Chicago~

At the end of June, Quinn had to take a trip to Chicago for work. I was lucky enough to be able to tag along. We had a lot of fun. I spent time walking around, shopping and reading while he was in classes.
This was the view from our room which was located on the 22nd floor (Navy Pier is in the back)...


Here is Navy Pier all lit up at night....


Navy Pier in the daytime...........


I just missed the Nick Jonas apperance by minutes........


This is the Chicago River, it sat right behind our hotel....


This is also part of Chicago River..........


On one of our nights out to find a place to eat, we found some cool cars......





Here we found REALLY REALLY good Stuffed Pizza.......


Oh yeahhhh.... My mouth is watering just looking at it.......

Michigan Ave. had TONS of shopping. There was also a lot of acts on the sidewalks. This guy (the Tin Man), didn't like me taking his picture. He wanted my money.....

Our las night there, we found a REALLY good cheese shop.........

Here is the Tribune Tower. It was REALLY neat to look at......

This is some carvings in the building of the Tribune Tower......

The Tribune Building had pices of things emebedded into the building. This is a piece of the World Trade Center.......

This is Trump Tower...........



We made it to a Cubs game while we were there.........



The Billy Goat Tavern. Famous for the "Billy Goat Curse" on the cubs. The Billy Goat Tavern was also mentioned on Saturday Night Live.


We had a TON of fun. I am so glad I got to go and experience it. But I have to say... I love my small town and wide open spaces. :)

Real Hero's

I just love these two posters. These are just a few of the many posters you can buy at realheroposters.com. What GREAT posters to hang in your children's room. I just wish I had the money to buy an entire set. Oh well... a little at a time right?

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Emma Smith.......

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Mary Mother of Jesus.........

Aebleskiver's

On my last post, Rachel asked what aebleskiver's were, so this post it for her and anyone else who cares. :)

Aebleskiver (Danish meaning apple slices (singular: aebleskive) are traditional Danish pancakes in a distinctive shape of a sphere. Somewhat similar in texture to American pancakes crossed with a popover, æbleskiver are solid like a pancake but light and fluffy like a popover. The English language spelling is usually aebleskiver or ebleskiver. We have ours with jam and powdered sugar or just like pancakes with butter and syrup. You could also had jam to the middle of them when cooking.

In the United States, a version of æbleskiver is sold with a commercially repackaged pan, branded as "Pancake Puffs".

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This is what they look like..............

Aebleskiver are cooked on the stove top by baking in a special pan with several hemi-spherical indentations in the bottom of the pan. The pan exists in versions for gas and electrical stoves (the latter with a plain bottom). Pans are usually made of cast iron, allowing good heat conduction. Traditional models in hammered copper plate exist but are today used primarily for decoration.

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This is what mine looks like..............

Mimi's Birthday~

So Mimi had her 9th Birthday on February 1st. It's a little hard to have my baby turn 9 years old. Next year she will go off to the Middle School and that makes me really sad. Anyway, it was a busy day and I think she had fun. Here is some pictures from the day.....
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Opening Presents.........

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For breakfast she wanted Aebleskivers.........

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For lunch I took her to Speedy B's. She wanted a hot chocolate.........

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Next we shared a Taco Salad and Sweet Potato Fries.............

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For the treats for her class she wanted Red Velvet Cake Pops (they were a huge hit and she was asked to bring them to the Valentines Day Party)..........

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For Dinner she wanted French Dip.........

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For dessert she wanted Root Beer Floats..........

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AND... Cake (yes she is spoiled) She did end up with a stomach ache later.............

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What a fun girl she is. She is so full of life. We love her very much and are so blessed to have her in our lives.

True Love~

"If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear".... D&C 38:30

Can you live on this and this alone?

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No this isn't my food storage. I stole it off the internet because I am too lazy to go downstairs and take a picture of our food storage.

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Quinn was recently put over the food storage committee for our ward or stake. He came home on Sunday and asked me if we could live off of our food storage and what we had on hand, without going to the grocery store for 2 weeks. I immediately said yes, but that they would have to drink the powdered milk. I also told him that it meant no cheese either. Because cheese you know is a luxury. But dang what a great luxury that is. I LOVE cheese.

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Later, we were looking online at food rotation systems and I did find some different kinds of shredded cheeses that had been freeze dried and canned. Hmmmm.... I may have to get some to add to our food storage. Here is where I found it.......... http://www.shelfreliance.com/all-products/thrive-foods/dairy.html

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For a while, I had been doing really good at getting things to add to our supply. I was adding stuff like toilet paper, toothpaste, deoderant, spices, etc... But I quit buying stuff when summer was here and I wasn't working. We canned a lot of things over the summer, but I also used A LOT of things so I wouldn't have to buy them while money was tight with me having no income. So now that I am working, I need to start adding back to it.

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While we were talking about trying to live on our food storage for two weeks, Mimi got a bit worried. Her birthday is next week and I had already promised her French Dip for dinner. We don't have sliced roast beef in the year supply you know. So this was not something she was happy about. I told her we could wait until AFTER her birthday to try it. I am kinda looking forward to it. I will let you know when we do it.

Brycelyn's Birthday

Here January is almost over and I am just now getting around to posting about Brycie's birthday. I feel like a terrible Mom, but things have been so busy lately. However... the day really did happen. My little girl turned 12 and wandered out of Primary and into Young Womens! She was thrilled with the aspect of wearing mascara and moving on to the next phase of life. Me however.... I am not so sure about having her grow up. But what a beatiful young lady she is becoming.

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Here she is opening a few presents. She has been wanting purple converse for a really long time.....

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For Breakfast she wanted Chocolate Chip Waffles......

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Here she is painting her nails with her new nail polish and nail dryer.............

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Time for birthday cake. We had no candles, so we used a sparkler............



We also had homemade pizza for dinner. Forgot pictures of that.

It was a good day. She is a such a sweet girl and I am so glad to have been blessed as her mother.