Recipe Website

WWW.DINNERSONME.BLOGSPOT.COM Here's a blog address to a website that looks pretty amazing. (thanks Nancy!) I have yet to try out any recipes, but she not only shares recipes and pics, but sample menu's for what she feeds her family. Bon appetite!

The following is a plug for my sister in law, Jen. She really does amazing work (this is from a photograph of my mom's parents) and my mom cried when she gave it to her. (suck up!) :) Love you Jen!

Cross-stitched Photographs

The following is a picture of Cameron's grandparents that I cross-stitched for my mother-in-law. I loved doing this project and am interested in taking on many more. If you or anyone you know is interested in having a special photograph turned into something that can be framed and displayed, I would love to do it for you. Email me at jennyhousley@yahoo.com, if you want information on pricing and other details.

"Annie"

We're going to go see this next time we're in St. George...anyone want to join us?

Mom, can I have a "late night"??

When Sydney had been invited to spend the night with her Grandma, Morgan wondered if she could have a "late night". (our solution to no sleepovers with friends) She didn't even want a friend over, just wanted to stay up later than usual. Here's a picture of her not even 5 minutes after we turned a movie on for her.....

I stole (and love!) this recipe from Jana, who stole (and loved!) it from Allrecipes.com. Enjoy!


Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Soup

INGREDIENTS:
1 onion, chopped
1 (16 oz) can chili beans
1 (15 oz) can whole kernel corn, drained
1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
2 cups chicken broth
2 (10 oz) cans diced tomatoes with green chilies, undrained
1 package taco seasoning
3 whole skinless, boneless chicken breasts
shredded Cheddar cheese
sour cream
guacamole
crushed tortilla chips


DIRECTIONS:
1. Place the onion, chili beans, black beans, corn, tomato sauce, chicken broth, and diced tomatoes in a slow cooker. Add taco seasoning, and stir to blend. Lay chicken breasts on top of the mixture, pressing down slightly until just covered by the other ingredients. Set slow cooker for low heat, cover, and cook for 5 hours.


2. Remove chicken breasts from the soup, and allow to cool long enough to be handled. Stir the shredded chicken back into the soup, and continue cooking for 2 hours. Serve topped with shredded Cheddar cheese, sour cream, guacamole, and crushed tortilla chips.

L.O.S.T

Watched it from the beginning...Loved it then, Love it still!
(and I still say Evangeline Lily is THE most beautiful woman on TV)

Tell me how you really feel....

So, I came across this blog and found one of her post's about being "a mormon" and it just hit home. Never met the girl (which is oh so common in the world of blogging) but it was so well written, that I just had to share. I asked the author if she would mind if I linked to this post because what she says is put quite simply, exactly the way I would want to say it, if asked. Tell me what you think!

YES I AM

You're a Mormon? No way!

Uh-oh, you and every other Mormon reading this just thought (or mumbled). Your shiny little Jesus star is tarnished, and no one out there can tell that you're one of His. (And darn it, our good buddy D. just clinked a beer in triumph.)

Most people would feel so ashamed if their declaration that they are LDS (which always has to be clarified with, "LDS means 'Mormon'") was met with skepticism. I feel differently.

It's certainly not that I'm ashamed to be a Mormon; 'cause tell you what, if I were bummed about being a Mormon, I'd drop the scriptures, stop the prayers, boycott Gospel Doctrine, give booze a try (but only a little; Hello! Liquid calories!), and handle every single one of my errands on the Sabbath. I got my agency, yo.

Rather, I'm quite pleased when people don't classify me as Mormon right off the proverbial bat because when they do find out what I am, it changes their perception of Latter Day Saints. In a good way.

"But you're not boring!"

Aha! Mormons aren't (don't have to be) boring. We can laugh. We can joke. We can be freaking awesome. Sweet, eh?

"But you dress so cool." (Why, thank you!)

Nope. We Mormon folk don't have shuffle around clad long sleeves and drab dresses dragging on the floor. Sweet leather boots? Right on. A cap-sleeved sweater? Duh. A sequined skirt? (Which sadly, I do not own.) You betcha! We can be regular [modest] fashion mavens!

"But you don't have any kids!"

Not as yet, mister. Who knows about the future? But I'm pretty darned sure that I'm not going to Hell for being a 26-year-old Mormon chiquita sans offspring. Later.

When my associates (I say that and sound so important, don't I?) out here in the State of Sin discover I'm one 'a them Marmens and are a bit surprised, I'm glad, not shamefaced. The conversation that ensues always leaves my compadre with an altered [positive] perception of LDSers.

See, so very often our many siblings of Planet Earth are turned off by the mere mention of "Mormons" because of the rampant misconceptions. (This is the part where I totally ignore the polygamy debacles.) Folks are under the impression that being Mormon means you're doomed to a boring, restricted life. But when they encounter someone who most certainly doesn't fit the blase image in their narrow little minds, they generally reconsider their earlier ideas of this Peculiar People.

They reconsider and clamp a hand over their mouths,

Ohmygosh! Have I ever said anything offensive around you?

New Years at the cabin

Happy Birthday Mom!

Well, we had a belated birthday celebration for Mom because Cam and Jen were out of town at the Utes game in New Orleans...So, we got together for pizza at mom's and Kim made her a beautiful and delicious Black Forest cake. For those of you that know, Mom had a little schitzu called "Chewy" that recently passed away. She's quite the dog lover and has been looking into getting a new dog, but just worries about having and training a puppy while being away at work 8 hours a day. Well, being the thougtful children that we are, we decided to get her a puppy for her birthday. :) "Happy Birthday, Mom, here's a puppy...good luck with that!" The hardest part was having all 6 of us agree on what to get her, but we finally did and she was SHOCKED to say the least! We ended up getting her a blonde, male cocker spaniel, wrapped him up in a box and she could not believe it! He's pretty cute and she fell in love instantly, but the jury's still out on whether or not she'll keep him. She's trying to weigh the pros and cons and make the right decision for herself and the dog. Cute little bugger, if I do say so myself!

Christmas Day '08

Well, looks like I need to catch up...Christmas was a wonderful time at the Harris home. Christmas Eve we went up to my mom's house and spent the evening with Mom, Claton, Cam and Jen and their kids. It was a nice evening, had yummy fajitas for dinner and opened gifts. Then, Christmas morning the girls actually let us sleep in until 8am and then I had them wait another 20 minutes so that I could get the breakfast casserole into the oven. They were SO patient! I was so proud of them! They didn't get everythng that they asked for, but were really good sports and happy for what they did get. Although this picture might look like it was taken Christmas day after the flurry of the kids opening gifts, it was not. It was after about 5 minutes when I turned my back and Kendra (with her cohort, Karlee) got into the gifts under the Christmas tree. See Kim, this is why I insisted on putting the tree up in the office so that we could have it behind closed doors.


Here is another endearing picture of our 2 year old and her fascination with the pretty lights and shiny ornaments...found her taking one of her less frequent naps one day under the tree. Must've lulled her right to sleep....


So, here are some pictures from the actual Christmas Day...the morning was spent opening presents and having breakfast with my Dad and his wife, Lana. The afternoon was very lowkey, I was even able to take a nap and then we spent the evening with the Harris family. Hope everyones holidays were everything that they had hoped they would be.

This is for Val...

Wanted to show you the finished product of my "wall of pictures" that I finished in our office. You like???
Still waiting to see yours.......

New Year Baby!

Welcome to the world, little one! Layne and Julie Harris had their little boy on New Years Day....the first one in Utah County for 2009! We are so excited and happy for them!


Friday, 02 January 2009
A tale of two babies: County's first 2009 birth wins by minutes
Ace Stryker - Daily Herald


At the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, when most Utah County residents were sipping nonalcoholic bubbly or kissing loved ones, strangers Julie Harris and Christy Nielson were in the midst of the same ordeal.

Twenty miles apart, each woman was deep in the throes of childbirth. Their experiences were not identical -- Christy delivered by C-section, while Julie pushed -- but before the clock had struck 1 o'clock, each had introduced a new life to the world. Derek Harris was Utah County's first baby of the year, born at 12:31 a.m. at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo.

"We got lucky, because he was two weeks early," Julie said of her 6-pound-12-ounce, 18.5-inch son as she cradled him.

But not too lucky, husband Layne joked -- had Derek been born just an hour earlier, he would have helped his parents earn a child tax credit worth up to $1,000 on this year's returns. Now they'll have to wait until they file their 2009 taxes in 2010.

"At least he's got a story now," he said. "He'll remember that more than our 1,000 bucks."

Julie said labor was easy -- she "pushed like twice" and there was her son. Layne said that may have been the easy part, but the couple had been concerned whether Derek would be on his way at all. They tried for five years before having their first child, Derek's older sister, 2-year-old Mylee. The two kids will share a room in the family's Spanish Fork home when Derek and mom go home tonight.

"We had to paint the pink walls brown to match both of them, Layne said.

The county's second birth came a mere four minutes later, when Jared Nielson was born at 12:35 a.m. at Mountain View Hospital in Payson. Coming in at 20 inches and weighing 9 pounds, 4 ounces, mother Christy said he's "healthy and just perfect." She said she, too, had thought about the benefits of having the child earlier, but for a different reason.

"I was ready to be done," she said.

Because of the C-section, Christy will stay at the hospital for a couple days to recover before going home, also to Spanish Fork, to rejoin her husband and two other children, ages 5 and 20 months. In the meantime, Jared is proving to be a snuggler and a "singing baby," she said.

"He lays and hums and sings," she said.

That's a contrast to little Derek, who was "pretty wild inside me," his mom said. But since he's been out, he's been calmer, she said.

"We'll see," Julie said.

Layne said the birth has special significance because Derek carries the middle name of his paternal grandfather, Houston. Houston died in February, just a month or so before Derek was conceived, he said.

"We think he picked him for us," he said.

Both sets of parents say they plan to have more children. How many?

"As many as we need," Christy said.

Derek and Jared weren't the only Utah County births in the first hour of the new year. Shelby, a 3-year-old chocolate labrador belonging to Matt and Christie Gammell of Springville, has eight new puppies to care for. They include four males and four females, born about 12:30 a.m.

Tis the season....

....for snowmobiling!! I think the girls were even more excited to have snow on the ground so that they can go snowmobiling than they were for Christmas! So cute, I've gotta admit.....

Housley Christmas Party '08

The Housley Christmas Party

Because Taylor and Valerie are in the middle of packing and moving to Colorado, we decided to have a family party before Christmas and before they left. Lucky for us, Chris and Debi were in town with Sara and Donny, so it was fun to have them join us. We tried something a little different this year in that we had 3 "centers" or "stations" for the kids with crafts that each of us were in charge of. Mom, Jordan, Erin and Clayton did gingerbread cookie decorating, Brett, myself, Taylor and Val had the kids make reindeer using their hands as the antlers and Jenny and Kim had a storytelling center. We also had our annual "Ugly Sweater" contest, enjoyed dinner together and had so much fun reading the poems that we had written about each other! It's been 9 years since we've started the poem tradition (we draw names and you have to write a poem about the person's name that you draw) and I have to say, it's one of the best traditions that we have! We even included the Readings and the Atauia's and Donny got out his guitar and SANG his poem to Theran! It was fabulous! We even got him to give us an encore so that I could record it and I'm going to try and figure out how to post it on the blog. So much fun! Thanks to all for your participation...love you guys!

Help!

The Ken Harris Family

Turkey...yum.

So, we had Thanksgiving at our home this year with the Housley side of the family. We all pitched in with the cooking (and cleaning!)and I took on the all important task of cooking the turkey. Kindof daunting, but I'm pretty handy with the internet and its full of ideas on how to and what to cook a turkey with, so I wasn't too worried. Can I just say how great it turned out?! Not that everything else wasn't fantastic, cuz it was seriously ALL delicious, but the turkey was so moist and tasty, I was just so happy with how it turned out. The beauty of it all is that it was sooooo easy and if I can do it, ANYONE can! The secret is to brine the turkey. Its just a mixture of water, salt and seasonings and you actually soak the turkey in it for 10-12 hours before cooking. (the recipe says 1 hour per pound, but we had a 20 lb. turkey and I did it for 12 hours and that was plenty of time) After soaking for that long (I buy those Reynolds oven bags and use that to hold the liquid and the turkey) you rinse off the turkey, (very important to rinse it off because otherwise it will be way too salty)pat it dry, rub a stick of butter all over the skin and then put salt and pepper all over the skin. Put into a new bag, close it up, put 2 slits in the top of the bag and cook according to directions. I mean, you don't have to even cut the turky! It's literally falling off the bones it's so moist! So, here's the brine recipe....try it, you'll like it!

1 gallon water
1 cup salt (kosher is best)
1/2 cup white vinegar
3 T. brown sugar
1 T. pickling spice
1 t. black pepper
1 t. allspice
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. tarragon

Dissolve salt and brown sugar in water in a large pot. Bring to a boil. Allow to cool. Add vinegar and spices.

I am a Mother

"Motherhood is tough work, and there are days when giving two weeks' notice seems to be the best way-the only way-to escape the chaos. ... We go into motherhood expecting that it will require some strength; then we find ourselves in it and realize we're completely out of breath - with miles left to go. Indeed, motherhood is an extraordinary test of endurance and strength, some days requiring that we sprint, and other days asking us to swim uphill against the current."

I had to copy this quote from my sister in law Jen's blog, cuz I loved it so much. It's a quote from Jane Clayson Johnson's book, "I am a Mother." Jen goes on to talk in great detail about the ups and downs of motherhood and I'm tempted to copy that, too, but I'm not as noble as she is and anyone who knows me would know the difference! ;) I will say, however, that I do love being a mom to our daughters and feel privileged that our Father in Heaven entrusted me with these special spirits.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go tighten the 2 year olds straight jacket....