Vroom Vroom Quilt

Yea! I finished my first quilt. It took me some time to get started and to decide just which designs I wanted to use. I first picked out the fabric and then everything just started falling into place.

The hardest part was doing the quilting with all the layers and trying to maneuver the quilt under the pressure foot.



I made some mistakes along the way and I know it's not perfect. Shhh, don't tell this sweet little boy because I think he'll like it anyway.

Lemon Meringue Pie

One of my favorite pies is lemon meringue, but seldom do I make it. The rest of the family prefer chocolate pie, egg custard, buttermilk or pumpkin. So, I usually make something else. But, today, I decided to make one for myself. I haven't been blogging much lately, and didn't decide to blog it until after it was finished, so I don't have any pictures of the process. But, it's a pretty simple pie, and the directions should be all you need.




Lemon Meringue Pie

9" baked pie shell
1 1/2 cups of sugar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon corn starch
1 1/2 cups water
3 egg yolk, slightly beaten
3 tablespoons butter
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel
1/2 cup lemon juice

Mix sugar and cornstarch in medium saucepan. Gradually stir in water. Cook over medium heat,stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Gradually stir at least half of the hot mixture into egg yolks. Now pour tempered egg yolks into hot mixture in saucepan. Boil and stir a couple of minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter, lemon peel, and lemon juice. Pour into cooled, baked pie shell. Heap meringue onto hot pie filling and bake at 400° for about 10 minutes or until light brown.

When cooking with lemons, I always like to zest all my lemons and set the leftover zest aside for later use. What later use, you may ask? Well, here's a hint:



Just put your lemon zest in a bowl with salt and mix it all up. Store in an airtight container. This is great on fish, asparagus and just about anything that you put salt and lemon on. Rimming a glass with this salt makes for a great margarita. You can also make lemon sugar with the zest by using sugar instead of the salt. Lemon sugar is great used in baking, sprinkling on muffins and makes a great glass of iced tea. Have fun with all your options!

Nolan's 4th Birthday

I'm going to try once more to get back into updating my blog. Occasionally I go back and look at my older posts and think, "I had forgotten all about that recipe" or "look at how the grandkids are changing". Blogs are such a great way to journal. So, enough with the excuses and let's see Nolan's 4th birthday. He had his party at Going Bonkers and it was wild!!!! They had an adult room upstairs that was fixed to buffer all the noise. I'm pretty sure this had to be a grandparents idea! It was all encased in glass, so you could have a little peace and quiet, but still get to watch the children playing.



Here's Kaylee riding on a ride the was probably for younger children, but she still managed to have a good time.



And here are two of Nolan's friends from his daycare:






Easton wasn't feeling good, but you sure couldn't tell it from this picture.




He's teething, so he's pretty much using anything he can find to chew on.



Nolan was having fun with all the different games.









When that tongue starts to stick out, you know he's really concentrating!

And speaking of concentrating, look at Jennifer and Grandpa trying to work on that train. It was the cutest cake, with a little train that really worked that went around on the track. The trouble was, that it kept getting stuck on the icing. But, once they got it going, it wouldn't stop! Way too cute!




Nolan blowing out the candles.




Nolan defending his cake from Kaylee.



And here is Nolan eating his cake. Yes, that's right. He got to eat his birthday cake. In the past, he had just been able to blow out the candles on his cakes and then we would switch and put a muffin that he was able to eat on his plate. But, this time, Jennifer found a lady that could bake a cake with all of his allergies in mind. He loved it and ate every crumb!



Now the fun begins, the presents! There's that tongue again. He must be concentrating.




He got lots of neat presents.



And had lots of fun. It's hard to believe he's already 4!




Happy Birthday Nolan!

Just Plum Fun

What do you do when a friend blesses you with lots and lots of plums??????

You make plum jam, of course!






Plum Jam

3 lbs. of plums
1/2 cup water
1 T. lemon juice
8 cups sugar
1 pkg. pectin (3 oz.)

Cut plums up and remove stones. Put plums, water and lemon juice in large sauce pot and bring to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, reduce heat and simmer until fruit is tender, about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, start preparing jars. Heat them in a large pot of water.

After the plums are tender, stir in sugar. Bring to a boil and continue to stir. Once it boils, reduce heat and cook until sugar is dissolved. Add pectin and boil for 1 minute. Remove from heat and pour in hot jars. Process jars in a water bath for 10 minutes.




I also got in a little sewing this weekend. I made these flip flops before my machine decided to give me trouble. It's headed to the shop tomorrow for a tune up. I've been putting off it's yearly check up and now it has to go in. Hopefully they won't keep it too long, because I've got lots of ideas of things to make. If they keep it very long, I'll probably forget all the great creative things I've been planning.

Say Cheese

Have you ever tried getting that perfect picture???? Taking good pictures has never been easy for Mike and myself. We are just not very photogenic!!!! And then try to add 4 precious grandchildren in the picture and what do you get??? Chaos! You have all the people behind the camera yelling and trying to get everyone to smile. In the long run, it can really scare and confuse the kids!


Uhh, girls .... Kaylee .... Aubrey .... get your fingers out of your mouth.
And, Granna .... quit pointing that finger at the camera.



Grandpa, it will be okay, you can smile.
Granna, close that mouth.
Aubrey, it's okay, don't be scared.




Nolan, quit making faces.
Aubrey, no pulling Kaylee's hair.
Grandpa, look up.
Granna look at the camera.



Almost there. Oh, Nolan, don't pick your nose.



We're getting close.
Nolan look at the camera. Aubrey, again, no pulling hair.




Yea! This one will do! It's going to be as good as we can get.

A Few Things I've Been Working ON

For 2010, I was determined to get back to blogging, but as you can see, I haven't been doing very well. What can I say? But, I have been busy with a few things. Here's a few burp cloths and baby wipe case for my grandson, Easton, who should be here in a few weeks.

And here's a big sister shirt for Kaylee.

And a big brother shirt for Nolan and of course a little brother shirt for Easton.

A baby set for little Robert Clay.

Some little wristlets for a few friends of Jenn's.

And a kitchen towel for Mike's Aunt Jenny.

Dinner with Friends

Aren't Saturday nights great when spent with family and friends around the dinner table? We enjoyed a good dinner with friends last night and we didn't even have to bring anything. What a treat! During this busy tax season with all the added stress of work and taking care of my dad, it was nice to just relax and have someone else do the cooking. And look at what we had:





Robert fixed us sweet potatoes chips to munch on while he prepared the food.





We had roasted broccoli and brussel sprouts,






corn on the cob and new potatoes,



bacon wrapped asparagus, grilled chicken, and T-bone steaks.





We managed to save a little room for the chocolate peanut butter cake. Sorry, no pictures of the cake. I was too busy eating to take anymore pictures. Needless to say, we were miserably full!