Cousins

 This past weekend was MEA (Minnesota Education Association) weekend, so we headed over to my parent's house to enjoy the long weekend.  Russell enjoyed having his cousins around especially Camille who came to visit Grandma, too.

Good thing Camille didn't mind Russell trying to eat her.

 

Everyone loves Grandma and Grandpa!

Friday Night Lights

Dover-Eyota's Homecoming was Friday night. Ben's students have been wanting him to come to their sports games all year long, so we finally hauled out and spent almost a whole half at the football game. It was chilly, so we had to get all bundled up. And, they won! Now they are 1-4. Sounds like Mount Vernon football.

Party in my tummy

Have you seen this video yet? Someone in this house LOVES it and always turns to watch it whenever it comes on the tv.

Awhile back I made some yummy no bake cookies.  No bakes have a long history in my family.  Joseph called them scooby snacks. Sarah made her own versions, including chocolate granola and then chocolate granola soup. Food Network has the perfect recipe.

Ingredients
2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons cocoa
1 stick butter
1/2 cup milk
1 cup peanut butter
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups oatmeal
Waxed paper

Directions

In a heavy saucepan bring to a boil, the sugar, cocoa, butter and milk. Let boil for 1 minute then add peanut butter, vanilla and oatmeal. On a sheet of waxed paper, drop mixture by the teaspoonfuls, until cooled and hardened. 

 I think I ate more than half of these in about two days. Poor Ben even sacrificed one of his so I could enjoy it :) He liked them, but said that he never had them made with peanut butter growing up. So we found this recipe(in his own handwriting!) that has peanut butter in it.

 I saw the recipe in the cookbook that dinner is coming from tonight, and so I thought I would make some cookies to fill the empty cookie jar. I halved the recipe and didn't use quite as much cocoa, and this is what happened--chocolate granola.

 

Nice and powdery and dry. It still tastes good, we'll just have to eat it with a spoon or something.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that

 Russell got a high chair! Because it is an old school chair we had to accomodate it to fit him better. He tolerates it enough that I can do stuff in the kitchen.  He has even practiced his feeding himself skills and can occasionally get the right end of the spoon in his mouth.

My cousin, Russell, is serving in our mission and happen to be in town on splits.  Little did he know, his companion for the day set up a little reunion for him.  The funny thing is, I remember him as a little kid not someone who towers over me!

Don't mind the Joslin faces. We have one where we both look better.

 Our last walk of the warm-weather season :(  I don't know how I'll keep Russell happy during the day since we won't be able to spend lots of time outside anymore.  This was also one of the first places Ben and I went when we started dating.

Ben and his students did a bug collection for the ecology unit in his biology classes.  This is from one of his better students.  We've been grading lots and lots and lots and lots of papers recently. Grades are due by 10am Monday morning.

 Yummy foccacia bread.  Last Sunday, Ben's brother wanted Ben's awesome foccacia recipe from his mission.  Ben looked one up on the internet and sent it to him because he never brought one home.  Ben made it and he said it turned out just as he remembered it from Italy.  Our bishop and his wife went to Italy a couple weeks ago (he served his mission there, too), and took a cooking class.  We are both hoping we get invited over to enjoy some yummy Italian food.

Russell gets the most and most exciting mail in our family.  Today he got a box from Grandma Joslin with his quilt in it and The Saggy Baggy Elephant!!!  Thanks to his early arrival, Grandma didn't have time to finish the quilt before he was born.  She brought what she had done out when they came for Ben's graduation, and we have been waiting ever since to have the finished project.

 No drool got on the book, but the blanket wasn't so lucky.  Right after these pictures he barfed and Ben wasn't quick enough to catch it before it hit the blanket...

Russell sure is lucky he has someone to make him such a nice quilt because his mommy never will!  I wish everyone could see it in person because it really is awesome!  The gold, blue, and green fabric is printed with the same printing as on the spine of all the Little Golden Books.  The quilting on it is cool, too.  Now we just have to wait until Russell is allowed to have blankets in his bed with him.  Then he'll have Sooki to keep him company instead of me or Ben.

Book Review: Heaven Is Here

This month's book for one of the book clubs in our ward is Heaven Is Here by Stephanie Nielson.

Have a box of tissues nearby. Or don't read it if you are emotional. Or have recently had a baby. Poor Ben and Russell had to put up with me crying and tearing up as I read. I tried reading some of it out loud to entertain Russell, but that just made it worse.

What's it about? A husband and wife crash in an airplane, almost die, then have to rebuild their lives while trying to recover from the horrible physical and mental/emotional injuries.

The author did a really good job at making you feel like you were going through it all with her.  From her body healing and going through skin grafts, physical therapy, relearning how to do the simplest tasks to reconnecting with her young children (this might be where I teared up the most as Russell was sitting on my lap just having awakened from a nap), recognizing she was the same person even though she looked different in the mirror, completely relying on her faith in Heavenly Father.

It was an easy read, but have those tissues ready. Seriously.