One of my favorites...pizza

We got a pizza oven for our bbq for Christmas, and it's one of my favorite things. It makes the best pizza! So we usually do pizzas for fast sunday now and the kids love it. I make this dough, I add a little yeast and salt to it and let it rise longer than the 5 minutes it says, but it's awesome. I love it, so easy and yummy!

Some of our favorites are like a white (mayo, garlic, parmesan) sauce or pesto base. And then our secret ingredient is this fig jam! It is so good! I like to do a balsamic glaze on top sometimes. Arugala and prosciotto is fun but more rare. Kids usually go classic meat favorite - pepperoni, sausage, bacon, and lots and lots of cheese! They've experimented with shapes, stuffed crusts, and it's a tradition we all enjoy!

volleyball and basketball

A friend in the ward asked if any of our daughters were signed up for sports because she wanted to sign up her daughter, but wanted to do it with someone. Well, a few girls were doing soccer, but she wasn't interested in soccer so I said Elsie has been wanting to do volleyball again. Well, this friend was excited about that, so we signed them up together! Elsie now has done volleyball a few times, not consistently, but it's been fun watching this most recent 'season' (they're 6 weeks long and we're halfway in right now), but Elsie has improved quite a bit. She has a good coach this time (though I will always be thankful for whoever signs up and is willing to coach these teams!). Though I am not, and will never be a sports mom. Gosh, I get so anxious watching these games, which I realize is ridiculous, so frustrates me more that I react that way.

 

 However, volleyball is better than basketball. But I really wanted Asher to play basketball, so I signed him up and those games are so frustrating sometimes! Kids are mean, and push and are grabby. I typed a bunch of other stuff, but it's just me complaining and can be summarized in that last sentence. It really really irks me though, especially when the other team is up like 40-0, I think, okay, take a chill pill. You can still play your best, but don't be a jerk! Okay. Here are some pics of them. :)

always the tallest on his team

 

 Asher did basketball once before with some of his friends two years ago, over two years ago actually. Crazy. Time flies, but I wasn't good at blogging so I'm including a few pics from that. 

(warm-up, he's not actually blocking his own player, haha)

And when Elsie first started showing interest in volleyball I signed her up for just a week camp at the junior high in the summer to see if she actually liked it. That was two years ago, so I signed her up when Asher finished basketball. She did a season, took a year off, and played with this friend in the ward in January, and then again right now. So these pics are over that course of time - but check out the little videos to see how her serve has improved 👍

Pioneer Day

School starts so early that even if we wanted to go to a Utah Pioneer Day parade, we wouldn't be able to, but we've always got covered wagons. I got to work in the temple on Pioneer Day. It's a pioneer temple for the most part, so that's fun. The outside has engravings of them crossing the plains.

apparently it blurred the background 🙄

I stopped by the Dollar Store to get some ingredients for the covered wagons and they had nothing! No fig newtons, pull and peel licorice, original animal crackers, big marshmallows, regular life savers, haha. But Jacob and Elsie were with me so came up with some alternates - they decided on a wafer cookie base, with a swiss roll on top, but we'd have to cover it with white frosting. They had peppermint life savers for wheels, and could mold some cow tails for reins and to hold the wheels on. Frosted animal cookies would be our animals.

Well when I got home, I should have known, but Jack had already bought ingredients, so kids got to make 2 different kinds of covered wagons for Pioneer Day! Double the treats! 

And we had country fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy and corn for dinner.

We are so thankful for the pioneers!