainly had and went on to the next worksheet...

In this cute activity Tert matched the correct number printed on the pieces of popcorn to the number of clowns. He needed a little help with a few of them, but he did an amazing job overall ;)4-Apparently here he is matching the birthday boy to the popcorn! :)INTERMISSION (aka Juice Break)

Next I had him think of a bunch of different things that began with C. He did a FABULOUS job on this part, thinking of some before me even :P
This is the sheet of all of the things that begin with C including: Cloud, Cat, Clown, Cut, Car, Chair

Next we did some cutting practice; notice the concentration on his face...

Then we did his favorite...Lacing! I punched some holes in card stock, put some packaging tape on the end of a piece of yarn, tied a knot and we were ready to go :)
Hooray for Tert!Happy Birthday to Tert!

With Love, this blog post is compiled by: Stella