My baby

On my 13th birthday, I begged my mom for this...

We've been through a lot together- Long rides with friends, racing down hills, riding along the beach and the Idaho Falls, I've even strapped a beach chair and umbrella to it and rolled around with it! Now it's fun to take my kids on it. They love rolling around the could-a-sac with me, and I love sharing it with them! I wonder how old I'll be when I can't ride it anymore... :)

Food Storage

I am proud to say that we finally have a good collection of food storage! For any of you that aren't members of the LDS church, we believe it is good to have a supply of food storage in case there is a natural disaster, or you are unemployed etc. In my mind this is good advice for everyone, especially with how the economy is going. I don't know why, but I'm so excited that we have our supply! It just feels good to know that we are self-sufficient. I have been grinding our wheat to use for breads and pancakes, and I wanted to share a couple recipes with you guys because they are AMAZING!!

These pancakes are SOOO good and SOOO healthy! They are the best whole-wheat pancakes I've ever had. My kids gobble these up! This recipe originally came from the "Set For Life" cookbook, but I found it on a blog a little while back.

Pancake Master Mix

The Mix:
10 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups white flour
1/2 cup baking powder
4 t. salt
3/4 cup sugar
4 cups nonfat dry milk

To make the pancakes:
1 cup master mix
1 T. oil
1 egg
3/4 cup water

If you use freshly ground wheat flour, keep the master mix in the fridge. I actually had to half the recipe to fit it in my tupperware, so you might want to start out with just half the recipe. This feeds my little family pretty well, but I like the leftovers, so usually make 1 1/2 times the recipe for all 4 of us. (2 eggs) I like to keep the recipe to make the pancakes taped on my tupperware.

Honey Wheat Bread I

Ingredients:
1 (.25 ounce) package rapid rise yeast

1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup melted shortening (*I use canola oil, not a shortening fan)
1/4 cup honey
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 cups bread flour

2 tablespoons butter

DIRECTIONS

1. Dissolve yeast and sugar in 1/2 cup warm water.
2. Combine milk, 1/4 cup water, shortening, honey, salt and wheat flour in food processor or bowl. Mix in yeast mixture, and let rest 15 minutes. Add white flour, and process until dough forms a ball. Knead dough by processing an additional 80 seconds in food processor, or mix and knead by hand 10 minutes. Place the dough in a buttered bowl, and turn to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rise for 45 minutes, or until almost doubled.
3. Punch down, and divide dough in half. Roll out each half, and pound out the bubbles. Form into loaves, and place in buttered 9x5 inch bread pans. Butter the tops of the dough, and cover loosely with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm area until doubled; second rise should take about 30 minutes.
4. Place a small pan of water on the bottom shelf of the oven. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
5. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, or until tops are dark golden brown. Butter crusts while warm. Slice when cool.

Overdose and drugs

Makenna has this medicine she's taking because she had strep last week, and she LOVES it. It's that pink antibiotic medicine (I totally remember taking it as a kid) and it tastes like bubblegum goodness. So somehow she got past the child lock and drank over half the bottle- totally frieked me out. I called poison control right away and they said she was right at the limit where they get concerned, but told me I should probably just watch her to see if she's ok. She ended up being just fine, but man was I nervous! Hmmm, I wonder how many thousands of kids have tried to overdose on this medicine...
So then a little later I got a call while I was in the shower. I listened to the message when I got out, and some guy was calling to get "a pound of Bud" and "some dimes." Being the sheltered lds girl that I am, I googled what the heck he was asking for, and it was marijuana and crack!!! What the heck! The guy that used to have my cell number was a drug dealer! Explains all the thuggish people that have been calling me lately... what a strange day...

Kids and Daffodils

I realized I haven't taken a picture of the kids together for a while. (Well since that horrible photo shoot a couple months back... :) So here is one I took today.

Went outside the other day to find my daffodils coming up!! Can't wait for spring!! Not a winter kind of gal... Woohoooo!!

Dog Lover

I knew Jace was a dog lover when we went to my parent's house when Jace was 5 months old. It was one of the first times he had seen a dog and he could not keep his eyes off him! He would laugh and laugh. Then when Charlie left the room he would cry! It was the funniest thing. He has continued to be obsessed with dogs. When we went to Scott's parent's house this weekend, he would not leave Sassy alone!!

Good thing Sassy is such a good sport.

We also had a "do-over" birthday party for him. I knew he would dig in if he was feeling better!

A face only a mother could love!!

Happy Birthday Jace Face!

Jace turned one on Monday! Too bad it was one of the worst days of his existence! He was sooo sick the whole day. There were a few minutes where he was ok, but most of the day he was miserable. We went ahead and tried to give him a cupcake expecting he might dig right in, but he just stared at it and poked it once with his finger. That's how you know he's sick for sure!

This was after a bath trying to bring down his temperature... :(

I gave him this cracker trying to get him to eat something, and he just held it...

Luckily I was able to get a couple cute ones during his few minutes of feeling better...

I took him to the doctor today for his year check-up, and he was 31 inches and 24 lbs! He's such a big boy- LOVE HIM!!

Miss Mae

Makenna is sooooo much fun! I love her outgoing and funny personality. Of course as I've said in the past she is incredibly girly and obsessed with anything fancy. She only has "normal" clothes on when we go somewhere! The first thing she asks her friends when we go to their houses is if they have any dress-ups... She has a Bella Dancerella video that teaches ballet to a Cinderella theme and she takes it very seriously. She has to match everything Bella is wearing and is very picky about doing everything perfectly right. It is the cutest thing ever. She also loves to have tea parties and that is the first thing she'll ask her friends when they come over to OUR house! She says the funniest things. Just tonight after we put her to bed, she came out and said she wanted me to sing her Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I said sure but no more excuses. She said, "ok mom no more excuse me's." :) Earlier today she was feeding her brother something and stuck her finger in his mouth and he bit down on it. She got really mad about it and after thinking for a minute she said, "Mom, I think we should sell him." She was dead serious! So funny. My favorite thing to do with Makenna is jump on the trampoline with her. We like to make up games and do fancy jumps and stuff. It's so fun. She definitely keeps me laughing every day.

She convinced her joy school friends to play tea set with her

She put this outfit together one day. I thought it worked pretty well together, except maybe the slippers... :)

our Jace face

Jace is the sweetest boy ever! He makes me melt. He has changed so much lately! He has 6 teeth now! He got 4 of them in one week- fun for me... He was pretty grumpy while he was teething which was a lot different from Makenna. I had no idea she was even teething. He is no wuss though! He is constantly getting hurt and you would never know he was ever in pain until a big old bump or bruise shows up! He's a tough kiddo. Of course he gets hurt a lot these days because this boy is allllllll over the place. He crawls, stands himself up, cruises all around, opens drawers, oh and pulls everything out of them he can! He has no attention span. Makenna could seriously sit and watch a movie at this age, but there is no way he will even sit there for 20 seconds. He LOVES playing with balls. Most of the time he is carrying one around with him. He also loves to throw them, and everything else! One week at church he kept throwing stuff to the people in the rows behind us! He's got a good arm! He can also play catch with us- we toss the ball back and forth to each other. It's so cute! Jace has also got one loud set of lungs! He loves to scream if he needs something or if Makenna is bugging him. He knows it will get mom's attention! He's also my little cuddly guy. Seriously my favorite thing is if he wakes up during the night (not very often) because we just cuddle and cuddle and he likes to stroke my hair and face- I love it! Scott says I'm taking advantage of him, but I can't help myself! :) Those are the best and most rewarding moments for me as a mom. I feel so lucky to have this little guy in my life.

He seriously stuck that in his mouth right before I took the picture- I had no idea- gross!

He's such a big boy!

cousins!!

The other day the Bentleys came down. We had so much fun with them. We went to Explora and had a great time as usual. I love it there!

Playing X-box

Angie and I liked this mirror for obvious reasons...

The kids made their own "house"

Strange weather

I have been loving the weather lately, as much as I can love winter... We'll have snow one week, and then the next it will be in the 50's! It is a nice mix. I just can't stand the winter when it's just plain cold with no snow and no nice days. It makes me feel so stuck inside the house.

When it first snowed- you can't duplicate that smile!

Jace likes eating the snow. Actually, so does Makenna

Our favorite thing to do as a family is take walks. We would go every day if we could, so it has been nice to do this in January!!

Makenna always insists we stop at the park along the way! Don't I have the cutest husband?

In the backyard