Precious Little One

So we have a new niece. My oldest brother and his wife had a baby yesterday evening. They didn't find out what they were having beforehand so it was a big surprise which was kind of fun. I thought they were going to have a girl and I was right. Here name is Emma Laurel. She is 6 lbs. 11 oz and 19 inches long. She has dark hair and is so adorable. We went and saw her at the hospital today. She is such a doll and I decided that I am going to be her favorite aunt. I already started giving her subtle hints today. Here are some pictures.

Look at that thing

So Mat sprained his ankle while playing basketball on Wednesday. The pictures were taken a couple of days ago and the ankle looks a lot worse now than in the pictures. Mat has fun playing basketball, but somehow he always comes home with more bruise and injuries. He just needs to be less aggressive, but oh well.

Amish Friendship Bread

So for one of my lessons for Young Women's I made this Amish Friendship bread for the girls to try. When you make it you are also able to give 3 starters away so others can make it and then they can also give it away to others too. Almost like a chain letter type thing, but with food. I am going to have the girls try this and see if we can share it with all the girls in our class. In part to try and help them learn some cooking skills. We will see how it goes. The bread is so yummy and moist.

Amish Friendship Bread

Important Note: Don't use metal spoons or equipment. Do not refrigerate. Use only glazed ceramic or plastic bowls or containers.

Required Main Ingredient

1 cup live yeast starter (usually you get from someone, but I didn't know anyone who had one so I started my own. and it was simple. Recipe is at the end.)

day 1:
Do nothing with the starter.

days 2-5:
Stir with a wooden spoon.

day 6:
Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk. Stir with a wooden spoon.

days 7-9:
Stir with a wooden spoon.

Day 10:
Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Stir. Take out 3 cups and place 1 cup each into three separate plastic containers. Give one cup and a copy of this recipe to three friends. To the balance (a little over one cup) of the batter, add the following ingredients and mix well.

1 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

In a separate bowl combine the following dry ingredients and mix well:

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 - (5.1 oz) box instant vanilla pudding
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup nuts

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Mix and pour into two well greased and sugared bread pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.

Recipe for the Live Yeast Starter

* 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
* 1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
* 1 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 cups white sugar
* 1 cups milk

Directions

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Let stand 10 minutes. In a 2 quart container glass, plastic or ceramic container, combine 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or flour will lump when milk is added. Slowly stir in 1 cup milk and dissolved yeast mixture. Cover loosely and let stand until bubbly. Consider this day 1 of the 10 day cycle. Leave loosely covered at room temperature.

Brownie Truffle? Trifle? I say Delicious.

My Moms recipe calls it Brownie Truffle, Mat calls it trifle, but I don't care what it is called it is goooooood. I made this dessert for my recipe group on Thursday. The raspberries really just make the dessert so yummy!!

Brownie Trifle

1 pkg Brownies (9 x 13) Prepare as Directions

Mix 1 1/2 c. milk with 1 small pkg chocolate pudding

Mix 1 1/2 c. milk with 1 small pkg vanilla pudding

16 oz. cool whip

Large pkg frozen raspberries

Cut brownies into 1" cubes. Place 1/2 in 3 qt glass bowl. Cover with 1/2 pudding, 1/2 raspberries, and then 1/2 cool whip. Repeat. (Sprinkle with crushed Oreo's on top if you want, but I don't.) Refrigerate.

My Sweetie's Singing

Mat has a nice singing voice and always sings the hymns pretty loudly in church. Every time there are kids sitting in front of us at church I just wait and see how long before they turn around and stare when Mat starts to sing. Sure enough on Sunday at church when we started to sing the opening hymn a little girl about 4 turned around and stared at Mat. It just made me laugh. I haven't figured out yet if it is a good stare or a bad stare. Mat does a good job singing, but just is loud. It is so funny when the kids turn around and stare because it happens all the time. Gotta love kids.

Sewer Backed up...

So Sunday morning around 10:30 I went into the basement to get something and I discovered water all over our basement. I yelled up for Mat to come down while I started moving some of our camping and sports equipment out of the way. Here is Mat investigating the drain.

Here is Mat looking good in his boots investigating the drain that backed up.

Here is all of the lovely sewer water that we got to clean up. It was not too bad to clean up and everyone in the neighborhood was helpful. One of our neighbors had a wet vac that we borrowed. Our stuff that got wet did not get ruined so that was good. The water was only in our basement for less than a day because we had been down in the basement Saturday afternoon and there was no water, but when I went down on Sunday morning there was water. This was our fun weekend adventure.

"Random" Testing

So on Tuesday of this week I was randomly selected to be drug tested. Our company does "random" drug tests about every 4 to 5 weeks. They test about 30 people each time. I have worked their for 2 years and this is my first time being selected. So when the lady from HR came to tell me I was picked and needed to go pee in a cup I laughed because I had just gone to the bathroom 20 minutes before. My co-worker and I had just been talking about being picked for the drug test just right after you go to the bathroom and then it happened to me. Funny how it always works out that way. So I went down to the bathroom where the technicians were and I drank a little water and then went for the gold. Sadly on my first attempt I did not have enough pee. So I had to throw away that sample and start drinking lot's of water. I sat around for about 45 minutes drinking 4 glasses of water and hanging out in the little lounge area with some other co-workers until we felt like we could give enough of a sample. On my second attempt I had more than enough fluid. Then about 20 minutes after the test I had to go to the bathroom and then after I went, about another 30 minutes later I had to go again. FYI: As far as I know I passed because I still have a job, but I'm not worried.