My Wild Indian James

Okay, So I always call James my wild indian. This is why.

Harrison's True Love...Food.

Harrison has two true loves, balls & food. He eats from the moment he gets up to the moment he goes to bed and then some. If you are ever eating anything he runs up to you saying "Ah, ah, ah, ah!" with his mouth wide open. You think he would give up and you could enjoy your food alone, but he does not give up and you have to share with him. At dinner, he eats and eats and then throws whatever leftover food he has onto the floor, and then climbs down eats the food off the floor and comes begging to everyone else at the table. He digs in the garbage can for food, after he has just eaten a full meal. He is 100% pig and I love it! It always makes me laugh to look over at him and his mouth is once again wide open begging for food. James has nicknamed Harrison "Mr. Piggy Hands". Tonight he went running up to Jay saying "ah ah ah ah ah" He then went and got the whipping cream and let Jay know that that is what he wanted. He opened his mouth wide and Jay sprayed it on in. He loved it. Jay has done this several times to Harrison, so this was no big surprise. Here are the pictures.

The Turkey Run

I signed James and I up for a Turkey run on Thanksgiving day. I signed up for a 4 mile race and James a 1/4 mile race. I have been so excited for the races, mostly to see James run, but also to see how I would do. I have taken James running with me a couple times. He was pretty excited for it and really liked it when I got him "special running water"...Propel. Well the day of the race came and it was 18 degress outside and windy. I was so cold! It was so hard to get my muscles going and everytime I took a step I felt like I was going to get blown away. So yeah....Well my total time was okay, but not great. I think I could have done better if I had pushed myself a little more. My time was 36 min, so an average of 9 min miles. I got 305th place overall, that doesn't sound so impressive, but I got 17th place in my age group and that sounds more impressive right? Anyways, so I finished my race and it was almost another 30 minutes or so until James' race started. He was so cold he was just crying, as you can see in the pictures. I almost just took him home so he could defrost, but I wondered if he would want to race once he saw the other kids line up to race. So I gave him my jacket and we traded hats to try to get him a little warmer. He did get somewhat excited about running the race when the other kids lined up, but once we started running he got about 20 feet and just started crying "I am too cold!" I felt bad for him and we went home. I told him we could run another race together next summer when it is warmer. HE felt really bad later that he didn't get to run, but I filled up our huge tub with hot water and let him go "swimming" in it. That seemed to fix everything. Hopefully next summer he will enjoy races a little more. Oh and I figured out how to put videos on this thing, so here is a shot of me running near the end of the race. I have video of James' race but it is on another camera so when I get that one figured out we will put it on here too. Happy Thanksgiving.

Recipes

I decided to post some of my recipes that I often get requests for, and I always forget to give them to people, so I figured it would just be easier to post them so everyone could see them.

Orange Jell-O Salad

1 Large Cook and Serve Lemon Pudding
1 Large Orange Jell-O
1 Small instant Lemon Pudding
1 Cup Milk
1/2 pint whipping cream
1 can Mandarin Oranges

Make cook and serve Lemon pudding as directed. Make Orange Jell-O as directed (Do not let Jello set at this point, mix it with the lemon pudding first) Mix orange jello and Lemon pudding together. Let sit 3 hours or until firm. Make instant Lemon pudding with the 1 cup milk. Whip up the cream, and then mix with the instant lemon pudding. Put that mixture on top of the Orange Jello/Lemon pudding mixture. THen top with Mandarin Oranges and eat up!


Oatmeal Cookies

1 Cup Shortening
1 Cup sugar
1 Cup Brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 -2 1/2 cups Flour
2 cups quick oats

Cream shortening, sugars, eggs and vanilla. Add soda, flour & salt. Mix. Then add Oats, mix well. Bake at 325 degrees for 9-10 minutes until the bottoms, or lower sides are just starting to brown. (they will be a little undercooked in the middle) Let sit on pan for a few minutes and enjoy.


The Best Rolls Ever! Seriously.

2 Cups Warm Water
2/3 Cup White Sugar
1 1/2 Tablespoons yeast

1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/4 Cup Veg. Oil
6 Cups Flour

Mix the sugar and water, then add the Yeast and allow to proof until foamy (usually about 5 minutes) Add remaining ingredients, but add the flour one cup at a time. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface until dough is smooth. (If you have a dough hook on your mixer, just use that and let it knead for about 5 minutes in the machine..much easier this way) Cover dough with a damp cloth and let rise for 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in bulk.
Punch dough down and form into loaves, rolls, breadsticks or whatever. Let rise another 30 minutes.
Cook at 350 for about 24-30 min depending on what you are making with the dough.
This recipe makes enough for two loaves. I usually only make half, and make 9 rolls with it.


Waffles

2 Cups Flour
1/3 Cup sugar
1/3 Cup oil
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Salt
2 Cups Milk
2 Eggs

Mix all together except the egg whites. Whip the eggs whites and then fold them in.

He Makes Me Laugh.

I know I have heard probably 1000 times that laughter is the best medicine and it is just one of those sayings, but it really is true. As I have said before the past few months have been pretty tight financially, but we have been able to make it through and have been plenty comfortable as well. Well, I have known for quite a while that James needed to see a dentist and that I needed to see one as well. But I also knew that it was going to be REALLY expensive. So, finally, after tuition has been paid, car fixed and other bills paid, I took James to the Dentist. It was far worse than I had thought. 11 cavities, yeah you read that right, eleven. and 7 of those are quite possibly going to have to have crowns. Lets just say that that bill is going to suck up our entire savings and then some, and that wasn't even counting what my teeth needed as well. I cried all the way home from the dentist wondering how we were ever going to pay for all that work and with Christmas around the corner....well presents were just out of the question. I came home, put the kids down for naps, cleaned up, and then looked over our finances trying to find some way to squeeze those bills in there. Oh yeah, and on top of this, in the past week we have been notified that our mortgage was going up due to taxes, our insurance did not cover our sons last DR appointment, and we owed another DR some unexpected $$ as well. So I was looking at our account, okay if we don't have to buy food then we can make it...ha ha! So then I went to the pantry and looked to see how many meals I could make out of what we had. Lets just say we will be eating a lot of rice. So I was pretty darn discouraged when Ben got home and told him everything and what does he do? He quotes some part of a Simpson's episode that made me laugh so hard. He just made me laugh and it made me feel so much better. It is one of the great things that I love about Ben. He can always always make me laugh. Some nights we laugh until 2 or 3 in the morning. I will laugh so hard my stomach hurts. When I was in labor with James and wanted to die, Ben made me laugh. On our very first date he made me laugh harder than I had ever laughed when he jumped up from the picnic table tossing his drink behind him and yelling "my mouth's bleedin bert! My mouth's bleedin!Merry christmas Bedford falls" Later on that night he randomly took his shoe off and started talking to it like a phone. He was so serious about it too. Then there was the time that we were at Zuka Juice and he just took one great big bite out of his Styrofoam cup and chewed away. Once again, I laughed. I think that was the first thing that made me like him, how much he made me laugh. Anytime things have seemed somewhat bleak Ben has always cheered me up and it always makes the biggest difference. When he got home today he could have been depressed like I was but instead he made a bunch of jokes and then things seemed okay. Later on tonight we went over to my parents so Ben could get set up to do some contract work for my dad's Company. He has gone over several times, but they ahven't been able to figure some something out and so Ben has not been able to do any extra work and I had pretty much given up on that extra cash. However, tonight Ben was able to get things set up very quickly and now has plenty of work to get done. More than enough to pay for the dental expenses, Christmas presents and maybe even some food too! :) We really will be able to pay for everything, christmas included, and be just fine. I know that there was an upper hand in helping Ben get things set up so he could earn the extra money we needed, and I am grateful that once again Heavenly Father has provided a way for us.

Life is Crazy

You know what, life is crazy. I haven't blogged in a long time, and it is because I think to myself, "well I don't really have anything to write about it, life is just normal...crazy" For instance, this last weekend. I was throwing a baby shower for my little sister. And knowing me I can never just make it simple, I always have to make decorations and make it as cute as possible. I love throwing parties and doing all of that, but I really have to devote my entire life to it for about a week before the party.Yeah I know I am an idiot. Anyways, back to the baby shower. I was shopping all day Friday, getting food and such, I was in line at Walmart for an hour. I hate and love that place....sheesh. And then when I was all done shopping it was time to take my kids to my sisters for a Tea Party with all the cousins. It was really cute and the kids had a great time. My sister had made mini cinamon rolls, mini pizzas, mini everything pretty much. And then the kids made froot loop necklaces and made a grand mess doing it, but once again had a super fun time. So much fun in fact that I forgot to check the time and oh my heck it was late and I had so much to do for the baby shower. So we went on home, put kids to bed, cleaned up the house, did a load of laundry, baked the cake, cleaned the kitchen, and then started making the party favors. At about 11 pm the cake was done and time to dump it out. It was in the shape of a baby buggy and was very cute. Oh, some background info here. Ben always always always greases and flours a pan before cooking in it. And I always tease him about it and tell him that he only needs to spray the pan and that is plenty good. In my cockiness, I only sprayed the pan and now that it was time to dump it out, I wished very much that I had greased and floured the pan. Lets put it this way, the cake was in about 100 pieces by the time I got it out. Well. now it was too late to go to the store, bake a new cake and decorate it before going to bed. But it needed to be cooked that night at least. So Ben being the nice boy that he is, went and got another cake. Oh yeah, I forgot, another hiccup that night. When we were putting the kids to bed Harrison was running around the house and it wasn't until after he had gone throughout the living room that we noticed poop come out of his pants...yeah Ben carpet cleaned that night as well. Nice. Anyways, so I finished the games, decor, party favors, meat and cheese platters, and all that other stuff around 3 am. I went to be and could not sleep, I was so anxious for the next day, but I assume I fell asleep sometime because I woke up trying to smash the alarm clock on the floor about 6 am. Then my insanity kicked in and my brother and I went for a 9 mile run. The run actually felt 100% great. However, as soon as I got home it was time to get moving and get the cake decorated (It was the kind that you decorate with all the little frosting stars.....it was worth it though, it was really cute!) I made cream of wheat for the kids, showered, and started squeezing out the little frosting stars onto the cake. Fortunately my fam came about 30 min before the shower started and helped me get all the food set up and so by 11 am it was ready to go. The shower went really well, and Becca got tons of cute cute things. During the shower though, Harrison kept coming to me, rubbing his eyes and just crying. I thought he just had something stuck in his eye. But after a couple hours of this I called the DR and shortly after the shower was over, took Harry to the DR. Turns outm he has a sinus infection, ear infection, and a viral infection in his eye. Yeah, I guess he was a lot sicker than I thought. I felt so bad for him though, he just sat on my lap and cried the entire time his eyes hurt so bad. Anyways, so after that it was time to get prescriptions and all that jazz. Ben did that for me though while I laid down on the couch and Harrison slept. James came and sat by me and we talked the whole time. I don't even remember what we talked about, but he was just being funny. It was fun to sit there with him. Well then after that, I decided that Harrison needed something to cheer him up a bit and so we got him a new red ball. All of you that know Harrison, know that all he cares about are balls. All day he just plays with any ball we have in the house. We got him a little red bouncy ball and he loved it. He carried it around the rest of the evening and took it to bed with him. I took it out of his crib eventually because I didn't really want him sleeping with it. However, I woke up in the middle of the night to "diddy diddy diddy....BALL" "adidididida...BALL" I went in there and he was standing in his crib pointing to the ball. I held him and let him hold the ball for a minute while I got him a drink but then put him back to bed. He cried for the ball a little while longer, but eventually went to sleep and so did I.
So there you have it. That is just a couple days of my life. Obviously it was a little more crazy than usual, but it seems like there is always something going on around here.