Book club and airsoft

Last night I hosted book club.  It was great as usual and most everyone enjoyed the book I chose.  A couple people said it was one of the best ones we’ve read in book club, a couple said they liked it and only one just couldn’t get into it because of the different writing style.  In case you are wondering what the book is it’s ‘The Book Thief: by Markus Zusak.  Read it…then let me know what you think. 

Treats are always a big deal to me when I’m having something like book club, but I just didn’t have time to make all that I wanted so I had to choose.  I made spinach artichoke dip, cheesecake, and caramel brownies.  The Brownies came from a box and were kind of a disappointment to me.  I don’t generally like brownies from a box anyway, but these were ghiradelli brand so I thought they’d be good.  I should have just made some easy brownies and put caramel in them myself.  What I really wanted to make was a recipe I have for toffee brownies that sounded really good.  Maybe next time.  Everything else was really good. 

I’m wondering what opinions are out there on airsoft guns.  The current neighborhood trend is having airsoft wars where everyone has a gun and goggles and they basically shoot at each other.  I was always taught growing up that you NEVER point any kind of gun at a person even if it’s a toy (ie nerf gun).  I’m pretty sure this started with my grandpa who served in WWII and has VERY strong feelings about guns and the “acting of shooting people”.  Jason is of course DYING to have an airsoft gun and join in the fun.  He’s actually played this game with friends already with a borrowed gun, but I’m just not terribly comfortable with it.  They all play really well together when they play, but just the idea that they are shooting at each other bothers me.  Realistically I’m sure he’ll play anyway, but I feel like him owning one himself is the same as me giving my stamp of approval to this game they play when I don’t really agree with it.  My husband is totally in agreement with me on this, but I still feel kind of guilty making him be “different” because of this.  So, what would you do?  What do you think about this kind of play?  Thanks for your input!

St. George and a New temple

This past weekend I tagged along with my sister in law and her friend to St. George.  She was going down there to run a half marathon.  I thought about  running the 5K, but it was full and who am I kidding—I haven’t run in months!  So, I went, helped with the baby, tried and failed to sleep in (I guess I’m spoiled by my bed or something I have no problem sleeping in at home whenever I get the chance), watched Heather cross the finish line after 13.1 miles, shopped, ate, and pretty much just did whatever I wanted.  It was great to not have any responsibilities for a short time.  Then we came home.  Thanks for inviting me Heather!  The only pictures I took were of Heather crossing the finish line, although I didn’t capture the great face she pulled when she saw us there cheering her on.  ;)  So, this will be a picture free post. 

The other thing I wanted to blog about is the newly announced Payson, UT temple.  It’s pretty cool that we’ll have another temple and this new one will be our new temple.  I don’t really think it will be much closer than the Provo temple, but that’s okay with me (as if I had any influence over it even if I didn’t like it).  It’s just exciting.  I’ll post more info when it is announced.  Maybe we’ll even get to attend the actual temple for the dedication.  Who knows.  

Have a fabulous day!

In a funk

I guess you could say I’m in a blogging funk.  I don’t feel like I have anything worth blogging about lately.  We’ve been doing stuff and living life, but nothing really exciting and I’m having a hard time trying to figure out what to blog about. 

How and where do you get inspiration for your blog entries?  I need some inspiration FAST!

If you live in Utah…

You are going to want to try to win this contest. My husband works in Salt Lake and he’s told me about the great food at Caputos, but I had no idea they had classes and tastings!  It sounds like fun to me to do something like that and it would be something unique  to do.  The chocolate one would be fun to do with your sweetheart near valentines and it would be something new and different.  (unless of course you are way more cultured than we are at our house).  Hey!  maybe I’ll sign Jason and I up for it for our anniversary!  That’d be a great idea.  Enough of this shameless plug, but I really did think it was pretty cool and hope I can go to one even if I don’t win. 

Playgroup and YUM

We went to our weekly playgroup again today.  It was Liam, a baby boy, and four girls.  We went to the Bean museum—the kids never get tired of that place. When we were leaving Liam said, “Baylie might be sick Mom” (because last time we had playgroup Baylie was sick) so I told him that I thought Baylie would be there because she wasn’t sick anymore.  Then when we first got there at some point Liam and Baylie started holding hands.  It was so cute! Still cute. About this point Baylie didn’t want to keep holding hands and Liam wouldn’t let go…

Our attempt to get a picture of all the kids.  There is no way to get a bunch of toddlers to sit and all look at the camera at the same time so this one is missing CiCi.Then they all laid down like this so we had to take a picture like that too.   Of course being so close to the creamery I couldn’t pass up the chance to go there for lunch.  As you can see Liam likes it too.  We were sitting right behind the drink machine so every time Liam heard the ice go in a cup he’d stand up and turn around to watch the person get their drink.  Yep, that’s Liam drinking Fry sauce straight…a true Utahn.  :)  This last picture is totally unrelated, but it’s so cute I thought I’d include it anyway.  We had smoothie for our “treat” after FHE on Monday and this is what Liam looked like during and after drinking his.  He usually doesn't get too much on his face, but apparently the smoothie wasn’t cooperating with him and he got pretty messy.  Looking at all these pictures of Liam makes me realize how big he’s starting to look!  He’s losing that baby look…sad. 

New Years Day

The twins’ wanted to go ice skating during the break from school.  We finally got around to it on New years day.  I took the kids and they each brought a friend.   It was kind of cool for me because I used to go ice skating every weekend with friends from school when I was their age.  I realized too that I went on my own without my parents…I stayed with them and skated (because I like to skate).  But it made me realize how much more protective I am of my kids.  But that’s another post. 

Everyone had a lot of fun.  Here are a few pictures from our adventure.  Jason and his friend Tyler had fun skating, playing tag, and chase.  I’m glad Tyler could come. Em ended up with two friends…that one is an interesting story, but you can chalk it up to girly manipulation…oh how I hate that.  This is Em, Erika, and, Alyssa.  They all had fun too. Jason watching the zamboni (I love the reflection in this picture) and a picture of the zamboni.  I don’t know why it’s so fun to watch that thing, but it is.  Taking a snack break. The sad thing was that this lady fell really hard and I don’t really know the situation  or exactly what happened, but they cleared us all off the ice and called the paramedics.  I heard  her say a few things as I skated past after she had already fallen, but I just hope she’s okay.  They sent us over to a different rink to skate (there were TONS of people there).  If we go again I may even be brave and take Liam, but I don’t think he’ll like the cold.  

Yummy Dinner

I made this recipe for dinner tonight.  The only adjustment I made was to cut the jalepeno amount…I only put in a half of one, but probably could have done a whole one since I couldn’t really taste it much.  I really liked the flavor of everything together and the chicken was really good with the sauce.  I’m still waiting for Jason Jr’s seal of approval (he’s at karate) and he wasn’t thrilled when I told him I was making it.  I’ve found lots of delicious recipes at mykitchencafe.blogspot.com so if you are looking for ideas check it out.  I’m trying to make better dinners.  Sorry no pictures…

Does anyone know how to make brown rice so its not soggy, but not crunchy?  Those are the only two ways I’ve managed to make it even following the directions precisely…any help would be greatly appreciated. 

On other food related information…Liam is loving frozen blueberries…but they sure are a mess!  I should’ve taken a picture of him earlier today after he’d eaten a bunch.  His whole mouth was blue along with his fingers.  I bought a big bag of them at Costco when I was looking for healthy snacks to try and these are the best sweetest ones I’ve ever had!  I’m glad I got them especially now that I’ve used up all of my hidden treats.  :) If you try the above recipe let me know what you think of it!

New Years Eve

We don’t usually do much for New years eve, but I was in the mood to do more than sit around watching tv or movies so we invited a couple neighbors over to hang out for an early new years eve.  It was lots of fun! 

We played Beatles rockband and even some country rockband at the endthe kids and the adults alike had fun playing.  I was seriously amazed at how everyone could play/watch and no one really got bored (or at least it didn’t seem like they did). 

The girls played Taboo and had a dance party upstairs.   

We ended our party before midnight because of everyone’s kids.  Liam was SOO tired and ornery by the end.  This was his last straw here.  But isn’t that a cute picture??  Thanks Tami and Heidi for coming!  I hope your husbands had as much fun as we did! 

After Christmas fun

The week after Christmas we took it pretty easy, but we did go with some friends to Pirate Island Pizza.  It was fun!  They have a fabulous atmosphere with all kinds of pirate stuff—think Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland except a restaurant.  They also have an arcade the kids had to play at (of course) and a little play area for younger kids.  Here are a few pics of our visit.  This is the train that Liam and Camden loved and would have rode all afternoon if we had enough tokens to keep it going. 

This is right by the entrance when you first walk in. 

We ordered pizza and I thought it was just fine if a bit greasy (most pizza is greasy) but several of the kids didn’t like it.   Everyone had a blast and we had kids there from 12 to 2 years old so if your kids like stuff like this take them to check it out! 

Christmas Day Rewind

When the kids asked me what time they could get up on Christmas day I told them that we would get up and open presents whenever Liam woke up.  He usually wakes up around 6:30 am.  For some reason he slept in until 7:30 on Christmas day and I was amazed that Em and Jason hadn’t come up before then to see if he was awake yet, but I never heard them.  They are good kids. 

Liam really only got one thing this year.  It was so fun to watch him with it.  I was holding him as we walked into the living room and as soon as he saw the train table he had to get down and run over to play with it.  He has a bit of a love hate relationship with it right now because when he can’t make it work like he wants to he gets upset and then rips all the tracks up.  This is the only time so far that the whole track has been set up with all the pieces, but I’m confident that he will have many years of fun with this.  He wasn’t really interested in opening anything else after this (all he had were a couple things from Em and Jason). 

My big gift was a laptop…again, I’ll spare you the scary pictures of me.  Jason had me convinced that I wasn’t really getting a laptop because when he gave me my gifts to put under the tree they both seemed too heavy to be a laptop, so it was a great surprise.  I’m loving it and using it way more than I would have used the fancy camera that was also on my wish list. 

Em and Jason each got a few smaller gifts that they enjoyed opening.  We saved the best/biggest for last and we made them work for it.  We made a scavenger hunt for them with several different clues.  It was so fun to see them working out the clues together and working to find their last gift.  The first clue was in the tub.  one of the other clues was in the kitchen.  Here they are after they found the big family gift.  They were Super excited to try it out and we’ve been having tons of fun playing it ever since.  (More on that in a future post) We spent the rest of the day playing as a family and enjoying all our new stuff. 

I got to talk to my parents and all my siblings (Kathi got her call the day after Christmas) So that was nice.  I don’t talk to my siblings enough.  I need to call them more. 

Saturday we headed up to my Aunt’s house to celebrate with her and my brother Jim and his family.  The boys had fun playing wii golf and the girls and kids froze at the park after lunch.  It was great to see them all and enjoy their company. 

It was a fabulous Christmas for us this year and the kids were heard saying it was the best Christmas ever—exactly what I hope to hear every year.    Hope yours was great too!

Christmas Eve rewind

Since I was so bad at posting over the holiday break I’m gonna have to rewind here on my blog so I can record it.   Each year I try to get a cute picture of the kids by the tree, but Liam was not in the mood to do it this year.  This is the closest I got to a good picture of them. 
Christmas Eve we went to my in-laws.  We choose names for gifts and then have fun trying to find the perfect gift for that person.  It is fun to find a great gift and to see what people choose for you.  We open gifts youngest to oldest so that’s the order I’ll put these in.  I’m just posting the my kids stuff and the cousins that we drew names for. 
Emily had baby Kate so she wrote her a book and then we got her a cabbage patch baby too.  Here she is getting some help with opening from her big sister. 
Next up was Liam.  He got some Thomas the train bath toys (once he opened them he didn’t even care that he had another present to open) Grandma and Grandpa got him a Chuck the dump truck toy that’s really pretty cool too.  Daddy was our photographer so this is the best picture we got. 

Brighton’s gift was easy for us this year since his mom just told us what he wanted and we bought it.  ;) I think he actually opened his gift when Daddy still had the camera so there aren’t any pictures.  Take my word for it that he liked it.  :) 
Camden was our easiest one to choose for, but we had some last minute drama with his gift because we had ordered it from the scholastic order at school and found out the last day of school before break that the order wasn’t put in when it was supposed to be so his gift wouldn’t be coming.  I wish we would have known sooner, but it all worked out with a quick trip to Barnes and Noble.  Thanks to our Daddy for saving the day on that one.  Again, no pictures of Camden, but he was excited when he saw the books.  I hope he likes them. 
This is the time of year that Jason doesn’t mind being the “younger” twin because he gets to open his gifts first.  He got a marshmallow gun, a cool hat (thanks for picking out a good one Andy!) and a subscription to Sports Illustrated for kids.  He’s really excited about all of it. 
Emily was excited to open a jewelry making kit and she got a super soft and VERY cute build a bear and a subscription to Amercan girl magazine.  You can’t see too well in this picture, but we curled Em’s hair this day and it looked really cute. 
I was next to get to open my gift and I got a super cute wooden block with the word Family on it, an itunes gift card, a photo frame ornament and some money for our trip to Disneyland next month. Jason had the camera again, and he has a talent of getting me with my eyes closed or my mouth open in a weird expression.  As much as I know you’d love to see that I’ll spare you.
Jason got a Simpson’s Scene It game and money for our Disneyland trip (that part of my gift was actually for both of us.  :)  he had fun playing scene it with the kids last week when I was gone one day. 
After the craziness that was gift opening we ate some pizza and then headed home where we opened our traditional pajamas.  I think Em was bummed I couldn’t find matching ones for us, but since she is just about the same size as me it’s probably better so we know which ones are ours.  The kids in their jammies.  Mom and Dad in our jammies.  The funny story about Daddy’s jammies is that he opened some new ones and put them on and when he pulled the string to tighten the waist band they ripped so he had to wear old ones and we had to take those back.  After we were all in our pjs we read the Christmas story and hustled the kids off to bed so we could be ready when Santa came.  That was our Christmas Eve.  It was great.