Happy Birthday, Dad!

Hope it's a good one!

To all you awesome dads out there. 

Thanks for everything you do for your families. 

You rock!

Happy Birthday Lauren! Woohoo!!!!

New Year's Resolution...

It dawned on me  yesterday that I haven't been keeping a journal and suddenly fear struck me that I had nothing to show for my life! Then an even greater fear hit me: I had no life! ...Wait a second, I HAVE  a life, I just have nothing to show for it! How could that be possible I thought? I am so busy every day... (except for those 4 hours a day I spend watching tv) ...ok, just kidding! All of a sudden I realized, that was why we blog! Duh! So, I'm back in the saddle. I know its not customary to start a New Year's Resolution smack dab in the middle of the year. But here's to good intentions! I am going to try to get out the old dusty blog, and get it up and running again. And this time I will be updating everything we've done for the past year (and that's ALOT!) So hang onto your hats ladies and gentlemen... cuz here we go!

Happy Birthday Adam!

Hope you have a great day!

I want to feel cool, too

I don't have any cool bread to show off, but while you guys were making those loaves, I was making these:

TA DAA!

I followed the instructions and made fermented raisin/grape water....

Then I made the flour yeast (and fed it for 3 days)...

Then I mixed it in my Bosch (and had to knead it on my counter)...

(2 hours of mixing since I tackled 3 batches at once!...Stupid!)

I let it raise for 12 hours and then put it in bread pans....

(3 batches... I will never do that again!)

And Viola! Beautiful bread!

 (Except I cut into one of these an hour too early and it sunk, deflated, and got all gooey on me... lesson learned!) I have to admit, I learned a lot of lessons this past week. My first yeast was from a starter I bought a year ago and after it turned the water black (Lauren and I figured that it had mold) I threw it out and started with the raisin water. It was exciting to do each of these steps. I am still learning alot, and have a lot more to keep learning. But I am thrilled about all this and can tell its not hurting my body like our normal bread. Since I made 3 batches (and 9 loaves of bread) I have shared it with 5 other families in my ward, 3 of which who are celiacs, and still have a list of other people I would love to share it with.

Exciting times!