What to do with Extra Royal Icing

I wasn't sure what blog to put this on... people have so many creative ideas out there on what to do with the extra royal icing used for decorating. Here's what we do... make a three year-old really really happy.

[side note, I've been doing my decorating after 8pm when the kids are asleep. Timmy helps with the clean up.]

[side note #2 - you can find Woody in this post if you look really hard]

Julianna and Alexandra heading off to school

I love that my kids can ride their bikes to school all year here. The weather is perfect and I just had to snap a shot of these too taking off in the morning. I love how Juju's bike is bigger than she is. She'll grow into it.

And they're off... (please ignore the dead grass...)

They came downstairs matching. So not cool. Then I took a picture. Really not cool. I miss the days when they didn't care about matching. Tonight Juju asked me, "will Zandy have to be my roommate in college, because I think 18 yrs is enough time to spend with someone." Then she told me I need to type all my recipes for her when she leaves home and remind her not to eat too much. (I think she saw the pictures of me when I worked at the BYU Creamery. How was I supposed to know it was bad to eat ice cream throughout my shift? Best job ever.) With her cousins getting into BYU recently there has been a lot of talk about College. Can't I just freeze them at this age? We're having a lot of fun.

Happy Birthday Scott

Scott on his 39th Birthday. I made him take cookies to work. Yes, he is in third grade.

All Scott ever wants for his birthday is a tres leches cake. Recipe found here. I will post it at the end of this as well.

Scott shared these cookies with co-workers... then they wanted to order some for an event... so I got my food handlers license, started a blog, and since then I've been working a little too hard trying to make the prettiest cookies on the block.

So I think Scott's birthday is also the birth of Sweets by Suz. I may not make a dime, but next years Christmas Cookies will be out of this world.

Tres Leches Cake - Allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup white sugar 5 egg yolks 5 egg whites 1/3 cup milk 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk 1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk 1 pint heavy whipping cream 10 maraschino cherries

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Butter and flour bottom of a 9 inch springform pan.
2.	Beat the egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar until light in color and doubled in volume. Stir in milk, vanilla, flour and baking powder.
3.	In a small bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Beat until firm but not dry. Fold egg whites into yolk mixture. Pour into prepared pan.
4.	Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 45 to 50 minutes or until cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool 10 minutes.
5.	Loosen edge of cake with knife before removing side of pan. Cool cake completely; place on a deep serving plate. Use a two prong meat fork or cake tester to pierce surface of cake.
6.	Mix together condensed milk, evaporated milk and 1/4 cup of the whipping cream. Discard 1 cup of the measured milk mixture or cover and refrigerate. Pour remaining milk mixture over cake slowly until absorbed. Whip the remaining whipping cream until it thickens and reaches spreading consistency. Frost cake with whipped cream and garnish with cherries.

Scott's Big Race - The Arizona Tough Mudder

Scott created a team for Arizona's first Tough Mudder, the were called "Bruised Cattle." His brother Elliott came from California, his good friend Dave came from Colorado and his cousin Mike came from California as well. I also had my friend Angie and her posse here from Utah, so it was a full house with eight extra adults staying here. I love cooking in mass quantities and this was the perfect occasion for cooking.
Here is Scott jumping over tires and cars. He trained a lot for this course - it's over 10 miles of running plus some really intense obstacles.
Scott and his friend Dave carried this large piece of lumbar for over a mile. They look so happy because I just gave them each a chocolate chip cookie.
Scott and the "Bruised Cattle" waiting to climb a twelve foot wall. I felt pretty bad for them all cold and muddy, but they were getting a good high from al lthis. Left to Right, Jason (a Bb co-worker) Cousin Mike Cannell, ward member Brad Haines, Dave Schaff (fellow t-bird), Uncle Elliott, Scott and ward member Darrin Myler.
Cousins bonding time.
My B.F.F. Angie looking good despite the mud.
Action shot of Scott going through the spider web.
Scott almost made it all the way across the monkey bars until he fell into this mystery water. Gross!

Scott and his team at the finish. Talk about tough mudder high! Great job guys! I'm glad I wasn't the one freezing to death that morning. When we got home the kids were really happy to see us. I think they were really worried about their Dad's welfare. My sister Becca asked Alexandra how it went and she said, "My Dad is okay, he was really lucky." I'm sure the whole death wavier thing freaked them out. You gotta be careful about jokes around the kids.

I just had to include the cookies I made for the gang. For more on my cookie problem visit www.sweetsbysuz.blogspot.com

Here is a video of Scott in the Electric shock obstacle. He said it really hurt.

Cute Little Matilda - 100th Day of School

Matilda had her own sense of style and I'm at the point where I don't really care how my kids look for school, as long as they are dressed. She came home from school so happy, after the 100th Day of school celebration. I love watching her get on the bus everyone morning, waving and blowing kisses, then returning so happy and full of stories. She has the best little sayings which of course I tend to forget. What a cutie!

Reflections Fair - 2012

Julianne with her award winning drawing. The theme of this fair was "Diversity is." She worked really hard on this drawing. We're so proud of her.

Here is Alexandra with her picture of kids holding hands around a globe. The sign says "Diversity is Children around the world."

Here is Alexandra with another one of her entries - a picture of a baby birds. A dove built a nest just above the kids' treehouse and trusted the kids even when sitting on her eggs. The kids were able to watch the baby birds grow until the disappeared one day. Let's just hope our dog Bolt didn't find them.

Here is Matilda with her ribbon. She was very mad at me, but I don't remember why.

Here are all the kids with their best buddy Deborah Leber. All the girls were happy to have won ribbons. Next year we won't put this project off until the last minute.

Timmy is a sunbeam!

Timmy is three, so that means he is now in Junior Primary at church with the "big kids." No more nursery. He could not stand being confined to a room with screaming babies. I can't believe how big my little guy is. Timmy has so much personality and I think this picture captures it. I'm not allowed to call him my baby any more. He says to me, "Tilly can be your baby," or "Boltie (the dog)" can be your baby. I need to stop spoiling my favorite little guy.

New Year's with the Hatch Family

Alex, aka. Choncho loved the tamales.

Chiles Rellenos, tamales and fresh salsa. So much for myfitnesspal.

Becca as Frida Kahlo.

Paul thought making tamales was a waste of time, but he was happy eating them.

If you stay at my house this is what I'll feed you for breakfast.

A meal to remember, homemade tamales, norteno style, refried beans & chiles rellenos

I wasn't going to write about food in this blog, but how can I not? My sister Becca and her family came for New Years and it was all about Mexican food. I don't know who watched the kids, but they survived. We made so many tamales and got the recipe just right. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll have it posted. Right now it is on a little scrap of paper. It was late and Becca was creeping me out with all the tamales and I told her she looked like Frida Kahlo. She put on Matilda's, yes six-year-old Matilda's Mexican costume and drew on a unibrow and I almost died of laughter. I put this on facebook and she got quite the response. We decided anyone who didn't get the joke was not quite educated in the arts.

So it was a weekend of trashing the kitchen, eating tamales, chilaquiles, chiles rellenos. It's kind of a tradition now the morning before Becca and Paul drive home to Saint George I make a huge batch of roasted green salsa for chilaquiles, fresh refried beans & a fried egg. It's great because it will keep them full until they get home six hours later.

2012 - I'm going to blog!

I was talking with friends and realized blogging can be a great way to keep up the family scrapbooks. Just a couple of posts a month and at the end of the year I'll purchase a family yearbook. It's been almost 3 yrs since I've posted, so here's to a new year's resolution! Timmy asked me the other day, "Mom, where did you find me?" Hmm... time to get caught up on the family scrapbooks and put together a baby book for Timmy.