"These pretzels are making me thirsty."

I love soft pretzels, but haven't really been able to buy any because, 1) I would have to go to the mall to buy one, and 2) If I am there, Thomas is usually with me and there is a big old sign on the window that says "Do not eat here if you have nut allergies."

I came across this recipe this afternoon and decided since I had nothing better to do, Thomas and I would try to make them. They are unbelievably good. They actually taste like the pretzels from the mall, go figure. Since I was bored, I decided to take pictures of the process and give you all a "bread" baking lesson.

Buttery Soft Pretzels

4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 1/4 cups warm water
4 1/2 cups flour
1/2 white sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup baking soda
8 cups hot water (almost to a boiling point)
kosher salt, for topping

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar in the warm water. Here is something I learned from my sis-in-law, let the yeast sit for a good 20 minutes and proof. You need to really let it puff up and get "creamy."

2. In your Kitchen Aid mixing bowl, sift together 1/2 cup sugar, flour and salt. I use a whisk and mix everything together so I don't have to get out my sifter. The whisk will do the same job as a sifter.

3. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture and add the yeast mixture and the olive oil.

4. After you have dumped your yeast and oil in the well, add your dough hook attachment and turn the mixer on low. Let the hook mix everything together slowly. If the dough looks too dry and it isn't "coming together", you can add teaspoons of water, one at a time, until it all comes together. You then need to let the mixer knead your dough for 7 minutes. You could pull the dough out and knead it yourself, but why do that? You are going to get a good enough arm work-out rolling the pretzels and shaping them.

5. After you have kneaded the dough for 7 minutes, place the dough ball in a lightly greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. The dough will be smooth, but very dense. I like to stick my bowl under a window to let rise. If it is too cold, you can turn on your oven to 200 degrees with a pan of water in it. Heat the oven up, turn it off, and then place your dough in. The water and the heat will make the oven nice and humid (that is a trick I learned when I was working at Cinnabon 18 years ago )

6. Let the dough rise one hour. It should feel a lot less heavy and dense after the rising.

7. Now here is the therapeutic part. Take your dough ball and divide it into 12 balls. Take each ball and make it into a really long snake and twist it up to make a pretzel shape. I was having lots of fun doing this until pretzel #10, after that it got old and I was ready to be done.

8. While you are shaping your dough, you should be heating up 8 cups of water. Dissolve the baking soda in the water. You don't want the water to boil, just be really hot.

9. Once all the dough is all shaped, dip each pretzel into the baking soda solution. Leave the pretzel in the water until it floats up the the top. When it is floating, take it out and place it on a greased cookie sheet and sprinkle with salt. I did six, baked them, and then prepped the other 6 while the first batch was baking.

9. Bake at 450 degrees for 8 minutes. Right when they come out, brush each pretzel with butter and remove from the pan.

The recipe yields 12 large pretzels, unless your 4 year-old decides he needs to make a pizza out of one of the balls. Yum.

Enjoy. We sure did.

Recipe for Disaster

Disaster
Serves 8

2 one-year-old babies
1 three-year-old boy
1 four-year-old boy
1 really loud sushi bar
1 order of McDonalds
1 order of Del Taco
4 adults wanting to have a conversation
Various favorite sushi rolls


Mix well. Enjoy.

Kid Logic

"Mom, I don't think I am going to wear these shoes anymore. They're shrinking."

It's coming...

SPRING!!

I have hard time deciding if Spring or Fall is my favorite season. If you were to ask me today, I would have to answer that Spring has Fall beat, hands down. We have been enjoying some beautiful weather here in the desert. We may not have the best summers, but the rest of the year is wonderful.

Today, my friend, Karen, called me and asked if I wanted to go to the park and feed the ducks with her and the kids. To be completely honest, my first thought was no. I hadn't gotten in the shower yet, I had laundry to be folded, and messy bedrooms to clean. But then I quickly came to my senses and realized that laundry and cleaning could wait. This was the time to get out and enjoy my kids and the beautiful weather.

I don't care how old or how young you are. There is joy and satisfaction in feeding birds.

Clara was very content. She is getting to that age where her proximity to me is starting to widen. She is starting to explore more around her and not wanting to sit on my hip at all times. It is a bitter-sweet change. I love having her as my little baby, but there is such joy in watching her discover things on her own. I didn't really get many smiles from her, just looks curiosity and wonder.

Thomas had fun watching the ducks and the many turtles the park has stocked in the pond. He was also thrilled to have mastered the tire ladder all by himself.

He wasn't to keen on the big tube slide. I can't say I blame him. This park has several that are a couple stories high. He wasn't expecting such a long, steep slide down.

Thomas and Clara are so good for one another. She simply adores him and he loves her so much. I'd say 90% of the time they play together and are happy. Thomas is always wanting to help her do things and she is more than willing to let him assist her. We won't talk about the other 10% of the time.

I couldn't help but think of this talk by Elder M. Russell Ballard today. To read it in it's entirety, click here.

The first question: What can you do, as a young mother, to reduce the pressure and enjoy your family more?

First, recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction.

Author Anna Quindlen reminds us not to rush past the fleeting moments. She said: “The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. … I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less” (Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11).

Don't let her fool you.

She looks so innocent, doesn't she...

Okay, she is totally innocent, and so sweet, but she about put me in the nut house the past two nights.

We have been out of town on a family road trip. We decided we needed to get away for a bit, so we packed up the family and drove to St. George, UT for a couple of days. We had a great time... during the hours normal people are awake.

SATURDAY NIGHT
9:30 pm - I send Thomas and Steve out to explore our hotel while I nurse Clara and get her to calm down and go to bed.

9:35 - Clara decides she is too much of a big girl to nurse and pushes me away. This has been happening more and more lately, but I was really trying to get her to nurse so she would fall asleep.

9:45 - I finally get her calm and she is resting her head on my shoulder. I look at the clock and make a mental note that she will be asleep by 10:00 pm.

9:55 - Steve and Thomas come back to the room, quietly, but the not quiet enough for her.

9:56 - Start over.

9:56-10:30 - Stand up rocking back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. It's not working.

10:30- I make a call to Steve. Time to come back to the room, we're going on a drive to put her to sleep.

10:35- We all get into the car because we realize we need some drinking water for our room and if Steve drives, I can eat my hot-fudge sundae they brought home for me.

10:36 - We realize it was a huge mistake to put Clara back into the van with Thomas sitting next to her. There is nothing but laughing and happy squealing going on in the back.

10:45- Clara and I sit in van while Thomas and Steve make a grocery run.

10-45-11:10 - We drive around playing the quiet game. This works well for about while until Steve and I start talking to each other and we get busted by Thomas.

11:15 - Clara is finally asleep and we make our way back to the room.

11:16-11:25 - I sit in the van with Clara while Steve takes Thomas into the hotel room to get settled and into bed. I wait for the sign, drapes will open when it is safe to come in.

11:25.30 - Clara starts to whimper. Just as I turn around to shove a binky in her mouth I turn around to see that the sign has been set.

11:31 - I get her calmed down and take her in the room. She is awake, but drowsy enough to lay down.

11:31-12:00 She sleeps

12:00-7:00 She comes to bed with me and spends the night sleeping on top of me, next to me, or with her feet in my face.

SUNDAY NIGHT

8:00 - The boys drop me and Clara off after dinner. I am going to put her down while they go walk around the temple.

8:00-8:30 - She is beyond tired. She is overly-tired. Every parent knows this is the Bermuda Triangle of toddler sleeping. NOTHING is working. Thomas and Steve come back and I decide to grab the keys, my phone, and wallet and take off for another drive.

8:32 - She is OUT before I have even made it 2 miles. I decide I better drive around just to make it stick, not to mention driving in complete silence is a great thing to calm the nerves.

8:45- I pull into the hotel parking lot, just as it starts raining. Great, nothing like a little water in the face to wake up a sleeping baby.

8:46 - We make it into the hotel, and miraculously, she is still asleep.

8:47 - I make it back to the room and she is out. Snoring so loud the people next door probably heard her.

8:47-10:00 - She's out, we are quietly laying on the bed with Thomas watching TV.

10:00 - She's up, and not happy at all.

10:00-10:30 - We try and ignore her and let her get fall asleep on her own. We all lay in bed quietly and try to pretend we don't hear her.

10:31- She is getting loud, and I don't want to bother the neighbors anymore.

10:32 - I grab my stuff again, and we head to the car. This time I am in my lovely pajamas that have bacon and eggs all over them.

10:32-10:50 - We drive around town, AGAIN. This time it takes her longer to fall asleep.

10:50- We make it back to the hotel. She wakes up when the nice man opens the hotel door for me. She probably heard his inner monologue questioning my choice of attire.

10:52 - We make it back to our room. I try nursing her once again. She takes it, and falls asleep for 10 hours. Victory. Exhaustion.

Weapons and Pee-Cups

Yesterday was my birthday. I didn't have a party at the roller skating rink, or McDonalds, but I had a great day with my little family. I have discovered as I get older, birthdays get less exciting. I didn't wake up yelling "I'm 34!" like Thomas did on his birthday, but I did wake up and think to myself...How did I get to be 34? I know it's a cliche (I don't know how to put the little thing over the e so pretend it's there), but I really do feel like I am still 24, except for when I jump on a trampoline.

Here are just a few highlights...

Thomas made me my birthday cake. I helped him a little, but I really tried to be hands-off and let him do most of it. This picture is not posed, this is what he was doing when I turned around to get the camera. I couldn't get mad at him because he has seen me do this time and time again. I figured any germs left behind in the batter would be killed when the cake baked.

It is very hard to get a self-portrait with a SLR.

I have been looking forward to this gift for a while now. For Christmas, my mom made the grandkids blankets made of flannel and minky. After feeling how soft and cozy they were I told her I wanted one for my birthday. I knew I was getting one, I just didn't know what it was going to look like. I have been counting down the days until I could snuggle up on the cold leather couch with this. My mom and I went to lunch yesterday and after we came home I put Clara down for a nap and Thomas and I took a nice little cat nap wrapped in it's softness.

Thomas said I needed a pink cake with candles. I helped him frost it, but he did quite a bit of it on his own. He insisted that the candles be in the shape of the letter L.

We all wore the traditional party hats that I pull out for each birthday.

Steve cut the cake while Thomas licked all the candles.

Clara was having flashbacks and was anxious to get her own piece. This time I fed her because there was no way I was going to clean up another mess like the one before.

Steve knew exactly what I wanted. I told him a while ago I wanted some nice scissors. I always start out with a pair of fiskars that cut nicely for a while, but eventually end up cutting pizza or a nice window in a cardboard box. I needed some that would be my fabric only scissors. I can't believe how sharp and heavy these are. I think I need a weapons permit to use them.

Among the many other gifts, Steve gave me this. A cup hospitals use to measure bodily fluid. When I was pregnant with Clara, there was a night we ended up at the hospital for false labor. The nurse gave me a cup like this and told me to drink all the water and then she would check to see if I was really in true labor. I sat and drank the water in the waiting room and the contractions eventually stopped. I took the cup home and used it forever. I loved it because I enjoy keeping track of how much water I drink every day (I know I'm a nerd). I didn't know it was a cup used to measure pee until Steve told me a few days later. I think I lost it when Thomas ended up using it to dig in the dirt. On Thursday night Steve was talking about hospital supply procedures and I told him I would be thrilled if he got me another pee cup for my birthday. He said there was no way he was going to bring me one, but he did. Now I know for sure that he loves me.

Goosed

Yesterday, we had Thomas' Valentines party with his preschool. It was great, the kids were having a blast, and Clara was being entertained by 6 three and four year-olds. Towards the end of the party, all the kids started running around the large room in circles. I was trying to hold Clara while she fought me tooth and nail to get down and play with the kids. I finally gave in thinking she would be fine to toddle around the room with the older kids. I should have listened to my instincts. About 30 seconds after I put her down, she tripped and fell flat on her face. Poor girl.

Bed Head

It would be easier, that's for sure!

Sunday morning, I was getting ready for church. Thomas was laying on my bed while I was doing my hair in the bathroom. Here it goes...

Me: Thomas, does my hair look okay?
Thomas: No
Me: I know, I really need a hair cut.
Thomas: You do!
Me: I think I am going to cut it short.
Thomas: I think you should cut it like Uncle Ken.

Uncle Ken has the same hair cut as Sean Connery.

I don't think I am going to take him up on his suggestion.

Stinker!

URGENT UPDATE: THAT IS NOT SEAN CONNERY, THAT IS PATRICK STEWART. SO SORRY MR. STEWART, YOU ARE WAY BETTER LOOKING OLD MAN THAN SEAN CONERY(in that picture, at least).

It's a Girl!

(No, I'm not pregnant!)

Our family had a great thing happen today. We met our cousin, Elle. But before I tell you how wonderful our day went, I need to back up a bit.

Rewind to a week and a half ago.

I had gotten up and was doing my morning ritual of checking my email. In my box, I had a message on my facebook account asking for information on my family tree. It was a really nice note asking me about my Aunt. She gave her name, a little bit of information about herself, and then told me that she believed she was my cousin.

I couldn't believe it. All my life, my brothers and I were the only grandchildren on my fathers side. My dad and his sister, Andy, were the only children. Andy, we thought, never had any kids. So you could imagine my surprise to hear that there was someone else. I clicked on her picture to enlarge it and I was in complete shock. The person in the picture was a young version of my aunt.

After emailing this person back and enlisting my mom as a spy (seriously, she needs to go into PI as a profession!) we found out that my Aunt had a baby girl she had given to another family. Nobody new this. My parents were married at the time Andy gave birth, but they were living clear across the country while my dad was serving in the Army. Andy and my grandparents kept this secret all these years. My Grandparents passed away many years ago, Andy passed away in 2001, and my dad passed away in 2003. My mom, my brothers and I are the only ones still living that the private investigator had told her about.

Long story short...we have spent the past week and a half emailing back and forth. Today she came to town and we were all able to meet.

We had a great visit. My mom and I were able to introduce her to her birth-mother through stories and pictures. We talked for hours, had lunch together and just had a fantastic time. I felt like we had known each other our whole life. Before she had to leave, some other family members were able to come say hello.

The highlight of the day was when she sat down at my piano and played for us. She is a classically trained pianist. I had no idea my piano could sound like that! She is so incredibly talented. The only down side to the piano playing was while we were listening, I said to my mom,"I wish I could play like that." She turned to me and shook her head saying, "You could have if you had never quit taking lessons." (she's never going to let me forget I begged her to quit taking lessons!)

She is not playing the music on the stand, she was playing a memorized piece by Chopin.

2 Weeks of blogging in one post.

I can't believe that it has been almost 2 weeks since my last post. I have been getting questions from friends and family. Some have asked if I am on strike, others have asked if we have been sick, and then there were demands for more posts because they don't want to keep looking at the pretty lady from the last post every time they checked up on us.

I wish I had some really good excuse, but I don't. If being cranky is an excuse, then I will use that one - because I have been. Lack of sleep, too much sugar, and PMS do not mix. Take it from me, it's like playing with fire!

So, here are 10 things I would have blogged about if I had been in the mood for blogging in no particular order (because I messed up on the order of the picture downloads).

1. I have attempted to go back to Weight Watchers. I did really good in the fall, but once the holidays hit I fell off the wagon, big time. I was meaning to go in January, but never really got around to it. I went on Monday thinking that the meeting started at 10:00, but when I walked in and had everyone turn around because I had interrupted the meeting, I realized I was wrong. I went up to the counter and got a meeting schedule and walked out. To tell you the truth I was kind of happy that I missed it, because I had one more week of eating nothing but junk. I go back tomorrow morning, ready or not.

2. We have had 2 full days of rain. Unbelievable! It has been so pretty and such a welcome change. Thomas was thrilled with the rain, so thrilled that he came into our room yesterday morning at 5 am to let us know that it was raining and that we needed to go outside and use his green umbrella.

3. Clara still needs a haircut. Enough said.

4. Clara has officially joined the walkers club. She has been trying for a couple months now, but about 3 weeks ago, she decided that she was done with crawling. We now have to check her feet instead of her shins to see how dirty my floors are.

5. Just a cute picture I would have posted had I felt like it.

6. and another one I liked. I love denim and red.

7. I posted a while ago about my new found addiction, coupons. This little trip to the grocery store retailed for $122.00, I paid $59.00, and that wasn't even one of my best trips. I kept track of all of my receipts for the month of January. The retail of what I spent was $759.49 and my out of pocket expense was $267.43.

8. Because of my superior savings, Steve set up a house cleaning for me. I spent Saturday morning picking up my house so it would be ready for the cleaners when they came. Usually I pay to clean the whole house. This time we used someone who charged by the hour. Not only did they break my vacuum cleaner, they took 30 minutes to clean a bathroom that had just been cleaned by me a couple days prior. After 2 1/2 hours, I sent them home because I was getting upset seeing how much time they were wasting, not to mention the broken vacuums cleaner I now have to fix or replace.

9. There is a little cupcake shop we like to go to. Last week I brought some home for us. This one is mine and Thomas' favorite, it is called the sprinkle doughnut cupcake. Who wouldn't love that!

10. About a week ago I made spinach calzones for dinner. After I had finished making them, I had a little bit of dough left sitting on the counter. I went back into the kitchen after doing a couple of other things around the house and found Thomas on the floor rolling out the dough with my rolling pin. I wanted to throw the dough away, but he insisted on making a pizza and cooking it. Thank heavens he forgot about it by the time it was cool, because he would have been eating about a days worth of crumbs and gunk that had been on the kitchen floor.

Oh, and one more thing...My blogiversary is this week, so make sure you check back for another apron giveaway.