Justin's late 16th birthday post

Justin is 16 NOW!

I wish I could say this picture was taken on his birthday but it wasn't. It was taken exactly a week later but he is wearing the Utah shirt we gave him for his birthday.

Justin's birthday was pretty lame, although we did things the whole week of his birthday that we counted as part of celebrating his birthday. I kept asking him what he wanted to do, if he wanted to have a party - no. He finally came up with a couple of things (unfortunately there are NO pictures of any of these events, I must have totally shut my brain down last week due to being in denial of him turning 16):
*On Monday, the 3rd, the day before his actual birthday, we had a nice dinner as a family at home and then watched SNL's "Presidential Bash." That is what he wanted to do so we did it. He also opened the lame presents that we got him - the Utah shirt and a Utah hat, a $15 iTunes giftcard, new earphones for his iPod, 3 boxes of his favorite sugar cereals. I keep telling him his car insurance is a HUGE present.
*On Tuesday, his actual birthday, we had what he requested for dinner "chicken con queso", a good frozen dinner from Sam's Club. Both of his grandparents came over to visit him and gave him nice cards with money inside.
*On Thursday night I put on a nice spread of football food at my parents' home while we watched the Utah-TSU game. Justin said the ending to that game was a great present.
*On Friday, the main celebration, we went to see the new Madagascar movie and had dinner at Bajio. This was all Justin's idea. Now seeing the movie was special because we rarely go to movies at a first run theater and NEVER on opening day.
*On Saturday I took him to lunch at Subway and dessert at McDonalds. And I still owe him a winter clothes shopping trip. So all in all, hopefully not bad of a birthday but still kind of lame.

Justin is a great young man and I love him very much. He's great to have around and I really enjoy his sense of humor. I love watching him with Jared and Kamryn - he's a great big brother to them. I love the friendship he has with Brooke. ( We keep telling him to be nicer to Taylor). I am grateful that Justin makes good decisions (most of the time) and the he is doing well his first (real) year of high school.

Awesome Night

What an awesome night for the Utes!!
Justin, Paul and BROOKE and I all watched the game with my dad tonight. It was a lot of fun to all watch it together. I made a good dinner to have with my parents before the game. Jared and Kamryn had fun playing with my mom during the game. It was great to have Brooke watch the game with us - she's not usually too into football but she really got into this game. We made a lot of noise and really enjoyed the outcome.
GO UTES!!

A Brand New Year

I attended the taping of A Brand New Year last night with Justin, Brooke and 3 other young women from our ward. We got there early enough that we had good seats on the floor section. There were a ton of people there so we didn't try to meet up with the rest of our ward. I guess that was a good thing because I heard they didn't even get in and ended up going home.
I thought the program was very good and I especially enjoyed Elder Holland's talk at the beginning. The music was a little cheesy during the rest of the program but I liked it. Unfortunately our jaded youth didn't really get into it and called it "Mormon Musical." Deep down I think they really liked it, it was just too long.

Twins' Conversation

First of all, let me set up the scene.
Jared and Kamryn are in the living room playing, both wearing their Halloween costumes. I had quickly put out a couple of Thanksgiving decorations this morning, one of them being a stuffed turkey. Jared, as Batman, was shooting things with Taylor's gun. I hear Kamryn getting upset.

Kamryn: "Stop shooting!"
Jared: "I have to shoot it. I am Batman."
Kamryn: "Don't shoot the turkey! I love it!! I love animals."

That is how our morning began.

Happy Halloween

Fear Factor 2nd Edition

Taylor really wanted to go to our mutual's version of Fear Factor but I wouldn't let him go. So I decided to put on the activity again the next day for him and his friends. It was easy since I had still all of the stuff for all of the challenges. We invited his friends and also his cousin and his cousin's 2 friends. They all seemed to like the challenges and it was so funny watching them. The slideshow below shows some of the fun they had.

Fear Factor 2

Fear Factor

On Wednesday night our combined activity was Fear Factor. I got all the ideas from my friend Paige who got them at this website.

The picture above is of 3 teams doing the activity "Mystery Food." My sister gave me that idea from a party she'd been to last Halloween.

The activity went pretty smoothly and everyone seemed to have a great time. It's a perfect activity to do around Halloween, except it's pretty messy and would really be better held outside.

Kamryn's party

For Kamryn's dance lesson this week the whole class got to wear their costumes, even her teacher was dressed up.

My beautiful princess!

Who is He?

This is how Justin dressed up in costume for our ward's trunk-or-treat tonight.

Do you know who he is?

This is What Happens ...

This is what happens when you leave the teenagers home to tend the little ones. Very mean but funny, I have to admit. Brooke did say she felt bad afterwards.

Birthdays ...

Birthdays are great because you realize what great friends and family you have and you feel loved. I received very nice cards, emails, phone calls, visits and gifts from those friends and family. Thanks to all for helping me have a nice birthday.

Happy birthday to me

Can you tell the differences in the two photos?
Today is my birthday. At this point in life the best thing about birthdays is it gives you an excuse to go to lunch or dinner or breakfast or all 3.
I got my haircut and then went to lunch with my sister (while at lunch notice that a cross-dresser/transvestite ?? is sitting a couple of tables over from us - tried to get a picture but too dark). Now I'm off to brooke's volleyball game (the church variety) and then to Stake YW Leadership Training meeting. I would totally blow that off and go to book club but they are talking about pioneer trek that we're doing next summer and I don't want to miss that info.

Sugar Cookies

This recipe was requested by my cute friend, Stephanie.

Sugar Cookies

2 cups margarine (not butter)
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Creme above ingred together. Then add:
3 eggs
1/4 milk

Mix together dry ingred:
6 c flour
1 1/2 TB baking powder
3/4 tsp salt

Add to cremed mixture one cup at a time.
Chill for 1 hour. Then roll out (1/4" thick or more) and cut with cookie cutters. Bake at 350 for 6-8 minutes. The secret is to underbake these cookies. Barely brown (if any) on the edges.

Frosting
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup crisco
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup milk
5 cups powdered sugar

ENJOY!

Cabin Time

My kids and I were able to spend a week up at the cabin. I think that is the longest I have ever stayed up there - and I could have stayed longer! We love being up there and are grateful that we have such a great retreat that is so close to us. Paul came up for the weekend and we enjoyed watching the great Utah game! I spent most of my time scrapbooking with my sister. I was able to get 52 pages done up there - unfortunately that is just a drop in the bucket. We also watched a movie almost every night (check my list for what we watched). It was fun watching the cousins all play together and enjoying the beautiful fall weather up in the mountains. It was a great break and I can hardly wait to get back up there again.

Swimming at Snowbird

Desiree invited us to come up to Snowbird where they have a condo timeshare. The kids had so much fun swimming. Kids are amazing - they were in and out of the water between the big pool and the kiddie pool and I was sitting there freezing just watching them.

Dessert Recipes

I thought I would share these two yummy recipes that I got from my sister.

Raspberry Dessert
Melt 1 cup butter on cookie sheet in oven (350 for 1 min or less).
After melted, stir in 1/2 cup brown sugar and then 2 cups flour.
Leave in oven for 15 minutes. Every 5 minutes stir with a fork. After 15 minutes take out and chop with a fork. Let cool for one hour.
Put 3/4 mixture in 9x13 pan.
Filling:
8 oz cream cheese
2 pkg dream whip
Beat dream whip according to instructions.
In separate bowl, beat cream cheese and 1/2 cup powdered sugar. After creamy,
add dream whip. Pour on crust. Top with remaining crust.
Make danish dessert using 1 1/2 cups water. Add 1/2 bag frozen raspberries and stir with whisk. Pour over cream cheese/topping. Cool for several hours before serving.

My whole family loved this and Taylor wants to have it for Thanksgiving.

Banana Bread

1 1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. cinnamon
1 egg
1 c mashed bananas (about 3 med)
3/4 c sugar
1/4 c oil

Put all ingredients in bowl and mix by hand.
Sprinkle brown sugar on top and then spray with butter spray.
Cook at 350 for about 50 minutes.

Makes 1 regular size loaf and about 4 muffins. Can make in an 8x8.

I know there are lots of banana bread recipes out there but this one is my favorite.
Funny story about making this yesterday - I had taken the muffins out and had about 5 minutes to go on the bread. Even though it smelled so good in the house, I completely forgot what I was doing and loaded everybody in the car to go get dinner and just left the bread in the oven. Luckily I had just pulled out of the neighborhood when I remembered about the bread. I went back and took it out and it looked perfect. Can you imagine if I hadn't remembered about it? I probably would have come back to a fire.

ENJOY!

One more layout

I did this layout yesterday.
I am really happy with how it turned out.
It made me want to take the kids to the zoo again.

Scrapbooking

Since Kamryn started going to dance lessons every Tuesday I've been hanging out at Susan's for the day. We've been trying to do a little scrapbooking. I usually only finish 2-3 pages but that is better than nothing.
This first 2-page spread is for Justin's book.



Now a 2-page spread for Christmas Eve.
I find the doing pages of Christmas pictures is very difficult.

I love this page.
It turned out how I wanted it to.

Nothing

While updating the last book I read (very good but too much bad language) and the last movie I watched (we've been trying to watch Ghost for months and finally did last night. The kids got a kick out of Whoopi Goldberg and thought the demons were dumb. It also has a lot of bad language - it's rated PG-13. I thought it was PG from the time before there was PG-13) I realized I haven't posted in awhile. And I thought about what there was to post and I've got NOTHING.
Life is pretty normal right now - the schedule is going along like it does during the school year.

Monday is Laundry Day
Tuesday is go to my sister's house and scrapbook and take Kamryn to dance.
Wednesday is preschool. While the twins are at preschool I volunteer in Taylor's class and then do some errands.
Thursday is a free day. We tried story time at the library but didn't really like it so we didn't go back.
Friday is preschool again and another errand day. It's supposed to be grocery shopping but I haven't really gotten into the swing of that.
Saturday is soccer day. We endured two games in the rain yesterday.
Today was great - got to sleep in and enjoy "church" in my jammies.