4th Fun

A friend sent this and I thought i'd try it and share. Something silly!

What Your These Fireworks Say About You

You are the type of person who lives a big, bold, and unique life. You love to stand out and be noticed. And people definitely notice you. You are easily excited, and you're quick to move to action. You like to be in motion doing something. Keeping busy makes you feel good.

The Fireworks Test

Back Street Back

Wow..never thought I'd see this. Now don't get me wrong. I was a fan back in the early 90's (that makes me feel so old-ug!). Bought their cd's, worshiped the ground they walked on (well maybe not worshiped). So I seriously thought they were done when they broke up. No hard feelings, Still listen to them when the timing appropraites. But nothing major. Well, apparently I was wrong. There are millions of new teenage and tween age girls out there swooning once more. Backstreet Boys are back and with a vengeance. I listened to some of the new album and it sounds very similar to the last albums. So I'm not sure. They've all grown up and "changed their ways" (really?). What do you think? Will you buy it or pretend that it doesn't even exist?

And so it begins......

you'd think the kids had never seen rain before with the way they are watching the storm.

Mother Nature has officially let her wrath loose on us unsuspecting mortals. Yep...it's currently pouring rain and has dropped 20 degrees to a nice 80 degrees.
It was bright and nice this morning and when the clouds rolled in, they really rolled in. I'm just glad I had brought the towels that had been drying on the line in before it really started pouring. Maybe I should take my van out of the garage so it can have a bath....hmmm..........

Just one more

Just one more small ode to the TWILIGHT movie.....



I think I just might be obsessed with it!

Yeah...it's a black thumb for sure........

So I tried to plant a garden this year. Finally had decent room to do it. I was all gung ho. I weeded, seeded, fertilized and watered. Yeah well.............apparently I don't have the right mojo. The only things that are thriving are carrots and a fig tree, which was here when we moved in. Would someone please tell me what to do with figs!!!!!! I hate to see them going bad and I have no idea what to do with them, much less be able to tell when they are completely ripe. I don't eat figs so I would never have thought to have them in a garden.

Next year I hope the apricot tree is big enough to produce something other than tiny leaves.

My carrot plants. They really are trying to grow.

The figs....i'm just glad they are growing.

I think this is a rogue zucchini plant left from the last people. Not sure though. It's flowering and pretty so I haven't killed it yet! HA!

And to leave you....a beautiful AZ sunset. I just couldn't resist.

Busy Day

Today has been a busy day. Dan had a couple of comp days from work since last week he was out at his class' FTX. That wasn't exciting since it was a billion degrees outside all week. So to celebrate his last comp day off we went to the local watering hole, a place called THE COVE. It was a lot of fun. It's basically a giant wave pool with some water slides, a pirate ship, sauna, and a kiddie area with water fall. We had a great time swimming and trying to stay afloat with all the people. No pictures though. Didn't have a water camera. Maybe next time.

So then we came home and after dinner made some cookies. Seth and Paige helped me out. (Keegan was in the tub).

As you can see, Seth really got into his job of cookie roller.

Paige just wanted to be near the action. She heard that we were making cookies.

YUM-O!!! The finished result. Chocolate Crinkle cookies. I gotta give props to Amber for giving me the recipe many moons ago. I haven't made them in a while and I got a hankering for them. They were a hit (it's chocolate, of course they were a hit!!!). What a great way to end an adventurous day!!

The mall

We had to take our van in this morning to get a tire fixed. (I just love it when I run over nails on the road.) So we went to Sears and while they were fixing it we wandered the mall. Luckily it wasn't that busy. In the center of the mall is a small playland. It was very popular this morning. These are from the fun while waiting for the van.

(i took these with my phone)

Toffee Bar Cheesecake

I get recipes emailed to me from Bisquick. This recipe came with the latest email. Since we love all things cheesecake I decided to try it. Dan's favorite dessert is cheesecake so I thought this would be perfect! This was my first attempt at a homemade cheesecake. Yeah, i've done the box mixes,but this was ssssooooo much better!!!! (imagine that!!!!)




Toffee Bar Cheesecake

1/4	cup milk
2	teaspoons vanilla
2	eggs
3/4	cup packed brown sugar
1/4	cup Original Bisquick® mix
2	packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, cut into 16 pieces, softened
3	bars (1.4 oz each) chocolate-covered English toffee candy, coarsely chopped
1/2	cup caramel topping

1.	Heat oven to 325°F. Spray bottom only of 9-inch glass pie plate with cooking spray.
2.	In blender, place milk, vanilla, eggs, brown sugar and Bisquick mix. Cover; blend on high speed 15 seconds. Add cream cheese. Cover; blend 2 minutes. Pour into pie plate.
3.	Sprinkle candy over top; swirl gently with table knife to evenly distribute candy.
4.	Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until about 2 inches of edge of pie is set and center is still soft and wiggles slightly. Cool completely, about 1 hour.
5.	Refrigerate at least 4 hours. Serve with caramel topping. Store in refrigerator.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): No change. I used chocolate syrup drizzled instead of the caramel since it's what I had on hand.

Book update

I've been a reading fool lately. So have the boys. We got some new books here lately and I wanted to share our findings on each of them.
First the boys' books:
Keegan adores all things train related. I found this book and of course just had to get it. It talks about dinosaurs that board a train and all the trials that follow them. Will they ever ride a train again? If they don't how will they get to where they are going? It's a fantastic ride for any age. I highly recommend it!


Seth on the other hand loves all book Dr. Seuss. He picked this one out and reads it daily (I'm so glad that he can read on his own now-the first book he ever read on his own was a Dr. Seuss book). Since we recently moved to AZ he has wanted to learn more about maps and where things are. It's a great book full of fun adventures. And since it's Dr. Seuss you just can't go wrong!

Now it's my turn:

So I tried to read this. Built up from all the hype surrounding the musical (that my niece Jess can't get enough of and I must say the music is pretty good) I thought the book might be pretty good. I was wrong. It's hard to get into, the author spends a lot of time building up the story by adding things that aren't necessary. I got about a quarter the way through it and just couldn't go any further. The use of "potty mouth" language also didn't help the cause at all. If you've read it I'd love to hear your take on it. I doubt I will ever finish it and it doesn't make me want to go see the musical any time soon either since it's based on the book.....


I just finished this one yesterday. So at least it was pretty good since I did in fact finish it. However, I must say that even though it wasn't hard to put down I had the urge to finish it. The author isn't Stephenie Meyer by a long shot, but it was a decent book. I'm actually going to finish the series. Book 2 is out and book 3 won't be out until November. It's about 2 teenage girls living in a vampire inhabited world. They go to the vampire academy where one is royalty and the other is sworn to protect her. The story line follows these 2 girls their trials and mishaps at the school. The ending was anticlimactic and didn't leave me longing for more, but an interest in how the next book will go. Once again, would love to hear your thoughts on this one too.

*and as so not to leave paige out.....she's been looking at a baby einstein board book. she loves all the pictures in it!!


So there's some opinions. I'll update again after a few more books have been read. Still waiting on BREAKING DAWN with avid anticipation!! It BETTER arrive (in the mail-I've already pre-ordered it) on the release date or i'm going to go out of my mind!!!

Up next......FROSTBITE (book 2 in the vampire academy) and THE HOST.

Amish Friendship Bread

I've had a couple of requests for this recipe so I've decided to post it here. I'm new to the friendship bread thing so I got sssoooo excited when I received my first starter. I think I've gone a little over board. I have 3 starters in the freezers as well as 2 loaves of the bread in the freezer. I gave my 3rd loaf away to the missionaries. Anyway...here is the starter recipe for it.


AMISH FRIENDSHIP BREAD STARTER

• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 3 cups white sugar, divided
• 3 cups milk

• In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Let stand 10 minutes. In a 2 quart container glass, plastic or ceramic container, combine 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or flour will lump when milk is added. Slowly stir in 1 cup milk and dissolved yeast mixture. Cover loosely and let stand until bubbly. Consider this day 1 of the 10 day cycle. Leave loosely covered at room temperature.
• On days 2 thru 4; stir starter with a spoon. Day 5; stir in 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Days 6 thru 9; stir only.
• Day 10; stir in 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Remove 1 cup to make your first bread, give 2 cups to friends along with this recipe, and your favorite Amish Bread recipe. Store the remaining 1 cup starter in a container in the refrigerator, or begin the 10 day process over again (beginning with step 2).

*note*
Once you have made the starter, you will consider it Day One, and thus ignore step 1 in this recipe and proceed with step 2. You can also freeze this starter in 1 cup measures for later use. Frozen starter will take at least 3 hours at room temperature to thaw before using. If you plan on freezing it take one out and just let it sit for the 10 days, not adding the extra 3 cups on the 5th or 10th day, just stir it each day. Then on the 10th day follow the rest of the recipe and the bread will be fine, you just won't have the extra starters to pass out.

So there you go. The starter recipe. If you want variations when making the bread go to this website: http://www.armchair.com/recipe/amish/amish.html. (If you plan on passing it out you'll need to copy the recipe from the site to hand out with the starter.)

I use the cinnamon variation and it makes a great breakfast bread. I haven't tried the other variations yet, but plan to with the starters I have in my freezer. I also used whole wheat flour this time around and couldn't tell a difference from using white flour. ENJOY!!

Missionaries

Hooray! We got to feed the missionaries tonight (hence the reasoning behind making the bread). We haven't been able to have them in our home since moving to Utah. We never got the chance because there was one set of elders (or sisters) for the entire stake and the dinner calender was usually filled before we got to see it. So.....we were really excited about the chance to feed them tonight. And they were more than happy to oblige!!!! Which made me feel good! Thanks again Elders for giving us the opportunity to serve you!

1st loaf of bread

I wanted to get snazzy and make a loaf of bread this afternoon. So Seth and Keegan also decided to get into the action. I let them do everything so this will be considered their first loaf of homemade bread. It turned out super yummy. Everyone enjoyed it!! Well done boys!

Sleepy Paige

Once again, Paige fell asleep without anyone realizing that she was asleep. This chair is famous for causing sleepiness. She very rarely takes naps anywhere else. So while I was in the kitchen and the boys were outside I went looking for her and I found her sound asleep in the chair with her baby moo and her musical caterpillar. So sweet!!

Cleaning out the Camera

I decided it was time to clean out my camera (after almost 400 pictures on it). I ran across this video of Dan and Chris. We were at their mom's for a little family thingy to say good bye to Dan (it was right before he was coming down to AZ for the new job). This was taken back in February so I guess i'm a little late in posting it. I had forgotten all about it. Anyway.....this video makes me wonder (and hope on some levels) if my boys will be the same when they are older....Hmmmmmmmm

A scene from the movie

• MTV
• Music Videos
• MTV Shows
• Entertainment News

I didn't watch the awards show tonight, only taped it so I could catch this clip! Gets me even more anxious for the movie!!

Canadian Benny's

I think I'm going to start posting recipes as well as fun family stuff. Don't know how often I'll post a recipe, but i'm going to start sharing.

Last night we had a really yummy and super easy dinner. I'm a huge fan of Rachael Ray's cookbooks. And I found one that was super-duper!


CANADIAN BENNY'S
4 tbsp (1/2 stick) butter
2 plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2 scallions, finely chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
1 C heavy cream
4 thick cut slices sweet, whole grain bread
8 slices Canadian bacon
4 large eggs
8 oz sharp shredded cheddar cheese

• Melt 1 tbsp of butter over med. heat in a small pan. Add tomatoes and scallions and cook through a couple of minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the cream and reduce, stirring often, for 10 minutes.
• Toast each slice of bread and place on plate. Heat large skillet and add 2 tbsp butter. Cook bacon for 2-3 minutes on each side. Place 2 pieces of bacon on each slice of toast.
  
• Add remaining tbsp of butter to the pan. When it has melted add eggs and fry over soft or hard, as you like. Cover the eggs with the mounds of cheese. Tent the pan in foil to melt the cheese. Place each cheesy egg on the bacon topped toast. Ladle the tomato cream sauce over each stack!
  

I made a few moderations, I used regular bacon instead of the other and it was still so yummy. If you try it let me know how you like it!

Splish Splash 5-31-08

We broke down and bought ourselves a pool. It wasn't too expensive and seems like it's just the right size. The kids are loving having it and it keeps them busy most of the day. We all got in and splashed around and had a grand time! It was a great purchase!

She had just way to much fun.

Knees and toes.....

Paige learned a new song.