Daring Bakers Challenge Oct. 08

PIZZA!!

This was my first month doing the Daring Bakers Challenge, and I got in on a good one, as my family LOVES pizza.
First, thanks to Rosa at Rosa's Yummy Yums for hosting this month's challenge.
Our challenge was pizza and toppings. So...as we have a wide range of tastes in this family, I headed to the grocery to hunt up some FIXINS!! NEVER take two young girls with you to pick out pizza toppings.
The pizzas we wound up with :

• pepperoni and black olives, 1 thin 1 thick crust (these would be the "kids choice award" pizza)
• prosciutto, sun dried tomatoes, basil (on a traditional red sauce, traditional cheese)
• shrimp, spinach, artichoke heart, prosciutto (why waste the stuff) (on an garlic olive oil base, with tomato basil feta cheese)
• apple crumble (homemade apple pie filling and crumb, on a unbaked crust) drizzled with a basic glaze

I LOVED this dough. It played well thick and thin, rose right, had a great texture and handled fairly easily. Sadly, there are no pics of me tossing, I already had my camera dropped once this week, so I was NOT allowing my remaining lens to be broken by an underage cameraman! Tossing doesn't work so well for me, I am a hand to hand, pulling my fingers apart as I go girl, then pop it down, pull it towards a circle and let it be!
Here are some befores of the pepperoni and the prosciutto basil

My little helper kneaded for me, as you can see, but by the time we were headed to the fridge she was pooped. She was also my chief pepperoni spreader on day 2
(the ones she didn't pop into her mouth).

I cut my dough into 6, so I could make small pizzas, and we had some leftovers,
even with 5 of us eating in this house.

I found my right baking temp to be 425, on a preheated stone, got a great crust on them, nice and sturdy, but not tough. I will say this is the ONLY time I've seen pizza crusts eaten in this house that had no toppings on them, poor poor birdies tomorrow, no snacks.
Here's a view from the oven:

I hope you enjoyed our foray into the pizza world!! We enjoyed it, and will def do it again, but I do have MUCH more appreciation for Paul, "THE PIZZA MAN" at our favorite pizza joint!

And..just to make you drool, a few "afters" of the pepperoni and the apple cobbler!

A trip to the firestation for the cubs, and a plea for prayers

October is National Fire Safety Month so for our pack meeting this month, we met at the firestation. My hubby is District Chief of a local department, so we chose to go to his department for our meeting instead of the small one here in town. So..we met at Fire District 12 with our pack for some fire safety learning and fun! It's fun for me, b/c I know them all so well, they're like our extended family, so I love to see the kids having fun with the guys.

Here are some of the drawings we got from our boys:



We also had a fire safety poster contest, they boys did awesome with their drawings. The winners recieved some fun prizes to use in future Scouting adventures.



Capt. Pierre went through fire safety with the boys. This man was MEANT for this job, he's great with the boys, and gets all the information they need in while staying on their level. Op Matt put on his gear for them, and showed them what a firefighter in gear looks like, so they know not to be scared, and Op Kyle also put on his gear, so they could hear the noises that the air mask makes, so they wouldn't be scared of that either.
Then the boys got to go through the safety house, which is a mobile unit, equipped with a house, that they can fill with smoke and show the public how to react in case of fire. After that, their FAVORITE part, Op Clint let each child got to spray the fire hose!!




We finished up with a tour of the trucks and each boy got some goodies to take him with them. We'd like to thank Fire District 12 for the awesome job that they did for our pack!!

Fire Safety is VERY important. Here are some fun things for your children to do while learning about fire safety. Some other things that you and your family should make sure of:

• plan an evacuation route in case of fire
• place emergency contacts where your children KNOW who to get in touch with in case of emergency
• check your smoke detectors often, a good way to KNOW your batteries will be good is to change them with daylight savings time changes
• practice fire drills
• visit your local fire station, they will be happy to show your children around

I don't often ask pubically for prayers, but this week I found out someone very close to me has terminal lung cancer, and I would like to ask that you remember him in your prayers.

Playing Indian, Scarecrows and the police!

We've had a BUSY week!! Lots of pictures to share of all. We've had Indians, and Scarecrows and Police, OH MY!!



Today was dress up day at the barn, for Halloween, and Sarah decided to make Dibbs and Indian horse. I didn't get to get pictures of her wearing her costume, but when I got there she and Martha Ann were taking turns riding him bareback, so I did get a shot of her on him then. Thought I'd share her fun for the day with you guys.




During the week this past week Gabe's teacher asked me to help them make a scarecrow for the front of the school for their classroom, so early Monday morning one of the other student's uncles and I set about our first scarecrows ever!



She's raising her hand to ask a question, how's THAT for being a good student! The kids enjoy being involved in these projects, I just wish they had gotten to help more, but we had to do it while they were in class learning.

After school on Thursday we had our Bear meeting for the week. This week, Folsom's finest came to visit us. Chief Killingsworth and Sgt. Magee are two officers from our local PD, and we were lucky enough to have them come talk with our boys about safety, and about the jobs that they do as police officers. They did a GREAT job with our boys, and we thank them for the time they gave us, the boys loved it!



While we were doing our police unit, we taught our boys about fingerprinting, and printed them all as an activity.



If you have NOT had you child fingerprinted for the national database, let me take this moment to suggest that you do. It's such an awesome tool for police officers should your child be kidnapped or run away or be lost. You can contact your local police station for details on having this done. You can visit this website to order a free at home kit, and then have it registered: http://www.klaaskids.org/printathon.htm

We hope you are loving Fall! Have a wonderful weekend, The Truetts!

Life from the outhouse...one cake and one real!

What a great weekend, and BUSY!! We went camping with the cubscouts, but first I helped my awesome sis out with my BIL's 50th party and made her some food and a cake! I have to say, my sister is SO level headed, b/c the cake fell over on the way to the hall, and she CALMLY fixed it, I'da prolly freaked out. I guess the stake wasn't driven far enough into the bottom board. She fixed it though, with giggles of Katrina - izing it by putting a blue tarp on it, although I don't think she actually had to go that far! I've been promised an "after" picture, but here is a "before" for you.

The story goes, Greg does these fun gifts for us for Christmas, and the outhouse is part of it. He might kill me for posting THIS picture!!



He is SO normally calm and peaceful, but MAN does he have a wicked sense of humour! That outhouse is in their yard, it's their pump house, hence the cake being an outhouse. FUNNEST cake ever for me I think! For you cakers, it's 1 1/2 12 inch cakes cut into 1/4s and stacked, with foam core between each two layers. The board is fondanted and dusted to TRY and look like concrete. It's not perfect, but it's cute I think. It's all buttercream except the top, which is fondant, and all the color is airbrushed on. I just marked the lines with my bench scraper.



And NOW for camping!


We had a great time!! Sleeping in a tent with Abi is TOO funny. At 2 am on Friday night, she was walking around the tent going wooo....do you see my shadow.....it was hilarious, but not. Let's say the next night I took some "help" to get to sleep, and Abi's shadow didn't bug me at all.

Our boys got to earn lots of beltloops and they had a blast. We had lots of help from our parents, and all in all it worked out. The OUTHOUSE part of the trip, the BATHROOMS BACKED UP Saturday night, NOT good with 50 people, but we made it. AND..the water was cold cold in the showers, but again, we made it. The boys played, and did skits and played and fellowshipped, and all in all it was a great weekend. We even managed to cook all of our meals together and eat together, which I think is so important for the boys!!

I'll share pics of that later, I have to resize and all. We all looked so great in our new yellow activity shirts, and I'm thrilled that after just ONE year and 2 months in existance our boys have come so far!! My heart and soul goes into that pack, so it means the world to me to have them do well, and hurts me if people say negative things about them, so I was so pleased to have them so well recieved by everyone, and see the families working together towards such an awesome goal.

Gone camping...

At camp with the cub scouts...
they gave us a drink...
we thought it was Kool-aid
because it was pink....



well, you REALLY dont' wanna know the rest of that one!

We'll be back Sunday with pictures, have a great one!!

Art imitates art

Today I did a cake I enjoyed more than I've enjoyed any cake in a long long time! The board was the most fun part. I covered it in fondant, texturized and painted it to look like wood. Then I got to play playdoh with fondant and make a paintbrush and paints for the cake!
I hope that when the mom comes to get it in the morning she really likes it!!
Thought I'd share it with you guys, thanks so much for looking.

Love in the eyes of a horse

With the exception of humans, never in my life have I found an creature I loved more than a horse. To me, walking into a barn is therapy. I'd sooner pick a stall clean or polish a saddle as most anything in the world. Recently, I have found someone who shares that love, and also happens to be my daughter.


Sarah and I could spend our lives in the barn. No need to ride, just to commune with the horses is all we need. BUT..she does ride. Weekly we make our trek to the barn, she rides, I take pictures, play with horses and kitty cats, and wish I could have my own stall there with a gorgeous gelding nickering for me daily. After a few different horses, she seems to have found one she likes riding (we don't own our own horse).


Dibbs is a doll, he's got spunk and character, but he's a love and takes care of Sarah. I've seen her riding come around some since she started riding him - although she still lets her brain get ahead of her body and THINKS instead of just riding.

When you're on a horse, it's not about you brain, it's about your hands, your legs, his mouth and two hearts and brains working as one. If I could hand down ONE thing I know about horses to my gorgeous daughter, that would be it. I pray she realizes it, and that this love sticks with her.


So..I thought I'd share some pictures of her, I'm always sharing Gabe and Abi's accomplishments, and Sarah is JUST as special and important to me, so she deserves some blog space too!

A ballerina is born, a boy is 8..and more!

What a crazy weekend we had!! Saturday we went to the car show here in town to promote our Scout pack, great job guys!!
Then, 5 Scouts came home with us for Gabe's sleepover! CRAZYness, I tell ya, but they had a blast! We had a silly string war, roasted hot dogs, ate smores and even after all of that they STILL stayed up till 2am! On his real birthday, Monday, we took cupcakes to school and went to the fire station to see Jamie (he had to work). I'd say he had a pretty good birthday (although he says I owe him a cake).


On Monday we also had another big milestone. For YEARS Abi has been begging to start dancing lessons. Well, since next year she starts Kindy, I decided to let her. TALK about love!


I love Haller Ballet, which is where she is going. Sarah went there for a little while, before she realized that she wanted to ride horses instead of ballet. They are kind and patient, but firm, and they really teach, and that's right up my alley!
Coming out she said,
"I love you mommy, thank you for letting me dance. Now..am I going to get to come back again?" Just melted me! She's already dreaming of recitals. Makes me feel like I've found a perfect place for all of my kids ya know? Gabe's a Scout, Sarah adores Dibbs (the horse she rides) and riding in general, and now Ms Abber has dance!

And of course there were cakes...there are always cakes. This weekend I made a princess cake for a lady who will ALWAYS be a princess to her friends, and a kitty cat for a sweet one year old.

I made all the accents on the cake from fondant, even the dragon. We bought the princess, b/c I just didn't think I could make her look right! I hope that Jen enjoyed her birthday cake!


This cake was for a little one year old girl! She had the most patient grandpa, b/c I was having a terrible time getting the message for it done when he got here, my edible printer decided it was on vacation! The boys sat and watched me make this cake (my 5 Scouts that were sleeping over) it was TOO hilarious! Made all of these accents with fondant too!

And..there were the 90 cookies I mailed to Liz! Durn fed ex, they drop kicked my box, and broke almost 1/2 of them. Thank God for Liz's foresite to make another favor!
Ever wanted to see what 90 cookies look like on a small kitchen table?
What an awesome party it must have been with Liz running the show!! I hope my daughters grow up to be JUST like her!

Well, that's about it for our awesome week! We're working on another one now, and hoping to make it to the fair this weekend with the kiddos for some fun! Just one cake to do this weekend, a seriously fun one at that, so I'm looking forward to it!

I hope YOU have an awesome week too!