Pork Barbecue and a Tomato

Grace is an interesting child.  Since this past summer she has loved tomatoes.  But the way that she loves to eat them is to eat it like an apple.  While grocery shopping today Grace could have begged for anything in the store but what she begged for was a tomato.  So I bought her a tomato.  As soon as we paid for it she asked me, "tomato paid?"  I said, yes we paid for the tomato.  "Eat it" was the following question.  So I let her start eating the tomato even before we left the check out line.  This was what I saw in the rear view mirror while driving home.  It was gone before we drove into the driveway.  If she is going to beg for things, I am glad it is fruits and veggies.

I tried a new recipe today.  It is simple as can be to put together and as soon as Matt walked in his first comment was "man that smells good!"  So I am going to write it here so that I can find it again, and others can try it out if they wish.

Pork Barbecue

3-4 lb pork loin
salt to taste
pepper to taste
2 cups cider vinegar
2 tsp. sugar

(This is where I stop.  I put the above ingredients in a gallon ziplock bag and stick it is a freezer so that I can have it ready for whenever I am ready to cook it.)

Cook in the crockpot on low for 8-10 hours.

Remove pork from cooker and shred meat.
In a separate bowl combine:

1/2 cup ketchup
crushed red pepper flakes to taste
Tabasco sauce to taste

Put shredded pork in the bowl with the ketchup sauce, mix well.  Add additional vinegar juice from crockpot  to make it as moist as you wish.  Add additional sugar to mixture to cut the sour of the vinegar sauce (it will not make the meat sweet, just cut the sour flavor so that it is not as overwhelming).

Serve on buns, and maybe with cole slaw.

Matt gave this one four stars!  And I agree :)

Upcycle?

Recycle, upcycle, going green, call it what you want.  I call it playing and living with what we have without having to spend too much money.

About two years ago Matt and I got some items passed on to us from his Grandfather.  In those items we found some adult bibs.  As soon as I saw these bibs I had a vision of turning them into child aprons for when I have my kids cook with me.  But it was just an idea I could never figure out how I wanted to alter them to make them work.  

One day I was talking to a friend about a saying that I wanted to embroider on a shirt for Grace and Glen, but I had no idea of where to have it done locally.  She quickly told me that she has an embroidery machine and that I could use it any time that I want to.  Since this project was in the works much longer than the shirt I decided to work on an apron for Grace.  I got a very cute picture of pots and pans and I added tie straps around her waist.  She loves it!

 The other day I got a wild idea that it would be fun to have a tub of lids for the kids to play with.  Most everyone that I talked to thought I was crazy for giving my children lids to play with, but I thought it would be fun and creative.  So my family started collecting lids and at this moment we have 10, I am hoping to have more soon.

 The kids pulled them out of the container, put them back in, pulled them out, repeat and over and over.  Glen banged them together and stacked them up.  Grace sorted them by metal vs. plastic, color, and also by what was largest and also what was smallest.  This morning Grace begged to play with lids again.  It was nice to see her play and enjoy such a simple toy.

While Grace played with the lids, Glen decided this was a great container to hold his puzzle pieces.

 Driving around town I often look back in the back seat to see this, Grace and Glen holding hands and looking at each other.

Sometimes I even find this, Grace and Glen content to hold hands even if they do not look at each other.

I have a feeling they are starting to be great friends.

Fruit Loops and Pipe Cleaners

We have been quite crafty over here in the past week.  On Saturday we got a box of Fruit Loops.  Not only do they make a yummy snack for the kids, it is also great crafting material.

Grace loved stringing up the Fruit Loops and making a necklace.

 Then she went to take a nap and Glen enjoyed her necklace as a snack!

 Grace made a Fruit Loop rainbow and also discovered the wonders of cotton balls (which she now calls mushrooms for some reason)

This morning I decided to try something that I saw on the internet.  I got two colanders out and a pack of pipe cleaners.  Glen had seconds of fun, while Grace loved it for much longer.  She strung them in this way and that, pulled them through, and just in general had a great time.

Now off to get ready to make graham crackers with Grace.

This year so far...

So January, February, and half of March has slipped by without slowing down so that I can document.  So let me try to start writing things down.

Glen took his first steps in November, but he did not seem too interested in walking.  That is until January!  In January Glen just decided to take off with walking and he now prefers to walk rather than crawl.  He is good at walking and is getting faster and faster.  This morning I heard Grace and Glen playing in a bedroom with Grace yelling "ready, set, go!"  It made me smile because I know who will win right now, but soon...oh, Grace will have competition!

Matt and I are painting our living room.   We decided to have a party at our house, but not all of the painting was done.  So I came up with the idea to provide markers for the guests and tell them to have fun on our unpainted wall.  They had so much fun they filled up that section and we had to bring out our white board that is 8 foot by 4 foot.  That too had to be erased many times to make room for more and more drawings.  In painting that wall later, it took anywhere from 4-7 coats of paint and primer to cover it up...but it was worth it!
 

 While at mamaw and papaw's house, Eamon was trying to teach Grace some soccer moves.  Notice her jeans and her princess skirt (yes, that is her choice of fashion)

 Matt and I brought out some plywood to work on a project for the playroom (which is still not done).  Glen discovered that his cars made a fun sound on the board.  Not to be left out, Grace started to play cars with him.  It made me smile that they were playing nicely together, they had come with the game themselves, and it kept them happy for about 10 minutes.

 Glen reading in his room.  Recently Glen has been pretending to pick up imaginary items off of the floor and handing them to us.  It is so cute.

 Last week we had a snow that gave us about 18 inches of the white stuff.  However, it was all gone two or three days later.  But while we had it, the kids loved playing in it.  Grace enjoyed playing it much more than Glen, but that is to be expected.  We did discover one thing about Glen though, he is NOT a fan of gloves or mittens.

 Grace in the snow, and no she is not kneeling down.  In fact she was up to almost her waist with the snow at points.

 She made snow castles.

 Mamaw, Adam, and Grace made snowmen.  They had a great time.

 Recently I was given my old My Pretty Ponies from my childhood.  Grace discovered them soon after.  She has fallen in love with them and she makes sure that she has one or two of them at all times.  It makes me happy to see her playing with and enjoying my old toys.

 What I found Grace and Glen doing one day as I finished making dinner.  Happy moment!

This has been Grace's favorite place recently.  We have cleaned out the garage so that both cars can be parked inside.  But when one car is out, Grace uses the extra space as a warm place to ride bike.

This was this morning.  I decided to give each child a cookie sheet and two scoops of pudding.  They could finger paint, Grace practiced letters, shapes, and numbers (in between eating it).  They loved it.  It led to a bath and washing the floor, but it was worth it.

 

Update on Grace:  She will be starting gymnastics this weekend, I think she will like it.  She knows lots of shapes, colors, numbers, letters.  She knows the sounds for most letters and can identify five words in isolation and also written randomly in books.  When asked what her name is she responds "Daniels"  after much more prompting, she might tell you it is Grace but not always.  We need to work on that.

It has been a good beginning to the year.