Homemade Peanut Butter

This is so easy!  I can't believe it's taken me 33 years to try this.  Take out your food processor, dry roasted peanuts and turn it on.   I also add a drop or two of olive oil and some honey to sweeten it up.

Grind the peanuts past the chopped stage.   Soon it will "ball" up.  You can stop at this point or you can go a little bit further to get it creamier.   

Try some on a cracker!

You won't go back.  I promise.  The test...does a toddler like homemade peanut butter?

(Please forget about how nasty her hair is...it really is, you see her nose has been running and her hair is matted into her snot....see, it really is terribly gross.   And yes, I always said I wouldn't be that mom who let her kids run around with snotty noses but here I am)

She liked it so much she abandoned the cracker and went straight for the peanut butter.  Try it today!

Just for fun

This is on one of our bookshelves at home.   I saw these letter trains at an amish store in Westcliffe, CO while we there for seminary.  For two years I kept eying them and admiring them.  Finally, I broke down and purchased them for our family.   Our last name is pretty long and so it doesn't fit exactly - maybe someday we'll have our fireplace with a mantle that it can go on top of.

Why I love craigslist

I picked this up on Saturday for Abby.  It is all wooden and just super cute!   And on top of that, I got to have a lovely drive through a new part of the Green Bay area.

Two Peas in a Pod

I love that they love being with each other!

Goofin' off!

Learning your letters

I've been doing a very informal schooling with Abby.  Basically, she is learning all the time but we've tried working on identifying and writing the letters 'A' and 'B'.   We made pretzels last week and shaped them into her name  (Interesting how they each got bigger, huh?)  As we drive in the car or walk along, Abby can pick out the different letters, especially 'A'.   Sometimes I wonder if she is learning and if I should be doing more but then she'll say something that completely blows me away with her comprehension of the world around her.  I think for now, I'll just continue working on letters and allow her to enjoy figuring out the world around her.

Out for a walk

We've been having a warming trend here in Green Bay.   It was in the upper 30's today and sunny too.  And Paul's day off so we got to take a short family walk.  How wonderful to get out and breathe some fresh air.

Notice no coat for Daddy - it is just that warm!

The Mountains Bow Down

The Mountains Bow Down is an easy read yet keeps your attention throughout the whole book.   FBI agent Raleigh Harmon sets out on a cruise to Alaska as a sort of vacation.  While on board, a movie star's wife is murdered.  Raleigh has just a week to solve the mystery before all the vacationers go back home.  I like to try to guess "who dun it"? when I read mysteries and in this particular novel, I didn't feel like the audience was let in on enough of the clues to figure it out.   I was more along for the ride with the FBI agent.  In a way this is fitting with it being written in first person.   I also realized that this is a book in a series and I haven't read the first two yet.   I think this would help give more depth to her character if I had been familiar with the others in the series.  I was a bit surprised that there wasn't more insight into her spiritual life or her dependence upon the Lord.  It was perhaps more like a secular fiction just without the language.  Overall, I enjoyed it and would read more stories by Giorello in the future.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."