Sherratt-Amo Family

A Smoothie A Day...part 7

2012-01-29T09:57:00.000-08:00

Well everyone, this is the last day of our 7 part series, A Smoothie A Day. I've had a lot of fun searching my pantry, freezer and fridge trying to come up with some exciting new smoothie flavors. I think the coffee one was by far my favorite, but that Almond Joy Smoothie is a very close second.

I wanted to call today's smoothie the "I am sick of winter in Utah and wish I was in the Caribbean instead" smoothie, but that seemed like quite the title for a smoothie so instead I'll just call it...

Put the Lime in the Coconut Smoothie (because I kept singing that line as I was making it)
makes 2 servings

1 frozen banana
1/2 cup apple juice
1/2 cup frozen mango
1/2 cup frozen pineapple
2 tablespoons shredded coconut
1 lime, juiced
handful spinach
1 serving protein powder
water

Calories (per serving): 261.5
Fat grams (per serving): 2.75

I'm really excited, this 7 part series has led me to another project altogether that I'm working on getting up and going. It's just in the beginning stages right now so I won't spill the beans but I'm hoping to have it up and running in a about a month. Stay tuned to this blog to find out what it is and when it's ready.

I think the little man was more excited about the new cups we bought yesterday then about the smoothie. When I asked him what kind of smoothie he wanted today he said 'chocolate' but I figured everyone else might not be as excited about another chocolate smoothie as my little man was so we compromised on this concoction.

A Smoothie A Day...part 6

2012-01-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

That's right folks, after this one there is only one more smoothie. Any suggestions? I have some ideas in my head but I'd love some other opinions and suggestions. Today's smoothie I can't take complete credit for. A friend, Brittany, shared this recipe with me, I've just made some slight variations. Realize that this recipe makes 3 servings, they will be smaller servings than the previous smoothies. There are a lot of rich ingredients in this smoothie so that's why I've made it 3 servings. You could also cut out the almonds all together and cut out 5 grams of fat and 63 calories per serving.

Almond Joy Smoothie
makes 3 servings

1 frozen banana
1 cup almond milk
1 cup vanilla greek yogurt
4 tablespoons shredded coconut (my coconut is sweetened because I use it for baking, if yours is unsweetened I would recommend adding maybe a 1/2 tablespoon of honey or agave nectar to add some sweetness)
1/4 cup silvered almonds
16 dark chocolate chips
ice

Calories (per serving): 235
Fat grams (per serving): 9.2 (Remember a majority of these fat grams are coming from the almonds, which are a 'good' kind of fat to put in your body. Plus that's with the sweetened coconut, it would be less with the unsweetened.)

Today is Saturday and little man's buddy/cousin was over so he was too busy playing to have some of this smoothie. But this is not the first time I have made it, he loved it when I made it before.

Late last night I was up searching the web trying to figure out how to take better pictures...I was not a success, looks like I'll be up again tonight trying to figure it out!

A Smoothie A Day...part 5

2012-01-27T10:47:00.000-08:00

Do you know what you make when you have a basket of oranges sitting there waiting to be used? Well a smoothie with fresh squeezed orange juice of course. I wanted to make a smoothie that tasted like an Orange Julius. I haven't had one of those is so long and it sounded so good. I looked online for a recipe to get me started but I had some issues with the recipes I was finding. It seems that in order to get that frothy taste that you get from the original Orange Julius you need to add an egg white to the smoothie. Well, I'm not really excited about adding a raw egg white to something I am not cooking, so I didn't. I don't think Orange Julius uses a raw egg white but all the recipes I found mentioned using one, or egg white powders which I don't have. Today's smoothie is....

Orangn't Glad It's a Smoothie
makes 1 serving
1 frozen banana
1 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1/2 plain greek yogurt
3 vanilla soy milk ice cubes (about 5-6 tablespoons)
1/2 tablespoon agave nectar
1 large handful of spinach
ice

I bought a large bag, I'm thinking it was a 10lb bag, of oranges at the store a week ago. The little man loves oranges so it was a great deal at only $2.50 for the bag. It took me 8 large oranges to get a cup of juice, I was surprised it took that many. Maybe they weren't very juicy oranges.

Yesterday I was curious about the calorie count of my smoothie, now I'm thinking I will go back to the other smoothies and figure out the calories on those as well, and on all the smoothies from now on.

Calories: 367
(banana 105, yogurt 75, orange juice 112, agave 30, soy milk 25, spinach 20)
Fat: less than 1 gram!!!!
(the soy milk has 3.5 grams in 1 cup, I only used 5-6 tablespoons so it has to be less than 1 gram!)

As I said earlier, the little man loves oranges so of course he loved this smoothie. Since my munchkin (my 8 month old) was also awake he got a chance to try it out and he liked it too.

A Smoothie A Day...part 4

2012-01-26T10:36:00.000-08:00

I have to admit that I have been looking forward to this smoothie since yesterday morning. And because my little sister couldn't understand why I kept putting spinach into my smoothies I left it out of this one...just for you Brannon :) Honestly, out of all the smoothies I have made so far I'm sure this is the one my family would like the most, (a) because it doesn't have spinach, and (b) because it has coffee.

Cup of Joe Smoothie
makes 1 serving
1 frozen banana
3 coffee ice cubes (I'm thinking its about 5-6 tablespoons of coffee)
1/2 cup vanilla soy milk
1 1/2 tablespoons Kahlua Coffee Flavored Syrup (DaVinci Gourmet brand)
8 dark chocolate chips
1 serving of protein powder (I used vanilla soy protein today)
water

I was really curious as to how many calories and fat were in this smoothie so I calculated it for you (ok, I calculated it for me, but you know you were curious too!)

Calories: 365
(med banana 105, flavored syrup 0, soy milk 50, protein 170, coffee 0, chocolate 40)
Fat grams: 5...yes that says 5!
(banana 0, flavored syrup 0, soy milk 1.75, protein 1.5, coffee 0, chocolate 1.75)

Just think of how much better this is for you then a Starbucks blended drink...check out these numbers I found in an ABC Action News article

* A 16 ounce Starbucks Double Chocolaty Chip Frappucino will cost you 500 calories and 9 grams of fat.
* A 16 ounce McDonald’s McCafe Frappe Mocha will cost you 560 calories and 24 grams of fat.

* Panera’s frozen Mocha will also set you back with 570 calories and 20 grams of fat.
* Dunkin Donuts Mocha Coffee with cream which tips the caloric scales at 14 ounces, 260 calories and 9 grams of fat.

Don't worry, the little man's drink was made without the coffee and with extra chocolate...of course he loved it, he is a chocolate milk fan.

A Smoothie A Day...part 3

2012-01-25T11:51:00.000-08:00

Today I was drawing a blank when it came to making my smoothie. I looked through my pantry, my freezer and my fridge and nothing jumped out at me. Well that't not entirely true. I saw the coffee pot and coffee sitting in my pantry and thought a java type of smoothie would be pretty tasty, even though I don't care for coffee at all. But you can't really make a frosty smoothie out of hot coffee so I brewed a pot and plan on using it tomorrow, I'll put it in an ice cube tray as soon as it cools so I have coffee flavored ice cubes...stay tuned.

This mornings smoothie, after lots of opening and closing of my pantry, freezer and fridge is....

Popeye's Blueberry Lemonade
makes 1 serving
1 frozen banana
1/3 cup frozen blueberries
juice from 1 lemon
1/2 cup vanilla soy milk
1 large handful of fresh spinach
1 serving protein powder (today's was a vanilla flavored whey protein powder, not too bad)
water or ice to make to desired consistency

As always, put into a blender and blend.

You may be noticing a trend when it comes to my smoothies...I always use a frozen banana and my veggie of choice is always spinach...why? you might ask. Well let me tell you. I like the texture the banana gives to my smoothies. I started freezing them one time when I had tons of them sitting on my counter and noticed they were going brown. Now I always freeze them, my ice maker on my fridge doesn't work so its a perfect way to avoid adding ice to the smoothie. And spinach, well I like adding a veggie to my smoothie so I know that I am getting the required number of servings of veggies a day. I have tried lots of different veggies in the past and spinach is the one that I can taste the least when it comes to my smoothies.

Oh...and of course...the little guy liked this one too.

Elvis Oats

2012-01-24T13:37:00.000-08:00

Do you know what you get when you add all these things together?

Well Elvis Oats of course! I always hear about how Elvis' favorite thing to eat was a peanut butter and banana sandwich. So when I was eating my oats this morning I thought...hey Elvis would love this!

Elvis Oats
1 serving Steel Cut Oats cooked according to package directions
1 banana smashed
1 tablespoon peanut butter
6 dark chocolate chips
splash of soy milk

Mix all together and enjoy.

I really enjoyed it. I thought my 3 year old would love it, he eats peanut butter by the spoonfuls but he doesn't really like the texture of oats. He prefers Malt-O-Meal so maybe that was why he didn't gobble it up like I did.

A Smoothie A Day...part 2

2012-01-24T13:06:00.000-08:00

Day 2 of our week long smoothie experiments is a little later today because my 8 month old decided that taking a nap could wait until 12:30pm instead of his normal 10:00am. Which meant that I couldn't do my workout until his nap, which leads me to the fact that I'm just now enjoying my smoothie for the day at 1:45pm.

Getting Caught in the Rain Smoothie
makes 1 serving

1 frozen banana
1/2 cup lite coconut milk
1 serving protein powder (today was rice protein and I am hating the chalky taste it is leaving in my mouth.)
1 8oz can pineapple chunks in pineapple juice (I added the chunks and juice)
1 1/2 Tablespoons shredded coconut
1 large handful of fresh spinach
ice

Put everything in a blender and blend.

You like that name of this one right? "If You Like Pina Coladas..." you'll like this smoothie. I would tell you that it tastes JUST LIKE a pina colada but you'd make it, try it, realize that it doesn't taste just like a pina colada and never try my other smoothies. I think if you didn't add the spinach (and added some rum) it would taste pretty darn close (depending on the flavor of your protein powder). But it does have that tropical taste to it like a pina colada has so give it a try!

Asher, my 3 year old who always drinks my smoothies with me, had his portion of the smoothie almost gone before I was even done taking pictures...that must be equal to two thumbs up...right?

Connor likes to move it

2012-01-23T10:43:00.000-08:00

I took these cute videos of Connor dancing the other day. I took them with my phone so they aren't the best quality, but I had to share them with everyone...so dang cute!

A Smoothie A Day...part 1

2012-01-23T10:17:00.000-08:00

This part 1 of a 7 part series...7 smoothie recipes in the next 7 days. I love smoothies and recently I have been on a huge smoothie kick, sometimes having two a day. I always have one after my workout and sometimes I will have one as a late evening snack to ward off my sweet tooth that I tend to get after dinner.

Mean, Green, Fighting Machine Smoothie
this recipe makes 2 servings

1 frozen banana
1 kiwi
1/2 cup vanilla soy milk
6 frozen black berries
1 1/2 handfuls of fresh baby spinach
1 serving of protein powder (mine was vanilla whey protein today)
water if needed for your preferred consistency

blend all ingredients in a blender. Note: I have a Vita-Mix blender which will blend anything...its a monster of a blender! If you don't have a Vita-Mix or other powerful blender make sure you cut your banana and kiwi up so that they will break down easier.

My favorite smoothie trick? I buy tons of bananas (usually a bunch every time I go to the store, which is usually 3 times a week) Once the bananas start to get a little brown I peel them and put them into individual ziploc baggies and pop them in the freezer. Perfect for making that smoothie (or milk shake if you are my 13 year old son) smooth and thick. Then you don't have to add any ice, at least I don't ever have to. And yes, my 3 year old loves these smoothies, even packed full of spinach! He always asks for his own cup full.

The protein powder I used is shown in the picture. I went to my local health food store and they have several different types of protein powder in one serving packages. I bought several so I could find a type of protein that I like. I'm trying to find a brand that I can't really taste because sometimes I think the powder changes the flavor of my smoothies too much. I didn't really like this powder. It gave my smoothie an artificial low-cal sugar substitute after taste. The other day I did have this same brand of egg protein powder which I could hardly taste in my smoothie. But I still have about 5 more to try before I make my decision. Also, I only put protein powder in my smoothies if I am drinking it after my workout. If I was to make this smoothie just as a late day snack or for breakfast I would replace the powder with about 1/2 cup of low-fat greek yogurt, flavor of your choice.

Angels watching over us

2012-01-20T08:57:00.000-08:00

I am grateful for the many angels that were watching over us on Monday, January 16, 2012. The boys and I were driving back home to Cedar City, UT from Rock Springs, WY, we had been there for the weekend visiting James, who is there for his new job with Halliburton. When we left Rock Springs around 9:30am the weather wasn't so bad, there were a few flurries coming down but nothing major. We stopped in Green River, a little town about 10 minutes west of Rock Springs, to get fuel and some hot chocolate. The roads were clear and the flurries had stopped. We were all anxious to get home. Evanston is about 85 miles west of Rock Springs, when we were about in the middle of that drive the weather started getting scary. It had snowed the night before and the wind was strong, it was blowing the snow across the freeway. New snow started to fall and I began to get nervous. I'm not a strong driver when it comes to snow and for some reason my Excursion is really squirmy, even on a dry, clear day. Connor was starting to get fussy, he hates riding in the car for any amount of time. I had decided that I would pull over in Evanston and wait the storm out, even if it meant getting a hotel room for the night. I also knew I needed to get my Excursion into 4-wheel drive so it would handle better in the snow. I thought I needed to pull over, put the transmission into neutral before I could put it into 4-wheel drive. I later found out that I could slow down to about 20 mph and switch it over, wish I had known that then! I wasn't about to pull over on the side of the freeway, the roads were slick and the snow was coming down and there were a ton of 18-wheelers on the road, I wasn't going to put my kids in that kind of danger. I was waiting for an exit, one that wasn't snow covered. About 20 miles from Evanston I was following a semi-truck, it seemed a safe place to drive. We were in the slow lane and up ahead was a snow plow. The semi decided to move into the fast lane to pass him. I was a little unsure if that's what I wanted to do but the snow plow was only driving about 20 mph and Connor was in the back screaming so I wanted to get to Evanston. I waited for a few cars to pass and then moved over into the fast lane. I passed the snow plow easily and moved back into the slow lane. I was driving about 40 mph. I don't really remember much after that except that the Excursion started to slide. The back end started pushing forward and we were going down the freeway sideways. The front end of the Excursion hit the snow packed median, then the center guard rail. The back end passenger side also hit the guard rail and we were facing the wrong direction, the front end of the truck in the fast lane. As fast as I could I threw the Excursion into 4-wheel drive and moved us from the fast lane into the median. I would've lost it completely than but I knew I needed to stay calm for the kids. I started asking if everyone was ok. The little boys in the back were fine, I don't even know if they knew what was going on. Bailey was scared, and covered in cold hot chocolate. The major impact of the crash was on the passenger side of the truck so everything went flying towards him in the passenger seat. I called 911, which I was lucky to get through to because I had no service. Then we waited for the police and tow truck to show up. The crash happened about 11:00am, we didn't get into Evanston, which was only 20 miles away, until 2:30pm.

James was lucky enough to get out of training for the rest of the day and drive down to help me. We have a friend who lives in Evanston, we had the tow truck take the Excursion to his house and we were going to leave it there until we could figure out what to do with it. I had no idea how I was going to get home. We tried to rent a car but there are no rental car services in Evanston. We thought about going back with James to Rock Springs and staying with him until his day off (Sunday) and having him drive us back home and then him turning right around and coming back to Rock Springs, but that was crazy.

After looking over the Excursion we decided that I would drive it back to Cedar City. Luckily it still ran well, the front end shakes considerably when you get going 70 but other than that it was drivable. James put some lights in and duct taped them in place. The boys and I stayed in a hotel for the night and then got up the next morning and headed home. I will admit that I was completely panicked for the first hour and a half of the drive home. The highway between Evanston and Park City is through the mountains so there are a lot of curves and turns. Every time I saw that the roads were wet my heart would race. By the time I reached Heber my hands were really sore from holding onto the steering wheel so tightly. At one point my front tires hit a divot in the road and it pulled the truck to the right and I about had a heart attack thinking I was starting to slide again. The Excursion is currently parked in the driveway, waiting for me to take it to the body shop for an estimate. Although I drove it home James told me that I can't drive it around town, with the front end missing like it is the police would probably pull me over.

I am so thankful that none of us were hurt. The Excursion sits up so high off the ground that I think if that guard rail hadn't been there the chances of us rolling would've been pretty high. I don't know if being in 4-wheel drive would've helped and I don't know if giving the truck some gas would've pulled me out of the slide. I do know that I'm scared out of my mind to drive in the snow again. I see the front end of the Excursion when I go out side and the fear builds up again inside of me, fear that it could've been so much worse and then the gratitude comes because it wasn't. We all walked away from it without a scratch. I'm so thankful for the angles that were watching over us that day!

Asher's sleepy potty time

2012-01-10T14:42:00.000-08:00

On Saturday (the 7th) James and I went to the movies. James' parents came up to watch the boys for us. The movie was a little longer than I had expected and when we got home both boys were fast asleep. Apparently Connor had been asleep for 2 of the 3 hours we were gone and Asher had just fallen asleep about 15 minutes before we got home. He had climbed up onto grandpa's lap and went to sleep. I, of course, had to get a picture.

Isn't that the sweetest thing? So we were all sitting in the living room talking, Asher still curled up on grandpa's lap asleep. Now, Asher isn't 100% potty trained. He still needs a pull-up when he sleeps and usually he doesn't take a nap so I was worried that he might wet his pants on grandpa. I guess I didn't need to worry too much. After being home about 30 minutes Asher started to move and wake up. He climbed down off of grandpa's lap and walked into the kitchen. He was still really sleepy so I wasn't really sure what he was doing. He started messing around with the trash can and I asked James to check on him. LOL! He was standing at the trash can, had his pants pulled down and was peeing! I guess he thought it was the toilet. So funny! After he was done he climbed up on my lap and went right back to sleep. All of us just couldn't help but laugh.

I'm sure one day he will be really upset with me for posting this on our blog. But it's actually what made me start blogging again. I don't keep a journal, this blog is as close as it gets. And I realized that so much is happening in our lives with the boys that we will want to share with them when they are older. How will I remember it all if I don't write it down somewhere? This blog is going to be it! Sorry Asher...but I do love you! :)

Gratitudes from November 2011

2012-01-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

I mentioned in my previous post that for the month of November I listed 3 things I was grateful for each day (I might have missed a few here and there). I posted this little note before starting...

"And just to clarify, I am grateful for my family and friends EVERYDAY, especially my hubbyJames Sherratt, but my list of gratitudes for the month will be silly and simple. Things that specifically I am grateful for on that day. I just wanted everyone to know that so they don't say to themselves "wow isn't she ever grateful for her husband who is 1200 miles away working constantly and missing his family??? Yes I am!"

So here they are....

November 1
The three things I am grateful for today are:
1. heating systems - on cold days like today I'm grateful that I can just flip a switch to bring heat to my house rather than having to chop firewood and then getting a fire started in a fireplace!
2. baby bouncy chairs - Connor is probably thankful for it too :)
3. my laptop computer - I would never be able to spend time online if I had to sit at a desk, Connor would not allow it :)

November 2
I'm grateful for
1. Bailey giving Asher a bath,
2. sleeping children
and 3. my washer and dryer.

November 3
Today I'm grateful for:
(1) 100 calorie snacks, today I really needed some kind of little snack and the game allows us to have one 100 calorie snack a day. I love how a lot of the cookie and cracker makers have packaged some of their tasty treats in 100 calorie bags.
(2) recipes found online. Sometimes I get so bored with the things I eat and I love that I can just get online to find something new and exciting, and I especially love when I find a recipe that is yummy, like I did today :)
(3) Skype. with my hubby working so far from home Skype is a lifesaver. Asher loves talking to his daddy on the computer and it makes it fun for James to watch the boys play and have fun. Whoever invented Skype was/is a genius!

November 4
Today I am grateful for:
(1) the wind finally stopping (at 7:30 tonight!),
(2) Walmart, even though I secretly hate that place, I'm grateful its there with everything I need under one roof. With a 3yo and a 5 month old that's a huge benefit! and
(3) the excitement I am feeling for this holiday season, usually I dread it but this year I am feeling festive already.

November 5
Today I am grateful for:
(1) Subway sandwiches...they are yummy and healthy and someone makes it for me :)
(2) my Nook, because I can read it even in the dark when I am putting Connor to sleep, I can't do that with regular books! (3) movie channels on DirecTV, I've been watching them half the day!

November 6
Today I am grateful for:
(1) free days on my Diet Game, I use my free day as a reward for working so hard the rest of the week and when I thought I wasn't going to get my free day because I wasn't going to make my weight I was really sad.
(2) end of Daylight Savings Time, glad Bailey won't be going to the bus stop in the complete dark anymore. Its kinda freaky sending my kid out to the bus when its pitch black out at 7:10 in the morning, and
(3) my ability to bake/cook, I love doing it and I love trying new things, I'm really glad that most of the stuff I make comes out tasty otherwise I would be discouraged and probably wouldn't follow my passion.

November 7
Today I'm grateful for
(1) my electric blanket...so warm and cozy.
(2) cute sweatshirts, my favorite thing to wear during the winter is jeans, sweatshirt and tennis shoes, and
(3) the fact that my hubby is coming home in 8 days!

November 8
Today I am grateful for
(1) FedEx, they make it easy and cheap to send James goodies from home,
(2) my DVR, I'd never get to watch a full episode of anything if it weren't for the ability to record it and watch it once all the kids are asleep! Plus the added bonus of being able to fast forward through commercials, and
(3) the fact that my hubby is coming home in 7 days :)

November 9
Today I am grateful for
(1) my ability to be a better person tomorrow than I was today,
(2) Ibuprofen, and
(3) the fact that James comes home in 6 days.

November 10
Today I am grateful for
(1) mommy alone time, holy cow did I need that today, 2 1/2 weeks with no time to yourself will drive anyone crazy and I was really close to being there!
(2) Iced tea, I love it! and of course
(3) the fact that James comes home in 5 days! (woohoo we are down to counting on one hand!)

November 11
Today I am grateful for
(1) US Veterans for all the sacrifices they go through to fight for our freedom.
(2) greek yogurt, I never realized how much I would like greek yogurt, wish I had tried it earlier!
(3) the fact that James will be home soon!

November 12
Today I am grateful for
(1) my washer and dryer, glad they work hard so I don't have to.
(2) my Cooking Light cookbooks, so many yummy recipes I want to try and I won't feel guilty about eating them!
(3) the fact that on Wednesday night at this time James will be home!

November 13
Today I am grateful for
(1) the patience I managed to have with my kids today. I'm hoping it will carry over to tomorrow, and the rest of the week for that matter.
(2) losing weight rather than gaining it, even if it is a small amount and
(3) the fact that James will be home in about 70 hours (that's a estimate, but I'm sure its pretty darn close to accurate!)

November 14
Today I am grateful for
(1) Disney movies. Asher just loves watching Finding Nemo right now and I'm glad that he has movies to watch that I don't have to worry about him learning something bad from.
(2) bananas, they are the perfect "on the go" food, and
(3) the fact that James will be home in 48 hours!

November 15
Today I am grateful for
(1) both of my little boys being asleep by 8:15 tonight!
(2) the sunnier, warmer weather we had today that allowed me to get out of the house to run, and of course
(3) the fact that James will be home in less than 24 hours!

November 16
Today I am grateful for
(1) James finally coming home,
(2) cheap hotels in Las Vegas and
(3) Bailey for helping me with the two kids on the drive down to Las Vegas.

November 17
Today I am grateful for
(1) being home, last night was miserable at the hotel with a 6 month old who is use to being in his own bed in a very quiet room,
(2) airplanes and automobiles that make getting from one place to another a lot faster then it use to be, and
(3) the Excursion making it to Las Vegas and back on one tank of gas, especially since it cost me $125 to almost fill it up!

November 18
Today I am grateful for
(1) all the birthday wishes I received today.
(2) my in-laws for watching the boys so we could go see Breaking Dawn part 1 and
(3) our family doctor, Dr. Allen.

November 19
Today I am grateful for
(1) being able to celebrate my birthday with my family,
(2) a delicious fish taco recipe that I crave (even though I'm not a big fan of fish) and
(3) tasting a grocery store cake and knowing that I can do so much better! LOL

November 20
Today I'm grateful for
(1) lazy Sundays,
(2) infant Tylenol because my poor little guy is teething and the Tylenol certainly helps him feel a little better, and
(3) a clean kitchen, having my kitchen a mess makes me crazy, I can't relax until its clean so I'm grateful that right now its nice and tidy.

November 21
....guess I missed this day....

November 22
....and this day....

November 23
Today I am grateful for
(1) my Bountiful Basket Hostess pack that I purchased on Saturday, it has everything I need for Thanksgiving dinner including tons of fresh herbs which are next to impossible to find here in Cedar City,
(2) Music! I love listening to music when I'm cooking, especially country music and
(3) the Netflix app on my phone which is seriously keeping my 3 year old entertained!

November 24
Today I am grateful for
(1) my family and friends,
(2) having food on my table and
(3) the fact that I'm going to bed and not waiting outside some store in the cold to shop with a bunch of crazy people ;)

November 25

Today I am grateful for

(1) my kitchen being clean after yesterdays mess,

(2) leftovers,

(3) the movie Christmas Vacation, which I watch every year after Thanksgiving.

November 26
Today I am grateful for
(1) Christmas music on Pandora,
(2) leftover turkey to make turkey pot pies out of...Yummy!
(3) the butternut squash cake recipe I found online a week before Thanksgiving...that cake is so much better than the pumpkin pie I made, its definatly going in the recipe file to make again.

November 27
Today I am grateful for
(1) lazy Sundays (yes, again),
(2) all of my boys' smiles and laughter and
(3) my bed because I'm exhausted...good night all!

November 28
....guess I missed this day....

November 29
Today I'm grateful for
(1) making it home from Las Vegas with help from Bailey, he is an awesome son and big brother! Always so helpful when I need him.
(2) the way my heart melts when my little boys snuggled up to me when they are sleepy, and
(3) for James' job interview on Thursday...keep your fingers crossed!

November 30
Today I am grateful for
(1) having so many things in my life to be grateful for that I can list 3 things a day for 30 days,
(2) James making it home safe and sound through a snow storm and
(3) dinner with the girls.

Another year gone by...

2012-01-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

As I grow older the years seem to rush by quicker and quicker. How can it possibly be 2012 already??? Wasn't it just 2008 and Asher was just a tiny baby? Ok, Asher was never a tiny baby (born weighing 9lbs 3oz), but you get my point right? Now we have Connor, who actually was a tiny baby (weighing 6lbs 12oz), born in 2011 and just a real joy to have around. Since its already 2012 and I hardly did any blogging in 2011 I thought I'd do a month by month recap...that is if I can remember what happened and what we did...I did just say I was growing older!

January 2011
Happy 2011! Asher, James and I spent the new year in Southern California with my dad and Kimmie. It was a quiet evening but lots of fun. I had planned on going back to school for spring semester but after much consideration James and I decided that it would be better for me not to go because we were pretty certain we would be moving once James found a job. On the 6th we found out that we were having another baby boy. Sometime around the 5th of January (I'm thinking it was more like the 10th but I'm not sure) we went to Arizona to visit with my mom and Rocky in Kingman and then to Lake Havasu to celebrate my niece Cailin's 10th birthday. What a great birthday party she had! At the end of the month we headed back to Southern California because James was on the books for the union and a job came available. After being down there for a week and looking for a new place to live the job ended up not working out so we headed back to Southern Utah. It was nice being out of the colder weather for a week though.

February 2011

The first week of February James got a job operating a crane in Minersville. He had to work 7 days a week and with the drive, about 12 hours a day but the money was awesome! On the 9th James turned 43, for his birthday we celebrated with his parents and had prime rib at home, with some yummy cupcakes for dessert. During February I started working on my website for my cakes and cupcakes. I was doing a lot of baking and taking pictures and probably gaining a lot of weight since I was eating them all! By the end of the month I had the website up and running, Cake It to the Limit was AWESOME! (now its not up so don't go check it out!) I also attempted to start potty training Asher this month, he wasn't all that interested.

March 2011
Potty training is still going on. Asher is getting better at it, thankfully. Gas prices were at $3.47 a gallon and it seemed like every other day it went up another 5 cents a gallon. James and I celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary on the 20th. James bought me a Cake Cricut, which was so exciting for me. James really wanted something for his motorcycle so he told me to get him saddlebags for his bike, he LOVED them! At the end of March Bailey came to visit us for his Spring break. We spent one of the days at Zion National Park with my dad and Kimmie. The weather was great while we were there! The last day of the month we took the boys (Asher, Bailey and Kade) to the new aquatic center which has an indoor swimming pool and kid play area. Asher loved it. James' job in Minersville came to an end around the time Bailey came to visit. Back to looking for another job!

April 2011

On April 2nd our granddaughter Jade turned 2. We celebrated by going to St George and having a BBQ at the park. Her birthday officially marked a year since I started making and decorating cakes. (her first birthday was my first one!) I had such issues with her cake, but luckily she didn't seem to care since the cake had a big Dora doll sitting on top of it! The first week of April I had two cake (cupcake) orders from my website. The same weekend I had a 8 year old boys birthday cake to make, it was Super Mario Bros themed and it turned out great! I also had a 100 cupcakes to make for a baby shower, both events were in St George and of course the weather was awful (snow/rain/hail). It all turned out really great though, and being 8 months pregnant I can't believe my feet weren't killing me by the time I was done. By the end of April I was ready to be done with my pregnancy. I wasn't due until the 27th of May but I was really ready to be done. I decided to start walking every afternoon until Connor decided to make an appearance. I guess I must've walked to hard one Friday afternoon because the Saturday before Easter I started to go into labor. I just didn't realize it until later that day. We took Asher to two Easter egg hunts that morning and I wasn't feeling well at all. Afterwards I came home and took a nap, by about 4 I was getting worried and had James take me to the hospital. They monitored me for a few hours and then decided to give me a few shots to stop the labor. It was awful, I was shaky and ended up sick. Sometime in April James started working for a company called Cleary. They build those big metal barn looking buildings some people have in back of their houses.

May 2011

Mother's Day came and went and I sent out tons of cake pops to lots of wonderful mothers out there. My c-section was scheduled for the 23rd and I was anxiously waiting for that day. I was kinda depressed because it was the end of Spring semester for all those students at SUU and I was wishing I was there. Crazy how we thought we would end up moving and how we ended up staying. Bailey turned 13 on the 14th. How insane is it to have a teenager and a new baby in the same month! Lucky for me my c-section was switched from the 23rd to the 19th, I found this out on the 17th! On the 18th we had this freak snow storm roll through Cedar City. Very early (4:30) I woke up on the 19th and got ready for the arrival of Connor. I was at the hospital by 5:15 and in surgery by 7:00am. Connor was born at 7:20am. What an amazing day, we were so blessed to have this healthy little guy join our family. On the 21st Connor and I were headed home from the hospital. For Memorial day we stayed home with our beautiful new born baby.

June 2011

June was a pretty quiet month for us. On the 20th Asher turned 3. We celebrated his birthday with a visit to the park across the street from James' parents house. We BBQ'd some hamburgers and hotdogs and had a Cars birthday cake. It was so windy that the party wasn't actually much fun. But the food and the company were great! At the end of the month James got offered a really great job down in California. He was going to be making an insane amount of money and we were really excited to finally get such a great opportunity after 3 years of crappy on and off again jobs. But of course it turned out to be too-good-to-be-true and back up to Southern Utah we went. Luckily for James he was able to go back to work for Cleary. OH! And the last weekend of June (I think) we went over to Panguitch for their annual Hot Air Balloon Festival. That was a lot of fun. Sometime during June we also celebrated Sabelle's graduation from high school. I can't remember the exact date, I blame it on post-pregnancy brain! :) We also found out this month that Jared and his girlfriend Kimmy are expecting a baby in 2012, our second grandchild.

July 2011

Came home from Southern California just in time to celebrate the 4th of July. We watched tons of fireworks from our front yard, we pretty much have a 360 degree view and there were fireworks on almost every angle. Asher, unfortunately, decided that he was done with potty training and went back to needing a diaper (well pull-ups). He had gotten a really bad cold in June and after that potty training went out the window. The middle of July Bailey came back for his summer visit. His visit proved to be pretty exciting, on the 20th he took a huge fall off of a scooter and ended up in the ER, luckily it wasn't anything serious, just tons of scratches and bruises, but it scared me enough to rush him to the hospital. James was still working for Cleary and constantly out of town. He was beginning to really dislike this job and constantly looking for something new. The last week of July my mom, my sister and my niece came to visit us. It was tons of fun having them here, we didn't do a whole lot but it was great having family here.

August 2011

What an exciting month for us! Bailey decided that he wanted to move back to Utah instead of living with his dad in Indiana. I was so excited. We registered him for school and on the 17th he started going to Canyon View Middle School. During the summer I found a new addiction to a game called Angry Birds. I loved it so much I made cookies in the shape of the birds and pigs, Asher loved playing it too. We even got my mom hooked on it when she was here visiting. I started reading on my Nook again and found a book called "Skinny Bitches." I made a post about this earlier in the year, you can read about it here. The end of the month Bailey went over the Panguitch to hang out with Papa Rick (my dad) for the ATV Rally. He had a great time Jeeping, fishing and just hanging out.

September 2011

On the 3rd Sabelle turned 18 and on the 10th Sabelle and Chad were married. It was a lovely wedding held at a church in St George. I made the wedding cake and stressed about it for several days before, wondering if I would get it done with a newborn who was so demanding. Lucky for me James wasn't working that week and was able to really help me get it done by watching Connor and also by helping me roll fondant when Connor was sleeping. I could not have gotten it down without his help! September was a busy month for gardening too. James' parents were bringing me buckets of tomatoes every other day it seemed like. I made salsa, marinara sauce, tomato soup...all of which were YUMMY! The middle of September my dad and Kim came up for a visit. Kimmie took some wonderful family pictures for us. Connor started eating rice cereal this month but I don't think he tummy liked it very much so I stopped feeding it to him for a few more weeks. On the 27th James left to go work in North Dakota. You can see a blog about that here.

October 2011

The first week of October brought our first snow of the fall/winter season. That was really upsetting to me because I had started running in September and now couldn't do it anymore due to the weather. Well I could do it on my treadmill but I have a strong dislike for running on my treadmill. Finally, after 3 months of not being potty trained, Asher was back to using the potty again. I was so darn excited. The whole month James was up in North Dakota. Halloween was pretty low-key for us. Asher dressed up as the pumpkin he was suppose to be last year but got sick and never got to wear. Connor was a cute little chicken (same costume Asher used his first halloween) and Bailey was a scary guy from a movie. Bailey took Asher trick or treating for about 20 minutes before Asher was done. My mom also came back to visit us around the 19th of October, she stayed for a week and it was awesome having her around to help out.

November 2011

Ahhh...my favorite month, and its not because its my birthday month, although that does help. Its my favorite month because its my favorite season and my favorite holiday. Jadeth turned 24 on the 8th. James came home from North Dakota on the 16th, just in time to celebrate my 36th birthday on the 18th. Thanksgiving was pretty mellow for us compared to normal. None of my family came up like they usually do. In fact, it was just the 5 of us and then James' parents. James tried grilling a turkey this year and it was really tasty. I decided to post on Facebook 3 things I was grateful for every day durning the month of November. I'll have to make a separate post on this blog of all of those so I remember them years from now. Went to see the 4th Twilight movie (Breaking Dawn part 1) on the 19th. Connor also turned 6 months old on the 19th. On the 29th James flew back up to North Dakota and then turned right around and drove back home because of a job interview a couple of days later with the City of Santa Clara, which turned out to be a bad idea. Connor got his first tooth on the 14th and he really started rolling around on the floor this month. He could go clear across the living room floor in just 3.4 seconds! LOL

December 2011

The first day of December brought a huge snow storm to Cedar City. It was crazy because it was so windy during it that the backyard got around 8" of snow and the front got about 2". Connor got his second tooth around the 9th. Our Christmas tree, that we bought from Home Depot right after Thanksgiving was pretty much dead by the 10th. Gas prices finally dropped below $3 a gallon and continued to drop the entire month. Christmas was fun. Christmas Eve we had dinner with our friends the Wellers, like we have for 3 Christmases now. James and I woke the kids up around 7:30 to see what Santa had brought. Bailey got a TV and a remote control helicopter. Asher got a motorized Jeep (that he still hasn't gotten into) and also a remote control helicopter. Connor got some books and a fun walking toy. I decided to change things up a little this Christmas and hid a present for James, Bailey and Asher and then sent the on a scavenger hunt throughout the house to find them. I really enjoyed it :) For Christmas I got these really awesome cupcake shoes...so cute! Christmas evening we had a house full. All the kids and their significant others, James' parents and my dad came for dinner. We of course had prime rib again this year because last year it was so tasty. We played Apples 2 Apples and a fun game Josten taught us a year or so ago that we call the wolf game after dinner. Every one left around 9:30. It was a great day. New Years Eve was quiet. The Wellers, Josten and James' parents came over for dinner and a little bowling on the Wii, James' parents stayed until midnight and then we all went to bed. Bailey had a friend, Eric, over and they had a bon fire in the backyard...great way to get rid of all those boxes from Christmas and the dead Christmas tree that apparently went up in flames really quickly. Jared turned 21 on the 29th and Josten turned 22 on the 31st. Jared and Kimmy got engaged on Christmas morning and Jadeth and his girlfriend Mandy got engaged New Years Eve. And the biggest news of December...around the middle of the month James had a job interview with Halliburton and found out at the end of the month that he was hired and would be starting his new job in Rock Springs, WY on January 6th (which is after this post).

Looks like 2012 is going to be an exciting year for us!

Seasons are changing...

2011-11-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

The seasons are changing quickly or I'm letting too much time go between posts. My last post was about fall, it's currently snowing outside so winter is here!

Two weeks ago I started a diet game with several of the women in my neighborhood. I've posted about my experience during this game on a different blog I keep. If anyone is interested they can check it out here.

I'm not sure I've mentioned it on the blog yet but James has been working up in North Dakota for the last 6 or so weeks. We all miss him very much and we are really excited that he is coming home on the 16th and staying for 2 weeks (he'll be here for my birthday and Thanksgiving). Its crazy up in North Dakota right now. James is staying in Williston, ND and there are jobs everywhere. Its hard for me to believe because you can't find a job here in Southern Utah at all but up there everyone is hiring and getting a job is pretty darn easy. The thing that isn't easy up there is finding a place to live. Luckily James found a job that includes a place to stay. We've put our house up for sale and we aren't really sure yet if we want to move our family up there or stay here and have James go back and forth for work. Its really crazy that we've shown our house probably 15 times already but no offers, I'm not sure if I'm happy about that or not. I really don't want to move from Cedar City but I also don't want James to be away from us so much.

Well, just wanted to update everyone on us. Stay tuned to see if we end up in North Dakota or not :)

Why I love Fall

2011-10-12T17:01:00.000-07:00

I was driving home from Walmart earlier today and I realized that there several things I love about Fall. I thought I'd share them with everyone.

1) The very best thing about Fall is the changing of the leaves on the trees. I grew up in Southern California and never realized how beautiful Fall was until I moved to Utah. When I lived in Utah County one of my favorite things to do during the month of September or October was to drive the Alpine Loop. If you drove it at the exact right time you would see such amazing colors. Something like this picture.

I miss living in Northern Utah purely for this drive. Iron County has some amazing canyons but I've never found the colors like the ones you will see when you drive the Alpine Loop.

2) My favorite holiday is at the end of Fall. Thanksgiving has to be the best holiday we celebrate here in the United States. I love Thanksgiving because you get to eat amazing food but you don't have to spend tons of money buying everyone in your family gifts (I hate trying to find the perfect gift for everyone in my family).

3) Fall flavors...pumpkin, apple, butternut squash...YUM! Today I had a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks....mmmhmmmm. Some of my favorite things are pumpkin flavored...pie, ice cream, coffee, muffins, cupcakes, pancakes, protein shakes (yes, pumpkin pie protein shakes are yummy). That reminds me...I wanted to make pumpkin muffins the other day and was out of pumpkin, time to go to the store.

4) Cooler weather is another reason I love Fall. By the time September rolls around I am really ready for the cooler days and nights of Autumn. Last week was a crazy weather week for us here in Cedar City. On Monday it was 80, by Wednesday it was 50 and Thursday morning we woke up to a light dusting of snow on the lawns. Weather like that is a little too drastic for me...but nonetheless I love it!

5) Its a fun time of year. With back to school, Halloween, Thanksgiving...and my birthday, Fall is just a fun time for our family.

Well there you have it...the many reasons I love Fall. I hope you enjoy this time of year as much as I do!

A wedding, a hospital visit and a new way of life...

2011-09-18T09:39:00.000-07:00

Yes, it has been over a month since my last post. That month went by so fast, I can't even believe it. I did, however, get my pictures hung, pantry cleaned out, some exercising in and I've started to eat better (which I'll explain here in a little bit).

So, what have we been up to this last month you ask? Well let me tell you! First let me give you a little background information. For my birthday this last year James bought me a Nook (you know the electronic book from Barnes and Noble). I love my Nook and I use it even more now that I have Connor because its easy to use when I'm nursing him. Also, because of Connor, I have been trying to lose my pregnancy

weight. So I was looking through the online bookstore to find a new book to read when I came across the book

"Skinny Bitch," whose tagline is "A no-nonsense, tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous." How could I NOT read it? I wanted to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous. Lucky for me, my Nook lets me download a sample of the book for free, so I did. I read the first 2 chapters, which were on how bad soda, coffee, alcohol and refined sugar are for your body. The women who wrote the book give it to you straight, they don't sugar-coat anything and they use a little foul language, which actually made me laugh. So after reading the sample and laughing out loud a couple of times I thought, "What the heck, I'm gonna buy it." Little did I know how this book would put me on a new way of life, I didn't have a clue what the rest of the book would be about, or I never would've read it. Since reading this book I have decided to not eat meat anymore. The graphic images the book paints of the way animals are raised for human consumption made it impossible for me to look at meat without it turning my stomach. The book explains how these animals are pretty much stacked on top of each other, unable to roam free in the pastures, treated inhumanly, injected with all kinds of steroids and hormones to get them to grow bigger and faster, and then slaughtered in the most unclean, nasty environments I never dreamed possible, all for the sake of MONEY. The bigger and faster they grow the more money the ranchers make. Even if I could look past all of this, the book makes a strong point of explaining that what you are eating is a dead, decaying carcass of animal. Again...turned my stomach! It's been a month since I've read the book and I haven't eaten any chicken or beef, I did eat some salmon the other night but that's it. I can't say that I feel any better because for the first couple of weeks all I did was trade out meat for junk food. And when I realized that wasn't going to work I bought another book, "Appetite for Reduction." It's a vegan cookbook.

What I loved most about this specific cookbook compared to the other 100 I looked through was, (1) the recipes are designed for the cook who doesn't have hours of time each day to prepare meals. Most of the meals come together in about 30 minutes, which is perfect for me with a 4 month old, (2) the recipes don't require a bunch of ingredients I've never heard of, and (3) most of the meals are around 300 calories or less, which is perfect since I'm trying to lose the last little bit of pregnancy weight. Now I haven't actually cooked anything out of it yet (LOL) but I will tonight and I'm pretty excited about it. So I'll keep you posted on how the recipes taste. Maybe I'll even take some pictures and share a few of the recipes with you! :)

In other news...

On September 6 Connor and I stayed the night in the hospital. He developed croup and the doctors were concerned with his breathing. Everything turned out fine, it was a really long night in the hospital and I ended up in tears a few times (mostly when they were trying to get an IV in him and stuck him 4 different times before finding a vein) but he was released the next day around 3pm. He still has a bit of a cough but he is a happy little boy for the most part. His sleeping patterns could use some work, especially at night, but I'm sure we'll both make it through. He is getting so big! Tomorrow he will be 4 months old, ALREADY!

On September 10 Sabelle got married to Chad. I was lucky enough to make their wedding cake for them. After stressing more then once that I wouldn't get it done in time, (because of a hospital stay that lasted 24

hours when I should've been baking the cakes) it turned out beautifully. Luckily for me, (but not our bank account) James didn't have to work that week and was able to help me with taking care of Connor and then actually helping me decorate the cake Saturday morning. The wedding was beautiful and the bride was stunning. I don't have any pictures of the wedding to post yet because I spent 90% of the wedding walking around the church with Connor who cried for 85% of the wedding. He was NOT a happy camper. I did get a picture of the cake (of course!) and that was it.

Well, for now (since Connor is awake and demanding my attention) that's our update. We had a ton of other things happen during the month that I'll have to post about at a later date :)

Trying to get motivated!

2011-08-14T08:00:00.001-07:00

I have a list in my head of things that I need to find motivation for. This blog is one of them, along with eating right, exercising, hanging tons of family pictures up that are just stacked on my desk, cleaning out my pantry, finishing the bedding for the boys' bedroom, etc, etc, etc. I think I will update this blog and hang my pictures today. Perhaps I'll get to the pantry tomorrow which might motivate me to start eating better once I can actually find stuff! And if I could just find a spare 45 minutes a day without a toddler or infant wanting my attention at the same time I might actually get some exercise in!

So speaking of infants, Connor is almost three months old now (on the 19th). If you have read my previous post you will see that I did NOT get this blog updated before giving birth, I warned you that I was a slacker!

Here are some adorable pictures of our new little guy. He is pretty much a twin of his older brother Asher. He was born May 19th at 7:20am via c-section. He weighed 6lbs 13oz (the smallest of the 3 kids I gave birth to) and was 18.5 inches long. Now that he is almost 3 months old he is weighing over 14lbs. He has some tummy issues, the doctors think he has acid reflux. Poor little guy. But other than that he is doing wonderful, growing big and strong and developing his own personality.

In other family news...Bailey has moved back to Utah! I'm so excited about that. He is starting the 8th grade this year at Canyon View Middle School. Hard to believe he is 13 years old now...a TEENAGER! YIKES! I think he is most looking forward to the winter so he can learn to snowboard this year.

Other kid updates: Jadeth is living in St George when he isn't out of town working. James, Jadeth, Jared and Chad all work for the same company and they are constantly out of town working. Right now they are in Bozeman, Montana for two weeks. They are all looking for a new job! LOL Anyway, Jadeth's little girl Jade is getting big and more and more beautiful everyday. Here is a cute picture of them with Connor.

Josten is also living in St George. He is starting another semester of school, at Dixie this time. He is completely committed to working out and staying in shape. I wish I had even a little bit of the drive he has to stay fit and healthy. He loves to ride bikes and hike in Zion. He is hoping to get a motorcycle soon, I guess riding James' motorcycle got him hooked!

Jared is also living in St George with his girlfriend Kimmy. They are expecting a baby in about 6 months (I think, I actually don't know the due date). They are both pretty excited about the baby. One thing is for sure, boy or girl, that little baby is going to be adorable with such adorable parents!

Sabelle is getting married in about 3 weeks (September 10) to Chad Smith, her boyfriend of about 4 years. Right now they will be staying in St George but they both want to go to school so I'm not sure if they plan on staying in Southern Utah or if they want to try some place new and exciting.

Asher is getting so big and so smart! We celebrated his 3rd birthday in June. He loves having a little brother. He is constantly giving Connor hugs and kisses. He hates James being out of town, he is a total daddy's boy. He loves singing Mamma Mia (from the movie) and Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 and he loves stealing my Nook to play Angry Birds. He was potty trained until about 3 weeks after Connor was born. He got really sick and since then has reverted back to Pull-Ups. The doctor says that he will come back to it in his own time but its been almost two months and I'm wondering when that will happen...hopefully soon!

Update on me and James: I was suppose to finish SUU with my teaching degree this December but with the pregnancy that pushed me back. I was going to take a few classes this semester to get back in the swing of things but I'm debating that now. Not sure if I'm ready to leave Connor for a few hours a day yet. I should probably make a decision soon because classes start in a week! I haven't been baking a ton, but I do miss it. I just don't have the free time anymore with a 3 month old. One of these days I will get my online cakery up and going but for now I'm happy just spending time with my little ones!

James is working for a large company that builds metal buildings. The work is hard, physically, but I think he enjoys the challenge of it. He hates being out of town so much, but he loves that he gets to work with Jadeth and Jared. When he is home he loves taking his motorcycle out for rides and he is even more excited to do so now that his nephew Kasey just bought a bike too. But the weather will be changing soon and he'll have to park it for the winter....poor James :( LOL

One of these days I might actually change our blog background and post more pictures that I have missed over the last year of my blog absence. However I don't know when that will be. For Christmas James bought me a Passport hard drive. I was so excited to get one, I had tons of files on my computer for scrapbooking and such that was really slowing it down. I transferred all my files, including my pictures, itunes music, webiste info, recipes for my cakery, scrapbooking kits, etc to this hard drive. My computer was so happy to be free of all that "weight." Then a few months ago Asher was reaching up to the table to get a toy and pulled my hard drive down to the floor. It hasn't worked since. I took it to Best Buy and a local computer store here in Cedar City to see if they could pull the information off of it but no luck. They both told me that I would need to send it to a data recovery company to see if they could get the information off of it. I contacted a company I found online and they told me it would cost me at least $400 to get it the information, and possibly up to $1800 if it was difficult to get to. HOLY CRAP!!!! I need to get into the data recovery business because that is outrageous! Needless to say, everyday I try plugging it back into my computer praying that it will register on my computer just once so I can get my information off of it without it costing me $400!

Well there it is...an update on our family. I'll try (do or do not...there is no try!) to keep this thing updated more frequently. But please don't hold your breath!

HUH????

2011-05-06T03:10:00.000-07:00

So how pathetic am I? Its been almost a year since I posted anything on this blog. That's just sad and wrong. I could give you tons of excuses as to why I haven't posted anything but I'll save you all the time and just say that I'm a slacker!

Well it's 4:10AM! You'd think I'd be asleep right now but nope...I'm exhausted, don't get me wrong, I'd much rather be asleep then posting to this blog. Being 9 months pregnant has not helped in the sleep department. I get these terrible leg aches which make it nearly impossible to lay still for any amount of time over 2 minutes. I took some tylenol about an hour ago, hopefully I will be going off to dreamland here in the next little while.

Just wanted to post a quick note to let everyone know we are still alive and well (barely). I'll try to get this thing updated before giving birth but I'm not making any promises because who knows, maybe I'll go into labor later today! (not likely, but a 9 month pregnant woman can hope can't she???)

Happy Birthday Asher/Father's Day

2010-06-19T22:32:00.001-07:00

In about 30 minutes it will officially be Asher's 2nd birthday. I can't believe he is 2 already. Time is flying by and its a little depressing. Right now Asher is so fun. He is learning tons of new things, he repeats just about everything you say (which is good and bad depending who he is around). I know that in 3 years I'll be thinking back to this time in his life and miss it so much. Well before I start crying I better say that I am so happy that this little boy has blessed my life. I can't even imagine what it would be like without him in it.

Tonight Asher and I took James to the movies for Father's Day. Really we just wanted to go see Toy Story 3 and that was a great excuse. It was the first movie that Asher has sat completely through. James tried to take him to see some other cartoon movie (I can't remember the name of it) one night when I was at work. They didn't stay the whole time because Asher got a little out of control. Its a cute movie and I recommend it to anyone who loves Disney/Pixar movies.

Just a quick note to the dads in my life. I love you all!!! James is a great dad, not only to Asher, but to all of our kids. Our family is so crazy some times and I know that dealing with all of it is difficult but he does a great job. My dad is amazing! He truly is. And to all the other dads out there...Happy Father's Day. I hope its a great day for all of you!

New Blog

2010-06-16T15:30:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

I have a new blog, so if you want to follow my adventure tune in to bakeittothelimit.blogspot.com.

Don't worry, I'll still post family stuff here.

Love you all!

Some Spring Fun

2010-04-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago we went to CalRanch, which, for those of you who don't know, is a store that is a lot like, well I can't really think of a store its like. It has almost everything. Its a feed store, you can buy things for any kind of animal you have from hamsters to horses. They also have gardening stuff, furniture, clothing, shoes, etc. Anyway, we went there recently to get some stuff for our dog. In the back of the store they had these huge horse troughs filled with baby chicks, turkeys and ducks. Asher was in love as soon as he saw them. He was so cute. We actually talked about buying some and putting them in our backyard, but since we don't have it fenced yet we decided against it. Probably smart on our part. So then, last week we were having the tires rotated on James' big truck and the place (Big O) was across the street from CalRanch so we decided to walk over and let Asher visit his bird friends again. This time I got it on video. Here are two different videos of him lovin the "birdies".

For some reason I am having issues getting the videos working, I'll work on it and get them up ASAP

Easter 2010

2010-04-09T16:25:00.000-07:00

It was really exciting that Bailey was here visiting us for the week of Easter and since Jade's 1st Birthday was a couple of days before he was here for that too. We had a lot of fun. Bailey and Asher dyed Easter eggs one, we had a birthday party for Jade, we even made a quick trip to Kingman, AZ Easter morning to visit with my mom, Rocky, my sister, Tate and Cailin. Here are some fun pictures of Easter time.

Happy Birthday Jade!!!

2010-04-09T16:09:00.000-07:00

A great big happy 1st birthday to Jade. We had such a great time having her birthday party here at our house. Here are some fun pictures from the party, she did a great job diving into the cake. And speaking of the cake, here are some pictures also of the cake I made for her party.

Spring Adventures

2010-03-28T21:39:00.000-07:00

In Utah, the weather, throughout March and April, has a tendency to go from Spring to Winter and then back to Spring in the same week. Here in Cedar City its been especially crazy, one day we'll have snow and then two days later we'll have a high of 60 and sun! Anyway, about a week ago we were able to get outside and go to the park. Asher loves the park, you can't even say the word around him unless you plan on going that minute. The slide is his favorite. So on this particular day we decided to go around lunch time, stop and grab something for lunch and head to the park. We got in the car and about halfway to the park Asher fell asleep in his car seat so James and I grabbed lunch and headed back home so Asher could get a full nap. The good thing about that was when Asher finally woke up Jadeth and Jade we able to go to the park with us. It was Jade's first trip to the park and I think she had a really fun time. Here are some fun pictures from that day.

A new hobby

2010-03-27T20:08:00.000-07:00

Well, on Friday, April 2nd Jade will be 1. I can't believe she is going to be 1 already. Anyway, I have two boys, so I've never been able to make a girly birthday cake. So, I begged Jadeth to let me make her birthday cake, I didn't have to beg long, it was more like "can I make it?" and Jadeth said "umm, yeah".

I recently heard about marshmallow fondant, I've worked with regular fondant once in my life and I hated the taste of it and had no desire to ever put it on a cake again. So I thought I'd try this out. Well I had to make a practice cake this weekend to make sure it would work out right for next weekend. Here is my practice cake!

Spring Break

2010-03-16T07:54:00.000-07:00

Spring Break has begun! And it couldn't have come at a better time. I was getting a little overwhelmed that last week. But other than being stressed at times, school is going very well. I'm really loving it but I do wish I could finish a little quicker and actually get started doing the teaching rather than the learning.

We don't have any really plans for Spring Break, we were going to go to California and try and get on the game show "Lets Make A Deal" but we don't really have the funds for that. So instead today we are headed down to St George to enjoy the beautiful weather they will be having, I think its suppose to be about 75. We'll probably go to In-N-Out and the park. James also needs to get his truck's radiator fixed so we are taking that with us to St George. He is really excited to get his truck back up and running, he has been working on it pretty much nonstop for the past week. The only thing that stopped him from working on it over the weekend was the 9" of snow we got!

Bailey is coming to visit us the end of the month when he is on Spring Break. It would've been a lot better if his Spring Break was the same week as mine but oh well. He'll be here for Jade's first birthday and for Easter so I'm not complaining too much. I am really excited for his visit, I can't believe he is almost 12 already, soon he'll be a teenager! YIKES!!!!

Speaking of growing up fast, Asher is almost 2! He is crazy. There are times when I think a monster has invaded his body and has come just to torment me with his behavior, but most of the time he is just too cute. He says the most adorable things. For example we have this diaper rash stuff that the doctor prescribed and its called Pink Wisell and Asher walks around saying that and its really cute. He loves chasing the cat around the house and he is having the time of his life with Jade around. Sometimes he gets a little rambunctious with her but overall he is really good. He loves to give her hugs and kisses. Oh, that's another thing he is saying now, "I love you" SO CUTE!!!! His favorite thing to watch on TV is either Elmo or the Wiggles, so every night I go to sleep with the songs from those shows in my head. He also still loves to sing Old MacDonald Had a Farm and now he likes Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes too.

Well I guess I need to go shower (that's what James just told me) so we can head down to St George, have a fabulous day blogland!

Olympics, potty and new residents...

2010-02-17T21:38:00.000-08:00

Tonight was the first night, other than Opening Ceremonies, that I sat down to watch the Olympics. I was so impressed with my countries' athletes. We did amazing tonight....Gold and Bronze in Men's Halfpipe, Gold and Silver in Women's Downhill...so others that I'm not quite sure what the sport was called. Way to go USA!!!!

Asher is learning to go potty in the "big boy toilet". James has been wanting to teach him for a few months now but I kept arguing with him that Asher was too young. Apparently I was wrong. He has gone several times in the last few days and he is getting so much better at it. He comes up to me or James and tells us "potty" and we take him in, sometimes he has already pottied in his diaper but a few times he does it in the toilet! He is such a smart little boy!!!

We have new residents living with us here at our house in Cedar City. Jadeth, Whitnee and Jade are staying with us for a little while. Jadeth's job up in Lehi, UT didn't work out after the new year and so they have decided to move back to Cedar where Whitnee and Jadeth both have previous jobs that they were able to come back to. Unfortunately, Jadeth didn't get his last 3 paychecks from the place up north so they didn't have the money to move into their own place, which is why they are staying with us. We love having them around, its so great to get to see Jade (and Jadeth and Whitnee too) everyday. She is growing so fast. She is walking!

Anyway, I have to go help James with one of his tests...just wanted to give everyone a quick update! Night all...and again...WAY TO GO USA!!!!!!

Still here!

2010-02-14T07:36:00.000-08:00

Well I thought I'd have some time to sit and update the blog, but just as I opened up this window Asher woke up...better luck next time!

Asher's Favorite Thing

2010-01-31T14:47:00.000-08:00

A while ago, James downloaded a kids app to his iPhone and it had a few really cute short little cartons that played. One of them Asher feel in love with. He would walk up to me or James and say "Quack, Quack?" which we both understood meant he wanted to watch this one video. I don't know if anyone else has seen it but it's called The Duck Song and here is the link. Well, after watching this video a few hundred times a day I decided to start searching youtube for some other short videos he would like. The big thing for him is that they sing, he LOVES music, so I did a search for Sesame Street, knowing they like to sing on that show. Now I've created a monster! An Elmo-loving-monster. He loves Elmo, as soon as he wakes up in the morning he says "elmo?" The other day I bought him a video from Walmart, The Best of Elmo. It has about 6 or 7 songs on it and he watches it every hour! And its a 30 minute video!!!!! I don't know if this obsession will continue until his second birthday, but if it does everyone can buy him anything Elmo related and he will be thrilled! Its so cute (except around 5pm when I've watched that video about 30 times!!!)

Biggest Loser Recipe update...

2010-01-31T14:45:00.000-08:00

I might have to put a hold on our Biggest Loser cooking experiment, at least for 24 days (Feb 3- 27) James and I are doing a month long get fit challenge that our gym is doing. I'll keep you posted, but as a fair warning, you'll probably be reading a lot of posts about how sore I am because I can already tell its going to be some grueling workouts! But we are both excited, we start Tuesday!

Days 4 & 5 Biggest Loser Recipes

2010-01-28T07:10:00.000-08:00

Doing two days at once here, I'm falling a little behind because this week is a nightmare at school for me. Thankfully today is Thursday and its almost over.

Here are some recent recipes I have made from the Biggest Loser cookbook. I couple of meals we ate out but that's ok, I'm not trying to do them all in a week, just in the next few months or so.

Breakfasts: 1. Kelly's Cottage Cheese and Fruit Parfait: it was good. James really liked it, I thought it was 'good'. Nothing really special about it, just layered cottage cheese with some green apples and blueberries. James gave it a 10, I gave it an 8. Total calories: 174

2.Warm Pumpkin-Pie Cream of Wheat: I liked the idea of having pumpkin pie in the morning...but it didn't really taste like pumpkin pie so I was disappointed. It was missing the whipped cream! LOL Overall it was, again, good. James gave it a 7.5 I gave it an 8. Total calories: 121

Lunches: Matt's "Slap It Together" Turkey-Gauc Sandwich: I liked it, James loved it. The best part about it was that it called for prepared SPICY guacamole and the kind I bought was spicy so it had a lot of flavor. James gave it a 10+ and I gave it a 9. Total calories: 332

Dinner: Sexy Joes (like sloppy joes). SO GOOD! I'm not a big sloppy joe fan myself but this was yummy! The recipe calls for chili sauce but I had no idea what that was or where to get it so I just substituted more tomato sauce and I loved it. James and I both gave it a 10. Total calories: 331

With our Sexy Joes we had Parmesan-Pepper Sweet Potato Fries, also really good! James gave them a 9 and I gave them a 9.5. Total calories: 249 but I think this was with ketchup and we didn't use ketchup so it might have been a little lower.

Dessert: Lisa's Frozen Gramwiches: Couldn't be simpler, take a graham cracker and some flavored cool whip and make a sandwich out of them. They were tasty and so easy that I have to give them a 10! James really liked them too, also gave them a 10. Total calories for 3 sandwiches was 200.

So I think that puts me up to 25 recipes now, only 100 left :)

Day 3 Biggest Loser Recipes

2010-01-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

Wow today I was a superstar in the cooking department. I made 6 recipes today! I have to say that I am really surprised at how good most of these recipes taste. I was expecting them to be flavorless and not so great but most of them are really good! (so far, lets not jinx ourselves!)

Breakfast: Boston-Cream Peanut-Butter Breakfast Banana Split, holy cow say that three times fast! LOVED IT! It was easy to make, really tasty and didn't involve any cooking...great for 7 o'clock in the morning. I give it a 9, James gave it an 8. I left for school before he woke up this morning so I left all the stuff out on the counter for him with the cookbook open to the right page. Well I guess James' dad (who comes over to watch Asher for us) actually feed Asher James' Boston Cream Pie yogurt so James had to use a different flavor. Maybe he would've liked it even better with the right flavored yogurt.

Lunch: Champ's Chicken Quesadilla. Very simple ingredients, but kind of a pain to prepare for a quick lunch. First you have to marinate the chicken for 15 minutes, then grill the chicken, then cut it up and then grill the quesadillas. But in the end it was worth it because they were very tasty, and with only tortilla, chicken and cheese I bet it was pretty cheap to make as well. We both gave it a 10!

Snacks: Today I made some snacks. These low calories are kicking James' butt so I had to give him something to snack on in-between meals, plus its better if you eat smaller meals more often then 3 large meals. First snack was Spinach Skinny-Dip, which you serve with cut up veggies. The first thing James said when he took a bite was "its missing cheese", I had to laugh, of course its missing the cheese, that's where all the fat is! Needless to say it wasn't nearly as good as Parmesan Spinach dip that you get at Applebees but it was ok. James gave it a 6, I give it a 6 also. But I probably won't make it again.

Second snack was Lemon-Poppy Seed Mini Muffins. These were really yummy. A little chewy compared to other muffins but the flavor is wonderful. James gives them a 10 and I give them a 9. At only 34 calories and just a trace of fat per muffin its hard to give them anything lower than a 9!

Dinner: Thai Ground-Chicken Salad. Ok first off, mine didn't have ground chicken in it because I already had chicken breasts here so I just cut it up into tiny little pieces...worked perfectly. Also the recipe calls for cashews and I thought I had some at home but turned out someone ate them all so I used almonds instead. I think the cashews would've been better but the salad was good as I made it. James liked it a lot. He gave it a 9. I'm already sick of salads so I was fighting to get the last few bites down. But don't get me wrong, it was really tasty, I just get to a point where I can't eat another salad and I'm at that point already. The dressing was a little spicy but full of flavor. I give it an 8, the dressing was burning my lips from the lime juice, I had to mark it down for that reason LOL!

Dessert: Iced Buffed Mocha...what a disappointment this was. It had very little flavor and since I was having issues with my Bullet Blender I was annoyed by the time it came to drink it and didn't enjoy it at all! I have to say though that I didn't follow the recipe very well so it could've been my own fault it didn't taste well. First it wanted instant coffee but instead I used coffee from a pot, also it wanted chocolate soy milk but I had accidentally bought vanilla so I added a little fat-free chocolate syrup instead. Anyway, James gave it a 5, and the 5 is because it had whipped cream on it, without the whipped cream it would've scored lower LOL!!!!! But I'm with him, I think a 5 is being generous, I'd say a 4. But out of fairness I'll have to try it again with the proper ingredients to see if its better.

Calorie count:

Breakfast: 294

Lunch: 242 plus we had a little side salad with fat-free poppy seed dressing

Snacks: Dip 21 per 2-Tablespoons (w/o veggies)

Mini-Muffins 34 each

Dinner: 333

Dessert: 127

For me, since I had maybe one serving of the dip and 3 muffins, my total for the day was about 1200. I'm not sure how many muffins or how much dip James had so I don't know his total but I'm sure it wasn't much more than mine. And I'm full, I didn't feel hungry at all today except right after my workout, which is not a surprise since it had been 4.5 hours since I had eaten breakfast.

Running total: 15 recipes made so far, out of 125!

New Year's Goals

2010-01-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

Well I think its finally time to post those New Years Goals I've been putting off, after all I'm almost down to only 11 months until the next new year. Time flies doesn't it?

Here they are:

1. Save $50-75 each month for Christmas presents. I was going to attempt to buy one or two Christmas presents each month but I figured if I did that by Christmas time everyone would have what I already bought them so this works out much better.

2. Back in 2006/2007 James and I and some friends (Brian and Jessie) went on a cruise to Hawaii. I started a paper scrapbook (not digital) and haven't finished it yet...this year I will finish it, if I don't I'll soon forget everything we did and not remember what pictures go where.

3. I also started a scrapbook (paper) of Asher's first year (from pregnancy to first birthday). I've made it to the day he was born, time to get that one finished also.

4. Before Christmas Kimmie and I started a family calendar, I think I'd like to get that one all done for 2011 since it won't be done for 2010.

5. Make Asher a blanket. I've been wanting to do this for about 6 months now, I just need to do it!

6. Run a 5K in under 30 minutes. This is going to take some time, today I got on the treadmill and ran 2 miles in 30 minutes...yikes I have to run an extra mile in there somewhere!

7. Cook/prepare all the recipes in the Biggest Loser cookbook. There are 125 recipes in all and I'm going to try all of them, even the ones that don't sound good at all!

8. Pass all my classes with Bs or better! This could be difficult if my classes get any harder! But I passed Discrete Math with a B- so if I can get a B in that class I can in any class!

9. Keep up with this blog. I'm going to make sure I do a post at least once a week, even if its just to say we are all still here just extremely busy!

10. Be grateful for everyday I am here on this earth happy, healthy and with a roof over my head!

Please note that there is no weight loss goal. Some of my goals will help me with this but its not a goal, I just want to be healthy and happy and right now I am, even if my jeans are a little tight or if I don't look terrific in a bathing suit!

So here's to a great 2010!!!! I can finally start my year now that I have my goals out there in blogland! :)

Thanksgiving...

2010-01-24T21:18:00.000-08:00

Yes you read that right...Thanksgiving...its time to catch up on some of the events I've missed. Thanksgiving 2009 was a blast for me! I had everyone I love here, well everyone but Bailey, who was missed A LOT!!!! From the beginning my mom and stepdad Rocky were always planning on coming up, they usually do for Thanksgiving. Then when we found out my dad was going to be starting radiation treatments him and my stepmom Kimmie decided to make the trip up too, bringing with them my stepbrother Jon and his wonderful girlfriend Carolyn. Then my sister and brother-in-law Tate decided to come too, bringing of course, my beautiful niece Cailin. We had a house full but it was so awesome. Then the Friday after Thanksgiving we had all those plus all of James' kids (except Sabelle, who we also missed a ton!) and our good friends Tami and Andy and Mark and Patti over and we played bunco. It was a loud, rowdy good time. Here are some fun pictures from Thanksgiving day and Bunco night. I hope everyone plans on doing it again next year because that was just too much fun not to do again.

Day 2 of Biggest Loser Recipes

2010-01-24T20:44:00.000-08:00

Alrighty....4 more recipes tried today, here is the low-down on them.

For breakfast we had Better Blueberry Pancakes. I liked them, didn't love them but they were good. I put sugar-free syrup on them and I'm thinking I would've enjoyed them more without the syrup. I would give them a 6, James gives them a 10 which really surprises me, I didn't think he really cared for them.

For lunch we were out of the house down in St George so we had Subway...yummy but not in the Biggest Loser cookbook :) hehe.

For dinner we had Sweet-and-Spicy Pork Tenderloin and Parmesan-Roasted Cauliflower...YUMMY!!!! Both of them were really good. I was surprised at how good the cauliflower was, because I am not a big fan of cauliflower at all. The tenderloin was spicy but so good, it had a glaze on it that was kinda sweet so it was a great contrast to the spiciness. I give both of them a 10! James gives them "a 9 or 10, they were big hits with me"

For dessert we had Marty's Creamy Pineapple Sorbet and it too was YUMMMMMY!!!! It was very easy to make and the basic concept is easy enough to switch the flavors around a little and make something completely different. All I did was throw some frozen fruit (for this one it was pineapples) into the blender with some fat-free flavored yogurt and little lemon juice and blended! You serve it right away, it doesn't have to sit in the freezer or anything. My only complaint was that because there is hardly any liquid in it I had a difficult time getting it to blend but other than that it was easy as pie! I give it a 9 and James gives it a 9.

Calorie count for these dishes:

Breakfast: 140

Dinner: Pork 221 Cauliflower 32.5 (I didn't realize the recipe was one serving and only made one of it so James, Josten and I split the one serving in 3rds which made it only 32.5 calories each!!!) Dinner total 253.5

Dessert: 78

Total Biggest Loser recipe calories: 471.5

For dinner we also had a big portion of salad with very low-fat dressing on it so I'm guessing that's another 50-60 calories and then we had lunch at subway. James had a few other snacks throughout the day but not me!!!! I'm way proud of myself (and James too).

So, as far as these recipes go I would cook them all again except maybe not the pancakes. They weren't all that great, but I might try them one more time without the syrup to see if they are any better. I'm willing to share these recipes with anyone who wants them, so if you do just email (rhonda1118@gmail.com) me which ones you want and I'll get them over to you.

Well that's 9 out of 125 recipes so far! Woohoo I'm flying through!

A new experiment

2010-01-23T21:16:00.000-08:00

A while ago James and I bought a cookbook from the Biggest Loser (you know, the reality show). I had made a few things from it but the other night I pulled it out to make one of the recipes I had already made and was flipping through the book. I said to James, I'm going to cook all these recipes and try them out. And I thought he'd say 'UGH, really?" but he said "go for it!" So I'll post a little something about the recipes I cook so that if someone wants to buy the cookbook they'll know if the recipes are any good. I'll even rank each recipe for everyone, on a scale from 1-10, 10 being the best.

Today I cooked the following:

For breakfast we had the Sausage, Egg, and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich. James gave it a 4.5, he said it was a bit dry for him, probably because there wasn't any butter on the english muffins. I really liked it, I'd give it a 7.

For lunch we had the Almost Fast Food Burger. Both of us really liked it! We both gave it a 9. Personally I don't know what was any different between this hamburger and the hamburgers we normally BBQ, except the whole-wheat buns. It was really yummy!

For dinner we had New Orleans Rubbed Chicken with Apricot-Mustard Sauce and Lizzeth's Cucumber Salad. For me the chicken was really spicy, well for me, Josten and Dakota it was really spicy. But it was still good, I'll just use less cayenne pepper next time. James loved it! He said the first bite was spicy but after that it was great. He gave the chicken a 9, I would give it a 7.5. The cucumber salad, for me, was ok, but I've never really liked cucumber salads. James said it was yummy, he gave it an 8, I give it a 5.

For dessert (yes even desserts are included!!) we had One-Serving Chocolate Cheesecakes. James gives it a 7, he says it was different but it wasn't wonderful. He really liked the crust of it, which was made from Grape-Nuts cereal. I didn't really like the chocolate flavoring of it, but I'm not a huge chocolate fan. I might make it next time without the chocolate. I gave it a 7 also.

Here is a calorie count, which really surprised James because he couldn't believe how little we ate and full he has felt.

Breakfast: 278

Lunch: 281

Dinner: 197 + 40= 237

Dessert: 107

Total for the day: 903

Of course we went to see a movie today, Avatar, and ate popcorn and a soda so we ate a lot more than 903 calories, but still, 903 calories would normally be one meal for us so that was pretty amazing!!!

By the way, Avatar was a pretty amazing movie. The visual effects alone are worth the price to go see the movie. But the story line was amazing too. I asked James after we got home if he thought the human race would really do something like that to another species if they had something we wanted. He said he figured there are some people out there that would and that broke my heart. Anyway, I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone that hasn't seen it yet so I won't go into anymore detail. But the movie is wonderful...everyone should go see it! Another great movie that we saw a while back was The Blind Side. Go see both of them, they are both wonderful!

Well I'm exhausted...I'm off to bed. I'll be back tomorrow with a review of our menu.

Random Thoughts, who knows what topics will be covered!

2010-01-18T21:06:00.000-08:00

I'm in the writing mood so here goes...

At the end of the Fall semester, when I was desperately trying to decide if I should continue with my Secondary Education license or switch to Elementary Education, James made a suggestion to me. You see, the issue with the Secondary was the prereqs for my math classes. I have to take certain classes before I take other classes, its a nightmare. I was going to have one semester where I could only take Calculus II and that would be it because I need Cal II for all my other classes....so James' suggestion...add a minor to fill in those semesters when you have no other classes to take! BRILLIANT!!! So that's what I'm doing now. I am a Secondary Math Education Major with an English Education Minor...holy cow world watch out, not only will I be able to do all kinds of crazy math problems but I'll be correcting everyone's grammar as well! (HA! as a funny side note I totally misspelled grammar and the computer had to correct it for me!!!!)

Anyway, that explains why I am in the writing mood. I have an English class, Methods of Teaching English, where I have been given these random writing assignments and I'm really enjoying them. So far I've had to write on why I think I (or anyone) watches movies over and over again, or why someone would read a book more than once. I've had to write a paper where I've sketched in words someone who didn't know I was watching them. That one was fun, I did it on my little boy playing with his toys, maybe I'll post it here one of these days. Tonight I had to make an observation on a movie, song or book. Any observation...that one was a little harder but I find that once I start the writing process the words just flow out of me. I have a total of 14 different writing assignments to write on, some that I'm looking forward to are: capture an incident of fear so the reader actually is fearful, explain an important lesson you learned as a child, describe you idea of heaven or hell, write a nasty letter about a product that didn't work, and then the next assignment is to write a letter in response as if I was the customer relations manager in charge of that product...lots of things that really make you think. If I feel I really like my papers I'll post them on the blog.

I also have this Introduction to Poetry class that I am completely NOT enjoying. I know nothing about poetry and I have no desire to get into the heads of these poets to figure out what they were really trying to write about when they wrote these poems some 100 odd years ago!!! My math classes this semester are Calculus I and Linear Algebra, both are going well so far, of course I'm only starting the 3rd week so I'm sure they are going to get worse very soon.

My Education in Society class is very informative. For example I learned that every state in the US gets money from the government, depending on how many students are in class during the school year, (I knew this part already) and Utah gets the least amount of money. The amount received is based on a formula that has to do with the number of kids in school the year prior and the amount of taxable land in the state. Utah has a ton of government owned land, with all the National Parks in the state that's not hard to believe. But because of that Utah has hardly any taxable land, which means they receive a lot less than a majority of the other states. I learned that Connecticut gets about 4 times more per student than Utah does (roughly $10,000 to Utah's $2,400) so I might move there and teach because their teachers make about $80,000 a year :) hehe (just kidding mom!!!!)

I have yet to come up with my goals for the year. I know a few that I want to add to my list but my list isn't officially put together yet, so until then I'm going to keep my mouth shut and post the list when it is completed. Once its out there in there in the world of blog its there to stay so I better make it a good one!!!

Update on my dad: I spoke with him Saturday morning. He is doing good. Only two more week of radiation left thank goodness! He is still gaining weight (which he is completely unhappy about and is threatening to sue his doctor over! HA!). They have moved the point of radiation down more from his face to his throat but his throat isn't hurting yet which is a good thing. He did lose the facial hair he had in that area but once the radiation is completed he should get it back. His face is really red and his skin below his chin is beginning to blister but other than that he is doing great. I am so relived about that, I had this awful image in my head when the doctors warned us that he would be losing tons of weight and not want to eat. I'm thankful that he might be lucky enough to not get the "worse-case scenario"

Ok, well its 10:30pm and about 30 minutes passed my bedtime so I'm off to get some sleep. Secretly I'm praying this HUGE STORM they keep warning us about will shut my power off briefly in the middle of the night making my alarm clock reset itself and then my alarm won't go off in the morning and I'll "accidentally" miss my Calculus class :) If I could only get so lucky! But the power can only go off long enough to reset my clock because the heat runs off of electricity and I can't have my little man getting too cold!!!!

Good Night Blog Land!!!!

Made it through

2010-01-04T21:02:00.000-08:00

As exhausted as I am right now its hard to believe I've made it through this past crazy holiday season. I'm so far behind on my blogging and I think to the near future and wonder when I will have time to sit down and really catch up. For now I'm going to make a list of the topics I have yet to blog about so that I can come back and catch up, even if it is little by little.

1. Thanksgiving

2. Fall Finals

3. Spending time in CA before Christmas

4. Christmas caroling

5. Visit to Mission Inn

6. Christmas at home in Enoch

7. Christmas in Riverside

8. Bailey's visit

9. My dad's birthday/clam chowder get-to-gether

10. New Year's Eve

11. New Year's Day - Disneyland

12. Spring semester

13. New Year's Goal

14. Transformation.com

15. Family updates (what are the kids up to?)

16. ...I'm sure there is tons more and will be more by the time I get to this number!

Stay tuned for my updates, I'll try to do one or two each day this week.

Just a few more days to go...

2009-12-21T21:05:00.000-08:00

Ok, so back in January (2009) I posted about my New Year's goals (not resolutions). Then in April I did a little update on how I was doing up until that point (text in blue), now that it is only a few days away from the end of 2009 I thought I'd revisit these goals and see how I did (green text), I'm a little scared, I know I didn't do well at all!

Family Goals:
1. Only move once! HA! if you know us you'll know that's a tough goal for us! Well we've moved once already, now let's see if you we can stay here the rest of the year!! So we didn't stay in CA for very long. So in 2009 we moved from Enoch to Riverside and then back to Enoch. Oh well, better luck next year.

2. Family dinners every Sunday, I like this goal, it keeps our family together and helps us to stay in touch with what is happening with all our kids. This one is harder to keep now that we are in CA and the rest of the family is in UT or IN. James and I do eat together every Sunday though (and we bring Asher along with us) Family dinners have not worked out for us. Our family is so spread out now that they are growing up and moving on to bigger and better things. Plus most of this year was spend with James driving back down to Southern California on Sunday nights.

3. Save $$! YEAH RIGHT!!! ( I have no comment for this one right now!) Still no comment for this goal.

Creative Goals:
1. 200 Digital Scrapbook pages by Dec 31! I think I have 9 done already...woohoo I'm doing awesome on this goal! So far I've created 70 layouts, and it's only April. I'm not sure where I stand on this goal. I know back in June I had over 100 but when school started in August I stopped creating scrapbook pages. I have created so many that I've had to save them on disks and take them off my computer because they were taking up too much memory. I'll count them when I get back to Utah.

2. Project 365. Take a picture a day for 2009, I started a little late so I'm actually doing Project 360 hehe.Still going strong here also! Another project that completely stopped when I started school, I'm sad to say. I might try it again in 2010.

Personal Goals:
1. Lose the baby weight, get to 145 lbs before our Family Vacation (I think we are shooting for May) Not sure if we are doing the family vacation, but I still have about 7 more pounds left to lose. So I got below 145 right before I came down here (Riverside) for Christmas Break, but I'm pretty sure I've gained it all back since I got here :(

2. Read 10 books this year...almost a book a month, that shouldn't be to hard for me. Ok so I didn't think this one would be hard to accomplish but I haven't picked up a book yet...yikes! I better get on that. I've read 3 books for pleasure but that's it! When school started I didn't have time for reading for pleasure, but I did read a lot of school books, does that count??

I have a new goal to add here under personal goals
3. Run a 5k at the end of the summer. I started my training yesterday! WOOOHOOO I actually completed this goal! James and I did the 5K during the Iron County Fair. I didn't run the whole thing but we did finish it, next year I'll have a goal of finishing it faster then this last time. That shouldn't be to hard to accomplish since it took me 34 minutes the first time!

Is it completely sad that I've only completed 1 of my goals! And it wasn't even an original goal that I started the year off with. UGH! Well good thing there is always next year. I can't believe the year is almost over! It seems like just the other day I was first writing down those goals for the year. CRAZY!!!!!!

Dad's Surgery

2009-12-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

On November 11, 2009 my dad went in for surgery. He had this lump on the side of his face, right side between his jaw bone and his ear. The surgery was an outpatient procedure, nothing too crazy. I decided not to come down for it because I had a lot going on at school and with the surgery being right in the middle of the week I'd miss to many classes. So I called right before he went in and wished him luck and then I told my stepmom Kim to call me as soon as he was done. This was at 10 my time. By 12:30 she hadn't called but the surgery was suppose to take about 2 hours so I wasn't too worried. Around 1:00 she called me and I could tell she was upset. She told me that when they cut my dad open they found out the lump had cancer in it. The doctor was pretty certain he had gotten it all out but there would be more tests later to determine the extent of the cancer in his body. After I hung up with her and sat down on the floor in the library and started to cry. The scariest thing in the world is to find out the one person you believe to be untouchable isn't. Even though school was busy I felt I had to be there with my dad. Within 30 minutes I had talked to all my professors, explained what was happening and told them I wouldn't be back for a week. They were all very understanding, which I am so grateful for.

By 2:30 I had Asher and I all packed and was on my way to my in-laws house to pick him up. We finally got to Riverside around 9pm. It was a long emotional drive but I was so happy to be in Riverside instead of Cedar where I couldn't do anything. Not that I was really needed there, but it felt good to just be around. My dad was in great spirits, of course, he always is. The day I left to head back to Utah my dad had a doctor's appointment. They told him that even though they were sure they had gotten all the cancer out he would still need to do radiation, 6 weeks of it, 5 days a week.

The week before Thanksgiving they did a PET scan of his entire body and found that there was no other cancer anywhere else that they could see. His radiation started Wednesday, Dec 9th. As soon as my finals were done on Friday the 11th I headed back down to Riverside to spend my Christmas break with him and to hang out with him while he drives back and forth to his radiation appointments. (which is where I am right now) Everything seems to be going ok. He is going to still get really sick from the radiation. The doctors have said that he will lose a lot of weight before the 6 weeks is over. I'm not looking forward to seeing my dad so weak but I am looking forward to knowing that he will be cancer free when it is all over.

A Little Splash of Color

2009-12-15T16:52:00.000-08:00

I have always wanted a red kitchen and now I finally have it! Sunday and Monday night I tapped off all the cabinets and such and on Tuesday morning (11/10/09) I got up and started painting. It took me from 8am to 4:30 pm to get it all done, I had to do two coats, but it was so worth the time and effort. I love my new kitchen. Then the following weekend Jadeth and Whitnee stopped by for a quick visit and Whitnee said "Oh I love your new kitchen" and Jadeth said "me too, I like the new cabinets!" ROFL he is so funny. I guess the red made my cabinets look even better then they did before. And of course, here are some pictures of the kitchen and my little helper.

Asher vs. his dinner

2009-12-15T16:46:00.000-08:00

Oh boy oh boy oh boy...what was I thinking letting Asher feed himself? But how could I resist, look how much he was having. Good thing I stripped him down to his diaper first!

Peace

2009-12-15T16:43:00.000-08:00

On November 6, 2009 I was at school. I had brought my lunch and was trying to find a place to eat it. I looked out the building I was in and saw this! It was just warm enough outside that I didn't need a coat, the sun was shinning, the birds were chirping and I sat down on the grass an enjoyed my lunch. Isn't the campus at SUU beautiful?

Halloween 2009

2009-12-15T16:26:00.000-08:00

For Halloween this year we decided to go visit my mom and Rocky in Kingman, AZ and then go to my sisters new salon in Lake Havasu for Halloween night since they close down the street her salon is on for a big street party.

The drive to Kingman was awful with Asher. It was just me and Asher, James came too but he was coming from CA and so it was just me and Asher. Somewhere after the dam (Hoover Dam) Asher got incredibly fussy. He wouldn't stop crying and I knew he was tired so I tried singing him to sleep but he would only sleep for a few minutes and then wake back up. He was still really fussy when I finally got to my mom's. Come to find out later he had a really back tummy ache. Poor little guy. Saturday morning, Halloween, he was back to his usual self. Around 3 we headed for Lake Havasu. Its about an hour drive from my mom's house. Asher was all dressed up in his hand-me-down costume. It was a Superman costume that I had semi-homemade myself for Bailey on his second Halloween. Asher loved it! Once we got there the street was just starting to close down and people were starting to show up. I could not believe how many people were there. It was crazy.

We didn't stay long, Asher was getting sleepy and we still had an hour drive back home to my mom's so around 9pm we headed back for Kingman. Sunday we hung around my mom's for a little while and then around 1 packed up and headed out. Asher was a lot better on the drive home. In fact he slept from Vegas all the way to Mesquite, which for him is amazing!

Here are some great pictures from that trip.

October 25th was my last post???

2009-12-15T16:25:00.000-08:00

I'm so far behind. Almost two months. But in my defense that last two months have been crazy insane and I'm only now beginning to come down from it all. So in an attempt to catch back up with our life via the blog I'm going to skip the song titles for the next few blogs.

What Hurts the Most...

2009-10-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

I love this song, even though it has to be one of the saddest songs I've ever heard I still love it. And I think the title is appropriate for this blog. But first, here is the link to the video on CMT, What Hurts the Most.

As a parent, I think one of the worst things in the world is when your child is sick or hurt and you can't fix it. James and I had to go through this twice the last week with Asher. On Tuesday we got back from our visit to California. James was moving the TV and trying to reconnect everything, and Asher, being the curious little boy that he is, was right there next to James trying to help him. I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready when I heard a crash and then a cry. Some how the TV had fallen off the stand we had it on and onto James, Asher and the rocking chair. Luckily James and the chair stopped the TV from really doing serious injury to Asher, but just to be safe James wanted to take him to the hospital for a check up since it got his head pretty good. All was fine, nothing serious, just some bumps and bruises but it was pretty traumatic for all 3 of us.

Thursday night Asher and I were home, James was in CA again working. Around 7 I put Asher in his highchair to feed him dinner, turned around to get something out of the fridge and then

next thing I knew Asher was throwing up! He was having a hard time so I rushed over and tried my best to help him. I gave him a bath thinking it was just the one time it would happen...wrong! From 7 until 10pm he threw up about every 1/2 hour, until he had nothing left to throw up and then it was dry heaves. He wouldn't drink anything and as I thought back to the time I picked him up from his grandparents I realized he hadn't had anything to drink since 4:30pm. His lips were really white and he had no desire to do anything but lay on me. I panicked, which I do often, and took him to the ER for the second time that week! The doctor gave him an IV and some medicine to stop the vomiting. We stayed at the hospital until well after 1:00am. The last time he had thrown up was a little after midnight so they sent us home. They left the IV needle in his arm in case I had to bring him back again for more fluid. Asher hated that. We didn't sleep well at all that night, he woke up several times trying to roll over onto the arm that was all wrapped up. Then at 6:00am he woke up with a fever of 102.5. I gave him some medicine, he finally drank a little water on his own and crashed back asleep. Friday we pretty much spent the day on the couch going in and out of naps and watching movies. I took him to the doctors office around 10 that morning and he said as long as he was keeping liquid down he was doing better, by Friday around 5:30 he hadn't thrown up again and had actually eaten a little bit of banana and some crackers so back to the ER we went to get the needle out of his arm. He actually cried more when they took the needle out then when they put it in. Poor little guy! He still isn't feeling 100% but I can tell he is getting better, thank goodness! Doctors said it was the stomach flu, I'm just thankful it wasn't the H1N1 flu!!!! Because James was in CA I took some pictures of Asher to send to him. Here they are, even sick he is still a little cutie!!!

The first two pictures were taken in the emergency room Thursday night and the last one was taken at home Friday afternoon. I knew he didn't feel well at all when he climbed on the couch and fell asleep without fighting with me to take a nap!

Big Green (well Red) Tractor

2009-10-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah!!! Jason Alden's Big Green Tractor is the theme song for this blog. Except ours is a red tractor...but anyway...here is the CMT video for Big Green Tractor.

And here is a video and some interesting pictures from the day James and his dad picked up their big RED tractor. It was really hot that day and it seemed like it took them forever to get it all loaded up on the trailer but we finally got the thing home and James' dad has been in heaven ever since. Of course I can't seem to get him to come up and clear out my yard! What is up with that???

So the video is pretty small and it doesn't capture the craziness of James trying to back that thing onto the trailer but you get the idea. It was pretty scary to watch if you ask me! And the whole time all Asher wanted to do was get on his dad's lap and drive it! So cute!

Welcome to the jungle...

2009-10-25T09:59:00.000-07:00

Being back at school again feels like I'm in a jungle! So the song for this blog is "Welcome to the Jungle" and HERE is the video.

I'm really behind in my blogging so I'm attempting to catch up today.

Back on October 15 I had a teaching assignment in one of my classes. We had partners and we had to give a 10 minute lesson on something...anything interesting. My partner and I decided we wanted to do something fun, and since it was October, we decided to do something related

to Halloween. So we taught our class how to carve a pumpkin. It was fun, the class really liked it and at the end we gave out candy!!!! I thought it would be really funny to see who I could get to clean the pumpkin out, you know, all the nasty stringy stuff inside the pumpkin...well I had NO volunteers, which was disappointing, especially since I had actually already cleaned it out! Here are some pictures of Asher helping me carve the pumpkin we used. He really enjoyed helping :)

So, like I said, school has been crazy. I've gone back and forth between continuing the path I'm currently on, to become a Secondary Math Teacher, or to veer off of it a little bit and do Elementary Education instead. One of the main reasons for this is my Discrete Math Class, and if any of you are friends of mine on Facebook you know what a nightmare this class has been for me so far. I'm completely lost...I don't get it, I don't know what it's purpose is and I certainly KNOW I won't ever use it again. My professor even told us Math Ed majors that we would never teach this stuff, but its a required class so I have to take it. This class is seriously making me doubt my ability to pass all the other math classes I have to take to finish this degree. These classes include 4 Calculus classes!!! YIKES! My other reason for thinking Elementary might be better is because I could finish that degree and be teaching about a year sooner than the Secondary Math. I need to figure it out soon because I have to register for Spring classes next week. I actually think I've made my mind up to do Elementary and if I decide at a later date that I'd rather do Math I'll just come back and finish the few extra classes it would require.

Well that's what's happening in our jungle....whats happening in yours?

Beautiful Day...

2009-10-06T15:42:00.000-07:00

And just because I think its fun to watch music videos here is the video for U2's Beautiful Day.

It's been a crazy day today. Usually my Tuesday's start off with cleaning the house, doing laundry and hanging out with Asher. I don't have school on Tuesday's so its my day to catch up on stuff at home. However, my dad came into town last night and stayed the night with us so we could go get his Ford F350 and Jeep Wrangler inspected because both had registration that was due the end of September! This morning I woke up, quickly fed Asher and off we went to Tunex to get the cars inspected. Finally around 10 the truck was done so I headed home with Asher so he could take a nap. I told my dad I would come over to Panguitch later so I could take pictures of the park and get them up on the website for potential buyers to look at. James was back up in Brian Head today working so I thought, "hey why not go through Brian Head, have lunch with James, then head down to Panguitch? After all the leaves are changing and it will be a nice drive." So that was my plan. At noon Asher and I headed to Brian Head, along the way I stopped to take pictures, only realizing once I was half way up the hill that I was on 1/4 of a tank of gas. No biggie, Jeep says 90 miles to empty, that's plenty to get me to Brian Head and then over to Panguitch. So we had lunch and as I was leaving I asked James, "Ummm, where do I turn off this road to go to Panguitch??" and he said "Just up the hill a little more, there is a sign that tells you which direction Panguitch is." Ok, perfect! Should be easy, I'd never been that way to Panguitch before, normally I just drive north on the 15 until I reach highway 20, over the hill to the 89! So I'm driving and Asher is screaming, not crying, just testing his voice to see how loud he can scream...yikes! I must've turned to look at him at the exact time the sign came into view because I never saw it! I'm driving along, and driving along thinking, gosh it has to be here somewhere! Next thing I know I'm passing Cedar Breaks National Monument! Ok I know I've done something wrong now. And to top it all off, the Jeep now shows 30 miles to empty! UT OH!!!!! So I begin to panic, because of course, I have AT&T and they don't have cell service up the mountain!!! Now I'm beginning to wonder if I should turn around and head back to Brian Head or if I should keep going. I kept going and ended up at the 14, the highway that goes up Cedar Mountain. Luckily I have been up in that area so much that I knew Cedar City was only about 20 miles away and with 25 miles left until empty I was relieved! So I never made it to Panguitch today, guess I'll have to go Thursday or maybe Saturday. But it wasn't a complete waste, I did get these adorable pictures of Asher...on this very BEAUTIFUL DAY in Utah. I am posting these pictures for all of you who aren't lucky enough to live in Utah, this is why Fall is my favorite season of all!!!

New scrapbook kits (no that's not a song title!)

2009-10-04T09:31:00.000-07:00

The song titles are only for random ramblings, not showing off my scrapbooking! Here are some great new kits by Staceys Scraps.

D is for Daddy

E is for Exercise
This kit will be released tomorrow (Oct 5)

Overcome...

2009-09-25T22:05:00.000-07:00

Anyone know who sings this song??? This group was one of my favorites when I was going to school at SDSU waaaaayyyy back in 1996. Overcome is sung by Live. It's not my favorite song by them but the title kind of represents my thoughts this late Friday night as I think back over the week I just went through at school...just glad to have overcome it! Anyway, the song is really awesome. They wrote the song back in 1995, long before 9-11 happen, but the song has become sort of an anthem to some since 9-11. Here is a great video of the song if you feel like listening to it. Overcome on YouTube

School was a nightmare this week. I had a test in Discrete Math and Educational Psychology, along with a PowerPoint game due. The PowerPoint game gave me some trouble when I couldn't figure out how to get some shapes to disappear. I'm sad to say that I did figure out the problem and it was my Mac. Apparently the Mac version of PowerPoint doesn't allow you to put that kind of an animation on a shape, the Windows version does though. Lucky for me I have a Windows machine upstairs that I was able to use to complete the game. I must say, its an awesome game to use for Algebra students and I will be saving to use in my class...what I finally have my own class.

My Discrete Math test was HORRIBLE!!! I don't see the point of Discrete Math. It makes no sense to me as far as its use in the real world. My professor even told us the first day of class that as Math Education Majors we would never use this stuff! Then why do they require I take it????? Any how, hopefully I did well on it, I hope to find out Monday.

My Educational Psychology test was pretty easy, open book and all! Still, you just never know when the professor will throw in a tricky question. Also hoping to find out that I did well on it Monday afternoon.

I took a Trig test a week ago today and found out that I aced the test! Oh yeah! I was one of two people in the class of about 40 that got 100% <~~~~ yes that says 100%!!!!!!! Yeah me!

In other news...Asher now has 13 teeth, yes I said 13! I found 3 new teeth last night. Now he has 7 on the bottom and 6 on the top! The kid has so many teeth he could probably chew steak!

James and his dad are getting a tractor tomorrow. They are both really excited about that. I'll post some pictures this weekend of it once we get it home. Its an old tractor but James is looking forward to fixing it up and making it look new(er).

I talked to Bailey the other day, he seems to be doing well in Indiana. He is getting good grades and went to a dance a couple of weeks ago where he danced with GIRLS!!!! UGH! aren't boys suppose to think girls have cooties at this age?

We haven't heard much from Sabelle this week so she is probably just busy with school, work and Chad. Oh and her new puppy she got a few weeks ago.

Josten is working out everyday. We were looking at pictures of him from a few years ago and its amazing how much weight he has lost and how grown up he looks now. He is still trying to find a job but in the meantime he is getting registered to start SUU in the winter. So glad for that.

Jadeth, Whitnee and Jade are doing awesome, at least they were last weekend when we were up there visiting them.

Jared is busy working and learning all the tricks of the trade. I think he really enjoys learning and working.

Well now you are all caught up with the lives of the Sherratts (and Amo). Stay tuned, you never know what will happen around here tomorrow, or what song I might come up with as a title! :)

Days go by...

2009-09-22T16:54:00.000-07:00

Hey, isn't that part of a country song? Days go by, I can feel them flying like a hand out the window in the wind as cars go by...Keith Urban! What a great song! That is not what this post is about however. I have such a hard time with titles, maybe I'll start making every title to a post from a song. Stay tuned, see how many I can come up with.

So, the this last weekend flew by. We decided to head up to Utah County to visit Jadeth, Whitnee, Jade, Jared and Tami. We got up there around 8pm Friday night and met Tami and Andy for dinner at a little Thai place by her house. It was yummy! Saturday James woke up and went over to the yard where Jadeth and Jared work. For most of the day they worked on shutters for our house. They are so awesome looking. Here are some pictures.

If anyone wants some made for their house go to www.davincidoors.net

Saturday night we went up Immigration Canyon to this great diner called Ruth's. The food was great and the music was awesome, but the best was the company. We had everyone hanging out with us, I loved it! Sunday morning we woke up and went over to Jadeth and Whitnee's to visit with them. Later that afternoon we ran to Target and then we went to Wingers for lunch. I love Winger's, their food is really yummy. After lunch we said goodbye to Jadeth, Whitnee and Jade and headed home. It was a great weekend. Here are some other cute pictures from the weekend.

This week is a rough one for me. I have two big tests, Discrete Math and Educational Psychology...can you say YIKES?!?!?? I did awesome on my Trig test last week so hopefully I will continue that trend this week. Well I'm off to watch my favorite show, Biggest Loser, and then it's off to study some more. Have a great week everyone.

B is for Back to School

2009-09-21T08:07:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

We had a great weekend, I'll post more about that later. But for now I wanted to let everyone know that Stacey has another great scrapbooking kit out! It's the "B" in her alphabet series, B is for Back to School. I know that the kit would be great for back to school pictures but I couldn't find any of Bailey's back to school pictures and Asher hasn't started school yet so I found some other pictures that worked great with the kit...see how versatile it is???

Some great new kits by Stacey's Scraps!

2009-09-17T21:45:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone...here are some great new kits by Stacey's Scraps over at www.scrapthatidea.com.

This kit, For Mason, is for a very special cause. All the proceeds for the sales of this kit will go to "Autism Speaks" in the name of Mason, a son of one of Stacey's good friends so please go buy it!!!

Here is a layout I did with the kit "For Mason"

This fun kit, A is for Autumn, is the first in a series Stacey is doing. She plans on doing a kit for every letter of the alphabet so stay tuned...I've seen all the way to D so far and they are great!!!!

Here is the layout I created with A is for Autumn. And in case you couldn't tell, right now my blog was created with this kit!!! I love it. Of course, fall is my favorite time of year, that could be way I love it so much.

Labor Day Weekend Festivities

2009-09-07T21:16:00.000-07:00

Its Monday at 10:15pm and I'm sitting here thinking what a jam-packed, exciting weekend it was for us. I thought I'd share it with the blog world.

It all started Friday after work/school when James and I decided to head down to St George for the evening. We like to drive down there once in a while, eat out some place we don't have in Cedar and just take in the busy-ness (that's not really a word is it?) of St George. We had a good time, just the 3 of us, hanging out. We finally made it home just before 10pm.

Saturday morning James had to head back up to Brian Head for work. My good friend Patti had mentioned to me that they were having a baby contest at the Iron County Fair and that she was taking her adorable little boy Jacoby and asked if we wanted to join them. So after sleeping in until a little after 8, Asher and I rushed to make it to the fair ground in time for registration.

Here is a picture of Asher, wasn't he the cutest??? He didn't win though :(. After the contest I took Asher to the petting zoo and for his first ever ride on the Merry-Go-Round. I don't have any pictures of these events because the camera decided to stage a protest and stopped taking pictures! UGH!!!! After that fun we went up the hill and met James for lunch. It was so nice up in Brian Head, I love it up there when its so hot in Cedar. I did notice that the leaves are starting to change color...woohoo bring on Fall, my favorite time of year! Later that evening we headed back to the fair to watch the rodeo. Our nephew Cody rode a BULL!!!! He is a crazy kid! He didn't stay on very long, but like James keeps telling him, "Dude, I'd never get on one, you did awesome just by sitting on the darn thing!" After the rodeo James took Asher for another ride on the Merry-Go-Round

(which of course the camera was working for...so here is a

picture!) After that long day we were all exhausted, we finally made it home around 9:30. Asher went to sleep and James and I stayed up doing a little homework.

Sunday started out kind of lazy. James built some new shelves in our closet...we so needed it. Then we went to church at 1 for a family members confirmation. After church we went over to Aunt Mary's house for a dinner, that was a lot of fun. I have to admit I wasn't really looking forward to going over, but I had the best time chatting with everyone. Aunt Mary makes me

laugh, she has the best gossip! :) hehe! Once we got home from Aunt Mary's we sat down and watched a movie, and then off to bed because we had a big Monday morning to prepare for.

Today (Monday-Labor Day) we woke up at 7 and got ready to run the Iron County Fair 5K! At the beginning of the summer James and I decided to train to run at 5K at the end of the summer. Well training didn't go so well but we did run! Although neither of us ran the whole thing we did finish (and we weren't even last!) After the run we came home, showered and went to lunch with James' parents, then it was back to the fair we went. The horse races started at 1 and we barely made it in time for the first race. I'm pretty sure those were the first horse races

I had ever been to and I LOVED them. How fun! I can't wait to go to another one. After the horse races we went in search for funnel cakes...yummmm! By this time Asher was exhausted and ready for a nap so we headed home.

While Asher was asleep James and I watched 88 Minutes. I really liked that movie...it was intense! Around 5:45pm we headed out again, this time we went to a park in Cedar City to meet our good friends the Wellers for a picnic and kite flying. James bought two really adorable kites at the fair and Cedar is the perfect place for

kite flying, its always windy here! What a great way to end a really fun holiday weekend. Here are some pictures of the kite flying.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention that one of the kites got stuck in a tree and Josten had to climb it to help get it out, and then Josten fell out of the tree! Nothing is ever boring with us!

I had such a great weekend! I hope everyone else did as well...now its off to get some homework done!

Back from the land of the missing...

2009-08-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

I know I haven't posted in a while. Maybe its because we haven't really had much going on or maybe its because I'm so busy I don't have time. I think its a little of both if that's possible. We haven't had anything really exciting going on lately but I have been so busy with just everyday life that I haven't had time to sit down and update our blog.

So the last thing I updated everyone on was our beach trip to McGrath's State Beach. That was so much fun! Since then we have done a few things here and there but mostly we are just trying to make it through each day.
Shortly after coming back home from the beach we decided to take a bike ride down Bryce Canyon. My dad, James, Asher and I had my Aunt Mary drop us off at the top of the bike path one evening and we rode all the way down to a fun little restaurant where you turn off highway 89 to head towards Bryce Canyon. It was a lot of fun and since we were going down hill it didn't take nearly as much energy out of me as I thought it would.

We also made a quick trip up north to American Fork, Utah. We went up to visit with Jadeth, Whitnee, Jade, Josten and Jared. While we were there we ate at our favorite little place in Springville called Art City Trolly. They have the best salad there...YUMMY! My bestest friend Tami and her son Kason also had lunch with us. Later that day, Josten, Jared, Asher, James and I went up to Salt Lake, to the Galivan Center to watch the free concert there were having...OH MY GOSH. SCARY!!! It was heavy metal music and it was not our crowd! We didn't stay long. For dinner we went to James' favorite place up in Sandy (I think that's where it is???) called The Mayan. Its a pretty cool little place all decorated like you are going on a safari and then they have people who jump off cliffs into a small pool of water. That night we stayed with Jadeth and Whitnee. Asher and I didn't sleep well at all so we left before lunch to head home. It was fun to get out of town for the night though.

Two weeks ago I had this crazy idea to go back to school and get my degree to teach secondary math. Now I'm one week into my first semester back at school! Its going to be tough, I love math but Calculus is going to kill me and I have to take 4 different Calculus classes...YIKES! I'm excited to finish though. I've also decided to get my minor in English so I should have a great background when looking for a teaching position! James decided he would go to school also so he is taking a few (full time) online classes. He think he will like it once he doesn't feel so overwhelmed.

Asher is growing quickly. James' parents watch him for me when I'm at class and they just love having that time with him and he loves being over there with them. He is such a smart little boy. He is trying to say all kinds of new words like doggie, Whiskey(that's the dogs name!), light, rooster, Josten, What's that?, thank you. Plus he makes lots of animal noises like barking from a dog. He is just too cute sometimes, and then sometimes he just isn't...LOL I think the terrible twos might have set in a little early for him.

Bailey is now in middle school in Indiana. I can't believe he is so grown up already. I really think he enjoys it in Indiana. He as tons of friends and he is always out hanging with them. I do miss him tons though. I'm hoping James and I will be able to make a trip there to see him one weekend before Christmas time but it just depends on money. Bailey is getting braces this year, I'm sure he isn't very excited about that. Poor thing...he got his teeth from his dad, not his mom!

Everyone else is doing well. Josten was living up in American Fork with Jadeth and Whitnee for a little bit but then decided to come back to Cedar City after about 3 weeks of no luck finding a job. Jadeth and Jared are working for a company in Lehi called DaVinci Doors and they both really like it most days. Jadeth is doing well there, he is the shop manager. Jade and Whitnee are doing well also. Jade is growing so fast too. When we were up there she was smiling and giggling. What a little heart breaker she is going to be! Sabelle is still living in St George with her mom. Her birthday is the 3rd of September and she will be 16!!!!!! OH MY GOSH!!!! It's just so crazy to me that she is going to be 16, she was only 9, almost 10 when James and I met. She is going into such a beautiful young woman. She has a boyfriend, Chad, who cracks me up. He is such a goofy kid, but that's a good thing! They come up and visit us once in a while.

Well that's a little catch up for everyone! I have some pictures I'll post some other day. I haven't uploaded them from the camera to the computer yet. Until next time...everyone stay safe and thanks for stopping by :)

So far behind...scrapbooking!

2009-08-04T11:37:00.001-07:00

Here are all the scrapbook pages I have done recently but have been too lazy to post to my blog! This is going to take FOREVER!!!!

Here are the credits, I don't think they are in order but just check the titles!

She is Such a Blessing

Kit: Summer Berries by Stacey's Scraps

You've Got Mail

Kit: Pickleberry Pie July Collab kit over at Brownie Scraps (you can't get it now...but you can get the August Collab kit here)

Mischief Finder

Kit: Summer Lovin by Stacey's Scraps

Buds Forever and Sleeping Beauty

Kit: Be Nice or Else by Scrappin Daisies

Life is as sweet as Ice Cream

Kit: Sherbet Fields by Stacey's Scraps

Lil Firecracker and 4th of July Parade

Kit: All American by Scrappin Daisies

Love Bug

Kit: Doodle Bug (a freebie kit) by Stacey's Scraps (you can get it on her blog)

One Nation

I did this layout for the 3rd Round of the Battle of the CTs competition over at DSA.

Kit: Some Gave All by Ramona the Pest Designs

So far behind...McGrath State Beach Trip

2009-08-04T11:20:00.001-07:00

I hate when I neglect my blog, because then I have to spend hours trying to catch up with it. You'd think I'd learn, but I never do.

So Sunday evening we finally pulled into our driveway after a camp out at the beach in California. We had such a wonderful time. We left early Wednesday morning and drove to Riverside. We hung out at my dad's for the evening, had dinner with my cousins (I finally got t

o see Sadie, my cousin Jennifer's little girl). Thursday morning dad, me, James, Cailin, Bailey and Asher loaded up in the motorhome and headed to McGrath State Beach. We met Sabelle and her boyfriend Chad on the way and they followed us there. It was wonderful! The weather was cool (Im not sure it ever got hotter than 75 degrees there). Later that night Kimmie, my aunt Sandy and cousin Peggy showed up. Friday we hung out at the beach, had more people join our group and had some yummy chicken that my dad cooks up! Saturday we headed to the beach again but it was really overcast so we headed back to camp for naps. Later

that night we had another wonderful dinner of steak, potatoes and veggies. Sunday we had to get up really early and head out because we had to have Bailey at the Vegas airport by 3pm. After finding out that his 5:05 flight was delayed 3 hours and begging the airline employees

they finally got him on a flight that left right around his original time. I miss him tons already! Here are some fun pictures from our trip to the beach.

Battle of the CTs

2009-07-20T14:34:00.000-07:00

Hey all my friends and family!

So I'm in this new contest over at digiscrapaddicts.com and my team needs your vote!!! Here is the wonderful layout I created for the first round.

Now I need you all to click on this link below

http://www.digiscrapaddicts.com/battle/designer.html

and vote for Ramona's Pests (that's my team name) We are pretty close to the bottom so don't get distracted and vote for another team. :) Thanks for all your support! Love you all!

Lots of Scrapbooking!

2009-07-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

Ok so I have been so behind on my CT duties lately. Last night I stayed up until 11:30 trying to catch up, I don't get anything done while Asher is awake so I only get nap time and once he goes to bed at night to get anything done. Problem is I have so much to do, including scrapbooking, that I start to fall behind, especially when Asher goes to sleep at 9 and I go to sleep at 10! Anyway, here are some great new kits to go check out!

Ouch and My Favorite Boys

Kit: Funky Town by Scrappin Daisies

Enjoying the View

Kit: Cherry Chocolate by Stacey's Scraps

Round and Round

Kit: Not Too Shabby by Stacey's Scraps. I also used a template for this page but right now I cant remember whose template it was and I'm not on my computer so I can't check! Sorry, I'll update this when I figure it out.

Lytle Creek

Kit: Tutti Frutti, a freebie on Stacey's blog right now, but hurry because after this week it will be at her store on sale!

And as a side note: I went on this field trip with Bailey's class when I was 8 months pregnant!!!

Now, my Project 365 layouts. I am REALLY behind on these layouts, I'm still taking the pictures though!

Week 19, I used a free kit I got from DigiscrapAddicts called 525600 minutes.

Week 20 & 21 I used another free kit that I got at DigiscrapAddicts called Everyday Delights. I also used a free template from my friend JoannaE that you can pick up at her blog.

Hot Air Balloon Festival in Panguitch

2009-07-02T16:46:00.001-07:00

I am so far behind. Now that a week has almost gone by I figured it was time for me to post some pictures of our time at the festival. I love going to this balloon festival. I've looked forward to it every year since my dad and Kim bought the Hitch N Post Campground in 2003. I have missed a few years in there though but it was great to be back again after missing last year because I had just given birth to Asher. I was also really excited for this year's festival because it's Bailey's first time going. Normally he would've been spending the summer with his dad and missed it, but since he moved to Indiana he was here visiting with us and was able to finally go. My dad made sure that Bailey would get a ride in one of the balloons which made it even more special!!! Bailey was a little nervous about going up so he would only go if I went (yeah me, another ride in Gene's balloon!!!) Here are some great pictures.

My dad made me get a picture of his jeep with the balloons in the background...he is so silly sometimes!

My dad and Asher after Bailey and I went up in the balloon

Asher watching his mommy go way high in the air!

Bailey and I leaving the ground

Bailey and I touching back to earth.

It was REALLY early, Asher was really sleepy. We had to be out at the field at 6am.

"New Rider" toast. The new riders get cider dumped on their heads.

Asher trying to wake up.

Asher and mommy enjoying the view.

View from the top, we went 1000 feet off the ground.

James helping get the balloon ready for take off.

By the time we got back to the ground Bailey was ready to get out. We landed in the cemetery, it was a little strange.

Not Too Shabby

2009-06-30T07:59:00.001-07:00

Here is a great new kit from Stacey's Scraps over at Scrapthatidea.com. Its only $3 right now so run over and get it!

Ashers 1st Birthday

2009-06-30T07:45:00.001-07:00

Well I can't believe that Asher is already a year old. Seems like just yesterday I was in the hospital having him. Its crazy how time flies. He is such a joy in our lives, even when he doesn't sleep through the night. For his birthday we just had a few family and friends come over for a BBQ. It was a lot of fun. Here are some really cute pictures.

Jadeth & Whitnee's Wedding

2009-06-17T15:50:00.000-07:00

Jadeth and Whitnee got married June 12, 2009! What a beautiful day it was. We had a family luncheon at 3pm at the wedding site, which was the backyard of Whitnee's sister and brother-in-law's house. It was a little windy, but that's Enoch for you. Then the ceremony was at 6pm with an Open House immediately following. The weather was perfect, the treats were yummy and everyone looked wonderful. What a very special day it was for the Sherratt family, we are so blessed to have Whitnee officially part of our family now. Here are the pictures you have been waiting for!!!

STRESSED!!!!!

2009-06-17T15:31:00.000-07:00

I think the title says it all...I am STRESSED OUT!!!! Life has not been easy lately and it seems to be getting more difficult. This week should be filled with joy for me, Asher turns 1, Bailey is coming to visit for 6 weeks, my mom will be here, my dad is nearby, but it just seems to be adding to the stress. James has a great job that he loves but its commission only and it will take time before they sign some new jobs. We would be fine except that the state of California has idiots working for them...and I think that should explain my stress right there!!! I am in need of a very big miracle or this weekend in going to be a disaster...(closing my eyes and shaking that image out of my mind).

Well anyway, even though life has been tough and stressed out I did manage to get a few scrapbook pages done and I wanted to post some pictures from Jadeth and Whitnee's wedding, which was the 12th of June. So enjoy :)

Having FUN with Grandma
Kit: Tweet Heart by Stacey's Scraps

Play Hard, Rest Easy
Kit: Sleep Tight by Stacey's Scraps

100% Loved
Kit: Owl Always Love You by Stacey's Scraps

Bailey & Asher's Birth Stories
Kit: My Little One-Boy Version by Dreamer's Magic Design
She does have a girl version also

Theme Song

2009-06-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

Ok so I have a new theme song...
Isn't it weird how you'll hear a song a thousand times but then one morning it just hits you that this song is YOUR song. I was working out on my elliptical and this song came on my iPod and I just thought...this song pumps me up, gets me moving and says a lot about how I'm feeling lately.
The song is "Bring on the Day" by Charlotte Martin, its from the Sweet Home Alabama soundtrack. Here are the lyrics

When I feel like I'm falling
I'm still on my feet
Reality is calling
But that don't bother me
Cause I'm on my way, I'm OK

I'm ready to get ready
Willing to get by
Able to imagine what it's like to fly
Into the blue, it's all down too

Hey, hey, hey
Come on Bring on the day
Cause I just might get everything I need
Hey, hey, hey
Give 'em what it takes
I'm ready as I'm ever gonna be
So, bring on the day

Like a diver in the water
Everything feels slow
My car, my markiardo, it gets me in the flow
Cause I'm on my way
Whatever it takes

Hey, hey, hey
Come on bring on the day
Cause I just might get everything I need
Hey, hey, hey
Give 'em what it takes
I'm as ready as I'm every gonna be
So, bring on the day

What you get is what you see
Open up your eyes
Let it set you free
It all works out eventually
Gotta keep on keep on
I can rock, and I can roll
I know I wanna move, gotta take control
Whatch out world cause here I come
And I can't stop till I'm done

Hey, hey, hey
I'm finally on my way

Hey, hey, hey
Come on bring on the day
Cause I just might get everything I need
Hey, hey, hey
Give 'em what it takes
Cause I'm as ready as I'm ever gonna be
So, bring on the day

Gotta keep on, keep on, keep on

Quick update

2009-06-04T10:03:00.000-07:00

Its been a crazy week around here. I was able to finally buy Bailey's plane ticket to come visit us this summer. I am so happy! He flies into Vegas on the 19th, my mom is picking him up, along with my niece Cailin and the three of them will be here just in time for Asher's first birthday! So exciting!!!
I am starting a new program this week to help me be happier with who I am and how I look (notice I didn't say a new "diet" or "exercise" program.) Anyway, a friend of mine here in Enoch did it and she looks and feels amazing. But I don't want to say too much for fear I will jinx myself. Give me a few weeks and then I will post some results and information. But if you want to try it out for yourself you can go to transformation.com (you have to register by June 29 if you want to do it, and its free)
Asher is growing so fast. I can't believe in about two weeks he will be a year old! Gosh, time goes to quickly. He was so cute this morning. After my 1/2 hour of yoga I went in to shower, normally he will sit on the bathroom rug and play with some toys while I shower, but today he was really fussy. I opened the shower door to let him know I was there and that everything was ok. I guess he decided he wanted to shower too because he tried getting in, so I undressed him and brought him in the shower with me. He just snuggled up to me and let the warm water run over him. I guess he still isn't feeling 100% because that just isn't normal for my little monster that is constantly on the move. But it was so sweet. A memory that will last forever, that's for sure!
Jadeth and Whitnee are getting married next week. I am excited for them. Jadeth told us the other day that after the wedding they are going to be starting to attend church together. I think that's so awesome. It will help strengthen their little family and I'm so proud of both of them. I'll make sure to take lots of pictures of the wedding so friends and family can see :)
James is enjoying his new job, and although it's commission only I think he is going to be very successful at it.
Well, that's all for now. I've been having some computer issues lately (I think I have too much stuff saved on it, not enough hard drive space left!) so I need to get back to purging it!

More layouts...

2009-05-30T17:51:00.000-07:00

I figured I'd post these separately. yes I am still doing Project365!! And yes, I am a little behind on my layouts, but I'm still taking the pictures. I've also decided to do two layouts that match, so when I print these and bind them in a book the opening pages match, that's why I am using the same kit twice :)

Week 14 & 15 I used a freebie kit from the contest over at DSA called So You Think You Can Design. I found these kits thanks to my friend Joanna. I'm so glad I read her blog! I love these kits!! This one is called P365 by Redju Designs. Here is the link to all the different kits.

Week 16 & 17 I used the April Collab Kit called New Beginnings that you could've gotten at Brownie Scraps if I had posted these back in April when the kit was available. But you can go over and get their June Collab kit called Happy Camper now if you want!!!

Week 18, and soon week 19, is using another one of those free kits from the contest at DSA. Go check them out, they are wonderful if you do Project 365!!!

Scrapbook Pages

2009-05-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

With all the craziness lately I have been slacking on posting my scrapbook pages. I have like a gazillion and a half to post (ok maybe not quite that many, but close!!!) So here goes....

Sleepin Under the Stars
Kit: Happy Camper, June Collab kit over at Brownie Scraps
Template by Dreamer's Magic Designs, to be release over at Brownie Scraps on June 11

Ride of their Life
Kit: Rip Zone by Stacey's Scraps, I'm a little early on this one, it will be in her store tomorrow!!!

Sunday Naps
Kit: Boys will be Boys by JayaPrem's Hangout
Template by ChrissyW over at Elemental Scraps

Posing
Kit: Little Back Pocket by Mandy Mystiques (she is actually no longer selling her kits...which is really sad because she had some really amazing kits!)

Hanging at our Pad
Kit: Ribbit by Stacey's Scraps
This is pretty funny considering we don't even live here anymore!

Apples of my Eye
Kit: Fruit Scraps by Scrappin Daises

Lazy Cat
Kit: Boys will be Boys by JayaPrems Hangout
Template by Dreamer's Magic Design, will be released on June 11.

Dance Revolution
Kit: Dancing Queen by Stacey's Scraps

I can't believe I haven't posted this layout yet, but according to my records (yes I have to keep some kind of record of what I have posted and where I've posted it to) I haven't yet posted it to my blog! Sad!
Enjoy Friends
Kit: April Collab Kit called New Beginnings, and you can't get it anymore because its now June!!! Sorry :(

Round and Round we go

2009-05-27T10:17:00.001-07:00

Well as promised I'm filling everyone in on what has been going on with us lately. Let's just get this out of the way first...yes we moved AGAIN! Back to Cedar City! I can't believe how sick I am of packing and unpacking. I'm so sick of it that I still have boxes sitting around and I just don't care about. Most of my clothes are still in the 5th Wheel and I have no desire to go get them out, even though I only have a few choice things to wear right now. Don't get me wrong, I am really happy to be back in MY house (not a rental) and back in Enoch where I love everyone here. But moving is a drag and I am sick of it. Literally! I now have a horrible sinus cold, just hit me Monday night. I'm sure its from the constant change in weather (it was 100 in Riverside and then cold and rainy here). I will miss walking out my back door onto the golf course but I did miss Utah.
James has a promising opportunity here in Cedar City. A friend of ours owns a business and wants to get going on some government contracts. Since James has experience in this sort of thing they have offered to bring him on to get the jobs. He is really excited about it. We also have some other ideas in the works with my dad, but those are top secret and I can't spill the beans just yet, don't want someone stealing our idea (well really my dads idea!).
I don't know if I told everyone, but my dad and stepmom own an RV Park in Panguitch, UT. My dad has been going back and forth about selling the place. But he also wants to get some things going in the town to bring in business (in case he keeps it!) He asked me to help him (and the City of Panguitch) put together an Off-Road Rally. Its going to be a lot of fun, if you have any kind of 4X4 vehicle make sure you sign up (when I get the website up and running) and attend it. I have a lot of great things planned for it, I am meeting with the city tomorrow to go over these things, which reminds me I should be working on that instead of updating my blog, hehe!
I'll be back to update some more.

Blog Contest

2009-05-26T13:58:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

Sorry I have been MIA for the last little while. Life has been hectic and crazy. I will fill you in on my next post. For now I just wanted to let everyone know that Stacey, over at scrapthatidea.com is having a contest on her blog. You'll find the information below. Its a chance to win $20! Check it out!!! But hurry, its only until tomorrow.

Here is my layout I made using the template for the contest, but don't worry, I'm not competing, but I am helping judge!

some new layouts

2009-05-13T16:54:00.000-07:00

Smile as Bright as the Stars
kit: Space Cadet by Stacey's Scraps its a freebie on her blog right now!

I Go Bananas For You
Kit: Fruit Scraps by Scrappin Daisies - Template by ChrissyW

Birthday Princess
Kit: If the Shoe Fits by Stacey's Scraps

Could this be a profession in the making?

2009-05-13T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well, James and I are both wondering if we have a soon-to-be professional soccer player on our hands. It was so cute, yesterday we were sitting around watching TV when out of no where Asher just starts kicking his little soccer ball. We had to get it on video, so here it is.

Scrapbooking Layouts

2009-05-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

Here are some layouts that I'm sure I'm way behind on posting!

Thoughts - Kit: Slowpoke by Bella Gypsy

Hit It - Kit: Lil Princess by Stacey's Scraps

Are you eating that? - Kit: Blessed in Blue by Bella Gypsy but I think the kit is retired now because I can't find it.

Tractor Ride - Kit: May Collab kit called Scarp that Season by the girls at scrapthatidea.com

Boy Meets World - Kit: Lil Prince by Stacey's Scraps (yes she has a boy and girl version!)

Jade's Blessing

2009-05-04T11:02:00.000-07:00

This last weekend James, Asher and I drove up to Cedar City for Jade's baby blessing. It was a long-quick trip but we didn't want to miss it. We had planned on leaving very early Saturday morning (like at 5am) but Asher kept me up from 2:30 to 4:30 that morning and I wasn't about to get out of bed a 1/2 hour later to drive 7 hours. Then when we did try to get out of here we had a few things come up that prevented us from leaving until around noon. We finally got to Cedar City around 8pm, after stopping in St George for a little visit with our friends Dan and LeeAnn Hoopes. We met our other friends, Mark and Patti for a late dinner at Applebees then headed to the house to get some sleep. The blessing was at 11am and afterwards we had a BBQ. It was a lot of fun and I'm so glad we didn't miss it. We left Utah around 4 local time and didn't get home until after 10pm! Here are some great pictures.

Welcome to the Brownie Scrap Blog Train!!! Join the ride!

2009-04-30T20:03:00.000-07:00

Here is the whole kit Preview:

Here is the preview for the piece you'll pick up here!

Link has expired!

Here is the Schedule flyer:

Just trying to catch up - part 2

2009-04-30T12:08:00.000-07:00

Here are more layouts....yes I know, you think I've been really busy doing these, but the truth of the matter is that I've actually just been lazy and haven't posted them in a while! :)

Here are the credits

3 Generations
Kit: Her Legacy, this is a great new collab kit by the designers at Brownie Scraps, and if you spend $10 in the store you get this kit free the month of May. (or you can buy it for $6.50 right now, and its a HUGE kit, something like 50 papers, 100 elements, alphas...the works!)

Birthday Boy (page 1 & 2)
Kit: Lucas Loves by Dragonfly Designs over at browniescraps.com

Project 365 - Weeks 12 & 13
Kit: Soft Whispers in the Garden by Scrappin Daisies...also at browniescraps.com

So, you could go buy Lucas Loves and Soft Whispers in the Garden (plus more because that doesn't add up to $10 yet) and then get Her Legacy for free!!!!

Just trying to catch up.

2009-04-30T11:43:00.000-07:00

Well life has been crazy lately. As you can see from the post before this one, Asher is now officially walking all over the place. He hasn't master the step yet, but I'm sure it won't be long! CRAZY! He just barely turned 10 months old!

We are headed back to Cedar City this weekend for Jade's blessing. It's going to be a very short trip because James has a new job and we can't leave until Friday night and we have to be back early Sunday night so he can get up at 4:30am to get to work Monday morning. But he has a job!!! WoooHoo!

The weather has been so crazy here lately. It was over a 100 last week (Monday) and by the weekend it wasn't even making it to 70. This week has been kinda normal, staying right around 72 or so each day. But I hear we are suppose to get warmer weather this weekend and then rain...go figure!

James, me, Kimmie and Sara are doing well with our 5K training. We have gone 4 nights in the last week and plan to step it up to our "Walk 5 minutes, Run 2 minutes" routine tonight. I'm excited for this, I am ready to get into shape! My friend Tami is also training, but she is up in northern Utah so doesn't train with us. I tried to talk Bailey into running it with us but he informed me that he is skinny enough and doesn't need to run!

I've also been working on some more scrapbook layouts (of course!) Here are a few I've done lately.

Here are the credits in case you want to go pick up any one of these fabulous kits!!!

Zoo Much Fun
Kit: Circle of Life (only $1) by Stacey's Scraps

Put a Little Spring into Your Step
Kit: Showers in Spring is a great FREEBIE collab kit by Stacey, Mel and Vicki.

Scrapbooker in Training
Kit: Soft Whispers in the Garden by Scrappin Daisies over at browniescraps.com ( I LOVE THIS KIT!!!!)

Beach Boy
Kit: To The Beach by Stacey's Scraps (another really fun and bright kit by this talented lady!)

It's official...Asher is a walker

2009-04-29T19:34:00.000-07:00

Quiet Weekend

2009-04-27T11:20:00.000-07:00

Asher, James and I had a pretty quiet weekend. It was nice actually. Saturday we went to Lowes to return some garden stuff we ended up not using, and with the money we got back we grabbed lunch and headed to the park for Asher's first official trip. He loved the swings, was a little unsure of the slide and loved driving mom around in the play jeep. The weather was great, it was just warm enough to be out in a t-shirt and jeans. Saturday evening we met my step-mom Kimmie at the high school track for another day of training for our 5K. After that James, Asher and I headed home for some pasta and a movie. We finally watched "Yes, Man". I really liked it. It was wonderful to see a good comedy after a stressful week. Sunday morning we went to church, I really love our ward here. Everyone is very friendly and welcoming. Sunday evening we went to my dad's house for dinner...yummy tri-tip (my dad is an expert BBQ'er). After we played Hearts. It was a great time. Here are some pictures from the park

OH MY GOSH!!!!

2009-04-23T18:23:00.000-07:00

I think the video says it all!!!

Great new kit at Brownie Scraps

2009-04-23T17:28:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, there is a great new kit over at Brownie Scraps called Soft Whispers in the Garden. It's actually a mystery kit right now so there isn't a preview, but you get a pretty good idea of what's in it by looking at these three layouts I've done with it. Oh and right now you can get the kit for 50% off (so its only $2.50).

Update on New Years Goals

2009-04-22T16:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, so back in January I posted about my New Year's goals (not resolutions). Here is an update on how I'm doing so far.

Family Goals:
1. Only move once! HA! if you know us you'll know that's a tough goal for us! Well we've moved once already, now let's see if you we can stay here the rest of the year!!
2. Family dinners every Sunday, I like this goal, it keeps our family together and helps us to stay in touch with what is happening with all our kids. This one is harder to keep now that we are in CA and the rest of the family is in UT or IN. James and I do eat together every Sunday though (and we bring Asher along with us)
3. Save $$! YEAH RIGHT!!! ( I have no comment for this one right now!)

Creative Goals:
1. 200 Digital Scrapbook pages by Dec 31! I think I have 9 done already...woohoo I'm doing awesome on this goal! So far I've created 70 layouts, and it's only April
2. Project 365. Take a picture a day for 2009, I started a little late so I'm actually doing Project 360 hehe. Still going strong here also!

Personal Goals:
1. Lose the baby weight, get to 145 lbs before our Family Vacation (I think we are shooting for May) Not sure if we are doing the family vacation, but I still have about 7 more pounds left to lose
2. Read 10 books this year...almost a book a month, that shouldn't be to hard for me. Ok so I didn't think this one would be hard to accomplish but I haven't picked up a book yet...yikes! I better get on that.

I have a new goal to add here under personal goals
3. Run a 5k at the end of the summer. I started my training yesterday!

Taste of Summer

2009-04-22T16:41:00.001-07:00

There is a new kit out there in scrapbook land that I wanted to show everyone. It's called Taste of Summer by JayaPrem's Hangout. Here is a preview

And here are some fun layouts I created using her kit. The first one, Balloon Glow, I also used a template by ChrissyW over at Elementalscraps.com

Fun Weekend in Havasu

2009-04-20T21:29:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, April 16th James, Asher and I hoped in the motorhome with my dad and Kimmie and drove to Lake Havasu to spend the weekend there at my sister and Tate's house for her birthday. We got there late that night so we said our hellos and then our goodnights and went to bed. Of course, Asher being a home-body, did not do well sleeping while we away from home. He was up most of the drive there, which he should've slept through if he had stayed on his schedule. Then he was so excited to see everyone that it took me forever to get him to sleep, and he didn't sleep through the night and woke up VERY early! Friday we got up and Brannon had to drive halfway to Kingman to pick up Cailin from my mom's house. Then we wanted to go out on the lake but the boat needed some work so James and my dad got right on that. They managed to flood the bedroom we were sleeping in by working on the boat in the garage with the hose on. It was pretty funny, I laughed at least. So instead of going out on the boat we stayed at the house and watched movies, plus we went out to lunch. Brannon and Tate had this fun idea for watching a series of movies, each movie having an actor or actress from the movie before. We didn't get very far, just two movies. Then we went out to dinner for my sisters birthday, we had sushi!!!! YUMMMMMMMMMMMMY!

On Saturday we finally got out on the lake, it was great weather but the water was so cold that I didn't get in. Asher loved his first boat ride. He didn't cry at all. In fact he actually fell asleep on our way back to the dock, and the ride was pretty bumpy. It was pretty cute. After half a day on the lake we BBQ'd some hotdogs and after Brannon and Cailin got back from the movies we had birthday cake. While they were at the movie, James, Asher, Kimmie, dad and me went down to the London Bridge and walked around the water. It was a beautiful night. The weather was cool and there was a slight breeze, it was really wonderful and relaxing.

Sunday morning Asher decided to wake up at 5:40!!!! And he was up for the morning! So we packed up and headed home pretty early. I think we left Havasu around 9am. It was a long ride home because Asher was so sleepy and wouldn't lay down to take a nap. It was great to be home once we got here. Carolyn was kind enough to make dinner for all of us Sunday night. It was yummy too! Thanks Carolyn!

Some new stuff from Stacey...

2009-04-19T22:36:00.000-07:00

Gosh I am so behind. I have been working with tons of great new kits from Stacey over at Scrap That Idea. Some are freebies off her blog and some are new kits in her store.

Today she has a new kit called Serenity in her store, you can pick it up for only $3. (and if you use my coupon, you'll get 20% off!!)
Here is a layout I created using Serenity

Her new freebie for this week is called Circle of Life, its a great kit and you'll love it! But since it's not being released until tomorrow I better wait to post my layout for it. But you can get it off her blog here.

Last weeks freebie is called Comfort, I think if you hurry (before Circle of Life is posted) you can still get it for free, but if you miss it, you will be able to pick it up at her store for only $1!
Here are two layouts I created using her Comfort kit, I used it to scrap some Project 365 layouts.

And finally here are two others that she has in her store now...the first is Ivy League and the second is Doodle Me This. Both really great kits.

Jade

2009-04-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

Ok I just realized that I haven't posted anything on our blog yet about Jade, the newest member of our family, our granddaughter. I guess I'm not shaping up to be a very good grandmother (must be because I'm only 33 years old!!!) Well here are some great pictures, a layout and a cute little video that Jadeth just sent us.

Big Sale over at Brownie Scraps

2009-04-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone...

Just wanted to let everyone know that there is a big sale going on over at browniescraps.com tomorrow (Thursday 4/16). Make sure you go take a look.

Good times with friends

2009-04-11T21:51:00.001-07:00

Our good friends Brian and Jessie (and their girls) came to visit us for a day and a half. We wished we had better weather while they were here visiting but it was still good to have them here. The girls wanted to golf every minute that they could, but the paying customers didn't really like that idea so we only let them run around after the flags had been pulled. Friday night we put Asher to sleep, put a movie on for the girls and the adults played cards. Of course, we played Rummy, I think that's James' favorite game of all time. And according to James, I won, but I actually think he won, he had more points then me but I guess since I went out I got to 500 before him. Anyway, it was a lot of fun and we were sad to see them go this morning. But they had to get home and get ready for the Easter Bunny to visit. I hope everyone has a great Easter holiday tomorrow. I will, of course, have pictures of Asher's first Easter up soon for all to see. Until then...have a great holiday!

He's on the move now!

2009-04-09T11:48:00.001-07:00

Asher finally learned to crawl about two weeks ago, and now you can't stop him. He is climbing up steps already, finding all of daddy's office stuff and the cords to the TV. Here he is in action...

Scrap That Idea Coupon!!!

2009-04-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

Ok everyone out there in blogland...I have a special coupon for you! 20% off!!! And with the economy the way it is now who doesn't want to save some money??? Go to Scrap That Idea and shop, shop, shop and then enter the code (STI-RHONDA-5602) on the coupon to save 20% off of at least $3! Now its only a one time use coupon so make sure you get everything you want! Oh and it expires the end of April. And just look at some of these kits you can get there, they have the cutest stuff!!! I've also added a layout I've done with each of the kits. Now there are a ton more than I am showing you so make sure you go browse and buy!

Some layouts I had forgotten about...

2009-04-01T10:29:00.000-07:00

I guess I have been creating more layouts then I could keep track of. Some how these three got lost in the shuffle of things and I forgot to post them.

And here are the credits in case anyone wants to go and get these wonderful kits that I used.

Naptime: kit is Twinkle Twinkle Star Mouse by Bella Gypsy at Elementals Scraps.

Silly Little Man: kit is Down by the Lily Pad, it was a freebie on Mel's Blog, not sure if she still has it or not though

Sabelle: kit is Love and Friendship by Ramona at Brownie Scraps.

New Collab Kit at Scrapthatidea.com

2009-04-01T09:48:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, there is a great new collab kit over at scrapthatidea.com called Bollywood. Its got great color to it. Well here is a preview of it, tons of papers and elements and an alpha for only $4.00! Plus you'll find a 20% off coupon in the download to use for another purchase! What a deal!

And here is a layout I created with the kit. I sorta used a template from ChrissyW, but did some modifications of my own to it. But I got the main idea from one of her layouts.
The picture is of me, Bailey and Josten getting ready to set sail on our cruise to Mexico for Brannon and Tate's wedding celebration. What a fun little vacation that was. And I just love this picture of me and the boys. Doesn't it look like we are having fun...in the sun?? :) hehe