mm, mm, good

I finally did it, I made homemade bread! I really feel great about finally getting over my fear of making bread and the best part is it was easy and my family loved it.

When I first got married I tried to make bread but it never worked out it always came out more like a rock than fluffy bread. With some help and lots of practice I learned how to make rolls. After a few years of being married, Eric was so happy when I finally learned how to make the rolls he had as a young boy. After basking in the praise of finally making something tender and yummy I didn’t want to even experiment with making bread again so for over a decade our family has enjoyed homemade rolls but never bread.

Eric and I have been talking about cutting our budget and stretching our money. One of the things we decided to cut was bread. It really is amazing how much bread five kids eat. So, I turned to my favorite internet cooking site http://www.allrecipes.com/ to find an EASY bread recipe. It took me a while to get up the nerve to experiment but I found the perfect recipe, Amish white bread.

I am so excited because it really is easy to make. I think there are 4 ingredients and I used my kitchen aid mixer so I didn’t have to get tired while kneading. The only problem is by the end of the night there were only two pieces left. :) Pretty good stuff!!!

A light at the end of the tunnel :)

I am starting to do a big happy dance because our four year law school adventure is coming to a close. We are so excited for Eric to graduate on May 18th with an L.L.M. in Real Estate Law. It is amazing how fast the last four years have gone and how much has happened while we were away. This really has been a great experience, we have met wonderful people and done things that we never would have been able to do if we wouldn't have taken the the leap faith.

With that being said, it is going to be great to get back into 'real life' (meaning life not as students) and have Eric doing something he really has a passion for.

Real life here we come!

Wow, Jacob is Walking!

I really didn't think Jacob would start walking this early. All the other kids, except for Jennifer, started walking at 14 months. Jennifer walked at 9 months, it was so cute seeing her walk because she was so tiny.

Jacob had taken a step here and there but no real walking. Then the other day he stood up --on his own-- and walked to Jennifer. Wow, we were all shocked and excited. We all applauded him like crazy, He thought that was so great so he kept walking back and forth and all over the room. :) Eric was at school so he missed it. :( But Jacob was so happy to show his dad he could walk as soon as he got home.

I am sad and happy. Sad because his baby time is fading fast and happy because he is growing and progressing. It is so fun to see him learn new things. It is also exciting to watch him pass through the new phases of his life. I never get tired of seeing the first crawl, word, and step. :)

My Kids Make Me Laugh.

We were sitting at the kitchen table for dinner one night and Eric started talking about how one of his associates at school had been talking his ear off. Rachel sits right by her dad at dinner and Rachel's eyes get real big as she stared at her dads face so I asked her what was wrong and she said, “ dad you shouldn’t let people talk your ear off because you need them to hear,” Hee, hee, hee.

Here's another one;

Eric and I were talking the other day about feeling a little baby hungry and Rachel had over heard us and blurted out very adamantly, “mom and dad that is so rude we don’t eat babies,” hee, hee, hee. Jennifer had said a similar thing when she was Rachel’s age.

My kids keep me in stitches!!! :)

Peek-A-Boo

We have french doors that seperate the living area from the bedrooms and Joseph and Jacob love to play peek-a-boo there. Joseph will get Jacob laughing so hard . . . it is really funny!!! :)

Our Anniversary :)

Eric and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary last week. The past four years we haven't done much because of Eric's hefty school schedule but this years my oldest daughter, Jennifer, decided that all needed to change.

She secretively planned our anniversary for us. She had been asking me for quite a while what places in Florida I would like to see. I had mentioned how great it would be to go visit the Florida Keys so she actively found all sorts of attractions. About a week before our anniversary she reminded us how imortant it was for us to do something special; she then showed us all the research she had done on the Florida Keys, it was quite impressive and looked like a lot of fun. We were lucky enough to have one free day, on our anniversary, when Eric had no classes so we decided to take her up on her offer and go visit the Keys for the day.

For lunch we ate at a restraunt that used to be a sea turtle cannery, check out what we found on the menu, it's always fun to try new foods.

After lunch we bought tickets to go on a glass bottom boat to see Florida's protected coral reefs and the brightly colored fish who inhabit them. When we were out at sea we were able to watch the sun set, that really was amazing. Later that night we tried some other Key West cuisine; fresh, locally made, Key Lime Pie, y-u-m-m-y, and then we had Mahi Mahi which is dolphin fish, (it's not the cute flipper dolphin you think of) that was Eric's and my favorite dish, the crispsy fried alligator we had earlier in the day tasted too much like cat fish to me.

When we got home (after midnight) Jennifer had made us a happy anniversary cake, that we all enjoyed, and all the kids had helped create a banner for us. We really had a great time and we felt so loved to see all the effort the kids went through to make sure we would have a special anniversary.

President Hinckley

Since the passing of the beloved LDS Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, I have been reflecting about how he changed my life for good.

I remember a video clip I saw years ago with President Hinckley surrounded by children as he sang “I am a Mormon Boy.” He loved his faith, children, and the family. In many of his conference talks, he encouraged the Saints to strengthen their family ties by talking softer, being kinder, and spending quality time with their families.

His witty humor and wise advise encouraged me to be a softer, kinder, mother and wife, and to always “Do the very best I can—Gordon B. Hinckley”

Teens Cutting Hair?

There are times when all I can do is sit back and laugh, this is definitely one of these times. Eric came into the front room with cape and buzzers in hand to say he needed a haircut and wanted Jennifer and Adam to do it. Wide eyed, I sat back and observed the reaction. Jennifer immediately ran to the other room, to get away from her fathers bazaar request while Adam reluctantly took the buzzers from his dad's hand and turned them on. With Buzzers on Adam shaved his dads hair, giggling almost the whole time. Jennifer finally decided this was too funny to pass up so she joined the fun teasing her dad about all the mistakes they "could" make. I am still not sure why Eric wanted them to cut his hair, he hasn't let me cut his hair in almost 10 years, but it sure added some great comic relief to our day.

Can't Stop Laughing

Remember John Edwards $400 hair cut?

Brotherly Love

Adam absolutely loves his little brother.

Learning From the Little Ones

Rachel needed some new casual dresses to play around the house in, her old ones were getting very worn. I have tried to find cute, modest, casual dresses in the stores but could never find ones she liked, so I finally decided I would attempt to make a couple dresses for her myself, I have never sown using a pattern before but it did say EASY in big black letters on the package. So, with pattern in one hand and Rachel in the other we braved the holiday traffic and made our way to the fabric store to take on this new project.
Rachel loved seeing all the people and had to say hi to everyone we saw, a few people were even kind enough to say hi back. We wondered around the store gathering all our supplies for about an hour then grabbed our number and stood in line waiting for our turn. When our number was called we put our fabric on the counter and I told the lady how much fabric I needed. She measured and started cutting when Rachel began talking to the woman, "Hi my name is Rachel, I like your scissors". She just giggled a little and told her she could have some just like it when she got older. Rachel of course liked that idea. After a couple minutes of silence Rachel leaned up on the counter, looked at the women and said with her big toothy smile, "you know, you are really doing a great job with that". The woman stood up a little taller, smiled real big, and said, "thank you I haven't heard that in a long time".
I just stood back and watched this woman's face light up with this sincere, simple complement. It really made me think how I need to say thank you more often for the simple things people do for me. What would the world be like if more people gave sincere compliments on the little things that are done in life? Wow, wouldn't that be a great place to live. I can see why the Savior tells us to be like the little children, humble and sincere. I learn so many important lessons from raising my children, their pure hearts are such a blessing to me. :)

Christmas

Christmas is my other favorite holiday. We don't spend much time on the big Santa thing, we still do presents but we work as a family to concentrate on the Saviors birth and serving others. We started the months out making service chains. Our whole family made their own paper count down to Christmas chain. On each chain we all wrote down a secret act of service we would do for a member of the family. It really changed the mood of our house because everyday 6 people were doing nice things for each other, it was great. Around the middle of the month we made our own Christmas tree, the kids had a great time doing that. On Christmas Eve, after the little kids were asleep, Jennifer and Adam helped put together Rachel and Joseph's presents and on Christmas morning everyone woke up around 9:00 a.m.. Eric and I made our traditional Pumpkin Pancakes with Apple syrup and we all ate and talked. After breakfast we all sat down and opened presents, it was very relaxing morning.
In the evening we had the missionariess and a newly baptised family over for dinner, we had a great time laughing and enjoying each others company. Here are a couple pictures of our friends. The missionary posing with his hand on his chin is Elder Jenkins and the other is Elder Stanger. Our Friend sitting by Jennifer is Luz Calone and let me tell you she kept us in stitches all evening, she is a hoot. Luz also has a 9-year-old daughter but she was in the other room with Rachel. We love them all and were so thankful for friends to spend the holidays with. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. :)

What can you make with old telephone and jewelery wire?

Our Christmas tree didn't make it to Florida. Our moving van was stuffed to the brim so Eric kinda, gave it away. We planned on buying a live tree for Christmas but then we saw the prices of trees and all we could afford was a Charley Brown tree and the kids really didn't like that. So, I thought we would make a tree, I figured it would be a very good bonding family activity. So Eric got some old telephone wire and I grabbed my jewelry wire. We molded the telephone wire into a spiral shape and used the jewelery wire for support along the sides of the loops. We thought it would be a quick project but it was a lot more difficult than we thought it would be. It took us two days to get our tree to kind of hang right but the kids were now really excited about the idea of making a tree so we kept plugging along. We figured it didn't need to look perfect they just wanted something that resembled a Christmas tree so Eric ran to the store and grabbed some green garland and lights so we could wire it to our tree. We were so happy when we finished and hung it up. The kids love it because they worked so hard to create it. It also is very nice because when we take it down it will collapse and fit into a pizza box :) that's Eric's favorite part.

First Word

Jacob loves to babble, he is constantly trying to communicate with those around him. We have noticed he says one sound blend a lot "daddy" at first we were thinking it was just his favorite blend but then we noticed when Jacob wants Eric's attention he cruises over to him, pats his leg, and says daddy until Eric gives him attention. It is so much fun watching him learn to communicate.
It's interesting, all but one of our children have said some form of daddy as their first word and Joseph's first word was Adam. Adam thought that was the greatest thing in the world. :)

Jennifers 15th Birthday

Our Greatest Treasures

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Leaping Lizards

We have counted four different types of lizards that inhabit our yard. The kids love to go out side and try to catch them. They seem to be pretty friendly unless provoked, just kidding. :)Adam says they don't bite hard. The kids play with the lizards for hours and since there are at least fifty in our backyard when one gets away it isn't too hard for them to find another one.

We have had about five of these little creatures sneak into our house, thank heavens the kids are fast and very good at rushing them back out side. I really don't mind them, they are fun to watch running all around but I just don't want them in my house.

Thanksgiving

This years Thanksgiving was absolutely wonderful!!! A couple years ago we made a tradition of inviting the missionaries over for holiday dinners. This year the kids quickly reminded me of our tradition and the missionaries happily excepted our invitation, they then asked if we wouldn't mind having a family join us that was investigating the Church. We of course said yes, the more the merrier has always been our motto. So the planning began, both Jennifer and Adam had there own things they had to have for Thanksgiving, chocolate eggnog and pumpkin cake was at the top of their list.
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays and as the kids get older I love it even more. This year we made everything from scratch just because I didn't want to brave the traffic. I was a little worried about getting everything done in time but it all worked out and I had so much fun cooking all that food.
Because the weather was so awesome we ate outside on our covered patio, we all had a great time. Then one of the elders asked if we could do something he has done for years, he went on to instruct us to each say something we were thankful for. It was really fun to hear what everyone was thankful for and to hear wonderful testimony born.
After dinner we all sat on our couch to let our food settle so we could have pie later. Our new friend, who is investigating the church, saw our Book of Mormon for latter-day-saint families on our coffee table she picked it up and started asking more questions about the people in it. She then opened the book asking the missionaries to read a couple verses. She had turned to the story of Ammon when he cut off all the soldiers arms and brought them to the king. We each took turns reading the story. The spirit was so strong as the missionaries reviewed one of the discussions they had given her just the day before using this story. We all had a wonderful time reading and discussing the truths of the Book of Mormon.
I saw my new friend at church today and she told me her and her daughter will be baptized in a couple weeks. I am so excited for her and we all look forward to attending her baptism.
I am truly thankful for this wonderful gospel and great missionaries who devote their time and effort to spreading the good news.

I Love These Trees.

This is a Banyan tree. They are so cool because many of their roots grow from their tall branches and eventually attach themselves to the ground below to add to the ever expanding trunk. You can actually go inside this tree because it's large trunk is made up of descending branches. The kids love to weave their way in and out of the branches.

Here is a picture of our house. It is pretty nice, all tile, four bedrooms. It suits our family very well but there is one thing we have a hard time with, the bars on all the windows. We noticed that many of the homes in our neighborhood, which is considered to be a very good neighborhood, have bars on their windows and some houses even have tall motorized cast iron fences to protect their properties.
When we first moved in it felt weird to look out the window just to see the bars that secured us tightly inside. But then we thought, it was less likely someone could harm us inside. I think the psychology of the whole thing messes with a persons mind, especially someone who has always lived in a bar free community. Eric and I both started to worry more about break ins and then we began to think about other problems that could arise with having a house with all but two of the exits barred securely shut. A fire was my biggest concern, how could we get five kids out, eek, sleepless nights ensued.
There is one barred exit, a sliding door, that we could get out of if we had a key but our land-lord had that key so we called and wrote letters asking for her to please send us the key. After waiting for two months she finally had someone bring it to us. I immediately opened the gate to see the outside world without bars obstructing my view.
It really is amazing how free that made me feel. I close and lock the gate at night, so we are safe from all the riff-raff of Miami and open it first thing in the morning so I can see outside without the bars closing me in. I now feel drawn to that door so I can see an unobstructed view of the outside world. I guess if I would have grow up in an area where the crime is higher the bars on windows would have helped me feel safer from the outside world. But I tend to like windows without bars.