Keith's Salsa Recipe

Maranda has requested Keith's salsa recipe. It is really easy. I am not giving measurments because you just do it till it tastes good.

Diced tomatoes
Chopped onion
Chopped fresh cilantro
Chopped garlic
Salt to taste
Lime Juice to taste
Seeded and chopped jalepeno pepper (optional)

Keith does not add the jalepeno but I like to add it. We add a good amount of garlic because we like it. I also advise to add the salt and lime juice a little at a time and taste it each time till it is to your liking. I hope you enjoy this we do.

Our Family Favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe

My sister Jess called and asked me for this recipe and I keep forgetting to give it to her. My mother - in - law gave me this recipe and it has been our favorite ever since. The cookies stay soft, they taste good and they are easy to roll out. I decided to put it on the blog because then I won't loose it. Enjoy!
Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 cups butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tsp vanilla

Cream those ingredients together and then add your dry ingredients

2 Tbsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
5 cups of flour (add extra flour if you need it to make workable)

Mix your dough together. Roll out and cut into your favorite shapes.
Bake at 400 for 6 - 8 minutes adjust the time as needed.

I also use butter and pure vanilla because that really adds to the taste.

Jess, I am sorry it took me so long to get you this recipe!

Keith & Kiley

Ok, so last night I was upstairs reading a book and minding my own bee's wax when I overheard a conversation between Kiley and Keith that made me chuckle.

Let me begin with some background info. Kiley is now 16 and is technically old enough to date according to church standards. I did inform Kiley right before she turned 16 that even though she is old enough to date she still has to ask us if she can, and of course give us all of the details.

I guess Kiley is Im ing with a friend when I hear< "Hey dad ____ (name with held) just asked if I could go on a date with him this Friday is that ok?" Then I hear from Keith " no, we have something going on this weekend." Kiley then asks " What do we have going on?" Keith in a rather loud voice " I don't remember, we just have something going on!" Kiley, "You don't have to yell dad, I'm right here."

I was laughing so hard! I think that Kiley figured out that she can pretty much get what she wants when she asks Keith, but I guess not when it comes to dating. It will be interesting to see what we have coming up this weekend.

Sorry Kiley for laughing about this but you will understand when you are a parent.

birthday party

I missed a couple of pictures. I couldn't resist the one of Ashley Ey getting hit with a marshmallow by her little brother.

Kiley's Sweet 16 Birthday Party

Everyone was sitting down along the front of the house to watch the fireworks. We heard a lot of oohs and ahhs. Keith even had mortars, I think those are the ones that go up in the sky. Dave and Caulin taught a new version of the line dance they already knew to the song I like to Party.

Yummy Birthday Cake!!!!

This is our Senior Couple, they had a lot of fun with the marshmallows! Malinda didn't have time for the shooter she just threw them at people!

Everyone made their own shooters.

The kids found a whole bunch of sticks for roasting marshmallows, the sticks are not in the picture.

Sarah decorating the cake.

fixing the cd player, I don't know how they could see what they were doing with so many extra hands. We even put President Snarr to work hanging Christmas lights so that people could see were they were going because it gets so dark here. The other picture is Jade, Shannon, Kiley, Brianna, and Rebecca.

I finally have some time to put stuff up about Kiley's party. Let me start by saying this was suppossed to be a party with just a few of her friends coming over and hanging out maybe have a barbaque. Well as we started to make the list of friends I started adding people that have not been up to the house yet or that we haven't visited with in awhile and we really enjoy their company. I think that we ended up sending out 36 invites. Now I had to count everyone that was coming so that we could plan for enough food. Keith of course thought that fireworks were needed, so we had those, and we made some great cd's of dance musicand pulled Lance and Jessica's old stereo out, Alan and Gina gave us the idea to make marsmallow shooters so our party was complete. We had 61 people at our little house! I was worried we would not have enough room but there was plenty. We had a beautiful day it was just a tiny bit chilly so the bonfire was wonderful to sit around. Ok so most of you who are reading this know what a double cake pan is, well I have a round one(it is a pan that can hold 2 cake mixes). Kiley wanted a red velvet cake so I made it from scratch from a recipie that dad gave me. I made 3 layers of that cake in the double cake pan. The cake was huge. People are still talking about how big the cake was. The day starts out ok I don't have a ton of cleaning to do just a little but we have food to get ready. Danny was at a scout overnight, I thought he had a ride home but it turns out that I needed to go and get him from Middletown which put me way off schedule. I guess I will have to not procrastinate if there is a next time. So people start showing up a little early or even on time. At first I panic but then they askto help so it was a wonderful thing to have all of that extra help! The only big glitch in the party was when the kids were carrying out the steroe the cd player fell and broke. Kiley was devastated because line dancing was going to be a big part of the party. Well Danny and a couple of the girls were trying to fix the cd player, they had the whole thing opened up, a few adults were trying to but Sister Hearn came and saved the day. The tragedy was thwarted and we had line dancing. The hit of the party had to be the marshmallow shooters. If you are wondering what they are it is a gun made out of pvc pipe that you put a marsmallow in and blow it out. It was amazing, our senior couple from the branch was there and he was a Bishop before his mission, well he was introduced to marshmallow shooters at girls camp and boy did he know how to use that thing! One of the girls would put a few mini marshmallows in her mouth and shoot out one after another. Sounds gross but the laughter was great. Even my dad got in on the fun. I don't want to blame the bad pictures on my camera because I am sure some of it has to do with me but, I am not good at taking pictures in bad lighting, plus I was busy so I did not get a lot of pictures. I am hoping that my friend will email the ones they took. I did get a couple of videos, my favorite is when I had 47 people stuffed in my kitchen singing happy birthday to Kiley because she had a great big smile on her face and that is what a birthday party is all about! I think that everyone had a great time. I do have to say thank you to my friend Sarah who saw how frustrated I was getting with decorating the cake and she took over and made it beautiful! She even put a flute and a violin on it!

I alsohave to say thank you to Cece Prange and Linda Snarr because they made 80 hamburgers for us! We had plenty of food. In fact we had enough that we brought in all the left overs and had a branch potluck after church the next day.We hadplenty because lot of people brought a dish to share which I am really grateful for! We did leave the lettuce at home, actually we threw it outone of the kids found a frog and it hopped right into the lettuce!

Here is a video of the marshmallow fun! The above video Danny took of the cd player being fixed. I think he was just as excited as Kiley that it was fixed mostly because he helped to fix it. I don't think that it took 2 hours to fix but maybe I am wrong.

Okay here is the Birthday song please don't listen too carefully to my out of tune singing right by the camera. I think that you all have an idea of what the party was like. We had so much fun, except for Monday when I scrubbed all of the floors in my house because there was marshmallow all over. At least we don't have any carpeting so nothing was ruined. We even found a marshmallow stuck to the pole in the basement a few days later. We wish that all of our family could have been there to celebrate with us. I guess we are just going to have a lot more get togethers because this was so much fun visiting with everyone. I apologize for not making this look prettier but if I did then it would be another month before this was posted.

Saturday

Saturday was a busy day for our family. Keith had a job, and the kids had a full schedule. We started the morning with a band concert. Then we raced home (within the speed limit) and Kiley changed so she could go to her friends sweet 16 party, then I went home for a few hours and tried to stay awake and then went and picked Kiley up and took her over to the church so she could go to super saturday. I lucked out and Keith was able to pick her up so I didn't have to drive anymore. Except the drive home from the concert each way was at least a 35 minute drive or more. Sometimes driving makes me really sleepy. Danny had a great day playing on the computer and the wii. I put a video of one of the songs that they played at the concert, it is called Sing, Sing Sing. This song always makes me want to dance. I apologize ahead of time for the shakey camera, I have to press pretty hard on the shutter button to record and if I even lift my finger a little the video stops. Maybe someday we can get a real video camera, but for now this works. Enjoy!

labor day

We spent Labor day over at my mom and dad's house. They had tickets through Newburgh ward for a Renegades game. We were able to eat dinner and watch the game. During the game a guy came around and asked if anyone wanted to throw tennis balls into a hula hoop. Danny wanted to so grandpa gave him the money to buy the balls. The Renegades played the Staten Island Yankees. The Yankees were winning by a lot, 6-1. The Renegades scored 2 more runs in the 9th inning when I took a bathroom break, someone said they should of had me leave sooner. Anyway my family are not big baseball fans and we were thinking of going home early but, I wanted to see the fireworks and I didn't want to waste dad's $5. The fireworks were much better than we expected. They told all the people with Tennis balls to go to either dug out, They showed them were the hula hoops were and then told them to throw the balls. Whoever had a ball in a hoop would get a prize. Sounds easy, right? Well there were balls bouncing all over the place, and then they called out all of the names and Danny had gotten 2 in. So he wona $25 gift card to the Renegades shop were he picked out a nice long sleeve t-shirt. Thanks dad, I guess it wasn't a waste of money this time. All in all we had a good day, because we went swimming earlier and spent itme with our family!

labor day

labor day

labor day

Swimming in Grandma's pool

first day of school 9/3/08

Today was the kids first day back to school. They got up and packed their lunches and were ready to go. J.D. even waited with them at the bus stop, which is just at the end of our driveway. Kiley is so organized that when she came home she had her list of school supplies that we needed ready to go and she even high-lighted the dates of her tests. I hope that I can be like her when I grow up!

Danny had his first day of cross country track today. I am not sure if they ended up running or not but he sure fell asleep real fast when he came home today. He takes after his dad.

I think that they had fun today seeing their friends again and my kids are usually excited to go back to school.

raft racing

I am very new to making a video on this camera. I accidently let go of the button so it stopped and that is why there are 2 videos of the kids in the pool. This summer we spent a lot of time over at my parents home in Newburgh because a few of my sisters and my brother came in. For my family it was definetly a vacation. We played a lot of ping pong, darts and swam in the pool a whole lot. The kids and I went on a couple of bike rides down my parents road. So thank you mom and dad for letting us stay and play at your house! I have a whole bunch of pictures of the kids jumping in the pool that I will try and put together as a slide show.

raft race

raft races

Kendra and the Beechop