A month's worth of highlights from our lives!

This is by far my most random post ever! Life has been so crazy busy that I've not really had an opportunity to blog much lately. Pre-scheduled posts are great and have their place but there are times when 'jotting' down highlights in my life are important! In the past month we have celebrated birthdays, graduations, mother's day, and plain ole happy living.

Some of my girls enjoying each other's company!

Daddy graduated from school. Again!! He's only been going for about 8 years studying different areas. But I do believe he is now finished. The last 4 years he has been going to be an industrial electrician. Congratulations to my favorite guy! I love you.

Now we come to our son. I am going to pretty much copy the blog post our daughter in law Heather made. Vance spent 5 long, grueling weeks in Coronado, California with an elite team within the Border Patrol. He was training for what is called BORSTAR which stands for Border Search Trauma and Rescue. Without going deep into the intense training I will just say that one of the many things required of them was to do 553 body builders in a row. And that after an already long day of intense physical training. I'm so proud of him. He shared amazing stories with us during his 5 weeks of training. Congrats son, love you tons.

He is pictured in the forefront left of the above photo. And below I know he was so happy to be reunited with his sweet family after being away so long.

For Mother's Day my girls made my absolute favorite~breakfast puffs, or better known as popovers. I seriously could live on them!! The recipe comes from Felicity's American Girl cookbook.

Our two birthday boys!! Juli's boy Beckham just turned 4 in April....

and Vance Jr.'s boy Vance just turned a year old in May! We love these boys like nothing else and can't hardly wait to be with them in July out in Colorado.

And for fun I had to show off Juli's little Ambreigh modeling the pretty bows Juli made. I say Juli found the absolute best model to display her creative talents. Time is ticking until we will be out in Colorado hugging this sweet princess.

Emma found a pretzel recipe that can't be beat for taste. We've decided they taste nearly exact like the ones at the mall. They make them all the time now. We've enjoyed them so much we have been replacing them with our homemade bread.

Delicious Homemade Pretzels

2 T. warm water + 1 1/3 C. warm water

2 T. yeast

1/3 C. brown sugar

5 C. whole wheat white flour or your choice

1/2 C. baking soda

kosher salt

In large mixing bowl combine the yeast and 2 T. water. Then stir in remaining water and brown sugar. Gradually add flour to water/yeast mixture until it forms a ball. No rising required. Place on floured surface and knead until smooth. Bring 8 C. water to boil with baking soda. Shape dough into pretzels and place in boiling water for 30 seconds each. Place on greased baking sheet and bake in preheated 475 oven for 8 minutes. Brush with egg and sprinkle salt over top. NOTE~For those who pre-soak their grains mix the flour the night before with the 1 1/3 C. warm water and 2 T. lemon juice or vinegar.

We found this snowsuit at a yard sale last week for one dollar. Whenever we find a good deal we bring it home to a bunch of little girls who try it on to see who the lucky one is that it will fit. In this case Kenzie won the prize and loved it so much she wore it all day and slept in it!

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Makenzie is trying to convince us that she still has her baby face. She squeezed her cheeks together just to prove it!