Peppermint Divinity in the microwave!

Today I tried making divinity for the first time. I used THIS recipe. It was super simple! I added a little twist to it... After whipping the egg whites, you add a 260 degree sugar mixture to the mixer bowl with your whites. Just before I added the sugar mixture I added a few drops of red food coloring, and about 5 drops of peppermint essential oil. I don't normally like divinity, but this divinity is DIVINE! ;)
Super simple too! If you try it, good luck!

Happy Halloween 2012

The kids and I dressed up as some of "The Avengers, Earths Mightiest Heros". I should have taken a picture this morning... Brycen was Hawkeye (He's missing his mask.) :( Tucker was The Hulk, Eliza was The Wasp (...with a broken arm...), and I was the Black Widow.

  I think we had a great turn out at our church building Trunk or Treat. We had a LOT of kids come through, and we ran out of chilli. :) I took about 80 pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, 36 apples, 60 small bags of cheetos, and had a huge bag of candy that someone else asked me to give away for them. There were a few times tonight when my entire tail gait was surrounded with indecisive children. Alas, I did give every last scrap of treats away to children. I ran out of cheetos first, then cookies, then apples, and candy was the last thing I ran out of... I think it is so interesting to see which item kids pick first. Some of my primary kids came back three and four times. I stated making them do a trick for each additional treat they wanted after they had received two. . ..
Overall, I think my children had a lot of fun today! Hope everyone else did too! Happy Halloween everyone!

Happy Second Anniversary Dear Fingers

I feel I should write a quick note about my anniversary. I think pretty much everyone who reads my blog knows about the accident I had two years ago. I just wanted to say I am so grateful I have a constant reminder in my life that hands are incredibly useful. I think I can safely say that everyone who has good working hand/stubs/any thing that can pinch an object takes complete advantage of what (s)he has. I hope everyone who owns two perfect and beautifully working hands will take a minute today and give thanks for your hands. One of mine is no longer perfect... but I certainly give thanks nearly everyday (if not everyday) that I still have almost all of it attached to me. Thank you to everyone who prayed for me or helped take care of me during that time in my life! I was taught so much compassion through example from everyone around me. I am so thankful for therapy and modern medicine. I can type around twenty-five to thirty words a minute these days. It may not seem high, but I think it is really great for having three fingers that can't really feel which keys they are hitting on the keyboard. I think I could add my ability to type to my bucket list of miracles that I have seen throughout this experience. I am also so thankful I had Eliza at this time. She will be two tomorrow. She has been such a joy in my life. She may squeal and scream a lot, but she is so darling, sweet, soft, and has very adorable big blue eyes! Two years ago it was so difficult to figure out how to dress her, change her diapers, feed her, and bathe her one-handed--But, she and my boys were great motivation to keep going when I nearly felt like I had nothing left to give. 
There is a saying from the Count of Monte Cristo that goes like this, "God sees you out of the corner of his eye". Sometimes I feel like my trials are not important, or I bear them quietly. I am so thankful to know that no matter how many problems other people in this great big world have, God is still mindful of me and my problems. He is always there to pick me up when I am down. To catch me when I fall short. To carry me when I am too exhausted to move on myself. To listen when no one else is there. . . I could go on, but this was supposed to be a short post.
May everyone give a little extra thanks for your hands today!

Our Foreign Exchange Student

Well we had a foreign exchange student for about two weeks. He just went home last Saturday. We had him from August 13-25th. We were supposed to get him on the twelfth, but his flight was delayed. He was a fourteen year old boy from Japan. It was an interesting experience. I now know how to make Miso Soup (a simple soybean based soup that Japanese people eat for breakfast). If you want the recipe I used, click here. My student's name was Reo. He and one of his Japanese friends ate some, they liked it and said it tasted pretty close to what they eat in Japan.
While he was here Ryan took him boating at the local Sandy Reservoir--He LOVED that. I got a "Thank you" phone call around eleven o'clock that night from Japan. His "Auntie" called to tell me they were really nervous to send him, and they were so happy to hear that he was placed in a good home. We also spent one of the weekend nights up on Kolob Mountain at my husband's family cabin. We repaired fences on our farm one night (the boys kicked around a ball while I helped Ryan). Ryan also took Reo to play indoor soccer one night (Reo is in a soccer club in Japan). We made a few trips to Walmart, he LOVED jumping on the trampoline with my two little boys. One night they got out the hose and soaked each other all over. Brycen kept spraying Reo (which Brycen usually does to Tucker), so Reo took the hose and SPRAYED Brycen back. It was about time fro Brycen to have an "older brother" figure pick on him a little for a minute. All in all, it was a pretty neat experience. I am not sure if I would do it again, if I do, I think I will ask for a girl (just to spice things up a little more). . .

Facebook

Over the last year to year and a half I have started thinking that maybe I should get a Facebook account. I have put it off because computer activities are toward the bottom of my totem pole of priorities. Well, I am in charge of my twenty year reunion, in nine more years. Today I decided is the day to get an account. I believe Facebook will be a useful tool in my life, so I have finally "bitten the dust".

For those of you interested look for me on Facebook now. :)

Cleaning our "Farm"

 In my previous post I mentioned that my husband and I made a recent purchase of some land. We bought about ten acres of land south of the town we live in. While we were in the process of the purchase, my husband showed me the land twice. . . at dusk. He also mentioned there were a few animal carcases on the property. So, the day we closed I finally saw it in day light. A few was an UNDERSTATEMENT. There were probably thirty to forty animal carcasses in one area. Mostly sheep, there were also a few calves and I even found remains of a couple of coyotes and I think someones pet dog.

After the purchase it took us a few days to come up with the best plan for the dead animals. We decided to spread them out and till them in. The day came, Ryan spread them out with a tractor and then took the kids for a tractor ride on the other side of the "farm". While they were gone I cleaned up all the garbage so we could disc the ground. Among all the garbage there was a lot of bailing twine. Some of it was buried, so I had to pull a little harder. This is what came with the twine (enough times that I finally thought, "this is gross, I should take a picture to remember this grossness!")

 
 Most everything was decayed enough that the smell was not too bad. There were a couple of times I saw a plastic ear tag on a calf, so I went to pick it up to throw it away and the dried up ear came with the tag.

All in all, ti was a disgusting, but successful day of work. Ryan and my dad went out a couple days after that and disced/plowed everything in. It is a nice dirt patch now. :)

We tell our kids that Grandpa Bramall has a big farm, and we have a really little one now.

Our next adventure will be putting up a fence once we have enough money saved to buy the materials. I'll keep you posted.