Looking for Signs of Spring

Yesterday we went tadpole hunting. We left with empty containers, muddy shoes, and brown bottoms. Well, my bottom wasn't brown. I resisted the urge to sit in the mud and then swivel around in it looking for good throwing rocks.

They tried to push these into the water for a long time.

Yes, I am Brave

Yesterday I did something very brave. I walked into my ultrasound not knowing the gender of our next seed, and I left not knowing the gender of it. If I can wait until August, everyone has to wait until August.

Conference Weekend

My kids are very excited for General Conference weekend. You may be wondering how I managed to get a 4 and 2 yr old excited to listen to 8 hours of talks. Behold the genius....

A basket of treats and new crafts that has been sitting out on the piano for 5 days now taunting them to no end. Every morning Daniel asks if it is conference yet.

Rain Rain Go Away

On Tuesday, we were taking in water. I was afraid the river flowing down our backyard into our house was going to sink our ship. So the boys and I went out to bail water. It was all fun and games until Daniel squiggied muddy water into James' face. Or until James fell into a sink hole and couldn't get out. Or until James stepped into a smaller muddy sink hole and lost his shoe. Or until both boys were shivering uncontrollably from the cold and wetness that I abandoned ship long enough to strip them down and stick them in the warm tub.

But now everything is dry and we have that experience to look back on and laugh about now...it wasn't funny at the moment.

New England's Spring Bounty

New England's spring bounty...maple syrup.
And boy did we enjoy the bounty.


But then we found the maple creek.

And we enjoyed that too.

Interesting Maple Facts:

It takes 30 gallons of sap to distill down to one gallon of syrup

Sugar maples are only found within 500 miles of the Great Lakes

Sap is harvested in the spring when the days are warm and nights are below freezing. The sap flows up the tree during the day and down at night as to not freeze in the cells of the tree and burst them.

The higher the sugar content of the tree the lighter the grade. Most sap comes out at 2% sugar and is then distilled to syrup which is 67% sugar. I like grade "C".

Update

The water in our basement is gone. The kids had fun splashing in the puddles while we squiggied. I mostly just cursed the basement while I was working, but they were enjoying it (sorry about the blurry picture, I have got to get the flash working).

We started our garden. What yummy dirt, mmmmm.....

And thanks to M & D C. for the hats and gloves.
We love them.

Cheese Grater History Lesson

When we first got married, we had a cheap cheese grater from Walmart that looked like this:

This was the type of grater I was accustomed to from my growing up years. It worked all fine and dandy until the handle broke off. So we replaced it with the kind of grater Christian was accustomed to from his growing up years. Our second grater looked something like this:

Christian swore this grater would be the last grater we purchased because his parents still use the one they bought 7863489720923 yrs ago. So I splurged a little on this grater and bought it from Target.

Well, it didn't last long at all. Plus, I really don't like this type of grater because I find if much more difficult to clean (no offense...especially to my inlaws who could carbon date their grater).

So we really splurged on our current grater. Check out this bad boy from Williams & Sonoma

I'm pretty sure it is the only thing I own from that store, but I love it. It is sharp and strong. I think it will last through the ages. Plus, it has grated of more of my own skin than all the other graters I've ever used combined.

I'm afraid to buy a really good knife set.