Our Biggest Wish Items

The few things that we really want for our first and future little ones are some fantastic outdoor equipment that will make our lives a lot easier. They are all made by a company called Phil & Teds. Here are screen shots of each product being as their site is done on flash and you cannot pull images out of a flash. There is a store here in Rexburg that carry each of these for cheaper than you can find anywhere! They will also beat any prices that you may find. Phil & Teds are made in Australia for the outdoors crowd.

The buggy is available now with the extra seat and a bassinet for free!

The traveller weighs only 6 pounds and packs to 2' long by 8" diameter!

The escape comes with rain/wind shield and stirrups for your kid!

I Found it!!!

The other day I was putting away my cookbooks and stuff and I couldn't find my recipe box, the one I actually use. I looked in every other box I could think of, to no avail. And then I tried my hope chest (silly I know but I only put things in my hope chest that I'm afraid I'm going to lose while moving so that I know exactly where they are when I need them) and there it was my cute, adorable, awesome recipe box!!!

And since I told my sister Joelle that I would share this granola recipe with her once I found it, here it is. This stuff is fabulously awesome.

Granola

6 cups Rolled oats
½ -1 cup Wheat Germ
1 cup unsweetened coconut
1 cup nuts (2 cup Almonds & Cashews)  - so 2-3 cups total if you want
1 cup sunflower seeds
1 tsp Almond extract
2 Tbsp Vanilla
½ cup canola oil
1 cup Honey
1 cup Raisins

Bake 300º for 30 minutes
Spray Cookie Sheet & stir in between
Put dry in on & liquid


Sorry if the instructions are a little confusing I copied them from the recipe and I have technically not made this yet but the gal I got it from at work brought some and gave me the recipe so try it, Life's an experiment right?

Bread Adventure

I decided to try making bread for the first time ever in my life on Sunday using my Bosch that Corey got me for Christmas. This lead to learning a whole slue of new things first of which would be how to test yeast to make sure it's still alive.

To test yeast you combine: 1/2 cup warm water (110-115 degrees roughly), 1 tsp of sugar and 2 1/4 tsp of yeast (this is equivalent to one packet). Mix it up and let it sit for 10 minutes. If it looks like this...

Then you've got active, live yeast!!! You may now proceed with the bread baking.

I followed the instructions (limited as they were) and discovered that I knew nothing about kneading bread outside of a mixer and that after kneading, letting it rise, and what not; I have no idea how to break this sticky giant blob of dough apart and get it into the pans. This became an interesting experiment (which much of my life seems to be somedays). I tried flour on my hands, that didn't work so well, I tried PAM, that seemed to work great. I then used a knife to cut the dough into sections that looked like they would fit my oddly shaped pans (3 big & 1 smaller) rolled the dough around a bit trying to make it look "loaf shaped"and popped them in the oven to rise again. This turned out interesting because I didn't know how much they were supposed to raise before I actually turned the oven on to bake them. Corey says I let them get too big, but hey what do I know about making bread anyways, at least they didn't fill my oven to max capacity. ( I swear "I Love Lucy" moments every time I try a recipe I've never done before, ask me sometime you'll get a big kick out of it I'm sure.)
SO...after about 20 minutes of baking in my 350 degree oven this is what I got...

 Pretty, Aren't they? No, Corey is not picking at the tops, I let him have the honors of buttering the tops of them so that they would be all shiny. They tasted great, a little doughy for my tastes but I'm sure I'll do it better next time. Enjoy the adventure.

Rexburg!!!

This is so how Rexburg has felt for the past 2 days, yeah it's only 8 degrees here (my sister kindly informed me that Twin was 24) I am so wishing for Spring already.

Addition: I just got back from driving Corey to school this morning and it was -6 outside. You know it's bad when there's frost on the INSIDE of your car windshield!!!

I Gotta Blog

I'm sorry I can't take it any more! I told myself that I couldn't blog until the whole apartment was clean but we're going on like day 5 now and I just had to post a little something.

So, Corey and I moved up to Rexburg on New Year's Day only to find that our apartment was a BIG FAT MESS!!!! The people who lived here before us were clearly disgusting and didn't bother cleaning anything before they left. I'm not even sure they OWNED a vacuum! Let me just quickly describe a few things and you'll get the photos in a later post:

The oven was grimmey, the inside was covered in some mess they didn't bother to clean, the burners were coated in grease, and the drip pans were encrusted with anything and everything they had EVER dripped on them!

The toilet was brown!!! and it's a WHITE TOILET!!! There was so much hard water build up that it took nearly half a pumice stone to get it off, the rim the inside, under the lip, you name it.

The blinds (my current project) all have a half inch layer of dirt, food, etc. on them and I'm currently working to get it off of them.

The carpet has a wonderful vomit smell that my wonderful husband and father-in-law will be working to get rid of this weekend; because though the carpet cleaners said they cleaned it, if I can pull a whole canister of dirt out of it with my Dyson, YA DIDN'T CLEAN IT!!!

On the positive side I think I'm almost done cleaning but I'm deathly afraid that it's become an obsession. I took the oven door apart the other day so I could clean the handle and the little vent slats that are behind it, I even used a toothbrush. Sad I know but I just can't stop myself.