(Sort of) Sad news.

Will and I decided a few weeks ago that we needed to find a new home for Ginny. So sad! But we had a couple of reasons. For one, it turns out I'm allergic to her. Not horribly, but enough to make it so I have to vacuum 2-3 times a week and I can't brush her, play with her, or pet her without being extremely uncomfortable for a little while. For another, I can't stand having doggie doo all over the back yard - the kids (*cough* Ben *cough*) are just too young to know better than not to eat whatever they think looks remotely interesting. SO GROSS. Actually, it wasn't all over, it was only in her designated spot...the kids never seemed to remember what her spot was, though.

But in all honesty, Will and I decided that we are just not dog people. I had dogs growing up and always loved them, but apparently I've grown out of it, because Ginny simply drove me insane all the time. And Will has never really been a dog person. We decided to try it out anyway, and, obviously, it didn't work. Especially because Ginny was small, ridiculously cute, and very well behaved (albeit hyper), so if we didn't like HER, I don't think we'd like any dog.

So we put an ad up on Craigslist and made an appointment to get her spayed, and we had a bunch of people interested in her right away. I mean, how many people want a ridiculously adorable puppy that is a bit older, partly obedience trained and completely house trained? (A lot, apparently.) I had like 5 people asking about her the first day, so I took the ad off and met a very nice woman who fell in love with her right away.

As of now, she's been gone for almost 24 hours. It sounds like she's doing absolutely awesome in her new home, which I seriously could not be happier about. She really was the sweetest puppy, but I wasn't giving her what she needed, and I really think she'll get all she needs and more in her new home. I feel really good about our decision even though it's a bit hard to see her cute face go, not to mention my pride might be a little hurt. ;)

Sourdough Bread

I've been wanting to try sourdough bread for a long time, since it's a favorite of my husband's. I wanted to make my own starter instead of buying it, so here is what I used:

Allrecipes - San Francisco Sourdough Starter

I watched all 8 videos a couple of times, and then I tried it. I think I took about 10 days from start to finish, and the sour flavor was definitely there, but a little weak. (Which is to be expected, because the older your starter is, the more sour it gets.) Here's the deal, though...apparently 40% of the time, this method does not work because of some kind of bacteria that gets in and kills the yeast before it is ready. Here's another method that avoids that problem:

Breadtopia - Make your own sourdough starter

 I think the second one is better overall, but I liked the first one because in the end you actually have bread. :)

I had a lot of trouble figuring this out because EVERYBODY does sourdough a little differently, and I couldn't seem to find any website or video that covered it from start to finish and explained clearly, including how to keep your sourdough after it was ready. So after a lot of reading and actually making it myself, this is what I learned...

Basically, the idea is you have equal parts water and flour (equal weights is better, but you can do equal parts too - it makes the starter a little thinner and easier to work with) and let it ferment for a while. Stir 2-3 times a day, and feed every 24 hours. For feeding, you want to put in enough flour and water to approximately double the amount of starter that you have. So if you have 1/2 cup starter, you'll want to add about a half cup of water and a half cup of flour. If you have too much starter just dump some out, or give some to a friend. Don't put a tight lid on it, make sure that it has some breathing room. When I made mine I put it in the oven with the light on and the door closed and it worked well.

When it's ready, put it in the fridge. You'll know it's ready when it gets really bubbly, not just frothy but bubbly all over (you'll see in the videos). The longer you let it ferment and bubble outside the fridge the more sour your bread should be. (Of course, it will get more sour in the fridge too, it will just take a lot longer.) You need to feed the starter occasionally to keep it alive and active after you put it in the fridge. Once a week is plenty, but the more often you feed it the more sour it becomes. It can last a month or two without any feedings and still be revived for bread making. Make sure you have some extra room in your bowl or jar where you keep your starter, and always leave it capped lightly. If you cap it too tightly the jar may burst.

When it comes time for actually making bread, keep in mind that it may take a LONG time to rise. Don't get discouraged! Here in Littleton bread rises really fast, because of the elevation, so my bread rose in just a few hours, but I would highly recommend just leaving it overnight if you are at a low elevation, shaping it the next day, and it should be ready to bake in the afternoon sometime.

By the way, here is the recipe for the first video - this is the recipe I used for my bread:

2 cups starter
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons oil
1 1/2 cups flour
Additional flour for kneading

Knead until smooth and elastic. Shape into a loaf, and let rise until doubled in size. Bake at 425. If you want a really crispy crust, spray the bread and sides of the oven with water a few times during baking (every 10 minutes for the first half hour). You can also put a pan of water in the bottom of the oven for additional steam, but I didn't do that and I think the crust was just right.

There are a lot of recipes for sourdough out there, and a lot of them include yeast. If you have new starter, you probably want one that doesn't use yeast because your bread won't be as sour - you might not even be able to taste it if you use yeast instead of just starter. On the flip side, if you use yeast it does rise faster. So it's up to you.


If you try it, let me know how it goes, and let me know if you have any questions. Good luck!

Happy New Year!!

What a year we've had! Finishing our house in West Valley, moving a couple of times, buying a new house, starting a career - yep, it's been a good one.

Kaylee was sick yesterday, so I was tired and really ready to relax at the end of the day. I went to buy some Gatorade for her after she and Ben were in bed, and when I got back, the kids were both asleep and the house was full of candles, romantic music playing, chocolates scattered around, and Will had set out our traditional Martinelli's and wine glasses. We sat and talked for a bit and read a book together. Then we watched "Up" and even though it wasn't quite midnight, we went to bed. Right at midnight fireworks went off, and we could see them through our bedroom skylight while we were lying in bed. How cool is that?? It was such a fun evening.

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!! We decided to stay home and have our own family Christmas for the first time. It was just too much to plan a trip, find a place for the dog to stay, and find a way to pay for it. I'll be honest...I LOVE Christmas with just our little family! It might be hard to convince me to go anywhere again. It was just so fun and relaxing for us.

Our whole week was busy and fun. On Sunday, we had the ward Christmas program that Will was in charge of. I helped a lot behind the scenes to get everything set, like music copies, new binders for everyone, things like that. But Will put everything together and it turned out great! We had four choir songs, one solo, one instrumental, and one a cappella group. Lots of fun and I had a friend and a young woman sit with our kids so that we could both be a part of it and not stress about the kids. It worked out well.

Monday I made some Christmas treats, although this year I was lame and didn't give them to neighbors. I was completely planning on it, but I realized I had nothing to deliver them in and honestly just felt a bit lazy! Hopefully next year I'll be better about doing that. :) I also went to a friends' house and played the piano while she played violin and recorded it for her parents, who are serving a mission.

Tuesday I made tons of cookies and we cleaned the house, and then had a big Christmas Eve dinner. We opened some presents - pajamas for Will and me, and new blankets for the kids. We also got Miracle on 34th Street, watched that and had hot chocolate. That's one of my favorite Christmas movies.

And of course Wednesday was the big day! Since we decided to stay home and Will got a last minute Christmas bonus we were not expecting, we had more presents than I thought we would! It was pretty fun, even though maybe that makes me sound shallow and materialistic. ;)

In the afternoon on Christmas we had dinner with our good friends, the Tanners. They're becoming like family to us here and we love it!

On Friday, since the weather was so nice, we went to Blue Heron Park. It's a park here that's only a few blocks away with a little playground, a pond and a path around the pond. There are TONS of geese there right now, it was pretty noisy. It was really funny to watch them fly and land on the ice, they were slipping and sliding everywhere. If you've never seen a goose slide all over ice, you're missing out. :)

We brought Ginny along too, and I think she had a good time.

What a fun week!!

Gingerbread house

So recently I discovered a difficulty I have with children. I always have these somewhat romantic notions when it comes to Christmas (and sometimes other things). For example, I thought about how fun it would be to have a night where we decorate the Christmas tree, put on Christmas music and drink hot cider. Instead of being a fun, relaxing evening, half of us were sick, Ben wanted to throw the ornaments (BALL!) and only Kaylee and I enjoyed the cider. The dog was crazy and there was way too much yelling involved. Somehow I feel like other parents do better at having fun during times like these, and I'm too uptight and just need to R-E-L-A-X. Hope I'm not the only one. :)

We made a gingerbread house today and I promised myself to just let the kids have fun, and not try to take over and want it all perfect. Do you guys know how hard that is for me??? Seriously. (I have issues.)

But we had a great time! The only problem was whiny Ben, but he's pretty much whiny all the time because he's not sleeping well at all lately. He just wanted to eat ALL the candy, of course - very much expected. He actually did pretty well at helping put candy on the house too, so it worked out alright and I think we all had fun!

I did it.

I finally came up with a solution to my Christmas tree dilemma! It was really getting so depressing, I was so sad about my poor, poor Christmas tree. Every day another ornament (or several) would have to be moved up to the top, or be completely destroyed by the dog. This is what my tree looked like...

SO SAD! I wanted to cry every time I saw it. Ben kept grabbing the garland and pulling out the tinsel strands, and he kept reaching higher than I expected and getting the ornaments. So frustrating. It was also sad because I really only had some blue and silver balls I bought, we got rid of our old ornaments (nothing special) when we moved and I didn't buy much this year.

I came up with this (slightly ghetto I suppose, but better ghetto gate than ghetto tree!):

Yes, we had an old door in our garage from when we changed Kaylee's door out, and it just happened to be a perfect fit! I just sectioned off the entire living room.

I had to use a bit of creativity for this part. A clasp, a hook and eye without the hook, a very large washer and a screw from an old hinge. Yep, it's...interesting. But it WORKS! It's easy to unhook, and I can slide the whole thing behind the piano when I don't want it. The kids and the dog pretty much just leave it alone when it's closed, and I can open it when we want to use the room or when we have company. Today I finished decorating the tree. Now it's beautiful, I can have presents under it, and nobody can get to it unless I allow them. It works really well because we don't use that room much anyway.

 Since I had hardly any ornaments, I spent the last couple of days making some. I made a dozen of these little guys:

And some of these, with salt dough, spray paint and glitter. Juvenile?? Perhaps a bit, but that's okay. I just needed SOMETHING.

I also went to the park today and picked up some pine cones to make these.

It was 65 degrees and sunny today. It's weird to me that people say the winters here are bad, because nowhere in my mind does "65 degrees," "December," and "bad winter" go together. It just...doesn't. Anyway, we had a GREAT time at the park! And I really wore Benjamin out:

Neither of my kids have ever fallen asleep at the high chair before. He didn't have a nap today and was apparently extremely tired! Poor kid just couldn't get comfortable.

(He was asleep the entire time in the video)

Christmastime!!

My favorite time of year!! We started decorating on Black Friday, of course, like we always do. We got a tree on Saturday and...it's still not done. Decorating a tree with two young kids, a puppy, and a kitten is rather frustrating. Kaylee is the only one that "gets" it, and she STILL has a hard time leaving the ornaments on the tree. More often though, it's her saying "MOOOOOMMY!! Ben is messing up the tree!!!!!!" And Ben just points at the tree excitedly saying "BALLS!!" And then picks his favorite and throws it as hard as he can, and the dog attempts to eat it. It's quite a party.

 

I realize this is not the best picture because it's too bright outside, but you get the idea. I'll get some better pictures when we have it finished. Although I don't know if I'll bother if I can't have any ornaments within 3 feet of the floor! Maybe I'll just call it good right now. :)

And here is my Christmas mantel. Okay...I know the stockings are super ghetto. They might have been $1 at Target. I don't know what kind of stockings I really want, so I can't shell out a bunch of money for stockings I'm not in love with, I'll just have to wait till I find the right ones! And yeah...I don't have fancy stocking holders either. Maybe next year?? Then I can stop poking holes in everything.

We got SNOW!!! It's so pretty, I love snow. (In December.) So anyone who wanted to see our house who hasn't seen it yet...there it is! We like her. We're not doing a whole lot of decorating outside this year. I would love a big wreath above the garage, and some Christmas lights, but for now I'm sticking with my green garland and red ribbons!

I did something a little different with our pajamas tradition this year. Normally we do pajamas on Christmas Eve, but this year I got some Christmas themed pajamas for the kids. I love Christmas pjs, but I didn't want to give them on Christmas Eve, then they can only wear them for a little while before it's weird. So this year, I gave them the day after Thanksgiving, so at least they can wear them for the season. I think they're so cute!

I even got them both sort of smiling. SHOCKING!! I'm glad Ben didn't do his "tough-guy" face like he normally does for pictures.