A Very Special Month

This month is a month of remembrance for me. I have been sharing this on facebook, so if this is a repeat for some of you, sorry :) This online journal, is for Mary. I print it up into a book every couple of years so she will have books of remembrance of her childhood years and the goodness of the Lord in all He has done for us.  Now back to my remembering.  Today the 10th marks 2 very special events.  The first is, it is the day that Rich called me up for the first time and we talked for 3 hours and it didn't seem like it!  At the end of our conversation he asked me out.  The second event on this day is my first OB appointment when I was pregnant with Mary.  Two days later Rich took this picture of me,  I had just had my 20 week sonogram.  I was standing in front of my sunflowers I had planted that year.    It was my first, very own garden and my first sunflowers that I planted since I was an adult. Always loving to garden but never having a place before this. A garden of happiness bloomed inside and out of me.

I was so excited when Mary and I went thrift store shopping with Mel and Jennifer yesterday and I found a sunflower cookie cutter with a recipe inside. I looked on the date of it and it was made in 1994, 22 years ago! The date 1994 reminded me that in January of that year I felt the Lord told me to wait until July. I thought it was that July, all would unfold to me for marriage and a family, little did I know I had 7 more Julys before it began to unfold.  On July 10, 1994, Sunday morning I woke up so discouraged and the Holy Spirit reminded me of the verse Galatians 4:4 "In the fullness of time I came."  Rich asked me out for the first time July 10th exactly 7 years to the date of that verse given to me, he proposed the next July. Four Julys later we found out our baby was healthy, a girl and my due date was given.  

 

So to commemorate all these wonderful events in July, I am going to make sunflower cookies with Mary sometime this week!

Origami and Dumplings

 

In January we took Mary to see this movie in the theater.  We have the first two movies and enjoy them very much.  A lot of really cute humor.  A good family movie for us as we enjoy them as much as Mary does.  The DVD came out just recently so we got it for Mary.  She got fascinated with Chinese dumplings that the Panda loves and then in the extra features they had instructions on how to make a paper panda.  They had a pattern you could print and Mary wanted us all to make one.  So we did as we watched the instruction video.  Here is the finished product.  She had  so much fun!

 

 

 

Next she wanted to try making some Chinese Dumplings.  So we went to the store and bought Won Ton wrappers and followed the recipe on the back and made a soup with them they were delicious.  We boiled them in chicken broth.  We also tried the peach dessert filling.  They were great with ice cream.

 

 

  Here is the recipe that we used:

She also found an Origami book in the school room I had bought a while back but she was too young to do it.  Now she is the perfect age.  She read the instructions on her own and made the penguin, cat and dog.  Today I seen a video on You Tube on how to make flower bowls out of napkins and you can fill with candy and other goodies for a party.  She loved watching that one and I helped her make the blue one.  She reminds me so much of me when I was a kid.  I had a little friend in grade school and her mom was Japanese.  She taught me how to make a paper crane.  The bug bit and I made a lot of different things and had so much fun! 

 

 

Here is the You Tube Link to the video and instructions on how to make the flower bowl.  https://youtu.be/2yta73liD7k

 

Fireworks and Fruit Pizza

We had a fun 4th.  Mary made Mac a patriotic hat as you can tell he is thrilled to wear it. lol!  I made a fruit pizza to serve for dessert at our get together.  I thought I would include the recipe.  I think it will be a keeper at our house.

 

Pizza Crust
1 pkg of Rapid Rise Yeast
4 cups of flour
1/4 cup ground flax seed
1 Tbls of sugar
1 tsp of salt
1/4 cup shredded parmesean cheese
3 Tbls of olive oil
1 cup of warm water
1 cup of sourdough starter

Mix in the dough cycle of your bread maker and put in a bowl, cover with foil and set in the fridge over night.  Roll out the dough the next day, place on your pizza pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.  Lightly butter the top when it is warm out of the over and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.  This makes 2 small pizzas or one large pizza.

Cream Cheese Spread
2 pkg softened cream cheese
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Beat ingredients until fluffy and spread on cooled pizza crust.  Use your favorite fresh fruit to put on top.  Then sprinkle top with cinnamon sugar.

After our chili dogs and fruit pizza for dessert, we played a game of Yahtzee and finally it was dark enough to light our fireworks.  We had a blessed day!

Old Glory

I planted a patriotic flower bed this spring as this is an important year, a presidential election year.  We took a few shots of the flag and our flowers as we are getting ready for our little gathering for tomorrow.  I also found an excellent video on the real story behind our national anthem.  Truly an amazing story and historical account and makes you appreciate the flag that much more.
 

 

 

Let Us Break Bread Together

Rich made fantastic food last Sunday for fellowship.  He made potato wedges, rolled in flour and seasoning and deep fried in Sunflower oil.  The oil it really hot so the food does not get greasy.

 

 

He made a wonderful beer batter for the chicken.  It was so yummy with crisp crust and tender juicy meat on the inside.

I baked bread yesterday.  I bake a plain loaf and a raisin cinnamon bread.  We have been making the bread for 3 1/2 years now and just love eating it and sharing it.  What a blessing that my husband made the starter and we liked using it so much we stopped buying store bought bread.  We make it with an unbleached organic flour. 

 

 

Wishing you a Happy Independence Day!  Looking forward to family, friends, fellowship and fireworks!!

 

 

Exploring

We have been having so much fun this year, exploring different lakes and rivers around here.  Last week we went up to Applegate Lake.  It was soooo beautiful up there.  We checked out the campgounds but were not impressed.  We did have a lovely pic-nic in the day use area.  We are going to be doing a big camping trip and want to find the best place for camp sites and fishing spots.  I have not been up to this lake in years and Rich never has been.  So it was a real treat to see it. 

Next we stopped at McKee Bridge.  I had not been there since I was a kid.  Going there brought back a lot of sweet childhood memories of pic-nics and swimming in the Applegate River.  I remember as a small child before I knew how to swim, I would hang onto my dad as he swam in the deeper parts of the river.  So much fun!

 

 

The old bridge has been restored.

 

 

Mary really liked it there.

 

Fishing, pickled eggs and more

We got Mary a new fishing pole last week, so on Tuesday after Father's Day we went up to Howard Prairie to check it out.  It is so beautiful up there!  The lake is up because of all the wonderful rain and snow we got this last winter but it is still not high enough to fish from the shore.  Maybe next year.  We will be checking out some different places in the coming weeks.  We saw some beautiful pelicans.  They are so fun to watch.  We had a lovely pic nic and then went home.

 

Rich has been making some pickled eggs.  He is using the red wine vinegar that he made with the scoby from our Kambucha tea.  He added elephant garlic and other yummy things.   

 

Then he decided to pickle some eggs with beets.  They turned out so pretty.  He also pickled some home grown spaghetti squash.  They turned out so pretty.  Can't wait to try them when they have cured.

 

Lastly we have been enjoying our summer so much.  Here is a picture of our little gardener next to my sunflowers.  I don't know which one is growing faster, the sunflowers or Mary!

 

 

We are going to have some wonderful slicing tomatoes in a few weeks.  Mary was so happy that some of her Iris were white as she wants to give a white iris to Grandma.  We just bought a mixed bag of iris bulbs this spring of purple, lavender and white.