Gluten Free Poptarts

A few days after DH had to stop eating wheat and dairy, the kids had a Dad's and donuts reading activity at school. He was sad that he wouldn't be able to have milk and donuts with the kids. I sent a lunchbox with homemade poptarts (gluten free) instead. They were almost good. I made my own jam filling since we don't normally have jam at our house. Then I used a gluten free flour mix and a gf pie-crust recipe. I didn't actually use any sugar in the jam or pastry, just xylitol, but it was waaaaay too sweet. I'd do it again using 1/4 the sweetener or none in the pastry.

Anyway they all got eaten even if they were a bit too rich. By the way, pastry dough without gluten in it is way easier to roll out, heh, heh.

Look at my book club Mom!

I go to book club once a month and my kids have always had funny ideas about what a book club actually is or does. This was my favorite yet. Little AP said "Look at MY book club mom!" Yep I can just imagine all the moms getting together and building stuff out of books. Now that really would be fun!

New Years Interviews

My Dear Husband:
Favorite Movies:Scott Pilgrim vs the World
Favorite Books: Paths of Glory
Things I enjoyed this year: a Real Soccer game, (seats at the midline
Songs:Meet the Elements by They Might be Giants
Favorite treat was the Huckleberry Ice Cream on our Yellowstone trip.
Highlights: Watching Spain win world cup, trip to Yellowstone, trip to Albuquerque

Me:
Movie: I only saw New Moon, Scott Pilgrim, and The Blind Side, I liked the Blind Side best.
Music: "O Light of Life" by the Tabernacle Choir, gives me the chills!
Favorite TV: The only show I watched this year was the Tabernacle Choir.
Favorite Food: I learned how to make homemade yogurt and pink breakfast smoothies (with raw beets!).

AJ, eight years old:
TV: Phineas and Ferb
Songs: Abba, Enya, God Bless the USA, I Like Being Me, If The Savior Stood Beside Me, How Firm a Foundation
Books: I kind of read a whole series at a time. My Favorites were Avalon, and Sisters 8. By the end of the year I was averaging 20 books a week.
Highlights: Yellowstone Trip, lateover with Shelby over Spring Break, Arts Festival, Soccer Camp, Getting Baptized.
Favorite Obsessive Compulsive Behavior: Picking Mud Off the Bottoms of Shoes.
Favorite Foods: Brownies, Buuz with soy sauce, fruit, potato flake soup, saltine crackers and cheddar cheese slices for lunch.
Hobbies: Reading and Computer Games.
Accomplishments: Reflections contest winner for literature (a poem about making mudpies with a little sister).

J, six years old:
Movie: Clone Wars
TV: Clone Wars
Music: Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam
Books: I read “Bombad Jedi” all by myself, I started in the afternoon and read all day and finished at night, (it was a miracle, way to go Josh!). Mom read me lots of Star Wars books, my favorites were the Boba Fett ones.
Highlights: Yellowstone, Soccer Camp, Lego Arts Class, Playing Star Wars Lego with Uncle Ben, 4-H, 4-H, and 4-H.
Hobbies: Building with Legos and playing with Bridger.
Food News: Love Dominoes Cheese Pizza, ice cream, mom made special mini-pizzas for lunch called Padawan Pizzas, Horchata from Bajio, I like a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast everyday, and an apple for a snack everyday.
Accomplishments: Reflections contest winner for literature (an essay about building Legos with a friend), learned to read

AP, three years old:
Movies: Cinderella & Monsters vs Aliens
Song: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes, Lullabye, Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam, All Creatures of our God and King
Highlights: Watching Ice Dancing during the Olympics, Preschool, Yellowstone Trip, Watching Beauty and the Beast on my birthday, My Cinderella Birthday Cake, Swimming with Uncle Ben.
Food News: Favorite breakfast is Granola. I also love “pink” yogurt (plain yogurt with red food coloring and agave), pink and green smoothie, pretzels, cheddar cheese slices, oranges.
achievements: ditched diapers over Christmas Break, yay! Earned "Barbie and the Diamond Castle" movie for doing that.
Favorite Toys: Lego Duplos, Magna Tiles, Dolls, Cards (to carry around in purses), Playdough.
Note: AP wears a dress every day, if she has to wear pants in the morning because its cold, she’ll change into a dress by lunch time. She especially wants to wear dresses when we go to the store or have company as she feels embarassed not wearing a dress in public.

D, 18 months:
Movies: don’t care about the movies, but remote controls are the best!
Songs: likes to play on the piano, likes Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam and Scripture Power
Highlights: liked the mudpots at Yellowstone, liked the Explora museum in Albuquerque especially the “cupboard-opening” display for toddlers.
Food: likes raisins more than anything, also likes hawaiian haystacks especially the pineapple, likes green smoothie, bananas, pears, string cheese, and rice.
Hobbies: pushing buttons, pulling things out of cupboards, especially Dad’s grill tongs. Likes to play with the Word Whammer (Fridge Phonics).
Achievments: learned to walk
Favorite Toys: Weapons such as guns, swords, lightsabers, large kitchen knives, and grill tongs, also likes cell phones, the broom, and the vacuum. (not all of these are officially allowed of course!)

Making a Cake For Mom: Edible Playdough!

Here is my once a year absolutely unhealthy birthday cake story. I thought since it was my own birthday, I shouldn't make my own cake. It was a busy, busy day, so I bought one at the store, had them write "happy birthday mom" and hid it in the car so baby D wouldn't sit on it.

Well, shortly after arriving home, I found baby D in the car sitting comfortably on my cake and happily pushing buttons on the dashboard. He is so fast! I scraped the frosting off the lid back on to the cake, but it wasn't nice anymore.

The older kids are always thinking up cute things to do on my birthday, so I thought they would love to decorate my cake. I made up a batch of edible playdough in bright colors and when they got home from school I said, "welcome to my birthday party. The activity is to decorate my cake."


I was expecting a few flowers or something, but they wanted something really one-of-a-kind, so this is what they came up with: The characters are Yoda, Ahsoka Tano, Obi Wan Kenobi, and Aalya Secura from Clone Wars. My daughter said she couldn't do Anakin without brown, so she skipped him. The red everywhere was "laser fire". I was very impressed. It was a great birthday present.



The cake was brownies and the playdough was marshmallow, so it tasted a bit like rocky road. I liked it.

Marshmallow Fondant (Edible Playdough)

2 cups miniature marshmallows (4 ounces)
1/2 pound powdered sugar/powdered sucanat (2 cups)
1 tbsp water

This recipe does involve some cooking, it tastes like the marshmallows in cold cereal to me.

Melt the marshmallows with the water, either in the microwave or in a pan on the stovetop. Stir regularly until the mixture is smooth. You can add color now, or knead it in later.

Add the powdered sugar and mix as much as you can. Then tip out onto a surface dusted with more powdered sugar, and begin to knead in any loose powdered sugar. It will be sticky at first, but then will become a smooth dough.

If you want to save your marshmallow fondant for later, wrap in plastic wrap and store in the fridge.

Making an Ahsoka Costume part 2

First, I made Ahsoka's headtails. Basically it is an ivory jester hat with one tail fatter and longer and blue stripes glued on it. We use crushed panne fabric. A cheap, easy to sew on fabric that is easy to find at halloween. To finish this costume, we glued the gold halo part onto the headtails. Then for the dress I picked up a long sleeve orange shirt at a thrift store and sewed a maroon skirt onto the bottom. (The skirt is one and a half times the length of the t-shirt and then gathered.) To gather I sewed a wide stitch across the top leaving long pieces of thread at the ends. Gently pull one of the threads tight to gather the material to the proper length then sew it into a tube. Then sew the tube onto the skirt. (For Ahsoka's top I sewed that onto the t-shirt as well. It didn't have stretch so on the back I left about an inch gap in the tube top so it would stretch when my daughter put it on. We lucked out and found some floral print purple fabric on clearance that looked right for the belt. I had been planning on painting the floral print on lavendar fabric. The belt buckle is gold fabric glued onto cardboard with a pin glued on the back so we could pin it onto the dress. We just glued velcro onto suedcloth for the arms and legs, but this was a pain, I'd skip it or find another way if I did it again. I think the most comfortable would be to attach the gauntlets to tights and t-shirto, so they slide on and stay on easily. I did make a belt too, but it wasn't comfortable enough, so my daughter didn't wear it. This costume was a big hit with all the clone wars fans at school.

Lip Gloss Making Activity

I was teaching a lesson on uplifting thoughts for the activity day girls in our ward. We talked about having uplifting thoughts and how music can help us clean out bad thoughts. Then we made lip gloss. I wrote a little poem to tie it all together. It is based on Elder Packer's talk "worthy music, worthy thoughts" (http://lds.org/cm/display/0,17631,8045-1,00.html)

This is what the finished project looked like, I had some old pots in my craft cupboard that I recycled for this project it turned out really cute.

We used this recipe:
1 tbs petroleum jelly (melted)
4 drops stevia (or 1 tsp honey melted)
a few drops of koolaid (1 packet dissolved in 1/4 tsp water)
1/4 tsp mint extract (optional)

Lip Gloss Poem
The lip gloss I have made today
Reminds me I should smile,
And make the thoughts inside
My head uplifting and
worthwhile.

For ev’ry minute that I live
My mind is like a play.
With thoughts of either good
Or bad always on display.

Now sometimes in the theater
That is running in my mind
Little dark and impish thoughts
Come sneaking from behind.
And then it is my duty,
So the Spirit can abide,
To find a way to clean them out
And shape things up inside.

The prophets have advised us
On a way this can be done,
They’ve said when thoughts
Aren’t what we want…
The best thing is to hum!

So once again I grab my gloss
And rub some on my lips
And hum my very favorite hymn,
It always does the trick!

Family Halloween Party 2010

Clone Commander Fox


Doctor D

Ahsoka Tano

Jedi Master Luminara Unduli


little a was asleep, but I'll throw this picture in anyway...

My cousin's daughter hopped in the photo shoot and she was cuter than all of us...