You are invited!

I am doing choir this year. This Saturday is the Musical. It is called “Living Inside Out”. I know it is a funny name, but you will understand it if you watch it all, or listen to the song “Living inside out”.

When: This Saturday (17 May, 2008)

Cost: Free!

Time: 6:00 p.m.

Where: First Baptist Church

53953 County Road 17

Bristol, IN 46507

Come if you want, but I would love you to come if you can!

P.S. The eggs disappeared. We think that a raccoon got to them. 🙁

Wedding

Cutting the Cake

Waiting…

Yesterday’s yesterday, (otherwise known as Saturday the 10th of May) Uncle Sam and Auntie Angelique got married!  We had a lot of lots of fun.

You get married when you know you will make a life long commitment to the other person.  God will help! Uncle Sam married Auntie Angelique because she is pretty, a Christian, and he loves her. LOTS!

First we played and talked and talked and talked and talked. We took pictures all over the place! Whenever we got to the right place, with the right camera, the right people, and the right lighting, the photographers took a lot of pictures.  So did Momma and Uncle Kai and a lot of others!

What I think of all these pictures!

Beautiful Flower GirlsMy sisters were the flower girls. They dropped fake flower petals behind the ring bearer. Then Uncle Sam and Auntie Angelique met inEating “rice” the front and got married.

As they were going into the McGuire mobile, we threw pieces of frosting. It was supposed to be rice. It is a tradition for weddings. If they get it in their hair, supposedly they have more kids. Momma and Daddy did not get any in their hair, and they had four kids! I hope they got lots in their hair, I want lots of cousins!

Dancing with brideMost everyone was eating the rice. Momma did not let me eat any but, everyone else did. Adrian ate some too, but Momma did not want him too.

Dancing with friends and cousins!Then they drove to the reception where we ate and danced and had lots and lots and lots of fun.

After it was over, we went home. We got there late. And when we got home…. zzzzzzzzzzz…. (I was tired!)

Congratulations Uncle Sam and Auntie Angelique!

Enjoy your Honeymoon trip!

Triplets!

Sitting on nestRemember a few days I told you about Momma Robin? She is hoping to have triplets! Triplets expected Yesterday we discovered it. Today we are going to go check again.

Robins usually stop at four, but if a bird watcher collects her eggs to put in incubators, she may have more! She lays four because they can’t care for many more babies. She will lay eggs until it “feels right” according to an article we read.

The dandelion picture we took after we took the pictures of Momma Robin and her eggs. I thought you might like it. Daddy pays us a cent per lion, so I am collecting them and blowing on them for more pennies! So the dandelions grow and I collect more for my camera that I am working for. Momma says this is called “job security!”

Planting seeds for Daddy

Robin eggs

Meet Momma bird to be

For the last couple of days we have been watching a momma bird to be. So far she has built a nest and laid two eggs! She laid her eggs in a nest in our Redbud Tree.

Empty nestShe is a Robin. Robins have blue eggs and lay their eggs in the morning after sunrise. And after a breakfast of worms, worms, worms, worms.Nest with two eggs She may lay four eggs.

She will sit on the eggs two weeks and then when they hatch, she will probably be thinking “hungry, hungry, hungry always hungry!”. Baby birds are always hungry!

She will probably tell her kids, “when you grow up I hope you have kids that put you through what you put me through!”

One of her kids will probably say “that’s what Grandpa says he kept on telling you! Say? What’s for breakfast?”Momma bird watching us

Momma Robin will say, “Worms.”

Another kid will say, “Worms? Again?”

We expect the babies to hatch around the 12th of May! We will keep you posted!

Great blog!

My Daddy writes a blog. The story he wrote today was written while we were in Swaziland. Only he was looking through e-mails and found it. He was remembering it.

Click here to read a great blog. Today’s story is about when a snake dropped in on Daddy! Me and my Daddy

I liked it a lot! Read it and let me know what you think of it!

This is a picture of Daddy and me after the snake dropped on him. It is in South Africa.

Daddy’s Blog

Maple Sugar

Boiling the syrup downWe made Maple sugar today! First we made Maple syrup (a couple of days ago). We did two batches of maple syrup. The 2nd one we turned into sugar.

Today we boiled it to when you put in in water it turns into hard taffy (250 – 255 deg f). Then we poored it on a cooky pan and mix fast ! (it hardens and sugaratizes quick. )

Shifting the big pieces outWe ground it up to make it smaller. Because it won’t be as hard to eat 8)Candy from pan bottom

We made sugar insted of candy, becus I wonted to. If we wanted candy, we would not boil it as long.

It is fun, but it is hard work. It tastes like maple syrup mixed with sugar! I love the taste! The work is fun, it is sort of worth it. If I had to do this all the time for most of my sugar, I would plant a lot of Maples.

I need help finding designs for boilers becus we want to try it outside next year!Ground sugar

Lumpy Maple candy

P.S We got 2 1/2 cups of sugar!

Minus what we ate 😉

 

Maple Syrup

Needed bigger bucketSaturday we were making Maple Syrup because we had the sap and we thought it would be a good science experiment. We read Little House in the Big Woods and it made me, at least, want to make our own maple syrup.Putting in tap

We got the tap last year, but because it was out of season we could not tap our tree.

Well 4 days ago we tapped a tree. Every morning we put the sap in the refrigerator because it’s like milk and spoils easily..

First bucket usedSaturday we boiled it down to Maple Syrup. Hopefully it will end up on some pancakes. We were going to use the smoker but it didn’tPouring sap stop smoking. 8)

It looked like we were not going to get any more sap because it was too warm. But we did get more, lots more!

Here is the recipe for Maple Syrup.

We used all these twice!First you collect the sap from your tree. It needs to be a Maple tree; Sugar and Black Maple work best, but any kind of Maple will do. You get as much asBoiling the sap you can, because LOTS of sap equals itsy bitsy bit of syrup.

Then you boil it down until about 219 degrees. It gets darker and the water evaporates. The best place to boil it is outside because the house felt icky doing it inside (Momma said it was all the humidity in the house). We opened the windows to let the humidity out.

This is the sugar sand sedimentThen after it was boiled we let it sit for 12 hours in a cold place. All the sediments (Miss Krista called it Sugar Sand) goes to the bottom. We strained it using a funnel and coffee filters. Straining it took out all the sugar sand and made the syrup look nice.Straining sediment

Then you can it by heating the syrup to over 180 degrees (just before it boils) and pour it carefully into sterilized canning jars. After you pour it you can put the lid on and screw it on tight! We tipped it on the side ’cause the recipe said to. We listened for it to POP! It means they are Boil for 10 minutessealed.

Miss Krista said that the lighter the syrup the better the grade. The grade is only for the color, it does not mean the taste is better. Try the different kinds, see if you like the lighter better or if you like the darker better.Fill carefully

Now we are waiting for some Pancakes!

I can barely wait to try out some of our new, home made Maple Syrup. I think that real Maple Syrup tastes better than store-bought-nothing-has-to-do-with-Maple Pancake Syrup!

Syrup

Hats

Momma was reading a book called Miss Hunnicutt’s Hat. It was silly! Miss Hunnicutt had a chicken hat. Everybody in her town wanted her to dress their way or you would be dressing wrong!

Dog HatHer hat was way different! There was a lot bad things that happened in the story because of all the yelling. The dog got loose, the cats went up the tree and I want you to read the storyCat Hat to find out what happened next!

You will never believe what the queen’s hat was, but you will have to read it to find out!

We are wearing our silly hats! Just to be silly 🙂

Miss Hunnicutt’s Hat by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail deMarcken.