Gone Fishin'

This Memorial Day we spent some of the day fishing! Even though we only used bamboo poles, we caught 18 small perches!

Tommy, ready to catch some fish!!!

Tommy and his second catch of the day!

Everyone fishing (at that moment all three people fishing got a bite!)

A little lesson in training: don't get your line caught in the tree; you're supposed to catch a fish, not a tree! :) LOL!

Robby & Daddy fishing.

Robby's first fish!!!

Tommy and his fish.

Ashley & Abby picking wild berries.

Abby and her berries. YUMMY!!!

Pa Pa & Bethany with her biggest catch.

Daddy & Ashley's fish.

All the fishes of the day=18!!!

Vacation 2010!!!

This year for our vacation we went to Arlington/Grand Prairie Texas, about 2 hours away. We stayed in a nice hotel complete with a pool and yummy free breakfast! During the time we were there for our 3 day stay, we went to a Texas Rangers Baseball game, and then we watched an amazing fire work's show after the game! (The Rangers won 2 to 1!) We had a blast!!! (Except for the little incident were we were getting on the escalator and Abby & Courtney fell down, hit their heads on the metal and it ended with Bethany cutting her foot on the edge of the escalator as her shoe fell of when trying her best to juggle Robby on her hip, hold up Abby & Courtney the best she could, and keep from falling herself! :) Then, Bethany was escorted to her seat in a wheelchair...but for the most part it was fun!!!!!) :) Hope you enjoy our pictures!

The stadium...huge!!!

The field from our second story seats!

The Rangers pitcher

Josh Hamilton at bat. He is our favorite baseball player, he has a incredible salvation testimony... he was a drinker and was about to die many times, but the Holy Spirit came to him through his Grandma while he was drunk, and ever since he had been a new person. He goes around telling his salvation story and leading others to Christ.

Mamma & Robby enjoying the game!

Daddy & Robby...LET'S GO RANGERS!!!

Corky

"Beppy" & "Corky"

Beth & Ash

Courtney, Mommy & Tommy

Silly Abby :)

Robby doesn't seem to like the fact that the crowd is going wild over a great ranger's play...

And he dousn't like the sound of the fireworks either! :)

Robby, all ready to swiming!!!

Ashley's Birthday Pictures!

If you know me (Bethany) than you know that I LOVE to take pictures! I usually take people's birthday photos, here are some of Ashley's for her birthday which is on Mother's day! Love you Asshy!!! May 9th 2010.

Ashley's B-day Cake!

Ashley's & Tommy's Birthday Breakfast and Presents!!!

This year Ashley will turn 11 and Tommy will turn 9! We had birthday breakfast, even though it's a few days before their b-days. Ashley's birthday is May 9th (Mothers Day!!!) and Tommy's is exactly a week afterwards, the 16th. We have a family tradition that we get birthday donuts for everyone's birthday breakfast. Later we will post about when we went to Pine Cove (a local Christian camp) to have a family day, it just so happened to be on the same day as we were having birthday donuts, so we had a family birthday party!

Tommy and Ashley at the donut store.

Tommy and Ashley's birthday picture.

Tommy loves donuts!!! :)

One of Tommy's presents: a air soft gun with bullets! (Watch out!!! Robby got a hold of it and nearly got me!)

Tommy's other present: a skateboard!

One of Ashley's presents: a bracelet!

Ashley's other present: a pair of earring's that match Bethany's...

And another pair of sterling silver ones!

Robby is so cute!

COOKIES!!!! Our Favorite Recipes

Who doesn't like cookies?!?!?!?!? Here are some of our family favorites!

So Easy Cookie Bars

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup sugar

1 3/4 cup flour

1 cup butter or margarine

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

Heat oven to 375*. In a large bowl combine sugars, margarine or butter, egg and vanilla. Beat until light and fluffy. Stir in flour, baking soda, and slat, mix well. pour into a greased 9x13-inch pan. Bake for 15-20 minutes.

No Bake Chocolate Cookies

Combine in a sauce pan over medium heat:

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup milk

3/4 stick (or half a cup) butter or margarine

a pinch of salt

Cook for 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat and add:

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups quick oats

Stir well and drop onto waxed paper and let set until hard.

Sugar Cookies (this is a double batch)

2/3 cups shortening

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cup sugar

3 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 eggs

2 teaspoons baking powder

Blend shortening, sugar, egg, and vanilla in a large bowl. Add all other ingredients and mix well until dough is like play dough. Knead on a floured surface. Roll out to 1 inch thickness. Cut into shapes using cookie cutters. Bake at 425* for 5 minutes. These freeze very well.

Cake Mix Cookies

1 package cake mix (any flavor)

1 egg

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup water

Mix all ingredients well in a bowl. Drop by teaspoons about an inch apart onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes or until done. Makes about 4 dozen.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

1 1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup butter or margarine

1 cup Splenda or sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon molasses

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups quick oats

1 cup raisins

Beat butter and splenda or sugar with an electric mixer until fluffy. Add eggs, molasses and vanilla. Beating until blended. In a separate bowl mix flour, baking soda and  cinnamon. Gradually add to the mixer bowl. Stir in oats and raisins. Drop by teaspoons onto a baking sheet. Bake at 350* for 10-12 minutes.

Quick, Easy and Cheap Muffin Recipes

One of our friends recently posted a comment on our blog. "Do you, the kids, or any of your friends have any favorite make your food budget stretch recipes? I think my kids are getting sick of third day soup!"

~ Heather

Here we have posted some of our family's favorite, easy, quick and very cheap recipes. Check back soon, we will be posting more recipes soon!

Bethany

Basic Muffins (this makes 24 muffins, but if you only want 12 cut everything in half)

4 cups flour

1cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 cups milk

2/3 cup oil

2 eggs, beaten

Pre heat oven to 400*. Grease bottoms only of your muffin pans. Combine in a big bowl all dry ingredents. Then in a smaller bowl mix all the wet ingredients. Then at once pour the wet mix into the dry mix. Stir just until the ingredients are moistened, the batter will be lumpy. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Variations:

Apple Cinnamon:

Decrease sugar by a half of a cup. Add 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1 cup finely chopped and peeled apple. Substitute apple juice for milk, bake at 440 for 18-22 minutes.

Blueberry:

Stir 1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries. (If you use frozen blueberries then do not thaw them out first, this keeps the berries from busting). Add 1 teaspoon grated orange peel into dry ingredients.

Chocolate Chip:

Add chocolate chips and sprinkle cinnamon sugar (1 part cinnamon to 4 parts suagr) on top of the muffins before baking.

Jam Muffins:

Place 1/2 teaspoon of jam on top of each muffin before baking. Sprinkle top of muffins with chopped nuts.

Streusel Muffins:

In a small bowl mix 1/2 cup brown sugar, 2 tablespoons margarine, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1/2 cup chopped nuts. Sprinkle over muffins before baking.

Cherry Pie Muffins:

Stir 1/2 a can of cherry pie filling into the batter before filling muffin tins. (To make the muffins sugar free, use Splenda instead of sugar and use the sugar free cherry pie filling).

Courtney Lost Her Two Front Teeth!!! :)

Doesnt she look so cute?!?! She lost both of them in two days, she was telling me that Tommy and her were playing and  the first one got knocked out, (yes, it was already loose...:)) and the other one followed the next day. ;) Love you Corkky!
Bethany

What You Get When You Take A 2 Year Old And Add Pa Pa's Reading Glasses: The Cutest Thing You Ever Did See! :)

Making Laundry Soap-A Peek Into The Ward Home :)

We just finished our annual laundry soap making day! We make our own laundry soap from scratch to help save money! Here are some photos!

Photos #1 We use borax and washing soda, and ivory bar soap to make our homemade laundry soap.

Photos #2 Grating the Ivory bars of soap.

Photo #3 Pouring the borax and washing soda into the grated soap.

Photos #4 Using our magic bullet (you can also use a blender or food prossesor, just make sure and wash it really well!!!)

When  we make our homemade soap we can use all the hands we can get! Here Ashley, and Tommy grate the Ivory bars of soap.

Here Abby grates the soap.

Here are some facts:

We used...

• 
  
  7 bars of Ivory soap, which made 12 cups when it  was grated
• 
  
  6 cups Borax
• 
  
  and 6 cups washing soda which equals one whole 55 oz box!
• 
  
  which equals 24 cups powdered laundry soap!
• 
  
  We made 7 batches of soap!

Here is the recipe for the homemade laundry soap.

Grate 1 cup of Ivory (use the bar kind) on the tinniest level available to make it as small as possible. (photo # 2) Pour 1/2 cup borax, and 1/2 cup arm and hammer super washing soda into the grated soap. (photo # 3 and photo # 1) Mix well. Pour small amounts into a magic bullet (you can also use a blender or food prossesor photo # 4) blend until a fine powder. Store in a big bucket ( we sometimes use empty, washed out plastic gallon sized ice cream buckets.). Use only 1 tablespoon per load of laundry.