tbt . . .

A little throwback Thursday here . . . I was scrolling back through some photos, and I forgot about these darling little girls playing in the hay at Remlinger Farms last summer.







Love.  Simply love them.

simply strawberry shortcake

Just a reminder that on my blog, I like to share the back stories from my life, specifically for my kids and grandkids.  These details may not mean anything to anyone else, but I hope you like hearing them.

I grew up with strawberry shortcake made with actual biscuit-like shortcakes.  It wasn't until I was married, and Keith's mother made it using a slice of plain yellow cake for the shortcake part, did I discover that my childhood method was not the only way to serve it.  But his family's preferred way was to serve it with angel food cake . . . which is, I guess, a lot of people's favorite way to serve it.  You know, they always do have angel food cakes right next to the fresh strawberries in the grocery store.

So for years, I changed my method and it was strawberry shortcake with angel food cake and cool whip.  But I missed my old familiar style.  I was craving actual shortcakes with real whipped cream.  The real deal, you know??



A real gamechanger was one time when I was sitting in my mom's kitchen with my mom and aunt Marilyn, discussing all the goodness of strawberry shortcake.  My mom's shortcakes were always from scratch, and naturally I followed in her footsteps, always from scratch too.  Marilyn said dreamily, "I just whip up some biscuits from Bisquick . . . "  I caught the look of horror on my mom's face---like Marilyn had just broken all the shortcake rules.  It was like---you just don't mess with perfection.

But . . . I went home and tried the bisquick recipe and its everything my mom's-from-scratch recipe was, without all the work.  The ultimate finishing touch is to eliminate the cool whip and do the extra effort and whip up that heavy cream with powdered sugar, a taste cool whip just can't compete with.

Nowadays, there's still a tiny little battle with me and Keith----he wants the angel food cake.  And I will cater to his wants.  But every now and then, I whip up those homemade biscuits and they are more heavenly than any angel food cake ever will be.

one year ago . . .

One year ago today, we were celebrating Toby and Stefanie's wedding!











Such a wonderful day!  We are so blessed to have Stefanie as part of our family.  Now, these two are living in Pleasant Grove, UT, and Toby is working as a programmer, and Stefanie works as a graphic designer for American Crafts.  Life is good and blissful.

snippets from friday

I had to look back on my calendar and on my blog to see when was the last time I saw these grandkids of mine.  A MONTH??  Its been a whole month?  It was so good to spend some time with them and Calley yesterday.  I didn't get my camera out as much as I usually do, but here are a few moments from our day:

Sweet baby Lee is now 6 1/2 months old!  He can sit up by himself, and he's eating solid foods these days.  Everything makes its way to his mouth.  He's such a good and happy baby.



We took a lunch break at the local cafe.  Claire is done with preschool for the year now.  She's wearing a leotard that fit Abby last year.  I can't believe how much they're all growing.





Love that wide-eyed look.  And that wide open mouth look.







The big girls have less than a week left of school.  I love watching them pick up Lee and cuddle and play with him.







Then Summer here.  Oh my goodness . . . she is the one who I see growing up the most.  Summer and Abby came home from school, excitedly telling who their new teachers would be next year.  Abby will be in second grade and Summer in fifth.  We're proud of Summer for being elected vice president at her school.  Calley and Tyson are excellent on monitoring screen time for these girls, but I have to say that I am seeing the tween years so clearly before me.  One good thing I dooooo enjoy is that Summer will text me from her kindle.  I am not glued to my phone, but I always have it close by in case one of my kids or Keith calls.  I love getting fun texts from Summer, and we have cute little conversations.  I love when she asks my advice on things going on in her life.  I feel like she values my opinions.



One thing I wish I would have gotten a picture of is Calley's new kitchen.  It is gorgeous.  Well, they still had a guy there doing some finish work, so a picture wouldn't have been so fun with him in it.  Next time.  Its so pretty.

I am soooo looking forward to summer vacation and spending more time with these sweet kids.  I know I used the word "love" quite heavily here, but there is no other word to say what I want to say.

i love technology

We've been unplugged for most of this week.  Not by choice, though.  Over the weekend our internet was working fine, but we left the house for a few hours and came back to everything being off.  No internet, no wi-fi.  Its not like we're glued to video games or Facebook, but there were some important things that needed to be taken care of online only.  Time sensitive emails needed to be responded to, I couldn't do my Relief Society reports (online only), I needed to print out a return label but couldn't access the website.  Couldn't even access it on my phone!!  You get the picture.

I just have to vent.  Soooo frustrated with the phone company (we get our service through the phone company because we don't have cable).  Usually the problem is concerning the "box" which services the area.  Its about a mile from our house . . . not even in the same zip code!!  I called service and repair to report our problem.  They can check and see if the problem is from our house, or if its from the box.  I got the most frustrating girl who was not much help to me.  We went through all the steps they usually take you through, and pretty much she accused us of doing something to break the equipment.  But we weren't even here!!  I asked her if the problem was our modem, and if it needed replacing, could the repairman bring one along in his truck, so we didn't have to go buy another one at the store?  No, absolutely not!  He could not bring one with him.  I asked if anyone else had reported a problem and NO.  Nobody else.  It was our problem only.

GRRRRRR!!!

To top it all off, when she did set up a repair appointment, he couldn't come until Saturday.  What???  (Keith said later "did you tell them it was an emergency??")  It wasn't an emergency, but still.  Its been so frustrating when you realize even when you take away the fluff and fun of being online, how much its really necessary in our everyday lives!

Finally there was a moment of hope---yesterday I got a voicemail from a repairman saying that there was an area-wide outage and the problem would be fixed AT THE BOX.  No need to wait around all day Saturday for the repairman because the problem was NOT at our house.  Hello???  Was I right or was I right???  I really wanted to call that girl back and tell her she was rude and she was wrong.  But I didn't of course.  Why am I always nice to rude people on the phone?

And now, we're back online.  Earlier than they promised!  For your enjoyment, you can listen to Kip sing to Lafawnduh.  Because I really do love technology.



Then, more technology problems. After all the phone drama, I had a visiting teaching appointment, and I had to take Luke along. I always bring the portable dvd player and noise canceling headphones for him, so we can visit without Luke eavesdropping.  So we get there and the dvd player won't play.  Nooooooooo!!!  He had to sit through our visit which was okay, because we didn't talk about anything very sensitive or personal.  But after we left, I realized that you never know what will affect Luke.  My friend was talking about her daughter and her current career choices she wanted to focus on in high school.  All totally innocent.  Back in the car, Luke was all bent out of shape from our conversation, because heeeeeee wanted a career in the daughter's future field and he was all "are you saying that I can't do that because of my handicap????"  I had to be frank and honest with him and say "that's right, you can not do that because of your handicap".  It was awful, but somehow I was able to turn things around and tried to get him un-focused from that and remind him of all the good things he CAN do.  ARGHHHH!!!

Note to self:  next time check the dvd player before leaving the house.  And always bring along the ipod as a backup.

Technology makes my life so much easier.

(so PS---I guess I should say its a love/hate relationship with technology, because when I posted this, all the photos have disappeared from my blog.  Again.  I'm sure they'll show up again.  I hope.)

my favorite candle

I know I'm going to sound like a commercial, but I have to share my new favorite candle for summer.  You know how some smells and aromas instantly take you to summertime?  Mine are bbq's and campfires, suntan lotion, chlorine from the pool, and tomato leaves (weird, yes, but when you consider that we have sooooo many tomatoes each summer from Keith's "hobby", it makes sense).  Also, anything tropical.  So when I saw these toasted coconut scented candles from Target, I had to get some!  I realize there are some people who aren't coconut fans, but to those of you who are . . . this candle is instant love!





I would nominate the first runner-up to be this sweet clementine candle from the same line.



They come in different containers than this jar, like a cute hobnail container, too.  They're perfectly subtle and not overpowering.  So if you happen to look for some at the Silverdale Target, they might be a little low on their toasted coconut candle jars, because maybe I might have gone a little crazy stocking up on them.  But I promise, I did leave some for everybody else.