Back to School - The good, the bad and the unexpected...

Most of you know this year was a big milestone for our family in terms of school. My teeny tiny baby twins started kindergarten! Are you kidding me? But they aren't really teeny-tiny anymore. They have October birthdays so they are actually bigger than probably half the kids in their classes. Our school's policy is to separate twins and for now I feel that is best anyway.


We got off to a bit of a rough start when Alexis got sick and had to miss her first day of school. When I thought about things going wrong, that wasn't even something I'd imagined. I cried that morning I dropped Avery & Kaleigh off, just sad for Alexis, I think. But they have both settled in well. They are slow going in the morning and tired in the afternoon but overall better than I expected.


A little story on the being tired ... The twins love animals and since our bunny ran away we've been thinking about getting another pet. Well, one morning a former neighbor's cat showed up at our house and long story short it was decided that we would adopt the cat. When I got the girls from school I told them I had a surprise. I told them we were going to keep Belle. Avery was happy but Alexis burst into tears. When I asked why she was crying she would only say "I didn't want that to be the surprise!" Just, tired.


Avery had a friend in her class who she plays with lots and a very kind teacher. Alexis has a friend in her class also and her teacher is the mom of Kaleigh's best friend and she's as sweet as can be. She's just the teacher I wanted for Alexis, who tends to be moody & emotional at times and needs a loving touch.

The one thing I didn't expect - Avery comes home complaining that Alexis won't play with her on the playground! Alexis has apparently made a new friend in her class and now wants to ignore her sister. That makes me sad! I am glad for them to branch out but not at the expense of their relationship. I really hope & pray they will be close always.


Kaleigh is in 3rd grade, which sounds crazy to me. She still likes school and for the 3rd year in a row is in class with one of her best friends (daughter of above teacher). I've heard 3rd grade gets hard, so I'm a little nervous.


Not sure how our schedule is going to work when the homework gets going. It just doesn't seem like there will be any time in the evening. I've gotten into the routine of grabbing the backpack first thing and checking their folder, so I'm not taken by surprise late in the evening.

And as I posted on facebook, little Miss Emory is doing fine at home. She loves her sisters but she talks to me and "helps" out around the house, talk
s to her toys, talks to herself (noticing a pattern?) And now that it's just me & her we can go out more too and I have more time to play with her. So she's doing good so far. So, that's our life at the moment. Big changes possibly coming soon so stay tuned!

In my pursuit of healthier and more natural food choices, I came across some info on the bad ingredients in store-bought bread. Partly because of that and partly because it just sounded like fun, I decided to pull out my long forgotten bread machine.


In the past I didn't have much luck making bread in said machine, therefore it was relegated to a spot on the bottom shelf of my pantry, behind my backup crockpot and some other contraption that I'm still trying to figure out.

Before, I've always made a loaf or two, gotten discouraged and stopped trying. This time I was determined. My first loaf wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. I blamed my yeast that expired in 2010. My 2nd was pretty doughy but tasted ok.

On the 3rd loaf I used fresh ingredients, followed the instructions and watched the loaf carefully. It looked great as it was rising then fell about 2 inches during the baking cycle. It turned out also very doughy. At this point I would normally have given up. But as I said, a woman on a mission. So I did some very scientific research (google) and surmised that the problem was that it rose too long and possibly had too much yeast.

So on my 4th loaf I used a shorter rise cycle cut the yeast back by 1/4 tsp and viola! Excellent bread machine bread! It would make great sandwiches, except my hubby won't stop eating it. Now that I'm starting to get the hang of this, I can't wait to try out some other varieties. It's so easy to just throw the ingredients in there and it's also great training in measuring for the girls. I should add that Kaleigh is getting so good in the kitchen. She's finally learned the difference between a teaspoon and a cup. I'm just kidding, she really is coming along. Seriously, she's miles ahead of my sister already. I Love you, Kelly.

Bread  Awesomeness!

Here's the recipe I used. It's good but now that I'm an expert bread maker person I'm sure anything I make will be excellent. Okay, for real if anyone is interested I'll keep you informed of future doughy endeavors, including grinding my own wheat. Since I'll pretty much have to make a loaf every other day I have lots of time to experiment.


Honey Oat Bread:
1 cup water
1/4 cup honey
2 T oil
3 cups bread flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 tsp salt
2 tsp active dry yeast


Original recipe: Honey Oat Bread

I'm reviving the blog - at least I hope to. No promises. I've struggled with starting back because after so much time it felt like I needed to have something amazing to throw at the world (that means the five people who are reading this). And then after more time, it needed to be even more amazing and well, you get the picture...


So this post is going to be pretty ordinary. I've gotta ease in somehow. I feel like I've been trying lots of new things lately. Nothing big or all that interesting but it's still fun to try new stuff and its really fun when it works out.


I helped host a baby shower today. I haven't done that in a while. Our Sunday School class is good at the "fruitful and multiplying" thing y'all. We do a lot of simpler options for subsequent children but the first ones get an all out shower. It's a good excuse to get yummy food, leave the kids at home and hang out with the gals. Oh and terrify the sweet mother-to-be with scary birth stories and tales of water breaking in embarrassing places, the horrors of nursing, etc... They are so blessed to have us...

Isn't this the cutest cake you've ever seen?!

 So my sweet friend Sara tricked me into suggested someone make these paper peonies that her mother had made for a shower once. I mean they really are pretty. And they're not even hard to make. It's just that her mom either forgot to mention that they take about 72 hours each or she doesn't really like me. I'm hoping its the former. It's also possible that I'm slightly incompetent and they really could've gone quicker. Anyhow, they turned out super pretty and were kinda fun to make so no biggie. I added some pink ones that I let the girls paint with kool-aid. Project:success!

Always - my helpers!