Preview

We got family pictures taken last weekend and these are a few that she sent me because I begged for a sneak peak...can't wait to see the finished product. Thanks Elsie!!

Freshening my skills

After learning to bottle beans we wanted to make it a regular occurance to get together for Presidency Meeting while learning to cook something new. So this week it was the BEST cinnamon rolls and breadsticks.



Here are the recipes if you want them...Promise it's worth it, everyone that tasted them put them in the "Best I've ever had" category.

Cinnamon Rolls
Mix together:
1 large box (5.9 oz) vanilla pudding mix 2 tsp. salt
3 c. milk 1 c. warm water
4 TBS INSTANT yeast (SAF) 1/4 c. sugar
2 cubes margarine, melted 4 eggs
12 c. flour (put in 6 c. initially with above ingred. then add other 6 cups 1 cup at a time until dough starts to barely clean sides of bowl. Still a bit sticky...)

Let beat for 10 minutes. Pour into a large greased bowl and let raise til double (approx. 30 min. in warm kitchen). Punch down and let raise again (approx. 15 min.) Divide dough in half. Roll out each piece on floured counter into long rectangle, about 4" wide. Mix 4 tsp cinn. W/ 2 c. brown sugar. Spread half on each rectangle. Roll up. Cut into 1/2" rounds with dental floss. Place on greased cookie sheet with lots of space between. Raise then bake at 350 for 12-14 min. til golden brown.

ICING: 8 oz cr.cheese, 1 cube marg., 1tsp van., 1 Tbs milk, approx. 3 c. pwd. sugar (more or less 'til thickness you want...)

Breadsticks





Just don't add too much flour!! We did and wasted 16 cups of flour...what a shame!

I'm it

The Rules:
1. Go to your documents/pictures.
2. Go to your 4th file.
3. Go to your 4th picture.
4. Blog about it.
5. Tag 4 people to do the same.
6. So here we go...





This Picture takes some explaining. We had friends over playing games and the kids were coloring next to us and Isaiah thinks he's pretty funny putting pencils up his nose. So I grabbed my camera and as always Joshua wants to see the pictures. He wasn't watching Isaiah as he was doing it he only saw the picture. Later in the night Joshua comes to show me he can do it too. Notice that he even got the right colored pencil. He even said "blue pencil in my nose". What a crack up!

I tag...
Erin
Katie
Mardi
Sara

Bean Machine

A few weeks ago I got a lesson in how to bottle beans. I'd never heard of it before but it makes total sense. No more soaking beans overnight, it's as quick as opening a can but cheaper if you can imagine. I don't think bottling anything could be easier.

We tried them right out of the bottle and then seasoned some and made burritos and they were awesome right out of the jar so you can imagine how yummy they were seasoned.


So I've been on a huge bottling kick and(Erin you'll get a kick out of this) I asked my mom if she had any extra jars and she said she had a few so I went to get them and decided to check in the garage for more and I totally hit a jackpot. She had like 8 boxes full of quart and pint jars almost brand new just waiting for me to rescue them. So I put them to good use. I learned how to bottle chicken now too. My food storage is going to rock! I'll be having Sweet n Sour chicken instead of wheat and powdered milk.



I wish I would have gotten a picture of every jar I've done because there were over a hundred. I've been showing other people how too so if you're at all interested I'd love to show you or at least give you the instructions and a bunch of bean recipes to go with.

Thanks Patrice your lesson was a pebble in the water.

Date Night

Our weekends have been more fun than ever lately. Since we are trying to cut back spending we decided to make our date nights at home. We'll call and have friends over for dinner and games. Well this is turning out to be one of the best ideas ever. Between friends we all take a weekend to cook and someone else does dessert. It's been so fun trying out new recipes and having other couples (not just your kids) to try them out on. Not to mention one of our friends is a chef so we get some seriously gourmet meals from him. Last time he made this...called Chicken Caprese and creme brulee for dessert. It was DIVINE.




This last weekend was our turn so we made our famous Honey Pepper Salmon/Steak. Garlic Asparagus/Mushrooms, risotto and grilled pineapple. Total it was only about six dollars a person for the meal. This is going to become tradition. Then after dinner it's Game on....Settler's of Catan of course. We're addicted.



They always bring the kids and they play and keep themselves entertained and we still get our date and it's way more fun than a movie any day. I would highly recommend it!

Next time I'll get more pictures of more people than food...What can I say, I'm into food.

Tubing

Saturday we headed up to Cedar to meet Mike's sister and their family to go tubing. This is the second year in a row that we've been...we're on a roll. I love that we live in the weather that we do and only have to drive an hour to be in snow. The weather was awesome almost even hot.






This is Natasha and her little girl Azlynn. Thanks for inviting us!!


This random guy I considered blog-worthy. He and his friends were snowboarding without shirts....it wasn't THAT warm. Crazy boys.


I find it so funny when little toddlers are in snow clothes. He would fall and really not be able to get up by himself. His giggle down the hill was priceless.




Of course we chose the the hill that 'looked' the funnest yet as you can tell in the picture it's really steep but it didn't even phase him he was having himself a good time. Didn't complain once....thata boy.



This became the best method to carry him up the hill...just kidding. Mike rescued him from tumbling down the hill. That wouldn't have gone over well.

TKO

This was right before bed the other night. Mike decided to play fight with the boys.

Then he decided to give Joshua a shot and that's exactally what he got. Check this out it's like it's in slow motion when really it's three different pictures perfectly timed (I'm no pro, I just got lucky)
#1--Mike is havin a good ol' time

#2- oh how the tables have turned...Joshuas face cracks me up!

#3--Victory! Could the timing have been any better? I'm still laughing...

Hilarious!! I think he might have a talent. Mike, you'd better stick to your day job.

Adventures of George

Joshua got this Curious George for Christmas. He drags him everywhere; it's so stinkin cute. They have had many adventures together so far. Here are a few...










Isn't this precious?

The Garden of Eden...I mean April

So I've been talking about a garden long enough. I finally decided to get it going. When we moved into our house the entire side of my house was garden ready. So I hooked with a pro and began. Just Monday we talked about it and Monday afternoon we were tilling the ground, Tuesday we had compost delivered, Wednesday we got it spread and tilled again, and this morning I planted my first peas. Yea for me. Let me just add as a very important side note that there were NO men involved in the process...little boys yes, did they help? kind of...but No men. Just call us Wonder Garden Women. Thanks so much for the help girls!!!

This is the PRO I spoke of...she is the women of EVERY talent!


Then it was my turn and I'd give myself a little pat on the back considering this is the FIRST piece of machinery I'd every ran before...lawnmower included...I had six brothers I never had to touch it.

He helped with the compost too...we were smelling lovely after the fact and the amount of dirt that ended up in his diaper and shoes would have blown you away.

I'm so excited to have this going and can't wait to see the first sprout come up.

Christmas Morning

The best thing of all for me was that we woke up to snow on the ground which I can't remember happening the entire time I was growing up. That was such a fun surprise. I was so dead tired by the morning that I didn't hear Isaiah up so I woke up to him coaxing me out of bed and he was fully dressed and ready to get going--so much for the new jammies. Just like last year we had to wake Joshua up before we started the festivities. With Grandma around the corner we called her first thing and she hustled over so when we got Joshua up and brought him out Grandma was sitting by the tree and that's what he was excited about even with all of his wrapped presents in the same room he just wanted his Grandma. So he opened all of his presents on her lap.



He seemed to fancy his fuzzy blanket he got...he won't go to bed without it

All Isaiah wanted was a scooter...Glad I had already bought it because when Santa came to our house Christmas Eve that's what he asked for.

We had such a memorable day one we'll never forget.

Back on the Blogger wagon

Finally!! is all I can say. Brace yourselves for updates from early December. I figure one decent size post to get you caught up and then I can begin my regular updates...so here goes.

It goes unsaid that St. George is not famous for snow. It must be documented that the first of two snow storms we were so excited the kids made me dig out all of our snow stuff and ended up making a snowman and then two days later it dumped double what it did the first time but we were done snowman making...I think the kids just realized that it IS as cold as I say it is and only wanted to do it becuase they got hot chocolate after.

In Isaiah's old HUGE coat....at least he's warm.

After the snowman was built (which took like 20 minutes) he stayed out and built two more with his cousin which took another hour. He came in with frozen feet and hands begging for some cocoa.

He was the one of the 'kids' I referred to wanting to get out the snow stuff...

Introducing Snowy (uniquely named by Isaiah)


This is Joshua and his friend Mayah. Focus on the cute-ness of them and not the wierd look on my face. Tara (Mayah's mom) is also from India so hence our children look alot alike. We get a kick out of the way these guys have taken to each other. They run around the house following each other and play so well.

It is tradition to have our family Christmas Eve dinner. This year Santa stopped by and we let the kids open the door...it was really funny. Isaiah was the first to the door and after he opened it he said "Hi.....really long pause....are you really Santa?."


He magically brought a present for all of the kids that were there. Even though he had no clue how to pronounce my niece Ariana's name and her sister ended up as Hailey instead of Hallie but no one ever said santa was an English major. It's amazing what parents can pull off.

In primary I had to do sharing time the Sunday before Christmas so I chose to let the kids help me with the nativity. Yes, I drug every costume to church and let the kids, senior then junior primary, dress up for the event. I wish I would have gotten pictures of my primary kids too because they (especially the little kids) were absolutely adorable.



This is ending up too long so I'll save Christmas day for another day.

Our chrismas card picture

I took a picture on my cell phone of our picture so it's not fantastic but at least you get the idea. Merry Christmas!!

Joshua

Not a great picure but it's something. My neice was playing with him and making him laugh really hard.
Joshua has been making us laugh pretty hard lately. It must be the age; when they start saying every word you do and it just sounds so dang cute. Today he went on the potty for the first time too! He just is getting out of the toddler stage very very quickly.