Big Changes

Big changes have been happening at the Russell House. I have already gotten rid of high fructose corn syrup, and all the foods with the ingredients that you can’t name out of my diet, and now it is time to make changes for the girls. No more junk food. I developed some bad habits, like letting them eat pop-tarts every morning. I am responsible for feeding them, and it is time that I start doing a better job! I am beginning to prefer making everything myself, that way I know exactly what goes in to the food we eat.

So I have been baking!

First I found a recipe from the Sneaky Chef for Breakfast Cookies. Here are the ingredients:

This is what they look liked baked:

The girls loved them! This is a much better alternative to pop-tarts.

The girls had a friend spending the night and  I realized I had no good snacks, so I made them sugar cookies.

I am also working on some muffin recipes. This week I made a batch of blueberry muffins. Those blueberries were tart! The girls voted no to the blueberry muffins, but Jason and I thought they were good!

I made pancakes this morning using up the last of my whole wheat pancake mix.

And since Marley loves my Carrot/Zucchini Bread, I made a fresh loaf today.

Deep End People

We are now official “Deep End People”. For the last 7 years, we have stayed in the shallow end - Not wanting to look away, for fear one of our kids would need help. I almost thought that my kids would never make it to the deep end.

Well, this is our year to move to the deep end. The girls can both swim, and they are loving it. Here are some pictures I took last night at the pool:

Claudia doing a flip and a belly flop:

Marley doing cannon balls:

Happy Swimming!

Camping Part 3

I made T Shirts for us to wear on our trip. I used some white iron on paper. They turned out great!

The girls looked like this:

Mine and Jason’s looked like this:

Saturday night we watched The Clayborn Family band play:

We took a nice drive through the mountains:

for the first time in 3 years, we saw an Elk. Maya was in the back of the truck and she started snarling at it!

Every year, we take a picture with Yogi before we leave the campground:

We were loaded down on the way home. Poor Maya had little room in the car:

Meatloaf and More

I made a healthy meatloaf for dinner with carrots, onion, oatmeal and seasonings:

 

Our side dish was mashed cauliflower and turnips (I have never had turnips before, I didn’t even know what they looked like, and I couldn’t even taste them in the dish):

The meatloaf was crumbly, but tasted really good. I don’t care what the TV shows and magazines say, mashed cauliflower is not the same as mashed potatoes. It is good, but not like mashed potatoes! I will however, make this dish again.

Since my dad had an accident, we were taking him dinner and a cake. The girls helped with the cake (Claudia is wearing my Granny's apron), they love to cook!

We made two small cakes, the girls were so proud!

Everyone loves to cuddle with Maya! I was actually thinking: Poor Maya, know one will leave her alone (she is very tolerant)!

GG and Grampees also got a new cat. They named him Boozer:

I helped out my mom today by cleaning out her fridge, going to the dump, and then taking her to Pet Smart to get some goodies for the new kitty. His new toy:

I love kitties!

Camping Trip Part 2

On Tuesday, we went to Mingo Falls:

 

Do you see Marley’s name on the bench? It already said MARLE and Jason added the Y.

After Mingo Falls, we went tubing. Claudia tubed in Jason’s lap, and Marley got to tube by herself. I had never been tubing before and really had no desire to tube. But seeing my children having so much fun made me want to do it too. Mainly to show them that mom can have fun (and it made Jason happy too).

This was Maya’s 3rd year camping:

Driving the dirt roads through the mountains:

Jason and Jeremy went to a Turkey Shoot and Jeremy won!

Camping Trip Part 1

Wow, I don’t know were to begin. We left last Friday to go camping in Cherokee, NC. We were planning on staying 5 nights, but ended up staying 6. It was a very relaxing trip. As always, the girls loved it. They rode there bikes all day long! Of course I took a lot of photos. Over 300!

Here we go!

The girls rode the Hey Ride at least 7 times!

We were excited to see Cindy! She has always been on vacation when we camped in the past:

Claudia and Marley made friends fast!

Maya loves camping too!

The girls put on an Indian Show:

The girls played so hard and they slept hard too!

The girls enjoyed playing in the river. Only moments after I took this photo, Claudia ended up wet – from head to toe!

Jason caught some fish!

Then he caught some more:

And some more:

Our camper:

More photos to come!