A Glimpse into my Life.

Just a few of the critters we came across on our trip to Island Park.

No idea what type of birds these were, but we sure saw a lot of birds.

There were little frogs galore!

Oh wait, that's not a critter. I just love how happy he is fishing with his Bumpa and his sister!

I can't remember what the snake was eating, but it sure must have been good. It might have been a frog or a fish. I can't remember now.



And last but not least...Here is my fish. It was an 18 inch Cutthroat Trout. I must mention, I caught it in the rain! We were sopping wet by the time this big boy was reeled in!



Bump said it was probably part something else because of the way it looked. I think I need to call him so he can remind me. Anyway. Rynie caught the fish two days before, on his little Spiderman rod. You know the kind, 6 lb line, about 3 feet long, usually come with a plastic casting fish to practice with. Bump helped Rynie get it in, and they got right up to the little docking spot (for reference it's where they were cleaning the fish in the other post) and it snapped the line and got away. We had one disappointed little guy. Two days after his almost catch, I caught the fish, and this time we got it in. It still had the line rigging in the corner of it's mouth from two days before so we knew for certain it was Rynie's fish since I tied the line and it looked the exact same as the one that was in his mouth. We took a few pictures, took the hooks out, then released him since he was so big.



Rynie was one happy guy to see 'his' fish again!

Just a few of the happenings around here:

A Cowboy came to take up residence in our house...

And learned a little about using his six shooter...

We built some castles...

Built some Fortresses....

And promptly destroyed them.....

Someone learned how to sneak food off the table..... And yes, he is wearing his Winter coat, we can't get him to take it off very often right now....

Luckily the food belonged to his sister so he didn't get sick....

The cat had a standoff with the neighbor's cat. The score is 1:1:4 They've each won one and had 4 draws....

Trying to find where the snow that *should* be in the backyard went to....

Not over here either.....

It's been a wee bit busy at our house!

So at our house, we love curly hair. I'm sure that comes as no surprise to anyone, but I thought it would be fun to show a few of the many looks of Curly Sue!

This is how her hair looks if I get ahold of her right out of the shower and get some conditioner in it. We don't usually do anything else to it other than fingercomb the conditioner through her curlies, and for the most part we are good to go.

This was taken this past Sunday. We just wanted to try and see what would happen. She loved how fluffy it was. In fact, when I went to take her to the potty, her hair was bouncing as we went down the hall. She walks in a really bouncy way too, so that doesn't hurt anything either.

Her dress came from Hungary courtesy of Bumpa and Floolie!

And lest you think it's all easy, and there is never a bad hair day....

We like to read at our house. In fact, we spend a large chunk of each day reading. Some of us read words, some read pictures.



And sometimes we read someone else's book!

Try and guess what it is! Look, there's a foot!



Some hands!



Oh, there it is!

She certainly is a lot of fun!

We ran like crazy for most of Summer, so now that it's cold and we've slowed down a bit, I have a few moments to put up some of the pictures. We went up to Island Park, Idaho for a week with my family. We rented a cabin and it was right on the river. We had an incredible time together. Dutch celebrated his first birthday, we caught fish and learned how to clean them, caught frogs, saw a snake eating a fish, float in the river and canoe, and we didn't even leave the cabin for most of that!

Bumpa teaching Rynie how to fish.



Once he caught his fish, Rynie learned how to clean it so I could cook it for his dinner. We also had a lesson on how we don't catch more than we need and can eat so we don't waste and so we are responsible steward over animals.



Little Miss even got in on the catching of fish. She ran away, literally screaming when we asked her to clean her fish and then eat it.



I even got in on the fishing action. You'll have to wait for the next post to see what I caught!



We needed to teach my mom how to canoe. Thankfully, she learned fairly quickly! She says she knew what she was doing, Jake and I disagreed.



Bumpa Black Cow and Baby B. Hanging out on the back porch, watching all our prowess at the canoes.



Hubby, Jake, Rynie, and Little Miss taking the canoe out for a spin. Literally. ;)



Dutch going for a morning crawl. He wanted to see all that water. We really were that close to the water.



Our early morning buddy. Mama Moose was out every morning in the same area (about 100 yards from our cabin) and some mornings we were lucky enough to see her calf in the tall grasses as we paddled by.



More critters and scenery soon. We did go up to Yellowstone, but that'll be another post!

So I made Gluten Free pie crust Monday night. We wanted quiche for dinner, and I figured it was as good a time as any to try out a pie crust.

I didn't think to get pictures since I was watching my friend's children while she was busy bringing their newest little child into the world. We had a crazy, busy day, with lots of playing, running, dancing, singing, roughhousing, and fun. Thankfully the new little one is here, although she was born with pneumonia so she is in the NICU while they figure out which type she has. The hospital in Provo said with all the babies they have each year, the cases of babies born with Pneumonia is 10 babies per year! The little lady is doing okay though. Her vitals are good, it will just take time.

Now on to pie crust. I used King Arthur Flour's Gluten Free Pie Crust and made a few modifications to it. I'd never used this recipe before, but I try not to use xanthan gum or guar gum when I make things at home. I was reasoning since those are two modern inventions and I am not totally sold on the need for them nor the healthy use of them yet, I would look for a realistic substitute.** On Gluten Free Girl they talk about using ground flax seed or ground chia seed as substitutes for the gums and I've been trying the flax seed in my from scratch recipes.

So my modifications were:

• I used the directions for the brown rice flour mix that is on the King Arthur site. I haven't felt the need to buy their pre-packaged baking flour mix yet.
• I forgot to pre-mix my wet ingredients and whisk them all together until they were frothy. (That happens when you are chasing extra kidlets!)
• I used flax seed instead of the gum, but this time on a whim, I decided to double the flax seed and see what would happen.
• I only chilled the dough for an hour, I think a few hours would be preferable.
  

Hubby tasted tested the crust first. He said it was great for a first attempt and not bad in comparison to the normal crusts I make. I think it cooked a little long, but it needed to so the quiche would be cooked. The crust under the quiche was lovely though. I guess that means I'll have to adapt the quiche filling to be a bit less wet. It was a little dry on the parts that were above the quiche, but had a nice flavor overall.

I'm glad this wasn't as difficult as it mentally seemed. There is some work to be done on it,but hey, I think it'll end up being almost as easy as normal pie crust!

** I just need to research the gums more, plus the cost of them is fairly expensive for a bag even though you don't use much of them and since the startup cost of switching our foods is semi expensive while we figure this out, I didn't want to buy one more thing that I didn't absolutely need to. I may decide I need them in the future, but right now things are in a workable, okay state without them.