Tuesday 31 March 2015

The "A" says "ah"

While I was trying to do my school, I heard this little "conversation" between Dare Devil and Ironman. 

Dare Devil: The "B" says "duh", the "B" says "duh" -

Ironman: No, no! It's the "B" says "buh"!

Dare Devil: The "B" says "puh", the "B" says "puh" -

Ironman: NO! Buh! Not puh!

Dare Devil (exasperated): The "B" says nothing, the "B" says nothing, every letter makes a sound the "B" says nothing! :P

Day #31 | Canada Geese


Day #30 | Risk


Day #29 | Fake Flowers




Day #28 | Playing Chess. . .

On our little kiddie table that Mom painted by hand when I was little. Like really little. :)

The table has all 7 of our personal marks on it ;)


Day #27 | Cinderella's Alarm Clock

Not the best picture, but I had totally forgotten to take a picture until just before bed. So I took a picture of the first thing that I saw: Cinderella's alarm clock. 



Day #26 | Banana Pop

Okay, actually, I took this picture on the 17th. But I didn't realize until the next day that the picture had our entire address clearly printed on it! So yes, I did take a picture that day, I just can't post it. :)

By the way, Tiger Lily made this delicious looking sweet. We both like to experiment with food, sometimes it comes out nicely. . . and other times it comes out a mess. But this time it was very good. She took a banana, rolled it in chocolate sauce (melted chocolate chips and milk), added on sprinkles and put it in the freezer until the chocolate had hardened.


Day #25 | A Little Boy and his Bunny


Day #24| Old Clock


Day #23 | Ready For Bottling . . .


Day #22 | Flaky Pie













No, I didn't forget. . .

No, I did not forget about the blog or the photo challenge. I still took pictures every day. I just didn't post them for a whole week and 2 days. Last Saturday I had another near scare when the computer decided to switch iPhoto Libraries, making me think that all my pictures had been trashed again. Thankfully, they weren't and Mom and Dad helped me "find" them again. Whew! ;) Anyway, after that, we thought it would be better if I got a USB and downloaded all my photos so that I had a backup and then we wouldn't have to keep having those horrible, terrible scares. So I took pictures over the week, but didn't download anything until I got the USB. Which I didn't get until this Sunday. But now all the pictures are downloaded and I'm ready to post again. Yay! :)

Wednesday 25 March 2015

Blessings. . .

Blessing #56: Skiing! 
Blessing #57: Candle light. I think they look so romantic, but as
Tiger Lily says, "It's not so romantic when you know you're using them
only because the power's gone out. . . AGAIN!!"

Blessing #58: Ski Goggles. Oh, these are SO helpful when skiing,
especially if there's a strong windchill! 

Blessing #59: Clean drinking water. Sometimes I think
I take clean water for granted.
(Mom can't believe that I used this bottle to represent the
clean water. She said "You're using a picture of a bottle that
is sold by the company that takes the clean water away from
our wells (yes, we have a well) and sells the water at really high
prices to represent clean water? :P) 

Blessing # 60: Cousins playing Star Wars. 

Blessing #61: Busy Hands

Blessing #62: BOOKS!! :)

Blessing #63: Sleepy Brother

Blessing # 64: Cute puppy! 

Friday 20 March 2015

Day 20 | Popcorn Balls

Ever since I read the book Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder (I must have been about 4 or 5 then) I had wanted to make those big sticky popcorn balls that the Ingalls always made during Christmas. 

And now, at 15, I was finally able to make them. Except instead of using molasses like the Ingalls did, I used maple syrup. It was so good! :) 

Princess Photo Shoot! :)

My cousins, my sisters, and I decided to do a photo shoot with dress up clothes and it was so much fun! Here are the pictures! :)


Preparing for the shoot

Mirror Shot

Silly Mirror Shot. :) See the other girls getting ready? 

I was waiting for the girls - I mean princesses - and decided to take
photos of the setting. I'm not too good at the styling and dressing
stuff. . . that's more on Tiger Lily's line. She loves dressing up and
styling hair. So when we got ready to go to our cousins' house, I prepared
my cameras and she prepared her hair accessories, ribbons, earrings, etc. 

Yay! They're ready for picture taking! :)










Thursday 19 March 2015

Maple Syrup | Part 1

Here it is! For the past few days I've been trying to capture photos of the maple syrup process. These posts will (hopefully :)) show how we tap our trees and get the delicious syrup from them. 

So here is Part 1. . .


The very first thing we need to do when getting ready to tap our trees is figure out when the weather is just right. Cold nights (below 0) and warm days (above 0) are ideal. 

Once the weather is OK to tap in, we get our drill, hammer, spiles (aka taps), tubes, buckets, pliers, lids, scissors, "Fridge", and evaporator ready. 

The Fridge is a big barrel that is covered up well with snow. It's a very deep barrel and past years have found us inside it with a pot trying to scoop up sap. No pictures of that yet, but trust me, we looked ridiculous! :P


After that, we choose the trees that we want to tap. This year we tapped mostly trees that we had done  last time. Now the holes don't close up really fast and disappear after one or two years. So when we were tapping, we found a whole bunch of old holes. Rules for tapping say that we need to drill at least 3 inches away from an old or new hole. Also, we need to drill on a flat part of a tree. Once the perfect spot is found, we turn on the drill and, after angling it the slightest bit, we go in! On good days, the sap will start coming out almost immediately. 

Then we take our spile and hammer it in, well. If we don't do it properly, the sap leaks out below the spile and you DON'T want that!

Then we attach a bucket to the hook and add a lid/cover.



We also did a few tubed taps. The process is the same for tapping, we only add tubes to the spiles instead and lead it into a big white bucket.


And after we tap as many trees as we need/want, we wait. . .

I'll stop there for now. Got to go organize the next set of pictures! 

If there are any questions, feel free to ask! Either Mom, Tiger Lily, or I will be happy to answer them! :) 



Day 19 | Pinecone

Tiger Lily, Spiderman, Ironman, and I took a walk in the woods today and we saw some darling little pinecones along the way. 




Wednesday 18 March 2015

Day 18 | Church Friend :)

I'm going to just go Day # and title of picture now. Typing 365 (space) (dash) (space) Day (space) (dash) (space) Photo (space) Challenge | Day (space) # is getting a leetle tedious. :P 

For today's picture of the day, I took a picture of one of my friends at church. 



Monday 16 March 2015

365 - Day - Photo Challenge | Day 16

Maple. My beautiful puppy :) 

Unfortunately, she really, really does not like the camera pointing at her, so she absolutely refuses to look at me when I'm taking pictures of her. Only by stealth can I get a picture of her looking at me. 



Here are some extra photos that I took of her. Let's pretend that she's not deliberately sticking out her tongue at me. 
 

 Okay, even though it doesn't look like it, she does have two ears and her tail is not cut short :P



Sunday 15 March 2015

How To | Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. . . with Cinderella :)

Today Cinderella and I had an exciting adventure together. . . baking cookies! She did pretty much everything by herself, I only helped her with the measurements and the oven.

I'm also making this into a How To post, just for fun! :)

So let's get started!

You need. . .

1 cup of butter


3/4 cups of brown sugar


1/3 cup of white sugar


2 large eggs


1 teaspoon of vanilla


1 teaspoon of baking soda and 2 teaspoons of hot water mixed together


2 1/2 cups of flour


1 cup of chocolate chips. Well, the recipe asks for only 3/4 cups of chips, but we like lots of chips. . . 


And one happy baker! :)


First add the butter and both sugars into a mixing bowl


and stir it up 


until it looks like this. 


Add in the eggs


and stir that up well. 


Add the vanilla


and let the batter mix for about 2 minutes. 


Umm. . . ? 

"I'm not doing anything. . ."

"Well, since I don't think anyone's looking. . ." 


Add in all the flour. . .


And do NOT turn the mixer on full speed. Looks like I forgot to tell Cinderella that :P Oh well, it adds excitement, doesn't it? :)


Now the batter's done! Let's scoop them into nice round balls and lay them on a tray. 



Change of minds. Let's use ice cream scoops instead. SO much easier! :)




Toblerone. . . !
"Don't worry, I'm not touching, see?"

"I'm innocent! (I hope she doesn't see the chocolate
on my mouth!)"

Put the cookies in an oven. The oven should be preheated to 350 degrees. The cookies will take 10 - 20 minutes to cook. 


Yay! They're done! Now place the cookies on a cooling rack. 



And you're done!





Mmmm. . .