Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Christmas Day!

Dane with his pile of presents
Devree and her presents
Shay and his presents
Todd with his loot
Dane with his present from Santa: and MP4 player
Shay with his present from Santa: an iPod touch
Devee with her present from Santa: more books for her Kindle
Everyone got to do their favorite things on Christmas day!
Todd did a puzzle
Shay watched a movie
Devree did a lot of different things, including eating Todd's fruit salad.
Dane watched a movie too and ate dried mangos.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Dane's Christmas Band Concert

Dane in the back, straightening his Santa Hat.

Dane sporting a cool Christmas Tie that plays music when you push the button.  Look!  He's pushing the button now.

Dane playing his Baritone, and Duncan with his Trumpet.

Close-up of Dane playing his Baritone.

Jason flashing us a smile.

Madsen playing his Trumpet.

Miscellaneous Christmas Happenings

Riley & her mother Anna at her Bridal Shower

Our Christmas Preparations are complete but we go out into the insanity to watch "The Hobbit: Part 1", and have a Family Day.  Dane shows off his Silly String.  Devree has on a cute Elephant sleeping mask.

Devree puts on all of her black thermal underwear and her Christmas socks.  She tells us, "Look!  I'm a Christmas Ninja!!!"

Nevada Snowman

Nevada Snowman

You might ask... How do you make a NEVADA Snowman?

This is how Shay did it.  Shay and Dane shoveled the 1 inch of snow off of our driveway and sidewalks.  They dumped all of the snow there on the lawn.  Then they started rolling the snow into balls.  Then they merged all of the snowballs into a long skinny snowman.

Charcoal Briquets for buttons.
Carrot Nose
Food Coloring for hair and smile.

Shay was doing a self sculpture, so he tried to spike the hair in "Shay Hamblin" fashion.





Our Nevada Snowman just 4 hours later.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Thanksgiving 2012

We were very blessed to have Thanksgiving with Arianne, Gary, Madsen, Eden, Aspen and Rhys.  They invited us to their house but I asked them to come to our home, because it is bigger.  We love this family and Arianne and Gary prepared lots of delicious food.  Todd and I can truthfully say that the turkey was the best that we have ever eaten!  Arianne did a terrific job on that 27 1/2 lb bird.  She put it in a salt brine,  put butter under the skin on the breast and had it seasoned with herbs from her garden to perfection!  Then her stuffing made from homemade whole wheat bread was so good that even Shay had seconds and he is not a stuffing guy.  Gary had a fruit salad and a delicious shrimp salsa hors'devor, they also brought spiced corn and apple and pumpkin pie all from the bounties of their garden.  Todd made his Hamblin fruit salad and we made the spinach salad, lemon meringue and pecan pie, ham, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes to go with Ariannes delicious gravy and it was a majoy FEAST!
 This is what the Hamblin's do on Thanksgiving morning when a good song comes on.  Devree is dancing and Shay is emptying out the dishwasher and Todd is frying bacon for our spinach salad.
 Devree is dancing to "I'm sexy and I know it!"
 Dane is laughing at Devree and her antics as she is dancing.
 Todd is making sure that bacon is just crispy enough.
 Shay barely waking up without his shirt of course.
 Here I am doing my "I workout" on the same song.  I am pretty proud of myself.  I have been consistently working out for the last 2 weeks at 6 times a week.
 Devree made our turkey cheese ball with raisin eyes, red pepper waddle and candy corn beak.
 Another view.
 We have our "Elder Hamblin Bear" sitting at our table already to eat.  This bear was given to us annonymously last year for Christmas.  It has Noble's voice telling us Merry Christmas and he is dressed as a missionary with white shirt, tie, nametag and he is holding a Book of Mormon in one hand.

 
 Devree and Aspen showing her missing teeth she is proud of.
 From left and right there is Dane, Shay, Rhys, Eden and Madsen having a pillow fight on the trampoline.
 Todd finally getting to relax after a lot of working getting everything ready.  The puzzle table is set up in the background too.
 Gary and Arianne brought lots of delicious food.  Arianne cooked the turkey.  A 27 1/2 lb turkey!


 This is getting the family ready for their picture.
 Now we got the whole family.   And what an adorable family!  Rhys brought his hat he made.
 Trial one.  Todd closes his eyes and Dane mades a face!
 Now this one may go on our Christmas card.
 

We did puzzles, played games and lots of jumping on the trampoline for the kids.  It was a peaceful, thankful kind of day.  We are truly blessed with everything anyone could want in life.  The gospel of Jesus Christ, food, clothing, and great friends.

How to prepare turkey from scratch

Here is the smallest turkey we picked out of the pen.
Ready to hang her up.
Ready to go.
Shay practicing on the chopping block to get the hatchet just right with the right swing.
A good clean blow.
No one wanted the head.
Todd posing with the head.
Already plucked and ready to gut.  Dane poses with the prized turkey feet and says "Look I am a Tyranasaurous Rex!"
Todd serves as a high councilor in a different ward and one of the families asked Todd if we would be interested in buying one of their farm turkeys for our Thanksgiving.  We decided to let the boys experience the whole process of getting the turkey ready to eat.  We arrived at their farm and picked out the smallest turkey and Shay practiced with the hatchet on a wood block and with one "whack" the turkey was ready to pluck.  I was proud of Shay because he wasn't really interested in this part but decided to gird up his loins and do the business.  Dane hid behind the barn the first time but then there were 2 other turkeys to do and he watched that process.  The Miller Family had a huge pot boiling on a propane fire and we dipped the turkey and plucked it and watched as he showed us how to gut it and we were surprised that our turkey weighed 27 1/2 pounds after cleaning and gutting. We had lots of fun trying to get all of the pin feathers and getting it beautiful for roasting.