The building of the Chicken coop

We decided to build a chicken coop and raise chickens and have their eggs. Matt built it and the kids painted it Barn RED. It isn't finished yet. Matt got to fence in the area still. I ordered the chicks and they should be here at the end of the month.

Easter celebrations / Jileigh's, Branden's and Hannah's birthdays

For Easter Saturday, we got our kids a new swing set. The old one was just falling apart and I needed for my kids to be able to do somethng when I send them outside to play.

Later that day we took our kids over to Candy's house for an easter egg hunt and BBQ.

In the evening we had a combined birthday party for Jileigh and for Candy's two kids, Hannah and Branden. We made the clips that we gave to Hannah.

Saturday baby blessing for Matt's cousin

Saturday was a crazy day. First, Matt and Talon were on an overnight scout camporee trip. Second, Jileigh had to be at the store parking lot at 7 am to help with the young women and young men garage sale and it was windy. Third, Angelique had to be at the church for the Activity Days day camp at 9 am. Fourth, we needed to leave at 10 am to go to Matt's cousin's baby's blessing to be there at 10:30am. Matt got home at 9am, helped me make the salad and then hopped into the shower. We didn't leave until 10:10. We picked up the girls and then headed to Kelly's house. There were a lot of cousins there and that made it enjoyable. After the blessing we went to the nearby park for the luncheon. This was a cool park. It was similar to the one that we went to a couple of weeks ago. We will definately go back there. They also had a splash pad, but the water wasn't on yet, which was ok because it is still too cool for water fun. We stayed there for 3 hours. (Again, I forgot my camera, darn it!) I stopped by Harmons and Costco on the way home and was thoroughly exhausted by the time we got home. The Young women's conference was that night too. We took the easy way and watched it online at LDS.org. Matt had to go to work that evening as well. I didn't manage to get everyone bathed and to bed at a good time. Talon came home with the ward and brought home cardboard armour that he had made. Beau put it on and we took some pictures of him because he is just so darn cute.

Happy Birthday to me!

In the morning I was motivated to wanting a clean house so I made it happen. I tidied, did the dishes, swept, and mopped. I took a quick shower and then went to lunch with a couple of friends, Shari and Terry. We went to Barista's. All the food look really good. They make everything from scratch there. I had the hamburger and my friends had the BLT and the apple pecan salad. Jileigh took care of the kids while I was gone. It was a nice enjoyable afternoon. Matt wanted to bring home some salmon to cook, but I wanted wild caught rather than farm raised so we didn't get any. So I made whole grain blueberry pancakes instead. They were yummy as always. I was glad to have 16 people on facebook and some people here on this post wish me a happy birthday. That was really nice.

Spring Cleaning - Day 1 and 2

I have decided that I need to get my house and my life organized and cleaned up. So now I am in a spring cleaning mood.

Day 1 - Tuesday March 23 - Cleaned up all the garbage in my bedroom floor and vacuumed. My kids are little tornados even in my room. I filled a white 13 gallon garbage sack.

Day 2 - Wed. Mar. 24 - Cleaned out my closet and organized it. Took out any left over maternity clothes and boxed them up and filled a black garbage sack full of clothes to donate to the young womens garage sale. Then I clean up my desk and filled another 13 gallon garbage sack. I then gave it to Matt and Talon to burn all the papers in the fire place. Then I dusted off my desk. I am tired and ready to go to bed.

Day 3 - Friday Mar 26 - Cleaned out file cabinet. I pulled out literally a stack of papers about 1/2 ft tall then burned the papers.
Day 4 - Wednesday March 31 - Cleaned off the bump in my room. This structure was originally designed for a TV; but since we don't have one there, it is a catch-all and it was cluttered. Then I cleaned of my dresser. Matt even cleaned off his dresser. Then I filed the things I wanted to keep that I cleaned off. Now my bedroom looks presentable. Then I cleaned out the kitchen pantry and threw away white garbage bag full of stuff.

Jaren's birthday party at the park

Today was a crazy day. I had to do two loads of dishes, go grocery shopping, make chicken broccoli egg noodle casserole from scratch, and a lemon meringue pie from scratch and then be at the park for the party with the casserole and the pie at 5 pm. Well, we almost made it. I took the kids and the casserole, and Matt came about 15 minutes later with the pie. We had a nice potluck dinner, and then Jaren got to open his presents. The kids really enjoy getting to spend time with their cousins.

Matt's dessert creation

Matt likes dessert and he likes to make desserts. So to compromise he reduces the sugar in them and uses raw sugar. He also replaces at least half of the white flour with whole grain flour. He made this oatmeal cookie apple bars that was fantastic. With the small amount of sugar and white flour in them, they can make a good dessert or even breakfast with a glass of raw milk!

Pandora

My cousin recently told me about www.Pandora.com free music to listen to on the computer. Love it!

Elody ar 9 months with her bear and duck

Elody is now 9 months old and a week. I know, I am a little late, but I have been consistantly, so I guess that makes it ok. She doesn't like to hold still for pictures, so these were the best I could get. She is always so happy and has the biggest smiles, well, except for when she's tired. She still likes to be held most of the time. Her hair is growing a little longer, so soon I should be able to put some little pig tails in it. Two of her four top teeth finally cut through.

Happy 7th Birthday Jaren!

Yesterday, Sunday March 14th was Jaren's 7th Birthday. We are going to celebrate it today with Matt's family. We gave him his Grandma J and Grammy D's cards to open and we put a candle for him to blow out in our dinner of deviled eggs. We had a late large lunch, but we still needed to feed the kids something before they went to bed.

Friday and Saturday fun

Friday we got the house cleaned up and went off to a new park called Cottonwood Cove Park. It was really cool. I forgot my camera unfortunately, so we will have to go back and take some pics. There weren't the average toys there. They were different designs with a lot of spinning ones. Anyway, it is hard to describe.

Then we went to Robert's store and bought stuff to make flower clips. Saturday morning after breakfast, we disassembled the flower and put together these designs. It was a lot of fun. Even the boys wanted to get in on making the clips. I had to approve of every clip design and had to change a few. I am too controlling that way, but they had to at least be pleasing to the eye. So for 20 bucks, we ended up with 16 flower combinations on 12 clips. I want to get some smaller snapping clips for the littler ones.

Stuck!

On the way home we had to take a detour at Cedar City. The freeway was closed due to a serious multicar accident on the freeway. Matt knew of another road home going over to Enterprise and then home. Well, it would have been fine, but there was a dirt road that Matt wanted to take that would be a "short cut." That muddy road turned into a icy/snowy road and we quickly got stuck. Since we were on a slight slant, we really had a hard time getting unstuck and staying unstuck. It took us two hours of going back and forth, getting stuck and unstuck to finally being able to back up out of then snow and back tracking back to the main road, all the while it was still snowing on us. We needed to be home before 7pm to get to my Relief Society meeting. We made it there at 7:30pm. Since we were having a dinner, it was ok that we were late. They actually had 2 extra lasagnas and then some, so I asked if I could take one home to feed my kids since we were all next to starving. I stayed and Matt took them home, had Jileigh take care of them and then he came back. We ate and then sang our song for the program. We sang a beautiful arrangement of Each life that touches ours for good with my friend Shelly and her husband with her daughter playing her violin. It turned out beautiful. We were exhausted by the time we got home. We made a fire in the fireplace and went to bed.

Monty Bean Museum

I wanted to take my kids to do something before we left Orem, so we went to the Monty Bean museum on BYU campus. It was pretty neat. There were all sorts of life sized animals and creatures to look at that live on land and in the sea.

Staying with my cousins Kathy and Rod C.

When we went up to Orem for my niece's wedding, we stayed with my cousin Kathy and her husband. They were very good to us providing us with 3 queen sized beds and yummy meals. We all really enjoyed our visiting with them. They recently returned home from a mission in the Dominican Republic in the same mission when Matt served. The day we left, they had 3 of their grandsons there to tend and they joined us in the picture.

Lindsey's wedding

We went up to Orem to be at me niece's wedding. Lindsey and Justin were married on March 9th 2010 in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. We had a really nice time visiting with family.

Planting to start off our spring break!

It finally stopped raining long enough for me to plant a little more in my garden. We planted a row of beet seeds, some spinach, lettuce, and a row of bare root walla walla onions. We also put in an early elberta lemon peach tree. We dug the hole deep, put in my placenta from Elody, covered it with some more dirt and then put in the tree. We put a fence around the tree right away to try to protect it from the dog and the kids. The hardest part was trying to keep Elody from eating the dirt.

Jileigh got her top braces off!

Jileigh got her top set of braces off this week. Next month she will get the bottom set off.

Beau just loves his baby sister. His carseat is next to hers. Everytime we are going somewhere

in the car, he reaches over and holds her hand. Today I just happened to have the camera in my car. I saw them, saw my camera, pulled over, and snaped a picture of them. I wanted to remember how precious they are.

It's about time!

I went to Walmart yesterday and bought myself a prepaid Tracphone cell phone. They are less that $15 for the phone. I bought a card of 120 minutes plus 20 extra minutes and 150 days for $30. I probably won't use it that much, but it is nice to have one in an emergency or a grocery shopping emergency! LOL :-)

Cowboy Toast

One day Matt put together this breakfast for him. We have all decided that it is now our new favorite way to eat eggs. Angelique named it Cowboy Cheese on toast and I shortened it to Cowboy toast.

1. Melt a little butter in a small cast iron skillet with a little squirt of olive oil. (Olive oil helps keep the eggs from sticking and keeps the butter from burning.)

2. Scramble 1 egg in a small mixing bowl and add a dash of salt and pepper.

3. Butter a slice of homemade wheat bread.

4. With the fire on medium low pour the eggs in the skillet and put the bread on top butter side up. cover with a lid. Let it cook for about a minute.

5. With a spatula, flip the whole thing over. Cover the eggs with shredded colby/jack cheese. Turn the heat up to medium and cover with a lid. Let it cook and toast the bread for about 2 minutes.

6 Slide it out onto a plate and slice it into 8 portions with a pizza roller cutter. Voila!

☺☻♥♦♣♠•◘○♀♂♪►♫♣‼↕◄♂▬!,7)3=§♥☺( Jileigh added the symbols for fun.)