Eatin' in a Happy Nation

Here's a quick shout out to my Aunt Liz who gave me an awesome wedding gift nearly 12 years ago. It's a cookbook called

"A Musical Feast: Recipes from over 100 of the world's most famous music artists"

Liz mentioned that it would be good as a coffe table book for converstaion if nothing else.

Today as I was trying to decide on dinner, I pulled this book out and decided to try out a new recipe. (I confess that I'm not really interested in the recipes that call for tofu.) The first recipe is from Ace of Base (one of Cory's favorites from his mission, apparently the Russians loved them too) called "Chicken in a clay pot with roasted potatoes and gravy." I never really paid it much attention because I didn't think a serious recipe would have you cook it in a clay pot, not to mention I don't have any clay pots (especially none for baking). Anyway, enough of my babbling. I decided to try it. I altered the cooking instructions a bit (I baked in it a pyrex dish that was covered with foil, and instead of using brandy in the gravy I used white grape juice), and it was really excellent.

Cory and his brother both made singing comments about eating in a "happy nation" (thus the title of the post) and making sure that everyone got "all that you want."

The kids had fun looking through the book too, especially when they found the picture of Billy Ray Cyrus and his daughter (yes, they are big Miley Cyrus fans).

I think we may need to whip the book out again tomorrow and try out something new for our Family Night Treat. Maybe one of these days we'll even try "Steak in a Bag" (Billy Ray's recipe).
Thanks Liz, for the entertainment, and the tasty recipes!

A Random Funny Conversation

While on the way home from grocery shopping today, we had the following conversation:

Olivia: Mom, Jane is using her fairy powers on me again.

Mom: Oh really.

Olivia: Yeah, she has lightning power so she can shock.

Jane: I'm shocking her with my pony tail!

Jane's Observations from the Draper Temple Open House

So I thought I'd pass on a few of the gems that Jane shared with us on Tuesday when we went to the Draper Temple open house.

When we first entered the temple there was a very large painting of Christ with an outstrecthed arm. (I tried to find a copy of it to scan in, but due to my poor internet searching skills, I couldn't find it, but those of you around my age would recognize the picture from the beginning of our personal progress books. It's the one with the overlay of the temple.) Jane's first observation was that

"Jesus wears flip-flops."

As we continued through the temple, she noticed that

"Jesus Christ is everywhere!"

We then explained to her that there were lots of pictures of Jesus because the temple is Jesus' house. She then made sure that we all knew

"This is Jesus' house. It's not me's house. It's not you's house."

We continued through the temple, she continued to recognize pictures of

Christ and like most 2 year-olds do, she made sure we knew it.

Finally, as we were walking back down the stairs to exit the temple we saw this picture:

"Jesus Christ is a Fairy!"

Holiday update

I'm a little late, but there were some things I wanted to post, so here goes:

(note: there were a lot of things, if you need to take this post in parts, I'll understand)

The weekend of Thanksgiving we had a sleepover with our cousin Elena.

We had lots of fun making gingerbread house cookies.

Elena's

Olivia's

Abbey's

Mom's

(I think Anne helped a bit too, I've waited so long I can't remember!)

Sorry, no picture of Jane's she ate it too fast!

Abbey had her first Piano Recital

Abbey played Go Tell it on the Mountain

and Dance of the Reed Flutes from the Nutcracker as a duet with Mrs. Karlsven.

Anne played Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Russian Dance as a duet with Mrs. Karlsven.

Both girls did great!

Cory and I went to the Las Vegas Bowl

Meg and John came into town for the holidays and they agreed to watch our kids so we could have a quick get-away. We had a great time, even though BYU lost (and we nearly froze our buns off!).

When we got home, we got the sad news that Grandma Kramer had passed away. Although this was very sad, and her death was quite sudden, I couldn't help but feel grateful that Meg and John had taken the girls to the Kramer family Christmas Party where they got to see her, and that we had had such a nice day with her on Thanksgiving. I hope I always remember the sweet way Jane gave her a hug and kiss and said "Bye gate Gamma." It is also comforting to know that families can be together forever.

It wouldn't be winter at our house without

Sledding in the back yard

This year we got an extra treat when we got to go with Meg and the girls, and Craig and Maddie.

I tried to create a path that wouldn't lead into the fence or the side of the house.

Meg and the girls . . .

discovered that I did a bad job! OOPS!

Everyone wanted to go with Craig because he went the farthest. Here they are lining up.

Here's cute little Maddie, she got all bundled up, and I'm not sure that she even got to sled. That was about the time Lucy decided she was done, and Meg tried to take her home, but the car got stuck in the snow in front of our house, and Craig's parents were about the pull in and supposedly didn't know that he and Chelsea had decided to give them a Christmas surprise!
Liv was having fun! Isn't that a great smile!

I think Jane may have liked eating the snow better than sledding!

(If you look closely you can see the remains of her first shiner!)

CHRISTMAS finally arrived, and the girls had fun.

Anne got and i-pod and an i-dog, and Abbey got a nintendo DS

Olivia got a kitchen (that took Mom 4 hours to build)

Jane really likes cooking with it

Jane got a big rocking horse (sorry no picture)

When Jane lifted the blanket that was "wrapping" her gift, she exclaimed, "It's a pony!"

Even with all those awesome gifts, I think that all the girls would agree that

the coolest part

about Christmas was when Abbey discovered a gift in the chimney just after Christmas. Santa had left a fancy sleeping beauty dress up for Olivia, but it was too small for her, so he sent a replacement: the Prom Ready set of High School Musical Barbies! How cool is that!

Making Ice Cream: Baskin Robbins Style

On Eowyn's last day here, we wanted to make it good, so we whipped out the Baskin Robbins Ice Cream Maker. We tried out two varieties, and decided that vanilla was better than chocolate. It reminded me of all those times in Vegas that Karin and I made ice cream with our kids. (A quick thanks to Eleanor for sharing this awesome toy with her neices!)

2008 Goals US MNT

Go USA!

Anne's Christmas Story

The day I Saved Christmas By Anne Chambers
An Elf's Tale
If you want to read a sad , horribly boring,dull , and depressing story you should stop reading right now. For mine is a merry story a Merry Christmas story really. Maybe I should start the story now.
Once upon a time I was working at the workshop on a boringly average day.I had woken up at the same time I always do 4:00 a.m. . The time right now was 11:00 a.m. .I was working on building a life size toy horse that you could ride. At the moment I was working on making the horse stronger and faster. A lot of children wanted life size toys good thing that was my specialty.
The kids sometimes wanted mythical creatures others wanted normal animals. I made them all.The kids probably wouldn't get their toys this year.You see Santa was really really sick. He was going to die really soon. The Christmas spirit wasn't strong enough this year. Santa wasn't going to make it for next Christmas. We needed to find the new Santa soon.
"Those poor kidos," I said. "They probably won't get there Christmas presents." Maybe Frost (Jack Frost is whom I am referring to) knew a cure to Clause's illness.If he did he wouldn't give it to us to make Clause better. You see Clause and Frost are brothers.
They both liked a certain girl that you now know as Mrs . Clause. Frost liked her but so did St.Nick. Frost decided that they would have a contest to see who he wanted to go out with. Clause won of course ,but Frost never forgave either one of them. Frost had tried everything he could think of even jealousy. Nothing worked . Crazy idea maybe I could find the new Santa. I could use my source of magic. A magic candle. You see if any human has magic in them that magic wants more and more magic. At that very second the candle pulled me to were the new Santa house was. I explained everything he came with me.
When we got to the North Pole Santa was almost dead. He told the new Santa everything he could before he died. Santa had an amazing burial! The new Santa is one of the best Santa's ever.
Well my tale is over. I hope you enjoyed my tale little elf girls and boys.
The End

Decorating for Christmas

I love decorating for Christmas.

I especially love reminiscing about the stories behind the ornaments and remembering the many friends we have shared Christmas with. Cory has a number of mini-ornaments he brought back from his mission to Russia. Jane was helping me with those.

First she pulled out this ornament and said,

"Here's a daddy"

Then she gave me this one and said,

"Here's a mommy"

Then she gave me this one and said,

"It's Jesus!"