Pancake Syrup

3My family goes through a lot of pancake syrup - especially in the winter!  Buying syrup at the store adds up, so when I ran across this recipe for pancake syrup I thought that I would give it a try.  We love it!  I can't tell the difference between my homemade syrup and the store bought stuff.  It's so simple, give it a try and I think you will be hooked!

Pancake Syrup

2 c sugar

1 c water

1 tsp maple extract

Bring water and sugar to to slow boil over low heat, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat before it come to a rolling boil (to keep crystals from forming).  Add flavoring as it is cooling.  Store in the refrigerator.  Makes about 24 oz.

I keep my syrup in a syrup container that I had from when I was still buying it from the store.  I think I am going to watch for the kind that has the short microwavable bottle to go on sale because I like to warm up my syrup, but this works for now. 

Shark!

We love the water.  I grew up in Indiana, you don't really think about a lot of water there, but when I was young I we lived on the Wabash River.  We had a motor boat and I have such fond memories of swiming in the river, fishing, boating, attempting to water ski... Well, here we are, very far away from Indiana, but very close to the ocean.  I love it! 

This past weekend Pops (John's dad) took us out on the boat.  The kids love the boat which makes me very happy.  Here are Pops, John, Nathan and Elizabeth as we venture out into the Chesapeake Bay.

A shot of Elizabeth and me once we found a good fishing spot.

We caught sight of a large school of dolphins.  There were so many of them, but it's kind of hard to catch a picture of the dolphins.  Here you can see one of the fins of one of the dolphins.  There is something so exciting about seeing dolphins!

Once we started fishing we caught several blue crabs right away.  John gave Nathan a lesson on how to tell if it is a boy crab ( a 'T' on the bottom of the crab) or a girl crab (a diamond on the bottom of the crab).  This one is a boy crab.  

 

Then the big excitement!  John caught a shark!  It was about a 2 1/2 foot Sand Shark.  Pretty cool.  We let him have the hook...

After fishing for awhile (didn't catch anything else) we motored over to a cove and John and Pops took the kids for a swim! 

A New Adventure - Canning

Okay, so I keep coming up with great new ideas - ideas that really are not all that "new" at all, but rather "old" ideas I guess.  Here is my new adventure.  I decided since I had all these fresh tomatoes, onions, and peppers from my garden that I wanted to try my hand at canning.  I remember my mom canning, but mom canning when I was little, and me doing it by myself are two totally different things!

Here are the tomatoes that I started with for my first try...

 

Next I borrowed a pressure cooker from my brother-in-law, Jeremy (thanks Jeremy!)

Next I looked up online how to do this.  Here is the link that I used for the most part:  http://www.pickyourown.org/  A very helpful site for a first timer! 

Well, here are my first two jars.  The one with all the tomatoes on top turned out right, the one with all the space on the top did not turn out.  I did everything the same, they were even done in the same pot at the same time, I have no idea why one turned out and the other one did not, but oh well... at least one turned out from my first batch!

Next I decided to try a "water bath" method of canning.  In all honesty the pressure cooker had my nerves all out of wack.  Any of you that use a pressure cooker probably know what I mean.  It just stressed me out too much since I was inexperienced and knew that "if not done properly, bodily injury may occur.  Keep all children and pets at a safe distance."  Maybe if I have someone who knows what they are doing I will give it a try again.  Anyway, I did not have a stock pot large enough and all the canning sets that I could find in the stores had pots with bottoms that were not flat.  Since I have a glass top cooktop all of my pots have to have flat bottoms or they will not heat properly.  So, off the the store I go - and I was so excited to buy this beautiful red stock pot!  I love it!

Now I have 4 pint sized jars of spagetti sauce.  Hope we like them!

So, all in all, I had fun canning (at least so far) and with the exception of having to buy a new stock pot and lids for the jars it hasn't cost hardly anything.  We will see how much more I get to can this season and hopefully I will get to can again next season as well!

High Seas Expedition

Vacation Bible School at our church - Northside Christian Chruch - is a BIG deal.  This is something that we look forward to every year.  The kids have fun, John and I have fun, and it is so awesome to see what God is doing every year during VBS. 

The theme this year was High Seas Expedition.  Like always there was a great set and great music!

This year was especially exciting as this was the first year that Nathan was old enough to actually be a part of VBS rather than being in the nursery or toddler room.  Here is Nathan with his group the "Pelicans".

This year John took a break from doing games and was a crew leader.  This meant that he got to go around from place to place with the same group of kids all week (Bible story, Craft, Snacks, Games).  The age group that he worked with was Pre-school.  What a fun age group.  He really had a good time bonding with these little people.

For the second year in a row I did Bible Story.  Here I am with the rest of my team. Bible story is so much fun, but even better than having fun is that you are presenting the gospel to the children.  I got to dress up as

different Bible characters and act out the stories.  The kids love Bible Story time!

 

Elizabeth was in the toddler room this year.  The toddler room is basically nursery, but the kids do get to go to the closing every night so they get to see the closing skit each night and get to learn all the fun VBS songs.  Here is a picture of Elizabeth with one of her leaders - Ms. Stacie.  It was very fun to hear even Lizzy singing the VBS songs at home.

The mission project for this year was through an organization called "Remember the Children" which works with children in orphanages in Romania.

During craft time every kid at VBS packed a box of goodies for a child in Romania.  What an awesome thing to have the children getting involved in the mission.  This was such a bessing. Here are some of the boxes that the kids decorated, they would be filled by the kids the next night.  1000 boxes were packed this week. 

I just have to share how much of an impact this missions project had here at our home.  The day after Nathan packed the boxes he was sitting at the table coloring his VBS page that he had brought home.  He told me all about packing the boxes and the kinds of things that he put into the boxes.  Then he asked me "Mommy, can we move to Romania?" I asked him why he wanted to move to Romania and he told me "Mommy, there are lots of kids over there that don't know about Jesus and they need our help"  this still brings tears to my eyes just thinking about how much my child got this mission project.  If a 3 year old gets it, I am sure that many other children were also impacted by this mission project.  Who knows what is in the future for this little boy!

Granola Bars

My kid's favorite Granola Bars:

4 1/2 cups rolled oats

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

2/3 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup honey

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 c minature semisweet chocolate chips (or any other yummy treats you want to put in)

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Lightly grease 9" x 13" pan.
• In a large mixing bowl combine the oats, flour, baking soda, vanilla, butter, honey and brown sugar (a pastry blender works very well for this).  
•  Stir in the 2 cups assorted chips, raisin, nuts, etc. 
•  Lightly press mixture into the prepared pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 18 to 22 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool 10 minutes then cut into bars.  Let bars cool completely in pan before removing or serving. 

Yet Another Goose Egg

So this is what I want to know... why is it that my 1 year old daughter has had at least 3 large purple goose eggs in her life and my 3 year old son has not had any that I can remember...  None of her boo boos have anything to do with her brother either.  Oh well, she takes it all in stride.  This one actually came because she was trying to close her dresser drawer and pushed a little too hard - her head slammed right into the drawer.  Maybe her name should have been Grace...

4th of July Vacation

The 4th of July has always been one of my favorite holidays.  I have such fond memories of past 4th of July celebrations.  I remember growing up in West Lafayayette, IN watching fireworks going off over the Wabash river.  I can still hear the "whir whir" of the ice cream maker going in the background of 4th of July picnics. Then there were the fireworks at home - sparklers and bottle rockets and the ones that spun around and round.  Such great memories. 

Thankfuly these memories continue into my adult life as well.  John's family also makes a big deal of the 4th of July, although the celebration changes from year to year.  There are usually picnics with family and friends, parades and fireworks at Yorktown.  There was the year that we found out that Chelsei and Jeremy were dating - and they just celebrated their 2nd wedding anniversary a few weeks ago! Another 4th of July my best friend Tabitha - who I grew up with and now we have little girls just days apart in age- got to come for a visit along with her husband Rusty.  I love my 4th of July memories.

This year we got to do a little something different.  My mom flew out to Virginia from Indiana and then along with the kids and myself, took a little road trip up to my Aunt Liz's house in Lewes, DE.  What a fun weekend for us!

We got up very early and left from my house at 5 am in order to beat holiday traffic though the tunnels.  Here is a picture of the sun rising that I took at a pull off on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel .  In my 11 years living in this area I have never gone to see a sunrise over the ocean so this was very special for me.  What a great way to start a vacation!

 

As we traveled up the Eastern Shore we decided to visit Chincoteague and Assateague Islands.  We had the pleasure of two different pony sightings.  As a girl growing up I loved the books about Misty of Chincoteague so it is so much fun to be able to visit these places and see the wild ponies roaming free. 

Here is one pony that we think was pregnant.

The next group of ponies had three foals with them.  So sweet.

The town of Lewes, DE is the first town in the first state.  Kind of a cool claim to fame.  They had such a fun day of activites on July 4th in the town and we loved the chance to be part of the festivities.  We started out the day on 2nd street. There was face painting, balloons, lots of fun free stuff for the kids, and games for ages 4 and up. There was a fire truck there which the kids loved.  Here is a picture of my Aunt Liz, Nathan, Elizabeth and myself in front of the fire truck.

Here is Elizabeth in her 4th of July dress and fire hat.

Nathan loved climbing around inside the fire truck.

We watched some of the games including a sack race and a three legged race.  I was not sure if Nathan would be interested in the games at all or not but I have found him several times hopping around in bags pretending to be one of the kids in the race, so I guess he did like the games!

Later on in the day there was a "Doo-Dah" parade.  What fun!  Here are my mom and the kids watching as the parade is going by.  

 

My kids really hit the jackpot with the candy at this parade.  Elizabeth was shoving it all in her mouth just as fast as she could.  I think she was afraid that I wasn't going to let her take it with her once the parade was over.  "No candy left behind" was her moto! 

Here she is after the parade.  Candy stained face and beads.  Who could ask for anything better?

Finally, time for fireworks!  We headed down to the beach to watch fireworks.  It was a beautiful night, perfect temperature and a beautiful sunset.  We even got to see a school of dolphins as we waited! The kids did very well waiting for the fireworks. 

My mom and Elizabeth waiting for the sun to go down.

Nathan prefered to be closer to the water.  Aunt Liz hung out with Nathan down in the surf. 

There is nothing like making a sand angel while you wait.  Sand everywhere... but he had so much fun!

What a great vacation!  So relaxing and well as fun! Another set of wonderful 4th of July memories!