Grateful Sunday

I’m grateful for a great date with my husband on Friday.  We got Indian food at Bombay house and then went to because I got a good deal on tickets.  I didn’t know anything about the show, but it was cute and fun to watch. 

I’m grateful for my friend Bonnie that will go last minute to the mall with me to get out of the house and for all the fun we had trying on a ton of stuff even when we knew we probably wouldn’t buy it. 

I’m grateful for the temple and the peace it brings when I am able to go. 

I’m grateful we got to have the missionaries at our house for dinner.  One thing about being in Utah is that feeding the missionaries is a rare occurrence.  I grew up outside of Utah so we had missionaries at our house all. the. time.  I wish my kids got more of that. 

Grateful Sunday

Today I’m grateful for my kids.  Especially when they play well together and giggle and have so much fun.  I love watching them.

Kind compliments from others. 

Parents that taught me that being smart was a good thing and I should never sell myself short.

What are you grateful for this week?

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Last week, before everyone in our house was stricken with “the plague” as my  husband has been calling it—really its just a nasty virus that is kicking our butts and keeping us in bed trying to sleep it off.  Wow, that was a tangent.  Ok, back on track…back before we were sick I had tried several new recipes in the kitchen.  I’ll spare you my awful photography skills (mostly ‘cause I don’t have any pictures!  thank me later).  If you wanna see a photo click the links given and they all have great photos.

The good:  Blueberry Muffins –the lemon sugar on these is to die for.  I may or may not have eaten the leftovers straight from the bowl (don’t tell my kids!)  I’m making these again this week and skipping the syrup step to see how they turn out. 

Mulligatawny soup – I had originally planned a simple chicken noodle for our menu, but I had all the ingredients to change to this recipe and it didn’t disappoint.  I did halve the curry since my family aren’t huge fans and it was still a bit too strong for us so next time I’ll quarter it and see how that is.  It was great and pretty fast to put together. 

roasted broccoli – I saw a post somewhere about roasted broccoli not too long ago that made me want to try it, but couldn’t find it when I needed it so used this recipe instead.  I loved it.  Em thought it was too lemony and no one else would try it.  Warning though—if you eat too much you might just be “tasting” it all night if you know what I mean…

Oatmeal Chocolate Caramel bars – I made these to take for the Young women in our ward to eat for a treat.  They were good.  REALLY easy—the hardest thing was unwrapping all the caramels.  REALLY sweet—I think I would have liked a little more salt or something to counteract the sweetness of these.  They were still devoured quickly so they were still delicious.

The Bad

Honestly I can’t remember what it was I wanted to put in this category…one thing that might fit was the gross cookie dough we were given that someone bought from a school fundraiser.  Seriously, is any of that stuff good??  I much prefer to make my own cookie dough it tastes so much better!

The Ugly

So, the ugly was our crock pot lasagna that I made for dinner last Sunday.  I’ve been hearing about this a lot lately for some reason so I thought I’d try it.  I have a lasagna recipe I like so I wanted to just cook it in the crock pot but got times from 4 hrs to 8 hrs.  I needed it to be done when we got home from church so I split the difference at 6 hrs and it was too long.  It still tasted ok, but the noodles were WAY too mushy for me.  I will try it again sometime especially with our late church time, but I will be sure to cut down the time to 3 hrs and then go from there. 

Also ugly, but by no fault of the recipe.  We made these pancakes from the mix I made and have in the freezer.  It was the day a few of us finally felt up to eating again, but I was still so tired I just couldn’t make them very pretty and kept breaking them when I flipped them.  Good thing my kids don’t care what their food looks like and they still tasted good. 

If you didn’t notice www.melskitchencafe.com is my go to site for recipes.  We have loved everything we’ve made from her site and I love that she just shares recipes she loves and doesn’t worry about all the advertising, reviewing, giveaways, etc. that tend to take over other blogs about food.  Check it out!

What is your favorite go-to place for recipes and menu ideas?

Must See Exhibit

I am getting all kinds of great sophisticated entertainment here lately.  Maybe I should have made that a resolution or something.  Last weekend for our date night Jason and I finally got over to the BYU Museum of Art for their Carl Bloch exhibit.  I have to say it was absolutely stunning and a beautiful experience.  If you live close enough to go you should make time and do it.  I was so happy that we did.  Beautiful art like that makes my heart all warm and happy.  You do have to have a “ticket” but it’s free just go here and click on admission.  It will show you the time slots available on the day you want to go and then you just reserve the tickets and then print them to take with you to the exhibit.  I would have taken pictures for this here blog, but there’s no photography allowed.  Sorry (you can pretend you are sorry too).  Go to the website and get a taste of what you are missing.  Then, reserve your tickets and go!  Afterwards I give you permission to head to the creamery for some delicious ice cream or maybe some spicy fries—oh, go ahead and get them both, you know you want to.  Oh, and don’t forget the fry sauce and/or ranch for dipping. 

Fun and service

I just found this site where you test your smarts while helping others at the same time.  I’ve been playing around on it for just a few minutes and have “donated” 2000 grains of rice.  You pick a subject and answer questions and for each one you get right they donate 10 grains of rice.  Check it out and let me know what you think its called freerice.  Have fun and help get food to people who need it too. 

Grateful Sunday

I’m grateful for crock-pots—how else would I get dinner ready for my hungry family on our late church schedule? 

I’m grateful for the joy of experiencing new things with my kids.

I’m grateful for the talents of others and their willingness to share so that my life can be enriched. 

Ice Skating

Last week for our weekly playgroup we decided to try out the Parent and tot skate at the Peaks Ice arena.  I was sure Liam would love it and most of the other kids that came liked it too.  I got a little nervous at first because for some reason after his first try going around the ice (and doing really well) Liam decided that he was done and wanted to go home.  Thankfully I held my ground that we were going to stay and try again because by the end he was a pro and he was loving every second of it!  If you live nearby and want to try it out with your child(ren) you can go on Thursday from 10-11:30 am and it’s only $2.50 and that includes skates.  If you’ve gone ice skating before you know that’s a steal.  The only restriction is that kids have to be 12 and under.  If you go let me know how your little one liked it!

This is right after I convinced him to try again when he was still really nervous.  This is after he figured out that he liked it and was zooming all over the ice.  this is right before we had to leave…I was trying to get a decent pic of us together, but it was really hard on the ice while we were moving and the lighting wasn’t the best.  I loved how few people were there because we didn’t have to worry about getting run over because it was crowded.  I think it would have made Liam even more nervous if there were tons of people there.

It was a blast and I can’t wait to go again! 

Delurking Day

So, I just got word that today is National delurking day.  So, lurkers—come  out, come out wherever you are!  Tell me who you are, how you found me and where you are from.  I know this is really more of a family blog than a high traffic one, but it’s nice to know who is reading every once in awhile. 

Wish I had some awesome giveaway to do to bribe coax you all into commenting, but alas I don’t.  You’ll have to comment out of the goodness of your heart.   

Have a great day!

Culture

Living so  close to a college town you’d think I’d get more culture in my life…sadly I don’t.  BUT last night I decided to not wait for someone to go with me and just go on my own for some culture!  It was awesome. 

A group called Voice of Africa had a performance at BYU and I have to say that I’m really glad I went.  I tried to find more people that were interested in going, but it was pretty last minute so I ended up going by myself.  Which I would have never done in the past, but decided that I would try.  It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.  It would have been more fun with friends, but was fine alone.  I loved the performance so if you find out there is one near you be sure to go!  Not only will you be educated, but you will be supporting scholarships too.  While browsing their site I found that one of the members wrote a book called “Escape from Rwanda” get more info about it here. 

The funniest part of going alone was being able to hear all the conversations around me.  Several of them were college kids on dates and it was so funny to listen to the things both the boys and the girls said.  Topics of conversation included classes, professors, majors, family, room mates, and eating habits.   I have to say it made me mighty glad I’m not in that whole dating game anymore.  I should have written down some of the things the guy behind me said because he kept making me laugh with his awkwardness, but I’ve forgotten already—old age is getting to me or something. 

What do you do to keep culture in your life?

A Liam funny

Today Liam was helping me fold the mountain of laundry that seems ever present in my room.  He was finding the things that were his and putting them in a basket.  A couple times I gave him socks or other clothing items that I found while I was sorting.  This is how our conversations went. 

Mom: “Here’s your sock.”

Liam:  “Did you clean it?”

Mom: “Yes, it’s clean.”

Liam: “Tank you so much!!  You make dream come true!!”

It was the same conversation about his shirts and pants too.  I’m starting to think that maybe I need to do laundry more often if it is such a dream of his to have clean clothes…but then, what would he have left to dream about? 

Grateful Sunday

I’m grateful for good friends.  I was able to celebrate birthdays with two of my friends this week.  They are both awesome and I’m so happy to know that I always have someone to lean on if I ever need it. 

Patty, Rosalie, Tami, and Tina (I got out of being in this one pretty easily) 

Felicia, me, Bonnie, TamiMe, Bonnie, Tami, Sheila, Segi, Randy.  Somehow I didn’t get a pic of the whole group on my camera so hopefully Felicia will email me one from her camera.  We missed you Natalie and Angela!

I’m grateful for time.  That probably seems like a strange thing to be grateful for, but I’m grateful that I have time to be with my kids, my husband, my extended family, and my friends.  I have time to choose to do whatever I want with even if I want to read or just need a nap.  I’m one lucky girl.

Cookies

We didn’t make too many treats over the Christmas break.  We were attempting to help Daddy out in his quest to be healthy.  We did have a few weak moments though where I just couldn’t stand it any longer and wanted to just bake something already!  I tried to only do it when we had somewhere to take the treats so that they didn’t sit at our house tempting him.  We took these to Christmas Eve celebrations at my in laws

We used some of the white chocolate chips that I won from prudence pennywise to make these beauties.  I’m usually a chocolate girl all the way, but these cookies were delicious.  I used this recipe and the only thing I changed was I added some orange zest because everyone knows that white chocolate, orange, and cranberries are a  heavenly combination.  I think they turned out spectacular.  I’m no food blogger, but here are a few pictures.  Excuse my well-used cookie sheets.    The dough after we’d baked a batch or two already.  Love my cookie scoop—so much less messy than any other method.

I’m not really a fan of crunchy cookies and for some reason the bottoms always get done faster than the tops (I think it’s my old temperamental oven but it could be my old pans too) so I always under bake them so they stay soft and chewy. 

These were GOOD and that’s coming from a devoted chocolate lover.  I saved some and took them to my aunt since she can’t eat chocolate (poor dear).  I haven’t heard how she liked them, but I hope she did! 

What did you make that was new this holiday season?

Grateful Sunday

Not having to rush around to get ready for church on time. 

A 3 year old with a big imagination and a big vocabulary.

Two 12 year olds with great musical talents that they aren’t afraid to share. 

A fun and relaxing Christmas break.

Happy New Year!

I don’t have any fabulous resolutions to share with you.  In fact, I haven’t even had a chance to think about my resolutions and don’t know if I’ll even make any.  

I do wanna say that our family has had a fabulous year and I’m hoping for another great year in 2011.  Also, I really just wanted to post on 1/1/11. 

Many thanks to Aunt Lynn for hosting us for a New Years celebration this afternoon.  As always it was lots of fun and great to see my brother and his crew too.  Love you all!

Happy New Year!