my Brady boy

Sunday picture time

every Sunday after church, I take a picture of the kids.  luckily, this day also included a few bonus shots before church.

Abigail is still working on looking at the camera and smiling... I'm confident she'll get there.

Grandma Maycock's pool party

my grandma (dad's mom) passed away before I even met Chris, but she was so amazing that I still want my husband and kids to know her.  today was her 107th birthday. to celebrate, we had a pool party (grandma LOVED to swim), got roadhouse to go, did jumping jacks for 107 seconds, sang happy birthday, ate ice cream, and learned about grandma (she loved swimming and dancing, was in the senior olympics and set world records, loved hosting fancy parties for her friends, was super into fitness... and discussed many of our family members named Mary, Skye, or Elise...abigail's and my middle name).  we had a blast.

cloud jams

this is a canvas we have hanging in Brady's room.  Andrew loves wearing these "cloud jams" and so Chris took a picture of him next to the canvas of Brady.  I laughed out loud when he texted it to me. 

I laughed out loud even louder when I got the picture of Brady next to Brady.

my honey.  sure knows how to get me.

Leo

a couple months ago, Andrew started telling us his name was Leo.  we still have no clue where this came from, but he loves the name Leo.  so when he got a barbie for Christmas, none of us were surprised when he named it Leo.  Leo has quickly become a beloved member of our family and gets lots of love and attention from Andrew (who will still many times answer that his name is Leo). 

and yes, Leo is almost always naked. Andrew can take his clothes off but isn't coordinated enough to put his clothes back on.  consequently, Leo sleeps in the nude and takes a lot of baths.

yogurt for Jill

this is my mom's yogurt recipe that she's been using since 2006. she always uses nido powdered milk.



in bowl, mix together 6 cups of water with 3 and 2/3 cups powdered milk. whisk well.

add a few ounces of yogurt... anywhere between 2 tablespoons and 6 ounces.  I don't measure it.

it's important to use yogurt where the only ingredients are milk and cultures.

whisk it all very, very well and pour into containers of your choice.

 in your instant pot, pour a cup of water and place the trivet on top. then put in your jars of yogurt.

I put a towel on top to help with the condensation because I don't have lids for my jars.

press yogurt and adjust the time up to at least 7 hours.  the longer you leave it, the thicker and tangier it'll be.  since it doesn't come to pressure (it's just like a crock pot for this), I set it for 9 hours and just choose to check on it periodically after the 7 hour mark. make sure it's at NORMAL... not less or more.

unlike instant pot pressure cooking settings, the timer counts UP so you know how many minutes/hours your yogurt has been in there.

when it's done, place your jars directly into the fridge.  when it's completely cooled and set, you can stir in a bit of sugar/vanilla. 

notes:

in the beginning, I heat 2-4 cups of water in the microwave and stir that in really well with the powdered milk (I feel like it's easier to mix when it's warm) and then stir in the rest of the water and yogurt... but maybe you don't spill as much as I do when I stir impatiently.

as soon as your yogurt is done and before you've sweetened it, go ahead and set some aside in a little container to use as your starter for next time so you never have to buy yogurt again.

I haven't done it, but you could just stir everything and make the yogurt directly in the instant pot.  that just doesn't appeal to me as much because then, after it cools, you have to scrape your thick yogurt out of the instant pot into containers for the fridge and that sounded like more work. 

it would probably be smart to start this at night and let it work its magic all night while you sleep, but I haven't tried that yet because I never seem to think about yogurt at night.

I'm sure it's probably cheaper to make yogurt with regular milk instead of using the powdered milk but cold start yogurt like this (where you don't boil it first) requires either shelf stable or powdered milk or ultra pasteurized milk (like the fair life brand).  If you want to do yogurt with regular milk, you need to do the traditional recipe where you boil it first (you have to kill off the bacteria in the milk by boiling it or else the milk bacteria will compete with the yogurt bacteria and it'll never get firm or set up) and wait for it to cool down before you add your yogurt starter.

four kids in a tiny room

Brady turned 7, so a month later I scheduled his well check... because that's how on top of it I am.  lucky for us all, Christopher had a church training so we all got to go to Brady's appointment together.  that was everyone's ideal way to spend a Saturday morning and all of our dreams were fulfilled.

not blonde

honey and I were invited to an avs game through a business connection so we stayed in a fancy suite. it was a fun change for a night, but definitely not the same experience as being down close to the ice and in the action.

also, my honey is so disturbed lately about how dark my hair has gotten and that I'm not blonde anymore.  I told him it just depends on the lighting and I can sometimes still call myself blonde.  expect who are we kidding? I'm going to always call myself blonde regardless of how dark or white or gray my hair gets.

blonde.

not blonde.

not blonde.

I'm really not blonde anymore. 😢

conquering kitchen clutter

people think that because I love organized spaces, that my house is always clean and organized.  it's more like a yo yo diet with a lot of highs and lows.  amazingly, I conquered this corner of my kitchen and followed it up with a happy dance.

poor Andrew

Andrew didn't feel well today so we had a lot of snuggling and a doctor appointment.  

honey is out of town so we went to school spirit night at chick fil a.  Andrew's food of choice was strawberry jelly on a saltine cracker.