Happy 19th, Tennyson

New Blog

I've added a link to Nancy's blog. It's under her name in family blogs if you want to keep up with her and how her treatment is going.

Grey Lady!

 Today was Banner's Halloween Recital.  She decided she wanted to be the "Grey Lady".  She found this idea on the Martha Stewart website.

 We purchased all the gray and white tulle that they had at the Price Wal-Mart for the dress.

I then dyed the white tulle and some cream colored curtains for her head covering.

 Whitney spray painted the flowers gray and we tied black ribbons around the flowers and her waist.

 I used a paper doile and white face paint to do her face.  She looked very grey and gloomy.

She played Tcherepnin's Bagatelle in E flat for her piece and did a wonderful job.

Tennyson made these lovely carmel, chocolate, almond apples for us last weekend.  We've got so many apples we don't know what to do with them all.

Christmas 2011

Liz and Dennis...........................................Morgan and Andrew

Anne Adele and Maurie.......................................Josh and Stacy

Shelley and Alan.................................................Liz and Dennis

Jennifer and Jim..............................................John and Rebecca

John and Rebecca..............................................Noah and Becky

Sara..................................................................Shelley and Alan

Josh and Stacy.....................................................................Sara

Morgan and Andrew............................Anne Adele and Maurie

Noah and Becky...............................................Jennifer and Jim

Whitney...................................................................Seth

Miranda............................................................Madison

Leslie....................................................................Kelsie

Madison..............................................................Hannah

Zack.......................................................................Esme

Rachel.............................................................Tennyson

Tennyson..............................................................Maren

Kelsie....................................................................Arden

Arden......................................................................Zack

Seth...........................................................................Lily

Banner.....................................................................Leah

Hannah..............................................................Miranda

Jonas....................................................................Rachel

Gabriel...............................................................Whitney

Maren....................................................................Leslie

Leah....................................................................Gabriel

Esme....................................................................Banner

Lily.........................................................................Jonas

I hope we all have a Merry Christmas!

Answers

Whitney was right on all the answers. Who would've thunk it! Now for a little explanation.

1. Miranda said this to Les(I think to scare her). Les didn't want to sleep over at our house ever again.

2. Tennyson said this and my astonishment wasn't that the bird was singing "Rock of Ages" but that my 4 year old knew "Rock of Ages".

3. This was said by a very annoyed 6 or 7 year old Whitney to her father. I could only laugh at his face, he was shocked that she wasn't interested in his advice.

4. Banner asked this question after overhearing a biblical discussion at Lizzy's house.

Who Said What!

To misquote Mr. Bennett, "here sit four of the silliest girls in Utah".

I've written a funny thing that each of the girls said, see if you can match the quote with the girl.

1. "The mice at our house have the Hanta Virus."

2."Why is that bird singing "Rock of Ages"? "

3.  NOT another lecture!

4.  So,(pause) if you want to talk to the devil you just dial 666?



Tennis Anyone?

 Emery High had it's first tennis meet of the season yesterday.  Banner plays on the JV girls team.  We drove all of the way to Ogden for the girls to play St. Joseph's Catholic High School.  Jim needed to pick up 2 tons of bird feed at Cargill so we made a business/supportive parent trip.  We stopped in S.L. and picked up Whitney to come with us.  After lunch at "Big Jim's Burgers"  we finally made it to the tennis courts(wrong schools, wrong address, pure luck we drove past a park and saw girls in tennis outfits,  all along pulling a large flat bed full of feed for the chukars).

I think she is showing her "eye of the tiger"  look here.

 Move over Venus and Serena, here she comes.

 Banner had never played with her doubles partner before but they did fairly well together.

 It was extremely hot and there was no seating but we enjoyed watching her play.

What a shot!

Peach Cobbler Anyone?

 It's that time of year for fresh peaches so here is a recipe for one of my favorite peach desserts.

This is a recipe from my old Betty Crocker cookbook.

1/2 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 cups sliced peaches(about 6 medium)

1 teaspoon lemon juice

3 tablespoons shortening

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix 1/2 cup sugar, cornstarch and cinnamon in a 2-quart saucepan.  Stir in peaches and lemon juice.  Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils.  Boil and stir 1 minute.  Pour into ungreased 2-quart casserole;  keep peach mixture hot in the oven.

Cut shortening into flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, the baking powder and salt until mixture resembles fine crumbs.  Stir in milk.  Drop dough by 6 spoonfuls onto the hot peach mixture.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until topping is golden brown.  Serve warm and, if desired, with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

 Jim brought these beautiful flowers home from Salt Lake the other day.  I think the colors are absolutely gorgeous.

This is my favorite flower.

New Roommates!

Miranda is sooo happy that Tennyson has moved in.  Good luck girls!

Jim and the Cistern

 Jim wants to put a small ornamental pond on our property north of the house.

 There is a cistern there that he needed to remove. Luckily he has this "man-sized" Tonka equipment for the job.

I asked him if he liked to play with Tonka toys when he was little and he said "Every little boy loves to play with Tonka trucks."

 He was able to break the top and bottom halves of the cistern apart.

It had a few feet of old dirty water in it.

 It just needed a gentle nudge to tip the top over.

 just a little more,

 Ah, there she goes.

Now he just needs to crush the cement into smaller chunks then bury them and he can start his lovely pond.

Tennyson Rides and Banner's New Ride!

 Tennyson and Holly

They seem to have a good time together

Tennyson is a natural horsewoman.

and now for Banner's ride

we hope she has a good time with "Husqvarna" just like Tennyson does with Holly

 we know she'll love the cruise control

the plush seat

 and cup holder (for those extra hot days)

Enjoy the rest of the summer girls.

An American Favorite! Egg Rolls!

 Twenty-eight years ago while I was serving a mission in New Mexico, I met a woman from Thailand.  She was good enough to share her egg roll recipe with my companion and me.

The necessary ingredients are: 1 cooked chicken( I usually boil one, but this time I had a rotisserie chicken so I used that) a head of cabbage chopped finely(as you can see I used bags of cole slaw mix, it worked great) a medium onion, minced, a bag of bean sprouts, soy sauce and egg roll wrappers.

Start with some oil in a pan

 then add the cabbage( I used 2 bags) and minced onions

then the sprouts.  Cook until the cabbage and onions become transparent.

Add shredded chicken,  you can use as little or as much as you want, I used all of the dark meat and one breast in this batch.

Mix everything together and then add soy sauce to taste.  This is the filling.

 For wrapping the egg rolls you need a plate and a small bowl of water and another plate to put the wrapped egg rolls on.  Start with a wrapper on one of the plates

put a couple of spoonfuls of filling diagonally across the wrapper

 then fold the wrapper over the filling, fold in each side

then roll until only the top tip of the wrapper is left

dip your finger in the water and dab onto the tip of the wrapper and finish closing the egg roll.  The water makes the egg roll wrapper stick closed.

Then fry in hot canola oil until golden brown(a couple of minutes).  The package of wrappers that I purchsed had 20 in it so we made that many egg rolls.  We had a little bit of filling left over but it is good to eat just plain so no worries.

Serve with fried rice and sweet and sour sauce(or not).  I promise your family will love these and love you for making them.

Oh, We Love the Halls of Emery!

 Tennyson receives her diploma from Laurel Johansen.

Tennyson, along with 156 classmates are the class of 2011 at Emery High

   Tennyson with her National Honor Society stole and Mandi with her Co-Salutatorian stole.
Tennyson graduated in the top 20% of her class.

Whitney, Tennyson and Banner,  just glad it's over.

 Happy, happy, happy!

 The heat was a factor again.

Sara gave her this pretty lei.  Jim is just glad he doesn't need to wear a tie for two whole days.

 Tennyson and Jessica

Tennyson and "goofy" Tyrell.  They were in a lot of plays together.