Happy Mother's Day

Aloha! My mom is in Hawaii this week, on the garden isle of Kuaui.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom! 

I should be there too, but this just wasn't the year.

This photo was taken last time we went together in 2007. . . fun memories.

I am coming to another crossroads in my life again. I'm ready to give up blogging. Not that I do that much anymore, but it just feels like something hanging over my head.
Whenever I get that feeling, I know its time to make a change.

I still think its important to record our lives for those that come after us. I think its important for us to record our lives in any form, whether its journaling, scrapbooking, blogging. . . its all good. I guess for me its just overkill. I already have a scrapbook. I changed the way I do that to keep things simpler for me. I have been working with my children on setting goals lately and I realized blogging just isn't part of my goals. In some ways blogging is a distraction and looking at other people's blogs is the same. Do I love to keep in touch with people that I love and seldom see? Yes. But there are easier ways to do that. Its easy to send emails and attach photos. Perhaps I'll do that a couple of times a year besides Christmas. Perhaps I'll find an easier way to communicate as time moves on. Its important to me to connect but right now in my life it needs to be less public and less frequent. 

I have three church callings right now. Two keep me fairly busy. I have three children living at home right now. Even though two are adults, I find myself doing more cooking, more cleaning, more listening, and having to be more flexible because of their schedules. They all help, but with more at home there is more to do. Reduce and Simplify continues to be wise counsel I need to follow, and this is what has been crossing my mind at different times in the past month, and then this morning, it was clear. Time to be done. 

Its been four years. You've gotten a good glimpse into our life. The move was big. The creative projects along the way have been fun. I think, one of the most creative things we can do in our life, is to forge ahead in a new direction. That's what I feel like I am doing here. In good times and bad, I have continued to document. The children have all changed and grown up in so many ways. Yet, they are my biggest subjects and not always happy to be photographed. I respect that. Its their life.

I am grateful to my mother who taught me how to love unconditionally. I realize not all children have received that gift, and that I am most fortunate to have it in my life still. My mother taught me not to feel sorry for myself on Mother's Day.  I remember her clearly saying, its not about us, its about the gift of motherhood. We all have one. My grandfather lost his when he was ten. In the last year of his 89 year old life, he told me that was still the greatest tragedy of his life - losing her. I think of the new baby born this week to a mother who passed away giving him birth or the teenagers who were kidnapped and lost out on ten years of their lives with their mothers or those whose mothers never knew how to mother, and those who have passed on.  

Life isn't fair. It breaks our hearts sometimes, but there are different gifts that come to us along the way, and if you have a mother who loves you, who kissed your ouchies and got up with you in the middle of the night and told you as you were crying, that things would get better, or just listened and said, I'm sorry. I want to help you but I don't know what to do, you are most blessed. I know I am. 

Hiking at 9400 Feet

We live next to the Rocky Mountains. That puts great hiking within less than an hour of our house. A week ago Saturday, when Cowgirl was with us, we ventured to a place we'd never been before, Mueller State Park. Located just minutes from a town called Divide, because it is where the Continental Divide actually is, it was easy to access, and the views were spectacular. Usually we see Pike's Peak to the West of us, but here, the majestic mountain is East. As we are looking West in the photo below, those are the Sangre de Cristo mountains far away, but we literally felt like we were close to the top of the world.

 They had a lovely visitor center and we received some good maps. There were forty-four hikes available, and we selected two this Saturday, both based on the fact that herds of elk had recently been seen nearby. The first one was still somewhat snow-covered. Of course it had snowed by our house just the Tuesday before, but when its 72 degrees back home, we forget its still in the 40's and 50's in the mountains, and no, the snow hadn't all melted.

 We saw some deer or elk tracks in the snow on the other side of this pond, but none here. The boys climbed on top of some nearby rocks to get a better vantage point of the area. Because of the hike itself had been somewhat snow-covered, we opted for another trail back to our car, and definitely easier than going uphill where we had just come downhill.

 The second hike was called the Schoolhouse Pond Trail. We never saw the school house, though we did find this bench. Maybe in the wilderness all you need is a bench to start taking in all there is to learn. Still rather small, it was pretty and the hike much less snow-covered.

 As we walked all around it, Mike found the remains of a deer. Everyone was excited to see it, until they realized the other parts of the remains was a few feet away. Our guess is a mountain lion pounced upon it when it came for a drink. This hike was easier in some respects and more difficult in others. I am not used to hiking at this altitude nor am I as young as I used to be, so while the kids walked ahead Mike held my hand and a few times pulled me up some of the steeper parts of the trail but I made it.

 We were a little sad to have seen no wildlife on our hikes, but as soon as we got back onto the main road, we spotted a whole herd of elk back in the park. We parked the car and walked closer.

 By the time I got there, the elk were starting to head back over the hill, but I caught a few on camera. That made our day. Then our dad decided to stop on the way home to get steaks and ice cream. We started up the grill for the first time this season, made a salad, baked some french fries and finished off the day full and content. Its not often enough that all six of us are together, and we truly made great memories this day!

Three Recipes

Correction:  On my Post Easter post, I misspelled Kate Spade's last name twice. That has been corrected. She is not Kate Space or Kate Spain. She does work for Moda and I do love her fabric choices!

I keep getting requests for this frosting, so here goes. Thanks to my friend, Kristen, who brought some cookies to my house last February, with the best frosting on them. Last week, after MyGirl and I made 2 dozen pints of jam, we had some strawberries left, so I sent my friend an email and asked for the recipe, and she shared. Now I share with you. 

These are mini strawberry cupcakes, and notice they were disappearing quickly! The frosting I threw on super fast, so sorry it looks so messy, but they sure were tasty. They didn't last two hours at my house. Also, my cream cheese and butter weren't beaten until fluffy , but when my friend brought them over, they were lighter and fluffier, and I would do that next time. I was in a hurry to get them done before movie night, so that's how it went at our house, and they still tasted terrific!

Strawberry Frosting

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 stick butter, softened

1 tsp. vanilla

8-9 strawberries, mashed with a fork

powdered sugar 

Beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Add vanilla and strawberries and mix well. Beat in enough powdered sugar to reach desired frosting consistency.

Variation: Fold in one tub of Cool Whip for a mousse-like frosting. (I didn't do that.)

Note: This makes a lot of frosting. I had enough to make 24 small cupcakes, frost a 9" cake, and still there was leftovers. My friend often halves it. 

The second recipe is the meal MyGirl requested for her birthday. 

I will tell you how I season it, but know that I don't measure anything except for baked goods, so I can't say with exactness what I've done. I cook to taste, and keep a tasting spoon next to the stove.  I use the spoon I'm cooking with to put a little on my tasting spoon as I'm going to see how the seasonings are working.

Mexican Haystacks. 

We served it as a buffet, and everyone helped themselves to the following:

Lime Rice (we mix brown and white together and squeeze half a lime on top) Can add cilantro here too.

Black Beans

Chicken or Steak, seasoned well 

     In the order of which spices I used the most:

          Chili powder, cumin, taco seasoning, salt, white pepper, garlic powder, chipotle pepper, juice of a    

           whole lime

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Cheese

Avocado

Cilantro

Salsa

Sour Cream

We had chips on the side, but they are not part of the Haystacks. It all sure was good.

 The last recipe I have no photo to share. Its a Creamed Spinach I served for Sunday dinner.

Creamed Spinach

2 pkgs. 10 oz. cut leaf spinach

1 T. olive oil

1/2 yellow onion, chopped fine

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 heaping tablespoon flour

2 T. butter

12 oz. can fat free or lowfat evaporated milk

1-2 Skinny Cow cheese wedges

handful part skim grated mozzarella cheese

garlic powder, salt, and pepper

Add a cup of water to the 2 packages of spinach and cook on stove top until hot and pliable.

Drain liquid in a colander and put back into pan on stove top. Add to the pan olive oil, yellow onion and garlic.Cook until onions are transluscent. Next add 1 heaping tablespoon of flour to the spinach mixture. Stir to blend throughout. Add butter and let it meld with the flour/spinach mixture. Add the evaporated milk and bring to medium-high heat, until it becomes thick. Add cheese wedges and a handful of part-skim grated mozzarella and let them meld with the thickened mixture. Season with garlic powder, salt, and pepper to taste. Serves 8.

My Girl

My Girl is having her birthday today but yesterday we had our celebration. Cowgirl had to leave in the afternoon so MyGirl planned some fun activities we could all do before she left. Grandma and Grandpa came, Daddy took off work, and LittleBuddy even got to play hooky from school. Then after we dropped Cowgirl off at the airport, we came home for the dinner of choice, which was Mexican Haystacks, and this cake. For two weeks she kept on showing me this cake on Pinterest, so I gave it a go, and it turned out. Yeah! (I've not always been successful  - no more homemade ice cream cakes.)

 Lemon cake with raspberry jam filling, vanilla buttercream frosting and raspberries on top. Yum!

 We had three stops on our day's itinerary. Even though this brother didn't love this stop, he loves her a lot and still made the most of it too.

 One was the Celestial Seasonings Factory Tour up in Boulder. It lasts 45 minutes and they don't let you take pictures inside, so here are some outside pictures.

 Zinger Lane was cute. We learned that Sleeptime is their number one selling tea, with Chamomile and Peppermint coming in at 2nd and 3rd. The smells of peppermint was almost overwhelming. It has to be kept in its own double steel plated room so its smells don't contaminate the other teas. We saw how they mix the teas, package them, and wrap them for shipment.

 They give you these lovely hair nets right after they tell you no pictures on the tour, so this is as much as I could get inside. Like I say, the boys were good sports. . . haha. Afterwards there is a nice gift shop with boxes of tea that are much cheaper than at the grocery store, so we stocked up, and I was happy to be able to pick up some Gingerbread Spice, as that is usually only found at the holidays, but its wonderful for an upset stomach so I like to keep it around.

 Another of our stops was the National Center for Atmospheric Research - NCAR. It also has a free museum and was very interesting. Here Cowgirl shows us how clouds are formed.

 BigBuddy looking at how tornadoes are formed.

 I wish I would have taken a photo of the largest size hail they have found. It was larger than a grapefruit and quite jagged. . . fascinating . . . found in Kansas in 1970. We ate lunch at their cafeteria which was tasty before heading to our next adventure.

 In Westminster, Colorado, is a Butterfly Pavilion. However, they also have other areas. One is an aquarium. Clown fish are MyGirl's favorites.

She also enjoyed touching a starfish.

 Only the boys were brave enough to let a tarantula climb on them. Her name was Rosie.

 Both boys were excited for the opportunity. . . the girls on the other hand - no money would have convinced them it was a good idea, nor their mother!

Truly the highlight, though, was the butterflies, and we spent quite a while in this humid environment.

 They would land wherever they wanted, and crawl onto fingers or shirts.

 There were a large variety, some coming from as far as Sumatra and Malaysia.

 Of course, sometimes it wasn't too fun to have them land on your head, but others close-by would fan them away.

 BigBuddy managed to attract two at a time.

 I just love their colors and variety.

 MyMike giving one a free ride.

 This butterfly loved my mother. He would fly around her and then come right back to the same place.

 I also loved the beautiful vegetation.

 Not often we get to see a hibiscus in Colorado!

 Unique shapes.

 These ones were the largest and most prolific of all we saw.

These were my favorites. Loved the coloring and how nicely they posed for my pictures ;-)

My girl loved her day.  Hard to believe she has grown up so quickly! She went to Young Adults for the first time two Sundays ago. . . ready to make the bridge and find more friends her age. We wish her every happiness always!