Sisters Cafe

I just have to share this blog with you. There is a link to it on my sidebar too--it's a bright pink box with flashing words. I have made a handful of their recipes now and they all turned out really good. I was going to post some recipes, but I think you should just check out their blog for yourself and try them too! Recently I made the "Grandma's Dinner Rolls,"...


...and Reece's Chewy Chocolate Cookies.


I made the chocolate cookies for my girls at church (Sunday lesson) and they passed the cookie container around three times, and then asked for more at the end of class. (Yes, I brought a lot that day.) I made the dinner rolls for a special Mother/Daughter dinner we had tonight for mutual, and after the dinner was put away the girls kept sneaking rolls out of the bowl to snack on during the other activities. So it passed the teenage girl test! I'm sure you'll find some things on their blog that your family will love!

PS. The picture of the dinner rolls is not good. She said on the blog that she baked them too long. Mine were a lot lighter in color and were very good. However, the pan of rolls that I forgot about in the oven wasn't so great. I wouldn't recommend baking them for 45 minutes....it's not pretty.

My new favorite dinner

I made this for dinner last night. It's steamed fresh broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower. I put it over a little bit of rice and grated cheddar cheese over the top. Yum!

I'd say I made a comeback, wouldn't you?

I got my test back today. This is what an electron pushing problem is supposed to look like. (Those red check marks mean I did it right on that spot. The score is 11/11.)


It really is an odd sort of miracle...I got full credit on the electron pushing portion of my test. This problem was a bit more simple than our quiz problems. Let's hope I can do that again on the final now...and that will be the last time I ever do it again!

Quickie Birthday Post~

I'm just doing a quick post since we got home late from Summer's and I gotta get ready for school tomorrow...


This is a basket my sister sent with some of the things I got for my birthday. She made up the basket really cute with fun girly things in it. I was just organizing the things I got from different people all in the basket and then thought I should put a picture on my blog. Most of it is from Wendy, and then other things are like those cards from my mom or the big candy bar from a friend at church. Thank you!

Also, I wanted to include this picture to show what happens if you drop something off.


My visiting teacher was very thoughtful and left this for me on my doorstep with a gift bag of lotion and shower gel. I'm amazed it was all still there when we got home! (I don't think she knew we were going out of town for the weekend.) Anyway, I just want to let people know that it's not usually safe to leave nice things for us on our doorstep because we have everybody in town who wants a storage unit ringing our doorbell every day...or the people who have a unit already come visit their unit too. I would feel bad if somebody left something for us and it was stolen.

Thank you for all the nice birthday gifts and cards and well-wishes! I'll make a better post next time~

Happy Birthday

It's my birthday tomorrow. I can't be excited yet because I have a chemistry test tonight at 8:30pm. I'm supposed to be thinking about the citric cycle and the structure of glucose, but all I can think about is tomorrow and my plans to visit Summer. I like school, but I'm also looking forward to the days when I don't have to make myself sit still all day and study.

Since blog posts are no fun without pictures, here is a lovely picture of the back of my last quiz in chemistry. (I didn't want to show the front with my Student ID number. Somebody might steal it and do who knows what.)

(I used the red and black pen...all those purple marks are from the teacher...)


I've actually been doing very well on my quizzes this semester (96% average), but this quiz was awful. For some reason, my teacher has had it in his head that we all know what electron pushing is and how to do it. He believes we learned it in a previous course. The fact is, all the students who have taken 101, 105, and 106 have never seen electron pushing before. (This is Chem 102.) If you don't know what it is, you can study my quiz a little or look it up online. It's very complicated, and since it is like a puzzle--you just figure out each problem case by case, it's almost impossible to teach...and even harder to learn.....Especially when your teacher is in love with chemistry and thinks it's great and thinks we love it and know as much as he does.

He finally gave in last week and had our T.A.'s in lab spend two hours teaching us how to do it. Then we took that quiz. We were able to use all our notes from the previous two hours. I spent 45 minutes working on that quiz, and I got a zero. My T.A. said that out of the whole class (about 300 students) nobody got better than 10/18. Lame. In my section, nobody got higher than 6/18. Wouldn't you think that would send a message to our teacher? On the last exam we had an electron pushing problem worth 10 points, and nobody in the class got better than 5/10.

Electron pushing is not in our book. We're just supposed to magically know it already. Fortunately, I know the rest of the material about disaccharides and the electron transport chain pretty well, since it is in the book.

...So wish me luck on my test tonight!

Elegant Easter Éclairs--On Second thought...

If you decide to make these, they really are better with chocolate frosting on top. I used the leftovers for FHE tonight, so I made chocolate frosting so it would seem like something new. I made the frosting pretty dark by using a lot of coco powder and it turned out like the frosting on a donut. Delicious!

Oh, and they are best fresh. The second day they get kind of soft and moist...the container you keep them in will have water droplets inside, and that makes them not as good. (It's not supposed to be like a sponge.) Anyway, it says you can make them a day ahead, but I think I will just make them the day of the event.

Elegant Easter Éclairs--Happy Easter!

These are delicious and easy to make!



1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
4 eggs

In a medium saucepan, bring water and butter to boil; remove pan from heat. Immediately add flour all at once and stir vigorously with wooden spoon until mixture leaves pan and forms a ball. Add eggs, one at a time, beating vigorously after each addition until smooth. Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet, allowing room for expansion. Shape with a spatula into egg shape. Bake at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes or until puffed and golden. Remove and cool on wire rack while preparing filling.

1 (6 oz) package vanilla instant pudding (I mixed vanilla and banana cream pudding)
2 cups milk
1/2 pint whipping cream

Prepare pudding as directed on package, using only 2 cups of milk instead of 3. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Whip cream. Gently blend pudding with whipped cream.

To fill éclairs, cut horizontally with sharp knife, removing lid. (You don't have to cut it all the way off, you can just cut a small flap.) Scoop out any soft dough. Fill shells generously with filling. Replace lids. Frost the lids with chocolate frosting of your choice. Decorate as you wish or garnish witha small, edible flower.

Shells and filling can be made a day ahead and refrigerated. Fill the shells the day of serving. Makes 8 to 10.

I thought these were good enough without the chocolate frosting, so I'm going to skip that part.

Good News, Bad News

Ok, bad news first.

Some of Greg's stitches came out of his finger early.


















...Then he fell down the stairs at school and caught himself by slamming his hand on the rail really hard. The cut broke open and bled.

More bad news: We found out that it cost $1,000 for Greg's stitches.

Good news: We don't have to pay for it because we are poor enough. A charitable agency designed to help poor people is taking care of it for us. I guess there are a few perks to being poor college students.

And this concludes our session of Good News, Bad News for today.

Time Out for Women!

I'm going to Time Out For Women with my friend in Spokane on May 1st!


I've only been one time before with my sister in Texas when I was a teenager. I really enjoyed it. That time, Sheri Dew was there. I didn't know who she was, haha. Wendy was so excited to see her, and we even got to shake her hand and talk with her. (I wish we could go back in time and see her again since I know who she is now.) We also saw Michael McLean and his son perform. I don't really know many of the people at this session, but I'm sure it will be good anyway. I'm excited for the spiritual uplifting day, and for a good excuse to spend the day with my friend.

This is Wendy Ulrich:

Linda Eyre & Shawni Eyre Pothier:

Michael Wilcox:

Emily Freeman:

Mariama Kallon

...And Mercy River. They are a singing group.

You should go too if you're able. You can get a group discount of $10 off if 5 people register together. Also, they had a discount if you got your tickets at least a month early.