Odds and ends and HOMEADE ICECREAM!

Getting up this morning while it was still dark (not that early mind you but it was dark), reminded me of Proverbs 31:15 which says "She rises while it is still night and gives food to her household and portions to her maidens." I think I have a lot of work to do in that area. Lately I have really struggled to get out of bed. Once I am up I am a pretty good morning person, awake, alert and cheerful, but getting out of bed is the really hard part. I am trying to work on it though as I like to have my quiet time with God in the morning and if I get up late than it is cut short or I have the disturbance of lots of little people. This morning God blessed us with a beautiful sun rise. It is worth getting up when it is dark in order to see the sunrise! (I wish I knew how to take better pictures of them however.)

Our day went quite well. The house was already fairly clean from heavy cleaning yesterday which was nice. I love working in a clean house. The kids got done with their schoolwork before lunch. I was able to make some needed phone calls and work on odds and ends of projects that needed done like putting up this little hook below and a frog one that goes with it. They hang above my sink and we had put them up earlier with screws but they got pulled out of the wood. So now I decided to put them up with Gorilla glue. I think it will work well.

This afternoon I started teaching a new student piano. That was fun, I believe she will catch on very well which is always nice. I also taught one of my violin students. I also found the time to play both violin and piano myself, which is always fun.

This evening I helped Jonathan work on a present for Aaron's birthday and we also wrapped most of Aaron's presents. I feel very ahead of schedule on that as I usually do it the night before and we are 2 nights before!

I cut all my Men's hair this evening. Aaron actually sat for it happily tonight which was very nice. He has tended to be rather scared of haircuts and likes to go and hide.

The very yummy thing we enjoyed this evening was Homemade icecream. I am not sure that I have had it since I was a kid and it was very GOOD! We don't have an icecream maker but Mom had loaned us theirs since we are getting a lot of cream. It was very simple to make the icecream. I heated up 1 cup of milk in the microwave and dissolved 3/4 cup sugar in it and then mixed that with another cup of milk, 1 1/4 cups cream and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and let it cool in the fridge a couple of hours and then stuck it in the icecream maker, turned it on for 20 minutes and we were all done. I enjoyed mine with bananas and pecans.

Mara was wanting to try to make hers in layers like there are layers in the earth so she had a crumbled graham cracker, nuts, banana slices, chocolate sauce, icecream and sprinkles. Jonathan made a similar bowl full.
I am curious, does anybody know of a good recipe for icecream that doesn't require a icecream maker? I plan on returning mom's to her before long and I don't have the room to get one but I would still like to make icecream. Any comments would be appreciated!