Week 29

Sunday, July 17th

We had a nice morning at church and due to construction going on in our main sanctuary, we are not having evening services throughout the summer. So, lots of extra family time! We went over to my parents for Levi's favorite food...my mom's homemade pizza!:)



Here, Levi is in his room at my parents, yes, I know the kid is completely wet, but there's nothing I can do about it, he won't leave a teething bib on! He has some major teeth coming!




Monday, July 18th

John had an extra long day at work, so I took the time to visit my grandparents since I hadn't seen them in awhile. It was really hard to get a good pic of us all. Somebody was always looking the wrong way!:)




As you can see from the time of the picture, I'm still waiting on John to get home, while working on a photo book from Shutterfly. I told you it was a long day, they actually had an evening river trip and had to grab a bite to eat afterwards. Anyway, I've started to do these books a couple times a year now. They are really time consuming, I spent approximately 5 hours on it, but a lot less time than I would doing my own scrapbooking. I love scrapbooking, but I don't have the time now to get all the stuff out to do it, it is a lot easier for me anyway, to go back and forth when I want to on the computer until it gets done and it's less messy!:) My house was always a disaster after a day of scrapbooking! Levi loves looking at these books also and it's easy for him to turn the pages too!



Tuesday, July 19th

Levi got his first "good" scratch from Tara today. I knew it would come one day. He was sitting next to her and petting her, she was snuggling against him, pushed herself away from him and got right below his eye with her nails. Doesn't it look so sad...



But it didn't phase him for long, they went right back to playing!:)





Wednesday, July 20th
Big cooking day for me. Had zucchini from the garden I needed to use and about 5 lbs. of hamburger meat I needed to cook up for burritos. So, here's the result and a few recipes, enjoy!

Recipe for Zucchini Bread
This is a spin-off the Reduced Fat Banana Bread recipe I posted awhile back.

2 cups of AP flour (I used one AP and one WW, next time I'll definitely use all AP, the WW worked in the banana bread, but not here)
1 tsp of baking soda
1/2 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup applesauce
2 Tbsp vegetable oil (I used canola)
1tsp of vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups peeled and grated zucchini

Whisk together all dry ingredients except sugar and set aside. In another bowl beat eggs, then add sugar, applesauce, oil and vanilla until combined. Stir in zucchini. Gradually add flour mixture and stir or beat if you'd rather until just combined. Pour batter into a greased 9 x 5 loaf pan, or I used a greased bundt pan.
Bake at 350 degrees. If using a loaf pan cook for about 50 minutes, but my bundt pan only took 32 minutes. Do the toothpick test!:) This is a good thing to freeze too!




Recipe for Freezer Burritos:
Seasoned hamburger meat to use for tacos, burritos and such. I season mine differently every time just about, it depends what I have in the cupboard, but usually always, garlic, green chilies, cumin and chili powder.
Refried beans- I'm hoping to venture into the land of making my own, but until then..whatever is on sale!:)
Shredded cheese-the new Kraft with a touch of Philly is definitely yumm!



Then just set it all up. I lay out the flour tortilla on wax paper, this is a must for freezing these babies. Pile on the refried beans, hamburger and cheese, fold it up, finish wrapping it in the wax paper and then in the labeled freezer bag. Now, all I have to do is take a couple and put them in the oven for a little bit, covered with more cheese and salsa, or the favorite way in our house is take a damp paper towel, wrap it around the burrito and pop it in the microwave for about 1 1/2 minutes. That's it...delicious!:)



Ready for the freezer, 20 burritos and a pound or more of extra taco meat.

So, what are the boys doing while I'm cooking...see for yourself:







Levi is loving playing "chase-me" right now! Keeping mommy on her toes and daddy for that matter!

Thursday, July 21st

I asked John to start taking some pics during the week too, cause I didn't want the blog just to be about me and Levi! He's the one involved in Alpine ministries everyday, sharing the gospel and encouraging believers and doing it in God's awesome creation. So here's a couple of pics from his river trip today.

John tripleading, doing the trip talk before they embark on the whitewater.



Here they are at lunch and John is leading the devo. What an awesome way to share the gospel and encourage young people, especially, to walk with the Lord!





Friday, July 22nd

I sure wish I had had my camera this evening! John met me on his motorcycle after work at Kohl's and when we came out we were getting ready to get hit by a crazy thunderstorm. John made a run for it in his bike, but I stayed in the Kohl's parking lot for an hour! It was the most intense storm I have ever seen in southern WV. The lightning was the worst. There were a couple fallen trees afterwards and lots of high water and lots of people lost power. John almost made it home after he left from Kohl's but had to pull over about a mile away from home. But eventually, we all finally made it home. On top of it all, John ended up getting a flat tire too. Shew, what a night!

UPDATED: Here's a pic of just one of the trees that was struck by lightning and fell across the road about a mile from our house. Another one fell right next to it as well. This was taken 4 days later.



Saturday, July 23rd



You know how it is, Saturday night = bathtime! I wanted to share this because my mom thought of it awhile back and I thought it was a great idea. After Levi grew out of his infant bathtub I was researching on what to get next, and my mom came up with the idea of a tote! It's a perfect size, easy to store and clean up. On trips we use it to pack his stuff in and afterwards we can use it elsewhere! I hope I'm smart like my mom someday!:)

Oh, in the pic, Levi's eyes are all red from splashing so much!