First pig tails!

I can put Ginger's hair in pigtails. I don't go it very often though because I feel like I'm really pulling her hair to get them in. She is so cute though with them.

She loves to rock on her giraffe now. She can get on and off safely all by her little baby self. so cute!!

Best Chocolate Cake eveerrrrrrrrrrrr!

If you want to find yummy recipes like this chocolate cake or butternut bake, visit Rachel's and Melissa's blog and click on their 'recipes' label. Their link is on my sidebar. Lately I've been just going to their blogs to plan my meals. I just see what they fed thier families the previous week and then make the same thing. :) I just made this chocolate sheet cake from scratch. It IS way GOOD! so moist and fluffy and chocolaty. I would even choose this cake over the chocolate cake at the Tea Room in Port Orchard. That's how good it is! MAkes me want to give away all my Betty Crocker cake mixes and stick with making them from scratch.

This is the butternut bake from Melissa's blog. It's almost like a squash pie. We liked it, but it was rich and alot for just us two to eat. I would make it again if I had more people to help us eat it. Tonight I'm going to try out her Bourbon Chicken recipe. I hear it's delicious!

And finally, here is my bread once again..actually, I made this bread using a recipe from Ali's blog. I just altered the measurements so I could make two large normal size loaves. It turned out perfect! Light and fluffy! Because of my pan sizes, it used to make either two really small flatter loaves or one huge awkward loaf, not it's just right for making sandwhiches. IF you want the recipe, just say so in the comments and I'll post it up. Thanks again to Ali for sharing her bread recipe!

Valentine's Dance

Well, we all felt like we were back in high school getting our group picture at a dance. We went to the stake valentine's dance on Saturday. It was far from what we were expecting. hahahahhaha I think it was a dance for the elderly. It was cute to see all these really old people dancing and enjoying themselves, but we soon got bored. Luckily we saw the Freemans and Sudbrocks. :) We enjoyed the performances..especially the country swing. Glen and I love swing. We used to go to Seattle to go swing dancing.
About 10pm, the Jazz band arrived and played some swing. We had Ginger with us, so we went home shortly after to stick her in bed.
(We almost didn't go because we had Ginger and she's teething once again, but Holly Jackman took her for us as soon as we walked in. Later we saw a bunch of youth standing in a circle ooing over Ginger. Even the guys wanted to hold her. )

So, I changed the background (I'm learning how to use PhotoShop!!) to this photo. They had the place decorated to look like Kristis' Christmas wedding reception. There were snowflakes and trees every where. I thought it would be fun to have a more Valentiny background. :)

Mexican Dinner!

So, us Chandlers liked the all Chinese dinner so much we decided to do it again but this time do all Mexican. It was fun and the food was soo gooood!

Shari made this super good chicken stuff. I forgot what it's called :(. Krisit made fried ice cream. I thought she was brave for doing that.

We made the best salsa in the world! It's sooo good. If you want the recipe, go to my sisters' blog, Holly. Her link (choco muff horse) is on the side bar of this blog.

Yum!

Our House update

We're back to working on our house again! The guys got the skylights in, sun tubes and roof on! and ...just in time! It snowed the day after!

They also got the windows in!

Here is a close up of the windows. We got them etched. The windows in the back of the house aren't etched...just the ones on the front and street side.

Crazy!

This is amazing! My dad brought this to my attention. If you like what you read below, here is the link for the rest. http://www.news.com/2300-11393_3-6227089-1.html?tag=ne.gall.pg
"Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle have developed a prototype contact lens that incorporates an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. The prototype is a step toward creating a form of bionic vision, the researchers say.
The researchers say the flexible lens is biologically safe and was worn by rabbits for up to 20 minutes with no adverse effects. Along with a circuit, the prototype contains red LEDs for a display, though it does not yet light up. The display could potentially create a surface for Web surfing in midair, flash a vehicle's speed to a driver, or immerse someone in a virtual world, the university said. "

Just loving it!

I am really enjoying working at the gym. I'm still doing spin class and it's growing and alot of fun. I started Pilates in January and love it. It's Pilates for beginners. Most of the women in that class are in there 40-50s. They are so fun. I love days like today where two of the ladies came up to me and told me how excited they were to see some improvements and that they notice they are feeling stronger. I couldn't help but feel good inside even though I know it's because of their effort and dedication.

I started teaching Circuit Training today. There was only one person that showed up (that's how my other classes started out as). But this person was deaf. I wasn't expecting that. We sure had fun though. :) (I took a semester or two of sign language in college because I was considering becoming an interpreter. ) I only remember a few signs and the alphabet (luckily), so we could communicate good enough. Just from today, I've learned how to sign the words for : hard, easy, finish, tired, good, bad, year, and the days of the week. I just think it's so fun!

Shadow Box

This is a shadow box my mom made for my grandma. She has it hanging right outside my grandma's door in her assisted living home. I thought it was such a neat idea, I had to post it. My mom said that she wished she had kept things from when us kids were small so she could put them in a shadow box and make one for each of us girls. Maybe one day you would like to make one for your kids or make a wedding one. I would love to see one made by Melissa or Rachael (with all that scrap book talent!).

In the Spirit of Valentine's Day- Blue Men 'I feel love'

Watching this made me wish I was there in person!

On our honeymoon, we went to Vegas. We had a chance to see Blue Men, but we chose to see Mamma Mia instead because a guy from work told me we just had to see. We regret listening to him. Blue Men would have been way cooler! Check this out!

Tip Junkie

I just learned about the Tip Junkie. She is the one that has been handing out some of these "award icons" to various bloggers. I didn't know about it until she gave me one for posting directions about tile pictures. Her site is so fun. She takes tips and fun ideas from everyone and puts them all together on one blog. What a great idea. If you need an idea fast in a hurry, visit
http://tipjunkie.blogspot.com/2007/08/great-tip-award.html . you might just find one of your posts there. :)

Suction plates and baby forks

I thought it was time to let Ginger have her own little baby plate and baby fork.

I love the suction down bowls and plates. takes the worry of them throwing the plate on the ground and spilling food everywhere!

The Berliner (Bismark)

My favorite doughnut is the bismark...especially the ones with the maple frosting, so I thought it would be fun to learn how to make them. I found a recipe, but I altered it so I could just dump all the ingrediants into a bosch mixer and be done with it. I will leave a link to the original recipe at the bottom of this post.

Here's what you do: In the bosch, I put 3 cups of flour and 2 tbsp of yeast. Mix it up a little so the yeast doesn't clump up when you add 2 1/2 cups of hot water (120-130 degrees). After adding the water, mix well and then cover with towel and let set for 10 + minutes. It should start to look bubbly. Then add 4 eggs, 1 tbsp. of lemon juice, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of butter and mix. Slowly add 3 cups of flour while bosch is mixing. The dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl. ( the dough is going to be very soft and gooey-like, but don't add anymore flour. This is normal) After the flour is mixed in, transfer dough into a well buttered bowl. (it's easier if your hands are buttered too) Turn the dough in the bowl to butter all sides and then cover and let rise till double in size (about an hour).

Next, on a floured surface, roll out dough and cut out 3" circles (or bigger if you like). (The first time I made these, I rolled the dough out too thick for my preference. So, roll the dough out very thin...about an 1/8" thick. After all the dough is cut out, cover and let rise again till double in size.

Heat vegetable oil in a pan to 360 degrees. Drop one dough circle in oil for about 30 seconds or till golden brown and then flip. Drain on paper towel and then dip bottom in sugar and cool on wire rack. (depending on the thickness of your donut, it will take longer to cook. Cut a slit in your first donut to check the center to make sure 30 seconds was long enough to cook each side. The thicker donuts are harder to cook the center without burning the outside. ( Don't worry if your dough doesn't look very thick, it will kind of blow up or expand in the hot oil.)

After donuts cool, use a small knife to poke in the side of the donut and make a little hole. Fill a piping bag with vanilla pudding ( I used SwissMiss Vanilla from Albertson's cold section) and pip the pudding in the donut. Frost with chocolate or Maple frosting. ( I took butter cream frosting and added 1 tsp. of maple flavoring to get maple frosting)

QUICK LIST OF INGREDIANTS

6 cups of flour

2 1/2 cups of water ( 120-130 degress)

2 tbsp. yeast

4 eggs

1 tbsp. lemon juice

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup of butter, softened

Go here if you want original recipe : http://www.sheries-kitchen.com/recipes/german/berliners.htm