Chinese New Year 2012

We had a blast celebrating the Year of the Dragon!  Celebrating the Chinese New Year is one of our favorite traditions.  We invited two families over to share in the festivities.  We made our favorite  Butter Yaki and Egg Rolls.  It is always soooo good!  We then played our traditional Chinese Proverb game- (like Balderdash) and had Fortune Cookies and oranges.  Good times!

Egg Rolls

2 c. chopped chicken breast.  I fry it in a little oil with garlic salt then chop it up.

1 garlic clove

After chicken is cooked add:

1 c. chopped green onion

1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbl. sugar
31/2 Tbs. soy sauce
1/2 lb bean sprouts
1/2 c. shredded carrots
1 head thin sliced cabbage
1 egg slightly beaten

Cook until cabbage is softened.  Let mixture cool.  Using egg roll skins- form into rolls following directions on package.  Deep fry.  Makes about 21 Egg Rolls.

Saturday Special

Hope your Saturday is as fun as ours!

Nice shot Seth!

Sharp Shootin'

We spent a couple of hours getting more comfortable with our guns.  

What a great afternoon!

FHE Treat- Deep Dish Cookies

• 1 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips- we used mini to spead the love out more!

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Spray your muffin top pan generously with cooking spray. Set aside.
3. In your stand mixer, cream together butter and both sugars until light and fluffy.
4. Add in your eggs, one at a time and vanilla. Mix on medium until combined.
5. Turn mixer to low and add baking soda, salt and flour.
6. Stir until just combined.
7. Stir in your chocolate chips and mix until incorporated.
8. Press 1/4 cup dough into each cavity in the pan.
   Bake approx 12 minutes until edges are golden.
9. Let cool in pan 11-13 minutes.
10. Gently loosen sides with knife and twist out, or flip pan over onto cooling rack to remove cookies.
11. Repeat with remaining dough.

Makes 9-10 deep dish cookies. Serve warm. Top with ice cream. To reheat cookies, place on a microwave safe plate for 15 seconds.

If you don’t have a muffin top pan, you can still make these cookies.  Bake on a parchment lined baking sheet for 8-9 minutes.

You can also put a Dove chocolate in the middle and have kind of a molten lava effect.  

These were Heavenly!

Mexi Feast

Wow!  The weather has been divine!

We headed down to Alpine for our annual Mexi-Feast and Christmas sibling gift swap!

Every year around this time my mouth starts watering for green chili burros!  

GmaT makes them heavenly!

We got outside and enjoyed the sunshine for a bit.  Then we had to take off all too soon!

2012 is off to a great start!

New Year's Eve

We spent New Year's Eve with the Redds in Farmington.  My cute sister Auntie J and Uncle Mark spent the night with us too.  Sooo much fun to have them.

We ate a lot and played a lot and bashed up a dragon piniata!  

2012 is the year of the Dragon!

It is the luckiest sign- so hopefully it will be a lucky year!

Laini takes a swing!

Kai gives it a whirl!

Kaleb earns a bashed off horn!

Seth shows it whose boss!  From one dragon to another!

Katry gets the upper hand!

and Brig gives it an upper cut!

Candylicious!

Welcome 2012!

Legoland

Our final day we spent at Legoland.

This is our family at Legoland 8 years ago

and at Legoland today!

This is the perfect park for little guys!

Adventure for their size!

This is Seth today.....

and 8 years ago.  Seth is a great kiddo but I miss this little fellow!  So sweet!

The older kids loved it too- cause it was fun and the architecture was just so much fun to look at.  Particularly the mini cities made out of legos.  

About halfway through the day Kaleb came down with Montezumas revenge and a couple hours later Kai joined him.  I just wish it would have held off 4 more hours so they could keep enjoying it.  As it was they didn't want to leave until they had finished some things.

Our little family has doubled in height and size!

Driving the cars was at the top of their list.  It is so much fun to get to do something by yourself.

As we left the park Katry joined in the "Revenge" and later that night in the hotel room Seth and Brig and I.  The only ones to escape the dastardly disease were Laini and Dad.  Lucky!  It was a long night in the hotel room!  Luckily the madness stopped before our eight hour drive home!  

It was a rough end but overall a fantastic vacation and an awesome Christmas Memory!