Merry Christmas

We spent the weekend before Christmas in Wyoming visiting our families, and having a mini family reunion with my family. We had an adventure getting there. On Thursday evening we hit a BIG storm in Evanston with white-out and blizzardy conditons. We also learned that the mountain pass to get to Lander was closed, so we had to take the LONG way around. Our 5 hour trip ended up becoming a 9 hour trip. We feel so lucky to have made it safely, even though I was white knuckiling it most of the way. We had a good time visiting our families even though it was too short. It has been a few years since my family has had the chance to all get together.

We had a very quiet Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We opened new Jammies on Christmas eve and watched "The Christmas Story" Lucky we didn't have a reenactment with Ian's new treasured BB gun!



Mogan is eyeballing the presents under the tree!

Morgan's LOVING her new baby doll!

Frontyard Sledding!!

So much to get done this month so little time left for blogging. Sorry to my dedicated readers for being a slacker. I've also had problems loading pictures on my blog. It ONLY took me about 20 tries to get this one picture uploaded. So FRUSTRATING!!!!




Last Saturday we received a GOOD amount of snow. Jeff and Ian decided to make a sled run in the front and back yard. They spent hours outside packing down the snow, testing the run and then spraying it with colored water to make it even faster. The sled run in the front yard is about 150' long and includes a jump. It continues to wind its way down toward the sidewalk and crosses the driveway behind our car and ends in a snowbank on the far side of the driveway.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a terrific Thanksgiving weekend, even though it was a normal work week for Jeff. Jeff goes into work very early (4 am) so he's usually home by 1 pm. We celebrated Thanksgiving at Jeff's brothers house. We had a great time visiting with his family and ended the evening watching Spiderman 3 in the theatre room. On Friday, Ian and I decorated a gingerbread house. I was going to make it from scratch, but when I went to the store to get the ingredients and candy, I saw a pre-made one in a box ready to assemble, so rather than spending hours making it, it only took us about an hour from start to finish. On Saturday we didn't do a whole lot, in fact we all felt like buckets most of the day watching the BYU-Utah game. Jeff and Ian were VERY happy BYU won, I of course was too, but I don't get into football like they do. I am so grateful for my family and everything that we have. I love this time of year when we can reflect on everything that we have been given to be Thankful for. I'm looking forward to Christmas and having the opportunity to spend time with my family.

Ian's masterpiece!!!

A Thanksgiving letter from Ian

Ian came home from school today with a Letter titled "Two Thankful Turkeys". It was the sweetest letter I've received from Ian. He is so thoughtful and such a sweet boy (most of the time) This is what it said:

Dear Mom,

Mom Thank you for loving me. Mom, thank you for helping me in my life. Thank you for my birthday presents. I love you Mom. Thank you for having my sister. Thank you for helping me do the right thing. Thanks for everything.

Your Kid

From Ian

It's definitely payday when your child brings home cute letters like this from school! SO SWEET!!!

Double Layer Pumpkin Pie

I thought it would be fun to start doing a recipe on my blog since I like to bake so much. I'm going to try and do it weekly, but I'm not making any promises. I haven't tried the recipe that I'm going to start with but I saw it my Kraft Food magazine that I get a few times a year and thought it look delicious!!! I'm really not a fan of just plain pumpkin pie, but anythying with cream cheese has to be good.

Prep: 20 Min - Total 4 hours 20 min (includes refrigerating time)

4 oz cream cheese, softened
1 T milk
1 T sugar
1 tub - 8 oz Cool Whip
1 Honey Miad Graham Pie Crust ( 6 oz) - or you can make your own
1 cup milk
1 can - 15 oz pumpkin
2 pkg - 4 serving size each Jell-O vanilla flavor instant Pudding and Pie filling
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloved

Mix cream cheese, 1 T milk and the sugar in large bowl with wire whisk until well blended. Gently stir in half of the whipped topping. Spread onto bottom of crust.

Pour 1 cup milk into large bowl. Add pumpkin, dry pudding mixes and spices. Beat with wire wisk 2 min. or until well blended - mixture will be thick. Spread over cream cheese layer

Refrigerate 4 hours or until set. Top with remaining whipped topping just before serving. Store in refrigerator

Makes 10 servings

Calories 300, Fat 13g, Chol 15mg, Sodium 240mg, Carbs 42g, Fiber 1g, Sugars 20g, Protein 3g

My Dreaded Treadmill!!!

My poor treadmill stands so lonely in our family room collecting dust. Every time I walk by it, I feel so guilty for not utilizing it like I should. I know it's calling out my name begging for some attention, and I know it's telling me that 2 times a week isn't nearly enough attention. Why or Why is it so hard to give that piece of equipment some desperately needed attention. Maybe it's because Morgan has been sick and very fussy and just wants to be held all day. Maybe it's because I have ripe bananas that need to be used to make banana bread. Maybe it's because the dishwasher needs unloaded and re-loaded, the carpets need vacuumed, the bathrooms need cleaned, the beds need made, the laundry that's been sitting in baskets for 2 days needs folded, bills that need paid, visiting teaching that needs to get done, organizing my desk and so much more. I am more and more amazed at women who seem to have it all together. I want to be more together, more organized, less stressed about cleaning my house and take more time to play with my kids. It's all a balancing act, and sometimes I feel like I'm tipping off to one side or even upside down most of the time. I know I only have 2 children, and those of you with more children are probably thinking "She's got it easy, she only has 2". I know it's my fault that I'm so unorganized and not good at keeping a schedule, but some days isn't it so nice just to say "schedule schmedule, I don't want to do anything today, but just stay in my P.J.'s all day, hold my baby, and watch Oprah"!!! Someday...maybe I'll have it all together like my idol June Cleaver, but for now, I'll enjoy my kids while they still like me and work on that another day!!!!

Sickies Sickies!!!!

Both of the kids have been sick since Wednesday. It started with Morgan having diarreah, And Ian tossing his cookies in the middle of the night on Thursday. I woke up to "Splat, Splat". I literally JUMPED out of bed to see what it was, Needless to say I don't think I'll ever be able to eat Chicken soup with wild rice again. They are slowly getting better, but poor Morgan's bum has a bad rash. I can't count how many times I changed her clothes and diaper yesterday. Both Jeff and I started to feel bad too, but it quickly passed. In the back of my head I'm thinking that Morgan got sick from one of my cub scouts on Tuesday that couldn't keep his hands off her. No better way to build a child's immune system, bring them to my cub scout den!

Halloween Pics

O.K. I can't take credit for this cool slide show idea. I stole it from my sister-in-laws blog. Great idea Jess! Thanks!

Happy Halloween

Carving Pumpkins

A Pirate Skeleton (Ian's) and PacMan (Jeff's/Morgan's)

Ian's Halloween Parade at School

Morgan was such a good sport in her Winnie the Poo Bumble Bee Costume

My Mom found Morgan's costume at a thrift shop for $5! She looked so adorable in it!

We had a great time last night! We had our ward trunk-or-treat. Jeff set up his mini haunted house, and it was definitely the hit of the party! I tried to take a couple pictures of it, but they turned out too dark. Ian insisted that he doesn't get nearly enough candy at the trunk-or-treat and that we go out and do "regular" trick-or-treating. I promised him that if he was good that we'd go to a few houses on our way home. He was so excited and very appreciative that I let him do that.

She Slept through the night!!!!!!!

Yes, that's right. Morgan slept through the WHOLE night last night. She slept from 8:30 p.m. - 8:00 a.m. YIPEE!!!! I'm just hoping and praying that this will last. I woke up at 5:30 this morning and was so suprised that she was still asleep, so I went and checked on her, and sure enough she was still ZONKED. I got up to get Ian off to school at 7:30 and she was still out. After she woke up she was only up for an hour and then down for a good nap at 9:30. I had to wake her up to take Ian his lunch that he had forgotten on the kitchen counter. She must be going through a growth spurt. Gotta love those growth spurts!!!!!

My Class!!!!

About a month ago I had book club at my house. I made some yummy treats, and everyone oooed and awwed over them. Well...I opened up my big mouth and started talking about how much I enjoy entertaining and preparing food especially holiday food. I even blurted out that I WOULD LOVE to teach a class on holiday goodies, without realizing that a member of the R.S. was sitting right there. That Sunday morning I got a call from the Enrichment leader asking if I would be willing to do a class on holiday foods in October. I of course said "SURE, I'D LOOOOOOVE TO." So, I started planning what I was going to demo, I had so many things that I wanted to do, but with only an hour of class time I really had to narrow it down. So, I made my shopping lists, recipe handout and list of to do's. I was getting really excited to be in my kitchen all day prepping and preparing for my class. I started with my cinnamon popcorn, I had to do this ahead of time because it would have taken too long at class. Then, I made my pumpkin bites. I was SO excited to have the aroma of pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves roaming through my house all day. Then I made my cream cheese icing for my pumpkin bites. I crused up Nilla wafers for my chocolate candy balls, I premeasured my brown sugar and cinnamon for my pumpkin dip, and went back to to store to buy Nutter Butters for my ghost cookies. In the middle of my mayhem I had scouts. I came home after scouts, cleaned up my kitchen and went through my list to make sure I had everything. At 6:30 I left for the church and hauled all everything in and set up for my class. I really did have a fun time teaching the class, and by 8:30 I was hauling things from the church to my car and then from the car to the house. It reminded me of my days selling pampered chef, and how much I hated the hauling in and out of the car and the clean-up. By the time I got home and unloaded the car I just wanted to crawl into bed, but I didn't want to wake up to a huge mess, so I unloaded the dishwasher, loaded it back up. I did leave some dirty dishes in the sink. I was so happy that I didn't have to wake up to a mess.

WHAT A MESS!!!

Still not very clean but at least the majority is finished!!!

Reminiscing

So happy after my morning nap!

"Mom, that flash is a little bright"

My baby girl is growing way to fast. I was just commenting the other day with my sister that it seems like she literally grew overnight. She went from this tiny newborn to a 16 pound 5 month old. I'm learning to enjoy every single minute of her because I know that when I wake up tomorrow she'll have grown and changed again.

Sunday Evening Walk

After being couped up in the house all day Saturday and Sunday watching General Conference, we decided it was time to take a Sunday evening walk. Morgan LOVES her stroller!!!

Finding her voice

I Love it when babies find their voices, however, Morgans voice is not the normal baby squeely voice, it's kind of raspy. I'm not sure why, but I have two theories. When she was born she asphyxiated a lot of fluid because she was born breech. The nurses had to work on getting all the fluid cleared out of her lungs, well, in the process I think they may have damaged her vocal cords. My theory #2 is that between 2-4 months she CRIED a lot and got hoarse. It's so cute to hear her coo, and squeal with her baby raspy voice.

I can't get enough of this little girl....I just want to eat her up, and I do constantly. She loves having her tummy kissed and her neck. Jeff swears that all moms are cannibals. How can you not want to just eat her up?

GO COUGARS!!!!!

Every Saturday from now until the end of college football season, my house is filled with the football loud TV noise that DRIVES ME CRAZY, I hate the TV loud in the first place, but listening to football makes it even worse!!! I've tried to get into watching, and sometimes I do (depending on my mood), but for the most part I tend to stay away as much as I can. I saw a girl today in our ward and she was wearing a PINK BYU hat, I thought to myself, I've really got to get one of those for Morgan and I!

Bath Time

Morgan had her first bath sitting up in the bathtub last night. She's getting a little too big for her infant tub that sits on the counter, so I put her in her bathtub seat! She was hesitant at first but absolutly loved it, and really loved putting the toys in her mouth! She loved watching the water come out of the faucet, and having water poured on her head!

Pinewood Derby

Ian had his first Cub Scout pinewood derby on August 28th. He and Jeff had a great time designing the car. Ian won an award for "most creative car" and was pretty proud of himself. He's looking forward to next years pinewood derby and already has some terrific ideas.

5K

I walked the Wasatch Woman Magazine 5K run/walk on Saturday September 15th. My mom came down and walked (of course she beat me...man, she walks fast!) I pushed Morgan in the stroller and she slept until about mile 2. She woke up and was happy as a clam to be outside walking. The walk was at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, Utah. We walked through the beautiful gardens, but it was hard to take the time to enjoy them while doing a race. Ian met me at the 3 mile mark and finished the race with me.

Little Giggles

I love baby giggles, but I can't seem to get Morgan to giggle for me very well. Today while driving to Salt Lake to see my sister, Ian was talking non-stop and Morgan was in her car seat giggling away. She will giggle at Ian whenever he talks to her and put on her cheesiest biggest smile ever. We went out to dinner tonight and she did it even more on the way, and since I can't see her, I'm very bummed that she will giggle for Ian (without even trying to get her to). We get to the restaurant and have to wait a while, so I try to get Ian to make her giggle again like she did in the car, but he decides that he's to "macho" to do that in front of a bunch of people. I sure hope that I can get her to laugh and giggle for me soon like she does for her big brother.

Life in West Jordan

Life in West Jordan Utah is just fine and dandy! We have been living here for a little over a year, and we feel like we can finally call this home. Our biggest change this year was the birth of our sweet baby girl Morgan Elizabeth on May 2nd. She is truly a very BIG blessing to us. She is growing and changing by leaps and bounds. She looks a lot like Ian did as a baby. Morgan adores her big brother, Ian. She turns her head in his direction whenever she hears him talking. We recently warned him that in about a year (or less) she will be following him all over and getting into his "things".

Blogging

I'm going to attempt this blogging thing! My sisters-in-law have got me in the mood to try my own. Since Morgan is growing and changing so fast, I thought that this would be the easiest way to share photos and her latest devolopments.