Got Any Corn?

The start of the hard work of storing up food for the winter has officially begun.  Well, we really started stocking the freezer for winter a couple of months ago.  When it comes to berries Royal is like a little squirrel, he's constantly putting them in the freezer, and they always seem to be gone just when I'm looking for them to put on the kid's plates.  We had big plans this year to go to a berry farm and pick a lot of our own berries, but with the driving time, the amount of hard it work it takes to pick the berries, and the young ages of our kiddos, we decided we'd put it off for another year and re-evaluate next May.  But corn is a whole 'nother story!

Last year, we froze 6 dozen corn and we ran out way too early, so since you can get the corn 4 dozen in a box, we just decided to get 2 boxes this year.  We started out the morning, by going and picking up the corn right when the stand opened, because on the weekends they always seem to sell out really fast.  Then we headed North to Newton to go check out the peaches at Beck's Farm and find out what kind of pears she's going to get in this year.  We were hoping to can a couple batches of peaches in the next couple weekends before we left for our vacation to Washington, but it seems like the peaches just might not be ready yet, they are pretty hard still, and I just don't have the time or room to buy a bunch of peaches and then have to lay them around the house waiting for them to ripen.  I'm pretty sure the kids would think they were new toys just for them, and I'd have peaches hidden everywhere!  So, if they don't ripen in the next couple of weeks, hopefully they'll wait for us to get back from Washington!

Anyway, back to the corn.  Like I mentioned, we got 8 dozen corn this year.  That would be 96 ears for all you out there who don't like doing mental math.  :) That's a lot of shucking!  So, I made up a new house rule.  When we got home I said to Royal, "Well, it turns out just like I don't do dishes, I don't shuck corn either"  Ha ha ha, I crack myself up!  So, Royal sat out in the garage for about 2 hours shucking every ear of corn.


He wasn't alone though, he had Jayden (and Sam) out there with him keeping him entertained with a measuring tape.



But don't worry, it's not like I didn't do anything.  I was in the house, cutting all the kernals off the cobs.



and then doing some more...



Royal and I got smart this year.  The last couple of times we've done this, we cooked the corn on the cob and then stuck them in an icebath to stop them from cooking, and then we'd cut the kernals off as fast as we could.  The cobs were usually still pretty hot because we're both a bit impatient and we didn't want to wait until they were completely cool, and so I always left the project with burned finger tips.  But after complaining to Royal's mom about my sore fingers, she oh-so-wisely suggested that we cut the kernals off and then cook them.  Genius!!!  And it took so many fewer batches of water as well!  We're getting smarter over here folks!

I just am always surprised that all the corn fits into so few bags.  96 ears of corn, and we have 20 bags of corn to stick in our freezer!

Wet-n-Wild

I decided to forgo (or at least postpone a couple hours) Willow's nap this afternoon, and the kids and I headed to the zoo for Friday's Wet-n-Wild Days with our friends from StrollerFriends.  A firetruck shows up at the zoo and starts spraying water off and on for about 3 hours.  We had lots of fun and it was perfect weather for it!




Jayden was a bit timid at first.  The water was cold and you never knew when the firefighter was going to turn the hose on you, but he eventually followed Lunden into the puddle that the water was creating in the middle of the field.




I knew Jayden was getting serious about things when he came back and asked for his goggles.  The kid kills me!

(and I'm sorry, but do check out the outfit on the girl that Jayden's arm is conveniently blocking the face of... i guess she's taking wet-n-wild to a whole 'nother level!)








Eventually, they turn the water off for awhile and let the kids play in the puddles around the field.


And thankfully I had a few dollars in my wallet, thanks to Royal always giving me his spare cash and we strolled out of the zoo eating a couple green sno-cones!

Rain Boots

I love this girl and her opinions of what she if going to wear that day or if she will let me put a "pretty" in her hair. Currently she is in love with a pair of polka-dot rain boots she found in her closet. I think she would sleep in them if I'd let her. :)

Pirate Superhero!

Jayden disappeared into his room for a little bit today.  When he came out, he declared he was a Pirate Superhero!



Me : Hey Pirate Superhero, where are your pants?

Pirate Superhero : You don't need pants to save people!

Me : Awesome!

Rainy 4th

It was a rainy, rainy 4th here.  Luckily, thanks to all my Washington roots, I'm totally used to that.

After church, we came home and the kiddos popped some confetti poppers, went through a few boxes of snap-it poppers, and Royal lit off some worms and smoke bombs.  They thought it was awesome!










In the afternoon, after a pathetic attempt at a nap by Willow, we headed over to Nick and Sabrina's house.  It was still pouring down rain outside, so the kids played inside for a little bit.


But my Washington side came prepared with a towel and extra clothes because you just can't play inside all day on the 4th of July!  So, we drug the kids outside to find some puddles to jump in and a dirt pile to play in.  Funny thing about the dirt here in Kansas when it gets wet....


...it totally sticks to everything!


Thanks to the kids little to no naps, they were a tad cranky, so we kept feeding them popsicles to keep them happy.  I think they ended up have like 3 of them.  :)






We also let off a few more fireworks in the street, pulled some confetti poppers, and popped a few more boxes of snap-its.  The kids loved the snap-its so much, that Nick headed back to the fireworks stand and came back with a box of 50 boxes of snap-its.  The kids opened and popped every. single. one.


There were so many popped snap-its on the ground, it kinda looked like it snowed.  :)


Thankfully the rained stopped in the later afternoon and we were able to light off the rest of our fireworks and let the kids try out some sparklers.



Later that evening, you know, when the kids were way past tired and were crashing from all the sugar we fed them, we finally went home and got the kids dressed and ready for bed, then we drug them outside on the driveway to watch the country clubs light off all their big fireworks.  We had a lot of fun and the kids managed to sleep in until after 8 this morning.  :)

Hollywood Willow

Check out Willow's outfit for church this morning. She helped pick it out and refused to take her sunglasses off. :)

(and is it just me or does her smile slightly resemble Grandma Leona in this picture???)

Patriotic Dinos

Where have I been??? I know you have all been wondering and are also probably sick of looking at that crazy picture of Jayden, that I think is absolutely hilarious. Well, let me tell you. But first, I just want to show you what is lined up around our house all. the. time.

Dinos…..


…and more dinos…


…the meat eaters all grouped together, the leaf eaters all grouped together, who are always grouped around a plant, alive or fake, it doesn’t matter. The leaf eaters are always hungry. And for that matter so are the meat eaters. The meat eaters are always hunting the leaf eaters and they say to each other, “The leaf eaters are always eating, we will find them by the plants”


Anyway, the obsession with dinosaurs is still crazy around here. Even Willow runs around the house roaring. Willow often gets to be Jayden’s baby T-rex and he goes and hunts meat for them to eat. It’s pretty fun to see them actually playing together, even if most of the time Jayden is bossing her around, telling his baby T-rex to sit in one spot while he hunts and the baby T-rex never listens and follows him running around the house roaring and attacking things.

Well as for why there have been no new posts lately….Jayden found this pattern for dinosaurs that his Grandma had sent in one of her packages and he asked if I could make them for him. I said sure, I mean how hard could they be right? I can follow directions, cut things out, sew them together. They are just little dinos, it shouldn’t be so hard. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not a good sewer, seamstress, whatever you want to call it. I’m just not very good. I’ve only had my sewing machine for about a year now and I have to keep reminding myself about the drawers full of knitted stuff that just wasn’t that good when I was first starting to knit. It takes practice to get better and I don’t have a ton of time to practice, but really, practicing on things for a 4-year old is perfect, he doesn’t care what the details look like. :) I had no idea these darn dinos were going to take me like a week to finish. All my spare time was spent at the sewing machine, not on the computer coming up with anything to entertain my 5 blog followers with. So, as for the dinos, Jayden decided he wanted them four colors - red, blue, yellow, and green. We went to the fabric store last Saturday and Jayden picked out material for each color. I tried to influence him, but no, anything I suggested he said absolutely not too, so I just went with what he wanted, I figured he’d like ‘em better this way.

So, here are Jayden’s finished products. They totally turned out patriotic looking with the red stripes and blue with stars material. Perfect for this time of year! And he even picked out the googly eye colors. Blue for the flyer - “so he can see in the dark like me” - Jayden has this strange idea that only people with blue eyes can see in the dark, I’ve tried explaining otherwise, but he’s set in his ways and it’s just not a battle I’m willing to argue over. The T-Rex has one red and one green. And the stegosaurus has one blue and one green.


I had no idea they were going to be so big. I thought they’d be like a normal sized stuff animal. Oh no, they are practically life-sized. I didn’t even look at the pattern before we went and got material and I’m such a novice when it comes to sewing that I didn’t even figure it out when I added up the yards of material we were going to need. Oh well, at least Jayden likes them. :)