Colonial Days

Yesterday we went to Provo to check out their new addition to the Freedom Festival called Colonial Days. It centered around the Printing museum and there were lots of other cool things going on. I wish we could have gone last night and seen the play they put on, but it just wouldn't have worked.

We started out at the Printing museum...I know it sounds like it might be kinda boring, but it was actually really interesting. I'd like to go back for one of their tours and learn more. Jason has gone for one before and he said it was really cool and has wanted to take the kids for awhile, but we've just never gotten around to it. I'm sure you all know how that goes. This picture is the kids in front of one of the printing presses near the front of the museum.

These pictures are probably the kids favorite part of the museum. There was a guy there and he'd type set your name for you. He'd key in your name and then molten metal would be pressed with the letters to form a typeset just for you (that you got to keep!). It was really cool to watch and the man doing it actually ended up being someone from our ward!

This is the kids in front of a bunch of different kinds of presses they had there.

During our interesting perusal of the printing museum we were temporarily asked to leave for the ribbon cutting of this new activity so we headed outside to see what that was all about. We saw a bagpipe band and there were some VERY short speakers including the mayor of Provo and the Lt. Governor of UT.

This is the kids watching the "parade" of the bagpipe band and a bunch of people dressed in colonial clothing.

After the ribbon cutting we were allowed to go see what they had on "Colonial Road". There were actually some interesting booths there. Emily was just in heaven because she has been so interested in how they did things in the "Pioneer Days" she's wanted to make a clothes line and she even asked if she could wash her clothes by hand like the pioneers do. She really cracks me up. So, they had wash boards and all of that kind of stuff for her to see how they did it. I think the only thing she would've liked better is if they actually let you try washing something. They had people demonstrating how to weave baskets, how they cooked and what kind of food they ate, how to make lace, and they even had this game that they actually did let the kids try to play. It's called graces and you take an embroidery hoop and two people with two sticks each. The person who has the hoop makes and X with their sticks with the hoop on them and then they pull the two sticks apart which sends the hoop flying (hopefully) towards the other player who catches it on their sticks and then sends it back. Kinda like catch I guess just with hoops. The kids were surprised how difficult it was. Here are some pics of the kids trying it out. It actually didn't take them too long to get it figured out.







This is a picture of the kids watching someone spin wool into thread.

So, there's some of the fun we had at Colonial Days.

Girls Night Out & YW lesson

Saturday we (Tami and I) were finally able to celebrate my good friend Natalie's birthday. Our "tradition" is to go to Park City and shop the outlet stores, but since Natalie is newly pregnant and not feeling great most of the time we elected to stay closer to home and just hit the couple malls that are close to us. We left around 3:30 and went shopping! I just LOVE shopping! It's so much fun! She was of course shopping for maternity clothes and I just have to say that I am really bummed that there wasn't such cute maternity clothes when I was pregnant....Heck some of those clothes I would wear even though I'm not pregnant and never will be!! They are that stinkin' cute! So all you pregnant people out there just be glad that someone finally decided that it's okay for you to look cute while your belly grows!

So, we shopped for awhile and then we were going to go somewhere good for dinner, but Natalie needed to eat right away so she wouldn't get sick so we ended up at the mall food court. It was still okay food, but I always like to go to an actual restaurant when I can since we don't do that much as a family. After dinner we went to the other mall and all ended up finding some really cute stuff. I got some pants, a shirt and a dress and all of them are super cute! I wore my dress yesterday to church and it was so fun to have all the YW in my ward telling me how cute it was.

The kids had a late night with Tami's kids while we were gone. They had a lot of fun from the looks of the tv room downstairs. lol We didn't even get back until after they were done and my kids were already in bed. It wasn't too late, but my feet were killing me from walking around so long in my cute, but not great walking around for 6 hours sandals.

I taught all the YW a lesson on Counseling with the Lord yesterday. I was pretty nervous about it like I always am when I teach them. I feel such a burden to help them understand these important principles of the gospel. It ended up going well and I felt like the girls really listened (most of the time anyway) I started out by having several sets of girls come up and have a conversation that illustrated some of the problems people have when they pray and then we discussed them and how to avoid them... the girls seemed to like it. It turned out pretty good.

So, that was our weekend. Sorry no pictures!

Playin' with Grandma

Last night Em, her cousins, and grandma had fun playing some card games together. It was my job to keep Easton from getting the cards! Why is it that babies always want what they can't have and aren't interested in all of the many toys we try to temp them with?

Here are some pics

Thank you gift and Mother Daughter Huki Lau

Yesterday was a nice day. I think I'm finally starting to feel better--I've been sick for a week.

A couple of the Mia Maids from my YW group came over to give me a thank you and tell me that they hoped that I felt better soon. It was nice to know that they cared and they gave me a cute card and some sparklers too. They stayed for a few minutes and chatted too.

Then last night since I was feeling so much better Emily and I went to the Ward Mother Daughter. It was a Polynesian theme and one of our ward members who is Polynesian "hosted" it. They had good food, we made candy bracelets and then they taught us some hula dancing. It was so much fun to watch the girls all trying it out and even some of the moms and grandmas too. I wished about ten times that I had thought to bring my camera. I had my cell phone, but the pictures didn't work well at all from that so...sorry I don't have any pics. I'd take a picture of Em's candy bracelet, but she already ate it! lol

This really hit home for me

I don't know how to put it on here, but this song expresses my feelings so well...check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqfGqOx2iDQ

More swimming pictures

Just a couple more pictures of the kids swimming at the ward pool party we had last night. It was lots of fun!

Jason splashing in the pool. Almost looks like he's trying to do karate moves. :)


Emily playing in the splash pad --she's waiting for the bucket to dump on her head.

Finally a Girl cousin!

For a long time Emily has been hoping for a girl cousin on her dad's side of the family. She has two girl cousins on my side of the family, but they don't live close enough for her to enjoy having girl cousins. All her cousins who live close so far have been boys (although when they are playing you'd never know she hoped for girls). So, now that Mike and Alisha had a baby girl Emily finally have a girl cousin. We are all so happy for them and it was so fun to take the kids to the hospital to see their new cousin. (they've never been before) So of course here are some pics.
Jason LOVED holding Brooklyn. He kept wanting more turns holding her.


Emily smiling at the happy news of Brooklyn joining our extended family.


Me holding Brooklyn...and I didn't even cry!!! She's such a pretty baby...doesn't look like a newborn to me. Watch out Mike she'll be a heart breaker!

Neighborhood "dance" concert

One of the neighbor girls taught all the girls a dance and they all performed for the moms. It was really cute. You'll also get to see Emily's great Pioneer outfit that was her costume for her dance, but that she loves to wear whenever she has a chance. She's been reading "Little House on the Praire" books and has decided that she wants to be like a pioneer. It's really fun to watch her. She's making a quilt sewing by hand, she wants to make butter, she wants to hang her clothes out to dry and many other interesting ideas. Anyway...here's the dancers.
This is Emily dancing with the "teacher" Ashton


This is Danielle (she's 3) She had a song with her dance. She sang, "I don't wanna be a chicken, I don't wanna be a duck, that's why I shake my butt." It was so cute with the actions!
This is Mallary, her dance was very athletic.

It was lots of fun to see their creativity. They are always doing such creative stuff with each other.

Baseball Fever

I finally remembered my camera and was able to take pics of Jason playing ball. It's getting more fun to watch him play now. He's gotten a couple hits and that's so much more fun to watch than him just standing there watching the ball go by. :) So, here are some pictures.Jason up to bat
This is Jason waiting for the ball to come his way.

Recipe Share

Again I'm assuming that there's someone out there actually reading this blog. :) So, I thought I'd start a recipe share. Summer is the hardest time to plan menus for me because it's so hot and I hate to cook in the heat. So, I'm hoping you will help me by sharing some of the recipes you like to make in the summer.

This is one that my friend Natalie gave me and we LOVE it! It's so good and easy!

Teriyaki Lime Chicken

1 bottle Teriyaki marinade (whatever brand you like)
4 limes + some zest (I just use the lime juice from a bottle)
1 6 oz chicken breast per person
2 slices thick bacon per chicken piece
toothpics (soaked in water)

Mix about 1/2 of the bottle of marinade with the lime juice and marinade chicken for 4-6 hours reserving some of the marinade mixture for basting. Remove chicken from the marinade and wrap bacon around chicken, securing with toothpics. Cook on BBQ for about 10 min each side basting with marinade as it cooks. The bacon will get a little burned looking, but it keeps all the moisture in the chicken and it tastes SOOO good!! I'm making these tonight so if I remember I'll take a pic after they're done so you can see them. If you try it out let me know how you like it and don't forget to share a recipe for me to try out!

Honoring troops

Today Jason and I went to a small "parade" (it was just fire trucks and police cars) to honor a group of soldiers leaving for their second time to Iraq. It was very interesting to see how many people were there to honor them despite what most people feel about the US being there. I'm glad that I found out about it and was able to go.

Here are a few pictures

A day of hard work

The beginning of last week we had some pretty crazy weather here. Tues night we had LOTS of strong wind followed by lots and lots of rain...at least for around here. It rained all day Wed. Well...this is what I woke up to on Wed morning in our front yard.


So, at some point this tree didn't make it. It wasn't down when Jason left for work early in the morning, so who knows when it fell. We have known for awhile that this tree was "sick" with bores and we've tried to spray it to get rid of them but apparently they weakened the tree enough that the wind took it down. So, we spent awhile today cutting it down and hauling it down to the mulching place in town. Too bad hauling so much down doesn't get you free mulch. :) I'm kinda sad to lose this tree...I really liked it. I tried to convince Jason to just cut down the part that had fallen and leave the rest, but we could tell it was sick and when we cut it down found out that it really was. Those insects had really done a number on it and before long it probably would have died anyway. So now we have to get rid of the stump somehow and then maybe I can plant some pretty flowers in there! That'd be nice! I was too busy helping to take pics as we cut it down. But when Jason was cutting it he had me help push it over so it fell the right way and I just couldn't resist yelling TIMBER! It was so fun. I know, I'm a nerd. Anyway it was hard work and so I convinced Jason to take us all out to WINGERS for dinner because I was craving their creamy amazing sauce--that stuff is the BEST ever!! I would go there just for that and nothing else. In fact if they sold the stuff I'd buy just that! It was a good day.

Take me out to the ballgame!

Jason had another ballgame last night. He's been having so much fun playing baseball and his coach is wonderful to let all the kids play and be really encouraging and not one of those "nightmare" coaches that yells at the kids and just pushes them all the time. Unfortunately here in the wonderful city we live in this is quite unusual and as a result his team isn't as good as a lot of the other teams where the coach is doing weird signals to the kids all the time to tell them when to hit or what to pitch or when to run or whatever they do those signals for. What that means is that his team hasn't won a game since the preseason game they played that didn't count in the standings at all.

Last night they finally won! It was so much fun to watch the team and especially Jason. He got to play first base and he got two outs in the game. (After the game the coach told him he did great on first base and seemed kind of surprised by that fact). The other thing that has been a problem is hitting for our team. Until tonight Jason hadn't actually swung his bat for various reasons I won't go into. But tonight we convinced him to swing and he got a hit!!! It was great! So Sariah...I'm glad you got a good game to watch tonight and thanks for coming! I'm hoping that we have more games like this because they are WAY more fun to watch.

Impatient

I'm really impatient I guess. I know that since this blog isn't public that the only readers are my family and friends that I've given the address to, but I didn't want to wait for suggestions to change my blog header. So, this is the best I could come up with. When I was pregnant with the twins Cori sent me a baby name book with the title "Beyond Jennifer and Jason" and I got a huge kick out of it! So, I'm trying this name out for our blog since it's really about the kids and sometimes the family...I'm still happy to hear any suggestions you might have and I hope that I can keep you interested enough that you will check in and leave a comment or two so I don't feel like I'm talking to myself all the time. :)

I'm SOOOO not creative!

Okay, so I was just adding some links on my blog to some of my friend's blogs and I was noticing that a lot of them have cute and/or creative names. So, then I look at my blog and realized how UNcute/creative the name of our blog is!! What's the matter with me?? So, if you have any suggestions of a new name for our family blog please share so I don't feel so sad about my not cute and not creative blog. I guess this is all assuming that there's actually anyone who looks at this blog besides me. ;)

Thanks!

Summer At last!

So, now I really know it's summer because we went to the pool. It was lots of fun for all of us. A bunch of friends all decided to go so the kids had friends to play with and I had friends to talk to. Some of them we haven't seen in awhile since they've moved out of our ward, but still live relatively close to us. We even ran into the lady who used to live in our house. :) I don't think she would have remembered me at all, but I was with a couple neighbors that were her neighbors too when she lived here and so I think they told her who I was. :)
Here's a picture of the kids...I can never get them to have good expressions when it's so bright outside. I think Jason is actually chewing his snack too so that doesn't help, but oh well. Hope you are having a great summer too!

Busy Week

So I can really tell it's May since it seems like we have so much more going on that usual. Last week the kids had a 3rd grade talent show. Emily played the piano and Jason did Karate. It was really cute to see how creative some of the kids' talents were. there were dog tricks, jump rope tricks, singing, gymnastics, dancing etc. It was fun to watch.

Of course we've also been having two baseball games a week for Jason and that's been interesting. He's been playing catcher sometimes and he seems to really like it. He's informed me that he's the 3rd best catcher on his team. Unfortunately I haven't been the wonderful (or if you ask my husband the embarrassing) mom and taken any pictures of him at baseball yet. Maybe at this weeks game I will.

We went one day last week to play with the cousins and I got this cute picture of Jason and Brighton hunting for bugs to put in the bug catcher box.

Finally the kids had their end of the year program and portfolio share on Friday. They did their cute songs and this year they even danced! It was so cute. I couldn't get any very good pictures, but I took some "video" with my (not a video) camera and hopefully I can figure out how to share those on here since I don't have any decent pictures. :) It was so cute to see them dance!

Saturday we were supposed to have some friends over for bbq, but they were sick so we called Jason's brother and his wife instead. It was nice to have people over. :)

What a great weekend!

Our family has had a very busy weekend. Friday night was the father and son's outing for our ward and so Jason and Jason went to that for the evening. Unfortunately they couldn't stay overnight to Jason Jr's disappointment and we don't have any pictures from it either since I didn't send the camera. Jason Jr. took our new kickball and started up a game there and it was such a hit he left the ball there so they could play some more!

Emily had a birthday party Friday night so I got some time alone that I ended up using to prepare my talk for church on Sunday. I know, why do they ask Mom's to speak on Mother's day?? Isn't that supposed to be our day off. ;)

Saturday began with Emily's piano recital. She played "the Flinstones" and "Swans on the Lake" and did a WONDERFUL job. We enjoyed her performance and Grandma and Grandpa even got to come!

Next we went to visit our cousins' yard sale/bake sale for the Relay for Life and Emily bought a cute hat and Jason got some treats.

Finally on Saturday I had the pleasure of going with Emily to Activity Girls Day camp. It was a lot of fun to go with her and spend the afternoon and all the leaders who prepared it did an AWESOME job. Here are a few pictures of the girls there.

Sunday was a great Mother's day for me. Both of my beautiful children made me fun little books and cards and gave me presents. It was so nice. They brought me breakfast in bed and let me mostly relax most of the day. It was a great ending to a great weekend! Thanks!

Track Meet

The kids had their district wide track meet yesterday. It was nice and hot yesterday too. They both had fun and did great. There weren't any "prizes" or anything so it was just for fun. Here are a few pics.

This is the softball throw. Fun, Fun, Fun!

Graduation Hurray!!

Today we had the pleasure to see Jason be "hooded" for receiving his PhD at convocation ceremony for the McKay School of Education. It was neat to see even if none of the pictures I took of it turned out. :( This is a picture of all of us (left)at the garden reception following graduation ceremonies. To the right is a picture of Jason with most of his dissertation committee (ie. the people who made his life hard while writing his dissertation) From left to right it's Dr. Yanchar, Dr. Graham, Dr. McDonald (I think he likes that a little too much), and Dr. Gibbons the chair of the committee. Not pictured was Dr. Williams and another guy from Colorado that I can't remember his name. I guess I could ask Jason, but he's all the way upstairs...
Finally I'll share a picture of Jason with his Mom. His Dad had to leave for a meeting before we could get a picture so hopefully we can use technology to photoshop him into one if we're lucky.

It is so wonderful to have Jason done with his degree and I'm so happy that he's found a job that he seems to enjoy most of the time and he's learning so much. I laugh when he tells people he works for a movie studio. Technically he does, but not the kind that people think of when you say that. It's great to be in a "new" stage of life. It gets better all the time. Congrats again Jason! We're so proud of you!

Fun Few Days

Sadly we took Carolyn to the Airport this morning so she could go home. We really had a fun time while she was here and Emily said this afternoon that she already misses her. :) I agree. So I thought I'd blog about our last couple days since that's when we did the most fun stuff with the kids. They were out of school for spring break. On Wednesday we had a relaxing time during the day and the kids just played outside and we watched movies together. Charly made Carolyn cry and that made me feel better since Jason thinks it's weird to cry at movies. lol Wednesday night we went swimming at the indoor pool in a neighboring city and we all had fun playing, jumping of the diving board and playing catch with the ball Jason brought. Thursday we went to the zoo. We got to see a bunch of different animals being fed and eating. We watched a snake swallow a mouse whole, an ape eating celery and various other animals being fed. It was great. Once we got home and scarfed some dinner I made Carolyn go to the spinning class with me again. I think maybe I've converted her...I love spinning it's great exercise and I'm sore today!! I hope you weren't too sore on the airplane Carolyn. Then since I'd raved about Sonic's slushes we decided to ruin our workout and go get one before heading home. It was great. Come visit us again soon Carolyn. We love you!

Saturday with Aunt Lynn

On Saturday we went to Salt Lake to hang out with Aunt Lynn. It was fun for all. Lynn treated us all to lunch--Thanks Lynn! Then we went to the Gateway and let the kids run in the fountains. They had a blast, but got cold. Then we went to the conference center and had a tour. I've been there lots of times, but I don't think I've ever taken the tour. We got to go to the roof and that's the main reason the kids wanted to go on a tour because that's the only way you get to see the roof. After that we walked over to temple square to the visitors center and to see the beautiful flowers that are always on the grounds there. We saw the new family exhibit there and it was really cool so if you haven't seen it you should definitely go. Above are a few pictures of our adventures.

Easter Pictures!

We had a great Easter. The kids had fun and the adults got to relax a little. Here are a few pics.

This is the Easter bunny cake that Emily and Carolyn made on Sunday. Emily had a great time making it and frosting it and everything. She chose all of the colors and decorations even though she told me that the mouth I made didn't look right. :) We were using what we had on hand.












This is the kids during their egg hunt that we had to do inside because it was too wet outside. I asked them if they were too old for an egg hunt and they both shouted NO! So I did one for them anyway.



This is the kids when they were dying eggs on Saturday. One of the eggs leaked a little while it was boiling so Jason had to make that one into an alien with it's brains on the outside. I just love boys and all their gross stuff.

A post with pictures

So many things have been going on lately that I haven't really had time to write about all of them.

Jason and I had a great time on our Cruise at the beginning of March. It was so much fun and we got to see such beautiful places and it was so nice and warm compared to the cold Utah winter that I didn't really want to come home. Back to cooking, dishes, laundry and all the other responsibilities I got to pretty much forget about while we were gone. It was a great way to celebrate 10 years of marriage and the big 3-0 for me too.

Last weekend my brother, his wife and kids came to visit while they also dropped off my sister. :) It was great to see them, but was a quick trip for them. We don't usually get to see them for too long when they come, but I guess then we don't get tired of each other. We took the kids to the park and to the Bean museum and they all loved it. Jim taught Jason how to play tennis and now Jason wants to play all the time.