Baby chicks!

This Thanksgiving, my parents gave us several baby chicks for the kids to raise. The kids were thrilled! When the chicks were little, the kids would go out to the coop and just play with the little featherballs. They were so dang cute. The kids were told not to name the chicks, unless they wanted to call them "stew", "KFC", "pot pie", "wings" or "sunday dinner". Of course, they did not listen and named a few of them. "Biggie" was the biggest one, of course. "Sophia" was one of the smallest. A few others received names that were the same as some of the kids' school-mates. Now that the chicks have all grown up, the kids can't tell one from another, thank goodness. Aimee quite frequently likes to talk about us eating her chicks for dinner. :-)

Even now, I often find the kids inside the coop just holding the chickens or even just sitting outside the wire watching them. The boys mostly like to try tricking them by throwing a little stick or rock through the wire and watching to see if the chickens will chase after it. The funniest thing to watch is when someone throws a bug to the chickens. They run around playing "keep away" until one of them finally digests it and all the others are out of luck.

Just because

Ethan turns 8

Ethan just turned 8 a couple weeks ago, so I headed to the park with my boy and my camera on a nice cloudy day. It was a welcome change from our normal blazing hot sun. We had plenty of beautiful light, lots of green grass, and sweat dripping from both us of from all the humidity in the air. These are our favorite images from his birthday session.

And from those images, he chose these to go on his baptism invitation. They were different from the ones that I would have chosen, but he assured me these are the ones that he wanted. Because of that, I think his invitation turned out perfect!

Happy birthday Ethan!

Totally worth it

Earlier this month, we had the "joy" of taking family portraits. Our session was full of exciting moments of grass cuts on fingers, bored kids, moody girls, dancers too tired of looking at a camera's flashing red lights, close calls with PILES of dog poo, closed eyes, smile fatigue....

Yep, even some user errors like over/under exposing, and improper focus. :-)

 And finally, we were able to get one like this, only after replacing a head in photoshop. It was the absolute best we could get, as bad as it is. I must say that paying a professional photographer to take our family portraits would have been worth every penny after all we went through to get ONE mediocre portrait using a tripod. Lesson learned.

 

White Coat Ceremony

First, I have to apologize for the horrible pictures in this post. They are some of the worst I've ever taken, thank goodness. The room was dark, the lens too small, the subjects too far away, and the heads-in-my-way too many. Despite the horrible pictures, it was a fantastic day. 
Ryan had just finished his first day of dental school. He was excited, the kids were excited, and I was quite proud of my hunny. For those of you that have never been to a white coat ceremony, it is like a graduation, except it is at the beginning of school rather than at the end. It still comes with all the excitement, tears, speeches, and "fluff" that comes with a graduation. 
When all the students came in, they were divided between the two opposite aisles of the auditorium. We were so lucky to have Ryan come down the aisle right next to us. I was looking for him but did not see him until someone else called out that they saw him. 

 Here is Ryan waving to the kids as he walked by.

 Ryan is patting one of the boys on the head.

After the students found their seats, all the formalities started: people on stage introduced, speeches, pep talks, etc., all the fun stuff that goes with ceremonies of this type. 
Finally, the students were ready to go on stage, have their name read, get a white coat in the wrong size, shake hands, hug, find their seat on stage, and wait. 
If they were lucky, they had cute 3 year olds pointing and exclaiming, "There's Dad! That's my Dad!" Cutest thing ever. She was so proud of her daddy. 

If they were even luckier, they had two cute kids (Jayke then Aimee) yell out, "I love you, Dad" when their name was read. And everyone in the audience around those cute kids say, "Awe" at those two adorable children.

Ryan trying to fit in the too-small-coat.

The handshake.

The hug.

The proud parents and grandparents.

The picture with Mom and Dad after the ceremony, showing off his new white coat and name badge.

The picture with proud wife and kids after the ceremony.  Finally getting a decent picture after 4 tries to make the 3 year old not grumpy. I might be wrong, but I think the smile had something to do with a bribe.

I don't remember much else of anything that happened that day. I was just so excited and proud of Ryan for finally making it to this point in his life. I'm sure I was bawling for joy most of the day, mostly because I was so happy and partly because the pregnancy hormones would not let me control the flow of water from my eyes. This day could possibly have been one of the best days of our lives.

Banana Bread

 

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
3 1/8 cups mashed bananas (about 6 medium)
1-2 cups buttermilk
2 tsp vanilla
5 cups flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking soda mixed with 2 tsp water (I usually use a small cup to mix them.)
Variation: May substitute plain yogurt for the buttermilk. If doing this, add 2 TBSP vinegar with the yogurt. 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease bottoms only of four 8 or 9 inch loaf pans with shortening.
In a large bowl, stir sugar and butter until well mixed. Stir in bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla. Beat until well mixed and smooth.
Stir in flour and salt, until completely moistened. Add baking soda and water mixture until thoroughly mixed throughout. Divide batter evenly between pans. Smooth out top of batter, if needed.
Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until tops are browned and toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks. Once cooled, you may wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for up to 1 month.
Note on buttermilk: If your buttermilk is on the thinner side, use 1 cup. If your buttermilk is quite thick, use 2 cups. The resulting batter should be thin enough to mix easily, but not too thin as to be runny. If you find that your batter is too thick after adding the flour, you can always add a little more buttermilk until the batter looks nice.

Funeral Potatoes

When we were going on a wheat-free diet, I thought our days of Cheesy Potatoes, Funeral Potatoes, or Church Potatoes (whatever you call it) were over. I was completely wrong. We can still have them and they actually taste better without all the preservatives and added ingredients that come in the can of cream of chicken soup.

1 1/2 cups of milk (reserve 1/4 cup)
1 chicken or veggie bouillon cube (I used Rapunzel Vegan Vegetable Bouillon from Sprouts)
1 1/2 Tbsp cornstarch
Salt to taste
1 cup sour cream
1/2-1 cup grated cheddar cheese (depends on how cheesy you like it)
1 stick melted butter
12 oz shredded potatoes (or 1 box dehydrated potatoes, rehydrated)
1/8 cup dried chopped onions
1 cup crushed cereal (corn flakes, chex, and crispix all work fine)
1 Tbsp melted butter

Preheat oven to 350F. Heat milk and bouillon cube in saucepan until almost boiling.  In small cup mix reserved 1/4 cup milk and cornstarch until smooth. Whisk cornstarch mix into hot milk mixture until smooth. It should thicken as it comes to a full boil. Salt to taste. Add sour cream, cheese, butter, potatoes, and onions. Mix well. Pour mixture into 8x8 casserole dish. In small container, mix crushed cereal and 1 Tbsp melted butter. Sprinkle over potato mixture in casserole dish. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.

Cream of Chicken Soup

It had been so long since my last post that I had actually forgot my blog address and had to look through all my old facebook posts to figure out what it was. :-(  E is now on a wheat-free diet to see if that helps clear up his Eosinophilic Esophagitis. One of the (many) things that we can't have anymore is cream of (fill in the blank) soup. Until tonight. I had found a recipe online on how to make the soup with bean flour. Ummm, no thank you. Ryan had the idea to just use cornstarch instead. Brilliant! (And delicious to boot!) Here's the recipe:

Cream of Chicken Soup

3 cups of milk (reserve 1/4 cup)
2 chicken or veggie bouillon cubes (I used Rapunzel Vegan Vegetable Bouillon from Sprouts)
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1 can chicken chunks (or just precooked is fine)
Salt to taste

Heat milk, bouillon cubes, and chicken in saucepan until almost boiling.  In small cup mix reserved 1/4 cup milk and cornstarch until smooth. Whisk cornstarch mix into hot milk mixture until smooth. It should thicken as it comes to a full boil. Salt to taste.

If you are trying to use this in place of the cream of chicken soup in a can, this recipe equals 2 cans, un-reconstituted.

What I loved most about this recipe is that it uses basic ingredients (that are easily substituted) and took less than 10 minutes to prepare. I would say that it was just as good, if not better, than any canned soup I've tasted. Best of all, I can feel happy knowing that I didn't put a bunch of artificial chemicals into our bodies.

Last week my grandma was in the hospital and not doing well, so we took a trip downtown to visit her, just in case. It was nice visiting with her again, even though it had only been about 2 weeks since the last time we saw her. I brought my camera this time, because I regretted not bringing it last time when she looked so healthy. I just love this picture of her, hospital and all. It reminds me of a picture my mom has in her house of two people sitting on a couch. Maybe it was even my grandma's mom, I don't know. (Mom, do you know the picture I'm talking about?) Anyway, I think my grandma looks like the lady in the picture.

Here is another picture I loved. We were taking family pictures with grandma before we left and this is what came out on one of them. Little A (Ashley's baby) is covering up her great-grandma's mouth. "Shhh...don't tell anyone our secret!"

Last of all for today, if you have ever met Kate, you'll know that she can be one of the sweetest girls around. If you've met Kate, you've also met her lip. She loves to share it often. Here she is, beautiful princess Kate, happy but a few moments ago, is now letting us meet her beautiful big lip.

I just wanted to document something Aimee said today because I thought she was so cute (even after acting like a 2 year old all day long). I went to change her diaper and when I put her on the changing table she started singing to the tune of Humpty Dumpty "Poopy girl, poopy girl sitting on a wall..." I just about cracked up when I heard her singing about herself. We did just learn to sing Humpty Dumpty this week after our trip to the library.

Ethan just started school a couple weeks ago. We put him in 1st grade so he would be the oldest in his class instead of the youngest (and smallest). It's a good fit so far and he has already found a girl that he likes. I will not repeat her name, but it rhymes with a female body part and sounds almost like it too if you're not listening close enough. Poor girl, but very sweet girl.

Ethan just started eating cafeteria lunches this week. I had to meet with a person in food and nutrition at the district level. We went over all the meal plans and had ingredient labels for everything for me to read. It was a long afternoon, but we have a special meal plan for him so he can eat school lunches every day if he wants to. It still makes me nervous, but he's done well so far. I've been sitting with him at lunch everyday (at his very own nut-free table) just to make sure. I'm not sure if I'll ever be ready to just let him do lunch all on his own, at least not this year. That just adds up to a lot of time spent driving and a VERY grumpy 2 year old that is drug along behind me the entire way.

Jayke just turned 9 and is doing fantastic in school. He got all 4's on his progress report. The teacher is a little concerned about him having everything mastered already, so she is having him tested for the ELP program next month. I think there has been less than a handful of days that Jayke actually said he learned something new in school and they were the days that they had special speakers. All the other days he says he just "had reviews" all day. He's mostly at school to socialize and stay out of my hair for a few hours while I try to gain some sanity.

Kate has turned into my little tattler. She also loves to fight and taunt Aimee. Although, on a rare occasion, she is actually nice to Aimee and my heart just melts watching them play together. I just need to have my camera out and waiting for those rare sightings. Oh, how I love 4-5 year olds...She cannot wait until she can start school in August. Some days I cannot wait either. She is starting to read, mostly by her own doing. She is so excited by it. I'm afraid she will turn out to be much like Jayke when it comes to school. She keeps telling me she wants to go to the same school as Jayke, but I keep telling her she'll be going to the same school as Ethan. She's pretty disappointed that she won't be at school with grandma all day, but I feel it is for the best.

Aimee is a 2 year old. That completely sums her up right now. She is so independent, loving to do everything on her own. She also kicks, screams, hits, tantrums, whines, talks back, and cries like a 2 year old. She is my first child to actually act like a 2 year old. She must get it from me, that stubborn and independent blood that runs through my veins. She is talking more than any of my other kids combined, which is REALLY scary when you consider how much Jayke talked. She is learning how to do puzzles very well and can even do 24 piece puzzles all by herself. Real puzzles, not the baby ones. She loves going to "church is true" and likes to play with her friends in the nursery. They have split the nursery into older kids and younger kids to make the group more managable. For some reason, they have put her with all the older kids. I don't know if they think she is older than she is or if it is just easier for them to have her in that group. She is also very shy and won't even crack her lips at all until she has been around you for a while. (And then you'd better watch out because she'll talk your ear off.) She also has some strange fears, which she probably also got from me, poor girl. She can't handle going over bumps in the road, like going down the road by the Salt River. We call them roller coasters and every time we go over one she just screams, grabs her carseat, and kicks her feet in pure and extreme fear. She has done this since she was about 2 months old, about the same time she was acting weird with her immunizations. Every once in a while we can convince her to like the hills, but it doesn't last long. She also can't handle the swings at the park, but she is always asking for me to push her.

One thing that I love most of all right now with my kids is that I get to put them to bed at 7pm. This has never happened in their lifetime, but I love actually having the evenings to myself. It is amazing how much it helps to have a little time to calm down after the kids are down before I have to go to bed.

Ryan is chugging along in his master's program. It is a ton of work and he is only taking 10 credits right now. He spends more time each day doing schoolwork than he does with everything else in his life combined. That includes working, being Elder's Quorum president, being a dad, a very good husband, applying to dental school, doing service hours, fixing our broken house, dealing with a needy invalid wife, and everything else that every regular person has to do. I really don't know how he does it all and still manages to find a little (ok very little) time for himself. Amazing. He really is. And I'm his wife.