Best Frousins Forever

This is where is all began folks: Well, actually it began way before this cuz we are literal blood related and stuff. But this is where "it" all started. The phenomenon that IS Landee and Memzy BFF (that's "Best Frousins Forever). It's her official 3-4 beeday today and I had to let her no, in no uncertain terms, that I heart her long time. Whether kickin it in the dorms with that ancient computer and even a "paper" planner on the desk, .................or discussing Windex vs. 409 after kid spills. She will always be my Best Frousin Forever.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANDEELU LANDERSON!!!!!

Cooking with Clara: Episode 7 - Fresh Strawberry Jam

"Hi....My name is Clara..........and my mommy finally drove all the way out to my Auntie Memz house so us girlies could hang out. Can you believe it's been this long? Neither can I."

(Bonus pic of rocking chair that Clara is sitting in that my mom and dad bought as their first piece of furniture ever, which I asked for when they died and which they decided to give to me NOW as a house warming gift----neener neener to my siblings)

Part I: Locked out of the Playroom

Char Char and Liesl were playing Legos. Legos and babies with small airways don't mix. Clara wasn't too pleased.

She considered using her weight to muscle her way through.


"Are you serious with this Auntie Memz?"




Part II: Snack Diversion

Lack of a high chair makes snack time also floor time. Don't worry, I just mopped.

But those fine motor skillz aren't quite perfected yet. Those darn Apple Jacks. (Or "Apple Charlie's" as Char Char likes to say)

Notice the bonus shot of the thigh ^^^

Auntie Memzy to the rescue.

"Mmmmmm. That's it"

See, I forgot all about the playroom debacle.

Part III: The Jam making.

You are gonna need some of these (whatever size you like to store your jam in):

Some deelish strawberries:

A whole lotta this:

Some of this (make sure it's the liquid kind):

And a dab of that:

Begin by doing a little choppy choppy

A little zip zip in the food processor to your desired chunkiness

Measure out 2 C of strawberries into a bowl.

Add 4 C sugar (that twice as much for you math challenged)

Stir it up until just combined and wait a few minutes for the sugar to dissolve.

Meanwhile add one package of pectin and 2 Tbsp of lemon juice and stir in small bowl.

Once sugar had dissolved into strawberries, add your pectin/lemon mixture and stir for 3 solid minutes.

Pour into containers of your choice and let sit.............where you laid them..............on the counter...................for 24 hours.

After that you put them in the freezer for up to a year. OR Keep them in the fridge for up to 3 weeks. I personally ate this for dinner with toast. I'm thinking also ice cream topping, pancakes topping, etc., etc.

My good friend LL showed me exactly how to do this but you can also find the recipe on the instructions that come with your pectin. How easy right?

TUNE IN TUESDAY

By Memzy McSmartypansons



No one should go through life alone. You shouldn't have to look yourself in the mirror and decide whether this new and hip shade of blue eye shadow works on your 33 year old face. (it doesn't) You don't need to walk into a Walmart alone and not know how to get out alive. (it's tricky) That is why I come to you each week and let you know things.



Good Advice #1: Life will be very, very different if you use fabric softener. Get on out to your local warehouse store and buy a lifetime supply. For some insane reason, I hadn't been using it for years and years now. I'm guessing it had a lot to do with a good amount of laziness/penny pinching on my part but I digress. Whilst moving into our house recently my loverly honeybuns left a "trail" of fabric softener from the garage, all the way down the hallway, finally ending in a pool of fabric softener in the laundry room.................as he attempted to move and hook up our washer/dryer. (see, I have those little "drawer things that sit under my washer/dryer and I guess I had an old bottle in there?). Anyhoo, 5.5 beach towels later and the inaugural wash-after-hookup took place, I threw that load of towels in the dryer, yadda yadda. Imagine me now hearing the dryer beep (picture this in slow motion please), opening up that load of lusciousness (previously unknown to me) and finding my sandpaper beach towels turned into pillowy folds of my own personal heaven. What? Oh that's right.....fabric softener is supposed to SOFTEN your FABRICS. I then proceeded to run around the house, forcing my beach towels of heaven onto every member of my family,.......more than once.........making them feel them, touch them, smell them, hold them, and generally go Ga-Ga over them like I did. Life has changed. I went straight to the store to buy my own jumbo sized tub of perfection and have routinely been fabric softening every piece of washable thing in my house. You people need to do the same.


Good Advice #2: Sugary cereal is a healthy meal. I grew up in a household that rarely to NEVER bought such things. Grape Nuts and Corn Flakes were the choices around that place with a very rare Frosted Mini Wheats thrown in. No offense to the Visors (we DID have a candy cupboard don't get me wrong) but it just wasn't happening. I lamented my lack of sugary morning goodness every time I saw a commercial for Lucky Charms. I drooled as I gazed into my sleepover friend's pantry at her selection of Fruit Loops and Coco Puffs. Could I spend the night here every night? After venturing out on my own to my freshmen year at BYU, my main meal staple was, in fact, Lucky Charms in the Morris Center. Breakfast, Lunch, AND Dinner. Landee and Flem can attest to this very thing. It's like I went on a sugary cereal binge for a good 3-4 years. I tell you this because I've been on both ends of the breakfast cereal spectrum. And now that I am older (only a little) and wiser (fer super duh) I've come to a balance. And that balance is this: they have fortified the crap outta those cereals these days. Yes, there is some sugar (stop glaring at me Flem). And yes, there could be a better choice for breakfast. But lets be honest. A four year old sitting at my kitchen table, thoroughly enjoying his Honey Combs and milk, .......quietly......... while those vitamins sneak into his little system is alright with me I say.



You know the drill then. Hit me.

Get Memzified

I'm totally famous. I realized lotsa you gize already know about this from Landee's site. But I do actually have some Bake-O peeps that need to be notified of my celebrity status.

My best frousin, Landeelu, has started her own podcast network with her family. I was invited to do a session with her and we dished on American Idol, minivans, and celebrity crushes. Good stuff, good stuff.

If you wanna spend 30 minutes of your time today listening to this while you are cleaning the house or doing the dishes, check it out....HERE

I'll be available for autographs by appointment only. ::wink::

You guys are so BOSSY!

I am a pleaser. So here you go. Get your wrists braces up and running. I'm just gonna do this all in one shot.

Front door/formal living/dining From front door
Fam room

Bonus of Char Char StinkerPants on the couch watching Noggin

Kitchen eating area. You need to help me figure out what to do with that space there decoratively speaking behind the table you gize. I'm paralyzed about doing something and then hating it. Please weigh in.

Kitchen. I hug some spot in the kitchen daily.................maybe more than once.

Hall linen closet.

What? You gize didn't wanna see pics of the closet? Well just deal. I had camera in hand.

Bedroom One. (Brain's room/guest room, when they come)

Play Room. Another hug/kiss from me every day.

It will pretty much look like this always. So I decided not to sugar coat it for you gize.

Bedroom Two (Boogs and Char-man)

Guest bath

Laundry room

Master bath

MY side. (I'm not gonna show you Shed's. It's the same)

Master bedroom (same bedding from 8 years ago--look forward to redoing sometime in the future)

Another fave----poopy room in master.

View to office and half bath

Office

There you have it. As I've said before I'm totally in love. Every day there is some new/cool thing that we discover about the house that we didn't realized before.

In other news: I already got a calling you gize!

TUNE IN TUESDAY---I'm back yo

Hollah!!

Internet is a blessed thing when you have it on your phone whilst you are "offline". But nothing says, "I love you Memzy and your fast typing fingers" like a good old compy hooked up right in your very own home. Plus, I've been unpacking box after box after box. Alls I have left now is hanging pictures and organizing my pantry so I can find the spaghetti where it should be instead of in a crate next to the fruit snacks. But I cannot complain. I'm totally in love with her (the house that is). I've decided to name her Newer New Withington. Ha!!! Those Waite family members out there will catch it yes? I know you gize have been bugging and bugging in the comments for pics but I just haven't gotten to it yet. Soon. Very soon. In other news, my sis is contemplating NOT driving the distance to my new house for me to bbsit Clara every other Tuesday. Something about 40 minutes round trip each way. ::rolling eyes:: So I'm starting a "Save Cooking With Clara" campaign effective immediately. Please send your donations/uproar to my pay pal/complaints department. I'm sure my sis will be listening.

Now on to what you came for. My smarts have just been building up over these last few weeks and I'm ready to literal BURSTNESS with good wisdom and information. Here we go:

Good Advice #1: It's well known and daw-Q-mented that smarts do NOT equall abeelity to spell correktly. There's been studys. I can't link you to them right now but just trust me. I happen to be one of the highest IQ's out there and I still managed to spell the word fragile wrong on all of my moving boxes. Well, technically not ALL of them. I realized about 3/4 of the way through packing up my kitchen that I was spelling it how I was pronouncing it in my head according to the movie "A Christmas Story" when the dad gets his beautiful leg lamp in the mail that fateful night. You all know that scene. So the fact that I wrote "frajile" on many of the boxes didn't even phase those 8-10 doods that came to help us move furniture and boxes. Cuz they've heard of the studies. But mostly just cuz they know how smart I am. And how tired I was. So they didn't even flinch. And you shouldn't either. Misspele away.

Good Advice #2: Do NOT get a pet goose. If you have been given a choice of rabbit or baby goose for an Easter pet for your children...............go with the rabbit (I say this even having recently read, and been freaked out by, the book Watership Down, which is about rabbits). Better yet boycott all pets in your home and have your children resent you and be bitter the rest of their lives. At least your garage and back patio won't be covered with bird poop (that is nearly impossible to clean up) and your heart won't be weighed down with guilt on how to get rid of the thing. Plus, my neighborhood isn't even zoned for such a pet so it's only a matter of time before that neighbor, who's been giving me the strange looks when the goose is out, turns me in. I'm a rule keeper people!! I asked my friend that grew up on a farm how to solve this problem. I've been told I can wait a few days and then the family can go on a walk to the park where the other ducks are at the pond and let little JJ be with his "peeps". He'll be happier that way in the end.

So should you ask me some questions today? Or should I put on my sons' spiderman cape, put two cheese sticks in my ears and dance around the family room singing the American Idol theme song? You decide.

Uncle Visor has a birthday!!!

Easter best?

1. No regular Internet until Friday
2. Lurve my new house
3. Still will have same phone number but won't be hooked up til Friday.
4. If you need to call me then use my cell. Four three one, seven four
nine nine.
5. I consider it monumental that I managed new Easter ties (except
brains) and ironed clothes on Sunday.
6. My in laws gave the boys a baby goose for Easter. You read that
right. "hi we are new to the neighborhood and we have a pet goose".

Somebody got smart

My 4 yr old is pretty much the smartest 4 yr old in the universe.
Doyee. And ps. There will be no Tune In Tuesday for the next two
weeks. No Internet. Moving. Changing providers. Blah. Blah. Thank
goodness for iphones. Do you think you gize will survive without my
wisdom? Tell me the truth. ...........actually just tell me what I
want to hear. Kthanks.

Make it stop!

Can someone give me a thousand bucks to hire movers? I wanna give up.
Kthanksbye.

Cooking with Clara: Episode 6 - Chocolate Buttermilk Bundt Cake

I was recently informed by a frousin that diets were no longer an issue and to "do my worst". Obviously I picked the classic, famous, always asked for Aunt Visor ULTIMATE cake. Do my worst is RIGHT yo. Did you gize remember that Clara comes over for my baking days? She totally does. And this pic was taken cuz she thought I went outside to the front yard and she totally missed me.

Now, fair warning here. This girl is On. The. Move. She's not as easy to take pics of anymore. I can't get that baby to sit still for a second. All I do is run around after her hoping she'll momentarily pause for effect. Then I finally do and...................

CLARA!!!! Modesty............PLEASE!!

Take note: This IS what my thighs (and yours for that matter) will look like after tasting this cake. Cuz you won't be able to stop eating it/making it.
I personally had a 4 1/2 year old have a total meltdown on the kitchen floor tonight after learning his daddy ate the last piece of cake. It's like liquid crack. 75% of my friends ask for this cake on their birthday as their present. That's all they want. A cake to themselves.

Anyhoo, it's pretty sad that alls a baby has to play with in my house is some leftover star wars cards and her big sister's flip flops.


Between moving boxes....

Good thing walking is her newest "toy".

And btw, my other friends who don't ask for this cake for their prezzie haven't actually tasted it yet. It's only a matter of time really.


CHOCOLATE BUTTERMILK BUNDT CAKE

Boil: 1 cube butter, 1/2 C oil, 1 C. water

In food processor (or whatever you use): beat 2 eggs, add, 2 C flour, 2 C sugar, 4 Tbl cocoa, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt. Mix. While machine is on pour in butter mixture and then 1/2 C buttermilk (dudes, you can totally add 2 Tbl vinegar to regular milk a few minutes before to make your own buttermilk but the real stuff is best), and 1 tsp vanilla. Batter will be runny. Bake 40-60 minutes in a well greased and floured bundt pan. (this part is tricky cuz every oven is diff. It needs to have a knife come out clean but still spongy to the touch).

Frosting: 1 box powdered sugar, 1 cube butter (you got a problem with that?), 4 Tbl cocoa, 6 Tbl milk.

Let's get a close up you say?

OH. You mean of the cake....right.