Pizza Sauce to the Rescue!

8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. anise seed
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. salt

Combine ingredients in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil; then remove from heat.

Here’s a formatted recipe card.

Also just a tip or two: If you're using french bread for the pizza crust put your pepperoni on first and then drizzle/carefully spread the pizza sauce over the pepperoni; this will help keep the bread from getting all soggy. And our family LOVES the turkey pepperoni - plus 17 slices is ONE serving!! If you're doing a homemade crust bake it for half the time and then take it out of the oven and put the toppings on. Then you never have to worry about the crust not being done. And one last thing, I find that the toppings stay on better if I put a little cheese between each layer. For example: pepperoni, sauce, cheese, peppers, onions, cheese, pineapple, cheese... And don't forget a little sprinkle of salt on the top; it'll help bring out all the flavors. Hmmmm....now I'm getting hungry again.

Tie Dye and more

So I was reading on some blog a list of things they wanted to do with their kids before the summer was over.  One was make a balance beam…that didn’t happen, but one was tie dying shirts and that did happen.  We found a kit with 5 colors at Wal-mart – that was the easy part.  The hard part was finding white shirts in all the kids’ sizes.  Each of them ended up getting 2 shirts and as an added bonus a pillowcase.

After dinner we cleared the table and covered it with a huge plastic bag cut open from dry cleaning Ken’s suit.  I had watch several tutorials online about how to get the cool swirl tie dye design….and it turned out to be pretty stinkin’ easy.  I actually feed Neil and gave instructions while Ken helped the kids.  We had a blast!!After you get them all done you have to wait over night.  Now the waiting was NOT easy!  Then we took them to the bathtub for the first rinse. I couldn’t believe how much dye we washed out of them.  I almost expected them to be mostly white by the time we were done.  After I unrubber banded them and rinsed them the best I could we all headed down to the washing machine.  Jessie actually set up a little chair to sit and watch them.  Spencer had to be closer than that.And ta-da!!! the final product.  (Mark’s shirt’s didn’t actually make the picture somehow.) All dressed up with no place to go we headed off on a walk to try out the new playground toys over at the elementary school.  Everything there spins.  I can’t imagine how many first graders are going to be sick having recess right after lunch.I was trying to fix lunch and Neil was sad, so I tied Jessie up in my TOTALLY COOL new wrap from my sister and she walked up and down the hall with him until he fell asleep, which didn’t take long… that thing has a secret sleeping spell on it. Spencer offered to hold Neil when we got home from church.  When I returned they were laying down together….not quite the position I left them in, but cute none the less.And then Mark got “wrapped” up.  It looks great with his tie doesn’t it?Oh, and I just have to post pictures of the felt food Jessie and I made for my niece’s birthday, just because I was so happy with the finished product. A friend from the ward and I have been trying to go walking in the mornings.  It is quite enjoyable, but VERY windy!!  Anywho, the carrier she had wasn’t strapping together quite right and made it really tiresome to use so Mark offered to carry her baby home for the last little bit.  What a great kid-o.  Oh, and Spencer helped to….he wore the blanket as a cape so we didn’t have to carry it.  :-)An Abbie creation:Since Neil was sleeping through the tie dye pictures we got him a few days later.Our friends had us over for French Bread pizzas and they were so good we’ve had them at least once a week ever since.  Don’t they look tasty!  I make my own sauce and it’s so easy.  Let me know if you want the recipe.  Is your mouth watering yet?All the kids got to come to our Activity Day girl activity when we went swimming.  Here are a few of the pictures from that day.That evening we celebrated my Grandma and Grandpa’s 60th wedding anniversary.  Great family, tasty homemade ice cream and sweet fruit.  It was great!Ken was finally able to start on a project he’s been wanting to do all summer….paint the shed.  It needs just another coat, but it’s looking so good!  And I bet our neighbors appreciate it as much as we do.  Oh, I don’t have the “after” picture yet.  I’ll take one tomorrow and post it.And finally I have to share a project Mark helped me with.  A carseat cover for Neil.  We worked on quite a bit of it together, but since Neil came a little earlier than expected it didn’t get finished until recently. Well that’s it folks….at least for tonight.

Bean Museum and Mark’s new bow

For one of our play groups this summer we got to see an animal show up at the Bean Museum.  The kids were really excited to touch the turtle…this lizard… (check out his funny tail).  If I had posted this sooner I could have told you all about it, oh well, that’s what Wikipedia is for right?and this huge 15 foot long snake skin.After the show we did a little treasure hunt.  Mark and Jessie worked on one and I helped Abbie and Spencer with theirs.  It was so fun to watch them get so excited when they found one of the animals on their sheet. While we were searching for some of the animals Spencer started watching a nature show on spiders – very interesting and very creepy all at the same time.  He really thought the trap door spiders were the coolest.  It took a little convincing to get him looking for the rest of the animals on his sheet.  I nursed Neil before we left while the kids watched a nature show about Africa.  On the way home they tried to tell me everything they had seen.Abbie drew this cute picture for Spencer. I think Abbie holds Neil more than any of the other kids. Mark has been saving his money for over a year now and finally decided to buy himself a bow.  He had some arrows already from a homemade bow that Uncle David had made him a couple of years ago, but he was so small then that it was hard for him to string it himself, so it didn’t get much use.He is so good about being careful that everyone is behind him when he shoots and is really good about yelling “AIMING” when he’s ready to let-her-rip.  At the store, the guy helping us took Mark back in the back where they have a target set up and let Mark practice and gave him some pointers that really helped. 

When we got home Mark was DYING to try out his new toy, but we didn’t have anything he could shoot into.  Ken suggested that maybe our neighbor would and gave him a call.  Mark was peeking out the window just waiting and waiting until he saw him coming across the street and then he started doing this little excited dance.  I printed out a target to tape to the box and we all went to the backyard to watch.  Mark let me try his bow too, and it was pretty fun.  I even got 2 of my 3 arrows on the box.

Mark was so excited when he got his first 50 pointer, a few days later.  And he left the target on the box until all his holes added up to 100 points.

Neil, the 24th and more

The 24th started out as many summer mornings do…with a little reading.  I can’t believe how many Calvin and Hobbs comics my kids have memorized.Then David took Mark up Spanish Fork Canyon for a little fun.  Now Mark has done something I have never done – shoot a gun. Then we had a tasty BBQ with Ken’s family.  I love pulling into his parents driveway and opening the car door to the smell of hamburgers on the grill.Ken’s mom, Randy and Megan joined us for fireworks down at the baseball fields.  We had a ton of fun playing with the glow sticks we brought while we waited for the fireworks to begin.  Glow sticks just keep getting better.It is so much fun taking pictures of Neil.  He’s just so cute!!  Happy 7th week Neil.I made Ranch Bread to take down to the ward swimming party.  Yummy!  The water wasn’t too cold and Ken caught Abbie and Spencer, jumping from the side of the pool, until they had to get out because of lightening.  We hung around for a bit hoping to get back in….but alas it didn’t happen.A few more pictures of Neil.Jessie found some clay that my dad had left for the kids and she made a horse, of course, that is sitting up on the piano to keep her company when she has to practice.  Abbie made this cute duck.  It was so good of the kids to remember to get out some paper to sculpt on because scraping clay off the table is no easy task.I made these cupcakes for a gal at Ken’s work.  I was really pleased with the finished product.I’m so thankful for all my kids help with Neil.  They are so gentle and love to make him happy.  When David called to see if he could live with us until school started his first question was when would the apricots be ready to make fruit leather.  We assured him that he would have plenty of opportunity to help.  And he did.  Thanks David.  Spencer was an awesome helper when it was time to pit them.I love pictures of Ken sleeping with the baby.  I think we have at least one of him sleeping with each of the kids.  Isn’t it sweet.For a Sunday activity the kids and I wrote letters to my family about the fun things we got to do together while they visited.  We used words clipped out of magazines to complete our letters.  It was a fun and easy thing for Sunday.After Mark and Abbie finished their letters they started on some crescent rolls for dinner….we just love hot bread around here.  One day I wasn’t watching the Bosch to closely while I made a batch of bread and it fell off the counter and cracked a tiny part of the lid.  Now you have to hold the lid on while it mixes or the bread pushes it off and makes a big mess.  I guess Abbie was the lucky lid holder today.  (And in case you are wondering, if the recipe says mix the bread for 7 minutes you should not mix it for 20 instead.  Mark was holding the lid for me a week or so ago while he read a book.  He lost track of time and we ended up with a bowl full of bread glue.  GROSS!  I was proud of myself for not coming unglued – no pun intended – and yelling.  But I also wasn’t ready to whip up another batch that day.)I think it’s so cute when I come to take a picture of the kids with Neil and they scrunch down to be right by him.