"Curse You!" Cooking

Perhaps I should start a series. One where I explain to you all how much I don't like cooking, and tell you of the horrible mishaps that seem to happen every time I try a new recipe.

Or maybe not.

But tonight I seriously wanted to curse the meal I was making.

I decided to try a recipe for Clam Chowder.

Granted, I was planning on making it last week, but I thought all my ingredients would still be fine for tonight.

Wrong.

So there I was flying through all the preparation.

The potatoes were cooking in the clam juice and water, I had melted the butter and mixed in the flour. Everything was moving along and I had even timed it so it would be ready when Brian got home from work just after 7. Then we'd have plenty of time to eat and I could go to Yoga at 7:30.

I never do well with timing my meals. I was feeling pretty good.

Then I go to pour in the Half&Half into the butter mixture.

Chunks.

Gross.

The entire meal, ruined.

I was so frustrated that I dumped it all down the sink (to get rid of the smell) and then just took the boiling potatoes off the burner and waited for Brian to get home.

I didn't even have the energy to try and make something else.

(It doesn't help that it was 7:00 at night and I was already hungry. I don't do well when I'm hungry.)

Then Brian ended up being late and didn't get home until 7:30. So then we didn't end up eating until 8:00.

Grr.

Messed up dinner and ended up missing Yoga.

Lame.

Finals, Parties, and More

Here are a few more pictures of Brian's final project. These are the renderings he has to do to show more detail. (Can you find Iron Man? Look closely.)

From the inside looking out.

The Tower.

The whole building.

Brian is officially finished with finals! He had two tests on Monday and one more little assignment due and his is done! We went out to lunch to celebrate.

Sunday we went to my grandparent's house for their Christmas party. We had great food and fun times as always. Here are the traditional pictures of the cousins with their presents.

The Girls: McKenna, Aubrey, Dani, Sarah, (Nat - not pictured), Brittany, (Marci - Not pictured), Wendi, Me. We got Bracelet/Watches.

The Boys: Brandon, Parker, (Austin - Not Pictured), Brad, Taylor, (McKay - Not Pictured), Chris, (Wade - Not Pictured), (Brendyn - On a Mission), Phil, Brian, Ben. They got Axe Deordorant for the younger ones, and Screwdrivers for the older ones.

We also gave Grandma & Grandpa Walker a photo book that I helped my mom put together. We gathered pictures from all the families of Christmases through the years. My Grandma made costumes for us when we were younger & we would dress up as the Nativity scene. We've since outgrown them, but it's a fond memory we all have. Now they have all the pictures together in one place & they seemed really happy to have it.

On a different note, I made pumpkin pie for the first time ever this weekend. I was a little worried about how it would turn out because for a while there it didn't seem to look quite right. I blame most of it on the fact that my oven is about 2 feet tall and 1 1/2 feet wide and doesn't cook quite hot enough, but they finally turned out. :)

They taste really good and I can't stop eating them. Maybe next year I'll attempt to make my own crusts. One step at a time... I also should probably give one away so we don't eat so much, because they can't be that healthy. But they just taste so darn good. I love pumpkin pie!

We also attended my little brother's first choir concert last night. Brighton had it's annual Holiday concert and Brad is in the A Capella choir this year. He looked a little nervous, and rightly so, as he only had about 2-3 weeks to learn the songs. But they did a good job. And as always, they invited the choir alumni to come up & sing the last two songs with the choir. They're songs they learn every year, so we should all know them. I've never been good at memorizing, so I was not quite belting them out, but we had a lot of fun. We got to see a few people we went to school with and got to say high to the choir director. He's now directed almost all of my siblings, with one more on the way. He just keeps teasing all of them that they're "almost" as loud as me, but not quite. We had a great time, and I love that I get to do those things with Brian, because we were both in choir together.

This week is kind of a catch up week for Brian. He gets to catch up on sleep, and relax, and work on his portfolio for Grad school applications. I think he's enjoying it so far. Hopefully we'll be able to get some shopping done for the rest of our Christmas gifts this week as there are only 8 days until Christmas! I'm so excited. My little sister and her husband will be here on Wednesday and then we get to spend the whole day getting ready for the big Christmas Eve party. Yay!!