Leah and Mason

Mason will spend hours playing with his bulldozers and dump trucks in the back yard filling them up with water or dirt, then dumping it out and doing it all over again. I cannot keep him clean anymore! He gets so dirty that I have to wash him several times in the shower when he comes in the house just to get the dirt out of his hair. He is a boy, that's for sure!


Here is Leah holding Bull. He is the only frog that lived out of the seven frog eggs we got in the mail. Even Joe likes this frog! When he sees us by his container, he perks up and stares at us to let us know he wants a cricket. He is a lot of fun to watch and the kids are happy to finally have a pet.

4th of July Fun

Making the Bathrooms Beautiful

I helped someone paint their house this week to help get it ready to sell and it really put me in the mood to to finish some projects I had been putting off around the house. I thought I'd start by paining our master bathroom (the last room I had to paint in the house). Once I got started, I remembered why I had been putting this painting project off. I had to take down the unattractive (ugly) medicine cabinet and replace it to keep storage space, paint the vanity (it was red) and replace the hardware, and replace the 80's style light fixture. Since I was doing all those things to one bathroom, I figured I'd do the same for the other bathroom so that they'd match. A simple project turned more complicated when things started coming down off of the walls and we discovered that we had major patch work to do on the walls before we could even get started. The painting is pretty much finished now and we are going to install the lights tonight! The bathrooms look beautiful and I am happy to be done!

Here's Joe, sanding away and making the walls beautiful!

Here are Leah and Mason playing with the tape measure. . .anything to keep them out of the project area:)

Hike Around Lacamas Lake

After I finished painting, I took a nap and Joe, Leah and Mason watched a movie. Then, we took off for a hike. It was a perfect day, not to hot and not too cold and overcast. It felt like a lazy day, even our neighborhood activities were toned down today.

These are flowers that Leah picked for me on our hike.

Dinner at Grandma's House

Grandma Horrocks, Elli, Elli K. Crystal, Stan, Joe, Abbie and Lial

Fireworks

Leah and Mason had a lot of fun with the inexpensive fireworks we bought.

Uncle Stan called these 'smokelers' and rightly so.

We never got to hold these when I was little!

This is How We Enjoyed the Beautiful Day Today!

These are pictures of Leah and Mason at the park. The weather is absolutely beautiful today and it is supposed to reach 100 degrees this weekend. Summer is here!

Strawberries!

Well, it's that time of year again! We have been to the strawberry fields twice this week and have picked a ton of berries. We have frozen and dried them and me and Leah made 6 batches of jam yesterday:)

This berry picking fun is really turning into a family tradition for us. We're planning on picking blueberries, raspberries and peaches this summer as well. I've got the jam making down and I really want to learn how to can peaches. Nothing tastes better in the winter than summer fruit that you canned yourself!

Our Favorite Healthy Cornbread Recipe-This is nice and soft, not dry and crumbly:)

PREP TIME	10 Min
COOK TIME	25 Min
READY IN	35 Min

INGREDIENTS

• 1 cup unbleached flour
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup plain nonfat yogurt
• 2 eggs, beaten

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease an 8x8 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, cornmeal, sugar, soda and salt. Stir in yogurt and eggs. Do not over mix, stir only until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes, or until center of the bread springs back when gently pressed.

Great Caramel Sauce Recipe

The recipe below, other variations of this recipe and useful information about making caramel and can also be found at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook:Caramel.

This is a simple, yet delicious recipe that can be used in a chocolate fountain or fondue pot (for apples, marshmellows, sponge cake, etc) and on ice cream or other desserts. It can also be canned for later use.

Caramel Sauce

The softer caramel products, such as this recipe for caramel sauce, contain fat and liquid in addition to the caramelized sugar. To create the texture of caramel sauce, you need a 1:1 ratio of fat and liquid. In this recipe, heavy cream (40% fat) is used along with butter to achieve the 1:1 fat:liquid ratio. If you want to substitute milk you will need to use less milk and more butter to keep the ratio. You can also substitute soy-milk and margarine to make a vegan caramel sauce, but make sure to keep the fat:liquid ratio.

This recipe makes approximately 6 cups of caramel sauce. You can easily halve this recipe if you wish. It takes 30-60 minutes depending how quickly you are evaporating the water. If sealed in clean canning jars, the sauce can be stored for 3 months without refrigeration. Or store refrigerated for up to 6 months.

Ingredients

• 2 Cups Water
• 4 Cups Sugar
• 2 Tbsp Corn Syrup (optional)
• Pinch Salt
• 2 Cups Heavy Whipping Cream
• 1/2 Cup (1 stick) Unsalted Butter, chopped into 1" cubes

Safety

• Adding liquid to sugar that is over 300°F is dangerous! Some of the liquid will immediately flash to super-hot steam. To avoid steam burns, stay back from the pot and pour liquids at arms length. Use an oven mitt for your hand.
• When you add your liquid to the hot sugar, it will boil violently. To avoid messy and dangerous boil-overs, a 2.5 quart heavy bottomed sauce pan or pot is the minimum, but 3-4 quarts is recommended
• Use a heat proof spatula or spoon such as wood or silicone.

Directions
Dissolve the water, sugar and corn syrup over medium high heat until fully dissolved.

Stop stirring and let the solution boil over medium heat. Check on the solution every 5 minutes. You will see the bubbles slow down and get larger. When the bubbles begin to reach 1/2" to 3/4" start monitoring the solution frequently.

When the solution begins to turn amber, get your cream and butter and watch it constantly.

When the solution has turned a shade of caramel that you like (darker is deeper and will start to take on a little bitterness), step back and add the cream at arms length, stirring constantly and scraping the sides of the pan.

Add the butter and stir until incorporated. Pour the sauce into a serving dish for immediate serving with bread, drizzled on ice cream, as a garnish or for use in other desserts.

If you desire, follow standard canning procedures and distribute into canning jars. Allow to cool until the buttons are depressed. Any jars with buttons that are not depressed should be refrigerated and consumed first. To reheat the caramel sauce, microwave the jars (without covers) for 10-30 seconds depending how soft and hot you want it.

Happy First Day of Summer!

It is the first day of Summer and today is going to be a beautiful day!

After making it through my first Enrichment Night last night, I am going to enjoy today by staying in my pj's all day (well, most of the day) and maybe going outside and finishing that mosaic tile table I have been working on for two years now:)

I hope you all have a fun day!

Twins!

Here are the 'twins'! So, after years of headaches, Joe finally broke down and got his eyes checked. He is surprised at how clear everything is now! Mason keeps looking at Joe when he has his new glasses on and says, "We're twins Dad! We both have 'dwasses'. "

Leah is feeling a little left out because she is the only one who doesn't wear glasses. We keep trying to tell her that she is the lucky one, but she won't listen. She was actually pretty upset and cried for a while when she found out that Joe needed glasses.

American Girls Club-Horse Field Trip

Here are the girls from Leah's American Girls Club! We have been meeting together twice a month for the last six months to do crafts, projects and activities from the American Girls book series about Felicity and the American Revolution. Our last meeting will be at the end of the month. Next year, we will read the Kirstin books learn about Pioneer life:)

Today, we went on a field trip to see some horses (and a foal) because the side story in the Felicity books is about a horse named Penny. The girls had a great time feeding the horses carrots and apples and enjoyed watching and petting them.

(I will post more pictures on our homeschool blog.)

Leah's First Horsemanship Class

Here is Leah learning how to approach and groom a horse.

This is Mason wishing he could ride the orange tractor behind the fence.

Leah loves horses, so as part of her schooling this summer we signed her up for a horsemanship class. She has taken on extra chores at home to earn her horse lessons and she has been so excited for today to come!

Today, she learned the safety rules for being around horses and how to approach and groom a horse. Her homework is to learn the names and purposes of all the grooming brushes and tools. Mason spent the lesson time trying to break into the area where the tractors are stored.

Leah's Final Violin Concert of the Year

Left to Right: Katie, Leah, Katie, Bethany, Hannah and Emma.
Back: Mr. Hunt

Tonight was Leah's last violin concert of the year and we enjoyed watching it:) This has been a wonderful opportunity for Leah and we have seen her grow musical, socially and she has become an even better performer than she was to begin with. Her teacher, Mr. Hunt, was fabulous and he clicked very well with the girls and made the class a lot of fun for all of them. He will be teaching again in the fall and we will be back for Intermediate Orchestra!

Opening Songs: Caroling Breeze, Jingle Bells and Old MacDonald Had a Farm (performed beautifully by the orchestra:)

The girls are sitting and waiting for their turn to perform their solos.

Leah chose to play Twinkle, Twinkle in A major for her solo. She played it beautifully.

Mr. Hunt is a lot of fun. He played Pop Goes the Weasel over and over again a whole bunch of silly ways. Here he is playing it under his leg.

Mr. Hunt's solo was very entertaining to the girls and here they are laughing and Leah is bright red she is laughing so hard.

Here is Leah accepting her certificate for successfully completing Beginning Orchestra and her Baskin and Robins ice cream certificate (do I get that for taking her all this year:).

The last three pictures are from the last number, Twinkle, Twinkle. It was followed by an encore of Old MacDonald Had a Farm with the girls playing their favorite animal sound with their violin in the middle of the song. They all did such a great job and they got a standing ovation and cookies and lemonade after the performance.

We thought we'd get one last picture of all the girls together.
They are all so cute!

Great job Leah!