Recipes

My friend Sarah was asking for some new recipes. I have actually been meaning to post some anyway. So here are a few.

7 up marinaded chicken

8 chicken breasts
2 cans sprite or 7 up
1 1/2 c. soy sauce
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1 1/2 c. oil

Marinate over night. Grill. This makes for a large group or you can 1/4 it and do it for about 2.

Tortellini Soup

49 oz can chicken broth
Turkey ground 1 lb. seasoned to taste
1 pkg. frozen oriental veggies
4 Tbl. soy sauce
4 drops of Tabasco
1 pkg cheese tortellini (fresh or frozen)
snow peas- 1 pkg

(to save on your grocery budget you can omit the snow peas and do frozen tortellini. This makes so much soup that you can freeze half of it and do it for two meals.)

Brown turkey. Add broth and veggies. Simmer two hours. add tortellini and snow peas 1/2 hour before serving. You can add additional broccoli or other veggies when you add the broth if you desire.

Roasted Broccoli with Walnuts

This is such a quick awesome side dish! I love it.

1 head fresh broccoli. Cut off florets.
Olive oil
salt and pepper
splash of lemon juice

Sprinkle all above ingredients over broccoli making sure to coat evenly. Place in 400 degree oven for 8 minutes. Stir and let finish roasting 1-2 minutes. The broccoli should be bright green and have crispy golden brown edges. Toss with chopped walnuts and serve. (I use cashews because Jake doesn't like walnuts.)

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

1 head cauliflower -steamed
3 Tbls. margarine
1/4 c. diced onion
2 c. chicken broth
2 c. half and half
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 c. grated cheddar cheese
3 Tbls. flour

Steam cauliflower. In large pot saute onion and margarine until onion is clear. Stir in flour to make roux, slowly add broth and cream. Stir and cook until thickened. Add salt and nutmeg and cauliflower. Just before serving stir in cheese.

This will have to do for now. In a few weeks I will do more. I am going out of town in a couple of days and my friend here has borrowed my favorite cookbook that has some other great new things. Hope this helps.

Feeling Uplifted

I thought that General Conference this weekend was really fabulous. As I anticipated it, I confess I was really missing President Hinckley. I have not listened to a session of conference EVER where he was not the prophet. I know that sounds bad, but as a young child growing up not in Utah I had never attended or listened to a session of conference until we moved to Utah shortly after his call to be prophet. As I watched this weekend I felt refreshed and renewed by President Monson, and as so many said, saw the mantel of the calling fall on his shoulders. I was truly touched by his testimony and determination to give ALL that he has to our Heavenly Father's work. I gained for certain a clearer witness of his call and feel truly blessed by it. "We Thank Thee Oh God, For A Prophet!" We taught Luke to say his name, but it sounds mostly like "present monster". He struggles a little with the pronunciation.

I also felt inspired by Elder Bednar's talk on personal prayer. I found that I fit the mold he was warning against. How often my prayers have been sincere, but without further action. I resolve to do better, to be better. Of course, Elder Ballard's talk spoke to me, but so did several others, about be a mother and enjoying the journey. Like he said, to focus more on the doing rather than the getting it done. I fall in that trap all the time, checking off my lists and trying to be "so productive". I am not saying that is bad, but I need to be reminded to slow down a little and soak in these moments with my children. I really felt like this conference focused on personal conviction and conversion. We all need to get there, to allow our testimonies to fill us and guide us each day. I am grateful for what General Conference brings. And as a side note, I am grateful for modern technology that allows me to view it in the comfort of my own home, so far away from Salt Lake.

How common are you?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 8 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I saw this on my cousins blog and thought that it was interesting. Michelle is the 56th most common first name. There are over 700,000 people in the U.S. with that first name, spelled that way. Swensen isn't very common though-not spelled that way. Check it out. Kinda cool.

One year plus!

I forgot to post on March 21st, but that was our anniversary of our move to Decatur. It has brought a lot of growth, but I am grateful for the opportunities it has afforded us. One of which is our ever-increasing closeness with the Deshler family. This has been a great source of comfort and joy to us. Luke loves them very much and I will always be grateful for the time we had to share together. Also, and more importantly, I am so grateful for the ways we have grown as our own family unit, independent and solid together. We have learned so much. I love Jake even more and I am so grateful for the memories we have made here. I will always look back on this time with fondness. It has definitely had its struggles at times, but the benefits have been great. We still look forward to our next adventure in life, not knowing where we might end up next, hopefully out west if possible, but Illinois isn't so bad after all.

Have you ever been there?

A few weeks ago Jake decided that he thought the boys would be easier to wrestle during church if we sat on the very back right pew. It has been going well for a few weeks and has been helping to make sacrament meeting less of a struggle. In fact Luke sits better than he did before...until yesterday. Jake went up on the stand to sing with the choir. They began a beautiful music number and Luke turned and looked at me and said, "Mama's turn." Meaning that he wanted me to go up and sing. I explained that it was just Daddy's turn. He seemed unsatisfied so he said, "Baby Ty's turn." Again I explained it was just Daddy. Then he said, "Luke's turn!!!" He turned around and bolted! I threw Ty into the arms of my friend sitting just the pew above and crouched and ran to catch up, but alas he made it to the stage before I could get him. I was so embarressed. Of course everyone laughed about it because most people have been there before.

Happy Birthday Grandma Ball

Oh, Grandma, how we miss you. You are one of the nicest and sweetest people I know. I love you so much and I really do miss you. I loved it when you came to see us last July. I treasure the times and memories we have shared. I will always remember how you used to let us choose your lipstick and comb your hair and pick out earrings to wear, and often wear some ourselves. Your house was always fun because we could open up as many cereal boxes as we wanted-which was a big deal at our house. Pick out special placemats, play in tons of dress-up clothes and play lots of old games. Now I see you loving our children and all of your great-grandchildren. I feel so privileged to be your granddaughter. I love you.

Bringing Beads to Brooklyn when she broke her leg.
July 2007, Decatur, IL
With Luke in the hospital

Pizza, Pizza!

Tonight I had a scrapbook party at my house with some friends and Jake graciously watched both boys while I was in the other room. He ordered some pizza for dinner. He was eating it on the couch watching March Madness and Luke asked him to watch a movie so he set his plate on the floor while we walked down the hall to our room...he was probably gone a minute. All of a sudden I heard him laughing so hard from the other room and calling for me. I walked in and Ty had ahold of the pizza and was clutching it with a death grip. He had crawled across the room (even though he was eating his own teething biscuit at the time-which was abandoned on the floor) and grabbed the pizza and went to town-cheese and all. His sleeves were covered in pizza sauce and his face with greesy cheese. It was so funny. Jake said that after that he was trying to feed Ty his baby food for dinner and he was very uninterested--well who wouldn't be, right? We all like a little pizza now and then.

Happy Birthday Evelyn!

This is our neice, Evelyn! She turns 1 today. Sad to say that we have never been able to see her and hold her and kiss her, but little Evelyn, we love you. Happy 1st Birthday. We hope it is memorable.

Avery, Easton, Collin and Zoe!!!

We had such a great time visiting the Deshler family for Easter. We had lots of laughs and so much fun. Luke would randomly scream, AveryEastonCollinZoe! He would string it together like one word. He LOVES them. They played "bad guys" in the basement in the dark with their Nerf gun sniper scopes, (they were protecting Queen Zoe) for hours. Of course they played Star Wars and all sorts of other games. He adores them all and would copy anything that he saw them doing. We caught them all downstairs playing Clue Jr. and he was sitting in a circle with them, quietly holding his paper and pencil pretending to write things down just like them. We had a glow-in-the-dark Easter egg hunt and they all had matching Easter clothes-not planned.

One morning Jake and I woke up and realized Luke had gotten up and we didn't know. We came upstairs and he was gone. He had gone with Heather to take the kids to school. He thought that was pretty cool, and we loved watching him spread his wings away from us. He loves his Aunt Heather too. In fact tonight when we got home he picked up my cell phone and was pretending to talk on it. We asked him who he was talking to...."Aunt He-He" he replied. He was so concerned when Uncle Reed left, and he kept reminding us all that "Uncle Weed went to work!" Ty thought that Zoe was SOOOO wonderful. He would just grin and grin at her. Heather took some great pics of our family -I am so retarded, I forgot my camera. I loved spending time with my sister-she is awesome and so funny. Hope everyone's holiday was great.

Okay after re-reading this, it is like I am spewing thoughts, just trying to make a quick post about our great weekend.

Easter Eggs!

We had so much fun last night dying Easter eggs. Luke keeps asking today to do it again. He doesn't get that it is a once a year thing. But it was fun. Check it out. Luke loved the Star Wars stuff. Not pictured here...Yoda, Darth Vader and R2D2.