My attempt at sour dough bread...

 The sour dough starter...

 Home ground wheat flour...

 Mixing the dough...

 Four loaves ready to go in the oven...

The finished product... It tastes much better than it looks:)  But I will admit, it was much more dense than when  my friend makes it... I am a total work in progress in this department:)

I have a sweet friend Lula who makes the most amazing sourdough bread... Honestly, she is one of the best cooks I know... Delicious food every time we eat with them.  Always homemade... everything from scratch... I have such a long way to go in making bread like hers...  It is totally different than yeast dough... sourdough doesn't rise much... (or at least my understanding is it isn't really supposed to rise much... and mine didn't:)

She has been so sweet to give me some of her starter mix... I have been so lazy that it has gone bad before I got going on the bread with the last couple of batches I had.  I am determined this go around to keep mine going... you have to feed it flour and water every couple of days. Then in a couple of weeks you will have enough to mix and start making bread...  

This is right up my alley (I love healthy food.... I love doing my own research on nutrition... but I can make a mean batch of puppy chow in the same breath... everything in moderation is what works best in our house. )

  I am so thankful to feel like I have the energy to start doing things like this... I love cooking and baking from scratch... so I am hoping to make this more of the routine around here again... Honestly, after Samuel died... I think we would have eaten anything that wasn't moving that I could get my hands on... It is amazing the sweet things that you treasure after a loss, that you took for granted before...

Our favorite way to eat it is as an open faced avocado and salami sandwich with mustard... So yummy! 

Making edible playdough...

 Take 1 1/2 cups nonfat dry milk...

18 oz. natural peanut butter...

 5 T. honey...

1/2 cup powdered sugar...

and mix:)

 Typical Hope... she says," Hey doesn't this look like a baby's buns??"  :)

And Jojo made a caterpillar:)

It tasted so good, we melted chocolate and made peanut butter balls:)  Yummy!

I sort of went off of a recipe that I found on line... but changed up the amounts of the ingredients as we went along...

All of the kids enjoyed playing with it.  I always love how when you bring out the baby toys again or do something with the new younger ones, that the older ones did years and years ago... the older ones still want to participate.  Obviously, it isn't something they would want to do everyday now... but it was fun for the afternoon:) 

Honestly, all of the kids but Levi hung out at the table for over an hour, making things, playing and laughing with each other.  It was great!  

Sweet Summer Memories!