Times a Flyin'

Times a flyin!

 Another week as started and I can't believe another month has gone by so fast. I feel like I have been trying to keep up the pace with the calender...cause its flying by! 4th of July is only a little over a week away! No way!

We had another busy but fun week and weekend. Daniel and I had a lovely date night Friday. We did a bit of shopping at Joann fabrics, Daniel was wanting to look at more fabric for the quilt and I took that opportunity to look through all their clearance. Found some great deals including some lanterns marked down to a couple dollars. I knew I would find a spot for them. We went and watched Superman afterwords and had a great relaxing night. 

 These type of lanterns are fun and easy decor to add to a empty corner or space. You can also easily purchase a cord that attaches a light bulb to it that you can stick in your lantern. Makes for a beautiful night light or some romantic ambiance.

Yes we need that hole in the wall fixed :)

Saturday we spent the whole day as a family riding in the limo truck driving all around Kansas city to pick up motorcycles and quads for Daniel's business. By the end of the day we had 5 bikes and 2 quads stacked and straddled to the trailer and truck bed. What a sight! We had people taking our
pictures on the road. :)

 Sick kids gave us a chance to stay home on Sunday and relax, we enjoyed a lovely peaceful breakfast together, family time in the living room and a time for Daniel and I to talk. After and good afternoon nap we headed to our local theater a few blocks away to enjoy Monsters University together. It was hilarious!

on the way to the theater!

 A Bakin' and A Makin'

I have been keeping up with baking some new recipes. We went cherry picking at a friends last week and picked a huge bucket worth. I have been working on pitting and freezing them and figuring out which cherry recipe I want to try. We have been having a crazy problem with fruit flies. I find them around our sink, trash, and anything that is left on the counter. I have been trying to rid the kitchen of these annoying little bugs. I found a solution that works really nicely. I got a glass jar, put a few rotting cherries on the bottom and used paper to make a funnel. The fruit flies fly in and don't know how to get out. when its full I take it outside and dump it. I have had no flies by the sink or trash or anywhere. Its catching them great!

My fruit fly catcher!

So with being on the gaps diet and avoiding grains, you can't have chips or most crackers. The crunch of something salty and yummy has been very much missed! And the gluten free crackers at the store are so crazy expensive and you only get about 3 crackers in the box. So I decided to make my own recipe of crackers, combining about 3 recipes i found online. These crackers are scrum-didily-umcious! So for those of you who are doing gluten free here is the recipe!

Hannah's Grain-Free Crackers

3/4 C. coconut flour
1 1/2 C. almond meal (flour)
1/4 C. melted butter or coconut oil
1/4 C. Ground sunflower seeds (or another type of ground seed) (hemp, salba etc)
1/4 C. shredded coconut
3 eggs
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 tsp. rosemary (fresh or dried)
1 1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. chili pepper
1 T dried onion flakes
1/2 t curry powder
(also add whatever seasonings smell good to you , garlic salt, onion powder, italian blend. And if you want to make the crackers plain just leave out a lot of the seasonings.
Directions:
1. Preheat Oven to 350 degrees
2. Combine all ingredients and mix well. To grind up my sunflower seeds I stuck them in a blender for a minute.
3. The mixture should be moist enough to form a ball without it crumbling. If it is crumbling and not holding, add either more oil or another egg.
4. In between two sheets of parchment paper, roll the dough out and flatten to about 1/8 inch thick.
5. Remove top parchment and carefully relocate bottom parchment with rolled out dough onto a cookie sheet. With this much dough it should perfectly fit into a cookie sheet.
6. With sharp knife of pizza cutter, cut into 1/2 inch squares.
7. Bake for about 12-15 minutes, until golden brown. Make sure it looks nice and crunchy. Also could turn in on broil for several mintues.
Allow to cool for 30 minutes and store in an airtight container. Makes about 80 crackers.

 Tips for making affordable throw pillows!!!

As you have probably seen. We have been having designated sewing nights as a family to catch up on some needed sewing. I had some cloth napkins I bought at target that I wanted to sew into pillows. So I just thought I would share with you a tip on making pillows at a lower cost. All the cute pillows you see at target are between $20-$30... easily. I personally don't like spending that much on a pillow that will get dirty, possibly drawn on etc. But they have the cutest patterned pillows! So how can you get style and a bargain? Where to look for the fabric to make one yourself? Well I will tell you! At target for example look at their shower curtain selection thats on clearance. They can easily be marked down to $7 for a nice panel of fabric. Look for table clothes on sale, cloth napkins. I saw the same patterned pillow at Target for $30 a pillow. They had the same looking fabric that were cloth napkins for $8 and it made me 2 pillows! Look for alternatives! (other stores that have sales on shower curtains, table clothes etc would be TJ Maxx, Home goods, Marshall's, Target, World Market.

And when you are ever garage saling look for pillows that could be covered with new fabric. I have an assortment of all sizes of pillows that I have gotten at garage sales and are just waiting to recover. It can get nice and cheap if you just know what you are looking for.

When it was all said and done my pillows cost about $4.50 each! Thats way better than $30!
I also added some fun buttons that made it look even cuter than the one at Target, with my own personal touch! :)


I decided to start something fun for the kids and I to do over the summer since we aren't doing a whole lot of schooling. I thought it would be great to pick a fun and interesting book at the beginning of each week and learn about the things in the book. I also thought we could make crafts about the subject we were learning about that week, and do some research or field trips to continue the fun! Kinda like "Reading Rainbow" (tell me someone else grew up watching that show?)
So this week was learning about iguanas. We had some fun crafts and visited the pet store where they got to meet Clyde the iguana and hear all about iguanas from the pet store owner. Tomorrow we are going to get on youtube and watch some videos of the fun little creatures.

So HERE THE FUN BEGINS! You get a chance to win the "I wanna Iguana" Book!!! You don't want to miss out on chance to win this fun and adorable book. Just leave a comment on my blog or facebook post for my blog and you will be entered!

Shhh, a little Surprise!!!

Lastly I had to share what my awesome husband did for me! One of the mornings last week Daniel and Creed were hanging out together before Daniel went to work. Adonia and I were snuggling in the bed when we heard Daniel and Creed head out the door to go somewhere. When they returned I was told to call Daniel when I found "my surprise". Oooo boy! I love surprises! So I kept an eye out all day for what might be my surprise. I couldn't find it! Finally Daniel gave me a call and said that I should ask creed since he was in on the surprise. So I asked Creed "You went with daddy this morning, remember? You got mommy a surprise.....where is it? " Creed responded "Car"....at this point I was thinking "There is no way my husband could have gotten me ANOTHER car" (he is known for amazing surprises like that :) so maybe it was something in the car. I had Creed take me out to the car and was going to open the door when he headed around back to the trunk. And there I saw my surprise!

Daniel had gotten me a custom license plate! And its WNTRWDR (Winter Wonder.) Cause Daniel said I am his Winter Wonder. :) Awww I love that kind of cheesiness! He is the best!

My Find of the Week?
 Why the most darn rootin tootin-est comfiest shoes ever! Super cute as well! 2 bucks! Oh yeah, I am living in these things!

And my super cute dressing screen. $5. I am excited about this one because I can use it multiple places when I want to change things around. For now its going in place as our headboard till I get around to making my tufted headboard.

Well you should be getting excited because later this week I am writing a post and uploading old pictures that I found of our house when we first bought it....Our tractor kitchen, shag green carpet. And all! Gonna be fun! COMING FRIDAY!

Blessings,
Hannah Winter