Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween 2012

Mitch and me as vikings!
Friend Halloween Party at our house. Ethingtons, Nelsons, and a special guest appearance by the Batemans!
Lots of creepy-looking food, as well as the classic Dinner in a Pumpkin
And lots of creepy-sounding candy
Belle, a mermaid, and a monster
And several attempts at a decent family photo
The weather cooperated, the costumes cooperated, the neighbors made scones and hot chocolate, the parties were a blast-- Halloween 2012: Success!

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Quest for the Cookie

Tonight folks, I have crashed and burned yet again. Now I consider myself a pretty decent baker. I can make a dang good pie crust, pretty good cinnamon rolls, bake bread, cookies, pastries, etc. (it helps when you love to eat your product as much as I do)... So.... WHY CAN I NOT MAKE A GOOD SUGAR COOKIE????? I just want a fluffy, soft sugar cookie. Is that so much to ask? Neighbors bring them and my in-laws bake them so I know it can be done-- so far just not by me. Tonight I used an American Test Kitchen recipe. If you don't know what this is, they make a bunch of the same thing (like a sugar cookie) and have a panel judge until they get the perfect recipe. That is where I got my amazing chocolate cake recipe. Pretty much everything I make from them is awesome. So I had high hopes tonight. I followed the recipe perfectly. I measured impeccably. I mixed the dry ingredients, I creamed the butter and sugar for 3 minutes until it was light and fluffy. I sat and watched the dang things while they baked in my oven. And this is what I got. The worst part is that despite the exact same dough, oven temperature, and amount of dough on the pan each batch got progressively worse. What?!

Pan #1
Pan #2
Pan #3
And the inside of all of them full of these big holes!
Even the first batch that looked prettiest were crunchy with these weird holes inside them. I should be able to figure this out. I had to take an entire college class called "Experimental Foods" where we purposely screwed baked goods up like this and then discussed why it went wrong (and how to make it right). So, I'm appealing to all of you, my readers. Bring me some nice soft sugar cookies, and PLEEEEEASE send me a fail-proof recipe! This streak must be broken!!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

The Lost Christmas Letter

I was going through our computer today and organizing files, folders, etc. and I came across this little gem. I didn't actually post it or send it during Christmas 2011 (when I originally wrote it) because I didn't want anyone to think I was making fun of them. I absolutely LOVE getting Christmas cards and letters which is why I go to the trouble and expense to send ours out...BUT, I'm always at a loss of what to write on the "how we are doing" letter. So I started this one as a joke and my sister Avree contributed some ideas. I thought she (and maybe some of you) might get a laugh out of it:



Merry Merry Christmas from the Moncurs! We just feel like this year we would be very ungrateful if we didn’t tell all our friends and family about all of our blessings, since we have SO MANY. The most appropriate way to do this would be to split our family up and list all of our many accomplishments by person. So here you go:

Andrew (8 months): He is such a little bundle of joy. He has never cried, he slept through the night when he was just one week old, and he has never been sick! His mom really feels this can be attributed to her amazing mothering (and memorizing Baby Wise of course). He has learned most of his letters and sounds, but to our dismay, still mixes up his “b’s” and “d’s.” We are confident he will be reading by age 1. He also can throw a football about 50 yards, his dad is so proud!

Kate (2 years): Oh Kate, Kate, Kate. We are so pleased that she is reading at a 4th grade reading level. We just started chapter books and she LOVES them! She is so well-behaved and sweet (again, her mom attributes this to her superb mothering skills). She never raises her voice and always has a kind word to give to her siblings. In fact, we’ll just say here that none of our kids EVER fight or are cross with one another. What a blessing, we know. Kate also played soccer with the 10 year olds and scored every goal. She may have been a little ball hog, but since we’ve had Olympic Soccer Team scouts at our house we let it slide.

Marin (5 years): Marin just skipped 5 grades and is now in middle school. We just couldn’t stand to hold her back since she was reading on a college level. Her knowledge of quantum physics still astounds us! She started gymnastics and after learning how to do a triple back-handspring on the first day, has now mastered a triple back-flip on the balance beam! We couldn’t be prouder! Summer Olympics 2012 here we come! She has so many friends at school because she is so popular. We’ve also had some modeling agencies contact us, but she’s just so busy with her academics, sports, and music that we had to pass.

Cara (29 years): Even though Cara is actually typing this, Cara is going to speak of herself in the 3rd person. Cara was extra busy this year being the Relief Society President, the Young Women’s President, and the Primary President—all at the same time! She didn’t let having a baby in April slow her down, and lost all of her baby weight in just 3 days! Cara has already mentioned her superb mothering skills twice, but people often remark to her what a “super-mom” she is. She’s very humble about it though. Cara also runs several successful side businesses including photography and hairbow-making (she’s so lucky her husband is such a big-shot tax CPA). In her spare time she knits bandages for lepers.

Mitch (32 years): Besides being the Bishop and both counselors himself, Mitch is the owner of an EXTREMELY successful online winter sports business, Teton Wasatch Sports. Next year it is going to be publicly traded, since it grossed over $2 million (shhh, don’t tell him I said that, he’d be so embarrassed), in case you’d like to buy stock. Besides keeping himself in excellent physical shape by doing P90X twice each morning, he still finds time to be the BEST husband and father in the whole world (when I say “best,” I mean better than yours).  

We hope you all find yourselves almost as blessed as we are this holiday season!

Love,
Mitch, Cara, Marin, Kate, & Andrew Moncur