Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

We got back last night from a 4 day family vacation up in Ogden canyon. Joe's parents, our family, and the Tanners were all there and we had a blast! There were 5 cousins altogether...ALL GIRLS! And they had a grand old time playing together all weekend!

Playing up at Snowbasin resort...

At the park in Eden...

My little beauty...

Janie, the Halloween cat :)

Poor Janie got pretty tired each day, as she didn't get to nap :( But she was a good sport most of the time :)
Big dimple :)
The girlie gang!
Doing the chicken dance to a polka band...it doesn't get much goofier than that!
I love this action shot of Zoe!

Janie loved these rocking banana chairs. She would rock out :)

Okay, so this was how the sleeping arrangements were SUPPOSED to work, but little Gracie freaked out when she woke up in the dark and didn't know where in the world she was, so she slept in our room on the floor for the remainder of the trip.

They liked the closet under the stairs for coloring, but we weren't supposed to know they were in there because it was their "secret" :)

Up at Snowbasin...

In the Jacuzzi on the last night. When we finally took them out they were beet red and hotter than the 4th of July :) LOL

We had a really wonderful time and wish that our Tanner cousins lived closer so we could play more often. We love you guys!

Lots more pictures tomorrow...

Gracie and Dayton's Awesome Preschool!

Grace and Dayton attend a home-based preschool a couple of blocks away from our house. They adore their teacher (who has the patience and gentleness of a saint) and are learning all their letters, numbers, reading, shapes, etc. etc. Here are some pictures that their teacher posted on her blog...

Last friday, all 6 boys in the class were absent! The girls had a blast dressing up, since it was all-girls day! Gracie is the frog standing on the couch...LOL!
Little Froggy getting dressed up...

Here's dayton building an exact replica of the eiffel tower!
Gracie is inside a huge bubble! Can you see it??
All the kiddos with their Fall wreaths that they made last week. Most of the kids thought they were hats...:)

Milk Toast and Squeaky Bean Soup

Hey ya'll! Jen asked for the recipe for Milk Toast and the Squeaky Beans were SOOOO delicious (ask mom...we ate half a pot by ourselves last night) that I thought I'd post that one too. Here they are:

Milk Toast

Half a stick of butter
4 or 5 T flour
Milk
1/4 C or so of white sugar
Toasted Bread

In a medium saucepan, brown the butter. Add flour and whisk until it soaks up all the butter and makes a thick paste (add as much flour as you need for this, my measurement was a guestimate). Add milk to about 3/4 of the way up the side of the saucepan. Whisk over medium-high heat until the milk starts to simmer and thicken. When it can coat the back of a spoon, add sugar (this measurement is also a guestimate...add as much as you like until it's sweet enough for you.) Whisk a few more minutes until it's nice and thick.

Toast two pieces of bread. Break it into bite-size pieces and put it in a bowl. Add a few ladlefulls of the milk mixture on top. Eat. Enjoy. Repeat.


Squeaky Bean Soup

1 pound bacon
1 onion, chopped fine
4 or 5 potatoes peeled and quartered
large bag of greenbeans tipped and stringed
Salt and/or Mrs. Dash seasoning

Brown the bacon in a soup pot. Add onion and cook with bacon until clear. Add potatoes and green beans and water to just cover the veggies. Boil until potatoes are done. Check for seasoning...I usually have to add two hefty pinches of kosher salt to make it salty enough. Add some Mrs. Dash if you feel so inclined.

Serve with sourdough bread. Enjoy!!!!

Mom says these are "depression food" dishes because they ate them during the depression. But I think they're "depression food" because I eat them when I'm depressed and they make me HAPPY! Love you all!!

Missing Joe...

Joe's been out of town two full weeks this month (separated by one at-home week) and it has really been lonely without him :( (I know, I know, poor me, boo hoo, right?) Well I miss him a lot, dang it! He flies home tomorrow morning and the girls and I can't wait to go and pick him up at the airport.

We've been keeping pretty busy this week with preschool, library story time, and my humongous project...sorting and separating all of the girls' toys into four big bins for rotation. Phew! I am so proud of myself for finishing that task. We ended up with three big bins of toys and two big bins of stuffed animals. Yowza. That's all I'm gonna say.

This morning I made milk toast for breakfast and for dinner we're having squeaky bean soup...I must have the spirit of Grandma Bean with me today or something. She was such a sweet lady. I hope that I can be a kind hearted woman like she was...eventually...when I've gained more patience and tolerance...and a frizzy perm. Just a few days ago was the one year anniversary of her death. I'm sad that she's gone, but happy that she's square dancing with Grandpa Bean this very minute.

"I'm going to marry a Jewish woman because I like the idea of getting up Sunday morning and going to the deli. " - Michael J. Fox

Silly, Silly, Silly

Life in our house could easily be described as "Silly" for the majority of the time :) Here are some pics of our silliness...

I love the hairnet :)
Shakierra dressed her up for her "purple passion" themed wedding.

Two seconds before Joe took this picture she was whining and howling and then he aimed the camera at her and she took up the cheeseball act :)

Oh, and guess what! Costco has those delicious french chololates again...not sure what they're called exactly but they're dusted with cocoa powder and come in a pack of two boxes. If you like chocolate then seriously, pick up a box next time you're there. They do not dissappoint!

(Aside: A lot of my posts seem to be about food lately...hmmmmm.)

"There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't, and that's a wife who can't cook and will." - Robert Frost

"Uh. I can hear you getting fatter!"

If you're the first to name the actor and the movie from the title of this post, I'll send you a care package of these yummies (if you want them). Are they healthy? Um, not so much. Are they "holy crow those were delicious" tasty? You betcha!

I cut this recipe out of Wondertime magazine (thanks for selling subscriptions Myles!) a few months back and finally got around to trying it out today. The results were uber-delectable! Gracie had fun placing the crackers on the sheet and then the pecans onto the crackers.

Pecan Crispies

2 packages of graham crackers, broken into sections

1 C pecan halves

1 C butter

1/2 C sugar

1/4 C brown sugar, packed

pinch of salt

Heat the oven to 350. Line a cookie sheet (or two) with foil and spray generously with PAM. Cover pan with graham cracker sections. Put a pecan half (or two) in the center of each section.

Combine butter, sugars and salt in a saucepan. Stirring constantly, bring to a rolling boil. Working quickly, spoon syrup over the crackers - first onto the nuts to glue them down, then onto the rest of the cracker.

Bake 10 minutes or until browned and bubbly. Cool pan on rack for 10 minutes, then quickly lift crackers off the pan with a spatula and cool on foil or parchment.

Enjoy!

Tiny Dancer

Gracie has started taking a ballet class once a week! (instead of doing gymnastics, since that was so far away) She loves it and looks absolutely DARLING in her tights and leotard :) Here are some pics of her in her getup.

They come out of class all together each time and Gracie always makes a bee-line for this trike in the teacher's garage :) Her tricycle has had a flat tire (which we have fixed three times! count 'em, three!!!) and she has never really gotten to ride it. Poor thing is going to be way underdeveloped in the bicycle riding department until next year. Sheesh! Dayton is ready for a bike without training wheels already! Oh well :)

Enjoy the new tunes! The song of the day is Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl. One of my favorites (even though Joe can't stand RO) :)

Grandma Sue's House

The other day I asked Gracie, "Who is your favorite friend to play with?" And she replied, "Grandma Sue!" So in honor of that endearing response...here are some pics of us hanging out at Grandma Sue's house the other day.

Truly, we belong together (eye rolling smiley needed here :))

Myles serenading himself with a poem and a rose :)

Gracie in her Elmo undies and Grandma Sue!

Janie and Grandma!

No explanation necessary.

Pretty lady!

Myles mid-worm :) We have a whole series of these shots...I wonder if I can put them all together with funny worm-ism music? :)

Don Williams

The other day I bought an Alison Krauss CD and loved one of the songs on it. It is called "Lay Down Beside Me" and it is a really beautiufl love song. I listened to it a bunch of times and then it finally dawned on me...this sounds like it should be a Don Williams song! Well guess what? I searched for it on iTunes and it IS a DW song! Do I know my DW or WHAT??

Okay, there is a slight possibility that I've heard DW sing the song in the past and just forgotten all about it until that epiphany. But in any case, I was all pleased with myself that I had been so clever! LOL

I found a video of the Don singing this lovely song on YouTube and posted it right over there...right there ---> Do you see it? Top right corner...right THERE! So if you feel so inclined, sit back and let the best voice in country music serenade you :)

Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Continued...

Two posts in one day! It's either feast or famine around here, eh? Here are some more new pictures...

Janie's a big kid now and got a new carseat to prove it! Wierdly enough, she doens't like to watch the DVDs in the car like Gracie does. Hmm.

Doesn't she look just like Jim Carey's In Living Color character who irons her lips? LOL

Here's the same hairdo...just at the END of the day. Notice the oreo crumbs around her mouth. "Oreo? What oreo? I know nothing about said oreo!"

A Normal Day...

I thought this was a sweet picture of Janie. She's been extremely fussy the last week or so and she's driving me nuts, so pictures like this remind me of how sweet she really is...even if she's teething right now :)

Her best good cousin Myles! Isn't he a handsome scout? He hung out with us this weekend while Ape and Brad went on their 2nd anniversary celebration! Congratulations guys! Myles is getting older so fast that it's freaky! Love you bud!!

Here's Gracie all decked out in bug-catching gear! I was pretty darn pleased with myself for catching her a huge-mongous praying mantis hiding in the carrots in our garden :)

Janie's walking all over the place these days! She wheels off balance quite often, but it's cute to watch!

Joey's on a business trip this week and his girlies are missing him bad...so is his lady :( He gets home Saturday, though, so we're glad he doesn't have to stay over the weekend.

Well, this is seriously the driest, most boring post ever, so I'll end the misery here...No, Here!

"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance." - Franklin P. Jones

Healing, Walking, and the Potty Train!

I thought I'd post some pictures for concerned Aunties and Uncles who are far away and can't see Grace very often...here is a picture of her on the Sunday following her dog bite (that's just 4 days after). She looks almost completely healed and back to normal now, though. It's beenamazing to see.. I can't believe how quickly she has recovered and gotten back to her troublesome (and lovely) self.

Janie is walking like a champ these days! She's completely mobile on her feet now and is getting into everything you can imagine :) I bought her a new forward-facing carseat today and will post some pics of her in it as soon as she takes her first ride. New digs! Woo hoo! (Or does the word "digs" only refer to clothing and shoes? Hmmm...I'm not sure.)

Well, thanks to some name dropping on my part (Zoe, Taytem, Rylee, Leah...) Gracie is oficially riding the POTTY TRAIN! She's been in panties/pull-ups for about 4 days now. It's definitely turning out to be a gradual process, but I think we're making GOOD progress, and that's what counts to me. Her favorite undies are Elmo ones, and her treats for going #2 are these little doggy toys (picture Polly Pocked meets the pound). All in all, things are going so much better than I anticipated, which I'm grateful for.

Joe started a new blog about things he hates! Check it out at http://thingsjoehates.blogspot.com/

And in turn, I've decided to TRY to post about something that I really like (or perhaps love) each time I blog. Here goes for today...

Things Heather Loves...

1. Seeing the local corn stands come up each summer. I wish I had a picture. Anyway, these forest green stands are so country-ish that I just can't get over it! They make me glad that we live in Lehi where (almost) everybody knows your name. And when we eat corn later at home, we're always glad we came (or went, I suppose).

Some Days Are Diamonds...

Gracie is doing awesome and her stitches are almost all dissolved, believe it or not! I don't have the stuff right now to post any pictures of her, post dog-attack, but I thought I'd post some of these slightly older ones from right before Torrey...



We have really been staying close to home and trying to keep both girls happy the last few days. Gracie can't go out in the sun for any period of time to try to prevent scarring, so we've gone to see Wall E, to the aquarium to see the fish, to the library to check out books and movies, and Grandma even let her do some watercolor painting downstairs in her office today. It stinks not being able to go outside! As soon as she's all healed up and I can slather her with sunscreen, we'll be good to go though.

"Do I love you because you're beautiful, Or are you beautiful because I love you?"
~Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Cinderella

In Stitches

Okay, so we've had a seriously stressful couple of days. Let's summarize our situation by saying that 1) we drove a total of 7 hours yesterday 2) Gracie was bitten by a dog and has 12 stitches in her face 3) our vacation has been officially cancelled, and 4) all is well and we're on the mend (Thank Heaven).

I'm sure I'll write some more when I've got the mustard to do so but right now is not that time. Gracie's healing well and was attended by a plastic surgeon, so she should be scar free in a year's time. (Thank Heaven)

(Thank Heaven, Thank Heaven, Thank Heaven)

Do you live with a CrackBerry addict like I do? Yes? Then read on, my friend, read on...

This is an article from MSN.com today:


Living With a BlackBerry Addict

How the wife of a BlackBerry addict tried to stop her husband from chasing the dragon.By The Nest Editors

My husband is addicted to his BlackBerry. He uses it while he drives, while he watches TV, and, worst of all, while I'm talking. And believe me, he's no multitasker. The other morning I woke up thinking there was a mouse nibbling on something, but it was just my husband sending emails from bed. Funny, yes. Could I let it continue? No.

Not wanting to harm my husband's career (after all, that's what this thing is for), he and I came up with three ways to limit his CrackBerry addiction. Then we put each one to the test.

Plan 1: No Crack in the Bedroom. This was suggested by many TheNest.com users as the perfect solution (one even named her husband's BlackBerry "Rochelle," since it has unfortunately become his "other woman"). I felt this was too easy. My husband can fall asleep before I even turn off the light, so he was able to check his late-night emails, put BB in the living room, and fall asleep without thinking twice about his phone not being by his side. Did I wake up to tapping and clicking? Nope, the radio alarm was music to my ears. But this method did stall our getting ready-for-work routine because he now had to read his early-morning messages in the living room before getting in the shower.

The Verdict: This helped, but not enough. I was still cuddling with my husband and BB on the couch at night.

Plan 2: Out of Sight, Out of MindSuggested by my husband, he decided that he would put BB on the bookshelf by the entryway (of our 450-square-foot apartment) so that he wouldn't be distracted by the red flashing light that indicates an incoming message. He seemed able to let go pretty easily. Then I noticed something strange: He was really antsy and always pacing. He was checking the closets for things, going to the kitchen, looking at our bookcase. Ahh-ha! Every stroll around the apartment gave him a chance to check BB.

The Verdict:This was a great start, and it's a solution I could live with. I think it would've worked better in a bigger apartment.

Plan 3: Designated HoursI don't like the idea of being a drill sergeant for my husband. I'm not a neat freak. I don't consider myself incredibly needy. But I do like some one-on-one time. Even if we're watching TV together, it's nice to share something that's funny...and not have to repeat it to a distracted husband who was typing an email (or worse, trying to beat his record at BrickBreaker, the silly game that comes standard on BlackBerries).

I got this idea from a user of TheNest.com who said she had designated non-BlackBerry hours for her husband, where his system is actually turned off. But since we don't have a house phone, this is the only way to contact him, so that wasn't possible for us. We decided that 8 to 10:30 p.m. would be our non-BB time, except for important phone calls (meaning parents, friends, or work). And if I'm on the phone, it's a-okay for him to type away. At home, BB could be checked about every three hours (nothing too rigid formatted, but in that general time frame).

The Verdict: This was a little harder. Not having his phone with him at all times, he went through a bit of withdrawal, and BB would occasionally end up forgotten on the coffee table out of habit (and left there out of my laziness). As time passed, it was great. he would check his phone only before dinner and then again before bed. But every once in a while, I'd see him sneaking in a game of BrickBreaker, especially on shopping trips with me — but maybe that's a reason to keep this thing around!

Final Verdict: The best idea was designated hours, but the real benefit of this experiment was talking openly about my husband's CrackBerry addiction. I used to just roll my eyes or make a joke attempting to let him know how much it irritated me. But after we talked about fixing the problem, he suddenly realized it was a problem. I might not have completely gotten rid of the third member of our marriage, but at least I don't have to eat or sleep with it anymore.

A Stroll About the Grounds

Joe took this one of a beautiful hollyhock...so artistic!

Grace and Taylor playing at the Dino museum in the "Create-a-Canyon" exhibit. Way cool!

In the sand pit where they "excavate" dino bones...such a clever idea for the kiddos.

Looking "over the hedge" (he he)

Taylor...such a cutie!

Can you spot the elusive chocolate-appareled Gracie in this picture?

The boys and their charges...Joe and Grace, Brandon and Dillon, Daren and Taylor

We had a fun Saturday at the Thanksgiving Point gardens and dinosaur museum. Joe's work gave their employees free passes, so we decided to take advantage of their generosity! We went with some of his friends from work, Brandon, and Stephanie and her family. It was pretty dang hot for a while, but other than that it was very beautiful and good exercise for us chunky monkeys :)

It's pretty rediculuous to believe, but we've lived in Lehi for about 5 years and have never been to the dinosaur museum. I highly recommend it if you've got little ankle-biters like we do! There are all sorts of things for the kids to do "hands-on" and Gracie just loved it! I think we'll get a pass next year when Janie will be old enough to enjoy it too.

Hodge-Podge

Here's my little pixie sporting a sprout! She pulls these out so fast, that this should be considered a super-fast action shot!

Isn't she hilariously cute? Taking a bath yesterday she was all silly grins!

Giving love to the person who think the very most of her in the entire world...Grandma!!

As you may have guessed from the title of this post...this one's a hodge podge :) Lately we've been registering for preschool and dance classes, making plans for Torrey (yipee!), and reading (well, mostly just me doing the reading :)). Gracie's going to be starting preschool the day after we get home from Torrey (hallelujiah chorus here) and dance class a week later! I'm excited for her (and for me and Jane...lol) and I know she will be so much happier once she's more occupied during the week.

We're looking forward to Torrey with much anticipation! I'm planning taco salad for our Thursday night dinner responsibilities and just can't wait to see Dennis and Tawny and all the rest of the fam! Torrey is fun and pretty relaxing and that's exactly what we need right now so we're getting excited. We do need a child-carrier hiking backpack though...if any of you reading this have one of those, can we borrow it? Pretty please??? :)

Breaking Dawn was a pretty good read! I'm excited that Tawny is starting to read the Twilight series!!! :):) I'm reading Sense and Sensibility now, which I haven't read before, and it's good so far! I'm also reading some Tennyson and that has been a blast from the past...in a good way. I read a lot of Tennyson in high school. I just drink it up.

So...I LOVED everyone's responses to my "favorite TV show as a kid" question! They were GREAT! My question for today is...If you could have dinner with one person (alive or dead) who would it be? I know it's totally a standard question, but I'm interested! :)

Peace Out! And, um...word up to your Mom!

Are you ready for your close up?

We got a new camera! Here are some of the very first shots we took with it yesterday.

Deep question of the day...what's your favorite TV show from when you were a kid?