Holy Wide-Load, Batman!

It all started out when my friend gave me a bag of batter & a piece of paper. The paper said something about how to make Amish Friendship Bread. It said I have to mush the bag for 5 days, add stuff, mush the bag for another 5 days and then I could make it.

So I didn't actually look at the ingredients until today, day 10.

Well, first off, to this batter, you add 1 1/2 cups each of flour, sugar & milk, then mix it - and take 4 cups and divide them into 4 different gallon zip lock bags to give to friends and keep for yourself...THEN I'm supposed to add 3 eggs, 1 cup of oil, 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of flour and a box of pudding along with miscellaneous spices, salt, etc. Uh - WOAH! It makes two loafs of bread. And according to the recipe, you can't let the "starter" batter go away, because apparently only the Amish know how to start it (never mind the thousands of web sites that tell you how to start it, I am sure my starter batter came directly from the Amish people back east about 50 years ago - yah, that's the story.)

It's cooking now. I've heard nothing but good things about this particular brand of bread, but I'm not so sure I should consume it. I mean - just smelling it cook is clogging up my arteries and putting me into a diabetic coma.

Anyone ever have this stuff before? Or was I dooped into keeping this old batter on my kitchen counter for a week and a half? I will know in approximately 54 minutes and 47 seconds - plus 10 minutes for cooling - if I shall live or die.

Edited to say - it needs to be revamped by the Amish - those starters I saved were just tossed in the trash - there's nothing special about Amish Friendship bread - especially not a 10 day anticipatory treat! I probably got a different recipe than Crysty - because she loves her Amish bread. Me, however, it needs to taste a LOT better than that for using a cup of oil & 4 cups of sugar & flour!!

Getting things ready

Santa needs a clean house! Don't want him walking in the "ouch" room as Brynn calls it! Too many things on the ground, if you go in bare-foot, your doomed to say "ouch!"

Thought I'd post one of my most memorable Christmas' - I don't have much of a memory, though - so I only have a few Christmas' that stick out in my mind - until someone reminds me of another. So -- from my own memory, we were living in Denton, TX. I was - oh - 5? We were on Knight Street. A year or so before, I got a Crissy doll. This was a red headed doll - probably 18" - 24" doll - if you pulled a string on her back, her hair would get shorter. Then you could grab the hair & pull it back out to make it long. Well, if you can imagine, that plastic barbie-esque hair gets tangled quickly if you play with it. So I had the doll taken from me for not taking care of the hair...

That Christmas of 1976? - I don't remember if I asked for anything in particular - but I got my Crissy doll back! Through Santa magic - her hair was all tangle free (at least for the following - oh - week?) and I was so excited. Nope, it wasn't a new gift. But it was one that I'll always remember. Maybe I got something else new, but Crissy stuck out to me.

I'm not sure why the "humble" Christmas' come to my memory first. Part of me is sad that my children haven't experienced it. I don't think it's necessary - and I don't think I have the "strength" to give them a simple re-gifted Christmas.

Share your most memorable childhood Christmas.

Pile of thoughts running through my noggin....

I haven't been much of a cook lately - well, I don't mind cooking - it's just that it's so hard - the kids get home from school around 3:30-4:00 STARVING because they ate lunch at 10 a.m. - so they pig out - and since I start thinking about dinner around 4 - so it's ready by 5-6 ish - the kids are too full to eat - so I feel like I wasted my time in the kitchen...so when I don't cook, Ross comes home from work mad that the kids are going without dinner...which they're not...but that's a whole nother story.

SO - I was at the store with him last night - which is a rarity - and we decided on a menu for the following week.

He mentioned that he wanted me to make some manicotti. This goes back a few weeks - when I bought a frozen Costco lasagna. The kids love it - I can't STAND it - because - well, I actually know what good lasagna taste like. So I sat at the table & watched them eat as I picked on a piece of bread (probably too full from all the caramels!) and Ross started bragging to the kids of a time where their mother used to make homemade sauce and pasta and all kinds of wonderful Italian dishes.

But she hasn't done it in a LONG time. Lets talk her into it?!

So last night at the store he asked me what I needed in order to make some manicotti. I grabbed the Italian parsley, the ricotta cheese and some grated mozzarella. I have everything else here - I make the crepes, so I don't buy those pasta tubes that lazy people stuff w/ ricotta and call it good - no, I make my crepes and roll the cheese in it - like the Italians do.

Today I venture to make sauce & manicotti.

Why haven't I done it in so long? It's been YEARS since I made sauce. In fact, it's been a little over 5 years. I used to make it a lot - so when I talked to Grandpa I could have a fun conversation about how I can add different things to tweak it to make it perfect. Well, grandpa died 5 or so years ago. And I just haven't had the desire. Quite frankly - the nose and subsequently smell is the best form of memory I have.

I can't stand the smell. It reminds me of my grandpa. I loved my grandpa. I hate my grandpa. We were so close. I was on my way to Boise to visit and see him, he always made me gnocci's. We were leaving on Friday - I talked to him that Sunday before. He died on Tuesday. I haven't made sauce -- or anything Italian since. We make pizza, Ross does, I make the dough - but we have just resorted to purchasing sauce.

When grandpa made food, his whole house smelled, in fact, he smelled like sauce even if he wasn't cooking it! You could smell his meatballs from a block away.

So last night I'm in the grocery store. Pregnant. Grandpa was a jerk when I was pregnant. By jerk - I mean to say - he was always calling me asking me what kind of junk food he could mail me - what were my cravings? When I was pregnant and near him, he always took pictures of me. He'd make me take him to an ice cream place - Delsa's Ice cream, I think, on Maple Grove? I am not a big ice cream fan. But he made me eat it. And I enjoyed how much he enjoyed me being pregnant.

And now I'm pregnant. I am not particularly overly excited about it - smell is my biggest Nemesis right now - and I'm venturing to make some sauce. I can't make the meatballs --- or they'll be seasoned with puked (smell of cooking meat gets me going!!) but I'm pregnant - and he's not around to make me feel good about it...or mail me melted chocolate bars (it gets hot here, all packages melt!)

I miss my grandpa, I hate my grandpa. He was so good to me, and so hurtful to me & my family. It's hard to make sauce because it brings back such good memories - and I am not ready to have good memories about him. I loved him. I hate him.

Fun weekend!

We took the two older kids to "try out" scuba diving! They absolutely LOVED it -

I've decided

that family pictures with Santa are for the birds. Maybe next year, I'll bring in some duck decoys to take pictures with Santa - they'll cooperate better! Here's my last year's picture...


And this year's isn't much better...Brynn was hiding from Santa - you know if you can't see them, they can't see you...

NAGS!!!

Oh, you all know who you are! Here's Ross' Grandpa's Peanut Brittle recipe and his English Toffee Recipe below that - (which - is SOO much better than any toffee you've ever had before!!)

Peanut Brittle
3 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups lite Karo
1 c water
*****Cook above 3 ingredients to 240 degrees; then ADD
5 cups RAW Spanish peanuts
*****cook to 295 - STIR CONSTANTLY
*****remove from heat and add:
2 Tbs butter
*****stir until butter is completely melted then add:
3/4 Tbs baking soda
1 tsp salt
*****stir until dissolved then pour onto TWO greased cookie sheets. After it cools, break it up & dish it out!

NOTE: When adding the baking soda - it turns the mixture frothy, I like to keep it frothy by *not* "spreading" the brittle out on the cookie sheet with a spoon after it's been poured, this tends to make the brittle more brittle and less chewy.


NOW for Grandpa's English Toffee (makes about 2 pounds total - 1 pan)

2 cups sugar
1/3 c lite Karo syrup
1 cup butter
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbs baking soda
1 Tbs vanilla
5 c walnuts & nuts to grind - (about 2 cups ground)
1 1/2 pounds chocolate - almond bark (for dipping)

Place walnuts in oven on cookie sheet at 200 degrees.

in a large pot, bring sugar & Karo to 310 degrees, stirring constantly. Stir in butter and heat again to 290 degrees. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda, salt, vanilla and warmed walnuts (straight from oven). Mix in until nuts are coated. Spread on greased cookie sheets (2), cool & break into bite-size pieces.

From this point, you can either serve/eat as is - OR - dip in melted almond bark and roll in ground walnuts...use wax paper to allow chocolate to solidify on toffee. This makes a TON - no joke! And for now, I have no pictures, but I should be making this on Saturday - so I'll post pictures - come back to take a look-see!

Enjoy - I really hope you do - I don't like being the only pudgy one at Christmas-time!

I realize

it doesn't get lazier than this! BUT, I sent out my Christmas cards - I only ended up with 14 - so I had to do a lottery as to which of my family/friends gets one! Then I realized that I never sent out notices that we moved & have a new address...dad-gummit! So I hope I can rely on the postal service to forward my mail to me!

Anyway - For those of you who care - here is my "newsletter" for our 2007 edition.
I realize you can't read it from this size, but you can definitely click on it to make it big enough to read...


I do plan on posting the recipies to the rest of the Christmas junk food I'm making - I may have to make another batch of caramel AND peanut brittle - as most of it has found it's way to my ever-lovin' mouth - it just FALLS in, I swear I have nothing to do with it!

All I want for Christmas is....

more money from my lost teeth!

Howie came in about 8:30 the other night hysterically excited that he had lost his tooth - his FIRST tooth, literally LOST it - he was pushing against it and it FLEW out of his mouth.

Luckly he was in his tent, so it was contained in an area and we found it shortly afterwords.

While we were looking for the tooth, Kiersten came out indicating that she, too had lost her tooth - but this was a special tooth - this was a tooth that was hanging around with undissolved roots because the other tooth didn't come in directly above it - but slightly - shark-wise...so when her tooth came out - she yanked the root & all.

I'm sure hers was worthy of more than the golden dollar coin she got for it, but Howie was just pleased as punch to come back downstairs 20 minutes later to see that the toothfairy, indeed, got the memo that he lost a tooth and had come to pay up!

Meanwhile -
the school brought in 2 tons of snow for the kids to run amuk in - as is evident in the flip flop, non jacketed wearing children, snow is just not something we in the suburb of Phoenix know how to dress for!!

Death by Caramel...

Each year about this time, I make a variety of candies and goodies to give away as teacher & neighbor gifts! NORMALLY, I have 5 or 6 other friends come over and we make a HUGE variety of goods and then share our spoils of the day with each other. WELL, I can't do that this year, as my kitchen is truly a one-fanny kitchen. SO I started my venture last night and will continue making some kind of poisonous junk every day until my rear end is roughly the size of the kitchen door. (They wrote a song about me - something involving a 2x4? haa!)

I start my journey with probably the easiest recipe...My dear friend Kris has this highly dangerous recipe for caramel which is, well, you just have to make it to understand the effects it can have on your hiney...she shared the recipe with me last year with the following warning "Be careful, this tends to skip the mouth and go straight to the hips" so - - with that warning, I share her caramel recipe!


Heat the following to 260 degrees:
1 3/4 cups Karo Syrup
2 cups sugar
1 cup butter

while still on the heat, add:

2 cups of room temperature heavy whipping cream and heat to 260 (hard ball stage)

remove from heat and add:

1 teaspoon vanilla
mix well and pour onto buttered cookie sheet.

Once mixture cools, apply directly to hips.

OKAY - so I did that last night - and this morning I decided to dip some of them in chocolate. This is a fairly easy recipe - and even easier to apply the chocolate - directions for that include - cutting the caramel, and dipping it in melted almond bark chocolate - it works best when you eat every-other one...

My agenda for the rest of the day includes sitting on the couch regretting all the sugar I consumed for the day - and daydreaming of all the things I should be doing, but can't because the sugar high has left me nauseated and tired...or maybe that's the baby? You never can tell....

A story from last year

I just came across - and it had me in stitches. Last year - of course, wasn't much different health-wise for Howie - and it found us again in the doctors office. Here's what I recorded....

We've moved into the doctor's office (hey, better than the ER, right? the cool thing is - they told me I didn't have to make any more appts, I could just come in, and they'll give us a room!) Anyway - he was a little high from the sterroids they give him for his asthma - (makes him kind of jittery and "busy" so he was really talking up a storm & bouncing from topic to topic) the nurse came in & she had vanilla lotion on - right when she walked in - you could REALLY smell it -

Howie said "Does it smell like roasted marshmellos in here?"

She laughed & commented it was her lotion.

Howie kept asking her "Are you eating roasted marshmellows" and "Did you brush your teeth with marshmellows?" But WAIT - that's not the funny part...

The doctor came in right as the nurse was leaving & sat next to Howie on the exam talbe to hear his lungs - there they are sort of sitting next to each other & swinging their legs off the exan bed, and making small talk...

The doctor scooted over closer to Howie & told him he needed to listen to his lungs, took the stethescope to Howie's back (Howie had to lean slightly forward) & right then Howie said (and I SWEAR I have never heard him say this before - just not something we say in our house) "Careful, it's loaded" and then he ripped the loudest, longest fart you have EVER heard - it was a MAN fart like no ones' business - of course, the doctor and I were BUSTING our GUTS and Howie didn't skip a beat - "Smells like marshmello's in here, doesn't it?" ROFL! I knew what he was talking about, but we could NOT stop laughing!

I'm so impressed with me

I made homemade Christmas cards - YEP, Christmas cards, not "holiday cards" not "seasons greetings" cards - but CHRISTMAS cards. Yep, even put the word "CHRISTMAS" on the outside of the card. {{Gasp}} I have a Jewish friend and an atheist friend and I'm SOO sending them my CHRISTMAS card - and I guarantee they won't be one bit offended!

But before I can send off my cards, I have to come up with a clever family letter. I do one every year, I try to steer clear of the "My child is the smartest kid in the school" typical "look how awesomely blessed my life is" letter & stick to the facts - things we did - a year in review sort of thing. Last year I did my newsletter by switching the words of the song "The 12 Days of Christmas..."

I'm debating whether or not I should keep doing the 12 days (months) of the year newsletter, or if I should do a different song each year? What think ye? Different song - or same theme year after year?

Busy week!

We had a fun week! On Monday for FHE/Howie's birthday, we went to see Zoo lights. Howie had some money from his uncle Jason, and decided he wanted to get a night glow toy...which lasted approximately 3 hours - an all time new record for over-priced night glow toys all over the world...



The zoo also had their "Stingray Bay" opened - it's a huge "touch tank" for stingrays - and EVERYONE spent way too much time - hanging over the pool with the top halves of their bodies draped into the water - the sting rays would swim by and apparently they like to get pet!



There's also Jaffy the Giraffe - who is auditioning to be a reindeer - and helped relay messages to Santa Clause as he talked to the children to see what they wanted. Brynn was completely FREAKED out - but the other kids thought it was pretty cool.



And when all was said and done, Brynn dictated when we headed back home..."I need to go night night in sissy's bed." We complied!

It's amazing how much I could love him!

7 years ago today! Has it really been 7 years?





7 Things I LOVE About Howie!


1 - You're funny! I can't even start to tell the stories of Howie that so fully describe his unique personality!



2 - You LOVE being a big brother! You were only a little brother for 5 years - nothing "big" about you - when Brynn came along, you swore to "pretect her with dad's big swords" if anyone tried to hurt her! You're a good protector!

3 - Your passionate! Everything you do, you do with every ounce of your energy! (Including getting sick!)


4 - You'll always be my baby! I was so worried before Brynn came, that you would think your roll as "baby" would be taken away - and you cuddled me and told me "I'll always be your baby" and even now, you will come sit on my lap and say "I'm still your baby"



5 - You share everything you have (and maybe some things you DON'T have!) with whoever you think needs it at the time! You're a giving boy!


6 - You still get excited over "little" things like crayons and paper airplanes!

7 - Your smile lights up the room, even when someone is mad at you - somehow your magical smile softens them.


Howie, his transformer & his Dr. Suess cake (compiled by Kiersten and Kali with special instruction and frosting by Howie!)



Happy 7th Birthday to my funny, loving, passionatate, sharing, caring, and a dash of crazy "little" boy! I love you always & forever!

Springs & chains....

I've decided in order to save stress and money, I will have to come up with a series of security measures to incorporate into things that are used and misplaced daily.


I want to connect a chain to the girls hairbrush - there's a little hole in the bottom of hairbrushes...ever wonder why? NOPE, it's not so you can hang it on a hook...it's so that you can put a chain around it and anchor it to the wall in the vanity.
This would have to be attached to only two places in the house - one in my bathroom and one in the girls...my brush will never go missing again because they girls won't have misplaced theirs and come and taken mine! GENIUS, I know.

I also need to get one of those retractable springy type chains this will enable the remote control, portable phones and PENS to NEVER be lost - remember the olden days before things became wireless? (okay NOT pens, but phones used to actually be STUCK to the wall and kids couldn't wander off with them - and remote controls, too - stuck right to the tv and connected by a long cord - NEVER LOST)

Also - I want to be able to add some kind of magnetic device to clean clothes - shirts will have a special code that applies to the drawer they belong to, socks & underwear, shorts - things of that nature, so when I fold them, they actually have to be WORN before they're tossed back into the dirty clothes hamper.

Sure, it seems like a lot of work gluing everything down - and affixing electronic devices or other metallic interferences to items - but in the long run, it helps preserve sanity - there will be no more need for things such as prozac, or zoloft - because things won't misplace themselves...can't have anxiety or stress or depression if your house cleans itself, am I right?

SPT - Getting into the holiday spirit....

Yep, had to steal an idea for today's post - so I'm grabbing the SPT from Kris's blog.

How do we get into the holiday spirit? Well, since I've been wearing thin w/ Howie being sick lately - it's been difficult...that coupled with the fact that it's in the upper 80's and will be in the lower 90's tomorrow! It doesn't "feel" holiday-ish!

Growing up in Texas, we had some fun holiday preparations - things leading up to the holidays...I remember we had these gas space heaters - lets say it looked EXACTLY like this:

and my dad wouldn't let us turn it on unless the temperature outside was 50. So we would call "time & temp" every 5 minutes waiting for the temp to change from 53 down to 50!

When it finally did, we danced around and then fought about who got to be in the center of the space heater! Miraculously no one was significantly burned! But I remember when the space heater went on - the decorations went up shortly thereafter!

Also - Dad wouldn't let us start listening to Christmas music until December 1st. Even though everyone else listened to it the day after Thanksgiving...BUT we did get to listen to it through the END of December, so we were kind of special that way!

One of my favorite songs was this song sung by Barbara Striesand - "Jingle Bells"
(it's a bad recording, but the good recording didn't enable embedding!!)

That's a fun song to wear the kids out - we would run around in circles around the space heater until someone ended up with waffle marks on their back...okay - not really - I don't know how any of us escaped serious injury from that space heater!

So - for gettin THIS family in the holiday spirit - we will have to wait until Thanksgiving when we pull the stuff out & start decorating! Yep, rebelling against my childhood traditions of not listening to Christmas music until December 1st! We hit the sounds on Thanksgiving!

Got another new camera

I'm really REALLY missing my Fuji Finepix S7000! Wish that didn't go the way of the earth! So this "trial" is a canon - which actually makes a fairly good camera, it's the elph SD950 - it's small - not "professional" as far as options go - I can do macro and burst shots - but I can't adjust most other settings I've been able to with my other cameras...which is okay - BUT I do like the option if I want to change things up a bit!

Here are some more sample pictures (compare to the other post "Camera Comparison" where I use the incredibly awesome professional grade Nikon DX40 and the POS Olympus something or another...not even worth mentioning!! You can get better pictures from a disposable!!)




Not so bad, I would still like the coloring to be a bit more vibrant - but whatever. I'm leaning toward getting a refurbished Fuji S7000 from e-bay, it would be a better camera - and one that I know and LOVE - for a few hundred less than what I have now - but I hesitate to do this because - well - I can't take it back anywhere in 4 years if it breaks! LOL! I got to love me some Costco!!

On being domestic...

There's this nasty little homemade bread recipe from my friend Kari that's been going around like a bad virus. Dear Ana raved about it (click here for the recipe) and put me in the mood. So I tried it.

Of course, nothing can be done by myself in this house - so Brynn decided to pull the "mom's helper" card & help me make it!

It made 3 scrum dittly umptious loaves! And I think I shall never purchase bread again! I did eat an entire 1/2 loaf myself - oh - can you say swallow a brick! It was SO good, though!

Thanks Kari for kiling me softly with your recipies!

The loot...

Okay - we dumped all the goods into a 5 gallon bucket & it was overflowing! So I sorted everything for easy access- put them into 1 gallon ziplock bags - under the following categories -- chocolate, suckers, hard candies, chewey candies and compressed sugars (smarties, runts, sweethearts, etc) I also had a bag for mexican candy and tootsie rolls - which I threw out because 1- no one would eat them and 2-there just wasn't room in the 5 gallon bucket for rejected candies that would stay there till next year & tempt me to hand them out as trick or treat candies at THAT point in time...don't want to be labled cheap or frugle - no one likes the people who hand out the tootsie rolls anyway.

Anyway - it's interesting to see how "little" it looks like you have once you sort all the candy out & put them in their own spots!
Here are more pictures of the kids (see our trunk or treating post a few posts down from this for more pictures!)

Preparing every needful thing

YES, if you have kids you know Halloween is a NEEDFUL thing! Last night for FHE, we carved pumkins - well, okay - not WE, but the kids **had** to do their own - the big ones didn't want the little ones "messing" theirs up...so they each got little carving knives & came up with their own ideas & cut them up! (dad helped with the ghost - but not much!)


Rossi & Kiersten did the "Jack Skellington" and Howie/Kali did a ghost. Brynn helped GUT the beasts...and I am seasoning/cooking the pumkin seeds!

We also did the obligatory ward party trunk or treating - Howie & Rossi were too excited to get there - so they went ahead of the girls - so all I have are pictures of "Pink-a-bow" (tinkerbell--and yes, she did change her shoes into the green play high heel shoes & wore them ALL night!) Then we have the Corpse Bride (acting out the part of a dead person) and the most "rebellous" I've ever seen Kiersten (she even put on fake eyelashes) as the she-devil...(Howie was a pirate - just can't get him out of that mode - and Ross was a skellton again this year - in fact, I'll pull up last year's picture of him, not much different from this year!!)

Sticking with my healthy kick...

Bill Maher understands completely where this health care crisis is bringing America - and WHY!

I love his perspective & opinions!!! (Oh, and the last 40 seconds IS THE BEST!)

Be healthy

A recent conversation with some friends about deoderant/anti-perspirant has left me confused. Apparently the alluminum ingredient in anti-perspirant will make you sick - or give you cancer and eventually kill you off. (sidenote - don't you think it would be less expensive to take tin foil & wad it up and shove it in your pits than actually buy anti-perspirant?)

I am an anti-perspirant wearer. I do not enjoy the feeling of drippy wet pitted-shirts, which is what happens when you live in such a warm climate as do I.

Then I got to thinking...oreo's are not good for you either. But I'm thinking of doing a science project and eat as many oreo's as times I apply anti-perspirant and see what kills me first...the aluminum in my pits, or the crisco in my veins.

I'll keep you updated.

Watching the grass grow

Okay - so it's the time of year to plant our winter rye grass! I prefer sod. But Ross got a hold of this rototiller and wanted to play with it - and well, seed is about 90% cheaper than sod...and about 99.9% less man power to lay!

Oh, I should mention that they went to home depot every weekend for 3 weeks to get their ripped bag pallets, you know where you pay $5 for an entire pallet of all their ripped bags - manure, peet moss, potting soil, miracle grow anything!! So we had plenty of "top soil" after it was tilled! So here are the boys tilling the ground by the sweat of their brows!





this is our 1 week mark -- whole yard and what a patch looks like



Here is the 2 week mark -- again - whole yard and the same patch of grass as last week



You can also see our little "patch" of pygmie date palms!



They grow slow, but make a cute little oasis in the back area! After the grass is in, we'll plant some annuals around the base of it, for a splash of color! And eventually we'll have decking around it - leading up to the pool - if the funding actually ever makes it here!

The problem with our yard currently is that we seem to have a dry spot in that back corner! I'm sure you can see it - so I'm going out extra each day w/ the hose - we have to change nozzels on the sprinkler heads so the back one lets out a little more...just haven't gotten around to it - especially since we are watering the back 4 times a day - it's a little moist to be walking out there!

OH - and poor doggie! She hasn't been able to go back there to use the toilet - she's had to use the neighbor's grass patch! LOL!

Hopefully at the end of three weeks (next Monday) we'll be able to call it established & mow it! Can't wait for the rest of these patches to grow in!!

(edited to add pictures from week 3!!)