This n That

This year is our first year trying out gardening. We have made a square-foot garden, which is basically a raised garden (ours is 4x5 feet). Each square foot is marked off, and you can plant something different in each square. This being our first time, I was anxious to see if the seeds would actually grow. I know this is a funny picture, but here is evidence of our first sprouts! Peas! I am so excited that things are starting to grow!

We have begun to work on our baby's room. We have painted the walls, set up a crib (MY old crib, actually), and Brandon did this project last weekend:

Before:

After:

Amazingly, this looks like an entirely new fan. Nope. It's just paint. And new light covers. It's a happy yellow. I smile whenever I see it! The rest of the room is still not ready for your viewing pleasure yet. It might be a while.

This last picture is well, yes, a preggo picture, but the reason I put it on is to show off my new 'do. Our friend Amy (also from Logan) cut it and I am happy with the way it turned out. It sure feels good to chop off your hair sometimes!

Delicious

I made the most delicious bread the other day. After we ate about half of it, we decided we should take a picture...My bread recipe that I always use makes 5 loaves of bread, so I like to experiment with a loaf once in a while. You are looking at whole-wheat cinnamon goodness. It makes you feel much better about eating it because it's whole wheat, but it really did taste awesome (especially when it was fresh). Brandon said he thought it was better than most cinnamon rolls he tried. Without further ado, the recipe:

Whole Wheat Bread (I love this recipe. It is so quick for bread and it makes 5 loaves! that's perfect for freezing or giving some away. You DO need a mixer, though. There are a couple of interesting ingredients like wheat gluten and 9 grain cereal, but once you have them it's easy):

• 5 C. Hot tap water (between 105 and 110 degrees always works good for me)
• 3 TBSP Yeast (be generous)
• 1/3 C. Honey
• 1/3 C. Olive Oil or ¼ C. Cooking Oil
• ½ C. Cracked 9 Grain Cereal
• ½ C. Wheat Gluten (Maybe a little more)
• 3-4 TBSP Whole Flax seeds
• 3 TBSP Dough Enhancer (optional)
• 1 TBSP Salt
• 10-12 C. Whole Grain Flour (Mostly Hard White Wheat, Some Hard Red Wheat,) Cornmeal and Millet are good additions also.

Add yeast and 9-grain cereal to hot water and let stand while you gather other ingredients; then add to water. Add flour gradually. You will know you have enough flour when the dough cleans the edges of the bowl. Knead for 8-12 minutes with mixer. Divide in 5 equal pieces, form into loaves, place in lightly greased pans (I use pam). Raise 30-45 min. Bake at 370 degrees for 25 min. Remove from pan and cool on rack.

Cinnamon Braid

For this part, take one of the 5 sections of dough (the others can be made into regular bread) and roll it out into a rectangle about 1/2 t0 3/4 of an inch thick. Then spread butter (a liberal amount) all over the surface of the dough and sprinkle cinnamon-sugar all over the top (again, a liberal amount).

Next, take a pizza cutter and cut parallel angled strips along the long edges (about the angle that you want your braid to be), leaving the middle uncut (about a third of the dough in the middle). This part is harder to explain than I thought. I hope it makes sense. Then take strips from each side and fold them to over-lap with the next strip on the opposite side, so it looks like a braid. All of the cinnamon will be on the inside. You'll figure it out. Pinch any cracks together that are bigger than you want.

After letting it raise (while the other loaves cook), beat an egg with a little water and brush it over the top. This makes it pretty and seals the cracks better. It also adds a little goodness to the taste. Pop it in the oven and bake like the bread.

Glaze:

Mix softened butter and softened cream cheese together. I did about 1/3 cube of butter and a little more cream cheese than that. Add powdered sugar to taste (be generous). If you want the glaze to be thinner, add very small amounts (a teaspoonful or less) of water to the mixture. Drizzle over the top of the loaf while it is still hot. Sprinkle a little more cinnamon-sugar on the top, and enjoy!

Deep in the heart of TX

This weekend we went on a little trip to San Antonio. It was a lot of fun, even though it was short (we went on Thursday afternoon and came home Friday evening, because I had to be back for work on Saturday....) I highly recommend it, but I would plan more than a day for exploring and stuff if I were you. And, if you go, it's only 5 hours away from us, so I would recommend visiting us, too (of course).

The first thing we did was the Riverwalk. It is a neat area that you HAVE to see if you are in San Antonio. There are shops and restaurants lining the river a story below street level, and it's really quite neat. Sadly, we went at night, so not many of our pictures turned out. I think I might have liked it more in the daytime, but night is fun too. Here is Brandon on a bridge.


While we were on the Riverwalk, we stopped for some rock n roll and food at the Hard Rock Cafe. It was kind of fun--I had never been to one before. My favorite part was John Lennon's glasses. My food wasn't my favorite part, though. It was a little sad.

The next morning, after our delicious continental breakfast (actually probably my favorite meal of the whole trip!) we made sure that we stopped by the Alamo... after driving around looking for parking for a while, that is. The Alamo was pretty interesting. There were lots of people there.
There are actually 6 historical missions that the Alamo is a part of around San Antonio. We went to two others, and I am glad we did. They were a lot less commercialized than the Alamo, and it was neat to see them. AND you didn't have to pay for parking to see them either! At the last mission we visited, they had a short movie we watched that told more about the history. They also had a big water powered grain mill and they had rebuilt walls around the area so you could really get a feel for the was it was "back then."





(There are lots of pictures of Brandon, because I had one of those not-so-photogenic days)

We had lunch a El Mercado, which is basically a Mexican market. Brandon's lunch was our not-favorite (meaning gross) this time. It looked fun there, but we were in a hurry for the next part, so we didn't stay long. There was a live singer there, and he sounded exactly like one of those country singers on the radio (I don't know who.. we don't listen to country much). He was just singing karaoke-style, though.

Brandon's FAVORITE part (I liked it a lot too) was the TOYOTA plant tour. They make the Tundra at this plant, and soon will also make the Tacoma. I would show you a really attractive picture of us in our hardhats with safety glasses on, but they didn't allow cameras during the tour part. Brandon was so giddy as we were driving there. It was pretty funny. It was neat to see how everything worked together. All of the processes are timed so well so that people don't sit around waiting for the next thing. It was awesome to see since we have learned a thing or two (or extensive study in Brandon's case) about the Toyota Production System. The only part that we didn't like it that it went by too quickly.



It was a fun trip. It is good to get out and do things every once in a while. With all of that jiggling while we were driving, I think our baby decided she wanted to start poking out a little more...

It's A...

GIRL!

¿Niño o Niña?

We will find out next week whether it is a GIRL or BOY (unless it is being overly modest)! This is the one time that I will hope that my child isn't being modest... So... What do you think it will be? Brandon thinks maybe a boy. His sister Heather does too. I think... I don't know! We are excited for either one! I have had a lot of crazy, realistic dreams lately, and I have dreamed about both a boy and a girl... So it almost makes me feel weird to guess. Are crazy dreams a pregnant thing?

On Sunday, Brandon and I gave our fourth talks within a year (that's what we get for ward-hopping so much). It was my first talk in Spanish, though. I just read the whole thing! I am pretty good at reading Spanish, it's the comprendo-ing that gets me. Overall, they both went pretty good. Brandon spoke about preparing to teach your children (he didn't have to read his talk... it was good), and I spoke about how we are blessed by fulfilling callings. I enjoy the learning that comes with preparing talks.

We found the cutest pasta ever on sale after Valentine's Day at Costco. I think it's the first time I have called pasta cute, but I think you will agree. We HAD to get it. When else in our lifetimes will we ever have the chance to eat this again? We made a delicious white sauce for it. It was quite romantic.