The Chronicles of the Sauers Family Adventures

Now is the time to Celebrate!!!!

What are we celebrating you say…well let me tell you. I have officially been a blogger for 5 whole years as of the month of November. I can’t believe that it has been that long already. It started with meager beginnings and has slowly but surely transitioned into a great and wonderful way to document our life and in turn share it with others. Once I started getting into photography it has been even more fun. Thank you so much for walking through this journey with me. 

Below here is my current stack of reading material. My two new cookbooks (The Pioneer Woman Cooks and Family Feasts for $75.00 a Week), an IKEA catalog, Have a New Kid by Friday and the Answer is in Your Bloodtype book. They are just what I am interested in at this time, but the most exciting one is my new PW Cookbook. It is a great new cookbook, not only for the great recipes, but you know me, I love to see food photographed!

Someday I will actually take the time and cook some of her recipes…just not yet :)!

So here are are some pages from her book.

 

Doesn’t this one look wonderful?!

How about this one?

Okay so there reason I wanted you to see how great it was is that I want to give a Pioneer Woman Cookbook away to one of my wonderful readers! This is all for the sake of CELBRATION!!!!!! Yeah to blogging and yeah to sharing our lives together!

To win this wonderful cookbook  you just need to leave a comment on this post by November 16th at noon. I will then do the Random Integer program and see who will be the lucky winner! I will be setting this post to show up at the top of my blog page until the contest is over so if you want to keep up with me and you usually just pop in and see if there is something new, be sure to scroll down past this post.

Love to you all!!!

April

All is right with the world!

Daddy is back home again!

The Pioneer Woman Cooks - Ree Drummond

The first thing we’re going to do is cook some chicken. Please do not be afraid, my darlings. There’s nothing inherently scary about raw chicken. I hate to be gross, but…you and I are raw, too, if you really hunker down and think about it.

via thepioneerwoman.com

I am always a huge fan of chicken enchiladas and these looked pretty tasty! So tasty in fact that I didn't want to forget to bookmark them to be tried at another time. While I was at it I figured I may as well share it with you folks :)! April

Celebration

Just wanted to remind everyone to be sure to comment on my Celebration post at the top of my blog so that you too can win a great cookbook! I would hate to think that I really only have 5 folks out there that would want to have a chance to win :)! Come on folks…you have a chance to win too :)!

Doctor Visit for Will

Will has his second dr. appt with Dr. Keating this year. She was just following up how well he was doing after her last checked him for his allergies and asthma. Of course the day before his appt he came down with a terrible rash. I thought for sure that he wouldn’t be able to go to the appt, but sure enough I realized that he had contracted Fifths Disease and he was no longer contagious anyway! What a rash he had everywhere!

Love the cheeks that looked like he had been slapped!

Thankfully Will’s appt with Dr. Keating went well and she gave him a clean bill of health. Keeping with Zyrtek has done just the trick we had hoped for. Even this fall he has had no troubles with his asthma in regards to his troubles with mold. Yeah that Zyrtek is working so great for him. It is so well that technically we don’t even need to give him his Flovent each day if we don’t want to. Although with the flu season all around us now, to be on the safe side, we have still been using it. The hope is that if he did end up sick that his lungs will be able to combat the illness better.

In the end, so glad that Will’s asthma is under control and he can live a wonderfully healthy life :)!

A Beautiful Day!

Today has been nothing but beautiful outside. The kids have spent a good portion of the day enjoying it too! They have been using the woods behind us for a play area. The kids love it and have nice paths and are making a makeshift fort out of twigs and such.

Here is the fort that they are playing in.

Here are some pics that I ran an Orton action on. I love the hand painted look!

  

I also grabbed a few shots of my little hiker!

Labor Day BBQ

We were invited for a spontaneous get together at the Donnay’s. First off for the day though was a motorcycle ride. Minsan stayed back with the kidlets while I took off with Donnay’s, Fullers, Joe and myself. It was an absolutely beautiful day!!!! I am loved getting out and riding.

After all that, we gathered at the Donnay’s for some yummy eats and great fellowship. At the end of the night we all enjoyed some yummo smores. Can’t beat a great MN day and evening outside, of course, minus a few mosquitoes.

I took a bunch of pictures too just for fun :)!

 

Not sure what he was thinking, but he sure looked cute :)!

 

Todd, the grill master!

William was offended, not sure what it was!

Singing and visiting around the fire.

 

at one point when things were going fine Will and Austin ended up playing near a hornets nest. Poor Will was bit ALL over the forehead. He cried and cried because of the sharp pain. Thankfully shortly after some hydro cortisone cream he was feeling better.

Cool!

The boys had a blast playing with each other, even tossing cars!

Thinkin’….

We had a great time, Thanks Donnay’s for inviting us over!

Baby Anthony baby pics!

Every time I see little Anthony I love taking pictures of him. He is soooo yummy!!! This was the day of his baby shower at his grandma’s house on Sunday. I will post a few pictures from the baby shower later, but these just had to be shared right away! :)!

 

Neighborhood Block Party

Our neighborhood hasn’t had many parties in the 7 years that we have been in this area. But Mrs. Bell, one of our founding neighbors in this area, planned the whole event. It was on a Wednesday evening and since that is a usual busy night, folks came and went and yet still had a great time!

Mrs. Bell planned things well. She managed to get to each neighbor and make a plan for each of us to bring something to share. I love it when someone else is able to do all the planning and all I need is to bring something to share, Yeah!

The kids had a great time playing outside too!

Aside from hiding from all the mosquitoes, everyone had a great time visiting a bit with each other. Funny that these are the people that see the most some of us sometimes!

Clarisse hangin’ with the oldest kid in the neighborhood, Justine.

Yeah, I hope they do this again, it as a lot of fun.

Hard to believe that we have been grown ups in our own home in a neighborhood with kids for 7 years come November 15th. Crazy!!!!

Girl time while the guys were busy!

Vern and Amber came over one day so that the guys could hang a little sheetrock and we could visit. Of course we tried a few games while the kids played and then even ventured outside for the kids to play.

  

I was impressed that Will even stopped and picked up a grasshopper. Bold little man!

Camera Club

I got this note from the Camera Club this week:

“Please Gather 12 images that represent your photography best and bring on USB or cd to next weeks meeting. “

Okay, that is all good and well, but I have tons of photography that I have fallen in love with since I first began…how does one choose just 12 images to represent one’s own photography. The reason that they requested a sampling is that they have galleries that club members can have on the club website and this is supposed to be my starting pics…

I need your help! I have tons of photographs that I would love to share, but they only gave me 12 slots. Help me choose!!!!

Please help me by telling me which ones are your favorites so that I can at least make sure to include them next Thursday!!!

Do you see what I mean? Just too many to pick from and I have even more favorites that I still haven’t shared!!!!!

A visit from Glenn and Betty

Glenn and Betty from the lovely town of Amery, WI. came for a visit on Monday. It had been a long time since we had since them so we enjoyed the visit very much! Glenn is my dad’s brother. Although my dad never was able to meet him because they had both been adopted by different families when they were young, I feel very fortunate that although they never met that I have introduced to him! I had done a research project for college and this how we found Glenn actually. Maybe as the days go on I will share the story of how we found Glenn…

Back to Monday…here is Betty and Glenn with my kiddos. 

  

Me too :)!

 

I just wanted to capture some shots of Glenn :)!

Glenn is all about playing games and having fun with the kids. Clarisse thought he was just “naughty”, but Duncan, he just plain old enjoyed playing with him.

 

Of course I put the visitors to work. I made a spice cake and have no clue how to make frosting so I asked Betty to whip some up. Clarisse was more than happy to help out too!

Ooooh, and we all enjoyed eating it!

We had a wonderful visit and we already look forward to the next visit!

Carrot Cake Recipe

Gloria makes this really fantastic Carrot Cake that she got the recipe from her old nutrition teacher, Dr. Myrtle Hunt who in turn had gotten it from Vivian Ohman from Solway, MN. It is really yummy and then she makes this really yummy topping that is cream cheese and crushed pineapple. Oh, sooooo good! Today I asked Gloria to share her recipe with me so that I could share it with all of you. It is just that good! (I know I can’t eat it as is since I am now a gluten free girl, BUT my family just LOVES it. Gloria was kind enough to give us a whole pan of it today!!!!)

Carrot Cake

3 cups raw carrots grated fine (Gloria does it course and it is just fine!)

3 eggs

1 cup oil (mazola)

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

Mix sugar, oil and eggs. Beat good in a big bowl. Add all the dry ingredients then fold in carrots. Oil and flour a 13x9 cake pan and put the cake batter in. Bake at 350 degrees until done. Normally 45 minutes, but test for doneness with a toothpick.

Now for the topping. Make it and keep it separately until you are ready to serve.

1 cup crushed pineapple – really drained

1 8 oz. cream cheese – softened

2 cups or more powdered sugar

Mix and store in a container. Top cake before eating.

 

There you have it, a wonderfully delicious AND nutritious treat!

William’s Whims

William wanted to do some schoolwork too like the other kids. I have him working on writing over the letter “c”. As he is working on it he goes, “Thank You Jesus for my schoolwork!” Isn’t that cute?!

He also says “c, starts with a C.”

William, “Mom, you like to share.” I responded back with “what do I share?” William then said, “mom, you share your bed with me every morning when I come into snuggle!” awwwww!

“Mom, I love you!”

“Let me see your bleed”..he looks…”you are brave mom”.

He wants to lay next to me in my bed, but there just isn’t quite enough space and he says, “scoop up”. (scoot over)

While I was making some cereal for him he told me, “mom, you’re a real good cereal maker.”

William came in the door one day and was standing in the entry way. He goes, “I’m in!” “It’s me, William!”

Gluten Free Spice Cake

Since I have gone Gluten Free I am on the look out for good foods that I can eat and enjoy AND that William can have too as a nut free boy. My biggest challenge is that so many foods have been “made in a facility that processes peanuts or tree nuts”. When I saw this product at Coborn’s I was pretty happy.

Monday was the day to try it out on my Uncle Glenn and Aunt Betty.

Here it is all baked up after adding some oil, eggs and water to the flour type mix in the bag.

Aunt Betty helped me make frosting since I have never done it before. We used some Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Cream Cheese, butter, powdered sugar and a little dabble of milk. Yummy!

 

Betty had Clarisse help with the stirring and of course tasting :)!

Here is the end yummy piece of cake. I would have to say that there is no way that I would have pegged it for a gluten free cake. It was moist, it was not grainy like some products have been, and it was TASTY! Between the frosting and cake I was a very happy snacker. On top of it there was not one bit of discomfort in my stomach and not one bit of fatigue, yeah, a winner in my book!

Pioneer Woman

I think Dawn may have gotten me hooked on The Pioneer Woman a while back and I have really enjoyed reading about this woman’s life on a ranch. She also happens to home school, cook (and take lots of pictures of food which I love of course), talk about her home and garden and of course the great fun of her loving photography! Nice to read a blog that has many facets and that I can relate too a little bit (minus the life on the ranch part, LOL!).

Just this week a cookbook that she created was released here. Because it is a new release, Ree (the Pioneer Woman) is doing some publicity stints. I thought it was fun to see her in real life and not just in blog form :) so watching her was entertaining. Even though I couldn’t find this clip easily, I was happy to finally find it out on youtube.

Here is The Pioneer Woman live ;)!

IKEA…

You all know that one of my favorite places to go is IKEA right?! Yeah, I was able to earn some extra cash which allowed for me to head to IKEA once again to complete my homeschooling space. I am just plain old passionate about having things in order and even though it is taking time, I am getting excited to be nearer to the end result!  Thank you for being patient with me while I show all my finds, but if it is any consolation I did have a few people ask me what I picked up on the last trip and so I figured this was the best way to share :)!

Cheryl and I had a child free day and therefore enjoyed every moment of our trip to IKEA, well, except that detour off of 494 just a mile or so before we might have gotten there…and the detour signs were lacking so we had to circle a bit…we eventually got there and that is ultimately what matters right?!

So here are some of my finds. I have been wanting to move on from my Naturewood Phalzgraff set of dishes but I didn’t want to fork over too much money to change over. Thankfully I knew we wanted to go with white so that made keeping my eyes open for a good deal more helpful. Shockingly they had a great set of 6 white dishes for only $20.00. STEAL!!!  I can’t even buy a set of 4 at Wal-Mart for less than $40.00!

Here is what my cupboard looks like now!

Here is what is sitting on Craigslist now to replace my costs:

I also thought these glasses were lovely and bought a set of 6 (the ones on the left I already had bought from IKEA before):

My main goal though at IKEA was about my office. I bought some new drawer sorters and the metal magnet board that I hung on my side and also on the other side of the room but the kids’ desk.  I also bought a new leg for under my desk too since the white trestle I had been using from IKEA kept being in the kids’ way. I wanted a white one, but they only had a black one like the ones on this table. You know what, I am glad it worked out that way, the black one blends into the backdrop and you can hardly see it. Now I have a white trestle let to get rid of!

I also reorganized the cube shelf above to get it to be more accessible with the kids’ curriculum. It might not be completely done, but it is really, really close ;)! All the wood grained boxes and magazine holders were bought at IKEA previously and the silver box is one of two that came from IKEA on a previous trip too.

  

Down below I moved the new file boxes next to each other. They have taken the place of my full sized lateral file cabinet I had in the office before I needed more desk space. These are a good substitute and file boxes in the basement have the rest of what was in it. (I bought the little black file boxes at Office Max for $7.99 each.) The wooden drawer above I bought from IKEA years ago and the top drawer holds my “needs to be filed” stuff, the next drawer holds current worksheets completed by Clarisse and Duncan’s is below hers.

Now on to the kids side of the room. Down below is the Expedit shelf I bought (the main purpose for the trip) that was the other leg for my desk. The other leg is the IKEA cabinet that I bought at a garage sale last summer for $17.50 :) ) The scrapbook cart underneath is great for craft supply storage and that was a gift from Ms. Dawn and we bought it at The Container Store so many years ago. The cabinets above were from IKEA, once again, years ago…

   

The metal magnet board was from IKEA too. I thought it would be a nice place for the kids to hang some of their favorite artwork.

  

Here is a close up of the Expedit. I put some schoolwork books, my scrapbooks and then two IKEA storage boxes on it. One has some memories from Minsan’s grandma in it and the other one is still empty until I fill it with stuff.

    

I also bought some simple kitchen gadgets and I bought some picture frames to do some new decorating in my bathroom. Since I haven’t printed the pictures I need for that project, pictures will have to wait for a later date.

I think I covered everything from my shopping…

We also swung into Trader Joes for a quick catch up of groceries and then headed for home. I had a blast that day! Thanks Cheryl for being a part of the crazy adventure! Thank you Lorrie for keeping my kids over night and into the day so that I could have some child free time while Minsan was up north helping my parents! Ya ‘all rock!

Pencils, Pencils and More Pencils

One thing that I have found while homeschooling is that we go through A LOT of pencils. I am not kidding you in any way, shape or form :). At the beginning of the year we had a whole 36 count box all sharpened and ready to go. Sad to say but by this past week, there were only just a few pencils that could be found to do school work each day.

I resorted to buying 2 more 36 count boxes (this time I even bought the cheaper ones) and a gazillion erasers to go with it. The question is now, how long before they are all missing? The picture below shows just 36 pencils and I am quite curious how quickly I will need to add the other 36 count box to the mix. Only time will tell.

I kinda feel like this is a similar problem to the age old problem of where are all the socks that the laundry room apparently ate!

Girls Night Out

Dawn and I needed to head down to Trader Joes and took a little meal break at Olive Garden. We were pleasantly pleased that there was only a few minutes wait before eating.  It was a true “girls” night out since Clarisse, Addy and Sybilla came along too.

Good company and some tasty food too :)!

Duncan goes campin’

Duncan had his very first opportunity to go camping on the last weekend in August. The Royal Rangers headed up to Pillager to camp each year and this time Grandpa Chip took Duncan along for the adventure. Duncan was more than eager to head off with Grandpa for some one on one time AND to go camping for his first time. I was a typical nervous mum while her son ran off away a night but it was so sure fun to see his happy face :)!

  

Of course Duncan returned safe and sound :)!

Scenes from our basement today!

I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting it is to see our basement family room, hallway and under the stairs (the kids’ future hideout/play area) progressing to the level of being taped and mudded! Ooooh, how fun! Once this is completed next week I will need to be picking out wall colors and picking out two wall sconces for the hallway lighting. Thankfully the rest of the basement has canned lights already installed so I don’t have to think about it!

My kidlets

 

It will always be the challenge to get three kids in a great picture. I don’t actually expect it to happen, but I still have to keep trying… If I ever get a good one it will be a miracle and no worries, you will all be the first to see it ;)!

I think this may be the best one of the bunch…Not perfect, but as good as it gets.

This was the reason I was out there that day though. I thought that it would be cool to have a picture of the kids by the old Cold Spring Railway sign. It isn’t perfect, but it is indeed as good as it gets too. At least with the kids so far away, you can’t see if they are making weird faces or not.

“half his age”

Earlier this summer Minsan pointed out that for this one and only time in our boys’ lives, Will would be half Duncan’s age. So, before Will’s birthday in September, I made sure to get a picture of the two boys together.

To document this time in the boys life, here are the boys while Duncan is 6 and William is 3.

CMA Weekend and Minsan’s Birthday

Minsan and I joined some other CMA’ers over Minsan’s birthday weekend for their CMA State Rally in Alexandria. My mom came and watched the kids over the weekend for us so we could have two great nights away! The plan was to ride our motorcycles to Alexandria at Lake Geneva Christian Camp.

We left in plenty of time to get there, but we also wanted to grab a meal and decompress a little before moving on to the next part of the weekend. We stopped into the Palmer House since they have great food. I soooo loved my salad!

I tried to grab a quick shot of the bikes all lines up at Lake Geneva too once we arrived!

The meeting was already in play when we arrived on Friday night so I snapped a few pictures to prove I was there.

 

Here is the next morning when there was worship before things started up.

 

This picture is all the new chapters that were initiated this year.

Later in the day they had opportunities for our bikes to be entered into a contest to see who had the best baby bike, dirtiest bike, “what would Jesus ride” bike and the most chrome.

My little self portrait :)!

You see this beautiful day, beautiful sky, beautiful bikes…yeah, shortly after this picture was taken below we went for a wonderfully long motorcycle ride! It was awesome!

Allan and Todd visiting with some of the other guys.

They had many different vendors for those that were attending from leather shops to air brush painting.

 

Everyone staying at Lake Geneva were either in cabins, tents, campers or at Kingsriter…we like the privacy and bathroom attached option of Kingsriter for sure.

 

We had two great nights away (thanks Mom for making that possible!) and then took off towards home.

Before we left the camp, I snapped a quick picture of this little cabin…or should we say a mini of my own house?!

We headed over to Perkins for a quick brunch before heading towards home. Here is Anna and her daughter Angel.

Here is Alan and with his wifey Anna.

Once we got back home and settled in, Minsan’s parents swung out to wish Minsan a happy birthday with some yummy Gloria Sauers, world renown apple pie. It was great!

Minsan’s momma…

We had an excellent weekend and really had a great time putting over 300 miles on our motorcycles. Yep, pretty wonderful!

The Last Outside Haircut of the Season

I have a HUGE preference to cutting the boys’ hairs while we are outside. Of course the mess stays outside and who couldn’t benefit from a little fresh air, especially on a beautiful day like today was.

Duncan was first up. He was ‘okay’ with the hair cut, but he always hates the aftermath itchies that come from all the loose hair everywhere.

Before: 

 

After:

Next it was Will’s turn, he was actually all excited about it and loves to get a haircut!

Before:

After:

In the end all that was left was the empty stool and some bits of hair. I am just glad that it was all done for now :)!

Our basement progress…

Last week Vern was able to come over and help Minsan finish sheet rocking the basement. He had been over and helped with the ceiling and then Minsan and I tackled some of walls in previous weeks. Vern was really fun to watch as he did (what we took a long time to do) his craft quickly and with amazing perfection.

We are pretty excited to see this step come into fruition…we are really excited to have the construction over with in our house that is for sure. It will actually be a little while before we finish the family room, hallway, and the space under the stairs. Vern plans to come in the next month or so to finish the mudding and taping..then it is on to painting. We are in a hurry in that we just want the mess gone, but the reality is that we aren’t actually in a hurry and are taking our time. Last time we were in such a hurry with the need for Minsan to have the office complete for work…without that pressure it is actually really nice!

 

The space under the stairs does need a couple more sheets of rock, but with the rain that we have had, it has been impossible to run and get more. The great thing about when that space is finished is that the kids will have a wonderful little play space. We have a perfect piece of carpet to drop in there and I plan to paint it too once the mudding and taping done. I can’t wait for the kids to have fun in that space!

  

It will be nice for the studio to no longer face out into this dusty mess…especially when he has lessons once a week.

There you go…now you know what a mess my house is…well, at least the basement :)!