More posts and a recipe

Just to let you know I started several posts, but didn't finish them until tonight, but the videos of Little J went up after them. Make sure you go back and read the others. Also, here's a quick recipe that I made for dinner. It was fast, easy and everyone loved it.

Easy Skillet Hash

1 lb. hamburger

1/2 bag southern style hash brown potatoes (could use O'Brien)

1/2-1 cup corn (I cut some off a leftover cob and added a little more frozen)

1/2-1 cup green beans (I used frozen)

1/4 cup red pepper

1/4 cup onion

1/2 cup water

2 TBS sour cream (optional)

Seasoned salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste

I browned and drained the hamburger, then added the vegetables and water. After seasoning it, I cooked it all until tender. At the very end I added the sour cream. I would have added cream of mushroom soup, but I didn't have any. You can leave out the sour cream too. You can't really mess it up.

More new tricks

Aunt Mar's visit

The kids with my mom's sister, Aunt Mar.

Our zoo has penguins. The girls posed by the statues outside the exhibit.

This was our first visit to the zoo.

A few weeks ago my Aunt Marilyn visited from California. It was great fun having her stay with us for a few days. We went to the Zoo and to a waterpark. She did awesome with the kids--playing, reading, helping out, etc. And Josh and I enjoyed our conversations with her about cows, sports and politics. We made a lot of fun memories that week. Thanks again for the visit Aunt Mar!

Enjoying time with Zani

We have been spending a lot more time with the horse lately. The girls are getting to the ages where they can safely (well, we're still working on E. She gets a little excited and still runs around a bit. Good thing Zani is used to it.) be around the horse. They love to brush her, lead her around and ride her. Little J even had his first ride. (You can't seem him in the photo, but Josh is right there holding on to him).

Emma talks about "brushing my Zani cause she's dirty, dirty, dirty," all the time. She wants to give Zani oats in her pan. And she asks, "my Zani home?" which means "Is she standing next to the gate?" in Emma terms. We have the horse in the pasture right next to the house. We've had great weather for it and I hope we'll have more days of riding through the fall.

Mackenzie's Bag

Here she is modeling her newest creation.

She was really getting into it.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, MJ and I started a new sewing project. Josh had wanted to find some fabric for me to make Little J a blanket so we found that then he suggested I get the girls some too. I thought a bag might make a nice second project for us to try. I'm not really big on following recipes; I find them merely a suggestion. Same goes for patterns, well at least in this case. When I was growing up and sewing in 4-H, I definitely followed a pattern, but these days I just felt I could wing it. Plus, I wasn't sure exactly what kind of bag I wanted to make so I didn't want to be limited to a pattern. I did look at a few, but wasn't convinced by any of them. I'm not sure flannel was really the best fabric for the job, but it's cute, it was on sale, it's soft and so far it's holding up well.

I did look online at some different blogs and searched bag patterns, but for the most part I just kept imaging in my head what I wanted it to look like and worked it through that way. I took a suggestion for size off a blog and started with that. I knew I wanted to line the bag and put pockets in it. MJ did most of the straight sewing (side seams, top hem, etc.) and learned to safely use an iron. She thought that was really cool. Now I don't claim to be any kind of expert in the sewing department, but I am pretty excited with how it turned out. And it was a fun bonding activity for us. I look forward to more of them. Now the key will be if I can re-create this bag again. :)

Emma picked out a monkey pattern (imagine that). Not quite sure if I'm going to make it into a bag or a blanket.

The kidlets

Mackenzie and I had a new sewing project we worked on a few weekends ago. She had picked out some new fabric (pink and brown flannel). We decided to make a bag. More on that in another post.

Typical J-blowing bubbles and lots of smiles

Little E-she has incredible fashion sense, don't you think? Where does she get that style? First she just had on the princess leotard because she and MJ were dancing. Then she added the hot pink skirt. After that it was MJ's BSU hat and sweatshirt and finally she rounded it off by putting on her new horse rain boots. Project Runway, here we come!

Little J's new trick

Well, this little guy, who really isn't so little anymore is doing so much in his 7th month. He's learned to blow bubbles and likes to show off that skill a lot. Here he's showing off his new trick and doing his "boy noise" as I like to call it. It's a lot of grunting and such. He's also schooching up his buns and getting onto his knees. He's rocking back and forth and will probably be crawling within the next couple weeks. He pushes himself up to sitting from his tummy. Last night (Sunday) had decided to lower his crib mattress because that morning I had awakened to a little pounding noise. I went in to check on him and was sitting up in his crib, grinning ear to ear and pounding on the side. When I put him in it last night, he looked so little being so far down, but he immediately tried pulling up on the side! Good thing we moved it down. He'll be pulling up at it in no time I'm afraid. He has also found his voice in the last few days, making this high pitched shriek. He's moving all over the place, getting himself into whatever he wants. Time to baby proof this house. He's still just the happiest little guy around. I have made a little baby food for him and he loves it too. He's had green beans and some chicken. I still feed him some of the jarred stuff as it travels well and gives him a little more variety. He likes his oatmeal in the morning then gets a vegetable and fruit for lunch and dinner. He is also using his sippy cup much better. He had his 6-month checkup for his eye last week. They checked his vision and everything appears normal with no lazy eye. He will go back in a year. We're thankful for that good news. It's hard to believe how fast this little guy is growing. And on Friday, I found another tooth had popped through on the bottom. That makes seven teeth total that are in or have at least broken the surface! He just seems to change more and more every day.