Our Family Project

Okay, I hate doing this on only the second week, but there's no project to post this week. I've been sick all week and just haven't had the energy to do anything except what has been absolutely necessary. I have a check up on Monday, so I'm hoping that if I haven't kicked this bug that my doctor will give me some antibiotics. The frustrating thing is that everyone in the family has had this stuff for the last week, and I'm the one who got it the worst. Anyway, the most I've done this week on my project is cut out the fabric. And, since it's " Finished Project Friday" I just can't post my fabric! I'll try for next week.

Andrew got to wear his costume to school today. He was ecstatic to be SpiderMan for his class party. As you can see, his teacher was dressed as a witch. Thankfully, Jon took a sick day today so that he could rest (which he didn't really do so much of), and also help me out. I've been sick since Sunday and it just keeps getting worse, so it was nice to have Jon home to take the children to school. It sure was fun, though, to go with Jon to pick Andrew up at school ... we got to see all the children in his class in their costumes (some were quite creative).

Monday night, Jon exercised his expertise in pulling teeth! Kate's been wiggling her bottom teeth for months without even telling us. Monday morning she showed me how far back her bottom left tooth could bend back and when I wiggled it, I also wiggled the right one and that one was just as ready. So, that night Jon pulled the left one, then the right. She got two teeth out of the way. The only hard part was getting the bleeding to stop. Her top teeth are pretty loose too, so she couldn't bite down on the gauze very hard. I wouldn't be surprised if those two on the top came out by the new year!

(*Side note: I apologize for the time stamp in all of the pictures ... I still haven't figured out how to get that to go away!) I first had this shortly after Jon and I were married and my sister-in-law served it to us. I had no idea how to make it at home until then. My sister-in-law took her chicken breasts to the butcher at the grocery store and had him tenderize the chicken breasts for her. But, we liked it so much, we invested in a meat mallet so we could do it ourselves. (Yes, WE; Jon has made this before.) It's actually a lot of fun to make when I'm stressed out or upset about something! Hee hee. What you need: 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts 4 deli-thin ham slices 4 deli-thin Swiss cheese slices 1 egg, beaten 1/2 cup evaporated milk 1 1/2 cups cornflake crumbs (more or less) toothpicks 1 can cream of chicken soup 1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese rice How you do it: Tenderize the chicken breasts. Place one slice ham and one slice Swiss cheese in middle of chicken bre...

Occasionally, I try to make the holidays a little bit more fun for my children by using some holiday recipes. Just thought I'd post some of my favorites here, in case any of you want to try them out! Today all of my children stayed home from school because we are all sick. So, since my girls were eating lunch with us, I decided to make one of our favorite Halloween lunches: Mummy Dogs. So simple, and so entertaining. What you need : 1 can crescent rolls 8 hot dogs pizza cutter mustard & ketchup How to do it: Press the crescent seams together to form two long rectangles. Using a pizza cutter, cut each of the rectangles into four strips, cutting from one short side to the other (the length of the rectangle). Take a hot dog and starting on one end of a dough strip, roll the hot dog in the dough making sure to not overlap the dough (except at the bottom, which you'll pinch together to seal the end of the mummy). Bake at 350° for 15-18 minutes. Using a toothpick, make dots for e...

Saturday we decided we needed to get some pumpkins to put on our porch. A couple years ago we went on this same weekend to a pumpkin patch and just had a blast because they had a free face painter, a corn maze, a hay-bale maze for children, a corn pit, and a huge pumpkin bouncy thingy. So, we got up on Saturday and headed over there again, in the hopes that they'd have the same face painter there again. I mean, she was awesome. The pictures of the girls are from that visit. Unfortunately, that same face painter wasn't there, and the one that was there was very second rate and charged for the painting. So, we didn't do any face painting this year, but we still had a ton of fun picking out our pumpkins and playing in the corn pit. Kate 2006 Eliza 2006 I love Kate's face in this picture. She has a hard time knowing how it feels to smile; so, in most of her pictures she has a funny face. They had some painted pumpkins that looked pretty cool, so I just had to take picture...

At church, in the children's class (called Primary), our children recite one of our articles of faith (a statement of what we believe). So, every night as part of our bedtime routine our family recites that same article of faith so that our children can learn them. Tonight as we were reciting the article for next Sunday Eliza decided to be a little funny. Here's what the article is supposed to be: "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." Instead of reciting that, Eliza said, "We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying THE MAN!" Jon and I just chuckled, then Jon said, "Yep, I'm 'THE MAN!'"

Here's my new weekly entry! I have a huge list of projects I want to get done before Christmas, which happens every year; and, like every year, I usually wait until December 15 to get started on them, so they never get finished. So, I decided that I would post one project per week ... and it has to be a finished project ... just to keep me motivated and working! Here's project #1: Andrew's apron. While I was in Utah in August I went to a quilt store in Provo with my grandmother and mom and saw an adorable child's apron hanging on the wall. As I looked at the apron, I thought it would be cute to make my daughters aprons for Christmas. Alas the store didn't have the pattern in stock, but my mom found it at another quilt store and got it for me. We use aprons all the time. I have to wear an apron most of the time to keep me focused on my housework, otherwise I get distracted. And, my children love to help me bake, especially bread and cookies. I have Eliza wear an ap...

Whew! I made it. I've been waiting and waiting to share so many things with all my favorite people ... and I only wanted my favorite people to see it all. I was worried about sharing some of the things our family has done this summer with everyone because I don't want our location open to the public, nor do I want my children's names out there for anyone to see (and it's been truly difficult to use those euphanisms for them). I'm just a little concerned about making sure my family isn't preyed on. Anyway, in addition to all the pictures and names, there's something that I want to start, but I needed my blog to be private so I could truly start it without worry. So, give me a day or so, everything will get back to normal (names will be on the site again), and I'll start my new thing. (I'm so excited for it ... I'm hoping it will keep me ... um ... a little bit more motivated.)

My friend, Shilo , tagged me ... so here's a little glimpse into my eight favorites (in no particular order): Eight TV shows I like to watch: Heroes Chuck The Office Pushing Daisies Dancing with the Stars Ghost Whisperer Eli Stone American Idol Eight restaurants I like to eat at: P.F. Chang's Olive Garden Applebee's Chili's Arby's Culver's Leatherby's The Cheesecake Factory Eight things that happened today: Took the girls to school. Finished reading Eldest. Made two lunches. Two loads of laundry. Unloaded the dishwasher. Received my hubby's order of canning jar lids (the kind without the ring). Took the garbage and recycling to the curb. Baked potatoes for dinner tonight. Eight things I am looking forward to: The birth of our baby. Being heartburn free (sorry hubby). Knowing how to use my new camera. Being able to post some things on my blog after I go private. Finishing my Christmas projects. Reading Brinsingr. Seeing Twilight the movie. The day when Un...

Okay, so as I was cooking dinner last night I thought I'd take step-by-step pictures for TTT. All I got was the first picture then my camera decided not to work again. I've been struggling with my camera for about six weeks. Everytime I'd try to take a picture I'd get an error message, or it would tell me that my CF card couldn't be read. So, I would take out the battery and the card, put them both back in and then I could *maybe* take a picture. Yesterday it just stopped working. It just wouldn't work at all! And, since I really hate posting a recipe without a picture (particularly the recipe I was going to post), I didn't post the recipe. But, never fear ... we have a new camera now! I just couldn't wait until Christmas (mainly because Halloween is around the corner and I NEED those costume pictures), so I went out today and got a really inexpensive p&s camera that will be sufficient until I have the time to learn how to use a dSLR (which is what I...

Have you ever had one of those dreams that just seems so real that you wake up and you feel all the emotions that you had in the dream? That happened early this morning. I was having a really strange dream at first in which I got a phone call from a bar & grill manager asking me about my political views. Then he invited my husband and me to his establishment for a free drink and to discuss politics. (Side note: this didn't seem too out of the ordinary for me because Jon is registered in the party of his choice, so we are always getting phone calls from people informing us of events and stuff.) So, we go to get our free drinks. After sitting there for a while, and getting really hungry, we realize that the manager really meant "free drinks" and not any food at all. Well, Jon was starving and hated smelling all the steaks being served, so we decided to go to a different restaurant (one that we could afford). As we are walking out into the parking lot, I see one of my fr...

I had a very frustrating day today. An older man from our church offered to watch our children for us on a regular basis so we could go out. He visits our family monthly, so our children are comfortable with him and Papa works with him at church, so we know him pretty well. Anyway, this morning we decided to take him up on his offer. So, we had him come to our house to watch our children. We were gone for about 5 hours, and when we got home Dos was sitting on the counter with Tres, drawing on him with markers. Our "baby-sitter" was sitting on the stairs doing nothing about it, and there were toys and dishes everywhere. I could not believe what I was seeing. So, our "baby-sitter" proceeded to tell us that our children had been climbing on the counters and running all over the countertops back and forth, climbing onto the top of the fridge, then getting on top of the cabinets and pulling down knick-knacks and such; they'd been eating from the snack box all morning...

Okay, so I've been using my Boschy to make a lot of stuff. The most I've done is wheat bread ... I'm determined to find a good wheat bread recipe. But, I've also made white bread, rolls, pretzels (twice), and most recently Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread (Muffins). I posted this recipe on my old blog, but I haven't been able to import all my old recipes here. So, I'm posting it again! I LOVE these muffins! I like to make them as mini muffins because they are perfect size for a snack (and less messy than cutting the bread). This recipe makes almost 100 mini muffins, about 50 regular-sized muffins, 8 mini bread loaves, or 3 regular-sized bread loaves. You'll have to adjust the baking time according to which pan you use. I don't usually make this recipe into regular-sized muffins, but I will tell you that I bake the mini muffins for 18 minutes each batch (I only have one 24-cup pan), and the mini loaves for about 45 minutes. Just about every time a friend of ...

Okay, so I need to make my blog private again. I really wish I didn't have to, but there are some reasons why I want to do this. So, if you didn't have permission to view my blog the first time I did it, please email me at elmindredah at yahoo dot com. I've added a countdown on the left, so let me know as soon as you can ... I'm way too eager to post what I want on here to wait too long!

Our family went to a friend's soup pot luck on Saturday night. I wasn't in the mood to make any of my regular soup recipes. That's usually how I work ... either I get a recipe suggested from a friend, or I try out a new recipe on a bunch of people (just in case we don't like it so we won't have to keep a ton of leftovers in the fridge that we won't end up eating). Anyway, for some reason I thought it would be interesting to see if I could find a recipe to replicate the Zuppa Toscana soup served at Olive Garden. So, I tried this recipe; and it turned out pretty similar and very yummy. (In fact, one of the guys there asked if I was trying to win a prize [we'd just won "most original chili" at a chili cook-off].) This is definitely worth trying if you like that spicy sausage and potato soup. Zuppa Toscana 1 lb. ground spicy Italian sausage, crumbled 1/2 lb. smoked bacon (6 slices), chopped 1 qt. water 2 (14.5 oz.) cans chicken broth (about 3 2/3 cup...

I just couldn't go today without chronicling what Andrew said as we were driving home from preschool. I had just looked at his sharing calendar and read the note attached. Each month the children in the class get a turn to bring in something to share with the rest of the class. The teachers have requested that the object the children bring be something that corresponds either with the theme for the week, or the letter they are studying. For the week that Andrew brings in an item the theme is "Fire Safety" and the letter is Cc. So, I was talking to Andrew in the car about what he could bring. Me: "What do you think you can share about fire safety?" Andrew: (answering immediately) "Water." Me: (smiling hugely, and not wanting to just presume I know what he's talking about) "Why water?" Andrew: "Because if there's a fire, we have to put it out." Me: "How do we do that?" Andrew: "We use water." Me: "You...