LittleHouseOnTheBigHill.com

Hurray for Cherry Pie

This afternoon Amy made a cherry pie while Garrison and I were outside BBQ'ing hot dogs and corn for dinner.

After dinner when the timer dinged on the oven, we got to eat the pie while it was still warm!

You just can't beat warm pie fresh out of the oven.

Relocating the Trees

Have you ever read the children's book "The House That Had Enough"?

For some reason while working on the projects around the house this weekend, this book came to mind.

We're trying to reclaim a corner of our yard that has been taken over by brush, small trees, a stockpile of firewood, and old cedar tree limbs from the tree that used to haunt the front yard for many years.

In the process of cleaning this area out, we carefully uprooted several young trees, and decided to replant them in other portions of our yard to see if they would take.

If you were to look around our yard, you'd see a bunch of these short little threes planted, and to me, they look like they just got up from the corner of the yard where they were, and walked away, to a new spot.

Only time will tell if these guys will take root again and grow.

Diary of a SHM

In case you don't know the short hand SHM is short for stay at home mom, my new job for the next 10 or so months. Truth be told, I hope it lasts longer, but time will tell. To help it last longer, I'm working on being frugal...I saved $30 at Target a couple weeks ago with coupons and in store deals. I've gotten away from the whole brand loyalty thing and buy generic whenever possible, unless it's ketchup, gotta have Heinz.

Anyway, back to the SHM stuff, on Wednesday, the day all my teacher friends went back for staff development, I went to story time at the library with the boys. We're groupies, Ms. Mary Lynn was flattered to have her own small following. This is the type of stuff I've wanted to do, but couldn't because of working. I'm loving it! We did storytime (all books about pigs) G was a great listener for the 1st story then got a little squirmy, so he and I danced. #1 is becoming less nervous about being around unfamilar people, but still stayed close and wasn't sure about doing the silly songs. Then we went to Target, I love the killer deals they have on storage bins with back to school. We were also going to get some new Sharpies (also a great deal), because mine got found in my school stuff in the basement and were used (read damaged) during some home construction projects.

We spent most of the week laying low at home because both of the boys had bacterial bronchial infections. The little one was worse than the big one, and had a couple of coughing fits that ended with momma covered in puke. Poor buddy. After a Z pack each, we seem to be doing much better.

Thursday night we went to the community center to see the new caboose get placed on the tracks that have been waiting all summer. There were big trucks and a HUGE crane involved in the moving as well. It was neat to see, I think the parents may have been more excited than Em, G napped most of the time we were at the park.

We have one last lunch with Omi and Grumpy planned before Omi goes back to school Tuesdsay, but that doesn't mean it has to be our last lunch with Grumpy!

Grillled Pizza

Last week, in the park department office the director of P&R (Missy)was asking what I'd been making lately and if I'd brought any goodies (she'd told me to slow down so she could stay in shape for her float trip a couple weeks before, but now that it's over, she's ready for more), I told her it's been too hot to heat the kitchen up, I'd have to come use the kitchen at the community center! She was ok with with that--guess I'll have to take her up on it soon, and after stopping by today I'm even more excited to go in, we got new stainless steel tables (way to go Miss Ann!) to prep and work at!

Anyway, Missy, told me that she was really interested in something she'd seen the Barefoot Contessa do, grilling pizza. Infact, she wanted to have a pizza grilling party with friends over. A fun way to create your own and not have to heat up the house. Sounded like fun to me and yummy! We love pizza at our house and like to make our own. For years I've been making my own wheat crust and piling on the toppings (ok, so pepperoni, mushrooms and black olives aren't exactly piles, but they're what we like at the little house *).

When I got home I mentioned to our daddy (who can do anything I set my mind to, like getting bees next spring after I saw something on the news a couple weeks ago--but more about that later) that I wanted to try pizza on the grill sometime. So, he read up about it; and watched youtube videos about his PBS grilling idol, BBQ-U creating grilled pizza. I checked out some cooking sites too.

Everyone seemed to use a gas grill, we have a good old Weber Kettle and ya know what, it worked just fine. Here's how we did it:

step one-- Daddy started the coals while mommy started the dough (#1 and Mr. G helped out by napping after an afternoon at the splashpad in the park) see the recipes tab for my pizza dough recipe
step 2--arrange create the thin crusts as shown in the following 2 pictures, my dough usually makes 1 large pampered chef round stone pizza, but tonight we made 4 thin pizzas

--I stretched each pizza's crust on a piece of wax paper coated in olive oil

step three--assemble all ingredients by the grill--we used mozzerella, parmesan, sauce, pepperoni, olives, and mushrooms (well, Uncle Thomas didn't have any mushrooms and made the momma pick them off of the piece he got from the 1/2 and 1/2 pizza--oh yeah, part of step 3 was realizing that we were gonna have lots of extra pizza so calling to invte uncle Thomas over)

step four--set up the coals in a ring around the outside of the grill when they're ready and then coat the grill with some more olive oil to prevent sticking, toss on a crust and let it cook until it starts to bubble and is golden, flip

step five--after both sides of the crust are golden, top with toppings, according to the BBQ-U guy, you should start with the cheese cause it takes longest then toppings and sauce (momma added a little extra cheese to the top as well) we were able to fit 2 of pizzas on the grill at a time.

step six--pull pizzas off grill and put on something to cut them and serve from (my huge wooden cutting board from Grandma and Grandpa Bell's was covered with toppings, so we used the pizza stones, which are also wonderful for baking cookies) at this point we had to call uncle Thomas again to see if he had gotten lost between Omi and Grumpy's and our house, apparently he'd forgotten he was supposed to go running with a buddy, but he was finally on his way

step seven--enjoy! they were yummy!

*recently, this momma's been too hot and tired after camp and the heat of the day as well as lazy and craving pizza someone else made, but trying to save money as well, so we've been using that wonderful new (old) toaster oven i got at the estate sale we went to with aunt cindi to make digornio pizzas and breadsticks

We don't have a gate AND we're not English

This is irritating, I've tried 3 times to post and still can't finish, because, somehow, the stupid computer ends up deleting my stuff.

I'm a much better blog 'lurker' then author I've decided over the past few weeks (ok, since the creation of this blog). Everyday I have to check in and see how (mostly) strangers are doing, rather than telling about what's happening here at hydrangea hill. Which, my mom suggested we call "Hydrangea Gate," to which I responded, "but we don't have a gate," she had to point out that it doesn't matter what we call the house--we're NOT English, so why would we name our house in the first place. The conversation was brought up because we were making Hydrangea cards at our monthly (or more aptly called, whenever most of the group can get together) Stampin' UP cards. I have to have this stamp! It totally fits since we have those georgous bushes outside, now, I only have to spend $125 to get the hostess gift that they are. Ouch!

Well, I should head off for now, I'll work more on posting to my own blog before lurking on others!

Hydrangea Hill

I love the movie The Holiday with Jack Black, Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz and Jude Law. All the English housed have names, and I've decided our house should have a name too, since The Litte House on the Big Hill is such a long name for such a small place, I'm going to rename us, Hydrangea Hill.

For the record, they're blooming beautifully this year. Earlier than last year, more pink and purples than blue too, but I'm still enjoying them.

Summer Vacation

It's summer in St. Louis, the humidity and the heat and sudden spotty showers are here! School is out and wedding season is in full swing and things at the Beeson House are go, go, going!

In the past 2 1/2 weeks since school gohttp://www.wow4u.com/notjustamom/index.htmlt out we have:
*gone on a family camping trip at Sam A. Baker State Park for the Beeson Family Reunion and I proved them all wrong by hanging in there in the heat all Memorial Day weekend, Mr. G was a trooper too!
*run errands several times, Wal-Mart, Target, Schnucks, SAMS, etc...
*had day camp meetings for Eureka P & R summer camp
*gone to see The Wizard of Oz at the park
*#1 had a couple of days and overnights at Omi and Grumpy's house
*went to Lisa and Tony's Wedding (despite #1's comment that is he "tired of going to going to wedding days", however, the photo booth at the reception seemed to perk him up)
*worked on sewing projects after my new (old) sewing machine was repaired (tuned and fixed after Omi tried to 'fix' it)
*done lunch
*bought a new (to me anyway) toaster oven at an estate sale since it's too hot to turn on the oven

I made the comment that I was waiting for the stay at home mom thing to start--I was met with laughter from my FB friends who are or have been SAHMs and told that the title is a lie. I agree, I'm thinking of a more truthful title...still working, I'll share when I have a brainwave. But until then, I love this poem "Just A Mom" and love being a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations.

4 months

Mr. G went for his 4 month check up--a week and a half ago, but here are the updates:
16.4 lbs (70 something%)
26.25 inches (91%)
This week he's really gotten interested in grabbing toys (his favorite is a mini beachball that is brightly colored) and bringing them to his mouth.

We didn't blow our top, we got a new one...

Two very exciting things happened at our house last Friday; 1 this momma's new (old) Singer Featherweight 221 arrived and 2 we got our new roof.

The house has been due for a new roof for some time now, and after doing the taxes we decided that was a good place to put our refund to work (and daddy things a jet ski is another good idea--I don't, but that's another post). We had about 5 companies come and take a look and submit bids for the work, and then picked one to do the work.

When I went to sign the paperwork and contract for the new roof, the contractor said we would probably get it this week, but they called us last Friday at 7am and said they had a cancellation. We said we'd take the opening.

When I left the little house on the big hill (LHOTBH) looked like this...

When I got home the LHOTBH looked this... We got a free upgrade to 30 year architectural shingles because we picked our roofer within 30 days of their bid. You can't really tell from the pictures but the shingles are brown.

The roof on the garage has not been replaced yet, daddy wanted to do some of the work himself, but worried he wouldn't get the house done before a rain came, but thought he could handle the garage. So he's going to work on it this summer.

This Old House: Gets a 2nd Bathroom

This sounds like an episode from the show This Old House, but it's not-- It's actually happening to our old[er] house.

Our house currently only has (1) bathroom, and with mom & dad and two boys in the house, the existing single bathroom is bound to have a waiting line soon.

Not Good!

With no extra room upstairs for an additional bathroom, we moved to the basement.

The house did not have roughed in plumbing for a basement bathroom, which as anyone who has thought about putting a bathroom in the basement w/o roughed in plumbing knows, it can be a bit tricky.

We ~~had to~~ got to rent a small jackhammer to get through the foundation and put in the rough plumbing for a sink, toilet and shower.

With the rough plumbing in place, it's time to go get materials to make the walls of the bathroom, the fixtures, wire in the lights, fans, and hook up the plumbing to each.

If you want a sneak peek into the project status, check out the live cam of the work area.