I made blueberry pies today.  I love baking.  It is my happy place.  These pies are my favorite.  The good thing is you can make them with almost any fruit.  Blueberries, strawberries, peaches, raspberries, etc.  You can adjust the spices as well.  Use more cinnamon in the topping or filling.  Or use nutmeg and cloves.  Use apples and cinnamon with a top crust instead of crumb topping.  The possibilities are endless!

Blueberry Crumble Pie

Crust:

1 ¼ C flour

¼ tsp salt

1/3 C shortening (Crisco)

4-5 T water

Filling:

½ C flour

½ C sugar

1 T cornstarch

4-6 C berries (6 C for deep dish)

Topping:

¾ C flour

¾ C sugar

6 T butter

Dash of nutmeg (or cinnamon or whatever you want-optional)

For the filling, toss together the flour, sugar, cornstarch and berries (you can adapt this to strawberries, peaches, etc).  Set aside.

For the topping combine flour, sugar (you can also use brown sugar), and nutmeg and cut in butter until pea size crumbs form.  Set aside.

Preheat your oven to 400.  For the crust combine flour and salt.  Cut in shortening until pea sized crumbs form.  Add 4 T water and stir to combine.  The dough should not be wet or sticky, but should hold together.  Add more water if needed.  Roll out on a floured surface to fit your pie dish.  Roll it up on the rolling pin to transfer to the pie dish.  Lightly press in to make sure it is flat in the corner and up the sides.

Pour your fruit filling into the unbaked crust.  Sprinkle topping over fruit.  Make sure all the fruit is covered with the topping.  Use all of it.  Put it on a cookie sheet to catch drippings and put it in the oven at 400 for 20 minutes. Then lower the temperature to 375 and bake for 40 minutes more.  If the topping isn’t browned after that you can broil it on high for just a few minutes (watch it so it doesn’t burn).  Enjoy with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream!

AMBROSIA CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
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1 c. butter
3/4 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. (12 oz.) Ambrosia semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a small mixing bowl, stir
together flour, baking soda and salt. In a large mixing
bowl, cream butter and sugars together until light and
fluffy. Add egg and vanilla. Beat well. Add dry ingredients
to creamed mixture and blend. Stir Ambrosia chips into
mixture. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball. Place
each ball 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake
for 10 to 15 minutes. Remove sheet from the oven and place
cookies on a cooling rack. Makes 3 dozen cookies.

Carol's Cornbread

This is my mother-in-law's cornbread recipe.  I only had it written down so I decided to blog it so I could pin it.  It comes out perfectly every time!

Pre heat oven to 375 degrees.  Spray 9X13 Pan and coat with sugar. Add 1/2 Cup Canola Oil, 1 Cup Sugar, 2 Eggs, 1 & 1/2 Cups Milk, 1 & 1/2 Cups of Flour, 1 Cup Cornmeal, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt. Mix it all together and pour in prepared pan. Bake for 35 minutes. Enjoy!

Pecan Crumb Crust

I tried to make a pecan shortbread crust for my pumpkin pie this year and failed miserably.  So I called my mom to get her recipe (which I should have done in the first place).  Here's what she gave me and it was so delicious I had to share. (also so I could pin it to Pinterest which is where all my recipes are now!)

1/2 C butter, softened
1/3 C brown sugar

1 1/4 C flour
1/2 C pecans, chopped
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp vanilla

Cream together butter and brown sugar.  Add in the rest of the ingredients and stir to combine.  Press into a 8 or 9 inch pie plate.  Pour in filling of your choice (pumpkin is delicious!).  Cover crust with foil around the edges and bake according to your filling recipe.

Enjoy!

Meagan's Poem

After a particularly hard day, Dan sat down with Meagan on the computer because Meagan wanted to write a poem.  This is what she wrote/sang:

Mom, I love you and you love me too.
Whenever I have any trouble I always call you and then you will help me.
Mom you help me cause you sleep every night,
You let me sleep in your bed and you sleep in mine,
So I won’t be scared in the dark in the night.
She loves me and I love her.
We will always go on a flower hunt each day and play in the park together,
She is mom and we will always go on any bug hunt finding insects everywhere,
We will go everywhere and we’ll be so happy.
And you’re my mooooom!
We will always make chocolate chip cookies together each day.
She is my love mom. 

It was exactly what I needed.  Being a mom is the best thing in the world.  Having Teague home and the whole family together is wonderful.  Yes, there are hard days but it is all worth it!  I'm realizing that our little ones won't be little for long!

If you want to see pictures of Teague and family, go here to Dan's blog.  http://according2dan.blogspot.com/

He's almost here!!

I'm not sure anyone even reads this blog since I am SOOOOO bad at posting.  But if you are interested, tomorrow we will be going to the hospital to have our baby!  I had an appointment today and my doctor said I am far enough along he wants to go ahead and deliver tomorrow.  He will be out of town and wants to be here for the delivery.  So, hopefully I will get to post pictures soon of our new little boy!  I can't wait to meet him and see what he looks like!  

Call Me Crazy

Although being from Arizona, I LOVE the snow.  When I lived there, I cursed every day I had to turn on the air conditioning in my car over Christmas break.  So when we moved here, I loved to see the trees change color and the peaks of the mountains accumulate snow.  Then it snowed at our own house and it was so beautiful.  The girls loved it.  I appreciated the cold weather, even if I had to shovel two feet of snow on our extra long driveway.  I watched the snow glitter as I threw it in the grass.  The whole winter Dan complained mostly because of his commute to work.  I hated to hear him complain.  Then I listened to others who were from here that hated it too.  It seemed like everyone wished it would stop snowing.  Then fast forward to today.  Today we had another snowfall.  We had to walk to church in near blizzard conditions, all 100 feet or so.  Granted it was tough for the kids but they had fun using their princess umbrellas and seeing the snow collect on their coats.  It only took us a minute or two to get to the church but I found myself asking if we should have taken the car.  Even then, I found myself reveling in the falling snow and smiling to myself.  Maybe my opinion will change in a few years, but it makes me sad to hear so many people complain of the wonderful phenomenon of snow and cold and cloudy skies.  I guess growing up in Arizona I had too many days of searing hot sun and soon the cloudy skies will get to me too.  But right now, I am thoroughly enjoying another blast of winter.  

This is our baby boy sucking his thumb.  And I constantly feel his kicks and punches now.  It's cute now but I'm sure in a few months I will be wishing he wasn't so active!

Am I lazy or is just it me?

I totally need to take down my Christmas decorations, but there is so much to do now that I can post pictures!!!  I have a ton from our trip to AZ, but I want to learn how to post a slide show first since there are so many pictures.  So today my goal is to clean up the house and pack away all the Christmas stuff and post a few slideshows.  I would be surprised if I get it all done!  :)  Here are a few of my favorite pictures.

Here's Fiona's cheesy smile and Meagan's posing.  
This is Rhys frosting cookies and his hair.  He loves this picture!  I'll post more later!

Transition

Ok, I'm back from a very long vacation to sunny Arizona where we spent lots of time with family and friends.  It was nice to visit and see everyone and enjoy the warm weather.  I hear we missed some very cold weather here too.  But it was fun to come home to the snow and now it feels like winter.  (I really love winter, call me crazy!)  So I have lots of pictures to post but I am in the middle of learning how our new Mac works (I grew up on a PC).  I can't seem to find our pictures, although I can view them on our computer, I can't transfer them to post.  Oh well, I'll get it figured out.  

Oh, and by the way, we found out today our baby that is due in June is a boy!  We got a picture of him sucking his thumb, and I promise to post it as soon as I find out how!  And don't even ask about names yet.  That is a tough negotiating process.  

Awwwwkward!

So we are now officially coming out with the news that we are expecting our 4th child!  So if you didn't already know, consider yourself in-the-know.  I am currently in the awkward stage of being between wardrobes where I have only 1 pair of pants and 1 skirt and just a few shirts to cover my fat tummy.  And it does look like fat, not a baby bump at all!!  And Dan is nice enough to tell me so too.  Nice huh?  I'm lucky enough to have a husband who tells me the truth and is always honest about what he thinks.  Which is good right?  Except when I want to hear something totally different.  But I'm sure I will appreciate this factor somewhere along the line.  Anyway, since we are going to Arizona for 2 weeks during the holidays I have the luck of being able to pack light with the few clothes that fit me and wear them every day.   Ah, the joys of pregnancy.  

My brother Dave and me at the concert.

Dan and I at the concert last night.

All of us!

Meagan at the Temple Lights.  

Help!

For those of you veteran bloggers, maybe you can help me.  I am trying to figure out how to post pictures as a post and not just on the side like I did with Meagan's picture.  What am I missing??  Thanks in advance for the help!

Tis the Season

Last night we went to the MoTab's Christmas Concert in the Conference Center.  Let me tell you; it is always a hassle to get there with getting a babysitter, leaving on time, finding parking, walking and waiting in line not knowing if you'll even get in even though you have a ticket, and just dealing with the HUGE crowds that are always there.  Anyway, we were successful and got in and enjoyed the awesome program.  The choir is spectacular and the guest singers/performers were amazing.  I'll post pictures of it and a couple of the kids.  

By the way, there is a huge snow storm starting right now so between the snow this morning and the concert last night, I am totally in the Christmas mood!!  Maybe I should do some baking today...(mmmmmmmmm)

It's Christmas!!

I have my Christmas lights up and the tree is decorated and I'm getting ready for my annual Baking Day.  So we were excited to go see Fiona's Christmas program at school.  Fiona would tell me every day how many more days until the play.  She couldn't wait.  We get her all ready and go find a seat in the gym.  The first thing we notice is how packed it was and we still had to wait almost 1/2 hour.  I guess that's good news since it was a fundraiser and the school was raking it in.  They eventually had to stop letting families in and decided to have an encore performance to accommodate everyone.  Sounds promising right?  Skip to the actual program now.  Each grade (the WHOLE grade) was on the stage so it was difficult to find your child in it all.  At least I could get a faint image of what I thought was Fiona.  I know other parents couldn't find their child at all.  Then halfway into the program you realize the whole program is some kind of environmental message of how we can save the world by using electric sleighs and fake trees and use the right kind of light bulbs.  Now I am all for doing our part to not ruin the earth, I just think there are other ways to do our part.  Somehow I don't think we'll change much by buying fake trees.  In making those trees, aren't we using energy and yucky plastic that is just as harmful if not worse than buying a tree that was grown at a farm and can be planted again and while it is growing is helping the environment?  Anyway, after the program I was disappointed because there were no traditional Christmas songs (they just used the tunes to write their own words to).  I certainly didn't feel the Christmas spirit from it at all.  So maybe next year the school will have learned a lesson not to mess with Tradition.  At least I won't donate so much to the "fundraiser" if I know they are going to do this kind of thing again.  

At least the kids had fun though eh?

My new Blog!

I wanted to set up my own blog and let Dan have his own. So we'll see how I do with this. If you have any suggestions please email me!!! I am new at this so bear with me.