What's a Girl to do?

I WAS going to post pictures of my beautiful babies in their First-Day-Of-School outfits, but I can't find my camera cord anywhere. No USB, no pictures. Crap. I know that I didn't leave it in Alaska, because Jay added the last pictures to his laptop when I got home. I made everyone look at all 1500 pictures I took. They won't ever look at them any other way, so...captive audience! I have a lot of pictures to post, but since I got home I've been trying to get used to the time difference. Still. Even with Jay's expertise, I am doing no better. I'm sleepy at noon, and not tired at all at bedtime. Jay says it's easier to fall back four hours than to go forward. Ya, I don't know how he comes home from Iraq and is even conscious during the welcome home ceremony! I'm sure I'd be over it by now, but after the third day of school, and I have to be up at 6 am for no other reason than to drive Laurel to school at 7, I'm still exhausted. I keep looking at the clock and thinking that the girls riding the bus wouldn't be THAT bad, would it? Then again, I'll bet the bus runs a hell of a lot later than 6. Bah humbug.
The one thing I have really been looking forward to has been the three hours of alone time I get in the middle of the day. The kids are at school, and Jay goes back to work after lunch. Beading time! I brought back two rather large Ziploc bags full of bead strands, and one large bag of collected stones I picked up in NY and Ak. I can't wait to dip into them. I have all sorts of designs I've drawn up, the issue is that I've been doing laundry....dishes....walking dogs....catching up on Army Wives....and I have to reorganize my area. My whole table is choked up with the debris of life. Random things the kids know belong to me, and so place them in my area, so as to avoid going all the way up to my bedroom. At least they help clean up, right?
I guess I have to wait for Jay to get home to help me find the cord. He still hasn't emailed me, and the kids haven't a clue where he might have placed it. Odds are they picked it up and put it the bread drawer or the bathroom. Not logical? Well, in my house, that's where you look first!
Crazy kiddos. I can't believe they are 10 and 13 now. And still with the silliness. When does it end?

I've started a new job!

My friend Sara brought to my attention a great group of green/earth friendly cleaning products. At first, I was skeptical, because how many times have we heard about new products, get excited about them, only to find out they aren't any better than any other hundreds of other things you've tried?
Sara has posted on her facebook a few pictures showing the results of her stain removal, and every day cleaning . I have to say, I was impressed enough to start selling them myself! Like I said, I just signed up today, but the instant I receive my kit, I will begin posting before and after pictures as well. I can't wait! There is nothing better than erasing a stubborn stain from a white carpet!
I'd like to invite you all to check out the products for yourself, all I ask is that you use my personal site https://www.myh2oathome.com/Laforest so that I can get credit for any purchase you might make. If all goes well, the money I make from this venture will help fund my savings account for the future La Forest Homestead! Let me know if you have any questions, and I will answer them to the best of my ability, and as usual, if I can't answer them, I'll find someone who can!

-Stacy

Letters Home: Dinner

Guess what?!?! I saw a moose....


On my dinner plate!!!!!!!! Sara made tortellini with moose meat sauce, and boy was it good.



I wanted to show you the magnate I got for the kitchen:
I'm off to start the day... See ya back here later!

Letters Home: Going Shopping

Good Morning!

I love this shot. She was so sweet.

She decided I was cool to hang with.

Thank you for the shoes, Laurel!

Eielson Air Force Base. We shopped at the commisary, which was tiny. The cool thing was that they were flying the fighter planes overhead while we were outside, and while they were making sharp turns, flipping, and flying low the sound was deafening. Avery was in heaven.
We had lunch at LuLu's Bagels. I had a cranberry turkey sandwich on sourdough and a mocha. God it was good!
He has been stealing my nose all day. Sometimes sticking it on his forehead, sometimes throwing it away. Laughing his tiny laugh the whole time. I'm nuts about this kid I haven't seen since he was three months old.
Where's your belly button?
At Blueberry Baby, the clerks can take their kids to work, and the kids loved playing with the baby.
Playing in the play area at the most child friendly shop ever.
Avery said " Look, Avery's a very big BOY!"
Then he yells, "I gotcha!" and squeezed my neck to death. I have a new friend.
He laid on the floor for a while, just cuddling with the tulle.
Very proud of her picture.

I really want to find these on the internet. They had a canteen that's big enough to hold the whole family's drink, and they are insulated. Cool store. I want to go back!
We stopped at Gulliver's Books and I got a whole stack of books for the kids. Avery begged for an I spy book, so I hooked him up. When we got back to the house we played with it, and when he found the items, he squealed with joy.
I didn't get pictures at the Enchanted Forest shop because it was too crazy, but it's a really cool store. I bought Miah a loom so she can make potholders, and if she likes it, I can teach her to make bigger things. I went a little nutty with the souvenirs for the kids. I hope you kiddos like them! I may have to ship these thing home in a box!
I still miss you guys. I hope you are having fun at Manny's!

Letters Home

Good morning! Or at least it is here in North Pole Alaska! For you guys it's 11:30, and lunch time, and here the Goffs are just waking up and getting breakfast started.
Yesterday was quite the adventure. Between driving to Glasgow to drop off the kids, and then catching a flight the next day I spent about 16 hours traveling. The first flight to Minnesota was on a tiny plane, so for about two hours I squirmed in my seat trying to get comfortable, and read the 2nd Percy Jackson novel (Laurel, I should have waited until I got home, because every time I laughed I wanted to share the joke with you!) I had a mile walk between the gates to catch my next flight (St. Paul airport, just bite me!) and I knew I was going to regret that 40 lb carry-on bag!
7 hours, one engine blown on a 747, two bathroom breaks, one foot fallen asleep, and two hours of "The Ghost Writer" later, and I'm hugging my best friend in the tiniest airport I've ever seen, at 9:30 PM, in complete daylight. This is going to be a great trip!
P.S.
God, I miss you guys. Laurel, your Polar bear webkin makes a great sleeping companion, and so does your Woobie, Jay. And Miah, you didn't send me off with anything :( So I'll have to find my Miah thing here, and make it yours when I get home.
I love you!
Mama

New Jewelry

The last bead mix I got came with a challenge: What the heck can you do with this?
As always, I took the challenge to heart. With an idea in my head, I got to work. After what seemed like hours I finally got the pieces of the focal point to do what I wanted. I LOVE this mix. I can't wait to get started on the wool beads Sara sent, which I have sketched a few ideas for. This requires me making some beads from paper first, and I don't have time before I'm off on my adventure, so I'll hopefully get that going sometime in August!

Miah is TEN!

Today my youngest is in the double digits. I can't believe it. I remember her babyhood like it was yesterday. She was such a stinker! She still is, but in different ways now. She's funny, energetic, excitable, loving, puzzle solving, sarcastic and artistic. She prides herself in being just like her daddy, loves her puppies, webkins, computer games, Spongebob, and Tom and Jerry.
She is a little bomb just waiting to explode. Constantly running circles around Harley through the kitchen, art room, and hallways. Squealing, screaming, and laughing. Drawing portraits of strangers and pausing to give them their pictures. She elicits smiles and compliments, smiling in her devilish way, and always telling strangers way more than they ever wanted to know about whatever is interesting her at the moment. She builds castles, and cities with her blocks, tells stories about them to her dolls, and playacts for her audience. She isn't always so cute, she'll drive you nuts...but I'm counting on her complete uniqueness and strength to make her one hell of an interesting adult. I can't wait.

Miah: Funny little girl!

We found a lizard on the steps on the way into the house.

Me: "Oh, look, it's a chameleon! " (not really, it's a Green Anole)

Miah: "Does that mean it tells jokes?"

I never remember the funny things Miah said, so I rushed right over to the computer to get it down. She just cracks me up!

Thunderstorm

Since I was a little girl, I've loved thunderstorms. My dad used to take Jason and me outside during particularly spectacular ones so that we could feel the electricity in the air. I'm not sure Jason really got it, but I fell in love. I've seen and heard all sorts of crazy things, ball lightning being one of my favorites, but the thunder has always been my very favorite thing. In the Valley where I grew up the thunder bounced off the mountains like a rubber ball. The sound boomed from one end of the fields to the other and seemed to last for full minutes. Wonderfully enough, it does the same thing here. I caught some of it, and even a small flash if lightening right in front of me (I never saw it, not until I loaded the video up on the computer. You have to look carefully, it's fast!)
I love the sound of rain beating down on the leaves, I'm sad that the sound doesn't really translate well on the video.
Jay thought I was crazy for going outside with my camera. Not that he said so, but he gave me that look...Laurel was still asleep and in fact slept through all of the noise...but my girl Miah was right behind me squealing and giggling the whole time. It was really hard to get her to keep quiet for the video, and in fact I think you can hear her in the background in one of them.

Laurel's 13

My baby is OLD. *sob*

Laurel turned 13 on the 29th. We'd been planning her party for a couple of months, mostly because Jay always does something super special (if he's home, that is.) This year he made a Twilight/New Moon version of Jeopardy for the party. He spent a lot of time making an entire game of crazy hard questions. It was spectacular. He used PowerPoint to do the clues, the answers, and even had the Final Jeopardy music playing when that last question came around. He went above and beyond. Laurel's friend Rebecca won the grand prize, the Twilight Trivia game. Jay also baked at Laurel's request, a Brownie Cheese Cake. (From the Rachael Ray Website)

Chocolate Cheesecake Brownies

Tags: desserts cookies bake

Submitted by

Plan B Mom

on 05/04/09

These bar cookies are the perfect combination of cheesecake and brownie. They are very rich, so a small square is a satisfying serving.

Brownies:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 4 squares semisweet chocolate
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt

Cheesecake topping:

• 1 package cream cheese (8 oz.) softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tbs. butter, softened
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbs. milk
• 1 tbs. flour
• 3 squares semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

Icing:

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup whipping cream
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 squares semisweet chocolate
• 2 tbs. butter
• pinch of salt (optional)

Preheat oven to 350ºF degrees.

Brownies:

Melt butter and chocolate together, set aside to cool. In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs and sugar until light and creamy. Stir in flour and baking soda, and then the chocolate mixture. Mix well and pour into greased 9 inch square pan.

Cheesecake topping:

In a large bowl, beat together cream cheese, sugar and butter until creamy . Mix in eggs, milk and flour - mix well. Stir in chocolate and spread evely over brownie layer. Bake 40 - 45 minutes. Cool.

Icing:

Combine sugar, cream and vanilla in a small saucepan. Stir to blend. Place pan over medium high heat and bring to boil; reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring. Remove from heat and add chocolate and butter, stirring until smooth. Let sit until mixture is slightly cooled and thick enough to spread.

Pour over cooled cake and chill. Cut into squares and store in refrigerator.

Holy Cow, They're Good!!

The rest of the time we let Laurel, Ben, Miah and Rebecca hang out and watch Twilight and New Moon on Blu-Ray, while Jay and I watched the Food Network upstairs.
Laurel got all kinds of jewelry, vampire t-shirts, and even got a couple of things from Bj, April and the gang. Very cool twilight bag and necklace!
Okay, so now for the few, but silly pictures:

Miah's Dollhouse

I've been meaning to post these pictures for a long while now, but I seem to have been caught up in actually living life, rather than talking about it, so I've been seriously behind lately. As long as my patience holds out I'll get semi caught up today.









On a random day a while back the whole family went out on a shopping trip, not looking for anything in particular, just bored. When I saw this dollhouse at Tuesday Morning, I got excited. Miah loves to play with her blocks. We've posted pictures of her before, setting up towns, using her soldiers to play war with Daddy, and building crazy buildings with her Lincoln logs.

I thought immediately that a wooden doll house would be her new favorite thing. It was! Tuesday Morning is a great store, tons of cool things at sale prices, so we got this usually $100.00 set for $40.00. We brought it home, Miah and I built it together, and had a ball playing with it. Miah grabbed all of her Polly Pockets and set up the entire house to look like a miniature sorority house. I went back to the store later and picked up the Pet Shop set, and the Ice Cream store, which greatly added to Miah's story lines. I charged her $1500.00 to wash her little cat, telling her that it was feral, and almost killed me, so she says "Okay, not an issue. Here's your money, and I think that's enough you won't sue me, right?" I almost died laughing.
Miah loves this dollhouse, even passing up tv time to set things up, so I put her things together on one of the Front Room tables so that she doesn't have to drag it downstairs when she wants to play. Every once in a while I hear "Mom, check this out!" and she's done some new silly things with her props. Last week she hid the cat and asked me to hunt him down, she has also stuffed tiny rubber shoes into drawers, and did I mention the toilet has a lid, and you can hide things in it?
Miah is nothing if not entertaining. I can't wait to see if she can get her Daddy to play with it too. I just know he'll be planning house raids, or Indian attacks or something. I'll be around the corner sneaking pictures!