First Week of December 2011

     Two days after we came home from Salt Lake, Alan and I headed to Coeur d'Alene Idaho for the yearly Idaho State Farm Bureau meetings.  We got there on Monday just as it was getting dark.  In Northern Idaho it gets dark really early.  Four thirty early.  We were staying at the Coeur d'Alene resort which was right on the lake.  We had a beautiful view from our room but had failed to bring our camera.  Alan took these pictures with his cell phone right after we got to our room. This was the view from our room.  It really was beautiful. 

 There was this large boat dock that went out from the resort hotel.  On the dock they had put up a lot of Christmas lights which came on shortly after we arrived.  So pretty.

 The resort is also the sight of the world's longest floating boardwalk.  The pictures below were taken one day when we decided to take a walk on it.  Looking back across the boat docks to the hotel.

                               

                                   Here you can see about one third of the floating boardwalk.

                                              

                                                 Looking back where we came from.

 Then we got off the boardwallk and hiked up and around this large hill.  It was beautiful.  The weather was pretty good and the water was smooth as glass.  While we were hiking, we saw a water plane take off from the resort. 

 On December 1 we said good bye to Coeur d'Alene and got home to Ashton that night.  Zack had put up the Christmas tree and half the lights were on.  I decided I would have to tackle the whole Christmas tgree project the next day. 

This week I'm trying to get a little Christmas cheer here in Ashton, but since we don't have much snow, it just doesn't feel like the Chistmas Season yet.  Our outside lights are all up, our tree has been decorated for a week, I've made gingerbread cookies and a little gingerbread house, I shopped all day yesterday and limped out of the mall at 6:30 p.m. last night.  You would think that the snow shouldn't matter so much, but it does.  I look out my kitchen window and I see patches of grass and gravel with just a skiff of snow.  We're wondering who has all our snow!
Today Leah and Lily got to come over and spend time with me because their mom and dad needed them to be out of the house (something about wrapping presents and Santa projects).  So I watched for them out my window and soon they came running through the little bit of snow between their house and mine.  Lily had to stop a couple of times to make snow angels.  She sure is funny.  Leah kept waiting for Lily and so they got pretty cold before they got to my house.  They were all bundled up with those cute little blue and white hats that Lizzy knitted for them, pink gloves,boots and scarves.  They made it without any frostbite (it's been below zero here a couple of nights).  We read some books first and they played with the nativity puzzle, and then after a snack of pears and gingerbread cookies, Lily wrapped herself up in my Christmas blanket and fell asleep staring at the Christmas tree and sucking on her arm.
Leah and I got out my Christmas sucker molds and started to make Christmas suckers. As the syrup was bubbling away I looked up in my cupboard for red food coloring (we were doing Santas, poinsettias, and candy canes) and found No Red Food Coloring!  I found several bottles of yellow, blue and green, but no red.  So I poured in some yellow and told Leah we would have to go to the store before we could make more suckers.  I needed to go to town anyway to make a hair appointment and to buy vodka to make vanilla extract.  We poured  amaretto flavoring in the yellow syrup and then poured the syrup into the molds and then we got our coats on and hustled out into the cold.  As we were driving into town Leah asked me if we were going to the grocery store and I said yes, but we had to go to the liquor store first and then we would go to the grocery store.  I didn't feel like I had to explain the liquor store to Leah.  When we got into town I stopped in front of the liquor store, a place I have not been into for years, because the owner started selling liquor in his video rental store.  So Leah and I went in and I asked for cheap vodka, a fifth of cheap Brandy and some R-rated videos cause I was going on a bender.  I just threw in that part about the R rated videos for your enjoyment.   However, I did get Brandy for my Christmas pudding I made on Tuesday.  I paid and the owner and he put my bottles of spirits into a brown paper bag and we left.  I had to pause at the door and see if anyone was coming down the street or on the sidewalks who would see me coming out of the liquor store with a brown paper bag.  Luckily I saw no one and so Leah and I hurried out and jumped in the pick-up and were on our way to the grocery store.  I purchased the red food coloring and then we were once again out in the pick-up and on our way home.  We got out of town and were driving through Marysville when Leah asked in a sweet little voice, "Grandma are we going home?"   I said, "Yes, we're going home to my house. Is that OK?"  And she said, "But Grandma, you didn't go to the Licorice store, you didn't get any licorice."   I just laughed at how cute she was.  All that time in her little head she thought she was going to get to go to the licorice store.  What a sweetie-pie. 
I told her that we had gone to the liquor store and bought some bottles of stuff to make yummy vanilla extract and that we were going home to finish the suckers. It was all good.
Morgan was at my house when we got home.  I made three more batches of suckers.  So I have red amaretto flavored suckers, yellow pina colada and butter rum suckers, green licorice and mint suckers and some dark orange suckers that are cherry flavored.

  As I was making the last batch of suckers, which was the green mint and licorice flavored suckers, I was also simmering broccoli for some soup.  As we poured in the mint and licorice flavoring it got very stinky in my kitchen.  All I can say is the combination of mint, broccoli, and licorice burned my throat and made Leah start to gag.  However, the suckers by themselves, taste great.  They are lovely to look at and I think they will be fun to eat and share with others.  Leah had three suckers before she went and was planning on taking quite a few home with her before her mother told her the suckers had to stay at my house. 
I said that I made a Christmas pudding.  Yes, I did!   I bought a pudding mold when I was in SLC at Thanksgiving time.   I had got eight persimmons in my bountiful basket on Saturday so I looked up recipes for persimmons and behold, there was a steamed pudding recipe.   I made it on Tuesday and I had a fun time doing it.  I had to simmer the pudding in a pot on a rack for three hours.  It came out perfect and Alan took pictures of it.

  I bought the cheap Brandy to put a little on top of it and light it on fire.  I made some delicious sauce to pour over the pudding and Alan and Zack gathered around as I poured on the liquer and lit the match and touched it to the pudding.  And Voila!  Nothing!  I tried it again and Voila, Nothing!

 What?  That pudding wouldn't light for anything.  I think the cheap Brandy doesn't have enough alcohol.  We were all disappointed, what a let down.  There I was being all Mrs.  Bob Cratchett-y, and everything and we didn't get any bang for our buck.  Alan was determined to light it so he went downstairs and got a blowtorch and it still wouldn't light, although he did crisp up the inside parts.  Zack wanted to pour a little lighter fluid on it and see if that would get some fire going.  I was afraid that the lighter fluid would ruin the delicious taste of my pudding so I vetoed that idea.

                                                      In this picture I'm just irritated.

                                             Cheap Brandy does not a good pudding make.

                                 The brown bag that the Brandy and Vodka came home in. 

  We finally settled on just slicing it, spooning the brandy sauce on top and enjoying the very rich, sweet taste of raisins, walnuts, persimmons, and of course, brandy.   My advice is; IF you're going to go to the trouble of being seen buying liquors for your upcoming holiday events, don't go cheap!  Buy the good stuff!  Not only will your puddings taste sensational, when you light them they will flame with good holiday spirit, and you won't go to bed that night with the  faint sweet aroma of cheap brandy on your breath.
 Burp....   Finally, starting to feel a little more cheery. 

Baby, It's cold Outside! (So I'm staying in)

October has been cold, rainy and blustery and sometimes between all that we have had a few clear but cold days.  For the past few weeks, Alan has been working on pulling off our old metal roof and putting on a new one - one that hopefully won't leak.  Ever since we moved into this house, and before that, the roof leaked causing those huge unsightly stains on the ceiling, and ruining furniture from dripping water.  Now, our new roof with the new underlining, will keep our roof and ceiling drip free.
This morning, at 6:45 (Saturday), I picked up my Bountiful Basket that I ordered on Tuesday.  In it I found, two cabbages, one Romaine lettuce, eight pale pink tomatoes, two nice long cucumbers, three pomegranates, eight Gala apples, a large bag of fresh green beans, a quart of strawberries, a pint of mushrooms, an eggplant, two zuchinnis, four avocados, four onions, one garlic, a bunch of basil, a bunch of parsley, and I can't remember anymore.  I appreciate getting nice vegetables this time of year.  However, I could have done without the cabbage, as I have two sitting outside and a half of one in my refrigerator already.  I need to make me some of that delicious coleslaw I made at harvest time.  Everybody kept telling me how good it was.  Yep, I guess I need to do that today.  And I didn't need the onions either.  I have a potato basket full of onions that I cleared out of my garden weeks ago and they won't store very well, so I have to use them fast.  Anyone need any onions?
The past few days I have been in a mood that I get every fall that goes on through December,  I want to make things, it doesn't matter if I'm cooking or sewing,  I just want to do something.creative. So, I gathered most of my soon to be gone roses and brought them inside.  They look like early July roses don't they?  And the white ones are so fragrant they really gave the frontroom a smell of a floral shop.

It was great to see everyone on Tuesday night when they got home from California.   While they had been gone I crocheted this cute little poncho for Leah but when I tried it on Lily I think it fit a little better,  I will make another one for Leah.

The pom poms are so cute, but I didn't make them very well.  Yesterday when Lily came over I saw that she had already removed one from the tie.  She had it in her pocket, I think her mom put it in there to save so I could put it back on.  Later, after her nap I found little pieces of it on the floor upstairs where she had been napping.  She went to  sleep with it in her hand and for some reason decided to pick it a part when she woke up.  If you didn't know already, Lily is a picker.  Darn it, I need to know how mom used to make those hard little pom poms with a fork.  Yes, I said a fork.

On Wednesday this week, Leah and Morgan had Preschool at their house, so Lily got to come over in the morning and be with me for a few hours. I decided to make sugar cookies with her help.  She wasn't very helpful when it came to mixing the dough, but she was great at rolling and cutting out the shapes.  What a little baker!

As you can see, she had dough and flour all the way up to her elbows.  I should have put an apron on her, but I wasn't thinking.  she was very bossy and would push my hand away when i tried to help.  She would say, " No, Gama, my do it!"  She was pretty good, but don't be fooled, I made most of those cookies.  She got a little tired after the cookie cutting process and wandered off to have a nap, and then Leah came with her mom and they helped bake and decorate the cookies.
 Leah also wanted to be in charge of her own space and decorating.  She was determined to squeeze little dots of black, orange and yellow on to her little cookies that she had frosted all by herself.  She did very well with her strong little hands. 

Then Lily woke up and we showed her the newly decorated cookies. 

 We had a lot of fun, and we produced many delightful and tasty halloween cookies.  On Thursday, Morgan brought the girls over to carve their pumpkins into Jack-o-lanterns.  I was not involved in the carving; it wears me out.

Instead while they were carving I made hard butterscotch suckers. They aren't as fast as I remember, in fact my suckers took longer than the jack-o-lanterns. But no knives or slimy goop was involved, just sugar, flavoring and a lot of checking the thermometer.

                                                                My finished product!

                                                                 Their finished product!

Tonight Morgan, Andrew and Zack are all going to Rigby to a Halloween party given by Andrew's sister Lisa and her husband Bryan. Zack is going as Indiana Jones and actually has a very good costume.  I'm not sure what Morgan and Andrew are going as.  Our ward Primary program is tomorrow and we are all happily anticipating Leah's first moment at the microphone.  She is to say, "We should all feast upon the words of Jesus Christ."  There was a practice yesterday and Morgan said she did very well, and has the highest sweetest voice of anyone in the primary.  That's because she is the youngest one in the primary.

HOPE YOU ALL HAVE A HAPPY AND SPOOKY HALLOWEEN!

Bibbity-Bobbity-Boo!

Since Thursday last week I have been working on a project (well, two really) that is near and dear to my heart.  Making my granddaughters happy.  No, we haven;t had any tea parties in October, but I have been doing something that is very Octobery.  Making costumes.  Last month I was looking up little witch costumes, in fact, I had been dreaming of one and designing one for Lily since I was in England with Sara.  Or was I in Logan with Lizzy?  I think it was in England and I was trying to explain to Sara this cute little witchey costume that I had in mind for Lily for Halloween.  Well, there I was getting it all designed in my head and even had a couple of pictures to help me turn it into a reality when Morgan told me that Leah and Lily wanted to be princesses for Halloween.  I should have realized the impact Disney has on my little sweethearts.  So, I shelved my witch plans and decided to do what they want and make princess costumes for them this year.  I got the pattern a couple of weeks ago and on Thursday and Friday last week I sewed Leah's beautiful dress, which she has told me is her Sleeping Beauty dress. 

 When I first started Leah's dress, she was ecstatic and couldn't wait to try it on.  She would whirl and twirl all over the basement and cried when the fittings were done and she had to take it off.  Now it is all done, and we couldn't get her to smile for anything when we took these pictures tonight.  I guess Sleeping Beauty was really sleepy and needed to get home and have her beauty rest.  But you can see why she would love this dress.  It's pink and pretty poofy!
I got a good rest on Sunday and then on Monday and Tuesday I tackled Lily's dress.  I wanted something different from Leah's dress, but cute and charming to match Lily's cute and charming personality.  Her's was to be the Cinderella dress, according to Leah.  So blue was the color for Lily, and this is what I came up with.  Here she is posing with her pumpkin.   How do you like it?

When they come over to my house and I'm doing something downstairs, all they want to watch on the TV is Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella.  I've heard them both about five times each this last week.  I did the poofy tutu underskirts today and now the dresses are cute as can be.  I just need to take each of the tutu elastics in a couple of inches because they work their way down and are soon showing below the hem of the skirts. 
The girls, M & A, Zack and Sara are all headed to Disneyland next week.  The dresses are going with them and Leah and Lily will be able to wear them on one of their days in the Magic Kingdom.  How fun is that going to be?  I told Morgan that she can't let the girls eat in them, so she's going to pack shorts and T-shirts along to change into for lunch and when they get tired of wearing the costumes.  I'm sure they will want to wear them when they get to meet the Disney Princesses and get pictures taken. 

Pretty fun to be the Fairy godmother this week and make all their dreams come true.  As far as dresses, that is. 
On a totally different note.  We picked apples last week.  We must have picked a total of two or three bushels which I juiced two days later.  I did six batches of apples at 80 minutes each and I got 18 quarts!  YUM!  I don't think it's really worth my time to juice all of the apples, but when they are just hanging there on the tree and you know they're going to go to waste if you don't use them, it makes me feel guilty, so I do it. 

On a sad note.  I snowed a week ago and many of the branches on our trees cracked under the weight and fell off the trees.  We woke up Friday morning to a terrible mess all over our lawn.  The weeping willow and Box Elder in back both lost major branches too.  I felt terrible about the early storm.  Later Alan reported to me that our raspberries were hit really hard.   And below is the picture of how I felt when I heard that bad news.

I had just been over cleaning out the dead canes and was going to get them tied up the next day.  It looks like almost two-thirds of the canes were broken off because they had full foliage and the weight of the snow was too much for them.  Darn it!  I just can't win with my raspberries. And as Scarlett would say, "I can't think about it anymore. There will be berries next year.  After all, tomorrow is another day!" 
And that is the way my last week has gone,  busy busy busy!