Best Photos of '08

Here are a few of my favorite photos of our family in 2008. I hope you like them.

Holidays

Jared put Christmas lights on our house which was spectacular! It was not an easy task, though, as the day he put them up it was windy. He was on the very top of the roof and the ladder blew down, luckily, it didn't hurt anyone. It landed with a thud and I ran out to investigate. He was trapped up there for about a half hour until Brigham came home from school to help me lift the heavy ladder back up to Jared. I can't believe we managed to save Jared off the roof. I already miss having the lights on the house because Jared's already taken them down. I'm so thankful for that though because I would hate to have them still up late into the year. Already, I'm looking forward to seeing them again next year. Great job, Jared!
Our holidays have truly been wonderful. Most of all, we've enjoyed our health and happiness. For our Christmas Eve program, we talked about the true meaning behind giving gifts. We watched "Mr. Krueger's Christmas" and "The Nativity."
The funniest thing about our Christmas Eve program was when Jared asked Gracie:
"Who told the shepherds that Baby Jesus was born?"
Gracie enthusiastically replied: "THE GIANTS!"
Also, we did something new this year as we attended a Midnight Mass at a nearby Catholic Church. We left the littlest ones at home with Hopie and four of us, Jared, Julie, Brig, & Nessa, went to Mass. We hadn't ever been and it was a unique experience for us. The music was so lovely and it turned out very nice.
We hosted a New Year's Eve party at our house this year. We had so much fun! Jared BBQ'd chicken and ribs. We had rosemary mashed potatoes, "not-your-mothers" green beans, and quesadillas. Our drink was a cranberry creation by Jared and he also served a decadent chocolate dessert.
The highlight of our evening was Jared's industrial strength homemade pinata. We all had fun taking turns hitting the pinata. I'm very grateful that the broken stick that came about from this process didn't hit anyone in the eye. I think that was because we were all being safety conscious as Jared had some strict guidelines for everyone to take turns and stand back. Thanks for that, Jared. We had so much fun even though our candy was smashed into little powdery bits because we just couldn't break that pinata open. We ended up using the tear it apart method in the end.
New Year's Day was fun as we played games like LIFE and LIFE on the FARM (thanks to Aaron and Cami sending it to us!). In LIFE, we learned that earning money would get you ahead in that game while in LIFE on the FARM, owning cattle was the most important in order to have a chance to earn any money. When we play it again, we won't be afraid to use all our money at the beginning of the game to buy cattle so we then will have better chances. We're looking forward to another family game night!

Hamburgers - an All-American tradition

Hopie shared this link with me from the Discovery Channel. I thought it was pretty interesting to watch so I thought I'd share it with you. Now, granted it is basically a commercial for Burger King but at the same time it is so unique because BK sent people to travel all around the world to find people who had never tasted a hamburger before. It's really fun, I liked the personalities of the people and my children have liked watching it. Homemade hamburgers will always remain my favorite to eat though!

You may have to copy and paste to get this link to work:

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/from-our-sponsor-taste-test.html

Thanksgiving

Christmas is nearly here and so I better tell you a little of how our Happy Thanksgiving went. It was so great to have Nathan join us this year! We really had a great time.

Our food was wonderful and untraditional. No turkey here, instead we had meat that was made on the BBQ like steak and sausages. We also had homemade cranberry sauce, stuffed celery, green beans and Nathan made his wonderful butternut squash and potatoes.

We also spent a day at the beach in Corpus Christi. One day just isn't long enough. We'll need to spend more than just one day next time, for sure. It was my first time going to the Gulf Coast and I didn't know what to expect but we had a really nice time. Noah and Gracie did just fine also.

I hope you enjoy the photos!

The Quilts of N.E.C. Part 2

I wanted to showcase one of my most prized possessions today. It is the quilt that my brother-in-law, Nathan, made for me. I am still amazed every time I look at it. How bright and colorful it is which contrasts nicely with the black fabrics. Also, it has flamingo's in it which is my favorite!
I just love this quilt and I am so thrilled that Nathan took so much of his time to make it for me. I was also impressed with how he did his research and came to really know what I would love. It is simply fantastic how well the quilt turned out. I am in awe of how well he actually knew that I would love bright tropical colors and flamingo's. At the time he presented me with the quilt, I don't think many people really paid attention to that detail about myself but somehow Nathan did.
Thanks, Nathan, for my amazing, fantastic, wonderful, I can't say enough to express how much I really love it, quilt!
Just a cute notation from my day, Gracie was so cute because she was trying to say "flamingo" and it came out in her sweet, precious voice: "Mommy likes fing-go-goes!"

When Jared's not workin', he's cookin'!

“Good painting is like good cooking: it can be tasted, but not explained”

Jared loves to cook! He has made some amazing dinners over the years. Here's one of his specialties - Spaghetti! He loves to eat it and make it. He likes to tell the story of how he could eat spaghetti every day and never grow tired of it because its one of his favorite meals.
Here he's making his special, yummy sauce and I love this tomato-based sauce. He cooks up some hamburger and then adds a can of Barilla or Classico plus another can of tomato sauce - a few more spices especially black pepper and wa-la ~ it's spaghetti sauce. He also made some beautiful herb with light garlic crescent rolls that were awesome!


Here's the link to the Crescent rolls recipe.


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Now playing: John Denver - Annie's Song
via FoxyTunes

Creme Brulee

Creme Brulee is a very rich, dainty custard type dessert that you'll want to have only for special occasions.
Jared had us wake up before 7 a.m. on Tues. Sept. 2 and make creme brulee with him before he had to go to work. Jared, I, and Gracie helped make it. I think it turned out well for our first time. I still like cheesecake, or my all time favorite - a great cookie, better, I think. We did different variations like plain, orange and nutmeg, raspberries and dark chocolate, orange and dark chocolate. My favorite was the orange peel with dark chocolate while Jared liked the orange and nutmeg better. Overall, it turned out well and it was fun for something quite different to eat. It is definately a once in a while type dish.
Here is the link to the recipe we used: Creme Brulee at allrecipes.com