Slices of Life

I have always known that Alec loves to read and I know that my boy can read quite quickly; devouring books in record time but he blew me away by all the books he managed to read this month!  He re-discovered many of his old favorite series and found that new books had been released so he was just thrilled to read and read and read. 1. The Keepers book 3: the Portal and the Veil -- in this third book of the series, Horace and his friends find out that the power in their talismans may not last forever and they race against time to save the world. 2.  Warriors book 6: The Darkest Hour -- Fireheart must face his destiny as prophesies unfold on the brink of a terrible battle. 3.  Brotherband book 7: The Caldera- - Stig and his band the Herons take on a band of pirates to attempt another rescue at sea; this time it's the son of the Empress who needs help. 4.  Keeper of The Lost Cities book 6: Nightfall -- Sophie and her friends decide to head into Nightfall; an ominous p...

I realized the other day that while I talked about making homemade butter several times in our homeschooling career we never actually took the time to make any!  My younger two boys vaguely remembered making butter when they were in pre-school but Ian never had.   I quickly assembled our ingredients: a carton of heavy cream and a glass jar.   Then I asked them HOW they think it works.   Alec is my resident baker so he knows that if you whip heavy cream you'll get whipping cream.  He hypothesized that shaking it longer and harder would make the cream thicker until we ended up with butter.   We filled our jar 1/2 way with cream and began shaking.   My intent was to stop after a few minutes and see the actual whipping cream but my boy must have been shaking harder than I thought because in just a few minutes we could already see the butter and the butter cream (the milky stuff that's left over from making butter).  ...

My husband was asking for some mashed potatoes to go with our crock pot turkey breast the other day and I just knew I had to tweak our favorite mashed potatoes recipe a bit to make it more Weight Watchers friendly. Pulling up my Weight Watchers app I began listing the ingredients I planned to use: 8 small, red-skinned potatoes 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk 1 Tablespoon Brummel and Brown yogurt spread 1 Tablespoon chives 2 Tablespoons low fat sour cream 1 tsp. celery salt 1 tsp. garlic powder salt and pepper to taste First I diced and boiled the potatoes until fork tender.  With the think skin of the red potatoes I like to leave them on but you could always peel them if you prefer. Once cooked through, I drained the potatoes and mashed them with the milk, butter, chives, sour cream, and seasonings. They were delicious and I managed to get 6 6- point servings out of the recipe.  Since I had peeled the skin off the turkey before cooking and we were having ...

The boys and I had not been back to Gillette's Castle since our first trip almost 7 years ago so when some friends of ours asked us if we'd like to go with them it was a resounding "yes!"   Look at how little my boys were last time we visited!  (I could not for anything get them to pose for another picture this trip though).  Evan, Alec, their cousin, and Ian at Gillette's Castle 2012 I am so glad we went again because I learned (or maybe relearned!) so much about the man behind the castle.  William Gillette was a famous stage actor of his time.  He is most known for his role of playing Sherlock Holmes.  In just a short 33 year time span he played Sherlock 1,300 times and in fact is responsible for many of the images we think of when we hear Sherlock Holmes- the pipe, the hat, and the cape. Our tour started in the visitor's center where we purchased tickets to tour the castle and also watched a short film about Gillette's life and career.  There were a...