Day 1 - A Late Start

We got off to a late start. It was already dark. We all tried to sleep in the car. Jennie was awake a lot of the night watching as Dave, Rachel and Shanna all took turns driving.



Good thing we had popcorn and other snacks to help the drivers stay awake.



And surprisingly enough Anna even slept in for awhile.

Mother's Day Blog

by Anna

Mother's day was great yesterday!

I brang my mom breakfast in bed. I made heart french toast. Shanna helped me. I picked a flower to go with. A tulip that came from my backyard. Mom liked it.







I gave my mom flowers. White flowers. I hided them.



And I got my mom a towel too. With a fishy.. with seahorses and there was...what can you imagine...? a crab!

We had a fancy dinner.
The kids were little chefs.



I really did love Mother's day.


a few more comments from Mom...
Mother's day began about 6:45am when Anna came into my room carrying a tray of breakfast. I guess Shanna, who was staying the night at our house, told Anna the night before that they would make me breakfast. In excitement Anna got up about 5:30. Anna says she was sure yawning in primary class because she got up so early.

When Anna and I were at the store the night before Anna wanted to buy flowers and a present for me. "These are special presents." She kept saying. "Because you can peek and see what they are." When we got home from the store she took the gifts and hid them for me to find in the morning. I love how excited she gets at the idea of giving presents and doing nice things for other people.

After church Anna, Jennie, Allie, Justin and Angie (Allie & Jennie's siblings) played chef under the supervision of Shanna and I. (Maybe I should have just listed us with the kids.) We all worked together to fix a dinner of

Chicken Gnocchi Soup




Grape & Feta Salad




Hot Artichoke Dip




Pao de Queijo (cheese bread from Brazil)




and Orange Cranberry Juice.

Anna thought it was really funny making the Pao de Queijo with me because when I read the directions they were in Portuguese. Jennie loved to toss the salad with her hands. While cutting grapes, Justin wondered if the food liked being executed. Angie patiently peeled sweet potatoes



that we ended up not using during the meal, but another day we will make them into sweet potato fries (a new favorite). And Allie loved getting her hands covered in gooey bread dough. I loved watching them all wait somewhat patiently for their next assignment and then happily work together to do whatever was asked.

It was a yummy meal full of foods I love, including strawberry shortcake for dessert.

After dinner we enjoyed games and stories.



We hope everyone had a happy mother's day because we sure did.

Camp Cooking Take 1

(April 20, 2009)
I am the stake camp director for church. So with the camp planning overnighter for adult and youth leaders approaching I decided to try out some campfire cooking in our backyard.



So with a bunch of children, including the neighbors, excited to do a campfire Shanna and I bravely attempted a variety of dishes all at the same time.



Muffins in an orange peel, potatoes right in the coals, meatloaf in an onion, meatloaf on a stick, and ash cakes.



(Anna and Natalie making ash cakes. I liked Natalie's approach....smash dough against bench and literally throw into the fire.)



Hot dogs were added to the list last minute as we decided the number of mouths to feed was greater than the amount of food being produced.



And upon the insistence of the kids, we found a package of marshmallows for roasting.



After Isaiah and Natalie had gone home and Dave had taken the girls in for a bath I decided to try one more thing. I had read about cooking bacon and eggs in the bottom of a paper bag. I didn't think it would work so I wanted to try it out. I was very surprised when it really worked and tasted great.

Over the next week we tried a few more things.

One attempt was a recipe for "the best meatloaf" that said to cook it in a pan inside the dutch oven. I found a pan at the thrift store and made the supposedly fantastic meatloaf. However, when I went to put the pan into the dutchoven the pan handles stuck out to far. You should have seen me with the hammer trying to pound the handles down far enough while there was still meatloaf in the pan. (I wonder why we don't get pictures of things like that.)

That didn't work.

So reluctantly I transferred the whole concoction to one of my nice round cake pans, which worked fantastically. However, because of this set back and an already late start the kids got hot dogs again. Lucky for them though, because the meatloaf ended up...mmm...lets just say my normal recipe is much, much better.

The night before the camp out was the next attempt, a dutchoven Chicken and Veggie recipe from Thayne Anderson that I got from mom. I was sure it would be good. I got it all ready in the dutch oven, but being tired of smelling like campfires, I cooked in the oven. I left Dave to feed it to the kids when it was finished and I headed off to Sam's Club to buy food for the camp out. Yeah, yeah, pretty amusing that I hadn't decided what food to cook, but I was heading to the store to buy it. Well, Sam's was closing in a few hours and the closest one is about half hour away. So when I got to the store I called Dave for the verdict. He said it was pretty good. So on that raving review (way better than the meatloaf review) it was the winner for the camp out. At the camp out the chicken and veggies was served with fire baked potatoes and muffins in orange peels.

For breakfast we cooked bacon and eggs in paper bags and had hot chocolate with water boiled in a paper cup and tang made from purified water. The food ended up great! And all the campfires getting to that point were just as chaotic and fun too.

(more pictures)

Computer Screen Conference

(April 4-5, 2009)


We have all been excited for General Conference. Of course we have talked a lot about how neat it is that we get to hear the Prophet speak. And we were excited to hear the announcement of the new apostle. The girls kept asking, "Which one is the one who is going to take the place of the one who died?" They got even more excited when Dave hauled in a computer screen from the office to act as our TV. So as we settled in around the computer screen to listen the girls enjoyed a variety of activites including Jesus puzzles, a dress the speaker magnetic doll, conference bingo and dancing during each of the songs.



Each time one of the 12 apostles spoke one of the girls found his picture hanging on the door and showed it to everyone else. They each found the picture in their notebooks and then "took notes"



about what was said in the talk. They loved keeping track of which of the apostles were still going to speak.

(more of Anna's notes)
(more of Allie's notes)
(more of Jennie's notes)



On Saturday between sessions we headed off to a park to enjoy playing and a picnic before the next session began. Jennie found out she was too big for the "baby" swings,



but she wasn't the only one too big for something.



Allie tried to hard to sneak more chips out from under Dave's guard, but ended up pacing back and forth with the whole bag in hand.



Allie gets dizzy.


Jennie gets the giggles.


The girls each helped with a different part of making Carmelized French Toast (one of our traditional Conference meals).







All in all we enjoyed Conference and hearing the things the Lord wants us to do to be happy.

The next night we even made up a song for family home evening about the things that Presdient Monson told us to do: (To the tune: Follow The Prophet)

President Monson spoke to us we know.
Announced a new apostle to follow so we'll grow.
Told us to be happy and to always pray.
To always say I love you and thanks every day.
Follow the prophet, follow the prophet,
Follow the prophet, don't go astray.
Follow the prophet, follow the prophet,
Follow the prophet, he knows the way.
(A video of the girls singing this is coming soon.)

(more conference pictures)

Disclaimer

I hope you read these posts late at night. That's when I get time to write them and you know what can happen to the sense of humor...

Joy in Chicken Nuggets

Whenever I can find ways to make good food for my family in an easier or faster way it makes me really happy. That is why I cook all of my ground beef after getting it home from the store. Then I separate it in small portions and freeze it. It really is amazing how much time it saves to be able to go to the freeze, pull out a bag of meat and add it to whatever dish I am making for dinner. I love it when I think to do this with chicken pieces too.

Because of this search for efficiency I sometimes take time to make several meals at once and put them in the fridge. I don't try to knock myself out or anything, but making lasagna or meatloaf while I am already cooking the meat goes a long way as far as stocking the freezer goes.

However, there are those days when there isn't time to cook a frozen meatloaf (mostly because I forget to take something out of the freezer the night before...I guess that will be something I need to work on). So I need some fast meals that don't skimp on goodness. I love having homemade burritos in the freezer. I have made both Elise's (my gourmet sister-in-law) yummy recipe and chicken enchilladas as burritos. But no matter how great a recipe there often comes a time for something new.

That day was today.

So along with the lasagna, meatloaf, and bags of cooked hamburger and chicken I also made homemade chicken nuggets. I had made them once before a long long time ago (almost in a galaxy far far away...afterall it was in college) and I remember them being so yummy. They still are! And so easy to make! It's wonderful that with a morning worth of work we had nuggets for lunch and lasgna for dinner and more leftover.

So today I am happy with a freezer stocked with food. (Let me know if you ever want to come over for dinner, I might even remember to take something out of the freezer the night before.)

A Crazy Day

So we got up this morning and headed off on our vaction to Disneyland. But we forgot our tickets and had to go back to get them, but of course half way there everyone had to have a potty break and by the time that was all said and done we missed the plane, but thats ok because...April Fools! Ha! Ha! Had to get one last joke in today.

Our April Fools started with getting Allie ready for crazy hair day at school. She said that all she wanted to do was not brush her hair and that would be "craazy hair!"

When Allie got back early from school the girls got into the April Fools spirit. They would run around saying silly things and then immeadiately yelling April Fools. Anna called Daddy and left him a message about a cat we found that mom said we could keep...and without much of a pause for a reaction she revealed the joke and laughed. When Allie talked to her Dad the list of April Fools jokes continued consecutively for several minutes, "Dad, we're not really here, April Fools! Dad, we found a dog and mom said we could keep it, April Fools! Dad, we saw a car upside down, April Fools!" Then Jennie repeated some of the same ones too.

At lunch I pulled my mom's classic "grape juice." After taking a sip Allie made a face and excalimed, "Purple water?" Oh, it can be so fun to say, "April Fools!"

After discovering that it really was water, not grape juice Jenny still would not drink it. Anna thought it was cool that it still made her mouth turn purple like grape juice does.

Shanna helped Anna and I pull together a spontaneous surprise at dinner time. The table was set with random utinsels, funny containers for cups, and upside down plates which covered April Fools notes that Anna made.
We all had fun trying to eat applesauce with a melon baller or icecream scoop. The meal (and the joke) was complete with a pitcher of "water" which was actually invisable Kool-aid. Everyone thought that was pretty funny after the water for lunch...after all, drink that was suppose to taste like fruit was really water and drink that looked like water really tasted like fruit.


We hope you all had a fun April Fools day too. And that's no joke!