Melarky

I know I will regret this decision (i.e. the title of this post), but we are making rubber band guns for Welly for Christmas. When I was little, my dad made rubber band guns for us, the first ones were very similar to the awesome ones that Korby posted about on her blog.

Pappy eventually found some plans for a semi-automatic machine gun that used a working trigger and cog to load 30ish rubber bands that shoot one by one. I loved that machine gun, and I have no idea how it survived all these years, but luckily we had it so we could copy the design since that is what I wanted to make for welly.

The original gun Pappy made me when I was younger

We updated the handle and stock and used thinner wood on the sides, but the basics are all still the same.

The updated gun for Wellington

As you can see we put 2 guns together, because, well I want to play too, and Hilly will want to play later (if they aren’t destroyed or confiscated by the time he can play with them).

Here is the guns cutting out on our CNC machine

Because I believe in moderation in nothing, I am also making a rubber band gattling gun. I’m borrowing heavily from someone elses design, so I don’t know for sure it will work, but in theory it should be fine. I still have to cut and shape some of the dowels, and stain and assemble it, but we’re close. I’ll make sure and post pics and possibly video when it’s finished, but for now, here is a pic of the gattling gun pieces all cut.

Sheet of gattling gun pieces just need to be snapped out and sanded

He has teeth, I swear. Hilly’s just very elusive about showing them. This picture was taken after many attempts of photographing them. He closes his mouth tightly, swipes his hands in front of his face, pushes my hands away, fusses. He has two bottom teeth and two top teeth about to pop though, this is probably why he doesn’t want me prying my way in his mouth to take a picture, he’s probably in some discomfort. He’s been pretty grumpy teething but more often then not he’s a happy boy.

This would be awesome for the kids…Hungry Hippo Arcade Game. Yes, I know this seems like a lame post to make after not making one for so long, but did you look at it?? That thing would be a kid magnet!

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, I’ve just been busy and kind of in a blogging rut, which is silly cause I have tons of things to write about but no time or inspiration to write it. I’m working on a few posts and will hopefully be posting again after the holiday weekend.

Bisquick Ultimate Melt-in-Your-Mouth Pancakes

Ingredients

• 2 cups Bisquick mix
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 eggs

Preparation
Heat griddle or skillet over medium-high heat or electric griddle to 375°F; grease with cooking spray, vegetable oil or shortening. (Surface is ready when a few drops of water sprinkled on it dance and disappear.)
Stir all ingredients until blended. Pour by slightly less than 1/4 cupfuls onto hot griddle.
Cook until edges are dry. Turn; cook until golden. To keep warm, place in single layer on cookie sheet. Cover with aluminum foil, and place in 200°F oven up to 10 minutes.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Decrease baking powder to 1 teaspoon.

Missed our recipe for homemade bisquick? Click here! It’s cheaper and better than the boxed mix!

I can’t believe three years ago today we were in the hospital with our new little baby. Wellsy was such a cute newborn, perfect head, sleepy, chubby, and made noises like a kitten. I instantly fell in love with him. I remember he slept peacefully through the night and as I listened to the crying baby in the room next to ours I thought myself very lucky.

He’ll always be my baby, but now he’s our big boy too.

He loves all things that have to do with transportation. His favorites are cars, trucks, trains, campers, helicopters and motorcycles. He loves to ride his bike, play with play dough, color, play and dig in the sand/dirt (he could do this for hours), help mommy cook, play with his “pwaygo’s” (lego’s) and push his own shopping cart at the grocery store. He still likes to be cuddled (which we love). He’s very independent and likes to get his own drinks of water and decides if he wants a shower or a tubby. His favorite TV shows are the Simpson’s, Martha Speaks, Sid the Science Kid and the Real Ghostbusters.

He’s very talented! Wellsy has an incredible memory, he can count to at least 5 on his own, he knows his colors and his shapes very well. He even surprised us yesterday saying that the Townhouse crackers he was eating was oval. He’s very good about going to bed these days and very good at getting mommy up in the morning. He’s a great dancer (“Everybody dance now!”) and keeps us laughing.

He’s a great older brother and is getting very good at helping his brother play with toys, sitting him up and making him laugh. He’s a good kid, sweet, a rough and tuff boy, likes to hit, but likes to also hold hands and give “anaconda squeezes” (hugs).

We love our Welly and are so happy he’s in our family. He’s my good helper boy, my buddy and my friend. I love him SO MUCH! Happy Birthday Welly, I love you.

I love giving my babies sink tubbies. So after I gave my 7 month old a tubby the other day, Welly decided he wanted one too. It was a little tricky getting his long legs in there but he sill kinda fit. He loved it although things got a little crazy with the sprayer, it was still fun. Here is a picture of Welly when he was a baby getting a sink tubby.

Sewingitis has a new post about our project last Saturday. We didn’t get it quite done so we’re going to meet at my house tomorrow to finish up the bags (sorry such short notice). Even if you didn’t make it on Saturday, your help would be appreciated! Mostly we just have sewing left to do, but if your not into the actual sewing part we could always use help pinning the bags and handles, eating snacks or help watching the kids!

Using Ziplock divided containers my husband and I made 16 microwavable meals. Most of the meals were homemade meatloaf, potatoes or rice, gravy, corn and a individually wrapped ding dong, with a few exceptions that were chicken fried steak instead of meatloaf.

When Mark was younger his parents used to make these meals instead of getting TV dinners for all the kids (Mark is the youngest of 6 children). They would use trays (similar to school lunch trays) to make fun little meals to freeze. They used saran wrap then placed them in the outside freezer for later use. Mark remembered some tasting good and some tasting not so good. He recalled that instant potatoes froze better than the real mashed potatoes, the breakfast ones didn’t freeze so well, but he did like the sausage links that were in some of them.

We knew we wanted the containers with the separated compartments. This was a must! Not only to appease those who might have an aversion to their food touching (weirdos! Mark and I both like to mix our corn, meat and mash potatoes together in what Mark refers to as a “spotty dog”) but we wanted to put a special treat in each one and wanted it to have it’s own compartment. We cleaned, dried, and filled the containers in an assembly line fashion. It all came together quite quickly, especially with Mark’s help. It was kind of a fun activity to do with my husband. There was no way I could have done this or even have tried to attempt this without his help.

We cooked a big meatloaf in a 8×8 baking dish and used that meat to fill the meals. We then used the rest of the raw hamburger meat to make our individual meatloaf’s that we so often make. The little meatloafs we make are great to freeze and have on hand for a quick dinner. They’re the perfect size for our little family and go right from the freezer into the oven and is done in 1 hour. We started out with 9lbs. of hamburger meat and it not only made the large meatloaf that went into the meals but we still had enough to fill 16 meatloaf pans to put in our freezer for later.

After we were all done there was something really satisfying about seeing all those meals stacked up. We have plans to do another two meals when the containers are empty again. Ham with homestyle baked mac and cheese and the other one, Enchiladas with spanish rice (anyone have an good and easy Enchilada recipe?).

P.S. If you missed the links above, here you go.
Meatloaf recipe
Homestyle Baked Mac and Cheese

Saturday (that’s tomorrow!) @ 10am (we’ll go till 1p.m. unless we finish fast). Location is a Stake Center (lots of room) at 1550 N 400 E (come in the south east door, turn right once inside). We’re having chips and salsa!

Don’t worry if you don’t know how to sew it’s nothing complex and there is plenty of fabric to cut out if you don’t want to sew.