Jer-home: part tres of our 2014 holidays

And our last installment of 2014! A week full of lots and lots of good ol' Hall family fun! Including but not limited to...

Reading books about struggling women and eating Twizzlers pull'n'peels...

Piano time with Annie and aunt Callie...

Lots of games. Mostly Ticket to Ride but also a few rounds of bananagrams. Jazzersinging is a thing, right??

Guitar time with uncle Scott E! The little ones especially liked his versions of "The Hello Song," "Once There Was a Snowman," and "Here We Are Together" from the Primary Children Songbook.

We even busted out all of the fingernail polish in the house and had a girl moment. (:

And we can't leave out 1000 Springs! Peter loooooves swimming and had a blast... and hardly held still for a good picture.

Saying goodbye. Callie headed to Oregon, the Canadians have crossed the northern border, and from the looks of it most of everyone else will be at the YSA dance this evening. We'll see if Todd and I even make it until midnight. Doubtful.

a Christmas miracle: part dos of our 2014 holidays

The verdict?? Santa came!! We have no proof outside of a much-too-large-to-download-video. But he came indeed and he brought Peter a sled, some new snow gloves, and 9 INCHES OF SNOW! Whaaaat? It was so awesome (and windy and cold)! But Peter, daddy, and aunt Emily didn't care... they stayed out in the snow for hours going up and down Hedges Hill and making snow cakes (according to Emily's interpretation of Peter's goofy behavior).

Momma and baby even went out for a minute to take a few pictures of the crazy kids.

a 2014 Christmas: a la Idaho

Our Christmas break is quickly approaching it's end and the 2014 year only has a few hours left in it. Both our Christmas holiday and entire year have been spectacular. But for now I'll just overwhelm you with a million pictures from our time in Idaho with our ENTIRE family! Yeah!! We spent our first week in Pocatello and our second week in Jerome... and all were present. The returned missionary, the Thailander, the Canadians. It was wonderful! 

As promised... a dump of pictures...

Christmas Sunday after church... so much Christmas!

A much less glamorous, but delicious, day... Donut Day! I felt (feel) a lot bigger than I look.

Papa was the official roller-outer.

Don't worry, the donuts were Peter approved. (:

He also found great joy in snooping around the tree on Christmas Eve. I think we all know who 95% of those presents are for... I'll let grandma take the first guess. ;)

And of course...  you have to take another picture on Christmas Eve! Especially because Brennan had arrived to the party.

Peter wanted to be included.

Together again. Awwwww.

After we spent time with family and friends at Aunt Nat's house (one of my favorite Christmas traditions) we came back and read the nativity, had an impromptu talent show, and left milk'n'cookies out for Santa.

Two very wise men.

And thee most adorable shepherd you have ever seen. Ever.

Did Santa come?? Did Peter get his "fun toy??" The suspense!!

Stay tuned!

merriest of Christmases to you!

2014 is coming to a close and boy, what a year it has been! We have made all sorts of lovely memories and have gotten ourselves into some grand adventures.

Here's our top 14 favorite moments of the year (in no particular order)...

14

Spending hours and hours repainting furniture on our bedroom floor... because it was waaaay too cold in the garage. We're talking -50 polar vortexes, people.

13

Drinking bountiful amounts of the most delicious of hot cocoa at The Chocolate House. I miss that place like crazy... and all the wonderful people that joined us there.

12

Quilting. Wait, what?? Yeah! I made a quilt! Can you believe it?? Todd and my MIL gave me some gift cards to make it happen and I was able to work with an awesome lady at "Bee Happy Quilts" right in Mount Horeb. It was a lot of fun and a huge accomplishment... I can't wait to make another!

11

Racing in the 3rd annual Duck Dash! Our anniversary gift to one another was to run a race "together." I say "together" because we weren't able to train together that much and on race day we each went for our own PR's (mine a PPPR- post pregnancy PR). Over all it was tons of fun and we both ended up doing not bad at all.

10

Camping in Door County, the thumb of Wisconsin. If you ever get the chance, spend a week checking out Door County. It's beautiful and has lots of fun family things to do. And go to Grandma Tommy's. Oh yum, you just have to okay.

9

Welcoming a much beloved visitor from Utah... Callie came to see us! We spent most of our time in Chicago eating delicious food and checking out beautiful art.

8

Moving to Utah. A big one! After a little over 2 years in beautiful Mount Horeb, WI we made the move back to Utah for grad school at BYU. It was a difficult goodbye and we miss our midwest friends, the excellent eateries, awesome culture, etc... but we're also really enjoying our second-time-around Provo experience.

7

Driving to CA. Right after moving across the country. Haha I know, a little crazy. It was great though! Todd's grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary so almost the entire family was there. Which means there was lots of fun to be had. I can't forget to mention we also saw lots of old high school friends, went to the beach, and drove a lot. Like, a lot.

6

Becoming parents of a two year-old. What?? When did this happen?? I mean, he has always seemed older than his actual age with his hefty size and ridiculous hair... but I am the mother of a two year-old? Dang right. We celebrated with a car themed party and lots of chocolate cake. Needless to say, Peter was in heaven.

5

Starting grad school! Another big one, especially for daddy. He's getting his MBA and is already preparing to get his PhD in less than two years (gah, Peter will be 4!! yeeesh). Todd has been doing great and has his last final tomorrow! Go Todd!

4

Watching lots and lots of football! Grandpa Scott even took us to the BYU v. Virginia football game! And grandma Diane stayed home and watched Peter. Bonus! We had a great time and the sun only beat down on us the entire time. (: We won though, despite the refs personal preferences.

3

Watching the Giants win the world series... for the 3rd time in 5 years!! Yeahhh! Not what we expected after seeing them blow it against the White Sox earlier this year... but hey, we'll take it! Go Giants! And go Madison Bumgarner, the guy is a beast.

2

Welcoming home Sister Barfuss! Oh what a lovely day that was! We're so glad to have her back and that she did such a wonderful job serving the people in San Diego.

1

Expecting another baby!! Horay! We just hit 18 weeks and we can't believe that we've made it this far. Seriously, what a blessing it is to get to grow our little family from 3 to 4. May 17th can't come soon enough!

We hope that all of you have had a great year as well. We wish you all the best and many more wonderful years to come.

Merry Christmas!

love,

the Halls

what grad school, pinterest, and chocolate sugar cookie sandwiches all have in common...

Being in the last week of the semester Todd has been nice and busy with finishing group projects and presentations. On Tuesday he had to present on a semester long projct that he and his group did on Pinterest. Their goal to was figure out who was the "love group" of Pinterest and find out why they really really love Pinterest. Like the deep deep meaning of why they love it. I qualified for an interview for their project (probably something do with the fact that one of their group members has full access to my time and attention haha) and it was a lot of fun to answer all of the questions and get down to the nitty gritty of why I love Pinterest. Anyhow, they presented on Tuesday and they decided to all wear outfits found on Pinterest as well as take a treat for the class, also found on Pinterest. Fortunately I pin everything I make, especially all of the recipes that are super golden, so Todd had a nice board of pins to choose from for the treat. We decided to make the same chocolate sugar cookie sandwich cookies (paired with caramel frosting) that we made for our friends' moving away party last spring. And they turned out again! Horay! Todd said the class... more importantly, the professor... loved them and that they "nailed" their presentation. Since Tuesday (yes, it's only Wednesday haha) I've had a few people request the recipe for the cookie sandwiches. And since I combined a few recipes things get just a little confusing. So... for anyone that wants to try them out, here you go! All of my comments are italicized, hopefully they are more helpful that hurtful. (:

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*If you're wanting to make the cookies into the caramel frosting sandwiches make the caramel sauce first so it can cool while you make the cookies. Then while the cookies are cooling you can turn the sauce into frosting! (:  Since the recipes don't technically go together you'll end up with a lot of extra frosting if you only do one batch of cookies. For example, we did two batches of cookies (making them small cookies) and we got 140 cookies (70 sandwiches) and still had about 1 1/2 cups of frosting left and 1/2 cup of caramel sauce left. 

Also... before you get anything going, pull 5 sticks of butter out to get to room temperature. Good luck and enjoy!

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Soft Chocolate Sugar Cookies- Mel's Kitchen Cafe

The one on bottom guys, it's delish.

YIELD: MAKES 20-24 COOKIES

Note: It is really important that the butter isn't too hot when you start adding other ingredients to it. If you don't have a thermometer to test temperature, let the butter sit for the full 10 minutes. It should be at warm room temperature but not hot at all. Also, if you are curious about subbing light brown sugar, do so at your own risk. I have only ever used dark brown sugar - it helps the chewy factor be even more, well, chewy.

INGREDIENTS

1/3 cup (2 1/3 ounces) granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons (8 1/8 ounces) all-purpose flour
3/4 cup (2 1/4 ounces) unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
14 tablespoons butter
1 3/4 cups packed (12 1/4 ounces) dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg plus 1 egg yolk

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Pour the granulated sugar on a plate or shallow dish like a pie plate and set aside. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder.
3. In a large bowl, melt 10 tablespoons of the butter in the microwave. Take care not to overheat; microwave the butter until just melted. Stir in the remaining 4 tablespoons butter until melted. Allow the butter to cool for 5-10 minutes (it should be about 90-95 degrees on an instant read thermometer).
4. Whisk the brown sugar, vanilla and salt into the melted butter until the mixture is completely smooth. Whisk in the egg and egg yolk until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined.
5. Roll the dough into balls, about 2 tablespoons for each cookie. Roll the balls in the granulated sugar and place on lightly greased or lined (with parchment or silpat liners) baking sheets. Using the bottom of a glass, flatten the cookies to about 1/4-inch thick, more or less. Sprinkle the cookies with a bit more granulated sugar (just a pinch per cookie).
6. Bake the cookies, one sheet at a time, until they have puffed and have cracks running through the top, about 12-14 minutes. Don't overbake or the cookies will be dry. Transfer the cookies to a baking rack to cool completely.

(We did the cookie much much smaller than the called for 2 TBLS. Ours were probably 1.5-2 teaspoons which we found to be a great size when turning the cookies into a cookie sandwich. If you do only use 1.5-2 teaspoons you'll only need to bake them for 8-9 minutes. This size will yield about 60 cookies (30 sandwiches). Also, the dough spreads out a lot when baking so don't flatten it too much.)

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Caramel Frosting- Martha Stewart

YIELD: MAKES ~2.5 CUPS FROSTING (my guess)

INGREDIENTS

1/4 cup Caramel Sauce (recipe below), cooled
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

DIRECTIONS

1. In a bowl, beat together caramel and butter with a wooden spoon until smooth.
2. Gradually beat in confectioners sugar until smooth. 
3. Spread frosting on flat sides of half the cookies and top with remaining cookies.

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Caramel Sauce- Martha Stewart

YIELD: MAKES 2 CUPS (we only ever get a cup out of the recipe...)

INGREDIENTS

1 cup sugar
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) cold unsalted butter, cubed
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup heavy cream

DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium saucepan, heat sugar over medium-high until melted and brown at edges, 3 minutes. 
2. With a heat-resistant spatula, pull melted sugar toward center until all sugar is melted and caramel is deep amber in color, 3 minutes more.
3. Immediately whisk in butter, coarse salt, and pure vanilla extract (take care as mixture is extremely hot and will bubble).
4. Whisk in heavy cream.
5. Pour into a heatproof container and let cool.

(I have found in my experience of making this caramel sauce that it burns very very easily. Take the pan off the heat right as the butter is almost done melting (it will melt fast), then mix in the salt and vanilla followed by the heavy cream.)

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Let me know if you give them a try, I'd love to hear how they turned out for you!

Donut Day 2014

It's that time of year again! A time when delicious treats are made and consumed on the daily. Last Saturday we had our 3rd annual Donut Day! A Christmas tradition that my mother got from her mother that we'd be crazy not to continue in our own little family. And so because we're not that crazy... kept the tradition we did! And this year we learned a few more things about the whole process that we wanted to share with you (in addition to this post with the how-to, recipe, and anything you might need to have your own delicious Donut Day).

In no particular order...

-The recipe yields 30 donuts, we always get about 3 dozen. Not a huge difference but when you're goal is to make a lot of donuts every bit helps. (: We use a round cookie cutter (3 3/4 inches in diameter) for the donuts and a vinegar bottle lid (1 1/8 inches in diameter) for the holes. Although... I wouldn't mind if the holes were a bit bigger but our other option was a milk gallon lid and that's too big in my personal, professional opinion (haha).

-In the aforementioned post I didn't even mention that you need to peel the potatoes before you boil them! I've never not peeled them but I'm just going to assume that they don't turn out the same with the peels. Sooo yeah sorry if you followed the recipe and left the peels on...

-The recipe also says to heat the oil to 350... I felt like the donuts were sitting in the oil too long at this temperature and I ended up cranking the skillet to 400. So keep an eye on it... every skillet is probably a little different.

-I found that it saves a lot of time to be starting the next batch's dough while your previous batch is rolled out and rising. So... you make the dough for your first batch, it rises, and you roll is out/cut the donuts and those have to rise for about 20 minutes. Just enough time for your oil to get heated up and for you to make the dough for batch two. That dough will rise for an hour, just the right amount of time for you fry all of batch #1! It overlaps perfectly. (: Of course... this is only if you're needing to make more than three dozen donuts and want to save time. Haha hey, that's not enough for some of us, k?? #dontjudge

-Prep, prep, and prep some more the night before! Boil the potatoes, set out all of your gear/ingredients, cover your kitchen table, clean surfaces, empty out other kitchen stuff that you won't use that is taking up space (blender, knife block, spice rack... you'll need as much counter space as possible!), etc. If you get up and start your dough at 6:30am you'll have fresh ones in time for breakfast! Yeah!

And that's all of the tips I have for this year. I'm sure we'll just keep learning and learning every year. One of these times we might even get fancy and mix things up with glaze and such. (: Until then... eat and be merry!

Some pictures from this year's Donut Day...

Boiling Idaho spuds the night before...

Frying the first batch of spudnuts!

Daddy and Peter having some breakfast while batch #2 rises.

More frying... and more frying.

And more frying.

Cooling/drying.

Lunch time picnic for the boys in Peter's room! Daddy is showing Peter pictures of Grandma Lisa's Christmas tree. (:

The rest of the assembly line... dipping, drying, plating, tagging, delivery/eating. (:

the second rodeo.

I always thought that once we had one baby we'd pretty much know a majority of the things that you needed to know about getting pregnant and physically having another baby. I thought that after experiencing it once we would pretty much know what changes my body would make the second time around and we'd know how to cope with these changes. Well I was quite wrong in these assumptions and have been nice and humbled over the last eighteen months.

As you probably know, Todd and I are indeed expecting our second child. We couldn't be filled with more excitement and gratitude for this next phase of parenthood. After getting pregnant with Mr. Peter very easily we thought that this time around would probably be similar... until it wasn't. We tried and tried and month after month there was no baby. We learned a lot through these months of heartache and disappointment about humility and trusting in the Lord and His plan for our family. At times I would think things like, "We must not be pregnant yet because the Lord knows we'll be moving to Utah a few months after the baby was born, and that would be ridiculous with a 3-month old." or "We must not be pregnant yet because we'd be due during finals and too close to my birthday (haha an important detail apparently?), and the Lord knows that would be too hard for us." It took a while for me to stop guessing what the Lord was up to and just trust that this, this fear of infertility, this waiting and aching and crying, this praying continually, this experience was the best for us. Trusting that the Lord wants the best for us. He wants us to learn and grow to reach this "best" so that we can eventually be uncomprehendingly happy. I learned that whatever we are going through is the best. Whatever it is we are experiencing it for a reason and it will help us get to whatever the Lord has in store for us if we are obedient and grow closer to our Savior through it all. 

As I mentioned, it wasn't just the getting pregnant part that threw us for a loop this time around. To sum things up... with your first baby your body (and pretty much your whole life really) is going through something new. New and exciting and it is such a miracle. With your second baby it's still a complete miracle but it isn't your first rodeo and your body knows it. I won't go into any details... not just because it will turn my husband red from head to toe but because it's so much fun to discover and experience these things on your own. Don't worry, it's nothing you won't be able to handle. (: I was surprised but how different this pregnancy has been so far compared to our first. It hasn't been polar opposite... just different. With Peter we didn't even believe that I was pregnant until we heard the heartbeat at 12 weeks. My first symptom wasn't until I started showing around 20 weeks. This time around my first trimester was filled with nausea, major food aversions, and all of those "second time around" body changes that I mentioned. My mother-in-law will tell you that means we're having a girl. And I believe it. But I guess we'll find out next month. (: Either way, we couldn't be happier and we can't wait to hold this little one in our arms. I can't even imagine going through years and years of waiting for a baby or having pain and sickness all three trimesters. Heaven bless those women who go through these not-so-fun experiences. Because they really aren't fun and you better believe that the only way to get through these hard times is to turn to the Lord and use His atonement to find peace and comfort.

And there I am... five weeks ago and barely out of the first trimester. And in complete disbelief that we've been blessed to make it this far... through an entire third of the pregnancy! We're still holding our breaths until we get to meet our sweet miracle baby... who is currently giving me happy little kicks to my insides to remind me that he/she's still there. (: 

p.s. that bump you see wasn't the baby quite yet... that's Peter refusing to fully leave my body. And I'm okay with that. I'm going to hold onto each and every precious pregnancy while I can.