We love Food Network around here.  So, yesterday we were reading about the Israelites in the desert, whining about having only manna to eat every day.  Suddenly, in the middle of reading, I lapsed into a fit of laughing, as I imagined "Iron Chef Mount Sinai" with manna being the secret ingredient.

So, we came up with a list of other "shows" that could have been from that time:

• 30-Minute Manna
• Everyday Egyptian
• Will Whine For Food
• God Eats (only two episodes though; manna and quail)
• Chef vs. Desert
• Levi's Big Bite
• Throwdown with Moses and Pharaoh
• One Ingredient Fix
• The Best Manna I Ever Ate
• Barefoot Miriam
• Desert: Impossible
• Down Home with the Hebrews
• Israel Live (bam)
• Feasting on Sand Dunes
• Unmapped
• How'd That Get in my Tent?
• The Next Manna Network Star
• Molto Moses
• The Worst Cook in the Wilderness
• Joshua's Best Dishes
• Joshua's Party
• Joshua's Home Cooking
• Ace of Caleb's
• The Essence of Israel
• Secrets of a Wilderness Chef
• Ten Dinarii Dinners with Moses and the Arabians
• Big Daddy's Tent
• Deserts, Dromedaries, and Dust
• Manna Made Easy
• Ultimate Wilderness Showdown

Hi Everyone,

Merry Christmas!  I hope you all had a great one!  Here is a video of one of my favorite Christmas songs.  Its not a carol, but it's so cute. 

Click here to listen to it:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpkI7GW2V34

Happy New Year!

Hey Everyone,

We had such a blast in Texas this November.  I am finally getting pictures on here.  Here are a few:

This was at the Japponese gardens.  We had fun playing in the fountains!  :)

This was at the Stock yards.

McKenzie and I had fun trying on all the different cowgirl hats!

Grant and Jordan met Super bowl MVP and Hiesman trophy winner Desmond Howard at the TCU campus football feild. 

We had a great time!

Hey All,

It has taken me a long time to update, but It has been busy here.  Us four kids are involed in a play (the Golden Goose) and I (Hannah) am involved in show choir.  We took a trip to Minnesota for four days, and we had a blast seeing all of our friends.  We are going to TX in two weeks to visit friends.  This summer, we got a trampoline!  Here are some pictures:

We have been having a blast with it!!

I guess thats all for now, hopfully we'll have more updates soon!!

We had a blast visiting our cousins and grandparents this August!  We did alot, and had a blast.  Here are a few pictures of the trip:

We spent a lot of time swimming!!

Natalie finally got into the ocean!!  (You can read all about it in my last post)

Grant and his cousin went parasailing

And Last but not least, my mom went to a cooking class taught by Robert Irvine on the Food Network, and got a picture with him.

Every year that we come to the ocean to visit my grandparents, my sister Natalie, has never gone in the ocean because her excama would hurt in the salt water.  This year, she went into the ocean and loved it!!  She said it didnt hurt anymore.  It has helped her lots.  Thank the lord!!!

I will try and get some pictures on here soon!!

Here is a quiz for you.  These two guys are:

1)  Completely unrelated - live in different states and only recently met

2)  Twin brothers - separated at a young age and recently reunited via Facebook

3)  Second cousins on their mothers' sides

4)  Half brothers - the brother on the left is 5 years older

As of tomorrow, we should have a new, finished roof over our heads.  Our friend came from the Twin Cities to serve as foreman and chief hard worker, but many others pitched in to make it a success, and we are extremely grateful.  Here's a great shot of a couple young workers:

These dudes worked hard and earned a trip to Noah's Ark in the Dells, which we visited today.  (No photos, however.  Didn't want to wreck the camera... just our skin, which we rotisseried to a lovely shade of scarlet).

Hannah got to open an early birthday present last night, while her friend was here for a visit.  However, she didn't get it.   I got her a pair of pierced birthstone earrings. She had been asking for pierced ears for awhile, but I had told her she has to wait until she was 27.  Thus the look of confusion on her face as she examined the new earrings.

I thought for sure she'd get it right away, like "Wow, mom's going to let me get my ears pierced!!"  No such luck.  She was acting all polite, like she really liked the gift, but she honestly thought she had to wait till she was 27 to wear them!   She and her smiling friend are going to get their ears pierced together, tomorrow.

Happy 9th Birthday to the baby of the family!  (Zach.)  Have a great birthday Zach!

 This May, I got to go to my good friend Gracie's house in Minnesota.  While I was there, Molly (Gracie's sister) had a birthday.  She invited a few of her friends to come to a tea party.  We had lots of fun.  We went to the library,  the park, and a lot more!  Here are a few pictures I took in Minnesota:

Happy June everyone!  Finally, nice weather!  :D

Happy mothers day everyone!  I hope you are enjoying this great holiday, and I hope that all moms get some beauty rest (Zach and Natalie call it "beauty rest.)

More exciting updates to come soon.  :-) 

It has come to our attention by several of the very few people who read this boring blog, that it hasn't been updated in awhile.  So, without further ado, I (mom) am about to enter my last entry.  The chore of blogging will now go to Hannah, who loves to write anyway.  Hopefully you can expect to see more frequent posting in the future.

Where did we leave off?  The birth of kittens?  Ok, that was two months ago.  Since then, the kids have participated in two plays.  The first was Charlotte's Web, which they, along with a cast of about 25 other kids, spent months preparing for.

Here are a few action shots of the kids (Zach as Uncle the Pig, Natalie as Narrator, Hannah as Mrs. Arable, Grant as Mr. Zuckerman):

In April, our 4H club competed in the Dodge County Music and Drama Festival.  Our play, "Whose Throne Is It, Anyway?" took first place.  With that honor comes the opportunity to perform it at the State Fair this summer.  Here's our fun-loving Renaissance cast:

Our homeschool group expounded on that idea and planned a Medieval Feast.  We had a dinner, medieval music, chess tournaments, and each family made a family banner.  Our medieval menu included:

Roast Chicken, Pottage, Honeyed Carrots, Tossed Greens, Sweet and Savory Tarts, Dried Fruits, Homemade Bread, and Medieval Gingerbread.

At the end of April, we took a visit to see Grandpa and Grandma in Arizona.  We kept very busy the whole week, visiting such places as the Biosphere 2, Old Tucson, Mexico, the Pima Air and Space Museum, and Mt. Lemmon.  Not to mention spending many fun hours playing word games and cribbage.  Here is a group shot on top of the mountain:

We arrived home from Arizona in time to attend our annual home schooling conference, at which we had a Little Red Hen booth.  Mom and dad both wished to attend Friday night seminars, so we left our 8-year-old salesman of the family in charge.  He got high compliments from the exibitor next to us.  The kid could sell a ketchup popsicle to a woman wearing white gloves!

Enough blogging.  Time for mom to go and work in the garden!

We have had a lot going in the last week.  Friday we had a home school science lab.  Grant demonstrated a vinegar and baking soda reaction that blew up a balloon and changed the water color.  We came home from that just in time to see our new kittens being born.  Three of 'em.  Want one?

Then we had company over the weekend.  My nephew and niece and their three children came for a visit.  Their oldest, who is six, participated in the state Mites Hockey tournament nearby.  Man, those little kids can skate!  We had such a nice visit, and now my kids have new pen pals.

The play that the kids are (Charlotte's Web) in is drawing near.  We are in charge of makeup; here are a few of our practice runs.

I made a quilt top recently and sent it to my sister, who quilted it for me using her long arm.  I finally got it bound and am enjoying it profusely!

Another project we are working on is our upcoming 4H drama festival.  I wrote a goofy skit on the Tudors, based on the Renaissance/Reformation era we are studying.  Yesterday I worked on a Henry VIII costume.  More photos will be forthcoming as this play develops!

We have a fun new activity that we have begun, based on the Food Network show, "Chopped."  We are calling it the Mystery Dinner Challenge.

One of the kids will compile four ingredients and give them to me.  I have to use all four in the dish that I come up with.  Last night, Hannah gave me a bone-in leg of lamb (she had thawed it without my knowlege) , frozen corn, dried parsley, and a grapefruit. 

Woohoo, a challenge!  I made a leg of lamb roast witth a corn, spinach, and onion stuffing and a pomegranate grapefruit reduction glaze.  (I used the lamb bone and the dried parsley to make the stock reduction).   It turned out great!   More challenges to follow!

Last Tuesday afternoon I received a message that my dad was in the hospital after having a heart attack.  So I cleared my calender and flew to Arizona, and not a moment too soon.  He had open heart surgery the next day (quintuple bypass), but I was able to talk to him the night before.  Thankfully, he came through the surgery well and was even able to go home four days later.  It was a close one.  If you are reading this, dad, we are still praying for you as you finish recovering.  Here is dad the morning before surgery with his wife, his sister, and his brother-in-law.

Oh, and by the way, here are a couple views from dad's house, which is halfway up a mountain and overlooking the valley.   We are taking the kids there in April for a visit; we can't wait!

The kids are getting ready for their play in March.  We only have four more rehearsals until tech week.  It's hard to imagine at this point that it will all come together, but it always does.  I forgot my camera the other day when they wore their costumes, so pix will have to wait until the dress rehearsal.

Our church did a Read-a-thon on Valentines Day evening.  What a joy it was to see children engrossed in books!  Every 20 minutes or so, there would be a break in the action for a game or door prize drawing.  It was also an opportunity for parents to bring their kids by and go have a Valentine's date.  I thought I took pictures, but you will have to use your imagination.

We really like the show "Chopped" on Food Network.  The premise is that these chefs are given a basket of four unusual ingredients (for example:  dessert course - dried prunes, cream cheese, animal crackers, and one other thing that I don't remember; red wine maybe) and have to make a dish with it in 30 minutes.   They can use other ingredients too, but have to incorporate the main four.

So tonight I was downstairs working in my commercial kitchen, when Grant came down with a basket and gave me a challenge for dinner.  Anticipating that I would see something like marshmallows and asparagus, I was chagrined to discover ground beef, dried basil, tomato paste, and spaghetti noodles.  Wow, let me go out on a limb here!  Of course he wanted me to make spaghetti, but keeping with the spirit of the show, I made smoked cheese spagetti with spinach and mushrooms, topped with tomato-basil meatballs.  Grant told me that I had been chopped (eliminated).

The groundhog saw his shadow today, so it means six more weeks of winter.  (If he doesn't see his shadow, it means a month and a half more of winter).

My childhood tradition, started by my mom, was to eat Cracker Jacks and drink Dr. Pepper, while singing a song she wrote.  I don't remember the words, but my older sisters probably do (something about being little bickering groundhogs with cabin fever).  So, we began our own tradition today.  We made Alton Brown's recipe for Slacker Jack (tastes like the real thing but without the prize) and we all drank lattes.  Even the 8-year-old.  There was much rejoicing among the children, whose exposure to coffee is limited.  Lunch today was a complete sugar fest!  (Diabetic dad's out of town this week).

The cake you see above is the remnants of Grant's Superbowl cake from yesterday.  Here is a shot of it before it was demolished:

All the boys in the family were quite delighted with the results of Superbowl 43.  I was rooting for the Cardinals, and it is a well-known fact that anyone I ever cheer for loses (it's one of the symptoms of being a Vikings fan).  So they thanked me for cheering on the Cardinals, thus ensuring the Steeler win.

Last Friday Hannah had a few friends over and we had a cooking class on making meat sauce.  This was part of her 4H foods project.

Today Canada and a few other countries celebrate Boxing Day.  I never knew what that was; I only saw it on calenders and assumed it was the day that people boxed up their Christmas gifts that were laying all over the house.  Apparently there is a little more to it.

I sent out an electronic Christmas greeting yesterday, and it has come to my attention that some people could not open the MS Word attachment that I sent.  So I am re-posting my Christmas greeting here.

December 25, 2008

Merry Christmas!

I sit at my computer today, on this day when the world celebrates the birth of the King of Kings, to send you warm greetings on a day that is -2 degrees here in Wisconsin.

I didn’t get a chance to write and send out a letter, so I am resorting to cyber space.  However, the money saved in postage and printing will be donated to our local church’s compassion fund (a fund which gives assistance to people who need it here in town).

We close out the year 2008 with some wonderful memories of this year.  We enjoyed our first full year at the homestead, filled with such projects as gardening and raising meat and egg chickens.  Our first flock of egg layers got eaten by various Horicon Marsh wildlife, most notably a neighborhood dog.  After much trial and error, we now have the layers and their male counterparts secured in an area that needs to be enlarged this spring!  The remaining meat birds are nestled into their cold winter habitat, aka the freezer, awaiting the opportunity to become a culinary concoction.  Raising sheep was on the list for the year, but we never got their fence up.  Hopefully next year…  I already have them named:  Mitten and Mutton.

We are still having a ball homeschooling, and mom is learning a lot!   The older kids are in the middle of studying the Renaissance and Reformation, while the younger two are in 19^th century American History.  Grant and Zach played baseball in our new town, and Grant was allowed to participate in the local middle school football program.  Grant also had a blast attending a 5-day Air Academy camp in OshKosh, as well as the air show in July.  Hannah has been working hard on piano and voice lessons.  And Natalie, well, we have been concentrating on getting her well from her eczema.  And she is doing quite well right now, and feels more up to doing her favorite activites, like drawing and studying medieval weapons.  All four kids are gearing up for a homeschool production of “Charlotte’s Web,” to be performed March 20-21 in Fond du Lac. 

We started 4H this past year and the kids are doing such projects as clothing, folk arts, drawing, photography, clowning, theater arts, aerospace, and cats.  Cats??  Yep, a stray tiger cat adopted us last spring – don’t feed it, kids!  Too late. She will never go away.  But her name is Go Away anyway (mom is an optimist).  Go-Go is heavy with kittens and will pop soon.  Any takers??  She had an earlier batch this summer, but alas, the aforementioned Horicon Marsh Wildlife took their toll on the entire litter.  After this batch, she will be rendered unable to reproduce.

Another highlight of the year has been getting to know our new church family better.  We really enjoy the fellowship, and most importantly, the mission of the church to teach people about Jesus.  Mom sang with the praise team and joined the library team.  Dad just joined the set-up and take-down team, and the kids have been attending Awana on Wednesday nights.  Last night, instead of having a Christmas service, we got do DO Christmas service by going caroling and bringing treats and Christmas cheer to two local nursing facilities.

Mom tried her hand at school pictures again this year, and below are the results.  It’s quite amazing what you can do with Photoshop! 

In closing, wherever this day finds you, may you be blessed by the love of God, who sent us the precious gift of his Son.

We were snowed in this week on Monday and Tuesday; how nice not to have to go anywhere!  I spent much of the time quilting, making gifts (wall hangings) for my two retail customers.  I can post the pix here, since I know they don't visit my blog.  My, this is an addicting pastime!

My turkey stock from Thanksgiving (which I had set on the deck to cool) was completely buried under the snow.  Oh well, at least it's frozen!  It's the marshmallow-looking bump in the picture:

The kids spent hours playing with their Keva planks, building cities, roads, and structures. 

We had a great Thanksgiving this year.  Our friends who always visit were here, and the day after Thanksgiving, we had a gathering of four families.  Each family has a daughter (ages 11-14) who is a penpal to the others.  Several of the girls (and moms and dads too) met for the first time.  We had a very enjoyable visit!  I would post a photo, but the camera with my Thanksgiving pictures on it has gone AWOL.  It serves me right for snapping a photo of an Amish guy when he wasn't looking.     

It has come to my attention that I have not been giving my blog any attention.  So, here is a brief update of our lives since September 5 (at least what I can remember).

In early Sept, Grandpa Bob and Grandma Patty came to visit.  They stayed for a week, and Grandpa got to see Grant play in a football game.  Zach and Grandpa began a cribbage rivalry.

It has been Field Trip City this fall!!  Here are several of the places we went.

Zach, Hannah, and I took a trip to Pepin for Laura Ingalls Wilder Days.  We didn't even bring a tent; we just camped in the van.  It rained most of the weekend and it was pretty miserable.  Hannah entered her final Laura contest; next year she will be too old and we can stay home (heh heh heh).

We attended our 3rd annual Heritage Lab in Minnesota, put on for school groups by a nature center.  This year the theme was American Indians. 

Locally, one of our homeschool dads is a civil war buff and had a little reenactment for our homeschool group.  Here are the kids, getting ready to walk in formation:

Another field trip we did with this group was to visit a local pumpkin farm.  They have so much more than pumpkins - they have go carts, a mining shaft, a slide, a haystack to climb, a petting farm, and even more.  It was chilly out, but we all had fun (and came home with 4 enormous pumpkins).

4H has begun for the year, and our little club that was new last year has grown from 5 to 9 families.  We operated a food stand at a local festival in early October, and did all our fundraising for the year.  Aren't you glad?  We won't be hounding you for donations!!  We attended an old time gathering at the county fairgrounds, with lots of artisans on hand.  Here is Natalie, practicing her axe throw.

Our final "Field Trip" of the fall was a visit to grandparents in Hilton Head Island, SC.   We had a great time, visiting and spending time on the beach.  One of the kids' favorite things to do on the beach is hunt for shark's teeth.  I don't get the attraction of such an activity, but they came home with enough teeth to string for garland around the Christmas tree.  Ok, I am kidding but they sure have a lot of them. 

We took a day trip to Savannah to have lunch at Paula Deen's restaurant, The Lady and Sons.  We also toured the Hilton Head Island Museum, and went mini-golfing.

While there, mom got to teach grandpa how to make homemade soap.  Here he is, cutting his first batch of soap into bars:

Back at home, Hannah came screaming into the house one day, insisting there was a rattlesnake outside.  Since we had only seen garter snakes before, I went and took a look.  Here is the little guy that was curled up next to our garage.  A little bit of research on the net identified him (or her) as a harmless little milk snake.  He was little, probably not even 10 inches long.

Finally, here are the kids' school pictures (taken by mom with a cheesy little camera and made to look decent on Photoshop), all put together into one composite:

Looking at my posting pattern, you can probably expect the next update sometime in January. 

Our friends came for a visit over Labor Day weekend, and boy did we get a lot done!  An Amish tour, complete with the purchase of 10 flats of strawberries!  We came home that evening and had a "strawberry work frolic" with all 12 of us helping!

We also butchered a few chickens, wired the hen house with electric, tiled the bathroom floor, and a few other odds and ends.  Time flew and before you knew it, it was time for them to go home.  We all went through withdrawals after they left.

Football season is upon us, and Grant is playing with a nearby middle school; his first time with an organized team.  Here he is before his first game ever.  He's the little blond guy, right next to the guy who is twice his size.  Ya gotta love eighth grade!