Real Quick

A picture of the YUMMY cinnamon rolls I made on Sunday! I pulled half of them off the pan before I thought to take a picture of them.

I'd never be able to make these babies without my breadmaker! I've made them twice now, and it's hard to not want to make them every week! :)

Also, I promised some of the ladies in the ward my potato salad recipe, so here it is:

Hidden Valley Ranch Potato Salad

6 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 c chopped onion
1 package Hidden Valley Ranch mix (NOT the buttermilk kind, and NOT the dip)
1/2 c mayo (I use Best Foods)
1/4 water

Boil the potatoes until soft. Drain and cool completely in the refrigerator. Meanwhile, chop your veggies and, in a small bowl mix the Ranch packet, mayo and water until smooth. When the potatoes are nice and cold, toss them with the veggies and the ranch mixture. Serves 6-8

That's it, easy peasy. This one is so popular that I never get asked to bring anything else to BBQ's. Ever.

Upcoming events:
*Pioneer Day!
*Twilight Moms Breaking Dawn release party at BORDERS
*First day of School! (Yes, it's true. There's only about a month left of summer!!)
*My Birthday
*Our temple sealing anniversary

LLAMA Fest!

We went to the 14th annual Llama Fest this weekend at the Krishna Temple here in town. Usually we go later in the day, and hang out until the sun starts setting. They have live bands and snow cones and stuff. But since we had a ward BBQ that night, we went in the afternoon instead. I think we'll stick to the evening from now on. :) It was HOT!


We got to feed some VERY friendly llamas.


Hannah and Spencer sure enjoyed their blue snow cones!

The whole family! :) Many, many thanks to Heather for coming with us and taking pictures. I hope is wasn't too boring. :) We had fun, but, like I said, I think we'll go much later next year.

Fourth of July Pics

FINALLY! Some pictures from our Independence Day BBQ at Uncle Scott's house. Enjoy!

Aspen- dramatic and windblown, as usual.

Spencer is wondering why we're bugging him about pictures when there's FIRE nearby.

Duke and me- we're so cute. :)


And Hannah on the Slip N Slide. She had a hard time getting the hang of it. About as hard a time as I had making the dang camera work. lol

Twilight Moms Zoo Trip

I can't believe I forgot to make a blog entry for the zoo trip we had in June! We went with the Utah Twilight Moms group from TwilightMoms.com. It was a BLAST!! Here's a few pictures: Spencer
Hannah
Aspen

The Bald Eagle at the bird show. That was the coolest thing, too. We've been to the zoo before, but never caught the bird show. It was fantastic! They had all these owls and hawks and doves come swooping RIGHT over our heads. And then to see a real live bald eagle. Well, it was just awesome!

Spencer, Hannah, Aspen and Matthew on the Rhino

The Ghost of the Bayou- a WHITE alligator. Not albino, white. He has blue eyes. That thing is MASSIVE!
Aspen thinks she's the Croc Hunter. :) Sassy.



Spencer inside the Snake Slide. Scary.

And lastly, Hannah, inside the Turtle Shell. Cute. :)

Independence Day Weekend

Oh my! What a fun weekend we've had!
Friday we went over to my Uncle Scott's house for our (now) annual 4th of July BBQ. It was such a blast! They have a trampoline in the backyard, and Scott bought a slip-n-slide for the kids. They ran around for hours with squirt guns and buckets of water, soaking anything that would move. :) I have to confess that I spent a fair amount of time on the trampoline myself and, whooo-boy!, it sure was easy to work up a sweat. :) I was almost grateful when I got doused. My cousin's fiance' did all the grilling. I've never had a better burger (except for In-N-Out, but who can really compare?). Then we played this game that was so fun, called Virus. I'll have to explain it another time if you've never heard of it. I hadn't. But suffice it to say that it was worth a great number of laughs. I love getting together with my extended family so much! They are crazy fun. After several rounds of Virus we set off our little fireworks on the street, and by the time we were done it was about time for the BIG ones. Scott and Paula have the greatest view of the fireworks from the Stadium of Fire from their backyard. Some of my good friends came over to watch them with us, and it was really good to see them. I've got to find my camera, but when I do I'll post a cute video of Hannah on the slip-n-slide.
Saturday we spent mostly recovering from Friday and picking up around the house. Even that. though, can be a kick. We unpacked and organized some toys that the kids haven't seen in a few months, so they enjoyed it immensely. :) Aspen got to go see Wall-e with my mom and my grandma. She's given it a GLOWING review, so we're really anxious to see it. Later, Aspen read several Dr. Suess books to the kids. It was such a cute scene; I wish I'd taken some pictures of it!
And the big news! Jake is HOME!!! Yay!! He got here at 3:30 this morning. lol But what a wonderful thing to wake up to. That's one middle-of-the-night-mommy-moment that I don't mind at all. We have all missed Jacob so much, especially Aspen. It's great to have him back here.

Just another quick post; no pictures this time. Sorry!

So I just have to brag for a moment. :) I made BBQ Chicken pizza today, (almost) just like Pier 49's, FROM SCRATCH! :) It was sooooo yummy. I even made the dough myself. I baked it on one of those Pizzazz pizza bakers and it turned out perfect. Totally loving this stay-at-home mom thing. I'm learning so much new stuff. I started baking bread (which I've never done before) and rolls from scratch. I've even tried my hand at lasagna from scratch- turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. And next week I'm making curtains!! :) I know, it's so silly. But these are things I've always wanted to do, but never had the time. Next up, cinnamon rolls and a quilt or two!! I'm on a ROLL! :)

I'm so thankful to Duke for helping me to come home and be here with the kids all the time. They sure make me crazy some days, but there's also so much joy to be found with them. The other day I was upset about something that had gone wrong around the house (I can't remember what) and I said "Well, what am I going to do now?" And Hannah, cute as can be, just looked at me and said, "Just be happy!" Those kids come up with some of the most profound wisdom sometimes. I love to just listen to them- especially Aspen; she says the funniest things. I love them all so much, and I've been so blessed to be granted stewardship over them. I am grateful that I'm around to watch them grow up and blossom into the people they were meant to be.

Flying Kites

We received the neatest kites for Christmas from Vi and Shane, and though we've flown them before, we finally took some pictures. They never actually got airborne today, but it was fun to get outside with the kids and run around. Aspen was still at Nanna's house having a special sleep-over, so it's just Duke and Spencer and Hannah and me. We've got a pretty butterfly with really LOOOOONG green streamers, and a BLACK PEARL!!! :) I'll have to get some pictures of them in the air to put on here, too. They both fly well, though you'd never know from looking at that pirate ship. At least, I didn't expect it to fly at all. :)


























Upcoming Events :
+Family 4th of July BBQ

+Hannah's 3rd Birthday

+Jake comes home!

+Llama Fest

+Pioneer Day Carnival and Fireworks