signs of spring

One of the great things about living in Utah is the climate. The winters are mild, and Spring and Fall are so beautiful. I am a big fan of Spring. People here love to complain about the weather as well as anyone, but having grown up in Montana, I know how good we have it. A couple of weeks ago I was telling Mom how beautiful the blooms were on the plum trees they bought us for our backyard. She said her trees weren't yet showing any signs of life.

I have perennials popping up all over. Among them, these hyacinths. Hopefully soon I'll be planting tomato plants. But as I look out the window today, it is snowing. Ahhh, April.

Grandpa turns 90!

It's high time I posted about the privilege we had last weekend of going to Fort Benton for Grandpa's 90th birthday. What an amazing milestone!

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

It was a long afternoon for Grandpa, but they had a cozy chair set up for him to relax in. It was a memorable moment when Sarah thought it looked like a pretty good spot to curl up too. She asked for her blanket and climbed up onto his lap, looking pretty pleased with herself.

I snapped this photo before she was fast asleep. It reminds me of another photo when Grandpa was a fair bit younger...

Now who could that little girl be?

Many of the tribe of Benjamins were able to come for the occasion, but we missed those who couldn't make it. We enjoyed the trip and a several days afterward with Kerin, Brenna, and Molly.

Abby sure misses her playmate (Molly)! And Sarah misses hers (dog Gracie)!
If you would like to see more photos from the party, click here.

amazing roasted asparagus

This recipe is a winner. I could eat it every night. Try it while asparagus is in season!

Recipe from Cooking Light

Yield

8 servings (serving size: 5 spears)

Ingredients

  • 40 asparagus spears, trimmed (about 2 pounds)
  • Cooking spray
  • 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 teaspoons low-sodium soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
  • Cracked black pepper (optional)
  • Grated lemon rind (optional)

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°.

Arrange asparagus in a single layer on a baking sheet; coat with cooking spray. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake at 400° for 12 minutes or until tender.

Melt butter in a small skillet over medium heat; cook 3 minutes or until lightly browned, shaking pan occasionally. Remove from heat; stir in soy sauce and balsamic vinegar. Drizzle over asparagus, tossing well to coat. Garnish with cracked pepper and rind, if desired.

Nutritional Information

Calories: 45 (60% from fat)
Fat:3g (sat 1.8g,mono 0.9g,poly 0.2g)
Protein: 1.9g
Carbohydrate: 3.9g
Fiber: 1.7g
Cholesterol: 8mg
Iron: 0.7mg
Sodium: 134mg
Calcium: 18mg

a few things

First off, this post totally made my day.

Secondly, if you are a blog-reading novice, read this post about using Google Reader and other such aggregators to make your blog reading life easier. You may think this is for you, but really its for me because I want to make it easier for you to follow my blog :).

And finally, I've gotten a few great recipes from other bloggers, so I thought I'd share a few more of my own favorites. These are regulars in our household.

{ Chicken and Rice }

The first meal I'd like to share is a favorite of Abby's.


{ Garlic Chicken and Pasta }

The next meal in my repertoire is very quick and easy.


{ Lasagna }

I highly recommend the Sausage variety.

Remarkably, the recipes for these dishes are all the same:
1. Purchase at Costco
2. Microwave as required.
3. Serve

And finally, a favorite that we try to work into our diet regularly. Have you heard of Wendy's? This meal is very easy because she cooks it for you. I've managed to reduce this recipe to 2 simple steps.
1. Order food at Wendy's
2. Serve


Happy April Fools Day!
(Sadly, this is no fool. These really are regular meals in our household...)

organizing recipes


In my quest to pretend I can actually cook (imposter!) I am thinking about embarking on an effort to organize my recipes. My current system (if you can call it that) of clipping and stuffing into a binder pocket does nothing to get me excited about cooking.

I would like to store my recipes online. I'm looking for a site that:
• is free
• is nicely designed (very important!) and intuitive
• allows me to categorize my recipes in different ways
• allows me to print them out
• lets me upload photos
• lets me make a cookbook out of them
• prints a grocery list from selected recipes
• lets me put in an ingredient and pulls recipe recommendations
• has a rating system
• can track nutrition information

A tall order, I admit. A few I have found in my quick search are Taste Book, Epicurious, and MyRecipes. I want to pick the right one before I go to the effort of typing in all of my favorite recipes.

So, I'm curious. Have any of you tried a site like this? Do you have an recommendations?

photo shoot

My super-talented friend Darla recently needed a couple of girls to shoot for a project. Of course, I was happy to volunteer Abby and Sarah for the job! The shoot was fun and she did a great job. This one is probably my favorite.

You can see more of this sugary sweetness over on her blog. Leave a comment and tell me which is your favorite. Thanks, Darla!

Shooting in RAW

I recently decided to make an attempt at shooting my photos in RAW. If you just said "huh?", this site provides a very detailed explanation of what this means. But in a nutshell:

"A raw file is essentially the data that the camera's chip recorded along with some additional information tagged on. A JPG file is one that has had the camera apply linear conversion, matrix conversion, white balance, contrast, and saturation, and then has had some level of potentially destructive compression applied."

In other words, you can buy cookies already made at the grocery store. They have probably been sitting there for 2 days and are starting to get a bit stale. OR, you can buy all of the ingredients, take them home, combine the ingredients just as you prefer, and bake them fresh.
There are some downsides to shooting in RAW. Namely, the file sizes are about 4 times larger (at least). It takes a lot more space to store the photos when you've uploaded them, longer to process them, and you can't fit as many on a card when you are shooting. (There is a price to pay for freshly baked cookies—mostly your time).

I decided to do a test to see if I could tell a big difference. Below is a photo I took on a tripod. It isn't a great shot, I confess, but that isn't the point of this test. I shot this image in ƒ/4.5, ISO 400, at 1/40 shutter speed.

There seems to be just a bit more detail in the RAW image (left), and the colors are are subtly warmer.

Next, I overexposed the image.


Then, I opened both in Photoshop Camera RAW and applied the same exposure adjustments.

This is where you can see the most obvious impact. You can recover information more easily if you shot in RAW and your image is overexposed. (Notice the detail in the pot).

Next, I underexposed the image. (Actually, the exposure on the plant is quite good, but the background is really dark).

Again, I opened both images in Camera RAW and lightened them.

Here the difference is more subtle, but you might be able to see that the shadowy areas lightened up with more detail in the RAW version.

I have to admit the jury is still out on whether RAW is the way to go for a hobby photography like me. Maybe another test is in order. Your thoughts?

Saturday news

The day is no longer gray. And I remembered I have something to say.

ITS A GIRL! Baby Sofia is my newest niece, born on February 27 at 7lb,10oz and 21.75 inches. Healthy as can be and beautiful. I stole (borrowed) these photos from Tim's Facebook page. Congratulations Tim and Petra and Elijah! We are excited to meet her.



gray day

I should post today.

I don't know what to say.

The day is gray.

(and snowy).

an account of our trip

Family blogs can be much like family Christmas letters. I mean, who (except the family in question) really cares if their prize pink poodle won best of show and their super-smart first grader is about to go to college? A post such as this about a trip such as this could quickly become a brag-fest, so rather than bore you with all the details, I'll tell you about the disappointments. That is more fun, right? Then you can say "I'm glad I didn't have a vacation in Mexico" and there won't be any jealousy.

1) The worst part of the whole trip was that we had to come home after 5 days. I mean, what kind of vacation ends like that? A real vacation would go on forever.

2) The pool was so big that you just couldn't possibly enjoy the whole thing. What a bummer.

3) We got really tired of tipping everyone who served us our food, made our beds everyday, and brought us piña coladas by the pool.

4) A person could also get very tired of authentic Mexican Chips and Pico (I didn't, but you could) since they serve it at every meal.

5) Cancun has been in the news lately. Did you know half the cops in Cancun are crooked? Really. It was a terribly dangerous place. We, and the other 5 million tourists around us, feared for our lives the entire time.

6) It actually sprinkled one afternoon and got a little cloudy. Terrible thing for the weather to do. And every now and then, we just couldn't bare to sit in the sun any longer. A person can get too much sun, you know.

7) Mom and Dad wouldn't stop talking about how they should sell the farm and disappear in Mexico for the rest of their lives. I mean, invite them on one trip and they go all crazy on ya.

8) My cards filled up from all the pictures I took. I had way too many pictures to sort through to post here, which I why it took me so long. So, without further adieu, I'll share a few of my favorites. Try to look past the disappointment that is just radiating from our faces.









If you remember this post and this post about which dresses I should buy the girls for the wedding, you might be interested to see these were the winners. (Not because I was sensible about spending all that money on the other ones, but because the other ones were actually back-ordered and I couldn't get them in time!) It probably worked out for the best, since there was no wedding to attend, but we still dressed them up for dinner at night.



I got up one morning to find Dad out playing beach volleyball. Doesn't he just fit right in with the speedos and bikinis?




The best part about vacations is the sleeping in (oops... I mean... I hated that part!)

There was a pool-side vendor that sold these little ceramic items that you could paint. She would then fire them and give them back to you the next day. Our little crafter Abby had to do one about every day so we came home with several colorful sourvenirs.

We almost worked up the guts to go para-sailing, but we just had too hard of a time getting off our beach chairs long enough to go sign up. I love this shot with the cruise ship in the background.

Mom and Dad vacation like pros. I think they might have been doing it behind our backs for years.

Dad was Sarah's favorite playmate.

One thing I wish we could have brought home with us was Sarah's curls that sprung up in the humid air.

If you would like to see more, you will need to click here. Otherwise, I'll just warn you that I'm about to say something really terrible.

I hope someday that you can have a vacation as awful as this so you can write about all the disappointing things that happened to you on your trip.

Numbers

417 Number of photos I took in Cancun.
3+ Number of days I fear it will take me to edit and post them.
2.5 Number of hours ago I should have hit the sack.
6.5 Precious hours of sleep I'll have to get by on before starting this madness all over again.

More later.

where have we been, anyway?

I've been neglecting my blog. Shamefully, until today, my blog header still said January. It isn't because life hasn't been exciting. It has just been busy. (Big surprise.)

February has a way of making me dream for the sun. I thrive on that vitamin D. My February blog header is an ode to those dreams. I didn't post it to make you jealous. That would just be mean. But of course, it does have relevance because we will find ourselves on that beach in just a few days.

That leads me to another story. We booked our trip to Cancun several months ago to attend the wedding of our friends, Christian and Kelly. Unfortunately, a few days ago we found out Christian was in a serious motorcycle accident. Fortunately he is okay, but he is recovering in the hospital and will be unable to travel for the wedding. It was too late to change travel plans, so we will be going anyway. (Darn!) We will surely enjoy our vacation, but we will miss you, Christian and Kelly, and we wish you all the best.

My parents, the ones who "never" go anywhere, have completely surprised me and decided to go with us! Dad has never flown on a commercial flight. We are going to have a blast, and I will return with more blog content. I promise. Because I know you have nothing better to do than read my blog.

Speaking of reading my blog, I am glad a few of you do. (By the way, thanks to all of you who leave us comments. It makes it rewarding to post up here when you know it isn't just lost in cyberspace.) And speaking of comments, those of you who won my blog tag, congratulations! YOU ARE THE BIG WINNERS! Amy, Sierra, Wrena, Brenda, and Jean, please note the disclaimer that clearly read it will happen "sometime this year". (I do plan to make good on this, but I'm pretty sure it won't be quick because I'm quite good at procrastinating, you know. I will try to make it happen before the elation you feel from winning this great prize wears completely off.)

In other news, Abby and her friend Bethany decided a couple of weeks ago that they wanted to audition for the Herriman City talent show. They learned "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better" from Annie Get Your Gun. We should find out this week if they get in. Either way, I'm just really proud of Abby for getting out of her comfort zone a little bit. It takes guts to sing in front of a panel of judges :) The cutest part is that Sarah has learned all the words just from hearing them practice. She can sing a pretty mean rendetion herself.

Speaking of comfort zones, we have decided to get out of ours and make a change with our daycare. Our daycare has been great, but it has gotten so big that it seems like such a business. I have thought for awhile that they would benefit from a smaller, more personal situation. We found a sweet family right in our neighborhood. They have 3 kids, 2 of which are girls, age 4 and 6. It should be a perfect fit for us right now. To top it off, it is right next to the school, and it will save me from running Abby to Kindergarten every day over my lunch hour. Change can be good and I hope this will be!

Well, that is enough of this wordy post. We'll be thinking of you from the sunny riviera! (I really didn't say that to make you jealous.)

I was tagged...

...sort of. I left a comment on my fabulous friend Paula's blog, very happy that I was the first one to post and have something handmade by her. And then I read the part that said I had to post this on my blog too :) Oh well, I've been saying that I need to get back to doing crafty things again. Here's my chance! Read the following post and join in!

****

Lucky you! The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you. This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

2- What I create will be just for you.

3- It'll be done this year. (might be a little while)

4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!

5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog.

The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

Playing school

Tonight Abby wanted to play school. "Let's pretend all the boys were being rowdy and had to be sent to the principles office." "Let's pretend that my friend Eliza and I are the smartest kids in the class." "Mrs. Clark, let's pretend...." After the 40th "let's pretend" I decided I'm not cut out for this anymore. I'm not sure when pretending ceased to be fun, but I think its sad that we have to loose our imaginations when we grow up. Instead we have to worry about getting the dishes done.

I did learn a few tricks about how to use this to my advantage:
"Let's pretend this homework is the work we have to do in school today. Abby, will you read this book to the class?"
"Let's pretend that today is pajama day. Class, go put on the pajamas you brought to school with you today."
"Class, we have a visitor today. The dentist! Isn't that great? He is going to demonstrate how to brush your teeth!"

Uh-oh, Sarah has taken to calling me Mrs. Clark.

a playdate with 'amma

We had a great visit from 'Amma this weekend. The girls were very sad that she had to go back home. They know how to milk 'Amma for everything, of course. It will take me all week to un-spoil them again. :)

She played with Sarah's favorite toy, Polly Pockets. And she played with Abby's favorite toy, her pearl beads.

Grandmas are so great.

Here is Abby, showing off one of her latest creations, a Lego parade float. What an imagination.

Yesterday we made Amy's pizza, to a chorus of fire alarms. Apparently our super-sensitive alarms don't like my oven to be turned on that hot. Our ears hurt, but the pizza was good!

Then we sat down to watch the Super Bowl. A day ago you'd have asked me who I was rooting for and I would have said I couldn't care less about football. But alas, today I say I'm a Cardinals fan. It was a pretty great game.

worthy alternative?

An online search unearthed these alternatives. I like them also and they are much more affordable, but is it worth the compromise? What do you think?

The DKNY dress above would be for Sarah, from Macy's.


This one would be for Abby, from Dillards. Actually, if I could get by with a 6X for Abby, I could get them both the same dress, but I'm not sure I want to do the match-y match-y thing. Bloggers are such great advice-givers... keep it coming! :)

As our friend Emily pointed out, they would be good for many more things (Easter, family pics, convention...) so if you divide by the number of wears then they aren't quite so pricey. :)

Another option: Today we found out Mom will be coming for a visit next weekend, and she said she would help me try to sew dresses like the ones from Chasing Fireflies (I spelled it right this time) in the previous post. Now I just need to decide how much our time is worth. It might be a pretty big project for a weekend!

dreamy dresses

I've been thinking about buying the girls new dresses for the beach wedding we are attending in February. I really admire these dreamy dresses over at Chasing Fireflys.

The catch (there is always a catch) is that they cost way more than any reasonable person should spend on clothing that will only be worn, at best, one season before it's wearer shoots up another 3 inches. But, no ever accused me of being reasonable . . .