The Gap

Hayden lost his top front tooth while I was gone visiting Roz in Minnesota. Dad took these pictures for me. As you can see he has quite a gap there now, partly because of the missing tooth and partly because of the frenectomy he had done earlier this year. We're hoping that wide space leaves plenty of room for grown up teeth to come in nice and straight!

First Azure Order

Since we moved I have had to find new sources for some of the harder to find things I like to buy. Last year, I was happy to finally find a lady to buy wheat berries and oats from. This year when I needed oats, I decided to give Azure Standard a try. I had heard about them several years ago, but they didn't deliver anywhere near me in Wisconsin. I am very impressed! They have pretty good prices, excellent selection, and they have to be the most well organized food co-op I have ordered from.

The kids and I went to go pick up our order thinking we would have to help unload and sort the orders (which is what we have had to do in the past). When we got there everything was sorted and ready for pickup. Azure sorts the orders by person before loading them truck. Nice!

I just ordered a few things to try out. Mostly things to make granola and whole grain breads. I got a 50 pound bag of rolled oats (not pictured), rolled wheat, raw sunflower seeds, bran, brown rice, rye berries, sesame seeds, molasses, sucanat, and some applesauce.

I go through phases of trying to eat more whole grains. Right now, I am trying to eat healthy and lose a few pounds before this year's health risk assessment for Jerry's work. So far it seems to be going well. I like to use a lot of recipes from a book called Set for Life. It has lots of regular type foods cooked in healthier ways - less fat, more fiber and whole grains. It's worth getting the cookbook for the bread recipe alone!

If you've ordered from Azure, let me know what you got. Orders go out once a month. Next time I think I might try some fresh produce.

Rain, Rain DON'T Go Away

Rain is a wonderful thing here in the desert. Today we decided to skip a bit of morning school to have PE in the rain. The rainwater was actually cold. It was really coming down too. Best of all, for the first time since spring it was cooler outside than inside!

So we enjoyed the rain and a rare dark, cloudy day.

The rain was pouring off the roof. No gutters here which is unfortunate because I would love to have a way to catch that water! The pool was quite a bit deeper when it was all said and done; it didn't overflow though.

You can see the water in the grass was getting pretty deep. The neighbors yard looked like they irrigated!

I am glad we didn't have anywhere to go because all the rain caused some flash flooding though out the valley. Just down a few blocks away part of the road we live on washed away. They are saying it may take up to a month or two until it is fixed. We're not complaining though, the rain was worth it!

Boo Boo's First Piggy Tails

Annabeth finally grew enough hair to attempt some tiny piggy tails. She was really good about letting me get them in. I think she needs a little bit longer hair before we can do much else with it!

She sure did look cute though!

Moisturized

People often ask what Annabeth does while we do school. Today she moisturized!

I think she got a little bit in her eyes - which is why they are a bit red. As for the rest, thankfully, it rubbed right in.

Back to (Home)School Pics 2013

We started school a few weeks ago, but I just around to taking "school" pictures today. I am not too happy with the way they turned out. Not because of the kids - they did great - but my camera has been giving me trouble. Sometimes it won't focus and sometimes the colors are off. Well, until I can retake them here are this year's photos:

Wesley - 6th grade

Eli - 4th grade

Justus - 4th grade

Hayden - 2nd grade

J.D.   K/1st grade

I gave up on getting one of Annabeth. She was not cooperating! :)

Annabeth's Birthday Party

We had Annabeth's birthday party this afternoon. After church, we put her down for a nap and got to work. I finished making the food and got the decorations up. I did some prep work yesterday, so there wasn't too much left to do. I let Wesley stay up to help me make some of the decorations last night. The other brothers weren't too happy about Wesley staying up without them and Wesley said he was extra tired today.

Annabeth really doesn't have any favorite characters so I wasn't sure what to do for cake and decorations. Last year we did had an ice cream treat party. She doesn't really watch Sesame Street, but she does love one Cookie Monster video that we play for her on YouTube so I decided to go with a Cookie Monster theme. I spent a little time on the internet to get some ideas. This is what I came up with...

Cookie Monster and Cookie cupcakes. I had made Cookie Monster cupcakes before for JD, so that wasn't hard. For the "cookie" cupcakes I used a new recipe I found (thanks Pinterest) for moldable frosting. A quick Google search gave me the right mix of food coloring to make tan. (What would we do without the internet!?) Strange as it sounds, I rolled out the frosting and used a biscuit cutter to make the "cookie" and then pushed a few chocolate chips on for decoration. I've never used fondant but it seems like a less firm version of that. It gave me just the effect I was looking for!

We turned some blue balloons into Cookie Monsters and Wesley helped me make construction paper cookies to hang up. Saturday I had some of the boys color a few Cookie Monster coloring pages for decorations. I found a few to print too. A few more blue balloons and blue streamers and it was looking pretty festive.

I just used some of our paper on a roll to make a quick Happy Birthday sign and a sign that said "Cookie Maybe?" which is what Annabeth calls the Cookie Monster song.

After a quick swim, we came in to eat. Just like last year we decided on all appetizers for dinner. I made a few of our favorites (olive bread, taco dip, and fruit with fruit dip) and everyone else brought something as well. The birthday girl thoroughly enjoyed the bacon wrapped pretzels, blue kettle corn, and fruit!

I did fancy up one fruit tray to look like Cookie Monster, our blueberries were a little too dark but when I took this photo with the flash on, you could see it a bit better.

We sang to the birthday girl and she blew out the candles all by herself! I think she was a little surprised that she did it! Then she made a mess of herself eating her cupcake!

After getting cleaned up, Annabeth opened her gifts. She enjoyed the whole process of opening presents. She loved the first thing she opened and would have happily stopped there! But she was glad she kept going because she LOVED her new baby doll and baby crib! Every single photo of her opening presents is blurry because she wouldn't sit still!

It was a fun celebration for a sweet little girl! What a fast two years it has been. I wish I could freeze time!

Here's the song that inspired our party theme...