I'm a Baking Machine!!!

So, I've been trying to stick to a more frugal food budget lately, which in turn has led me to doing more "from scratch" cooking. And for the last week I have been a baking freak! My mom was a bread maker, we always had homemade bread at our house! I saw how much work it was for her and I've always said I will not bake sanwich/toast bread for my family. That one I stick to. We go through bread fast enough that the $6 for a 2 pack at Costco is totally worth it.
Anyway, I did however try a couple other bread type things lately that turned out pretty good. I made breadsticks to go with our potato soup last week, they were super yummy (as was the potato soup). I also made Italian bread to go with dinner on Sunday, it was good, but a little more dense than I was expecting.
Then I made homemade pizza on Saturday, mmmm. I have to give Chris a little credit. I called him and asked him to get the dough started for me because I wasn't going to be home in time. Sweetheart that he is, he got all the ingredients out and got it going in the bread maker for me. The pizza turned out awesome, I didn't want to have to go to the store, but with a little creativity (thanks to my sis-in-law, Kim) we came up with some awesome toppings. 1) Red sauce and cheese for the kids 2) olive oil, feta, mozzerella, Kalamata olives 3) white sauce, garlic, mozzerella, chicken. They were all so good!
On the sweet side, I've made 2 batches of those yummy oatmeal-chocolate "no-bake" cookies. I had to make a 2nd batch because I made the first one during the week and they were so good there were only a few left when Chris got home, so I had to make some more for him! I've also made a bunch of different types of muffin in the past couple weeks: pumpkin, banana, pumpkin cocolate chip, and today I made cranberry. Whew. So if anybody is in the mood for something baked, come on over. Chances are that I have either just baked something or have some in my freezer!
I was also inspired by another blog that my sister, Teresa had linked on her website. It's the blog of this girl, Caroline, who wants to start a bakery, so she blogs about all things baking (and some not), new recipes, tips, etc. It's Caroline's Bake Shop, check it out if you like baking. My cranberry muffins today, tasted great, next time though I will chop butter into the crumb topping to make it more crumbly and less like I dipped it in sugar.

Caleb's prayer

I just had to share this! and it kind of goes along with my previous post. Chris has been encouraging Caleb to say his own prayers lately, so when he puts him to bed he just says, "don't forget to say your prayers" then he listens and the door because they are so cute. Well, last night he listened and this was the adorable prayer he heard:

Dear God, Thank you for God, Thank you for Jesus. Please help us to follow Jesus and not Jucifer (like Juice-ifer!) because Jesus is good and Jucifer is bad. Amen. Oh, wait, I mean, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Isn't that the cutest thing you've ever heard!

This is why I had my kids 15 months apart (oops, I mean 16 months!)

Caleb and Ellie have been playing together so well lately, I am actually starting to think that having them so close together was a good idea. They will take off into Ellie's room for over an hour and I won't hear any fighting or anything! I usually go and check on them to make sure they're not making a huge mess or geting into trouble and some of the thing I hear when I listen in is so stinkin' funny. Here's the most recent example, I'm not sure whether to be proud of them or a little worried.

Caleb: Hey Ellie, I'm Jesus, I'm going up to heaven now, see you later

Ellie: Aww, Buzz Lightyear is so sad that you're going away

Caleb: It's okay I'm died, but I'll be back alive again

Ellie: Oh, okay

This was Monday, I guess they really learned something at church on Sunday!

Four Things...

My sister-in-law, Ginger, sent this along to me via email, but I thought it made a better blog. So you are suppossed to answer all the questions, then add a category and pass it on. So all my blogging friends need to get on it, cause it's so fun!

Four jobs I have had in my life:
*Baskin Robbins
*Kid's counselor at Lane Guest Ranch
*KBYU TV
*Phone Directories Company (proofing ads, ugh!)

Four movies I would watch over and over:
*Dirty Dancing
*Gone in 60 Seconds
*Nacho Libre
*Lots of kid movies

Four places I have lived:
*St. Louis, MO
*Provo, UT
*Mountain View, CA
*Cedar Park, TX

Four TV Shows that I watch: (Currently)
*The Office
*Grey's Anatomy
*Desperate Houswives
*The Sopranos (I never caught while it was on HBO, so now I'm catching up as it re-airs on A&E- so nobodyy better tell me what happens in the end.)

Four places I have been:
*Just about every major city in Italy
*Domincan Republic
*Puerto Rico
*Mazatlan, Mexico

Four People who e-mail me (regularly)
*Cedar Park friends (playgroup, lunch, etc)
*Mom / Dad
*Chris
*Carrie I guess (although our 2 or 3 phone conversations a day usually cover all that we have to say to each other!)

Four of my favorite foods:
*ice cream
*pizza
*a great steak that I didn't cook (medium rare)
*bread (good bread)

Four places I would rather be right now:
*at a movie
*in my bed
*on a beach
*with Chris

Four things I am looking forward to in the next year:
*Caleb starting kindergarten/Ellie starting preschool
*saving some money
*finishing my nursing school prerequisites (please let me finish next year!)
*turning 28 (that just sounds so grown-up!)

Four top books I've read the past year. I'm just getting back into reading, so my list is pretty meager, but here are the most recent:
*Human Anatomy
*a parenting book that I never finished
*lots of kid books!
*Twilight (and the sequels)

Four favorite songs:
I get on kicks where I get new favorites songs and then I play them to death, so here are my favorites of the moment:
*Calling You by Blue October
*Hey There Delilah by Plain White Tees (this one is just about dead, since even my kids now every word to it!)
*You're Beautiful by James Blunt
*Bad Day by Daniel Powter

Adding a category...
Four things you like about yourself:
(My first thought for this added category was 4 things you don't like, but I thought "hey, I'll keep it positive!)
*my hair
*my shoulders
*my baking ability (I like cookies!)
*my self esteem (I haven't always had it, so it's nice to be at an age where I fell more confident)

Finally back to a routine

I feel like it has been forever since we were on our normal routine. I went to the gym yesterday for the forst time since mid-December! Ellie started Funschool again today, so I'm getting back into the drop off/pick-up routine as well. I'm glad though, routine is nice.

I'm happy to say I'm also more or less healed from that nasty virus I've been fighting since the day after Christmas! That was so crappy. My sister was here visiting, I'm sure she had loads of fun (note the sarcasm). First I drag her all over town getting Christmas shopping done, then after a couple fun days I get sick and we couldn't really do anything fun. So, sorry Carrie!

After all the over-indulgance of Disney World and Christmas we had a tough time with the kids, but luckilut Chris was here to whip them into shaped again. He is so good at consistent discipline. I just get too tired of it and I let things slide and it totally shows. We had to write out a chart for them showing whe meal and snack times were because they were getting so out of control asking for snacks/food every 20 minutes. Seriously 15 minutes after we'd eat Ellie would be asking for an orange or something, I felt like I never left the kitchen! Now they have to go look at the chart and the clock and figure out if they can eat or not. It seems to be working much better and they are actually eating their meals, everything, even stuff they would normally turn down, now they're eating it, woo-hoo!

On another note, I decided that this semester I'm going to tackle College Algebra! I haven't taken math since I was a junior in high school, what's that 10 years? I'm a little nervous! Chris promises me that it will come back really quick and that he'll help me, so.... I'll let you know how it goes!

And here are a few more pictures that I found among the Christmas stuff that I just had to share. Props to Carrie, she took all the pictures at Christmas with her new camera.

I love this one, I don't know exactly why. That's my girl!

Love the dramatic lighting in this one.

I'm not sure what kind of a game this was, but it looks fun!

Christmas Pictures

Here are pictures from Christmas:

making gingerbread houses

Caleb and his new Power Ranger Toys

Ellie and I dressing up in her new hair extensions (I thought about trying to photoshop her finger out of her nose, but that's half the reason I like the picture. Only a 3 year old can pick their nose while still smiling for the camera!)

A little gift for us!

Caleb and Chris playing with Caleb's new race track, who do you think is having more fun?

Mickey and Minnie and Goofy, Oh My!

Yes, we made it back from DisneyWorld AND suvived the holidays, I know I have a lot of catching up to do, so we'll start with DisneyWorld. It was...magical! Seriously, I had never been there, so I had some pretty high expectations, but it managed to live up to them all! We bought 5 day passes, the idea was that we would buy passes for every day we were there and then we wouldn't feel the need to go ALL day long, maybe do a couple half days. But there is just so much to do that we ended up at the parks every day from breakfast till after dark. It was exhausting but totally fun! Here are some of my favorite pictures to share:

The family at Magic Kingdom. We were thrilled that the guy who took the picture cut off the top of the castle, nice!

Breakfast at the Playhouse Disney hangout. Don't those kids look thrilled to be there!? The only reservations we could get at the character dining was 8am before the park even opened, so everyone was still tired from the day before and Ellie was a little sick (stomach bug, which of course she passed on to me later that week!)

Chris and Caleb braved Splash Mountain even though it was super cold that day. The weather was really good for the most part, but that one day we were totally unprepared and had to buy gloves for everybody, BRRRR.

Caleb shakin his thang at the Mexican market in Epcot

Ellie having cuddle time with Chip'n'Dale. This was so stinkin' cute. I took her in to see some of the characters at Epcot (for the second time, she insisted!) and when she got to Chip'n'Dale she just snuggled up on them and wouldn't let go, it was so sweet!

Caleb and Mulan. We did a princess breakfast, mostly for Ellie, but Caleb thought Mulan was bearable (maybe even a little cool) because Chris told him that she was a warrior. So they chatted a while and he agreed to take a picture.

Me, Ellie and Snow White. I swear Ellie was having fun, I don't know why she looks so grouchy in half the pictures!

Our favorite part of Animal Kingdom was the safari, it was really fun, they drive you all over "Africa" like you're on a real Safari, complete with broken bridges and poachers that we had to "track down"

Chris and Ellie in our Safari Jeep

This is what Caleb thought of Animal Kingdom:

"It stinks here" a direct quote that we heard multiple times that day!

He didn't want anything to do with the smelly goats or any of the animal for that matter, he only cared about the rides!

Cinderella's Castle...Good night!