Have you met our bunnies?

A few weeks ago we adopted two wonderful bunnies...

and

Sugar is Brad's sweet girl and Peaches is mine. They are such sweet bunnies! We adore them and have had so much fun with them so far. They are not lacking at all in personality or character. =)

 

Did I mention that they are French Lops and weight nearly 10 lbs EACH?!?

 The organization that we adopted them from is the SPCA of Monterey County. This group does such a great job of rescuing animals and finding them forever homes. You can click HERE to visit their website and see all of the wonderful animals that are looking for homes. You can also make donations to them via their website. SPCA is COMPLETELY volunteer run and donation funded. They do NOT put animals down. I can't emphasize enough how wonderful they are and accomidating to help the animals find loving homes.

 

Our girls were bonded and had to be adopted together, which was a huge plus for us since we wanted both anyway. if we had more space we would get even more animals from them!

 

Here are a few more pictures of our girls:

 

Ah! I just love them!

 

 

 

 

Easter

We've made it to April already! Wow! It feels like the year is flying by already. We had a great Easter over here. Our day consisted of church, the kids Easter egg hunt on post, then some time at home where hubby put in my garden!!! and some yummy Easter dinner, complete with ham, cheesy potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and sweet rolls.

 

 

 

They had a blast at the Easter egg hunt! Riley got 40 eggs and Elijah got 18. He wasn't very happy when he realized how many Sissy got!

 

 

Look what a great job Brad did putting my garden in...

 

 

Now its time for some fresh soil and I can plant some tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, peppers and herbs! I'm so excited!!!!

 

Tune in for updates on the garden!

 

 

Carson-Dellosa Spectrum Readers

I have the pleasure of working with a great company called Carson-Dellosa. My experiences with them began when I won a blog giveaway that included a variety of their Guinness World Records Reading Resource Books. After that I began getting some great products to review. We recently received the Spectrum Readers: AWESOME! Snakes (Level 1), CREEPY! Crawlers (Level 2), and MYSTERIOUS! Outer Space (Level 3).

 

Our daughter, Riley, really enjoyed the bright colors detailed pictures. As a homeschooling mom, I like the fact that these readers aren't like many of the readers that we have used. These are non-fiction and can be used for unit studies. The level one books are good, but seem to be a little above the level one books that are offered by other distributors, but that is because they are geared for  "children who are beginning to read high-frequency words and simple sentences with the help of strong picture clues" according to the level guide on the back of the books. The most notable difference between level 1 and level 2 is the size of the font and the length of the sentences. The level guide states that level 2 books are "for children who are progressing in their reading skills with slightly longer sentences and a greater range of vocabulary." My favorite of the samples that we received is the level 3 book. It had paragraphs and really seems to get more information in on each page. The level 3 books are for kids that are able to read alone and understand multi syllable words and complex sentences.

 

If you are looking for a great selection of readers that are not make-believe/fiction then these are definitely the books for you. At only $1.99 a book (via the Carson-Dellosa website), they are well worth the price!

 

 

*I was not paid for my opinion, I simply received the products and reviewed them*

 



Do you like pie???

I love pie! ...almost any kind of pie! I was craving lemon pie a few days ago... so off to the Internet I went, searching for a recipe. Here's what I found:

Lemon Freezer Box Pie:

In a bowl mix 1 (6oz) can of lemonade concentrate with 1 (8oz) tub of cool whip and 1 can of sweetened condensed milk.

Pour into a graham cracker pie crust (I use pre-made, but you can make your own)

Stick it in the freezer for 6 hours or over night and serve.

(This will thaw into a soup if you don't eat it straight out of the freezer.)

After making the lemon freezer box pie we were hanging out with some friends and one of them brought up chocolate peanut butter pie.. well shoot! NEW CRAVING! Back to the Internet I went. This time I settled on a recipe from Allrecipes that I altered and made my own.

 Chocolate Peanut Butter Freezer Pie:

Whip 8 oz of cream cheese (pre-softened) in a bowl.

Slowly add 1 c. sugar and 1 c. smooth peanut butter.

In another bowl whip 1 c. cool whip with 1 Tbs vanilla extract.

Fold the cool whip mix into the cream cheese mix.

Pour the filling into an oreo pie crust (once again, I buy them but you can make them if you want).

Pop it in the freezer for at least 4 hours then serve.

 

So... do you like pie? How about freezer pie?

 





Wholy Bedframe Batman!

So it just dawned on me that I didn't share our gorgeous new bed with you all. Without further ado...

THREE boxes

 

PLUS and hour and a half of my time

 

=

 

 

Add in two more hands (thank you honey!) and me working for a little bit longer and you get...

 

THIS!!!



 

I love the drawers on the footboard. That's where we keep our towels since we don't have a linen closet in our bathroom. Only tough part of this bed is the fact that I have to climb into it. It's super awesome... just leaves the possibility of a nose bleed, just kidding!

 



Happy Halloween!

Wishing everyone a happy halloween from South Korea! We have lots of fun plans for the day! We are heading over to the fall festival so that the kids can play games and eat and get some treats and then ending our day with trick or treating in our apartment complex.

Did you know that there are FREE  templates for pumpkins online? That's right! You don't have to buy those papers that you will only use once! This year, I used this site to print out our template. I love it! Free is always good!

Here is our completed pumpkin:

 

I'm a sucker for roasted pumpkin seeds and this is the only time of year that I make them at home. Do you roast your pumpkin seeds? If not, here's how you do it:

 

1) Rinse the pumpkin seeds under cold water and pick out the pulp and strings. I usually let them soak for 20 minutes so that more of the goo comes off.

2) Place the pumpkin seeds in a single layer on a baking sheet that has been pre-sprayed with cooking spray. Spray the top of the seeds with more cooking spray and then sprinkle with salt.

3) Bake at 325 degrees F until about 25 minutesor until toasted. Be sure to check and stir them after 10 minutes.

4) Let cool and store in an air-tight container

 

... and of course I have to include pictures of our kiddos(Ry's costume is handmade, as usual):
 

 

Tasty Tuesday

I am going to try and share a dining experience every Tuesday. We will see how well I do with keeping this going... haha!

This week I am sharing an experience at our local E-Mart. For those of you who are not with us here in Korea, E-mart is a lot like Target... just really Korean-ized. I will have to do a whole post on E-Mart later. Anyways... on to the food.

I ordered the Ramen at their food court and this is what I got...

Ok... Lets start with the round pot... that is the actual ramen. It was FANTASTIC!!! It has green onions and egg cooked in to it along with some other green veggies and of course the ramen noodles and a broth that has a little spice to it. The round dish at the top with the three yellow circles are a type of pickled raddish that the Koreas call Danmuji. I'm a huge fan of this stuff. I eat it at every Korean restaurant that we go to that serves it. The next round dish at the top is Kimchi... I HATE this stuff! (Unless it is the cucumber variety) This one is a raddish based kind, unlike most of the kimchi that is made of cabbage and it is SPICY! Below the two round dishes is a "lunchbox" with rice, a fried egg, dried seaweed and slices of grilled SPAM (and there is some cabbage kimchi in the right top corner of the box). Yes, I did say SPAM. I like the seaweed and rice and egg all mixed up, but I could do without the SPAM.

There you have it, a typical lunch in Korea, one of my favorites, actually!