Fun in Lake Sullivan and Lake Dylan

  No post from me yesterday as I made a visit to Crabbytown.  If you’re a woman, you understand.  I had nothing nice to say, so I chose to say nothing at all.  But that doesn’t mean we did nothing at all!  It just means that I wore this face for most of the day:We went out on Pontunia for a little cruise when Eric got done working.  Dylan had to show Eric how he can swim by himself now with no one holding onto him.  Eric was properly impressed – can you tell?

Here he is kicking his legs!  A natural swimmer for sure!  He goes underwater in the hot tub and holds his breath for quite a long time.  If only I could get him to hold still long enough to teach him to float.  I’ve tried – but he won’t stop giggling and wiggling.  Maybe next summer.
Avery came in too to see her brother swim. She wasn’t in long though because she had more important things to do – eat pretzels.  Hmmm…that cloud looks rather threatening.  It did nothing, however. I told her that she couldn’t have any more pretzels.  Looks like she’s buying it.   Wow – does she look like her Daddy or what?!  It’s the eyes, I think.  They are so expressive. 
Hmm, where did she put the pretzels??? Avery was pretty excited to get back home because of this:She didn’t want to come on the boat at first because she was having a ball in Lake Dylan before we went out. Good times in Lake Dylan!Dylan used to do this when he was Avery’s age.  Which is how this “lake” got it’s name!   I love how she has her belly thrust out here.  She’s so cute! Off to the swingset!Peekaboo! Well, that’s it for now.  We have guests coming later today, so you know I will have a lovely spread of food to photograph.  There – gives you something to look forward to!

It’s not me, it’s YOU.

  Oh what would this blog be without some pictures of my little day makers doing the things they love to do – dance and make messes.  Avery is quite the little Dancing Queen (one of her favorite tunes to do dance to).  She was showing off her mad skills for us yesterday.  Please take note of her fun outfit. She’s big into clapping her hands while she dances.  Gives her dances a little somethin’ extra.

Whats this?! A mess?!  Nooooooo.  This is a FORT.  NOT a mess.     I warn her of the danger in this stunt, but she does not care.  She did however, care, when the stunt when horribly wrong.  No one ever listens to me!  Mother knows best, people!  Listen!So we went to the grocery store yesterday.  I know, crazy.  Anyway, I finally picked up an oven thermometer to find out if my oven is on the fritz.  Turns out, I am not the one to blame for all these flops! The dang thing was off by 75 degrees!  No wonder my dang popovers weren’t popping anymore!  So of course I had to test out the thermometer and jack up the heat.  We decided to make Carrot Cake as our experiment.   The frosting was just cream cheese and agave nectar whipped together.  Turned out great!  Dylan wouldn’t know though, as he did NOT eat his dinner!  Ha ha!  He told me that tomorrow I better make something that is good so that he can try again on getting the cake.  Then he decided that if he eats all his breakfast, he can have the cake (and this is SILLY because he ALWAYS eats ALL his breakfast) then.  Oh well.  Tomorrow is another day, people.  I also made this 6 Seed Soda Bread which was also quite good.  I was a baking machine!  Eric is trying to take credit for some of these things because he is claiming that if he hadn’t come down to adjust the oven, then none of this would have been possible.  Mmmmhmmm. 

I used pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, chia seeds, hulled hemp seeds and sesame seeds in my bread.  But you can do whatever seed you prefer! 

 

Well, thats it for now.  We’ll see what kind of shenanigans we can get into tomorrow!

Finally!

  Eric is in Minneapolis working again, so the kiddies and I kept busy with home videos and yummy foods yesterday!  I love it when Avery sits down to watch tv with Dylan.  She doesn’t stay too long, so I have to act quickly!  I especially love it when he holds her hand or covers her legs with a blanket.  Such a good big brother! Most of the time, anyway. We made these homemade “Larabars” the other day that are pretty tasty!  Its supposed to taste like cookie dough, but I dunno about that.  One of the newest Larabar flavors is Chocolate Chip Cookie dough and since I haven’t run across them yet – thought we’d give these a whirl.  They are on the Peas and Thank You blog if you want to check them out for yourself. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmy. Avos is a fan!  I think she’s getting another tooth in, so she is enjoying softer foods.  These definitely fit the bill!
I’ve been slowly converting our Flip videos to DVD format and putting them on discs.  This old laptop of mine is busting at the seams with stuff on it, so I definitely need to get all this stuff off of it.  I’m also worried that it could crash at any moment and all of our videos and pictures would be lost.  Which would be a HUGE bummer.  So, I’m being proactive!  But before I can delete the videos – I have to make sure that the discs work.  Which means watching the entire DVD start to finish.  So yesterday we watched Christmas at Maple Lake 2009, Part 1.  It was pretty much awesome.  I love the man I married!  He makes me laugh both in the video and again now when I’m watching it.  I was cracking up watching these videos.  And the kids liked them too.  Dylan was mesmerized reliving his fun times with his cousins and Avery enjoyed watching her buddy (and cousin) Adelyn.  She would get so excited everytime Addi was on the screen. 
Sitting at her desk watching her silly Dad (and cousin and uncle) do pushups on tv. Dylan had to have a blankie on for proper video viewing. 

Dylan’s turn to do pushups!

I also was amused at seeing myself 7 months ago, 25 pounds heavier.  Its crazy how far you can come in just 7 months.  My sister-in-laws Kelli and Lisa are looking a lot different these days too!   And I bet everyone will look EVEN BETTER this Christmas!  Then it was time to make dinner.  So that means it was time for Avery to dismantle my kitchen, one area at a time.  First, the snack cupboard.Next up, doing the dishes!  Yeah right!  More like making my life more complicated! Dinner was awesome!  For once, it was not a FAIL!  Not that I ever think that my food is a fail, but no one else seems pleased ever.   I made baked carrot fries that were AWESOME.  Totally exceeded my expectations.  For real – I am not a huge cooked carrot fan and if I think these are awesome – then you can trust that its true.  I even think my pickiest eater (I’m talking to YOU, Mr. Wikoff) would like these.  They are GOOD.  Probably not the prettiest picture of them, but oh well.
And – FINALLY – a black bean burger I can get on board with!!  This was awesome!  And I think I figured out why I haven’t totally liked the ones I’ve made in the past.  My food processor is just too powerful!  Even if I just pulse the mixture a few times, it still ends up too “paste” like and sticky.  For these, I just lightly mashed the beans up with a fork and it seemed to work really well!  Here is the secret ingredient that made the carrot fries so tasty – Coconut Oil.  It is in a solid form, so I just melted a couple tablespoons (but I think 1 TB would suffice) in the microwave and then tossed the carrot fries in that with some S & P.  And NO, Eric, they don’t taste “coconutty.”  So you won’t be able to use that as an excuse.    So dinner was awesome last night!  I was quite pleased with myself!!  I didn’t get a beauty shot of the finished burger…so accept my apologies for this photo.  I just couldn’t NOT take a picture of it.  It was only after I started eating it that I realized that people had to know about it on the blog!  It was gooooooood.

The Carrot Fries are from Choosing Raw and Black Bean Burger is from Peas and Thank You.  Loving that site!  Her ideas are great! 

Well, thats it for today!  Later!