Raspberry Jelly...

Is it wrong that Ty ate nothing but homemade raspberry jelly sandwiches for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner today??

According to Ty, "All my belly wants to eat is meme's jelly on bread. Maybe tomorrow it will like your food again mom. But, maybe not. I want to eat your food, but my tummy says no."

Well, who can argue with that logic?!?!

Water fountains....

"Look mom, I'm a statue and a fountain!!"

Eric and Ty learned the finer art of the human fountain statue on our latest beach day.

Sure am hoping that the 90 degree weather would come back again for a few days!!

And so it begins...

As of Monday of this week I am officially a high school coaching widow.

Football practice started on Monday and will run through the fall and surprise, surprise will run right into Hockey practice. (there is a week break in between the two sports, but that week Kurt is taking off from work to live at the hunting shack to take a break.)

So the new schedule around the house (for the next two weeks at least) is to have dinner ready at 5 so when Kurt gets done with work he can come home, shovel food into his mouth, kiss all of us quickly and get to the football field.
Then, in two weeks time the schedule will switch again with practices ending at 6 rather than beginning at 6. So dinner time will be pushed back to the later time again.
This will remain our schedule (unless it's a game night and game nights in our house mean Subway nights. Don't quite know how that ritual started, but Kurt says it's good luck and we are sticking with it!) until the week he is gone hunting. I LOVE HUNTING WEEK!! It's a week where me and the boys can have mac and cheese and pb&j sandwiches for every meal if we want to!!
Then Hockey starts, not just for Kurt but for all three boys who will be in three different levels with three different practice times. And, at this point in the year the whole "sitting at the table family meal" goes right out the window. All I have to say is thank goodness for crockpots!!

So that is a look into how our Fall is shaping up. I will be back later tonight with pictures of Nick's 9th Birthday party. (can you believe my baby is 9?? - I can't)

Canon Ball!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Smore Pizza...

ok, ok - I know I watch way too much food network tv. But, I do get some great recipes from it including this one that never had a chance to hit the table and was eaten directly off the pizza stone by the boys.

Roll out your favorite pizza crust. Bake as directed for 1/2 the amount of time you are supposed to. Remove from oven and sprinkle mini marshmallows and 1 large Hershey's chocolate bar broken into pieces on the pizza. Bake for remaining time.

Sprinkle with crushed graham cracker crumbs.

Enjoy.

Future waterskippers

Nick was gone all afternoon the other day working on a project with Kyle. I got a call from Nick to come up to Kyle's house and check out what they did. I thought they were working on bikes, but when I got there this is the project that I saw...

They stripped Kyle's kitty cat snowmobile and made it into their own watercross sled. Now do these guys take after their dads or what?? They took the seat off (because wet seats add more weight you know), tied a buoy to it (in case they sunk in deep water and needed a retriever to find it) and duct taped all the vents closed (so water didn't get in the engine or the exhaust).

Then they asked if they could take it to the lake and skip it. So me being the awesome mom that I am did this with my van...

Bet you didn't think that I could load a waterskipping sled in the back of the van did you???

After stopping off for helmets, goggles, life jackets and gas mixed 50:1 (yes, I truly knew what that meant) we headed for the lake to try to skip. After lots of revving of the engine, tweaking the track and checking that all was running well the sled was ready to hit the water.

Nick's run - notice how he had to rev it one last time before he went.

Kyle's turn - he made it farther than anyone else. Way to go Kyle!!

Eric takes his turn with Ty cheering him on.

Then in true snowmobile fanatic fashion when it was all over you must tip the sled over and drain the carbs. (I know what that one means too!!)

Even though the guys didn't make it far enough to try their hand at turning the sled on the water they had fun and I was very impressed by their ingenuity.

berries, berries, berries

Ely is surrounded by berries right now. There are blueberries and raspberries everywhere!! And, they are SO GOOD.

I decided to take the boys berry picking with me. Not that I really thought that they would help fill the berry bucket. My real reason for taking them was I knew they would make so much noise that I wouldn't have to worry about any bears coming near us. (You remember my bear fear right??)

The boys seem to be diligently picking in the raspberry patch in this picture. But, for every berry they put in the bucket they ate 20. If all there berries that were picked were put in the bucket rather than someones belly we would probably have had an entire ice cream pail full. Luckily we picked enough to have fresh berries on our cereal the next morning as well as a few more to snack on.

Our picking expedition reminded me of one of my favorite books when I was little - "Blueberries for Sal". If you have never read it I highly recommend you getting it. The boys and I read it again after our berry picking trip. Ty was then very disappointed that he didn't meet a bear like Sal did in the book. I for one am very glad we didn't meet any.

Please mom - Can I eat just one more?!?!

Things that make you go HMMMMM....

Eric and I just finished making our new creation ~Everything but the kitchen sink casserole~ We named it that because we made it with just about a little bit of everything "but the kitchen sink".

While we were making our amazing dish I pulled out our secret spice ingredient that I put in just about everything I make. I sprinkled a touch of the spice in and told Eric I was adding the secret ingredient to which he replied, "Oh is that the little something extra that when you take a bite it makes you go HMMMMMM what's in there?"

I think the boy watches way too much Rachael Ray with me!!

To Die For Strawberry Pie...

Meme and the boys went to pick strawberries last week and since we have strawberries coming out of our ears today Eric and I decided to make a pie.

A former teacher gave me a recipe for this pie and we tried it out today.
All I can say is YUM-O!!

If you love strawberries you have got to try this out.

Crust:
Mix 1 cup flour, 1 stick butter and 2 Tablespoons sugar. Press into a pie pan and bake for 15-20minutes at 350.

Fill cooked crust with fresh berries.

In a sauce pan mix 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, 4 tablespoons strawberry jello and 3 tablespoons cornstarch. Bring to a boil and cook until thick and clear.

Pour mixture of the top of the berries. Refrigerate until set.

You can also use this recipe to make a raspberry pie too just change the jello flavor.

Enjoy!!