Cousin Consortium

Every now and then my cousin Piper kindly hosts a Cousin Consortium. This is where all the cousins from the O.M. "Spud" Jones side of the family get together for good old-fashioned food and fun. (Okay, so there are only 5 of us cousins in the area, but if any other cousins decide to visit, we will hold a Consortium in their honor!)

Last week, in the spirit of General Conference, food storage, and a sudden spike in the price of wheat, we held a special Friday night edition of the Cousin Consortium during which we made wheat bread completely from scratch. It turned out to be so fun, not too difficult, and, possibly most important, incredibly DELICIOUS! (Now, if you were starving and really had to dip into your food storage and make this, "delicious" would not be most important--just a bonus.)

My in-laws got me this wheat grinder for Christmas. Turns out it's very easy to set up and use.


So easy (borderline fun, in fact!) that the boys had no problem turning out mounds of wheat flour in a matter of minutes. (Okay, well, the Manesse boys could grind it out pretty quick; Evan just had fun.)

Evan wanted to keep grinding wheat after we were finished. He was actually getting pretty good at it. It was funny to see him dip his finger in and taste it every so often. He must have enjoyed it because that turned into him dunking his entire hand in and then licking it off.

When Piper gets me the recipe, I'll show you the step-by-step process. Until then, let's just skip to the important part:

Now that's what I'm talking about! YUM!


Evan had so much fun holding the guinea pigs (which he called piggy pigs when he saw these pictures today). Cute!

And here is a picture Piper took of Owen, just looking cute like he always does. Thanks, Piper!

And thank you for hosting our Consortiums and feeding us and cleaning up after us when we make a disaster out of your house. We always have so much fun and this time, I came home with priceless knowledge and a feeling of confidence in actually knowing what to do with the wheat that I will now be adding to my food storage.

Seriously ...

not funny anymore.

Friday, April 11th, ca. 8 AM
And it's supposed to be nice this weekend? Yeah right! I'll believe it when I see it.

Enough Already!

I am officially sick of winter, snow, cold, etc. I bet you can't guess when these pictures were taken ... yesterday! YESTERDAY! (And this was after most of the snow had melted!) I ignored Evan's pleadings to go play in the backyard for a very long time. Then I gave in. My efforts to get him out of my hair for just a little while so I could get a few things done totally backfired. I told him over and over and over to stay out of the mud. Then Casey covered the muddy path to the studio with boards so he wouldn't step in it. Still, I ended up with a huge, muddy mess to clean up. I sprayed off the deck and patio this afternoon (in the rain!) so as to prevent further mud being tracked through the house, but the shoes are so caked with mud they aren't even dry yet. I'm so sick of scrubbing muddy shoes. Evan must have been traumatized by my rantings, though, because today he told Casey, "I step in the mud." He did not get to go in the backyard today. Nor will he tomorrow; it's supposed to snow again. Why all the precipitation this year? Because it was the one year I wouldn't have wanted so much. The studio would have been done months ago if it had been a normal winter. Please hurry back, sunshine. And will the McKenzies kindly stop posting lovely pictures of their children frolicking in the beautiful spring weather! :)

I've Been Tagged

Alice tagged me so here goes:

10 years ago ...
I was living in the Music House at Northwest College in Powell, WY--next door to Christina in the Art House! I was engaged to her brother (that would be Casey), planning a wedding that was 2 months away and finishing my Associates degree, as well. Ah, the good old days ...

5 things on my to do list:

1. Finish our taxes (this includes inputting all of Casey's business stuff into Quickbooks--yeah, we're a little behind this year)
2. Call Cub Scout leaders
3. Go to the Post Office
   
4. Go to the DMV (apparently some error with my picture happened when I went months ago to replace my stolen license; I only found out b/c my temporary is almost expired so I called to see where my new one was. I loath that place!)
   
5. Get my garden started and do more weeding (thanks to the snow today this one gets pushed down the list--yea!)

5 snacks I enjoy:

1. Cracker pizzas (still--thank you, Kate)
2. Fresh baked cookies (chocolate or with something chocolate in them)
3. What I wouldn't give for a delicious, fresh-off-the-tree peach or pear ...
4. Chips (this is a new one; I'm usually not a chips fan, really)
5. Homemade wheat bread (you'll see a post about this one soon) ... and I forgot about popcorn (movie theater style, all buttery and salty and delicious)
   

5 foods I love:

1. Training Table cheese fries with ultimate dipping sauce
2. Alfredo sauce (GOOD stuff, like what I'm making tonight ... oh, I can't wait!)
3. Rib City Grill's beef brisket on their Texas garlic toast with a little BBQ sauce--YUM!!!
4. Anything with glutens :) ... carbs in general
5. A really good salad with homemade ranch dressing and all the fixin's

What would I do if I were suddenly a billionaire?
Gosh, what wouldn't I do? Take a trip to Italy to see all the art, go on an African safari, hire people to finish our stairs and studio no matter what it cost, go out to eat more often, buy a grand piano, hire someone to do our taxes, save the rest for when Casey becomes a full-time starving artist.

5 places I have lived:

1. La Habra, CA
2. Cody, WY
3. Powell, WY
4. Provo, UT
5. Pleasant Grove, UT

Favorite quote:
I have no idea. Too many to choose from, but I can't really think of any right now and Owen's crying and needs to go take a nap, but I just have to finish this and get it posted so no quote from me today, sorry!

Ashley, tag, you're it!

April Fools

Okay, so I have a lot of catching up to do, and first on the agenda is April Fools Day. This is how one of the greatest April Fools in the history of April Fools went down this past week:

A little background ...
Last year Casey tried to play an April Fools joke by having my younger sister Emily tell my parents she was engaged to a guy after meeting him only a couple weeks earlier. Well, she turned it around so it became a joke on Casey, involving my dad calling him ... etc., etc., etc. Casey vowed he would get Emily back and the perfect opportunity presented itself at Easter a couple weeks ago.

The perfect storm ...
As is tradition, my dad was helping Emily with her taxes. I said something about having her Utah state taxes done and both her and my dad's faces went ever so slightly ashen (before Emily started freaking out just a little, that is). Wyoming (where my family is from) does not have state taxes so it had not even occurred to my dad to do those, and somehow Emily didn't know about them either. We immediately got started on those for the years 2005-2007 for Emily. A few days later, after everyone had gone back to their lives, Casey said to me, "I know what I'm going to do to get back at Emily."

The letter
Monday, March, 31st: Casey asks me to proofread and help him with this letter:
Casey has done some pretty great things with Photoshop, but this has to be one of the best. (By the way, Em's b-day is 5/29, hence $5,029.) We finished the letter and discussed plans. I was going to text or call Emily that night to let her know that she had gotten a letter from the Utah State Tax Commission. I decided I better do it when I know she's asleep; otherwise, I knew she wouldn't sleep if she knew she got a letter from the USTC. At 11:30, I sent her a quick text saying she had gotten the letter that day. (I later found out that she was trying to go to sleep, but wasn't there yet, so she did get the text that night and she didn't sleep very well. Oops.)

April Fools Day
Em called me during morning recess on April 1st (she's a 1st grade teacher for those of you who don't know). She asked me to open the letter and read it. I did, and could hear she was starting to get choked up. So I called Casey on my cell phone while I was talking to her, thinking if he heard me reading the letter to her he might get the idea. At one point I finally covered the mouthpiece on the phone I was talking to Em on and whispered to Casey, "Call Em right now! She's getting all choked up!" I knew it wouldn't be long before she was in full-blown tears and would be the rest of the day if no one told her what was going on. I didn't want to steal Casey's thunder, though, so I kept playing along. Well, Casey calls me back and tells me she's not answering her phone. I faked a slight emergency and asked Em if I could call her right back. I told Casey again, "Call her right now on her cell, she's expecting me." He tried, and once again called me back, saying she wasn't picking up and she was on the other line. We figured she was trying to call mom or dad. I gave Casey the number to Deerfield (her school) and told him to ask for her. He called, insisted to the secretary that he needed to talk to her for just one minute, and Em picked up the phone: "This is Miss Jones." Casey said, "April Fools!" There was a long, silent pause, and then, "CASEY!!!" She then explained to him how she was crying and talking to mom on her cell, etc. She does admit, however, that it was a pretty great April Fools joke. I told her I would be willing to be a part of any future jokes to get Casey back, but Em is pretty sure that this one can't be topped.

Odds & Ends

This is Owen in his California Mickey Mouse hand-me-down sweatshirt. WAAAAAYYYYY hand-me-down ... it was mine or my sister's or something when we were little. Maybe mom could clear that up for me. Too bad I don't have a picture of the original owner wearing it. Maybe mom/dad could help me out with that, too.


This is the great 1/2 circle window in our bedroom. I love it, but ever since we moved into this house 9 months ago I have hated the way it heats up the top floor of the house. The sun beats in there from the west in the afternoons and the temperature climbs. Our thermostat is upstairs so in the summer the A/C was on constantly and in the winter the heat never came on because it was plenty toasty upstairs, but down on the 1st floor it was freezing. Well, as of Monday, everything changed. We had Jones Paint & Glass of American Fork, UT install low-E glass in all of our windows on the west side of the house. WOW, what a difference it has made! I was very skeptical, even though they said it would improve the efficiency of our home about 30-40%. It improved it AT LEAST that much, but it seems like much more. They were so great, too. They were very knowledgeable, honest, and super fast! I can't say enough good things about Jones and our new glass.
Here I am standing in the sun coming through our bedroom window and not feeling a single bit of heat! I think the kitties are a little disappointed that their basking days are over, but I couldn't be happier! I no longer roast upstairs and we don't freeze (as much) downstairs. THANK YOU JONES!!!

And here is the mirror Casey gave me as a little Easter present. I had my eye on it at Target. It reminds me of one of my favorite paintings, Jan van Eyck's Arnolfini Wedding Portrait. Very cool! Thanks, honey!

Catch-up

It's been awhile since I've posted so today I'll be playing catch-up. Here is what has happened in the last week and a half:

Owen turned 8 months old on St. Patrick's Day. He now sits on his own, babbles and squeals for all to hear, clicks his tongue, and has this great reaching, rolling, army-crawling thing going on. He's still a very good, happy baby.

Evan discovered our long-lost (still sort of packed away) plug-and-play Intellivision "yideo game," which he longed to play 24/7.

My parents and sister came down from Wyoming for the weekend and it was lots of fun hanging out with the whole family. The boys looked pretty cute in their new shirts on Easter Sunday.

Evan spent the entire weekend Wii-ing, thanks to Pata Jones. He was pretty amazing at every sport!

Dad got a new 'do ... courtesy of Emily ...

... who took a nap Sunday afternoon (a la Mama Jones) ...

while Kate recorded the festivities.

Evan found what the Easter Bunny brought him after his nap.

He loved his mini bowling set (the Easter Bunny knew anything Wii-related would be a big hit!)

Owen enjoyed his Target Dollar Spot bowls (the Easter Bunny loves bargains, too, I guess) ...

... and his toys ...

... but his favorite part was what was left after the bowls were taken out of the picture (safe, I know).

Evan loved hunting for Easter eggs out in the backyard.

Auntie Kake got baby duty.

I had to say hi to sweet little Ypsi (pronounced "Ip-see" ... named after "Ypsilanti, Michigan").

Mama Jones took pics of the grandkid while Missy supervised some egg-hunting.

And Auntie Em went for a drive.

Don't worry, Casey didn't leave himself out of the picture (ha ha).

On Monday, we enjoyed watching the roofers put the shingles on the studio. They were so fast I hardly had time to take pictures, but everyone can see the latest updates on the studio here on Casey's blog.

Mama & Pata Jones and Auntie Kake left Tuesday morning (boo-hoo!) and Evan once again discovered that he has toys (as opposed to a Wii). Here he is showing me the "temple" he built.

And Daddy let him pick out his own socks after his bath that night.

Here he is showing me the right one ...

... and the left one ...

Thanks, Daddy. I had to convince him that his green socks were in the laundry getting washed because he wanted to wear them again today.

Thanks for coming for Easter, family. We sure had lots of fun!