Isaiah 9:6, For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

Choice

Your choices are yours and I know it's true,
So are the consequences they're just for you.
Choose wisely and see that you look to the end,
When your choices will count there'll be some you can't mend.
Don't be sad but remember we all agreed,
Free agency for all, we're the product of our deed.
Choose wisely today and tomorrow make amends,
For the choices you made that didn't make a good end.


Dec. 20, 2009
Melanie Howard

Feel the love!

In the car yesterday Damen says:

Knock Knock

Me: Who's there?

D: BE

Me: Be who?

D: Be quiet! Be quiet mommy!

OH fudge!

I often read the blog of this hilarious lady: DeNea at: http://thebackorderedlife.blogspot.com She has been posting this month about the joys of fudge and her everyday excuses to eat it. So this afternoon I thought to myself, why not make up a batch of fudge? I've made stuff before, and as a rule I'm pretty confident so this was my experience:

Recipe: put sugar and milk and something else (I'm sure) in your largest sauce pan = check.
Stir until boiling = check, well ok how long is this gonna take? Really, it's still not boiling yet. WAIT, SO exciting, it's boiling!

MOTHER OF SIN (yes I'm quoting Christi) it's boiling right out of my largest saucepan, should've been more specific there DeNea, like maybe: largest pan ever in the house, the one you use when making 10 qrts of freezer jam! I got the above mentioned pan out of the cupboard just in time and made the transfer. PHEW, mess and burning avoided!
Ok, what's next, continue boiling for 10 minutes, stirring constantly. What exactly does "constantly" mean anyway? Ok, I can do this, it's not that big a deal.
Minute 4: seriously, my arm is going to fall off! Switch arms, this is taking forever!
Minute 5: now this arm's going to fall off, what was that you said Damen? You're going to help Bambi find her mother, oh sweet! "yeah, I'm gonna find it and eat it HIYAA!!" What? How much longer?
Minute 6: will 9 minutes be enough? Should I include the minute before it almost boiled over into the equation? Really my arm is numb now!
Minute 7: that lady in the ward made some pretty decent fudge the other night, I wonder if she still has some. . .
10 minute boil & stir = check.
Now pour hot stuff over butter and chocolate = check.
Mix with mixer for 5 minutes, can do, again how hard really?
OK holding the electric mixer for that long is intense! My delicate frame was not cut out for such manual labor!
Mixed = check.
Now what sense does it make to pour this crazy good smelling chocolate liquid into a pan without tasting it first?? Could it really be that hot still, I mean it's been 5 minutes. . .

The recipe says to let it cool in the fridge then cut up, it should also include this option: Grab a spoon and hover over it until your tongue/lips/finger stop burning and you can taste it again or until your husband comes home and asks what's for dinner. Either way, it was AMAZING!!!

THANK YOU THANK YOU DeNea Sorry about cursing/hexing you earlier with the pot size thing, it was totally worth it!!

Cheap deco

I needed something to decorate the bathroom with so I bought a bag of bells and a bag of christmas light garland at the Dollar tree. I cut up the garland and sprinkled everything into these different sized jars, there's also some nature in there too. I like it!



Check out




for more thrifty decorating!

It's Christmas time!

OH and Thanksgiving too!!

We drove to Washington to surprise my family. My Dad was really glad to see us, I don't think he stopped smiling for two hours after we got there! Mom knew because it was accidentally leaked to her, but it turned out ok, she was able to plan for a few more mouths to feed. On Tuesday morning our other sister that "wasn't" coming to Thanksgiving flew in to surprise every one too. We had so much fun!! Damen's cousins, otherwise known as "the boys" of course had a ball playing together. We ate turkey on Wednesday because Lori had to head home on Thursday. On Thanksgiving Day Dustin went with my sisters to play in the Turkey bowl, he came back breathing and barely limping so it wasn't too bad. Later that day Christi and Kari and I went for a drive and ended up at Dougan Falls. We hiked around, took pictures, and laughed a lot, it was great. Friday night I got to hang out with some old friends, catch up and see Jodi's husband's band. It was all very entertaining.
The drive was long and boring, next time I'll be prepared with some sewing, but it was worth a week with my friends, sisters, parents, grandparents, nephews, and brother-in-laws too!

View of Mt. Hood and the Columbia River.

The BOYS! Robert, Damen, Zack, Nick, Kaden.







It was raining during our adventure up to the falls, but we didn't care, we're true northwesterners! Well, sort of:)

Sea World again

We spent the day after I got back from Vegas with Dustin's mom, Marda and sister Terra and her little 1 year old cutie, Benjamin at Sea World. We had a great time until we went to see Shamu. Who knew that in November they'd still send the whales to splash the audience with such ferocity?? (I know there is a warning sign, it says "Splash Zone", but really in November?) We were soaked and Damen was terrified, he cried through the rest of the show, out to the stroller, and most of the way to the car. Poor kid, he'll never look at whales the same way again.


Dustin and Benjamin

Marda with Benjamin in the shark tunnel.

Soaking wet after the whale attack!

Terra with Benjamin, whales in the background.

Poor Damen, still sad, still wet!

Vegas

We went to Vegas a few weeks ago with our good friends, Ben and Tiffany. We stayed in a resort off the strip, but close enough to the action. We saw some amazing shows, ate delicious food, relaxed in the hot tub, and were involved in a "domestic"(prostitute) dispute. It was great!!
We saw the Beatles Love Cirque du Soleil show, it was FANTASTIC!!

We also saw the body exhibit, a magic show,the mentalist show with Gerry McCambridge, and strolled down Fremont street. Tiffany won $90 and I scored about $10 on the slots, not big spenders here, we only gambled with $1-5 at a time. We ate at Samba, a Brazilian steakhouse with all you can eat meats, it was SO GOOD.
The domestic dispute went like this: "john" was staying in the room across from ours and he and his "lady friend"(who he was paying) got into it one night, the police and security were called and they were escorted out of the building.
All in all, it was a very entertaining week in vegas!

BACK

Yes, we made it 38 hours in the car and nobody died or peed on himself(he knows I'm talking about him). We surprised my parents for Thanksgiving, it was a great fun family filled week! A few weeks ago we also went to Vegas for a quick vacation with some friends and Dustin's mom and sister stayed here with Damen. We have been BUSY and I'll post all kinds of pictures and stories and stuff like that at a later time and date. Right now I've got to unwind from the endless hours in the car by watching everything we've DVR'd for the past week. Don't worry we'll be back again!

Recipes

I've been Gluten free for over three months now and it's hard to find things that are edible, experimenting isn't always successful, but these two worked great and since this stuff is SO fantastic I figured I should share it with the rest of the blogging world! For starters, where it says "flour" I used my all purpose flour mix of:
3 parts white rice flour
3 parts corn starch
2 parts soy flour
1 part masa harina(yellow corn flour boiled w/lime)in the mexican food isle.

Corn Bread (compliments of my friend Melissa)

1 c. Cornmeal
1 c. flour
1/4 c.sugar
1 Tlb baking powder
1 tsp salt

mix dry ing. together then add:

1 c. milk
1/3 c. oil
1 egg slightly beaten

Bake in an 8x8 pan at 400 for 20-25 min. Serve with yummy soup or chili or whatever, it's delicious!!

Ok, so this next one I made up the other night out of a creative need to have battered anything and coconut. ALL batters contain flour and that means everything deliciously fried too, I've missed it. Sorry the measurements are mostly aproximations.

Bread and Coconut battered chicken fingers:

2 thawed chicken breasts cut into strips.

2 Tbl mayonnaise
2 Tbl or more/ honey
2 Tbl vegetable oil
Mix these and place in shallow dish.

2 pieces of Tapioca( or regular) bread toasted.
1 c. coconut

Put the toast in the blender/chopper with or without the coconut and blend until fine crumbs form. Put the crumbs and coconut in a shallow dish. Dip the chicken strips in the mayonnaise mix then into the crumb mix, covering it well. Place on well oiled baking sheet and bake at 375 for 30 min.

I also made a garnish dip with crushed pineapple and Wingers freaking amazing sauce and more coconut. Served with rice.

YUM!

Halloween of course!

Damen did a lot of dressing up this year. On Wednesday we went to a party where he dressed in his bat costume, it is cute and very cozy. That same night we went "trunk or treating" at the church and it was a good thing he had that cozy costume, the rest of us were freezing! On Halloween Lori and I took Damen to the Living Desert for the morning. They had all this carnival stuff going on, plus the regular zoo stuff we got to do. His favorite place was the massive train exhibit, of which I have no pictures, but he ran up and down the side of it following those trains for a good half hour! Since it was supposed to be close to 90 in the desert I made Damen a pirate costume out of some stuff we already had. We had a really good time, best $10.00 I've spent lately! That night it was back into the bat costume and away to the neighborhood we went! Dustin was really sick so he stayed home to man the front door until we got back. Damen got a bucketload of candy and had fun too. Don't worry we confiscated and ate all of the peanut filled candies on Saturday night, it's the kind of sacrifice we have to make for our son:) Happy Haunting!

Riding a warthog

Banging the African drums

Feeding the giraffe.

What a cute bat! He told everyone he was Batman.

All the loot!

Pumpkins!

We went to the pumpkin patch, twice! We went Monday night for family night, then had so much fun I went back with my friend Bonnie and her kids during the day. There was a corn maze, train/tractor pull, pig races, petting zoo, and lots of pumpkins! We really had a good time. The next Monday night we carved our pumpkins. Damen wanted nothing to do with it. Ok, that's not entirely true, he did want to hold the knife and occasionally poke his pumpkin, but I ended up carving, scraping, and cleaning the whole thing. I suppose that's what I should have expected. Dustin carved the big one and did a great scary face. It only took him twice as long as it took me, not because the pumpkin was bigger, but because he's a crazy perfectionist that has to get it JUST right. It's a genetic thing. Here are the pictures to prove that the above paragraph is true and accurate:)


Lori and Damen making cute pumpkin faces!


Damen, Chelsea and Abbey, these are the best pictures I could get, really!



See the knife in his hands? Spooky!



Ahhh, the finished product. They lasted about two days on our front porch, between the heat during the day and the close to freezing temps at night they didn't stand a chance. It was great fun though!

Friends from Utah!

Two weeks ago our good friends Brian and Corinne from Utah came to visit. We hung out. Went to Sea World, where I did not know they had little kid rides, so fun. My sister Lori came too. We also spent a day at the Beach with them, digging in the sand, running in the surf and building a fire for 'smores!! (my favorite part). Their daughter, Whitney is just a month older than Damen, they became quick friends. They also have a 10 month old little cutey, Westin. It was so much fun to catch up, wish they lived closer!

Trains Trains Trains

Yesterday Lori and I took Damen to the Train museum in Perris, did you know it's FREE?? Yup, all day all year long, it's free. They don't run the trains except on Sat/Sun and it costs money to ride on them, but the rest of the place is FREE. Ok, so it was pretty much dead but we did find some nice man to show us around and let us on some of the trains, unfortunately Damen was terrified of getting on them and refused to even come close to going inside of them. After an hour we decided to go and of course Damen broke down screaming saying that he wanted to go to the museum. I don't think he realized that we were at one! My goal there was to get some good pictures of him, since we haven't taken him to Sears for his three year pics, it didn't work out like I'd hoped though, my camera died and Damen was scared of the trains anyway. Here's what we got picture wise: