Painting Bliss

Love those Critters! :)

I'm sitting here with a total blank, I want to write today but I don't know what to say. I figured if I just started typing something might come to me. I should be making phone calls. Dentist, chiropractor, eye doctor... I detest making phone calls. So, here I sit.

The critters are busy playing with legos this morning. Big surprise there :) I don't think any of us are used to the cold yet. We save our outdoor excursions for when the sun comes out in the late morning of afternoon. We won't have that option pretty soon lol. It will have to be into the freeze or not at all. With two little boys the not-at-all option doesn't fly. Even if they think they want to stay in they''ll fight like cats and dogs if we don't get out daily.

This one is always singing :)

I love how Critter #1 loves to talk and think and analyze. He's sooooo much like his papa. In fact the papa's mama gets a big kick out of him because he reminds her so much of her son hee hee. I have a question for you mamas who may read this. Does anyone have a perfectionist child who can't stand to do anything he/she can't do perfectly? How do you help them get past this so they can learn new things, like reading or drawing or anything? If he gets one little squiggle on a drawing or a letter he cries, scribbles it out, throws the page away... We are not trying to get him to write or anything but just with drawing or painting or anything like that he tries. I want to teach him to keep trying and that he wouldn't have to learn if he already knew how.

Critter #2 wants to learn EVERYTHING. And he does literally mean everything. Big brother's response to this is "That's going to take a LONG time buddy". Ha Ha. He wants to be "every kind of worker" when he grows up and "work all day until I am tired" then come home. I asked him recently if he would rather have dance classes, karate, or tumbling(gymnastics). He said "dance and karate and tumbling". I told him he had to pick one to start with because we wouldn't be able to get all the classes at once. He chose karate. Later that day he found a pair of slacks in a box of clothes I pulled down for him. He came running out of the bedroom and told me he was putting them in his drawer to save for dance class...

The other evening I came out of the bathroom to find this...

Which quickly became this...

October Scenery

Rambling...

I can't believe how long this cold is lasting! Yuck!! I guess two weeks is supposed to be a normal time span for a cold, but it's criminal if you ask me:(

The boys are feeling better finally, it's nice to hear playing instead of crying:) It's hard to coax them outside though. Could it have something to do with the fact that mama just wants to lie on the couch? Legos have been the chief entertainment this week. That and playing chipmunks. The boys will take the plastic file boxes stacked in a corner of the bedroom and stick them under their queen-size mattress. Instant chipmunk den LOL! If they can talk Papa into being a wolf for a few minutes all the better.

I really want to get to posting my October photos. Soon.

Needless to say with Mamas sore throat we haven't done much reading the past almost two weeks. Our creation science study has been mostly on hold. We did read about truffles and ectomycorrhizal fungi :) and about dinosaur fossils in relation to the flood. But, mostly it's been legos...

Belatedly--my little bro and I had a really great time going to the mall in the next town for the Motiv8 Christian fantasy authors tour. I decided not to be a geek and left my camera at home. Then I wished I had been a geek and just brought the stupid thing LOL I love having pics of Everything (except me). I was feeling just well enough to not hesitate to go, but the kids were finally getting whiny after having colds for three days and I was glad to get a little mama time. But, typically, as soon as the sword fighting started I wished my munchkins could be there to see it LOL. :)

Oh, my photography class was fine. I drove in circles for twenty minutes after taking a wrong turn. Yeah. Fun. I walked into class only about two minutes late. We will be meeting outdoors for the next two classes. This is when I think I will get what I need out of the class, when I ask questions about the manual focus on my camera:) I'll let you know how it turns out.

I'm looking forward to our soup and (homemade) donut party in a couple weeks. We did this last fall and had a blast. Everyone brought either a crock pot full of soup or homemade donut dough and we used deep fryers meant for frying turkeys (lol) to fry the donuts (outside!). It was a blast all around.

Anyway, I'm going to go wash some crusty pots and pans, and then hopefully curl up on the couch again...

Pretty Pictures 2

Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE photographs? LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!! :) First a couple pics of my sweeties enjoying the swimming pool (back at the beginning of September, can you tell the water's a little too cold? Nobody's actually IN the water, hee hee).


Then a few of my fav plant (and insect) pics. I'm working on a set of "October" pics, but I haven't got all I want yet due to having a cold :( Also I have my first photography class tomorrow. That may slow things down too, or it may help, as it's an outdoor class.


Anyway, enjoy :)

Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Cookie Recipe

Here's that cookie recipe (see previous post). It was our second day of the first autumn rain and we really needed some cookies! So I went into the kitchen to play around. I started out with a flour-less pb cookie recipe. I had come across a comment by someone who said they'd successfully made a similar recipe with honey (I'd post the link, but apparently I've been doing that wrong as my other links don't work, I'll try to get that figured out soon)

Long story short--there was no way this was going to work with honey and egg-replacer, so I messed around til I got a nice feeling dough. They came out beautifully, Yay!

I used the Featherlight rice flour mix from The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread by Bette Hagman.


So that's what I pulled out of my pantry when I was messin around.

Peanut Butter Cookies

1c peanut butter (your choice crunchy or creamy, natural brand)
1/2c honey
2T warm water
1T EnerG brand egg-replacer
1t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
2T sweet rice flour
3/4c featherlight mix

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium mixing bowl mix peanut butter and honey.

In a separate bowl mix egg-replacer, baking powder, and baking soda. Add warm water and whisk well. Add to the peanut butter mixture and mix well.

Add flours to bowl and mix.
If you like add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips to the batter. (here you usually have a choice of gluten-free or sugar-free but not both, sadly)

Scoop out rounded tablespoons and roll into balls. Flatten gently with a fork to make the crisscross pattern. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Let cool and enjoy.


Hopefully I've remembered everything. I don't have much practice writing recipes for other folks to follow, the notes I leave for myself are rather sketchy at times lol:)

Sweet Success!

A gluten-, egg-, and sugar-free cookie that is not crumbly! It tastes great and has a wonderful texture, yippee!! I don't think I've ever made a cookie with honey that was not crumbly, even in our pre-gluten-free days:) Until now:)

School and Play

Yesterday morning for school we read several pages out of a wonderful book called "Unlocking the Mysteries of Creation". Over the weekend I asked Critter #1 to pick an insect or animal to study this week. He wrinkled his nose and said "But I don't want to study an insect or animal".

"OK," I said, "what do you want to learn about?"

After a moment of thought came this reply--"While I'm deciding what I want to learn about could you explain to me why people came up with evolution and what that is all about?"

So, creation science it is, lol! He is so far delighted with this book. We went quickly over the six days of creation, a little bit about water, and a little bit about atoms. He was especially fascinated by the description of how all the positive protons in an atom stick close to the nucleus. He is familiar with the concept of like charges repelling one another because he loves magnets. :)

He snorted loudly when I explained (from the book) that some scientists have decided there must invisible particles called gluons that hold the protons together.
"... all things were created by Him and for Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." Colossians 1:16, 17

In the afternoon we spread a blanket behing the house and read some out of our Wildlife Habitats book. We decided we should make a small pile of brush in the "snakey woods" for the rabbits and mice, and a stump-top birdfeeder should be made before winter.

Then we went to find some grapes, then the boys played contentedly with mud they had made the day before until it was time to go inside.

One day, Critter #2 was out front by himself(I think brother was visiting grandma for a bit). I came out to check on him and found him hard at work, stacking these old shingles.

One day the boys needed an occupation while I worked on a complicated meal in our crowded, cluttered, half finished(speaking generously) kitchen. I assigned Critter #1 a pretend salad...

And Critter #2 a pretend soup... They were very creative and had a great time:)

It was so cute I caught them all staring at the flat tire lol! (That's one of my nieces with Critter#2 in the trailer).

My favorite scenes from my birthday dinner...

Lovin' it all :)