Merry Christmas!

Longfellow's Christmas - The most amazing videos are a click away

Happy Thanksgiving

This video asks what are you thankful for?

I have enjoyed learning what people are thankful for. Many people have been answering this question on their blogs, on facebook, in prayers, and just in conversation. Thanksgiving is the one holiday a year that brings to mind the many blessings that our Heavenly Father has given each of us.

So I thought I would try to answer this question.

I am thankful for my family-for my husband Kevin, for our temple marriage, that he holds the priesthood, and that he is worthy to bless our family with the priesthood.

I am thankful for my children: Summer, Justin, Jenny, Kody and Danielle. They have grown into wonderful adults. They are all caring children, that love me and Kevin and each other. They have married great people. Bryan, Emily, Tyson, Brooke and Spencer. I am grateful that they all choose to be married one of Heavenly Fathers temples, and are striving to follow Heavenly Fathers commandments.

I am grateful to Heavenly Father for blessing our family with little children: Andrew, Logan, Hannah, Emma, Blaine and Eli. They are so important to our family. They bring love and joy to all of us! I look forward to the many additional children that will bless our lives in the future.

I love each of the these people! I am grateful for each of these people. Families are part Heavenly Fathers plan! I am thankful to Heavenly Father for the blessing of my wonderful family!

I am also grateful for my testimony of Jesus Christ! He loves me and He wants me to be happy! He loves each of us and want all of us to be happy.

I am thankful for the scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. I know from personal experience that reading from this book will bless our lives!

I am thankful for prayer. I can go to my Heavenly Father with any question, problems, fears, or needs.

I am thankful for the material blessings too. We all have jobs and homes to live in. It may not be the perfect situation right now, but we are all safe, warm and protected. We have food to eat each day. We have clothes, cars, and entertainment.

We have been blessed with fairly healthy bodies. Some of us have a few health problems. But Heavenly Father has blessed us so that we can deal with the problems.

I am grateful for the beautiful world! I love the changing seasons. The spring flowers, the warm sunshine, the beautiful colors of the fall, and the snowy beauty of winter.

Everywhere we look we can see Heavenly Fathers blessing.

Please take a moment this Thanksgiving day to answer the question: "What am I thankful for?" And then give your gratitude to your Heavenly Father.

HOLY CRAP!!

I went to Walmart this morning for some groceries and when I left the house it was nice and sunny so I decided not to wear a jacket. I ran into dad and Blainer at the store and we shopped for a while. Then we passed the doors and found that it was snowing.... Maybe I should have worn a coat??
It was FREEZING when I went to my car. I put my groceries away and got in to warm up. Then realized I had to get back out to clean off my completely covered windows...
Even though it sucked without a coat, isn't it SO pretty!?!?

my name is doof

I was waching tv and i saw this... http://www.youtube.com/watch?yKahkEhX8Bg
just so you know copy and paste this link. the link it`s self will not work

New Moon TV Trailers

Check out these new clips from New Moon.


This link has some other clips to watch.

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=60230

After these two clip go down to the bottom of the page, there are one or two other
clips to watch.

Mmmmmm Lion House Rolls

Ingredients:
2 cups warm water (110 to 115 degrees)
2/3 cup nonfat dry milk (instant or non-instant)
2 tablespoons dry yeast
1/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup butter, shortening, or margarine
1 egg
5 to 5 ½ cups all-purpose flour, or bread flour
Method:


In large bowl or electric mixer, combine water and milk powder; stir until milk dissolves. Add yeast, then sugar, salt, butter, egg, and 2 cups flour. Mix on low speed until ingredients are wet, then for 2 minutes at medium speed. Add 2 cups flour; mix on low speed until ingredients are wet, then for 2 minutes at medium speed. (Dough will be getting stiff and remaining flour may need to be mixed in by hand). Add about ½ cup flour and mix again, by hand or mixer. Dough should be soft, not overly sticky, and not stiff (It is not necessary to use the entire amount of flour).
Scrape dough off sides of bowl and pour about one tablespoon of vegetable oil all around sides of bowl. Turn dough over in bowl so it is covered with oil. (This helps prevent dough from drying out). Cover with plastic and allow to rise in warm place until double in size, about 45 minutes.

Scrape dough out onto floured board. Turn dough over so it is floured on both sides; gently flatten to about 1 inch thick. With rolling pin, roll out to a rectangle about 18 inches long, 8 inches wide, and ¼ inch thick. Brush with melted butter. With pizza cutter or very sharp knife, cut dough in half to make two strips about 4 inches wide. Make cuts through strips of dough every 2 inches, making about 18 pieces of dough. Or follow the directions on the video.

Starting with short end, roll up one piece of dough, with butter on the inside. Place roll on parchment-lined pan with other short end down on the paper. Repeat with remaining pieces of dough. Be sure all rolls face the same direction on baking pan. Cover lightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise until double in size, about 1 to 1 ½ hours. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 to 18 minutes, or until light to medium golden brown. Brush tops of rolls with melted butter. Serve with Honey Butter. Makes 1 to 1 ½ dozen rolls.

Helpful Tips for Making Rolls

Always add flour gradually and keep dough as soft as you can handle. A soft dough will produce a lighter roll.

It is not necessary to use the entire amount of flour called for in the recipe—add only enough flour to make dough manageable.

To shorten dough's rising time, use one of these methods:

1) When dough is thoroughly mixed, oil bowl and cover dough with plastic wrap. Fill sink or larger bowl with about 2 inches of hot water or enough water to come about half or three-fourths the way up outside the dough bowl. Place bowl of dough in bowl of water and allow to rise until double in size.

2) Just before mixing dough, turn oven on lowest possible temperature. Place a pan of hot water on bottom oven rack. When dough is thoroughly mixed, place in oiled bowl. Cover dough with plastic wrap; place in oven. Turn oven off, shut oven door, and allow dough to rise until double in size, about 50 to 60 minutes. Shape or cut into desired rolls. Place rolls on greased or parchment-lined pans and allow to rise until double in size. Bake according to recipe.

Brush top of rolls with butter when first taken from oven.

How to consistently make attractive, good-tasting rolls? Practice! Practice! Practice!



Everyone loves Lion House Roll, but no one knows how to make the "roll". I found this clip that shows you how to roll the rolls. The recipe was on kls.com so no copy right issues there.

Honey Butter
Ingredients:
½ cup butter, softened
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ cup honey
Method:


Whip softened butter until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and honey gradually. Beat for 20 minutes. Makes 1 cup.

If you give the rolls a try let me know how they turn out!

Heather and Phill

On Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 in the Bountiful Temple, our very young, and extremely happy niece, Heather Ann was sealed to Philip Jackson. The ceremony was so nice. Heather couldn't stop smiling

The Bountiful Temple is a very beautiful temple.



Heather and Phil came out of the temple just beaming!

Heather's dress laced up the back (Brooke helped Heather get into her dress just before the reception-the lacing was real and they had taken all of the lacing out when she took the dress off at the temple, so it had to be completely laced! Brooke did a good job lacing it back up again), the whole top of the dress-front and back was beaded

Heather's train flowed so nicely. This picture doesn't do it justice.

See how happy Heather is. She was like that the whole day!

Here is the whole Stephen and Christine Thompson family, with the newest addition.
The twin cousins Heather and Danielle.
Here is the completed cake. I am going to do a blog about the cake. Heather's colors where red, pink and black. Phil looked very handsome in his black tux, black shirt, and red tie. The boys in Heather's family wore black slacks, red shirts and black ties. The boy's in Phil's family wore pink shirts, black slacks and black ties.

Heather sang a song for Phil but the pictures of that didn't turn out, the lighting was bad. Anyway after the song it was time to cut the cake. I told Heather and Phil how to cut the cake and then I told them to fed the cake to each other nicely-no shoving cake in each other face. Phil said that he had already been told that, I said good. Then Phil said that he thought it would be good to smash the cake in Heathers face. I said "Don't Do It!" They were good and it was sweet just as it is supposed to be.

You can see Papa and Grandma Thompson in the background of the last two pictures.


Heather getting ready to toss her bouquet.

After the reception the bride and groom drove up to the Alaska Inn. Then they were going to spend a few days at Christine's families cabin. They will be back home on Monday. Tuesday they are moving up to Logan. Phil will continue his schooling at Utah State in January.

Danny and Jenny created a bathroom cake for Heather and Phil. It turned out real cute. They hid all kinds of little surprises in the towels. You will have to ask them what those surprises were. It's not blog appropriate. :D

New Posts

Scroll down to see Emma's birthday post.

Our Last July In Ohio

I was dreading the hot, sticky, humid weather of July in Ohio. But it was very pleasant. Lots of sunshine, mixed in with a little rain, highs in the mid 70's. The weather was great.

We did lots of fun things while I was in Ohio. One of the biggest events was "This Is Kirtland". Summer and Andrew both performed in the show, they did a great job!

It was fun to see Andrew singing and dancing on stage. Summer was an amazing dancer and singer. She really shines when she steps onto a stage. (She got to be prego for part of the show)I went to four performances. Logan usually came with me, sometimes Bryan went and I stayed home with Hannah. She just didn't appreciate the great performances, so she stayed home or went to a baby sitter.

Summer and Andrew had their cast party at a little private beach on the shore of Lake Erie, families were invited. Andrew had fun swimming in the lake with his friends. Logan stayed on the shore but Hannah wanted to jump in with Andrew. Summer and Andrew stayed at the lake and I drove Logan and Hannah home.

Summer and I took the kids to Kirtland to see a Book of Mormon art exhibit. The pictures were beautiful. Walter Rane was the artist. He captured stories from the Book of Mormon on canvas.

After the art exhibit we went to John Johnson Farm. Neither Summer or I had gone on the tour there. Going to these sites and hearing the familiar stories makes them more real. The John Johnson Farm was were Joseph and Emma were living when they adopted the twins.

Joseph and Emma had been up late taking care of the sick babies, when a mob stormed into the home and dragged Joseph out. They beat him, and tarred and feathered him. The room that Joseph, Emma and the twins where in was right by the front door (the windows to the left of the front door was the room that they where in). The cold night air was to much for one of the babies and it died. Seeing the room and the bed and how close it was to the front door, and thinking how scared Emma and the babies must have been. It was just so real and heartbreaking. Joseph and Emma endured so much for the gospel. Wow! It would have been just to much for most people, me included. They were amazing people!

The Johnson Farm is about 30 miles from Kirtland. That is a long way by horse and buggy. We were surprise by how far away from Kirtland the farm is.

We had to make a stop at RJ's (just around the corner from the Kirtland Temple) to have a pulled pork sandwich, and fry's with fry sauce. That's right- fry sauce. The sister missionaries would come to eat at RJ's and they would mix up some fry sauce. The owner was interested in the sauce and he made some up. The missionaries approved the recipe and RJ's serves fry sauce with all of the fry's.

Then we went to the mall in Mentor. It has a Disney Store, so I always want to make a stop there. They have some pretty cute stuff. Maybe Santa will have to do some shopping at the Disney Store.

Summer and I took the kids to a free movie in Shaker. It was called "Coraline". It was an animated movie, by Tim Burton, we expected weird.But this movie was not a kids movie(all of the scary characters had buttons for eyes-they wanted Coraline to become one of them, so she would have buttons for eyes too), they had almost naked old women with pasties on, and disturbing nightmare like scenes. It was bothering me and Summer and so she asked Logan if he wanted to leave. He said "yes its a bad movie". He really had a hard time with it even after we left, he just kept saying it was a bad movie. We were going to go to some of the other movies but it just didn't work out. These last four pictures above are before the movie started. We had lots of fun eating popcorn!

Last Christmas Andrew got a Star Wars Monopoly game from Kody and Brooke. He loves to play it. He and I played twice while I was there. He won once and I won once.

I always read a lot when I am at Summer's. More free time I guess. I read 7 books while I was in Ohio for three weeks. I read "The Sunflower" (by Richard Paul Evans), "The Goose Girl", "Enna Burning", "River Secerts"( These three are a series by Shannon Hall), "Harry Potter and the Half-Blooded Prince"(J. K. Rowling), "The Tales of Beetle Bard" (J.K. Rowling) and "Z for Zachariah"(by Robert C. O'Brien). It was fun to read so many different kinds of books. I would recommend all of these books, too.

Andrew also read a lot while I was in Ohio. He started a book reading program at the Shaker Library. He needed to read 100 hours to get a medal-he really wanted that medal. He would read anytime that we were driving in the car, he would read at night after he went to bed (he helped Logan make a tent around his bed-the lower bed of the bunk bed, so that Andrew could keep the light on so that he could read and Logan could sleep). Sometimes Andrew and I would sit upstairs and read in the living room together. Andrew got his medal the day before I left. He was so excited. He nearly ran all the way back to the children's section of the library. He was so happy he was just about bursting. Andrew was so sweet, Logan wanted a medal too, so Andrew told him that he would share his medal with him. We went to the library three times while I was in Ohio.

They have a great pool in Shaker. We were hoping to go to the pool more often but it kept raining. Oh well, we went three times. Logan loves to jump into the pool off the side. Andrew floats, jumps, flips, slides and swims. Hannah is a little bathing beauty.

We ate out a lot! The first place that we ate at was "The Cheesecake Factory". I had never been there before. But I had heard that it was a bit pricey. The food was great, the restaurant was beautiful, and the cheesecake was to die for, and I don't like cheesecake that much. Funny thing, I tried to take a picture of all of the cheesecakes in the refrigerator but they said that I couldn't take a picture. What I am going to copy their cheesecake-oh please.Crazy huh??!!?? This is the only picture of cheesecake that I got.

Then we went to RJ's-I have already talked about that.

Summer and I went to "The Melting Pot". I haven't ever eaten there before either. It was so good! They were having a spa night just for girls. We ordered our drinks, virgin something, mine was a mango flavored drink, and Summer got a green apple drink. Then they came and took us to the "Spa" area. We had our make-up done. It was fun! Here we are being funny after out makeovers. Then we went back to our table to eat our Cheddar cheese fondue and California salad. Then to top it all off we had chocolate, Carmel, and pecan fondue. We dipped rice crispy treats, brownies, pineapple, strawberries, marshmallows, and cheesecake. It was sooooooo goood!

"The Melting Pot" is in the Legacy Mall. It is an outdoors mall like the Gateway. We walked passed Lilly Pulitzer. We always think of Danny when we go to that store. She loved to try on all of the fun and way expensive clothes there. She even bought a sweater-it was on sale, 50% off, it still cost $99.00! I don't know how places like that stay in business. It's crazy.

Summer, Bryan and I went and saw "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows" It was a good movie, but I had just finished reading the book on the day that the movies was released. Oh course they didn't stick to the book and made a lot of changes. So I was disappointed. I need to not read the books before I see the movie. Then I will be happier with the movie.

One day we drove out to the Lodi outlet mall. Summer and I shopped, the boys ran around and complained. Then we rode the Lodi train. Logan was sooooo excited. He just beamed! Then we had lunch at Subway, and got a cashew bear claw from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory. (Summer do you have the pictures from the train ride? If you do will you add them to this blog or email them to me so that I can add them, thanks.)

We went to Amish country and had a great time at "Rolling Ridge Ranch". We rode a wagon all around the ranch and fed animals along the way. Logan is afraid that the animals will get his feet. It was crazy to be so close to the animals. Watch out for the antlers!
They have a little area where you can pet the animals.

Logan got himself into the baby goat pen, and then got scared and wanted out, the baby goats wanted out to. So a nice young man picked up Logan and handed him to me.

Then we went to Heini’s Cheese Chalet. They make all of their own cheese there. They have this big room with about 3 or 4 long aisle of cheese, and you get to taste as many different kinds of cheese as you want. The Swiss cheese was sooooooo good! Summer couldn't get the cheese samples into Hannah's mouth fast enough. The boys liked it too. They also have samples of fudge-sooooo goood!

After our cheese appetizer we decided that we should get some lunch. So we went to Amish Door Restaurant and Village. It was good too. Hannah was pretty tired of being in chairs, car seats and being held. She had a complete melt down. So I was finished eating and took her outside to run around. Summer and the boys came out and we played a bit at a little playground. Then we took a potty break and got back into the van for the two hour ride home. Me and Summer need to go back without the kids. There are lots of shops that we wanted to go to but knew that the kids wouldn't like it. Maybe when I go back in October.

One of the big things for me was that I drove all over by myself. Summer and Bryan got a new toy. A Garmin Nuvi. I drove from home to the Cleveland Clinic hospital-it's in downtown Cleveland, home to Kirtland, Kirtland and back home again, from Lake Erie to home, and from Amish country home. It was so great! You can drive anyplace without a map. It was fun to watch too. I kept saying "I want that" every time I drove and used the GPS. It was great fun! But kind of weird totally relying on a little computer that told me were to go. Ha Ha

Summer and Bryan are trying to get there house ready to put up for sale. They are doing most of the work themselves. They are working on re-doing the upstairs bath. Bryan needed to change the plugs to safety outlets. Something went wrong while he was doing this and the outlet for the refridgerator lost power. They ended up with a big hole in the wall behind the refridgerator. An electrition came after I left and re-wired the outlet. Their refridgerator started leaking some kind of liquid a while ago and it just kept getting worse. One day the liquid ran all over the kitchen in little rivers in the grout lines of the tile floor. Then the oven stopped working. So they decided to get a new refridgerator, oven/stove and a built-in microwave. (These are cell phone photos so they arn't the best-sorry)Andrew and Logan were almost as excited for the new refridgerator as Summer was. The new appliances look great! Makes me want a new refridgerator just like yours. :D

Summer and Bryan went out a few times and I babysat. One night Logan wanted to put his swimming life vest on to go to bed, I said no and set the vest aside. The next morning was Sunday and we had to wake the boys up to get ready for early church. This is what I found when I went to wake up Logan.

He also had his backpack on. I don't know how he was able to sleep, but he was fast alseep and hard to wake up. Funny Logan.

Thanks Summer, Bryan, Andrew, Logan and Hannah for letting me come and stay at your house. I had tons of fun. I always have fun, but this time was different. Maybe because it was one of those "last" things-last summer in Ohio. Thanks!