Category: I’m Always Right…I think? By Kayleen Holder

I know a little boy and Kenneth Wayne is his name. His favorite word is “Utto”, and I think that’s my favorite word now too. Every time you see him, he walks up to you and says with the cutest little chubby cheeks—“Utto”.

Continue reading “Utto”

Tuck went to the barber shop for the first time this week. He’s had his hair cut in mom’s kitchen for a long time, and it was becoming a little obvious after my last attempt.

Continue reading “Where did the little boy go?”

Grandpa and Grandma were babysitting Saturday, so I had a free morning to relax. So what did I do? When I found a good deal at the flea market, I got the wild idea to replace all of our dressers. I completely underestimated how much work it would be to move out the old ones and clean the spot where they had been and bring the new ones in, and then my favorite part, re-folding all of the clothes to put into the new dresser. Long story short, it was an exhausting definitely-not-relaxing full day project.
In fact, I was still in my bedroom cleaning that evening when I began hearing what sounded like my oven timer, except exponentially louder. I can burn food with the best of em. So I’ve been known to go on about my day without even noticing the oven timer, but this time it was extra loud and a little funny sounding so I went to the kitchen to investigate.
When I walked in the kitchen/living room area I found my son just happily playing with his legos on the floor and imitating the oven alarm as loud as he could…beep….beep….beep.
I can remember it vividly, and I can’t stop smiling. I bet every time I hear the oven timer go off, I will think of that day. Tucky is so comical. He didn’t think for a second to let me know the oven was going off; he was just enjoying the sound of it I guess and singing its praises.
Oh well, I guess either way, he saved supper.

This past week was pretty quiet, I spent a couple of afternoons in the gift shop and the other three going to the therapy pool for some exercise. Next week, the activity picks up as I have places to be both on Monday and Tuesday; Wednesday, hopefully I can get back to the pool. Thursday, I will be in the gift shop and on Friday, company is on the way, and I can hardly wait to see them!
Several years ago, at lunch time, way, way before, Covid, when meals were cooked at the Senior Citizen center, and since the weather is always a good topic, I asked one of the men if he thought we were ever going to get rain. His answer was different to say the least, as he replied, “Yes, just as soon as this dry spell is over!” We both had a good laugh and went to our tables to wait for our food. I have to agree with what he said, way back then, as we have had clouds several days this week and part of last week and only about 15 drops of rain.
These cobblers are all delicious, especially the lemon one, and it’s the one I’m taking to my meeting on Tuesday. My co-hostess has never heard of Lemon Cobbler and she’s excited to get to try it. These are all pretty “kid-friendly” recipes, by which I mean a child can help you measure and maybe even spoon fruit on top of the dough mixture.
Where cobblers got their name is unknown to me, but I firmly believe it was some rushed housewife who decided to ‘cobble’ some flour, sugar and milk together and add some fruit from her pantry, who made the first one. Cobblers can be found in cookbooks dating from the early parts of the 20th century and possible even before. They are simple to make and always delicious as you can use any fruit you have on hand to make them. I have made them with apple pie filling, cherry pie filling, canned peaches or almost anything. (In fact, at one point in time, my daughter promised her lunch mate teachers peach cobbler for dessert the next day at lunch. She got ready to make it the next morning and had no peaches at home. So, since it very early in the morning, she had to get creative, and used a couple of cans of fruit cocktail that were in her pantry and had a hit on her hands!).
Here’s a recipe for One-Bowl Peach and Blueberry Cobbler that could be the easiest cobbler you’ll ever make. Simply throw all the ingredients in an oven-safe dish and top with any fruit you have on hand. Serve with whipped cream or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
One-Bowl Peach and Blueberry Cobbler
Prep time: 5 minutes; hands-off cooking time; 30 minutes. 4 servings.
¼ cup butter, melted
1 cup buttermilk pancake mix
½ cup sugar
½ cup milk
3 cups sliced peaches (fresh, frozen or canned, such as jarred peaches in light syrup)
½ cup blueberries, fresh or frozen
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
Preheat oven to 375ºF. Select an 8×8-inch square ovenproof dish or a glass 9-inch pie plate for the cobbler. If you’re feeding a crowd, double the recipe and use a 9 X 13-inch baking dish. Melt butter right in the baking dish and use the dish as a mixing bowl. 3. Add pancake mix, sugar, and milk to melted butter. Stir with a fork until just combined. Batter will be lumpy-do not over mix. 4. Scatter peaches and blueberries evenly over batter. Lightly sprinkle cinnamon evenly on top. 5. Bake for 30 minutes or until light golden brown.
You can use apples, pears, plums or mixed berries. Frozen or canned fruit works just as well as fresh fruit in this recipe.
The following cobbler recipes are some of my family’s favorites, with the first recipe for peach cobbler being from my Mother.
Peach Cobbler
1 cup flour
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
¼ cup margarine
2 to 3 cups sliced peaches
½ to 1 cup additional sugar
1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Melt the margarine in a 9 X 9-inch baking pan. Peel and slice peaches into a pot, adding ½ to 1 cup granulated sugar depending on the sweetness of your peaches. Heat until sugar is completely dissolved. Remove from heat, stir in the extract and set aside while you mix the dough.
Mix together the flour, sugar and baking powder. Add the milk to make a soft dough, and pour the dough mixture into the prepared pan. Top the dough with the peach mixture, (if it has made a lot of liquid, don’t use all of it); sprinkle with some cinnamon and sugar if desired, bake for about 30 to 40 minutes or until done.
Cherry or Apple Cobbler
1 cup flour
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
¼ to ½ cup margarine
1 can apple pie filling or cherry pie filling
1 teaspoon cinnamon or 1 teaspoon almond flavoring
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Melt margarine in 9 X 9-inch pan. Set aside. Combine flour, sugar and baking powder, add milk and vanilla. Mix to make soft dough and pour into pan with melted margarine. Stir cinnamon into apple pie filling or stir almond flavoring into cherry pie filling. Spoon fruit onto the top of the dough, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar if desired. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm or cold with whipped topping or ice cream.
Quick and Easy Peach Cobbler
1 box yellow cake mix
2 cans (12 to 14-oz) cans peaches or 1 large can that equals this amount
1½ sticks butter
Melt butter in 9 X 12-inch pan. Pour peaches with juice into pan. Sprinkle cake mix on top, press down into pan a little. Sprinkle with a little cinnamon and sugar. Bake at 350ºF for about 45 minutes. Hope you enjoy these recipes, they are simple and easy to make, and most also carry well to a family outing.
Magical Lemon Cobbler
1 stick butter (1/2 cup)
1 cup flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup buttermilk (or soured milk*)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon lemon extract
1 can lemon pie filling (21-ounce)
Preheat oven to 350ºF.
Place the stick of butter into a 9 X 9-inch square baking dish and place it in the oven to melt while you mix up the batter. (Keep an eye on this, you don’t want it to get brown, just melt!).
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, (flour, baking powder, salt and sugar). Pour in the buttermilk, vanilla and lemon extracts and stir or whisk until just combined. Pour the batter evenly over the melted butter in the pan, do not stir; spoon the lemon filling over the batter, bake for 45 to 55 minutes until the edges of the cobbler are golden brown. Cool before serving. *To sour milk, place 1 to 2 tablespoons of lemon juice in a measuring cup and fill the cup to the 1-cup line. Stir to combine and allow to sit until it thickens.
To make this recipe for a 9 X 13-inch pan:
DO NOT double the filling, make 1½ times the dough as follows:
1½ sticks butter, 1½ cups flour, 2¼ teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon salt, 1½ cups sugar, 1½ cups butter milk or soured milk, 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract, 1½ teaspoons lemon extract, follow above directions for mixing.

Tucker discovered his sister’s little electric pencil sharpener this weekend, and he sure fell in love with that little machine and the job of sharpening pencils. As I sit here writing this, Tucker is scavenging our junk drawers and house for all pencils in need of sharpening. I have a feeling that no pencil will go unsharpened for long in my house as long as that little machine keeps chugging.
I can remember there was always a line in class to use the electric pencil sharpener, but I didn’t recall just how fun it was for a kid.
Update: There is an enormous pile of pencils on my kitchen table. I had no idea how many pencils we had. They are all very sharp now.
If you are looking for some cheap entertainment this summer, I’ve got three words for you: electric pencil sharpener. It’s almost as good as water balloons.

We spent a few days at the beach last week, and it was the best. I love listening to those waves. While my favorite part was relaxing, Tucker’s favorite part was by far, spotlighting and chasing down sand crabs every night. He’s gotten to be a big brave boy, and surprised us all when he picked up a good size sand crab himself. Last year he liked chasing them, but ended up just dancing around when it came time to reach down and pick it up.
It was a lot of fun. Cousin Audrey went with us too, and enjoyed yelling “Crab alert! Crab alert!” every time she spotted one. But when they got too close, she bear hugged big cousin A’Dell’s leg and climbed halfway up it until the crab was captured. It was too cute.
At one point, we spotlighted two crabs standing just a foot apart. Grandpa asked, “Which one you gonna catch?” Tucker quickly replied, “Both!”
And as we started laughing, sure enough he busted a move and caught two crabs at once, one with each hand.
My sisters built the most immaculate sand castle of all, with a little wooden bridge, and on Thursday evening there was a beautiful sunset and a full moon reflecting on the ocean. It was one of the prettiest shows I’ve ever seen.
The beach is such a refreshing place. I often wonder how those waves rolling in and out can do such wonders for me. Turns out that somewhere between 50-70% of earth’s oxygen comes from the ocean, maybe that’s why it’s so dang refreshing to breathe that ocean breeze.
Just another great excuse to go get your crab on!

Tucker and I went out in the paddle boat with Cousin Adalyn at her ranch this weekend. It was a relaxing sunset cruise filled with colorful toddler conversations. One of them was particularly entertaining. The funniest thing was the serious tone they had.
“So, do you have any octopus in this pond?” Tucker asked his cousin.
Without any funny faces or hesitation, she replied, “Nope, we don’t, but we have catfish.”
Somehow, the fact that they had catfish surprised him.
I tried my best to contain my deep hearted laugh and not disrupt their conversation. Lucky I didn’t fall out of the boat. It was definitely the comment of the day that’s for sure.
Tucker had a lot of fun with his cousins that day, and I did too. We sat on the front porch enjoying the post-rain waterfront views. Our fishing ponds sure do look pretty when they are full.
Sure is nice to have so many cousins. There’s nothing more fun than hanging out with family and talking about old stories. Someday when they are older, Adalyn will be sitting on a front porch with Tucker, saying “Hey Tucker remember that time you thought you saw an octopus in our fishing pond?”

We had Easter a little early this year so we could spend more time together rather than rushing off to other gatherings on the big day. I think it’s safe to say, our kids have no shortage of candy. I did remember to order some of the eggs filled with toy dinosaurs so there isn’t so much candy, but of course, there’s still too much. Funny thing is the kids and adults probably love the colorful hardboiled eggs just as much.
Grandma stuffed a few golden eggs with $10’s and even a $20, so that ensured the teenage grandchild enjoyed the hunt as much as the toddlers. We were at my mom’s house which has a big glass window and as I was helping the Easter Bunny hide eggs (sneakily I thought), I turned around to see our two toddlers standing at the window staring right at me laughing. So Aunt Brittany assured them I was just helping the Easter Bunny that day. Because you know “his legs are not that long and he gets so tired of hopping everywhere in one day.”
Mom, aunt, sister, fairy God mother, Rapunzel, I have a lot of titles….and you can add Easter Bunny Assistant to that list, officially.

I did some mowing with the good old fashioned push mower this weekend. It’s quite the workout when there’s overgrown grass, let me tell ya. I hope I lost some weight or something! I tried to teach my teenager how to use the little electric weed whacker, but it broke about five minutes into it of course.
I lost the battery, so I had to order a replacement. Then I couldn’t find the string, so I had to order a replacement. And now a little tiny piece broke off inside the thing that holds the spools of string. Some projects are just like that. I thought I was gonna teach my teenager another great “life skill” but it just wasn’t meant to be that day.
At one point, I told her if she didn’t whack all of the weeds in a certain area, I would make her pull them out by hand one at a time. As hard headed as she is, she said she would rather do it that way. Long story short, after the weed whacker broke, she got to pull a lot by hand after all! Of course, she still insisted it was easier. My achy lower back says otherwise.
I have a feeling she will soon change her mind about how easy it is to pull weeds versus whack them!