Q&A W/ My grandma/ Birthday Girlie

    Hi! What have you all been doing lately?

    A while back, I did a guest post with my mom,  about her life growing up as an Amish girl. Now, her mom (Katie Miller) is here for a month-long visit, and she has agreed to do a Q&A with me. This is how it works:

    You may comment and ask her any question you like about the Amish. The deadline for questions is March 28, and then on March 29, I will type up her answers, and post them. Please be respectful😊

    Moving on..... We have been pretty busy here lately. Yesterday, we painted the basement (which was in sore need of a fresh coat of paint). Well, technically, we put the first coat of paint on the doors and the baseboards on Thursday evening. Then, yesterday, we got started about 10:00, and put on the second coat of paint. Then, while that dried, we painted a bookcase that has not been painted for seven or eight years (my sister found tremendous satisfaction in painting over her name, which she wrote on the bookcase in colored pencil when she was seven). By the time the bookcase was finished, we could already start on the walls. One wall is concrete block, with the coal stove in from of it, so we only painted the other three walls. We painted two of the three remaining walls a pale, earthy green, and the remaining one a darker shade of the same earth green. My sister roller-painted one of the pale-green walls, and then I volunteered to do the other. I spent two and a half long, boring hours on a ladder, painting the other wall, and putting the second coat on both walls. It was terribly dull, but at least it went a lot faster than it would have if we would have had to do that by hand, with a paintbrush. By six o'clock, we were ready to do the darker green wall, which Mama did. That took till six-forty-five, and then we went to get hamburgers for supper, because by then we were all ravenous, and we had only had a light lunch. But wouldn't you know, the fast-food place was so. Incredibly. Slow! It was a little after seven before we got home. And oh my! You should have heard the munching😂 The only sounds were smacking lips, and the baby exclaiming, "Mmmmmm!" I honestly think those were the best hamburgers I have ever eaten. 

    Speaking of the baby.... she turned two the other day😱 How is it already two years?! Happy Birthday, cutie pie. 

    She is quite precocious (if I do say so myself). She has quite a repertoire of songs including Jesus Loves Me, B-I-N-G-O, Baby Shark, God is Great, Rock-A-Bye-Baby, Wind the Bobbin Up (which she loves to sing at the top of her lungs in church....),and the Hallelujah Chorus (😲). Of course, she doesn't sing the words, just the tune. But still! I can barely sing the Hallelujah Chorus. How could a two-year-old?! However, I will be the first to admit I am not all that great at singing, so it wouldn't be too hard to pass me up in music skills!

    The baby can also hold a pencil the right way, and she very carefully "draws" things (huge scribbles that she points at, and says my name. Wait.... so I look like a scribble?!). She tries to draw animals, too. They don't really look like animals; she just scribbles a bit, and then points at the scribbles and makes animals sounds. It's incredibly adorable💜She also likes to try to imitate a crying baby. She scrunches up her face, and almost closes her eyes, ad goes, "Oooh waaah!" It's so cute, I can't even describe it.

    Now for some pictures of the young lady who seems to be the heroine of this post (😉😁), A.K.A. my baby sister (wait, I guess she's not a baby anymore. So, my little sister):

                    

Awwww😍💖

Her "shocked face."

She was trying to say, "Yuck."

She was imitating a crying baby😂

Who knows what she was doing here!

                                                                                                                        I had lots of fun, taking pictures this afternoon :) 

~Caitlyn O'Brien

How to make Perfect Scones

 Hey, how's your winter going? Mine is freezing! It's  March, and it's snowing again! I wish the weather would stay the same for 2 days in a row. First it's sunny and bright, and then it's raining, and the next day we find my dad reciting corny poems such as: "Noses are red, Fingers are blue, I'm tired of winter, How about you?"  Perfect weather for scones, though. I found a really good recipe, and all of us just love it.

   INGREDIENTS:

 2 cups all-purpose flour

 1/2 cup granulated sugar

 1/2 tsp. salt

 2 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
 1 stick unsalted butter
 1/2 cup heavy cream or buttermilk
 1 large egg
 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
 1-1.5 cups add-ins such as chocolate chips, berries, etc.


 INSTRUCTIONS:

 Whisk flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder together in a large bowl. Grate the frozen butter in using a box grater. Add it to the flour mixture using a pastry cutter, 2 forks, or your fingers until the mixture comes together in pea-sized crumbs. Place in the refrigerator  as you mix the wet ingredients together. 
  Whisk 1 cup heavy cream, the egg, and the vanilla extract together in a small bowl. Drizzle over the flour mixture, add the add-ins, then mix together till everything appears moistened.
  Pour onto counter and, with floured hands, work dough into a ball as best you can. Dough will be sticky. If it's too sticky, add a little flour. If it seems too dry, add 1-2 Tablespoons heavy cream. Press into an 8" disc, and with a sharp knife cut into 8 wedges. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper. Arrange scones 2-3 inches apart on baking sheet. Bake for 18-26 minutes or until golden brown around the edges and lightly browned on top. Enjoy!

OK, so my scones didn't really look like the pictures of scones, but then again, I did make drop scones. You take 1/4 cup of dough and drop it on a baking sheet, and then bake it like you would the triangular ones. So they weren't the picture perfect pastry you think of when you hear the word 'scone'. But I put in chocolate chips, and after they were baked, I sprinkled powdered sugar on top, and they were quite delicious😋😋.