Pull-Apart Bread Recipe and Aprons by Me :)

Prepare to be amazed - at the simplicity of this recipe!!! Anyone, and I mean anyone can make this!

Pull-Apart Cinnamon Rolls

25 frozen uncooked Rhodes White Dinner Rolls

½ cup brown sugar

1 pkg. non-instant butterscotch pudding

1 cube margarine (melted)

cinnamon

nuts/raisins optional

Grease bundt pan. Place uncooked frozen dinner rolls in pan. Sprinkle brown sugar on top. Sprinkle dry pudding mix on top of that. Drizzle butter on top. Sprinkle with cinnamon, then with nuts/raisins if desired. Cover with wax paper and set on counter overnight. In the morning, bake at 350° for 30 minutes. Turn out on large platter or plate. Serve

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This is what I made my for my sister - this is the fabric I was looking for in my Day in Pictures post

These are her dishes

This is for a niece

And this is for her twin

This is one I'm working on for somebody in particular, and it was my best effort yet as far as execution goes. Then I sewed a pocket on higher than the other, so I'm going to have to take it off and do it again :(

(Matt said this apron is hideous - he will not be getting pull-apart bread anytime soon! And if he thought I was going to make one for him, he can just forget about it now, hmph!!!)

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year!!! I'm partying hard right now, as you can plainly see...

A Little Bit O' Christmas

It's a wonderful thing when the Christmas gifts you give your children work out, and there is no fighting, jealousy, or requests to exchange a gift for something entirely different! It's tricky knowing how much is too much, are we spoiling, are we not giving enough, etc., so I feel like this year was a complete success in the kid gift giving department. Everyone is happy - or else they've learned the art of gracious gift receiving at a young age, which is very nice of them ;-)

This year we did a couple minor gifts for each girl, and then one main big one.

Ella is all about zebras right now, even though she now says peacocks are her all time favorite animal. Ummm, WHAT!? Now she tells me? This is rather new information. Peacock stuff is much harder to find though, so I still probably would have gone with the stripes. She kind of obsessed with zebras at the moment anyway.

Not looking all that excited here, but I swear she is! She'll be updating here room :)

She's already made the exchange

Oh my heck! A pink DS (I'd never heard of them until about two weeks ago)!!! Our lovely white Christmas in the background

Sophie's dream come true - the American Doll Girl Julie

She accompanies us wherever we go

They are constant companions now

It's possible that every family in Matt's family made his mother's delicious pull apart bread for breakfast.

And finally, I want to share my testimony, that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Rock Band (the family gift) is true, that I will someday receive a 100% playing drums on 'Black Hole Sun' (I'm still on easy, baby steps people) and that I want to be with my family forever when we're rockin' it together!

Music Memory Monday

Today I'm introducing my own recurring day of the week theme which I've made up myself, complete with alliterative title and everything. It's inevitable that in every blogger's blogging career, kind of an unwritten rule, an alliterative day of the week theme will be attempted at some point. So here's my version.

Why Musical Memory Monday? Because I remember much of my life in song, I enjoy writing about the past, and of course because Monday is the only day of the week that starts with 'm'.

I'll start with one of my favorite musical memories, which happened when I was about ten or eleven, and my sister and I had stayed the weekend with our Aunt Julie and Uncle Greg.

I had been listening to my new Donna Summer On the Radio: Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2 most of the weekend.

I can still remember just what their stereo receiver looked like, and where it was in the corner of their dining room, and how I could hit every note of 'On the Radio' perfectly ;-) But that's not actually the musical memory I intended to write about. What I'm thinking of took place when Greg was taking us home.

We were on the freeway, the 10 I believe (they lived in Fullerton and we lived in Hawthorne), with the radio blasting, and 'Light My Fire' by The Doors came on. We were all singing along and rockin' out, and in the middle of the song, my uncle shouted over the music, "can you believe Grandma hates this song (the grandma who made the refrigerator cows) and always made me turn it off?"

What????!!!!! We were scandalized! How could she? It was unbelievable!!! Oh the humanity...

My grandmother didn't like much music at all, especially not rock, and would always say, "I just can't stand that beat beat beat beat beat!", while pounding her fist louder and louder with each 'beat'. It would always make us laugh, she'd get so worked up about it.

I always think of my Uncle Greg whenever I hear this song!

Light My Fire - The Doors

An Unexpected Gift

When I opened this cute little refrigerator cow my mother gave me for Christmas, I was immediately taken back to my childhood - and specifically to my grandmother's refrigerator door. My grandmother made this one in fact. My mom found it recently among some things that fell out of a box in her garage. Coincidentally enough, it matches my kitchen, and the other cow that was with it matches my sister's (she will be getting the other one, but she only reads my blog about once every six weeks (even though she says she loves me), so I'm sure this won't spoil her surprise).

I think my grandmother made one of these cows for everyone she knew, and thought it was about the funniest thing in the world. I can't remember her not having one on her fridge.

And obviously, my grandmother was way ahead of her time with her savvy text lingo! 'R U eating again?' She would definitely have had unlimited texting, I just know it.

She's always in my thoughts, even though she died when I was 17. I remember her as clearly and as vividly as if she were sitting here with me now. I'm so glad her clever cow will be watching me each time I open the fridge :) It's my favorite gift this year (no offense to Matt and the beautiful watch he gave me for Christmas, that I love and couldn't stop looking at today - not to find out the time, but to admire it).

It came with two matching crochet butterflies. Finger prints were removed from the immediate area surrounding the cow for this picture, but all the others still remain :)

Spray painted alphabet pasta - doesn't get any better than that

Thanks Mom!

2008 Musical Advent Calendar

Day 25: What Child is This? - Linda Eder

Merry Christmas!!! This song actually combines my top two favorite songs in a beautiful arrangement, and is beautifully sung as well.

What child is this, who, laid to rest

On Mary's lap, is sleeping?

Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,

While shepherds watch are keeping?

This, this is Christ the King,

Whom shepherds guard and angels sing:

Haste, haste to bring him laud,

The Babe, the Son of Mary!

So this concludes my musical Advent Calendar. It was fun, even though I couldn't include so many wonderful songs. But from 'Santa Claus, Go Straight to the Ghetto' to 'What Child is This', I think we covered a lot of great songs. Thanks for tuning in! Hope you have a joyous day filled with family and love :)

p.s. I didn't actually ever post Silent Night because I was so tired that night and I couldn't find one that absolutely thrilled me. Will do it soon, just for the record - no pun intended.

Merry Christmas

The thing that's wonderful about Christmas, is that even though I didn't do nearly all the things I had planned on doing, and some of the things I did do, I didn't do very well and I yelled at my kids too much because I was stressed out from starting too many ambitious projects that became difficult to finish with my ineffiecient brain, and I completely failed in many other areas as well, I still don't feel completely hopeless about myself. I rarely actually feel completely hopeless - I save those moments for my semi-annual (sometimes quarterly) 'I'm the lamest person ever pity party', but with so many things left undone, or done more expensively than was needed online from people like Dwight Shrute because of procrastination, and not spending enough time with the girls because I didn't plan the month of December very well even though I knew they would be off track, and having not sent out any Christmas cards, or baked for our neighbors and friends, etc., etc., etc., (I may have to follow this up with some damage control) I don't feel nearly as bad as I ordinarily would, because the message/meaning of Christmas is all about hope, and I actually feel hopeful and confident that I will overcome many of my shortcomings and be a better person because of Christ's birth.

(Wow! Most of that was one sentence - and not a very good none either)

Tonight we went over to Evelyn Mount's to drop off some stuff, and Ella brought three blankets she has made over the last couple weeks for needy children, which was all her own idea and doing. The men working at Evelyn's told the girls they could take them into the house and give them to Evelyn themselves. They each took a blanket and walked through the garage to the house door where Evelyn was standing, and handed them to her. She was very happy, said how beautiful they were and praised the girls and thanked them. I was proud of Ella, not only for wanting to do something nice like that with her time, but also for unselfishly letting Eva and Sophie share in her moment of giving. Then I wished I had taken more time to do things like that with the girls, instead of being all frantic and grouchy trying to get my stuff done in a crunch. But, the message of Christmas is about hope, and so I look forward to being prepared earlier next year, so we can do more of the things that Christmas is actually about, in a more calm and pleasant manner :) And yes, I know I'm not a bad person, or as bad as I just made myself out to be, but I definitely need a 'life coach', a personal assistant, or someone who can clean up the debris I leave in my wake and keep me on schedule/on task during the last two weeks before Christmas ;-)

Merry Christmas from our family to yours :)

p.s. I should have just been wrapping instead of blogging...

Early Christmas Eve Taco Feast

Tonight we did the traditional Christmas Eve taco dinner a few days early while Marv and Joanie are here in town (my in-laws). When tacos became tradition in the Hamrick family or why, I don't know - but I like it. We also did the traditional white elephant gift exchange. I was actually there when the gift exchange tradition started about 9 years ago. Matt's grandma Charmaine came for Christmas one year and brought along 17 gifts she'd gathered from around her house, all wrapped and ready to be fought over. It was the Celestial Pursuit game that was the hot item that year. There may or may not have been some coveting and jealousy when I stole it fair and square from a member of the Lane family on the last trade of the exchange :-)

My bother in-law Jim delighted with a Santa plate

Anna scored a complete Sega video console with games that Travis was getting rid of

Sophie chose a large gift wrapped in racing car paper

Tyler's despair at seeing the last of the three gifts wrapped in the racing car paper being opened

But then he felt so much better after he had stolen a huge box of Nerds and Laffy Taffy from RJ

Ella's elation at stealing Baby Bottle Pops from Marcus

Bubbles

The proud winner of the Santa plate (I'm pretty sure this is why she encouraged me to buy it when we were at Walmart last night)

Jorge loves him some hot sauce!!!

After the gifts we sang some songs with Erica at the piano

And then Joanie couldn't keep her hands to herself during the Nativity Story.

A good time was had by all!!!

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Matt came through with some pictures of Eva the second time around :)

Like the shadow

Eva showin' some boys how it's done

My AMAZING Wild Horse Video - Soon to be Seen on the National Geographic Channel ;-)

Back in late summer and early fall, during the height of my wild horse obsession, I was making an AWESOME video of my horse stalking excursions. It's not finished, but it's been sitting untouched for a while, and I don't feel like doing anything more with it at this point, so here it is. It has a few thrilling fights, and some 'oh how cute' moments as well. I filmed almost all of it just below the Sage Hill Gun Club.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Eva's Very First Snowboarding Lesson and First Time Ever on the Slopes - As Documented by her Father

He was given a camera with plenty of battery power and an empty picture card. He came home with one picture (below).

A closer look reveals that Eva isn't even in it.

Mission Accomplished

Well the drive over was longer than usual of course, but I left at just the right time - after restrictions had been lifted, but before everything froze up. So it was a nice drive, and as always after a storm - magnificently beautiful!!!

I pulled over in the chain-up area at Emigrant Gap to refill my windshield wiper fluid - I even put it in the right spot, because I'm smart like that :)

Looking north east from Emigrant Gap (my pocket camera isn't so bad)

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The girls were happy to see me, especially Eva! She was getting a little homesick, even though she was having fun. Sophie, on the other hand, was happy to see me, but didn't want to leave and could have gone another four or five days without seeing me. It was one big giant five night long slumber party in the bonus room with Jamie and Julia for her. At about 10:00, Janene and I thought all the girls were asleep and went in to check on them and turn the television off. This was the scene

Jamie and Julia on the sofa bed, sweetly obeying orders

And Sophie still awake, playing with dolls (it was her turn on the floor)

It was so cute, Janene had an overwhelming desire to kiss her!

Upon further inspection, it was discovered that Sophie had apparently started a Barbie dressing marathon

She's showing disturbing early signs of obsessive compulsive hyper enthusiasm for starting new projects late at night, just like her dear mother ;-)

Two down, only 150 to go...

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