Projects

I thought I'd post about some of my recent projects that turned out well. I got a stand-mixer for Christmas this year, and I have just LOVED it! I've had so much fun trying out new recipes with it. I finally, finally found a really good recipe for whole wheat bread that I've been making with the mixer. It is SO good. I also made some homemade hamburger buns! They are also whole wheat and turned out really yummy (and were pretty easy to make too). I'm not a big fan of the gluey hamburger buns you buy in the store, and the whole grain ones you buy are either expensive or not 100% whole grain, so I've always wanted to try making homemade ones. I was excited that they turned out as well as they did! Next on my list of recipes to try with my mixer? Homemade English muffins and homemade bagels. :)

I got a new book recently called "Cookie Craft" so for Valentine's day I had to try out some cookies. They are a little different from your typical soft sugar cookie with fluffy frosting. They use something called Royal icing, which is the kind that kind of hardens up on the cookies. My cookies were noooowhere near as cool as the ones in the book, but they turned out pretty cool looking and it was a fun project.

Josh and I LOVE sushi, but it's expensive. So years ago we learned how to make it at home. We've never tried to make the raw fish kind at home, but it's always good anyway. I've been craving sushi this pregnancy (not the greatest thing to crave!) so I finally made some pregnancy-safe kind with smoked salmon. It turned out SO yummy! My favorite that I've made so far.

And last on my recent project list: my latest quilt. Last fall I decided to join our church quilt group. I'd been wanting to get back into quilting. (I had only ever done one quilt prior to this one). Anyway, this group is doing a "block-of-the-month" quilt, so we do one block each month. The log cabin blocks we do separately on our own time. So far we've gotten the first three rows done! It's been really fun. I really learned to love quilting and have been doing it at night after the kiddos go to bed as my "down time". I'm also working on a quilt for our new baby. :)

Isaac's Baptism

Isaac was baptized on February 12th this year. Isaac has been so excited for it and it ended up being a really neat experience. Josh and I gave him a new set of scriptures in celebration of his big day (he also got some new clothes for church). I think he was more excited for those scriptures than he had been for any Christmas or birthday gift he got! :)

The baptism program turned out really nice. We were able to have everyone in our family participate in the program which made it really special. Bryce gave a prayer, I gave a talk on Baptism, Parker gave a talk on the Holy Ghost (he did so well reading his talk in front of everyone!) and Josh performed "If the Savior Stood Beside Me" on his guitar for a musical number (as well as accompanying opening & closing songs on guitar as well). Josh was also able to baptize & confirm Isaac. It was just really unique and I think we all felt the spirit.

Both of Isaac's grandparents were able to come, his great Grandpa Poole and his wife, his Aunt Cammie & some of his cousins. After the baptism we all went out to dinner at Isaac's favorite restaurant. It was a really great day! :)

Blue & Gold Banquet

I don't think I've blogged about it yet, but this year Josh was asked to be a den leader in the boy scouts (starting last summer). Isaac is in his den, and they have had lots of fun doing scouts together. In February they had their Blue & Gold Banquet. Each boy and his dad was asked to make a cake for a cake contest. Josh happened to be out of town on a business trip, so I helped Isaac make a cake. We made a cub scout shirt! :) I helped with the shaping of the cake and the edges, and Isaac did most of the frosting & candy decorations. We used fruit-roll-ups for the neckerchief. It turned out pretty cute. Isaac won "Best Cub Scout Cake" in the contest.

Christmas Eve & Christmas 2010

Yikes! It's March. I need to get faster at my back-bloggin! :)

We had a great Christmas Eve this year. In some ways, I think I love Christmas Eve almost as much as Christmas. For our family, it's an entire day spent together as a family, spent close to the Savior, with many fun activities.

We started out the day by meeting Josh's sister Melissa and her family at an early matinee movie at the theater. We saw the movie "Tangled" which was really cute. We started this little tradition with them last year and it has been really fun. :)

After we got home, we had lunch, then started making our traditional cookies for Santa Clause! This year we did peanut butter blossoms. They turned out really yummy.

After that we went out and delivered some Christmas goodies to our neighbors. We made our hot fudge sauce again this year. This time Josh ended up making it while I worked on some other Christmas goodies.

After we got home from our deliveries we put together our Christmas Eve dinner. It's been our tradition the last few years to have a cheese tray with a few "exotic" cheeses (and a couple of not so exotic ones) fruit and crackers.

After dinner we all gathered near our Christmas tree. We read from the bible of the birth of Christ and discussed it with the kids. Isaac & Parker amaze me at how much they already know of the scripture stories and how much they truly understand. It's always neat to talk to them about them. As we talked about Jesus' birth, the kids got out a little nativity that we have and we sort of acted out the story. It made it really fun.

Afterward we opened our Christmas Eve gift (new pajamas!), and the kids went to bed excited for Santa to come. :)

I think it's funny because so far we've always had to wake up our kids on Christmas morning. LOL But we got them up and went downstairs to see if Santa Clause came!

The stockings were full!

And he definitely came!

We had hamsters in our Christmas tree:

Checking out the cool stuff Santa brought:

Isaac got some new Pokemon cards & a binder to

store them in. I mentioned Isaac has been on a

pineapple kick lately? He asked Santa for a pineapple

this year (LOL). Not sure if he was serious, but

Santa came through! Haha

Bryce loved his car ramp toy:

And he got his own scooter this year!

Parker's our video game boy. He got a Sonic

game for our Wii.

We pretty much just spent the day playing and being together. It was nice not having to go anywhere. For our Christmas dinner we had Shrimp, sour cream potatoes, spinach artichoke dip with veggies, a jello salad, and sparkling apple cranberry juice.

A couple of days after Christmas we made the trip to southern Utah to visit both my and Josh's parents. We stopped in Loa to visit my parents first, then headed down to St. George to visit Josh's parents. We beat the snow storms, and had a good time seeing everyone and celebrating Christmas with them.

I took picture of everyone's gifts. :) The kids always have fun looking back at these years later. Not sure if anyone else cares about looking at them though. LOL!

Josh got a food dehydrator, a campfire popcorn popper, a wheatgrass juicer,

a newspaper log maker, some five-finger shoes (not pictured) and a few other things.

Family gifts: a trampoline! (not pictured), Mario Kart &

Wheel of Fortune for Wii,

some new board games, & a couple of other things:

Bryce got a car ramp toy, a scooter, some Zhu Zhu pets

a Sing-a-ma-jig, new blocks and more:

Isaac got a binder & more Pokemon cards,

a Kung fu hamster set, a camera, an electadoodle,

the Percy Jackson book set, & more:

Parker got a Zhu Zhu pet set, a Hot Wheels set,

a Moon Dough set, an electadoodle, his Sonic game

and more:

I got way too spoiled this year! I got a Kitchenaid mixer,

a Macbook (big surprise from Josh :)), and an Emrod fishing pole: