Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit...

...the more you eat, the more you...

Forgive me my 10-year-old boy humor. I come by it honestly...just ask my dad who taught me all these phrases to begin with...

Anyway, back to the beans.

Last week I had one of my new neighbors ask me if I canned. My response was, "I have done water bath canning once with help". She proceeded to ask me if I would like to give it another go and can some green beans. Fear gripped my heart and shouted "NO!" But my practical and adventurous side got the words out of my mouth first with a falsely confident "Sure, why not".

The next day she brought me over two big of garden fresh green beans...

Glorious. Then she brought in her pressure cooker. AHHHHHH!!! I don't know how to use this thing. Don't these things blow up on people? What if I do it wrong and I give my family botchulism? Can you tell I am a little high strung???

Well after she gave me a quick run through, I was on my own armed only with my false confidence, a minor level of intelligence, her verbal instructions, and her cell phone number.

Middle and I snapped and cleaned all the beans. I assembled the beans in the jars as instructed. Then I turned to the pressure cooker, looked it straight in the proverbial eye and said, "I am not afraid of you."

Which of course was false.

I knew it. The beans knew it. The pressure cooker knew it.

Would you believe that thing called my bluff? No? Would you believe that I chickened out and desperately started calling all my new neighbors (the one who gave me the beans was traveling out of town that day) trying to get someone to help me not blow up my house? Why, yes you would believe that wouldn't you.

Thank heavens one of my fabulous new neighbors came and gave me another quick refresher on getting the beans in the pressure cooker. I am happy to say that I took her instruction, then she left and I still did it all myself.

Yep, after a long day and a battle with my confidence and the pressure cooker, I turned these...

Into 18 pints of these...

Pretty, right? Are you proud of me for not giving up?

With one round of pressure cooking canning under my belt, I think there may be more in my future. All these green beans are lonely in our food storage, they told me. They have requested some apple pie filling. I can't tell them no now can I.

Now that the canning bug may be in my future, I would love to know what I should can. Do you can? What is your favorite thing to can?

Teaching Your Child to Ride a Bike-for Dummies

There a couple of parts of parenthood that I was not looking forward to. No not poopy diapers, late nights, the first "I hate you Mommy", homework, or even trips to the grocery store.

Nope.

The parts I was terrified of...well they are the parts that would most likely prove I have absolutely NO clue what I am doing. They would prove I have just been flying by the seat of my pants.

Three of those things I can think of right off the bat are-
potty-training
pulling a loose tooth
and...
teaching a child to ride a bike

Potty training has come and gone twice...they aren't permanently damaged and now I feel better...just slightly...about the process.

I have had to pull three loose teeth...still hate it and cringe inside every time, but I get 'er done.

Teaching a child to ride a bike...that one was turning out to be an utter failure and a completely frustrating experience. We just couldn't seem to get the concepts taught. We tried pushing him down a hill (not a really hard push...). We tried holding on to the back of his seat and letting go (horrible experience...does this really work?). We tried encouraging..."you are a smart kid, you can do it". We tried tough love "get up of the driveway, shake it off". I am ashamed to admit we even used the "you don't want to be the only kid who can't ride their bike" ...insert head hanging in shame now...

Nothing worked. Especially with my child who has a little anxiety (sorry son, you get that from me).

Nothing worked until we got some advice from my SIL's parents (they live here). Their advice was something I had never heard of. It was worth a try...

Well guess who is riding a bike now?!?!

I tell you what...just after finally getting in this house this is the next most exciting thing in our lives right now. After almost a year of trying off and on to help Oldest ride his bike, he is now a full-fledged bike riding machine.

AND Middle is just behind him. 

Now we have two little bike riders in our household.

SO now that I have shared my woes and joys, I want to share with you our new teaching a child to ride a bike method. 

The big secret...take the pedals OFF the bike. Yup. Take those suckers off. Take them off and lower the seat down as low as it will go.

Then you let your learner first just scoot around on his bike. Seriously, just let them scoot and glide.

'Cause you know what? The hardest part of learning and teaching to ride a bike is balance. This method totally accomplishes that.

For day or two let your little one roll around on their bike. We started our boys on a slight hill (our driveway) and let them glide down it. Once they started getting the hang of it, we challenged them to see how far they could glide with out their feet touching.

Once they could do that comfortably (for Oldest a long afternoon for Middle it took a couple of days), put the pedals back on.

NO joke, in the very first try with the pedals Oldest was off and pedaling.

AH-mazing.

It took a little longer with Middle, BUT it still worked.

Now we have two very happy bike riders. Now we have another way to encourage them to be active. Now they have another way to play with the neighborhood kids.

Now they have a relieved and ecstatic mom and dad.

Now we just need to work on stopping, a little...just a little.

That's nothing though.

Nothing compared to the joy of learning how to ride a bike...and to being able to teach how to ride said bike.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

I heart a good chocolate chip cookie...and man do I heart it when it comes in pie form.

I first stumbled upon this pie when Oldest was a baby. A friend gave me the recipe to make for an activity. I remember thinking the whole time it was baking, "Man, when is that done because if it tastes as good as it smells...well then I am going to eat the whole thing".

The thing I love about this pie is that it is not a dry cookie consistency. This pie is a delightful mixture between cookie and cookie dough (you all know how I feel about cookie dough). Oh the ooey-gooey-ness of it all. Top it with some milk chocolate chips and a scoop of vanilla ice cream and hold on to your seats.

This is an easy, delicious, crowd-pleasing pie...go ahead make yourself one.



Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie


2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour
1 cup chocolate chips
2/3 cups chopped walnuts
1 frozen 9-inch pie shell


Take pie shell out of freezer. Preheat oven to 325. In a the bowl of your mixer beat eggs until foamy. Add sugars and mix well. Add butter and vanilla until well blended. Add remaining ingredients. Pour into pie shell. Bake for 1 hour. The pie should be golden brown and a toothpick should come out mostly clean.


Let it stand alone or match it with vanilla ice cream. Mmmmmmmm....so good.

The Inside...You Asked For It

Welcome to our home. We have really enjoyed this home so far...I am sure living in a hotel for over 30 days had nothing to do with it...wink, wink.

As I said yesterday, I decided to swallow my pride and give you a glimpse inside before we are done getting it ready. Since I am still a little paranoid, I am only showing you some of the first floor...AND I might be making commentary about what is changing...so hang in there...

Okay so this room is right as you come in. Notice, no pictures hanging up. For now they just sit out. Also the stenciling you might have seen on the arch will be going bye-bye.

Right as you come in is what we are making the formal dining room. AGAIN, nothing is hanging up. My poor mirror is so sadly sitting on the floor. We got a rug and I am hoping for curtains sometime.

Ahhhh, the kitchen. Gotta.to.LOVE. all that space. Does anyone notice the DOUBLE OVENS? Yippee-iy-oh-ky-ay. We are waiting on some bar stools for the counter and for an eat in area...will show that later.

I have never really shown our bedroom on the blog before because it is yawn-errific. It still lacks a little in decoration, but it is a great room. We love it. Fun fact: the first night we stayed in the room I laid in bed, turned off the light, and then saw something glowing on the ceiling above me...

The previous home owners had left them self a glow-in-the-dark reminder on the ceiling that said CELL PHONE...of course to remind herself to charge her cell phone. You can't see it during the day so no big deal for now...BUT I will have you know it has not helped me remember to charge my cell phone once.

Littlest's room is the most done boys' room. HOWEVER, it does need a paint job. I really want to paint it a softer chocolate brown with an antique white board and batten accent wall where the changing table is....we will see how long that takes me.

One of the best things about this house is all the STORAGE. Closets galore. I mean for reals people. The home owner did an AH-mazing job at putting shelves everywhere. We currently don't even have enough stuff to fill said shelves.

Glorious, right?

Okay my friends, that will have to tide you over. I am excited to share more with you as it comes. I am really excited for Oldest's new room, but were as it is currently HOT pink and will need short of a truck load of primer to fix...it might be awhile till I get that all done.

Off to get more done around the house.

Family Weekend

One of the great things about our new location is that we are closer to a majority of both of our families. We were so excited to have our first visitors this Labor Day weekend.

My brother and his family came and we had lots of fun. As you can tell by our photo shoot.

They were only here for a few days and one of the things on the must-do list was to visit Bear World. Bear world...well is a place to go and see Bears...as the name probably gives away.

This park was awesome. You pay to go through a drive through park with mostly Bears. Black and Grizzly. Not only was there this little drive through adventure, but there was also a petting zoo and a little amusement park. ALL which was free with the admission price. All of the kids LOVED it.

First we did the drive through part.

The windows were only down in the part before the bears. They were definitely UP the entire time we were in the bear part.

We were all just piled in my brother's car together. That was one of the more fun parts, that we were all together.

We saw lots and lots of bears. Sometimes they were right up close to the car.

After the bear part, we went and enjoyed the amusement park rides. The boys loved going from ride to ride. The favorites were definitely the cars and the roller coaster.

Our weekend was great. Hopefully this is just the first of many times we will get to hang out with nearby family and play with cousins.

Now for some blog housekeeping-

I know that I have been absence for a really long time. You all of been great and I really appreciate your kinds words during our moving fiasco adventure. Now that it is finally over and we are in our house, a lot of my time is being spent organizing everything. While pretty  much all the boxes are unpacked, walls are still missing pictures, rooms still need to be painted, and several rooms need to be still put together. Basically a lot of work to go.

I know several of you have said that you are excited to see pictures of our new house. I am excited to show you...but I am hating that I might have to show you works in progress. I go a little crazy when a room is not the completed vision I have in my head. I go crazier (what is that possible???) showing people an unfinished room. BUT after a new move and a month of eating out we are on a tight budget...PLUS I am exhausted. SO our house is not going to be how I want it for a little while. Oh well. Eye twitching now....

So today I am going to take a couple pictures of our house. I will show you all some of them tomorrow. Promise!

I have also missed creating and sewing and all that good stuff. Hopefully that will come about soon...but like I said earlier...tight budget...exhausted...so hang in there. We are entering my favorite time of year so I am sure creating will start popping up.

WHEW...sorry for the novel. Basically I could have said...blogging coming back with pictures of unfinished rooms and some eventual crafts/sewing/decorating projects...obviously I am not good at keeping it short and sweet!