Swedish Pancakes

Every family has it's traditional recipes, and mine is no different.

Every holiday morning (and let's face it, any given Saturday morning, or Tuesday night for that matter) calls for a round of Swedish Pancakes.

This recipe has been handed down in my family for generations.  I know it to come from my Great Grandma Johnson who barely spoke a lick of English.  She brought this recipe with her when she immigrated from Sweden.

1/2 C Sugar
1/2 - 1 1/2 C Flour*
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
2 C milk

*These pancakes are meant to be thin, but I find they're extremely hard to flip.  Making them a little thicker helps with the ability to flip them.  Hence the range of possible flour.  Find your comfort zone with it.  I, personally, use 1 cup of flour.

Combine the dry ingredients and then blend in the eggs. After blended slowly add milk as you mix.

There are two very important tips to making Swedish pancakes.  The first being the temperature of your pan.  You don't want it too hot or it will burn you pancake before it's ready to flip.  I usually start warming my pan up on level 6 and mid-way through turn it down to a 5.

The second tip is cooking spray.  I have no idea how they kept these from sticking to the pan before cooking spray was invented, but they will stick badly so make sure you coat your frying with cooking spray before every single pancake.

After your pan is warmed up and you've applied the cooking spray, just poor the batter in to fill the bottom of your pan with thin layer of batter.

Let it sit until it bubbles and appears to be cooked through, at least on the edges.

Flipping can be difficult because of the thinness of the pancake.  It's going to take some practice, but even if you end up "scrambling" the pancake, it still tastes really good so don't worry about it.  Just keep practicing.

I shimmy my spatula under the edge and flip fast.

Because the pancake is already mostly cooked through at this point, it only needs to sit on the second side for a few seconds before it's done.

Use your spatula to roll it up and put it on a plate.

You can top your pancakes, or unroll them and put your toppings on the inside, and the roll them back up again.

We tend to use butter and powder sugar, and sometimes fruit (fresh or canned) on ours.  Jam and syrup are also good toppings.

A Shortcut For Cooking Dinner

One of the biggest things I struggle with in life is cooking.

I have no culinary imagination whatsoever, though it goes a level deeper in that I don't even want to have culinary imagination.  I love to eat good food as much as the next person, believe you me, but I don't want to have to be the one who makes it.

Being a wife and a mom, I don't get to get away with not cooking.  Though I told The Man that when we grow up, and there are no more kids in our home, dinner is going to be a phone call at the end of the work day asking him what restaurant he wants take out from.

As it is, that's not really an option, and as it is it's my duty as a parent to make sure my children are well fed.  And though I loath cooking, I kind of like my kids a lot so I guess I need to feed them.

This brings me to the actual point of this post.  When it comes to dinners I want them to be really good, because obviously I have to eat them too.  One of the demands I have is that whatever recipe I'm following for the evening needs to be ready and on the table in under a half hour.  I'm a working mom and by the time I get home there just isn't a lot of time in the day left, and I don't want to spend my time standing over a stove.  Plus, eating before bedtime is generally a bonus.

Finding recipes that can be ready in under a half hour can be challenging, but as I've been trying to build my recipe stash (when you have no culinary imagination everything you cook comes from someone else's culinary imagination.  Recipes please.) I've started noticing that a big portion of my time cooking dinner is spent on cooking the meat.  So I started thinking about this and realized if the meat could be already cooked by the time I get home, it's really not a big ordeal to throw all the ingredients together and call it dinner.

We eat a lot of chicken because, frankly, I have a taste aversion to red meat.  So generally I stick to chicken recipes, and would be quite alright with picking up some no-meat dinners but The Man has an aversion to no-meat dinners.

Chicken it is.

There are two things about chicken and dinner.  The first being that I feel half the time of dinner prep goes to just simply cooking it before it can be added to the recipe I'm making.  And second, I hate cutting it.  Cutting raw meat gives me the heebie jeebies.

I've realized I can shortcut on both those points and not have to deal with either of them.

Ever again.

Guys, the crockpot is the most amazing thing.

In the morning I simply add a cup or two of broth (usually made by throwing water and bouillon in), drop the chicken breasts in, and turn it on.

By the time I come home from work the chicken is not only fully cooked and ready to use in my dinner recipe, but it's falling apart juicy.  And falling apart juicy means take a couple of forks, shred it up a bit, and you didn't even have to cut it.

Suddenly throwing dinner together is a bit more bearable.

A Day Off.

The thing about my job is that I get random Monday holidays off that no one else in my family gets off.

Like Veteran's day.

I still had to pull myself out of bed and go to math class because even though I got the day off from work, I didn't get the day off from school.  And I had to go because we were having a quiz.  Except then I got there and the teacher announced that there wouldn't be a quiz after all.

But after that hour of math, I had the entire day to myself, as The Man still went to work and The Circus still had school, and I had a whole list of errands that I was planning on getting done on this weekday that I had to myself.

So after math class I went home and changed into my clothes to go to the temple, which I haven't done in way too long.  I drove over to the temple and...

the temple was closed.

So I drove to the bank to deposit a refund check.

It was closed.

The Man showed up in the afternoon and we went to the post office.

It was closed.

The Circus wanted a trip to the library after school.

It was closed.

At what point do I begin to remember that I'm home on a holiday and therefore everyone else who works in a business similar to mine is also going to be home for a holiday?

Let it be known that the day was not a complete bust.  I did manage to take a 2 hour nap, clean the papers out of my car, write the menu on the kitchen chalkboard,

vacuum, do the dishes and a load of laundry, and Target was still open.

I love you, Target.

And I got half of my new book read.

And actually made dinner.

Tomorrow I have big news.

Probably in the form of a pretty cool give away from a boutique.

You're going to want to check back for this one.

Chicken Enchilada with Avocado (Peppermint?) Cream Sauce. A Pinterest Recipe.

A little tid bit about me: I hate cooking.

For reals.

As a teen my dad (Dick) would try to teach me how to cook and it just made me ornery.  As a new stay at home wife I tried to make sure I had hot dinners ready when my husband came home and for the first year of our marriage it made me ornery.

And then I had kids and I was still trying to have hot dinners ready when my husband came home and that was chaos that made me feel not so much ornery, but frazzled.

And then I became a single mom who worked full time and still had the kids and come dinner time I found I only had so much time between work and baths and homework and bed time and cooking made me stressed.  Nightly.

Now I still work full time and I still have the kids and I have an amazing husband who gets home before I do, so there's no way I'm having a hot dinner ready for him when he gets home, but I feel I need to get on it right away because they're all home and hungry, plus I've added school to the mix and ya'll, dinner sometimes gets skipped at my house.

Find what you can kids, this mom's had it.

Or I order pizza.

And thankfully my husband is a gem and never complains.

But the ironic, fateful twist to all of this is that I love to eat.

I love good food.

So when I sit down to make my menu and shopping list, and I get onto pinterest to see what recipes there are because I have no culinary imagination or talent, outside of following a recipe to the "t," my tastebuds start dancing and I go all Betty Crocker on that menu and shopping list.

And then I've locked myself into actually having to make all of these meals throughout the next two weeks because it's what I went shopping for and I'm not over exaggerating when I say I have no culinary imagination outside of following a recipe.

Once it's on the menu, and I've purchased the ingredients, I'm locked in.  Because what else am I going to do with all of this stuff I just bought at the grocery store?  I have no idea.

The other night I was locked into making a chicken enchiladas with avocado cream sauce recipe from pinterest.
Pinterest link here
Original recipe here

{pic source}

Cas, Tayler, and The Man were all right there with me helping me to chop vegetables and stir sauces and stuff tortillas and once it was in the oven we were even all in good moods still.

I might like cooking now that my Circus is old enough to help out with it.

So this recipe, five of us ate it and it gets five votes.  In fact, five of us went back for  seconds so there's that.

But the strangest thing happened: after the avocado sauce was all made up in the food processor and Cas and I were getting ready to fill and roll tortillas we were struck by the prominent scent of peppermint.

So much so that it was making me nervous.  How do you add avocado, cumin, and lime juice and come out with... peppermint?

But we put the enchiladas together, threw them in the oven, and even then other members of the family was commenting on the peppermint smell.  How does that happen?  I didn't even know.

After 20 minutes we pulled dinner out of the oven and everyone dug in, exclaiming how even if it smelled like peppermint, it sure didn't taste like peppermint, and I was beyond baffled by the whole thing.  We went about our evening, cleaned up dinner and went to bed.

The next morning I reached up to open the spice cupboard while I was making my morning eggs when suddenly it felt like someone had poured a small cup of liquid on my hand.  Our spice cupboard has a shallow spice shelf with a second door on front of the main door of the cupboard.  Something had definitely poured onto my hand from the outside shallow part when I went to open the entire door.

I opened the shallow door and found a bottle of peppermint extract was tipped over without its lid on.

Which would explain the amount of liquid that had just poured onto my hand.

Which would also explain the smell of peppermint at dinner the night before.

I can't even begin to tell you how relieved I was to find out that my avocado and cumin sauce did not, in fact, smell like peppermint.

Chocolate Caramel Bundt Cake Recipe

Mornings come too early.  Without warning.  Unprecedented.

It's bad enough that I signed myself up for a yoga class before work, but let's face it, when else was I going to get it done?  Evenings belong to The Circus.  Evenings belong to The Man.

And that need to run eats at me.  Which causes turmoil because I can't honestly say that I like to run?  I don't know what's going on with me feeling like I need to do it but with all the snow and inversion when am I supposed to fit that in?

Before yoga.

Am I crazy?

Without argument.

Because of all the things I am, a morning person is not one of them.

I have to be completely honest and say that most mornings I have only two motivations to get out of my bed and hit the road earlier than early.  Those two reasons would be:

1.  If I leave early to run before class I miss the stupid meter lights on the freeway entrance.  They aren't on yet.

and

2. If I leave early to run before class I get good parking so I don't have to walk that far in the early morning cold.

I guess whatever gets it done.

Today I promised to post my chocolate caramel bundt cake recipe.

Guys, it's so easy, you're going to love me.

I got the cake recipe a few years ago off of one of the forums on cakecentral.com.  Cake Central is like a social media for cakers.  They have crazy cool designs, how to's, and recipes.

So here it is, the most easy, moist beyond moist every time cake recipe.  And it works for any flavor that you can buy in a box.

Cake:
1 box of chocolate cake (any chocolate flavor will do, though I will say not all chocolate flavors were created equal)
1 sm box of instant chocolate pudding

Here's the scoop: mix the cake batter up like it says to do on the back of the box.  Then in addition to that add the chocolate pudding powder, 1/4 C water and 1/3 C oil.

Done.  Bake as directed on the box.

Use it for any cake, any flavor, and pan.  I make my cupcakes this way too.

To die for.

For the caramel I found the recipe on Smitten Kitchen.
1 C heavy cream
1/2 C packed light brown sugar
1 Tbsp light corn syrup
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

you'll also need a candy thermometer.

Bring cream, brown sugar, corn syrup, and a pinch of salt to a boil in a heavy saucepan (1 1/2 qt) over medium heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved.  Boil until it registers 210 to 212* F on thermometer, about 12 to 14 minutes after boiling point, then stir in vanilla.

Pour that gooey stuff over top your cake and enjoy.

I'll add here that when I was doing cakes more heavily, I found that caramel when amazingly with yellow cake (use vanilla pudding or cheesecake pudding in the cake).  Just an added thought.  

So there it is.  

And if you can add 43 candles to it... do it.

Screw the Mantel, I Don't Even Have A Dining Room Floor Right Now.

Remember to enter for the double book giveaway here.

The Navigator is still in the shop.

On Friday I drove the monster truck.

On Saturday I drove the monster truck.

On Sunday I drove the monster truck.

Do you know what it's like to scrape snow off of windows that are above your head while wearing a skirt and heels?

The Man needed the monster truck today so I'm on my own.  Actually, I was pretty okay with that.  I had some time off saved up at work and I thought, "I can clean up all the messes that have accumulated during the construction of our house and wrap some presents."

So I emailed my boss and told him I still didn't have a car and I would just take a personal day and stay home.

He responded with, "you shouldn't waste your personal days.  You need to use it closer to the holiday when you can be with your kids and be doing Christmas things.  I can send an agent to come and get you."

And I shrugged my shoulders.

Whatever.

I didn't really want to clean anyway.  More dust will be made.

Over the weekend we crossed off two of my December bucket list items (here).  We watched The Muppets Christmas Carol and had a hot chocolate bar.

The pinterest picture I was taking the idea from was this:

{pin}

Let's be real.

My hot chocolate bar was by no means this cute.

And I'm okay with that.  I think we, as mothers, put way too much pressure on ourselves to make the things we do over the top presentable.

I sat the bags and boxes of goodies on the counter and told the kids to have it.

Where they disappointed that it wasn't in individually labeled cups?

No.

And neither was I.

We seriously need to give ourselves a break.  We can't get caught up in the little stuff that doesn't even matter.

My kitchen was full of giggling and excitement as the kids threw all sorts of goodies into their mugs.

This December is starting out on a good foot for me. We only have a Christmas tree up, no other decorations of any kind.  I don't have lights on the outside of my house, I don't even have stockings hung, and I certainly don't have my mantel decorated.

Screw the mantel, I don't even have a dining room floor right now.  (Which is the room where the fire place is).

And yet there is still magic in the air.

The kids laugh together and whisper around the tree.

They randomly break out into Christmas songs at the top of their lungs, or hum them while doing their chores and homework.

They curl up together on the couch while we watch Christmas shows on TV.

They secretly whisper to me about the plans they have for the sibling whose name they've drawn this year.

And it isn't about the decorations.

It's about the feeling.

The feeling of doing things for other people.

The feeling of knowing that we have a Savior.

The feeling that we're a family and we're creating these memories.

*Remember that year when we had to eat Christmas dinner on the office floor around the Christmas tree because we didn't have a dining room floor?*

And we'll giggle because it was the best Christmas ever.

As long as Santa doesn't fall in the holes when he comes down the chimney.

(Also this weekend we tried hot chocolate in the crockpot, another December bucket list item and oh. so. good.  Do it now.  Find the pin here).

(Also, we made these mini peach cobblers.  Like a snickerdoodle with peaches. Do it now. Find the pin here).

Phineas and Ferb Sums Up Motherhood. And Pinterest Recipe Reviews.

Last night we were watching Phineas and Ferb on Netflix.

I love that cartoon.

That and Wizards of Waverly Place.

That's pure entertainment right there.

Anyway, Phineas and Ferb.  This scene happened and I cracked up.  As in giggled myself silly because this scene right here explains exactly what it feels like to be a mom.  Watch how Baljeet reacts to Buford:



I died.

Not 15 minutes after watching that show I was in the kitchen with The Circus talking about "The Muppets Christmas Carol" when someone asked Tayler if she even knew what we were talking about and she replied, "Ihop."

Baljeet ran through my mind.

I feel that way much too often.

Today we wanted to tell you about some more pinterest recipes we've tried out in our home.
There's some seriously good stuff on that website.

Forgotten Chicken
pinterest link here  original link here

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This recipe was easy with a capitol E.

I also heard once that if you want to switch your family over to brown rice instead of white, you should use brown rice in new recipes, not established recipes, because then they don't notice a taste difference.  So I tried that with this recipe.  I used instant brown rice instead of white rice.

I don't think my family has a clue.

Out of 9  votes (Papa Mike at it with us once too) it got...

all 9.

We've eaten it two Sundays in the last month.  It's already become a regular dinner at our house.

Go pin it.  Go make it.

Baked Penne
pinterest link here  original link here

{source}

I usually avoid baked pastas.

As much as I love them, The Man needs meat.  And baked pastas are usually just pasta and cheese, and sometimes veggies.  So when I saw that this baked pasta called for meat I sang with the hallelujah choir in my head.

Out of 8 votes it got...

all 8.

Again we've made this twice in a month's time and then a third time on left over night.  When The Circus found out I was making if for a second time they got excited.

Huge hit.

I skipped the green peppers in it and used regular ground hamburger.

Amazing Crockpot Chicken Taco Chili
pinterest link here  original link here

{source}

We didn't cover ours with Fritos.

I can't say enough about finding really good recipes for the crockpot, especially as a working mom.

Out of 8 votes it got...

7

Sort of.  The first time I made it Tayler claimed it to be too "spicy" but she ate it perfectly fine the next time I made it.

And The Man said it was "okay," but when I told him it a healthier recipe he said in that case it was really good.  He likes it when eating healthier tastes good.

I've made this repeatedly and there haven't been any other comments "against" it.

I'm also planning on making for my work party coming up in a couple of weeks.  I think it's good enough to share.

Baked Spaghetti
pinterest link here  original link here

{source}

Spaghetti has been a fall back out our house for years because I'm lame and use jarred sauce.  It doesn't get any easier than boiling noodles and opening a jar.

Needless to say The Man is sick of spaghetti.

I decided to try this and see if I couldn't change it up a little bit.

Only 6 of us were home that night and out of 6 votes it got...

5

The Man is still sick of spaghetti.  So I don't really think that counts against this recipe.  It was super fun to present spaghetti in a different way like this.  I found it a little dry when I ate it so I just poured a little extra sauce on the plate and dipped.

Also, when I do this again (after a few months.  Let The Man get his spaghetti vibe back) I'd like to make it more garlicky.

Lime Chicken Tacos
pinterest link here  original link here

{source}

This recipe was for the crockpot, but I just did it one night in a pan.

Out of 6 votes it got...

5

The Man had an aversion, for some reason, to the smell of it as it was cooking and thus refused to even taste it.

I wonder if I did it in the crockpot if it would smell better to him?  Because the rest of us thought it was fantastic.

This weekend I get to take The Man on an adventure for his birthday.  Which is still two weeks away but I'm working with an expiration date here, what do you do?  You do it early, that's what.

I can not wait.

Also, I read this article and fell in love with it.

“Let us ask ourselves the questions,” he (Pres. Thomas S. Monson) has said, “‘Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need?’ What a formula for happiness! What a prescription for contentment, for inner peace. … There are hearts to gladden. There are kind words to say. There are gifts to be given. There are deeds to be done. There are souls to be saved.”


“The prayers of people are almost always answered by the actions of others.”

And this one too.  (Thanks Evonne).

For that, good intentions are not enough. We must do.

Let us resolve to cherish those we love by spending meaningful time with them, doing things together, and cultivating treasured memories.

Black Eyes and Breaking and Killing Potatoes (also, recipe reviews from the circus)

We're full swing into spirit week at school.  Yesterday was pajama day, today is fake an injury day.

No blood allowed.

So we settled for black eyes.

That's much more fun than sticking fake bandaids and wraps.

I've been trying new recipes this week, mostly off of pinterest so I thought I'd let you know what we think of the food pins that are floating around on that site.

(My food board is here if you want to follow it.)

Last night I asked to Brynn to help me with the potatoes and handed her the bag.

She asks, "do you want me to break them?"

"Do I what?"

"I mean, should I kill them?"

"You want to break and kill the potatoes?"

Turns out she was asking if she should grate and peel them.

I think it's going to stick around though.  "Hey, will you break and kill the potatoes for me?" 

Here are the three food pins that we've tried out within this last week:

Chile Colorado Burritos
Pinterest link     original link

{source}

This is by far one of the easiest things I have ever made.

Seriously. 

Dump three things into a crockpot and walk away.  Come back at dinner, wrap it all up in a tortilla and do a quick broil to melt the cheese.

Papa Mike joined us for dinner that night so with nine people having dinner that night it has a possible of nine votes.

How many votes did it get?

Nine.

We loved it.  It was easy and had great flavor

This will be a frequent repeat recipe at our house.

Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti
 original link

{source}

A fairly simple crockpot recipe.  I didn't end up doing it in the crockpot because it calls for you to precook the chicken and then put it in the crockpot for only a couple of hours, and being at work that day, that wasn't going to happen.  So I just precooked the chicken and then threw it all in a regular pot to simmer together while I boiled the noodles.

6 of us were home for dinner that night and out of 6 votes it got...

only one.

I couldn't bring myself to eat this.  Tayler loved it, but she was on her own in that.  Maybe it was the fact that it just had an overwhelming taste of Velveeta.  And nothing else. No other flavors stood out in this recipe.

I had a big pot of it and ended up just throwing it all out. 

I'll be deleting this from my pinterest board.

Ranch Crock Pot Pork Chops with Parmesan Mashed Potatoes
Pinterest link    Original link

This recipe was also a crockpot recipe, but I did it in a regular pan after I got home from work. 
I ended up mixing the gravy into a smaller pan and adding water to thin the consistency and the flavor out.

This is the recipe we made last night where Brynn helped me break and kill the potatoes.

6 of us ate dinner last night.  This recipe got...

6 votes.

The flavor was delicious.  It took a little effort with the potatoes but it was so worth it.

We'll be eating this again soon.

today is national love your husband day

Last night we made rolo brownies. 

{source:pinterest}

Since Jayme is our resident brownie freak, I had her make them.  They're easy as pie.  Actually, I would say they're a lot easier than pie.  Unless you just buy the pie.  If that's the case, then yes, they're as easy as pie.
They turn out pretty rich.  You'll need milk. 
And neighbors to share the extras with.
Oh, and if you look at the recipe, I didn't freeze our rolos like it says, so let me know how that works out for you.  We just unwrapped them and plopped them in.  Also, I think next time I'll make them in cupcake papers.

We had some good rain this week.  It messes with The Man's job, where he works outside, but other than that little tidbit, I love the rain.  It means it's not cold enough to snow. 

I was downtown for more training yesterday.  I love the city.  I love living in suburbia, but I love when I get to go into the heart of the city too.  There's just so much character there. It speaks to me.
My training was with the Attorney General himself, Mark Shurtleff, (well, just the first little bit of it).  He even swore us in for our "new" jobs.  Which was weird, I get that for the lawyers and the investigators... but for the rest of us?  He said it didn't matter.  We were in a job of public service and he thought it was great that we all swear in to do the best job that we can.  So I did.
He's a lame duck Attorney General now though, as he's not running again.  It's kind of weird to think that I'll be voting for my next boss.  Well, my boss's, boss's, boss's boss. :)

Weekend plans?

• Figure out something really nice to do for The Man.  Apparently I was a pain in the neck this morning, even though that wasn't my intention.  Sometimes it just happens.  He says I care about things too much.  I guess I do, I'm working on that.  In the mean time... I need to find a nice surprise for him between now and going home. I need my good to outweigh my bad.  Also today is National Love Your Husband Day.  So I really better be doing something nice.  (I only know this because my male co-worker just told me, ha :).  I guess I should make it clear that I can't find any proof that today is National Love Your Husband Day, but I'm going to go with it anyway.
• Brynn has a birthday party to attend to tonight, so we'll be making that weekend drive later than usual. (I'll have to post a picture of the place we meet, it's like, The Hills Have Eyes creepy.  But it's our half way mark for meeting when we swap the kids).
• Tay's birthday is next weekend so I'll need to finish shopping for her presents and set up her party at the Rec. Center pool.  That was her choice from our birthday list.  I should post that list sometime too, it's pretty helpful, even if I do say so myself.
• My sister's (Kristin) baby shower.  Which means finishing up the presents I'm making for her (I can't say what they are yet.  What if she reads this?) And finish making the cupcakes.  I have half the signs finished, so I need to finish the other half and, you know, actually bake them.
• Bowling with my other sister, McKell.  Except for the one fantastic time that I bowled a ham bone bowling is not my forte.  But it's still funny. 

Thought for the day:
"It isn't as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. I say that to myself every morning. It will all work out. If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith and confidence in the future. The Lord will not forsake us. He will not forsake us. … If we will put our trust in Him, if we will pray to Him, if we will live worthy of His blessings, He will hear our prayers." - Gordon B. Hinckley (here).

this weekend we...

This weekend we
...started prepping the trailer for the upcoming warmer weather.  Yay for camping!  We have spring fever badly and can't wait to get out into some warm weather.  Of course, Utah being what it is, we're still bouncing between 70 degrees one day and snow the next right now, but hopefully before too long the snow will taper off.

Spring is such a tease.

...went grocery shopping.  Grocery shopping stresses me out.  I think it has become a very clear sign that my kids are no longer little.  We have officially gone from grocery shopping at a grocery store and grabbing a few items from Costco to shopping fully at Costco and grabbing a few items from the grocery store. 

...bought Easter dresses.  Another sign that my kids are no longer little: Cas got her entire outfit at Plato's Closet.  She can now shop at the same stores that I do, though where I'm wearing mediums, she's only in extra small.  Still...
This is actually something I don't mind in that Casidee's entire outfit, including two pairs of sandals and a necklace, cost $25.  In this way, I'm anxiously waiting for the other kids to join her in growing up.   Eh, scratch that.  I just need to find a better second hand store for the others.  Maybe I should try Kid-to-Kid again.

...listened to General Conference.  In pieces.  I look forward to listening to it this week while I do other things at my desk.  The parts that I did hear touched me to the core.  Like, rocked my world. 
I've been struggling with myself.  Being good enough.  Chasing a dream which is terrifying me (thus why I have yet to really mention it too much).  It's terrifying me that maybe I won't be good enough to catch that dream.  It's easier to say you're whole life that you could do something, but it's a lot more scary to back those words up with actions. 

What if I can't back those words up?

The things I heard on conference were about loving yourself unconditionally.  I'll post more on this later after I've listened to the rest of conference.  I feel a real heart felt post about how we view ourselves coming on.  *beware*

...played Apples to Apples with Grandma Julie while The Man helped Grandpa Brent reshingle a shed roof.

um hum!

My dad says, "Take a picture.  We're bonding up here."

... wrestled a lot.

... sent the kids to the school to play.  They have a high degree of spring fever/cabin fever and were extremely loud and rambunctious.  We kicked them out.  45 minutes later the rain/snow started.  By the time we got out to the car to go rescue them from the school (it was our fault they were out in it after all), they were already making it home and drenching wet and freezing cold.

Do we have hot chocolate?  No.  But I did my best to compensate for it.

Chocolate pudding in mugs with marshmallows. 

...watched RED and played card games for family night.

... ate the best roast ever!  I will never make it another way again.  I also love that it makes it's own gravy while it cooks. Find the recipe here. (Thanks pinterest!)

blogging for fishes

I still have some events in life that I need to get thrown up on here, but I'm going to take a break from that today.

I'm feeling so emotional and I'm going to tell you why.

The Man and I have often mentioned how very grateful we are that out of 6 kids, they are all healthy.  Sure we have small issues, bed wetting, ear aches far past that of the normal infant and toddler range, missing permanent teeth (they were never formed in the gums.  We have now become the orthodontists favorite family)...

But really, we are all healthy.  I've been thinking about it a lot the past year or two actually.  It all started with this cute little girl, Izzy.  I sort of knew her parents in high school and thanks to the wonderful world that is facebook, am in cyber contact with her mom, Jennie.  What an amazing, stong woman she is.

I watched on facebook and on her blog about Izzy's cancer (here) as they made their way through that time. 

It broke my heart.

I donated to her charity's and even made cake coupons for auctions.  (I doubt they helped very much, but I tried).

Jennie is still an amazing advocate for children's cancer.  Recently on facebook she posted about a family who needed to find a bone marrow match for their young daughter's second bought with cancer.  Can you even imagine how it would feel to find that you're not a match for your child and can't help them? You can read about Millie's ongoing battle on their blog (here).

When Jennie spread the word for Millie's family about a bone marrow drive at Primary Children's hospital to search for a match for Millie, she said, "if this were your child, would you want people to show up?"  To which I answered yes.  Yes.  If it were my child I would be hoping and praying with every ounce of my being that people would show up.

So West and I did, and we're now in the bone marrow registry.  I really wanted to be a match for Millie, but I guess I wasn't.

It catches me in the gut how much I need to help these causes that are fighting for children who are fighting for their lives.  How wonderful would it be to find a way to relieve their pain?

I'm writing this post because today, as I was checking out my recipe blogs (oh thank heavens for recipe blogs.  My husband thinks I'm a good cook because of them)  I found two blogs posting on the exact same topic.

And if you haven't yet guessed, it's about two children from the same family, dealing with pain and fighting for their lives.  They have a rare gene dysfunction called Leaky SCID (Severe Combined Immune Deficiency).  Here is their story in their own words:



Let's help this family be able to afford the medical treatments for their girls.  Help me help them.  I'm asking you to go to The Sister's Cafe here and read the story.  Or Mel's Kitchen Cafe here. A cookbook compiled of recipes from 40+ bloggers is being sold to raise money for the Fish family. 

Both The Sister's Cafe and Mel's Kitchen Cafe are giving it away, but let's all buy a copy.  The host of lemonpoppy cake did this project for this family and you can buy the book here from her site. You can buy the actual printed book, or buy it as an e-book.  And spread the word.  Because I don't feel like I do enough for these kids who need help.  These families who need relief.

You can follow the Fish family's fight on their blog about it here.

That's a lot of linking, I know, but I don't know what else to do.  Except buy a book.  Which I did.  And spread the word.  How blessed are we to have healthy families? 

In the words of Jennie, how would we be feeling if we were doing this for our own child?

Florida trip: Universal Studios Orlando

A couple of things...

First, who wears high heels to an amusement park? Why would you do that to yourself?  Why?  I just don't understand.

Second... no, that's all I had.  I'm pretty dumbfounded by the women tripping along in heels from one ride to another.  My feet and legs were killing while wearing flip flops and tennis shoes, I can't even fathom wearing heels.

Usually when we take a vacation I do day by day posts about it.  I think I'm going to do this trip differently.  Even though it was five days long, it really was comprised of two parts so I think I'll post it in two posts by the events instead of in five days.

First and foremost, my "twin" brother got married to a crazy fun lady.  I'm happy to call her sister now.  But I'm waiting for other family members to post some pics of that so I can steal them for my blog :). 

So the other part of our trip was Universal Studios Orlando.  To say that I was excited to see the Harry Potter world would be an understatement.  I was bouncing in my seat to see it, and it didn't disappoint me.

We flew into Orlando on Thursday night and I could instantly feel that the air felt "heavier".  I could feel the difference in the moisture of the air compared to the dry air of Utah.  It felt good.  By the time we rented our car and left the airport it was 1 am (Florida time) and we had yet to eat dinner.  A detour to Denny's (oh how sweet Denny's is with their 24 hour goodness).  Our GPS more than paid for itself with this trip and got us to our hotel by avoiding any toll roads. 

Friday morning our friend, Mr. GPS helped us find Universal Studios. 

We had a breakfast reservation at the Three Broomsticks and I wasn't about to miss it.  We walked into Hogsmeade and I literally gasped.  It was so... perfect.

 Breakfast in the Three Broomsticks:

West got the traditional English breakfast with baked beans and black pudding, I stuck with fruit and English scones.  We both tried pumpkin juice.  It was like Halloween in my mouth, amazing!  Pumpkin, cloves, nutmeg, and it was ice cold.

After breakfast we saw the sights and rode the rides.

Mandrakes :)

Dumbledore's staircase

The pictures really moved.

The sorting hat

Olivander's was Awesome with a capital "A".

They did a presentation, straight out of the book, where Olivander himself picked a child from the group and went through the process of helping that child find the right wand.  After a few spells gone awry, a light sparking, boxes shifting on shelves, the right wand was finally found.

We tried butterbeer

This is what happens when you have to share a lap bar with people who are bigger than you are... my question is, if this is okay for me in the name of safety, why do we need it at all?

The Man was able to eventually drag me away from Hogsmeade to see the rest of the park, which was pretty cool too :).

I don't know how it is where you live, but where we live the water rides at our amusement park (you can check out how the circus reacted to our local park here and here) are just teases.  You come up on a waterfall and just when you're about to go under it, it subsides. 

Not so at Universal Orlando.

When they pull out the water, they intend to use the water.  After three water rides were completely drenched from head to toe.

Which was just as well since by the time we hit our third water ride the rain started anyway.

What is it with torrential Florida rainstorms that only last 30-45 minutes?

We spent the entire day wet.  We shivered inside the heavily air conditioned buildings and walked around in the rain.  But the rain cleared up. 

Sort of.

All I can say is don't tease the cartoon rain gods.  :)  I spent the rest of the day with my jean shorts dripping down my legs.

Here's a fun picture sequence (at least it amuses me because I know how much I love to capture it all with my camera, and how much The Man doesn't).

I crack myself up.

We caught a live "Fear Factor" show with audience participants.  Those would be real people on the hoods of the cars grabbing for flags.

They even drank a gross concoction and put scorpions on a lady's head.

If you're still with me after all of that then you deserve a prize.  And I even cut out a lot of the pictures I took. 

I loved being with The Man and laughing.  Talking.  Eating.  Lots of eating.  We rode crazy fun rides and people watched.  We spent three days at Universal Orlando and I think my favorite day was the first day in the rain.  The rain was warm and it thinned out the crowds for us :).