Catching Up with Friends

We still haven't forgiven the Simmons family for moving away over 5 years ago. They lived next door to us, and we've known each other since we each only had 2 kids. Scott was David's home-teaching partner, and then his 1st Counselor in the Bishopric. Their kids are all the same gender and ages as our kids, and best friends. Our kids would pretty much decide which Mom's meal they preferred and they ate at each others houses often. We shared plants, tools, movies, food, pools, swingsets, and trampolines. We celebrated many birthdays together, carpooling, sleepovers, barbecues and campouts. We had somewhere to leave our kids when we had to go somewhere (or sometimes just left the baby monitors with each other while a child slept).

It was perfect.

Then Scott got a job transfer and they moved away. It left a big hole in our lives that hasn't been filled since. We've tried to keep in touch, but it's just not the same. Two years ago we went to Disneyland together on vacation and had a blast. But since then we've only seen each other about once a year, so we haven't been doing very good at keeping in touch. So we were determined to get together for the Christmas break.

On December 29th we met Kim and the kids at Discovery Gateway in SLC. We had never been there before. It was so sad at first to see the kids all so shy with each other because they hadn't seen each other very often, but it didn't take long for them to get reacquainted. Kim, David and I stayed with the 4 younger boys while Logan and Tyler, and Stauney and Kierra went off on their own.

This is Evan on the rock wall. This was a great place for the boys.

Ryan (on horse) with Travis and Noah waiting for their turns to pose for me.


We found the 'big boys' building upstairs. They were really good sports for being there -the place was packed with tons of little kids. I do think they found enough to have fun with though. I know they spent a lot of time in the water area after this.

After a while we all retired to the craft room to play with Play-doh while we waited for Scott to get off work.

Then we all headed for the food court to eat. We didn't realize that a Jazz game was going on that night also, so everywhere was packed. We thought we hit the jackpot when we found a big table where all 12 of us could all sit together to eat. Thank you to the guy who pointed out that someone had just thrown up under it. I guess we weren't so lucky, but we managed to maneuver around it.

Then we walked over to Temple Square to see the lights. The kids were cursing me for making them dress so warm. It was a really warm night and Logan carried his coat most of the time. That really was lucky. I don't remember ever seeing the lights on Temple Square before and being warm.

The blue-eyed brunette and the brown-eyed blonde. Kierra and Stauney are both getting so grown-up! They started their friendship at age 4 and their birthdays are just a couple of weeks apart. Even though they don't see each other often, Stauney still calls Kierra her best friend.

All the mirrored lights were beautiful in the reflection pond.



Our families.

The lights were beautiful, as always. While we were listening to the nativity, Evan was on David's shoulders and yelled out very loudly, "Guys, we already know this story!"

I felt very lucky to get this picture of the Christus without any people in it. It was SO crowded there that we didn't stay for the presentation because we could hardly move.

We sat to rest for a while around the paintings area. I had a nice chat with some sister missionaries, one from Canada and one from an island I had never heard of so I don't remember where it was. The second also has three brothers and is the only girl like Stauney and Kierra.

And of course, the beautiful temple. I love the colors that showed on it from the reflection pool.

We hopped on Trax for one stop while we headed back to our cars at the Gateway. It was also the first time we had ridden Trax. The kids loved it so I'm sad it was such a short ride. Just as we got into the car we heard that the Jazz game was ending and saw people start pouring out of Energy Solutions arena. I yelled to David, "Get out of town quick!" We beat the traffic.

It was great to spend time with the Simmons' and we vowed that every two months this year we would take turns meeting at each other's houses where we would leave the kids and the adults would head to dinner. Plus there needs to be a campout in there somewhere. They are great friends and we feel blessed to know them. Travis has started calling us their cousins, and that's how we feel - like family.

Stauney and Kierra were trying to do some serious newscasts, but their brothers weren't helping any. Here's my attempt at posting a video. I was standing at a distant TV screen so they didn't know that I was recording them, that's why there's no sound except for background noise and me laughing.

Christmas Eats, Treats and Feats

You know the line in It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas where it says, "...and Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again..."? Stauney asked me if that was true and I told her we'd have to wait and see. It's true. All these new toys and new snow on the ground and a new sled and yet everyone keeps complaining to me that they are bored! I'm at a point in my life where I'm thrilled when I'm bored because it means I don't really have anything I have to do right then (although I always have something I should be doing). So to my children I say - be happy to be bored occasionally because it doesn't happen much as you get older.

I remember complaining to my Dad as a child about how time dragged by and he told me, "The older you get, the faster it goes." He was so right. Time passes by so quickly. This whole season I could hardly believe it was Christmas time already, and now it's over. So here are just a few things from our Christmas season which passed by so quickly I didn't get photos of some of it.

Evan drew this cute picture of me and him and we had to get a photo of it before it got erased. It's so cute it warms my heart to look at it!

Hooray for new snow to get the boys out of the house! They attempted to build an igloo, but kept getting distracted with snowball fights. They're sitting in what they got built and our dog Chloe is jumping on Noah's friend Kelson. Chloe loved having them out there too so she could kiss anyone who fell on the ground. I think they like going outside more as an excuse to come in and drink more cocoa.

New recipe: CAKE BALLS

While the boys were outside playing Stauney and I were busy inside making food and treats for some neighbors and the family party the next day. This was a recipe I found on allrecipes.com that looked really good and sounded really easy. You bake a cake mix, crumble it into a bowl while warm, and mix in a can of frosting. You can mix any flavors you want to, we wanted to do red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, but couldn't find a red velvet mix, so this is a photo of the mix of cherry chip and cream cheese frosting.

Pack the mix tightly into a scoop then roll it lightly between your hands an place the balls on a tray. We used a 1" scoop. We also did a devils food cake with milk chocolate frosting. Each cake mix made about 70 cake balls. Then refrigerate (or freeze) them to harden the balls.

Then you melt almond bark or candy coating and dip the balls in them. We did some of each kind of cake in each coating. I got a little lazy on the drizzling, so they look messy, but we were ready to be done. This was an easy recipe, but it took hours to dip them all. They turned out pretty though, and were a big hit at the family party.

Here's a photo of all the Moon grandchildren. And thanks to the magic of Photoshop they are all in it and (mostly) smiling. Aimee had just gotten home from New Jersey that morning, yeah! We had a fun party, playing games, eating and visiting and more eating, and some really silly games, and even more eating.

Christmas eve cookies for Santa. The kids all in their new jammies and Christmas socks. This is by the kids' tree where they decorated underneath it with the Lego train and a Lego village they built on the train table. They decorated the tree without help this year and it's very unique!

And one final recipe.
Whenever I do something the kids really like it has to become a new tradition whether I want to keep doing it or not. I made the french toast Christmas trees about 6 years ago for the first time an have been doing it ever since. Last year I told the kids it took too much time and I didn't want to spend that much time in the kitchen on Christmas morning so I made a breakfast casserole instead. It did not go over well. They didn't like, didn't eat it and kept reminding me how much they love the french toast Christmas trees. I got the hint. They were back this year, and will stay from now on, with their sausage trunks and orange slice suns too.

So here's the recipe: not for the french toast, but for the Lil' Smokies we used this year for trunks. We usually heat them in grape jelly, which is really good. But, Christmas morning we discovered we had no grape jelly - and we are so glad!!! We started searching for a substitute and decided to try cranberry jelly instead with a little orange juice. It was so good! We will now make that a tradition and look forward to trying them for other occasions as well.

We also enjoyed the kids in their Christmas concerts. Logan played his trumpet in the band concert, Evan sang with the kindergarten in the school assembly and Stauney and Noah performed in the school choirs three times. We are proud of them all and the hard work they put into their practices. They all did a wonderful job.

We had a fun Christmas morning and Santa must have decided the kids were good. They got books, clothes (Evan was not happy about getting underwear for Christmas), new Wii games, new Webkinz, and plenty of toys. Evan said, "I think I got everything I had on my list!" Noah was so excited that Santa came through with the hard-to-find Bakugan game that he asked for. Logan and Stauney were immediatley immersed in their new books that they were dying to read, Makeover (Stauney), and books 4 and 5 of The Ranger's Apprentice (Logan).
Their new Wii games are My Sims Kingdom, De Blob and Wii Music. If you have a Wii, you have to get Wii Music! It is so much fun and we laughed so hard at the music videos we made. They were all really fun games and we spent 2 days in our jammies just playing and watching new videos. On Christmas day we cooked a turkey with all the trimmings but felt so weird sitting down to eat such a nice meal in our pajamas.

We are now looking forward to the new year and our party with the Hansens. We'll keep you posted on that soon.

Fun with Snow and Photoshop

I hope everyone had a wonderful and safe Christmas like we did. It's been a tradition to take a photo of our Christmas lights outside every year. But when my husband reminded me of it tonight I was thinking of skipping it due to the new foot of snow we got that hasn't been cleared. I'm so glad I didn't because I got some really neat snowy photos and hopefully my camera (and fingers) will recover from the cold. I had to come in and download my camera to see what I got, and of course I had to mess with a few in Photoshop Elements. So here are the results!

I liked this one with the colored lights making a rainbow of colors underneath the snow on our spruce tree. I did a dry brush filter on it.


I didn't do anything to this photo. It's of a snowflake light decoration hanging on our house.

The railing up to our front porch has a garland and white lights on it. And now a foot of snow too! I did a soft white blending mode on a duplicate layer and I think a slight paint daubs filter.

Soft white and poster edges for our house light.

Didn't do anything to this one either. So glad it focused on the icicle for me.

Frosty fake poinsettias in the planter on the porch. Soft white and water paper filter.

This one I took Monday. They're not partridges, but they are blackbirds in our pear tree.
Soft white and poster edges (I think).

Merry Christmas!

We hope you are all having a great holiday season. Ours is very busy which is why I haven't been blogging. Just wanted to take a moment though to post this and wish you all a

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from David, Kristyn and kids!

Some 5* Perfected Recipes

Wow, this month really went by fast and the holidays are upon us. But these photos don't go with December, so here's my final fall post.

I like chili, but I didn't love it until I tried this recipe. I have tried making a few chili recipes over the years, but this is now a favorite that we make often. I'll officially call it Aunt Donna's chili since David's mom got it from her sister, but we call it Grandma Hansen's chili. Funny how recipes get re-named after the person who gives it to you. I add 2 more cans of chili beans when I make it so that it goes further for my family, and I like having leftovers. I have never remembered to buy bay leaves, so I haven't ever put those in, I usually use dried diced onions if I don't have fresh, and I add more chili powder.

Aunt Donna's Chili

1 1/2 to 2 lbs. ground beef
1 onion, chopped

Brown, then add:
1 can chili beans
1 can diced tomaotes
2 small cans tomato sauce plus 2 cans water
1 pkg. spaghetti sauce mix
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. chili powder
2 bay leaves
Cook slowly until thickened, usually about 1/2 hour, uncovered. Stir often. Remove bay leaves.

Somewhere in our move 4 1/2 years ago, I lost my favorite sugar cookie recipe. I had tried others with limited success (especially the batch David helped Stauney make where they added powdered sugar in place of the flour and wondered why it wouldn't thicken.) So in a search last Christmas for a great sugar cookie recipe I found this one on Allrecipes. I love that site because I love to read the ratings and see how people liked it and what they would change. I recently made these to take visiting teaching in November. I will post my favorite icing recipes also. These are iced with royal icing that I outlined and flood-filled, but I have a favorite soft frosting recipe also from Allrecipes. These cookies are crispy on the outside, but soft and melt-in-your mouth on the inside. And they are really easy! The royal icing hardens up just enough to place them on a plate without the cookies sticking together, but stays soft inside. The green ones in the photo are still wet and that's why they are shiny.
My Grandma Lindsay's sugar cookies will always have a place in my heart, my recipe binder, and my stomach, but these are my favorite sugar cookies for decorating. Try them and enjoy!

The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies
allrecipes.com

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar (can add up to 1 more cup for a sweeter cookie if you don't plan to frost them)
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Cream butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover and chill dough for 1 hour in the fridge or overnight. (I throw it in the freezer for 1/2 hour).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet 1 inch apart.
Bake 6-8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely. (I bake mine up to 10 min. depending on the thickness. Bake until the edges start to turn brown.)
Makes about 4-5 dozen depending on size.

Royal Icing

8 tsp. merengue powder + 8 Tbsp. water = 4 egg whites (I've always used the powder for food safety)
5 cups powdered sugar (plus more for thickening)
1/2 to 1 tsp. lemon extract
food coloring to tint
Whisk the merengue powder and water until smooth and bubbly. Add powdered sugar and extract. Separate some into another bowl to thicken for outlining. Add more powdered sugar until it will hold a peak on your spoon. The flooding frosting may need to be thickened some more also so it will run together, but not be too runny. Place in decorating bags with a small round tips. (The lemon extract makes this fabulous, so don't go without! The only real trick to this is to get the icing the right consistency for outlining and filling. Outline and let dry before filling.)


Sugar Cookie Frosting
allrecipes.com

4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup shortening
5 Tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
food coloring
Cream together sugar and shortening until smooth. Gradually add milk and vanilla and mix with an electric mixer until smooth and stiff, about 5 minutes.

Sorry, but I forgot to take a photo of the next recipe, but I'm sure you know what a pumpkin roll looks like.

For the Stake Presidency/visiting speakers dinner after Stake conference last Sunday I was assigned a dessert to make. My last food assignment had problems and was a flop (only to me I'm sure), so I was determined to show the other wives that I could cook. I searched allrecipes.com again for a 5* pumpkin roll recipe and found one that looked promising. Actually I found 2, but used the ingredients from one (Granny Kat's) and the directions from the other(Pumpkin Roll II). I made this recipe 4 TIMES last Saturday before I finally felt like I had it perfected and good enough to present. So I took the best 2 to the dinner and took the other 2 to Thanksgiving to share with my family, who could care less what they looked like. Turns out, once you slice them, they look pretty, and they taste so good, who cares what they look like! But I feel like I redeemed myself. I dusted powdered sugar on the plates, put a slice of pumpkin roll, some chocolate shavings, and a scoop of Dryers Vanilla Bean ice cream. Oh boy it's good!
So here's the combination of recipes, and my instructions so we'll call it:

The Perfected Pumpkin Roll

1 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. lemon juice
1 cup pumpkin puree
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
(1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice = 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. ginger, 1/8 tsp. nutmeg, 1/8 tsp. cloves)
powdered sugar for dusting

Filling:
1 (8 oz.) package cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a 10"x15" jelly-roll pan with parchment paper. Grease and flour the paper completely.
Cream eggs and sugar about 2 minutes until fluffy. Blend in lemon juice, pumpkin, spices and baking soda. Slowly add flour and blend just until mixed. Pour the mixture into prepared pan and spread evenly.
Bake for 15 minutes. (Here's where I had problems with my first 2. Bake until the top starts to brown slightly and springs back to the touch. I didn't bake the first ones long enough and they stuck to the towel. I baked my perfect one about 21 minutes, but it depends on your oven.)
Lay a linen towel on the counter and sprinkle it generously with powdered sugar (not lightly like they tell you). Turn the cake onto the towel. Carefully roll the towel up with the cake in it. (Lengthwise if you want a small roll, widthwise if you want a big one). Place the cake-in-towel on a cooling rack and let cool completely (no peeking, that's where I messed up #3, it cracked. Mine took about 40 minutes).
Make the icing in a bowl with a mixer.
When the cake has cooled, carefully unroll it, spread the icing on it, and re-roll it without the towel. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate before serving (or it squashes) or you can freeze it for up to 2 weeks in foil. (I froze mine and let them thaw on the plates while we ate.) Cut the cake in slices, thick or thin. Serves about 10-15.


I hope you try and enjoy my recipes! I also made Apple Carmel Sundae Tart from kraftfoods.com for our friends' Pie Preview the night before Thanksgiving. Everyone brings pie and we sit around and chat and eat WAY too much pie, but oh, how we look forward to it every year! Anyway, this pie is very simple and quick to make, very tasty and will be added to my favorites. The Cherry Danish Dessert is also a 5* favorite of our family.

I'm thankful for good food, but mostly for my wonderful family and friends I have to share it with. You're the reason I enjoy baking.

Fall Projects

I'm finally getting around to posting the photos of my fall projects. I have more projects in the works, but here's what I have done so far:
When we first moved in this area leading up to the front door was overgrown with huge rosebushes that you could barely walk past without getting scratched. We took those out and I cut the grass out and added a few flowers, but this spring I sprayed the grass the rest of the way to the sidewalk to add this path. David and the kids helped me dig and till for many evenings. We tried to get the rocks laid before we left for Hawaii, but ran out of time, then fair, school, etc., so I finally got back to this project and spent days pulling the weeds that had filled it in and getting the rocks in. I'm really happy with it. I pulled some perennials out of my summer pots and put those in the ground and a neighbor gave me some starts of peonies, and coreopsis. Next spring I'm starting phase 2 of the front yard landscaping which will be to make a courtyard near the front door and I will move more flowers to this bed from that area.

Then I took a fun break for UEA weekend and went to the Ogden dinosaur park with the kids. We love going around Halloween to see the fun decorations and it's such a pretty fall setting. In the museum a man spent around 30 minutes teaching us about rocks and gemstones. Logan, Stauney and I were fascinated by all he taught us. Noah and Evan were a little impatient. Evan was looking out the window at the dinosaurs and said, "If we don't get out of here soon, I'm going to break this window and jump out to get to those dinosaurs."

Posing by the pumpkins. After the dino park, we went to Smith and Edward's in Willard to look for Halloween costume items. The kids had so much fun trying on the old military surplus stuff. They thought it was the greatest store ever. For those of you not familiar with the store, their motto is "We have it if you can find it."

I'm so glad my Mom was up and helped Evan and I pick the grapes from our neighbor's grape vines. There were a lot. It was a cold morning and we were freezing, but Evan was so excited about helping to pick them.
I got about 30 quarts of grape juice from them. This was the first time I have done white grape juice and the colors are so weird. These bottles are from the same batch. They started out light and got darker toward the end. The grapes were really sweet though and the juice is great.

The kids and I also picked 2 bushel of pears from our tree, but I can't seem to find those photos so I think they are on a different memory card. They will have to wait until I get well enough to make them into jam.

Mario Party 6

I stayed up until midnight finishing grape juice because the next day was our Ward Halloween party and I had to get costumes made. Noah came up with this idea when he said he wanted to be Mario for Halloween. It just ballooned from there and we ended up with the whole family as Mario characters: Mario, Luigi, Waluigi, Wario, Princess Peach and Princess Daisy. We won best costumes at the party, and while I was sewing Logan made David's Aunt Donna's chili recipe to take and won 2nd place in the chili cook-off. I'll post the recipe later, it's really good and easy!

The rusty railing before.

I've been wanting to re-paint this railing since we moved in and a recent spell of warm weather convinced me it was time to get it done. Since I hadn't used the textured paint before I under-estimated how much I needed and ended up running to the store 3 times to get more.

The finished railing!

I used Rust-oleum multi-colored textured paint and I'm really happy with how it turned out. But I could have used 2 instead of the 6 cans I ended up using if I would have painted it brown first with the textured paint over that.

The dresser before.

My SIL Karen has started refinishing furniture and had bought this dresser but decided not to use it. She sold it to me and told me what I needed to buy to refinish it. It was a pale green color and was in good shape other than the old paint finish. It was a little scary at first to start sanding it, but after I got the hang of the sander I really enjoyed doing it. The paint went on well, and with Karen's great tips it all went good.

And here's the finished dresser.

It was my husband's idea to do it pink. Stauney loves it! It is a really sturdy dresser and will be great for her room. It was missing 3 handles, so we found these cute small ones to put on the top drawers and I painted all the handles with a brown hammered steel paint.We are going to do her room in pink and brown soon. I sold her full-sized bed to my parents for their guest room and we are going to get a twin bed for her room so she'll have more space.

We are thinking of starting a little business re-finishing furniture, so tell me what you think of it. She did a similar dresser and mirror in a lime green paint with brown stain that is just beautiful. Thank you Karen for sharing your knowledge and experience with me.