Alana Ballerina

Alana completed her fall dance session with a performance for the parents. What a sweet ballerina!
She's in the back row, center:

Honey Wheat Bread

I've been playing around with recipe's to find a delicious and nutritious home-made bread. I've been baking wheat bread exclusively since March of this year. This is the recipe I came up with for our family:

2 cups warm water
3 tsp yeast
6 Tbsp butter
1/2 cup honey (spilling over)
a splash of molasses (optional)
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp milled flax seed (optional-for those trendy omega 3's)
5 cups hard red wheat (King Arther brand)

Yields 2 loafs.
Dissolve yeast in water. Add all the other ingredients except for one cup of the flour. Knead in that last cup of flour (about 5 minutes). Let rise till double in size (1 1/2 hours in the summer, 2 hours in the winter), punch down then divide in two and squish down into two generously buttered loaf pans and let rise again, 45min-1 hour). bake together for 27 minutes at 330. (My oven runs hot)

We enjoy the sweet honey taste and heavy, chewy texture of this bread. Now, if it would just curb my appitite for cookie dough...

Line Dancing!!

Last night we had the youth from Collierville 1st and 2nd wards over for line dancing instruction. Sister Rickabaugh taught everyone and we had smores and hot chocolate off to the side. They all started out dancing, but by the end of the night, only about 10 girls and a few leaders stuck it out! Fun times!

No More Training Wheels!

This afternoon Alana learned to ride her bike without the training wheels! It only took about 30 minutes for her to get the hang of it. She can go straight and stop on her own, but we're still working on turning and starting off. Good job Alana!

Race For the Cure!

This year the Race for the Cure was on Halloween morning! And what a beautiful morning it was -- perfect brisk cool temperatures with plenty of sunshine. Last year I was just recovering from my lumpectomy and participated in the 1 mile walk. This year, with the help of my trainer, Crissy, and my running partner Shanda, I was able to run the 5k! Great morning!


I love this picture -- Crissy is smokin' four guys!


Shanda and me -- we really didn't smile like this the whole time -- we were exhausted!