Pioneer Day in Primary

This Sunday we reviewed our Primary Program songs Pioneer Day style. I had so much fun! We circled the wagons by doing away with the chairs, and forming a circle around a fake fire. We sang songs, told pioneer stories, and played a few pioneer games like Button Button, and Handkerchief Drop, but the highlight for me was making butter! I had never done this before :-). It was super simple. I put about a cup of cream in a mason jar added 1/4 teaspoon of salt and let the kids pass it around the circle and shake it all up as we sang our songs. At the very end we let all the kids try the butter they had made on a piece of homemade bread! So Yummy!

After you get to the point where the cream is mostly solid then you can strain the excess liquid (buttermilk) off and press it into a ball or some other form. We didn't do that for primary, but as soon as I got home I took the extras and made us a little butter ball :-).

Have you ever seen a chicken lay an egg?

Have you ever seen a chicken lay an egg? Well here you go...
Just click here

Penelope lays an egg!

It's definitely and interesting first egg! I'm anxious to see if her future eggs will have as much texture and speckling? I'm guessing yes on the speckling, but no on the weird texture. I've been wondering why people say first eggs are weird. My other first eggs have been beautiful. I totally get it now. This one's definitely on the weird side, but is it? Or will this be Penelope's normal?

I've been trying to stay near the chickens the last couple of days so that I can keep track of who is laying and which type of eggs they are laying so that when they all get into the swing of things I can tell if there is a problem and who's problem it is. It hasn't been too hard because I have a ton of work to do still on the shed portion of the coop. I sat and watched Penelope ( She is one of my other Ameraucanas. She is a white/wheaten.) for about an hour try and lay her egg. I got it on video, but I'm having a hard time uploading it, so I'll post it later. Here is a photo for now :-) I had no idea it was such hard work!

OK, here's the video, just click here

Good job Penelope!

So here is a pic of Penelope's second egg next to her first, there was quite a difference.

Kids Cooking Classes

We've been having fun at our house with kids' cooking classes. The Boys made Storm Trooper Cupcakes and Vader Tots. The girls made Minnie Mouse cupcakes and a baked pasta Alfredo. The kids have been entertaining and fun to work with, very endearing!

The homemade tater tots or "Vader Tots" are out of this world good. The kids loved them. I wish I had more! The recipe is simple:

6 potatoes
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon of onion powder ( although I would like to try them with just finely chopped onions instead)
1/4 teaspoon of dill
1 Tablespoon of flour
Oil for frying and butter to coat your hands
Optional: fresh parsley

1. Boil the potatoes for 7 minutes.
2. Let them cool
3. Meanwhile mince your garlic.
4. Grate your potatoes using a cheese grater.
5. In a big enough bowl to hold all of you potatoes add the garlic, onion powder, dill and flour.
6. Mix well
7. Use a mellon baller to keep the size consistent. Butter your hands. The potatoes mixture will be SUPER STICKY. Shape potatoes into tater tot shapes.
8. Heat Oil on medium high and toss the tater tots until they are golden brown on all sides.

Hope you ENJOY!

We made a cream cheese frosting. I'm not fond of the traditional equal parts butter/cream cheese frosting so I make mine a little different. I use a three to one ratio. This recipe will frost about 48 cupcakes

1 1/2 cups of butter (3 sticks) at room temperature
8 ounces of cream cheese
8 cups of confectioners sugar
3 teaspoons of vanilla extract

Whip it good, Whip it real good :-) Until it is smooth and there are no lumps.

I'm still trying to find the perfect white cake recipe so for now I'm not going to list that.

I loved the way the star cupcakes turned out. To get that beautiful midnight blue color I mixed and shook a 3.25 OZ container of black sprinkles with a dark blue sugar sparkle container about half that size. I found both at Michael's. I couldn't find the shade of blue food coloring that I wanted so I mixed a lot of blue with just a dab of black food coloring.

The hardest part about the Minnie cupcakes was the red fondant bow, but even that wasn't too hard. I bought the red fondant from Walmart. If you go to the cake decorating isle it's $10 for a large box, but we didn't need a whole lot. You can also find it on the baking isle with the candles and such for $3-$4 dollars. That amount was perfect. I cut it into strips and we made the bows out of the strips. 

I also love this baked pasta Alfredo dish, Delish! 

Ingredients:

Pasta of your choice. 

1 Tablespoon of olive oil

4 cloves of garlic, minced

3 Tablespoons of flour

1 cup of chicken broth

1 1/2 cups of cream

3/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper

2 Cups of shredded chicken ( I usually just pick up a rotisserie and use that)

1 1/2 Cups of Mozzarella 

1. Boil your pasta according to the directions on the box.

2. Meanwhile, you can start your sauce. 

3. heat 1 Tablespoon of olive oil on just over medium heat

4. Saute garlic until just golden

5. Add in you flour and brown for an addition minute or two taking care not to burn the flour or garlic

6. Add in the chicken broth, cream, parmesan, salt and pepper.

7. Heat just until it starts to boil.

8. Now it's time to assemble your pasta.

9. In a large enough bowl to hold all of your pasta mix pasta and sauce together.

10. Add chicken and stir once more.

11. Place your pasta and chicken in a casserole dish and top with the mozzarella.

12. Bake until the cheese is melted and golden brown, about 15-20 minutes.

This may just become your new favorite dish, it is that good!

Thanks Giving!

So this is totally an old post that I never published. I found it as I was going through my blog posts as a draft. But I had so much fun making the cabbage candles and pear place cards. This blog is kind of like a journal for me, so even though this is years old... here it is.

This year I feel like we have even more to be thankful for than usual. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving! I completely forgot to take pictures of anything, but lucky for us Gina remembered her camera!

YUMMY!

A Journey Back in Time

Just after we got back from Trek

This week for Singing time I decided to focus on our pioneer heritage in honor of Pioneer Day. There was a gentleman by the name of Brigham Henry Roberts (10 Yrs old) who traveled with his sister Mary (16 yrs old) without his parents from England to the U.S. and then joined the saints in Nebraska and traveled to and settled in Bountiful, Utah. His stories can be found in a book called I walked to Utah. I paired each of his stories with a song for the kids to sing. It will take about two weeks to finish this activity which is perfect! Here is a link to his History. Read through it, it is quite entertaining. I used pick sticks to call a child up and answer a question about our pioneer history before I shared one of his stories and we sang the corresponding song.

Question 1: What were some of the trials the pioneers had to face? (I'm looking for being COLD)
Story 1: Using his sister's petticoat as a night covering
Song 1: Pg. 74 I Feel my Savior's Love "His Spirit warms my soul"

Question 2: Did the Pioneer Children have rules they had to follow? (Stay with the group)
Story 2: River crossing and having to be fetched out of the river by the captain
Song 2: Pg. 236 Give Said The Little Stream

River Crossing

Question 3: How did the pioneers get their things to Utah? (Wagons, 17 lbs of personal items per person, we compared it to our primary president's baby, but you could easily bring in a back pack etc.
Story 3: Sleeps in a barrel of molasses on the wagon instead of walking all night
Song 3: Pg. 219 Here Comes the Ox Cart

Question 4: Did everyone make it to Utah? (6,000 of about 60,000-70,000 died along the way)
Story 4: His baby brother's grave sight/ Captain uses his bread box
Song 4: Junior Primary Pg. 60 Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam, Senior Primary Pg. 44 Mary's Lullaby

The Second Rescue Memorial

Question 5: Besides the elements, lack of food, and fatigue can you think of one more trial the saints faced along the way? (Indians)
Story 5: Meets an Indian/Stampede
Song 5: Pg. 118 Book of Mormon Stories

Question 6: About how long do you think it took for the saints to cross the plains? (3 Mo)
Story 6: Coming to zion/meeting his mother
Song 6: I am a child of God
I especially liked his comment, "There was one thing remembered in this reunion, and that was on my part. I felt that I had arrived, that I belonged to somebody, that somebody had an interest in me, and these were the thoughts that were in my mind as I sat in the wagon on the drive home to Bountiful.

I hope you will search out his stories, I found them both moving and entertaining!

First Egg!

Yesterday we found our first egg! You wouldn't believe the excitement in our house :-)

Our birds are mostly free range. We tuck them in every night for bed, but from sun up until sun down they roam the yard searching for bugs and forage. They have continuous access to feed and water, but seem to prefer to scavenge. I built their nesting boxes a few weeks ago, but we haven't finished the portion of the coop that they will go into yet. So for now they are resting on a dresser we have on our patio. I found a great tutorial here and made two sets. (Now that my chickens have started to lay eggs I'm noticing that these boxes seem just a little small? They are plenty deep, but the girls seem like they could use an inch or two more in the width. Errrrg! I don't want to make new ones, but I'm sure it is going to bother me until I do!)

I was nervous that they wouldn't use the nesting boxes because they weren't in the coop, they spend most of their time hiding out in our bushes along our property line, but I placed the fake eggs in the nesting boxes hoping they would do their job.

They did! We found Phoebe's egg right next to the fake ones :-) She is our Marans and is the only one that will lay chocolate colored eggs.

Here's a picture next to a penny for size and color reference. Her first egg was fairly small, but I expect they will get larger as she goes.

Can you tell I'm a proud chick mamma? If they're going to remain free range and they continue to lay eggs in the nesting boxes I'm wondering if I should just leave them where they are? It's kinda nice to not have to go through the coop to collect the eggs. Also they stay pretty clean where they are. They don't spend time in them other than to lay eggs, so I don't have to worry so much about dirt and waste getting on the eggs. Watching them first find the fake eggs was hysterical! They were out there for a few weeks with no notice before they found them. When they did, I went running outside to see what was going on because it was so noisy! Each of the birds took turns hopping up into the box and checking them out. Rooster was the funniest. He stood on the perch making the loudest noises while all of the hens stood on the ground cackling underneath him. It was as if he was shouting "Who's your daddy!" :-).

He even takes a turn showing the ladies how it's done!

Most of our hens are normal sized hens. Our rooster (affectionately named Rooster) is a bantam and then we have two bantam hens. I bought my bantams as a Straight run mixed batch and haven't been able to identify the grey one's breed. Does anyone have a clue?

What am I?

I'm guessing a blue or lavender ...... something? What color eggs will she lay? If you know, let me know :-) (I finally figured out what breed penny is! She is a true bantam breed which means she doesn't have a larger counterpart. She is a Self Blue (or Lavender) Belgian d'Uccle Bantam. This is so cool! I grew up in Belgium so I am even more in love with Penny now. She will lay tiny white eggs. I'm learning so much! Self blue means that the plumage color is evenly distributed over the entire birds body. There are no secondary colors such as in lacing. Now I'm wondering what will happen when I cross my white leghorn rooster with penny? Any takers?

As part of our mixed flock, I also keep a couple Ameraucanas. Sage is a beautiful Blue/Wheaten.

Yesterday she laid the most beautiful turquoise egg! I'm so in love with the color. First eggs are so much fun.

Here it is next to the Marans' chocolate egg. It was just a little bit bigger. First eggs are supposed to be quite a lot smaller than the later eggs so it will be fun to see the difference.

I had no idea that getting an egg out was so hard. I was out in the back yard working on the floor of our shed/coop section of my coop. right now they are just using the run portion of the coop during the night.

Anyhow, Sage was acting very strangely. She kept hopping up on my lap wanting to be held. which was strange because I was using loud tools like the sander and the drill. But the noise didn't stop her. She was also going in and out of the nesting boxes as if simply being in them would make the egg come out. In between hopping up on my lap and in and out of the nesting boxes she was wondering the yard like a crazed chicken. For the most part the chickens stick to the shade. They follow it all day long. Especially in this triple digit weather we've been having, but she was wondering out in the sun looking dazed. Right before she laid her egg I held her for about an hour. She then hopped up in the nesting boxes and I heard her egg drop. She also chose to lay her egg right next to the fake egg :-) Good job Sage!

I was happy to be there because I am trying really hard to identify which eggs are coming from which chickens. I have several varieties, but I have 2 of each. Some of the varieties lay similarly colored eggs, but even within the same breed there can be a difference in color, so I am trying hard to keep up with who is laying what ;-) Who'd a thought having chickens could be so much fun!

First eggs are so much fun!