Regional Honor Choir 2008

Feeding the ducks

Snowflake Scrapbook Page

The Snow Caterpillar

Family Pictures 2007

Garden Page

July 4th 2007 Pages

Funny Jokes

I got these out of a "gross jokes" book at school. I love it!

What is red and green and goes 120 mph? A frog in a blender.
What's another name for a snail? A booger with a crash helmet!
Why don't elephants pick their noses? Because what can you do with a 20 pound booger?
What has two grey legs and two brown legs? An elephant with diarrhea.
What do you get when you cross an elephant with a box of laxatives? Out of the way.
What's yellow and smells like bananas? Monkey vomit.

Hope you had a good laugh, I know I sure did when I was first reading them. My favorite is definitely the snail one!

Glass Candy

Glass Candy

1 Pound Candy

Description:
This is a surprisingly easy recipe and takes practically no time at all. The candies are delicious, and they really do look like broken pieces of glass. A great holiday treat! They would make great windows for gingerbread houses as well.

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
¼ tsp cream of tartar
1 Tbsp extract or 1 tsp flavored oil
Liquid food coloring
Powdered sugar

Directions:
Butter sides of a large saucepan. Combine sugar, water and cream of tartar in pan. Stirring constantly, cook over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Using a pastry brush dipped in hot water, wash down any sugar crystals on sides of pan. Attach candy thermometer to pan, making sure thermometer does not touch bottom of pan. Increase heat to medium and bring to a boil. Cook, without stirring, until mixture reaches hard-crack stage (about 300-310 degrees). Test about ½ tsp mixture in ice water. Mixture will form brittle threads in ice water and will remain brittle when removed from the water. Remove from heat and stir in extract or oil and a few drops food coloring. Pour mixture onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Cool completely.Break candy into pieces. Roll pieces in powdered sugar, shaking off excess sugar. Store in an airtight container.

Prickly Pear Jelly

Since I've started using blogger, I haven't been using my old Multiply site, and I had a lot of great stuff posted there. So, I hope you all don't mind, but I am going to start posting some of my recipes and other fun stuff that I would like to have available. Enjoy! Here is my Prickly Pear Jelly recipe:

Prickly Pear Jelly

About 6 half-pints

I love making this jelly, which means that I pick the pears, cook them and mash them for the juice, strain it and then make the jelly. It is delicious!

Ingredients:
3 cups prickly pear juice
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 package powdered pectin
5 1/4 cups sugar

Directions:
Combine prickly pear juice, lemon juice and pectin in large pot (be sure to stir the pectin well until it desolves). Bring to boil and cook for 3 minutes. Add sugar and bring to a hard boil for 2 more minutes. Pour into half-pint canning jars. I usually don't use a water bath, I just simmer the lids and rings for a couple minutes and then seal them when the jelly first goes in the jar. The process of cooling will seal the jars.

Free Digital Downloads

Since I've gotten into digital scrapbooking, I have looked around to try to find free digital downloads to use on my pages. I found this great site that has some very cute free kits. They include papers, embellishments and sometimes an alphabet. Also, if you go to the blog section, they have a downloadable desktop wallpaper that you can add your own picture to, each month. They are really cute and so simple! If you want to try digital or if you already love it as much as I do, go check out Shabby Princess. If you have any great sites with free downloads leave a comment about it!

Secret Homemade Something

Here's how it works:
The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.
This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! But I'll try really hard.
2- It'll be done this year.
3- You have no clue what it's going to be, and neither do I, but I'm sure it'll be great :o)

The catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win an awesome homemade gift by me!

Don't eat the yellow snowman!

A few weeks ago, after the big snow that we had here, we took Jack to the softball field near our house so he could run around and play in the snow. He had a great time! I had all but forgotten about the pictures until today when I was looking through the folders on my computer, and I found this priceless gem! Just remember: Don't eat the yellow snowman! =)

YW Daily Challenge Reminder Card

I saw something similar to this online on an LDS idea website, and decided to design my own so that I could give them out to my Young Women at our New Beginnings. I think it is so cute, and thought I would share it with all of you! I actually have about 20 different styles, using different background paper.

Family Pictures Scrapbook Page

New (to us) frisbee golf course in Kingman

Last week, while riding the bus as part of my job, I noticed some frisbee golf baskets in a field near Mohave Community College. Now, when I say field, I really mean undeveloped land filled with Joshua trees and cholla cactus. It is called Cactus Flats after all. But, there was indeed a complete 18-hole disc golf course. I looked online on Saturday to find out more about it, and found directions to where the course is, including the location of the first tee. So, we decided to try it out! We brought Jack along, which ended up being not such a good idea as he ended up getting tons of goat heads and cholla needles stuck in his paws. We were constantly having to pull them out since he hasn't really figured out how to do that on his own. It is a fairly easy course, as far as minimal obstructions, and fairly level ground. We only did nine holes, but will probably try it out again and do the whole thing sometime soon. Yea, for disc golf!

Canning Chicken

My mom and I were able to purchase boneless skinless chicken breasts in bulk for a really good deal, so we decided to can most of it. It is so amazing how simple it is to can meat, so I will explain it really quickly here. We used pint jars.

If they will fit you can put an entire breast into the jar whole, or you can cut it up into chunks (it doesn't really matter because it will just fall apart after it's cooked).

Add 1/2 teaspoon salt to each pint. Some people add water to their chicken, but I've found that it tends to produce it's own juice & is plenty full, so I never add water. Leave about 1/2 inch of headspace.

Wipe the rim of each jar clean with a damp cloth. Put on the lids & rings and place in your pressure canner. We were able to double stack ours, putting a trivet in between the two levels.

Before

Pressure can for 75 minutes (90 minutes for quarts) at 15 pounds of pressure.
After the 75 minutes are up, turn off the stove and move the pot off the burner to cool. Do not release all the steam, just let it cool down naturally. My favorite pressure canner (pictured below) is the Presto 23-Quart Pressure Canner and Cooker Just click on the link to check it out on Amazon where it's a best seller!

During

Once the pressure is completely gone, open it up and you have cooked, canned chicken, ready for casseroles, tacos, quesadillas, soup and whatever else you want! It is so tasty, I could eat it straight out of the jar!
Before

After(Yeah, it looks a little gross, but it tastes wonderful!)

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day really isn't a huge deal to me. I'm not really sure why, since I do have a honey to love! Maybe it's because he is kind of hard to shop for and I never know what to get him. I love to make handmade, personalized gifts for people, but when it comes to Ammon I just draw a huge blank. So, when he asked me what I wanted for V-day, I really didn't have any ideas for him. What I really wanted was to just go to the temple for an endowment session. What a wonderful idea! What better place to celebrate the day of love than the place that makes it possible for us to make covenants that enable us to be together forever. It was a packed session (obviously I wasn't the only one with that idea), but it was so wonderful! There were a couple of engaged couples going through for their own, and also a soon-to-be missionary, so there was a bit of a celebratory feeling in the room. It was nice to sit, holding hands in such a beautiful place with the one person I love most! I think we may make this a tradition for each Valentine's Day!

Green Grocery Bags

I found a really neat pattern to make your own, cloth grocery bags. They even fold up into a pocket that you sew onto the outside. I have made two so far, one for me and the other for my secret pal at work. Check it out here. It doesn't take a huge amount of fabric, and they are actually made using a plastic grocery bag for a pattern, so they are the perfect size!

Berry Jam

I made a batch of blueberry jam last night, and it is so wonderful! It's also very easy! I did a third of the recipe and it made just over 1 1/2 pints.

(Blackberry, blueberry, boysenberry, dewberry, gooseberry, loganberry, raspberry, youngberry)

Yield: about 3 pints

9 cups crushed berries
6 cups sugar

Combine berries & sugar in saucepot. Bring slowly to a boil, stirring until sugar dissolves. Cook rapidly to gelling point. As mixture thickens, stir frequently to prevent sticking. Remove from heat. Skim foam if necessary. Ladle hot jam into hot jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Adjust two-piece caps. Process 15 minutes in boiling-water canner.
(I usually don't do a water bath for jams. I just heat the lids and rings in simmering water, then pour the hot jam into jars and put on the lids and rings.)