Snow And Ice Cream

We woke up to snow today. I know this isn't very exciting for a lot of people but for us this is amazing. We lived in Tucson, Arizona for 10 years prior to moving here and there was almost no snow there. The first year there was some snow a couple of times and we enjoyed it, but last year I think we might have gotten a light dusting of flakes about 2 times. The first thing the kids wanted to do was go outside and play. I told them we had to have breakfast first. While I was mixing up ingredients for waffles and homemade syrup, I had The Man go out and collect some clean snow before the dog or kids could contaminate it all. We turned it into snow ice cream. This was the first time any of us had experienced this and yes, I was a bad mom and let the kids have some snow ice cream while their breakfast was cooking. I figure that we do not feed them like that regularly so it is OK to have a super special treat sometimes. Over the course of the day we ended up making three flavors. It is much cheaper than the $5 half gallons at the store and we already had all the ingredients on hand.

Vanilla Snow Ice Cream

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cups sugar
• CLEAN Snow

Preparation:

Go outside and get 4 - 5 cups of fresh, clean snow. Don't pack the snow! Bring it in the house and set it in the freezer until you need it. Mix together the milk, vanilla, and the sugar. Stir this mixture until the sugar is dissolved. Slowly add the snow to your mixture, stirring constantly, until it is as thick as ice cream! Eat up!

Our other versions were Mint Chocolate Chip and Chocolate. For the Mint Chocolate Chip we exchanged mint extract for the vanilla, added a couple drops of green food color, and added a few mini chocolate chips. For the Chocolate we omitted the vanilla and replaced it with 1 Tablespoon of cocoa powder. This was fun and who knows when we will have snow again. Have you ever had ice cream made from snow? Do you have some different variations?



Motorcycle Class

I spent 7:30 A.M. til 4:30 P.M. on Thursday and Friday taking the beginner motorcycle rider course. Learning to ride a motorcycle was a lot more challenging than I could have ever imagined. I used more muscles in two days than I have in the last 10 years, I think. I was so sore after the days were over and am still sore today. It was slow starting for me being brand new at it but I eventually managed to get through it. I did pass both of my tests and am now working on getting the motorcycle endorsement on my license. It takes a bit of extra work since we are overseas with the military and I cannot just run to my local DMV. Overall I am proud of myself and would like to keep riding in the future.

Weigh In Wednesday and More

I weighed in at 205.8 today. A horrible gain. I have not been watching my food intake and exercising. I have also had a few too many no bake cookies and cinnamon rolls. Have I told you how much I love home made sweets.

I am taking a two day motorcycle riders course starting tomorrow. If you have a few extra wishes or prayers please send them this way. I am nervous to take the class as I have never been in control of a motorcycle before. The Man got a perfect score on his class and test so I have a lot to live up to. Also, The Man is going to have to keep The Princess and The Little Boys happy while I am gone. The Little Boys will be fine. I am a little nervous about The Princess. She has not been without me since birth and will have to take a bottle while I am gone. I am sure they will do fine but it is nerve wracking being gone the first time for me.

Do You Like It?

I changed the background of my blog from a green template to a newer pink one. I love it! It brings out a little bit of the girly side of me. I know pink is not for everyone but a little dose of pink in every body's day wont hurt them. Do you like pink?

My One August Post

Oops. I guess I have been too busy and tired to update my blog so I figured I should at least get one post in. Now that I am 12 weeks along will share the good news that we are expecting baby#4. Baby#4 is due March 14, 2011. I am still extremely tired all the time and have the worst case of morning sickness of all my pregnancies. I thought that the morning sickness should have calmed by now but I think it is getting worse the further along I get.

Once I get The Man to take the pics off his camera I will share our fun vacation with my parents with you. My parents were here for 12 days the begining of this month and we saw a bunch. We went to 3 amusement parks, Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and 2 SeaLife aquariums. It was very busy but it was a great experience for all of us.

My Garden

As I posted before this is my first year attempting a garden and it has made me proud. Some of our plants we bought as baby plants and the rest we started from seeds. To save on money for the cost of plants or seeds my friend B and I each bought different seeds to share or split the cost of plants. This worked out well for us because we were able to save some money but also use more seeds before the expiration date on the packages. We are in the process of trying to grow potatoes in a bag, marigolds for pest control, tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli, a couple different types of peppers, cucumber, pumpkin, chocolate peppermint, strawberries, carrots, chives, coriander, parsley, onions, and garlic. It has been a pretty chilly spring/summer up until this past week and suddenly with the warm weather the plants have grown quite a bit.

The cauliflower was bought at a local market as baby plants. My friend B and I bought a container with 9 plants to share. She took 5 for her garden and I took 4 for mine. All 4 of mine have grown very well so far and we got to eat our first one this past weekend. It was so fulfilling to eat something that came from the garden that I have been tending for several months now.

The broccoli was started from seed and wow did it take well. I planted about 12 seeds and 10 made it to the garden. Since then I lost one of the plants that was planted in the garden but all of the others seem to be doing really well.

Our lettuce, spinach, and herbs other than the chocolate peppermint were started from seed and have taken off really well. We have had salads and spinach in our crock pot lasagna. The Man's favorite part of the garden is the herbs because he loves to experiment in the kitchen. He loves to cook on the weekends and try to get creative to help everybody learn to eat different food options.

We had bad luck starting peppers this year. Out of probably 10 different seed pots we managed to get one plant. We decided to buy 4 pre-started plants to add to our one and see how it goes. They are all pretty small but seem to be doing OK so far.

Cucumber is another one that I have had a hard time growing from seed. I had big dreams to learn how to can pickles this year but out of about 10 seed pots I managed to get 2 plants and they are still quite small. I am quite sad about this because I do not think that I will have enough cucumbers to try pickling this year. Oh well I will not get discouraged and try again next year but probably using a different type of cucumber. Any suggestions?

Tomatoes seem to grow quite well here. We bought 2 pre-started plants and then have 3 others in the garden that I got from seed. I still have a couple started plants in the mini greenhouse waiting for either more space in the garden or some more pots to grow them in. The two pre-started plants have started to flower and get small tomatoes on them but the seeds I started are a little behind on that. The warmer weather this past week has really helped my seed tomatoes grow better.

My strawberries have proven to be the kids' favorite but they have become the beetles' favorite plant to attack as well. The kids love when there are red strawberries and they can pick them and eat them. We had quite a few strawberries ripen before the beetles came and now there are quite a few less. It is sad to lose them to the beetles. They started eating the leaves and my plants look quite pitiful now. i am hoping that they didn't actually burrow and place their eggs below my plants to kill them off totally.

The onions and garlic was started in the fall and were supposed to be ready by now but I think with the cold weather just have not gotten to their full potential yet so I am keeping a close eye on them. Neither of them have produced a full sized product yet. The onions had a really bad growing rate. Out of 24 onions I planted I have 8 that have kept alive. I am not quite sure if it was just a bad set of onions or if it was the huge pigeons. Which ever it was it was disappointing. The garlic was great. Every single clove of garlic I planted grew. Now just to let them mature enough so I can have garlic to eat. I will also reuse one of the cloves to replant for next year if they give quality cloves.

Gardening has proven to not only help save money on fruits and vegetables but to also give me something to occupy my time and teach my children about growing food. I am hoping they will take these lessons on with them and start them out earlier in their life than 30. The things I have learned in the past few years to save money would have been nice to figure out when I was a single mom. It really helps now though for me to be able to stay home and stretch The Man's paycheck.

Friday Family Movie Night

On most Fridays we pick a family movie, eat dinner in the living room and enjoy each other's company. This week The Man is gone so it is just me and the boys. They wanted to watch Where The Wild Things Are. I have never actually read the book even though it came out when I was a kid. Not knowing what the movie was about I found it a bit confusing but love the characters.I can relate with Max on his feeling of running away when it feels like someone who it supposed to love you doesn't want to pay attention to you. It is also very hard to fit in and make everybody happy sometimes. I think the ending is beautiful in the fact that Max goes back home and you can see the love between mother and son. I think I will try to get the book for the family once I get enough swagbucks for more amazon gift cards.

Usborne Books & More

So I decided to become a consultant for Usborne books and more so that I could get some great learning books for my boys but also to help earn a few dollars extra towards paying off debt. I am still waiting on my kit as mail can be goofy coming from stateside to the APO address. Once I get my kit I will spend time learning all about the company and hopefully it will give me some ideas on how to host home shows. I am hosting my own eshow right now but so far I am the only person who has placed an order. Hopefully just one of my friends will place one so I don't feel like a total loser. If you would like to look at my website you can find it here. If you find something you would like to buy you can do that through the website and it will be sent straight to your house. If you just browse at the selection please take a minute to at least sign up for the monthly drawing for $50 in books. I think this is a great incentive from the company. I cannot wait to get my package in the mail. Even though the books will be for the kids for fun and to learn from I am like a kid in the candy store when I get packages in my mail box.

A You're Adorable

We picked this book up the other day and my two youngest are in love with it. It is a very easy quick read for young children. It has the A You're Adorable song in the front and back and the whole book is written out with pictures depicting the song. I would definitely recommend this book for helping young kids to read the alphabet.

Peppermint Bark

So I was reading a few blogs that look interesting to me and saw that several of them were making peppermint bark with their children. It looked very easy and we already had all the items here on hand. It consists of chocolate chips and peppermint candies. I used one bag of semi sweet chocolate chips and one bag of the mint and dark chocolate chips. I microwaved these until they were smooth when stirred. I used some candy canes that we had laying around and broke them into little pieces. I mixed about 2/3 of the candy pieces in the melted chocolate and then poured it onto a cookie sheet with waxed paper on it. I spread it out the thickness I wanted, about a half inch. Then I sprinkled the rest of the candy pieces on top. Set it in the fridge til it was firm and then broke it into pieces. This is a super easy quick sweet tooth fix.

Homeschool Preschool w/ Hooked on Phonics deal

So my middle child just turned 3 and I started worrying that in a couple years he will go to kindergarten and not have a clue as to how to even spell his name. This frightened me even though I have been working with him on colors and counting already. I came across a deal for Hooked on Phonics to order some preschool learning material. I picked up several books on writing, colors, shapes, ABC's, and numbers. I used the code HOP50 to get 50% off my order and free shipping (woohoo they ship to an APO address). I managed to get 11 books, some with DVDs, for less than $35.00. I am very excited to have something to help me start my son out in the right direction. I am excited to watch him grow and learn. I really wish I had the knowledge to home school all 3 of my children all the way through high school but I am afraid I would not be capable of that so I will stick to the preschool learning.

Bret Michaels Rocks!!!

Last night my friend Jess and I went to see Bret Michaels in concert at the Pima County Fair. It was awesome. We were able to move up during the show and get about 4-5 people away from center front row. He put on a great performance. After the show he went to his bus and some of his band memebers/crew came out. Big John was selling t-shirts and cd's. We attempted to get a pic of Big John but he was swooned by the skinny chicks. Lol. When we walked away from the loot table and one of the guitarists was standing there with nobody around so we got pics with him. After that others noticed him and ran up. We then walked around to leave and noticed the drummer and got pics with him. Same thing happened, after we got pics others ran in. In true Jess fashion her famous question to the guitarist and drummer was "Do you play rockband?". I just about died laughing when she said that. The guitarist said he sucks at it and the drummer said he likes to relax in his time off. It was a blast and I couldn't have asked for a more fun concert. (The pic quality sucks cause I forgot my real camera at home and this is a phone cam.)