yogurt revisited

I have been making home made yogurt for several months now in my crock pot. I've had to add pudding to it though to thicken and sweeten it up (store bought adds lots of thickeners). It's been good, but not as thick as I'd like, especially after I tried some Greek yogurt this week. Yum-my! Plus, there's more protein in that somehow so I thought I'd give it a try.

It turned out amazing. Still not quite as thick as Greek yogurt but when I read that label there was thickener in it as well.

I made yogurt like I usually do (half gallon/8c skim milk in crock pot all day, etc. - see my other post link above). When it was done growing the bacteria last night at 1030 I placed all of it in a coffee liner lined colander (I used like 6 or 7 liners). I then set it over a pot to drain all night in the fridge. There are the liners left over.

Here's what's left in the pot this morning: whey, the liquid portion of milk. That's like half of what I started with. Not sure what I'm going to do with it. Perhaps I will use it in place of water to make home made bread like I read here.

Like I said, it made half the yogurt I usually get, but it's much thicker and yummier. See how it's set up so nice? It was like sour cream when I dumped it out of the colander but then I whisked it and it loosened up a little. I think if I used 2% or even whole milk it would be a lot thicker as well. Might have to try that when Samuel is old enough.

Whey. I read that I should put it in a glass container so I might have to transfer. Not sure what's up with that...

I added 1 teaspoon vanilla and a quarter cup sugar and it tasted amazing. Terry said, "That's what yogurt should taste like - tastes like store bought." But no thickeners or additives. Just milk and starter yogurt! My belly thanked me after a donut breakfast - needed some sustenance this morning. It was delicious peeps. You should try it.

Storybook

(reminder: Terry was gone for two whole weeks at the beginning of June. He took about 30 people from Gburg to Tijuana, Mexico and LA. So I took our three kids with me to SD to pass the time. Alas, this is the life of a youth pastor's wife. Also, Terry took our camera so I only had my cell phone to document our trip.)

When I was little my grandparents lived very close to Storybook Island - we walked there all the time. Now my kids love it too. We went there three times during our two week stay. Samuel doesn't like his stroller - weird right? So I had to haul him around in the carrier thing on my front not long after I took this picture. He's heavy!

So here's the kids on our first time there. Check out Rapunzel and Flynn Rider behind us. Yeah, probably not actually Eugene Fitzherbert but I like to think it is b/c I love Tangled.

the ranch

(reminder: Terry was gone for two whole weeks at the beginning of June. He took about 30 people from Gburg to Tijuana, Mexico and LA. So I took our three kids with me to SD to pass the time. Alas, this is the life of a youth pastor's wife. Also, Terry took our camera so I only had my cell phone to document our trip.)

After spending two nights at my folks' house, we needed a change of scenery. So on Monday May 30, we loaded up (a lot of work with 3 kids!) and headed to Terry's parent's place for the following three nights. What's great about that is that his sister and my good friend Shari lives out there. In fact, she and Jesse and my very first niece lives in the same house we lived in before we moved to NE just a half mile from their parents.

Tuesday we went for a walk down to the bridge and enjoyed the swollen creek. We couldn't go over to Shari's yet b/c Evie still had RSV (she got sick 3 days before we left). We all did get to go swimming twice together at the Y later though. Fun stuff.

One of those afternoons Noah, Samuel and I visited Shari and Grace. She's so squishy! And she's the most laid back baby I've ever known. My kids were good babies, but they were nothing like Grace.

2 day apart cousins play. Chillin in their sleepers.

We discovered Samuel was strong enough to sit in this baby seat that Terry's folks had. What a strong 4 month old!

This photo is from the following week on like Wednesday, June 8. They were checking each other out.

At some point on this trip Noah lost his first tooth, though we couldn't find it. We think he swallowed it!

Day 2 of the 2 week trip

Terry was gone for two whole weeks at the beginning of June. He took about 30 people from Gburg to Tijuana, Mexico and LA. So I took our three kids with me to SD to pass the time. Alas, this is the life of a youth pastor's wife. Also, Terry took our camera so I only had my cell phone to document our trip.

We arrived on Saturday May 28. Went to our old church, Parkview, on Sunday and saw some good friends there. It rained all day. Talk about depressing. My parent's house is a lot smaller than I remember when I was little. So we were getting very stir crazy. Monday turned out better. I took the kids with my dad to watch Bo, their dog, swim at his favorite pond. The kids had a blast throwing rocks into the water. While the kids played I talked to Terry - that was like a lifeline!

The day before we left, Saturday June 11, we went there again. This time Bo let the ball go over the waterfall. My dad had to traverse a slippery board to retrieve it from the stream. Isn't the dog supposed to retrieve?

U2

On what was supposed to be the last day of the world, May 21, 2011, Terry and I finally got to see U2 live in concert in Denver for their 360 Tour. On that day, exactly a year before, Bono had surgery.

We bought our tickets nearly two years ago with our friends from home, Todd and Frannie. However, Bono hurt his back in a rehearsal in Germany and had to have emergency back surgery. So our show, along with a lot of others, was postponed a whole year. It would have worked fantastic last year since I was only 7 weeks pregnant. This year however, we had almost 4 month old little nursing Samuel at home. There was NO way we were not going though. We ended up splitting up the kids between the replacement grandparents Kathy and Cheryl. Kathy took the big kids and Cheryl took Samuel. It was hard to leave him, but we made it through.

We arrived at our seedy hotel (my bad on the reservations) that Saturday afternoon, met up with Todd and Frannie and walked to P.F. Chang's where we also met up with some more transplanted friends from home, Matt and Amanda. Then Matt drove us all to the stadium and we trekked up there.

We were SO excited! Me especially. I do get excited...

Todd is handing out the tickets

After we made it to our seats, we took a good look at the incredible stage. This tour was and is the most expensive ever. They toured with a crew of like 476 people. It was impressive.

Just waiting in anticipation. We're all big U2 fans. Probably not as huge as Todd here, but still. This was his 4th show but he was in the front row his first time. Screamed like a school girl.

I almost forgot to mention Crazy Girl who sat in front of us. She was smoking pot, drinking cup after cup of beer (thus missing like half the concert), dancing drunkenly and making out with her boyfriend right in front of us. She had to be like 40. I just cannot understand why you would do that at a U2 concert? Wouldn't you want to be in your right mind and soak up the awesomeness?

Eeeeee. This is prior to Crazy Girl's arrival. They were late. Had to get their beer you know. And then more. And then more. And then pass around the joint.

Cool mirror ball at the top of the stage, which was 176 feet high

The Fray, who we like, opened. So that was fun.

While they got set up (and waited for darkness I spoze), they had random facts going across the huge LED screen. Can you believe that's how many abortions there are? SAD.

YAY! The concert begins. It was amazing to see them in real life.

"The claw" lit up in all different colors. The sound was amazing. The screen made it so you could see in better detail. My dad, after he watched our footage, said it was a spectacle. He just likes the band and their music, doesn't need all that extra stuff.

Larry Mullen Jr, The Edge, Bono, Adam Clayton. Best band ever.

BONO!

Blue spaceship. The bridges revolved around the inner ring.

The LED screen split apart into it's parts and descended. Quite cool.

The band had lights on their jackets.

Bobbing heads for Crazy Tonight.

The spike lit up too

A red steering wheel-like microphone descended from above and Bono swung on it.

There's Terry and I at the very end, after like 2.5 hours. I was exhausted! My voice was hoarse for like 3 days afterwards from screaming, yelling and singing at the top of my lungs.

After a late night and poor sleep we ate breakfast with Todd and Frannie and said good bye. What a fantastic time we had.

builder

Lately Noah has been really into building things. Even when we were in SD during Terry's mission trip, Noah enjoyed building Lincoln Logs or castles with Mega Blocks. He especially likes to follow the directions and do it all just right - he freaks out when there's a piece missing. These pictures are from a while ago, but he's still just as into legos as he was a month ago.

Shari and Jesse got him this 3 in 1 car set for his birthday. He's been making it every breakfast or lunch.

Admiring

Even Samuel seems interested.

long and lean

Samuel is three and a half months old. He has outgrown all of his 0-3 months clothes. When I started pulling more from 3-6 months, I realized we didn't have that many. I was thinking I would have to do some shopping but then I put him in this 6 month outfit. It fit perfectly. Looks like he's about 25 inches long.

Here's a size comparison with a pillow and Noah's lego car. Every one remarks about how long he is. I certainly think he's the longest of my kids. Not too chunky - pretty lean.

I think he has a swimmer's body - really long torso.

And he's pretty well filled out his car seat. What are we gonna do?!

Another size comparison, this time with Snap dog.

Cute SamSam

lava game

The kids love to play "lava game" with their daddy.

They've been playing it since Samuel was born. I can remember it was then b/c Terry came back to the hospital one night and told me about the new game they had just made up.

Basically, the floor is lava. You can only go in the lava if you have your lava suit on. If you forget to put it on and go in, you die. But, you are always rescued by the other players. They haul you back up to the couch and do their healing thing which consists of, "bandaid, bandaid, medicine, medicine, medicine, tap, tap, tap." I have no idea what the tap, tap is, but it works for them!

Here is Evie jumping into the lava without her suit on while Noah tries to hold her back.

Here's dead Evie. She does a fantastic job. She goes so limp and it's really cute. Lately she's been "dying" at random times during the day expecting to be rescued by Noah. Except he lets out this very frustrated sigh and ARG, heals her and tells her not to do it again. Then she does it again. And he rescues her again.

Pulling her back to safety.

bandaid, bandaid, medicine, medicine, medicine, tap, tap, tap

Then they switched "ships" and decided to play in the water together.

They have so much fun with daddy. And each other. Can't wait for Samuel to be big enough to join in.

the box

New fan equals new box. You probably wouldn't guess there was anything in that box, let alone, someone. Or maybe you would. But you can't tell from looking at it this way...

...You have to look from this direction and you'll see a boy in there.

And then it's the little squishes turn.

bumbo

I got a Bumbo for Samuel. I thought it was green but unfortunately it came out purple. Oh well. He likes sitting up so well I thought he would enjoy it. I think Noah likes it more than Samuel does! What a strong big boy.