Happy Friday!

I cant believe we made it through the first week of school! I am so glad its the weekend! And the rodeo is in town, I love the Rodeo and Fair. I think we are going tonight and then to the Parade tomorrow morning, another fun weekend! Here is a picture of Zander already to go last night but we ended up not going and just went out to dinner. His boots are two sizes to big but he had to ware them because we all were waring ours, and I am going to go through a two year old fit over a pair of boots! So he wore them and we had to keep putting them back on when they slipped off.

Archie Doll

Look its Archie from Wee Wonderful! I made him yesterday for Zander, he liked his boots! He kept saying boots boots! I think he renamed him Max, after his all time favorite cartoon Max and Ruby, which he will watch 100 times in a row! (not that I let him!). I am going to try to make his sister Olive today for Annalyse. You can download the pattern at Wee Wonderfuls .

Easy Dinner

This is Justin's favorite meal and so quick and easy to make.
Just roll some hamburger meat into meat balls, sprinkle with some Season All and garlic powder, cook until done.
Add some Cream of Mushroom soup and a little milk, cook until hot.

Serve over noodles or mashed potatoes, and voila! Dinner is done!

Some kind of green veggie on the side would be good with this.

60 Minute Rolls

Really! You can have homemade rolls in one hour! These are just about ready to go in the oven.

The Recipe:

From the Kitchen Aid Cookbook

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons butter

3 packages active dry yeast

1 1/2 cups warm water (105 to 115 degrees)

5-6 cups all-purpose flour

Place milk, sugar, salt, and butter in small sauce pan. Heat over low heat until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Cool to lukewarm.

Dissolve yeast in warm water in warmed mixer bowl. Add lukewarm milk mixture and 4 1/2 cups flour. Attach bowl and dough hook to mixer. Turn to low speed and mix 1 minute.

Continuing on low speed , add remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time, and mix about 2 minutes, or until dough clings to hook and cleans the side of the bowl. Kneed on med. speed about 2 minutes longer, or until dough is smooth and elastic. Dough will be slightly sticky to the touch.

Place dough in greased bowl, turning once to grease the top. Cover. Let rise in warm place until doubled in bulk, about 30 minutes.

Punch dough down. Shape into whatever kind of rolls you want, clover work really well with this recipe(the three dough balls in one muffin tin). Let rise another 30 minutes.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. I like to brush the tops with a little beaten egg for a nice golden top.

The night I made these I split the dough in half and added some grated cheddar cheese to the dough and then shaped them. Yummy cheese rolls!

First Day Of School

Yes its that time of year again, all the little kiddos going back to school. Annalyse was so excited to start 1st grade, she said that's when you really start to learn things! So cute! And getting so grown up. I made her little messenger bag, not my best work, kind of threw it together with no pattern and you can tell if you look close. She loves it so I guess I will leave it alone for now.

I did just get two fabulous pattern books in the mail, cant wait to get started on some of the cute outfits they have. They are the Japanese ones everyone is talking about lately, they are so cute! I can't read it but it has the patterns and pictures so I think I will be fine. I got the books from http://superbuzzy.com/

Our Fun Weekend!

Big people 4 wheeling

Little people 4 wheeling

The river was really high and moving fast from all the rain we have had this summer

Zander + water + rocks= Bad combination, he loves them all!

Finally a family photo of all of us! Look Jeremy its Justin!

Tim and his daughter

We had a friend from back in the day before children come and visit us this weekend so that gave us the excuse to have some fun and not work on all the many projects we have going on.

To Hot for Hats

I don't know why my kids want to ware knit hats during 90 degree weather!

Our AC did get fixed, maybe they were a little cold?

Farmer Zan

A friend of ours gave us these boots for Zander, they are a little big but He doesn't care!

Focaccia Two Ways

Lets make some Dough!

Done kneading

Rising

Ready to go in the oven

In the oven

Finished and ready to eat!


Dough
From Joy of Cooking, also a pizza dough

Combine in a large bowl of a heavy-duty mixer and let stand until the yeast is dissolved, about 5 minutes;
1 1/3 cup warm water
1 package yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)active dry
1 tablespoon sugar
Add:
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon salt

Mix on low speed about 1 minute, kneed for about 10 by hand or 5 in the machine until the dough is smooth and elastic. Transfer the dough to a bowl lightly coated with oil and turn once to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap or clean cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Grease the pans you will be using. Punch down the dough and divide in two press onto pans, let rise for 30-1 hour. Use your fingers and poke some holes into it. Brush with oil or melted butter and sprinkle whatever toppings you want. Bake 10-12 minutes until nice and brown on top.

I divided the dough and used one for dinner and put the rest in the fridge.
The one for dinner I put in to a 9inch circle and after it rose for the second time poke your fingers into it and make some indents, then I brushed it with some olive oil then sprinkled it with some garlic powder and fresh grated Parmesan cheese.
The next morning I decided to make it a sweet focaccia bread by folding in some chocolate chunks. Then let it rise, poke your fingers into it, brush with Melted butter and sprinkled some coarse sugar on top. You could also nix the chocolate and fold in some dried fruit and keep the butter and sugar on top. The chocolate one was so good! Nice and chewy and little bits of semi sweet chocolate chunks.

Swimming!

We finally get to swim this summer! We are so excited!

Getting ready to swim, trying on Annalyses goggles.

My little fish! She loves the water! And likes to do flips under the water.

Zander loved the hot tub, it was just his size!


Annalyse and Scarlett under the water

Tooth

Annalyse lost her first tooth! Finally! She waited all through Kindergarten while all the other kids lost there teeth and she wanting to lose hers so bad, well it happened tonight and she wanted to let everyone know!

Tee Shirt Pants

Can you believe these are made out of a tee shirt? My sister sent me the link to where someone had made these cute pants out of old tee shirts, so cool! And easy! I think it was at rookiemoms.com . I need to make the crotch a little longer next time and I am definitely making some more for him.

We just had a tornado hit down about 2 hours ago, it was about 2 miles from our house. We finally had a break in all the wind and rain so a snapped a picture of the sky through the window(that's the flash not the sun). We are still supposed to get more rain this weekend! We all ready have flooding, Justin couldn't come home because of all the low water crossings on the way out to our house. And I think there is another hurricane in the gulf that is heading our way. I will keep ya'll posted has to if we float away or not!

Cute Doll

Annalyse and I made this cute little thing for her cousin Scarlett's birthday. It turned out pretty good, her head wont stay up so next time I will have to try something to keep it from flopping back.

Something for Zander

I finally sewed something for Zander, I made him a pillow with a cute drawing and a stuffed fish. He loves them he Even took a nap on his new pillow.

The Sewing Continues!

My dear sweet sister order me the Bend the Rules Sewing book and Amy Butlers book In Stitches, I love them! There are so many cute projects I can't wait to get started on. So the first thing I made from them is a bag for Roshelle, she has been wanting something to put her scriptures in to take to church. So here it is! I hope you like, it will be on its way after a make a matching makeup bag to go with it. Love ya sis!

Oatmeal Cookie Recipe

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 1/2 cups oatmeal
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
1 cup chocolate chips

Heat oven to 35o degrees.
Beat together butters and sugars until creamy.
Add eggs and vanilla; beat well.
Add combined flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon; mix well.
Stir in oats, nuts and chips; mix well.
Scoop out into balls with cookie scoop, press slightly to flatten a bit.
Bake 10 -12 minutes or until lightly golden brown.
Cool 1 minute on cookie sheet; remove to wire rack.

Makes about 3 dozen ( using a 2 Tablespoon cookie scoop)
For High Altitude- Increase flour to 1 3/4 cups (that one is for you mom!)

Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?

Zander and I made some delicious oatmeal cookies this afternoon, he was a good little helper he put the butter in and turned on the mixer for me. I got the recipe from the lid of the Quaker oatmeal box, it is the best recipe I have found so far. We make them about every other week here.

Kabobs

I made these pork kabobs the other night, they were really good I put them over rice. Sorry I don't have an after picture when they were done cooking, the kids were so hungry I didn't get a chance to photograph them properly. Oh! they were brushed with the juice of the pineapples and some honey. I think next time after I brush them I will use the left over juice and reduce it to make a thick sauce to pour over them.

Sweet Sweet Confection

I made this Boston Cream Cake for Justins birthday, luscious layers of yellow cake a middle of vanilla pudding and to top it off a generous coating of melt in your mouth ganache. MMMMMMMMMM can't wait until tonight when we cut into! I just love cake, don't you?

Makeup Bag

I had order some fabric from online, its Amy Butler I absolutely love her stuff. And I didn't know what to make and I kept seeing everyone online make these little bags so I thought I would give it a try. I use mine as a makeup bag. There not that hard to make, I'm making another one for my sister.
The pattern or picture I went off of is from the angry chicken blog, she has a great book that I want to get that has lots of cute things to sew. I think its called Bend the Rules Sewing.

Summer Drama

Sorry for the long pause on posts, it's been a weird summer. Our Air conditioner is all messed up, come to find out its been running bad for the last two years because they hooked it up wrong. So every summer we have them come out and check it because it does not cool down. And they always say its fine but this time we had Justins brother who works for an air conditioning place come and look at it and him and his friend said that its all wrong up there! So they are going to have to replace the whole system! Our electric bill should go down after that so I'm excited about that part but in the mean time until they get here to fix all of this we have to live with it getting to over 80 inside yuck!!! I usually leave in the afternoons!

The next drama is my computer crashed, I am so upset! ALL the pictures of the kids are on there! And all of my stuff saved in there. I have learned my lesson and will now save things to Cd's often, a have been wanting to put all of the pictures on a CD but haven't gotten to it, so were hopping Justins friend can get everything off of the hard drive (we just have to wait until he gets back from his vacation). I hope the pictures can be retrieved I am going to be so sad if they cant. My tip for the day is to back up your stuff!!!

Now on an up note, we took some pictures of the kids before church last Sunday. Isn't Zander a little handsome stud?! Don't let his cuteness fool you later in nursery I heard him screaming at someone for trying to take his truck.