As Promised...

Image found at http://www.seasaltwithfood.com/2009/02/lemon-poppy-seed-bread.html

Well, I told a friend that I would post this recipe a while ago, but then I never did because she wanted pictures and I haven't made it since she tried it. So I found a picture on the internet that looks kind of like our bread and maybe later I'll replace it with a picture that I actually took. So with that confession out of the way, here we have my family's favorite recipe for poppy seed bread!

Poppy Seed Bread
1 C. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 C. vegetable oil
1 t. almond extract
1 t. vanilla
1-1/2 C. flour
3/4 t. salt
3/4 t. baking powder
3/4 C. milk
2 T. poppy seeds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, and flavorings in medium bowl with electric mixer. Combine dry ingredients. Alternately add milk and dry ingredients to make a smooth batter. Fold in poppy seeds. Pour batter into greased and floured pans (1 large loaf pan or two medium loaf pans). Bake in preheated oven for 30-40 minutes until surface browns and bread tests done with a toothpick. Let stand for 5 minutes, then remove from pan and let cool.

When we make it, we usually continue to use the electric mixer when adding the milk and dry ingredients so we're not left with lumps, but we have to be super careful to not over-mix. Too much mixing makes the bread rise weird because of something to do with how much it activates the baking powder.

Glaze:
1 T. orange juice concentrate
3 T. water
3/4 C. sugar
1/2 t. almond extract
1 T. butter or margarine

Combine orange juice concentrate, water, and sugar in a small saucepan. Heat to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat and add almond extract and butter or margerine. Spoon over cooled bread.

Joseph and I often sub in 1/4 C. of orange juice for the concentrate and water since it's the same and a lot easier.

We got this recipe at BYU when we took a cooking class together and have made it regularly ever since. The bread is super easy to make and super delicious as well! Give it a try!

Snapshots of Today

Photography by Emily:

A Work of Art

Emily and I ended up making Joseph a card for Father's day. I made the cover and wrote a message and Emily did the decorations. She worked carefully to cut out a shape and then she placed it where needed to go on the card and told me what to write.
Front:

Inside:

Back:

A couple of months ago our little nephew Derek went to his mom with some of his old favorite toys and said "Mom, I want these special toys to go to the poor kids." Suzie thought for a minute and said, "I know some poor kids... why don't we give them to Emily and Caleb?" Derek thought that was an okay idea so we ended up with some really great new toys. I can see why they were so special to Derek - Emily and Caleb love them and play with them almost every day. Here is a picture of them enjoying the toys. I did not set these pictures up. They just love these toys.















Here are Joseph and Caleb during Family Home Evening last night. Joseph could never get me to wear matching clothes with him, so now he does it with Caleb. Aren't they cute?

Our projects

Lately we have been keeping busy. Summer is here in full force so a lot of what we do is indoors. We bought a watermelon the other day and Joseph, lover of garnishes, created this beautiful fruit bowl. We had the makings for a full fruit salad to serve in it, but I came home from the store and was upset that Joseph was messing around with this instead of making dinner so we never got around to it. Boo to serious housewives. We don't allow fun.

Yesterday's big project was making bread out of all the fruit that has ripened too quickly for our family to eat. That's what happens when you only cool the bedrooms at night! Which is what happens when your apartment has noisy window units instead of central air. Anyway, I made some banana bread and used this recipe for apple bread which was delicious! I've never tried it before but I will absolutely do it again. A lot of the comments complained that it was too sweet, but I have a bit of a sweet tooth so it suited me.

Today after playing outside for as long as the weather would allow we decided to do some fingerpainting. Emily helped me make it, which was really fun. She's at a great age for assisting in the kitchen. The plan was to make a father's day picture for Joseph but it ended up a little messier than I had anticipated. I dumped both of these kids in the bathtub as soon as they were through. But they loved making a mess! Caleb ended up painting his face and hair red so now it kind of looks like he was sunburned.
We got the recipe for the paint off my friend's blog here.
Now we're brainstorming for another cheap and fun father's day surprise...

Happy All Around

There is no better way to combat the heat of summer than with water!
It makes everyone's day - the kids love water and I love how exhausted they are when we get back home. Joseph is just happy all around.

Bed time has long since come and gone

Enjoying Life

Ha! Once I get back to blogging I just can't stop!
This morning we woke up to pretty miserable weather. One of the upsides to swimming instead of running is that I can still get my workout and enjoy it regardless of how hot or humid it is! The kids, on the other hand, were pretty sweaty and unhappy after about an hour of playing outside. I asked them if they wanted to play in some water instead and they both got so excited that we packed up and headed to a nearby splash pad. Austin has a really great system of free public pools and parks that just opened for the summer, so we like to take advantage of that.
It took the kids a while to work up the courage to get wet, but they had fun. Their favorite fountain was that wimpy little thing Caleb is examining in the picture.
Here are some other pictures I thought were funny:
A while ago we got Emily her first Potato Head and she was in love. It was a construction worker/fireman set, so all of the arms and pieces were very masculine. That didn't bother Emily in the least, and when she completed her first little character, she stepped back to admire it and kept murmuring, "Oh, you're so pretty, Potato Head! You're so pretty!"

Do you remember Caleb's love for pointing?
He's definitely still got it.
Here he's pointing at sister taking a whack at her first pinata ever. We love student housing with all the kids and parties! Isn't she cute in her pigtails with that huge baseball bat? Whenever we talk about this she mentions how heavy the bat was.

Loving her pink cupcake. This girl cannot get enough of the color pink.

Whenever we ask Emily to pull a face for us she comes up with a creative new one. Here is a grumpy princess face. This girl definitely keeps us laughing!

Singing Time

Today Joseph was the substitute chorister in primary. I would personally not be excited to do this, but he was ecstatic and had way too many fun ideas to make singing time entertaining.
The main activity was a battleship game that the primary played together using a grid on the chalk board. The kids would guess a coordinate and every hit was a different song. The ships were three or four spaces long, and once one was sunk Joseph would put it up on the board. He drew these sweet battleships.
He had a communication ship, a gun ship, an aircraft carrier, and a pirate ship.
He drew those ships because he's a boy and can draw that kind of thing. You know - guns, muscles, ligers... I, on the other hand, can draw pink cuddly-looking elephants. Meet "Elephant Fitzgerald," the conducting elephant. Emily and I did the coloring together.
Caleb ran to join Emily for the picture. What a cheese ball! The elephant has a hole for a trunk because that's where the kids' conducting arms went through.
Joseph loves ninjas so I drew a ninja elephant on the back for him.
Note: I am not an artist at all -I possess no creativity but I can steal the ideas of others. So these were both pictures I just found on the internet and copied bigger.

Cute cheesy Caleb. Prepping for singing time. We love this boy!
Happy Sunday, everyone! Mine was the best I've had in a long time and I think it was all due to the two hour nap I took before church. Sleep makes such a difference.

A Blogging Slump

Sometimes I'm in the mood for blogging, sometimes I'm not. And when I'm not I can't force myself because the posts just don't turn out well and are not fun to read. That is why I haven't blogged for a while.
Things have been going well lately. I am feeling more tired; I think it is a combined effect of the heat and the pregnancy. I am glad my poor baby won't be born into 100 degree weather but I am kind of bummed that I will be at my biggest while the weather is at its worst. I did continue to run for exercise until pretty recently but as the weather worsened and as I got bigger running became less fun. So I switched to swimming. I have only gone a couple of times, but I think I am going to like it. It is so different from running - it uses completely different muscles and requires a totally different mindset, since I have to concentrate so much on breathing and just getting the stroke right. I think it will become easier as I become more efficient and more accustomed to it, but right now it is very challenging. It doesn't help that all the other early morning swimmers seem to be seasoned athletes, swimming for an hour at a time without stopping. I will use my big belly as my excuse for not keeping up. :)
Emily started gymnastics last Tuesday and loved it. Honestly, what almost-three-year-old wouldn't? She is at the perfect age for experimenting with fun new equipment and acrobatics. I did bring the camera but the battery died after only two pictures which were taken with the flash off by mistake. Woops. Not too great, but enough to preserve the memory, right?
The man behind her is the coach and she calls him the "big boy with the purple shirt" whenever she's telling a story about gymnastics. She usually starts off by calling him the little boy but then corrects herself.

I cannot believe how much Caleb has been growing lately. He is old enough now to be a fun playmate for Emily and to watch five or ten minutes of a movie with her. Their favorite right now is the Curious George movie.

And here is Emily with her good friend Eric at a birthday party a couple of weeks ago. Eric's mom had asked him to show Emily the balloon animals that a lady was making and instead he took her to the food table where they both drooled over the candy and cupcakes. What funny little sugar monsters!

Later that same day we went to a 40th anniversary celebration for our church building. It was meant for an older crowd than what we had in tow, but Emily and Caleb enjoyed the food and the displays. Here's our little necklace-wearing cowboy showing off some of his wild west skills.