Lisa and John

Our dinner conversation tonight:

Ivan: (eating his soup)  I’m only going to eat the broth.

Calvin:  Broth…  That sounds kind of like “bra”.  Like, your bra, Mom!  Except it has a “th” on the end.  Bra-th.

Avalon celebrated her FIRST Thanksgiving!  We were invited to dinner at the Gove and Nickie Allen Home and it was fabulous.

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Avalon met ShingShing from Shanghai, China.  They were instant friends.  ShingShing is only 6 months and seemed a LOT bigger than Avvy.

Gove and his mother.  Boy!  Was that turkey delicious.  He smoked a free range turkey and the spices and everything were divine.

Not the most flattering picture of Nickie, but they were most gracious hosts.

OrangeBeard enjoying some yams and Gove’s mashed potatoes.

(Butter, sour cream, cream cheese, and who knows what else were in those heavenly mashed potatoes.  Gove made enough for an army in his huge Hobart Mixer.  Avalon snarffed and may never go back to regular ol’ potatoes.  She kept eating and eating and eating….)

Gove’s mother is serving a mission at the humanitarian center in Salt Lake.  Very cool!

The “Kids Table”

What a special time of the year.  I love Thanksgiving!

Children, what are you thankful for?

Calvin:  Mom and Dad

Ivan:  A baby and Candy and Food

Reed:  Christmas and Cars and Bumper Cars

Avalon:  No comment

I am grateful for my sweet husband, my home, my children, the gospel, my blog, my computer, my bed, good friends, food, heat, clothing, and so much more.  How blessed I feel!

My friend, Flora, has a son who works at a local dairy in some capacity.  The dairy had an excess amount of whipping cream and so Flora got many, many GALLONS of cream.  This happens every now and then and she says she makes butter with it.  Cool!  She asks me if I want some gallons of cream.  She is willing to teach me how to make butter in my Bosch.  I tell her that I would love two gallons.  She says, oh no!  Take four!  So, I ended up with FOUR GALLONS of cream.  She taught me how and it was soooo fun.  I loved it.

First, you pour 1/2 gallon of cream into your Bosch.  You can add salt now or later.  You put on the lid and turn it on to number 2.

Pretty soon, it turns to whipped cream.  You can sweeten it, add vanilla, and then freeze the whipped cream if you want.  I kept going, though.  You need to scrap the sides every now and then.

After about eight minutes, it breaks down into to butter and buttermilk.  You will hear the Bosch lower its gears ever so slightly.

Then, you scoop out the mixture into a colander with another bowl under it (to collect the buttermilk.)  You pick up a handful and start squeezing and kneading the butter.  When you get all or most of the liquid out, you are done.

Here I am squishing my butter!  It works better if your hands are cold.  If they are warm, the butter starts to melt a little and your hands get messy.  Yes, Avalon is asleep on my back.  She looks like she has a bit of whiplash, huh?  She is at that lovely stage where I can’t put her down because she finds every little speck of dirt, fuzz, leaf, dead food on the floor and puts it ALL into her mouth.  I look forward to her learning how to walk so she is off the ground and not putting so much into her mouth.  I think this day she spent about six hours on my back total.  Now, that is a work out!

Here are my little blobs of butter.  (Please no comments on what they look like.)  I then wrapped the butter in waxed paper and put them in a container in the freezer.  I take them out as needed.  It is way yummy and so cool to make your own butter.

With one batch, I didn’t add any salt and I made GHEE with my butter.  Ghee is clarified butter that I use for my Indian cooking.  Look how bright yellow my ghee turned out!!  I guess I better go make some dal.

I’m feeling so domestic.  Bring on the cow!!

Last week my friend, Lilly H. was in town visiting from Mesa, Arizona.  She came up here because her son is ill, so that isn’t a good thing.  But, I got to visit with her and it was lovely.  I’m so glad she is my friend.

Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers

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My kids LOVE tongue twisters.  Today at lunch we were reviewing our favorites.

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A skunk sat on a stump.

The stump thunk the skunk stunk.

The skunk thunk the stump stunk.

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She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

She sells sea shells by the sea shore.

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And, the hardest one of all:

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Coal oil in the toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat, toy boat….

My!  How time flies!  Avalon turned 8 months today and I’m not sure where the time has gone!  Pretty soon she’ll be one and the next thing I know she’ll be getting married!

To celebrate her 8 months on earth, she clapped for the first  time TODAY!!  We tried to get it on video, but she wouldn’t repeat it just yet.  It was very, very cute!

 She crawled under this chair and we all got a great kick out of it.  She smiled and looked cute for a few minutes, then she realized that she couldn’t get out.  I forgot to take a picture of the tears, that would have been fun to share.

We love our little Avalon!

So, we recently joined a home schooling support group here in our area and Diane Hopkins happens to be the leader who gets us all going.  Diane owns a great company that has helped many home schooling families for many years.  She sells tons of cool educational stuff, toys, etc.  Her website is Love to Learn  I just so happened to buy a lot of my Christmas stuff last year from her website.

Well, now that we are in the same support group, we are friends.  Homeschooling Friends, to be exact.  She has a blog and newsletter that she sends out to probably thousands of people throughout the country.  She commented about learning how to knit at her Friday Fun Classes.  Your’s Truly (Me) got her into knitting.  Check out her BLOG and read about what I’ve started.  Ha!  The funny thing is that I didn’t really teach her.  She taught herself by watching online videos. We knit completely different.  She does Continental style and I do English style.  (I think I like her way better!)  And, so I have taught her a few things and she has taught me a few things.  It is so fun!

Do her wash cloths look familiar???  I love knitting!