I am so POPULAR!!!

Okay so I am just thrilled to see that my counter has reached over 1000 visitors. That means all three of my friends have checked out my blog at least 333 times each. Hold your applause! Oh alright, clap away. Let me take a bow. I would first like to thank Amberlynn for first introducing me to the blogging world and helping me set up my blog. I would like to thank Lisa for inspiring me everyday and challenging me to post even half as much as she does. I would love to thank all of my neighbors who I have added to my side bar without their permission. I would like to thank my children for giving me so many joyous events to post, and my mother for well...giving me life. My husband for watching TV while I type away. I would also like to thank blogspot for their spell checker. I'm sure the music would start playing now to get me off of here but I destroyed my music player for that very reason, so it would not distract from my amazing intellect. I am thankful for sleepless nights and digital cameras....and...and, oh crap, kids need me. Gotta go.

Oh! Please leave a comment. Even if its just what outfit you are wearing today. It makes me feel popular!

Being a mom in the storm

Today it was quite stormy and Boston, try as he does to be brave, is scared of storms. He doesn't like the wind or rain and especially hates thunder and lightening. So today, looking out at the kids in the storm he says,

Mom.

Yes?

Um the kids are.... You need to protect.....

I need to protect the kids from the storm?

No. You need to protect.....

I need to protect you from the storm?

Yes. No. You need to protect the world from the storm.

Oh.... okay, I will protect the world from the storm (uhhh... how do I do that?)

Scottlynn! It's alright. Mom is going to protect the world from the storm.

Isn't it amazing the things kids think we can do? I wish I had a huge umbrella to protect the world just for him. Oh the hearts of children.

Flashback to the past.

This is my favorite Halloween costumes for my kids thus far. Last year (2007) Boston insisted on going as a witch, not a wizard, a WITCH.



Isn't this the cutest man witch you have ever seen? I guess some would call him a warlock but he wouldn't go for that either, he was a witch!

Scottlynn went as a beautiful Gypsy. Anything with glitter and jewelry has got to be good.

Kennedy went as the laundry. We cut a hole in the bottom of this basket and added sock suspenders. I thought she looked adorable.

And then there's Christian. For an entire year all he talked about was how he wanted to be a granny for Halloween. This kid cracks me up! His hair is actually a wizard beard turned upside down and placed on his head. We got his dress at DI. Those are his actual Granny Halley's glasses. He completed the outfit with saggy knee high tan nylons. What a nut case!

Ew!

Look what my dad brought over the other day just to show me. He was going to take it home to his house and accidentally LEFT IT AT MY HOUSE!




He says it's called a sand baby. Those front legs have pinchers on them like little crab claws.

Uh, thanks dad.

Please stand by for technical difficulties.

I would say I am fairly new to the blogging world and for the most part I love it. I love peeking into the lives of my family, neighbors, and friends as well as sharing a little window into our life. However, I am going crazy with all of the technical difficulties associated with blogging. I guess it's just something that comes along with working with computer anything.

Why is it whenever I try to make a post it messes up the spacing of the words with the pictures. Half the time my security center won't let me see a picture at all. Then the other day I decided I wanted to change my background and POOF there goes my blog roll, kids sidebar pictures, counter thingy, basically everything but my actual posts. Then by some miracle I find my blog roll but tonight I realize some people are missing from it. This happened to a good friend of mine and it gave me a complex for a whole day, wondering why she would remove me from her blog. I finally got up the nerve to ask her and she said, "oh! I guess it just jumped off my list." I'm thinking 'sure, right. Just tell me the truth. You have banned my blog for some reason. In some way it is offensive. What the heck is so offensive?'. But like a good girl I took her word for it and tried not to obsess and now I am worried that other people are worried I have REMOVED their blog from my blog roll. If you know you were on my blog roll or would simply like to be on my blog roll, please throw me a bone here and tell me to put it back on. If you are on here and would like to be removed, you should say so too, although I think that will give me a HUGE complex and I'm not sure I could ever look you in the eye again.

Ahem, back to blogging difficulties. I have another friend who's blog will not take comments. My initial thought was, 'Oh! She doesn't like to hear what other people have to say about her blog. That is weird. Is that some new child protective thing? Should I for some reason not have comments on my blog? Did I miss the memo on that?'. Then I asked her about it and found that she has a funny glitch that the company is working on where her account won't take comments. She hates it. Well, hates is a strong word but I know she is displeased.

I also have had problems getting to my layout page. I tried posting it on a help forum along with hundreds of other people. No one ever responded with any help and then it just fixed it's self when I restarted my computer. It does it every once in a while with no rhyme or reason.
Why is there no spell check in the comment box and why is there no grammar check at all. I wish there was a little guy who would jump out and say, "Uh, are you really going to say it like that? This way would be so much cuter". But no.

Can you tell I don't get enough sleep? That is a whole nother topic. Okay, surely "nother" is not a word. Hmmmm.... Sure enough "nother" came up on spell checker.

Maple Oat Bread

This is my favorite bread. It has just a little maple syrup in it to add some sweetness but I would not classify it as a dessert bread. The shape is cool too. Christian always says he feels like a king when he eats it.

Ingredients:
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup boiling water
1 Tab. yeast
1 tsp. sugar (I don't measure this, just some)
1/3 cup warm water
1/2 cup maple syrup (any brand is fine but I have not used homemade syrup)
2 tsp. oil (it calls for canola but I use olive. I think any oil will work)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups flour (I use bread flour but I have made it with regular flour years ago and it was fine)


Topping:
1 egg white
Old fashioned oats

First of all, I always make a double batch. It takes the same amount of work and then you can take one loaf to a neighbor. I have also been known to double the recipe but make it into three smaller loaves. I will give directions for one loaf but know that you can make as many as you want at once as long as your machine or your hands can handle it.

To start off you will need to blend your 1 cup of oats in the blender. You measure it first and then blend it. At first I thought that sounded like a huge pain but it really isn't. I also blend several cups (one cup at a time) in one day and put them in individual zip lock baggies. That way I only have to do it every once in a while. When you want to make it, you just pull out a pre measured, pre blended baggie. You still want a few solid oats. Here is a picture of the ground oatmeal in the baggie. It's blended maybe 20 seconds...I don't know. You might need to shake the blender a little and blend again.




















Add the boiling water and mix. Let it cool a little to where it is still good and warm but not scalding. The recipe says 110-115 but I have never actually tested it.

In a separate bowl (or glass measuring cup) mix yeast and warm water and some sugar. This is just to get the yeast going. It starts out looking like murky water but in just a few minutes it will look bubbly like this. Don't let it overflow.















In the oatmeal bowl add the syrup, oil, salt, yeast mixture and 1 cup of the flour. Beat until smooth. (Making sure it is not too hot to add the yeast to.)

Stir in remaining flour until a nice dough forms. For me it has always been 3 cups total, but I use bread flour and other flours might make a difference. The original recipe called for more flour but I could not use more than 3 cups. Your dough ball will look something like this.
















Knead until smooth and elastic about 6-8 minutes. Place in a greased bowl turning once to grease top, cover (either with Saran or a damp towel) and let rise in a warm place until doubled. I like to turn my oven on for about 30 seconds and then turn it off and let the bread rise in my oven. Hint: Don't even put the bread in until you turn off your oven. You don't want a fiery hot oven or worse to cook your bread in the bowl. This takes about 30-40 min in a warm oven but may take an hour in a cool kitchen.

Punch down and shape into a flattened ball, and let rise until doubled. This time is less, maybe 15 minutes in a warm oven or 30 on the counter?















Brush the tops with egg white. (I just use my hand. It is easiest.) and sprinkle with oats.















Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Move to wire rack to cool.















Look at this beautiful bread. Here is a trick for serving, cut the slices in half. Christian keeps wanting to just rip it off and eat it. I might have to try that next time.

Do I look like Noah?

It happened again! We flooded our basement...again. At least this time it was not raining from the ceiling. The water heater exploding was the culprit this time.














Actually a valve above it was the real culprit. We should have had one that looked like this and well, now we do, as well as a shiny new water heater. Our old water heater was only 5 years old and before it burst, it looked like new too. If you don't have this big round valve, you had better get one.















This pretty much shows how we all felt about another flood.
















This is when we started pulling up the carpet to see how far the water actually went.
















This is after we realized it flooded clear to the outside walls. Bye bye carpet pad.
















Here Boston is showing you how well he helped us prop up the carpet in the dance studio to dry. Thanks to all our neighbors we had 6 or 7 fans blowing all night.
















So much for a clean house. Here is all the stuff from the boys room minus the beds which were scattered somewhere else in the house.















This is our awesome neighbor Kyle Harrison. Thanks for the great deal on the new water heater and proper valve. And thank you for helping us right away. We were able to shower that night with HOT water. When faced with a trial he is the perfect person to have around. Doesn't he look like he would just brighten even the rainiest day?
















And here....the silver lining. Christian actually cleaned out the drawers to his desk (which I hope we can repair good enough to get it back in after having to rip it off the wall to get to the carpet underneath).
















But in the end, it's just one of those trials that you hope you will look back on and laugh.
















Stay tuned to see the finished product. We will need to replace carpet pad (good thing it is cheap) and re-kick the carpet in. Oh, and special thanks to Lisa who rushed right over first thing that morning and helped me pull it all together. She ran the kids to the pool and was off to physical therapy before I thought to get out the camera. I wish I had a picture of her with that crow bar.

Swimming Lessons

This summer the kids took swimming lessons from Seven Peaks Waterpark. I love it there because the class sizes are small and they get a free pass to Seven Peaks. It costs the same as lessons at the local pool but you do pay a little bit more for the gas to drive up there ,but hey what's a little more in gas?


Here is a video of Scottlynn diving. She was so nervous to learn to dive but I think she is a pro already. Look at this smooth glide.

Christian has been diving for a while now and is doing a supurb job.

Now Kennedy on the other hand is doing okay but just doesn't quite get the glide effect yet. It'll come, it'll come.

Now Boston is no quite diving yet but he is a wild man in the water! All he would do for the video was go under.

Ahhh, the talent.

Okay so this last one is just for laughs. Boston's two teachers sort of crossed paths and sent him and a girl down the slide alone. Of coarse there was a life guard watching at the bottom but it was funny to see how stuck in the tube he was.

Roasting with the Kilpatrick's

Saturday evening we were envited over to our neighbors the Kilpatrick's house to roast some sweet marshmallows. They have an awesome fire pit in their back yard.


Chris and Katie. Aren't they a cute couple? We are enjoying becoming better friends with them.

















Gary, Christian and Kennedy enjoy a little fireside chat.

















Boston and Peyton play together several times a week. They both LOVE high school musical. Peyton plays the role of Gabriella and Boston is assigned the role of Troy. She did kiss him once but we put a stop to that. Aren't they the cutest couple?

















After s'mores Katie pulled out the sparklers. Here is Scottlynn after one too many s'mores

















Blake is a wild man! Most of the pictures I could get of him were either of the back of his head or blurry becasue he is always on the go!



















Thanks Chris and Katie for a fun filled night and a great way to finish off Christian's Birthday.

Christian is now the big man!

Christian just celebrated is twelfth birthday on Saturday. It is hard to believe that my little baby boy is so old. He spent the week before his birthday at scout camp. I worried about him so much. It was very weird not to even hear from him or anyone with him for almost an entire week. Then I realized the day will come when he will leave home and this will be the way it is all the time. I would be lucky if I hear from him every week. I brought the thought up to Gary an we both agreed it is better not to think about such things and just enjoy the time we have with him at home. Here are some pictures from today, the day he received the priesthood. His blessing was so special and the spirit was very strong. Before the ordination, our bishop mentioned, "Hey, I seem to see a lot of you guys lately", and then after said, "There is always such a strong spirit around your family". I would have to agree. I know that this stage of life is crazy but we have had a lot of paydays lately with children hitting these spiritual milestones. Look at what a handsome man Christian is turning into. I hope those girls stay away for a while longer.


The family












Christian and his mom.











The boys














Christian with Scottlynn












Christian with Kennedy.












Christian with Grandma Halley.











Christian with Grandpa Ned and Grandma Janet















Christian with Bishop Hansbrow.











Christian with Sister LeBaron (the primary president that he will be seeing a little less of)











Christian, I love you so much. You just amaze me. I love your sense of humor and you are a blast to be around. You are the life of the party. You are smart and handsome. You are talented in so many ways, you are great at sports such as basketball and football and you're a dynamite clogger. I love that you are sensitive and caring and always thinking of others. I am proud to say that I am your mother and I hope someday when you do leave home that you will check in once in a while. For now, I am just loving having you in my life everyday. Love, Mom.

Children's Museum

I realize I am getting behind in blogging some events such as swimming lessons, fourth of july, etc. but I just decided to go with most recent and fill in the blanks later. Yesterday we went to the Tree House Children's Museum up in Ogden. It was the most amazing place for kids. Christian didn't go with us because he is at scout camp for the week but we did meet up with Gary's sister Laura, her hubby Marvin, their twins MarleeAnn and Kenden, Gary's sister Bonnie and her kids Kendrick, and Taylor, Gary's sister Michele and son Ty, and Grandma Janet. Gary couldn't make it even though he works just north of there, he had a meeting in Salt Lake that afternoon. Here are some pictures of the day.



Boston's favorite, the fire truck.
































Scenes from inside the Indian Tee Pee

The Pirate ship.

Cooking in the kitchen.

Fun with the giant drums.

Ty's favirote the trains.

First runner's up in the block building contest.

The whole gang!