Beef brisket in bbq sauce

This is one of our favorite meals. It's super easy to make because it is done in the crock pot. We like to pair it with corn, but John doesn't like corn kernals so only Magnus and I devour the side dish.

Recipe

3/4 h2o

1/4 worchesterchire

1 tbs vinegar

1 tsp instant bouillion granules

1/2 tsp dry mustard

2 cloves garlic minced

1 2 1/2 fresh beef brisket

1/2 c ketchup

2 tbs brown sugar

2 tbs butter

Mix everything together except for the last 4 ingredients. Place brisket in crockpot, pour sauce over it. Leaving 1/2 c of sauce for later use. Cook on low 10 hours. After it is cooked take it out of pot and shred/chop up the meat. Getting rid of any extra fatty stuff. In a small sauce pan, pour the 1/2 cup of liquid from before, add the last 3 ingredients, and heat to combine sauce. I pour the sauce into a big bowl and mix the meat together. Serve on buns.

This is what I've been doing the last week

This was what happened when I took the bumper out of her crib to try and fix. I guess there is a need for those things.

I had made this before she was born with a little bit of batting, but it would always fold over. So I took it apart and added pillow filling to make it more substantial. It took me over a week to get this done because I had to hand sew the tops of each section closed. I tried putting it through my sewing machine, but just ended up breaking a couple of needles. I think this was too thick to put through.

So now we have a new situation to deal with...she is able to pull herself up to a standing position. Now we have to put her bed at a lower level. Something new every week!

My great kids!

This is the first time we have had Sopheary hang outside with us on the grass. She looks like she is ready to escape! She pulled up some grass and dug up some dirt. Thankfully she didn't eat any of it. If you click on the picture to enlarge you can see all of her wonderous 4 teeth. She has 2 more on the top sides that will be coming through in the next couple of weeks. In the last few months, it seems like she is growing tremendously. Not so much by weight and height, but definately by mobility and teeth.

This is Magnus having his birthday cake that he shared with everyone at church. He is very much a goofball.

The seeds are growing!

So it looks like the cucumbers are definitely growing and then we also have some zucchini that are slowly sprouting up. You can't see in this photo, but the watermelon is up to something. Hopefully in a few days we can see more of it. Now we have to seperate these into smaller containers and hopefully they continue to strive.

Happy Birthday Magnus!!!!

Today this big guy turned 5. We celebrated by going to one of his favorite restaurants, The Tides out in Bodega Bay. He definately had a plan on what he was going to eat and do there. He said that he wanted calamari and clam chowder and then play video games. Well he changed his mind about the clam chowder and got ravioli instead (one of his favorite things to eat), but everything else was kept to a promise. Sometimes it makes me laugh when I think that my son started liking calamari when he was 3 and not many adults would even try it.

This is him posing for his Dad with one of the games that he played at the arcade.

We are so blessed and thankful to have this guy be our son. Like I said many times, God definately know what he was doing when he put us together.

Happy Birthday Magnus!

What am I to do?

Today at tee ball Magnus was picked on by a bunch of boys on his team. They kept on trying to pop his hat off of his head then trying to twist his head around and there I watch as my son does nothing. At one point a boy threw his hat on the ground and my son did nothing, but retrieve the hat. I was so upset at him for not doing anything about it. After practice I asked him how he felt about his hat being tossed around and he say he didn't like it a little bit. Oh my boy! There I got all emotional and then I realize that I played a part in it too. I could have gone over to where they were practicing and my presence alone probably would've deterred the kids from doing it. Then I felt really guilty like the worse mom in the world. It is so hard. I had debated about going to there to tell the kids to stop, but I didn't know if I should barge in or let him handle the situation himself. I tried to play it cool and obviously that didn't work out so now I will have to be the overbearing parent that everyone thinks is annoying, but oh well. This is my kid we are talking about and I am not going to let him get bullied. Please pray for my emotions, that I won't rip the heads of the kids who are giving my son a hard time. Magnus is just so different than the rest of the pack. He doesn't mess around and is really quiet. He likes to watch the other kids and I think that somehow that sends a message to the kids that they can mess with him.

Seeding starts

Magnus and I planted some seeds into this egg crate while Sopheary took a nap one afternoon. Hopefully this works. We have a row of watermelon seeds, cucumbers, cayenne peppers, and zucchini. Magnus is really excited about the watermelon . He thinks that it will grow to the size of the ones that we buy at the store. I think he'll be excited for whatever grows from that since last year his seedling never grew. So we'll see if anything grows from this. I've never done seed starts this way.

Sopheary's food quest

Looking to see what Cousin Joey is eating....

Debating wheather to go in....

Going in for the goodies....

Inspecting what she got from her cousin's plate.

My latest sewing projects

As you can see, I didn't get a chance to finish off the elastic at the neckline yet.

The fabric I got from Walmart for $1.50/yd. The original pattern didn't have the ruffles at the bottom, but I wanted something a little longer so I added the brown for a little constrast and then the ruffles. Just for modesty effects I made her some shorts to go with it too.

Please disregard the opened items of baby cereal. This would not look like this if you had just bought your groceries!

I've always wanted to make a reusable grocery bag because it looks so cool! Here is my first one of many to come. I am really proud of how it came out and it wasn't too hard to do. The only thing is that I would like it to be a little deeper next time. I cut up a Target bag to get the pattern for and went from there. These are from old thrift store sheets that I have dying to use for something because they were so pretty.

We've got ourselves a crawler

Can you see she has 4 teeth now??? 4! That is amazing. She has been doing a lot of growing this month. 2 new teeth, crawling and getting into things, eating my cooking and liking it.

This is her taking a break when she tired of trying to get stuff

This is her getting into action. She has a weird crawl right now that consist of being on all fours and rocking until she leaps putting her close enough to watever it is that she wants. She really enjoys eating paper and playing with plastic bags. Yes those warnings on bags were made because of babies like Sopheary.

Our first family bike ride of 4

This is the view for many miles of our ride. We are so thankful to live where we do.

The boys taking a break from biking. I was a little nervous going out for this ride since Sopheary has not liked having her helmet on. Whenever we had her try on her helmet, she would try to take it off and then cry in frustration because she couldn't take it off due to it being strapped to her noggin. Somehow we timed it just perfect because she fell asleep during the whole ride. Which took us over an hour long(we haven't been biking since it started raining). She whimpered once when I went over a bump and then fell back asleep. I'm so blessed to have these kids!

Yikes I watched the Bachelor last night

The wedding that is with Jason and Molly. Even with all of it's cheesiness I kinda liked it. Okay it's probably because I like weddings in general. When I see two people standing at the alter it reminds me of when I did many years ago. I think about the nervousness and excitement to finally be a wife and the dreams of what our future would be like. Then I think about all the trials we've gone through and how special my husband is to me. He is an amazing man who can endure lots of crazy things that I throw his way. Many emotional things. I am so blessed to have him.

A Walk of Many Creeks

We went on a "simple walk" around my mom's neighborhood, with the intent of getting Sopheary to take a little nap in the stroller and instead we went pretty far. We were gone for over an hour and the boys(big and little) were hungry and tired afterwards. One even needed to be on piggyback on the way home. We had a great time yaking with the kids about nature, life, and school. It's such a simple thing, but yet such a treat. Sometimes we allow our lives to be inundated with stuff that we forgot to smell the flowers and that's exactly what we did! Even though we were gone for over an hour Sopheary only napped for a small part of it. Oh well, every little bit counts!

Recap from last couple of days

I have been going to thrift stores, bought some knit shirts to make a dress for Sopheary(maybe) and some more sheets. Yeah! I also called the prospective school for my son to enroll in next year and got rejected. Well not exactly...I have to wait until the end of March to find out if they will be accepting new kids into the program. So I was devastated, disappointed, and now more determined to find some other homeschool option if we are for sure rejected. I tried looking online for some sort of support group for homeschoolers in Santa Rosa and have come across to no avail. I'm sure I'm not the only one going through this. What am I do? I don't know-pray and wait. Things that I am not good at....