Big Bread

Well, unfortunately nothing really exciting happened this week. BUT, I did make my tallest loaf of bread ever! I don't know what in the world I did, or didn't do, but here is a picture to prove it. I put it in the oven with both of the other loaves, this one was in the middle, and it fused to both of them! I was SO surprised when I opened the oven. The bread tastes, great and to my surprise, there were not any major air bubbles. So we are enjoying big bread for the next couple of days.

Come to think of it, we actually did do something exciting this week. We went up to South Jordan and babysat for Ben and Juli so that they could go on a date to a play (this was our Christmas present to them). We enjoyed watching their kids. All of them are growing up so fast! I was a little afraid of bedtime, because I remember being a little girl and trying to make any excuse to help me to stay up just a little later. It went fine. All the girls went to bed well, and Jacob did too! Daniel and I really enjoyed our time with them. Thank you Ben, Juli, Emily, Sadie, Kate, and Jacob for letting us come and spend an evening with you!

Stephanie and I were recently called as the primary teachers in our ward...No really, the primary teachers in our ward. We do have a primary president and primary workers, but they all work with the nursery-aged children. However, a family moved in recently with a 6-year-old son, and the bishop wanted him to have a primary class. Thus, Stephanie and I were called to tag-team him every Sunday!

The first two Sundays were pretty tough. He has a short attention span (go figure...) and he pretends that he never knows the answers (he's actually really bright). We decided that instead of team teaching, we would take turns each week--one of us would teach, and one of us would be a student with Hugo.

Stephanie was the teacher this week, and for the first part of the lesson she planned a treasure hunt. Hugo was very excited to find the treasure and could hardly stay reverent as we searched for clues. Finally it led back to his chair where there was a brand new Book of Mormon underneath. I've never seen a kid get so excited about the Book of Mormon before. For the remainder of the lesson, we had to work hard to get Hugo's attention on Stephanie and not on the book--needless to say we read all the scriptures from the lesson! He gave the prayer at the end, and during the prayer he thanked Heavenly Father for "**shuffle shuffle** Mosiah and **shuffle shuffle** Hell--uh--man...and the Book of Mormon." It was really cute!

So I'm in charge of the lesson next week. We'll see if I can engage him as well as Stephanie did this week!

Our Recipes!!

Well, I finally gave in and created a recipe blog. It just seems like a really great way to share recipes and keep them all organized. I am still in the process of putting all of my recipes on, so in case you were wondering...we do eat things other than desserts and breakfast foods! 

The link to the blog is on the right hand side of this page. It is under the "Our Favorite Links" heading. It is the only link listed, so I don't think that you will have problems finding it. Hope you enjoy it! 

Happy New Year

Ok, so we're a few days late with the New Year thing.  We've just been having a blast this Christmas break spending time with our families, and they being the primary readers of our blog, we haven't had a whole lot to blog about!

Stephanie and I spent Christmas eve and Christmas day just by ourselves.  It was nice to have some peaceful time together.  We spent the majority of Christmas eve cooking and baking in preparation for the next day, but we also spent quite a while working on a gingerbread house.  We built a gingerbread house for our first date, so we thought it would be fun to build another one this year.  Later on, we read the Christmas story, played some games, and enjoyed pigs-in-a-blanket (or is it pigs-in-blankets?...whatever).

Christmas day was wonderful.  We took our time waking up, and then enjoyed some fresh, warm cinnamon rolls (that were freshly baked the previous day!) along with some orange juice and hot chocolate.  We then opened some wonderful gifts, including a food chopper and some earrings for Stephanie and a DVD set and a no-fog shower shaving mirror for Daniel, a pizza stone from Laura Nicole, a wheat grinder from Mom and Dad, some gift cards from John-John and our other Mom and Dad, and Middle Eastern souvenirs from Dad.  We were bounteously blessed this Christmas, not the mention the all-expenses-paid trip to Colorado the week before from Uncle Steven!

After an English-style Christmas feast for two, Stephanie and I packed up and headed up to my parents' house in Cedar Hills.  We spent the next few days house-sitting until they returned from Christmas in Arizona, and spent some time babysitting for my sister Michele who had her second baby girl a few weeks early.  We spent the rest of the break there, with the exception of last Sunday when we went down to Santaquin for a Christmas dinner with the Colemans.  New Year's Eve, all of my nearby siblings gathered at my parent's house for some yummy Greek food, games, and egg nog.  We were so lucky to be able to spend so much time with our families this holiday break.

We love you all and wish you a very happy New Year!