Chicken Stock

I guess it's a good thing nobody really reads this here piece of space. I've been awful about posting. The office is closed today, so that means a 4 day weekend for me! I've been collecting, and by that I mean freezing, chicken carcasses for awhile now. And my husband thinks I need to do something with them. (I'm pretty sure he would like that space freed up so that in the off chance he gets a deer this year we have room for it.) So today is chicken stock day. I have made freezer jams (which turned out wonderful) and we tried our hands at pickles. They aren't ready yet, not sure how they'll taste. We go through so much chicken stock in the fall and winter and since I like knowing what's in our food and trying to figure out how this whole living not so much on the grid thing works, I thought I'd try making it. Cody got me a pressure cooker for my birthday. Since I'm terrified of the thing and won't try it out without him being home, my job today is to get the stock ready and we'll pressure cook it tonight, after he gets home.

Homework time

Homework time at our house happens right after school (and some days this happens with much eye rolling). Eli is always finished first, cause he has less. Hannah has to do math, work on spelling words, and read.

Eli hasn't made up his mind yet on what hand he wants to use. One day he'll do homework with his left and the next day with his right. He decided to use both to create his AB pattern.

Hannah likes to do her homework under the table. I'm not really sure why.

First Day of School

My baby got on the bus this morning :(

He's been soooo excited about going to kindergarten. Excited and nervous and scared all at the same time. Monday night he had a few nightmares, we think they were from nerves. Last night, none. He's met his teacher and we've been to the school a few times so he could get a feel for where things are. This morning he was ready. "Bye Momma, love you!," followed by a hug and a big grin. I'm not worried, just a little sad that the baby is going to school. And Hannah, second grade with super cool light up twinkle toe shoes. You can see her coming!

Fishing

We took the kids fishing a few weeks ago. My dad has a small pond near his house that is FULL of fish. We know there are catfish and blue gill. He claims there are bass. He hasn't caught any and Cody tried and was unsuccessful. That is still an undermined fact. There are LOTS of bluegill. The kids caught over 60 of those suckers. They would cast and within a minute or two would have a fish. Needless to say, that's a lot of taking fish off hooks for grown-ups. I think I got to cast out twice and then I just gave up. But it was a blast watching the kids catch and have fun.





Cody and Eli also each caught a catfish. Eli has this itty bitty pole with a light line on it. He casted out with a bee moth on the end and ends up with a catfish. That's like a one in a million chance that he caught it and could reel it in without the fish snapping the pole or his line. And in true fisherman likeness, when he tells the story the fish is always bigger :)

An Evening with the Indians

After we went to the IMA, we headed back downtown for an evening of baseball at Victory Field. The evening was perfect. It was cool, cool enough for sweatshirts had I been better prepared. My mom got us great seats. The boys were unhappy being behind the net behind home plate. You just can't catch fly balls and broken bats being there. I was good with it.

Our children are nuts!

IMA

After the wedding and really doing a pretty good job with the budget, we were looking for things that were on the cheap/free side to do with the kids. The Indianapolis Musuem of Art, perfect. The grounds are HUGE and sooooo pretty, and FREE! We packed a picnic lunch and spent a few hours wondering around through the gardens and the new 100 acre tract.

Canal Visit

Man!! Things have been busy. We had the flu run like wildfire through our house 5 days before the wedding. Every. Single. Person got sick. Not fun. We had a wedding, then an absolutely too short honeymoon, a week of staycation with the kids, and two birthdays. On Wednesday last week we took the kids down to the canal to ride around and have a picnic. The kids had never been to the canal, they liked it.

This is what my husband does. Anytime he sees something that he could possibly climb, he does.

Maggie is obsessive about water. She wanted a drink and "accidentally" fell in. It was just like watching one of the kids deliberately do something they aren't supposed too.

There's my clan waiting for me. I get distracted and stop to take pictures of things and then they have to wait :)