Friday, April 29, 2011

Orange Brownies



April and I like to look at food websites for good recipes. One day she happened on this gem on the Food Network website. It is from the home cooking genius Paula Deen. So I present

ORANGE BROWNIES

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
4 eggs
2 teaspoons pure orange extract
1 teaspoon grated orange zest
1 recipe Orange Cream Cheese Frosting, recipe follows
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 13 by 9 by 2-inch pan.

Orange Brownies:
Stir together flour, granulated sugar, and salt in a bowl. Add butter, eggs, orange extract, and orange zest. Using a handheld electric mixer, beat until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until light golden brown and set. Remove from oven, allow to cool and pierce entire cake with a fork. Spread the Orange Cream Cheese Frosting over completely cooled brownies. Cut into squares.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
4 tablespoons softened butter
1 (1-pound) box confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons orange zest
2 tablespoons orange juice
In a large mixing bowl, whip the butter and cream cheese together with a hand-held electric mixer. Gradually beat in the confectioners' sugar until it is all combined and smooth. Beat in the orange zest and juice. Spread over brownies.

Yield: enough frosting for 1 batch of brownies

Prep Time: 10 minutes


Which so far has gotten rave reviews from everyone who has tried them.


ENJOY!!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

The family newsletter

I don’t know that we’ve done much these past weeks. Of course, we all watched General Conference. My favorite talk was by Elder Bednar. Read it here . April and I always like to try new breakfast menus on Saturday and Sunday. Both were a gastronomical delight witnessed by the fact that nothing was left.

Sam took the AIMS (Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards or Big Test). He said he didn’t think it was too bad. The whole mutual went to see the Easter Pageant which was made even more fun by the addition of all the pizza they could eat. Sam has been working hard for his voice recital which will be in May. He and Gary aren’t going to the Father’s and Son’s campout for the first time ever (I think). Sam has a choir festival on that Friday and it won’t be over until evening. I didn’t see either one crying about it.

On Easter Sunday, Sam and I are singing in the choir, Stephen is speaking in his Sacrament Meeting and April has to sing for the Young Women in her ward. These events are all occurring at the same time so nobody gets to hear anybody else, well, Gary will hear Sam and I. We are going to Claye’s and Rakay’s for Easter dinner.

Thankfully the 15th (actually the 18th) of April has passed and Gary doesn’t have to spent every waking moment in his office doing taxes. It has been interesting this year with the new e-file law in effect.

Stephen was happy that the movie ATLAS SHRUGGED finally made it to the big screen. He finally got to see Dagny Taggart and the rest of the ATLAS SHRUGGED characters in living color.

Poor Lily was sick with the stomach flu from a Tuesday through Saturday. Both Lily and April were pretty miserable and I’m pretty sure that April was sick of getting thrown up on. Lily now has another cold, for the third time in about a month. Starting nursery has not been kind to her. She loves going, but always catches some disease while there.

I assume that Chris is okay. We can always keep track of where he is eating, because it gets posted on Facebook.

My work life has become pretty stressful this year, but so has everyone else’s at the school. I am immensely tired of listening to kids read because the kids all read the same story, so I get to hear it about 10 times a day. Unfortunately, practicing is the only way that kids get better at reading. We get out of school May 26 so the end is in sight. We are losing 4 teacher contracts at our school because of declining population which means there will also be less aides needed. I love the kids and I like helping them to succeed, but education is a stressful place to be these days. Schools can only do so much for kids when their home life stinks.

Have a wonderful Easter!

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Sad Saga of the Crossing Guard Shelter (or Government run Amok, again)

For the past 16 years, maybe even longer, there stood at the school crossing on 8th street a small crossing guard shelter located next to the sidewalk on the property of a church. It wasn't much--just enough for one or two people to stand under and a little bench to sit on. It sheltered the unfortunate crossing guard who happened to be there when the scorching Arizona sun shone down. People did like to cover the inside with graffiti, but the small church it stood next to would paint over everything from time to time.

Enter the city of Mesa. That shelter had no permit, and a bunch of other stuff that needed to be paid for. The total came to $4000 owed to the city of Mesa. The man on the case talked to his boss and they decided to wave all the fees except for the $100 for the original permit. So the small church raised the $100 for the city of Mesa.

But wait! The shelter was an accident just waiting to happen according to the wise people who work for the city of Mesa. Has there ever been an accident in the past 16 years? No! That fact didn't matter. Now the shelter is no more and those of us who happen to cross children there are at the mercy of the Arizona sun.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Lily's First Birthday!

Seven months ago, Lily turned one! Here's the just uploaded video of her birthday party. Enjoy!