Olsen's 7

Yesterday was fun with the just us 5 at home (we miss you Scott, especially Sam who has been teasing the girls like crazy). We planted in the morning. Yeah...yeah..I know it is late in the season but I just felt like gardening. We planted tomato(since those grow really well with little effort). We have already harvested a tomato since I bought a big plant with several already to go. I also planted some bell peppers. There wasn't much variety at the store since the season is over but I figure something is better than nothing:)

While at the store I got a few card games, hit the deck and swap. They were a lot like Uno and our crazy version of Uno called "Jungle Uno". (When I figure out how to make links I'll show you how to play) It's a lot of fun, fast paced and is my new favorite game again. Sam has gotten pretty good at it!!! But the best thing I bought for card game playing are these little fan type things that you can put your cards in to hold them. It's called Little Hands Card Holder and it's great for kids with little fingers and lots of cards.

After cards we picked up a bit ( a must in a small house with so many people. It seems to never be clean) we made Homemade ice cream out of Ziploc bags. It's so simple and fun for the kids.

I used about 3 cups of cream (you can use whole milk too...I used the by-product from making butter, it is called buttermilk but it has not been soured so it basically is whole milk)about

1/8th -1/4 c sugar (start with less and add to taste, you really don't need much because the cream is soooo good by itself) then

1-2 cap fulls of vanilla flavoring (I use cap fulls so I don't have to wash more dishes).

Place the cream mixture in sandwich zip lock bags ( I split the recipe in half and filled 2 bags about half way.) Then I place that bag in another sandwich bag (this helps in case the bag breaks from kids shaking it a little too roughly),

I then fill a large zip lock bag about 1/2 with ice (fridge ice works great, you don't have to go out and buy special ice) and then add about 2-3 tbs of rock salt. I heard you can use table salt but it doesn't work as well. It's pretty cheap and you can use it for making bath salts(great for slumber party activity with your girls) or more ice cream in the future:)

Then place your cream filled Ziploc inside and have your kids shake away for 7-10 minutes. Little hands might get cold so have them shake at the top away from the ice. I had my daughter shake hers in the sink, just hitting it against the sink while flipping sides did a great job without the cold hands. I also had this as a b-day party activity and the kids had lots of fun.

It make a soft serve ice cream. The longer you shake it the firmer it will get(up to a certain point). You can add toppings or even add it in your cream mixture before you shake. Things like: strawberries. chocolate syrup, chocolate chips cookie dough, brownies, nuts caramel or anything you can think of!!! Have fun...we sure did:)

I also got a bee in my bonnet(as my sister would say) and called around about the wii, thinking that I would in no way be able to find one in a store. I went to Wal-mart, circuit city and called best buy(they thought I was crazy for even asking). So when I got home I searched on-line thinking the company would list there next shipping dates(a trick I learned from my computer savvy hubby) and voila!!! A sight said that Game Stop had them in stock, so I called one and they had 2 left. So I went right away and got one. We couldn't hook it up because it was late and I had promised the kids we would go swimming. I'll have to post another day about that:)