Just Cute~

Sierra walked up to Aaron this morning and told him that Jesus wanted him as a Sunbeam! How cute is that?

Mighty in Prayer

After a great FHE tonight, Sierra decided that it was her turn to say our family night prayers. She did an awesome job! She started the prayer and said a few words and then Aaron helped her finish. The kids clapped at her prayer when she was finished. We are so proud of her. We are excited that she would want to say prayers. We are so blessed.

Finally Christmas pictures of 2008

I finally got our Christmas pictures on the computer, so here are some pictures.
You can see that Sierra wasn't to happy to be in the pictures, so we bribed her with chips until we finally got the picture we could use. It took a few times to get a good one. But, they turned out ok.

Jessica got more art items. How exciting for her. She just loves being creative and has such a talent for it. Megan having fun with opening her presents.

Austin is a budding guitarist!

Sierra loves bath toys, so she is excited about this present.

Sierra understands the opening of presents. How fun.

Jocelyn's favorite, a clipboard with art supplies.

Pine Wood Derby

All the boys and their cars. Austin won a couple of races and we were really excited for him. What a fun night.

Getting ready for the race.

Austin and Aaron worked on his car. We were pleased with the outcome. Lots better than last year.

Cozemel

The Keeler family with spouses went on a cruise last year and it was great. We got to see the ruins at Cozemel. The water is just gorgeous.
There were plenty of lizards to see.

Ya just got to love Matt!

Work on the Ranch

We got to have a mini enrichment in March down to the Johnson Ranch. We got to make butter, cheese, yoguart, ice cream and milk the cow. It was so fun. After, we got to ride on their wagons pulled by horses. What a ride. We had so much fun. Diane made us a wonderful, yummy homemade lunch. Lasagna with salad and bread with the butter we made. Then for dessert, we had homemade ice cream. What a great day.

Wacky Wednesday Recipe

Sloppy Joes

3 lbs. hamburger, browned
5/8 c. ketchup
onion salt/powder
2 tsp. salt
2 cans tomato soup
2 1/2 Tbls. vinegar
2 1/2 Tbls. brown sugar

Heat and cook through. Serve over buns.

You could double recipe or cut in half.

Wacky Wednesday Recipe

Potato Soup

6 potatoes
onion salt or powder
1 can cream of potato soup
1-2 cups Colby Cheese (or cheddar)
1/4 c. milk
1/2 stick of butter (melted)
1-2 t. flour

Cook bacon and set aside
Cut up potatoes, mix onion salt/powder. Cook until done, dump 1/2 water out. Add milk to other 1/2 of water and potatoes. Add potato soup. Add salt and pepper and cheese. Cook until melted over low heat.

In seperate bowl, mix melted butter with flour and stir.
Add flour/butter mixture to soup, add cut up bacon. Serve hot.

Wacky Wednesday Recipe

Rollercoster Pancakes

Place in blender, blend until smooth
6 eggs
1 c. flour
1 c. milk
1/4 tsp. salt

Melt 6 Tbs. butter in 9 X 13 pan

Pour mixture into pan, bake at 450 for 20 minutes.

Serve with syrup

Welcome, visitors

Ever since moving into our new home, we have had welcomed visitors. Ladybugs. They stay in our window sill and just move around. I'm not sure how they are surviving, but they do. How do they eat etc? We've just enjoyed watching them. Welcome, ladybugs.

The first Christmas

During the Christmas season, we had a chance to go to a stake center in Arlington and see over 5,000 nativities from people all over the Dallas area. It was so impressive. The kids absolutely loved it. Afterwards, we went into the gym and got to dress up and pose for a picture of the very first Christmas. It was so fun. Sierra is an angel and is holding Jesus' hand. Jocelyn, Megan and Jess are the wiseman and Austin is a shepherd. Mom and dad are representing Mary and Joseph. We got to listen to a kids choir sing in the chapel. It was a real special night, topped off with ice cream at Sonic. What could be better than that?

A visit from grandma and grandpa Wallace

We were so lucky to spend some time with grandpa and grandma Wallace last week. During their visit, our children requested from their grandpa to share stories from his childhood. They were so awesome. Grandpa Wallace is a great storyteller. We were able to learn a lot about his childhood and family. Being the youngest of 11, he had a lot of fun stories for us. We really cherish the time he took to delight us with his stories. We hope that he writes them down, so we can get a copy. Thanks, grandpa.

Taco Soup

1 lb. hamburger (I use chicken instead)
1 onion (I use onion salt)
1 pkg. taco seasoning
1 c. tomato sauce
1 can whole kernel corn (do not drain)
1 can kidney beans (do not drain)
1 can black beans (do not drain)
1 can red beans (do not drain)

Mix an heat all ingreadients. (I put it in the crock pot on high for 4-5 hours)

Top with Frito chips, sour cream and shredded cheese.

Doubling works out well.

Napping Buddies

The cat won't get close to Sierra unless she is asleep. I had to capture the moment.

New Addition

We received a new addition Christmas night. Our neighbor needed us to take her, we were more than willing to take her. She is 5, potty trained, nuetered and nails clipped. She is a great cat. We named her Hershey. She isn't used to having so many kids, so we usually find her under the couch or under our bed. Sierra would love for Hershey to be her friend and not run from her every time she sees her, maybe in due time.

Wacky Wed. Recipe

Broccoli Soup--

1/3 cup of onions (I use onion powder)
3 Cups cut frozen broccoli

Cook together until tender. When tender, drain off any excess water. (You can cook this in the microwave while preparing the sauce)

Sauce:
1/2 stick butter (I use butter not margarine)
1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp. salt
pepper if desired

In deep sauce pan, melt butter and add flour and salt until all is covered in the butter.

Add to sauce:
1 can chicken broth a little at a time, stirring constantly.
2 cups of milk, adding slowly while stirring.
1/4 cup Velvetta cheese

Add broccoli and onions to the sauce. Cook over low to med heat; stirring often until it thickens and the cheese melts.

Doubling the recipe makes for a wonderful meal for your family. We love this soup and it is quick and easy and nice, especially on cold days like today.

The kids prayed for freezing rain today so that their schools would be cancelled or delayed. The prayer was answered, but not until they were in school. We had rain all day and it turned everything, to ice. Luckily, the roads stayed wet, but were not icy. The top two pictures and the left one is of the trampoline. It was so cool. The kids loved playing on the trampoline. The last picture is of my car window blade on the back. I did get to put my car in the garage for the night to warm up! I'm grateful for our garage.

Sierra's 2nd birthday

Sierra's birthday was unusal. Aaron, Jessica, Austin and I were all sick with the stomach flu on her birthday and she has had a cough and runny nose. So, we pretty much didn't do anything. Megan made Sierra a cake, which only Sierra, Megan and Jocelyn ate. Then, Megan wrapped her presents and we all layed around while she unwrapped them. She got a Dora and Boots backpack, toy phone and toy camera. She unwrapped them first and was finished. So, we helped her with the other presents. She got a bath tub fishing pole, money and some clothes. Yea. Thanks for all the cards and phone calls and presents. She felt loved, despite all the sickness. We hope she has a better birthday next time. Happy Birthday, sweetheart.

More Six Flags

Megan's getting an early start on her driving! Hope she does as well on the road! She didn't even scare Jocelyn.

Sierra and daddy ride the big truck.

Here are more pictures to add to our Six Flag adventure. We all had a great time.

Six Flags

Austin was so excited to see Green Lantern and Batman at Six Flags. He couldn't wait to get a picture.

Sierra thought Sylvester was great, but wouldn't go any closer for a picture.

One of the cool things about living so close to Ft. Worth/Dallas area is Six Flags. We got season passes to Six Flags and we went twice in 2008 and can't wait to go back in 2009. Here are some pictures of characters. Can you believe how nice it is at Six Flags on the 30th of Dec? Crazy!

No Christmas pictures yet.

We took pictures on Aaron's camera Christmas morning and I don't know how to download those, so I'll have to wait for Aaron to return from Seattle this week to download. In the meantime, I'll continue putting pictures and then add those later. Sorry folks.

More snow pictures

Our front tree, getting snowed on.

Our poor cars getting snowed on, we didn't have the garage cleaned out enough to put the cars in.

Aaron had the day off and we worked inside all day, it was so fun to look outside all day and see snow keep coming down. We love having the snow fall. The kids were so excited.