Ladybug Farms: A Week of Firsts

I've been having so much fun this week that I almost forgot to post my 52 Weeks of New blog. We can't have that! This week was as doozy so hang on...

Friday night Hubby and I went to see The Hobbit--in 3D. Hubby was shocked when I said that I'd never seen a real movie in 3D before, just the short ones at Disney World and other similar venues. The 3D was awesome and I would love to try it again except for one thing--the glasses gave me a splitting headache. I don't know if we were sitting too close to the screen, the loooonnnnngggg length of the movie, or the glasses themselves, but my eyes and head were killing me by the end. But it sure was perty.

100% whole wheat goodness

Saturday I pulled out the new cookbook my inlaws bought me for Christmas and made Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day with my new Danish dough whisk. And it was delicious. Whole wheat bread. It rose, it baked up fluffy and crusty and perfect. It was super easy and quick with no kneading. I did two things differently from how I normally do--I used my kitchen scale to measure all of the ingredients in grams. I used a gallon ice cream bucket and put it on the scale. I added an ingredient until I reached the right gram amount, tared the scale, added the next ingredient, etc. The only other thing I can figure that might have made the difference is that I also used vital wheat gluten (which I had to try three stores before finding). But whatever the magic key was, I am a convert to the five minutes a day way.

Bundled up and ready to go sledding

Sunday we took the kids sledding to a hill in town. I know that doesn't sound like a big deal but I have never gone sledding with my kids around here. We've gone a few times while at the cabin, lots of times in my mom's backyard, but never on a local hill. Of course I wiped out on the first run which dampened my enthusiasm for the venture, but I did go down the hill a few more times.

Monday I played a game with the kids that didn't make me want to run and scream in the opposite direction. Hubby bought Catan Junior for David for Christmas and the whole family begged me to play. I said I would once and that's it because I knew I was going to hate it. It's a game, involving strategy, my least favorite kind of game. But I liked it. I played it two more times this week. Crazy.

From this...

To this. Pathetic.

Wednesday I pulled out my food dehydrator that I got last Christmas for the first time and dried carrots. I wanted to try it so I started with something cheap and easy. I admit it was a little disconcerting to see six pounds of carrots reduced to enough to fit inside a pint mason jar, but I am hopeful they will plump back up and work well in soups. But mostly they were just a gateway experiment before moving onto more expensive produce--like apples and cherries and blueberries.

Wednesday night for dinner I made lamb. I've never made lamb before. But Hubby loves lamb and I found a two-pack of shoulder steaks on clearance so I thought I'd give it a try. I browned them and then braised them. They turned out pretty good for my first attempt. Maybe one day when we finally buy that half-a-lamb I will get really good at cooking it.

Thursday I had my first tea party with the girls. Complete with real tea, stuffed animals sitting on pillows to reach the table, and finger food. We had fun.

Today we went to The Henry Ford museum with members from my side of the family. I remember going to the Henry Ford once when I was a kid and thinking it was the worst, most boringest museum I had ever gone to so I wasn't very enthusiastic about our planned outing. I don't know if we just skipped the cool, kid-friendly exhibits when I was a kid or if they didn't exist back then, but my kids and their cousins had a blast! They had a lego exhibit with legos for the kids to play with. A place to make paper airplanes and then fly them to try to hit a target (the best part was when my dad and my uncle got into an airplane flying contest). A place to build with k'nex and make cars that they could race on a track. Huge model train tracks. There were lots of things for kids to do and I plan to visit again in the future.

The first car we're going to buy for David--all 10 miles an hour of it

As you can see it's been a busy week in my house. But we're winding down as we get ready to start school again on Monday. Momma is looking toward Monday with a little trepidation--I have to do school again??? Yup, I'm almost as bad as the kids. After three weeks of Disney World, Christmas, and New Years fun, getting back into a school routine is going to take a bit of work. But we'll get there.