October

October has been a busy month for us.  Rich retired on the 1st and we are so enjoying being together and doing a lot of things as a family.  I made frosted cinnamon rolls to celebrate!

 

Home school is going well.  The Christian Homeschooling group started being more active.  There was about a 5 year break of no planned support meetings and networking.  They stopped right when Mary was in kindergarten.  So we have just been going alone but we were so pleased to find out that the month that Rich retired they started meetings.  We have had 2 so far and have enjoyed them so much.  We have been going to the park for the kids to play with the other homeschool kids.  Mary has been having a blast and we have gotten to know several very nice people.  One couple invited us over to their house.  Mary loves their girls (there are 4 of them) and Rich has struck a friendship with the guy.  They see things very much alike in the scriptures and are on the same page as far as leaving traditional church and living life with Jesus on a day to day basis out of your home and in your neighborhood.  We are very excited about this new friendship and give it to the Lord with praise and thanksgiving.

I baked more  cinnamon rolls...

 

Mary picked out a 33 lb pumpkin at 7 Oaks Farm just down the road from us.

She also loves to feed the goats.

This month we also celebrated Mel's 89th birthday.  Mary made her a card.

Dan celebrated his 93rd birthday.  Mary made him the Superman card to go with his Superman hat that she gave him on Father's Day.

I made a trip to the thrift store this week and found this really cute t-shirt for Mary.  I love all the bead work on it.

Lastly we went to Pheasant Fields Farm in Phoenix for a homeschool outing.  It was a beautiful day.  The farm is lovely with lots of walnut and oak trees.  They took us a a hay ride, the kids got to go through a corn maze and have some apple cider.  They also got to pick out a pumpkin to take home.

 Love this picture of Mary and Rich

Getting ready for the hay ride and then the fun hay hill!

Group picture in front of the barn

Just being silly!

We love all the pumpkins

 

We are thankful for this month and all the new beginnings it holds for us!

Amish Baking

I have been really enjoying baking from a family cookbook that my Amish cousins gave us for Christmas last year.  They make everything from scratch, so I am able to use the organic flour that is not enriched and it is so much better for all of us without the artificial vitamins added to it.  The recipes are so simple and so good.  Here are a few pictures of what I have made so far.

Corn bread

Pizza with Rich's homemade pepperoni sausage

Apple pie with a crumb topping.

The pie and the corn bread turned out so good that I baked another bunch of muffins and a pie and took it over to Rich's folks house for Sunday dinner.

This is how I make our cinnamon raisin bread.

 

My bread has a yellow color because I add turmeric to the dough.  I found out that turmeric makes the vitamin B and iron that is naturally in flour more bio available.  Between the turmeric and the bread starter I use, with all the probiotics in it, makes a wonderful and healthy bread.

 

This loaf turned out perfect!  We love to make French toast out of it.

 

This are my new chocolate chip cookies I made.  I put the recipe together myself.  I am using Sorghum flour in my pancakes and cookies now.  It is a gluten free flour.  I had to change the regular chocolate chip cookie recipe as with sorghum, it needs more body to the recipe or it will make the cookies super thin and crisp.  Here is the recipe:

 

2 1/2 cups sorguhm flour, 1/4 cup ground flax seed, 1 tsp baking soda, 2 tsps baking powder, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 3/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 cup butter- softened, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup of sourdough starter, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1- 12 oz package of chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and set aside. Combine brown sugar, granulated sugar, butter and vanilla and beat until creamy. Add eggs and starter and mix well. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Stir in chocolate chips. Drop by spoonfuls on cookie sheet with parchment paper. Bake 8 - 10 minutes.

 

 

Ellie Baby

This is Ellie, Mary's beloved kitty.  Her piano teacher gave her to us in March.  She is half Himalayan and half tabby cat.  She is the sweetest cat.  We all love her.  Last week Ellie started having some trouble.  She was going to her litter box every 5 minutes and only passed a few drops of urine and looked in pain.  It was on a Saturday night and we had to go to the emergency vet.  We were glad they were close by.  It took a super long time to see a vet (just like the emergency rooms for people sometimes).  It was 2 am before they got it all figured out and we got to take her home.  They tested her urine and her blood.  They found out she was very healthy with no bladder infection but her urine had crystals in it and was causing her a lot of pain and irritation in her bladder and urinary tract.  So they gave us some pain medicine and some special food that would dissolve the crystals and keep it from happening again.  I guess some cats develop this when their food does not have enough protein in it.  So this special food has lots more protein.  It took her few days to slowly switch over to the new food.  We mixed it with her old food until she got used to it.  Every 12 hours we had to get a pill down her throat by prying open her mouth, dropping the pill in covered with canned cat food and clamping her mouth shut until she swallowed it.  Then we had to squirt some pain medicine on her upper gum area.  This went on for 3 days.  She is such a sweet cat, she never scratched or fought to get away.  In fact on the vet's notes on the paper work they sent home, noted what a friendly and sweet cat she was.  Well, the new food worked and she is back to her normal self now.  We are all so thankful, especially Mary. 

Special Days

We celebrated Rich's birthday.  Mary had fun decorating the cake. 

She put chocolate chips in the swirls.

We got this really cool candle deal.  It had a sparkler in the center that lit the candles and then they unfolded down into a flower.  It then rotated and played happy birthday.

We figured Dad needed special birthday candles as he is 62 this year and in a month he will retire and we are so excited!

Reading the cards

Two days later we started homeschool.  Mary is in the 5th grade now.  So hard to believe!

She has a study buddy now.  Ellie is such a sweet heart.  She loved the sunflowers I picked from the garden.  We are looking forward to this school year.  So many wonderful things to be learning.

Monarch Butterflies

We had a wonderful experience this summer with our butterfly garden that we planted this spring.

We were out looking at our beautiful flowers when a mother monarch butterfly came and landed on our milkweed and layed  her eggs.

 

We brought them inside and put them in our butterfly cage.

and waited

about 4 days

and out hatched little 5 tiny caterpillars.  They ate their egg casing first.

Then they went on to eat the hairs on the milkweed

until they got big enough to eat some holes in the leaf itself.

They grew very quickly.

They shed their skins several times and then would eat the skin.  Nothing was wasted!

They were so cute and fun to watch.

Five siblings all eating on the milkweed we brought in for them.

After 2 weeks of feeding they shed their skin for the last time. and became a beautiful crysallis

10 days later they broke out into a butterfly.  Such a wonderful and amazing transformation.

We let them hang outside on our morning glory vine to dry their wings.

One we put on my orchid plant for some pictures.

They were very tame while they waited for their wings to dry.

Mary had so much fun holding them and looking at them up close

Finally we put them in the little garden where their life began.

In a short while they took to the skies, heading South

It was so rewarding to see them fly and know that we had helped and protected 5 beautiful butterflies to become strong adults and continue their migration. 

The lovely Monarchs, amazing creatures of God's beautiful world!