Austenland

I just finished reading Austenland by Shannon Hale. For all you Jane Austen fans out there, it is a quick(under 200 pages) but enjoyable read. Thank you Kelli for lending it to me. Next up on the reading list (hopefully) is Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict. I hear the two books are similiar. We will see which is better. I am always looking for a good clean book to read, so if anyone has any suggestions, please let me know.

A Trip to the Zoo

Well this week is Spring Break for the kids, so we have tried to think of some fun things to do with the kids to keep them busy. Yesterday we went to the zoo. It was a long day but very fun. We had 6 adults with us and 18 kids and luckily we never lost a child for longer then 1 minute. Oh, I should also mention that it was about 80 degrees outside, how about that for a nice day.

Learning to Use My Food Storage

So, as I mentioned before, I have been trying to be better prepared for an emergency. A big part of that is obviously food storage. I typically by 5 lb. bags of flour and that will last me about a year. Well the other day I decided to buy enough to fill a 5 gallon bucket ( I know it is not a ton, but it is a start). Okay now I have all of this flour, what in the heck do I do with it. So I decided to try and make something with yeast (this is a task I had not yet tackled. I'm a caterer not a baker). So I thought about what I would need in an emergency and of course the first thing that popped into my head was cinnamon rolls. One of my favorite all time treats is a CinnaBon. I went to copykat.com and found this imitation recipe there. They did not taste exactly like a Cinnabon, but they sure were delicious, especially hot out of the oven and the frosting was heavenly (I only made a half batch of the frosting and it was more then enough). I am happy that the recipe turned out, I will not be so afraid to make something involving yeast in the future. Next week I need to start trying some recipes for miniature fancy desserts for a catering job I have coming up, so if anyone knows any good recipes, please let me know.

It is Officially Done

Here is the table completely finished. It isn't perfect, but I am still proud of it. It sure looks better then it used to. I only refinished the top, it used to be a light honey maple stain, which is nice but just doesn't go with dark wood floors, so I had to make them match. It took a lot of time and I would have to think seriously if I would ever want to attempt something like that again.

Also today I let Noah have his first "all day" sucker. Again, I do not recommend it, because it took like an eternity to clean him up afterwards. It was cute to watch him eat it and he was very excited about it, but it was sticky and gross.

What a Weekend!

Well another weekend is done, and it was a productive one. Kevin spent many hours hanging sheet rock in the basement. Yes, it is a fun job, but we are to cheap to pay anyone to do it. He made a lot of progress, over half way done, thanks hun for all your hard work.

My big job for Saturday was working on that darned dining room table. I am happy to say that it is almost finished. I was able to finish sanding and staining the thing. Yeah, and today I put on the first coat of Polyurathane. Only a few more days and it will be done, done.

Even with all the work, I still managed to find time to watch all 4 sessions of general conference (thanks to modern day convinences, I was able to watch them later in the day). It was an uplifting experience, as always. I ended the weekend thinking of all the things that I could do to become a better person. One theme that stuck out to me throughout the conference was Testimony. One line in particular said something like, Let your children hear your testimony. I am not big on getting up in front of everyone in sacrament meeting and bearing my testimony, but I know it is something I need to work on. I also know that there are ways to share my testimony with my children not only at church, and I will make an effort to do that as well.

After the great uplifting experience of the weekend I woke this morning to cruddy weather. This is the house as I was leaving this afternoon, hail and snow on the ground. I know it could be worse but hello it is April, and it should just not snow this time of the year.

Pictures

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I took my kids to get their pictures taken at JC Penney's on Saturday. These are some of the pictures that we ordered:

Unfortunatly, Noah was having a bad hair day. He had a big chunk of hair in the back that would just not go down. We tried to find pictures where that did not show as well.

P.S. We do like Isaac just as much as the other boys, we just take each kid for pictures around their birthdays, his b-day is in November (so stay tuned for that).

It's a Good And Bad Day

We will start with the bad. So, today I decided to try and learn Photoshop Elements. It is not going well. I have spent a good part of my day crying and yelling at my computer, and still have nothing to show for it. I keep thinking that Photoshop is playing an April Fool's Day joke on me, but probably not. I had to just stop because when I get frustrated I become a mean mom and my kids don't like it when I am that way, nor do I. I would like to thank my big sis for trying to talk me through it. Sorry I am hopeless.
While I was neglecting my kids today, Isaac gave little Noah the rest of his apple. Apparently 1-year-olds should not eat apples. I looked at the apple and there was blood all over it. I guess when he bit the apple it caused his gums to bleed. Poor little guy. It did not seem to phase him, he was just mad that I took the apple away.
So now for the good news. I am 1/4 of the way through my Body for Life challenge and I have lost 5 pounds. My goal was to lose 8 pounds in the 12 weeks. Looks like I may have to adjust my goal.
I found out today that I will be able to go to Pennsylvania at the end of the month. Kevin has to go for work. I was ticked that he was going to get to go to my home town without me. But thanks to my mother-in-law who has agreed to watch Tanner and Isaac for 5 days, Noah and I will be going with Kevin. It will be fun to get to see my family. So Yeah for me.