Science in the Kitchen

So I've been wanting to try my hand at sourdough bread for a while now, and I had even found a fairly simple starter recipe.  So I thought it would be a really good idea to wait until after we had a hotter than usual week, and had a week full of freeze warnings to try my first attempt-smart, real smart.

The ingredients: whole wheat flour & pure water (non-chlorinated)

Mix it all up, put it in a warm place and wait (feeding it every day, sometimes twice a day)

After a day or two, not too bad, it's sort of looking "yeasty".  I'm seeing bubbles!  This might work after all...

Um, maybe not.

After 4 or 5 days, and far too much good whole wheat flour, I'm calling this a fail.  I could actually submit this sucker to Pintrosity if I felt like it, but I don't.  Thankfully I saw a pretty nice (and only $11) Natural Yeast Cookbook at Costco this week.  And as a sweet bonus-they had two mail-order (free/super cheap) starter options as well.  I think I'm going to give this a break until we warm up a bit (which won't take long thanks to a stinking groundhog), and then I'll give it a go again.

Love and

Rockets!

We thought it would be so much fun to launch rockets again with our friends since we had the day off.  It was a lovely day for it too, and Hobby Lobby had finally re-stocked their engines.  Eric thought it would be a fun thing, and more economical, to just buy the larger C6-7's and use those for all of the rockets.

Sadly we learned a lesson, just because they can use a larger engine, does not mean all rockets should use a larger engine.  We had no problem with the first launch of the day-Eric's, it went up, the parachute deployed, and came back down perfectly (too bad the rocket got stepped on and broke a fin-just one flight for today)

Davin's rocket was next-it went up, we saw the tell-tale "poof" marking the end of flight/streamer deployment.  But that was it.  As you can see from the picture, the sun was at a crazy angle, and we just lost it in the light.  We searched and searched.  It was never found.

Next up, my rocket-I must have packed my wadding in too tightly, my streamer never deployed.  But it landed without any damage.  Then came Aidan's-oh boy.  Eric let Aidan pack his own wadding (without double checking his work), plus a large engine, plus major glare=well see below...

Aidan's rocket ended up in Guadalupe and was run over, at least twice.  Eric and Aidan had searched the field for 20 minutes before looking over in the street (which isn't really close).  Eric had to wait for a break in traffic before running out to retrieve the beloved rocket.  Aidan was heartbroken, Davin kept trying to cheer him up by reminding him that he at least had a rocket to say good-bye to.  Plus, they each would get new ones before the next launches!

After a lunch at Burger King, every one's spirit's were greatly improved (especially ours).  Rockets are definitely more fun when you don't spend 2/3 of your time searching fruitlessly for lost ones.  Oh well, better luck next time.

Jan 12 in 12

Ah, it's a new year and another round of 12 in 12. Are you ready? Here we go...

Saturday happened to be our Relief Society's temple day.

It was only 45 by the time I got home from the temple at 11:30, which meant we could uncover our plants from the night before.

Um, I think we might have forgotten something...

Thank you Eric, at least it's not Valentine's Day, right?

These three decided to have a pajama day since I was gone all morning.

Aidan returning from a very very cold camp out (luckily he has a mom who ran out and bought him long underwear so he stayed nice and warm even with the temps in the 20's)

Hallelujah!!! The final cabinets are being loaded up to take to the in-law's.

Cabinet install-almost there, Eric's mom will be so happy.

Break for food-mmm, pizza

Here's the finished (sans drawers and doors) product-just don't ask how long it took. I designed it, Eric built it, all around his mom's specifications. Yup, we work well together. He's still got some finishing details (along with the drawers/doors) to do. It didn't take long for his mom to settle in :)

When we got home we found a really really stupid pigeon who thought he was part bat.  Here he is clinging on to the side of the covered entryway.  Eric had to grab the nerf gun to "encourage" him to leave for the night, after he already made a rather unpleasant mess all over the corner of our entryway.

And yes, I can count to 12, I do realize that was only 11. I accidentally deleted a super cute picture of Eric and I eating lunch-I'm already beating myself up over it, oh well.

Some Goals for 2013

So here's a list, in no particular order, of some of my goals for 2013.  Some are big, some are small, some are silly, some are practical, but they are all mine, and are here to help me be a better (and a happier) me.

Shop at Sprouts 1-2x/month (Done)

Attend the temple 1-2x/month (averaged 1/month)

Davin's quilt-it's already planned out (got half-way done)

Keep Target trips to once a week (FAILED)

Monthly date night: (off to a rough start, but then we discovered Zupa's and Frost)

Plant our winter garden (done)

Plant our fall garden (done-herb and salsa)

Read 6 non-book club books: The Secret Keeper, by Kate Morton; 

Run two miles w/o stopping (ankle surgery put this one on hold)

Go for 3 family hikes (ankle surgery put this one on hold)

Try 1-2 new recipes a month and type up the keepers: surpassed my goal!!

Keep up the 12 in 12 project (done, but did a bad job posting)

Nightly walks w/Eric (ankle surgery put this one on hold)

Keep riding my bike 2x/week (ankle surgery put this one on hold)

Keep waking up at 6:15 for personal daily scriptures (yup, got through the year)

Read a conference a week and talk to someone about it (PT made this one even easier)

Monthly play-days for the kids-nope

Make/try 6 things from my Pinterest boards (sort of)

Find 10 different uses for my new Cuisinart: 1) blended homemade tomato soup (worked better than the blender); 2) homemade pesto (next time use greener basil, NOT the purple-y cardinal basil); 3) shredded cheese in 3 seconds; 4) Chicken salad; 5) chocolate glaze; 6) bread crumbs; 7) apple butter; 8) better homemade basil pesto; 9) graham cracker/cookie crumbs; 10) cauliflower soup (WOO HOO!!!)

Call each of my sibling on their birthdays (nope, I did get texts off-most of the time)

Go on a special 15th anniversary trip (it's called saving for a new bathroom)

Well, that's it, I may add to it, I may take away from it.  There are some home improvement projects we've got to work on as well this year, but this is my list, not the Home Depot list (ugh, you should see that one...)

Christmas Afternoon

After we had our finished our gifts, and had showered, we headed over to Eric's parent's for more fun (and leftovers for lunch).

Of course the boys got more Legos-this time from the Hobbit

But the biggest surprise- scooters for everyone

And yes, Maddie wore here Little Red Ridding Hood outfit the entire day-good call Santa!

Eme's scooter matches her helmet perfectly!  The kids spent the entire wither break outside on either their bikes or their scooters.

Christmas Morning

Just before the kids came down, everything looks so soft and serene...

They are so excited to see what's waiting for them, and yet three of them only woke up at just before 7 and Eme we had to wake-up at 7:15.  We could hear Davin's sweet voice telling the others to "let's just be quiet still, they'll come get us when they're ready"  Sometimes he can be so sweet and good, love him.

PURE JOY-makes me so happy!!

There were a couple of Lego/Halo sets, and one of them was the Hobbit game for the boys to share-it only took an instant for them to be captivated.

Ah, Cabbage Patch Kids! My favorite part was asking Eme what them smelled like (baby powder), her response: "Cabbage?"  But they were so thrilled with their baby dolls, they haven't left their sides for all of vacation!

FINAL GIFTS:

The boys got Nerf disk guns-Dad really wanted them to have Nerf guns, so I picked up these guns from Costco.  Dad is the ultimate HERO this year, disks have been flying left and right.  Eric's only regret: not buying himself one too-he got his a week later.  We have almost nightly Nerf gun battles in the front room-that second floor landing makes for a great perch to shoot over into the living room!

And the girls are loving their bunk-bed cribs/high chairs and double strollers.  Those babies are well loved.

I was able to surprise Eric with the Blu-Ray of Lord of the Rings, extended version (because BR is better than the DVD version we already own, right?); a new watch-we'll see how long this one lasts, he has a propensity to "kill" his watches; a new r/c helicopter (his just barely died); and family tickets to go up to Meteor Crater-so excited about this one!!

And He surprised me-he had already bought me my Christmas gift early so I could enjoy it all month long-a beautiful new Jim Shore nativity set.  So I wasn't expecting anything on Christmas morning (especially after buying a new washer/dryer on the 5th), but after all was said and done, there was one small box left, and it was for me!  He bought me a Sapphire necklace, a total shocker!  I'm just glad I had done some nice things for him for Christmas this year

I forgot to take a pic of mine before I packed it up, but here's the pick from the site.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve has rolled around once more, and rather all too quickly this year if you ask me.  But that is the hazard of school getting out on Friday and Christmas Eve falling on a Monday, it just happens without any precursor of vacation.  It's both a good thing and a bad thing, it means that all of our pre-Christmas activities (ie: cleaning of bedrooms to make room for new toys, baking of cookies, general tidying of the house) must be squeezed into Saturday and Monday (baking can happen on Sunday of course, but that's it).

Monday, Christmas Eve came, and with it a day off for Eric.  By lunch-time the kids had finished up some of their activities (chores) and it was time for the family game to get them the rest of the way through the day.  I had been dropping hints all day: No, it was not a board game.  No, it was not a card game.  No, it was not a video game.  No, it was not a Lego game.  I know, I'm so helpful.

Angry Birds Star Wars-neither a card game, nor a video game, nor a board game, nor a Lego game. HA!  But it was a game that all four of them could play together without any assistance from us, for an hour or so. 

Nana opted to do a Nativity play this year instead of a talent display.  It went rather well-until someone (Davin) pulled out a toy knife at the end and told us how Herod wanted to slay all the babies "like this..." 

Back at home it was time for Christmas pajamas!! The girls were thrilled with theirs: pinks and gray/black.

And I even had a surprise pair for Eric! So all three boys got new pairs tonight: more red and black.

Now it's off to bed for the kids while Eric and I put together projects that we should have done a few nights ago (oops), get breakfast ready for tomorrow morning, and watch "Silent Night" on KBYU.com (so so good, we'll have to buy our own copy!).