Visitors~

Nothing is as fun as hanging out with your cousins and your best friends!!


Katie Snodgrass and Lauren...best friends for life!! Hope you all will forgive me some day for this picture!
Tyler and Jillayne

Alissa, Andrea, Lauren, and Jillayne

Travis and Branden

Jillayne and Tara Snodgrass

This past week has been busy around here! We have had a lot of fun with friends and family stopping in to see us.

A week ago my sister, Penny and her 3 kids came to stay while her husband, Robert went to a church board meeting with Troy. She stayed for almost a week so they could be here for our youngest sister, Patti's, wedding shower. My great friend Connie Snodgrass and her daughters came the same day. Her daughter,Katie, is Lauren's best friend so she was overjoyed to have her here over the weekend! Connie's husband, Steve, came back with Troy from the board meeting and they were able to stay the weekend as well. We had a great time visiting and relaxing...as much as you can relax with 10 kids in the house! :)

We were off of school until today since we had company. The kids were more than thrilled to have the break! I'm glad we started early!!

~~Creme Brulee~~

Troy and I ate a delicious Creme Brulee this past weekend while we were in St Louis. I decided to give it a try myself. I was pretty excited about how good it turned out. The most difficult part is the time you have to wait for it to thoroughly chill...about 5 hours!~ I didn't have a torch to caramelize the sugar so I did it in the broiler. It worked great. I thought I would include the recipe for anyone wanting to try a new dessert~

Creme Brulee
2 cups Heavy Cream
6 Large egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c sugar
pinch of salt
turbinado sugar ( you can use table sugar )

Directions
Boil about 8 cups of water and keep hot. This is to pour in your baking dish.

In a bowl beat egg yolk and add vanilla. Set aside.

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Heat one cup of cream, sugar and salt in a saucepan. Heat until it is just beginning to boil and remove from heat. Pour remaining cream into this mixture to cool it down. Whisk into egg yolks SLOWLY, stirring constantly. Then strain through a fine- mesh strainer.

Place a kitchen towel in the bottom of a large baking dish. Place your ramekins on the towel in the dish. ( 4 - large, shallow ramekins or about 7 -8 small round ramekins. ) Carefully fill ramekins 1/2 to 2/3 full. Carefully pour the boiling water in the baking dish covering about 1/2 way up on the ramekins. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes. 25 for the shallow dishes and 35 for the deeper dishes. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack for about a hour. Then cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours or up to 4 days.
When you are ready to serve, remove from the refrigerator and uncover. Wipe off any condensation with a paper towel. Sprinkle the top with as little or much turbinado sugar as you like. Rotate the ramekin to evenly cover the top of the custard. Torch with a blowtorch or heat your broiler to high and place ramekins on a cookie sheet about 2 inches from your broiler. Watch closely and broil until the sugar is a very light brown...about 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Remove the ramekins and return them to the refrigerator for about 15 to 30 minutes to re-cool. If you are broiling the sugar topping you can place the ramekins in baking dish filled with ice water. This will help keep them cool as you broil. Garnish with berries and serve!! YUMMY!!

We are back!

Lauren and Andrea on Sunday morning. Andrea is wearing one of Lauren's dresses she wore when she was about the same age. Andrea thinks it is so neat to wear something her big sis used to wear!

Tyler and Travis decided to try on their dad's jeans for entertainment....it is way more fun than folding laundry!

Andrea, Alex, and Travis....notice Alexes orange nose, I think he has had to many orange veggies~

Alex "reading Dora"

We started another new school week. Andrea is doing great in her reading! I am so excited about how she is moving right along. She is already reading some 2 and 3 letter words. She is really motivated which makes it nice for me. Lauren has already had 3 tests and has made 100 on all of them. So all in all we are doing pretty good with school!

I forgot to charge my camera before we went to St Louis and I didn't get any pictures there but I thought I would post some misc pictures we have taken this past week. Hope all of you all are having a great week!

We are looking forward to a fun weekend. My sister and her family are coming down on Thursday. Troy and Robert have a church boardmeeting in Little Rock, Arkansas on Friday. So Penny and the kids are going to stay with me. Also my friend, Connie Snodgrass and her two girls are coming in on Thursday and are going to stay all weekend. So I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures next week!

Crazy Days around here!

Life has been moving like a roller coaster around here!
Andrea had to go to St Louis today to have her port chemo treatment. My mom and my grandma volunteered to take her...their other option being to stay home and teach school to 4 kids...what would you do?!! Andrea did great, her only major complaint being that she wanted them to do a spinal tap! Yes I did say a spinal tap! The only thing I can figure out is that she really likes the "sleepy" medicine they give her then. Her counts came back really good for the 1st time! They are usually to high or to low. She had a great time there seeing all of her favorite friends, Dr's, and nurse!
Tomorrow after church Troy and I are taking a trip to St Louis for our 16th Anniversary. My mom is going to stay with the kids until Friday afternoon and then the Boardmans are going to take everyone except for Alex on a camping trip to a state park about 1 1/2 hours from here. If they aren't crazy for even thinking about doing this, they will be crazy when they get home!~! 10 kids camping?!!! The kids are excited beyond words!!You go Dave and Heidi!! We love you all lots and owe you big time!!
The Make a Wish foundation came to our house last week to meet Andrea and our family. They talked to her about what her wish would be if she could do anything she wanted to. Without hesitation she told them she wants to meet a princess, preferably , Cinderella! So it looks like our family may be making a trip to Florida this fall sometime. I told them my feet aren't leaving the ground unless I am heavily sedated so we will be making a loooong road trip!! :)
I guess that sums up the news for the past week around here. We are surviving school thus far....hopefully it we can keep it up!
I'll post new pics this weekend.

School has Started!!

We have officially started school here at the Truitts. Not really because we were overly excited but we are trying to get a head start!! Last year was so stressful because of all of our hospital stays with Andrea. We figured if we start early this year maybe it will be a little easier! Andrea is actually the most enthusiastic about her school! She did a lot of pre-school work last year when she was sick. I went ahead and started her in kindergarten even though she is just 4. I figure if it takes her 2 year to do the work she will still be right where she should be. Pray for my sanity as it could go really quick!:)


Lauren started high school this year!! Where did my baby girl go?!!



Luke is in 7th grade.

Tyler still hasn't figured out why on earth school is a requirement!! He has better things to do!

Travis can't stop smiling or talking!

Andrea is the only one who is really happy about all of this!

Trip to the City Museum

Our family was invited to the City Museum by the Basket of Hope organization this past Friday. Basket of Hope brings the neatest basket to the hospital to kids who have just been diagnosed with cancer. We left Alex at home with Nana and brought Josh and Ben Boardman along with us. It was a fun day to say the least! The City Museum is in St Louis in an old factory that they have converted into a museum. It is unique to say the least! There are tunnels everywhere and slides to go with them. One floor has every craft supply imaginable to make whatever creation you can think of. There are caves to explore, an aquarium and much more. That evening we all went up to the 10th floor to have supper, and fun. There were probably around 75 - 100 people there. We saw several friends we have met at the Costa Center and made a lot of new friends as well! All in all it was a very fun day!

Andrea and Mickey Carroll... Mickey was a munchkin in the original Wizard of Oz movie. Mickey came and ate dinner with all of us at the Windows on Washington restaurant on the 10th floor of the City Museum.

The boys playing in the skateboard area.

Troy and Andrea in the big castle parapet way up high!

Tyler in the HUGE ball pit!

Andrea and Tyler coming down a big slide together

Tyler, Travis, Andrea, Ben and Luke standing in front of the aquarium.

The Sankeys Visit

What an awesome time we had finally getting to meet the Sankey Family! Melodie and I have been emailing each other for some time and we had set up a time for them to come and have a service with us here in Cape. They arrived on Thursday evening and our kids immediately became friends! It was so much fun getting to know them all!! We are already planning a trip to visit them in Mexico where they are missionaries. We had a great service on Thursday evening and enjoyed hearing all about their work. We then went home for supper and stayed up until 2am visiting. They had to leave on Friday morning so the visit was much to short...hopefully next time we will have more time! Thanks Sankey family for coming to Cape!


Melodie and Marc

The Truitt's, Sankeys, and Josh and Ben Boardman

Cameron, Luke, and Alex

Jenn and Melodie

2 Miracles!! Andrea and Logan ~ Many prayers have been prayed for these two!

Marc and Troy....they are so much alike it is scary!:)

What a fun time together!

Kids and Storms

The kids latest safety plan for storms ahead is...
Set up your tent in the basement , find every pillow, blanket , sleeping bag ect. in the house, pile in and get comfortable!! We were under tornado watches last Wednesday and the boys decided instead of having to run to the basement in the middle of the night they would just camp out down there in their tent! Lauren decided to come down and join in on the fun for awhile...she was smart enough to sleep in her own bed! :) The next morning they came up and said " It was hard and COLD!!" I'm not sure they will try it again any time soon but, it was an adventure at the time!


The Storm Shelter is set up!

Don't forget to text everyone and tell them you are safe.....

Travis, Tyler, Luke, and Lauren ready to ride out any tornado!