Crafting and Cooking

We'll kick off the post with the baklava that Emily made!  It was quite tasty!  She's been in the mood to make some more, I just need to get her the supplies. ; )

Kristy gave us (a second round of) huge zucchinis, so I got to work on them!

First off was cutting one of them up for the dehydrator.  I used 4 from her this summer and have maybe 2 cups of flour to show for it?

The second one I shredded and made 2 loaves of zucchini bread.  Neither of which I took an end product for.  If I'm offered a late season one, I'll made on more batch and be sure to take a picture to add to this post!

I saw this cool hack that you can put these freezer pops in a vacuum sealed cup or water bottle and take them to the beach or on a trip for a cool treat! Well, when I packed them up, we ended up spending the ice cream money that Avia gave us at the end of our adventure, and never got to them.

I wasn't quite ready to part with the water bottle, and so I started bringing the twins freezer pops for our afternoon walks home from school!  I bring three, one for each of them, and just over halfway home there is a public trash can.  Once their first one is gone, we cut the third in half, which lasts them the perfect amount until we are home!  So far, I've only forgotten once!

Grace wanted to use food dye to make a rainbow cupcake desert for our most recent game day with the Cornishes.  I feel like we eat plenty of dye without adding more into our diet, so I asked her if she could maybe use fruit, or other food instead.  She did a beautiful job, and it looked so colorful!

I made some coconut cookies.  They touted only being 3 ingredients, but the comments added egg and flour, which made them quite good!  I added chocolate chips to some of them, and it turns out that was also a good move. lol.

I made another round of squash soup with some of our bounty!

Just as good as last year!

Grace showing off our blended, ground, and milled zucchini flour!

Grace found a super cute pea pod stuffie on the internet.  She wanted to save money to buy it, but I was able to convince her to try and make one instead.  It came out so cute!!!

Her inspo: 

Loving this season of the year and of life!

later days

Valentine's Day 2024

My Valentine from Billy came a while before the actual day.  Sometime in mid-January I found a flour mill!!! It was $8, but considering how expensive they are new, I was not sad at all.

I was really excited to get it home and use it.  I washed it, and dried it, then fed through some dried rice to clean it out.  Sadly, it was only putting out ground sized grains.  I tightened it several times, and then called Billy over to help me.  Sadly, when he used a tool to get it even tighter, the metal frame snapped in two. = ((((((

Well, once that happened, I finally knew what I wanted for Valentine's Day!  So, Billy spent time researching and reading reviews, and finally settled on this lovely flour mill, and it was even red!  So, Happy Valentine's Day to me! = )

Grace decided to make her own Valentine cards this year, so she painted some rocks (seriously, rocks are perfect for every occasion!) and added each student's first initial. = )  She then added some kisses into a black foam container. I'm going to try to recreate it next week, so that I can include a picture here, but if I forget, just know that it was cute!

{{edit 3-27-24:  She recreated it!!!  Super cute. = )

}}

Juliet also gave out kisses, but used some of the cards from the stash I've been collecting since Alice's preschool years!

For Billy's Valentine, I used some cardboard and box board that was in the recycling cart at Aldi to make a large heart box.  I ordered some Valentine Reeses from BJs, but they gave me Easter eggs instead. = (

At least they taste the same!

I ended up using quite a bit of tape, but made some good headway in my audio book Happy-Go-Lucky while creating it!  At the time of writing this, I've stashed it away in the Valentine's Day tub to use again next year. = )

Grace and Juliet received some sweet Valentine wishes from their Sunday School Class.

I signed up to bring some 'simple' treats for the twins' class celebration: Cute little tic-tac-toe boards, and smiley face pancakes!

Breaking the graham crackers went well!

But the icing claimed one of my whisks, by pulling out the tines. = (  It was a little thick, so my hands and arms were really tired by the time I finished the lines, and completely done when it was time to stick on the hearts!

But, they came out really, really cute!

The pancakes were easy peasy, 

but the oreos kept crumbling when I tried to cut the mouths. = (

After fighting the oreos for 30 minutes or so, and destroying more than ones that I could use, I thought I'd try to soften them by using some bread.

It worked really well!  I was able to fill my container, and then some!  

I assembled two samples at the top of the pan*, so that the students would know what to do with the candies and cookies, but sent the candies and semi-circular cookie pieces separately.

On Valentine's morning, which fell on a Wednesday this year, everyone had a box** of Aldi Chocolates, a roblox card, and a McDonald's squishmallow from us, and a card with duck or slinky from Avia. = )

When Sarah sent a picture of her Valentine, Archie, I of course had to recreate the photo with my Valentine! = )

And all of my cute handmade Valentines from the kids. = )

It was a fairly lowkey day, but we missed having my mom around, since historically she is with me (wherever that may be!)  Maybe we'll have her again next year.

later days

 *I was really excited to get a second life out of the cake walk pans the kids got at the snowball dance!

**I also kept these boxes to refill next year!

3-2-24 edit: backdated for continuity.

Tami's 41st Birthday

I had an amazing birthday this year! On Thursday night Emily and Grace made my cake, with no sprinkles!!! Emily shredded up a chocolate bar to use instead. = )

Billy took the cake picture, so you see the barely awake twins in the background. ; )  We broke out the "1" and "4" for the third time this year!

Surrounded by my favorite people!  They gave me some fancy (handmade) cards and an all-inclusive plant starter kit for the spring!!

After getting everyone off to school, I came back home to wait for Kristy, so that we could go get some coffee and go to a once-a-month sale at the State of Michigan warehouse!

I want to put out there, lest someone think poorly of me, that I didn't tell Kristy that it was my birthday, I was just happy to go out and spend the day with someone.  She, however, read on FB before she came, that it was my birthday and made my day super special!

At the ice cream store, she bought my pumpkin spice latte!  (I was also able to put a bug in the ear of one of the workers about maybe carrying eggnog flavoring for the Christmas season!)

We went straight to the state sale and both of us got some goodies!  One of the things I bought Grace was a Polaroid Go camera (think a tiny polaroid) because she'd asked for something similar for Christmas.  I ordered some film (for more than the camera cost) and it came in today (Sunday!)  Emily helped me try it out, before I gift Grace a broken camera for Christmas!

After that we went to the Mission thrift store, and both of us bought a handful of item. They are more of an upscale place, so the prices tend to be higher.

Then, it was back to the state sale because Billy actually wanted one of the tools they had.  And both of us bought a few more things!

Our next stop was Aldi, to get a couple of advent calendars (and several other things, because it's Aldi, of course!)

The final stop of the day was a flour mill!!!! It was the only thing that either of us found at the VOA, but she was excited for me and I was super excited, it was even the style that I wanted!  I really can't wait to make flour next year!  My mom found me a dehydrator, and now with the mill, and the grinder, I have all the components!!!

Oh, but to digress a bit, Kristy also bought this for me as a birthday gift!  She got to use her veteran discount, which brought down the price closer to $4, which is even more of a steal!!!  I was so excited.  I tried it out on some table salt when we got back to the house, and it totally made the salt into a powder. = )  Not to mention how pretty it is!

For dinner, I got the kids McDonalds, since the big girls are now in robotics Th/F with the upcoming competition this Saturday. (Alice had to be bribed.)  Sarah came over to hang out with the crew, while Billy took me to Ukai, the adult party headquarters of Lansing!

I had no idea that it would be so popular, but someone at our table was celebrating, and a few of the PTO ladies that I know were celebrating two of their relations too!!

It had been a long time since we'd had hibachi prepared food, and it was marvelous!  The restaurant was really, really cold though, so I had on my jacket, and absolutely took advantage of their complimentary green tea!

 It was a very happy birthday indeed!  Thank you everyone for making me feel so loved and spoiled!

later days