So that is why they call it Friendship Bread

A friend of mine gave me a "starter" to bake Amish frienship bread. The whole concept is a bit gross., a baggie of milk, flour and sugar sits on your counter for 10 days until you bake it. Every day you have to smush the bag and on day 5 you add more flour, milk and sugar. Each bag ends up yielding enough to make 2 loafs of bread and have 4 more starters to give away to your friends.

I thought the name of the bread came from the fact that you were sharing it with your friends. However afer going thru our first round of baking I learned the true origin. You have to borrow things from your friends to bake the bread!

The first time it was baking day...the phones started to ring. "Can I borrow an egg?" "I need another loaf pan." "Do you have any more cinnamon?" "I only need 1/4 cup of sugar" "What size box of pudding am I supposed to buy" "Anyone want a starter?"

As the month as gone on the requests continue...."I'm going out of town for a few days, can you smush my bags?" "I'm on vacation for a week, can you leave me a new starter on my counter?"

I just ate a piece from my last batch for breakfast..thanks to all my friends for the contributions!

Anyone want a starter??

Day Camp

Last week was Cub Scout Day Camp. Not usually a big deal, send your son off for a week of fun and enjoy the quiet time, right? In this house not so much. Day camp is a family affair.



My husband is the director of our local daycamp. The volunteer director. No pay other than the feeling of doing something good for the boys. I can't even begin, nor do I want to ,tally the hours he puts into this camp every year. Every year it gets harder to find parents to help. A lot take the position above. Hubby recruited friends (Mike, Julie, Dee he wouldn't have made it without you guys last week) that don't even have cubscouts this year to work day camp. Where are all the parents WITH cubs?? WE don't even have a cub scout. My oldest crossed over to Boy Scouts and my youngest isn't old enough for Cubs yet. Did I mention that I also worked at camp all week? Oldest worked too...he did get to earn service hours for boyscouts, so that is a good thing. And our 19 year old nephew, jobless for the summer, came from PA to help for camp. We all worked....in the 90+ degree heat.

We weren't the only ones feeling the pain. Seems like the same parents are the ones involved every year. Without those dedicated parents running stations and walking with the boys all week camp wouldn't be successful.



I think for the most part the boys that participated had a wonderful time. The parents all seemed happy as well. Except for a handful that nitpicked things all week. When you have busted your tail for months before hand it tends to be the nitpicky comments that stand out in your mind, not that positive comments.



Our nephew told Hubby that when he was little he thought camps "just popped up" overnite, now he knows (and appreciates!) all the work that happens behind the scenes.



So to my wonderful husband, who worked so hard to put together a camp for 150 boys for a week.... Good Job Babe. I'm proud of all your hard work and your dedication to our family. Even though the boys didn't participate in camp, they sure saw a wonderful role model in you. I'm sure the boys that did get to participate are very thankful for all your work as well.

Job??

I knew this day would come...it probably should have come a few years ago, but I really wanted to get the boys both in school all day. It seems as though I'll be back in the working world in a week or two. Only part time...15-20 hours a week. Literally right up the street from me. I could walk if I wanted to. With gas so expensive that is a huge perk!

I don't wanna work.... I haven't really had a boss in SEVEN years. Our family needs the cash and it isn't fair for me NOT to work now. I wish I could have waited until October...but this location and part time stuff was too nice to pass up.

I should know more tomorrow. Having an orientation.

Anyone want to watch my kids on Tues and Thursday? hahaha..this is going to be tricky until school starts.

PSA: Hotdogs

One 8 pack does not make 4 11 year old boys happy.

Thank you.

June 10th?

Can it really be a month since I posted? Today is July 10th, where does the time go? I was hoping that the summer would go by quickly so school could start and my kids wouldn't be so bored. Whoa...now I'm thinking summer could slow down a bit, I'm not ready for September.

Maybe my life is too boring...I need something to post about.

Tim telling me he is going to flick me in my boobie....hmmmmm there is a topic

Tim telling me he is so bored he feels like he turned to stone....

Tim refusing to sleep in past 7:30am

Tim needing to be entertained 24 hours a day

Tim crying everytime Josh leaves with one of his friends (which 11 year old boys do all the time)

Okay...now I remember why I want it to be September.

54 days til school starts ;-)

Play me a song

Tim started taking piano lessons in March. Josh has been studying piano for the last three years, and like everything else, Tim couldn't wait until he could play too. He had his first recital on Sunday June 1st. His recital piece was "Lost my Partner" We asked him later if he was nervous and he said "Piece of cake...it was a piece of cake"

Okay, Kelly, I'm going to try and upload that video now....keep your fingers crossed.

Excuse the video quality, it was a camera phone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDz-9AzXhh8

okay...i'm pretty sure that is not what you told me to do Kelly....but there it is on youtube..

Mom, is our house going to blow apart?

Holy cow, how do you answer a question like that? Tim is deathly afraid of storms. He freaks out at the first sign of a storm cloud. When he was younger he would run for cover if the wind picked up over 5mph. We spent most of one spring in the house watching the wind blow.

Yesterday was the kindergarten assembly. Finished at 2:00pm. We were allowed to take our children home after the assembly. I normally would just let him come home as normal, because after all, I still had another 30 minutes of quiet time. Yesterday I decided to sign Tim out and we came home early (along with his little buddy Wyatt whose Mom was doing PTO stuff at school) Good thing, because 30 minutes later we were in the dark, in our basement under a tornado warning having the following conversation:

Tim: "Can't you tell how scared I am...can you hear how my voice sounds...I'm really scared. Isn't it sad that I'm almost 7 and I'm so afraid of storms."

Me: "It is okay to be afraid". (cause I'm pretty afraid myself right now and I'm almost 40!)

Tim: "Mom, is our house going to blow apart"

Me: "No, I'm pretty sure it won't blow apart" (I hope cause this place is put together with spit and a prayer)

Tim: "Can you promise me 100% that it won't?"

Me: "Ummm....well, no I can't." (do I lie?? I couldn't promise him 100%)

Tim "what will we do if it does"

Me: "We will build a new house"

Tim: "But were will we sleep tonight?"

Me: At Wyatts house, right Wyatt? We can sleep at your house? (say yes Wyatt, say yes!)

Tim: "Good...and we can play Wii there too"

A bed and a wii....all is fine in his world. Whew...

Happily our house did not blow apart. And I didn't even tell a lie.

BTW--this picture has nothing to do with the storm. But I was determined to post a picture today :-) The video will have to wait until tomorrow.

Why can't I get this to post with my paragraph breaks????