Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Mud Boots


Mud boots are expensive in Bethel, but they are really needed, as the roads are muddy and full of water about six months of the year. The kids finally get to use their mud boots because the weather is now in the 40's. Playing in the muddy roads is a fun activity in Bethel.




Moxy wants to do everything that Ruby does, but his coordination is not as good yet. Ruby tends to help him a lot. I think she likes that he is starting to play and be her pal.


This is about the 5th time that Moxy's boots got stuck and he would fall backwards into the mud. He was pretty frustrated in this picture because he did not want to get his little sock gloves muddy but that was the only way to get leverage unless mommy helped him back up.

They found a whiskey bottle to kick around. These tend to scatter the road at certain times of the year in Bethel. These bottles go for about 75.00 or more in Bethel.

Scrambled Tofu


A lot of people scramble tofu for breakfast, but it always sound gross to me. However, I finally did it, and it was very good. It tasted even better thrown on top of Barley.



The recipe I used is:
-firm tofu pressed and then crumbled into a pan of olive oil and pressed garlic.
about a teaspoon of tumeric (for color and acts as an antioxidant (fights free radicals))
about a teaspoon of cumin
some salt and pepper
I used some zucchini, garlic, and onion sauteed into the scramble mix.
It seems that you can scramble with any type of vegetable that you like even shredded carrots.
By the way the Greg and the kids did not seem to want this. I had to force Greg to take a bite. They actually like scrambled eggs better.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Moxy and Ruby Doing Their Daily Chores



Moxy and Ruby were at one point fighting over the vacuum cleaner. Ruby vacuumed for about 15 minutes, then Moxy wanted to try. I loved that cleaning was fun for them.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Food is Yummy and Pretty


Sometimes we forget to change our order for Full Circle Farms and we get stuck with Green Beans. Our greens beans have typically gone to waste. But recently we discovered that they taste really good, and make a pretty picture. I like to eat them whole dipped in hummus, Ruby likes to open them up and eat each pea individually, and Moxy likes to pull the peas off of the bean and hoard them on his eating tray.

We don't like all oranges. All that "orange" species have in common is the color and texture. What you get inside varies on the actual individual orange specie. This Mineola orange is definitly our favorite ORANGE. Sweet and always juicy.

Some Yummy Recipes


Okay, this is a new tofu recipe. You bake the tofu versus frying it up.
Take a tofu brick and cut into cubes. Then take some lime, roasted sesame seed oil, low-sodium soy sauce, pepper and marinate the tofu for 1-4 hours. Then bake at 350 for about 20 minutes. Turning the tofu over after 10 minutes. Then you take all the vegetables in your fridge that look like they are about to go bad, and these get baked as well. They get covered with a mixture of lemon, garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Baked for about 15 minutes. So good. The brown rice is needed because it neutralizes the strong flavors in the vegetables and tofu. This is my favorite tofu recipe at this point. :)


We ran out of crackers, so we ate hummus and pepper jack cheese on a slice of cucumber. This is another vegetable that I find difficult to eat. It was really yummy. We have been trying to eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, because I read in my nutrition book that this basically how you ensure that you get all of your vitamins and minerals.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

People are Actually Nice


It is not that I think all people are mean or bad, but sometimes it is nice to get reminders that people are actually inherently good and kind. We went to the grocery store today, and an elder came over to Moxy and said "what are you going to buy me." Now Moxy typically cries when someone talks to him or hides, but this elder made him smile and laugh and for the first time he was talking to a stranger. Then we saw someone we know (kind of) and they gave our kids peppered beef jerky. She had Ruby reach into the jerky package and Ruby pulled out this enormous piece of beef. I tried to get Ruby to pick a different piece and the lady told us to keep it, because "food always comes back around." Nice people.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Some Favorite Foods


We recently received a purple cauliflower and it was beautiful. We baked it with lemon, garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Very good. In fact, I am really not a big eater of cauliflower, asparagus, or green beans but with that above combination I am now a big eater of these vegetables. Even Greg and Ruby liked it.

This is a picture of a pizza that we really liked. We now have pizza two to three times per week, because I bought King Arthur "best pizza blend" flour and the pizza's improved by 30 percent. We have gone from thin crust to thick crust lovers.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Easter Day Part 2


Andrew's friends made this interesting little Polish Easter Day treat. We think that it is Caribou sausage. It's so nice I had to take a picture.















Our next door neighbor's like to throw candy for their kids on Easter Day, so they invited Ruby and Moxy over to find candy in their yard. It was like trick or treating on Easter. Ruby was like a little machine collecting her pumpkin full of candy in temperatures of 7 degrees with wind. :)
















Greg playing in our back yard with the kids, because they wanted to be in the cold weather and not inside.

Easter Day Part 1













This easter we hid the easter baskets and box of goodies that were sent from our family.  I thought I did a pretty good job of hiding everything but she found it quickly shouting, "Under the kitchen!" Which is where everything was hiding, right under her little play kitchen.  














 
Moxy was following Ruby's actions, and didn't really seem to care or understand what was happening, with exception to eating candy.  Jaide made these baskets for her cousins.  Probably one of the best ideas I have seen for easter baskets.  Thanks Jaide.





















Laura always send us really cool things.  This is a little bunny that you put in water and within 72 hours it is supposed to get 600 times bigger.  Ruby keeps trying to play with it, which is slowing down it's growth rate.  

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Easter Eggs...the Excitement



I was gathering the supplies, and I turned around to find Moxy sitting on the table staring at me as if it were a normal place to sit.



It looks like the kids are cooperating in this picture. They actually did pretty good. Ruby would scream "No Moxy No," as he attempted to drink the orange vinegar water. By the end he had a little orange dyed mustache from his drink sneaks. I think he got a kick out of Ruby and I gasping every time he picked up the cup.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

"Here pretty fish."


We have three new fish. The first three fish we purchased died of most likely dirty water or eating too much. This time around we got an algea eating fish and a free baby fish that was scooped up by accident. I thought I somehow killed the algea eating fish because I didn't see it for a while but I recently saw it sucking on a rock. Moxy likes to stick his face up close and scare the fish, even pretends to eat them as a snack through the window. You can see the pretty orange fish in the left hand corner.