Zucchini Soup

Saute: 1 medium onion
1 clove garlic in 2 Tbsp oil
Add: 10 cups chicken broth and 3/4 cup rice
simmer for 10 minutes
Add: 4 Cups grated zucchini
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 Tbsp parsley
simmer for 15 minutes
Whisk:
4 eggs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
whisk into soup it is OK if it curdles.
Stir in 1/4 cup lemon juice serve hot or cold.
This recipe freezes well and makes a lot of soup.

Granola Bars

This is a much requested recipe and I apologize for taking so long to post it.
Granola Bars:
2/3 Cup vegetable oil
1 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup honey
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 Cups whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3 Cups Oats
1/2 Cup Wheat Germ
4 Cups Rice Crispies
1/2 Cup flax
2 Cups chopped nuts (I use sunflower seeds)
1/2 Cup sesame seeds (optional)
2 Cups Chocolate chips, raisins, craisins, or whatever else you may want to add.

Spray the pan (I use the pampered chef bar pan) and press mixture evenly into pan. bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes

Removing the Honey Super

We removed the honey super today. Much to our dissappointment, but not surprising we did not have any honey to harvest this year.

Sean is really enjoying beekeeping. He loves the smell of the propolis mixed with alcohol(used to remove propolis) and is a very good teacher.
Jake and Savannah came over for breakfast then stayed over while Mr. Sean opened the hive and they got to see the queen. She is doing a great job, there are lots of eggs and larva. Hopefully our hive will winter over well and we can prevent a swarm next year.

Fort Building

My children especially love fort building. It seems we have been stuck at home for weeks with someone puking. We have literally had one day with no puke in the last 3 weeks. What is going on? Well I wasn't feeling good along with several of the children so we made this fort to play in and eat lunch in and generally distract us.

Taylor organized the costumes for the theme of the fort and they had a whole day of playing different personalities. I love Ian's man voice and how Ruby just goes along with whatever they tell her.

Not Back to School --- Yet!

Ian loves to dress up, not matter the occasion. He is either in part of his Woody costume, or in a button up shirt and blazer. He wore the full Woody costume to our 'not back to school picnic'. Several homeschool families celebrated the start of school (public school) with turning in our declaration of intent forms then off to the church to have lunch and play games. We originally were going to the beach, but alas the weather did not cooperate.

Ian and Callie enjoyed games with Mrs. Vogee. The food was wonderful and fellowship was great!
The hat Taylor is wearing came from Mrs. Simpson (know as Mississippi) in our house. It can be seen on any of my children's heads on any given day. We definately will be doing game days more. especially on those cold rainy yukky Northwest days.

We will start our official school in a couple of weeks after Aaron gets back from California and I get my act together. We also have to finish the dreadful testing for last year - UGH>

Baking 101

Ruby likes to 'shop' in the pantry. For some reason I had a ziplock with muffin mix in it and she got it out and dumped it on the floor. Ruby puts everything in her mouth, to the point that I don't ever worry about her choking on anything. She filled her cup with the muffin mix and started to eat it. She proceeded to gag on the flour and I had to get her water to rinse it down.

Erik was cleaning up Ruby's mess rather relunctly but he got good practice writing his letters in the flour on the floor.

Here is Ruby with the muffin mix paste on her face. The funny thing is that the other day we were at Isobell's house and Ruby was eating the flour off of the table where we were rolling out pizza crust. Isobell watched Ruby for a while then decided to try the flour since Ruby was enjoying it so much. Isobell put some in her mouth and immediately turned around and started spitting, she gave Ruby a look like what is so great about this stuff and Ruby looked at her and said,"Yummy"

To each his own.

I love the following Recipe and have found it helps give me some energy later in the day.

Power Ball

1 Cup Peanut Butter

1 Cup Honey

cream together until smooth gradually add in 3 cups oatmeal

1/2 Cup flax

1 Cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup craisins

1/4 dry milk

roll into ping pong size balls and refrigerate or freeze. I keep them in the fridge to snack on through out the day.

Open House

I usually try to avoid gross details but I am feeling sorry for myself so I am not going to edit--The following is not for the faint of heart.
Mind you I am pregnant and not feeling good, kinda a constant state of nausea. We had an open house on Sunday so I spent the weekend cleaning up for it. Well we were supposed to attend a wedding in Port Ludlow on Saturday so after getting Sean and Aaron ready for the backyard ballistic camp I got the rest of us packed up and ready to leave Saturday morning for the wedding. After the kids went to bed I cleaned and cleaned so the house would look and smell good. I went to bed about 12:00am and not long after Taylor got up throwing up, she did not make it to the toilet but succeeded in getting most of the carpet in the hall then finishing the job in the bathroom sink. I cleaned that up and went to bed the Ruby got up with diarreah and I had to bathe her, change her crib sheets, and get whatever fell out of her diaper on the way to the bathroom cleaned up from the hall. Finally some sleep!!
We opted out of the wedding and stayed home only to make a mess of everything that was previously clean. The girls were still mostly sick and poor potty trained Ruby couldn't help it but I noticed several places (Erik's comforter, Ian's fort part of his bed and the carpet --again) where the diaper leaked and I had to clean it up.
By this time I was done and I called several carpet cleaner people to see if they could come today but alas, none could. I prevailed with heavy use of Oust and Lysol and carpet cleaner. Thank heaven above for Clorox wipes.
We made it through the day I got everything ready for the open house and left the house at nap time. The afternoon was not pretty and it rained all day. We went to Mikaela's new apartment then to Rocket Donuts and took Mikaela shopping for some apartment supplies. Finally we went to the rained out boy scout kick off picnic!
Hopefully we are done with the 48 -72 hour flu and it limits itself to the girls.
I received and email from our realtor and nobody showed at the open house!! but she complimented me on how clean and beautiful the house looked. I guess my efforts were not in vain and I can enjoy the temporary clean.