Craziness abounds!!!

Life never slows down around here! With both adults in the house working at least a 40 hours a week and often more, plus Scouts for the older boys, School Board meetings for mom, Church callings and activities, and everyday family activities, it never stops! As I have said before, I do certain things to save some time...I make freezer meals, I prepare most necessary items for meal preparation on Saturday or Sunday afternoons. One thing that I rely heavily upon in my house is my Kitchen Aid mixer. I have had my Kitchen Aid for about 8 years, it will go for at least another 8, but I have really wished for the means to buy a bigger one with a lifting bowl. So, imagine my excitement when my grandma said she needed a new mixer! I told her that I could give her mine if I could find a great deal on a new, bigger one. An even better blessing came when my grandma said that she would buy mine from me. So, off to look on E-Bay I went. I found just what I wanted, red and all, and I bid on it. Oh how exciting it was to be the winning bidder, and all for only $220 with tax and shipping included! I got my new mixer today and I am sooooo excited to use it! The only bad thing? It doesn't fit on my counter under my cupboards, so it needs a new home. I use my mixer so much, that it isn't really practical to have it put away where I have to lift it up to the counter all the time, so I am going to have to think about where to put it. Until then, I will just have to do lots of baking. I made these yummy Cowboy cookies the other day...I think I will make them again tomorrow. Here is the recipe I used, with the changes I made noted at the bottom. (because I often make changes to recipes, that's how I roll):
Cowboy Cookies

Makes about 26 2-inch cookies.
ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/2 quick-cooking (not instant) rolled oats
1 1/2 cups Corn Flakes cereal
3/4 cup raisins
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips


In a bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a separate large bowl (or bowl of stand mixer), beat together butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until fluffy, about 1 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla.

Using a wooden spoon, stir in flour mixture until combined. Stir in oats, Corn Flakes, raisins and chocolate chips until well mixed together.

Drop by generous 1 Tbsp. balls, about 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. (* For more attractive cookies, flatten the balls by half and roughly shape into round circles. These cookies do not spread much and doing this gives a nice round, flat cookie as opposed to an irregular shaped, higher cookie).

Bake at 350° F. until edges and tops begin to brown, about 12-14 minutes. Leave to cool on the baking sheet set on a cooling rack. Once mostly cooled, remove from pan to the cooling rack to finish cooling.


I crushed the corn flakes. I used a full cup of raisins. I added 1 cup coconut. I added 1/2 cup peanut butter chips. I didn't do it, but I think that adding a little bit of wheat germ or a little bit of flax seed would be yummy too.

Enjoy! I will have to post some other recipes as I create with my new mixer.

I have survived....

I have survived several things in my 37 years...including earthquakes, floods and childbirth. As of today, I have survived 2 slumber parties in my house! I am fairly certain that is a huge accomplishment. The noise level during last night's balloon fight was something to be reckoned with. I survived it. Craft time and creating of one's own pizza? Survived it. Opening presents and treat bags? Survived it. Movies, popcorn, and sleeping? Survived it. Fun was had by all.

I made a pretty awesome camouflage cake with army tanks and guys on it. As soon as I figure out how to get the pictures off of my camera and on here, I will post.

One more day until Aidan turns 8, officially. Four more days until Aidan is baptized. Still have to find a pianist and decide on songs. Happy, happy days!!!

Crazy Fun Days.....

Through the last nearly 11 years of being a Mom, I have been a Stay at Home (working) Mom, a Work outside of the home, a part time stay at home/work outside the home mom, and a Full-time student/stay at home/work outside the home mom. I'm sure you see the trend there...I have been a Mom for nearly 11 years, and I have worked for many more than that! I am in a Work outside the home Mom stage now, and probably will be for the rest of my days. I am okay with it, probably because I have a job which allows me to have "Family Sick Leave" time, vacation time, and many holidays to be home with my boys. In fact, I took the whole week off this week, to be with the boys, and plan for Aidan's birthday and baptism. Let's just say that working outside the home is much easier than staying home! Don't get me wrong, I have great kids! It just takes much more energy to be home than it does to go to work each day.

Today's activities are a great example:

*Help Connor make breakfast for everybody, while doing dishes and cleaning the kitchen
*Clean the house, with help from boys (help=asking the boys to stay on task once every 5-10 minutes for 2 hours)
*Clean up the bathroom floor and part of the boy's room floor, using all but 2 towels in the house, after the toilet overflowed
*Make 2 different dishes for lunches for kids, while realizing that we were late getting Korbin to school
*Getting Korbin to school
*Errands in Eureka to get the remainder of birthday party supplies (I hope) and birthday presents (this included far more than I planned on spending at the Scout store!)
*Stop for Connor and Aidan to eat
*Picking up Korbin from Gaga and Pop's house
*Feeding 3 boys again, while they watch a movie

Still left on the list?
* Bake the cake and make the army colors frosting so that tomorrow I can make an "Army fighting" scenario come to life on the cake. (any idea how to make land mines?)
* Put together treat bags
* Clean the bathroom
* Fold mountains of laundry (including all those towels used to clean up the toilet water)
* maybe get some sleep

Being home takes much more out of me, but I am surely more rewarded by being with my children! I am grateful for each of them!

Summer Fun...New Experiences

So, I haven't blogged in awhile. I really think I need to try to be more like my friend, Cathy, who seems to get something on her blog everyday, at least a short something. I will try to get better...today I will post two things, because the two cannot go together.

We have been enjoying summer, the boys especially. The sun could have come out to stay sooner than the beginning of July, but ni modo, fun is to be had! While John and I are at work, the boys and Gaga get to play. Although, we did go camping over 4th of July weekend...that was a lot of fun!! But, with Gaga, they have fun trips to the river for swimming, visits to Mimi, and every Friday they have Friday night feast at Gaga's house. Friday night feast includes not only our boys, but Aidan's friend, Olivia and Connor's friend, Tanner. Gaga rotates the menu choice through each one of them, and they enjoy a variety of dinners each week. Our boys have one awesome grandma, let me tell you! We much appreciate her and all she does for us and the boys. And, we appreciate Pop for putting up with all the craziness too!

Part of the fun this summer has been a theater class that Connor and Aidan both participated in. During the school year, one of Connor's teachers suggested Connor might want to participate in the theater class that Ferndale Reparatory Theater offers each summer. Connor was really excited to be in the class. Aidan, on the other hand, originally asked if he could take a math class while Connor did the theater class. That would be our Aidan-Bug, he loves math!!! We did not find a math class, and Aidan decided, on the second day of class, that he wanted to take the theater class. Thanks to a scholarship, he was able to do so. They spent 3 days a week, 3 hours each day, for 4 weeks, developing two short plays. We got to see the results on Saturday night, and we absolutely loved it!!! We will most definitely be participating in the class again next summer. Connor is going to audition for Oliver in a couple of months and is fairly certain to go on to do great things on the stage! Aidan did a great job as a wizard and is a shining star as well.

We still want to go do some other things for the remaining 6 or so weeks of summer...maybe to Six Flags, maybe some more camping, maybe just relaxing....no matter what we do, we are certain to have lots of fun doing it!

We are going to miss Grandma and Grandpa!!

All of us with Grandma and Grandpa Annis
(can you believe how tall Connor is?)

Aidan with our newest family member, "Princess."

So, my dad and step-mother, Rhonda, came into town back in September. They have been living, along with their adorable dogs, Piper and Sophie, in their RV, in front of our garage. They were going to be here until after Connor's birthday in March, and we have loved having them here. Besides the fact that Rhonda has done almost 100% of the housecleaning and laundry since their arrival, the kids have just loved having their grandparents here that they don't see very often. After all, the last time we saw them was when Korbin was just a baby and now he's 3! Unfortunately, due to some issues back home, in Iowa, dad and Rhonda have to head back much sooner than expected. In fact, they will be heading out early Tuesday morning, and we are sad!!!!
Since grandma and grandpa are leaving we decided to go over to Mimi's house so that she could take some pictures of all of us. The last time they were here, we had pictures taken of the boys and grandma and grandpa Annis, so we wanted an updated version. The pictures turned out pretty good...thanks, Mimi!
We really will miss having grandma and grandpa Annis here and we hope they come back soon! Thanks for all the help while you have been here, we appreciate it! We hope you come back sooner rather than later, or that we can find a way to come to Iowa to visit. We will miss Piper and Sophie as well, but we are happy that we were able to enjoy this time with you!

Grandma and Grandpa Annis with the boys.

All of us again...what cute boys we have!

"My three sons!"
(goofy, as always.)