JOY in DIY

  I grew up as a “salad dressing girl” but my hubby was definitely a “mayonnaise man”.  I didn’t realize how many awesome recipes can be made with mayo to increase the flavor, perfect the consistency or add that certain something  to make a dish sooooo good:  Chicken broccoli casserole, scalloped potatoes, fry sauce, cilantro-lime ranch dressing, chocolate cake, and the list goes on. Well today we just felt like having good old fashioned sub sammies after church—until we remembered we were out of Mayonnaise ☹️.  Our family tries not to “break the sabbath” by shopping or doing other things that would keep us from spending time with family or focusing on the Savior.  And though it may seem small and insignificant to grab something as simple as mayo from the store, we try to alleviate all the extra running around on the sabbath by taking care of such things on Saturday.  Anyway, here we were without Mayonnaise.  So we did what we usually do in such situations—we make our own.  I will say

Oh goodness!  The day has finally arrived and Nifai is SOOOO excited to get our first egg!  His words: "I'm so proud of the chicks!"  Watch the whole thing unfold with some funny stories along the way in this youtube video.

Growing up, I don't ever remember my mom getting store-bought jam.  I can only remember ever eating homemade strawberry jam.  It was a super big treat to eat get raspberry jam, which my grandma always made.  That was my favorite, despite all the tiny raspberry seeds that got stuck in your teeth.  It was just too good NOT to eat. Well, my mom is at least 1300 miles away now so I can't just get jam from her whenever I want.  In fact, those of my sibling who still live here in Texas make homemade jam with our kids for our own families.  Strawberry jam is still as delicious as it always was but I've become a huge fan of pineapple mango jam which I made for the first time this summer.  With mangoes running anywhere between .25 cents and .50 cents a piece, why WOULDN'T you make it?   In all honesty, I first made mangoes after a quick 24 hour trip to Florida.  I would love to say I went to visit my cousin.  But really, I went for the mangoes LOL!  It was great catchi

No house warming party due to COVID-19 but get a virtual tour by clicking on this link ! 

When you have a good community of people in your life, you get a lot of love--and donations!  We are so blessed to have a great church family who always seems to keep us in their thoughts when they have a surplus.  Last night we got a surprise call from one of these special people who had a surplus of Chicken Express foods to give away.  We happily accepted.  We ate some last night and had more leftover today so I decided to try something I swore I would never do--eat chicken & waffles. The idea of fried chicken on top of a favorite breakfast item just seemed very foreign, and wrong!  But when we get donations in quantity that we do sometimes, I try to add variety to our meals with what we're given so the kids don't get sick of the same thing time and time again.  I'm SOOOO happy I tried this.   It. Was. Divine. And after I posted a pic on facebook I had a friend who commented that you could actually make SAVORY WAFFLES!  WHAT?!?!  Do you know how man

It's ready!  It's READY!  Our chickens are finally enjoying the outside habitat of their special chicken coop courtesy of the Vimahi farmhands!  David and the boys sure did a great job for their first time of building what I think to be the most beautiful coop.  I love it so much it's hard to stop looking at it.  I wish we had right now was a bench so I can sit out there and watch the chickens all day.  I don't know why I enjoy watching chickens.  Maybe because it's calming in a unique way and you can really learn quite a few life lessons from watching chickens.  Maybe it just helps put me in touch with nature. I love my chickens.  I take pictures of them almost as much as my own children--probably because we raised them from 2 days old until 2 months old and even though its only been such a short time but they've grown so much!  The only difference between taking pictures of the kids and taking pictures of the chickens is that chickens don't obje