Hey peeps-

I've been in a dinner funk lately and am in need of  of some new dinner recipes. Rules are simple: they have to be recipe's that you have tried, that taste great and that your family will eat. Also, I really don't do the crockpot. Half the time I can't remember to get it started early enough in the day and cleaning a crockpot out to me is just as much a pain as a few pans. That said I'm mainly motivated by how well the dish tastes rather than speed. So by all means please share even if it takes awhile to make. I'm not a cook by any means so my repertoire as of late has been slim pickings.

You have to try these if you get a chance. Yummy!!!

Latest Projects

I wanted to show off a few projects I've been working on. This frame was downstairs in my yardsale pile. I saw an idea online and made my own. The first is a bow holder for Kylie. I spray painted the frame heirloom white, popped out the glass frame and hot-gluded some fabric and fleece to some card board. Then I attached some ribbon at both ends with the glue gun and popped it back into the frame. I love it! And best of all it was free and now I have a cute place to store all of Kylie's bows. Except she looses them about as fast as I buy them.

As you can see it's not a secret that I love black and ivory prints :) Matches her room too.

 I've wanted a tree skirt for years, but haven't found anything I've liked and I just didn't want to spend the money on one. I was going through the yardsale pile in the basement and found a red silk curtain that I had never been able to find a pair for. I loved the color and had a little bit of pintucked satin in the same color in my fabric stash. I had never thought to use it as such but the color was perfect for Christmas! So I cut the curtain into a circle and made it into a tree skirt. I love this type of ruffle- wish I knew the name of it. I left the edges unfinished and added the trim. I thought it turned out really neat.

I wish I was crafty enough to think of other uses for all the other stuff I have in that pile!

Kipton has been growing like craaaaazy lately...

I hate it. But what do you do? 

We walked into his room this morning and for the first time he was standing in his crib waiting for us!

He's only been really crawling for two weeks. I'm amazed he's already pulling himself up. He started out using his arms, which evolved to doing push ups and he finally figured out how to get his legs involved in the process. Still slow at it, but it's fun to watch him crawl over to me.



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She's 3!

I know this is late but I wanted to share how much fun Kylie had on her birthday this year. She had been talking about her birthday for months!!!

Kylie had her first friend party and she loved it! She had Emersyn, Porter, Jordyn, Cohen and Zoey over for the occasion. They played some games- cupcake walk, pin the tail on the donkey, and colored on butcher paper that I had taped up on the walls. We sang to her and she just lit up! Kylie had so much fun and I admit I had a blast. It was a lot of fun decorating this year and I love that she's old enough to appreciate this special day. For her birthday we gave her a little kitchen which took us two hours to put together! The phone on it has gotten a lot of use! Happy birthday girly!

Happy Halloweeeeen!

from a lady bug and skeleton to yours...

Pumpkin Patch

 So I told Kylie to "look happy!" and this is the expression I got.

 We had a lot of fun going to a pumpkin patch last week. We came home with one big pumpkin and Kylie got her heart set on a little yellow pumpkin/squash that was about three inches tall. So that came home with too... along with a a rock. She loves rocks. Kipton loved eating the hay.

Geez I feel like I'm in a blogging rut lately. I never know what to write.

Kipton is starting to roll around and scooch everywhere. A couple of weeks ago I put him on the floor to play, ran an errand somewhere and when I got back I was shocked because he was playing with a balloon and followed it and rolled across the room. He holds himself up on his arms and rocks his body back and forth. So the full fledge crawl can't be far away. He's got a crazy tight grip and a pinch to go along with it. He has one bottom left tooth now. I just love, love love our little guy. He has a piece of my heart that I never knew I had.

It's been a really fun/crazy week for us since Kylie's birthday was earlier this week and Halloween is soon. Tomorrow we get to go to Jared's work for office trick or treating and a party afterward. I feel like I've been preparing for this week for months!  I kind of went all out for her birthday (well, all out for me anyway). We had so much fun and she's been talking about her birthday for months! More to come about that.

Happy Halloween! 

I had the camera out the other day and Kylie INSISTED that I take a picture of her.  Once I downloaded the pictures I saw the face she was making.

blue eyes

So we may have ourselves a new pet? We found this little guy in our backyard last week. He was just skin and bones and looked like he had been on his own for a long time. The poor guy was just starving, quite literally. So we ran to the store and fed him (I know, I know).  He's very sweet, friendly and responds to "here kitty kitty". Kylie sure loves to feed him and can do that all by herself! I'm not sure how old he is but I'd guess he's about a year old or so? He's not quite a full size adult. I've started calling him Percy. Crazy thing is that he looks like a living reincarnation of our cat Sukie that we had growing up. I love the color of his eyes!

Welcome kitty, hope you can stay.

Wow! Talk about a craaaaazy day in our little town. Yesterday afternoon the hills just south of us caught on fire. I believe around 1600 homes were evacuated, three homes were completely destroyed and a couple of hundred homes have some minimal damage. Our house was just outside the evacuation zone, the smoke was getting really bad last night but cleared up by this morning. These hills are so close. It's been all over the news.

I don't know what your view looked like last night, but ours started off looking like this around 5pm or so...

(all photos from KSL or Deseret News)

By eight or nine pm it looked like this:

Again these aren't our photos but you get the idea! Seeing stuff like this firsthand is quite the experience. Jared took some video I'll have to see if I can post it.

I could just eat them up...

Kipton at 6 months

 

I'm starting to feel like I'm in-and-out-and-in-and-out constantly at church. It's part of the deal I know but I thought about last week and just laughed. This past Sunday Kylie had to go potty no less than five times  (twice during sacrament meeting, once between classes, and twice in nursery). Then Kipton had two diaper changes himself, and was really fussy in sacrament meeting so I spent half of it out in the hallway with him. Which is okay but I play the organ in sacrament meeting and the piano in relief society so I'm always trying to time myself of when I need to be back to play. Augh!!!! Jared's really great about helping out but even with that I still feel like I'm the center of attention as I'm constantly having to come and go from the meetings or we are trading the kids with each other. I lost count last week how often I had to leave! And let's not mention last week when I ripped my white skirt for the second time on that darn organ bench!!! It has these little keyhole slits around the hem and catches. I had fixed it and a few weeks ago "riiiiiiiip". I think I'm retiring that skirt until my organ days are over.

My lovelies...

Kylie:

-Likes to dedicate her poops to people. (she'll kill me when she's older for telling you this) She'll say "I poop for grandma!" or "I poop for Pictin (Kipton)!" (or insert cousins, friends, anyone etc).

-Loves her brother so much and can't leave him alone!!!! I bought a new door knob for the nursery that has a lock on it so the poor boy can sleep without his big sis waking him up!

-Is so cute when when she says "I'm a good helper!"

-Likes to cook.

-Likes to go swimming.

-Likes practicing her "letters".


Kipton:

-Wants to eat food so bad! Loves his mush. If there is a sippy cup near his mouth he'll attack it with a vengeance! If I'm drinking a glass of something while holding him he lets me know he wants a taste too!

-Scoots on his back if left alone. He's fallen off the bed a couple of times because he's scooted himself off of it. So being left alone on the bed isn't allowed anymore :).

-Sleeps through the night on most occasions, sometimes gets up once a night for a bottle. 

-Likes to eat his toes when having his diaper changed.

-Likes his bouncer.

- Still no teeth.

Not sure what happened...

to my background but it probably has something to do with when I was deleting some files off of the laptop last week. I really don't have time to fix it right now so enjoy the business format for now :)

Matters of Business

Kylie is doing GREAT with potty training! We first tried 5-6 months ago and she'd she did pretty well when she was running around with nothing on, but it was just a disaster when she was wearing underwear. I couldn't handle the endless accidents so back went the diapers. She got to the point where she'd announce when she needed a new diaper so I figured it was time to try again :). She's doing great and will even tell us when she needs to go now, so I'm not always having to ask her. The past week or so I've been even venturing out on short trips without a diaper. And she went to church without a diaper for the first time last week.  Go girl!!! I'm so happy she's doing so well with this.


Kylie's also been on a painting kick. She loves to paint, and usually by time she's done she's covered in paint herself. We've been going swimming a lot this past month and she's having a lot of fun. She's not near as daring in the water as she was last year. I really enjoy taking them. I was worried I'd have a hard time with the two of them but it's been pretty relaxing.


Kipton is pretty easy going as usual. He's just the calmest, cutest little thing. He's very interested in what we are doing now, especially when it comes to food and likes being held. He's loving his mush (rice cereal), sweet potatoes and lets us know when he wants some! Jared had to take him home during sacrament meeting this past week because he was just desperate for food and wouldn't take his bottle. I was wondering if the day would ever come but he finally rolled over last week (5 1/2 months). I actually caught it on video, I could hardly believe it. Though he doesn't get much tummy time because of his big sis! He also slept through the night for the first time at our family campout a week ago.

I could just kiss their cheeks endlessly & love them so much!

First Hair Cut - June 2010

Well... first non-mom haircut that is.

 

Before:

During:

 

After: 

(take note of the sucker for a job well done)

 

Mostly it was re-shaped in back (looked pretty scraggily), so it's hard to tell from the front.