Would you like one?

Honeydew from garden

 

Yummy, fresh honeydew from the garden.  

Someone couldn't keep her dirty hands out of it :)

Mmm strawberries

 

Drying some strawberries for Caleb!

Cheese Fondue Night

Cheese Fondue Night - It was yummy!!

Our First Cukes!

We got to eat our first cucumber from the garden this week. Yummy!
We've also been enjoying our lettuce. The peas didn't do so well, so we'll have to try them again later.

Here are some more cucumbers we'll get to enjoy soon.

Annual Christmas cookie painting

The kids really enjoy "painting" cookies every year. We make lots of plates of cookies to give out and they enjoy decorating each cookie for a specific person.

Here's a few little ones to start.

Icing is ready to go.

The kids worked hard for a couple of hours and got a lot done. Notice no Karis - she was sleeping!

Joanna

Caleb

Eliana

Mmmm. Yummy!

Green Smoothies

Tonight we all tried our first green smoothie! And they were DEFINITELY GREEN. We used this kid-friendly recipe for our first try and they turned out pretty good. We called them Popeye-Incredible Hulk Smoothies. Joanna was pretty nervous before drinking it and said, "Mom, no pictures!"

Caleb was ready to go and eager to be like Popeye.

Karis even liked hers. She kept handing her cup back to us so we could help her drink some more.

Out of the 6 of us, 5 chugged them down. Eliana said it tasted bad and she'll drink it in the morning! (We'll see....)

Strawberry Shortcake

I was planning on making pancakes one night last week when Joanna came in saying, "I don't want pancakes, they make me feel sick. I want waffles with berries and whipped cream." I don't know when pancakes have ever made Joanna feel sick, but I did think it was okay to just do waffles. So Joanna got very excited.....until I remembered we had thrown out the last of our waffle makers (We had gotten 2 for our wedding quite a long time ago now.)

By this time, no one wanted pancakes so we splurged and had non-strawberry, strawberry shortcake. I had a bag of other frozen mixed berries and it was yummy. Most of us had two - one for dessert and one for supper, I guess. (Dessert was first, for a change.)

Mmmmm!! (This picture doesn't do it justice.)

No picky eaters at this meal!

Dad's Pizzeria

For our homeschool group, Joanna & Caleb give a presentation every week on different topics. This past week's topic was family traditions. Since Joanna & Caleb are in different rooms they gave the same presentation.

Joel makes pizza pretty much every Sunday night that we are home. He began his pizza making trying to make some good ol' New York style pizza because we really missed it. There was nothing out here like it at the time.

So here are the pictures that the kids used to share our Sunday Night Dad's Pizzeria tradition.

We grind our own wheat for our bread and also for our pizza. I guess you could say that our pizza is just a little good for you!! (I think this fact was the most interesting to the parents watching.)

Of course, the rolling out of the dough...

Joel uses a pizza peel to slide the pizza in the oven onto the preheated stones in the oven. He sprinkles cornmeal on the pizza peel to keep it from sticking.

Oven's getting ready and Caleb starts to spread the sauce.

Mmmmm......Cheese!

Ready for the oven.

The pizza is going in and it's time to wait.

YUM!! One tip for making pizza - It's not done just when the cheese is melted. You want to wait till the cheese starts bubbling and even getting a little brown in some spots.

"We love dad's pizza!"

Ezekiel Bread

I made some Ezekiel bread yesterday. It actually was pretty good and everyone liked it. Supposedly it is a complete food, so it would make a good snack. However, you do need a flour mill to use this particular recipe though.

Baked Oatmeal

Here's something we've been eating a lot of for breakfast. My kids love it and it fills them up much better than cereal. This also lasts us for a couple of days.

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/2007/11/frugal-breakfast-recipe-baked-oatmeal.html

I use all applesauce for the oil and I usually cut the sugar to 1/2-3/4 cup sugar.

Enjoy

Sweet Dinner Rolls

If you are looking for a good roll recipe--here's a yummy one. They don't last long!

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sweet-Dinner-Rolls/Detail.aspx

Making Christmas cookies

Every year we make lots of cookies to give the neighbors etc. This year the kids really got in to it. Especially painting all the sugar cookies. They couldn't wait to get them all painted to give to the neighbors.