Tag . . .I'm It!

Tag! How To Play This Game of Tag. Post these rules on you blog. Answer these 15 questions about yourself on your blog. List: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 random surprising facts. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog. Here it is...

Joys
1. Of Course Dave and Lauren are my greatest joys (also my greatest pains but we are focusing on joys here)
2. Friends - Being so far away from family is hard but having good friends really helps!
3. Trips home to visit family. They don't come often (once or twice a year if I am lucky) but we LOVE spending time with brother's and sister's, Grandma's and Grandpa's and cousins!

Fears
1. Lauren getting a serious illness. When I see pict. of sick kids I just can't imagine what it is like for the parents of that child and I hope I never find out.
2. Big roller coasters! I am a chicken - Disneyland rides are about as exciting as I like to get!
3. Spiders and cockroaches! I sometimes have nightmares about them - they really gross me out!

Goals
1. Learn to cook better. I love to cook but I would like to try new things.
2. Learn how to use my Photoshop program I got for my birthday 6 months ago!
3. De-clutter my house before our next baby is born.

Obsessions
1. Blogs - take up way too much of my time!
2. Reading! I love to read and poor Lauren is constantly asking me to put my book away.
3. My TV shows - AI, Dancing with the Stars, The Office (just to name a few).

Random Facts
1. I currently have 3 church callings (none of them are that hard).
2. My bedroom is currently the bedroom (bed, dresser), office (desk, bookshelves, computer, filing cabinet), music room (full size electric piano), storage room (boxes of Lauren's clothes, pictures, computer software, etc.) and recreation room (TV). I can't wait until we have a BIGGER house and my bedroom can just be a bedroom!!
3. I LOVE dill pickles. I love them so much that after I eat all the pickles I will then drink the pickle juice. In the summer our outdoor splash pool sells frozen pickle juice for .25 and Lauren and I (yes, I passed this love onto my daughter) will buy it and we love it! This summer I think we will be making our own pickle Popsicles!

Since I am not sure who has done this before - I tag anyone who wants to do it! Feel free to answer these questions yourself on your blog so we can all get to know you a little better!

Recipe

Here is the Cinnamon Roll recipe for anyone who wanted it. They are sooo good and sooo not good for you! Enjoy!

Mall-Type Cinnamon Rolls

¼ c. warm water
¼ c. butter, melted
½ (3.4 oz) pkg. instant vanilla pudding mix
1 c. warm milk
1 egg (room temperature)
1 Tbsp. white sugar
½ tsp. salt
4 c. bread flour
1 (.25 oz) pkg. active dry yeast
¼ c. butter, softened
1 c. brown sugar
4 tsp. ground cinnamon
¾ c. chopped pecans

Frosting:
1 (4oz) pkg. cream cheese, softened
¼ c. butter, softened
1 c. confectioners sugar
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 ½ tsp. milk

In the pan of your bread machine, combine water, melted butter, vanilla pudding, warm milk, egg, 1 Tbsp. sugar, salt, bread flour, and yeast. Set machine to Dough cycle; press Start. When Dough cycle has finished, turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into a 17x10 inch rectangle. Spread with softened butter.
In a small bowl, stir together brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans. Sprinkle brown sugar mixture over dough. Roll up dough, beginning with the long side. Slice into 16 one inch slices and place in 9x13 inch buttered pan. Let rise in a warm place until doubled, about 45 min. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake in a preheated oven for 15-20 min. While rolls bake, make frosting. Remove rolls from oven and top with frosting.

Just a Note – my rolls took about 1 ½ hours to rise. I had them on top of a warm dryer but they still did not rise very fast (could have been my yeast). Also, as I was typing up this recipe I realized when I made the cinnamon rolls I put in the whole package of pudding, I didn’t remember to half it and they still tasted really good. So there you have it! They did take a little while to make since I think the dough cycle was 1 ½ hours and then they took 1 ½ hours to rise but they were well worth it!

First Came Love . . .

Then came marriage, then came Lauren in a baby carriage. An now we are excited to share that baby #2 will be joining our family next October! Some may already know this because they read a previous post where I talked about how excited I will be to have a husband who can walk again by the time this baby comes. But for those of you who only skim or look at the headings - and you know who you are - you now know. We are VERY excited to finally be adding to our family. It was not our plan to have 4 1/2 years between our children but over the last few years we have really learned that not everything happens on our time table. We have definitely learned a lot about trusting the Lord and His timetable and we couldn't be happier to finally have this new baby. Lauren is soooo excited to be a big sister and changes her mind almost daily about wanting a brother or a sister. I have loved having just Lauren and playing with her and doing so many fun, different things with her. Even though it wasn't what I had originally planned I have been lucky to have just had her for so long and we have really tried to focus on the advantages of just having one child for so long. Lauren and I have really been able to just play any time of the day because we didn't have to worry about a sibling needing a nap. And I now realize what a HUGE help Lauren will actually be to me when this new baby comes. She is so excited to help and she will actually be a help a lot of the time I think.
Now - I promise I will post more pictures from here on out. We have been to the park a lot in the last week (it is so nice to see temperatures in the 70's again) but of course I haven't gotten the camera out for any of these trips!

More Updates!

We have some GREAT news! Dave's surgery got pushed up six weeks! He will now be having surgery on May 8th. We are just so glad we don't have to sit around waiting an additional six weeks for his bone graft and he can get on with the healing process.

And for those of you wanting to make some yummy cinnamon rolls - those that I made over conference weekend were seriously the easiest, yummiest I have ever made. I am admitedly the worst bread maker. I love homemade bread and rolls but I admit that I just don't have the talent for it. But this recipe was so simple and the dough was so easy to work with that I highly recommend EVERYONE give them a try. Most of you in Iowa already have the recipe - it is in the newest ward cookbook (the one we did last year) and it is under breads and it is Camille Zirker's recipe for Cinnamon Rolls. You make the dough in a bread maker so it was seriously so simple. And if anyone else wants the recipe, just let me know and I will email it to you! So thanks Camille for a yummy cinnamon roll recipe. Dave is already been asking me when I am going to make them again!

Conference Weekend

We had a pretty good conference weekend. Of course it is always hard with a toddler running around and wanting to play the whole time but I think I did a pretty good job of finding things to keep her busy and we were able to listen to most of conference without interruption! Since we don't have cable (even if we did have cable we still wouldn't be able to get conference - it's Iowa for Pete's sake!) so we watched it on our laptop this year from the comfort of our own family room. We have done that before but the speakers on the laptop are pretty lame so Dave had me buy a new cord that hooked our laptop speakers into our Ipod speaker and wallah - we could listen to it from any room in our little 900 sq. foot house perfectly! Since our kitchen and family room are basically the same room Lauren and I were able to do a lot of fun stuff in the kitchen and still be able to see/hear all of conference. So conference weekend at our house consisted of us eating these -

And a little bit of this!

I am just posting this picture to give Dave a hard time. He had fallen asleep so I went and got the camera and took of picture of his conference experience. He was actually awake more than he was asleep (I think)! Lauren and I had fun making yummy things in the kitchen (we made cookies on Sunday too). But don't worry, we gave most of the cookies away! By the end of conference on Sunday though Lauren had had enough. She came up to me and asked to play and I told her not right now, I'm listening to conference and she replied, "Mom, turn that TV off, you've watched enough TV today!" Hmm, I wonder where she has heard that line before!!

And for an update on Dave - He is doing pretty well. We went and saw his surgeon today and he said things were looking good. He will keep taking IV antibiotics through his PICC for the next 4 weeks and he should have his next surgery in 4 or 5 weeks also. UPDATE -I just got a call from the surgeons office today and the earliest they can do Dave's next surgery isn't until June 19th! We are not thrilled with that news but don't have a lot of options either. Now we are really just praying that someone who is scheduled for surgery before him cancels and he can get bumped up and have the surgery sooner! The next surgery will consist of going back into his femur and doing another bone graft with donor bone mixed with his own bone marrow. We are really hopeful that with all the antibiotics packed into his leg right now and the 6 weeks of IV antibiotics will really kick this infection out of his leg for good and that the new, healthy bone can grow and we won't ever be doing this surgery again! We appreciate all the prayers and calls and emails about how Dave is doing. His surgeon said he would be on two crutches for about another 3 months after the surgery but that's okay, we can handle that! We just hope that by October he will be down to one crutch or a cane because that is when our new little baby will be arriving! That's right - I am finally pregnant with baby number two and I want to have a healthy husband who can walk and help me carry around our new little bundle of joy!

Return of Good TV!

Okay - I admit we watch too much TV at our house but in my defense, my husband just had surgery a couple of weeks ago and can't even walk so what else are we supposed to do? Since the writers strike ended we have been eagerly awaiting the return of some of our favorite shows and finally this Thurs. one of our favorites is back!

So for all you Office watchers out there - don't miss Thursday night!