House O' Sullivans

Helen here.  I've been posting under Casey's pen name for a few days now, since apparently I've uploaded my gratis quota of pictures on my Google account and now they want me to pay every month for an expanded allotment of data storage.  The audacity of these people!  Baaahhh!  I will bypass that little quandary by posting on Casey's Gmail account.  There are ALWAYS ways. I wanted to write about the holiday happenings of the past few days.  Saturday night all of my local siblings and their progeny, and my Mom, met at Mary's house in Kaysville for an epic Latino, pre-Christams Eve feast.  Mary and I played through two books of Christmas carols on our fiddles before the party started.  Karen organized the food and made bags and bags of tamales with all of the fixings.  We had lots of beans, homemade guacamole and chips, fruits and vegetables.  It was a grand feast.   The family program included singing Christmas carols and sharing t...

A few weeks ago, our dear friends the Sundbergs gave us a copy of this book: As a result, we've been incorporating some new traditions into our Christmas season that have turned our hearts toward the Savior.  The woman who wrote the book, Emily Freeman, has a tradition of learning about each figure in the nativity--one each week for several weeks leading up to Christmas--before placing that figure into the manger scene.  Our kids have looked forward to learning, reading, and doing the activities associated with each figure, and have delighted in placing the figurines into the manger scene, one by one, over the past few weeks. I've been reading the Book of Mormon with my kids for over two years now.  Sophie was 3, Hallee 2, and Zeke a wee baby when we started with the real deal.  Sometimes we only read and discuss a couple of verses (since we always discuss them at length and try to relate what we are reading to ourselves) and as a result, after two years...

That sounds BAD, doesn't it?  My friend Sarah is in town from Wisconsin, and as usually happens, a group of friends gather to feast.  As part of the lunch plan--homemade Cafe Rio salads--I made rice and beans yesterday morning.  In order to thin out the herd and as a benevolent gesture to Casey, I decided to take Hallee along for lunch with the ladies.  The beans were barely done cooking in the pressure cooker, but being time to go I brought them out and loaded them into the van along with Hallee.  We both laughed every time we went over a bump because the weight covering the pressure outlet on top would shift and a blast of steam would escape, making strange and exotic noises.  One bump proved too big and the weight tipped completely to the side, allowing a full pressure release from the pot.  Quickly the van filled with billowing clouds of hot steam and Hal yelled, "Mom, it's burning my eyes."  (She was sitting right in front of the pot.)  ...

Larry Maddocks, one of our Best Avenue neighbors, took this epic family photo at the ward Christmas party this year.  He set up the green screen, we layered on the props, and Larry worked his magic!  Poor Zeke looks like he'll soon freeze in the wintry scene where we suddenly find ourselves.

I've gone through several phases with bread.  The easy way out--that is the breadmaker phase.  The make the dough in the breadmaker THEN bake it in the oven phase.  The make it and bake it all in one hour phase.  The make the dough in the KitchenAid phase.  Right now I am loving making bread in the old-school way--grinding the wheat, hand kneading the dough, letting it rise twice, making a huge mess, and taking way too long. Sophie, Hallee, and Zeke LOVE kneading and shaping the dough.  We have a game that we play while we knead.  Each of the kids gets a dough "baby" and kneads it while I knead the "momma"--a big wad of dough.  When the babies least expect it, the big momma goes on a wild rolling spree and rolls the babies into her mass, or even worse, a cavernous mouth opens wide and consumes them!   The kids think this so is entertaining and nobody misses bread-makin' day. This was a big batch of whole-wheat, flax seed, and home grown...

Downloading Sophie's digital camera is always a pleasure.  Here is a sampling of her recent work.  Quite intriguing I'd say. Zeke Zeke I had to LAUGH at this one.