Yummy Gingerbread

Here is the recipe for the homemade ginger snaps I brought to the Turpin Family Christmas Party on Saturday. To make the ginger snaps, I rolled the dough into small 1-inch balls and rolled them in sugar, placed them on a cookie sheet, and then flattened them slightly with the base of a drinking cup.

Thick and Chewy Gingerbread Cookies

3 cups flour
¾ cup packed brown sugar
1 Tbl. ground cinnamon
1 Tbl. ground ginger
½ tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. salt
¾ tsp. baking soda
1 ½ sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened slightly
¾ cup unsulphured molasses
2 Tbl. milk

1. In food processor workbowl fitted with paddle attachment, process flour, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, and baking soda until combined, about 10 seconds. Scatter butter pieces over flour mixture and process until mixture is sandy and resembles very fine meal, about 15 seconds. With machine running, gradually add molasses and milk; process until dough is evenly moistened and forms soft mass, about 10 seconds. Increase speed to medium and mix until thoroughly combined, about 10 seconds.

2. Scrape dough onto work surface; divide in half. Working with one portion of dough at a time, roll 1/4-inch thick between two large sheets of parchment paper. Leaving dough sandwiched between parchment layers, stack on cookie sheet and freeze until firm, 15 to 20 minutes. (Alternatively, refrigerate dough 2 hours or overnight.)

3. Adjust oven racks to upper- and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

4. Remove one dough sheet from freezer; place on work surface. Peel off top parchment sheet and gently lay it back in place. Flip dough over; peel off and discard second parchment layer. Cut dough into 5-inch gingerbread people or 3-inch gingerbread cookies, transferring shapes to parchment-lined cookie sheets with wide metal spatula, spacing them 3/4 inch apart; set scraps aside. Repeat with remaining dough until cookie sheets are full. Bake cookies until set in centers and dough barely retains imprint when touched very gently with fingertip, 8 to 11 minutes, rotating cookie sheets front to back and switching positions top to bottom halfway through baking time. Do not overbake. Cool cookies on sheets 2 minutes, then remove with wide metal spatula to wire rack; cool to room temperature.

5. Gather scraps; repeat rolling, cutting, and baking in steps 2 and 4. Repeat with remaining dough until all dough is used.

**Don't forget the baking soda! I've done that twice, and the cookies are just not tasty without it!!

2008 Cherry Hill Family Reunion Pictures!

If anyone has any other pictures they took at the reunion that you want to share, let me know. I was only there for a couple of the days and didn't get pictures the last day when others were able to come. Sorry, I know there are a lot of pictures of my kids too. Next time I'll try to lug my camera around more and get more of a variety of pictures.

P.S. Glen and Lucille's daughters "the Suave Six" are getting together Saturday, October 25th to pow wow and organize next years Family Reunion at Spring Haven. Please, please contact me with ideas or suggestions you might have for another successful reunion there. We are looking forward to it! My e-mail is steadmanpj@hotmail.com. I know you fabulous people have great ideas so please share, we want everyone to have a good time and get to know each other even better.

June 1, 2008 FHE at the Mathisen's

I love this quote from FHE: "Do not let the least important things get in the way of the most important things!" By Elder M. Russell Ballard.

Scriptures quoted from FHE were: Matthew 6:33 and 2 Nephi 2:27. I'll let you look them up as families and maybe have a discussion on them.

Pauline read the following story called "Satan's Meeting.

Satan called a world wide convention of demons. In his opening address he said, "We can't keep Christians from going to church. We can't keep them from reading their scriptures and knowing the truth. We can't even keep them from forming an intimate relationship with their Savior. Once they gain that connection with jesus, our power over them is broken. So let them go to their churches; let them have their covered dish dinners, but steal their time, so they don't have time to develop a relationship with Jesus Christ."
"This is what I want you to do," said the devil: "Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day!" "How shall we do this?" his demons shouted. "Keep them busy in the nonessentials of life and invent innumerable schemes to occupy their minds," he answered. "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, and borrow, borrow, borrow. Persuade the wives to go to work for long hours and the husbands to work 6-7 days each week, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their empty lifestyles. Keep them from spending time with their children. As their families fragment, soon their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work!"
"Over-stimulate their minds so that they cannot hear that still, small voice. entice them to play the radio or cassette player whenever they drive...to keep the TV VCR, CD's and the PC's going constantly in their home a nd see to it that every store and restaurant in the world plays non-biblical music constantly. This will jam their minds and break that union with Christ."
"Fill the coffee tables with magazines and newspapers. Pound their minds with the news 24 hours a day. Invade their driving moments with billboards. Flood their mailboxes with junk mail, mail order catalogs, sweepstakes,and every kind of newsletter and promotional offering free products, services, and false hopes."
"Keep skinny, beautiful models on the magazines and TV so their husband will believe that outward beauty is what's important, and they'll become dissatisfied with their wives. Keep the wives too tired to love their husbands at night. Give them headaches too! If they don't give their husbands the love they need, they will begin to look elsewhere. That will fragment their families quickly!"
"Give them Santa Claus to distract them from Christmas. Give them an Easter bunny so they won't talk about his resurrection and power over sin and death. Even in their recreation, let them be excessive...have them return from their recreation exhausted. keep them too busy to go out in nature and reflect on God's creations. Send them to amusement parks, sporting events, plays, concerts, and movies instead. Keep them busy, busy, busy!"
"And when they meet for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so that they leave with troubled consciences. Crowd their lives with so many good causes they have no time to seek power from Jesus. Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family for the good of the cause."
"It will work! It will work!" It was quite a plan! The dewmons went eagerly to their assignments causing Christians everywhere to get more busy and mor rushed, going here and there. Having little time for their God of their families. Having no time to tell others about the power of Jesus to change lives. I guess the question is, has the devil been successful at his scheme?
You be the judge! Does "busy" mean:
B-eing U-under S-atan's Y-oke

Let us keep hold of our families and put first the things that are most important.

Hang in there, the blog is still alive

Ok, I know you are all wondering what happened to the blog and why the posts have stopped. I guess you could say I've been a little busy. Sorry everyone, I'm trying desperately to catch up and I do have pictures from the summer reunion at Cherry Hill, I will try to get it all caught up this week, so stay tuned.

A Wagner FHE

Grandma took these pictures when they visited Connie and Ron during a Wagner FHE! Thanks for sharing! We love seeing Kent & Becca and Taylor & Lisa and their cute families. Sorry about the spacing of the pictures, I was having issues with blogger and every time I tried moving them around, some kept getting deleted. It was making me mad so I decided after adding them all a 5th time, to just let well enough alone. Love you all!

Turpin Family Reunion 2008

Here is an email from Aunt Nancy regarding this year's Turpin Family Home Evening:

Dear Family,

You are all invited to the Turpin Family Reunion on Thursday July 10th thru Saturday July 12 at the Cherry Hill Camp Ground at 1325 South Main, Kaysville, Ut 84037. We can start checking in at 4:00 pm. Your presence is requested and we want to see everyone there. Please RSVP Aunt Nancy by June 10, 801-451-6751.

I need you to answer a few questions for me. First, are any of you interested in having a Family Reunion Shirt made? Are you all willing to purchase the shirts for your individual families? What are your suggestions for next years reunion? I would like to make assignements to each person coming. Don't worry they are not big assignements. I need a firm commitment about who is coming and who is not. Even if you can only be there part of the time that would be helpful information.

I have attached an agenda to this email. I hope to hear from you all soon. The reunion is in 6 short weeks. I would like to make some assignments, but before I do I need to know who is going to be there. Get on your mark, get set, go. Let's see who emails or calls Aunt Nancy back first. The race is on.

I love you all,

Aunt Nancy K. Winslow

nancykaywin@yahoo.com

THE AGENDA:

Monday, May 26, 2008

Dear Family,

There are only 6 more weeks until the Turpin Family Reunion at Cherry Hill. We are going to have so much fun. Here is a little agenda. I hope this clears up any confusion about the reunion. When you get there Mom and Dad and the following sister, Teresa, Connie, Glenda, and Nancy all need to check in at the office. All other campers, please call my cell phone 801-589-5076. We will guide you to our tent spaces.

Thursday July 10th

4:00 Check in and set up camp site
6:00 pm dinner – Church across the street from Cherry Hill Bowery.
7:00 pm Family Games
8:30 pm Free time – If we purchase combo passes, maybe we could do one or two activities something from the combo pass. Anything but swimming or mini golf.
10:00 Bedtime

Friday July 11th

8:30 am Breakfast- Camp spots
9:30 am – Swim, water slides, what ever. A combo pass is $23.00. If we buy in group of 20 they are $20.00. I thought it would be fun to swim and do water slides on Friday.
12:00 noon – Lunch – More swimming and activities
6:00 pm Dinner- Church across the street from Cherry Hill Bowery.
7:00 Turpin FHE
8:00 Family games and activities

Saturday July 12th

8:30 am Breakfast-
9:30 Possible Mini golf tournament.
11:00 Take down tents and check out and load up cars.
12:00 noon Lunch at my church’s bowery right across the street from Cherry Hill. After lunch we can play volley ball and play games.

This is the possible agenda for the Family Reunion. If we decide not to purchase splash passes or combo passes we will adjust and make appropriate changes. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to call me. I love you all and look forward to seeing you very soon. For those of you who are not coming, I will miss you so much. Plan now to be with us next year.

For more information about Cherry Hill, go to http://www.cherry-hill.com/

May Family Home Evening: Mothers

For May Family Home Evening, we all assembled at Marianne's and Tony's house in Lindon, Utah.

Family News: Nancy reminded us all about the upcoming Turpin Family Reunion scheduled for July 10-12 at Cherry Hill in Farmington, Utah. She has a lot of fun activities planned and expects us ALL to be there. You're all planning on coming, right?? And the big news of the night: DEAN IS ENGAGED!!! Congratulations DEAN!!

Marianne had us all play a game like Jeopardy, with the subjects "What I learned from my mother," "What I like to do on Sunday," "My favorite scripture story," and "What I love about being a mother." The answers were either Grandma, Teresa, Connie, Nancy, Pauline, Pam, and Grandpa (because my mom didn't return any of Marianne's calls...) We split into three teams, and as you can guess, it was a very exciting game!! We even scared the two babies who were in attendance. It was fun to learn about the Turpin Sisters and Grandma and Grandpa. Marianne, can you email us the information you gathered for the game??

Thanks for hosting Marianne and Tony!!!

Where have all the Wagner's gone....and the Smiths...and...and...

Ok people, where are you all?! I entered everybody's email addresses in the family (34 total) to invite them to view the blog and this whole week, I've only had 13 accept the invitation and of those 13, 4 of them live in my house! I realize if you haven't accepted the invite than you are not reading this either, so......Lisa (the only Wagner who apparently reads her e-mail), please, please, please tell your mom and dad and siblings to check their e-mail and then coach them how to proceed if they can't figure it out. Amanda and Nancy, the same goes for you, to clue in your family, since you are also the only ones of your family who checks their e-mail.
You know, the funny thing is, Teresa was the SECOND person to accept the invitation (Jodee was the first, congratulations) to view the blog and I thought Teresa would be the one I would have to call and tell to check her e-mail. So, me, grandma and grandpa are wondering where the rest of you are, hope to see you on the acceptance list soon! We love you all!

Grandpa's Scripture Challenge

Ok, I think all of you are aware that Grandpa has, at times quoted us a scripture that he wants us all to remember and memorize. Sometimes he even quizes us to see if we have done it. You will all remember the first scripture, Mosiah 2:41. The new scripture, though we have had it for quite some time now, is 2 Nephi 31:16. I think this is such a great idea and I thank Dad for this challenge. So, here is mine and Grandpa's challenge to you......memorize these scriptures. I've made it easy for you since all you have to do is click once on the scripture in this paragraph and it will take you to it. You never know when Grandpa might ask you the scripture challenge, maybe on the phone talking to him, when you are over for a visit, or at the next family home evening meeting. So, will you be ready? Are you up for this challenge? I hope so, come on, lets all wow grandpa at the next FHE!

Lesson: The New First Presidency

Ok, Family, let me give you a little background first about how this all came together. Jodee and I (Pam) keep in touch by each others family blogs. Jodee requested I take pictures at the next Turpin Family Home Evening and post them. In thinking about her request, I thought what a fun idea it would be to set up a Turpin Family Home Evening blog site to help all of you who are out of state and not with us to feel more in touch with all of us and keep you included in the family happenings. I will give highlights from the lessons, any family updates or news and of course, try to include some fun pictures too. We have quite a few hams in the family (Brady, Nancy, and Tony, to name a few), so this ought to be fun. We love all of you and we miss all of you that can't be with us. We think of you often and always ask for an update on all those not present at the monthy home evenings. Our meetings are held the 1st Sunday of each month so e-mail me any news you want shared with the family, updates, ideas you have, recipes, and even pictures that I can post here on the blog.(steadmanpj@hotmail.com).

Grandpa and Grandma gave a fabulous lesson on our new First Presidency. We read interesting tidbits about each member of the Presidency and tried to guess which person it was about. Grandma told the story of how her and Grandpa were at a dance (I believe) and they left to go get something from the car where Grandpa pulled a box of chocolates from the glove box. Grandma opened it to find a diamond ring in the center of the box and Grandpa asked her to marry him. They then left the car to go back inside and as they came up to the door, President David O McKay came out of the building and greeted them! Grandma told of another time she was at work and she felt a sudden warm feeling come over her and upon looking up, saw the prophet standing there before her and he asked if he could speak to her boss. She bore testimony of that warm feeling and how she felt it was because he was the Lords Servant and has such a special spirit about him.

In family news, Maryann announced she was pregnant and due sometime in November. Nancy asked her how she was feeling and Tony quickly answered, "Oh, I'm fine, but Mary, she complains a little, but I feel just fine!" We all laughed, and Mary rolled her eyes. He is such a ham! Nancy excitedly reported her news was that Doug was back in town, to which I replied, "Who's Doug?!" That got some more chuckles. At the end of the lesson, Mary asked Grandma and Grandpa who was the very first prophet they remembered in their lifetime, to which Rob offered, "Moses?" He got some jeering for that one and later Grandpa started calling uncle Rob "Methusala"! I don't know, uncle Rob, that nickname just might stick with you now. We do have fun joking around and just being together as a big loving family!

The highlight for me, was seeing Kevin! He looked so good. He will have his last round of Chemo in a couple of weeks. He had a really tough time this last go around and they have given him an extra week to recuperate before the next round. Kevin, our prayers are continually with you. We love you, it was sooooo good to see you! Kevin also announced, and I'm sorry I don't have the complete details, but I'll do better next time, that the place back east where he had worked or done an internship before called and offered him a full time job. I believe it was as a government scientist! He hopes to start that mid summer. We are so happy for you. Congratulations are also in order for Kristy, Amy and Alyssa. Kristy and Alyssa both competed for their high schools in a state wide FCCLA (Family, Community and Career Leaders of America) competition. They both won gold medals in their divisions and are going to Orlando Florida to represent the stae of Utah in Nationals. Amy won a gold medal in the state wide HOSA (Health Occupation Students of America) competition and will represent the state of Utah in Dallas Texas at their nationals. Alyssa also announced she was awarded the distinguished Quinney Scholarship at Utah State University where she and Amy will be attending in the fall. We love you all and hope to see all of you at the Family Reunion in July!