Living in Utah

This is the Bounce House that lives in my living room. It takes the place of the trampoline in the winter time, as you can see Sarah is tired of it (from it?)

The Tree House Museum, Ride 'em Cow Girls.

This was the lovely little break from winter that we had around Valentines day. We were living it up. Notice that Megan had removed her jacket. What happened?

Here we are exactly one week later, yup, we're dressed up to go build Snowmen.

Here they are again going stir crazy. We are too sick to go to church, too sick to go to the fun park, so we just sit at home. I hope we can kick this cold that we all have in the butt.

We are all so tired of winter. Tired of staying in. Tired of being sick. Hurry up spring!

The Holy Grail of Mac & Cheese

I saw this recipe in a magazine and thougt it looked delicious, so I made it. Oh my, it is freakin delicious. I was telling a friend about this recipe and when we couldn't fine the magazine, I thought I'd post it on my blog.

1 box (pound) macaroni (I used penne)

6 slices bacon (I use more)

1 TBSP unsalted butter

2 TBSP flour

2 cups 2% milk

1/2 tsp onion flakes

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

1/2 pound sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

1 cup (4oz) colby-jack cheese, shredded

1 cup (4oz) mozzarella cheese, shredded

8 slices KRAFT deli deluxe american cheese

1. Heat oven to 350, coat a 3 quart broiler safe pan with cooking spray.

bring a large pot of water to boil.

2. cook bacon in sauce pan until crisp. Place bacon on paper towels, carefully drain grease,

return 2 TBSP bacon grease to pan, add butter. Meanwhile cook noodles in boiling water 8 min, drain and return to pot.

3. Wisk flour into butter/drippings, until smooth. In a thin stream wisk in milk, add onion flakes, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil over med-high heat, then reduce and simmer 2 min. In a large bowl, mix colby-jack, ceddar, and mozzarella together.

4. Remove milk mixture from heat, wisk in american cheese and 1 1/4 cup of the the shredded cheese mix, toss bacon pieces with remaining shredded cheese.

5. In pasta pot, combine cooked pasta with cheese sauce. Pour half into prepared dish, sprinkle with half of cheese-bacon mix, repeat layers.

6. Bake 350 for 20 min, increase oven temp to broil and broil 3 min until top is lightly browned.

Make the whole recipe because the leftovers are just as good as the original meal. If you are wondering what to serve as a side dish, my suggestion is a bottle of LIPITOR.

Megan's Birthday

Happy Birthday Crepes!

Barbie Fashion Fairytale.

This has been an obsession since September when the movie came out.

Megan wanted nothing to do with "princess" for her birthday, When I

suggested a cake with a Tiara and Wand, she said , "no, its Fashion Fairytale."

Sarah loves cake, and she can eat with a spoon.

Megan and Irene celebrated their Birthdays together.

I love Hobby Lobby. Look at the cute paper

Did I mention that I love Hobby Lobby. (Did I metion that Wes

hates Hobby Lobby?) So I went to get an Eiffel Tower, and found

pink and black invitations, and it went out of control from there.

Megan asked all week when I was going to decorate for her birthday.

She was just anticipating the streemers, but she was thrilled.

Happy Birthday Megan!

You are such a sweet girl. She is mommy's big helper, and Daddy's best friend.

Here are some facts about her:

Favorite color: Purple

Favorite Princess: Snow White

Favorite Activity: Painting and Dancing

Favorite food: Chineese Low Mein (noodles)

When I grow up I want to be: A Barbie

Megan had a fun Birthday this year, we went to a Hotel with a superfun pool the weekend before. If only I remebered my camera. I am trying to get my celphone to up load pics.......

Christmas leftovers.

Aunt Heather gave Megan an Easy Bake oven for
christmas. She couldn't wait to test it out. So after 30
minutes of mixing and baking and $5 worth of EZ bake
mix, this is what you get. (2 cakes) mmmmmm.

I worked Christmas eve this year, sadly I missed

the evening celebrations, but I was home in time to

sneak a 3 hour nap, and be there for opening Santa
gifts. Dallan Irene and Val came in the morning and

Pam, Kerry, Jason, Heath, and Jenni came over later
for chilli and sweet rolls. Such of fun day.

Before I sneaked off to work Wes suprised me with

My Christmas gift. I have wanted one of these forever.
I had a laundry list of things that I "needed" and it has it
all. DVD player for the kids, Navigation, automatic lift gate.
seat warmers (front and back) and room for 7. I haven't

actually used the room for 7 yet, but I hope to have lots of

girls weekends, now that we all fit.

I really liked my tree this year. I had to totally reconfigure

the usuall christmas tree arrangement in the living room

to accomodate the sectional couch this year, and instead of

big bushy tree, I had to get a 9' slim tree, it was still cute.

I saw these guys in a magazine and thought it would be an easy
project for me and Meg. It involved dipping doughnut holes
in melted frosting, and using melted chocolate for buttons.
The more I look at them, they look like Jack Skellingtons,
The Nightmare Before Christmas. I never finished the Hats
(large marshmallows dipped in chocolate) and Scarves either

Fruit by the foot or bubble tape. Not such an easy project.

We celebrated New Years with our friends. We had a
deep fried turkey dinner, complete with brown sugar bacon
wrapped little smokies, the new party food staple at our house,
virgin strawberry margaritas and lots of chips and dip. We
danced our dinners off to Michael Jackson, and had a great

time. These two party animals kept it rocking past midnight.

Thought I'd post what happened over Christmas and Christmas break.

Merry Christmas!

Sarah's Birthday Photos

Finally I can end the monthly photography sessions. It is bittersweet to watch your children grow. Sarah didn't dig into this cake like I thought she would. There wasn't nearly enough frosting smearing going on. She just picked at the cake very daintily. That's just her personality.

Her One year old stats are:

Height 29 inches (45%)

Weight 18# (7%)

Head circ 46 cm (76%)

The big head comes from Wes.

Sarah is walking around. Her favorite game is SNAKE, that is where she gets a plastic snake, hisses and chases us around the house. Her vocabulary is mama, dada, dog, uh oh, ouch, that, and candy. She points to her head, arms, eyes, ears, nose (beeper), feet, hair, and bellybutton (giggle button).

Our Puppy Returns

This sweet little dog was lost for 11 days. The Saturday after Thanksgiving she was outside playing and chased after a kitty. About 6 pm we noticed she didn't come home for dinner. Wes began searching the fields around our house and driving all over Hyrum to find her. It is sad how you never know how much you love someone till she is gone. Wes continued this search for the next few days which included nagging all of the valley animal control officers and taking Mitch and Zeke (a Laborador and German Shepard) out to sniff her out, you would think that Mitch and Zeke being the type of dogs that are used in search and rescue missions would have some inborne instincsts but, they walked right past her. Well nearly a week later, after we had almost given up hope, Wes stopped by the Short Stop and bumped into his friend, Jason, who operates the pallet company near by. For whatever reason Tess heard either Wes' voice or his car and began barking. She continued this for over an hour, until Jason and the other workers began pulling logs off of the wood pile. As soon as she was free Tess took off for home, after eleven days of being trapped (she had tried to turn around in the wood pile and gotten stuck), she was back and we were delighted. She had a couple cuts that needed stitches, and besides being thirsty and considerably slimmer, she was just fine. We love you Tess and we appreciate everyone who prayed for her.