News!

We are excited to say that we are expecting our 4th child this July 1. Our girls are excited especially Gabby who is hoping for a brother. Samantha, who doesn't like boys as stated so clearly over Christmas when she had too much of her cousin Samuel, is hoping for another sister. We're unsure of whether Katherine is aware of any of this but suspect she may be. Mom and dad also hope for a boy but of course are happy with either. We mainly just hope the baby is healthy and happy.

(The photo above is actually of Gabby as a newborn. I thought it would be fitting.)

Yummy Easy Turkey Pot Pie - Dairy Free

I made this really yummy turkey pot pie the other day. Just kind of threw it together and it turned out wonderful. Best of all it was dairy-free! If you don't care about it being dairy-free just use regular milk products instead.

Filling:
Leftover pieces of roast turkey
sliced vegtables, frozen are the quickest. I used grean beans and carrots

Sauce:
1/2 c diary free butter (Smart Balance with Flax Oil is dairy free)
1/2-3/4 c flour - depending on how thick you like your sauce
3 c rice milk
salt and pepper
favorite seasoning for chicken/turkey
**For the sauce, my measurements are approximate. I didn't actually measure anything. Sorry. It's just a basic white sauce recipe.

Crust:
2 c. Bisquick
1 c. rice milk
2 eggs

Put filling ingredients in quantities that you like in a 9x13 pan. Whisk flour into cold milk and add butter. Cook until it starts to thicken and add salt pepper and seasonings to taste. When thick, pour over filling.

Mix crust ingredients. Will be about the thickness of pancake batter. Pour over filling. Don't worry, the crust will fluff up and be wonderful!

Bake at 400 for 30 minutes or until crust is nice and golden and filling is bubbly. Let cool a few minutes for sauce to rethicken a bit and enjoy!

Shut Up and Smile

So Mike has given me a theme song. It's Shut Up and Smile: Bowling for Soup. I haven't really had a theme song before and it's kinda fun when someone else picks one out for you. I like it. Even the name alone is something I wish I could shout out sometimes when people get to worrying and forget about the more important things that life is about. Stress really stresses us out! Time to relax and just smile. Count your blessings. Give someone a hug. Eat some icecream. (Oh, and for those of us who don't - shock - drink, put the word "root" before "beer" and you have a song you can sing along to as well :))

Check out this video someone made to the song.

Ward Christmas Party Dec 13, 2008

Katherine and Alan at our ward Christmas party last Saturday. They decided to be different this year and do breakfast with Santa. I like breakfast. It was pretty yummy! But I do miss the caroling and the spiritual aspects of ward Christmas parties that weren't there that day. Not even a little pageant. But the kids really had fun.





The kids had story time. They were read to by our very own Colin Fife. He's a cool dude I have to say! He did a very fine reading of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas".









Sister Rebilas also read to the kids. It was a quiet story so they had to gather close.



Sis. VanSciver recited from memory "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and then in walked Jolly Ol' St. Nick and his merry wife Mrs. Claus!


The kids were excited but probably not as much as Gabby because she was the very first in line to meet him! She was so excited that when she sat down she couldn't keep her legs still. She was just kicking for sheer joy!




Gabby and Santa seem to be in a deep thought provoking conversation.









Katherine was pretty scared of Santa.




But she tolerated him as long as mommy was there to grab hold of. And she got a candy cane out of it. That made her happy.

We couldn't get Samantha to sit with Santa at first but I think she saw that Katherine survived so she did the same as long as dad held her. By that time the camera dude a.k.a Mike had wandered off. But that's okay. Samantha also enjoyed getting a candy cane. Maybe Santa isn't so bad afterall.

The kids had a closing activity making foam picture frames that they put their picture with Santa in. That was a wrap and we were off to get our Christmas tree which is a story for a later post. It's getting late and I must head to bed now, to post another day.

So I thought I'd try out blogging...

As the title says, I thought I'd give this a try. I have read some fun blogs by friends and acquaintances and I think this is a really great way to do some journaling that is fun and less work and mess than say, scrap booking. Which leads me to say that I was going to try that too but still have yet to do so. I like this better. I wonder if I can print my pages to keep in a book? That might determine whether this becomes valuable to me or not. So, as I titled my blog these are just a bunch of ramblings. Sometimes interesting, not necessarily frequent or consistent but that's okay. We'll see how things go. I'll write as I think of things and as my little midgets, sorry princesses, allow.



So a little bit about myself. I am a stay-at-home mom and currently NOT in school. But my husband IS - and has been for, oh, about 8 years of our 11 year marriage. Thankfully he is done this May, maybe, unless he decides to extend into the Summer (lets hope not). I told him he'd better run really fast if he goes back to school again after this program is done. Besides, it's my turn. :) Well, sort of. I'd like to not take too much on since we have small children at home. I tried that with Gabby when she was a toddler and it was hard enough missing parts of her development. Not to mention finding and affording childcare for her. But I would really like to go back to the County College and take some music classes. I feel this need to learn piano better. I think our ward could use a couple more pianists and I'm still barely at the Primary book level. The couple of pianists we have are burned out and busy. Plus I am really enjoying directing choir but I am learning as I go and would like to have more on my belt. I also had fun singing with the college choir a few years ago and would love to do that again. But who knows whether I'll be able to do these things or not. We'll see.



I have 3 sweet and very independent little girls. All with their own unique and lovely personalities. Gabby is the oldest at 7 1/2 and she's in 2nd grade. She is pretty smart too. She has been invited to take part in the gifted and talented program here and it looks like they'll get to do some fun and exciting activities over the year. Wish I could do some with her. Maybe I'll get to as I participate and volunteer there. Then we have Samantha at 3, almost 4. She definitely knows what she wants. She's more quiet and observant of her surroundings than G but she will let us know when she wants something a certain way. She's also fully into the princess/ballerina stage. I had plans to teach her home school preschool only because preschool is so darned expensive. I haven't started yet but plan to soon. Our youngest Katherine is 1 1/2 years. She hasn't hit the princess stage yet but is getting there. She loves shoes and can often be seen walking around in her mom's or grandma's shoes, pushing a little stroller around. She also loves phones. I give her Alan's old cell sometimes to play with but she has also been seen talking on remote controls and calculators. :) She's starting to talk too and it's fun when she's discovered a new word. Especially when upon uttering the word she gets what she wants more quickly.



(Whoa, random thing here. I love listening to Pandora.com when I am sitting at the computer. I just heard an ad! That's new! At least it was like 5 seconds. I'll forgive that.)



Well, that's all for now. I'm sure more will come up later but I'm gonna go play with the look of my blog and see what else I can do. (Oh cool, I knew I could add pictures but it looks like I can add video too)