whole wheat bread

I recently found a whole wheat bread recipe on an index card that I had written out a few years ago and forgotten about.  I've been making it lately and we love it!  It's so easy because you just dump all of the ingredients in your bread machine, put it on the dough cycle and let it do all of the work for you.  When that's done you take it out, form it into a loaf and put it in a bread pan, let rise and bake. 

We received our bread machine as a wedding gift 12 years ago.  They were all the rage then.  I can still remember when we were doing our gift registry at Dillards and they had just baked up a loaf of bread and as soon as we sampled it we decided that it had to go on our want list.  While the bread was good, I always thought it was too crusty so I didn't make it very often.  I don't know why I never thought to just make the dough and then transfer it to a regular bread pan and bake it in the oven!  So now it is an appliance that gets used regularly in my kitchen....making bread dough and really good pizza crust! 

Whole Wheat Bread

1 1/4 cups warm water
1/2 tsp. lemon juice
2 Tbsp. olive oil
2 Tbsp. honey
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/4 cups bread flour
2 1/2 tsp. yeast

Put in bread machine in order.  Set to dough cycle, let rise in the machine.  Take out and shape into a loaf, put into a greased loaf pan, cover and let rise until doubled.  Bake at 350 degrees for 35 - 40 minutes.  Remove from pan and let cool on wire rack.  While warm spread a little butter on the top of crust to make it pretty and shiny.

i love summertime

School's done for the year, and the weather has been very summer-like.  We are loving it! Thomas caught a few sunnies on fishing opener weekend so we had a little fish fry.  We went out on the lake yesterday and the kids swam most of the afternoon. The water had warmed up 13 degrees since Elle had jumped in a week ago so it wasn't too bad.  I still haven't got in....just reporting what the kids said. 

Today they ran through the sprinklers and had ice cream cones for snack.  A true sign that summer has begun.  

Tonight we had a family car wash.  Ava was in charge of the wheels.

we're going on a bear hunt

We're Going on a Bear Hunt is one of Ava's favorite books.  She has it mostly memorized and loves to make all the fun sounds. 

As soon as we get to the page where the family gets to the cave she always stops me to tell me that there is a bear in there.  And her reaction is always the same after they tiptoe into the cave and find the bear.  She yells 'It's a Bear!' and puts her hand over her mouth like she can't believe it.  So sweet.

faster daddy, faster

Today we took our first boat ride of the year.  Ava was all about going fast.

Elle was all about breaking the family record for jumping in the earliest in the season.  She's been asking since April if she could jump in.  It took just a few minutes to actually work up the courage to jump.

She did it though.  May 15th....that's the new record.  I will be happy to let her have the pride of keeping that record!

Swim to the boat as fast as possible!

Then one jump to ham it up for the camera.

It started clouding up so we went back in.  Ava was happy to be going fast again.

Thomas is missing from the photos because he hasn't been feeling well.  I'm sure he would've been right there with Elle otherwise!