Moments in March

 

 

 

Isabelle's first batch of cinnamon rolls sans any help from Mom as I was gone at our church's women's retreat. They were declared delicious by all who had them!

 

 

 

 

Good Morning Birthday Boy!

I don't know how I missed this cutie pie picture in his birthday post...I couldn't resist!

 

 

 

 

 

Cowboy Kitchen Crew

 

 

 

Celebrating Ressurection Sunday with our sweet friends the van den Heuvel's and Grandma Kay. 

 It was replete with delicious food, excellent fellowship and good 'ol football!

 

 

 

 

 



Hell, Fire and Brimstone

In February, Chad and Mitchell attended our church men's retreat and it is a tradition with this retreat to hold a food contest. All the work on the recipe and presentation HAS to be completed by the MEN only. The boys were proud of thier accomplishment... Mitchell created the food and Chad created the presentation! Being that both the boys love hot stuff and Chad's an electrician, the combination of the food and presentation was just perfect for them!

 



Jalapeno Chicken Wraps

1 lb. bnls sknls chicken breasts

1T garlic powder

1T onion powder

1T pepper

2 tsp season salt

1 tsp paprika

1 small onion, cut in strips

15 jalapeno peppers halved and seeded

1 lb bacon, halved widthwise

Cut chicken into 2" x 1.5" strips. In large Ziploc bag combine garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, seasoned salt and paprika. Add chicken to bag and coat chicken. Place a strip of chicken and a strip of onion in each jalapeno half and wrap the jalapeno in 1 strip of the halved lengthwise bacon. Secure with toothpick. Grill uncovered, over indirect medium heat for 18-20 minutes or until chicken juices runs clear and bacon is crisp, turning once. Serve with ranch or blue chees dressing.

In which I catch up on a few posts...

So, being the lax blogger that I am, I have taken many a photo over the last few months with grand intentions of blogging and here I am mass producing all those ideas in one compilation post!  Well, I console myself with the lame thought… “at least I am getting them on the blog then eventually in the blog book I will create for our memories”…. Uh yah…. how much better it would be just to do the posts at the relevant time!  In my mind I often think I have to write a lengthy post to go with the photos when in reality many of the blogs I read often just do a quick line or snippet under the photo which captures the content of the post!  Well, no one ever told me I talk to LITTLE, that’s for sure!  I guess that translates into writing also.

Here goes the snippets…..

 

 

Photography

Isabelle wanted to try her hand at photography with a real camera so away she went!  She wanted to capture a quiet moment of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.  She set up the Playmobile nativity, turned out the lights, and convinced her sweet, agreeable younger brother William to hold the flashlight for an unknown amount of time while she snapped countless photos. She enjoyed it immensely and got a shot she was happy with, a great learning experience!

Christmas Baking

 Yesterday was a very fun day of Christmas baking with dear friends.  Jodi and I have been friends for many years, she is a treasure to me!  We met long ago in MOPS when all of our kiddos were little, Mitchell was 4, Isabelle was just 6 weeks old and her two, Alyssa and Riley were just 6 & 2!  The Lord has knit our hearts together over the years, and through the ebb and flow of life He has created a strong and deep friendship between us.  I am so grateful for the sovereign hand of the Lord intertwining our lives together as sisters in Christ and dear friends!  Years ago we did Christmas baking together but as our families got bigger and busier our baking together slid by the wayside.  I am happy to say we resurrected the tradition this year and have all intentions to reinstate the baking as an annual event … hopefully! J

 

We made lots of nummy stuff….  Frosted Sugar Cookies, Caramel Filled Chocolate Cookies, Peanut Butter Balls, a perpetual favorite…..Rolo Turtles and our new absolute favorite … Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti from allrecipes.com … wow those are CRAZY GOOD!

  

 Cranberry Pistachio Biscotti

 

1/4 cup olive oil                1 3/4 cup flour             

3/4 cup white sugar           1/4 tsp. salt

2 tsp. vanilla extract          1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. almond extract      1/2 cup dried cranberries

2 eggs                                 1 1/2 cups pistachio nuts

 

 Directions:

 

- Preheat oven to 300 degrees

- In a large bowl, mix together oil and sugar until well blended.  Mix in the vanilla and almond extracts, then beat in the eggs.  Combine flour, salt and baking powder; gradually stir into egg mixture. 

- Mix in cranberries and nuts by hand

- Divide dough in half.  Form two logs (12x2 inches) on a cookie sheet that has been lined with parchment paper.  Dough may be sticky; wet hands with cool water to handle dough more easily. 

- Bake for 35 minutes in the preheated oven, or until logs are light brown.  Remove from oven, set aside to cool for 10 minutes. Reduce oven heat to 275 degrees.

- Cut logs on diagonal into 3/4 - 1 inch thick slices. Lay on sides on parchment covered cookie sheet.  - Bake approximately 8-10 minutes or until dry.  Cool. 

                                                       

*A couple notes- the dough is VERY wet and seems almost too wet to form into a log but it does work.  Also, we dipped ours in chocolate for extra yumminess!

 

 

 

 



A Gathering of the Who's

Izzzy-Lou Who and Shelley-Sue Who off to a Whoville Party with some nummy Who-Pop!

 

Much fun was had by all! 

 

 

 

 

 

The original recipe for the candied popcorn was found here … Fruity Kool-Aid Candied Popcorn … but I will share the Honey Who - Pop recipe with my adjustments. Since this recipe was somewhat similar to my caramel corn I knew how I wanted to adjust it.  I halved everything in the recipe except the baking soda and I didn’t use a candy thermometer.  Having made my caramel corn so often I know you simply get it to a boil and boil for 5 minutes.  We used Tropical Punch flavored Kool-Aid so the popcorn had a “fruity pebbles” flavor, but you could use any flavor you want! 

 

 

Honey Who - Pop

 

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1/3 cup butter

1 envelope Kool-Aid any flavor

1 tsp. baking soda

15+ cups popped popcorn (I popped 3 batches of popcorn in our Whirly Pop)

 

 

Preheat oven to 250 degrees

 

Be sure to remove all of the popcorn kernels and place popcorn into a large bowl. 

 

Lightly grease a large turkey roaster pan or a jelly roll pan.  A turkey roaster pan with sides just makes it easier when stirring the popcorn during baking but I use both kinds of pans all the time. 

 

In a small bowl combine the Kool-Aid packet with 1 tsp baking soda, set aside.

 

In a medium size saucepan melt the sugar, corn syrup and butter over medium heat. 

Bring to a boil and boil for 5 minutes. 

 

Remove from heat and stir in the Kool-Aid and baking soda mix. Stir for a solid 20 - 30 seconds until all is mixed well.  The mixture will foam but that is expected.  

 

Pour the hot sugar mixture over the popped popcorn. 

Work carefully but quickly and mix until well combined. 

 

Spread popcorn into the turkey roaster or jelly roll pan.

 

Place in pre-heated oven and bake for 40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. 

 

Remove the popcorn and immediately spread it out onto waxed paper or foil to cool.  Break it apart into pieces as you lay it out.  Store in an airtight container to maintain crunch. 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Snowmen

I felt badly about throwing out our cute pumpkins at the end of fall so we decided to turn them into snowmen. I am NOT a crafty person but, I did a quick search and found this fun blog post and the process seemed (and was) pretty simple.  I spray painted the pumpkins we used for the body and head white and the ones we would use for the hats I spray painted black.  After I initially spray painted them white, the orange was still showing through and Chad suggested spray white primer instead of paint and that worked very well for coverage (then I remembered that the gal who did the post said something like that!).  We let them dry a day or so then we used shish kabob sticks to hold the three pumpkins together, we didn’t use any glue for stacking.  We simply stacked them up with the shish kabob sticks, hot glue gunned on the buttons for eyes, the leaf for a nose and the cranberries for the mouth.  We had to cut the leaf to the desired shape and we found that cranberries cut in half worked better also.  Isabelle ripped some material to make the scarves and wala… pumpkin snowmen!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Isabelle named hers "Cindy Lou Who"

 



PJ Ice Cream Run

... minus the oldest Man-Child ...  Mitchell was off having fun at his bud Joel's that night!

 

 

 

 



Turkey Trot 2012

Yesterday was SO MUCH FUN!!! I was so nervous for nothing!  I did not sleep well at all the night before, even with a melatonin! You know what I mean?  The kind of sleep where you know your brain is still on and running in the background?!?  I was nervous on so many levels.  Afraid it would be a competitive (not fun) run, afraid of the unknown terrain and simply afraid I might struggle to finish it … even though I have been running 3 miles (and sometimes more) 3x’s a week!

 I am so DELIGHTED that I ran it! It was so not what I was anxious over, AT ALL!  It was FUN and the group we had made it much more than fun… it is a precious memory I will always treasure! We had a fantastic group of runners….some newer runners, some old runners and some cold turkey runners!!   I finished in 37 minutes and some unknown seconds, I forgot to look!  I was the last one of our group to come in (and believe me I am SO ok with that) and there was something quite special about having almost 20 people cheering for you as you come to the end!  I had to fight back tears!  Even with no desire to “compete” in my times, just to run and finish it felt like such an accomplishment!!  

It was also very fun to have Mrs. Vandenbos there.  She is a much loved piano teacher for quite a few in our group of runners, including Mitchell!  She is a marathon runner, so this 5K was small potatoes for her I’m sure!  She did great and she joined us for our “after” photo!

So many in our group did so well! There was about 200 - 300 people participating and many of our group finished under the 30 minute mark (or just over)and we even had some ribbons that were won!  Mitchell finished nicely under 30 minutes, which was his goal.  Taylor B. won 1^st for her age group, Roscoe P. won 3^rd (I believe it was) for his age group, Titus B. got 3^rd in his age group and my sweet hubby got third for his age group with a 21:01 and 19^th overall.  I am so proud of him! He was in the 30-39 age group but the two that beat him were younger than him!  No one the same age as him or in the next age group up (40-49) finished before him! I keep telling him that he should actually train more over the next few months so when he turns 40 he will be ready to really run!!  He was quite the runner in HS and when we were first married.  He commonly ran his mile in HS in the 4:20’s with his best time being a 4:10!!! He used to finish his 5K’s between 15-16 minutes! The last official race he ran was almost 18 years ago, about a year after we were married, the Frost Bite Foot Race in Anchorage.  This is a race held in downtown Anchorage in JANUARY!  It was in the single digits for temp. and that did not include the wind chill, it was crazy cold!!   It was very special to me to run my first “race” together with Chad and Mitchell.

We finished our adventure off with a delicious feast at the E’s home…. Egg casserole, Quiche, Blueberry pancakes, sausage, fruit, cinnamon rolls, coffee and sweet fellowship!   It was a very special morning on so many levels.  Completing the Turkey Trot  was an awesome milestone for me, but experiencing it with those dear to my heart was the icing on the cake!  I can’t wait to do it again!!

 

 

 

 

 Before the run....

 



 

 

After...

(some don't look any worse for the wear)

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

REALLY?!?!

 

 

Well, a seed about the size of those pictured below spent the afternoon in JD's nose yesterday!  Somehow he got the notion to put an orange seed up his nostril!  REALLY?!!?? I had just stepped out of the shower when Shelley comes running up the stairs to tell me that JD had put an orange seed up his nostril!  As I stood there in disbelief, I started thinkin' about what to do. Of course he tried to pick it out, which as you can imagine did not help one bit! I tried to get it out myself with tweezers and then an opened paper clip, closing the other nostril and having him blow really hard ..... needless to say, nothing prevailed.  I started thinking I was going to have to take him in somewhere but our DR's office was closed for the lunch hour and I considered the ER for a moment but thankfully we have our dear friend Dr. Dan E!  I gave him a quick call and he calmed my fears and reminded me that the nasal passages open into the mouth and eventually with some flushing of the nasal passages it should come out in his mouth or he will simply swallow it! Of course this all happens just as we were getting ready to head to my class at church, so with no more available time to begin anymore extraction procedures we continued on to our class, orange seed in the nasal passage and all!  The end of the story is quite simple.  I was going to wait until the evening time to work on the flushing out when Chad was home. I knew we would need Daddy's expertise on this.  When we got home from class, I was in the kitchen when Shelley came in and said, "Momma, the seed is much farther down now, you can really see it."  JD had sneezed a few times in the van on the way home and I was hoping that because of the sneezing it had moved it down a bit and I believe it did!  I put him up on the counter and laid him back.  I could see it much better this time.  At first we tried to use a turkey baster to suck it out...thank you sweet Barb for the suggestion but it didn't quite get it out even though it did help to bring it down a little more. He was of course fighting me on wanting to lay still and allow me to get in there as I needed.  So, with the promise of a bowl of ice cream if he laid very still I was able to get the tweezers in there and wala...extract a VERY LARGE orange seed!  As I looked at it I began to wonder if it really could have made it through his tiny nasal passages! Thankfully we needn't wonder, extraction successful and mission accomplished!

 

"Never a dull moment", as Papa used to say.

 

 

 

 

(photo credit)

 

 

 

 

Redneck

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our neighbor's "trampoline" ...  UUMM ... I LOVE that we live in the country!

 

 

 



Sleeping Under the Stars …. Kinda

Last night we had an outdoor movie night and a sleepover under the stars…or under the pop-up to be more precise! The kiddos love to sleep outside at least once over the hot summer days and Chad has been itching to do an outdoor movie with the projector.  It was the perfect night to watch one of our favorites, National Treasure 2 and take our slumber in the great out of doors! The only sad part is that Mitchell has been gone for a week at his BPD Explorer Academy in Pasco so he was not home to join us.  He will most certainly be in unbelief that I actually participated in the sleeping outdoors part! I am absolutely a “motorhomer” not a “true camper”, let alone a “sleep outdoors under the stars-er” but I was determined to make it through the night! I have never yet, in all the years of them sleeping outdoors, joined them in the fun! The phrase “I can’t believe you are still out here Momma” was heard more than once into the late evening!  Isabelle took advantage of the situation and used her fingers to simulate a bug crawling in my hair as we were drifting off to sleep….needless to say, she got the reaction from me she was hoping to hear!  I know we did not officially “sleep under the stars” with the pop-up above us, but I was ever so thankful for the cover as I heard the drip of condensation and dew hit the ground all night!  As much as I was longing for my own bed, it was quite a joy to peek out and see the amazing stars, here the coyotes howling much closer than usual, feel and smell the cool night air and to see God’s beautiful sunrise come up over the berries and farms around us.  Precious memories made.

Ummm....is it just me or does this photo make Isabelle look like she has a TON of make up on?!?
No worries....no make up...at all!



Our Favorite Part of Summer

There is hardly anything we look forward to more as a family than our annual church campout! Even though this is our family's 11th year attending, we never tire of the anticipation and then the joy of the actual event! This year was no different and we were blessed with incredible weather and much fun had by all!

Just a few of the memories..... campfires, friends, nummy food, loads of fellowship, Eschbach Annual Pancake Toss, lots of laughter, SCBC Olympic Games, tea parties, croissants roasted on an open fire for breakfast (the best ever!), endless bike riding and "goin' round the loop", fishing, soaking in the sun, running, and all things smores....regular smores, Reeses PB smores and York Peppermint Patty smores.....mmmmm mmmmm good!

JD is "ready" for his water balloon in the water balloon toss!

Chad came up with some creative ways to label his cups this year,

this one was a favorite!

Fishing with the Barbie pole! :-)



A Little, Little House

I love imaginative play and there is nothing like an old barn and castaway supplies to get the imaginations of children going! Myself and  ALL of our kiddos, including Mitchell (sorry honey), have long loved The Little House on the Prairie.  Many hours were spent reading the books and watching the old show... in fact we have all 9 seasons on DVD!  While the show was not perfect to the book, it was endearing all in itself.  Chad loves to joke that the only hymn they know is “Bringing in the Sheaves” and that Michael Landon takes his shirt off every third episode….I think the latter is a proven fact!  Nonetheless, this sweet series has been and always will be a family favorite.   So… we have this old red barn on the back of our property and boy have the children made a home away from home!  Unfortunately Chad’s desired storage space in the red building has been inched out little by little over the last couple years as the children have expanded their once “little room” to a full “little house” for play! I love that they will spend countless hours in sun, rain or snow playing out there!  They have what they consider a pioneer kitchen, a pantry, a fireplace and sitting area, a bedroom and a dining table. They have made everything from vegetable soup to banana mush to their own ink and quill…that actually worked for a while!  What I love the absolute most is that they have worked and played long hours together to create this “Little, Little House” and in the process, created priceless memories.

I guess SuperMan spans the ages! :-)

I love that in the midst of the pioneer home we have a cordless phone!