Love is in the Air

This valentines banner took like an hour and it was so worth it. It seriously is making me so happy everytime I pass by the living room. I am so over these curtains though. Drool over the felt hearts, not the curtains...

Woah, these are way goooooood!

 

thumbprint cookies

 Aww, thumbprint cookies are so cute. With a fudgy texture and deep chocolate flavor, these are not your average thumbprint cookie. You can use any kind of jam you like. Of course they’re good with your typical strawberry or raspberry jam, but there are so many possibilities like peach or blueberry!

1/3 cup canola oil
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup soy milk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt

3-4 tablespoons jam, your choice

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a medium-sized bowl, mix the oil, sugar, soy milk, and extracts.
Sift in the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt and stir until completely mixed. Add a bit more flour if the dough looks wet.

Shape into tablespoon-sized balls and place on a lightly oiled or parchment-lined baking sheet (do not flatten) and bake for 9 minutes.

Remove from oven and using your thumb, press into each cookie, making a thumbprint. Put about 1/2 teaspoon jam on each cookie. Return to the oven and bake for 3 more minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool and enjoy!

Ramdoms

This one is for Gramma Gail!

I love this shot of Jane and Charlie grinding wheat on the back deck in winter. This is Charlie's weekly job and he is awesome at it.

Grammy got Jane and I these matching skirts. Jane loves to wear them on the same day to church and I don't know how I feel about that- but I do it anyway as to not rain on her parade.

Are these guys real ??

Interesting note, my mom knit Charlie's sweater for Eli like 25 years ago.

Birthday Love

Alright, so I whined a lot about turning 29. I can't imagine what age would be worse. But I have to say, it ended up being a really special birthday for me. Timmy was awesome (even though he didn't give me a concert like I asked for :0)) but he did get a babysitter so we got to go out for the evening and he made the day fun with the kids. 

These shots are from the party we had at moms for al the Dec/Jan birthdays in our family which is almost all of us! Yes, that is a marble slab ice cream cake... It was fun to do that together but we missed 

Mark-arama who wasn't home in time. Jared's birthdat is on Feb. 1, which means he's only 1 day later than our Dec/Jan group tradional birthday parameters and he chooses to opt out of the group party to have all the birthday glory to himself...

Mom got me Emma, the last book I needed for my new collection of the classics. Jane got Alice in Wonderland which happens to be bound in pink and white flamingos. Cute!

I ramdomly posted this cuff on my blog a while ago and mom found it for me. It was a way fun surprse. Its even more beautiful in real life. I am totally trying to flex my bulging bicept here in case you couldn't tell.

The Walters handmade these chopsticks for me, from a tree at the temple. How neat is that. I was thrilled by the presentation and creativity. Plus, Amber delivered them herself, even though she'd given birth only days before. It was an honor to be her first venture from the house.

Now for Jody. She was a birthday fairy and seriously made, not my day, but my life! It was so nice to have her and her darling kids visit with me for the afternoon (even though my kids were wild!).  Its such a  treat when the Wood's drop by. She brought me a basket full of treats and every single one was thoughtful. I could tell she put a lot of thinking into each item.  I felt so loved and blessed. I keep having these moments where I use something she brought for me and think to myself, "I cannot believe she did that for me." or "How did she think of that!" or "Why am I so lucky to have Jody as my friend??"

Anyways, thank you everyone for all the sweet phone calls and Birthday wishes.

Mom is a Crafting Goddess

So my mom made one of these for each of the kids and I LOVED them. They are the coolest things. Each one had a different print on the outside and inside. This one is Jane's. Its this little pouch that they all tote around and they are filled with little things- Jane's being all kinds of Birdies. There are these little pockets and the sides so each animal has its own little home. Jacob's was cowboys and indians fabric so it was filled with that etc. Darling! And of course they were sewn to perfection.

Mom also made these delightful little dress-up dolls which have such cute pets, hats, dresses and shoes that I can't resist playing with them myself. They are made out of many layers of fabric and them some wonder under.

My cousin Brendy got me this print and it warmed my heart that she could pick something out that I would have picked out myself. I really really would have, I love it so much. It says,

 "She learned to cup possibility in her hands"

So beautiful.

This is so random but I loved this puzzle. Its called a family puzzle and Cobble Hill makes it. What is so cool about it is that there are 3 sizes of pieces so one side is for kids and then as you move towards the other side the pieces get smaller so the kids can be working on one side while the adults to the hard pieces. Mc Clever.

And this guy loves puzzles.

Family Love

My mom and dad got to fly to Tokyo and meet with the boss man. I love this picture of dad, he looks so handsome and distinguished. I think its the white shirt and tie. One of these days he'll be wearing this every sunday...

I like these little clay houses. I have such happy associations with the word home and I feel that is a rich blessing.

Speaking of home, I got a quick snapshot of my parents fridge by the end of our visits there isn't much room left. I wonder if they all come down the minute we leave??

One of my goals this year is to have overflowing fruit/veg bowls like mom and dad always have.

I wanted to post this watercolor we had done Christmas. Us four kids got it for mom and dad. It turned out really nice. We got it from this Etsy Shop  He does custom house portraits.

Jody Wood is Good

Today Jody came over to help me with my homemade bread issues. Complicated stuff like pan size, oven temperature, baking time, air bubbles, amount of dough in pans and mixing time- its actually really scientific! So we cracked the case, well, Jody did. She can run circles around me in the kitchen. Seriously, she's like 4 times as fast at everything. It was like having my own baking coach, one on one tutoring. I felt pretty lucky. Between the  2 of us, and 8 kids (I was babystting 2 others + her 2 + my four) we baked 12 loaves, trying 2 different variations of recipes and some cinnamon buns. It was such a satisfying afternoon- I learned a lot, the house smelled so cozy, and I got Jody all to myself. We had a wonderful visit (I sort of talked her head off) over our "grass sandwiches" and I felt so lifted by her. Someday we'll have super fresh honey from her very own honeybees to put on our bread too.

Scarlet but we call her Skillet

She looks like her aunt Brooke to me here. I think its the big eyes.

Thank you for the dress Amy! She made it out of her bridesmaid dress from my wedding.

Scarlet and daddy at the skating rink

The Christmas Baby

Mark got this way cool collage from Mariah. It said "My Best Friend" in Farsi. So thoughtful and handmade.

THe Christmas Cook

Dad has officially mastered the art of cooking. His meals this year were ridiculous good. The melded flavors and the aroma and presentation...

The Christmas Creator

Mom gets a teeny weeny box every year. Dad loves to buy her diamonds.

Why does Grammy look so young all the time?!?

THe Christmas Love BIrds

Eli got Jen this gorgeous "Tiffany Blue" key thats a pendant for a necklace. It looked so good on her and we were all happy that he didn't propose to her in front of the whole family b/c when she was opening the little box we were a little worried...

The Christmas Giver

No one enjoys spoiling everyone more than J-rod. Such a Santa Claus sized heart.

Snapshots

My parents house has the prettiest lighting sometimes and then when I am really lucky the kids are in their church clothes and in the mood to pose for me. Maybe that was my Christmas present. Charlie especially was feeling the model mood for some reason.

Carving Temples

the kids were playing outside and decided to bring in these huge snow chunks. We brought them to the the table and I pulled out some tools, but the kids pretty much only used thier teeth and tongues as far as tools go... Anyways, we got carving and this is what I finished with. I ended up bringing it to a party that night as my white elephant gift. Its the Cardston temple.

The count is 22

So this is disgusting, I know, but I am up to date to today as far as my scrapbooking goes. I have one (or two if you are Jane and a first baby) for each of the kids, our wedding, a few family albums, Timmy's mission, and his childhood, an album of my favorites, a valentines one, a few specific vacations blah blah blah. Its out of control. At this rate of 22 albums every 7 years, by the time I am 60 that will be 100.57 albums!!!

Ash was asking...

Charlie and Jacob and I did these while Jane was at school. It occupied them for a while b/c first they had to peel the wrappers off the crayons, and then they had to break the crayons (the fun part), then they sorted the colors so it takes longer than you think. They use them all the time though and now they don't break b/c they are chunks.

**Melt crayons (grease muffin tins, fill with broken up crayons [with the wrappers off] and bake at 375 degrees for 7 minutes. Put in the freezer to cool.)

Amy and I had a good spirit of Christmas talk. I liked it. It made me think I should post this video b/c I always appreciate these little reminders.

Darling

They Can't Grow Up... Who Will I Play With?

Messes are magical. They are the byproduct of learning and exploring, an expression of creativity and curiosity.

Day 1

Since there is literally 4 feet of snow outside now, we had to get fancy with play time. So, Charlie and I scrubbed the kiddie pool from the backyard until it was shiny and clean and then we had a week of kiddie pool fun. Day one we made 3 different flavors of homemade playdough. It was genius to play playdough in the pool b/c it contains the mess nicely. The kids were making imprints of their toy animal footprints in their playdough, which I thought was a good idea.

Day 2

Sometimes you have to go for a swim in the kitchen in the winter. Timmy walked in after work and had to let this one sink in for a minute. Scarlet the naked girl was the happiest in there.

Day 3

Story time in the pool. Lots of blankies and lots of stories.

Day 4

Here's where I went wrong. 40 POUNDS OF RICE. Yes, I said 40 POUNDS. This turned into a pound of rice in 40 different places around the house, including pockets, and Scarlet for sure had at least a pound in her diaper (not from eating it but from it being poured over her head and sliding down her back right into her diaper). I thought it would make a great indoor sandbox but it was the biggest mess in america. I vacuumed up rice for days and I had to edge the entire house. I was a grouchy mom after this one.

Have you guys tried this stuff? Its so so cool. You just add water to a few tablespoons of powder and you have real-life-ish snow. Its tidy and odorless and really fun to play with and you can reuse it. I loved this stuff.

random pics

Why is she so big already. Its time for another baby.

no joke, this is how we found Jane sleeping when we peeked in on her to see if she needed to be covered. awesome.

timmy is really profound sometimes

quote of the day:

Timmy:
"I gotta pee like a reindeer."

we all need a few of these

I thought it might be a timely Christmas for sanitization, hence my soap post. Yes, those are felted soap, therefore enhancing the lather. genius. and what a cute soap dispenser. the wreath made me happy too, only its a kit and you have to make it yourself. so, maybe next year...

I just want to read all the day

Tonight I've been transcribing some of my book notes onto my computer so I can search them easier. Anyways, here are some old favorites I came across.

"Monday passed like a small summer cloud."
Night By Elsie Wiesel

"Like a clown at a country fair grimacing in front of the ticket booth in order to lure the public inside the tent where the real play is being performed, so my imaginative work must serve to attract the attention of the public to my philosophic teaching."
Resurrection By Leo Tolstoy

"If I had really cared, as I thought I did, about the sorrows of the world, i should not have been so overwhelmed when my own sorrow came."
A Grief Observed By CS Lewis

"The big market won't reward you for being authentic."
Small Is The New Big By Seth Godin

"In today's relativistic society, we see indulgence masquerading as tolerence."
The Promise o Discipleship By Neal A Maxwell

Love these little conversations

Jane: "Do you know who wasn't at school today?"

Charlie: " who?"

Jane: anthony

Charlie: is that the guy who has teeth on the bottom but not on the top?

Jane: no, thats Bron.

Charlie: oh.

pause in conversation...

Charlie: Is he black?

Jane: No he's brown, dark brown, not light brown like mom.

I'm a Genius

So I snipped the tip off of a sippy cup so that Scarlet could enjoy smoothies with us (she's 8 months now) and it works great (you have to cut off the tip to allow for thicker flow). Some favorites:

1. Chocolate Soy Milk, Peanut Butter (100% natural all peanut kind), plain yogurt (we are a flavored yogurt free home), and frozen bananas, some ice. A TON of spinach (you cannot even taste it, I promise).

2. Plain yogurt, pineapple juice, vanilla protein powder (not in Scarlet's of course), frozen bananas and coconut. ice.

I am a genius  because now Scarlet, at 8 months old, enjoys healthy stuff like coconut, spinach, Natural PB, blueberries etc.

We buy barrels of bananas at one time, let them get to the perfect smoothie ripeness and then break them up into pieces and put them in freezer ziplocs. We pack most of our smoothies with spinach when we have it because its so good for you and you don't taste it. Put it in at the beginning with the liquids so it gets chopped up nice and small. Then, disregard the snot green color- other than the color it is undetectable.

Little Britches- Father And I Were Ranchers

 “Silences make the real conversations between friends. Not the saying but the never needing to say is what counts.” — Margaret Lee Runbeck

"Father was different from most people; you didn’t have to talk much to visit with him.”

Little Britches p. 172

“Sometimes it’s nicer not to talk when you’re near somebody you love.”


Little Britches p. 164


Such a wholesome book, and filled with life lessons.


On this same thread there's a quote I enjoyed from Steinbeck's The Pearl:
"When Kino had finished, Juana came back to the fire and ate her breakfast. They had spoken only once, but there is no need for speech if it is only a habit anyway. Kino sighed with satisfaction- and that was conversation."

Christa and Albert Have Cute Kids!

They don't get any sweeter. Meet Parley the fat, lovable, super duper baby. LOVE him.

Thank you Jody. I love this bread recipe.

2  Tutus made, and 2 more to go.

love this. also love her bangs.