Birthdays Galore!!!

Here's just a quick little update of happenings here in Iceburg.

Corey had to volunteer to help out with the Special Olympics for a class and just guess what his job was last Saturday, come on Guess.... He had to ski all day at Grand Targhee!!! Poor him right? Since he knew that was going to be his job he asked his dad if he wanted to come with him (since the coordinator said it was ok and that he could have a free pass too. oh yeah did I mention that they BOTH got to ski ALL day for FREE!!!) So Ron came up Friday night, hung out, and went skiing for his Birthday all day Saturday.

Saturday, while the boys were out skiing, I decided to hang out with my sister Jana in Rigby just for the fun of it. We hung out, went looking for fabric so I could make a moby wrap, went grocery shopping, and made two very fabulous tasting birthday pies. (Ron never wants a birthday cake all he asks for is pie, since Saturday was Ron's birthday and Monday was Jana's, we made two.) Here's the recipe, I got it from Rachel Ray.

Chilled Raspberry Cream Pie
Ingredients:
1 cup heavy cream (we just used whipping cream)
1/8 teaspoon almond extract
3/4 cup sugar
1 envelope unflavored gelatin
One 10-ounce package frozen raspberries (any berry will do I promise)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
One 9-inch pie crust, baked and cooled

Directions:
With an electric mixer or whisk, beat the cream and almond extract until stiff peaks form

In a sauce pan over medium heat, bring the sugar, gelatin and 1/2 cup water to simmer and stir until the sugar and gelatin dissolve. Remove from heat, add the berries adn lemon juice and stir until the mixture begins to thicken.

Fold the whipped cream into the berry mixture and spread in the pie crust. Refrigerate until set, a few hours or over night.

 

This was all that was left after the boys got done. Sorry it's not pretty people, I forgot to take a picture before we cut it, but TRUST ME it's yummy!!!

After making pie with my sister I had to run back to Rexburg so that I could go with the boys to the Peking Acrobats up on the BYU-Idaho campus. It was a good show and Ron had a great time. He even said that it was the best birthday he'd had in a long time. After the show we ate birthday pie and headed off to bed. The pie was super yummy and very easy to do, so easy in fact I think I'll make another one for Valentine's Day.

Jana, I'm sorry that I didn't actually make it to your house for your birthday but I want you to know that I love you and I was thinking about you all day. I can't wait to come and play with you again soon. I am so very grateful that God gave me a sister and a friend like you. I don't know what I would do without you.

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!!!