Just call me Mrs. Nielsen

If any of you remember Mrs. Shelli Barnum from high school she invited me to be a guest speaker in her foods class today. I talked a little about canning and bottling and showed them how to bottle beans and we made chocolate jar cakes. I had them help me make Lime cilantro ranch and lime rice and used our bottled beans and made burritos. I had a really fun time playing teacher...although I'm sure I'd need much more practice to become as as good as she is. I love staying in touch with old teachers. She is one I have lots of memories with and she only taught my senior year. Thanks Shelli!

Fun packed Spring Break

We just finished the funnest weeks we've had in a long time. I'll try not to narrate too much so you can enjoy the pictures!!
We started off the week at the sand dunes at Snow Canyon. Afterwards we hit Sonic for Happy Hour and all got yummy slushies and limeades.




Wednesday we got up and helped plant a bunch of tomatoes and after lunch, as a primary presidency, went horseback riding through Snow Canyon. This is absolutely my favorite thing to do. Riding with these ladies is like none other. We have way too much fun together.


This is my favorite view...I could watch from here all day. I need to invent padded jeans though because without fail that's what kills me the day after.


This is at the peak of the mountain we rode to. Amazing huh?



Friday our friends invited us up to Enterprise to ride four wheelers with them. It too was beautiful ride. Her mom had chickens and let the kids let them out and they were loving that.



We stopped at the resevoir and let the kids do their thing.


Joshua was giggling the entire ride...I got a cute video.


If you're wondering about the helmet...Isaiah insisted on bringing it and yes I do care just as much about Joshuas head but the only other helmet available was a motorcylce helmet and it was size Adult...so no go on that. Call me a bad mom if you wish.

Angels

Last week was filled with stuffy noses, puke, and high temps. Yuck! I think it should be a law that moms can't get sick when kids are too...especially when your husband is out of town!! Joshua got really bad just as Mike left out of town for the week. I knew he needed a blessing so I called our neighbor when my brother came over Monday night. The next day he turned around completely. The next thing I know my visiting teacher was at my door wanting to take the boys for the day. What?? So my neighbor called her and must have told her how worn out I probably looked and so she took them from 10am until 8pm. I spent entire lazy day on my comfy couch watching tv ALL day. I almost didn't know what to do with myself. Then the only knock on the door all day was those same neighbors bringing me dinner. Seriously I feel like I don't deserve the kindness but really how much more kind could they have been. Dinner wasn't just soup either, they made a roast, potatoes and carrots, a yummy salad, and M&M cookies. So I just needed to say how grateful I was for the help last week and how blessed I feel today.

Lizard Circus

We were at my sisters house where there area ton of lizards that climb the side of her house. That's what keeps the kids busy most of the time we're there. They have, until today, been unsuccessful in catching one. When we heard all shrieks that they finally made a catch they ran in to show us. My sister decides to try and pick it up to hold it and drops in and it runs under the couch so I grab a bucket to do the catching while she tips the couch on it's end and as I get close of course it runs. It ran close to the door but not out....just imagine what we probably looked like for the next 10 minutes trying to catch the stupid thing. Finally my sister grabs it with her bare hands and I grab the camera and just as she turns it towards me I caught this picture...talk about good timing...notice the tail??

So the tail falls off and is still wiggling on the floor for the next few minutes and the kids are horrified...Isaiah has to call his dad first thing and he says "Dad the lizards tail fell off and he didn't even die." We got a little lesson about how lizards grow new tails...you can imagine how that conversation went over...no Isaiah if your hand got cut off you would NOT grow another one. Thanks 'Lester' for the lesson of the day.

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?