Carving Pumpkins

Juliana: She really wanted to do something scary this year.

Kathryn: She learned about this art piece this year at school so when she saw it she had to do it.

What a Dad

Last Saturday, the 16th, Steve made breakfast in bed for the girls. They somehow got it in their heads that this was something they couldn't live without, and have been begging us for weeks for breakfast in bed. Steve woke up, and told me he was going to make them pancakes and serve them in bed. I was a little hesitant with the whole 7 years olds eating in bed, but figured it couldn't be too bad if they spilled. I had to hop in the shower to get ready for something. By the time I was done, he was ready. He had made delicious chocolate chip pancakes for all of us. What an amazing dad. The girls were so excited. They had been reading in bed waiting for their breakfast. They managed to eat all their breakfast with no spills and big smiles.

Juliana, Kathryn, Steve

What we have been up to

Well today was busy, we had some yard work to get done before it rained, and we barely made it, Steve had to finish mowing in the rain. I was working on tearing out the last of the hedge in the garden. We are getting rid of some of it to make more room in the garden. I also dug out the tomato plants. The only things left are a couple pepper plants, and some onions that decided to grow. I have got to get the peppers picked soon because it's going to freeze next week.

We have finally been getting tomatoes, and since I decided not to make salsa, we have had a hard time knowing what to do with them all. The first batch we made into spaghetti sauce and I didn't end up getting it into bottles, and processed, so it's in the freezer. Today I had another bunch of tomatoes that had to be delt with. They have been sitting on the counter staring at my for days. So I rolled up my sleeves and started in on them. We decided to make sauce again, only I found a new recipe. After all the work, it turned out really great. It was a little odd to peal and cook for most of the day and only come out with 5 pints, but I am pretty darn proud of them.

I also had to make bread today. I think I ended up doing three loads of dishes. While I was in the kitchen, Steve attacked the rest of the house. He is quite amazing and got the laundry, vacuuming, and bathrooms done. So not only do we have bread and tomato sauce to eat, the house is clean!

One more random thing. Last week I decided to cut all our pumpkins off the vine and get rid of the vine. For some reason, the vine suddenly died and was looking really bad. Since I was out there I dug up the cantaloup vine, and the watermelon one too. We learned a lot this year about gardening, and one lesson was that pumpkins need a lot of space. This year our watermelon got over taken by the pumpkin vine, and never grew anything. When I was pulling it out I found this.

A perfect little watermelon that was trying it's best to grow despite the lack of sunlight. I couldn't believe it. Too funny.

A funny tooth story and other stuff

On Friday night Steve and I got to go on a date. Since we are cheap and rarely pay a babysitter, we don't go out that often. When we do, we try to trade with someone else who has children. So Friday, the girls went to a friends house to play, while Steve and I went out. We had a good evening together, then went to pick up the girls. When we arrived we were informed that Juliana had bonked heads with Kathryn and consequently lost a tooth!!!! The funny thing was, they couldn't actually find the tooth. While we were talking about it, the mother happened to bend down and pick something up, and it was the tooth. The other funny thing is that I don't think this tooth actually has another one waiting to come down. It was just getting moved around by the other one coming in right next to it. So it may actually be a very long time before she gets another tooth in that spot!

Since we are talking about Juliana, she said the funniest thing in the breakfast prayer yesterday. I actually got up, and wrote it down so I would forget it. (Of course I didn't let her know that) Here it is, "Please bless the people that don't get three serving every day, (insert long pause) that they will still try to be healthy and not die." As much as she can drive me up the wall, she can say the funniest things.

Dishes and hard water

This is a rather long involved story about my woes with my dishes. If you have had trouble with your dishes coming out of your washer with white film all over them read on, if not, you may want to stop now.

A couple months ago, we started having a problem. We would run our dishes through the dishwasher and they wouldn't come out looking clean. Most started coming out with a white film. This did not make us happy, we realized that we had just bought a new version of our favorite soap, and decided that was the problem. We took it back, because were we bought it is good to take things back. As I talked to the clerk, I discovered that several others were having problems. We, being the curious nerds we are searched on the internet, and found that a lot of other people were complaining about this new formula and having the same problems as we were.

So I went to our little corner store, and picked up a box the good old fashioned stuff and life continued on. That is until, that box of detergent ran out and we had to get more. I went on my monthly shopping trip thinking that as long as I stayed away from the new version of our favorite brand I would be just fine, not so. We started getting the white stuff back, I went again one late night to our corner store and bought a different brand hoping that would fix the problem, it didn't. What to do.....I got smart and called Steve's uncle. He works as a sales man for high end appliances. I knew he would have an answer. He did, but it was not good.

When you get right down to the bottom of it, the phosphates in the "good old" soap cause algae build up in streams and rivers once they are put out into the eco-system. So the Eco people made a rule that said no more phosphates. Thus all the companies removed the phosphates. What does that matter you say??? The phosphates are what neutralize, or combat the effects of the hard water that we have. (As a side note we recently had our water tested, and it's a # 21 on the hard water scale). So basically we had no recourse. All the soap was going to make our dishes look awful. For about 1.5 days we decided to just wash our dishes by hand, but we are wimps and soon started searching for a better solution.

Well we soon found one, I decided to just toss some vinegar into the washer before washing. It did help a lot, and our problem was solved. Then the white stuff came back. But I had been doing my research and keeping my ear to the ground and I had hear of a product that worked "miracles" with this problem. I finally broke down and went in search of it. We washed a load with it added to the regular soap and held our breath......... The dishes came out sparkling and clean. Even the worst ones have come completely clean after a few washes. So now I will never be caught without my little dishwashing additive. I know you are dying to know what it is. If you have this problem RUN to your nearest corner store, don't look at W-M because they don't have it, and look for Lemi Shine right next to the soap. It will solve all your dishwashing problems.