Les Miserable Weekend...

Last night Bryan and I had tickets to "Les Miserables" in Omaha. Before the show we wandered around in Old Market. I saw this in a store and thought of Ashley and how much she would dislike this product. And then I just couldn't figure out who would use this or why. Ok, maybe one teacher the girls used to have but otherwise...

"Les Miserable" is my all time favorite Broadway musical. And it didn't disappoint. When we sat down there were three empty seats in front of us and Bryan said to me "What we need to sit here are short people." In walks, seriously, the shortest little family ever. We cracked up. But hey, it was wonderful. I, however, had "Girl who needed to use her cell phone as a flashlight, during a very intense moment, to read her program because they missed the first act" sitting by me.

Today I had Esprit.

Yes, we are back to this. 75 kids. 

Tonight and tomorrow I have stage crew and Bobbi is on worship. 

I always like it when we are on together on a weekend.

And after church tomorrow we are going to go to the Norris High School production of...

that's right "Les Miserable". Most of the kids that are in Esprit and go to Norris are in the play and Jill is the director so it should be fun. 

Happy 20th Birthday, Jayme...

Wow, 20 years ago today there was a blizzard and Jayme Lyn was born. So in honor of her...a photo montage of Baby Jayme...

Just a few minutes old.

Our happy little family. She has some pretty adorable older sisters.

Her mother, however, was still in her "I have really short hair and wear big plastic earrings" phase.

Her father still has that pair of Nebraska sweats...

Seems really excited about Easter.

Yes, that is Bobbi and Ashley! Aren't they adorable too?

This was Jayme's first birthday. She did love this playhouse that Bryan built for the girls. I cried when I realized that we couldn't move it to Lincoln with us. 

Had to put this one in since Jillian would have just turned 20 last month. Such cute, curly headed girls and I don't mean the moms.

Always the entertainer, going for the laughs at the table.

She called these dolls "Hattie" and "Bryan" Not sure why she couldn't get my name right...

Look her dad is thrilled to have his picture taken. They both still make those faces at me when I take pictures of them. 

What a little cutie. 

                                     Still little, still a cutie!

We love you, Jayme.

p.s. I had to take pictures of pictures to get these so they are a little grainy. 

New Cookie Cutters!!

Can't wait to try them out.

New Chicks on the Acreage...

Today Amiah and Hudson went with me to Tractor Supply to get some new chicks. They decided on the way that they wanted to name them. I was only going to get 3 but apparently they have a rule at the store that you have to buy no less than 6 so...

 Amiah named this one Shorty. 

She named two more, Reddy and Fluffy.

 Hudson named this one Grapple Fork.

He named two others, Bucket and Hay Bale.

I let the kids traumatize the chicks for awhile then I brought them home to their own little box house.

These Ladies make me smile

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Horse sense...Really?

I heard the horses making quite a lot of noise so I went out to see what the problem was. It turned out that Dakota had gotten himself into an area that Bryan had fenced off to protect some trees from the horses destroying them. Ironic, since Dakota was in there trampling them in his panic to get out. So I had to call Bryan, since I had no idea how to get him out of there. How he got in is beyond me. Anyway, Bryan told me to remove the fence from the corral and just let him out so I went out, undid the top wire with no problem, unless you count a 1200 lb. horse pushing on your shoulder in anxiety a problem, then with one problem. The second one was tighter and wouldn't let go yet so I moved to the electric fencing and just had to break that at the connection, then on to the third wire. The third came off no problem, not counting, again, anxious horse, so back to the second one. Well, you know how when something is strung tight and has been curled up in a former life and you release it and it springs back all over the place? Good thing I had my glasses on. That's all I have to say about the second wire. So, wires down, Dakota standing right by me, open space in front of him, does he run free? NO, he stands there leaning like there is still wire in front of him and I have to coax and prod and push and pull and he won't move. Mr. Anxious-to-get-out, can't even figure out that there is no fence in front of him anymore. Finally, Montana runs up to see what is going on and the light bulb came on and off he went. Leaving me to re-attach the fence. Ungrateful horse.

Spring Ritual...

Every spring the boat goes back in the water and Bryan put it back in on Sunday.  Very cold (and has been) for late April. Which doesn't do much for inducing a person (me), who fishes to get a tan and it's a bonus if I catch something, to go fishing. When the mercury gets past the "frost on the lilies" stage I will go out. Until then, coffee on the patio by the fire is my chosen outdoor activity. And that's just what I was doing while Bryan was putting the boat in.

Recipe time!

Mainly because I have had so many people ask me what my sugar cookie recipe is I will post it here and let you all in on the deliciousness and fun.
I found this recipe in a magazine, when I was on my almost never ending search for a sugar cookie recipe that held the shape of the cookies you cut out when they were baked. My frustration with going to all the work of cutting out shapes only to have them bake into blobs was getting the better of me. Not only does it hold the shape of the cutter when baked, they are delicious! So...

1 cup softened room temp. butter (Probably needs to be butter. I have never tried with anything else so ...)
1 & 1/2 cups sugar
Cream butter and sugar together really well in a mixer, while it is creaming, melt 6 oz. of white chocolate chips. When melted, mix into butter and sugar and cream well again. Add in 2 large eggs and 2 tsp. vanilla, cream some more. Turn off the mixer, put in 4 cups flour and 1/2 tsp. salt. Mix in but don't over mix. Use this dough immediately, because of the chocolate in it don't put it in the fridge, it gets really hard. It is wonderful to work with though and bonus, there is no wait time. For the cookie pops I roll it out to 1/2" - 3/8" thick on a floured surface, cut the shape out, lift it up, insert the stick and place on ungreased baking tray. Bake these for 14 minutes at 350. Don't pick the hot cookies up by the stick, let them cool on racks completely.
For cut out cookies I roll it out to about 1/4" thick or a little more and bake those 12 minutes at 350. I remove them immediately to cooling racks.

Well, there you have it, my sugar cookie recipe.

Enjoy.

Happy Easter!

We were a small group today. Bobbi is in Spain with Ashley, which is wonderful. Jayme was here with us and we ate lunch at Dad and Mom's. Jayme took a picture of us.

Then Bryan and I stopped over at Alicia and Jon's to visit with Bruce and Cheryl for a little while. It was nice to see all of them.

Cookies and Eggs...

I was making a strawberry pie for Easter and needed a sugar cookie crust so I made a batch of dough and only needed about a third of it. So, of course, I cut out some egg shapes and Jayme came out after work and we decorated them. Also, if you have never eaten at our house around Easter, we dye eggs but instead of dying the shells we peel them and dye the whites then make deviled eggs with beautiful colors.

 So we did that, too.

 Here's all our designs.

 Matching the dye color to the Fiesta cups was half the fun.

 Oh, they taste as good as they look.

These yellow headed black birds were all sitting in this tree this morning and it looked like the tree sprouted birds instead of leaves.

It's a GOOD FRIDAY!

Bobbi wanted to surprise Ashley for Easter. I think it worked. You can click the links below to see a couple little videos of the surprise.
My Thanks to Stacy and Nikki for these. And to the whole team for helping with the surprise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzeivbAPPBk
http://youtu.be/bB1Xa2KNJF4

The Sky Dive video...

Finally. I had to put it on YouTube first because for some reason it wouldn't upload directly to the blog.

Saturday, April 16 Bryan's skydive.

You will hear the instructor on the ground yelling "Right turn" and Bryan's radio had died and he actually had to bring himself down.

On your mark... get set...GO...

That was my Saturday. I had Esprit practice from 9 until 12. Went to the grocery store to get groceries for Sunday (20 people coming over for supper), ran out to Weeping Water to watch Bryan skydive, left there at 4:30 ran back into town and over to Grieser's to take care of their kids so they could go out with friends, came home at 9:30 p.m. 

For a day that started out windy, cloudy and cold, it turned out so nice. Everyone had a good jump.

This was the response to...

"Do you want to go outside?"

I don't actually blame them, it took me all day to decide to go gather the eggs.

Sense and Sensibility...

It was just that kind of day. You know, beef stew and Jane Austen.

Marianne to Eleanor:

"What strange creatures men are." 

"Yes"

"What do they want from us, Eleanor?"

"I can't answer you."

Tractors and Mud...

I have gone back to taking care of the kids and in the time I have been gone Hudson has discovered YouTube videos of  tractors stuck in the mud. Yesterday he made this video with my phone of the videos on the computer. 

Such a technical 4 year old.

He watches them a lot.

And that results in him playing this...

So I am pretty well versed in how to pull a tractor out of the mud, 

even though I do it wrong most of the time. 

Meandering...

Sometimes Bryan and I just like to meander around the back roads of places and see what we see in small towns and around the countryside. Yesterday was my last Monday off before going back to take care of the kids so we decided to go out and about. I had seen a small table at an antique/junk place in Mound City, MO so Bryan suggested we go see how much the lady wanted for it and just wander around. Off we went in the pickup. We got to Mound City and Bryan worked out a great deal with the lady for the table and four old chairs. That mission accomplished, we stopped for lunch then went on up a highway we had never been on, got hopelessly lost in the back roads of Missouri and finally came to a town that had an ice cream place. They told us how to get back to the interstate. Now, I do have Google Maps on my phone so we could have gotten out of this but it was fun just driving through little towns and past farms and these huge windmills.

 We ended up in Iowa so we stopped at an Antique/Flea Market there and...

Found a desk with a file drawer for Bobbi. 

I did not take a before picture of the table and chairs... I should have...

  I am not usually a person who paints over the antiques I find but these 5 things had been sitting out in the weather for a long time and they needed a good scrubbing and then a good coat of paint. You may think me silly but I got them so that when Ashley comes home sometime we can do this...

My week...

Do you TRUST me...

Yesterday I was praying about a situation and I was alone in the house, laying on the couch. In the midst of my praying for what I wanted to see happen, I literally thought I heard a voice say "Do you trust me." So real that I sat up and looked around and then said out loud "Of course I trust you." Then I kind of felt silly until I "heard" again "Do you TRUST me?" and I had to confess that sometimes I don't. Sometimes I feel like I love my children best and know what is best for them, and what I want for them is best for them. So, no, in all honesty I don't always. But I will trust. That doesn't mean I stop praying. I just refocused. 

My favorite comic...

The other day Ashley posted a picture on her blog of Linus sighing and it reminded me of my all time favorite Sunday comic strip. So I went digging in my office...

PBR in Kansas City...

On Saturday we left Lincoln at 9 a.m. and headed down to Kansas City with Chan and Brenda. Along the way we stopped at a few antique stores and also in the little town of Weston, MO, which is a quaint little town with all sorts of shops.

Brenda and I sent this picture to Bobbi to see if she could do Brenda's hair this way.

 Not the greatest picture of Bryan and Chan (they both turned at the same time) but I was trying to catch them under the "Cowboy's Country" sign above them.

 This we took for Ashley. Chan and Bryan in P.F. Chang's. 

 These were all over down in the Plaza. It was...wait for it...PROM NIGHT. OH my word. A million teenagers in dressy clothes. 

These rabbits were everywhere. They all had a name painted on them somewhere. I think this was "Bess" or something like that. 

 So of course I wanted us all to pose by her.

 Then we found this guy! 

After a lovely morning of walking around and looking in shops on the Plaza we headed over to the Arena where the PBR was being held. The weather was amazing. 85 and sunny. 

Then it was time for the show.

They do warn you to leave the arena if you are sensitive to loud noises and flashing lights.

 Flint, the clown. He turned right as I took this. He has some pretty good dance moves.

This is Ben Jones. He usually does a great dance after he rides but he got hit in the head at the end of this ride and they had to help him off.

 Brenda and Chan

The bull falling in this one was weird.

 Not sure what I am saying here but I am sure it was really important. hahaha

I have no idea how to spell the names of the guys on the last two videos. :-)

All in all it was a really fun weekend.