What to do?

I blogged a few weeks ago about needing a new bread machine. http://richterihart-meandmyboys.blogspot.com/2009/09/i-labored-on-labor-day.html My good friend Lynna suggested using a Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Richard got me one for my birthday last year, so I thought I'd give it a try.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but the bread dough isn't rising as much as it did when I used my bread machine. I dissolve the yeast in warm water (about 115 degrees) and then add the rest of the wet ingredients & then the dry. I even mixed the dough longer that I did the last time, but it still isn't rising like it should. Any suggestions?

I'm just warming up the oven to put my latest loaf in the oven, and it is so much smaller than the loafs that I get when I use the bread machine. Help!

He Shoots! He Scores!

Twice! David made 2 goals today during his first ever soccer game. His team won, 6-2. They dominated (can 1st, 2nd & 3rd graders dominate?) the first 2 quarters, then the other team scored 2 goals in the 3rd quarter and both teams didn't score at all during the 4th quarter. Both teams played really well for only having 3 practices.

Other than that, it was a pretty leisurely Saturday. I baked chocolate chip cookies while Nathaniel napped & David & Richard did their own things. Which included looking at 1980's Transformer toys on the internet. David's idea, of course. He is obsessed with Transformers. That's almost all he can talk about. Its almost annoying.

The boys (all 3 of them) just came in from shooting their bows. Time for snacks and then bedtime.

Chocolate Chip Cookies vs Transformers & a horrible Thunderstorm

This morning I suprised David by asking him if he wanted to help me bake chocolate chip cookies while Nathaniel was down for his nap in the afternoon. "Yes!" was the enthusastic answer I received. So shortly after Nathaniel went to bed, I got out the mixer, ingredients & David got his little chair & away we went.....

David is lovingly posing with my mixer, which I love. It was a birthday present from Richard and the boys this past November. Richard always says he doesn't like getting me stuff like this, but hey, if I want it, buy it! I've wanted a Kitchen Aid stand mixer about as long as we've been married.
I have a secret ingredient in my chocolate chip cookies. Wanna know what it is? Hmmm? If you keep reading, I might just tell you....

David enjoying the batter left on the beater.....

I also have a secret techinique for baking cookies. If you keep reading, I might just tell you......

We got 4 and 2/3rds dozen out of this batch. Would've had five dozen if David & I hadn't had 2 each.

David didn't actually do much baking. He was busy laying out the current Autobots & the Army vs. the Decepticons battle. He did come in occassionally to check on the cookies in the oven. In case you didn't know, these are all Decepticons.....

And these are the army guys, their tank, and their allies, the Autobots...... (the tank used to be an RC tank. Until it sat for a year while Richard was in Iraq & the battery went bad. Haven't replaced it yet.)

And the battle begins......

Last night we had a major thunderstorm. I didn't even know it was raining or storming, for that matter, until a huge, loud, sounded like it was in our front yard, clap of thunder went off about 3:30 am. Woke me up from a sound sleep, scared the dogs & the cat and woke Nathaniel. David? He slept through that. About an hour later he woke up cause Nathaniel was crying cause of a somewhat quieter bout of thunder sounded off. The dogs, Stormy especially, had a really hard time settling back down. She was pacing up and down the hall & kept going into the boys' room, which caused Nathaniel to keep waking up. I even had the door to their room closed and she'd nose it open. Old house, doors don't latch securely. So between 3:30 am and 8:30 am when Nathaniel woke up and crawled into bed with me, I think I got about 2 hours of sleep. So why am I still up at 10:50 pm? I'm not sure, but I'm heading for bed now. Hopefully it'll be an uneventful night. Its supposed to thunderstorm again though. I guess we'll find out later.

Pies, VBS and Nathaniel & the Mud Puddle

As I mentioned in last nights post, I had to go take rhubarb out of the freezer to make pies for our final night of VBS, which is tonight. So this morning, before it got too warm, I made a Crusty Rhubarb Pie & a Crusty Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie. Here's a couple of pictures of the Crusty Rhubarb Pie. Its doesn't have a lot of fruit in it, but just enough to taste the rhubarb. The Strawberry-Rhubarb pie wasn't as pretty, so I didn't take pictures of it.... it kind of overflowed the pie plate a little.

These are pictures taken about 5 minutes after I took the pie out of the oven. I wasn't able to catch any of the steam rising from the pie....

The VBS finale went very well. The kids had a blast with all the songs we sang, and the parents seemed to have a good time too. The pie and ice cream afterwards seemed to be a big hit as well. There was so much pie left the ladies in the kitchen weren't sure what they were going to do with all of it. Too much left to put in the fridge until Sunday. There was a gal who helped with the preschoolers that made an awesome chocolate chip cookie pie. Yep, a chocolate chip cookie pie. It was yummy! She's going to give me the recipe, so if anyone is interested let me know and I'll post it after I get it.

These pictures of Nathaniel were taken a few days ago, Saturday, I think, after we got a good rain overnight. There are a couple of places in the driveway that hold water after everything else is dried out. Nathaniel likes to play in the one closest to the house. I usually yell at him to get out of the mud puddle, but this time I didn't, much to his surprise.

Nathaniel likes to run around in his pull up. I think he'd actually run around naked if I'd let him. He was a filthy boy when he came in and in need of a shower. David never played in the mud like Nathaniel does. He's more like me in that David doesn't like to get really dirty.

Is tomorrow really Friday? My week's been all messed up because of VBS. Have a happy Friday!

Piano Playing & Baking in Silence

Today's 1st service at church went fairly well. Couple of minor stumbles, but nothing that was too noticeable. The big one was the closing song. I was ready, did the intro to "Awesome God" and when I went into the beginning of the chorus, no one, including the worship team, sang. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, the words weren't up on the big screen. So there was a bit of an awkward pause, but oh well. I didn't get fired. Oh, wait, I volunteered.

I went to church today by myself, as Richard, his dad & the boys went to Cabela's in Owatonna, MN. So it was wonderfully quiet when I got home, aside from the welcoming barks of the dogs. I got some lunch, unloaded the dishwasher and started baking for treats for Financial Peace University tonight. In total silence. Its wonderful. No music, no kids yelling, no TV blaring, nothing. Shhhh. Do you hear that? Yep. Silence.

Hope you have a wonderful Sunday and a great week!

Cleaning House in 55 degree Weather

Remember how in an earlier post I had said that I wanted to get the house really cleaned up while the boys were at VBS this week? Yeah, well, it didn't happen. What did happen today was I baked a loaf of bread since we were out and I don't buy bread anymore. And I spent about 3 1/2 hours sorting through, organizing and discarding toys. We have a corner of our huge living room dedicated to toys. Two sets of shelves, a huge tub and a plastic 3 drawer dresser full of toys, puzzles, books, games - you name it, they probably have (or had) it. I had 3 boxes of stuff to give away when I was done. And they'll never miss any of it. Especially since most of it was buried and they hadn't played with it for 6 months anyway. I should've taken before and after pictures. Now its pointless cause the kids have gotten into their toys again. Oh well, maybe next time.

It was 55 degrees here for most of the day. About 10:00 am it was 59 and when I looked again around 11:30 am it was 55. The temperature in the house was a whopping 66 degrees. It looked like it was going to rain all day, but it didn't do anything but sprinkle briefly a couple of times. We're supposed to have a high of around 70 on Saturday. Yippee for us!

Have a great weekend!