Thanksgiving

We spent our Thanksgiving in Turlock (close to Modesto) California. We went to see Glen's nephew get his Eagle for Scouts. GO JIMMY! It was a lot of fun. Glen had some flyer miles that we were able to use, so we took the girls on their first-ever plane trip. It was maybe more stressful than I would have liked. Although the girls were great on the plane, it was just stressful. Packing, getting to the airports, through security, having luggage for me and the girls, all that jazz. But the actual plane trip went really smooth and the girls really loved it.

Once we got to California, we went to Six Flags in Vallejo, California. It was really amazing. We were able to see Dolphin shows, Killer whales, tigers, and sea lions.

We also spent some time driving up the coast of California, and Glen and Elizabeth played in the ocean while I dipped my toes in once in a while, Madelyn played on the sand, and Emily stayed with grandma in the car and wanted NOTHING to do with the ocean. I think the noisy waves scared her, as they did me.

After our drive up the coast we stayed in San Francisco for a night on Fisherman's Wharf. We took a cable car ride, and had dinner at Rainforest Cafe, which was a lot of fun for the girls. The next morning we got up and went to Pier 39 and enjoyed seeing some sea lions, riding on the carousel, and buying the obligatory souveneir t-shirts and sweatshirts. (I Love my new SF Sweater!)

Thanksgiving Day we actually ended up going out to eat because Glen's sister's Oven was not functioning, and we figured going out to eat would be just as fun. I think it was really great. There was no mess to clean up, and the food was great.

Then we made our trip back home on Friday. It was OH SO NICE to be home. I love sleeping in my own bed after being away. There is no place like home!

JUMP!

We have been making the most of our warm November weather. And Glen has been making the most of our new video/digital camera. :) So that is our update. We've mostly just been jumping around. :)

Funny Bunny

Emily likes to put the sock puppets I have on her feet. I think she is pretty funny.

Tuesdays with Misty

Roberts--

Okay, things have slowed down a bit. So very sorry. But it seems as though I've been thrown a bit of a curve ball I wasn't expecting and it has slowed down my desire to think about Roberts. It may not make any sense, but my Dad just moved back to Roberts, to live on our old property. He has been gone in Northern Idaho for the past 10 years, so Roberts sort of remained how it was when I left it after high-school. Now he's there, so it's different. And it's put me in a rather rotten mood. And it's made it so I don't want to think about Roberts much, because if my now-Dad was in Northern Idaho being crazy, my Roberts memories could stay the same, with my old-Dad memories in them. But with my now-Dad living there, it pushes my old-Dad memories away. And that is hard for me to deal with. So, I am working through some things, and I think I should be able to write more in a month or two, and hopefully get some good old-Dad memories written down, so that I can keep them the way they should be, and pay tribute to the Father that I knew and loved. Thanks for reading, and sorry for the sentimental crap. But I wanted to explain a little. So that is that. :)

Halloween 2009

Not a lot of explanation necessary. We had a great Halloween. Trunk or Treating, School trick or treating village, and finished off Halloween Night with "The Nightmare before Christmas". Not sure if the girls would like it or not, we put it on. Wouldn't you know, the little girls who get scared at "Little Mermaid" have asked repeatedly to watch it again. Who would have thunk?

We also decided to not buy any costumes this year, becaue the girls have plenty allready. It was nice because they each were able to dress up as 3 different things (Emily only did two different thigns) and there was no pressure, because I didn't spend a fortune on costumes so i wasn't livid when the children decided after 2 minutes in a new costume to wear an old one instead. It was really a great experience all around!

cut-out cookies, Vitamin A style

I made sugar cookies tonight so that I could use the Ghost, Cat, and pumpkin cookie cutters I bought three weeks ago. So glad that I finally made that purchase worth it! But, I've been a little naughty with my caloric intake over the past few days, and I knew that having a bunch of sugar cookies in the house would be disastrous for me. I LOVE those things. So, I decided to try using mashed sweet potato in place of the butter. It went well. They definately came out with more of a "cake" texture. And I think I added too much flour, otherwise they may have been more moist.

So here is the cookie recipe. I just found a recipe on-line and swapped sweet potato for the butter.

1 Cup cooked and mashed sweet potato. (I diced it, boiled it, and then mashed it in the mixer)

1 1/2 cups Sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 Cup Sour Cream ( I used reduced-fat)

5 Cups Flour

2 tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg.

mash cooked sweet potato ( I used one medium sized potato, light colored, not the deep orange type) in the mixer. You can let cool, I suppose, but I just let it cool a bit, then added sugar until well mixed, and then 2 eggs, vanilla, and sour cream. Mix well.

Add dry ingredients, and mix. Don't overmix. I used ( I think) 5 cups of flour. Next time I'll try 4 1/2. There was definately too much flour in mine.

For the recipe, I used a meringue-type frosting that also omits the butter. I found it here from the "Cook Yourself Thin" show on Lifetime. Check out all their other recipes. This is really where I got the idea to substitute sweet potato in for butter. They do it on the show all the time when making desserts. I've seen them use butternut squash, zucchini, beets, just about any vegetable you can think of, they will substitue for butter. The frosting turned out almost like marshmallow, and was REALLY good.

I was able to make 40 cookies with my recipe, but I think I could/should have rolled my dough out thinner and gotten 50. With a yield of 50 cookies, after frosting them, they come out to be about 100 calories a piece, compared to 150-175 calories per cookie from the regular butter cookie and frosting recipe. WAHOO!!! Not too bad if you ask me!

Here piggy piggy!

We have been sicker than sick at our house. Last week Elizabeth brought home some sort of horrible stomach flu that I hope to never see again. She threw up all night long (with the exception of a 2 hour span where she actually slept). then finally at 5 a.m. she stopped throwing up and was able to get some sleep. Two nights later, Emily got it. She didn't have it nearly as bad as Elizabeth. She was done throwing up after 3 hours, then fell asleep. The following night, I got it. BLECH. It was no fun whatsoever. So then we were all back to feeling great by Friday. I made those skirts on Saturday, and off to church on Sunday. Sunday our ward was like a ghost town. We had about 1/3 of the kids in primary, as well as 1/3 of the teachers. Everyone was sick at home with the flu. Well, during singing time with the Junior Primary, Elizabeth started to act tired and cold. She said she didn't feel well, so as soon as primary was over, we headed home and got her some motrin. She came down with a burning fever. The next day Madelyn started to get the fever, followed by Emily and Glen on Tuesday. Glen came home from work, and hasn't been back yet. It has been absolutely miserable. I was really dizzy on tuesday and Wednesday, but didn't start the fevers until Thursday. Luckily Glen was feeling a little bit better, so he let me stay in bed and took care of the kids while he worked from home on his computer, since he still had a lingering fever. So our week has mostly consisted of motrin/tylenol/mucinex/movies. Every day I think we're going to be feeling better, but for the most part I've woken up feeling even worse. Today was an exception. Everyone around here has the swine flu. So it is pretty likely that is what we've got. Although when I went to the doctor on Tuesday for a prescription refill for something else, I mentioned we were all getting the flu and wondered if we should come in and get it tested. She said that they were running out of the swabs to test for the swine flu, so unless any of us were high-risk, they probably wouldn't test us. So that is that. It may have been the swine flu, it may not have been the swine flu. But it has stunk either way. My friend says that adults get it ten times worse than kids, and that was definately the case for us. The girls all had HORRIBLE fevers, that lasted for days and days, but once their motrin/tylenol kicked in, I could not get them to sit down and rest. Glen and I on the other hand would take medicine, and feel a little less of an urge to jump in front of a bus to end our misery. But then an hour later it would wear off. :( It hasn't been fun.
Lessons we learned from the flu at our house:
Do not use Dayquil/ Nyquil. This flu comes with a yucky cough that needs to get out. Nyquil and Dayquil will just dry your lungs out and make it worse. Use Mucinex or Robitussin with some type of "Expectorant". "EXPECTORANT" is the key word.
Rotate tylenol/motrin every 3 hours, and plan on doing that for 3 full days. If you don't have loads of tylenol and motrin, go get it right now. You don't want to be without it when the flu hits. Especially if you the parent are sick and can barely see straight, let alone drive. (I ended up getting my debit card locked because when I was paying for medicine at the store, I kept on entering the wrong PIN number. Example number two of how loopy I got, Glen came to bed one night when I'd been asleep for an hour allready and I woke up as he was getting into bed. I didn't want to say anything to him because I wasn't sure if he was my husband or not. I thought maybe he was a nurse - I could see him clearly, I just didn't know who he was. Luckily he started talking first, and after about a minute I was certain he was my husband.)
Have a thermometer on hand. Glen was lucky enough to get the last one at our local store. Utah has a lot more people. If it hits Utah with as much force as it's hit us here in Spring Creek, I guarantee there will not be a thermometer for miles. And you'll really want one, so that when you get better, you can brag to your friends about how high YOUR fever was. Really, it makes you proud.