He's Back

We got Jeremy back!

After 2 1/2 weeks away, Jeremy got back from his South Carolina fair on October 22, National Color Day.

Look how cute we are with the different colors we're wearing.

Speaking of colors, I got out that morning for a walk with some colors. 

I also finally wore a bright red shirt I got a while back that says "Bake the World a Better Place." You know I love baking but I'm usually wearing an apron while baking. I finally wore this shirt (and an apron) while baking bread and got my picture with the shirt and the bread.

Jet brought home a cute little "Monster Spring" (that's what he named it) from school so I showed him how it pops and he loved it.

We got multiple colors in our dinner. Creamy Beef Enchiladas from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 4, by Jordan Page. Because these books are all about this, I saved some of our French Dip meat from when we had French Dip sandwiches while Jeremy was gone (also from that book) to use in the enchiladas. Oh and we substituted a pork roast for a beef roast (substitutions are encouraged). We had a spinach salad side dish. 

 

Nice celebrating Color Day and the best part of course was getting Jeremy home. I missed him.

Foods Without Jeremy

While Jeremy was gone to South Carolina, I let the kids request foods they wanted to eat since normally I care more about fixing food Jeremy likes (I do take into consideration my kids, don't get me wrong, but if I think Jeremy will like it, I'm more likely to fix it when he's around).

Nichole loves chicken drumsticks so I made sure to make some for her. 

We had Copycat Crunchwrap Supreme (I had been wanting to make it for weeks but hadn't gotten around to it) from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 3, by Jordan Page.

Lucky loves Chicken Caesar Salad Wraps so we had some, of course, along with woo-woo for FHE treat.

Jr. Jr. helped me with menu planning for October (including using A Season of Family Meal Plans) and one of the things we planned and made was French Dip Sandwiches. Mmmm. I made this last year and liked it and I liked it again this year. 

 

Late night baking. I had some bananas that needed to be used so I made Calico Bread from The Fablehaven Cookbook. The neighbors upstairs texted that it smelled good. The next morning I brought some up to them.  

Also from A Season of Family Meal Plans, volume 4, I made apple cider muffins. It did not take long for them to get gobbled up.

I Learned Something New

Sourdough. It's a thing. I've seen enough demonstrations. I've heard plenty about the benefits. I've also recognized that it is a time consuming process so I haven't thought seriously about attempting it. I don't have time for sourdough. Until...

for a Relief Society activity in June, we had a hands on lesson in sourdough. And I mean hands on. We each got a bowl with flour and salt and a wooden spoon. Then we passed around the sourdough starter and water and a kitchen scale. Wow. That doesn't sound good. Let me try again.

We were given instructions and followed them together in our activity. I even learned how to stretch and fold and did it both at the activity and when I got home. 

Thanks to a friend who took pictures of me at the activity and texted them to me. 

 

I took some starter home with me to put in the fridge. This is not my first sourdough starter but I have never gotten to the point of feeding it before so eventually it just gets thrown out. But since we were really doing a hands on thing here, I was determined to feed it a week later. Before that, however, I realized that the hands on part of the sourdough process isn't actually that much. There's just a lot of letting it sit. And I've baked enough bread products that letting something sit is not abnormal for me. 

Anyway, so I actually made sourdough bread for the first time and second time and so on.

I've even fed the sourdough starter several times since the class, with or without intent to bake.

I've had varying levels of success with the bread and with the starter but I've done it. Yay, me. I actually tried something new.

I'll leave you with a last pretty loaf as compared to the sad one before.

 

A Little Light Reading

I told you my baking book was huge.

But how does it measure up to Les Miserables and The Complete Works of Shakespeare?

We're Thankful For... Jet

"When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way From your first bassinet to your last dying day."

My little baking buddy is such a blessing in our lives. Everyone in the family adores him and he loves us.

We had to spread his birthday out celebrating through a few different days this year because of schedules and sickness... again. But it was fun.

He's still learning the concept of present unwrapping (probably a good thing so he's not ripping into presents he shouldn't) but he was very happy with his Cocomelon stacking train when he got it unwrapped. He recognized the characters before he even finished taking the paper off the box.

Jet, you're great. I am so glad you are a part of our family. Happy Thanksgiving!

Summer Reading

Library Summer reading programs are underway.
Orem Library had a virtual kickoff event this year (obviously). We were able to watch the event on Facebook that introduced the theme of "Around the World in 8 Weeks," including the traditional puppet show. Jet loves puppets.

Provo Library is doing their program virtually and their theme is "Imagine Your Story" so there has been a lot of fairy tale and folk tale type activities such as #provostorytrails where we go out for walks at local parks where they have parts of a story on signs along the trail. That way we get exercise and a story at the same time. So far we've read "The Elves and the Shoemaker," "The Nightingale," and a local story called "The Story of Utahna and Red Eagle."

Here are some of the other things we've done so far:
Make up your own recipe. Jeremy made enchiladas with his own sauce for himself and me.

Bake a treat for someone. Jr. and Nichole made cinnamon rolls for the family. I made chocolate depression cake, a recipe from Budget Bytes, and added fresh cut strawberries on top of mine.

Build a castle out of LEGOs. Lucky's had hidden gold inside.

Take home activities. We made a hot air balloon and passport.

We celebrated Australia Picnic Day (a couple months early) with a water balloon fight and egg on spoon races.

We've also had plenty of fun singing songs and reading books. We even listened to a Hungarian song about Winnie-the-Pooh or Micimackó as they call him in Hungary. And we do more fun things every day.