A View from the Lakes: 2008

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Christmas Traditions

Grandma Bev has helped carry on a great tradition in our family of making Gingerbread houses with the kids. The kids absolutely adore it. Bev makes this from *scratch* as well!

Here is Grandma Bev mixing up different colors of frostings.

The kids had all different kinds of candies and things to use to decorate their houses.

Brenna decorating her house.

The finished projects.

Pear Bread

I had several pears from the farm to use up, so I did some searching for recipes. I found a great recipe for pear bread.

It turned out very good and the kids loved it. Very much like a zucchini bread, dense and moist.

The kids seriously went crazy over it. The recipe made two loaves so I froze one. We ended up thawing it and eating it the next week!

Here is my little ballerina enjoying her favorite thing that week!

Pear Bread

3 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups peeled, cored and finely chopped pears
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1 cup chopped walnuts (I didn't add)

DIRECTIONS
In a mixing bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, oil and vanilla; mix well. Combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt; stir into the egg mixture just until moistened. Toss pears with lemon juice. Stir pears and walnuts into batter (batter will be thick). Spoon into two greased 9-in. x 5-in. x 3-in. loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for 55-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.

I haven't been to the eye doctor in 10 years....

And when I do, she tells me to wear glasses!

Apparently I have astigmatisim and am far sighted. These are my new frames!

Chef Gavin

Gavin is always wanting to create new recipes. Tonight he was banging around in the kitchen trying to create something new. I went in and he had mixed together all kinds of things and was trying to make a cake. He had a bowl full of milk, sugar, honey, baking cocoa, cinnamon, nutmeg...etc etc.

So he comes in and wants to bake this concoction. I asked if he had added flour? No. Eggs? No. Baking powder? No. So I went in. I dumped enough flour in the milk mixture to make it as thick as cake batter. Next I told Gavin to get eggs. "How many?" I don't know, lets try one. (I really just didn't want to waste any more eggs on this experiment). Next I sprinkled in some baking powder. We ended up putting them in ramekins and baked them at 350 for 20 min or so.

They actually worked!!! And tasted pretty good! We had leftover whipped cream, so we put some of that on the top. Gavin of course was over the moon!

Christmas Parade

Brenna got to be in the Christmas Parade this year which was fun. Her preschool had a float. Since daddy signed her up, daddy got to ride!

Here is Gavin under a quilt staying warm before it started!

Here is Sumre. Cory and her shut down the bar to come over and watch. It is so nice having her home!! I picked this particular shot because it looks like everything is on fire. I got a new camera and was trying to use the night vision! Still learning obviously....

Daddy and Brenna going by....

And Santa of course!

Thanksgiving

Isn't Thanksgiving a great holiday? We had a great "Thanksgiving Week" this year. Thursday was dinner with Zack's extended family. Friday was with my family and Sunday was with Zack's immediate family. It was great.

Gavin enjoying the new Ipod that Aunt Megan got him and loaded for him!

Cute Brenna.....

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Chicken Tacos

This is a GREAT recipe. If you haven't made this, you really need to try it! It is super easy and very delicious.

Today, Zack and I were both very tired. I emailed him from work and told him to start some chicken tacos when he went home for lunch so that we could have a nice hot easy dinner as soon as we walked in the door. We like it, the kids like it, it is just a great recipe. Try it out and let me know what you think!

Chicken Tacos

1 package of chicken breasts
1 packet of taco seasoning
16 oz of salsa
tortillas and taco stuff

Put chicken in a large crockpot. Put taco seasoning and salsa on top. Cook on low all day, or high for half a day. (I have used frozen chicken on low all day and it worked fine) Shred with two forks. Put into warm tortillas with your favorite taco toppings. Yum yum yum!

Nov 18, CSA

Our last CSA pick up for the year!! I am really going to miss our weekly pick ups. It has been a wonderful blessing to take part in the CSA this year. I could go on and on about the benefits and how much it has helped our family this year! I encourage each of you to look into your local CSAs or farmer's markets. The difference in quality for us this year has been *amazing*. When you see what produce is supposed to look like, it is almost shocking to see produce in the store. It looks so puny!

For our last pick up, we got sweet potatoes, pears and......we will play, "Guess that vegetable" for the one on the left!!

We also ordered a turkey which we will be getting soon. Check out this link to see a national publication that talked about "our" farm! (cut and paste)

http://www.naturalhomemagazine.com/leafy-greens/my-sustainable-Thanksgiving-turkey.aspx?blogid=3180

I also orderd Peach jam from one of the farms apprentinces and it is very good as well.

I will be looking forward to next year!!

Halloween!

We had a lot of fun this year on Halloween. Brenna went to school as a "present". It was her idea and it turned out really cute.

Her class

Gavin was dracula...and very spooky

Brenna's present costume got really old really fast after walking all around campus in it! They walk all around ESU and get tons of candy during the day! So we had to switch up pretty fast for trick or treating around the neighborhood. She had worn the black sweats for the present costume, so we took some of mom's black eyeline and Voila! she was a kitten!

The kids were old enough this year to do some trick or treating in our neighborhood by themselves, which was really fun. They got lots of candy and had a great time!

Pumpkin Patch

In mid October we went out to the pumpkin patch just outside of town. We have gone for several years now and it is a lot of fun. You can go out in the field and pick your own pumpkins, and then go on a hayrack ride, go through the corn maze and play with the pumpkin sling shot. It really is a fun day!

Here is Brenna on her way out to the field!

Daddy getting a bit of a work out!

Grandpa Gene was there to help! It was a lot of fun having him there.

Hayrack ride! Aren't they so much fun?

Weighing the pumpkins

Pumpkin sling shot!

A "funny sleeping moment" brought to you by Brenna

When I check on Brenna the other night, this is how I found her! No, it was not cold in the house!

Monday, November 10, 2008

Mexico, 2006

A couple of years ago, Zack and I went to Puerto Vallarta with some friends. It was one of my favorite vacations ever! So beautiful and the nicest part is a 3 hour direct flight from KC! Breakfast in KC and lunch on the beach in Mexico. How can you beat that?

A friend of mine is going in 2 weeks and it brought back a lot of memories.

I wasn't prepared for how beautiful it would be there!

The boys went to a bull fight. Not recommended for the kiddos!

Us waiting to get into PiPis. This was our first night there and we were all exhausted!

On the Malecon which is a walkway by the ocean. This was a sand sculpture nativity scene that was in the works.

View from the resort that we went to for our time share talk.

The pirate ship tour that you can do

This was a Mayan themed dinner that we went to. We took a boat cruise out to an island and then ate in this cool area and then watched a Mayan show. It was neat. (quit giggling all of you who were actually there and watched me hurl into the trash can all the way there!!!) Besides the hurling, it was great.