~Sourdough Starter~

I found a recipe for Amish friendship bread starter in a book I recently finished which made me remember that while I had my AFB starter years ago I really enjoyed it. I also learned that a AFB starter is a sourdough starter and there is a web page with TONS of recipes on it for just about everything you can think of to make with AFB starter! SO I followed the recipe and made my very own sour dough starter!! I'm still not totally sure that I didn't kill it this morning when we made sourdough pancakes with it and I'm hoping it will bounce back as I forgot to feed it before I took out the 4 cups of starter I need to make the pancakes. I did remember after and did feed it then so hopefully it is still alive! Here is the link that I found with the recipe for the starter and the things you can make with it. I fed my starter on white flour to start it off but I`m going to slowly change it over to whole wheat as that is what we use most for pancakes etc. I keep mine in a 1 gallon plastic bag in the kitchen which works well for storage without having to worry about spilling or contaminating it.  I can`t wait to see what I can all do with it :) This morning we did the pancake recipe II on the site above and we thought it was a bit too sweet and the pancakes themselves were really soft and mushy and did not flip well at all. I think we will keep looking and see what other recipes we can find. I`d love hints :) Or recipes!! Just leave a comment on the bottom or email me!! 

~Dream A Little Dream Of Spring~

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 Last week we got about 10 inches of snow.

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The days we didn't get snow we got beautiful sunshine. 

            '--'

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The kids went out and enjoyed it as much as possible. 

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When the sun comes out it rains off the roof. 

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Reminding us that spring will come again soon. 

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**O**

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R's Birthday is soon..

<3 <3 <3 <3

She is very excited to be 4.

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She thinks the snow should be gone by her birthday.

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It will not be. 

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A year or two ago we had snow on MY birthday..

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It's in the middle of May.

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I know I'm not the only one.

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wishing for green grass.

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I know there are more people out there.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

Also wishing for green well... 

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

ANYTHING!!

GREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREENGREEN

This week we hope to see some green..

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

We're going to plant some starts and dream of a world filled with green.

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Green Trees, Green Grass,

 Green Green Green!! 

We are going to water them and remember

                                                                              spring rainstorms, 

                                                         beach days, 

                                                     lightening and thunder.

flash BOOM flash BOOM flash BOOM

We're going to watch for the tiniest shoot of green and rejoice!!

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

Not Something You See Everyday!!

We meet a friend and her family in 'the city' today for coffee! We have 6 kids, they have 4! Grade one math tells you that equals 10 kids!! Ten BLOND hair BLUE eyed kids!!  J is the oldest at 8! They have a girl, we have 3. They have 3 boys, we have 3 boys. The two littlest boys are 5 months apart and have the same jackets... they are also both blond, they both have blue eyes.. one is a little taller then the other. They look very much like twins :) SUPER CUTE!! They both sat in high chairs and looked cute and tried not to look at each other.. shy stage :)  Baby G got passed around a bit between the 4 adults. The other 7 children shared two little tables and a box of treats.. Everyone took their share and only their share. Afterwards they each got one more as a reward for good behavior! They were all super good!  We got quite a few looks apparently it's not every day you see 10 kids sitting, chatting and eating together!! Someone asked Mrs. K if it was all one family she smiled and said.. TWO!!! lol. We had quite the train going in and out!! R got confused in the parking lot and followed the wrong family.. but it was OK.. We parked almost side by side. Separately we get a lot of looks.. together we got even more. We got a lot of looks :) It was fun to get together with them and I'm pretty sure fun was had by all :) Next time maybe we'll get a few pictures in :) Mrs. K's blog is HERE and I have to say it's not everyday you can take 10 kids out for a snack, still keep your sanity, and get in a bit of a chat as well :) Thanks for the visit Mr and Mrs. K and kids :)

Baby G.. More Pictures :)

Reading a book :) I love her little bald spot :) 

She is such a little doll! A friend called her Muffin today and it suits her! New nickname? Possibly! :) Haha or maybe not I just remembered Mr. B likes to tease Mrs B with that name... hmmm.. I bet there is a story there!! 

The best picture I have so far of her smiling.. when she REALLY smiles she sticks out her tongue but she's pretty sure the green light on my camera is evil!! 

~Fresh Squeezed~

That is hard work!! We bought a box of oranges in 'the city' last time we were there and we're getting tired of eating them as oranges so today we made juice! 

After a bit of confusion I realized that I never said how big the box of oranges is.. it's a 50 pound box... it's our second one in a row :) We're going to give them a month or so in between boxes next time. We buy apples in large boxes as well and store them in a cool spot. Very nice for having fruit on hand. 

Isabel: Self Training.

Isabel is slowly training herself to the stanchion. The 1st day Papa put Maggie in her stanchion and then some of our sweet mix in Isabel's but she wouldn't go in. The 3rd day she went in but didn't stay and now the 6th day she went right in, ate all her sweet mix and proceeded to try and empty out the wheelbarrow!! I had to chase her out! She didn't want to go at all and I had to get in her face a little to get her out. Even yesterday I walked near her and she'd back out but not today! I even stood by her head and fiddled with the lock in bar and she just paused in eating for a second then kept on inhaling. 

Want to know something I really love about this picture?

The snow? Not so nice!
The cows in their stanchions eating happily is super nice, but that's not it. 

The symmetrical way they are standing is also super nice, but still not it. 

The fact that in this picture Maggie is being milked by a machine while I'm STANDING in the doorway of our back door taking the picture..is REALLY SUPER NICE and what I really like about this picture! :) 

YUP she's addicted :) 

Marble Race :)

It was a joint effort :) It was super fun to build and they had even more fun racing their marbles down the different towers! 

J and L's self made towers :) L's is the near one. 

R's tower.. with help from Papa. She put it all together but it kept falling over..so Papa balanced it for her. 

E's tower.. she needed another bottom piece but they were all in use.. so she just held it up!! 

Popcorn Anyone?

L recently found out what happens when you put a popcorn kernel in your sisters ear! Yeah REALLY!!! After Awana one night I popped them some popcorn and set them in front of Veggie Tales as per normal just to find out 20 minutes later that L had put a popcorn kernel in E's ear.. 'just as a joke mommy!' and she LET him. I'd had a bit of a long day, Wednesdays are almost always really long days, and I got a little mad. I yelled. SERIOUSLY what was he thinking!!! Later when I googled it I found that often kids put kernels in their own ears..not that this means they should!  There were a slim few who put a kernel in another child's ear. I wonder if that's because the typical family these days has only two children several years apart?

 Anyway.. by this time it was after nine.. I took a good look in her ear and tried to get it out with the end of a bobby pin.. thinking if I can just get the end behind the kernel it should come forward and pop out. NOPE! I called Papa.. he laughed and said keep trying. We both knew it need to come out. I tried again.. the booger sucker bulb for Baby G's nose.. Papa's idea... Hoping that it would suck on to the kernel enough so I could pull it out.. Nope. Tweezers.... NOPE!! All this time I'm thinking "Your gonna have to take her to the ER so they can get it out!' and every time I tired to get it out it slipped a little bit farther in!! I called Papa again.. warm water he said flush it out.. NOPE!! Didn't even try that one.. I'd already been online and read that water can swell a seed and make it harder to get out. I told him I was going to have to take her in. End of story.

I put it up on my status on FB hoping to get some ideas... lots of sympathy, several stories.. no ideas. My mom called. :) She offered to watch the other kids while I took her in but I'd have to take the baby. Papa and I had decided he would come home early and stay with them while I took E in but he'd have to go back to work after.. making a long night into a longer night. I said yes to Grandma.

By this time the other kids were in bed and it was 10ish. E was asleep on the couch... kernel filled ear down. Grandma got here and we woke E up and got her a bit more dressed as it was -15C and falling. We grabbed Baby G, who slept through this whole thing!, and headed to the ER. I checked the kernel before we went.. it had slide closer to the outside of the ear!! YAY!!

We got to the ER at 10:30pm.. E and I played Battleship on my ipad2 while we waited for the doctor and answered all the questions. By 11:25 the kernel was OUT and E was rubbing her ear! She said it didn't hurt at all until they used a very neat tool to get it out! I didn't catch the name but the tool was long and skinny with a wire noose on the end.. a little like those dog catcher things that they catch strays with..but the wire was fixed. The doctor wiggled the wire behind the kernel and pulled up! That HURT E said, but she didn't cry! She was SO brave and held super still as the doctor fished it out. It took all of 3 tries and 20 seconds to fish out!  I was seriously impressed. The doctor asked us if we wanted to keep the kernel.. we said NO!! We'd seen quite enough of it already!! I was amazed at her ear, it was producing amazing amounts of wax trying to flush the kernel out on it's own. The kernel was no longer yellow but a dark yucky brown, covered in ear wax. I do wonder what would have happened if she's slept on that ear that night? Maybe she'd have woken up with a kernel in bed beside her?? God truly did design us amazingly!!  E had quite the story to tell the next morning. Her ear hurt for a couple of days, but it never did affect her hearing or anything else.

Now every time we have popcorn I ask.. "and what do we NOT do with popcorn??" As one the kids yell.. "PUT IT IN OUR EARS!!" and I always add.. "or any place else!! Except your MOUTH!" :)

It took L a while to bounce back.. he truly didn't mean any harm and we talked about jokes and maybe next time talking to Mommy about it first to see if it's ok before we play jokes on others that we've not tried before. He felt really bad that E had to go to the ER and handled her gently for the next week or so. These two say they are 'best sister and best brother' and often act more like I would expect twins to act. Protecting each other, whispering together, holding hands. I think being in Grade 1 and awana together has really helped their relationship.

Do You Know How Much God Wants You Here?

Papa and I recently decided to visit a house church that we first heard about over a year ago.. We've been looking for a house church for quite a while since ours sort of melted :) Different people going different ways with no hard feelings. We've tried several of the churches in town but haven't found a fit. We've always house churched, for reasons I'm not going to get into in this post, and really wanted a house church. So I facebooked one of the ladies in my home school group who I knew went to this house church and asked her if we could visit their home church. That was Thursday. She fb-ed me that night and said sure, gave me the time and directions and told me they pot lucked after. She also offered to feed us when we visited but we eat a lot so I fb her back and said Thanks but I'd bring some food too ;) I also asked, I'm a bit nervous about meeting new people, if we knew anyone in the group. I did!! Of the 4 couples she named we knew 3 of them1! Super exciting! I called Papa at work, about something else, and mentioned it and he surprised me by saying.. Fb her.. we are going! That was Saturday night. I made a meal to take along, showered all the kids and checked and restocked my diaper bag.

Sunday Morning we inhaled breakfast, early mornings are not our norm, got everyone dressed and headed out the door.. Yes..we get dressed AFTER breakfast when we are going out.. then you don't get breakfast on your to town clothes. Papa and I both grabbed our coffee cups, the food, the kids, diaper bag, Bibles, and E's puffer bag and headed out! I'd written down the address and we knew where the road was so when we got to it we were super surprised to find it shorter and emptier then it should be... there were no house numbers and really truly it was really only someones very long driveway. At the end of the road there was a padlocked gate and a sign.. "Trespasser's will be shot... survivors will be shot again!!" UM.. we KNEW the couple who's house we were going to was a pastor and his wife. We also knew this could NOT be where they lived!! So we headed back down the road back to the main road and we were just talking about trying another road with a similar name when we spotted a white car!! HEY we knew that car.. it was a couple from the list.. The B family!! I laughed and told Papa.. Follow that car!! They spotted us too, and unknown to us, knew we were joining them for church and stayed in sight and let us follow them.

We enjoyed the fellowship and the potluck and after lunch another friend of ours Mr. C came up to Papa and asked him.. "Do you know how much God wanted you here today??" Papa laughed a little and said he thought he did.. and told him about getting mixed up and following B's to find the place. Mr.C laughed too.. and then told us how much God really did want us there.

The Story really started on Wednesday.. A full day before Papa and I decided to fb Mrs.M. The men of the, recently started, house church get together on Wednesday nights for a men's Bible study and prayer time. After their study they talked a bit about whether or not they were ready to invited people to their house church. They decided they were ready.. and Mr. C told the group that we, the Griggs, had been on his mind and he was going to invite us.

Thursday I fb-ed Mrs. M. Saturday we decided to go. Sunday we went and Sunday afternoon Papa asked if we could join the group. We haven't even met all the couples that go yet, but we will :)

UPDATE! We've gone twice now and have meet all the couples that regularly attend. We are both really enjoying the group and fellowship. Three or four of the men take turns speaking and singing. We've heard two and are looking forward to hearing the others. We've also both started a Bible study with the group.. Papa with the men and me with the ladies :) Amazingly BOTH studies work as they are on Papa's days off. I know the men changed theirs so Papa could go. What a great bunch of people :) We are a bit out numbered though!! There are 14 adults and 25 children :) And two of the ladies are expecting :)

What a MIGHTY GOD we serve!!

New Picture Of Baby G :)

Papa`s Aunt L emailed me this morning and asked for a new picture of the baby :) Here you go!! She loves to stand up all the time so Papa went out and found the exersaucer and she LOVES IT!! This was her first time in it and she was super distracted and this is the best picture I got :) I love the look on her face. It`s like she`s saying "Really?? Your gonna LEAVE me in this THING?? I don't know about that!!" This picture was taken on Feb 16th.. two days before she was 3 months old :)