You Call this R&R?

This morning I got thinking of things coming up and decided to ask the family if they'd like to go hiking over at Devil's Lake, Baraboo WI?  We figured that it had been about 10 years since we've ventured over there.  During our drive over we picked up munchies and drinks, at this time the mood was upbeat and full of laughter.  Little did any of us know what was in store for us.

 

The day was beautiful, a little humid but under the coolness of the trees it felt perfect.  So on our hike we went.  Climbing up and up and up.  Mom, Dad and 8 kids in tow.  

We kept climbing up until we saw this...

To the right you can see the brown building where we started out.  After sitting there a while we noticed a pair of bald eagles flying around...how cool was that?  That was something none of us have ever seen before.  Then it was onto the rest of the trail.  We wanted to circle around the whole lake.  So we moved on...right on off the path and into a patch of poison ivy.  Luckily no one was affected.  We were standing right out in the middle of no where.  Mark walked away and found that we were 300' off the path.  That's what happens when everyone just follows the front person.  As the old saying goes "what goes up must come down"...down happen to be a path straight down some tumbled rocks and a waterfall. 

We gingerly made our way down this...every step was thought out.  Then we hear the lead person yell, "I see the bottom"...that was music to our ears.  We never felt so good about walking on flat land.  We climbed up 334' and had to come down 334'...all in this one path. 

This is what we see at the bottom. Beautiful, flat marked out paths!!! At this point we aren't half way yet...but the rest of the hike is FLAT!!!

So we continued on our way. 

This was the rest of the hike, in and around boulders.  All in all...great day.  Hiked over 3 miles and it took 3 hours and 15 minutes.  By the end it was more like 8 kids with mom and dad in tow.  LOL  Now we are talking about taking grandma and grandpa along and spend 2 days.

Cherry Pie Filling

Earlier this past spring I picked up an Amish cookbook.  I'm always a little skeptical about their recipes because if they are anything like me you cook with a "little of this and a little of that".  Sometimes the recipes need to be tweaked just a little to get them to actually turn out.  This recipe for Cherry Pie Filling turned out great!!!  I decreased the sugar and that's all I did to it.

It's easiest to start off with sending out the kids to pick the cherries and pit them.  :)  They actually enjoyed this job because it wasn't strawberries.

Karlie (6) and Livi (3) enjoyed pitting the cherries that their big sisters picked.  

I'm sure you want this recipe.

Cherry Pie filling

8c. tart cherries (pitted)

3c. sugar

Mix and let set overnight.  The next day, drain the juice (set the cherries aside) and add enough water to the juice to make 8 cups.  Bring to a boil.

Combine:

1 1/2 c. perma-flo 

3c. of sugar (this is the sugar I omitted)

Add enough water to make a thin paste.  Slowly add to boiling water/juice.  Stir briskly.  Cook for 5 mintues on low heat.

Then add:

cherries

1/8 c. cherry jello (I didn't add this because it was plenty thick enough)

1 tsp. almond flavoring

Put in jars and process for 10 minutes.  Yield 4 quarts

You might at this point be asking..."where can I get perma-flo?"  I buy mine from the Amish.  It is equivalent to corn starch but CS tends to separate after it cools.  Clear-jel would also work but is tricky to work with.  clear jel cook type I highly recommend you to stay away from the instant clear jel...it thickens up very quickly and is difficult to work with.  The link I provided is a source for the cook type of clear jel.  It is much easier to use.  Have fun and happy canning.

Another Interview

Please go to this blog to enter  http://stunningannak.blogspot.com/

 Thanks Anna for a great interview!

Country Soaps by Marlene Giveaway

Drum Roll Please...

I am very excited to announce my very first sponsored giveaway:
countrysoapsbymarlen

Marlene is the mastermind behind countrysoapsbymarlen and she is a wonderful woman who is very talented when it comes to her goat's milk products. Not only are her products beautiful, but they are functional, fairly priced, and made with great attention to detail.


^ Berries & Pears Goats Milk Soap

Marlene is the very busy mother of 11 children, (some of their adventures are shared on her blog, http://thegrahnhomestead.blogspot.com/). She stumbled upon goat's milk products when some of her children got into raising goats - which produced a lot of milk. This caused Marlene and her children to become very creative making cheese, ice cream, yogurt, and now beautiful soap and bath products. Marlene and her family create and test the products themselves which are made of 100% goat's milk.

^ Cucumber Mint Shampoo Bar

countrysoapsbymarlen is becoming quite a successful little shop. Bar soaps are the most popular item in stock and there are a multitude of fragrances. I got really excited when I found the soap of the month club. For either 6 or 12 months Marlene will send you a new bar of soap, this also includes one wooden soap dish.

^ Unscented Body Lotion

Marlene is an Etsy shop owner who is very committed to her craft and pleasing her customers. She finds inspiration in comments and suggestions that she receives. Etsy has been a challenge for her as it is for many, now a shop with over 300 sales, it took countrysoapsbymarle 8 months to make her first Etsy sale! Now she is a frequent vendor at Farmer's Markets and she may soon have her products featured in local WI stores!

^ Soap of the Month Club - for 6 Months!

Now that you've learned a little something about countrysoapsbymarle I'm guessing you really want to be her friend, oh! and you probably want to try some of her products. Well, here's your chance!

For your chance to win $15 to countrysoapsbymarle this is what you can do:
There are 6 chances to enter:

1) Go to countrysoapsbymarle and pick out your favorite item, heart it, then post the item here.
2) Give Marlene's shop a heart, post that you did so here.
3) Tweet about this giveaway and Marlene's lovely shop, post link to tweet here.
4) Blog about this giveaway, post link to blog post here.
5) Follow this blog, mention in post.
6) Purchase from Marlene's shop, receive awesome wedding favor free gift with purchase, and post link for transaction here.

This giveaway will begin at 8 am 6/7/2010 and will end on 6/13/2010 at 8 pm. The winner will chosen from a random number generator and will be announced in a post Sunday evening.

Life is always teaching us

     Living in a house with homeschoolers means research...if we don't know something, we look it up.  Throw a wedding at us...you guessed it, we researched.  We've attended weddings, stood up in them but never had a child get married. 
     Then the subject of hair comes up. What do we do?  Our girls all have long hair and they are satisfied putting it up in a ponytail.  We've tried flat irons, hot rollers, curling irons...you name it, we've tried it.  One thing we learned real fast, each of the girls hair responds differently.  After googling wedding hair do's and watching rosebud on youtube we think we have it figured out.

     The girls played around yesterday and these are the results.
   To the right is Hannah.  She will be on of the bridesmaids.  Her hair is very straight and stubborn.  We tried more stuff on her hair and within 30 minutes it was gone.  The curls would fall out that fast.  The kids googled and found directions on how to do this style.  It stayed all day and even through chores!!!  SCORE!!!  We were very excited.

To the left is Heather, another bridesmaid.  Her hair is thick and has natural curl.  A few weeks back I layered her hair to help thin it somewhat.  We still weren't real sure what to do.  The girls did the same thing as they did to Hannah.  Another style that held during chores!!!  This was a classy farm last night with the girls doing chores with their up-dos.  LOL

To the right is Emily, one of the guest book attendants.  She is the one that started this whole up-do thing.  Her hair is extremely thick and long.  Hearing the forecast of 85 degrees and humid she wanted her hair up off her neck. 

Now you maybe looking at Angie's hair wondering what we did or what you are looking at.  She is another guest book attendant and wants to be different from her twin sister Emily.  We dyed her hair, I cut it and layered it.  She has a nice natural wave that does anything she wants it to do.  Angie has decided to leave her hair down, again being different than Emily.  :)  We will be using the flat iron to put gentle curls in her hair.



Now you are probably wondering how these up-dos were done.  The girls used the flat iron to put curls all over the whole head.  Next, they gently put it into a ponytail.  Then they used bobby pins to place the curls where they wanted.  The final step was to use hair spray. 

Hannah's Graduation Party

Great times, great food, great weather...what more would you like? 

Hannah and her cake.  It was suppose to be maroon frosting...looks brown to us.

The kids decorating the garage.

We had plenty to drink and eat.  The sad part is, we didn't get any pictures of the food. 

Then the people came and came and came.  The party went from 1 in the afternoon till 11 that night. 

Angela, Emily and Aimee worked on 3 scrapbooks that people enjoyed looking through during the day.  They also put together a bulletin board with Hannah's awards and acceptance letters.

This is what we all felt like by the end of the day...Olivia fell asleep on Heather's shoulder.

Homemade buns/bread

I'm going to explain how I make buns/bread in very simple terms and I challenge you to give it a try.

Recipe:
This will make 4 loaves of bread or 36 hamburger buns roughly.  I use a bosch mixer.  If you use a kitchen aid please cut this recipe in half.  Don't want to over work the kitchen aid.
Start by putting 4 cups of milk in the microwave and heat for 4 minutes.  Once heated, pour into your mixer bowl.  Add 1 stick of butter.  You can actually use any oil you want just as long as it equals 1/2 cup.  Now put 2-4 cups of flour. If you'd like to put oatmeal in your bread/buns put that in place of the flour.  Add 1/2 c. of sugar, honey, molasses or whatever you like to use.  Now add 4 T. of yeast.  Don't put the yeast right on the hot milk, you'll kill it.  That's why I'll add some flour or oatmeal to help cool the milk down a bit. Mix for just a minute or so and walk away.  Now is the time were you go and chat on facebook, your favorite etsy thread or maybe label some soap as I've been known to do.  Let the yeast come alive for about 30 minutes.
Start the mixer going, add 4 eggs.  Slowly add more flour.  Notice I don't say how much, it really depends on your weather.  You'll go through 12-16 cups for the whole recipe.  But add slowly.  All of a sudden you'll notice the sides of your bowl coming clean...STOP ADDING FLOUR!!!  Let everything rest for a while.  You don't want to add too much flour because you'll end up with bricks...trust me I know.  Walk away again, label more soap or chat some more.  Again, depending on the weather your dough might rise quick or slow.  Depending on how your dough feels and looks after walking away, you might need to add more flour.  Start the mixer back up to punch down.  Now you can shape into 4 loaves or 36 buns.  To make the buns, make sure you really squish the dough down to about 1/2 " when shaping...you don't want buns to look like balls when they come out of the oven.

Please excuse the messy counter top...I've been busy today.  These buns are about 1/2 way through rising.

This is how they look after baking for 23 minutes at 350 degrees.  If you are making bread bake for 30-35 minutes at 350 degrees.
LOL...you can see soap in the background that I was working on labeling while doing these buns.
Stay tuned for a special gut scrubber variation.  My kids call it that because I'll use freshly ground whole grains.  :) 

Getting ready for our first wedding

We've been scrambling around trying to get ready for a graduation party and wedding...only 12 days apart, not easy.  These pictures are sneak previews as to what's to come June 12.

Hannah and Heather in their bridesmaids dresses.  Heather is going to kill me for this picture...LOL  We needed to hem them so they put them on quick. 

My skirt and jacket I made myself.  This was before I took it in to get pressed.

These buttons I got from I Need Closure  She custom made them for me and this occasion.  I'm so proud of them.

 The wedding favors are done!!!

The front of Karlie's flower girl dress.  I made this one too.  I'm not really happy with how it turned out but the booboo's no one will see.  I covered them up.  :)

The back of the dress.