Happy Homemaking Lessons

Happy Valentines Day!

2012-02-12T07:57:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

(the girl in the photo is my little sister not me.)

A trip to the Zoo part one

2012-02-11T16:37:00.000-08:00

My family and I recently took a to the Syracuse Zoo .Here are some snapshots I took: please enjoy!

When I took this picture everyone rushed to get a spot in the picture (excluding my mama and my baby sister!) Can you guess who my papa is?

This penguin Had some children (I couldn't see them )so she was in a room instead of a habitat.

Another picture of miss penguin .

A fierce male tiger who was taking a afternoon stroll.

The red tailed falcon is not that unusual around where I live but I still enjoyed looking at it.

Isn't it handsome with those feathers?

This bear was one of the first animals we looked at I think it was called the woolly bear or something of the sort.

Another snapshot

A enormous elephant

Some kind of wild cat

(below an animal known as the naked mole) I hope you've liked this post watch out for part 2 and part three.

Wind

2012-02-01T10:30:00.000-08:00

Blowing around the mountains and bluffs,

howling around dwellings

showing her fury on the churning sea

she exercises her rage on the pines

she thrusts blizzards into peaceful places without mercy

she blows hurricanes in the path of the defenceless

She is the Wind,

a mighty conqueror.

Snowflakes

2012-01-10T10:31:00.000-08:00

O'er in the midst of hills

snowflakes are dancing down

on children

laughing snowflakes are

dancing down

dancing

down

by: Annaliese

Poetry Contest

2011-06-01T14:55:00.000-07:00

A while ago in March I entered a poetry contest. It was hosted by the Dunham Public Library in celebration of national library week. The subject we had to write about was the library. I won first prize which was a sixty dollar gift card for Barns and Noble. Here is my poem.:

Open Door

Walk through the open door

Oh! Look and see

all the wonderful adventures around me

Mysterious lands, far sunken ships

a chest of buried pirate gold,

castles of old,

great noble men

brave hunting parties with the king

a pretty princess,

a private eye

Just open a book - look and see

how I love the library

One of my Poems

2011-04-22T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Conduct of Tomatoes

The conduct of tomatoes is a wreck

they're green with envy and say "Oh heck!"

Then do the bugs give them a peck

Red with rage they grow

at the marigolds so low

but the marigolds all in a file

just give a big smile

and when

tomatoes grow red with rage

I say they taste good with vinegar and sage!

Learning how to Iron

2011-03-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

This is one of my first times ironing.

My great grandmother's maiden name is Lock. Before she got married she embroidered it on this napkin.

We got our iron at bed bath and beyond. We chose one that has a good review on consumer reports. It is a Rowenta.

When your ironing it's good to keep your hands away from the iron and not leave it on your cloth.

When I turn on our iron there is different levels of heat for different fabrics . It's usually about a six for cotton blends and higher for linen. Most levels for other fabrics are lower. Good steam on a iron is for when you when wrinkles aren't ironing out or for linen and cotton.
Have you been ironing lately?

School at Home

2011-01-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

I am home schooled. Homeschooling is when your parents teach you school at home. My favorite thing about homeschooling is that I'm usually done by lunch . Homeschooling is a lot of fun and I enjoy it a lot. Plus your not sitting at a desk all day. My parent have chosen to home school me because in a public school every thing is based is the belief that there is no God. When my parents teach me at home I'm able to learn in science about how God made the world in such a wonderful way .

Where do you do school?

Watching a birth at home.

2010-11-10T14:42:00.000-08:00

My new baby sister was recently born at home and I got to watch the birth.You're probably wondering when I said got to watch her be born at home. That is because Mama had little Adalia (her name is pronounced Adalee) at home.

There are women called midwifes who help the baby be born (basically what a doctor would do to help you have a baby ).

You would go vist your midwife about every two weeks and she would check you out.

It was really exciting to watch her be born . I had to get up at 6:00 to watch. It was an exciting experience and it was great.

(Note from Hannah: Annaliese has expressed an interest in midwifery and mission work for her future and she loved to come along to my midwife appointments and see everything the midwife does. Sean and I asked her if she wanted to see her new sibling being born and every night she would remind us to wake her up if the baby came...)

Moist and delicious Zucchini bread

2010-08-05T10:31:00.000-07:00

Put into the food processor,(a handful at a time) 2 cups zucchini .

The recipe.

Then drain one can crushed pineapple .

Mix together: three eggs, 2/3 cup oil , 1 3/4 a cup sugar , the zucchini, 2 tsp vanilla , 1/2 tsp b. powder , 2 tsp b. soda, 3 cups flour , 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 1/2 tsp nutmeg , 1/2 cup chocolate chips, and drained pineapple. bake at 350 for 50 min.

Note from mama: This is our family's favorite zucc. bread recipe. I might be the only one who gets excited when our garden gets over-run with the squash (not a problem this yr. unfortunately). If you have a plethora of zucchini, grate it and freeze it in baggies. In the middle of the winter, a loaf of bread tastes so great!

Helping Take Care of Children

2010-07-12T11:24:00.000-07:00

My mom was having some of her friends over for a peach party and I watched the little kids. There were 4 two year old kids and 3 four year old kids.

They watched a movie for a little while. He didn't even notice me.

After all of the kids went in a kitty pool they were content to watch a movie.

Playing with trains in a chair.

This is one more kid watching movies.

I set up a play table but now it's a mess.There were lots of puzzles. There was also blocks. Knowing what they like helps.

Chase likes to string foam beads .

This cute kiddo's name is Mateo.

That's some things we did and they liked it.

This boy's name is Adrian.

Cinnamon Crumb Cake

2010-07-03T09:14:00.000-07:00

What did you make? I made cinnamon crumb cake.

Why did you make it? I made this cake for dessert.

What cookbook is it from? It's called The spice cook book.

What did it taste like? It tasted delicious.

Was it moist or dry? It was nice and moist.

Did you learn anything new in making this recipe? No not really.

What is the recipe? Sift together:2 cups all purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt and set aside. Blend 1/2 shortening with 2 tsp vanilla .Gradually mix in 1 cup sugar. Beat in 2 eggs one at a time. Stir in one cup seedless raisins . Add flour mixture alternately with one cup milk.Turn into a well greased 9 x 9 x 2 pan and sprinkle 2/3 a cup chopped pecans over the top. Mix : 1 cup light brown sugar 1 tsp ground cinnamon 2 tbsp butter 3tbs flour and sprinkle over nuts.Bake in a preheated moderate oven (350 F.)1 hour and 10 minutes. Mix :1/4 a cup sifted confectioner's sugar 2 tsp cream and 1/2 a tsp vanilla extract and spread over warm cake.

Peanut Butter Pie

2010-07-02T17:42:00.000-07:00

Cut five tbsp butter for crumb crust. This butter was really hard to cut because it was frozen

Take out your pie pan make sure it is clean

Melt butter in a small sauce pan on low or melt.

Mix one and a half cups graham cracker crumbs a fourth a cup sugar and the melted butter together .

Take your crust and pour in pie pan gently spread evenly around with fingers.

Put oven on to 350 and bake crust for ten to fifteen minutes.

Beat on medium speed until smooth:8 ounces softened cream cheese 1 cup peanut butter half a cup sugar 2 tsp vanilla. In a separate bowl beat on medium through high speed until stiff peaks form: 1 cup cold heavy cream. Using a large rubber spatula fold half of the whipped cream into peanut butter mixture to lighten it.Then fold the rest of the cream in.

Put it in the pie crust and refrigerate until firm.Put in a medium sauce pan:1/3 cup half and half and 2 tbs unsalted butter . Put sauce pan on your stove on high until butter is melted. Take off stove immediately and stir in:4 ounces finely chopped chocolate. let cool to lukewarm .

spread evenly.

me and my little brother.

me and the pie.

me and Andrew

Mama's Notes:

This recipe is taken from the Joy of Cooking cookbook. For the ganache, use the best chocolate available. This is one time you won't want to settle for Hershey's or generic "baking chocolate".

The pie is rich and delicious and Annaliese did a great job following the recipe.

Note from Mama

2010-07-02T17:22:00.001-07:00

As a young child, I remember watching my mother kneading the potato bread dough, the smell that filled the whole house as the dough baked up into soft mounded loaves. So delicious!

I recall my first attempts in my own home to make bread, the frustration and turning to a bread machine that made feeble loaves of bread with holes in the bottom of the loaves...

As a part of their lessons, each of our children was asked to make a list of a few things they'd like to learn about this year. One of Annaliese's requests was to learn more about homemaking and thus this blog page was born for her and I to document our happy times together.

We plan on covering all aspects of homemaking from budgeting to baking, child care and cleaning,

We hope you enjoy learning with us,
Hannah

All about me

2010-07-01T12:24:00.000-07:00

My name is Annaliese and I am nine and I live in the country. I live in New York. This blog is about my daily life.