Family Fun - A Trip to the Farm

We had the chance to visit a HUGE dairy farm recently.  The farm hosted a "Farm Days" event and offered so many wonderful opportunities for families not to mention free lunch and free ice cream!  I took the boys - not expecting much.  I figured we'd be there an hour at the most . . .4 1/2 hours later we didn't do everything!  Crazy! 

 One of the very first stops was the HUGE cow barn.  Yes, Josh is plugging his nose HA!  Nate loved the place and had tons of questions.  Josh looked at me and said, "Mom, this place makes me want to puke, I'll wait for you outside." 

 The boys got to make homemade butter and than try it on some crackers.  Well, Nate just ate crackers but Josh liked trying his "own" butter.

 Another barn - this one had calves.  Notice who's missing from the photo? 

 Josh loved the big cow.  Nate, not so much.

 Making some crafts.

 My piglets - the boys loved these cut outs and had to get photos in every single one.

 Watching the milking process.  The boys favorite part?  When the cows were released and walked past them. 

 Tractor pulls - these boys are tough!

 Feeding the calves.

 Tractors, Tractors, and More tractors and yes, the boys had to get in every. single. one.  Bless my heart. 

 More Cutouts . . ..

 More Tractors . ..

And yes, more cut outs!

This was a HUGE hit and the perfect activity for our weekend.  I love free stuff! 

Weekly Menu - The One with the Fourth!

It's the 4th of July!  This year we have a few things going on this weekend where we normally just hang out at home or at the beach! Once we get through the weekend, though, we actually have a very quiet week!

Saturday - We are going to my In-Laws for the day.  The plan is a picnic followed by watching fireworks on the Lake in their Boat.  It should be a fun day!  As of right now I'm thinking of making a couple of those recipes I posted earlier this week.

Sunday - Today is our churches annual picnic at a local park.  The church supplies all of the main course so for my "dish to pass"  I think I'm going to make the same cupcakes - the fourth of July themed cupcakes (That way I can make them all on Friday and save myself some work!). 

Monday - Truth be told, our menu was totally thrown out the window last week when 1) I didn't go shopping until Sunday night 2) I forgot about two PT appointments Darryl had which brought him home late 3) I forgot at least one ingredient for every single recipe planned.  So this week you'll see some redo's!  (Saves me some grocery money).  Asian Beef with Pea Pods and Mushrooms, Rice and Egg Rolls - a carry over from last week!!

Tuesday - Meat loaf in the crock pot, mashed potatoes, green beans, and Rolls - yep, another carry over!

Wednesday - Salisbury Steak, Mashed potatoes, corn and Rolls

Thursday - Darryl has a doctor's appointment followed by a PT appointment so he will be late getting home.  We'll have pancakes and sausage for dinner! 

Friday - TACOS!

It's July

So, it's July.  Saturday marks the unofficial half way point of Summer and it's all down hill from there!  So far, we've had a pretty good summer.  We've camped twice and had a great time each time.  The weather's been pretty nice - we didn't put the A/C units in until Father's Day weekend and have only run them a few days total.  The kids have spent time with Papa and Nana, attending VBS, played TBall, and more.  We've gotten in a little school work but I'm not worried about doing that daily - I tend to save it for rainy days.  I've worked on organizing some things and cleaning out a few things upstairs. 

Over the past couple of months, I've had a goal in my head to make July "Basement Month".  So over the past few days, I've cleaned like crazy upstairs, organized toys, cleaned floors, finished up the file clean out and more.  All in preparation of focusing on the basement. 

This is not an quick and dirty clean up - this is a "Empty it, Clean it out, Get Rid of it, Sell, it organize it" type of clean up.  Here's the plan:

1) Every single item will be moved to the garage.  I will be setting up a work table in the garage where I can sort things.  This will happen over the month.  I'll move a couple of bins up at a time, sort them, and deal with the stuff. 

2) Every single item will be touched once (kinda).  As I go through every bin, box and shelf I want to touch things once.  By this I mean, it will go in one of four places A) The Truck to be donated to Good Will.  B) The garbage C) The Sell Pile D) Keep it.  So obviously "A" and "B" are easy to only touch once.  As far as the "sell" pile - I'll either be listing the items on our local garage sale site or taking them to "Once upon a Child "  Anything that doesn't sell would go right to Good Will.  Finally, the keep it pile - some things will go right into a bin while other things will need to wait for a bin to empty so I might have to touch those items twice.

3) Once every item is sorted and cleaned out, I will go to work on cleaning the basement.  All the corners, windows, and cobwebs will be taken care off.  I plan on sealing some areas of the floor where the paint has chipped.  (Sealing it with poly helps to eliminate the "damp" smell you get in a Michigan basement).  I also want to add some simple curtains to the basement windows for the sake of privacy. 

4) The Playroom - this gets it's own line item HA!  Once the main area is finished, I'll tackle the basement play area with the same concept.  There are shelves to clean off, toys to clean out, a rug to get rid of, and rubber squares to lay on the floor so the boys can play in comfort. 

5) The Laundry Room - this area just needs to be cleaned.  I also have school stuff to clean out and schools books to sell that we are done with or won't end up using for various reasons. 

Once this is done, I'm making a few changes to my old system that wasn't working.  First, nothing will be carried to the basement to be sorted.  Instead the Good Will donation box will be in the garage.  When I clean stuff out, everything will go to the garage.  The only way an item goes to the basement is if it already has a home (bin, shelf, ect) to "live". 

About every 2 years I have to go through everything in the basement and this is the year.  My goal is to set up a system this time around that KEEPS me from doing this again!  I might be more than a little motivated by the fact that I just wanted my brother move HA!  I don't want to have stuff anymore that isn't loved, used and needed! 

Make It Monday- Fourth of July Ideas

 

Several weeks ago, I created a Board on Pinterest with Ideas for Fourth of July with high plans to work on the crafts and do some fun things.  Well, tomorrow starts the week before the Fourth and guess what, I haven't planned anything HA! 

For example, these great little t-shirts (I'm still hoping to do these on Wednesday with the kids I babysit too . . )


























 

 Or these great jars that could be used with a candle or with a nightlight in the kids room.



My husband just mowed the back yard so spray painting this in the yard - while it's the perfect time. (But first I must spray for mosquitos!!  Uuuggg!)

 My kids love to paint so these would make a fun craft this week too.

We are going to my in-laws on Saturday to watch Fireworks from their boat . .. I might make these to take for the picnic.  Josh loves Jello and I know these would be a big hit.

I'd also like to try and get these made this week.  The boys love the flag right now so this would be a pretty easy and fun craft to do. 


This looks fun for the picnic too.  I tend to keep cupcakes simple (In other words, use a box mix) but love to do stuff with the topping to make them fun.  My boys love cupcakes so . .. .

If I do any of these things ;-)  I'll be sharing them in future weeks on Monday! 

(Click on the link to my Pinterest board at the top of the page to find links for all of these items)

Weekly Menu

Happy July.  (Almost).  We just put the A/C units in last week; we've had an F-1 Tornado touch down less than 15 miles from our house and do significant damage; my kids came home from a fun few days with Papa and Nana; I've read a lot of books lately.  That's our life.  HA!

I'm kinda bored with the kitchen so I thought this week I would scour my pinterest board and pick some recipes that I thought sound good and go for the gold and make a new recipe every single night.  I might regret this or we might get some new favorites!

Saturday - We usually eat out on Saturday but I might actually cook.  I'm planning French Toast Sticks and Crescent Sausage Bites with Fruit/Applesauce. Or, we'll go out for Pizza with the boys T-Ball certificates :-)

Sunday - Slow Cooker Salisbury Steak, Mashed Potatoes, green beans and biscuits.

Monday - Asian Beef with Mushrooms and Snow peas.  Rice and store bought egg rolls (I've made my own before but they take a lot of work . .. )

Tuesday - Chicken Carbanara w/ Garlic bread

Wednesday - Meatloaf in the Crock Pot, Baked Garlic Potato Slices, Zucchini Frittatas, and Rolls. 

Thursday - Low Country Boil (In the crock pot).  and Rolls (and probably Mac and Cheese for the kids)

Friday - tacos!!

I also plan on trying out Pineapple Upside Down Cupcakes and Broken Glass Jello. 

What We are Eating- Honey Marinated Fish

Honey Marinated Fish 
adapted from No Gojis No Glory

Since the kids are gone this week I wanted to make something new that was more for Darryl and I.  This recipe for Honey Marinated Fish actually calls for Cod Fillets but I had the privilege of cleaning out my sister-in-laws freezer before they moved out of state and she had a bag of frozen Mahi Mahi so I used that instead.  The marinade has great flavor - I would absolutely make this again! 

Ingredients

• 4, 6-oz black cod fillets (aka sablefish)
• ¾ cup honey
• ½ cup low-sodium soy sauce
• ⅓ cup toasted sesame seed oil
• ⅓ cup apple cider vinegar
• 1½ tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1 tsp freshly chopped ginger

Instructions

1. Combine all ingredients (except for fish) in a medium-sized airtight mixing bowl. Add cod and marinate for 24 hours. If possible, flip half way through marinade time to allow even flavor distribution.
2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F; prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove cod from marinade and bake on the center rack for 7-9 minutes, until cod is opaque and flakes easily.

 

Teaching Tuesday - I have no idea what we did . . .

As I'm getting ready to write this post I'm kind of at a loss - trying to remember what we did this past week.  It seems like last week was eon's ago.  So, I went back through my photos from the week and this is what we did:

Saturday

A little preview - I took the boys to a "Touch the Truck" event in our town where they got to get inside all kinds of fun trucks!

Sunday-Tuesday

 We went to the beach. In the fog.  Heavy, heavy fog.  I've never seen anything like it!  It was a great teaching moment of how the fog is created.  We also were able to talk about the different safety flags that are flown concerning swimmer safety.

 We played with lots and lots of bubbles.

 We took lots of hikes and bike rides.

And walked out to see the boats come in (and out) of the channel.

Wednesday: 

The boys had their final T-ball game of the season.  It was awesome to see how much they have improved.

Thursday -

One of the cocoon's opened up and the boys got to see their moth.  They were also able to let it go and watch it learn to fly.  It was really quite awesome. 

Friday -

The boys created.  They pulled out the Lincoln Logs and built creations for hours.

Saturday -

We helped pack up my brother and his family . .or maybe the boys just played and played  .. either way, they had fun.

I guess we did a whole lot!  We may not have cracked a "book" but there was a lot of lessons learned!