Funeral Potatoes

Our ward compassionate service leader called me the other day and asked if I could make some potatoes for a funeral being held on Thursday. Guy and I joked that we call this yummy potato dish "funeral potatoes" all the time except for when we are preparing them for a funeral. Just in case you don't have a recipe for these yummy potatoes, here is my version.



Potatoes with Corn Flakes a.k.a. Funeral Potatoes


6 medium boiled potatoes, diced or shredded
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cube (1/4 cup) melted margarine
1 cup sour cream or IMO
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 - 3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese


Topping

6 cups Corn Flakes, crushed to 2 cups
3 Tbsp melted butter
Combine.


Mix last 5 ingredients and cook over low heat until cheese is melted. Stir to keep from burning. Pour in layers over potatoes and fold together lightly. Top with Corn Flake crumb mixture.


Place in a square 8 x 8 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes, until bubbly. Double the recipe for a 9 x 13 pan.

Martha Monday Tip

Today's tip is to "Clean as you Cook." Martha says, "Instead of filling the sink with pots and dishes, wash them or put them in the dishwasher as you prepare a meal." I love this tip! There are days that I just want to take a break after I have put dinner in the oven, but it is so easy to load the dishwasher with my prep dishes really quick and then take a break. I still put a few items in the sink to wait until after dinner clean-up but doing things as I go makes things a lot easier. I was practicing this tip the other day and I must have done a pretty good job because Guy had no idea what I was cooking for dinner since all the evidence had been put away.

LASIK

I finally got my new eyes and life is great! My appointment was at 2:00 Thursday afternoon but it probably wasn't until about 4:30 that I actually went under the laser. We dropped the girls off at my mom's house that afternoon and then Guy dropped me off at Hoopes Vision. After doing a couple of tests, I took a Valium so I could be really relaxed and then I just waited my turn. First, I had IntraLASE to create the corneal flap and then I had to sit with my eyes closed for about 30 minutes while the bubbles dissipated. Then it was my turn to go under the laser. It was a really strange experience but not painful at all because they were putting numbing drops in my eyes about every 5 minutes for the past hour. Guy arrived to pick me up when they were working on my left eye, so he got to see it done in person. After I walked out of the laser room, they examined my eyes again to make sure that there weren't any bumps or wrinkles in my flap and then Guy and I were on our way home. I could barely open my eyes but Guy was really good to help me with all the many drops that I had to be putting in my eyes. After a quick bite to eat (that I really couldn't see), Guy put me to bed and I slept for about 2 hours. When I woke up, I could see fairly well and so I decided to watch the news and the DVD of my surgery before going back to sleep. Waking up on Friday morning was the best!! I just rolled over and I could see my alarm clock. In the shower, I was ecstatic to be able to read the shampoo bottles but not so excited to see just how bad my shower needs to be cleaned. Recovery is going great. I could see well enough to drive on Friday afternoon, less than 24 hours after my surgery. I think that Ashley is still getting used to seeing my without my glasses. It is like she looks at my face and she knows that there was something there before but she doesn't know how to tell me. My biggest thing right now is being careful for the next two months not to let my eyes get bumped which can be hard with two little kids. Overall, I am so happy with my new eyes!!

Martha Monday Tip

Today's tip is another thing that I really need to work on...Sort the mail. Martha says, "Take a few minutes to open, read, and sort mail as soon as you bring it inside. Keep a trash bin near your sorting area for junk mail. Drop other mail into one of four in-boxes: personal correspondence, bills, catalogs, and filing." I try and put all my bills in a separate place right away so that they don't get lost among all the other things to sort through so that when the day comes to pay bills, they are all in one place. My dad did a really cool thing with bills...After he opened them and checked when they were due, he would subtract three days and then write that new date on the outside of the envelope. He would then put all the bills in order of when they were due and mail the check by the date on the envelope. It seemed to work pretty good. Catalogs and ads are a whole different story. I try and toss out the ads to places that I never shop right away and the rest get put with the phone books. Catalogs are the same way...I toss them right away if I don't need to buy anything from them or they get filed away and then I go through all of them every couple of months. Hopefully this will help me keep my table and counters cleared in the kitchen. Happy sorting :)

New Couches?

before

About a year ago, my Aunt Linda gave me her old couch because she was getting new ones. Then a couple of months ago, we picked up the matching love seat from her to go with it. We were finally able to put our green recliner couch downstairs with the TV which makes movie night a lot more comfortable. A couple of weeks ago I finally ordered some slipcovers for the couches to give them a little bit of a face lift. You see, the only furniture that Guy and I have purchased since we have been married is the crib and changing table. I had bought us a mattress before we were married and just about everything else was inherited from my dad's house. So, even talking Guy into slipcovers took a lot work. Maybe one day we will get new furniture for our living room, a bigger kitchen table, and a bedroom set with matching pieces, but this will do for now. My next thing to find are pillows and other accessories to go with our "new" couches and maybe even a rug to tie it all together.

after

Josh's Second Birthday

Happy Birthday Josh! Yesterday was my cousin Erin's son Josh's second birthday...he is Amelia and Ashley's second cousin. It was such a blast. We made pizza dough from scratch and then let the kids put whatever toppings they wanted to on their pizza. Of course, we had to make a few adult pizza's too with yummy stuff like feta cheese and spinach. The kids loved putting their own stuff on the pizza but some of them were too busy playing to eat their masterpieces once they came out of the oven. All in all, the kids did pretty good considering no one had taken a nap for the day and the pizza was much better than Chuck E. Cheese by far! I'm thinking that I will have to start doing something like this at our house.

My New Haircut

After checking my blog the other day, my mom was disappointed that the haircut I posted about was Guy's and not mine. So, I guess that I should post about my new haircut too. It has been six months since I have gotten my hair cut and sometimes I go even longer than that between cuts. Guy really likes it when my hair grows long. If he had things his way, I would probably never cut my hair at all. He longingly looks at pictures of my hair when it was long wishing that I will some day grow it out again. But with kids constantly pulling at it, I like to keep it a little bit shorter. So, a week ago, I got my hair cut in a style that I hope will be easy to manage and not take a lot of time since most days, my hair is extremely neglected. I am really happy with it so far. It is a nice blow dry and go kind of style.

Haircut

During my second year of school at Utah State, I was living below an apartment of boys that my apartment of girls hung out with a lot. One night, one of the boys wanted a haircut and I volunteered to cut his hair even though I had absolutely no experience in this area. Needless to say, it took me quite a while to cut his hair and I needed a lot of help! Over the next two years at school, I got a lot of experience cutting hair for the boys upstairs and a few other guys in my ward. At one time, I even thought of going to beauty school after I finished my bachelor's degree. After Guy and I got married, I cut his hair a few times but I always had to borrow clippers from someone so it didn't last very long. Then, a couple of months ago, Guy brought it up again how I used to cut hair for all these boys and maybe we could save $12 every 6 weeks or so (that's almost $100 a year) by me cutting his hair. I think that he thought it was a big hassle to go somewhere to get a haircut and there isn't a (cheap) beauty college nearby like when we lived in Logan. Last night I gave him his third haircut since we bought our own clippers. The best thing about it is that Guy and I get to spend a little bit of time together and I know that some other woman isn't running her fingers through my hubby's hair.


Here is Guy's new haircut!

Martha Monday Tip

Today's tip is to manage clutter. This is something that I really have a problem with. Martha says, "Whenever you leave a room, take a quick look around for anything that isn't where it should be. Pick it up and put it where it belongs. Insist that everyone in the household do the same."

While I was cleaning up today, I put this into practice. I finally got all the Christmas decorations put away which also involved taking all the boxes downstairs. So, every time I went into a different room, I looked around to see what needed to put away somewhere else. Sometimes it was just a hat, glove or a random shoe, but all those little things can add up to a lot of clutter. Hopefully this will make cleaning a lot easier.

Chicken Nacho Bake

Last night for dinner, I had the classic conversation in my head of "What should we have for dinner?" Luckily, my new Kraft Foods magazine came in the mail and I found this yummy recipe that was super easy and quick and I had all the ingredients on hand. So, here it is. Give it a try!

Chicken Nacho Bake

4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves

1/2 cup salsa

1/4 cup sour cream

1/2 cup crushed tortilla chips

1/2 cup Mexican style shredded four cheese (I just used cheddar)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place chicken on foil-covered baking sheet. Slice three cuts on top of each chicken breast with a sharp knife.

Top each chicken breast evenly with salsa, sour cream and tortilla chips.

Bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven; sprinkle with cheese. Bake an additional 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through (165 degrees).

When I made it, I only did 2 chicken breasts and then I just topped it with enough of the other ingredients to cover it. It turned out great and we didn't have leftover chicken to deal with.

Let the demolition begin!

For the last 6 months or so, we have been talking about doing some remodeling in our basement. The bathroom is shoved into the same room as the furnace and the water heater and it is not very functional. The water to the toilet has been shut off since before we even moved in so we have never used it. Here is what it looked like when we bought the house.

For a while, we thought about all the ways that we could make that bathroom work. But in the end, we realized that if we wanted a bathroom that was big enough to turn around in, we would have to relocate the bathroom. Luckily, our family room is very large and so we are just going to take a chunk out of it for our new bathroom. For the most part, we are just fliping everything around 180 degrees. In the process, we have gotten three different bids. The first was from a general non-licensed handy man who could do everything for about $3000. The next was from a general contractor who would do all the work for $8000. Finally, I discovered that we have a licensed plumber in our ward that can do all the plumbing work, including a new tub and toilet, for around $1000. We will be doing a lot of labor ourselves but it will save us a lot of money in the long run. I am really excited to be on the road to getting a working, functional bathroom in our basement. Last night, Guy started punching out the sheet rock to prepare the space. The carpet was torn up before we moved in so that is one less thing that we have to do. Next, Guy will be cutting holes in the concrete so that the plumber can come back and make new drains for everything and run all the new water lines.

Ashley's Mysterious Illness

Ashley started acting really strange last Friday night when I was giving her a bath. She pretty much cried through the whole thing and then continued crying when I was putting lotion on and getting her dressed afterwards. I thought that maybe she was just really tired so I didn't think too much of it. Then on Saturday, she barely ate a thing all day and when we put her to bed, I thought that her head felt a little bit warm. On Sunday, we didn't take her to Nursery since she is still trying to get rid of a cold. Guy said that she fell asleep on his shoulder in both Sunday school and Priesthood which is another really strange thing for her to do. That afternoon, Guy gave her a blessing and I was able to get her to eat some applesauce but that was about all she ate for the day. Monday morning, I finally decided that I should take her temperature to see if she had a fever. Her temperature was 103.7 so I started giving her Tylenol and Motrin to bring her fever down. It took a few days, but it finally came down on Wednesday. So, for 4 1/2 days, she only ate a little bit of yogurt and drank some milk. Finally last night for dinner, she ate some of her quesadilla. Hopefully she is getting back to normal. I have no idea what made her sick because she was acting mostly normal except for the fever and not eating anything. It was definitely a mystery.

Martha Monday Tip

About a year ago, I bought Martha Stewart's Homekeeping Handbook. She has a lot of great tips so every Monday, I am going to share a little something that I am trying to implement to keep things cleaner at my house. The first one is to make the bed everyday. This one is kind of a no brainer but it is something that I tend to forget. Martha says, "Tidiness begets tidiness. A crisply made bed makes the whole room seem more orderly, which makes it less likely that you'll let other things-such as clothes and papers-pile up around it." I know that I love being able to climb into bed at night and not have to straighten up the covers before getting in. I'm also trying to teach this principle to Amelia. Hopefully one day she will be able to make the bed by herself. Right now she mostly just hands me all the pillows. So, this is my goal this week...to make the all beds in the house everyday. It is something that will only take a few minutes and it will make the whole room look better.

Crazy Winter Weather

This past weekend, we have experienced some really crazy snow storms. When I went to bed on Friday night, the wind was blowing so hard that I was afraid our gigantic pine trees were going to be uprooted, or we were going to loose half of the shingles off our roof. Luckily, when I woke up on Saturday morning, all three pine trees had not budged and I didn't see any misplaced shingles. I was also surprised that the winter storm that had been forcasted to hit must have missed us because it was just raining. "Great", I thought because we had a party to get to at 11:30 in Riverton with my college roommates, the boys upstairs, and a few other friends from USU. But at 9:00, the snow started coming hard and fast and it didn't let up until about 1:00. Well, I called Britta to tell her that I wasn't going to risk coming up in this weather so we decided to postpone the party for 2 weeks. Britta was nice enough to call everyone to let them know but she didn't get in touch with a few people so they had a little mini party at Carl's Jr. On the news that night, they reported that Springville got 7 inches of snow, but I think it only looked like 3 inches when I was out shoveling.

On Sunday, we had to start our day pretty early because we had 9:00 church and I needed to be early to set up chairs in the Primary room. It is extremely hard to get some members of my family out of bed in the morning so I knew this was going to be a challenge. We got to church a lot later than I wanted to, but luckily the Primary President had gotten to there early and she had started getting all the chairs up. It was a really crazy morning in Primary trying to get all the kids where they needed to be and dealing with my own new Sunbeam who wanted to go to Sunbeams (in the classroom) but she didn't want to sit in Opening Exercises. So, she was screaming and crying and I just couldn't deal with her and making sure that 75 other kids got to where they needed to go. So I finally decided that my family comes first and so I sat down with her on the Sunbeam row until she calmed down. Needless to say, it was a little bit crazy. When everything was over and done, we gathered our coats and family and then looked outside. It was a blizzard outside. We didn't have time to dawdle because Guy had to hurry home and get something to eat and then head back over to the church to do his financial clerk responsibilities. The snow was coming sideways so we ran to the car and got the girls in as fast as we could and then started heading home. Our church is across Highway 89 so we had to cross a potentially dangerous road and we could only see about 50 feet away and the roads were snow packed and slick. It probably only snowed about an inch but it sure did make for a scary drive home. I will sure be happy when spring comes!

Project 2008

After moving 4 times in 5 years, there have been a lot of things that just get moved to the new place because we don't have time to deal with it before we move. Some of these things have been packed in the same boxes for more than 10 years because they are things that I had packed away before we even got married. When we moved into this house, I didn't want to have unpacked boxes all over the house so they all went downstairs to the extra bedroom (that will one day be my craft room) to be dealt with later. At the time, I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with Ashley so I really didn't have the energy to do anything more than what was absolutely necessary. Well, we have now been in this house for a year and a half, I figure that it is about time to get that room cleaned out so that it can actually have a purpose besides just being a storage room that you can barely walk in. I'm hoping that it doesn't take me the entire year to go through all this stuff because I have a lot more things that I want to get done this year, but it will be a good winter project since we try to spend as much time inside as possible.