First I decided that a beer of the month club would be cool if I could find one that only ships IPAs. And what do you know? Half Time Beverage does (they have 12 BOTM Clubs to choose from): Beer of the Month Club – Ipa Hop Head. Perfect.

Then, I thought, “Well, I think he’d like to brew his own IPA.” So I found Chinook IPA Extract Kit from Northern Brewer. Great. Buuuuut, he needs a kit to brew; and this is all new to him. Obviously, Northern Brewer also sells brewing kits. So I picked one of those up, too. It even comes with a getting started DVD. This could turn into quite the hobby.

Check out Bitter Beer for more info on IPAs and other hoppy brews.

That little green star is Syna’s height at this age. Our little outlier. :)

Then, Dr. Taylor said his goodbyes and 2 nurses came in to give her 2 booster vaccinations. They were brilliant; simultaneous injections in each arm. Syna hardly noticed. We both thought it would be a much bigger ordeal and had previously bargained ice cream afterward. So off we went for family day lunch and ice cream.

Anywho, I am writing today because I haven’t in long time and because my daughter just told me that the best part of the doctor visit was getting the shots. Yeah. Shots. I was ready for a breakdown, and she apparently loved it. :)

Syna highlights over the past year:

Milk baths are some of the most marked-up products ever. Burt’s Bees is $16. This is exactly like Burt’s Bees – just milk and fragrance.

If you use nonfat milk, your skin won’t be oily afterward. But if you use wholefat milk, you will get the natural moisturizing power. It’s all up to your skin type.

If you can’t find buttermilk powder at the regular grocery store, you can definitely find it at a health food store. Whole Foods carries Bob’s Red Mill products, and they have powdered buttermilk.

People with lactose intolerance or milk allergies shouldn’t try this recipe. If mixture is too oily, try 1/4 cup of Natrasorb to soak up the oil.

[Idea modified from theperfumereport.com]

However, the heavy snow is not ideal for shoveling. But we actually got it all done – before it iced over! That’s a first.

Syna got the snowball maker going. It makes perfectly spherical snowballs easily – a snow day must.

I filled the bird feeder and spread some seed under some low hanging branches. The birds came right away for some sustenance. Hey, make some Bird Seed Ornaments for the season.

It started getting a bit wet, so we all came in to the house. I love our home in the winter. With the fireplace, Christmas tree and windows to enjoy the winter scenes it’s the coziest place to be snowbound.

While looking out the window behind our couch in the family room, Syna exclaimed, “Look at that snowman looking in the window; he’s watching us like a crow.”

Oh, and a snow day pleasure: the plow just came by and packed a huge pile of snow at the end of our cleared driveway. Grrrr…

our family craft of the day

we melted pieces of broken crayons in a double boiler (which was just a pot of boiling water with a pyrex measuring cup seated in it) and poured the melted wax into star shaped candy molds.

we melted different colors together to get the swirls (not so great) and we layered colors for the rainbow effect.

super easy and fun. a great way to use up those broken crayons. :)

• Fall Salad
• New England Clam Chowder
  (for a vegetarian version see Vegetarian New England “Clam” Chowder. Or use the original recipe and just substitute the clams with the arame from the vegetarian recipe and add oyster mushrooms for the texture.)
• Homemade Quick Rolls with Homemade All-Purpose Herbed Butter
• Grandma’s Apple and Honey Muffins* with Homemade Whipped Honey Butter

*The muffin recipe is from a great book we picked up at the library, The Beeman:


It’s an easy and healthy recipe with only flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, whole wheat or bran cereal flakes (we use whole grain with flax), apple, raisins, egg or Ener G Foods Egg Replacer, milk, oil & honey.

EPA Earth Day Photo Project