I Love Silly Traditions

Last night we taste tested the chocolate ice cream cake I won from Cold Stone while I was in the audience of Good Things Utah. The ganache was a bit too dark chocolaty for my tastes but the inside was good.

This morning I had forgotten that it is St. Patrick's Day. I got up 15 minutes before the kids. I went and did some playing on the computer when I saw a reminder on Facebook from Paul's aunt to "wear green". Eeek! I hurried into the closet where we keep off season clothes and found these little beauties.

It is too cold to wear them alone so I threw them on over my other pj's. Paul HATES these pants more than words can describe. He insisted on taking a picture of me (I think he assumed I would hurry out of them, but no, I kept them on just for him)

I rushed upstairs and started making green eggs for the kids. They wanted green milk on their cereal and to drink. Of course I obliged.

We got them all dress in green from head to toe and sent them off to school.

Now my work begins. I have a to do list that I have to complete before the kids get home.

Last year I worked on St. Patrick's Day and didn't have the table set when the kids arrived back from school. I didn't think too much of it since I was still going to have a green dinner but when Andrew came in from school he went right to the dining room and came out with tears. He was so disappointed that I hadn't followed the tradition they have come to love.

Whenever there is a holiday like Valentine's or St. Patrick's Day I have the table all decked out when they come home and they have to wait patiently for Paul's return from work. I thought they would get a kick out of helping me decorate last year but they didn't. They like to come home to a surprise.

Tonight we are having Pesto pasta and grilled chicken (not Irish, but green), green rolls, salad, maybe jell-o, and green grapes. On the table we will have the green table cloth, green and gold candies like Reese's peanut butter cups (I keep out green and gold candies from Christmas just for this holiday) , I found a bag of all green M&M's, I plan to make Rice Crispy Treats with some green food coloring for dessert, I have gold coins and plan to get a balloon bouquet with a few other little fun goodies up my sleeve. Of course there will be lots of pictures.

I just love days like today!!!

We Had So Much Fun!!!

Today Gary, Julia and I went up to a taping of Good Things Utah. We got free ice cream from Cold Stone, some cute acrylic letters that were given out by Robert's Crafts and I won an ice cream cake from Cold Stone by answering a trivia question. Come on, who doesn't know that Angie worked at McDonald's?

I loved seeing all the behinds the scenes stuff. I couldn't believe how much people walked around with heels clomping on the hard wood floor. I am surprised we don't hear more noises while watching. While one girl is in the kitchen the other are sitting off screen chatting it up. It looked like such a fun job.

It was a really fun show today. They had a fashion show put on by Chic Boutique, Cold Stone was there talking about the parties they can do, there was jewelry making with Robert's, a kitchen segment and a craft segment with a die cut machine that one audience member won. It was worth $400! Too bad I didn't get that, dang it.

I haven't watched the tape yet my parent's said they showed us twice. The girls were so friendly, funny and TINY! Holy cow were they thin. I would love to go back again.

Ooh ooh ooh! I almost forgot. We also taped a promo for tomorrow's show. I don't know if it is for a commercial for GTU or if it will be a tease in tomorrow's show opener. Either way we are standing one row behind Reagan and we all got to yell NO! (They are doing a segment on saying no and not feeling guilty about it)

I'm 99.9% sure....

that I am going to a taping of Good Things Utah tomorrow. If I don't it is because one of the kids got sick during the night but I am not too worried about that.

I was suppose to go last Thursday with Gary and Julia but it just didn't feel right. Emma and Paul were going skiing so no one would be around if Andrew needed something or if something happened to him at school. It would have been a hassle getting everyone ready in the morning I wanted to be home by noon for a special lunch date and so on and so on. As it turns out there was a mess up and they weren't going to be featured that day so they didn't even stay for the taping.

Their product (Gary's Soft Caramel Corn) will be a Tuesday Trivia giveaway. With the problems they had last week they rescheduled the audience giveaway for Monday. Paul has early class in Monday so there won't be any fighting over hot water for the shower, I can get ready before the kids get up and he will be around if the kids have a problem. I am excited that I get to go.

I am hoping for a chance to meet the girls and get some pictures with them to post here. If you live in Utah watch for me in the audience!

Oh the things we do for our children

Today I was a Leprechaun along with Maggie, Irene and Tessa. Well, not really, but we sort of looked liked them. The PTA sells candy grams a couple times a year and today I took a shift helping with the sale. Maggie was in charge of the staffing and I can't say no to her since she is always there for me. We worked from 11:30a.m. until after 2:00p.m. selling, delivering and counting the money. We all had a really great time. Shhh. Don't tell but I would be totally willing to do it again as long as it is with the same fun group.

Today we were one with nature.

First we saw this guy on our way to lunch.

Then we went to a retention basin that is sort of up behind our house and that is when we found this little guy.

Then we went about our business collecting rocks for Andrew's project 

when we found this. Part of the tiny little creek was frozen. The ice had formed really cool patterns.

Then we got to this. 

It is where the water/ice melt that flows down from the mountain empties into the retention basin. Can you tell that it's been a little chilly around these parts? The ice provided us all with a lot of fun. We were trying to shatter the ice but that didn't happen. Our big rocks broke through the ice and the small ones bounced across it.

Here is Andrew checking to make sure he got everything he needed then we were good to go. 

Does the world need another recipe blog?

Heck no!

I know that I have posted two in as many days but I promise it won't be a regular occurrence. My thought is there have got to be others out there who struggle with dinner ideas like I do. If I manage to make a nice, complete meal I may post about it in hopes of giving someone else some ideas. Tonight our dinner was really good. It was also quick and easy.

We had three different kinds of chicken kabobs (we love kabobs because they cook so quickly), the salad I posted about the other day, baked potatoes, homemade rolls and fresh pineapple.

This is the recipe that we used for Paul's chicken. I found the recipe on Allrecipes.com. It is very mild, not a ton of flavor, but Paul loves it.

I had my chicken brushed with olive oil and then used Citrus Seasoning from Durkee. The kid's chicken was brushed with olive oil also and sprinkled with just salt, pepper and season salt.

For the rolls I make a batch, let them rise, punch them down, shape them and then immediately freeze them on a cookie sheet. After they are hard I store the frozen rolls in a freezer bag. When we want rolls we just thaw what we need (I even microwave them for about 30 seconds to get them started) and we have fresh hot roll in less that 30 minutes.

Last night we had breakfast for dinner. I wanted to use the leftover bacon from the tortellini dish and no one complained. I think I might be on a roll.

Last but not least. I am making some progress. I need to work out the "pattern," I don't want any two like blocks too close together, and then I can start sewing squares. My goal is to have this one done before General Conference so I can cut out a new one without any guilt while watching a Saturday session. It is a very realistic goal, but with me you never know.

I hate it when the government steals from me!

Now we know how Paul feels about daylight savings time.

I’ll be honest. I sort of love it. I am screwed up because of it though. Yesterday we slept in. Really slept in. Late. Then I happened to fall asleep and got a really great nap. It was long and I didn’t wake up until close to 6:00pm. Oops. I got right up and had to start making dinner. I was awake, wide-awake, until after 2:00 am. I sewed until about 10:30 at night. I got all of my strips finished.

Then I started cutting my squares once the kids and Paul were asleep. I started getting worried I was going to screw things up since I was winding down so I stopped cutting

and started chasing my cat around with the camera. Poor kitty.

I think he is getting annoyed.

Today, praise all things holy, the kids don’t have school. I woke up at 8:30 and thought I really should get us all up and then the next thing I knew it was a quarter after 10:00. I think that we are going to have a hard time sleeping tonight too. Oh well. I love the light in the evenings and the extra time the kids get to play outside. This was taken last night, after dinner, at 7:00 p.m. when normally it would have been dark.

Even the snow flurries we are getting right now don’t bother me because they are so fleeting I know spring is officially on it’s way.

One of my resolutions was to try a new recipe at least once a month. Yesterday was our day. In January I tried the pork and coconut rice (Fail) in February I tried the homemade Cream of Chicken soup (Success) and this month it was Tortellini Carbonara. This is a recipe out of our ward cookbook that was submitted by the amazing Rees. Sorry there are no photos but here is the recipe for anyone who would like to try it.

8 strips of bacon cooked and crumbled

1 C. Whipping Cream

½ C. minced fresh parsley

½ C. grated Parmesan cheese

1 package cheese tortellini

In a large saucepan combine the bacon, cream, parsley and cheese; cook until heated through. My sauce was being weird so I whisked in a 1/8 cup of flour to make it a little thicker and that worked perfectly. Meanwhile, prepare tortellini according to package directions, drain and transfer to a serving bowl. Drizzle cheese sauce over tortellini and toss to coat. Serve immediately.

I served it with our favorite salad (We got this recipe from Joi and it is awesome!)

Use your favorite greens

Add:

Cubed Swiss cheese

Diced Granny Smith Apple

Toasted Slivered Almonds

Mandarins, drained (optional)

Use homemade Italian dressing (the Good Seasonings packet kind that you mix yourself in their carafe with the lines for oil, vinegar and water) Follow the directions on the packet but instead of regular vinegar use rice wine vinegar. It is so delicious!

We also had garlic bread that was topped with a Parmesan/Mozzarella cheese and mayonnaise mixture then broiled with brownies for dessert.

Paul and I really liked it a lot. The kids like the sauce and the bacon but the Romano cheese in the tortellini was too strong for them. The torts I bought were pretty pungent. They ended up nuking themselves a hot dog. I would like to try it again with different pasta because it was so quick and easy to throw together.

Once Again I Fell Victim to Procrastination

Back in February (the 11th to be exact) I earned another free photo book by installing an Iphoto upload tool from Shutterfly. I was wondering how long they would give me to redeem it, a day? No they said I had until March 4th. I was so excited. I knew I could come up with something great in that amount of time.

I had a brain block. There was not one ounce of creativity flowing in my body. I kept waiting for an idea to hit me and nothing came. I had decided to just make a book of random memories. It was a copout, using old pages that had already been made and have been sitting on my external for years, but it also seemed like a good way to get them printed.

On March 4^th I got my good idea with only hours to spare. Good grief why does it always happen that way? I threw out the idea of a collection of old pages and went with memories from all of our Disneyland trips. I got home from work around 3:00pm and had to hurry and scan in old pictures, make up pages (I did get to use four that I already had!), upload them and order the book. I did it. It isn’t great, but I did it.

The only thing that really matters is that the kids love it. Since it is for them that is all that really matters. I will always look at it and wish I had had more time to make it a better or I will think “that element should be there too” or “I should have flipped that piece of paper so it is a mirror image” but I have to stop thinking like that since it is on it’s way.

One of these days I hope to be prepared and end up a really great book.

Bowling

Today, after years of saying "we should get together sometime" we finally did it. We went out bowling with some friends. A couple of weeks ago the kids went over to their house to play and that is when we finally set a date. 

Emily and Steve have two great kids, Kelsey and Sage, that are really close in age to our kids.

Kelsey and Emma have been in the same class for four years. 

Sage is just a little bit younger than Andrew but they get along great. 

Emily and I always have fun chatting it up while we are helping with class parties. We knew we would have a great time if we could all hang out. 

We had so much fun bowling, cheering each other on and comforting each other when we screwed up which was pretty often. None of us will be joining a league any time soon. 

The kids all had their own lane with bumpers and ramps and we had ours without bumpers. After seeing our scores I'm thinking we should have had the bumpers too. 

Emma and Paul were in a stiff competition and tried to psych each other out towards the end of our game. She got under his skin and he totally blew his last shot and she ended up with the highest score out of both lanes. 

Emily and I tied with the totally awesome, completely outstanding score of 59. 

After we got done bowling we went to the BYU Creamery and had ice cream, nachos and garlic fries. It was a great night and hopefully we can get together again soon.

What's a Girl to Do?

I bought several dresses from Nordstrom for the wedding later this month. None of them were flattering at all. The search was back on. I looked high and low before I found some dresses I wanted to try at JC Penny's but I was worried they would be too casual. Paul assured me they were fine. I kept two of them. Later I found another dress that I really liked at Dress Barn and I bought a cute green shrug to wear with it. Paul liked the deep v-necked dress (the one on the right) for the wedding so that is the one I am wearing. I would like to have the others for church. My least favorite is the scoop necked dress (far left) but it is the most different so it would be lame to take that one back. Can I keep all three or are they too much alike? This is not a hypothetical question. FYI~ None of them have black, they are all brown.

Did I just land in Oz?

Today I started to see things that are in color!

Every winter it is a struggle for me to survive. It is so depressing for me to live in such bleakness. After discussing this with others I have come to the conclusion that I am a little different than most people. Not everyone, but most.

I am very visually stimulated. I notice things that often go unnoticed. I see things, for lack of a better word, deeply. Nothing is one dimensional with me. I see patterns in tree bark, notice the subtle swirls in rocks and get excited by unique textures on fruits and vegetables. I can feel a surge shoot straight to my brain when I see something beautiful or something interesting. I like things that are beautiful. I like to be surrounded by beauty. I don’t just see beauty it is almost like I can feel it.

Just as I feel beauty I feel ugliness. I can’t just overlook it or not notice it. It starts to take over my psyche and put me into a true funk. That is why winters here are so difficult. It is like I am living in a world that is black and white. I try to occupy myself with other things during these tough months until my outside would is back in Technicolor.

This is why I have enjoyed the Project 365 so much. I’ve had to search, but I have found beauty or at least something of interest daily and it has helped substantially. That is also why I love to create beautiful things during the winter. Quilting fabrics are bright, colorful ….cheery. Making and working with things that visually stimulate me helps, a lot.

A crocus is the first sign of spring and today it was an indicator that I have made it through another winter. 

It won’t be long before everything around me is in full color. Soon grass will be green again. I will be able to watch the sunlight dance on the brand new, shinny leaves of my cottonwood trees. I will see ladybugs tip toeing across my minnow narcissus,

 my grape hyacinths will bloom

 and for several months all will be right in my world again.

Not much going on around here

Rolls are rising, banana bread is baking, dinner is simmering, whites are washing and darks are fluffing. It must be a Monday. Hopefully something interesting will happen so I can have a picture to post today that doesn't revolve around food ;) Any suggestions?

February is Finished

Two thumbs up. Now I get to start a new calendar. I have only been tempted to NOT take a picture a few times but these calendars are going to keep me accountable. How lame would it look with a black hole? Have I mentioned lately how much I love the finale result?

I have also done one of the pages for week three but it is totally different than week one and two. Should that bother me? Should I use the same "look" for a whole month? Can I change it up from week to week? I think I can since it is mine but truth be told it is now going to bug me that week one and two are so similar and week three is not. I will be looking at it and singing in my head "which one of these is not like the other." The moral to this story? Don't be surprised if I change one of the weeks. On the other hand, don't be surprised if I don't.