The Seventh

Here's Mally doing the 7th Article of Faith. We tried 12 times to get her to say it perfectly, but that never happened and we all just gave up. She doesn't do it perfectly, but neither do I. I guess you can say we don't have the "gift of tongues."

Scary Mary

Got Zucchinis? Then I Got a Recipe for You

Zucchini Brownies

INGREDIENTS
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• 1 egg
• handful of chocolate chips
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the oil, sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla until well blended. Combine the flour, 1/2 cup cocoa, baking soda and salt; stir into the sugar mixture. Fold in the zucchini and walnuts. Spread evenly into the prepared pan.

3. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, until brownies spring back when gently touched. To make the frosting, melt together the 6 tablespoons of cocoa and margarine; set aside to cool. In a medium bowl, blend together the confectioners' sugar, milk and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in the cocoa mixture. Spread over cooled brownies before cutting into squares.Caution: the batter is so good it may cause toddlers to have the urge to lick every last speck of it. Then when you tell them to go straight upstairs to the bath and "don't touch ANYTHING." They will misinterpret what you say and touch EVERY stair on their way up. This will cause you to yell at them. This in turn will cause them to cry. Enjoy!

Playing with the Kids at Play Group

We have started a neighborhood play group with the kids Mally's age. I have enjoyed having the kids over and playing with them. They are such cute kids. And as you will see from the video, they are quite entertaining. In this video we were playing dress-ups. Milo (Superman) and Mally (Eeyore) are the stars of this show. My favorite part is at the end when Eeyore thanks Superman for saving her and he says "you're welcome." These kids crack me up.

Scrap and Share

The 6th

My Superman

I am so proud of my superman. Lately Stephen has done some wonderful things and I would like to boast about him for a moment. Last week he fixed the car by replacing the battery. I didn't know that laypeople could do it. I thought you just had to take your car to the mechanic, leave it inconveniently there for two or three days, and then give them a few hundred dollars on your way out. Stephen saved us all the trouble of that and changed it himself.

Stephen then put his muscles to work and fixed our fence. He dug up the rotted old posted, which was not an easy task and required a sledgehammer and the help of a home teacher. He then poured cement around the new post. He just needs some free time (I don't know when he is going to find that) to finish the job by securing the panels to the new post.

Over the weekend Stephen also took the GRE to prepare himself to go to graduate school. For the past few months he has been diligently studying for it. His natural intelligence and hard studying paid off and he got a really good score on the test. I am so happy and proud of him for that.

Speaking of not having free time, Stephen won't have any for a while because he started school today. Though Stephen has not applied to the Computer Science program at BYU yet (he will do that in January), he is taking a class that will count toward his Master's if all goes according to plan (and it always does, right?) and he makes it into their program. He should have me write his letter of recommendation for their program. I could write a good letter boasting about all his "super" qualities.