Making bread

I am ever amazed at how much fun children can have doing things that we consider work. This week in church we were challenged to live off of our food storage for the week and then next Sunday we would discuss it in our combined 5th Sunday meeting. Since Steve and I have been working on our food storage ever since we got married we were up to the challenge and have been incorporating beans, rice, dehydrated carrots and celery and the like into our daily meals. Because lets face it most of us have enough in our pantry's to survive for a week without changing our diets much. The one thing I did put off was bread, we had 2 full loafs of bread when the week started. However incorporating all of the above meant several nights of soup which of course you have to have bread and butter with. Well today I took the bull by the horns and made bread. My girls LOVED it, especially the kneading part. They were amazed by how much bigger the bread got as it rose and when I was shaping the loaves I gave them each a piece of dough to work with, they made the rolls when we were done. I am so glad we have children to help keep our lives fun and to remind us to look for the good in things and to enjoy the journey we are on. As for the food storage challenge I am glad we are prepared but I think I want to add some fun things to our storage as well, you know chocolate chips and nuts for cookies :) Some things I am grateful to have added to our storage are: Extra tortillas, shredded cheese, butter, and meats that we keep in the freezer. Things I will miss if we ever have to really live off of our storage.... Ice cream and fresh fruits and veggies.

These other pictures of the girls I took after the fact because I didn't think about posting until later, and lets face it who wants to get out the camera when you are covered in bread dough!

The Callister Reunion

Well we had a great time at Grandpas farm! There was lots to keep the kids entertained but I think the highlight for them was adopting the cows. Amanda spent so much time with her cow that we could almost guarantee if she could not be found she would be there. We love it.

One of the days we got on a big school bus and headed up into the mountains for a hike. The hike was a little long for us with all the little ones so we stopped here and ate our lunch before heading back down. All in all though it was a really fun adventure. Surprisingly the highlights were the big bouncy bumps on the big yellow school bus.


This was the area between all of our sleeping areas where we could just kick back in the shade and relax.





another highlight was the 4 wheelers as they got to ride around on the farm and see everything up close and personal

A gunshot...nope just a broken window!

While driving to Idaho just before we hit Farmington UT. We heard what I thought was a gunshot. I turned around and the back window was gone. As you can imagine I panicked and quickly assessed that no one was bleeding. The loud noise I had heard was not a gunshot just our window blowing out. Lucky for us most of the window flew out instead of in. there were some chard's in the back and around Katrina but no injury. We found the local Toyota dealer and 4 hours and 500 dollars later we were back on the road.

Ali gets highlights and bangs

While Ali was here she was so excited to be going into 5th grade that everything we did revolved around that. When we went school clothes shopping she wasn't worried about what would be cutest she was worried about whether or not it made her look older. She seems to think if she looks older then nobody will notice that she is short. I had to laugh since I remember doing similar things all to no avail. We talked a lot about all the good things that come from being short rather then focusing on the negative. I like to think she listens because she knows that I really know what it is like for her. When she found out that we would be staying with the Grandma and Grandpa Borrowman on our way to Idaho I could tell that there was something that she wanted to ask but was nervous to do so. When she finally got it out she was hoping that she could get bangs cut and highlights from Aunt Kensi while we were there. I thought it was a great idea but of course told her that her mom had to agree before I would even ask. As you can see she is one very happy girl. She walked around all night flipping her hair for all to see. We love and miss you Ali!!

More to come

So I have been getting the feeling lately that some of you are expecting a post. I admit that it has been awhile but so much has been going on that I have not had one minute to myself where I could do something so leisurely as upload pictures and post. I will do a quick update while I upload photos, and then I will update in detail a little later. Since my last post we have traveled over 2000 miles to Idaho for a family reunion. On the way we were able to stop and meet the newest addition to our family, our niece Katelyn and I must say she is beautiful! Elizabeth was sick and vomiting for nearly 2 weeks and I took Ali to Vegas for her flight home. She started school last Wednesday and school is O.K. but not great. Katrina started swimming lessons for the first time and we have all been to the dentist and doctor ( me more times then I would like to count) All in all life is good, I will go into detail on all of this when I have pictures to post. ttfa