One year ago...

Yesterday marks one year since we had our stillborn baby girl. We decided to spend a fun day together as a family. No batteries for the camera, so this will be a picture-less post. We took the kids to Washington Park in Portland. It was lots of fun.

We drove around a bit first, which was nice. We walked down close to the amphitheater and Will showed the boys how the sound carries from the stage. Then we found a gigantic play structure I didn't even know was there and let the kids play for awhile. Afterward, we went to the monument and the kids got to go on the big slide, teeter-totters, and the giant swings. I don't know if the kids were prepared for how big those swings are! Will went the highest. We also told them about the date that Will took me on when we were dating, when we went to the monument and sat there talking while looking over the city. They thought that was a neat story.

We stopped at the store to get some flowers and a balloon for the cometary, picked up some $1 hamburgers for lunch, and then went to Margaret's graveside. We didn't stay long, but we sang her Happy Birthday. It was really nice just spending the day as a family. Will & I even got to go to the temple and to dinner while my mom and sister watched our boys for the evening.

As much as we miss our baby girl, and always will, it is comforting to have the gospel to know we will see her again and be together forever. It was nice to participate in sealings at the temple and to feel how real those blessings are. The last year hasn't been easy, but we have learned and grown so much through it all. This life is just one step on the road of forever. I just feel grateful to be a part of it all.

"Soup"er Dinners

So being pregnant this time has made me not want to cook dinner. Not much sounds very appetizing and my normal cooking brain has left me. One thing we've been enjoying a lot of lately is soup. I haven't made much soup in recent years because one of my children thinks it is a kind of torture to eat it. Lately he hasn't complained near so much, and the experience hasn't been all that bad. In fact, some of these soups have been getting 10 ratings(I have my family rate dinners so I know if it is a good idea to repeat recipes.).

So here are some of those yummy soup recipes we've been eating.

Tomato Soup
Potato Soup
Chili - recipe from a friend(if you want it, just ask)
Chicken Noodle - recipe in Better Home & Garden Cookbook
Hamburger Vegetable Soup - recipe in Better Home & Garden Cookbook
French Onion Soup - recipe in Better Home & Garden Cookbook

I'm sure there are other many delicious soups out their to try, so if you have a good one feel free to pass on the recipe. I have a hard time following recipes to the "T" so adjust them to your liking as I did(most of my alterations were small: more or less of spices I like kind of thing, although for the potato soup I just used milk and cheddar and in smaller quantities than called for and it was still delicious).

Happy soup making!

Halloween & Pumpkin Patch

This post is late, but better late than never. I got to go to the Pumpkin Patch with Roger's class. We had a lot of fun! Here are some pics.

Mom & Allen

Allen in the Hay Maze

Roger looking at animals

Allen with the animals

Roger's Kindergarten class with their Olders

Roger on the hay bales

Peekaboo! It's Allen!

Roger & Allen with his Older

Check this out mom!

He finally found the perfect pumpkin.

Pumpkin carving

Then for Halloween, it was a busy weekend. We started off at Will's work for their Trick or Treating. Then it was off to my parents house for a Halloween/Birthday party for my sister. We had a great weekend. We finished off with the Trunk or Treat at the church. The kids had a great time.

Mom(Humpty Dumpty), Roger(the Volcano), and Allen(Darth Vader)

Trick or Treating at Will's work.

Halloween is Coming!!!

So I've never done much for Halloween, but this year is going to be different. A week ago we went to the pumpkin patch with Roger's kindergarten class. Both the boys had lots of fun. One of the high school helpers even volunteered to take Allen through some of the activities so I wouldn't have to chase him around. It was really nice. So we are planning to carve those pumpkins, a big step for us. :) Last year we meant to but never got around to it. I don't think Roger will let us forget it this year.

Roger has also been asking me about putting up scary decorations. I found some great ideas online, but Roger just wanted spiders and ghosts. For some reason he didn't think bats were scary enough.

The other day when the fevers were slow we sat around the table and made paper cobwebs and spiders. We ran out of time to put them up before bed, so the next morning my sick children laid on the couch and watched me tape them up around the fireplace with some extra batting cobwebs. Roger was able to help with our little ghosts though.

I have now officially decorated for Halloween. I'm sure there will be a few more projects in the making, what with costumes and things. The children are on the mend from their illness, but lucky mom caught it in the process. Not fun. So these projects will have to wait a few days, but hopefully there will still be time enough to get them done before Halloween. And much to my surprise, Will has not been disappointed that his family is getting into the holiday.

(PS-Pictures to follow when I can find the cable for my camera.)

Sick Times - Fun Times

My kids always have a little too much fun when they are sick... kind of. Despite fevers and feeling tired and icky, they get to watch movies, drink soda and juice, eat jello, and not have to clean up at all. Granted, with all the movie watching, the house stays a little cleaner. I think one of the first things they say when they are sick is, "Mommy, I don't feel very good. Can I have some soda?"

Roger has had a fever. Hopefully its not THE flu or anything like that. Who knows. It seems like everyone is getting sick that we know. He slept a lot better last night, though, which was definitely nice for me. And today, no fever, but we are playing it safe. The rest of us are washing hands like crazy. I'm trying to keep things disinfected, and I'm gargling salt water and doing my nasal rinses to avoid whatever is going around.

I have been knitting like crazy during movie time, which has been fun for me. I figure since we can't leave the house I might as well do something I enjoy. I'll have to post more on the knitting later, but I'll just say I forgot how much I like it. It's nice to pick up old hobbies.

So hopefully our sick days will be over soon, but at least we are trying to make the most of it.

Freezing Bread

Alright, maybe this should be a no-brainer, but for me freezing homemade bread has always kind of freaked me out. I think I have soggy bread issues from somewhere. Anyhow, I got a new bread recipe the other day that I wanted to try out, but it makes LOTS of bread. My friend said to just wrap the rest of the loaves in plastic wrap twice, and they freeze just fine. So I tried it out.

Making the bread was a story in and of itself. It is not a double rise recipe, which is what I prefer, but I did have to let it sit and "bubble" at 2 different points. I tried making it in my mixer, which is a mini-Bosch, and I thought it could handle the capacity. Well, at one of the "bubbling" parts, I set the timer to let it set for the appropriate amount of time and left the room. A little while later my husband called to let me know that the bread was exploding! Seriously! It was bubbling out of the bowl, onto the counter, and onto the floor. I had exploding bread dough. I've never seen anything quite like it. So I had to transfer it to my largest mixing bowl and then proceed to knead the dough by hand(not my favorite thing). I got things under control and eventually I ended up with 4 beautiful loaves of bread(the recipe can make more loaves, but I made mine pretty big). Hooray!

I took 2 and froze them, knowing that fresh bread doesn't last too long in our house. So last night I took out one of the loaves to un-thaw overnight. I put it on a cooling rack(a tip I got from a friend a long time ago) so that no moisture would build up on the bottom(not sure if this even happens, but I have soggy bread issues so I took the extra precaution). This morning I sliced into the loaf, and it was just as moist and fresh as the other loaves I had not frozen. Texture entirely entact. I am so excited I had to blog about it. So now I know that instead of having to make bread often, I just need to make lots of loaves and freeze the extra for homemade bread all the time! Yeah!

So if you have a bread recipe you like, make lots so you can freeze the extra. But you probably already do, and I'm just a bit slow in this regard. :)

Mealtime Togetherness

This morning at breakfast I asked Roger to say the prayer. One of the things he mentioned in his prayer was that we could have a good time talking while we ate our breakfast. This made me think about some things.

1. Sometimes I feel like I don't do enough as a mom to prepare my kids for the world at large. This made me feel like I am doing a few things right.

2. I try to always eat meals with our kiddos. Maybe not the most adult conversation while Will is at work, and sometimes I feel like I could pull my hair out with all the silliness my boys produce at the table, but at least we are together.

3. The kids obviously appreciate the fact that we eat our meals together.

I love being a mom. It is hard to stay home sometimes and do all the mundane tasks, but I am here for my kids and apparently they notice and appreciate it. We have good and bad times together. This weekend as we were listening to General Conference, there were lots of good talks and many themes, but one I did notice was the importance of being consistent with our kids and keeping the lines of communication open with them. I know I'm not a perfect mom, but I'm glad I can be a mom to my kids and be here for them when they need me. They are our future, and I just hope I can do right by them.