This Is Us

  Tomorrow is National learn about butterflies day and it's also Tyler's birthday and pi day.  So, I decided that for our photo challenge I would have today be about butterflies. In 2020 when you know what hit and the kids had to do school from home, Lydia's teacher gave them some caterpillars to raise at home.  So I have some photos of those butterflies and some others from wild butterflies that have landed on the kids.  Oh, Lydia also raised some in her 2nd or 3rd grade class. Fun facts about butterflies: They range in size from 1/8 inch to 12 inches. People believe that they can only see the colors Red, Green, and Yellow They have four wings and six legs. They eat nectar and fruit. They can fly up to 12 mph. They cannot fly if their body temperature is less than 86. Their wings are transparent. They taste with their feet. They smell with their antennae. They are the second largest group of pollinators. They rest with their wings closed. They are fou...

I love to learn. I find it so fun and worthwhile to learn about everything I can. For some examples: W hat are the benefits of hugging? How many kinds of cheese are there? What don’t I know about squirrels? What are the benefits of flowers? What nutrients are in watermelon? I also was having a hard time thinking about what to share on social media. So, I thought what better way to do both, then to look up calendars and see if I can find something to celebrate everyday. It’s amazing what I found. There is something everyday. National bagel day, cheese lover’s day, kid inventor’s, and more.  I created a calendar that I can type everything (well, not everything on some of the days because sometimes they aren’t things we would want to celebrate) in for that day. Then we can celebrate, learn more about those things, and have fun! If you’re interested here are the ones we’ve done so far: National Sticker Day National Organize Your Home Day Martin Luther King Jr. Day National Winnie The P...

I used a few different recipes to make sourdough bread and figured out that combining multiple ones together worked best for me. So without further ado… here is my recipe: **********************************   Sourdough Recipe 125 grams Sourdough Starter 368 grams Warm Water (110°) 500 grams Unbleached Flour 11 grams Salt Mix the starter and warm water in a bowl until the starter is dissolved. Mix the salt and flour together than add to the starter/water mixture. Mix until it’s well combined, about 2 minutes. Cover with a damp towel or a plate and let it sit for 2 hours. Then grab the sides of the dough, pull up, and fold into the middle. Continue doing this for about 3 minutes. Cover again and let sit for 8 hours. Then dump out onto a clean counter. Stretch out until you have a large rectangle. Fold the sides over so you have a long rectangle. Then roll it up, tucking in the sides as you go. Once it’s rolled up then you have to push, tuck, and pull the dough to make a tight ball. I...

Sourdough help for beginners (this is me!) I started this post last year and forgot to finish it. Oops. 🙊  So I’ve been trying to make my own sourdough starter. It was going really well for the first few days, but then when I had to discard some of it and use a small amount of the starter to feed, it quit growing. So I started over and it didn’t work again. I decided to buy unbleached flou r to see if that was the problem. I started over again and it was going good, but then my starter grew mold. 😭 So today January 26th 2022 I started yet again.  I was confused about some of the process. I keep seeing everyone with discard and making recipes from it. If they are using discard what are they using for bread? How much of their starter do they keep? How much do they feed their starter? So I’m going to break things down to hopefully help others understand more about sourdough. Supplies needed: Starter Unbleached Flour Warm Water (not over 110°) Salt Scale Measuring Cups Mixing Bo...

  Lydia had her cheer showcase on Monday. She did so good and had so much fun. She is constantly practicing and her hard work showed. The High School cheerleaders came to watch and perform. They even did stunts with Lydia. She is so good and stunting!

  I can’t even remember what year we bought our trailer, but it was like 2015 or 2016... Maybe even 2017. Haha! Anyway, we bought it for $500. Yep! That’s it. It is a 1978 camper, and boy can you tell! It’s 70’s green everywhere! But hey, it’s okay! It’s a great trailer and we’ve used it a lot. We haven’t changed anything in it, until this year. We bought outdoor fabric for the cushions and curtains. Two different, but matching, styles for the cushions and a different style, but again matching, for the curtains. Then we bought the peel-n-stick flooring. We also changed out the lights for LED ones. I sewed the new covers to be like pillow cases, so I didn’t have to worry about zippers. We bought the sticky Velcro to hold the opening shut. Although because I was in a hurry, I didn’t buy the fabric kind, and it does NOT work very well. I am going to find the fabric kind! We bought the fabric from JoAnn’s. It was on sale for 60-70% off, which is really nice! Outdoor fabric is expensive...

For the 4th of July weekend we went to Bear Lake. It was so fun! We went to a candy store called Rocket Fizz, got Ice cream from Cold Stone, had a picnic and played at Bear Lake, got dinner from Angie’s, watched fireworks 🎇 from our hotel balcony, watched movies, and had a great drive home. It was a short getaway, but was much needed and helped our family recharge! The kids didn’t care that the water was freezing. They jumped right in and had a blast floating around and swimming!