Today I decided that I wanted a sweet snack that wasn't too high in calories. Since the kids like finger jello, I decided that I'd make some rainbow finger jello. Not only is it tasty, you can teach about primary colors with it.
To make Rainbow Finger Jello, you need:
6 packets of Knox gelatin packets
1 6oz or 2 3oz boxes of red jello
1 6oz or 2 3oz boxes of yellow jello
1 6oz or 2 3oz boxes of blue jello
Mix 1 cup of cold water and 2 packets of Knox gelatin until completely dissolved.
Boil 1 cup water in a pot on the stove. (While you wait for the water to boil, lightly grease the bottom of a 9x13 cassarole dish.) Stir in blue jello to boiling water. Bring to a boil again, then remove from heat. Add gelatin mixture and 1/2 cup cold water. Pour mixture into cassarole dish and put in refrigerator.
Check firmness after about 1 hour. If it is not jiggly, you can repeat the above steps with the yellow jello. When you pour it over the blue jello, make sure you move the pan around as you pour, otherwise the heat from the yellow jello will melt the blue jello.
Repeat the above with the red jello once the other layers are firm.
My kids think this jello is really cool because it looks like a rainbow. The light refracts on the red, yellow and blue colors so that you can see orange and green as well.
I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as my children have!
Today was almost as perfect as could be. Temp in the mid to upper 70s and sunshine with just enough clouds. After church today (and lunch with friends afterwards), we continued our weekend of work.
Chip painted the wood around the windows.
I decided to tackle the large shrub and other plants in the bed in our front yard.
Here is what it looked like before
and after (about 1 hour later!)
Once we were done with that work, I decided to look at some of nature's calling cards.
I found that we have a ton of spiders (some quite large - 1/2 inch body size) along the shrubs in the front yard.
I really enjoyed the contrast of summer and fall as the flowers are still blooming but the leaves are begining to turn and fall.
So, after having bought the stain almost a year ago, we finally got around to getting the fence
restained. Chip spent about a week power washing and spray staining. The only part that isn't finished is the new fence around the garden area. It still needs to dry out before it can be stained. Oh, and the swing set is going to need a new coat as well but since a few warped boards need to be replaced, we'll probably
restain it in the spring.
Before:
After Power Washing:
New Stain:
Chip spent today scrapping paint from around the windows. We are getting new windows in a couple of weeks but some of the wood needed to be replaced first. Chip wants to get that wood painted and repaint the other wood on the house before the windows are installed.
I spent the afternoon trimming trees (we have two growing in the same place, twined around each other), looking at the renegade pumpkin plant in our compost pile....
...and finding rabbit skulls in the shrubs.
Yes, that is a rabbit skull. At first we thought it might be some kind of hawk but after flipping it over, we noticed that there were teeth.
There are no other skeletal remains in the location so my guess would be that a bird brought it over to eat, after finishing up the main course.
So, there you have it. Fun times around our household!
During a weekend trip to Michigan last week, I stopped at
Crane's Orchard in Fennville, MI and got a bunch of apples and some peaches. Knowing that the peaches wouldn't last too long, I decided to make some peach roll-ups.
I used 7 peaches (approximately 4 cups, chopped), about 2 TBSP of honey and 2 TBSP of apple juice.
Puree all together,
pour onto dehydrator sheets (covered with plastic wrap). I used 5 trays. Turn on dehydrator for 14 hours, rotating trays every few hours. When rotating, check to see if the roll-ups are done. They are done if you no longer see or feel liquid on the surface.
This yielded 11 good-sized delicious peach roll-ups.
Have you ever had an obsession? A time in your life when you are so focused on one thing that all you want to do is collect things, try things on, speak the word. Well Ebabe is completely obsessed with shoes! I suppose that it is common for a child almost 2 but neither of my other two have carried it on this much. Ebabe has to try on everyone's shoes. If not wearing someone else's shoes, she must have her shoes on her feet in the pool, when she's having her diaper changed, when she takes a nap. She is constantly bringing us a pair of shoes and trying to put them on our feet. Shoes or "zues" in Ebabe speak, has become the most frequently used word in her ever expanding vocabulary.
The other day a man from the replacement window company was here measuring our windows and giving us the company spiel. He'd been here about 1 1/2 hours when Ebabe discovered his shoes by the front door. She immediately tried them on and then brought them over to him and dropped them on the floor in front of him. He laughed and said he could take a hint!
Anyone else had a similar situation? Just curious how long this will last. We're going on 4 months so far!
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So a few weeks ago, I told you that I was
trying something new. Well, I figured I'd update you. I am still going shampoo free. It has been about one month and I'm not sure what I think. I seem to have waves - one day I think it's working incredibly well and then the next day my hair feels so greasy that I almost can't stand it. I know that there is a period of extra greasiness for a little bit but I assumed that it would be over in less than 4 weeks! I'm also in the pool more frequently lately (swimming lessons for Ebabe) so I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the box of baking soda. That means I have about 2 weeks to decide if I want to keep going with this or not. Opinions? Thoughts?
So after the last
cooking misadventure, I decided I would try to use the dehydrator to make fruit roll ups. The dehydrator had a similar recipe to the one I used before so I mixed up one quart of strawberries, 1 Tbsp of orange juice and 1 Tbsp of local honey, then spread it out evenly on the roll-up tray in the dehydrator. I ended up covering a few other trays with plastic wrap to put the mixture on.
The recipe said it would take about 8-10 hours for the right consistency. Yeah, right. After 15 hours, the edges were a bit over done and the inside was still liquidy. I turned it off for the night and turned it on again the next morning for about 2 more hours. Most of the roll-up seemed very crispy when I first pulled them out. I stored them overnight in an old pizza box. Somehow being in the box rehydrated them enough so that they were almost the perfect consistency! I've cut them into strips and rolled them up & bagged them to put in the snack sack (where the kids select their afternoon snacks!). The photo is of the last one before it was devoured by the kids! (Sorry about the coloring of the pic! The roll-ups were a dark reddish color when complete.)
I think I might add a bit more honey next time to see if that will help set it faster and maybe make it just a little bit sweeter.
