Rippin' Fun...

It has always surprised me when my kids pick up a new phrase because they always pick it up so quickly. It surprises me even more when they come up with a phrase that neither myself nor my husband have ever said. Today I was in for a bit of a shocker when my 5 year old and my 3 year old were playing. They had lined up all the dining room chairs (because I was mopping the floor) along the side of the couch and were jumping from the chairs to the couch. As they jumped, they kept exclaiming, "That's rippin' fun!" Now where they got this I have no idea. It sounds pretty funny coming from a 3 year old flying through the air though.

Feels like Fall..

It feels like fall at our house. Our pumpkins are orange, and our grapes are purple...

We have been busy this weekend bottling peaches, and drying pears. I still have more peaches to bottle, but not before I snag a few for a pie for Family Night tonight. Yum!!! It looks like the plums will be the next on the list of things to harvest, and then the grapes. Our sunflowers are now all gone. :(


I love fall. Spring and fall are my favorite seasons. I love the cool crisp air in fall, being able to finally use blankets when I sleep at night, getting out all of my sweaters, cuddling with my honey because it isn't too hot anymore, and finally feeling like cooking again. I love the colors of fall, especially when it comes to crafting. I love harvesting all the pumpkins and gourds and decorating our house with them. Oh yes....I love fall!!!

Book Review: 3 Weeks With My Brother

Last night was book club night. This month we read Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas and Micah Sparks. I really enjoyed the book. It is a memoir about Nicholas and Micah, their family, and the trip they took around the world together. Nicholas basically wrote the book with impute from his brother, so it is from Nicholas' perspective. He intertwined his family life memories with memories from his trip around the world. I thought this might make the book choppy, but he really pulled things together rather nicely. He included some very humorous stories from his childhood, and also some sad stories as well. His later life was filled with a lot of tragedy which made it a really touching and thought provoking book. I really enjoyed the parts about his vacation as well. I have never been to all the places he got to go (except Guatemala), so it was neat to hear about them and the things he saw while he was there. I really enjoyed the book and would recommend it. I was surprised last night at book to find that several of the ladies didn't like the book, that they thought it was a brag-fest about his accomplishments. I didn't get that feeling when I read it. It was a memoir afterall, I don't think anyone would paint a horrible picture of themselves in their own book. So I would recommend the book to anyone...happy reading!

What a bargain!!!

Here is the outfit I wore to church on Sunday. I was ecstatic about it! I just bought all of them this last weekend.....
black lacey dress shirt....$7.00.
Cream ruffly skirt.....$5.00.
Black strappy heals....$4.48.
For a grand total of less than $16.50 for a complete outfit!!!! No wonder I felt so good walking around in it!
  

Our Love Story...

My husband and I celebrated our 9 year wedding anniversary on Saturday. We had a "hot" date. We went to the temple and to C@fe Ri0 for lunch (if anyone has a recipe for a dressing similar to their creamy tomatillo, pleas let me know!), and we did a little shopping. We have always done the traditional presents for each other for our anniversary. This year the traditional gift was pottery. We bought each other 8 large pots for our patio:

My husband also surprised me with a skirt, shirt, breakfast, and this beautiful bouquet of flowers from our backyard:

He is the most wonderful husband, and I am so grateful I have been able to spend the last 9 years being married to him.

I thought I would share our love story (the very short and condensed version because blogger is hating me today!).

We met in the spring of 1996 in an Institute class. There were only 6 people in the class, and D was the only guy. We both considered dropping the class, but then our teacher made us the class leaders. We took turns organizing and conducting our class devotionals. We talked a few times during this class, but not too much. I thought he was incredibly handsome, so I was pretty shy around him. Consequently, he thought I was a snob and didn't want to talk to him. After the class ended we saw each other around campus and at Institute activities. We talked to each other whenever we saw each other, but we were both dating other people at the time. After our other relationships ended we started talking a lot more. I would "conveniently" place myself wherever I thought he might be. I wanted to ask him out several times, but always chickened out. He finally asked me out, and we went on our first date on February 1st. We had a really fun date going out to dinner and going ice skating. My life was a bit complicated at this time because the missionary I had been "waiting" for came home four days after our first date(that whole situtation could be a whole other post). Well, needless to say, the best man won, and the missionary fell by the wayside. D and I continued dating and we became engaged on May 1st, and we were married on August 19th in the Salt Lake Temple. And life has been blissful ever since...well not completely, but on the whole, life has been wonderful. We have been through some rough trials, but love each other all the more because of them. I am so grateful I am married to the man of my dreams. I love him dearly.

Stumped....

Okay everyone, I need some help. My brother-in-law is graduating from college tomorrow, and we have no idea what to get him as a gift. Usually for someone graduating from High School we will give them $$$, but that $20 or so doesn't quite seem like the thing to give a college graduate. They don't have a home of their own, so I hate to give him something for a house. So I am asking for help with ideas...got any good ones?

Old Truck, New Truck...

I promised this post several weeks ago, sorry it has taken me so long to get around to it.

A couple of weeks ago we lost a dear friend. We sold my husband's 1988 Ford Ranger. He had had it for 12 years. This included our dating years, and the 9 years of our marriage. It was a good little truck for us, despite having to put a new engine in it in 1998 and replacing the starter several times (at least it was under warranty, so we never had to pay for those 4 starters we went through), and it had weird electical problems where sometimes the radio wouldn't work, or worst of all the heater/ac wouldn't work. We found out that wasn't fun when we headed off to my in-laws house for Christmas one year without a heater. We were freezing!!! The funny thing is that if you hit a good bump it would turn back on, so we went around trying to hit every pot hole and bump we could find. Finally we found a cattle guard that did the trick. We have lots of fun memories from that truck...making out, driving around a whole mountain range, hauling and moving all kinds of boards and furniture. It was a good little truck, and we were sad when the new owner drove it away.
 
We had been looking around for a new truck for awhile. We actually almost bought one in 2005 before we realized all the car seats would not fit into our old Explorer, so we ended up buying a van instead. My husband's brother called us one day out of the blue and asked us if we wanted to buy his truck. He wanted to get a new one. Sometimes in my life I feel like blessings just fall into our laps (other times we have to work REALLY hard for them). This was one of those kind of blessings. We had looked at trucks enough to know that we couldn't afford anything as nice as we would like. My brother-in-law gave us a great deal on his truck, so that made it possible for us to get what we really needed. Now we can go camping...because we can all fit into the new truck (and my husband was totally against taking our van on back roads again). I can drive this truck...my husband's seat was broken in the old truck, so I couldn't reach the pedals. We drove it up the mountain the other day, and it was so fun to be off in the mountains together as a family. My husband really likes it, and doesn't he look so cute in it?
  

You Idiot!!!

I have tried not to whine and complain on my blog too much, but today I am going to let loose, so watch out!!!

This weekend we took my 16-month old into the hospital to get her stitches out (see below post for reason). They told us to return after 5 days to get her stitches out, but we went in after 6 to give her a little more healing time. The nurse in triage took her back to remove her stitches while my husband held her. Next followed 30 minutes of screaming while the nurse tried to remove her stitches. She finally called in another nurse to help her. In the process she completely ripped open my daughters lip again. My husband said that the nurse couldn't even grab the stitches, that she kept on missing. Afterwards she tried to "glue" it shut again with this nasty brown glue (that she completely spread all over my daughter's chin) and some adhesive strips. She placed two on her lips, the first one immediately fell off and the second only stayed on long enough to get out of the parking lot. The whole time she was trying to attach these strips she was telling me that my daughter would have a scar. I was furious!!! We brought her into the hospital in the first place because we did not want her to have a big ugly scar right on her bottom lip. If I had wanted her to have a scar I would have just left her lip wide open flapping around. She also told me that since her lip was open it left it open to infection and that we needed to be careful with it. This infuriated me even more, especially since the nurse wasn't wearing any gloves the whole time she was working on my daughter. So much for worrying about infection lady! And why would they have you come into the hospital to remove stitches if that isn't enough time to heal the wound. Could they say wait for 10 days instead of 5? It would have given her a little more time to heal back up. So a week later and who knows how much money later (we are still waiting for that bill to come), our daughter is still in the same position she was last week. Lip open and ugly. And now she will have that wonderful scar afterall. I am furious and I want to cry for my poor little girl.

Happy Birthday Stephanie...

Today is Stephanie's Birthday (from For Better or For Worse). I thought I would write her a little tribute to wish her a happy birthday. Stephanie and I met our sophmore year of High School. We had a seminary class together and we instantly hit it off. We had lots of fun in that class talking about "tater" and prom dates. Over the rest of our High School years we had fun going on group dates, having slumber parties, going to football games, and other activities. After High School we became even better friends. We worked at a frozen custard place together and had countless hours of fun scooping custard and cleaning. (I wish I had a picture of Steph in her scoopie uniform to post here, but alas, I don't.) We started college together and had fun haning out in the "Lounge of Love"...

going on double dates, sharing our boy troubles, and just having fun together.

(This picture is of us on Halloween when we dressed up as princesses to go to a college dance.) Most of my fondest memories with Stephanie come from working at a Children's Museum together. We had fun wearing funny costumes....

(I have some better pictures than that, but I didn't want to embarrass Steph on her birthday!) cleaning during shutdown, sharing more boy troubles, school tours, and other activities. We also ended up getting married about the same time. Stephanie was my Matron of Honor...

Our friendship has continued to grow since our marriages. We have fun talking about our little girls, our houses, craft projects, and anything else that pops into our heads (seriously, we could talk for hours!). Our friendship has been so wonderful and I am so grateful to have Stephanie as a friend. She is so outgoing, fun to be with, motivated, and creative, not to mention beautiful, caring and absolutely amazing. So here's to you Stephanie....I hope you have a fantastic birthday. I love you tons!

Stop by Stephanie's blog to wish her a happy birthday...there is a link on my sidebar.

This was bound to happen....

I guess this was bound to happen sooner or later. I actually consider myself lucky that in the almost 6 years of raising children this has never happened before. Last night, we made our first trip to the Emergency Room with one of our children.

Our 16 month old fell off of a stool gashing a big hole in her bottom lip and extended down into the skin between her lips and her chin. She also took a nice chunk out of her gums above her top teeth. We first ran her to an insta-care facility, and they told us to take her to the local children's hospital. Well 4 hours after the accident we were finally on our way home with our little drugged-up baby. She had to have several stitches in her lip and gums. I once heard that when you have children you start wearing your heart outside of your body. That is the way my husband and I felt last night. Our hearts hurt for our poor little baby. It is so hard to see someone you love so very much, especially when they are so tiny and helpless, hurt so bad. I am glad that it wasn't more serious than it was. While the doctors were stitching up my baby I wandered the halls with my other two little girls. There were about 6 other rooms by ours, and they all had screaming children in them. It was almost completely unbearable to listen to all of their cries. I really commend those doctors who can work under those conditions everyday. It would break my heart. So today we are loving our little baby all the more and hoping she recovers quickly without a lot of scaring on her adorable little face. One plus from this experience, it has finally given us a good reason to wean her from the binky. Get better quickly my sweet baby!

My Kindergartener....

I don't know why blogger is hating me lately, but no matter how I tried to put this picture in the below post it kept changing it to be another picture of my 3 year old. ARGH. Hopefully this will work.

Back to school

Yesterday my 5 year old started Kindergarten. She was so excited! She loved school and is looking forward to going again today. I did get a little choked up and teary-eyed when she went into the school with her teacher. I know she is going to have a wonderful time in school this year.

Today I will start teaching my 3 year old pre-school. She is so excited to get to be like her big sister and use her new backpack too. I am excited to see how this experience will help her. She has been surpressed by her big sister her whole life. It will be fun to see how she shines when she is not being bossed around and told what to do and say by her big sister all day.

I love to watch my children learn and grow. Nothing compares to that light in their eyes. This will definately be a fun year for our family.