Stand For the Family

My new favorite book:

Stand for the Family by Sharon Slater.

I love it because of it's powerful messages: We can make a difference in the world! and, Motherhood is the most important, and most rewarding of all the jobs I can choose to do. This is a great read and has renewed my commitment to my marriage and family, and to the betterment of the lives of all the people of the world.

(Ok, I do have to add a warning...now that I've actually finished the book. I do not recommend this for younger readers as it talks about too many sensitive subjects in too much detail for the younger crowd. It is an adult read, that gives parents information that they can then talk about with their kids, screening the info to make it age-appropriate for their needs. It is a book full of the first-hand experiences of the author during her 10 years attending UN meetings and "World Congress of Family" meetings, in addition to a great set of research to show the scientific backing for why the traditional family unit is the best way, and really the only way, to go. Sharon Slater also succeeds in providing a host of ways to help protect and promote the family, which gives me hope and renewed energy in my daily efforts as a wife, mother, and wanna-be activist for the traditional, nuclear family.)

Chocolate Mint Tingle

My favorite dessert:

CHOCO-MINT TINGLE SHAKE
by Josh Blackwelder

Serves 4.

1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa (we like Ghirardelli unsweetened cocoa, or Callebaut)
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup milk
24 cubes frozen whole milk (freeze 4 cups milk in ice cube trays)
10 to 15 peppermint discs (20 to 30 ounces)

Heat unfrozen milk and sugar over medium heat. Whisk in cocoa until dissolved. Pour chocolate mixture in blender. Add milk ice cubes and pulse blender until cubes are all blended up. Add peppermint candy and run blender on high for 5 seconds or until candy is finely chopped. Divide among four 12-oz. glasses. Serve immediately.

Note: use a high-powered blender like a Blendtec or Vitamix for best results. We burned out a few cheap blenders making these before we finally got a real workhorse.

Another (less important) note: This has a lot less fat and less sugar than the average chocolate shake made with icecream, and costs less to make too.

p.s. I would post a picture but am having trouble with the blog...can't seem to get the "add a picture" function to work. Maybe later when someone a little more tech-savvy gets home from work.

Max's blessing day

A nearly perfect day. A beautiful blessing given by Josh. Beautiful weather...blue and sunshiny. The only regrets: I let myself stress out for a few minutes after church when we were trying to get the food ready, and I completely forgot to invite my grandparents!! Duh!! I really feel bad about that and wish I could go back and change that.

It's about time for a family picture

I don't think we have had a picture of us all together since Valentine's day last year... so we set up the tripod and set the timer for some shots of us against the newly painted blue family room wall. Not quite profesh, but about as good as it will get for now. Maybe some day I'll pay someone to take some family portraits. We'll see.

Christmas delights

This is the delightful new bedspread Amberlee sewed for me for my birthday. It makes me so happy, almost giddy, every time I walk in the room and get a shot of all those bright colors! It's exactly the picker-upper I crave in the middle of winter.

These are the Thomas Keller gougeres we made for Christmas dinner (from Bouchon, I think). Wow! Another deluxe delight this Christmas!! I have to say though, that I like the Tartine gougeres a LOT too, and the Tartine variety are so beautiful. I'd like to make them both the same day next time so I can compare them, especially the flavors, more fairly. It's been too long since we made the Tartine gougeres, so it's hard for me to be sure of which ones taste better. Josh thinks the Thomas Keller version tastes better while the Tartine version looks better.
And here I am eating a chocolate pot de creme (recipe courtesy of Cook's Illustrated) at the Christmas Eve party. The chocolate was topped with whipped cream then garnished with crushed peppermint candy and a peppermint meringue cookie. Make sure to serve these when the chocolate creme is at room temperature. They taste much better (smoother, creamier, lighter, yet still very rich) than when they're cold (too rich and overwhelming...you can only eat one or two bites when they're chilled).
Seems like I forgot to take pictures of the rest of our Christmas festivities. Oops. I was too busy making the festivities happen to also make some pictures happen. At least Josh remembered the camera on Christmas morning. The videos he took are the best. See the videos of the kids on Christmas morning.

The Beehive Bazaar—December 2009

For the Beehive Bazaar at the beginning of December I made candy rings, some papier mache, and some felt hair clips and felt flower pins. I had several other projects in the works, but didn't finish them in time, including the paper dolls (there was a big mishap by the place that did some laminating for me...kinda ruined most of the project). It was fun to share a booth space with Josh's cousins, Briana, Tess and Candice! They had lovely things and delicious treats to sell.

Halloween Highlights

A ghost.
A seal.
This boy LOVES to cook! "Sawt, sawt," he says as he grabs the nearest thing he can find and shakes it over whatever he's cooking.

This girl LOVES to hug, squeeze, kiss, chase, tickle, and boss her brother.
This boy busted his chin open on the wooden stairs at the French House at the tail end of a family Halloween party. A few days later he busted it open again on the metal trim of the bench in the dressing room at Old Navy. The day after that he busted it open again when he tripped and smacked it into the carpeted stair between the kitchen and tv area. We used super glue to repair it each time, but after so many repeats the final result left a solid line of scar tissue in the middle of the healed wound. Oh well, at least it's on the underside of the chin, and not very visible. Poor little guy—that was a tough week.

Sock Monkey

I love my little sock monkey and Jack loves being a little sock monkey. He gets excited every time, running around repeating "monkey, monkey"!
Could he be any cuter?! His jacket was a dingy, whitish, hand-me-down that I upcycled with a bit of leftover dye from a tie-dye party at my sister's house last summer. I like the brown and grey version much better—it's just right for this little boy.

Dallin H. Oaks on Religious Freedom and Politics

An excellent talk given by Elder Dallin H. Oaks. I highly recommend it!!

Beehive Bazaar details

The Bazaar takes place on:

Thursday December 3rd from 9 pm until midnight;

Friday, December 4th from 10 am to 10 pm,

Saturday, December 5th from 10 am to 8 pm

Beehive Bazaar — Winter 2009

I'm selling delightful goodies at the Beehive Bazaar in December. I'll have paper dolls, candy rings, papier mache deer sculptures, and more. Come see me there.

Family Reunion Family Photo

I love the family photo taken at the reunion. And how about those shirts? (I designed them :) ) Each of the ten siblings from Don's family had a different color shirt for all of of their kids and grandkids.

A whole new world

The bottom half of one of the wooden planks in the fence is broken off. The remaining hole provides lots of excitement as it exposes the neighbor's backyard, usually replete with boys and bikes, and sometimes even water balloons that the boys might throw at you. Mavis is intrigued by this window into a new world.

Late Snow

I had already planted my garden during a two week warm spell mid-spring, when a late-spring snowstorm took us by surprise dumping a LOT of snow SUPER fast. The first picture is my garden, with the neighbors flowering plum trees about to break in the background. I took some pics, then grabbed my broom to follow the example of my neighbor and her kids in smacking snow off of the trees to alleviate the branches. All around the valley hundreds of trees had huge branches break off from the weight of the snow.


Josh scraped a path to the sidewalk before he left for work.


This is a neighbor's tree right after the snowfall, in the early morning. Next we see the same tree after an hour or so of sunshine had melted most of the snow off.

The Proper Role of Government

Today I heard a quote that I believe is true, and important and not understood by most, especially by our current government (nor was it very well understood by many of those in our government in the last few years):

The proper role of government is to protect equal right's, not to provide equal things.

Also, here is a slide show that I've seen lately that helped me understand more clearly the form of government the Founding Fathers set up for us, namely a republic, and how important that has been to the success of the United States of America. http://www.wimp.com/thegovernment/

Asayo's Wish Foundation Walk-a-thon

I'm excited to go see the beautiful gardens at Thanksgiving Point, in Lehi, Utah as part of a fundraiser for Asayo's Wish Foundation. I think it's a great idea because who doesn't love to walk through the gardens there? And then to pair that with a fundraising effort is fantastic. It will be on Saturday, May 30th, at 8 am (registration begins at 7 am). Check out the official event site for details here.

www.asayoswish.org
www.asayoswishblog.com

Grapes for snacktime

As pretty as they are sweet.