Here is my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe......It works even in High altitude.....I have never had to adjust the flour, soft cookies all the time!!!!!

4 1/2 Cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 Cups butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 (3.4 oz.) packages instant vanilla pudding mix - I also use one large pkg instead of the two, and it still works great!
4 eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
4 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
2 cups chopped walnuts (optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Stir together the flour and baking soda and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar. Beat in the instant pudding mix until blended. Stir in the eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour mixture. Finally, stir in the chocolate chips and nuts, if desired. Drop cookies by rounded tspfuls onto ungreased baking sheet. ( I use stoneware, and it works wonders!!!!)
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 10-12 min. until edges are golden brown. Allow cookies to cool for 5 min. on baking sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.
Yield 6 dozen

Also instead of the vanilla pudding you can replace it with any flavor you desire. YUM YUM!!!!!

I am not good at blogging, but this is the easiest way to post the scone recipes. Which I found out that what we Utahns call scones, most Americans call them fry bread. Go figure!!! I found two, one is made with yeast and the other isn't. I am going to try both and compare them, I will let you know which one wins!!

1st one: German Scones(Deep Fried)

4hrs prep........UUGGHH!!

makes 2-3doz.

2packages dry yeast (Roughly 2 Tablespoons)

1/2 c. water

1 Tablespoon sugar

1/2 c. sugar

1 C. boiling water

1/2 C. Margarine or Butter

2 tsps. Salt

3 eggs, beaten

4 1/2 C. Flour

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water.

2. Add the 1Tbsp sugar, and set aside.

3. Pour boiling water over the remaining 1/2 C. sugar, the Margarine, and salt.

4. Add eggs, and stir well.

5. Then add in the yeast mixture, and 2 C. of the flour.

6. Beat with mixer until smooth.

7. Add the rest of the flour (2 1/2 C).

8. Let rise for one hour, then refrigerate until cold.

9. (Note: can be refrigerated overnight) Roll out very thin (about 1/4 inch ) on

floured surface, and cut into 3-inch squares.

10. Fry in hot oil until golden brown and puffy.

11. serve with butter and honey, or coated with granulated sugar.

This recipe courtesy of the Recipezaar.com

Yum Yum Yum!!!

Okay the next one is a Navajo fry bread.....I love Navajo tacos so this has to be good!!

prep time: 10min

cook time : 15 min

Makes: 12 fried breads

2 cups all purpose flour

1 Tbsp Baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp plus 6 cups vegetable oil

3/4 c. warm water

1 cup powdered sugar, as optional topping

1 c. honey, as optional topping

In the bowl of a food processor, mix the dry ingredients. Stir in 1 Tbsp. of the oil, and the water,and process until smooth. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead until the dough is just elastic and comes together being careful not to over work. Shape the dough into a ball, cover tightly with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hr. Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces. Flatten each piece and roll into a 7-inch circle, making as thin as possible. Poke a hole in the center with the handle of a wooden spoon or your finger.

In a large saute pan or deep fryer, heat the 6 cups of oil to 360 degrees F. Slip the rounds 1 at a time into the hot oil and cook for 2 min. turning once with a Long-handled spoon. Drain on paper towels and repeat with the remaining dough. Sprinkle the fried bread with powdered sugar and drizzle with honey, as desired, and serve.

Recipe courtesy of Food Network

Okay, so once again I put off blogging!!. The summer vacation has just started for the kids, and it started off with a great 4th of July!! We went to Travis's Grandmas, (she lives in Lehi), and had a family BBQ. This has been the first year for a while that we have actually gone else where for the 4th. (With it being Travis's Bday, he gets to choose what we do, and usually it is stay home and put on our own BBQ.) So this was an extremely nice treat to have someone else do it, and all I had to do was make his favorite Bday cake, Trifle. Yum, Yum!!! So to catch everyone up, we had a busy June, Tabitha had two ochestra concerts. She is doing so well at the violin!!! Then she had a Dare graduation, and a history fair. Sabrina had a field trip I was able to accompany her on. Sabrina did a miniture golf course with school, and had to desigb her own golf hole. So Travis helped her build it, and it turned out okay!!! We celebrated Tad's 7 birthday, and He got his 1st real birthday party. He had a run in the sprinkler party with a couple of his friends, and was so excited!!!! We had a great experiance in puppy sitting Madisons puppy. It was the best thing for us, because the children have been begging for a puppy, and I just don't want one anymore. We have our two cats, and I love them to death!!! Best pets!! companionship, plus no having to go potty outside, just the liter box. So watching the puppy helped the children realize that puppies may be cut and cuddly but they are a lot of work. So they finally said that they don't want one, (I guess after having to wake up throughout the night, and cleaning up it's messes wasn't as fun as they thought!!!!!) Yah!!!! So we finally solved that one, and now they also agree that cats are much better!!!! So I started this a month ago and never finished.....I am sure bad at this!!! The kids have stayed busy! We have an awsome neighborhood with lots of friends for the kids so they enjoying spending time with them!! We had some of them over for a late night, pretty interesting, All Tabitha's friends are boys...AAAHHH!!! It was fun to watch at the begin of the movie how they picked out where to sit, Tabitha in the middle, thank goodness she changed that, I am defianantly not ready for any unsuprised holding of hands yet, once again...AAAAAHHHH!!! Then we finally made it up to the wild horse ranch up Butterfield canyon, we have lived in Herriman for 5 yrs, and finally make it up there. It was pretty neat, minus for wild horses being in fences, but I guess they have to control them some how. There where tons of them, they also had donkeys. They kids had fun naming alot of them. Anyways I will try to be better at this, will see!.

Catching up

It has been awhile since I have updated. But it has been very busy here. Anyways so here are some pictures. I was able to take the kids to the park on a day that wasn't to horrible cold, while they where off track. They had a ball, it is amazing to see what they can do, where before they couldn't. Although they are getting to young for parks, once younger kids showed up they asked to go home, it was pretty funny!!

Then once they went back on track, Tabitha had a Monster Concert that she was in. It was a bunch of different schools. It was quite fun. She is doing so well at the violin, and loves it. Today she told me she loves ochestra, it can help calm her down from a bad day, she wishes that it was every day rather than just twice a week.

Then finally we went to Travis's sister Whitney's wedding shower, the girls had so much fun. Travis took Tad to see the Iron Man, boo hoo. They also had fun. Anyways, that has been it, at least all that I can remember tonight, I will try to keep updated more often.

Tabitha's 1st cake

So today, I asked Tabitha if she would help bake a cake for me. I explained everything and showed her where the instructions were, and how to read it. She did everything perfect, except for adding the cake mix, whoops!!! It was hilarious, we laughed so hard. She couldn't figure out why it looked so funny. So after she cleaned the pan she tried again, and oh imagine that, it turned out. (I guess it is really important to add the mix!) She is never going to live this down. But she did have fun, and she is a good sport when it comes to us making fun of her and her wonderful mistake.

Field Trip to the Zoo W/ 1st Grade

Today was such a fun day. I was able to go with Tad on his school field trip to the Zoo. It was the best field trip I have ever been on. Seeing how there was so many parent volunteers that we each got to only have 2 kids in our groups. So lucky for me I was able to have Tad and his best friend Amon. We had so much Fun!! Usually when you go to the zoo all the animals are sleeping or they are inside where you can't see them. Today we saw every animal and some where very active!!! The weird thing was it was even snowing, and cold, cold, cold. so we really didn't think we'd see any. But we got to see all of them. Yeah!!!! The cheetah was so active that the boys would run up and down the fence and the cheetah would follow. It was quite funny. I kept telling them that if they stopped the cheetah might decide that they would be a great snack. Last year when I went with Tad kindergarten class we didn't get to see the new albino alligator exhibit.Tad was so sad. That all last year he kept asking if we could go back to the zoo just so we could see the alligator. So this year, (thank goodness it was still an exhibit at the zoo.) He made sure that we went to see it first. It was so cool. But sure enough Tad forgot about it so throughout the rest of the day he kept saying "Mom we need to go see the albino alligator." I would have to remind him that we already did, and that it was last year we didn't get to see it.
It was so nice only having 2 kids in the group that I was actually able to get pictures without kids trying to run every which way. I also was able to spoil the two boys and get them some churros and cotton candy. There poor teacher is not going to like me to much when they get back to school. Sugar, sugar, sugar makes them hyper, hyper, hyper. I am going to put the rest of the pictures on a slide show so you can go to http://photoshow.comcast.net/tbarrick to view all our family photos. Well till the next time.

Just Learning

Okay, so this is all new to me. So I am going to give it a whirl. This is such a fun idea and way to share the happenings in our life. Seeing how it goes by so fast that I forget the day to day events. Hopefully I will be able to figure alot of this out, ie putting pictures and slide shows on. But I will get it. Everything is going well, Traivs is driving the tractor trailers and loves it alot. He is anxiously waiting to get trained to carry triples. Hopefully soon. I am still being mom, and have a couple buyers I am working with in real estate. Tabitha is in 5th grade, and is 11 yrs old. She is in violin and is doing so well at it. She picked it up real fast. Sabrina is in 3rd grade, and is 9 yrs old. She was taking guitar lessons, but due to a flaky teacher we had to pull her out. So hopefully I will be able to find a better, reliable teacher, and get her taking lessons again. She was doing awsome for as little as the teacher had taught her. Tad is in 1st grade and is 6 yrs old. He is enjoying school, but misses being home with mommy and getting all the attention to himself. He has tould us that he would like to learn how to play the drums. AHHHHH so maybe one day we will have our own little musical family band. We are all anxiously waiting for the weather to change, and become a nice spring, more outside time. Till the next post. Here is a link to some slideshows that I have made. (still trying to get it posted over on my blog. but hopefully this will work.) http://photoshow.comcast.net/tbarrick