Baking Day 2009

This year for Christmas I asked for a Kitchenaid mixer. I had 2 reasons for that request: 1. I L-O-V-E love to bake! 2. I am pretty much the messiest cook ever and I figured a stand mixer may be a little less messy than a handheld mixer (picture me with a handheld mixer and stuff flying all over the kitchen...) My parents delivered with an awesome RED Kitchenaid!! Pretty much totally excited.
Last year for Mothers' Day my mom asked for a wheat grinder. My dad got her one, but has she used it yet? No. Not until today that is.
Our goal for today was to use our new kitchen appliances. It was a lot of fun. I think we started about 12:30 and finished after dinner about 7 hours later. My back and feet ache, but my heart is happy. :)

Our first task was to figure out how to use the wheat grinder. This was our test run and it worked! As nerdy as it sounds, it was fun to watch the wheat be sucked into the grinder.

This is what the wheat started out as..

We used the whole wheat flour to make honey whole wheat bread. It took probably 3 more cups of flour than the recipe called for (I blame the fact that it was snowing), we forgot to put the salt in until the last minute (which cause a little panic that it wasn't mixed in well enough), and I had to convince my mom not to throw it out and start over. The dough rose (raised??) beautifully and we got 2 loaves out of it. Yummy!!!

This is me with my new red mixer and wearing my awesomely cute apron that my friend Amber made. So exciting!

While the other dough was rising we started on our banana bread. We got 8 smaller loaves of banana bread. Here's the problem, every time I make banana bread it is ALWAYS raw in the middle and overdone on the outside. Today was no different. I had one loaf turn out absolutely perfectly, and then one for sure (probably 2 or three, I didn't cut into all of them) that was still goo in the middle. We stuck it back in the oven and then it came out hollow. Any banana bread suggestions are welcomed! I chose not to make the normal loaf sizes because of that problem, apparently I can't handle small loaves either.

The whole wheat bread dough being prepared to go into the oven...

My gooey banana bread. Oh dear!

The finished products. I'm disappointed that I forgot to take a picture of dinner, homemade french onion soup (SO GOOD!!!). Here's the final count of all our projects: 2 loaves of Honey Whole Wheat Bread, 8 loaves of banana bread, a bazillion homemade Oreo cookies, a new recipe from one of my cooking magazines Chewy Brownie Cookies (with a Sarah White twist, cut up Snickers), and French Onion Soup. It was a yummy day. I'm glad my mom let me make a mess of her kitchen. It's much more fun to cook with someone else!

And I swear my diet resumes tomorrow!

Oh wait, tomorrow is New Years' Eve. My diet resumes Saturday after all the partying!

Happy 25th Birthday Tyler!

Today, December 28th, would have been Tyler Scott Elder's 25th birthday. I love him and I miss him every day. I believe that I will see him again and it will be a wonderful reunion. I look forward to that day.
To celebrate My Handsome's birthday I went to lunch and a movie with my dear friend Kjersti. I can tell you with 100% certainty that Tyler and I would have spent this day at a movie, so I thought it was the perfect way to spend the afternoon (although I highly doubt we would have seen "Did You Hear About the Morgans?" like Kjersti and I did).
My first official date with Tyler was to see "Bourne Identity" at Jordan Commons in June 2002. The last movie we saw at a theater was "Superman Returns" a couple days after he returned from his mission in July 2006.
Tyler had a passion for movies and video games and was able to drag me into loving those things as well. I often tell people with pride that I was an avid Halo player (albeit not a very good one) and it's fun to watch their reactions.
Tyler taught me to love things I never thought I would love, and he had an awesome and sometimes obsessive passion for anything he got involved with.
I love that boy forever!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2009...
Christmas Eve we spent the evening at Aunt Kathy's house with the White extended family. The hugging tradition was continued and spiced up when my cousin Cameron picked me up off the floor. It was completely unexpected and quite shocking. I was first off glad that I didn't break him, and then I was amazed at how different the world looks from his height.
I spent that night at my parents' house and then we opened presents with Mason, Taylor, Emma, and the parentals Christmas morning.
We spent the rest of the day with the Grovers at Grandma and Grandpa's house with the traditional sourdough pancakes, fried eggs, English Toffee, peanut brittle, pink popcorn, salmon cheeseballs, and clam chowder.
It was a good day. My new red Kitchenaid will be put to good use! :)

Santa Claus spends a lot of time unloading his bag at the White house!

I got Emma a bunch of picture frames for Christmas that were so cute!

Taylor enjoys aggravating all of us by cheering for BYU simply because she goes to school there. She could really care less about the rivalry, but likes to ruffle feathers. So, I helped fuel the fire...

My mom sewed the edging on the blanket and it was really nice. Don't worry, I bathed and scrubbed with strong soap after handling this fabric!

Couldn't leave Mason on his own with Taylor's new BYU gear....

Mason, Taylor, and I got our parents' tickets to the Michael Buble concert. I got scolded because I lied about the tickets' availability. :)

Grovers preparing for the madness to begin. The back of Josh, Sam, Lexi, and Callie.

Uncle Bruce, Ron, and Celeste

We're pretty talented to be able to fit that many people in that room. It didn't used to seem like such a small room...

Grandma Shirley was able to join us for breakfast and presents. It was fun to have her there.

Grandpa George

Funny Stuff at a Boring Training

I had a 3 hour training for a new computer program yesterday at our district offices. Part way through we got side-tracked and ended up talking Utah and BYU. Someone showed this video on YouTube. Hilarious!!!!! If I were smarter I'd be able to upload the video straight to my blog, but alas I am computer dumb, so you'll just have to click on the link to find it. SO FUNNY!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6CROOR2QN8