The Bench

I took a picture of the bench with the finish on it and installed at the church. A very sad side note to this story, the Lady at work whose mom died that I built the bench for lost her husband the day before thanksgiving. It was very sudden and unexpected. He was in his early 40's.

Pumpkin Pie Shakes and Blueberry Muffins

I don't know about all of you but here we are all getting fat on pumpkin pie! We made about three too many pies for Thanksgiving and I think we will be eating pie all week. What a shame, huh?

Speaking of pie, I found this pumpkin pie milkshake recipe on another blog. We tried it tonight with some leftover pie and it was really good--and I don't even like pumpkin pie!

We had Kennedy's baptism yesterday. It was such a nice service. We had two other kids from our get baptized the same day. That is a record for our ward! Anyway, the three of us moms planned the program, decorations, refreshments, etc. One of my jobs was to bring muffins. I started about two weeks before since I knew it was going to get busy. I put them in the freezer as I finished each batch. I made three different kinds: Pumpkin Apple, Banana Chocolate Chip and these Blueberry. I had the blueberry recipe for a long time but hadn't made them in a while. I remembered they were good but I didn't have any lemon extract on hand so I tried coconut and it was really good! I thought I would share if you are interested in a good blueberry muffin recipe.

Blueberry Muffins

2 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
12 TBS butter, melted
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 TBS vanilla
1 1/2 tsp lemon or coconut extract
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Topping
3/4 cup oatmeal
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
4 Tbs melted butter

Blend flour, sugars, soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Blend together butter, buttermilk, eggs and extracts. Add to flour mixture and mix together. Add blueberries. Do not over-mix. Mix topping ingredients. Fill lined or greased muffin tins with batter and top with topping mixture. Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
*Batter can be frozen before or after being baked.

Be Loyal

We had our Young Women in Excellence event last night. The girls were asked to help us interpret the theme: "Be Loyal to the Royal Within You," by either performing in a play, singing in a group song, or doing some art work. Here is Megyn's contribution to the art gallery. The model in the photo is our next door neighbor and Megyn's good friend, Ashlynn. Grandma Mary helped Megyn with the photoshopping.

Basketball Kickoff

Last Saturday was the basketball kick-off dinner for Grapevine High. As part of the festivities, we had a father/son basketball game. Jared and I got tip-off duties. As expected, he cleanly tipped the ball to his teammate. Jared set up on the low post. He unexpectedly ran out about five paces, so I followed him. As he received a pass, I felt an immovable force on my back. Jared made his move to the basket and the screen rendered me powerless to counter. I could only watch as Jared threw down a two handed crowd pleasing, head turning power dunk. Later in the game, I countered with my scoop move. The footwork was flawless, the scoop was perfection, the ball somehow bounced harmlessly off the rim for a miss. Yes, my game has seen better days. I somewhat made up for it by making a nice mid-range "jump" shot. The varsity thought they won, but actually the dads did because there weren't any injuries.

Jan and David

Jan and David

Here's our newleyweds and they are pretty happy.

In Memory of

A friend at work had her mother pass away a few months ago. Her Dad came up with an idea to do a tribute to her and others that have passed on. They approached me about building a bench that they could put outside at their church. I had mom round up some pictures of a bench that I had built several years ago for Coleen Bradshaw and showed them the pictures. They liked the bench and I scrambled to figure out measurements and actually found a rough sketch of the one I did for Coleen. They wanted to have a cross (Not LDS) in the backrest. It is made of redwood and will be very pretty with the clear polyurethane on it. Here is what I came up with. I will take another picture with the finish and with it in place. I decided to donate my labor for this tribute.

Yellow tree

I was asked by the RS to take pictures of some of the houses in our ward so they could play a game at the Christmas party called "Guess whose house this is?" As I was doing this I saw a beautiful tree all decked out in Mother Nature's fall colors so I snapped a picture. I had it enlarged & presented it to the owner of the tree who happens to be my visiting teach partner, Ina Briggs. She loved it.