Romantic Don Juan Ohhh La La

This is the second year I've grown Don Juan climbing roses in the flower bed beside my bay window.  Now that I am working from home, the bay windows are in my office and I just love looking out the window and seeing my beautiful roses all day.


I've had some problems with black spot on my roses this year and I have been treating it with a fungicide. I am still having problems though so I think I am going to have to find something else to try.  There is a really good plant nursery near my house and I might go see if they have any suggestions.


About a month ago, I cut both rose bushes back severely to try to eliminate all the  parts with the black spots, but even that has not completely eliminated the problem.   I've also started watering my roses in the morning and trying not to get water on the leaves.

Luckily, the roses are still blooming despite some yellow leaves. So beautiful.



Favorite rose variety?

Any remedies for black spot on roses?

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Goofy Kids and Skillet Cookies

This weekend, we went to Toby Keith's restaurant for lunch.  They have benches that are made from the tailgate of older model trucks.  Noah loves these things.  He always hops up on them and says "Take my picture!"

I got Emily to sit beside him, but couldn't get them to take a decent picture.  It's not that difficult to take a nice picture, is it?





Tonight for supper, we made a skillet cookie.

I mean we made supper.  Then had a skillet cookie for dessert.  You know those skillet cookies they serve in family restaurants where they just put a couple scoops of ice cream into the skillet with the hot cookie and serve it with chocolate syrup drizzled over the top?  I thought about just putting a couple scoops of ice cream in with my cookie, but I didn't figure we could would eat it all and I didn't want to waste the cookies.

M&M Skillet Cookie

1 cup margarine, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup M&M's

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla and beat well.  Slowly add dry ingredients and mix.  Stir in chocolate chips and M&M's.

Spread half the cookie dough into a well greased oven safe skillet. Bake 30 minutes or until light brown and set in the middle.  Bake time will vary depending on the size of your skillet.  I use a 9" cast iron skillet and it takes about 30 minutes to bake.

Save the other half of the cookie dough for another day - wrap well and store in the refrigerator.


You might be wondering where the picture of the fully cooked cookie would be?  Well, who has time to think about taking picture when you're staring a yummy M&M skillet cookie in the face?  NOT ME!

Have you heard all the recent warnings about not eating uncooked cookie dough?  I thought it was due to the raw eggs in the cookie dough, but now they're saying it's also because there could be bacteria in the flour.  It's always something, isn't it?

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Send Off to Summer Camp

On Monday morning, I took Emily to meet the bus for summer camp.  She's going with about 150 other kids from our church.  She was a little nervous while we were waiting for time to load the buses, but I know that she's having a great time.

Our church has a Facebook page and they have posted a few photos of the campers.  I've caught a peek of Emily in a few of the pictures.

The camp has a system where we can email her "Bunk Mail" messages that are delivered to the campers each night after dinner.  I've been sending her bunk mail every day, but I was supposed to send the email address and instructions to other family members and I have failed to do this.  I'm going to do it as soon as I post this blog.

We've all been missing Emily this week while she's gone.  Can't wait until she comes home on Thursday!

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Easy Homemade Donuts

On the 4th of July, we made one of our favorite breakfast treats - homemade donuts!  Just ask Noah - they are better than the donut shop!  And they are so easy to make, especially if everyone pitches in.

This is one of those recipes that I remember my mom making for us occasionally when I was a kid.  They were a big hit back then and they're still a big hit now.

So I said they were easy to make, right?  Well, they are made with canned biscuits!  What can be easier than that?

But before you start messing with the biscuits, you're going to need to make some glaze for your donuts.  Or I suppose you could just put powdered sugar on them?  Or cinnamon and sugar?  But where's the fun in that?  

We like to make a vanilla glaze and a chocolate glaze.

Vanilla Glaze - Stir together 1 cup powdered sugar, 2-3 tbsp of milk and 1 tsp of vanilla extract.

Chocolate Glaze - Stir together 1 cup powdered sugar, 2-3 tbsp of milk and 1-2 tbsp of cocoa powder.  

I don't actually measure out the ingredients for the glaze, but the general idea is to make the glaze thick enough that it will stick to the donuts without sliding off, but thin enough that it will stick to the donuts.  Makes perfect sense? 

Okay, moving on ...

Just stir up the glaze and set aside.  

Now, pour maybe an inch of vegetable oil into a skillet and heat up on the stove.  Every stove is different, but I set my stove between 5-6 on the dial and that seems to work well.  

While the oil is heating, you'll want to open up your cans of biscuits and lay them out on waxed paper.

I like to flatten the biscuits with my hand so that they are more uniform in size and shape and will be  easier to cut and cook.

Next, you'll probably to cut out the donut holes with a donut cutter.  You'll probably want one like this one that has a removable donut hole cutter.  

This Norpro Donut Cutter is the exact one that I use and it works really well.

You'll want to cut out the donut holes and separate them from the donuts.

I usually put a donut hole in the oil as it's heating up.  I know the oil is ready when the donut hole is nice and fluffy and brown.  Then I just start frying up the donuts.  Four donuts fits in my pan perfectly.  I use two forks to flip them and remove them, but you could use tongs or a slotted spoon just as easily. I use a slotted spoon when I fry the donut holes.

While I'm frying the donuts, Emily and Mike usually work on dipping them in the glaze as they get cool enough.

And, of course, you can add sprinkles if you'd like.  Do this when the glaze is still wet though.

And before long, you have a whole mess of yummy donuts.

One of our favorite parts is that we can use the leftover glaze as a "dip" with our donuts.

And if you want proof that these donuts are worth it, I'll leave you with this photo as proof - YUM!

Have you ever tried homemade biscuit donuts?  

Do you make the glaze or cover them with something else?

Affiliate links were used in this post.

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Butterscotch Delight - Happy 4th of July 2016

Butterscotch Delight Recipe

How to Make Butterscotch Delight

Happy 4th of July everybody! I hope you had a wonderful day celebrating with family and friends.

We spent the day with Mike's family.  We had some wonderful barbecue with all the fixings for lunch.  Then we spent the afternoon swimming and visiting around the pool.

I decided to make a new spin on a delicious classic - Butterscotch Delight.  It's a 4-Layer Delight made with butterscotch pudding instead of chocolate.  This recipe is one of my favorites and I think it could be made with many different kinds of fillings.  What about Lemon Delight? Or Strawberry Delight?

Yield: 12 servingsAuthor: Jennifer SmithPin it

Butterscotch Delight

A cold, creamy dessert for any time of the year. Your family and friends will come back asking for more!

instructions

Layer 1

• 1 cup flour, 1 stick margarine (melted), 1/2 cup nuts, finely chopped. Press into greased pan. Bake 325 degrees for 25 mins.

Layer 2

• 2 blocks cream cheese (16 oz) softened, 2 cups powdered sugar, 1/2 large bowl whipped topping. Mix and spread over cooled crust.

Layer 3

• 2 small boxes instant butterscotch pudding, 3 cups milk. Mix together and chill.

Layer 4

• Top with remaining whipped topping. Garnish with nuts, if desired. Chill before serving.

notes

Make this the "lower fat" way by substituting lite whipped topping, 1/3 less fat cream cheese, and 1% or 2% milk.

http://www.gracelikerainblog.com/2016/07/happy-4th-of-july-2016.html

Have you tried Butterscotch Delight? Did you like it better than the traditional 4-Layer Delight recipe?

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Day Trip Fun

Yesterday I mentioned that we took a day trip to Stillwater to check out the OSU campus.  It had been about 15 years since I'd even been there for a visit and a lot had changed.  One thing that had not changed much was the first Sonic Drive-In in Stillwater.  One semester when I was in college, I had a night class one night a week.  Most of the time, I would stop by Sonic after class to get something to eat on my way home.  The kids seemed unimpressed with my stories, but that hardly stopped me from chattering the whole trip.

After we got done with our tour, we went to the bowling alley to have some "real fun".

It takes a lot of concentration to bowl a good game.

And sometimes the ball is pretty dang heavy.

But sometimes the stairs are more fun.

Sometimes you feel good about your bowling skills. (Note that she's celebrating and the ball has not even gotten down to the pins yet.)

And sometimes you just gotta let it go.  (Note that my ball is in the gutter and all the pins are standing like perfect soldiers.  The pins are pretty safe with me around.)

Emily was actually the winner of this game, but we all had a good time.

Then we hopped in the car and headed back home.

But on the way out of town, I was like "I need something to eat - where's that chocolate factory that we saw on the sign?"  And Mike immediately pulled over to turn around without even know what direction we needed to go.  Ha ha.  Luckily, we were not very far away from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and it was easy to find.

They had case after case of tempting treats.  Their candied apples looked delicious. We didn't try one, but everyone got to pick out something to try.

They also had an ice cream shoppe inside the store.  We got to try a few flavors and it was good stuff.

... And a good time was had by all.

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Pistols Firing

This weekend, we took a trip up to Stillwater to visit my alma mater  - Oklahoma State University.  We found this awesome topiary cowboy boot over by the duck pond and Noah started doing the pistols firing with his fingers. Maybe he'll be a Cowboy some day? This might be his first picture at his alma mater!

Before we found the campus, we had to find some lunch.  And when you're in Stillwater, you gotta hit up Eskimo Joe's for some burgers and cheese fries.  By the time we got there, Noah was HUNGRY.  We had to wait a few minutes for our table and he was not too impressed.  But we bought T-shirts so maybe that made up for it?


Mike likes to check in on Facebook whenever we eat at a restaurant, but for some reason the Sooner fan was not checking in to Eskimo Joe's.  Hmmmmm.   So I thought I would be clever and check in and tag him in my post.  Except that he outsmarted me and had his Facebook settings such that it didn't show up in his feed.  Oh well, he was there and here's PROOF!


Our food was actually really good. I am not much of a burger eater, but I loved the burger.

When I lived in Stillwater, I remember going to Mexico Joe's much more often than I went to Eskimo Joe's.  My roommate and I used to go eat Mexican food a lot I guess.  I remember getting the chicken nachos appetizer as my meal. (Yeah, yeah I know! I am not that dumb now.)  I'd been talking about going to Stillwater to eat at Mexico Joe's for months.  But we'd just eaten Mexican food the night before.  Bad planning skills right there.

After we ate (and after three trips to the bathroom!), we drove around the campus looking for familiar sites that I might recognize from my time in Stillwater.  The dorm that I lived in was torn down a few years ago so we did not look for that, but we did look for the off campus apartment that I lived in.  We never found it. Maybe my memory is not very good? Or maybe Stillwater has just changed a lot.

We did find the duck pond though.  We walked around and checked it all out.


All the ducks were overly friendly.  I guess a few people feed them on the regular.


Noah was all into the ducks and wanted to get close to them.

I don't know why, but I kept feeling like Noah was way too close to the water.  #overprotective
Seriously, the ducks were not even trying to get away from us.


Finally got Emily to turn around and look at me for a pic.


Noah was enjoying the duck point.  We saw some fish in the shallow water.  They were actually decent sized bass in there.


We also had to check out the gardens.


Love.  LOVE.


Maybe I should try to shape some of my shrubs into a cowboy hat, too? YES PLEASE! More about our day trip to Stillwater later. 

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Gone Fishin' (Part 2)

While we were at Wal-Mart getting the new tank for Emily's fish, we also picked up a fish and a tank for Noah's room. We picked out a small round tank for Noah.  It has an under gravel filter and a very cool bubble tube.  The LED lights also change colors.

Meet Noah's betta fish "Blueberry" and his apple snail "Muffin."

Muffin is the little orange looking fellow at the top left of the tank.  And Blueberry is at the bottom left of the tank in front of the white rock.

Noah has been enjoying his new tank.  He told me that Blueberry needs an iPad in his tank.  I don't think so!!!

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Gone Fishin' (Part 1)

I mentioned that Santa brought Emily a fish and an Aquafarm for it to live in.  Well, it turned out to be a terrible fish tank for us.  One of these days, I will explain all the problems with the little Aquafarm.  But for now, I want to introduce our new pets.

Meet "Red", he is a red betta fish.  A Chinese Fighting Fish.

 She also has an apple snail named "Apple".  I couldn't get a good picture of him tonight, but he's definitely in there.

We got a new tank for Red and Apple today that has a real filter and a LED light that changes colors.

Emily picked out all the decorations in the tank.  I think Red and Apple's new home looks wonderful.

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Back At It

Hey, Hey, it's been a long time since I updated my blog.  Over a year?!? There is no way this is possible!

I got a new camera for Christmas so I'm thinking MAYBE, just maybe, I can start updating my blog again.  Wouldn't that make everyone happy?  Maybe I should change the name of the blog?  What do you think?  Maybe something related to Smith Fam?

We had a good Christmas this year. Santa brought Emily a betta fish and an Aquafarm for it to live in.  And Santa brought Noah a guitar.  Noah was sick on Christmas, but he still loved his guitar and immediately pulled it into his lap and started strumming away.

The day after Christmas, we went down to Arkansas to visit the Hughes family.  Emily and Noah stayed with Grandmother and Granddaddy a few extra days.  I will go back down to pick them up later this week.  We are watching the weather to see which days are going to be okay for travel.

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Halloween 2013

I hope you all had a great Halloween!

We went over to Nanny and Poppa's for supper and trick-or treating this year.  Emily was a baker and Noah was Thomas the Tank Engine.  

They both picked out their own outfits.  Emily had to get everything just like the picture, including the tights and the black shoes.  And Noah picked out his costume and his pail to match.  I was surprised that he wore the costume and the hat, but he did.

Here are pictures of Emily and Noah in costume.  

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