Even though Ariel and I are going through a rough patch, I still go by and help when I can. Recently, within the last 10 days, Ariel's bro and his gf had their baby. A boy by the name of Levi, check your bible, weighing 7 lbs 6 oz and 20 in long arrived the 19th a little after 4 pm. His mom and daddy's side of the family was overjoyed at the new addition to the family, while his mom's side of the family was... shall we understate it with... less enthused. Needless to say, after 1 day back at her parents, she called and got us to help her move into the Bells house.
Linzy was excited at first to have Lindsay and Levi moving in, she gets overstimulated when more people are at the house and has been known to just run in circles due to the excitment. I noticed the first couple nights at how the change in attention was affecting her. I could tell that she 'noticed' that was no longer a focus of attention anymore, but she wasn't jealous yet. I came over the first couple days after work and helped out where I could the first couple of nights and then came back out on the weekend because I was called to help. Linzy was driving everyone up the wall, she was acting out all over the place because she wasn't getting the attention she was used to. With everything going on around there, no one had time to give her the attention she needed. So, I came out and kept her company and that seemed to help.
Ariel has been a wreck all week. Between the new baby drama, Linzy acting out, classes, being scheduled almost every night for work, Linzy's dad not being able to watch her, and Linzy's grandma, Joni, who runs a daycare and watches Linzy while Ariel is off at school, was off on vacation all week, Ariel was completely overwhelmed and stressed out. She had a couple good moments like when she took Linzy to an indoor inflateable fun park, they had those bouncy castles and slides, etc, where they both had a ball, and she got a few quiet moments to play her or her or hold baby Levi. But the stress outweighed the fun by a 5 to 1 ratio or more and Ariel was on the verge of a breakdown.
So... ya, not exactly an excitable few days, but here's hoping the next few days are a whole lot better....
Monday, March 29, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Peanut Rolls
I am never around anymore when mom makes these delicious goodies, so I begged for the recipe. I wanted to be able to make them when I get a hankering for them and mom said they were difficult to make. No harm in trying though, right? First, I'd like to say in my defense that I wasn't exactly equipped for this undertaking. I had a small kitchen (i call it a mini-kitchenette), not a shred of experience making dessert icing from scratch, and no actual equipment.
I had to buy a grinder for the peanuts, a hand mixer, a 9x13 pan,a sifter, and of course the rest of the ingredients. Cost materials $60. A pain to expand my kitchen equipment, but necessary. I made the cake first, no real problem there, it came out nice and easy. I used a combo of wax paper and cooking spray on the pan so that when it cool I could just flip it onto a cutting board and it would come right out. I used a measuring tape to make sure I cut the cake evenly, using the cm side for easiest reading.
Then I made the icing from scratch and my mess. The icing has to be just the right consistancy or it won't work. Too thin and the nuts will fall off, too thick and the nuts won't adhere to it. Note: next time I make them I will start out mixing the icing by hand, the hand mixer made the powdered sugar explode. After you make the icing, you test it on a roll to make sure its right. My first try was a bit too thin in my opinion. You are supposed to add the milk a little at a time to avoid making it too thin. Obviously I wasn't careful enough, so I had to add more powdered sugar to thicken it up.
After thickening it up some, though probably not enough, I tried again and managed to get a good majority of the rolls done... except for 10 of them. I ran out of icing and had 10 left. So I'm going to have strawberries and sponge cake to eat later. Figuring out how to use the grinder was fun, it was electric and had too settings, low and high. Low didn't get it to the size I wanted and high for too long made it peanut butter. Fun finding that out, let me tell you.
All in all, they turned out quite well, the nurses and clerks at the health department were my guinea pigs and I didn't kill them. In fact, they loved them, so a small victory in my book. Not a major victory because, "They just don't taste like the ones mom makes."
I had to buy a grinder for the peanuts, a hand mixer, a 9x13 pan,a sifter, and of course the rest of the ingredients. Cost materials $60. A pain to expand my kitchen equipment, but necessary. I made the cake first, no real problem there, it came out nice and easy. I used a combo of wax paper and cooking spray on the pan so that when it cool I could just flip it onto a cutting board and it would come right out. I used a measuring tape to make sure I cut the cake evenly, using the cm side for easiest reading.
Then I made the icing from scratch and my mess. The icing has to be just the right consistancy or it won't work. Too thin and the nuts will fall off, too thick and the nuts won't adhere to it. Note: next time I make them I will start out mixing the icing by hand, the hand mixer made the powdered sugar explode. After you make the icing, you test it on a roll to make sure its right. My first try was a bit too thin in my opinion. You are supposed to add the milk a little at a time to avoid making it too thin. Obviously I wasn't careful enough, so I had to add more powdered sugar to thicken it up.
After thickening it up some, though probably not enough, I tried again and managed to get a good majority of the rolls done... except for 10 of them. I ran out of icing and had 10 left. So I'm going to have strawberries and sponge cake to eat later. Figuring out how to use the grinder was fun, it was electric and had too settings, low and high. Low didn't get it to the size I wanted and high for too long made it peanut butter. Fun finding that out, let me tell you.
All in all, they turned out quite well, the nurses and clerks at the health department were my guinea pigs and I didn't kill them. In fact, they loved them, so a small victory in my book. Not a major victory because, "They just don't taste like the ones mom makes."
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