Click.... take a pic

Had to post some super cute pictures I got the other day while playing around with the camera settings.

 

Bad wife that I am, I have to admit this last one is my favorite.  I snapped it right as Solei jumped on Daddy's lungs.  I love the raw emotion he shows... it's truly beautiful.

On Christianity:

Recently I have been told, indirectly, that I am not a Christian; that my faith is not placed in the right place.  I’ve been called a member of a theological cult, that I worship a different Jesus than everyone else.  That may be true.  Let’s review.

Here is the Jesus I worship:

The Creator of the earth – Job 10:8

Creator of Man on earth – Genesis 1:26; 2:4

Jehovah of the Old Testament – John 8:58

The Good Shepherd – Psalms 32:1

Born of Mary in Bethlehem – Luke 1 & 2

Only Begotten Son of God – John 1:14; Matthew 16:16-17

Increased in favor with God and man – Luke 2:52

Baptized of John the Baptist – Matthew 3:13

Taught the gospel – New Testament

Our Perfect Example – Mark 8:34

Sacrificed His will for our sins/ Our Redeemer – Matthew 26:42; 1 Corinthians 15:3; Galatians 1:4

Crucified on the cross for us – Luke 23:33

Was resurrected on the third day – Mark 16:9

Stayed and taught the apostles for 40 days  following His resurrection – Acts 1:3

Stephen saw in heaven on the right hand of God – Acts 7:55

Will return to earth again in glory – Matthew 16:27; I Thessalonians 4:16

Our Eternal Judge – I Corinthians 4:4

So, to those who claim that I worship a different Jesus I ask: If I worship a different Jesus, then what Jesus do you worship?

Stars at Night

Stars in Baraboo Wisconsin

October 22, 2011

Hey Alex!!

Guess what apples we found at the grocery store today???

Pumpkin patch!

I got to go with Solei's class to visit the pumpkin patch yesterday!

I don't remember going to one as a kid, why is it that now I feel like it's mandatory, at least for photo ops?  Maybe pumpkins don't grow in Colorado as well as Wisconsin.  Oh, and these things were literally on the vine.  We had to help the kids snap them off - and then they were tripping over the vines everywhere.  It was actually pretty funny.

There were a few ones that were all smashed in the patch, so Solei and I laughed out heads off and called them "squash."  No one found it amusing as we thought they should have.

After we gathered the pumpkins, the kids ran around the amusement farm.  It's a new term I coined.  I followed her around like all the other good moms who were like me, screaming at their kids to smile for pictures while they were trying to play.

This pose was her own invention.

This is her "AAAHHHHHHH SCARYYYY!!!!" face.

All in all, a lovely day.

chchchchanges

Floyd got some new specs!  Pretty nifty, huh??

Fall Squash Soup

It's fall again and that means that your garden may be full of these wonderful babies!  The problem is, what do you do with so many gourds???  I make an awesome soup!!

Here's how we do it.  First we start with two different types of gourds.  I do this to add some variety in the soup.  You can mix and match and create whatever you want with whatever you have available.  

Step 1 is to half the gourds.  This may be difficult - you notice the hammer off to the right.  Let's just say I find using tools to be more efficient.  

Once they are cut in half you have to remove the "guts" or "innards" or whatever you call them.  A spoon should work okay.  Keep the seeds if you wish to plan them for next year.

The next step is not required, but I like to do because it makes things easier later on.  I peel the gourds.  It doesn't make much difference in terms of anything except that when they are cooked I don't have to pull the piping hot "meat" out of the gourd.

I send out my adorable little daughter to pick me some green peppers.  I use two per each gourd.

These were grown in our driveway in a nice little planter that I made from a galvanized steel farm bucket.

The gourd is peeled, cleaned and ready to go:

I cut the tops off of the peppers and pull out the seeds and tops (they can be discarded.)

I place the gourds on a baking sheet together and cover them with oil to keep them from drying out while they are cooking.

The gourds are placed on the sheet with the peppers and one clove of garlic for each pepper.

Turn the oven on to 350.  Place the baking pan in the oven for between and hour and an hour and a half.

The garlic and peppers roast and the gourds cook.  Having them upside down allows the moisture to cook the insides very well and make them very mushy.

Once done you only need 4 more things.  Milk (you could also use a broth if you preferred), Salt, Pepper and a Blender (be careful, our powerful Black & Decker blender burned out while I was making this soup.  Depending on the size of the blender, you will likely need to make 4 batches with this amount of ingredients.

Put one pepper and 1 clove of garlic in the blender with some milk (maybe a cup). Blend this up and you get what you see below:

Take HALF of each of the halves below and slowly add bits of gourd and add milk to be sure that you keep the consistency consistent so you don't burn out the blender.  You should come up with a soup that is just a little thicker than tomato soup and just thinner than applesauce.  Add salt to taste.  Add a little black (or white) pepper to taste as well (not much here.)

You can add other ingredients to help season the soup as well.  Canned spinach does really well and creating a half and half soup of your gourd soup and tomato soup is also excellent.  Experiment with what you want.

Let me know if you have questions!

Forster all rolled up

I used an old Nutella jar.  Is there anything Nutella can't do?

A few weeks ago the awesome ladies at the cooking blog Our Best Bites did a post on homemade fruit roll ups.  I know what you're thinking - Reva follows a cooking blog??  Even though I hate cooking, these ladies do a great job of making it dumbed down enough that I can understand them.  That's kind of amazing.  So when I saw this post, I remembered that we had a pile of about-to-turn strawberries in the fridge that would be perfect for this.  And if I messed it up, they were destined for the garbage disposal any way.

And people, it worked!  To the point that it actually scares me - Forster can eat a roll in about 3 seconds and act like a drug addict begging for more.  Thankfully I know exactly went into them so it's a pretty guilt-free treat.  I don't sweeten them at all so they are just straight fruit.  I was telling a friend at church about how proud I was (even though it's only 2 steps, that's still a huge deal for me!) and she told me her mom used to make these out of applesauce.  Applesauce??  Forster is a apple addict!  So I made another batch with a banana and peach that were about to turn, and added enough applesauce to give it the right consistency.  Voila!

Last week my mom sent me a box of plums from her backyard in Colorado.  They were crazy delicious, but Forster wouldn't eat them, and Solei wasn't about to help me eat the entire box.  But I knew how to get them into their adorable bodies!  I pureed them up and Forster has been gobbling them up like a fiend.  I even let him have one for dinner.  Why not?

The reason I love this is because whenever I buy fruit, the kids will eat the first bits but there are always something left that goes bad because they're bored with it.  Problem solved!

Let's be honest, I mostly wrote up this post so I could spam it with pictures of Forster.  He's so much dang fun, I couldn't help myself.  When he's happy, it's crazy infectious.

So to spread just a but more of that joy, here are some videos I took of him yesterday (since I realized the last videos I'd posted that weren't for atreblemaker were 6 months ago!) .  The first is one of him reading one of his favorite books to you:



And this one is one of him watching a video of him and Solei from a year and a half ago.  It never fails to make us smile, and it never fails to put him into a giggling fit.  If you listen closely, you can hear him whining up a storm when I turn on the camera, but 2 seconds later when I turn the camera on him and he's watching the video, he's nothing but giggles.

Forster turned 2!

I just realized I'd forgotten to post anything about Forster's 2nd birthday!  He didn't know what was going on, but he seriously loves attention so he was in birthday heaven.

To start off, I decorated the living room to surprise him.  Solei even helped me blow up the balloons!

It's amazing how exciting a bunch of balloons can be.

Solei was as always a fantastic help.  Forster has begun to say her name and when he's lonely or excited, he calls out for her to join him.  It's fantastic!

Of course there was cake.

Then, that week for my Young Women's activity, Jared was at a stake priesthood meeting, so the girls came over and threw a party for him.  We put a mattress on the floor in the toy room, we cut the balloons down and covered the mattress and floor with them.  It was wonderful mayhem!

My counselor Jenna brought over her kids too, and Forster spent the rest of the night jumping off the couch onto them.  They were good sports about it :)

He is such an affectionate, lively little boy and we are so blessed to call him ours!

The end!