Pictures taken by Clint on their hike

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Amish Friendship Bread

Okay! These last two post were more for me - so I can look them up again if I loose them in my paper stacks! (butter, friendship bread) So here's the story about friendship bread. I love the stuff, but I don't love having to deal with 4 cups of extra starter. But I've found the solution! I found a recipe for cinnamin rolls that uses some of the left over starter if you don't want to pass it on to someone else!
I got some friendship bread starter from some dear friends and I've been faithful and made some bread yesterday - Christmas of all days! I saved a bag of starter for myself and have one more bag to give someone - if you want it, call me! And I went on-line to see if anyone else had any suggestions on what they did with starter they didn't want to save or throw away.
I ran across a recipe for sourdough cinnamon rolls. That's basically what this friendship bread starter is - sourdough! And I tried it today with the 2 cups of starter I was just going to throw away.
They turned out great! So if you ever get a bag of starter for friendship bread, you can make a batch of bread AND a batch of cinnamon rolls every 10 days! Who doesn't love cinnamon rolls?!?!?! So here's the recipe. I'm also going to include the recipe along with the instruction for the other bag of starter I have to give away! And hopefully this starts a new tradition!

I had to try one to make sure they were okay:>}

Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
1 pkg active dry yeast (1 rounded tablespoon if you buy yeast in bulk like I do)
1 c. warm water (105-115 degrees)
2 cups sourdough starter (I used the starter the next day after dividing, so it sat one day)
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. butter or margarine, softened
2 tsp. salt
5-6 c. all purpose flour
Cinnamon filling (recipe follows)
1/4 c. butter or margarine melted
cream cheese frosting (recipe follows)

Dissolve yeast in warm water in large mixing bowl. Stir in sourdough starter, sugar, 1/2 c. butter, the salt and 1 cup of the flour. Beat on high speed 3 minutes. Stir in enough of the remaining flour to make dough easy to handle. Place dough on lightly floured board; cover with bowl. Let stand 10 minutes.
Make cinnamon filling.
Knead dough on lightly floured board until smooth and elastic, 10 minutes. Divide dough in half. Roll each half on well floured board into rectangle 15x9 inches. Brush each half with 2 tablespoons of the melted butter; spread each with half the cinnamon filling. Roll up, beginning at narrow end. Cut each roll into 9 slices. Place slices on greased baking sheets; cover. Let rise in warm place until double, about 1 1/2 hours. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Bake until golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. Make cream cheese frosting. Frost rolls while still warm.

Cinnamon Filling
1 c. packed brown sugar
2 c. finely chopped nuts
1/2 c. butter or margarine, melted
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
Mix all ingredients

Cream Cheese Frosting (the ONLY thing to put on cinnamon rolls!)
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 c. butter, softened
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 tsp. vanilla
Mix well

Disclaimer: I did not divide my dough in two, I just rolled it out. I did not use the cinnamon filling - I just did what I normally do when I make cinnamon rolls. And the original recipe I found called for powdered sugar glaze which called for hot coffee! I don't drink coffee and I prefer my cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting anyway! So So So much better that way! The next time I make them I might let the extra starter sit 4 or 5 days before making the cinnamon rolls.

Thanks tasteofhome.com for the sourdough cinnamon rolls recipe and recipezaar.com for the cream cheese frosting recipe! There was also a recipe for sourdough english muffins that I might try in 10 days when my starter is ready to divide again. I'll let you know how those turn out!

Canned Butter

Okay, I had a few questions from some of you and I'm going to try and answer them. First, Natalie canned her butter and gave a jar to each of her sister-in-laws. It turned out great! I don't know what I did to mine, but mine is still kind of liquid. It's slowly turning solid, but her's is already solid. So I'm going to give you the directions she followed to do hers. As to the questions about putting it in your garage - depends on how hot it gets there in the summer. Around here I wouldn't put my food storage in the garage - it's too hot and it needs to be kept at a decent temperature to stay good. So I would keep it in the pantry and rotate it and use it. Canned butter is suppose to have a 2-3 year shelf life (some web sites say 3-5 years)- alot better than in the freezer, plus it takes up space in there. I would can some and have some in the freezer too. I haven't used my canned butter yet - but I plan on it within the next month. So here's the directions that Natalie gave her sister-in-laws to do their own canned butter.

Use pint size mason jars and plan for a little less than 1 lb of butter to fit in a jar. Example: if canning 10 lbs of butter, use 11 jars.
Wash the jars and lids beforehand, the dishwasher is easy, then place the jars in the oven at 250 for 30 minutes (if butter is not ready yet, jars can stay in oven). The lids and rings go into simmering water until ready to use.
Slowly heat the butter to boiling and simmer for at LEAST 5 minutes. (It does foam, so use a deep pan to avoid boiling out) This is to help with keeping the butter from separating in the jar. Stir often to keep butter from burning. (You will have to stir it the whole 5 minutes or it will burn)
When the jars and butter are ready, pour the butter into the jars leaving about 1/2"-3/4" space for shaking. Wipe top of jars clean and place the lids on and secure with rings. Use a towel or something to hold the jars and shake them every 5 minutes, or so, as they cool to keep the butter from separating. You'll hear the lids "ping" as they cool and seal. Once they have sealed and are still slightly warm, put them in the fridge to cool a little faster, shaking every 5-10 minutes. Once the butter has solidified that's it.

I would mark the lids with the date. If you want smaller portions, you can also use half pint jars. And then start using your butter and rotating it when it's on sale! Simple and easy! Hope that helps! Happy canning!

You can buy canned butter in small cans, but it's expensive compared to doing your own!

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December Birthday Babies

Happy Birthday to my December Babies!

Didn't they turn out good!

And they were so cute! Still are!

JT was 9 pounds

Clinton was 10 pound 3 ounces and I will add it was all natural, with a midwife!

They both were fat, healthy, plump little boys and so much fun!

They've grown into handsome, wholesome, faithful men!

Glasgow Family Christmas Party

Welcome to the Glasgow Family Christmas Party!

Getting ready for the talent portion of the program

Kris and her kids

Dennis, Lona, Andrew, Linds, Dara, Lathe

Dallon, Emmee and Clint singing O Holy Night

The Johnson's singing Jingle Bell Rock, with a little

help from one of Laird's girls

That's a Kazoo in his mouth! Singing along!

Lairds girls singing Jingle Bell Rock

GraceAnn playing piano

Conner playing his song


Let's eat! Go Longhorns! Sorry I didn't have any pictures of the Nativity scene that Laird and his family did such a good job on. I was busy directing the music and didn't have my camera! Then we did the gift exchange and finally dessert! It was great to have all the family here except Tif and Ellee. We missed them! Merry Christmas everyone!

Lawlor Family Christmas Party

Welcome to the Lawlor Family Christmas Party! These are just some shots around the room from our table.

This is Bethany's little baby girl! Look at that hair! She's adorable!

Lawlor Family Christmas Party part 2

Grandma and Grandpa telling us of their Christmas's growing up

Each family was suppose to do some sort of talent, so our family did an audience participation story called "How Santa Got His Beard". Whenever I said "Santa, Sleigh, North Pole or Work Shop", the audience had to do the appropriate action and say the appropriate words. It was lots of fun and the kids enjoyed it too.

The Bingham family did this hilarious skit. They all walked out single file to an Enya song. They stood next to each other and would turn one way and they would take a swallow of water out of their pitcher and then spit it out on the person next to them one at a time! Then they would turn the opposite way and do it again. They did several other positions and then they went into a circle with Kirk in the middle and they all spit on him! It was so funny!

The famous Lawlor Family Nativity Scene.

And of course the famous Lawlor Family Dance. I missed getting pictures of the famous Hokey Pokey and Bunny Hop though!

Our trip to Louisianna

We had a wonderful time in Louisianna with Ellee and Geoffrey and Merik and Gavin. Below is a slideshow with some of the pictures we took. I only did about 5 different layouts before deciding on this one. And then when I got it all finished and saved, I realized I had left out one very important picture! This one! I don't know how I did that. But with all the figuring and refiguring and moving around, it got left out! This was taken on Sunday, after church. Their ward is great. It even has a 15-18 member choir! Stanley had fun greeting people as they came in! He couldn't resist! Anyway, let's backtrack to the beginning. We left Tuesday and went by way of Kearny to pick up some green chili burros! They are really good (thanks Bro. Reed for sharing) and we wanted to pick some up to take to Ellee and Geoffrey cuz they don't have "real" mexican food in Louisianna! We spent the night in Pecos (pronounced Pay-cus) at a little hotel with a very comfortable king size bed! We would have loved to stay a little longer in Pecos to see the Judge Roy Bean Museum, but didn't have time this time! We might go back to see it some day! We arrived at our motel about 5:00 that night and went over to Ellee's and brought presents! We were excited to see everyone again! We got the turkey ready and put it in the roaster to cook all night. Thanksgiving day we woke up to thick fog! It was pretty cool! Ellee was busy preparing everything when we got there and we sat down to eat about 12:30. It was very good! We went back to the motel for a nap and went back over for pie. Oh! Before we went back to the motel we wanted to find some dry ice and tried several places before seeing a gas station with $1.07 gas! We pulled in (not really needing gas) to see if they had dry ice and find out what was going on and they told us they were having a gas war with the station across the street, they were getting ready to change it back and we were last in line! So we went and got 7 gal. It was pretty funny! And Great! We only wish our tank was more empty to get more! Friday we woke up to thunder and rain. Ellee and Geoffrey went out on a date while we watched the boys and then Ellee made delicious potato soup for dinner. It was perfect for a wet, rainy, chilly day! Saturday we went to the Red River Boardwalk and parked outside the Bass Pro Shop. I don't know what was going on, but people were coming from everywhere - they were even parking out in the grass. We've never seen so many people in camo outfits! They have the coolest yet weirdest Christmas tree there at the front door as you go in! I've never seen a tree decorated with animals and deer heads and a bear for the star! They also have alligators outside in a little pond. Cool stuff! We walked around outside and took pictures and ate lunch and then we loaded up the boys in our car and Ellee and Geoffrey went to see another movie while we went home. They brought home bar-b-que for dinner that was pretty good - almost as good as Waldo's here in town. Waldo's sauce is better. Sunday we went to church and enjoyed their meetings very much. Two gave good talks (one was the Bishop) in church and the choir sang. We went to our motel afterwards and had a nap (something we haven't done in 4 years!) then went back over to Ellee's for dinner. She made some Jumbalie (sp?) basically rice with seasoning, sausage and left over turkey. It was very good. Ellee took great care of us while we were there. We had fun with the boys and enjoyed everyone's company while we were there. We hated to leave, but had to get home to the real world. We decided to go a different way home, going up through Artesia, NM which I later learned was part of the Chisum ranch (for all you John Wayne fans, you know what that is) and up through a tall mountain pass (8700 feet) and down to Alamagordo (3500 feet) and White Sands. We decided to go to the White Sands Missle Museum there on the base. It was pretty interesting to see all the artifacts and rockets and instruments. Then we got back on the highway at Las Cruces and headed for home. We had a safe journey even through the eternal construction in Tucson! The boys kept the house and did a good job. Everything was clean when we got home - can't say that now that I've unloaded everything! But I'm working on getting it back in shape - putting stuff away! It's good to be home, but we miss Ellee and her family! Thanks for a great time - we enjoyed it very much!

Our trip to Louisianna

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Canned Butter!

I did it! I canned butter! This is some of it. Isn't it pretty! ?! These are pint jars, they hold one pound of butter each. I plan on doing smaller jars that will hold half a pound. Some things I learned from this process. It is very easy. The butter stays in a liquid form. The butter will also seperate, but all you have to do is gently shake it. I put it in the fridge and it became solid, but when I took it out, it returned to it's liquid form. So, if I were to open a jar, I would put it in the fridge. I'm not sure what would happen if I used it in its liquid form to bake something like cookies. I'll have to try it - I'd probably put it in the fridge for just a little while to harden it just a bit before using it in baking. I'll let you know later how that works out when I try it. I love cooking with butter, it's all our family uses, so I'm excited to have some for emergencies!

Just a couple of notes

Last night, we went and finally saw the movie, "Fireproof". If you have not seen this movie, you should! It's very good - 3-4 hankies! It is a Christian based movie and done very well. Not as good as our church does, but good just the same.

Check out: http://preparetodaynewsletter.blogspot.com/2008/11/keeping-warm-in-winter-weather.html

It has good advice for staying warm during a winter emergency. You should all read it and prepare. I've heard rumors that this will be a very cold winter! Prepare! It's better to be prepared and have nothing happen than not prepared and have an emergency and suffering the consequences!

Fry's has butter on sale right now and I'm going to can it! If you want to know how, go to:
http://frugalabundance.com/homecannedbutter.htm for how to's.

We had a girls lunch and discussed our 3 month food supply. This would be perfect for it! There's lots of good sales going on this holiday season, so plan ahead, buy a little more and be prepared!

Thanks Grandma for the Halloween Treats!!

Thank you Grandma Lawlor for the yummy Halloween treat.
I gave these to the boys the morning of Halloween.
Caption under each picture

Anxiously waiting for our Halloween surprise

Gavin enjoying his

Merik enjoying his

Sitting together and eating them up. Merik finished his and Gavin managed to eat the head off of tigger, and then I took it away, 'cause Merik was ready for the other treat. Gavin takes to long to eat anything and his was bigger anyways

The last surprise was a Mario candy dispenser, that shoots the candy out. The boys loved these, especially because the car comes of so you can play with it.

Old Family Pictures

These are called "Memory Puzzle Blocks"

(Dwain and Grandpa Porter)
When we went to Utah for Gen. Conf. I ran into the woman who came up with this idea, showing it at a table in front of the Church History Museum gift shop. It's so cool! I bought one of her kits and came home and did it. I scanned some old pictures from my Grandma Porters books, went to the web page (http://www.storiesbyme.com/) where they have the template to load your 6 pictures and adjust them to fit the way you want, add words and then print. It's really easy and fun to do! The kits are $20 and include everything you need. (Once you've done one, you could buy the blocks somewhere cheaper and do it yourself) If you've ever done anything with ModPodge this is another exciting idea! You can also do other things with old pictures, like the wood picture frames, or whatever. It's just a neat idea to get you and your kids interested in family history! You don't have to use old pictures either, you could do one with pictures of your babies, or family, etc. Check out her web site for other neat ideas. She also has updates on how to make it better. I'm making something for Christmas using this idea of old pictures. I'll post it later when it's finished! Hope it turns out good!

(This is only four of the 6 different sides)

Grandpa Porter and Verdaun

Grandma and Grandpa's Wedding Day

Sharon, Grandpa, Grandma, Verdaun, Doran and Dwain

Stitches!

I wish we had a count of how many stitches Clinton has had in his life! Yesterday at work his hand slipped while drilling in a screw and his hand was sliced by another screw on the wall! Thus the 5 stitches! Hope the pictures aren't too graphic!