Makenzie's Baptism

My little girl was baptized the beginning of this month on her birthday. I can't believe how grown up she is getting. Several months ago, I was going through a box of stuff my mom had given me, and I found the dress I was baptized in. I asked Makenzie if she wanted to wear my old dress, and she loved the idea. When I found it in the box, I thought it looked so old fashioned, but when she put it on, I was amazed at how beautiful both the dress, and my daughter looked.

I love how their little minds and spirits change as they get closer to getting baptized. It seems like each of my kids have become a little more thoughtful and introspective that year before they get baptized. I am so excited for Makenzie to continue developing her testimony with the help of the Holy Ghost. I am also so incredibly grateful to have a worthy priesthood holder for a husband. He is an amazing man!

I am so grateful to have the gospel in my life. One of my favorite doctrines taught in the gospel is the doctrine of eternal families. I couldn't imagine what life would be like, or how painful death would be, if I didn't have the comfort of knowing I will have these guys with me forever. They are everything to me.Allen has been grounded from all electronics, and every once in a while he gets to earn them back. On Friday, he worked hard to earn some time with his DS. We made the mistake of letting him take it to his room at bedtime. We found out at the baptism that he had stayed up THE WHOLE NIGHT playing it!! His youngest aunt was sweet enough to be his pillow, and I think he slept on her shoulder through the entire baptism. What a stinker!!

Yogurt

I love saving money, and then I married one of the biggest misers ever, and together we love finding ways to save money. Most of the time, it is a necessity, but it is great finding ways to do things yourself, and not have to pay someone else. I learned many money saving tips from my mom, and one of the things we used to do when we were growing up was make our own yogurt. My kids are really particular about their foods, but they all love yogurt. When I find something that they all will eat, I have to jump on it. We decided to try making our own, and one of my sisters recommended this website.

http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/yogurt.htm

We love their yogurt recipe, and it is so simple. I heard from one of my sisters that my mom was getting rid of my grandma's ancient yogurt maker, so I called and claimed it.

It is supposed to hold 4 individual cups of yogurt, but one of the glass containers was missing when I got it. I was also afraid to let my kids have any of the glass cups. They are notoriously clumsy, and I am notoriously paranoid. I tried many of the cups I have to try to find one that would fit into the yogurt maker. I found some of my kids cups with lids fit perfectly. We soon realized that 4 cups of yogurt was not enough for the 6 of us. I tried to find some more cups with lids that would fit into the yogurt maker, but I could not find the kind I wanted anywhere. My sister went through her cupboards, and found a bunch for us. My kids love the little cups, and they love the yogurt.

Our favorite way to make the yogurt is in the oven. (We love the yogurt maker, but when I make yogurt, I make it in bulk. 4 cups just doesn't cut it.) We preheat the oven to get it to the right temperature, and then we have to get the yogurt into the oven quickly and close the door to keep the oven at the right temperature. We have found the best way to maintain the right temperature is to load all the yogurt onto a cookie sheet, and wrap all the containers in several towels. Then we can just slide the whole mess of yogurt into the oven at once. The yogurt also sets very well in mason jars, but we love the novelty of having the individual cups. We leave the yogurt in the oven overnight, and it is ready when we wake up. (We usually refrigerate it, and then eat it the next day. Warm yogurt is a little too nasty!) My kids favorite flavor is vanilla. They put a little sugar and a few drops of vanilla in it. We also love it with strawberry freezer jam.

One thing we did find is that the yogurt really doesn't set well in the square containers. I think it is because you can't stir the yogurt into the scalded milk nearly as well. We have also had a few failed attempts when we left the oven door opened too long while arranging all our little cups (this is where we got the cookie sheet idea) and the yogurt didn't set. It was still tasty, and my kids just drank it, but it is so much better when the yogurt sets.

We have also made yogurt cheese, and we love it. It is very similar to cream cheese, and you can substitute it in recipes. You just line a colander with cheese cloth, and put the yogurt in the lined colander. Cover with plastic wrap, and allow the colander to drain over a bowl in the fridge overnight. So tasty!!

Sewing Project

In one of Allen's classes in school, they explore different career options. For the first little while, they had to pick a career, and play a kind of game where they had that career. They had to research it, and find out what kinds of skills and education they would need. They had to create a budget, and plan for rent, food, and other expenses, and see how their budget stretched. Allen chose to be a mechanic. He ended the unit by sitting down with us, and going through our budget. I am not too sure how much he got out of it, but I really enjoyed talking through things with him.


The class has now moved into trying out different skills. They have done a little cooking, and this week they had their first sewing project. I took Allen to the store, and let him pick out some fleece for his first sewing experience. After debating for a very long time, he finally chose an Air Force pattern. The material had a large fighter jet on it. I tried to explain that he would most likely be cutting up the fabric and nothing would be recognizable. He still wanted that particular fabric.


I got to go into the school to help out with the sewing. It was a lot of fun, and I am very glad I went because we ended up sewing Allen's project at home. It was very helpful to have gone through the instructions with several of the students.





Allen is really quite good at sewing. He hates the unpicking part, but seriously who doesn't. Here he is hard at work.



And here he is modeling the finished product. Tonight we had a Christmas Concert at school, and Michael's class was supposed to wear winter hats and scarves for their costume. Allen let Michael wear his new hat and scarf.

One Exciting Morning

Yesterday, as we were getting ready for our day, our smoke alarm went off. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon occurrence in our house. I was upstairs, and I ran down the stairs to see who had burned something. No one was anywhere near the kitchen. We ran through the house looking and smelling for smoke or fire, and we couldn't find anything. I went outside to see if I noticed anything from the outside of the house. There was one spot on the roof without snow, but there was really nothing to see. The fire alarm would take a break about every 5 minutes. It would stop for less than 30 seconds and then start right up again. It was more than my little family could take. Max took refuge under the table, hoping that would make it stop. Allen grabbed our biggest pair of headphones and put them on his head. Makenzie tried to outscream our fire alarm. I tried to figure what to do, and still get my kids ready for school on time.

I called my husband, and he said that it is probably too cold in our house, and the batteries couldn't handle it. I told him that was stupid (keep in mind I had been listening to a screeching fire alarm for at least 15 minutes.) He calmly tried to scientifically explain to me why it wasn't stupid, which I really wasn't in the mood for. I wanted him to make it stop! I huffily got off the phone with him, and I called my mom. She recommended calling the fire department to see if they had any suggestions. That sounded more pro-active than waiting for our batteries to feel warm, so I called them. They asked about the last time we replaced the batteries. I felt pretty good about myself when I told them we changed the batteries at the end of daylight savings time and they complimented me. Score one for the emergency preparedness scouting program, and for my parents who picked up our 9 volt batteries in bulk!! After asking several questions, they suggested we have some firemen come out and check everything out.

I had the kids watch for them, because I knew we would never hear the knock, or the doorbell over the high pitched smoke alarm. They came in their bright red fire truck. The kids were very excited. They followed the firemen around like little puppy dogs as they checked out our house. Allen said "Real live firemen! . . . In our house!!" They found the smoke alarm that was causing the problems (all of our smoke detectors are connected, so when one goes off, they all go off) and they determined that it was dusty. They recommended we vacuum out our smoke detectors when we replace the batteries. So, a little dust made our already hectic morning downright crazy. But, in spite of everything, I almost got the kids to school on time (we were 2 minutes late!).

Fried Messed-up rolls with baking powder

This little baby was supposed to make my life a lot easier tonight, and provide us with some yummy rolls.

On Monday, I made some rolls to take to a party. I had several issues getting them done, but in the end, it all worked out. For Thanksgiving, my job was to bring the rolls. I made several batches, and most of them had some major flaws. With the breadmaker, rolls are supposed to be so easy, and the recipe that came with our first breadmaker is fantastic but I haven't had much luck lately! I rushed home today to get some rolls in so they could be done in time for dinner. Just as I started putting the ingredients in, Allen let me know he had left his Spanish book at school and we had to rush back and get it. I threw the last of the ingredients in, made sure the dough actually started mixing (a major flaw last time) and we took off.

We made it home while the dough was rising, and when I looked into the breadmaker, it didn't look right. The dough never really rose well. Hubby made it home just as the dough cycle finished, and I asked him to shape the rolls. I ran and did some chores, and came back and looked at the shaped rolls. They were so pathetic. I went through putting in the ingredients, and I realized that I had never put in the yeast. We talked about just cooking them as biscuits, but then we realized that there was absolutely nothing in them to make them rise. Hubby kneaded in some baking powder, and divided them. He then decided he was going to fry them instead of bake them.

I really love being married to a man who knows how to cook, and the fact that he is so stinking good looking doesn't hurt anything either.

My very tough job was to sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar on them when they were done. We went to a charity event last week, and one of the highlights for us is the cinnamon and sugar scones. Our little cooking project was every bit as good.

Here is Morgan, enjoying our "oh so healthy" dinner. He had 3 and was still begging for more.

And Makenzie with hers.

It definitely wasn't the meal I had originally planned, but it was a lot of fun to have my mistake turn into a fun and tasty family project. The kids asked what we were eating. I told them we were having messed-up rolls with baking powder, fried in oil. Hubby just called it frybread.

Prayers

I need to share an experience that I had today. Back in January, I was called as the ward choir director. Choir was a huge part of my High School experience, but this calling has scared me to death. I cried every night for a week, absolutely terrified, when I was called. I started having choir practice with very few people coming, and then many of them began having meetings that prevented them from coming, and our numbers dwindled even more. We planned an entire Easter program that we never got to share because of meeting conflicts. We had to reschedule many performances because often, if one family was missing, we would be missing an entire part. Our piano player took vacations, and we ended up taking the entire summer off. I fasted and prayed about what to do. I felt like every which way I turned, I ran into walls. Our ward is very small, and we actually fasted as a ward that our ward would get some new families to move into our ward. Many people in our ward have 3 and 4 callings in order to cover everything. We found out as a ward that we were loosing at least 5 of our very strong families. Then one Sunday, we had a meeting. They dissolved one of the wards in our stake, and we got half of the ward added to ours. Our prayers were answered.

I decided to start choir practice the beginning of September. When the wards were combined, we also got a new Bishop. He was part of the new families coming into our ward, and we didn't know him at all. He had so much to do. I didn't want to bug him about Choir, but one Sunday, he called me in to talk to me. He gave me his opinion about how he felt about choir, and the direction he wanted me to go with it. I let him know that my pianist was expecting twins, and would not be able to play for much longer. I told him the day I would be starting choir practice again, and he told me he would find me someone to play the piano. I came up with a plan, and decided to move ahead. I announced practice in all the meetings, hoping things would work out. Our first practice, we had one person on most of the parts, and no one to play the piano. I tried to play and lead, and it became obvious very quickly that it wasn't going to work. One of our altos played, and it was a very unsuccessful practice.

That next week, I decided to do everything I could to try to make choir more successful. I started calling people asking them to play the piano for us. I had several people tell me no, and many who were not home. I finally called a woman I didn't know. Many people had told me that she is an amazing choir director, but no one knew if she played the piano. She does play the piano, and she was thrilled to help me out. Not only does she play the piano for the choir, but she also invited me over to share her music stash with me. She called all the people in the new part of the ward to come join us. She is amazing. Choir practice started actually being successful, but our numbers were still really small.

Today we were scheduled to sing. I have some problems with my heels, and I have to stretch them every morning before I can walk. For one of the stretches, I lean against the wall for several minutes. Unfortunately, my morning prayers are sporadic. This morning, as I was stretching, I thought it would be a great time to say my prayers. I prayed that all the music things I was stresses about would go okay. We have practice before church, and this morning, we had 6 people at practice. 3 are from the same family, and they all had very bad colds, and no voices. I was disappointed and stressed. As I was leaving, our pianist gave me the names of all the people in the new families who could help us out. I HATE calling people. I can't even call for pizza. I make my husband call, or I order online. When I got home today, I took a deep breath, and I called the people on the list plus everyone else I could think of. I explained our situation to them, and I asked them to come and help us out. I left many messages, but I also talked to several people. There was a link to the music online, and I sent people sheet music and the recording to the song so they could run through it a few times before church. We also met 20 minutes before church to run through it. We had many women, and two men at our before church practice. I ran around before the meeting passing out sheet music to the men I knew could sing. When we got up to sing today for sacrament meeting, we had a beautiful balance of women and men, and we had too many singers to fit on the two rows we had. The song was absolutely beautiful! It was truly amazing!!

This very long story has helped me to reemphasize something I have been learning for a while. There have been many experiences in my life where I have prayed for something. Often, I want whatever I want right now. I always want it in my time table. I can't think of a time when it has come exactly when I wanted it to. I usually have to wait for a while. I almost always get to the point where I wonder if the thing I am praying about will just not work out this time. There have actually been times when my faith slips significantly, and I wonder if I am being ridiculous believing that I have a Father in Heaven who cares about me. But I always keep living my life as if I do. I know that even when I am not sure, I hope he is there. I have had so many experiences in my life when months after my faith has been tried, I get the answers to my prayers in very real, very dramatic ways. I get that outpouring of the spirit that lets me know that the miracles I experience are a direct answer to my prayers, and I know that my Father in Heaven loves me. Loves me individually and personally, much in the same way that my Father here on earth loves me. I am so grateful for my testimony, and today, for my knowledge of my Father in Heaven.

Fall

I love this time of year. I love spring and fall. They are both so full change, and anticipation. I love seeing all the fresh fruits and vegetables coming out of everyone's garden. Growing up, fall was always full of food preparation. My Grandpa had a garden, and he was constantly bringing over peas to pod, or beans to snap, or corn to be cut off the cob and frozen. We bought peaches and pears every year to can, and it was always a family tradition for the whole family to gather to help out with the canning. My favorite days were when Dad was home to help us all out. When I moved away from home, I missed canning. I tried once to go to a wet pack cannery to can some peaches, but it was a horrible experience, and the peaches turned out awful! This year I have loved canning. Today, I canned by myself for the first time. We didn't get our yard put in this year, but I have been amazed at how many people have offered to share the bounty of their garden with us. I love making dinner with fresh fruits and vegetables.

I love the holiday season. For me, it starts in September. Going back to school is my first holiday, then the beginning of October, I get to decorate for Halloween. The end of October is Morgan's birthday, and Halloween, with the pumpkin carving, and picking out costumes. November is when I try to do all of my preparation for Christmas, and we usually have some kind of family get together, either with my family, or my husbands for Thanksgiving. And then the best of all, Christmas. I love the whole season. I love getting my Christmas decorations up, and I often want them up before Thanksgiving. My husband always gets frustrated, and gets after me for skipping over Thanksgiving, but I have been realizing more and more lately that I don't skip it. Thanksgiving is wound up in all of my holiday celebrations. I think one of the things that makes me think of Thanksgiving the most is when I see all the fresh produce from the gardens. I always think about the pilgrims, and how thankful they must have been for those crops. I think of the pioneers, and their first summer, and how thankful they must have been to have fresh food. What an amazing gift from God. I am so grateful that we can take a few little seeds, and with a little work, we can have enough zucchini to feed an army. I really love the Fall.