While You Were Wishing.....

I have a lot more I'm going to post about our recent trip to Utah and other fun stuff but I thought a quick laugh might do us all some good.......you might have to watch twice, once watching Saryn and the other watching Sydney.  We're not sure where this approach to wishing came from but it gave Saryn a great window of opportunity. Thankfully, we caught her before Sydney had a clue.

Traditions

I'm becoming a very big fan of traditions! I once read a book on fun family traditions. It was more of an idea book, but still fun to read and think about what traditions I want to adopt for my own family. One of the traditions my mom started was making cinnamon rolls every six months for general conference weekend. I think the tradition started off with her making them one year and ever since then, we've hounded her to make them -- sometimes traditions need that little extra push!

For some VERY ODD reason my mom wanted to make a different recipe. I was floored and insisted we make the Heather Humble original recipe (if you want it, let me know). So, this year we decided to have a cinnamon roll bake off. Allie and I were sure to win!

Here's my mom putting the goods into her new recipe. We gave her a hard time and talked as much smack as you can with cooking.

Sydney was the neutral party. She was just happy to be in the kitchen with the big girls.

I do love that Sydney was able to help. A tradition past on from grandma, to mom, to her. We called my sis, Kristi, wishing she was there to help make them and she said she made hers the previous night. Nice, Kris!
Allie and I decided to double the recipe and make one without nuts (her way) and one with nuts (my way). I don't see how anyone (unless there's an allergy--understandable) wouldn't want yummy caramelized nuts on their sweet roll! Weirdos! I think Allie was hesitant even helping me put on the nuts here. I was just happy to throw on a bit more!

Check out those swirls!

And here they are in all their yumminess! Did I mention they freeze well and are still yummy when reheated!
Some other traditions during conference weekend go a little something like this...

Jeff dreaming of cinnamon rolls

Sean dreaming of cream cheese frosting...

Sydney, trying to take part in all the conference traditions and patiently waiting her treat!

My Dad, probably playing mime sweep, solitaire or checking on football stats.

I never mentioned how great conference was. I love how there are just a few that really stand out. I wish I could have paid more attention to more of the talks. That will be a tradition I try to start next time.

We Came, We Canned, We Contracted

So there were a few of us that decided to be a little domestic and can a few items. We have to give a lot of the credit to those who inspired us, my bro Sean and his wife Allie canned so many things several months ago and that kicked up into gear. It took us a month to reserve the canner from the church cannery, and we really had no idea what we were in for. A friend and I loaded the kids up in the mini-van to get the monster of a machine, 100 metal cans, 100 lids, a few boxes, oxygen tablets, a few plastic lids, and more food to can. If we would of known it would take so much room in the car not to mention the length of time it took to get things organized, we would have gotten sitters for the kids. They hit their point of patience sitting in the car for more than an hour. We went through several snacks, peek-a-boo games, and I don't know how many times the Baby Einstein soundtrack ran. They were DONE by the time we pulled up to the house.

Saryn had cried herself to sleep, Lincoln was on the verge of pulling his cute red hair out and Spence was having a hay day clinking the cans together which made the trip that much more enjoyable. I'm glad we at least fit all the cans in the car. This picture doesn't do it justice. The back was completely full so we stashed them anywhere they'd fit and not get too bent out of shape.

This is only some of them. The rest of the cans were covering other counters in the house.

Ashley modeling the beast! Did I mention that she was due any day in this pic and had a baby shower this same week we were hoping she would make?

Lisa's due in December and has been on bed rest a few times, but we still made a great canning team! We all experienced a few contractions during the process. 
The finished product! Canned, flour, oats, milk, dried apples and wheat. It really was so easy! I don't think I'm as intimidated about the whole canning thing anymore! Sign me up and give me a hair net!

Till next time! 

Preschool and Parties

So, Spencer started his first day of preschool a few weeks ago. He was very excited about it and also excited about the sun shining right in his face for this picture. He was even excited to put on his backpack just to walk right back in the door to meet one of his teachers (Me--I was assigned to kick off the first day).  I'm doing a home preschool with a few other moms in the neighborhood. It's pretty low key, but at least something fun for us to look forward to once a week for a few hours.

The letter of the day was "I" and so we thought ice cream made for a fun theme. My parents have the best homemade lemon ice cream recipe they snagged from someone years ago, so I wanted to try it out for myself. We were lucky enough to borrow their ice cream maker for the day and were all set with the rest of the ingredients. This lemon ice cream isn't too tart. It reminds me of Italian Gelato. Maybe because it has 4 cups of sugar in it. We pretty much skipped all the preschool welcome "stuff" and had to jump right in to the letter "I" and the two different sounds it makes. Then we talked about some fun facts about how ice cream got started. These are 2 of my favorite facts...

*Favorite Fact #1 Nancy Johnson (from New Jersey) was the woman who invented the ice cream maker (in 1841). Thank You, Nancy!

*Favorite Fact #2 In St. Louis, (1904) two vendors were parked next to each other -- a vendor selling waffles and a vendor selling ice cream. When the ice cream vendor ran out of cups, the waffle vendor offered some of his waffles. This is where we get our ice cream in a waffle cone!!! Some things were just meant to be.

Recipe for Lemon Ice Cream

2 Qt. Milk

1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream

4 Cups Sugar

1 Cup Lemon Juice

1 1/2 tsp. Lemon Extract

Mix all ingredients together and place in ice cream maker. Place rock salt and ice cubes around the inner part of the machine. It takes about 45 min. to 1 hour to circulate and form. Makes 1 gallon. 

Here they are beginning the ice cream process.

The kids were very helpful putting the different ingredients in. We only had 1 milk spill and a few sugar sprinkles fall on to the table. They were more than happy to help clean those up with their little fingers. This picture is to show how they have become experts on the ice cream making machine and are so proud of their creation.

Enjoying their creamy creation... (Emma)

(Mya)

(Spencer)

(Tyler)

Because they weren't able to do fun toppings on their lemon ice cream, we did a fun craft instead with styrofoam balls, paint and pom-poms. I think they look almost edible!
So, preschool was on Thursday and then Friday we celebrated Spencer's 4th birthday. We sent out Transformer invitations thinking we'd do something along the lines of Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots, but slowly the theme turned to Star Wars and Darth Vader. 
I decided a Darth (also the name of our loser cruiser) cake was out of my expertise, so I opted for a good moon cake (not THAT kind of moon cake). Though I wouldn't consider myself a cake decorator, I still enjoy pretending that what I am working on will come out as a masterpiece. I think these mini-oreo cookies made for some great craters. The action figures below are from Jeff's childhood collection. Good Job Jan for hanging onto those babies. I probably would have gone through a cleaning streak and tossed them years ago! They were perfect for the party.
We started the party off with a fun craft. If you're looking for an easy mess free craft idea these nuudles work great! They're like the packing peanuts for packages, but they're colorful and when you dip them onto a damp sponge they'll stick together. The goal was to make spaceships, but instead they were making boats and baskets. I'm sure Darth might have liked to fly in a colorful basket.
After crafts, the boys were put through a Jedi training camp. They had to drink Jedi juice (kool-aid) and then they were presented with their Jedi headbands and light sabers. I have to admit, I've always called them life savers because that just what they sounded like to me. I have now learned after all these years of Star Wars in my life that the correct term is light saber. Jeff has plenty of other stories to tell about all the terms I confuse, but I think in all honesty this one was tricky for me to change. I never call swords sabers, they're just swords to me. I'm glad I could learn a new vocab. word, but I still think saver sounds better.

I think my favorite is Jedi Saryn in this picture.

Here's a closer look at this warrior space woman. Can you tell she's saying "cheese"?

Part of the camp (Jeff was in charge) was that they had to tackle an obstacle course and figure out how to use the force while using their light saber's blind folded.

When they were ready they each got to fight Darth. One of the little guys cried so I had to take the mask off for awhile. I do look pretty fearsome in this child sized suit. Jeff was supposed to do this, but in the end I took on the Darth role and headed towards the dark side.

We wrapped the party up with pizza, cake and gifts and bid our little Jedi friends a safe travel home.

Here's a little video clip of the training these young Jedi's went through.