My Two Front Teeth....

All I want for Christmas is........

Halloween 2012

In August the kids asked me what they were going to be for Halloween. They still don't realize that they could pick something out themselves and not match their brothers. So I took advantage of their innocence and dressed them alike. I am positive that this will be the last year that that flies. I made the costumes and they turned out great. I even made ones for John and I! I think that the kids even ended up getting more candy because they were dressed alike. Score. 

It was cold, but they had a blast!

Halloween Prep

We have been busy getting ready for Halloween. Even though it was chilly on Saturday morning we turned on the garage heater and carved our pumpkins in complete comfort. By the time we were finished it had warmed up a bit outside and the kids enjoyed finding the perfect spot to display their masterpieces.

For Sale

How could you not buy?!?!?

7 Years Old!

Now that we have a seven-year-old living here things are totally different....

Seven-year-olds can hold the whole world in their hands!

They own their own cameras!

They pick out AWESOME double brownie explosion Culvers ice cream cakes!

Seven-year-olds are amazing!

First Day of School 2012

Everybody started school this week. Things were a bit rocky. On the positive side, everybody likes their teachers. They love riding the bus. They come home full of excitement and enthusiasm. On the negative side, Wyatt went to school 1 day this week and has been home sick with a fever ever since. Shane is still a little clingy and cries when he gets dropped off. Jonah and Sam got in trouble for standing and walking around on the bus and I still hardly had any time to myself this week!

It can only get better right?

The Ledges

 We visited the Fossil Ledges on Drummond Island today. It was the first time that any of us had visited the ledges, but it definitely will not be the last! The rocks, full of fossils, were amazing and beautiful and we could barely make ourselves go home. All I can say is wow!

Teddy Bear Club v. 2.0

When I was a kid we went to Drummond Island every summer. We always made friends with any kids that came and stayed at the resort next door. One summer we met two sisters... Doris and Heidi. They were great and we all became inseparable. We decided to form a club and named it the Teddy Bear Club. The Teddy Bear Club needed a headquarters, so we stole some wood from the neighbor next door, went out into the woods, and built a fort. It was pretty sweet! Especially since it was built by 4 girls!

This week we are up on Drummond Island and I decided to take the boys out into the woods to see if our old fort was still standing. It was still there...in rough shape, but I could still picture what it looked like when we were kids. We found an old slingshot that Grandpa made for us, a marker, a toolbox with some toilet paper, an old cooking pot, and a no trespassing sign. The kids were fascinated with my old fort and wanted to fix it back up so that they could use it. But there were broken boards everywhere, rusty nails on the ground, and one of the trees from the original fort was dead.

So we decided to build a new fort. We decided that, for the sake of history, we should build it close enough to the original fort that you can see the old one from the new one. In the picture below you can see the old fort in the background to the right.

We spent $30 on wood this time instead of stealing our materials. We also built it up in a tree this time and our design was a little more sophisticated than our first one. It was a lot of fun to build and the kids are super excited. I am hoping that they make some great memories in their new fort and look back on them fondly

thirty years from now....just like I do!

Nature's Bounty

We have been busy canning tomatoes. 

I taught the boys how to remove the seeds from tomatoes and that has helped speed up the process a lot.

 It also means that when I am done canning I don't have to go to another room in the house and clean up a huge mess that they created while I cleaned tomatoes! Win...win! 

Shane likes to make zucchini bread with me...even though he can't eat it because of the milk and eggs.

I did our last picking of beans and froze them. We ended up with 30 pint bags! It will be so nice to have fresh beans from our garden in the middle of next winter

 Our corn is growing and we are looking forward to eating it fresh from the garden. In the meantime it provides a nice background for pictures of  the boys!

Picking Away

Our garden has really taken off and become quite a sight to behold. We have never had a garden do so well before! Our gardens with Fred were good, but this garden is amazing! We did not fence it in and have only had one issue with a rogue rabbit that ate some soybean plants. He was relocated and things have been great on the pest front ever since. We also have had very little infestation with beetles and bugs like we did at Fred's place. We have had to spray things 2 times so far, but it worked overnight and things improved quickly. Our first tomatoes that came ripe had some sort of rot on the bottom of them, but we added calcium to the soil and everything has been fine ever since. 

When John and I sat down and planned our garden out in March we planned some things really well, and others...not so much. We picked out our crops and decided what should go where. Then we figured out the row spacing and based that on the width of the rototiller that we planned to buy. We figured that we could keep the weeds in check using a rototiller between rows if we planted accordingly. It worked out well and we have been able to keep the weeds down using the rototiller with only a little hand weeding here and there.We scouted out the best prices on seeds and plants and planted everything right around Mother's Day. Almost a month later the plants looked only ok. They were not dying, but they were not thriving either. 

Then we went out and got a soil testing kit. It turned out that our soil pH was way off and our soil macronutrients were all low. Nitrogen was so low that it didnt ever register on the test! We added everything that we needed to add to get the soil nice and healthy for growing and things improved. However, it would have been soooo much easier if we had the foresight to check the soil conditions BEFORE planting! DUH! Lesson learned!

We have been picking stuff daily from the garden. We have picked so many beans that we are begging people to take them now! We have come up with lots of new recipes using our veggies too! We learned that you can grill green beans on tin foil with a little olive oil and garlic.I also have a great recipe for chocolate zucchini bread that the kids think is to die for! We have made fresh salsa using our own cilantro and jalapeno peppers 3 times so far this summer and it is amazing! Tonight I made basil pesto to go with the tomatoes that we picked for dinner, but the kids ate all of the tomatoes before I got any so I put it on tortilla chips. I am going to try and make some yellow squash baked chips tomorrow and see how those taste! Our cucumbers are pickling types so they are small and the kids usually eat those before we can use them in anything fancy. We have some soybeans that are growing and we are looking forward to the edamame, but soybeans take 100 days to mature so it will still be a while. 

We also have sweet corn growing. We planted it late, but it will be fun to eat it right after picking! Wyatt, who has never been a corn eater, has learned to like fresh corn on the cob since we moved to Wisconsin! 

I also bought 12 strawberry plants on sale for 50 cents each at the end of June and they all have flowers on them right now, so we may have a late season berry crop this summer! Our rhubarb plants (all 10 of them) look good so far. The shock of transplanting most of them from Michigan didn't appear to affect them long term so we are thrilled! 

We have close to 40 tomato plants and they all look healthy, so the kids and I went out last week and stocked up on canning jars and lids that were on sale! We are planning on canning stewed tomatoes and Grandma wants some salsa. I also have a great recipe for tomato jam that I used to make for Fred back in grad school! Roll up your sleeves kids...canning 101 is about to begin!

True U-per

Shane is loving his third year on DI!

Drummond Island 2012

We have been on Drummond Island for the last week. We are loving the warm weather and the unseasonably warm water in our bay. We have been swimming, tubing, skiing, fishing, biking, four wheeling, frog and turtle hunting, rock hunting, and enjoying all of the sights and adventures that are part of Drummond Island in July.

Fishing

John and the boys have figured out the walleyes. They have been fishing almost every weekend and haven't been skunked yet! We have been eating fish at least once a week lately! Yummy!