Good Food

Holidays mean good food, right? Just one more reason Father's day was very enjoyable to more than just the father in our house yesterday.

This pizza was so pretty I just had to take a picture of it. It tasted great, too!Thanks, Brigette, for a great pizza crust recipe. We love it! Wouldn't my mother's mouth drop open if she knew I voluntarily put green peppers on the side of the pizza I planned to eat?! :)

I didn't take a picture yesterday of the cinnamon rolls we made for Nate's breakfast in bed, but I should have. Oh, delicious. I posted my cinnamon roll recipe before, but I actually found an easier way to make them and it uses whole wheat and they still taste like awesome Cinnabon ones. I just used my regular bread recipe, well I admit I added an extra tablespoon of sugar because I wanted to make sure they were good but I don't know if that made a difference or not. Then I mixed in my Kitchenaid: 1 c. packed brown sugar, 1-2 T. cinnamon, 1/3 c. butter softened. Can I just say how much I love my Kitchenaid?! Then you smear that over the rolled out dough, roll it up jelly-roll style, and slice it with dental floss. Bake @ 350 for 20 minutes and top with some kind of icing, and oh yeah.

Thank goodness we're going on vacation this week because I'm ready for some more good food!

Happy Father's Day, Dads!

I am so blessed to have a wonderful father for my children. They adore him, and he is so good to them. Nikki made this crown for him to wear, and he has had it on just about all morning. Really cute and sweet.

I am also blessed to have grown up with a wonderful father. He was the most patient person I have ever met, unless JW was getting in trouble. :) He was calm, he was funny, he was creative (Hannah reminds me a lot of him with how she likes to create stuff out of junk), he could tell the best stories.

I don't have time before church to find pictures of Granddaddy White, Chuck, or Nate's dad, but they are important fathers in my life, too. Happy Father's Day to the wonderful dads in my life!

I can do a sit up!

I haven't been able to do a real sit up since my back surgery almost 12 years ago, but I can do them now. It's still hard. When I'm coming back down to the floor my back feels like it weighs a ton, but that's okay. I'll keep getting better. Today I finished my 10-week exercise assignment for my physical education class through BYU. Yeah, I've lost some weight, but the part that is really great to me is how GOOD I feel. I have energy. I can run up the stairs with Ryan, well maybe not run, but he's really heavy and he doesn't wear me out too quickly. The other day I felt like dancing in the dressing room at Old Navy. Can't remember the last time that happened. Anyway, it has really been a good 10 weeks. I'm really proud of myself for what I accomplished, and I'm excited for what I'll accomplish in the next 10 weeks.

Now what?

By some miracle, two of the three vegetable plants I put in one of my flower beds are actually producing vegetables! (The poor bell pepper is actually underneath a plant that I had no idea would grow into a tree with huge leaves. I thought it was a vine that would grow up the trellis against the wall. Whoops!) Anyway, so I have a couple of tomatoes coming along, and I think a squash plant has to be the best plant for my garden ever. I have maybe watered it a handful of times, and I did get some fertilizer on it once, but despite my unintentional efforts to kill it -- we have squash! Now, .................. what do I do with it? I tried a recipe with this squash in the picture the other night, but I don't think I want to try that one again. I have at least two more that are almost ready to harvest, and I need something better to do with them than fry them up in a bunch of butter, which is what my southern-upbringing instincts tell me will taste the best.

So, what do you do with squash? I need some recipes and cooking tips. PLEASE!!

Banana Cream Pie Smoothie

Yield: 2 servings

Ingredients:

1 cup frozen sliced ripe banana (about 1 large)

1 cup vanilla low-fat yogurt

1/2 cup 1% low-fat milk

2 tablespoons whole wheat graham cracker crumbs (about 1/2 cookie sheet)

1 tablespoon nonfat dry milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 ice cubes (about 1/4 cup)

Graham cracker crumbs

Place frozen banana and all ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Sprinkle with graham cracker crumbs. Serve immediately.

Nutrition facts:
Calories 216
Fat 2.8 g
Protein 9.8 g
Carbohydrates 39.3 g

Oh the noise and joys ...

that come with little baby boys!
I just love this baby! You'll have to click on the picture and see if you can see his new tooth. Yay, Ryan, we knew you could grow one!

Things I want to learn and do in my life ...

• Learn to play tennis -- someday I want Nate to be excited to play with me not just because it's time for us to be together but because I can give him a good game
• Decorate cakes -- I would love to be good enough to decorate wedding cakes
• Learn Spanish
• Finish my Bachelor's degree (only 25 more credits to go!)
• Become AGO (American Guild of Organists) certified, BYU has 6 classes that lead up to that. I’ve taken the first one, and I loved it. It’s very time-consuming and very expensive, so this will definitely be a life-long pursuit
• Learn to sew
• Learn to use food storage in a tasty, healthy, & economical way
• Learn to enjoy gardening and growing flowers -- I don't like working in a flower bed but I feel like it's a skill I should have, so it would be nice to both become good at it and enjoy it
• Crochet blankets like Kellee

I have minimal skills in all of those areas, but it is exciting to have so much to learn and do in this life. Add to that the fact that I stay pretty busy being a mother, wife, and homemaker, and the gospel study that I want to do each day, and I think it’s good that summer is here when the sun is up a little longer each day!

Sunday afternoon pics

At 9 months ...

He still doesn't have any teeth, but I think one will be breaking through any day. We'll see.

He smiles every time he sees me, and I just can't get enough of it. He actually smiles at everyone in our family. He just loves getting attention and he gets plenty of it.

He loves to play the piano. It's making it hard for Hannah to practice, but I don't think she minds too much. Usually she ends up putting him on her lap and letting him practice instead.

He's not really a picky eater, but he does like to get a little taste on the tip of his tongue before he'll take a good bite. I think it's funny.

He chases the vacuum.

He continues on with his foot/knee crawl. He can pull up on the furniture, the bookshelf, my legs when I'm cooking, anything. And he is getting a little braver as he sometimes lets go to try to reach something up higher. I think he'll be standing on his own sometime in the next month.

I love how he grabs my hand and pulls it close to his chest when he's tired.

He's starting to get some curls in the back of his hair. Poor kid!

He talks more than anyone else in our family.

His height is at 80%, his weight is at 50%, and his head circumference is 90% -- he's got his daddy's physique and his mommy's brains! Haha :)

He NEVER wants his diaper changed. He will not give up hope that he can get away before the new diaper is strapped on and he's snapped up. [Sigh]

He is a joy to me everyday. I absolutely feel privileged to be his mother. We love you, Ryan!