January 2008 archive
Twenty loaves and counting
This is turning into my “how do I love thee Bosch?” website. Yes, I am ridiculous.
I counted up how many loaves of bread I have made in it since I purchased it a few weeks ago. I have now made 20 loaves. The latest six have cooled and are ready for bagging and putting in the freezer until we eat them up this week. That means we have eaten just about a loaf a day so far. Wow. We like bread.
And in my defense, it may sound like tons of bread… but we counted that on average we can get only 17 slices of bread per loaf. So if the boys have toast for breakfast or snack that is at least three pieces of bread. For sandwiches at lunch we need 10 pieces for the 5 of us… so far that is 13. The last 4 pieces magically disappear I guess. Even the ends get eaten, the bread tastes that good.
I bet you all want to come to my house for lunch now. Especially since I have real turkey, not the deli meat, and homemade cranberry sauce and Muenster cheese in my house right now. Oh yeah, it is yummy.
Posted by Ily on January 31, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 2 comments
Ily's test kitchen
So today I decided to test my Bosch out again. I know. I am obsessed with this thing. Today I wanted to try whipped cream.
Wow. Less than two minutes on high speed. The bowl was not even chilled. The whips (beaters) only spent about 2 minutes chilling in the freezer, it was a last minute decision to try it so there wasn’t time for chilling them.
The result? I’m impressed. I may have had a rocky start with this machine- breaking the whip drive on my first batch of cookies and making 6 not so stellar loaves of bread- but I think I have figured it out now. And I am impressed. I have decided that if you buy me a lottery ticket and I win, you will for sure get a bosch from me on the next holiday.
Posted by Ily on January 30, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments
Oh man, I officially love the bosch mixer
Caution, this is a dorky I love modern technology entry. It is kinda boring, unless you like cooking.
Today I decided to cook a turkey. It is no special holiday today, but the turkey was in my freezer leftover from Thanksgiving sales and I decided it was time to cook it. The main reason for making the turkey is so that I don’t have to cook the whole rest of the week. Leftover heaven at our house.
What goes with a turkey dinner? Well, there has to be homemade mashed potatoes for sure. The 10 lb bag of potatoes was so inexpensive that I decided, heck, I’ll just make a whole ten pounds of mashed potatoes and use them up in casseroles and eat some for snacks and we’ll eat them all week with the turkey leftovers.
So I peeled and cooked all 10 lbs with Micah’s help today. When it came time to mash them, I dreaded getting out the hand mixer so I could get potatoes all over my house because of the back splashing of delicious potato goo. Then I realized, the bosch can probably do it.
Amazingly, all 10 pounds fit in it, plus butter and cream… and it mashed them all with the cookie paddles in record time. And yes, those potatoes where so good. To keep them warm I put them in my big crockpot and they filled the pot all the way to the top. It felt like I was emptying a magic refilling cooking pot. So I don’t know how it all fit in the mixer, but man, that machine has a huge mixing capacity and it has stepped up even higher in my esteem as the coolest machine ever made. No potato goo all over the kitchen (the nice lid held it all in), my arm didn’t get tired mixing forever, it was mashed and mixed in less than two minutes… it might have been shorter, but I just liked watching it mix. Overall, I have to say, that when I have daughter-in-laws (I have no hope of ever giving birth to a girl), they are getting bosch mixers from me for their birthdays or Christmas. And if we win the lottery sometime soon, then I will be buying one for every woman I know.
***Lottery games are based on chance and should be played for entertainment purposes only.
Posted by Ily on January 29, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 2 comments
We will miss you!
Our beloved prophet President Gordon B. Hinckley passed away this evening. When we told the boys the news they got teary eyed. Isaac was so sweet in his concern over President Hinckley’s passing. It just makes you want to hug and snuggle those kids all the more when they show their sensitive sides. We all love President Hinckley and will miss him. We loved him very much and are grateful to have lived during his presidency.
http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/beloved-church-president-gordon-b-hinckley-dies-at-97
Posted by Ily on January 27, 2008 | Filed under: Family News Religion | 0 comments
The Annual Sledding Event
For the MLK Day three day weekend, we had initially planned to go ski with Isaac. But then sweet little Micah asked when will it be winter so that we can go play in the snow and go sledding… He was too cute so we decided to change plans and have all of us go together to go sledding. Grandma and Grandpa Murdock decided to come join us and we had our neighbor Susan again and her son Alex too.
The worst part was getting all bundled up once we got there. It was freezing cold and the kids kept complaining about how cold they were and we just couldn’t get them all bundled up fast enough. Also, Poor planning on my part was that I didn’t check if the snow boots fit each child with 2 pairs of socks on. Reece’s wouldn’t go on until we only left on thin socks and Micah, well, we just had to push really hard…I am sure his toes got colder because his shoes were so tight that his circulation suffered! After they were all bundled up they were fine, but oh it was such a cold ordeal to make them all warm! I think it was 20 degrees out when we got there.
We went to this Snow Park on Mt Hood called Little John’s and it has a few hills to sled on and some snow shoeing trails and trails for snowmobiles. We had a blast sledding. It was hard to get a turn because Micah wouldn’t share his sled. He mostly liked laying at the bottom of the hill (prime target for other sledders) holding onto the handle and using it as a shovel.
There are two main hills to sled on at Little Johns’. They face each other and everyone ends up in the same area at the bottom. It gets kinda chaotic. You start down when it is clear, and then wham, you collide with someone at the bottom. It doesn’t always happen, but someone mentioned that each time they come, someone has to leave in an ambulance.
We have never seen that happen until this trip. A young man hit his head while sledding down and had some seizures and it was pretty scary. We felt grateful to have had Doctor Murdock with us that day. There was also a pediatrician and a nurse and so the young man was in good care until the paramedics came. There was some debate as to whether he started having the seizure before he hit his head, which would explain why he did so little to protect his head and why he had so many abrasions on his face. My sweet kids have been adding that boy to their prayers all week. I love to hear the prayers of little children, they humble me so much.
I did get hit by a person on a tube who I didn’t see coming, but no major head trauma evolved from that… or did it? Only those around me could honestly say if I have been acting crazier lately than normal. As far as I know, I am the same grumpy old me. I am glad that the woman on the tube hit me rather than Micah who I was pulling on the sled out of the way of oncoming sledders. Man. It is just hard to look everywhere at once! I don’t know if that woman who ran into me has a big headache still, but I know that I am fine. I was a little less enthusiastic about sledding after that too.
We might try to find another snow park later this year… Or hope that our neighborhood park gets snowed in again this year like last year. It was so snowy for one day that I could pull the boys all the way to the park in the sled and the hills were just right for us all to go sledding on. It was fabulous. And much closer to home. And no ambulance adventure. Yeah, let’s hope for that.
Posted by Ily on January 27, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 1 comment
Reece Learned a New Word... GraySkull
Dinner was absolutely hilarious tonight. Randomly, Reece held aloft his magic fork and started jabbering in cadence to the He-Man monologue where Prince Adam holds aloft his magic sword and says “by the power of Grayskull, I have the Power!” Nothing could we understand other than the word Grayskull. Oh man, it was amazing, and hilarious. And because we laughed, he did it over and over again.
For those of you uninitiated into the awesomeness of He-Man, check out this website.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He-Man
We loved He-man as kids and have been watching the old episodes of the show with our kids thanks to Netflicks (the best business ever invented). I never knew Reece was paying such close attention!
Posted by Ily on January 24, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 3 comments
Pictures From Micah's Birthday
Ily made an excellent tabblo:
This is the cake that started it all. The Camp-out cake. Notice the campfire.
It has a rock ring to help contain the fire, Pretzel logs, gumdrop flames, and real flames too on the candles! The dirt was very convincing for the boys. Isaac kept asking if it was real dirt and why would I put that on a cake?! He was very happy to find out it was crushed cookie. VERY HAPPY. The sun shone exceptionally bright the day of the party and baked the rice crispy treat trees in the half hour that the cake sat out with the blinds open. The poor trees almost couldn't be eaten because they got so hard! ... See my Tabblo>
Posted by Bryan on January 24, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 2 comments
We Have Left the Three Year Old Stage Behind. We hope.
On January 16th, 2008, Micah turned 4. Yes, it was this last Wednesday that we celebrated in style the momentous occasion when Micah left the Mighty Age of 3 to become a 4 YEAR OLD!
Age 3 has been good (yet often filled with lots of passionate tantrums from this kid). We love our little Micah and regret that he is getting to tall to snuggle on our laps anymore (though he will try with all his might to fit). We are saddened that he outgrew anything size 4 before he ever reached that age. It is incredible that he wears what Isaac outgrew last year. We are amazed that he is still less than five pounds lighter than his big brother who is 3 years and 4 months older. We love how he sings all sorts of songs all day long. Songs that we didn’t even know he had ever heard (“We Will Rock You” by Queen? How did he learn that?). He is the soundtrack of our lives these days.
He was so brave getting his immunizations at his well-child check-up. I don’t ever remember him not crying during that yucky stuff. What a big boy! Also, He ranked in the 95th percentile for height and weight. Not a big surprise to us. He looks 5, not 4, that is for sure!
This was his first year that I decided to give him a birthday party. Did I go overboard this time? Only a little. The party planning started by him choosing his cake. We looked at a ton of websites for ideas and he ended up choosing the campout cake. The great thing about this cake is that it was small. Only one cake mix… meaning no leftover cake for weeks on end!
From there began the inspiration. What goes better with camping than a tent? And acting like wild forest animals? And fishing? And bug scavenging? Since the tent was too big for the living room, we set it up in the garage, which can be dark enough for a flashlight to be really useful. Oh yes, this was the hit of the party. They probably forgot about everything else that happened at the party. All of the kids had a blast running around our garage with a flashlight. They were in and out of the tent shining their lights pretending they had (flash)light sabers, pretending they were looking for critters, fighting off pretend wolves with their lights. They had the best time. None of them wanted to leave! It was great. And the whole party lasted an hour. It was exhausting, and yet it was only an hour! I am not cut out to be a full time party planner. But I sure had fun watching it all happen and orchestrating the events. If you will pay me $$$ I will plan the best party for your child… just make sure I get a nap afterwards as part of the payment!
Posted by Ily on January 22, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 4 comments
Cleaning the van
On our short road trip to visit grandparents at Christmas time, the van got really messy. On our daily travels to preschool and basketball, and church, and the exercise club, it got messier. After our trip to go skiing, it was downright embarrassing how dirty the van was. The problem with cleaning it though is that is is easier to do in the driveway where there is more light and there are less walls for the noise of the vacuum to echo off of. And it has been raining too much to do that type of thing in the driveway. So let’s just say that dirty job got postponed for a “non-rainy” day.
On Saturday Bryan tried to take Isaac skiing and it was raining their whole drive up there and even as they climbed in altitude, it was still raining. So they got there, and turned around and came back, because no one wants to ski in the rain. That is just cold and no fun. So when they got home, of course, it magically stopped raining. Go figure. And thus we had a non-rainy day thrust upon us and even though all we wanted to do was nap, we decided it was high time to clean out the van.
Cleaning out the van is a whole family chore. The kids help make the mess, therefore they get to help clean it up. Armed with brooms and Lysol wipes, they can get a lot done actually. We removed everything that could be removed from the van. Car seats, the actual benches, all our junk, all wrappers and garbage… man! It is too embarrassing to list it all. Reece had a little hand broom that he just hit the benches with. He later got a wipe too to use on various surfaces (not sure if he did much, but he was happy). Micah got to clean out all cup holders and help whack the seats with a broom. Isaac was sent to wipe down all surfaces without carpeting or upholstery. Roomba was sent to clean the floor… Yes that is right, Roomba vacuumed our van while I used the vacuum on the seats that were all sitting in the driveway. It was great. That robot vacuum got most of the floor. It couldn’t get over the anchors where the benches lock in, but it went around them and got almost every bit of carpet. It was pretty dang cool.
After cleaning the van, it feels almost new again. My first thought after putting it all back together again was to take pictures and put it on http://portland.craigslist.org so we can sell it! It looks so good, maybe potential buyers won’t notice that the drivers seat is stuck in the most upright position. Nor will they notice the other minor details because it is so dang clean! My lofty idea faded when I realized that I don’t want a reason to have to purchase a new van this week to replace the one we are selling. So we aren’t going to sell it today, nor tomorrow, but maybe I won’t allow food consumption in there anymore so we can sell it next month and not have to give it such a huge deep cleaning.
Or maybe I will just enjoy it in it’s clean state and hope nothing else breaks in there for a while.
Posted by Ily on January 13, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 2 comments
Winter Fun at Cooper Spur
On Saturday I went skiing for the first time in 5 years. I took Isaac and my neighbor Susan and her son Alex along with us. The plan, enroll everyone in lessons and see how it goes.
When we got there, the lessons were all full and I fully expected Isaac to have a meltdown and not want to ski (and then I finally get him to ski and then he wants to stay forever even though the resort closes…. um, this has been what has happened to Bryan the first time out every season). But amazingly, he just did it.
Alex was a different story. He had never been skiing before and neither Susan nor I were skilled enough to teach him. We tried to help him but in the end, his skis were returned to the rental office and he just played in the snow all day and had a good time that way.
The whole day went so great and it was a lot of fun. I was amazed by how well I did after a 5 year hiatus. I don’t know if I will ever progress past the beginner runs, but I did have fun skiing with my son. I can’t wait till Bryan can join us skiing again. That knee of his better heal fast! (But then my free child care for the younger ones won’t be available to babysit if he is with me! hmmmm… maybe that knee shouldn’t heal too fast!)
Ily, Isaac, Susan, and Alex all went to Cooper Spur on Jan. 5th. They had fun skiing and riding the tubes. ... See my Tabblo>
Posted by Bryan and Ily on January 9, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 1 comment
My mixer is coming!
This is what the Fed Ex tracking website told me….How exciting! Jan 9, 2008 7:25 AM On FedEx vehicle for delivery PORTLAND, ORPosted by ily on January 9, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments
Ummm, I ordered it, I really did.
Just after I wrote up an email to someone convincing myself and them that I didn’t really need a bosch mixer yet so I could make bread, I found one on sale… and yes, you guessed it, I ordered it. i was also very tired that day from a vigorous swim and realized that there was no way I wanted to hand knead 6 loaves of bread anytime soon. hence, my breakdown in discipline my hasty decision to buy the New universal Bosch Mixer. Yeah! It is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday according to FedEx.
Am I excited? Oh yes I am. Can this machine mix bread dough? With more than 700 watts of power, it outshines the Kitchen Aid brand stand mixer. It can mix up to 9 loaves of bread in a single batch. Wow. It also comes with a free blender, no sales tax, no shipping, and I ordered the cookie paddles so I can make the awesome Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookies that blew out the motor of my previous mixer. The mixer I have now barely can handle that recipe… I fully expect it to die anytime now thanks to the hard work I made it do with those cookies.
So on Wednesday, I am guessing that I will be baking up a storm. Come by for bread samples!
Posted by Ily on January 6, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 1 comment
The Roomba Works!
For Christmas I was blessed to be given a roomba by my loving husband and children. The roomba is a robot vacuum. They were all excited to give this to me. I wonder what this says about their satisfaction with my cleaning skills?
I know that secretly this vacuum was not for me, it was for Bryan. The man the who loves technology in our house. He was tired of sweeping the kitchen after the kids work their magic on the floor… and he loves cool new robot toys.
So the first roomba had troubles though. It charged up nicely, it turned on, it sang songs to us. One of those songs being the uh-oh song and then it was followed by 4 distinct beeps. Those beeps mean the wheels won’t turn. Very nice song, but not very effective at vacuuming. We had a long string of email conversations with the makers of Roomba and the final conclusion was that the wheels don’t work properly (duh) and that we need to send it to them at our expense and then they will fix the wheels and send it back since it is still under warranty. So our brand new roomba was going to cost us the postage money to fix. That didn’t sound like a great deal to us. So we exchanged it at Target and what do you know, but this one actually works!
It takes 45 minutes to vacuum… I take 10 to 15… but it is pretty cool. Isaac’s exact words were: “this robot vacuum is awesome.” Nice. Micah got excited and chased it around for the first 10 minutes. My only hope is that it motivates the kids to pick up the floor so that they can watch it go.
Posted by Ily on January 6, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 5 comments
OMSI
We got an OMSI membership for Christmas this year so we went and checked it out on New Years Day in the afternoon. The best thing about having a membership to OMSI (or the zoo, or the childrens museum), is that normally when you go you buy an all-day pass and you better stay all day or you don’t get your moneys worth. When you have a season pass you can go for just an hour or two and not worry about it. So much more relaxing.
So we went for about an hour and a half before dinner time last Tuesday and had a great time. Micah fell asleep on the way there and stayed asleep in the stroller most of the time. I guess the pancake breakfast had worn him out. Here’s a video of our favorite exhibit so far.
I think the spinning circle is kind of hypnotizing. We still have more to explore and we’ll let you know if we find anything else this cool.
Posted by Bryan on January 6, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 0 comments
My Birthday Present Arrived
My birthday present arrived a little late, but it’s finally here. It’s an XO laptop, which I really wanted out of professional interest. I am a computer engineer after all. OK, it just looked really fun to play with too. I won’t bore you talking about it any more here. There’s a really nice article about how it’s being used in Peru that you should read. Then if you are desperate for more, I posted some pictures I took with it and wrote more about it over on my other blog.
Posted by Bryan on January 5, 2008 | Filed under: Family News Geek | 1 comment
December Pictures
Well, I didn’t quite get these done before Ily wrote about New Year’s, but they aren’t too late. Enjoy the pictures.
Put that all together, and you find Micah lounging like this on a quiet Sunday afternoon.
We almost got all the kids looking and everything in focus all at once.
This was taken at Isaac’s piano recital in December 2007.
... See my Tabblo>
Ily made a little nativity scene with a tootsie-roll Mary and a gumdrop Joseph. She won the award for most creative.
... See my Tabblo>
Ily got an idea from Enrichment to have a simple “Journey to Bethlehem” dinner on Christmas Eve. She made simple costumes that we wore while eating a simple meal on a blanket on the floor. The meal was representative of what maybe Mary and Joseph would have eaten on their way to Bethlehem: dried meat (jerkey), dried fruit (raisins, dried apricots), olives, and bread. ... See my Tabblo>
We spent Christmas day at our house in Vancouver opening presents and putting them together, then drove to Kennewick the next day to visit with my family. We all opened presents again when we got together and it was Christmas all over again. ... See my Tabblo>
Posted by Bryan on January 1, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 2 comments
The First Annual Pancake Picnic
Ok, Christmas has come and gone, and no you didn’t miss it, we just haven’t posted about it yet.
Instead of getting up to date, I am going to skip ahead to talk about today. Today was a whole lot of fun. Instead of staying up late to watch the ball drop on TV or going out to party, we stayed home and went to bed early. Bryan was funny at bedtime because after kisses he said to the boys “See you next year!” That worried the kids until we reminded them that next year begins tomorrow.
To celebrate the new year, we decided to invite friends (this year two families came) over to have pancakes and play. This event will forever be known as the FIRST ANNUAL PANCAKE PICNIC. We ate breakfast together and then all 9 kids ran upstairs to play while us adults played games downstairs. We played Apples to Apples- the highlight being that meatloaf got picked as sexy and Europe was declared very European.
This is how we partied for New Years this time around. A pancake breakfast on New Years day. Ily made the invitations and the orange juice and Bryan made the pancakes. We liked it so much, we’re gonna do it next year too. You are invited, so start planning for January 1st, 2009 now.
... See my Tabblo>
The kids played pretend that they were defending a castle from bad guys. They kept throwing each other in jail (Reece’s room) and having a grand old time shooting each other (never mind that there weren’t guns during the middle ages) and pretend sword fighting. Even the littlest boys had fun.
It was so cool to be able to say “go play” to the kids and they did, and they were playing imaginatively, AND we got to play our game in peace, AND hardly anybody got hurt or maimed AND no one was sent to the hospital. It is so nice to have our kids grow up a bit. We are at a good stage right now (but that could- and often does- change at any minute).
Since this year was such a success, we plan to do it next year too. I love this activity for safety reasons (no driving on the road late at night with crazy drunks) and for sanity reasons (going to bed early sure makes us all a lot more cheerful and less likely to spend the day grumpy and exhausted). As long as we are home for New Years Day, you can likely show up at our house for pancakes and a good time.
Oh, and one more thing. Bryan got obsessed by a desire to solve the Rubik’s cube today. He did it too, with, ahem, a little help.
Posted by Ily on January 1, 2008 | Filed under: Family News | 1 comment
