A few things I've cooked this week

I've cooked or prepared at least three new things and filled a request for a long-time favorite of Mom's.

Dirt Cookies:  These are delicious.  These are the cookies OLD people remember from their childhood.  They are the cookies with oatmeal, peanut butter, and chocolate, that you don't have to bake. Mom wanted me to make them, so I did.

Chips:  I made these using wheat tortillas.  They are good and easy to make.  I used parmesan cheese, sesame seeds, and poppy seeds.  We are going to tweak them to make them cheesier and maybe a little spicy.

Breaded Chicken:  This was made with saltine crackers.  The breading wasn't as, shall we say, flavorful as we thought it would be but it was still nice change to plain chicken.  We are going to try to make this recipe a little better also.

Fruit Salad:  I love this stuff!  I had it at Susan's and I liked it so much I asked how to make it.  She gave me the recipe but I wanted to make sure I remembered it correctly so I searched for the recipe online and I made it yesterday.  It was gone within a few hours; Mom and Dad added pecans and walnuts to their servings.

Tomorrow I think I might make some cinnamon, raisin swirl bread.  :)  

Pets

I have told you about the pets I want or the pets I have most recently gotten but here is a list the pets that have not yet made it onto the blog.

Jack

Jack is MY dog and he is 3 years old. He is a chihuahua/dachshund mix. One bitterly cold day, a few weeks before Christmas 2004, a chihuahua and a dachshund showed up on my sister's porch. We believe that they were husband and wife. Jessica quickly discovered that the chihuahua was pregnant. She had 5 puppies. I really wanted one and I picked the softest, fattest one. When they were puppies they all looked the same but we have gotten to see his siblings since they have grown up: the girls look like chihuahuas and his brother is big and doesn't look like a chihuahua or a dachshund. Jack is super cute, has a very high pitched bark, and I LOVE him.

Molly

Molly is my dad's dog and she is 6 years old. She is a Jack Russell Terrier. My dad didn't really want a dog but he had always liked Jack Russell Terriers, so for one of his birthdays he got Molly. Molly is not trained, so if she gets out the front door it is very hard to catch her. She has gotten better at not bolting out the door. She loves going outside (unlike Jack). She has always been neurotic, and her current annoying habit is to lick the hair off of her tail. It is very disgusting. But one look her face makes up for it.

Samantha

Samantha is not a certain person's cat, she is just here to eat. Samantha is a FAT, ornery cat. My aunt found her under a bush. She does not have a tail, it's just a nub. She loves to eat, sleep, go in and out 50 times a day (not unlike the dogs), and then eat some more.

Baby Grace

When my Dad worked with Lenox, a guy he was working with heard tiny squeaking noises in an attic; he thought his tool was messing up, but Dad found a little ball of fur hidden in a corner.  This 'thing' was so tiny; her ears weren't up, her eyes weren't open, etc. We had to feed her with a bottle, give her baths, make sure she stayed warm enough, but in the end she turned out fine. She was just like a baby, if she could not go with us when we went somewhere we had to find a babysitter. She is a little smaller than most cats because she was deprived of her nutrition as a kitten. I say she is meaner than Samantha because, if you leave Samantha alone, she will not hurt you; Baby Grace comes to get you for no reason. She has stalked me before, sometimes I will just be sitting on the couch and she will jump up there bite me and run away. She is small, sometimes mean, sometimes sweet, and ADORABLE.

I'M GETTING AN E*TRADE ACCOUNT...

AND

If she's not wearing my shoes, she's sporting Christopher's hats.

If the shoe fits...

Charlotte likes my shoes

But something's not right...

Oh, it's untied...

There, that's better

17 on the 18th

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTOPHER!!!!!!!

Disciple Now

I haven't posted since Valentines Day, not because I didn't have anything to write about, but 

because I was at DNow. 

DNow is a church event where the youth get together and groups of peopl

e stay together at someone's house for the weekend. We sleep at the host home, but spend most of our time attending events at church. We also went to play LaserTag for our recreation time. 

My whole Sunday school class did it as a group. It was a great way to learn more about God and His plan for the world, and how sin affects us. 

It was very fun; I got to know the girls in my class even better and I made a new friend.  

 

Cooking with JR

I love it when I am signed up with Jessica R for classes or events, because Susan is ALWAYS so good about planning 'car pool' get-togethers when we do. We have our sewing class on Wednesday mornings, so Susan thought we could take turns spending the night with each other on Tuesday nights.

I went to their house first for this; I wanted to learn how to make chicken spaghetti because I had had it over there before and it was good. I also got to make banana pudding because Susan wanted to get to taste mine (she'd heard so much about it!). So Jessica and I cooked dinner and dessert. The chicken spaghetti was very good and the banana pudding was delicious (- even though Brandon thought it needed more bananas. .)



Sadly our sewing class was canceled, but that way we got to spend more time together. I helped Jessica rearrange her terrarium for her hermit crabs; I also told her she needed to mist it so that it would be humid in there. Then Jessica and I played on the Wii a little, but soon we had to leave to go to bowling. I am really glad I got to go over there and cook.

Guess what we got...

Mom got her Costco  (Amex) rebate today! After Spanish class with Senor Blanco, we headed to Costco for some fun shopping.  She was not sure what she was going to get so we just roamed around the store looking for goodies. 

 Then, we saw it, we had wanted one FOREVER but never could get one: a ROOMBA.  (A roomba is a little vacuum cleaner that goes around all by itself and cleans, so you can be out running errands and your house is getting vacuumed!)  The reason we had always wanted one was because of the dogs and cats: we have a wonderful Dyson, but even if we vacuumed 3 times a day (it could happen), at the end of the day there would be hair everywhere. 

 As soon as we arrived home I started opening it (we got a few other items but Mom and Christopher could worry about those things).  It was very cool because it came with a little bit of a charge and an easy quick start guide.  It is simple: you sit it on the floor, press clean, and VOILA!  It switches to rugs easily from the hardwood floor, and we all got TOO excited when it disappeared under the couch and came out the other end. 

 There is this blue light that turns on when it senses a dirtier spot, and cleans extra thoroughly there.  (We got to see a lot of the blue light. . .)  We've emptied the trash bin three times already;  it really picked up the hair and dirt.

We are so happy about it.  Who knew I could be so excited about a vacuum cleaner!  :D

Oh yeah:  Jack is terrified of IT (we knew he would be), Molly follows IT and barks (we knew she would), and Baby Grace views IT suspiciously from whatever perch she can find in whatever room it's in.  IT and Samantha haven't met yet.

SEWING!

Today was the first day of my sewing class. We got there at the same time my friend Jessica did. We went in and met the teacher and found out we were the only 2! I liked it that way because it was more focused on us. The teacher showed us how to make a bobbin, thread the machine, and load the bobbin. She gave each of us a scrap piece of fabric to practice on. After we had made a few curved stiches she decided we could start cutting the fabric using the pattern. We each made a letter pillow; I made a "C" for Charlotte and Jessica made a "J". When we finished we had enough time to cut out the fabric for the purse.

The sewing machines were AWESOME. They were Berninas; they had the little screen that showed where the needle was, how big the stitches were going to be, and more. Just a touch of a button would change the direction, the type of stitch, etc. You could control the speed of your sewing. Maybe the coolest feature was the automatic cutter for the thread - you didn't have to keep reaching for your scissors. Quite a different experience from our $89.00 Brother!

The teacher mentioned that we could get a discounted price if we bought the ones we used in class. Mom and Susan asked how much they were at the discounted price: we could get them at around 22 - 24 . . . hundred dollars!! I don't think I will be getting one anytime soon.

I really enjoyed this. I have already learned a lot and can't wait till next week.

Oh, the mini-van...

Waste not, want not: This was Christopher's "mini-van", then mine, and Charlotte became immediately possesive of it upon her very first test-drive.

I told her she shouldn't talk on the phone while she drives . . .

How about the CURLS ?!!

Mom thinks this looks like a grandma getting out of the car. . .

She already has her toys packed in the trunk(and herself).

Clowns!

I had a clown meeting / practice Sunday after church. We go over things we have been practicing and learn new things. There were 20 clowns that showed up so we had to be separated into 2 groups.

First we were taught a rope trick, and after practicing that until everybody had successfully done it a few times, the groups switched. This time they were trying to teach us to juggle (there are 4 teachers altogether). I was not very good: I always threw the ball forward, but I will keep trying. After that the group I was in went outside the room to do skits. We did skits for awhile and then went back into the room and made animal balloons; I made a giraffe, a sword, a mouse, a ladybug bracelet, and a monkey on a tree.

Animal balloons are my favorite thing to do. I really enjoy clowns and can't wait until our next meeting!

THE WINNER

THE WINNER OF THE AVON GOODIES IS:

SILEENA
in California

I WANT TO THANK EVERYONE FOR ENTERING!

Please keep visiting my blog; thanks so much for the comments! I've enjoying reading the blogs I've gotten to so far, and I'll definitely participate in the next bloggy giveaway.