Team Geo-Trax

Just a little glimpse into some of our everyday stuff...

Background story: Ethan got a Geo-Trax train starter set from my parents for (early) Christmas last year and then Sean and I added to it a little for Christmas. Then, it got added to a little bit more for his birthday. And then Grandma Mary gave Ethan a cool track set for Christmas this year with lots of turns, straight pieces, a cool ramp and even some RR crossing signs!
Last week, Ethan commissioned me to build him a new track.

I take my train-track-building very seriously. It takes the brain of an engineer, I tell ya!

EVERY piece must be used.

All ramps, bridges, the tunnel and the crossroad must be taken advantage of.

Oh, and it can't be boring. i.e. Ethan likes lots of "wiggles," or S-curves, to make it interesting.


Challenge, accepted!

Here's what I came up with. It took up the bulk of our living room floor.

I am SO glad you can not tell just how dirty that floor was. See, this picture was taken after the track had been up for several days (I moved the coffee table out of the way for the picture, but it actually weaved around the legs)... It's difficult to sweep around that thing. And mopping is impossible, so the floors were in desperate need of a good cleaning - not that you can really tell! Ah ha ha ha!!

Snow Day January 2012

Two weeks ago the weather kept teasing us. Little snow flurries here and there. Freezing cold temperatures. Cars frozen shut in the morning. But no accumulation of snow. Until late, late Tuesday (17th) night. We drove home from Sean's choir practice as the snow fell, which meant we had to drive a little slower, but we got home with no slippage - despite the sparkling snow on the ground. Yay for big, heavy SUVs!

Well, it was close to 11pm and yet Ethan HAD to run around in the snow a little...

It was so cute. If you listen closely, you can hear Ethan saying, "Playing in the snow! Playing in the snow!"

The next morning I had the (slightly) daunting task of outfitting Ethan in snow gear. Except that, other than the new coat we just got him (yay for clearance!) and a hat, he had outgrown everything! Boots: too small. Snow pants: non-existent. Make-shift snow pants from last year: too small. Mittens: could only find one! So, we improvised with lots of layers... Long john jammies, fleece jammie bottoms, thermal undershirt, too small make-shift snow pants from last year, 2 pairs of socks, shoes and fleece jacket and new coat. Topped him off with a hat and then was lucky enough to find the missing mitten in the car.

So Ethan went out back and played in the snow and then the neighbor-boy hopped the fence and the two of them built a cute little snowman.


After Ethan was thoroughly chilled to the bone (actually he stayed fairly warm and dry - other than hands and feet - thanks to my expert layering!) he came inside to warm up while I threw everything in the dryer and then we met some friends to go "sledding" down a big hill. The big kids use inner tubes, but Ethan mostly just ran around throwing attempted snowballs and having fun being outside with all the kids.
Dinner that night was not what I planned, but a pleasant, hearty, tasty surprise. Flipping through my Our Best Bites cookbook, I found the White Chicken Chili recipe and discovered I was only missing fresh cilantro. Made the soup and a pan of cornbread and it was so, so good!

Seriously, quick and easy and good. Here's the recipe: http://www.ourbestbites.com/2008/09/white-chicken-chili/

Ice Skating w/ the Colemans

Over Christmas break we got the opportunity to go ice skating with the Colemans - they had four 2-for-1 passes and with six people in their family, they offered the extra two to us. Sweet! We only had to pay for Ethan. Sean and I hadn't been ice skating in years. And, well, Ethan had never been. We were all excited until we got to the rink - then Ethan wanted nothing to do with it! So Sean and I got our skates and laced up and so did all the Coleman kiddos and suddenly Ethan was singing a different tune!


Our first shaky lap was very slow-going, but we did it!
And we got progressively better and faster as the evening wore on. Ethan was even wanting to take a lap by himself - we let him... while we followed at a safe distant behind him!


Brian (the dad) is pretty good, Hannah and Brandon were naturals, Maddy and Ethan were pretty evenly matched and Michael and I bonded over our lack of ice-skating talent!!


We had a great time trying to keep our balance and not fall flat on our bums! Afterward we were thoroughly exhausted and rewarded all of our hard work with dollar sundaes and drinks from Micky D's!

Woody Allen & His New Orleans Jazz Band

We headed home from Oregon on the Tuesday after Christmas for two reasons: 1. Sean had to help out at a service project Wednesday morning and 2. Our friends gave us free tickets to see Woody Allen & His New Orleans Jazz Band!!

We rolled into town just before the concert started {thank you I-5 traffic!!}, dropped Ethan off at the sitter's, ran home and changed and rushed off to the concert. We were a little late {SO unlike us when it comes to performances} but luckily our seats were on the end.

Now, neither of us are huge jazz fans, but we are both fans of music and going to shows {I love tickets! Name that movie....} and we had a great time.

Check out the Woodster's {Ha ha ha!! Yeah, like I'd really call him that!} solo in the video below...

Thank you Browns for thinking of us {it probably helped that Sean is their son's piano teacher!} and for the tickets!

Christmas 2011

Ok, ok. Here it is. What you've all been DYING to see pictures of and read about. May I present [drumroll please.....]

Christmas 2011!!!

And only 1 month after it happened!
{Sigh.... Someday I'll be more current.}


* Christmas Eve's Eve

Spent the morning finishing everything up - wrapping presents, packing and cleaning the house. {I can NOT leave the house messy...}

At this point we had picked Christine up from the airport the night before, so between the four of us and it being Christmas, we had the Explorer packed to the brim!! You can see it a bit in the picture below. I caught Ethan as he was nodding off in the car, so he was being silly.
* Christmas Eve

Uncle Tory came over for a little while and after much, much persuasion we convinced him to tag along while we braved the mall and took Ethan to see Santa.

Why-oh-why do even the minimum picture packages have to cost so much?? We opted out.

In the evening we headed over to Aunt Kay's house for dinner with my mom's side of the family. Christmas Eve used to be a big shin-dig at my parents' house back when all the cousins were little. Now, most of us are married and have families of our own and are in different parts of the country. In fact, Ethan was the only great-grandchild there. It was quiet, but fun. Papa's Pizza, salad, chips-n-dip and my dad's "famous" appetizers - ham roll-ups and little smokies (wrapped in bacon and topped with brown sugar). After dinner, everyone else went for a little stroll to look at the Christmas lights in the neighborhood (my aunt's neighbors go all out!) but my Mom and I stayed back to chat with Grandma Mary a bit.

After everyone got back from the walk, we opened presents - Ethan was so good about waiting, even though it was killing him!! The first present he opened was a Ratchet Transformer toy from Grandma Mary. He squealed with delight and I'm pretty sure it was worth the wait!

What's this?! A shot of Sean and I?! This is a RARE occurrence!

Arms straight and stiff by his side - like the giant nutcracker!

Sisters. Youngest to oldest. :)

Couldn't get Ethan to look at the right camera - but here's our Christmas Eve family picture.

Then, after Ethan was "nestled, snug in his bed" and we were sure he was asleep, Sean got to work on Ethan's Christmas present - a new bike! Despite what the pictures show, we actually did not leave the bike in front of the tree for Christmas. We hid it - to be revealed at a later time!

Meanwhile, Christine was on her laptop, my Mom was watching Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol (and trying not to fall asleep!) and I was wrapping the last couple presents and making sure stocking stuffers were in order.

* Christmas Morning

We got up bright-and-early, got dressed in our Sunday best and ignored the piles of presents and overflowing stockings. First, and most important, was church. We went with my parents to their ward and enjoyed sacrament meeting and feeling the spirit that Christmas morning. Of course, after church we had to snap a few pictures with everyone by the tree, all dressed up.

My handsome boys.

The whole Toftdahl/Southworth family

You'll notice Ethan is wearing jammies - even though we'd already been dressed for church... Yep, while we all got dressed in more casual attire, Ethan insisted that to open stockings and Christmas presents you have to be in jammies!

First present - a tool set from Mommy and Daddy!

A gag gift from Christine to Lizzy - a reusable, but disposable swimsuit that the have in the medical office Christine works at. Somehow, I don't think it will hold up in Lizzy's swim practice!

And then, after all (or almost all of the presents were open) a small gold box, tied with a red ribbon was pulled from under the tree. Inside was a letter from Santa. And here is Ethan's reaction to it all. It is hilarious! And priceless. :)

"There's nothing!"

Early afternoon we headed out to my grandparents' house for Christmas dinner {which was so, so good}, a few more presents (mainly for Ethan) and the annual grandchild/great-grandchild change grab! I think {and I know my sisters will correct me if I'm wrong!} that I won this year.

After dinner, my grandparents' devotional and presents, we had dessert - including an ice cream cake for Grandpa Chuck's birthday. Yes, it really is on Christmas.

And.... after all of that, we all crashed!

Well, pretty much everyone but Ethan. He kept himself busy playing with his new toys.

That night, back at my parents' house, we opened our gifts from Sean's family. We were all spoiled and missing them so much!! We were able to skype with them for a little while and are hoping to plan a visit to SoCal soon!

Semi-Homemade Christmas: Everything Else

So I had originally planned to make the post about our semi-homemade Christmas gifts be all-inclusive, but once I started writing about the jam I kinda realized that it was its own thing and needed a separate post... Quite the adventure teaching oneself to cook/preserve jam!

Moving along...
Here's a wrap-up of the rest of our homemade goodness. Oh, and let me just publicly thank Pinterest right now. Because, really, most of my ideas came via Pinterest and I just ran with them!

* Temple Blocks
Like most of the stuff I did, these were time-consuming but fairly easy. 2"x6" board from Lowes's cut in 7" sections - sanded, painted and then personalized {with "For Time & All Eternity" and anniversary date} antiqued temple print mod-podged to the front. Then I just added a strip of silver ribbon (hot glued tight to the back) and a bow. Done.

[Free, antiqued temple prints found here. Temple block tutorial found here.]

I loved how these turned out. Simple, but pretty. I want to do a 16x20" poster-size for Sean and I... eventually.
Also, I thought it was kinda cool that on the L.A. temple prints (for all of Sean's family) the angel Moroni and the bow pretty much line up down the center.

* Christmas Ornament
So, the jam was my first grand homemade idea and then the temple blocks, but then, I decided to do an ornament because we've given ornaments to Sean's married siblings every year. It's tradition! Every other year I have found a Hallmark ornament that I like specific for each family - it gets a little spendy, though. So, I decided to make the ornaments this year! Styrofoam balls mod-podged with green tissue paper w/ gold embellishment. And yes, those are individual 1 1/2" squares that I mod-podged onto each and every ornament. I made 12.

Music and lyrics came from a song in the Christmas cantata that Sean and his Dad wrote together - this part was a little tricky. First Sean had to create the music and lyrics part in his music software, then I had to screen-print it and save it in Picasa. Then do a manual crop and save that as a new picture to then insert into a word document to re-size and print! Let me just tell you, we did not get it right on the first try!! It was worth it, though, to have the ornaments be so personalized to our family. Once those were all cut out, I had to mod-podge the music onto the ornament and very carefully and very slowly smooth it out so that it contoured to the shape of the ball. This had to be done by hand. It was messy. Once that was all dry, I added two coats of a sparkle glaze, a gold tag with the year attached to the ribbon for hanging it and a bow on top.

[Ornament tutorial found here. Though, you'll find mine look a lot different from hers - she used sheet music napkins as her background and just lyrics around the middle. This was my original plan, but I couldn't find any sheet music napkins or tissue locally, so I changed it. I actually think I like mine a little better.... I'm just sayin'!]

This was the project that I kept thinking, "I'm pretty much done! I just have to do this and add this and do this and.... yeah, I'm not even close to being done!"
Oh, and full lyrics read: "Holy One, Father's Son, he will come a baby, the Lamb of God, the Savior of all the world."

* "I Am a Child of God" birth info frames
I don't really know what to call this one... But I made it for each of our nieces and nephews - we have 7. Basic rundown: cute scrapbook paper, black & white baby photo and lyrics to the first verse of I Am a Child of God w/ the child's name, birthday, city of birth and parents' names printed on white textured cardstock. I know, it's really hard to explain. This isn't the font I used, but it will give you an idea:

I Am a Child of God
Ethan G. Southworth
And he has sent me here
April, 20xx
Has given me an earthly home
City, OR
With parents kind and dear
Sean and Jennifer Southworth

Lead me, guide me, walk beside me, help me find the way.
Teach me all that I must do to live with him some day.

I actually did two different fonts - one for the lyrics, one for the child's info and the lyrics were printed in a dark gray so they were just a shade lighter than the rest. Once everything was all glued together, I just had to put it in a frame.

Not the most exciting gift for our nieces and nephews (the older ones got another little present as well), but I knew the parents would probably appreciate it!

* Sugar Scrubs
After all the hard, out-of-my-comfort-zone work I had done on all the other projects - sanding, painting gluing, etc., etc. I was so pumped to do the sugar scrubs!! Finally! In my element - the kitchen - and working with familiar ingredients and tools - sugar, oil, spices, mixing bowl, spoon. Wahoo!! I did three different scents: 1. A spicy brown sugar with brown sugar, white sugar, olive oil, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and vanilla. 2. A lemon sugar scrub with just white sugar, olive oil and the zest and juice of a whole lemon. 3. A candy cane sugar scrub with white sugar, olive oil, peppermint extract and candy canes that I had pulverized to dust in our mini food processor.
These all went to my friends in WA, as stocking stuffers for my sisters, a hostess gift for my aunt and the only package I was able to squeeze one into was for Lynnie in the SoCal box. I had a couple left over so I could try them out - so far I have only used the lemon, but love it!! My skin is silky smooth and I think I will continue to make this throughout the year to refill my jars. Seriously, so easy! I just used the Walmart brand olive oil because it was the cheapest. Mix everything up (I've got several recipe links on my "Gift Ideas" Pinterest page) and throw it in a cute jar - I used small canning jars. Don't be discouraged if the scent is not very strong at first - let them sit overnight or for a couple days. I was really bummed after I made my first batch, the spicy brown sugar one, because I didn't think you could smell the spices at all. Couple days later I opened one up and it was lovely. Same with the lemon and peppermint. Just be wary of letting them sit too long because the oil can go rancid and especially with the lemon one it could go bad. Just do small batches and leave the jars in your fridge until your ready to use them. I soap up, rinse off, then use the scrub, rinse off and then lotion up once I'm out of the shower. Silky smooth, I tell ya!

* Glass tile necklaces
These I made for my two oldest nieces (the third/youngest is just a baby). Nothing fancy. Just a glass tile with some cute scrapbook paper and a ring-thing to hang it off a necklace. Made them at Super Saturday for our ward. I think we had to use diamond glaze or something like that to "glue" the paper to the tile.
* Personalized hand towels
I know I already touched on these, but I wanted to include them since they were "semi-homemade." Again, the towel/oven mitt was a combo set I picked up on mega-clearance last year at Target. Kept them safe in our hall closet ALL year and then pulled them out to use as gifts this year! See, last year my mom gave me and Christine matching dish towels to take to our new, out-of-state homes because she also had the same dish towels. Just a little something to remember home. Seriously, we all teared up. Over dish towels! So, I thought I'd do a repeat on that gift with the red snowflake towel/oven mitt - also helps that my mom and Christine love the color red! So, I took my already-inexpensive gift and spruced it up for another $1 or so each - thanks to the use of Jenn's sewing machine w/ embroidery feature. :)

I think I will be doing more gifts like these in the future. It just adds so much more, that little touch of personalization. My mom and Christine loved them!

And I think that about wraps it up! Get it?... wraps it up. Just had Christmas.... Lots of present wrapping... Wraps it up!
Oh, never mind.
It's late.
I'm going to bed.
Clearly, my most-excellent puns are not appreciated!

Anyway, though it was a bit *insane* (see previous jam post) I did enjoy doing a semi-homemade Christmas and, assuming people really did like their gifts, will probably do it again... also, assuming I can find more good ideas on Pinterest!

PS: These past two posts are not, by any means, meant to sound like me tooting my own horn. If it comes across that way, I'm sorry! I'm just trying to document what took up so much of my time in December and also provide links to tutorials because I had people asking about it. That's all. Peace out!

Semi-Homemade Christmas: Jam

I'm honestly not sure what got into me, but for some {*insane*} reason, this year I decided to go homemade with our Christmas gifts. And, I think, other than Ethan's gifts and some bath stuff for my sisters/sister-in-law almost everything had at least a touch of hand-craftedness. {Yes, that is a word. As of... now.}

It all started mid-August when I read this {Introduction to Home Canning and Preserving} post on the Our Best Bites blog. I had never, ever canned before. Summer 2010 I did ONE batch of strawberry freezer jam, but that was the extent of my knowledge of pectin. My parents did some canning when I was younger and still do a little some summers. My grandma cans food. But I, like learning to sew, had no desire to learn how to can food.

Besides, I didn't think I could.
I had ZERO equipment.
No jars, lids or bands.
No canning utensils.
And, most importantly, no pressure canner!
But, wait! What was this??
As I read through the post I learned something I didn't know...
You can do waterbath canning.
Wait, what?!
Back that truck up....
I can attempt canning with just the huge stockpot we have out in the garage?
You've got to be kidding.
Nope.

Over the next several days I mulled this idea over in my head. Could I really add canning to my list of domestic skills? I mean, I already have a decent mastery of the kitchen. My cooking is better than OK. My baking is kinda well-known around these-here parts. Why not try [waterbath] canning?

And then my *brilliant* idea hit. I would can jam for everyone in our family! And not just a single jar or flavor. Oh, no! My brain doesn't work like that. I knew I wanted to do strawberry (everybody likes strawberry.) And personally, I fell in love with peach jam a couple years ago when my friend gave me some of theirs. And then I decided I needed to do blackberry or something that would be dark purple.

"Wouldn't that be pretty?" I asked my friends?
A red, strawberry jam. A golden, peach jam. And a deep purple, blackberry jam.
And I knew my friend Jenn (same Jenn mentioned in the sewing post) could cut some vinyl labels for the lids.
Of course, I specifically wanted the jam in the "quilted" canning jars. Picky, picky, I know!
And I decided to keep everything local to do a "Taste of the Pacific Northwest" - you know, just to make my first canning attempt a tad more difficult.
So my mind was made up!
Jam for everyone!!

HA!!
Let me remind you, all this *brilliance* struck me at the END of August. Aka end of or past berry season up here.
So I scrambled. I caught the tail-tail end of strawberry season and did my first couple batches of jam at the very beginning of September.
A little messy. A little stressful. A lot sticky. But surprisingly satisfying when all my lids sealed and I had a couple beautiful rows of strawberry jam.
Strawberries came from California, though, so I decided to make it a "Taste of the West Coast".

Then, in October, same Jenn says her bro-in-law can get some fresh peaches at a farm he drives past for work. Perfect!
So I caught the tail-end of WA peach season and busted out more-than-a-couple batches of peach jam.
Oh.My.Heavens. Peach jam is golden goodness. LOVE that stuff.

But, by then, I had also completely missed blackberry, blueberry, marionberry and you-name-it-berry season.
Hmm... What to do, what to do??
I couldn't just leave it at two flavors.
I had a vision in my head and I had to follow through!
So I called my good friend Danae (a canning queen!) and asked for advice. Could I maybe do frozen berries? I was thinking blueberry might be fun... Well, she suggested the mixed berry bag from Costco. Blackberry, raspberry and blueberry. Sounded good! But, I admit I was a little bummed to not get to follow through with my "Taste of the West Coast" idea.

Next time I was at Costco, I checked out the cost of the frozen mixed berries. Not bad at all. And I knew one bag would probably be enough. Curious, I checked to see where the berries come from... a farm in Washington!! Even though I felt like I was cheating by using frozen fruit, I could still keep my "Taste of the West Coast" idea!!
So my last round of jam-making was completed in November and the black-rasp-blue berry jam was just what I was looking for. Rich, berry taste and dark, purple color. Just what I wanted to round out my jam sets. Plus, I was starting to feel a little more confident with this whole waterbath canning thing.
Success!!

And the final product?? CA Strawberry, WA Peach and WA Black-Rasp-Blue Berry jams. Aren't they beautiful?! I felt really good following through with this. I learned a new skill, made Christmas gifts for everyone and some for our food storage as well. As an added bonus, these turned out exactly how I had envisioned them - complete with the cute vinyl labels on the top!Each family got their own trio of jams and the great-grandparents and living-on-their-own, college-age sisters got dual-packs. A little taste of the West Coast. :)

Christmas Goodie Plates 2011

Christmas goodie plates for 2011 were very similar to last year's....

We had the traditional sugar cookies (about 7 dozen), gingerbread softies (about 8 dozen and a change from last year's gingersnaps), chocolate peppermint crunch cookies (about 8 dozen), orange-cranberry cookies w/ orange drizzle (about 6 dozen) and raspberry shortbread cookies w/ almond drizzle (about 9 dozen). Then Sean did a double batch of Buckeye candies (chocolate peanut butter balls) and a batch of homemade caramel.

This year I put icing into a bag for the drizzling - so much easier!! And looks so much neater than when drizzled with a fork. I let Ethan do the orange icing for the orange-cranberry cookies and I did the icing on the raspberry shortbread.
We made up almost 20 goodie plates and delivered them to friends in our ward, a neighbor and the landlord's family. Depending on the size of the family, I think most plates ended up with about 2 dozen cookies (give or take) and then a handful each of Buckeyes and caramels.

I love the combination and variation of goodies on our plate, but I think this year I'll be ready for more changes. I don't know what, but I'll be on the look-out for cookie recipes this year....