Zuchinni recipe

We picked this huge zuchinni from the garden and didn't know what to do with it besides make bread, so we found this super easy good recipe online and then added our own zest to it.
All you do is place thick slices of zuchinni in a pan on foil. Then add cherry tomatoes, sliced Keilbasa, italian seasoning, onion powder, garlic salt and then spray the whole thing down with spray butter. Stick in the oven at 350 for twenty minutes then broil it for another 10 minutes so it isn't too squishy.
It tasted sooo good...like something you get from a fancy restaurant.









Poddy Training Time?

I thought Ginger was showing interest in learning to go poddy, so I bought this cute little poddy trainer seat and some pull-ups. I've just been waiting for a time that I wasn't going to leave town soon again to start her training.
Now after just one day, I'm not sure if it's Ginger that isn't ready to train or maybe it's me that isn't ready to devote all my time into training her. Either way, I think I'll hold off for a while and try again. Maybe I'll be ready then. ;)

Building more homes

Now that our (us and Scot's) house is done and Glen's parents are in there new house, the guys are working on Mark (Glen's other brother) and Liz's house. It's been going up fast! It's exciting to see our big plan of getting everyone in a house come together.
Once Mark's house is done, then we get to start 'our' house. That will be the house that just Glen and I live in. Scot will stay in this one that we are living and sharing now.
It's a huge improvement to even be in a house even though we don't get the whole thing to ourselves. Scot's easy to get along with. I think the hardest part is having still half our stuff in storage just because we are in half a house. Things will just get better now for us as far as living arangments. Apartments and RV living are in the past!

Home Made Fruit Leather!

I got a bunch of apples from this elderly couple that Glen is doing a job for. So I made some applesauce with them. Then a friend of a friend of mine gave me the idea to make fruit leather. Glen happened to have an old dehydrator in storage that I didn't even know he had. So I cleaned it up and read about how to make leather. It's pretty easy!

Puree the fruit and then heat it up to 190 degrees to prevent oxidization. Let cool and then spoon onto parchment paper and set on your dehydrator racks. Just don't spoon it on too thick. The picture below is what it looks like when it's done.

Parchment paper works really well. It just peels right off. The apple leather tastes so good! It's hard not to eat it as soon as each rack is done. If you make a bunch, you can store it in the freezer.

Ginger's sleeper/bag

The last time we went camping, Ginger kicked off all her blankets and by morning her little leggies were frozen. So, we decided we wouldn't go camping until we had something or I made something to keep her warm. A regular sleeping bag doesn't work because she just works her way out of it, so I found a pattern and modified it so it would be big enough for her to use for a while.

I love this fabric! so cute, bright and fun! And it's the origianl strawberry shortcake, not the new modern straw hat and pants girl. This is a zoom up of the hearts I sewed in. It was the first time to use this feature on my sewing machine. I thought it turned out cute!

I slowly getting better at sewing zippers. The first side I did, was to far from the zipper, the the other side was alot closer.

I made up a piece to sew on the bottom to close the end up so she can't kick it up to kick off the other blankets.

Nursery themes

So, I was browsing the internet looking for fun baby boy nursery themes. I was particularily searching for Jack and The Bean Stock fabric. It was hard to find. I came across this ladies blog that was showing off her bag she made out of this fabric. She said she bought it in Japan. I love this fabric! I think it is so cute and perfect for what I want. So I searched some more online and found another lady talking about this fabric on her website. She said she found it on the REtro Mummy Shop. So I went there but they didn't have it anymore. They did have a bunch more cute vintage fabrics though. So I gave up and then today I thought I would try looking online one more time.
I ran into Fancy Nancy Fabrics! What a fun place. She has this very fabric! The bad news is that it's expensive!! 31 bucks a yard! ouch!

So, with that I thought I would try searching for something less expensive and this is what I found on e-bay. Jack in the box fabric! I think it's pretty cute, but I still really like the Jack and the Bean Stock one better. ...hmmm. maybe for my birthday...or Jack's birthday...or Christmas. :)

Here is just another fabric from Fancy Nancy Fabrics that I thought was really cute!!

Bennetts in Bremerton

I drove back up to Bremerton to meet my sisters at my parents house. Driving in 90-100 degree weather in a car with no air conditioning for 8 hours is no fun. Ginger didn't give me any problems so I'm glad for that.

My older sister, Wendy is pregnant also. She is two months behind me. She has three boys. We are all crossing our fingers for a girl this time. Wendy and her family came up to leave their kids with grandma and grandpa so they could go on an Alaskan cruise!

Whenever we get together we do a craft or some kind of project. This time we sewed purses. (Thanks to Melissa for showing me how!) Wendy's purse was so cute with her cherry fabric. My mom's and Holly's were pretty. Mom chose Thomas Kinkade print and Holly got a really pretty tourquoise print. I didn't get a picture of hers yet. She didn't get to finish it.

Since we were all together, we had a combined birthday party for my mom, nephew and myself.

Like mother like daughter!

And the Pink Monster was!...

Holly!

During Holly's visit, we thought it would be fun to take her morel mushroom hunting in the mountains. Unfortunately the mosquitos were just horrible! The worst ever! They were flying in our nose, ears, eyes, mouth etc. So we decided to wrap ourselves up in blankets and shirts. Glen got lucky. He drenched his hat with bug spray.

It was so nice to have Holly come. She had just finished helping a friend of hers pack and move and then she came to my house to help me unpack. Thankyou Holly!!

Garage Sale!!!

Our neighborhood got together and decided on a day that we would all throw a garage sale. There were five of us families total.
Despite the newspaper not printing our ad :( we thought we did pretty good. People showed up as soon as we started setting out all our stuff (7:30am). We had a constant flow of people until noon when it just got too hot (nearly 100 degrees!). I think ours we easy to spot from the road since we have a corner lot and we also had a pretty big set up out of the five of us.

I think I'm really liking this garage sale thing. It was so fun to sell our stuff that I felt tempted to bring out stuff from our "keep" pile just to please a customer looking for a particular item and to get the thrill of making money. We made a total of $127.00! I'ld say that was a success. However tempted I was to just "get rid of" our stuff as soon as we got it out of storage, I'm glad I collected it all in the garage and saved it for the sale. I think I want to do a garage sale every year! It was just so fun to make money and meet all kinds of people.

The only thing I had trouble letting go of was my frog collection. (shedding tears!) I had it in the "maybe sale" pile. A lady showed up looking for frogs and I told her about my collection. I showed her the box and she didn't even care to see the frogs. She offered to buy the whole thing! I quickly thought of what I learned on Oprah about decluttering your home and one of the things was to avoid having collections. So with that I said good bye to my little froggies forever. :( on a positive note, my froggies made me the most money out of everything else we sold.

Huckle Berry and Apricot pickin'

We went up to the mountains and found an abundance of huckleberries. We picked and picked till we got tired. Then we came home and made huckleberry pancakes. They were so good! Especially with Nutella on them.

Our old apartment manager gave me a call to let me know the apricots on the tree were ready to be picked. So, saturday morning we drove over and picked a bunch. I made apricot freezer jam and it turned out so good...just like how my grandma made it. Here's the recipe:

2 1/2 cups chopped apricots
2 tbsp. lemon juice
5 1/2 c. gran. sugar
1 pkg fruit pectin
3/4c. water

Stir apricots, lemon juice and sugar together and let stand 10 minutes.
In saucepan, whisk pectin into water. Stir frequently. Bring to full rolling boil on med. high heat. boil hard for one minute. Add to fruit mixture and stir for 3 minutes. pour into containers and freeze.

Mystery Pink Monster

Any guess on who this is and why they were wrapped up so well in a blanket? I'll give you time to guess and then reveal the answer. :)

Caught wearing daddy's shoes

We often see Ginger sucking her thumb and twirling her hair...just not in daddy's shoes. hahaahhhah

Little Stinker!

Ginger has a helmet

I had to post this because I thought Ginger looked so cute and like such a big girl with her new bike helmet. I'm proud of her. She wears and doesn't complain.

The other day Glen and I drove up out in the country and rode about 16 miles. It's such a fun ride. We see more bikers and cows out there than we do cars!

What's keep'in us busy!

It has been so rewarding to work in the garden. I'm amazed at how well it's been doing. It certainly keeps us busy, but it's been so well worth our time.

Here's our carrots!

We planted cherry tomatoes and regular ones. yum!

I think my favorite is garden fresh peas! They are way better than canned smooshy peas.