Family Fun Day

For anyone anywhere near the Rupert area on the 9th of May, just wanted to let you know that there will be a completely awesome Family Fun Day at the Sunrise P Ranch going on that day from 3pm until late. Food, games, karaoke, American Idol-Barn Style, dance w/live band that night, kayaking, 5k race, sack races, log roll, etc. The day is a fundraiser for a ward in our stake that is taking its youth on a big summer activity. Barry and RexAnn Peterson have donated the Sunrise P (an amazing, fun, and popular reunion/large group retreat recreation area) and there will be tons of stuff to do all day with your family. Tickets are $5/single and $10/family. $10 people!!!!! No better deal in town, especially for a full, fun day of unique and varied activities for every member of the family. Check out this website for all the info. If you want to compete in American Idol-Barn Style you need to sign up beforehand.

Cousins Ski Trip!!

Brad took Todd and Kate skiing Saturday (a fun conclusion to a wonderful and much needed Spring Break). They met DJ, Regan, and Morgan at Pomerelle and spent the day speeding down the mountain together. I'm sure the kids drove their dads crazy, but Brad and DJ were great sports and really devoted the day to helping the kids have a great time and increase their skills on the slopes. They were jumping out of their skins with excitement at the thought of spending the whole day with their beloved cousins. HEAVEN!! They all came home completely hammered and sunburned, but happy. What fun to live close enough that they can enjoy several ski trips a year, especially with the added bonus of sharing the day with cousins.

15 Wonderful Years

Amazing, but true. Brad and I just celebrated our 15th anniversary. Why don't I feel any older? We spent the evening at the Twin Falls Temple, took the kids to dinner with us beforehand and had a wonderful time. Joe and Amber watched the kids while we were at the temple, so we enjoyed a little time to ourselves as well. It's always nice to have a few quiet moments together to just be, with no one asking to play "I Spy" or needing a tissue or a diaper change.

I was a completely naive and stupid 20 year old girl when I married Brad. I could have married any number of total idiots, so I thank Heavenly Father every day for leading me to him. Marrying him is, hands down, the smartest thing I ever did. I love the life we have together, the family we have created, the opportunity to be partners for eternity. He brings such joy, happiness, and stability to my life. I'm a lucky, lucky girl.

Jack-Jack

My how the years fly by. It's hard to believe my baby is three years old. Our little St. Patty's day boy has certainly been a lucky charm and a treasure (not to mention a saucy little handful at times!). We had a wonderful time celebrating his 'burp-day' with him. He requested a train cake (shocker!) and got some fun Thomas Train toys and games, a soccer ball, a movie, and a read-a-long storybook/cd, plus lots of fun cards and $$ from wonderful and generous family and friends. All in all, he made out quite well and has been thoroughly entertained by all the attention and gifts. He has taken to requesting 'burp-day' cake and hotdogs for breakfast every morning. YUM!

Jack-Jack has been such a sweet addition to our family. The missing piece that I didn't know was missing before he came along. He is opinionated, bossy, giggly, fun-loving, clever, bossy, sweet, kissy, imaginative, bossy, energetic, athletic, perservering, did I mention bossy?, and an all-around, all-boy boy. He loves trains, race cars, airplanes, monster trucks, construction vehicles, fire trucks, and tools. He gets so excited when he sees any of the above, that you just can't help but be excited too.

I love Jack's newfound ability to communicate. I love his still-garbled, yet decipherable words. My favorites are 'perket' (perfect), which I find delightfully ironic, and 'NESSSSSS...!!!' (yes), as in "Nesssssss, I did it! I am awesome!".

I do not love Jack's temper. I sincerely hope he grows out of his tantrum phase in a hurry. I can watch other peoples' children scream and cry all day and it doesn't bother me a bit, but he really does elicit strong emotions from me, for the good and the bad. In short, that kid can really push my buttons. I hold onto the knowledge that Brad was apparently a very hot-headed, hell-on-wheels child who gave his mother a serious run for her money -- and is now a very calm, level-headed, sweet and perfect gentleman. There is hope. In the meantime, I make it a point to gaze at Jack's sweet little face while he's sleeping and store up the image in the reserves. It has saved his life on several occasions. :)

All in all, I'll take the good with the bad and just enjoy him for who and what he is at this moment in time. All too soon, he'll be all grown up and reasonable like the other two have become so quickly. Gotta love the roller-coaster ride called motherhood.

My Baby Girl is 7

I can't believe my little redhead is 7 already. The years have flown by with this little spitfire angel in the house! She's been a joy and a learning experience all wrapped up in one. She started out extremely willful and full of mischief (evidenced by the crayon we still find on walls and windows to this day!). As she has matured she has become a sensitive, sweet, helpful, obedient child. She is a joy to have in our home and adds so much in her own special way. We love you little Miss Kate.
Kate saw a pattern for this outfit at WalMart several months ago. I had a devil of a time finding the right fabric, but I think it turned out pretty cute. She got to open this present before school and wear it on her birthday. I'll refrain from calling it her birthday suit. :)

We even tried a new hairdo for the special day.

Look at those predawn hours sleepy eyes! She was so excited, she woke up on her own!

Rock star guitar birthday cake!! (Thank you Family Fun.)

This birthday was extra-special since Kate's good friend Sadie got to spend the afternoon and even stay for dinner and the party!

Thanks to Amber and Joe for making the extra effort to come all the way from Twin Falls for the party. We love you both so much. It was terrific to spend some time with you. Joe was the absolute hit of the party since he brought his RC helicopter and let Todd fly it around the living room. You're a brave man Joe!

Daddy and Jack.

A big thank you to G&G Rose for coming to the party and spending the night! We had the best couple of days with them. They are amazing in the way they support each and every one of us on our special days. Thank you for the efforts you make to stay close. We love you both.

Todd -- being 'helpful'. Kate -- letting him.

Thank you G&G Rose -- Kate has played with her Littlest Pet Shop every day since her birthday. It was a definite hit!

New Webkinz: Aly & AJ.

How cute is this dress from Joe and Amber?! Kate wore it Saturday, Sunday, AND Monday. I finally had to pry it off of her and introduce it to the laundry basket. She LOVES it!!!

Kate's choice for her birthday activity was to go to JBs for the breakfast buffet. She was introduced to that particular delicacy by Grandpa Wilson and has been dying to go back!! We had a great time. I think we were there for 2-3 hours. Todd nearly exploded. :)

Traffic Cops

While I was making dinner the other night, the kids entertained themselves outside (on one of our rare, 'warm' (in the 40s) evenings. Kate made all sorts of traffic signs and taped them on boxes and cans, then Todd made a ticket book, then they placed the signs strategically all over the back yard. They took turns being the policeman and each rode their scooters around the obstacle course, giving each other tickets for violating posted warning signs. They were entertained for a good 2 hours. Made me look forward to warm summer nights. I think they're antsy for winter to be over. :)

Not even Jack escaped the wrath of the ticket monsters! I think he might be able to appeal on the grounds that he doesn't know how to read yet. :)

Braided Bread

As promised in an earlier post, I'm posting a quick tutorial on the braided bread I learned to make at our Preparedness Fair a couple of weeks ago. This particular braid has taco meat and cheese in it. I served it with lettuce and sour cream. It made TONS (over twice as much as we need for our family. So you may want to make it half size and use the rest of the dough to make bread loaves, etc.
Roll your dough (I made whole wheat) into a rectangle.

Fill the middle 1/3 (the long way) with filling.

Sprinkle some cheese to taste.

Slice 1 inch wide strips down both sides of the remaining dough.

"Braid" the strips by overlapping them back and forth. One side, then the other.

Pinch the excess dough off and pinch the ends closed.

Place on parchment paper and transfer to a baking sheet. (In hindsight, I really should have put the dough on parchment before I put the filling in it, the transfer would have been much easier!)

Bake at 375 for about 15-20 minutes (or until golden brown).

Don't ask me why I didn't take a picture of the finished product. I guess I was hungry! :)

Hair for Big(ger) Girls

I got this great link for hairstyles for girls who are a little older (>5) or who have HAIR like my little Kateroo. Be sure to go check out The Story of a Princess and Her Hair. You'll be inspired -- I was. :)

P.S. Lots of the featured hairstyles will work great for little girls or girls with less or more fine hair, too. Hope my first paragraph didn't sound like I was trying to exclude anyone! :)

3-Month Supply (How in the World???)

My totally internet savvy sister Julie pointed me toward an amazing site called www.FunWithFoodStorage.net ! You have to check it out. There are a bunch of really great ideas and babysteps to help you get your 72-hour kits, 3 month supply, and long-term storage ready to go in 1 year. My favorite part is the new 3-month supply calculator spreadsheet. There's a tutorial you can watch that explains how to use it fully. Then you fill out the spreadsheet and it calculates how much of each ingredient you need in your storage to feed your family for 3 months. Bottom line - as it stands now we would be eating a lot of tuna and chili! I'm excited to have a list to work from. This is totally DO-ABLE!!

A Fun Surprise

Saturday Brad attended the funeral of the wife of the Spanish Branch President. It was a sad occasion since she was very young (only in her early 50s). She died unexpectedly, although she has had heart problems for most of her life. At the funeral he noticed a familiar name on the program: "Suzette Alder"! Suzette is a dear friend from way back when I started college. She was the secretary of the Economics department and I was her little assistant. She's always been so good to me. I worked with her for all four years of college, then moved on to work with her roommate (also a dear friend), Rayann Hansen, at Mt. Logan Middle School (my first teaching job). These two girls have been such wonderful examples to me, and have continued to be dear, dear friends over all these years. We were able to spend an hour or two visiting with them after the luncheon. It was a fun surprise, even on a sad day. Love you guys!!!!

Blessings ...

I have just recently discovered the joy and power of a REAL budget. Not just the kind that's in my head, or the kind that only covers the basics and lets the rest of the $$ just leak out! Wow, I'm kind of amazed at how fun it is to save and plan and track carefully every expense. Anyway, I've been thinking for a while about getting my carpets cleaned, but it just seems that other things continue to pop up and the carpet keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the list. (It's not really overly motivating to clean old, yucky carpet anyway!) Well, Saturday, after the Relief Society activity I came home to a phone call from a neighbor who had rented a carpet cleaner and had it until today. She wondered if I'd like to borrow it, since it was just sitting there. She even had cleaner left over which she generously gave me. It only took a couple of hours and I have a houseful of clean carpet for free. Funny how the Lord blesses you with what you need when you just make the smallest of efforts.

I Love Food Storage: Part 2!

I came home from the Preparedness Fair (scroll down a post if you haven't read it yet), so excited and determined to get my food storage house in order! I started with the church recommendations on basic items needed for a year. Then found another, more comprehensive food calculator that helped me break down our needs more completely. From there I created a spreadsheet to help me track what we have and what we need. I then went through all my food storage and counted up the number of pounds of each food I do have and entered it into my spreadsheet. What did I learn from all of this? That I have a LOOOOOONG way to go, but at least I know what direction I'm heading now! The sheer volume of food (grains especially) is pretty mind-boggling, but doable. Our big concern now is where to put it all. We're very short on storage space, so we're waiting for inspiration on that one! I hope I haven't caught the vision too late. Thankfully Heavenly Father knows how hard-headed I can be and continues to bless me with opportunities to do better.

I LOVE Food Storage!!!!

I'm sure the title of this post has you scratching your head, wondering what has happened to the girl formerly known as "Lori: hater of food storage". Well, I've undergone a change of heart recently. Mostly due to the kindness and patience of the Lord as I try to wrap my head around just how much food and what kinds I would need to store for a whole year. I have been steadily working along for several years on my food storage, but without a real plan in place. I guess I just didn't have any idea how to really know how much of each item I would need for my family.

Enter Relief Society (aptly named, might I add!): Dateline, Saturday, February 28, 2009: Preparedness fair at the church. Awesome Day!!!!

The day started with a class on finances, which probably sounds YUCKY, but it was amazing. Our stake president's wife taught it and she had some wonderful ideas. Her approach was so common sense and down to earth, she really focused on behaviors rather than $$ itself. I really felt the spirit and a desire to do even better and make more decisions based on the long-term effects, rather than short-term gratification.

The next class was taught by Vicki Edgar, a fantastic cook, who teaches food sciences at the high school and also runs a VERY successful bakery. She actually gave us all her secret recipes and tons of little tidbits and advice about baking with dough. She brought her grinder and bosch and made cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, braided bread with fruit filling, and crescent rolls (which we all ate for lunch later in the day) in about 50 minutes. I'm so excited about all the recipes she shared. The best part? Everything she used was directly out of food storage. She even taught us how to make the fruit filling for the bread out of reconstituted dried apples from the cannery. She just added 1/2 cup sugar, 2 T. cornstarch, 1 cup water and a 1/2 packet of kool-aid powder to the apples (already reconstituted). Absolutely delicious! I learned about SAF yeast, and about when to use dough enhancer (answer: not very often unless you're in a hurry. Time will usually do what dough enhancers mimic.) She gave us several recipes for different types of breads, but my favorite, and the one she uses most of the time is this all-purpose recipe:

Bread, Dinner Rolls, Cinnamon Rolls and Braided Bread Recipe

2 3/4 cups water
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp. yeast
1/4 cup oil
1 1/2 tsp. salt
7-8 cups flour

Put water, sugar, and yeast in a bowl. Lightly mix. Add oil and salt. Then gradually add flour until a soft, but not sticky dough forms. Let mix about 5 minutes after adding the flour (to knead the dough). If you have a Kitchen-Aid, you'll want to switch to your bread hook for the kneading. Shape into loaves, rolls, or roll out for cinnamon rolls or braided bread. Let bread or rolls proof until about double (about 1/2 an hour). Bake at 375 degrees, cinnamon rolls about 18 minutes, rolls about 15 minutes, breads 35-45 minutes, until golden brown.

*You can add 3 eggs and 3/4 cup dry milk for a richer dough (some like that for cinnamon rolls, etc.) She says she usually doesn't because it's just as good without going to the added expense.

If you have a Bosch (you lucky dog, you!) you can double this recipe and it will work perfectly.

We made cinnamon rolls for the neighbors yesterday, they were yummy! I love the idea of one dough with so many possibilities. One of my favorite ideas (which I'm going to try for dinner one night this week) was to make taco meat, then spread into the center third of a rolled out rectangle, sprinkle on some cheese, then cut 1 inch slits in the sides of the dough and braid together on the top. After baking just add some lettuce and sour cream. You've got a complete dinner right there. Maybe I'll take some pictures when I make this so you can see the braiding process.

The final class was all about Food Storage (that sorta used to be the F-word at our house) and Preparedness. I could have stayed all day asking questions. They had information on everything from food to sanitation to light to disease prevention and control and much, much more. I was able to get a couple of ingenious little oil lamp wick kits made by a lady in our stake. They are made with copper wire and a cotton wick and fit inside a pint jar. You just fill the jar with about 3/4 cup olive oil (or any other oil, except corn oil which smokes too much), adjust the wick to about a 1/4 inch above the oil and light. Did you know that that tiny amount of olive oil will burn for around 1000 hours? Crazy, huh? So if you have any rancid oil, don't throw it out. These oil lamps are the perfect use for it. If you're interested in the kits let me know and I'll email her phone number. I don't think she has a website, or I'd just link you there.

We learned about the different types of food-grade plastic and how to identify them. Also, the importance of having latex gloves, particulate masks, tin foil, plastic and duct tape. They each have so many uses and can be adapted to many different situations.

I particularly loved the following ideas:
1) Fill a can with a wide variety of garden seeds and seal it (but don't put an oxygen absorber in with them, it will kill them.)
2) Be sure to have sprouting seeds (such as alfalfa seeds) in your storage. They can sprout indoors without dirt any time of the year in pretty short order. They can take the place of other greens when not available. A sandwich with sprouts is totally yummy! Just as good as lettuce!
3) Create a birthday-in-a-can with cake mix, candles, matches, small toys and games, balloons, etc. (#10 can)
4) "Can" some extra money for your 72-hour kits in small denominations. Take a small pop-top can, cut the bottom off the can with a can opener that cuts the entire rim off (not the kind that cut inside the rim), empty the can, clean and dry it well. Put money, including coins, in the can, then seal the bottom back on with gorilla glue. Be sure to include coins so you or someone else doesn't assume the can is empty and just throw it away!

I could go on and on, needless to say, the day was well worth it. Thank you Relief Society!

We ended the day with lunch. Several sisters made different soups using only food storage ingredients. Then we enjoyed hot rolls and cinnamon rolls for dessert!

I should be getting an email from the Stake R.S. with all the recipes, tips, etc. so I'll forward it on to any and all of you who are interested. Maybe it's one of those "had to be there" scenarios, but I am completely energized and excited about getting my family more prepared for whatever may come. There is such peace in preparedness, isn't there?