Oh!

You've got to love the oh face.

The scientist

Linden got a crystal making kit for Christmas and I know it's sad but we are just now getting around to making his crystals. It wasn't an easy process and required a little time spent figuring out how to do it.

Fun Friday

I had a Groupon for an indoor play place so took the kids on Friday. Here they are after playing hard.

Our next stop was the downtown police station for our police reports. It took WAY longer than it should have to get those since the system was down but we are one step closer and that's exciting!

These two

It kind of annoys me that Channing is in a diaper still but that's a whole other post. For now, I'm going to enjoy my cute kids having fun on the seesaw. :)

The nursing home

We've spent a couple of Mondays getting ready to go to the nursing home. We made cookies (and froze them) and paper flowers. Then on Thursday we wrapped up the cookies and made our way to the nursing home close to our house. We had a couple of names of people from church who we stopped by and said hi to but other than that we just knocked on doors and passed out our goodies. I would say it was a success. It taught our children to think about someone else other than ourselves and maybe got them out of their comfort zone a little meeting older people who they don't see often.

Here is Channing wrapping cookies. I have a picture from my phone but I'll have to get it on here later.

She makes a cute Davy Crockett

Treat Tuesday -Peach Cobbler

What to do with a ton of Fredericksburg peaches I got on the side of the road that I got for a discount because it was the LAST box for the year and they where beaten up? Make peach cobbler of course!

I told the boys making peach cobbler was a labor of love and I think they might have agreed after making it together.

First step, put the peaches in boiling water and then put them in ice cold water to stop them from cooking. This makes it easy to remove the peel.

Photos courtesy of Hadley.

Linden was the fastest peach peeler. I could hardly keep up with the chopping when he was peeling.

The boys deserted me for this step.

But came back for the dough making. Oh yes we are making homemade crust.

It was pretty good even though I don't have a picture of the finished product. In case you need a recipe here you go:

Ingredients
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup shortening
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup cold water
•
• 3 pounds fresh peaches - peeled, pitted and sliced
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 3/4 cup orange juice
• 1/2 cup butter
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
•
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter, melted
Directions
1. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, 3 tablespoons sugar, and salt. Work in the shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and cold water. Sprinkle over flour mixture, and work with hands to form dough into a ball. Chill 30 minutes.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Roll out half of dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Place in a 9x13 inch baking dish, covering bottom and halfway up sides. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
3. In a large saucepan, mix the peaches, lemon juice, and orange juice. Add 1/2 cup butter, and cook over medium-low heat until butter is melted. In a mixing bowl, stir together 2 cups sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cornstarch; mix into peach mixture. Remove from heat, and pour into baked crust.
4. Roll remaining dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch. Cut into half-inch-wide strips. Weave strips into a lattice over peaches. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar, and drizzle with 1 tablespoon melted butter.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until top crust is golden brown

A few changes, I used a 1/2 cup of shortening and the remaining amount was butter. I used approxiamtely 4lbs of peaches-as far as I'm concerned, you can never use enough fruit in pies. I used 1/4c lemon juice and 1/4 c orange juice

Not yet.

Linden dressed Channing up in this flower wreath and boa and told Channing she looked like she was getting married. Not so much, but she did like the way she looked. :)

I had been looking at my yellowing veil in the closet and pulled it out just because... I texted a picture to Stefan and he said he didn't even want to think about it. We are going to blink though and mabye I'll be putting this picture in her wedding video but it probably won't be cool because it won't be 3D. Ha!

Forts.

They never get old. The best part about this one was that after they were done, they put it all away themselves. The boys did get real creative and actually put their lamps in it.

Channing refused to be in the picture, grump!

Gibson had fun playing upstairs with them too.

I did get some uninteruppted time downstairs while they were all upstairs playing well. I cherish the moments when they all play together.

Before you go assuming I was watching my soaps and eating bon-bons I can almost guarantee I was loading the dishwasher, starting laundry or some other various chore it takes to keep this family going.

No offense, because I remember it was hard, but what DID I do with all the time I had before there were 4 of them?

Summer list

We have a bunch of randomness on our summer list and one of the things on our list was to make waffles. What better way to top a waffle in summertime than with some Fredericksburg peaches.

I'm back

I had left Tuesday afternoon for the NAUMS conference and got back late Friday night. The remote I had ordered for my camera had come in while I was gone. I got it out on Saturday to play with it a little and see how it works. I'm not the only one who wanted to play with it.

I have about 15 pictures exactly like this one. :)

Since we were in Dallas...

Sarah and I did a photography workshop. We made a little money to help pay for our conference and got to meet some amazing ladies. We had a great workshop. Here we are practicing how to shoot in manual.

Our teachers

Somehow as photographers Sarah and I are not good at taking pictures of ourselves. We spent three days together at a NAUMS conference and this is the only picture I took while we were there, sad, I know!

It is a picture of our sweet teachers and adminstrators at Summit so I'm including it. We got to know these women (and man) a lot better after spending a few days with them. That alone made our conference worth it.

RAIN!

When we are in the middle of the worst drought ever, we'll be happy to let our kids play in the rain, even if we have company.

I love my husband!

One of the benefits of suffering through many a picture taking session with our kids is that when a professional picture is needed, it's easy to do.

Bonus: You don't have to change our of your shorts.

That's a lot of kids

I think this may be our first picture with all our kids so far. :)

In our picture room

Linden got a book full of faces for his birthday and all you have to do is draw the eyes and such. Linden worked on this picture and decided it was a picture of our baby. I told him I loved it so much and wanted to keep it. I asked where we should put it and he said the picture room. It deserves a place of honor with the rest of the pictures of our babies.

Toothbrushes

Shut your bathroom doors, because this boy loves toothbrushes. It doesn't matter whose they are. This was Hadley's.

I have to be honest, I'm not even sure I rinsed it off.

Two-fer

We tried to combine meaningful Monday and Treat Tuesday together. We worked at making cookies to take to a nursing home nearby. Bonus, using the cookie scoops was good for the hand eye coordination.

The radio

Since Hadley found the radio and carried around and we only had one you had to know there would be battles about it. This day the big boys were gone to Six Flags with Gary and Vicki and so she had the radio all to herself. She was pretty excited but when the batteries ran out, I didn't replace them.

The adventure.

We had lots of pictures which I'll probably post on the other blog but this might give you an idea about the kind of adventure we had.

Seems like a good idea

I talked Sarah into joining us for Fun Friday. Laugh now. I worked hard trying to figure out geocaching but didn't quite have it all figured out before we left so we litereally walked around searching through brush in 110 degree heat. Sarah stayed with Gibson and Mathis in the strollers while I prayed the others didn't get bit by a rattlesnake searching for some unknown container.

Here we are searching.

Brooks found it!

These two, goodness they are cute.

Let me say it again

Stefan is such a superstar. My work out watch was saying that I needed a new battery for the transmitter. I took the transmitter in and the guy said he couldn't switch the battery because there wasn't a screw to even open it and put a new battery in. It looked like my only option was sending it in to the manufacturer and it was looking like it would cost around $75 to get the transmitter battery replaced. WHAT a rip!

Stefan got online, did a little surgery and replaced the battery. Love this man!

Bummer

Stefan went out to mow the lawn at 8 Saturday morning at 10 I was leaving to go to a baby shower and saw something on the ground. I looked up and saw this.

We could NOT figure out how it happend. My car was parked in the garage, there was nothing in the back even though it looked like something had been thrown through the window.

I called the glass company and was complaining about having to pay for a window without knowing how it happened. The lady at the glass company said that they are always busy this time of year from lawnmowers and weed eaters breaking glass. She said it doesn't even have to be a big rock but it can scrape the glass and shatter the glass. That stinks. Especially because I had to drive the beast around for a week while we waited to get it fixed. More on that later.

Decorating the trees

I bet you have all the stuff for this craft. We used clear packing tape and tissue paper. I cut up little pieces of tissue paper, sprinkled it on the tape then covered it with another piece of tape. Ideally the streamers would be longer but I didn't have enough tape so we hung it in the tree with string.