Thursday, February 21, 2008

Welcome to the Outside!


Lachlan Jack Grisham
February 19, 2008
6:40 pm
7# 14 oz., 21.5 "
One Sweet Boy

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Bathroom Mayhem


Tonight Rowan flushed a cinderella snow globe down the toilet. i was sitting right there and couldn't stop her in time. ( Not sitting on the toilet!) I was putting away all the towels I had to wash after the sink fiasco. I'm not sure if it will clog things up or if it was the right size to flow right through. Two days ago she turned the bathroom sink on, filled the sink with toilet paper til it clogged and watched water flow all over the counters, into the drawers and all over the floor. The other girls watched too. When they finally decided to tell me, they left the water running full blast. The worst part about it was not cleaning up the soggy toilet paper mulch, or emptying all the drawers to soak up the excess water, but trying to soak up all the water out of the carpet. We already had a fiasco with the bathroom carpet about a month ago. Aisling 'accidentally' poured a brand new bottle of bubble bath into the carpet. The only way to get it out was to pour gallons of water on it and soak it back up. We didn't really want carpet in the bathroom, but since there was already carpet in there, when we re-carpeted the house, we just did everything. If only we had known! So the new pad is probably starting to grow mold and we'll have to tear it out and put in tile or laminate after all. I hope not.
Can you believe these little darlings would do anything troublesome?

Some More Sugar



I was going to email my brother a recipe for coffee cake and he suggested I should just add it to my blog, since I've been on a roll lately with tempting foods. So here is yet another recipe to bore you or for you to try.
Jewish Coffee Cake
1 boxed yellow cake mix
2 small boxed instant vanilla pudding
1 cup water
5 eggs
3/4 oil
Blend for 10 min.
(if you have something stronger than a hand mixer, I'd suggest using it because this gets very thick and after about 5 mins. mine started to smell like burnt motor)
Mix 1 cup sugar w/ 2 Tbsp cinnamon. Pour 1/3 batter into greased bundt pan, then sprinkle 1/3 sugar repeat for 3 layers. Stick a knife in it and swirl the batter around.
Bake 325F for 65 mins. let rest 10 mins then dump upside down and eat!

Monday, February 11, 2008

If there is a Very Best...



I know everyone thinks they have the absolute best chocolate chip cookie recipe, and I know it is a matter of taste, but this could quite possibly be the best ever chocolate chip cookie recipe. If not, it is at least the best chocolate chip cookie dough recipe! I don't care all too much for chocolate chip cookies, mostly because I don't like the semi-sweet chocolate chips. But I've figured out in the past few years to use milk chocolate and that has made all the difference to me. I also usually throw in some peanut butter chips because I am a chocolate, peanut butter fan!
So even if you think you already have the best recipe, this one is definitely worth a try!
This recipe is the one I grew up with, so I must give credit to my mom for it.
Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 1/2 c brown sugar
1 1/2 c white sugar
2 c margarine
2 tsp vanilla
blend well
add:
4 eggs
1 tsp salt
2 tsp soda
5-6 c flour
16 oz choc chips
1 1/2 c chopped nuts (optional)
Bake 350F for 5-8 mins. Makes 6+ dozen (can store dough in fridge)
I think we've eaten almost 6 dozen of these over the weekend. YUM!
i didn't take any pics of the cookies because we have eaten them too quickly. But here are some happily sugar-fied kids!

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Snow Angels


Snow Ball for Dad


Some snow angels visited our house. One is named Aisling, and the other is Brenna. I wish we had been enjoying the abundance of snow. I feel guilty that I'm not getting myself and the kids out in it. We are cold in the house all day, so I'm totally unmotivated to go out and get colder. I'm assuming the groundhog saw his shadow, but I haven't heard for certain. How is it that February 2nd can be a sunny day every year?
Abram is a great sport and tries to get the kids outside at least once a weekend. Brenna, who never wants to go outside, not even to get in the hottub, said to me today, "mom, can you get my coat? I want to go outside because dad is throwing snowballs." the girls thought that was such a fun thing to do. It was actually warm enough that most of the snow has melted or turned to slush. I had a hard time getting in and out of the driveway again, but this time because it was inches of slush over 4 inches of mud.Rowan
I actually made a few paper ornaments, which I think are pretty cute. It was hard to part with them. I still haven't figured out how to get photos where i want them, but here is one.
I think they are very pretty, and this one is a bit Valentine-y.
Paper Ornament

Friday, February 1, 2008

Getting the Good Stuff


Rowan discovered 'toe jam' the other day, which is really just sock lint. But she will spend a few minutes really getting in between each toe and digging it out. It is quite amusing to watch her as she gets an intense look or frown on her face, like 'What IS this STUFF?'
Speaking of good stuff, my friends Tamara and Shelley threw a shower for me last night and we got a lot of wonderful gifts for our baby boy. Which is really great since we only have girl stuff! It was so fun to see people from three of my old wards and neighborhood. I just wish we could've visited longer. The food was awesome too.

We had some crazy wind yesterday which created some freezing conditions and wild snow drifts. I nearly got stuck in my own driveway, but after a few minutes of backing up and going forward repeatedly, we got out of the driveway only to get stuck at the corner stop sign in a drift. Luckily it is only a little walk from the house. I was grateful not to have gotten stuck any further from the house, for the car got stuck at the top of a very big, steep hill which would have been terrible to trudge up. Besides that, it was absolutely freezing and we didn't have hats or gloves. The girls started out laughing, but after only about 30 seconds walking slightly uphill on ice in the blistering cold wind, they were soon crying and all three pulling on me to drag them against the wind. I felt really stupid getting the van stuck, but my tires are pretty much bald, so i can't take all the blame. (Abram did suggest last fall that we should put snow tires on and I laughed, "Ha ha! we never get any snow here!") My neighbor has a minivan too and she had no trouble getting in & out of my driveway. She came over and we tried to 'push' the car out. Ha Ha. Eventually a county guy came and dug out the tires and put some dirt down in front of the tires. My neighbor's husband went out with me on his lunch break in his big truck and helped me get unstuck and home safely. I should have taken some pics for you all to laugh at. However, I wasn't really thinking about that at the time.