Cream, butter and cows

This is 2 gallons of farm fresh milk. 
Stepson Clint and his wife have a small farm.  Beside chickens and eggs,  they also have 2 milk cows and we are fortunate that they share milk with us. 

They can pasturize the milk and they can run it through a separator.
But, I like the whole milk with the nice layer of cream on top.    If you look close, you can see that the cream is on the top and the milk is on the bottom. 

There are lots of ways to use the cream.  One of my favorites is this biscuit recipe from King Arthur Flour. 
The biscuits are made with flour, cornstarch, some leavening and cream.  There is no cut in butter or shortening because the cream has a high fat content.  They are so fast to make up this way.  I made about 3 recipes at a time,  then freeze them all to bake off as we need them.
\ 

homemade butter!

This cream also makes really nice butter. 


Some the milk we will drink.  I will probably make a large batch of pancakes and freeze them to use as we need them.  Homemade pancakes are much better than Eggos. 



The cows that make this rich delicious milk.  The cows names are Cindy and Creamy. 

the front door in spring



I took these pictures Tuesday morning
after a nice rain and before I packed away the Easter decorations.



the watering can belonged to Jeff's granddad

I planted the knockout roses last summer.
They are really blooming and smell so good,
but I am not sure why they are not getting much taller
and I am really wondering why the red one seems to be
a ground crawler.

This rose bush was planted by the Dawes,
the previous owners of our home.

hmmm, and something cute

this is what I found one morning


I know who ate a big helping of goldfish, then left this single goldfish cracker in the cannister, put the lid on it and put it back in the pantry. 
Yep, I know who did it, but it could of easily been several other men in this family and they have done similar things on  different days.
Does your family do this too? 

Elizabeth checking out the bottles her momma is going to use for a craft project.
They are Starbucks coffee drinks,  nobody here drinks this,  but Nina found a few people who do drink and they saved the bottles for her.

Aren't they cute bottles?
They remind me of the bottles that milk was served in
when I was in elementary school. 

2 Big Days

1st Big Day
more pictures from Bobby's 30th birthday party
having a toddler around for gift unwrapping is very handy

Elizabeth considering 2 of her uncles.

2nd Big Day



Oklahoma Supreme Court - to swear in the new attorneys



Jimmy is now a real card carrying, certificate in hand attorney.



My mom with Bobby, Jimmy and my brother



Elizabeth toddling in the capital rotunda with my dad

Gavin thinks the tube is the coolest part of this big day,
and the cookies at the reception.



Gavin is little and this Brave statue is very tall! 

The Easter Bunny delivered gifts

Look what was on our doorstep this morning.  I am pretty sure that Amanda and Gavin helped out that busy bunny and left these sweet things.  See the polka dot egg?  When you push its button, it cackles and lays a little candy egg.  Rather fitting for them since their chickens lay the best eggs in Oklahoma.
They share their chicken eggs with us too. 

Thank you Amanda and Gavin. 

Moustache party for Bobby's 30th



Bobby, the birthday boy, and my mom




moustache cake, baked by Nina
she also made moustache shaped chocolate lollipops




my mom, Gavin and me
all with our party moustaches





















Our sweet Bobby just turned 30 and his party was at our house over the weekend.  Jimmy and Nina planned it all and it was a very fun afternoon.  In case you did not notice from the pictures,  it had a moustache theme.   All the guests who did not have real moustaches wore fake ones -Gavin thought this part was really funny. 
There would be more pictures but I did not check my camera and its battery was dead at party time so these are a few taken with a camera phone.

I go back to the dentist tomorrow. What I thought was a big problem is not much of a problem to fix and I am very thankful for that.

send out the welcome wagon...

My friend Carol just  started a new blog and her first post is a recipe that I look forward to trying. 
Provision and Grace
I hope you all will drop by and welcome her back. 

It's a busy week with my parents here for a visit and Bobby's 30th birthday party coming up.
I've been slowed down by some dental problems but I have appt. with a new dentist first thing tomorrow morning.  I am having faith that no matter what they do to me or tell me,  I will be feeling better afterward than I do right now.

welcome Carol!

oh yea?

just a short and sweet post with a funny picture for you all. 

This is granddaugther Elizabeth with her little friend Brooks

The photography is by Emily,  her blog is Faith Hope and Love.  I think she does a great job with her photos and the captions are pretty funny too. 

He passed!

starting Law School-August 2007

The bar exam results came out today and Jimmy passed!
Swearing in comes later this month. 
Jimmy went to a great law school, made good grades, studied alot, took the bar prep course and works for an attorney.  Even still, we have all been on pins and needles and are thrilled the wait to find out is over. 

We are very very proud and Jimmy is so relieved, he was almost speechless.

Pooh Chair re-done





Remember the Pooh foam chair in my previous post?  I worked on it over the weekend and it is recovered,  I won't win any prizes for my upholstery skills  but the chair is clean now and matches the living room.  Elizabeth approves of the final result and that is all that matters. 

Gavin has not yet seen it finished.  He saw it when I was working on it and kept saying "chair chair chair"   He is in a phase where he repeats himself a lot.  I am pretty sure he will like the redone chair too. 

not too bad for a $4 thrift store find and fabric from my closet. 

 the cute baby kind of  increases the chair's cuteness

just because she is so cute too

the week in review

the tulips, jonquils and flowering plum are all blooming
in our front yard



Elizabeth posing with a
 plastic jelly bean egg



Gavin and Bobby spent the night here Friday night
Gavin says he likes Uncle Bobby's beard shorter. 



I found this cabbage roses fabric on clearance at Walmart.

I intended to just buy a couple yards but
I liked it so much as the clerk was unrolling it.....
I just bought the whole bolt.
It is a very nice fabric,
American made even!





the fabric reminds me of my anniversary roses

I found this foam chair at the thrift store.
He is very worn so I took off the Pooh cover
and am attempting to pin on a
new cover to sew up. 
I am usually fearless with fabric but
this project is trickier than it looks.

Gavin and Elizabeth -
we are working on learning
to share
but it may be a while
until we have it mastered.

more sewing and a little baking

 I finished 3 more blouses -one is a retro print dotted Swiss, one is black polka dots and the other is a pastel floral print.
























 A pair of apple green pillow cases for my daughter -they have new bedding but the set did not come with as many pillow cases as they needed.
Pillow cases are very quick and easy to sew up.























 For our master bath, I used a yard sale sheet to sew up a new window curtain and add a matching valance to a shower curtain we already had. The wreath is from silk hydrangeas used at a Elizabeth's parents wedding 4 years ago.
I like the lighter, summery look it added to this bathroom.
























close up of the sheet



















my version of a WW chocolate chip cookie recipe  -I baked a quadruple batch on Saturday and most went in the freezer.

2 T butter, softened
2 t canola or vegetable oil
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 t vanilla
1/8 t salt
1 large egg white
3/4 C flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 c chocolate chips - I used the mini chips
(I usually bake this recipe times 4, that uses the whole bag of mini chocolate chips, a whole stick of butter and I use 2 whole eggs instead of just whites)
preheat oven to 375.
In a medium bowl, cream together butter, oil, brown sugar and vanilla. Add egg white or eggs if you make more than one batch and mix thoroughly.
Stir in flour, salt and baking soda.
Stir in chips.
Drop by rounded (1 inch or so) balls onto baking sheet (I usually line the sheets with parchment)
Bake until just golden for 6-8 minutes depending on the size of the cookie. Mine are pretty small, about 1 inch scoops of dough and a quadruple recipe yields about 85 cookies.
Cool on wax paper or a wire rack.
I like these better than regular choc chip cookies are they taste good and are sweet but not too sweet.
























My anniversary roses are about a week old and are getting a little wilted, some might say they are  a lot wilted. But I did not want to throw them out just yet so I trimmed the best ones down to about 8 inches and put them in a little round vase -the vase is saved from the wedding of Gavin's parents.
Now I can still enjoy them for a few more days.

That is most of the recent projects from my home -I am in a sewing mood and may start a few more things this afternoon,  after I do a good housecleaning from one end of this house to the other. 

Hope you all are having a nice start to you new week!

this week

It is time to put away the St. Patrick's decorations and get started with the Easter decorations.  I will show those soon. 

I have no idea how the pansies I planted back in the fall survived the extremely cold winter, but they mostly did and even seem to be thriving. 

Colorful backyard

I mowed it for the first time this season.  The lawn chairs got a fresh coat of spray paint, 2 are now black and the other 3 are red, blue and apple green. 

With all the different color toddler toys,  it seemed pointless to worry about everything matching. 

  

our uncle went to the Denver Zoo and brought back these shirts for us.

Jeff and I celebrated our 31st wedding anniversary this week. 
He gave me a big bouquet of pink roses,

I baked him a  cherry pie. 

Gavin does not know what anniversaries are but he does know what pie is and he was very happy to have a little slice after we ate supper.