Foto Friday: Our Year in Photos

Month 5 Week 2: Cousins.

For the second week of each month we'll focus relationships.

To know more about this project you can read my first post here.

Well the theme is cousins this week. And here are some pictures of the kids with their various cousins. They are pretty luck that they get to see cousins fairly often!! We have two sets living right in town with us - one set right on our street! I think at every family event I take pictures of the kids cousins. And they are mostly used to me just taking pictures of them.

I'll share some recent favorites.












You can see all my other entries for this project here

Go check out Brooke's over here!

Please tell me if you have a link somewhere for playing along and I'll add the links.

In the Kitchen: Orange Cookies

Isn't it funny how tasting or smelling something will bring us smack back in a memory. I am positive you have food smells and tastes that make you think of someone or a different time.

These are a flashback from my childhood. My mom baked a lot and these were one of the top choices. I love that they are so different from chocolate chip, love the orange icing and the softness in them. So tasty!


Cake platter from the Home Port and bakers twine from sweet estelle

Ingredients

2 cups white sugar
1 cup shortening
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
2 tablespoons grated orange zest

1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest
2 tablespoons frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

1.Cream white sugar and shortening; add eggs and stir. Add sour cream and 1 teaspoon vanilla; stir and set aside. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add little by little to the creamed mixture and stir well. Add 3/4 cup orange juice concentrate, and 2 tablespoons orange zest. Drop onto greased cookie sheets by teaspoonfuls.
2. Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for about 10 minutes. Frost cookies when they are cool.

To Make Frosting: Mix together 1/2 teaspoon orange zest, 2 Tablespoons of the thawed orange juice concentrate, 1 teaspoon vanilla, 4 Tablespoons of melted butter, 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar or enough to make frosting of spreading consistency.


Bakers twine from sweet estelle , Cloth white napkins from Pier One, Paper Napkin from Superstore, and cute cardboard box from Le Box Boutique

Enjoy!!!

10 on Tuesday

1. Lucy had her dance recital. Wow am I glad that's all over. But she sure looked cute.....and so did her friend Lauren! (and YES that is crazy dark stage makeup!)



2. I am getting all caught up on my Project life. Someone asked how I find them time.... well I am behind - that means I didn't find the time yet ;)

3. Man you all are quiet!

4. I have been saving an old map for my house for a few years. (since me and a friend Jodie P bought them off an old fisherman in NS) and now I have one framed and hung in my bathroom. I LOVE LOVE LOVE it.


5. I am going to do a little room fix up project on my own. I'm a little nervous but I'm gonna give it a shot. I'll show you when I am done.

6. Lucy on stage dancing.....

and her friend Mamie too...


7. I had a group of ladies over last week who all love to read and we talked about our favorite books. I added a whole pile to my goodreads list. MAN I have a lot of reading to do :) HA! If you like to read, check out my friend Clarissa's blogsite all about the books we read.

8. Lucy and her really good friend Lauren before dance.....


9. Eli's birthday is coming up in a month and I am thinking of ideas for it. He wants a superhero party. We'll see if he still wants that in a week :)

10. The light in my kitchen is so lovely in the mornings.

Dinner Club

Over a year ago I got invited to be in a dinner club. It is made up of people who love food :)

How it works: Couples rotate each month. The hosting couple picks a theme and prepares the main dish. All the other couples pick the other courses that go along with the theme and we get together and eat and eat and laugh. We get together once a month. Usually on the last Friday or Saturday of the month.

Themes we've had: Moroccan, Murder Mystery 80s, Halloween, Letter R, 100 Mile Challenge, Cajun Creole, East Indian, Man Night, French, Iron Chef - Lemon, Seafood, Finger Food, Mexican, Brazilian, Harvest, Nursery Rhymes, Martha Stewart, Kung fo Fighting and Literary Night

This past month we hosted and our theme was literary. So you had to have found the idea or food in a book that was NOT a cookbook. I have been reading a series of books by Louise Penny that take place in Quebec. And I thought of the theme because food plays a major role in setting the scene of the book.

For appetizer the Metz's brought Bruschetta. The drink the Edward's brought was Butter beer inspired by Harry Potter (it's not a kind of beer just in case you are wondering). (forgot to get a picture of both!)

Then the main course I did was Slow Roasted Lamb sandwiches on Rosemary Cibatta buns

Toppings for the sandwiches were Homemade Onion Marmalade, Mustard Aioli, smoked gouda cheese, argula and tomatoes


Then I made a favorite salad of mine to go with it.


hahaha Shawn...



Dessert by the Murphy's where Lonnie made sampita and krempita. Some fancy European pastries that she had written about in her journal when her and her hubby were dating years ago.


From a different dinner club...



FAQ about Dinner Club:

1. Do you make everything? Yes. Most of the time! One month someone made homemade ketchup, I tried homemade mayonnaise, Aioli, etc.

2. How do you pick your themes? Whatever strikes our fancy :) I think one of the best parts is picking out the theme! And no we aren't ruled by the theme. One month someone had the nursery rhyme theme and Regan ended up writing a nursery rhyme that went with the soup I made.

3. How many couples? Five.

4. Do you have the same people? Yes. It has been so fun getting to know everyone even better over the course of time. We did have some other couples that dropped out and a couple new ones that attend now.

5. Sounds like crazy food - ever have plain things? Nope. We all think that's kind of the point of dinner club. Fancy food most kids would hate on fancy dishes most kids would break.

6. Do you get tired of doing it? Nope! It's literally one of my favorite things we do as a couple. A couple people we know do a dinner club now but they go out to restaurants each month. That works for them and living in the city. We all love to cook and entertain! We play games after or chat. It's the best!

Spiritual Sunday

Speaking about fear and faith in the midst of intense spiritual adversity, Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: “While the battle rages, we need not fear. The Lord will help you, your family, and others you love who need special help. We know the outcome. The Savior will triumph over all!”

“We recognize the enemy and understand his plan,” Elder Andersen continued. “The pride of the world seeks to destroy faith by casting doubt on the existence of God or, if not His existence, His personal care and concern for His children. … You know all of this. You are on the battlefield, right in the crossfire. The conflict will not diminish but intensify in the years ahead. How will we—how will you—withstand the attack?”

Additionally, obedience and repentance help individuals rally spiritual strength. Elder Andersen said: “Think about the journey of your own conversion and discipleship through the years. When you are more sensitive in taking His name upon you, seeking the spiritual gifts from His sacred ordinances, and giving added care to following Him, you feel greater strength as you are armed with righteousness. You see more clearly, sense more deeply your identity as a [child] of God, and realize in greater measure the purposes you have accomplished, are accomplishing, and will yet accomplish.”

Being armed with righteousness through conversion brings happiness, peace, a greater portion of the Holy Ghost, and a bright hope for the future. Elder Andersen said: “I look forward to the future. I hope you do too. To your children and grandchildren, your friends and associates, you can speak about the future with optimism, joy, and anticipation. You are living your mortality in a glorious time of destiny.”

In the Craft Room: Project Life

Well Happy National Scrapbooking day!!
Thought I'd share some Project Life. stuff I haven't posted yet. Gotta catch up on it!

I added some inserts to my past weeks filled mostly with photos and some stories that had to be shared.

Week three with the insert of my January's 15 on the 15th. I'll probably be adding them each month right into my Project life.

And on the front side I added this insert - which I 100% took the idea from Cathy Zielske and made my own. You can buy the templates from her and her awesome graphic skills


And to my Week 4 of photos taken just in Waterton. You can see all those pictures here on my photo blog. Here's the page with them inserted on a 6x12 page protector.


Week 5:


Week 6:


I have 5 other weeks half done so I'll finish them this week and post them too :)

Foto Friday: Our Year in Photos

Month 5 Week 1: Mom & Dad's Room.

For the first week of each month we'll focus on a room in the house.

To know more about this project you can read my first post here.

My remote hasn't been working for a while and then today like a lighting bolt it hit me. Easy solution. And ta da. Now we can use it again :)
The whole family in mom and dad's bed.


On a side note... Our bedroom is the room in our house I am currently decorating. (I do a room per month - or more accurately one room at a time and now I am on to our room.) I got new bedding (which I have been wanting for a while!) from Target and I love love love it. Now my walls need to painted and I am adding some board and batten and I have lots of ideas for decorating with pictures in here. But here is the before bedding and the new bedding.


I'll show you when it's done... hopefully at the end of the month!

You can see all my other entries for this project here

Go check out Brooke's over here!

Please tell me if you have a link somewhere for playing along and I'll add the links.

Mommy Moments Photo Challenge

Well I found out about this fun photo challenge that I thought I'd participate in. It's called the Mommy Moments Photo Challenge (hence the post title) :) HA! Come and join if you'd like!

And since it's embrace the camera day with the Anderson crew I'm doing that in some of them too!

Here are mine for each prompt.

Day 1: Where I spend my day I feel like lots of my day consists of feeding people.


Day 2: Puts a smile on my face Eli and I went on a walk while dad was home and Oliver was sleeping and we found pipes. And we played a bit of peek-a-boo in them :)


Day 3: Depth of Field See.... feeding time again!!


Day 4: Love Bedtime stories together.


Day 5: Just can't get enough When my kids show kindness to each other!!


Day 6: Interesting Point of View The two littlest boys playing lego together.


Day 7: Messy Moments Oliver makes a mess every morning when he eats. Actually every time he eats.


Day 8: Makes you go yummmm: My momma's Chicken Noodle Soup that she made for me as child and now I make for my kids.


Day 9: Rule of Thirds Eli checking out the storm clouds above us.


Day 10: Silly/ Laughter Two kids having TONS of fun jumping in the puddles


Day 11: Objects Almost daily Alden brings me some lego creations he has made and often asks me to take a picture of them. These are robots. We could make a book of his lego creations! hmmm maybe that's a Christmas idea!


Day 12: Thankful/ Blessed My nutty emotional loving hilarious children. I'm a lucky mom!

In the kitchen: Disgustingly Rich Brownies

You know how sometimes people will stop eating a dessert and say, "Too rich for me, can't finish it?" That does NOT make sense to me. Hello it's dessert. The rich sugary delight of dessert. On a side note....every time I write dessert I think two s' cause you want more dessert - instead of desert when you wouldn't want seconds...

I have never met a dessert too rich. Nope. Ever. Love them all. Yum. I've met some I didn't like. But really not to many of those either.

And I happen to think Brownies are one of the best kinds of desserts around. And such a great thing to learn to bake. If you are afraid of baking (don't get that either...) or always screw up everything you bake, try these. Easy peasy. And hello.... they are called Disgustingly Rich Brownies. Translated that means perfect brownies.

I got these from my friend Alysha's family cookbook and adjusted (made it easier) it a tad.



1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a pan (9x13) or just cover it with parchment paper (easier clean up!). Melt butter in microwave. Add sugar and cocoa and mix well. Add eggs and mix well. Add flour and salt, mixing just until smooth (don't mix too much). Add 1/2 cup chopped nuts if you want them. Spread in greased (or lined) pan, making an even batter. Bake at 350 until brownies start to pull away from the sides or when no batter sticks to a toothpick stuck in the middle.

I like to double the recipe and then cook it on a cookie sheet so they are thin. And they are perfect if you wanted to use cookie cutters and make them into shapes. (why would you do that?? In case you wanted to add a dob of carmel and then some chocolate mousse on top to make a REALLY yummy treat!)



OR just have them with ice cream and some butterscotch topping. Yum.
OR just eat them warm out of the oven.
OR just eat them all broken up on a chocolate sundae.

Or all of the above ;)

10 in Tuesday

1. Regan wants to be bald (no he can't shave it - i think if God gave you baldness He gave you a head that looked good without hair).... I wish I had no teeth - just fake ones that I never got cavities in that looked totally normal.

2. Spring has sprung. And my herbs are growing.


3. Seems I'll put books on hold and no come forever and then all of a sudden a whole whack come in.

4. My kids both had a friend over last Friday who got to stay until after supper. It was lots of fun and craziness. They did some pillow sumo wrestling. Which made me (and them laugh).



5. And the boys drew stuff together.


6. And this child drew all over himself with markers.


7. Made a change to my plate wall and added a chalkboard. Really gotta show you how it looks (the whole room now!)


8. Doesn't this make you smile?? I love it when his hair gets all sweaty and sticky upy.


9. Spring Soccer has started. And this little lady has already played her first two games. She's surprised us with how she kind of actually goes after the ball. Totally thought she'd be a little more passive on the field. Love it!


10. Speaking of my chalkboard that great quote comes from a new band I am totally in love with lately.