The Boy Turns 11

Every day for the last month or so, The Boy has had a daily countdown to his birthday. 

As we got closer, I began to tell him that I couldn't have an 11 year old boy and he'd have to stay 10. I'd also tell him we were skipping his birthday this year, there was no April 12 in 2013, and he just had a birthday last year so he couldn't have one this year. None of this worked. He would just smile or laugh, call me a name, and go on his merry way.

His sisters started planning the party they would throw him. They colored placemats, name plates, and worked on drawing a donkey for pin the tail on the donkey. Sissy even decided to read fortunes. I'm not sure where she got this, but it has provided me with much laughter as I eavesdrop on her "fortunes".

This last one cracks me up.

And now I have an 11 year old boy! This is so not fair. First, Sissy decides to turn 12 and now The Boy gets older. Who's next, Baby? It's not gonna happen. I have to keep one of them little and sweet forever. She's quick, but still small enough that if I can catch her unaware, I can wrangle her to the ground, tie her up, and force her to stay my little baby forever. That's my plan. Don't anyone tell her. She sneaky and smarter than me, she doesn't need your help!

Back to The Boy. And his birthday. First thing this morning, he got up and his sisters ran at him yelling, "Happy birthday!" The three of them jumped excitedly around the living room. Then, Baby insisted on giving him her present. Oh the joy!

First, the card.

Then, the gifts.

Next, Sissy's card.

Finally, the hug.

I had to print out a donkey, since they couldn't figure out how to draw one. We thought this one was hilarious.

Sissy decided The boy needed a crown. "Boy, you need a crown, so I'm going to need your head."

Do you want to know how to get your house clean quickly? Tell three excited children that they can't decorate for a birthday party until the house is clean. They clean with energy and fervor and excitement. Maybe we should have parties everyday!

The Boy just wanted a plain cake, but we knew we were getting him a truck and trailer, so I added a little embellishment to the cake. Sissy wanted to try using the piping bag, so she did quite a bit of the green. Baby tried a few "plants" but found it a bit difficult for her little hands.

The kids wanted to make individual pizzas, so I got it all ready and let them go at it.

The candles are blown out.

 Now, we did get him other presents but every picture I took had so much movement that you may get motion sickness just looking at it.

Happy Birthday, Boy! Now, NO MORE!

A Math Question

Baby comes up to me and asks, "Mom, I have one thousand dollars and another five hundred. How much do I have?"

Excitement rises in me. Somehow my Baby has come into riches. My kids have always gotten complete strangers to give them money wherever they go. Because of this, I'm hoping Baby has finally found a rich old man who decided to give my kids all his money before he dies.

I look around for The Boy and Sissy, hoping they both had also met this rich, old man and had loads of cash. I spot them both on the living room floor.

Playing Monopoly.

My dreams die.

The end.

Except they caught me taking the picture of them. They were worried I was taking a photo of them fighting. I told them I was only taking a picture of them playing the game. I was focused on writing my blog post and heard Baby say to one of the kids, " You're a troll." Hmmmm, I must have missed something good.

On a non-related and somewhat related note, Sissy was asked to tell me what change I would have gotten for a twenty if my bill was sixteen dollars. After answering incorrectly, and being shown up by both of her siblings, she replied, " It's summer break. I don't have to know math!" Her math teacher sucks and should be fired!

Yep, we only have to know things during the school year. That's going to be my attitude this summer, too. "Mom, what's for supper?"

"It's summertime. I don't know anything."

My summer just got great!

Another Day Outside

The kids and I were outside by 8 this morning. We had work to do. The area next to the front porch was next on our list. The rain is staying up north of us until this evening, so I want to get as much done as possible. 

We brought up our landscape edging bricks and laid them out. The porch drains toward this area, so I dug a small trench to allow the water to escape out to the yard. Then, we filled it all in with mulch except the trench.

We have front steps that we never use. See the tulips planted in front of them. In the past, I incorporated the steps into the landscaping, but this year I wanted them to look more like an entryway to our home. I curved the bricks to meet up with the steps.

Next, we worked on the area on the other side of the steps. We laid out our bricks and filled it in with mulch and moved my little bench to the area. Not much grows here because it's shady and the soil has been rather compacted. There also used to be bushes here. We pulled those out a couple of years ago and I've been working on amending the soil. Now I have a few hostas and other shade-loving plants in here, but it still needs more. I usually forget what all I have planted, so I'll wait until things come up more to see where I need to fill in.

After that, we were out of mulch. We laid out the rest of the bricks we had across the front of the house. I'm short and need to buy more for along the north side, when I go in to get more mulch.

Finally, we took up bricks from the area on the east side of the garage. The bricks had been buried over the years of chicken baths in the dirt there. This is one sad flower bed! I may put in another flower box like by the front porch. Or I may just use the landscape bricks here, too. I'm not sure, yet. While working in this area the other day, the kids found a bat. He's been there for at least the last three days. I told the girls they could poke him gently today to see if he was alive. He squawked at us and spread his wings. Yep, he's alive! You should have seen how fast Sissy ran after poking it and seeing it move! Now the kids want to build a bat house. We'll see. It may be a good project for a rainy day.

Things are a bit muddy, so the shoes have to come off before we enter the house. At least until the mud dries enough to be shook off.

I called the store and their mulch truck just came in. We went to town and got 40 more bags of mulch and 75 landscape edgers. We drove home and got right to work. After a brief supper, we were back at it. By the end of the day, we had all the flower beds completely done. Whew! We used 103 bags of mulch! Sissy's hands and mine are raw and sore, but we did it.

I'm torn. I don't want it to rain because I have so much to do yet, but I do want it to rain so I can rest my weary body.

I can't believe how helpful the kids have been! My old body would never have been able to do all that by myself. Well maybe. If I took the entire summer! Sissy is especially helpful at picking up and carrying things. The Boy tries to get out of as  much of the hard work as possible. Unless he can look like a macho, strong man doing it. Baby tries her best, but is still too little to carry most of the heavier stuff. She was so proud when she lifted and carried her first bag of mulch. She cheered and jumped up and down insisting I cheer, too. She does, however, sing for us while we work. And she tells the other two when their brick isn't quite right. I have really enjoyed working with my kids these last few days. That's not something I say very often. I usually prefer to be alone when I work.

Now I just have to wait for all my beautiful plants to emerge so the beds don't look so bare.

Finally Free!

The weather finally turned nice and we were able to get outdoors to do some spring clean up. Last week I was able to get the flower beds around the house all clipped and raked. The kids love clipping things. They each take a pair of some sort of clippers and help clean up the old growth from last year. Then, we rake and pick it up.

I also brought up compost and put it in the raised garden beds. The hens had scratched so much of it out in their quest to get their dirt baths. Then, the kids dug around searching for all my worms so they could go fishing. I had the kids level out the compost. Now, I need to get my potatoes and some sugar snap peas finally planted. I've never planted potatoes, so it will be interesting. 

It has been several years since we put down mulch in the flower beds, and it shows. The beds are in really sad shape. So, Sunday I went into town and bought 65 bags of mulch. Looking at it now, I don't think it will be enough, but it was all they had.

I came home and filled two of the tree rings. Instant gratification! Then, I went to work on the bed next to the driveway. Part of the retaining wall had fallen over and needed to be dug out and put back together. I also had to remove some soil and clean things up a bit more. Then, I added the red mulch. I ooohed and aaahed every time I looked over that way. I just looks so much better!

Mr Farmer wanted to re-do the flower bed right in front of the front porch. He wanted it to be more of a planter box, raised up from the porch rather than level with it. He hopes it will stop the kids and animals from using the bed as a thoroughfare. I told him, "Good luck with that!" The kids will always step on and through it. Anyway, we found some old, used landscape timbers and set to work. I'm so lucky to have Mr Farmer! He's amazing to watch work work with!

And a few hours later, we had a flower box built. I added in some soil and we cleaned up for the night.

Next up is the bed by the back patio. We got rain last night, but it's supposed to be 75 today and then rain and snow the rest of the week, so I need to get things done today.

All finished.

Finally, we added two little plant areas next to the chicken coop. These spots were just ugly and needed something to spruce them up. We had to dig down to make sure the doors could still open all the way.

The concrete still needs to be washed off, but I figure the rain later in the week will do that for me. This area is always such a mess after the winter. The hens scratch around, hay comes out of the coop when it's open for them to free range, and just general muck collects there.

Have you ever...?

I have been working on a big project for over a month now. I'm so excited about it. As part of the bigger project, I am making some pillows. I wanted them to look older and a bit darker. I decided to tea-dye them.

Have you ever tea-dyed something? I hadn't but figured I could do it without much trouble. I didn't even research it on the all-knowing internet. I just jumped right in. Seriously, it's not rocket science.

First, I had to choose the fabric. I started with a recent auction find- an old flour sack. It was incredibly heavy. I washed it to make sure I was beginning with a clean piece of cloth. Then, I cut it into three equal pieces, for the three pillows I was planning. The smaller size made it much easier to handle in the staining process.

Next, I got out my largest mixing/ measuring bowl. I filled it with hot water and four or five family size tea bags. I stuck it in the microwave for five minutes. I slowly dunked one of the fabric pieces into the tea. I pulled it up once or twice to make sure all of it was getting soaked. Finally, I pushed it all under the tea and held it down with another glass measuring cup. Anything heavy would do, though.

This photo is of another fabric with which I worked.

After the desired darkness was achieved, I removed the fabric and removed as much tea as I could by wringing it out. I let it air dry. This was the result.

If you look at the next photo, you can see the difference between the colors of the un-dyed and dyed pieces. It's subtle and doesn't show well in the picture. The result was a piece of fabric that looked quite aged and slightly stained from use. The dyeing wasn't uniform. Some areas were more stained-looking than others.

 

Here is the first pillow I made with the tea-dyed fabric. Here you can the variations a bit better.

Cinnamon Rolls of a Different Kind

I make two types of cinnamon rolls. I posted about one type here.  This post is about the other type I make.

I call these Biscuit Dough cinnamon rolls. These could be as easy as buying packaged biscuit dough, roll it out, sprinkle with goodies, and bake.

But that wouldn't make for much of a post, now would it. I also like to make things from scratch as much as possible.

Now, let's begin. Here's my favorite recipe for the biscuit dough I use for these. I use another recipe for actual biscuits.

1 stick of butter- softened
2C flour ( I use part ww and part all purpose)
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
2 Tbsp sugar
1 egg
4 tsp baking powder
splash of milk

Combine dry ingredients. Mix in butter until crumbly. Add egg. Mix. Add milk. Roll out thinly. If the dough is a bit sticky, I like to use white sugar instead of flour to keep it from sticking to the counter or your rolling pin. This just adds extra sweetness.

Now for the insides. I use a tub of butter and my fingers and spread the butter over entire rectangle of dough. Then, I sprinkle with plenty of cinnamon. Next comes the white sugar. And finally, brown sugar. Don't be skimpy!

I like these to be small so they can be eaten in a bite or two. So I roll up from one direction until I'm about halfway and make a cut to separate it form the other half. I cut the log into pieces about an inch long. Then, I repeat with the other half. I lay them closely on a cookie sheet and bake at 400 for 10 minutes.

The rolls in these photos were made using another recipe since I was making biscuits, too. The above recipe will not raise much, if any. These cinnamon rolls are completely different from your typical yeasty, doughy rolls, but they are just as good. Ours never last very long!

The result is an almost crunchy outside with an unbelievable inside.