"Bread and Westley"

I'm still trying to catch up from the summer. It feels like I will never be back on track with this blog. Ah! I'm a little frustrated, can you tell?

Anyway...so after our fun in Utah we drove up to Idaho to spend some time with my side of the family. We stayed up at my Uncle Brad and Aunt Leslie's house which it's kind of weird to call them Aunt and Uncle since they're not much older then we are (Brad's my mom's youngest brother). E just called them "Bread and Westley" the whole time and I just cracked up every time he said it. He still asks to go back to "Bread and Westley's" house to see his cousins.


We had so much fun up there and the kids did too. There was so much room to just let the kids loose and enjoy the outdoors and play around. E totally loved driving around their motorize jeep, playing in the sand pit and making smores at night. I could kick myself for not breaking out the camera and taking pictures! There would have been plenty, but I guess I was just enjoying myself too much to bother.

The first night we were there Brad set up for Leslie and I to go to a photography class so we packed up our cameras and checked it out. Little did we know it was a presentation on "Macro Photography." Instead of learning how to take a cute picture of your child it was more about taking pictures of this... with about $10,000 worth of equipment that looked like this... So needless to say I will not be doing any Macro Photography anytime soon. Interesting, but not quite the photography that I will be doing in this stage of my life. After that we headed over to the local dairy for some free cake and ice cream to celebrate the dairy's win of "best ice cream." This was E's first experience (and I think Ry's too) of being on a dairy farm. I have to tell you the truth, a dairy smells, but that smell seriously brings back to some great memories from my childhood and feeding calves with my grandma.

The second day we were there we headed up to see my grandparents in Rigby. My grandpa took the boys out fishing at Rigby lake and my grandma was sweet enough to take Max for me so I could enjoy my time with grandpa and the boys. Max got his nap and was happy as a lark the whole time (at least that's what she told me).

E thought it was so funny for Grandpa to put a worm and a piece of corn on the hook. He's used to going fishing with Ry's dad and they fish with pieces of hot dog instead. It was a whole new realm of fishing for him. After the fishing the boys swam in the lake and then Grandma came with a wonderful spread for lunch. E's favorite part of the day was hopping into the back of the pick up truck and riding around the lake. He thought that was so cool!

Sunday we had church and then we drove up to Rexburg to go see the new temple up there. So amazing! And it's even more amazing how much things have grown there! We came back and had dinner at Uncle Bryan and Aunt Jana's house and the whole family came. It was so nice to see everyone and I got to meet a few new cousin in laws that have come into the family recently. I'm the oldest grandchild on my mom's side of the family so it's so crazy to see how everyone has grown up and all the kids that I used to baby-sit are now in high school! Crazy!

We had such a great time in Idaho, it was kind of hard to leave! I had so much fun spending time with Leslie!!! I wish she lived closer! I seriously felt like I was her sister while I was there, too much fun!

A Game to Remember!

We knew that BYU was coming down to play OU for quite awhile now and tickets were so darn expensive. Ry and I both said we weren't going to pay that much to see a blowout so we opted to get some game snacks and watch it in HD at home. Well, about 2 1/2 hours before kick off, Ry's uncle let us know that he had 2 tickets if we wanted to come. We were both getting really excited, but we had to find a baby-sitter so until then, we weren't going anywhere. I couldn't believe it, but we got our first choice, the Hansens. Hallelujiah!!! So Ry went to pick them up and I ran around the house to get ready to go. Well, we got everyone settled and headed out for the game and got really really lucky...again...no traffic, pretty cheap parking, and an awesome game with our family!

Okay, do you see the sea of red? It was insane! I think they said the total attendance was over 77,000 and about 55,000 were OU fans. I was a little worried after the game what the OU fans would do as we all walked out in our blue, but I was surprised that they were actually pretty nice about it.

The new Cowboys stadium is ridiculous! The big screen is seriously the biggest TV I have seen in my life, you could totally watch everything from the back of the parking lot. The whole stadium is huge and incredibly loud, it was so much fun! Here I am with my sister-in-law, Teana. I just love her!!!

Here's we are after the game. We look uber excited, haha. The OU fans started clearing out of there 1 minute before the game was over and we were barely out of our seats and check out how quick they cleared out of there.

Well, after the game I got to meet up with one of my friends from freshman year, Shelly!!! We lived on the same floor back at good ol' Helaman Halls and had some great times! Kind of crazy, but we're related since I married Ryan. Ryan and Shelly are second cousins I think, not sure, you get the point.

So anyway, awesome experience, awesome game! Took me back to the college days!

Our Little Casanova

This was quite the event at Jessica's wedding. I still laugh about it when I see the pictures. So E totally wanted to wear Parker's suit jacket so he asked Parker if he could put it on and Parker obliged.


Little did we know that when he put on this jacket it would have the "Frosty the Snowman" effect on him. He came down the stairs and grabbed my cousin Morgan and started to dance with her.


He was breaking out all sorts of spin moves and shaking his little hips. Thankfully Morgan was a good sport about the whole thing and let him lead. We were all seriously laughing so hard while this was going on and snapping pictures. Well, it didn't end there. He grabbed Morgan by the hand and took her outside to dance with him in the gazebo. I was immediately thinking this totally resembled the Prom scene from Twilight, haha.


Where does my child think up these things? It was seriously too cute! Oh, and check out the girl off to the side the picture. I think she wanted to cut in and have a little dance with E too.

Jessica and Robbie's Wedding

It's over a month late, but better late then never, right? Back in July when we were out in Utah, we were able to attend my cousin, Jessica's wedding. It was so great to be able to see all my family! I haven't seen my cousins for at least a year and half so I've totally missed out! Everyone has grown up, I must be getting old. Here is a picture of my cousin, Parker. Talk about a crack up! He was Jessica's "Secret Service" for the wedding. His job was to secure the door and any wedding presents. This is him outside the temple guarding the door before they came out.

The new couple!!! Ry and I were wondering if we looked this young when we got married. A lot can happen in 6 years I guess as you can see.


After the temple we went back to Amy's to pick up the kids and took them up to the luncheon and reception. Jess' colors were black and green and it looked so classy! I loved it! Here's a look at her cake.

The reception was at the Chantilly Mansion in Layton. Luckily there was plenty of entertainment for a little 3 year old there inside and outside. My cousins Parker and Stockton were so sweet to take him around and play with him. Parker needed a side kick for the "policing" that he was doing so E was the man for the job.

We were able to snag a few family photos while we were there too. I've needed to update all my pictures in my house since we've added Max to our little family.

Jess had all sorts of glass jars with assorted candies in them for the guests at the reception so E had his eye on those the whole time. He would walk by and usually an adult would see his little puppy dog eyes and give him a scoop in his hand and he'd be off on his merry little way until he ran out and kept doing it over and over again. Needless to say there was a sugar crash on the way home.

Who Can Resist?

Just look at that face! Isn't that just about the most precious thing you have ever seen! Max is just so darn cute! I can't believe how fast he's grown! Max will be 11 months this Saturday, only one more month until he's 1!

He's crawling up a storm and beginning to attempt a few steps on his own, but he's a lot more comfortable getting around by crawling. Boy, is he fast too! I really enjoy having our single story house that has been baby proofed during this stage of babyhood. I'm able shut all the doors that I don't want him going into and then he can crawl just about anywhere he wants so he can explore and play. I also enjoy having E as his big brother since he entertains him so well. There's only so much peek a boo that I can do, but for a 3 year old it never gets old. E is so good to Max.
Don't get me wrong, they have their moments but for the most part they love playing with each other. I just get a huge kick out of hearing them laugh together and I'm looking forward to more as they get older. Don't you love the the rug burn that E gave himself on his head? While E was in time out one day he decided to put his head on the carpet and then try to go across the room like that. He came out with a lovely rug burn that scabbed over and looked great in all the family pictures at my cousin's wedding. Gotta love it!

All In a Day's Work

I have to interrupt all the vacationing posts so I can post about my recent couponing success story. Yesterday, for one day only, our Kroger was doubling all coupons up to a dollar. That means a $1 coupon became a $2 coupon! Yes, it happened to fall on my brother's wedding day. Yes, I still went couponing. Yes, I have an addiction to couponing. I know, I know. Anyway...I was up at in Kroger's parking lot by 6am with all the other crazy coupon ladies. I had my coupons all organized, I planned out the whole trip, and I was off to the races. Sorry, I don't have any pictures of what I got since we were in a rush, but I do have a picture with my ginormous receipt! It's almost as tall as I am! Are you ready for the results? My total before coupons was $283.08. I saved $51.43 with my Kroger card, 91.48 in manufacturer coupons, and then 68.11 in bonus coupons (the doubled coupons). My grand total out of pocket was 72.06 and my total savings was $211.02! That is a savings of 74%!!!! I was in coupon heaven! I thought it was so funny to be there so stinkin' early in the morning with all these ladies running through the store with their binders and envelopes in hand. It also cracked me up to see some ladies eyeing what other people had in their carts and then rummaging through their coupons to see if they had missed something. You have to know the coupon culture to appreciate the humor. Anyway, very productive couponing day to say the least. Oh and as a side note. I checked my CVS receipt the other day and it tells you everything you've spent and saved for the year and my eyes nearly bulged out of my head when I saw the numbers. I have spent $120.16 since I started couponing at CVS and I have saved $1286.93 and I only started doing this in March!!! I'm getting to the point now that I don't even shop anymore since I have just about everything that I need and then some so I only get something if it's free and sometimes I even pass those up since I just don't have a place for it. I seriously don't think my family will run out of toothpaste or deodorant for at least 3 years. I'm not even kidding.

Family Vacation 2009 Part 1

We're back! I've finally gotten the pictures uploaded to the computer so now I can post all about our trip. We left way back in the middle of July and drove the 19 hour drive to Utah. My plan was to drive the first day to Wyoming, spend the night, and then drive the rest the next day. Ry had a better plan. Our van has the back seats that fold down into the floor so he arranged our suitcases in a way that we could lay all our pillows and blankets on top so someone could sleep back there. So we alternated sleeping back there and ended up driving straight through the night. We left 5 pm on Friday and got to Amy's by noon on Saturday! It's really the way to do it with little kids since they sleep most of the time and I loved being able just listen to my music and not have screaming. The kids did really well when they were awake since we had toys, snacks, songs, and movies to keep them occupied.

We started our vacation by staying at Amy's house and the kids just had a total blast there. We had Cafe Rio, went bowling, read stories, jumped on the trampoline, got in Blue's dog dish, played rock band, shopped, went to BYU, and had tons of fun. E and Max loved playing with their cousins!


I thought these pictures were so cute! Max and Chloe would always sit up in their high chairs and watch everybody in the kitchen. One night when we were cooking enchiladas they were sitting up there and it looked like they were sitting up at a "Baby Benihanas" and we were their dinnertime entertainment. Aren't they so cute?


Max and Chloe were like two peas in a pod this trip. They had so much fun crawling around and following each other. They just played and played all day and Max loved it!

More vacation to come...

Funny Eism

We just got back from a 2 week trip to Utah/Idaho so there is plenty of stories and pictures to share, but that will take quite a while to do. Until then, here is something funny E said today.

E was in the van with these really big headphones that came with our van for the DVD player. He thinks that whenever he has those on that you can't hear him talking. So he had the headphones on and this is what he said:

"Jesus! Jesus! Heavenly Father! You have a customer down here! His name is Ethan John!"

Then he lowered his voice to pretend like he was Heavenly Father and said..."Oh, Ethan John? He's a good boy, I really like him"

I started CRACKING UP! A customer down here??! Where does he come up with these things?!

Cherry Icee

I took the boys to Target yesterday and let E get an Icee. By the time I got home, Max was totally asleep in his car seat so I decided to unload the car while he was still sleeping. By the time I got around to the other side of the van, I hear E say, "don't come over here." Which means that E did something wrong and will probably be in big trouble. I take one look at Max and find out why. E had blown cherry icee all over his sleeping brother's face! I had to take Max in, wake him up, and wipe him down (his least favorite thing ever). I wiped and wiped and the stupid stuff does not come off. Max seriously looks like he has leprosy! There are little red dots and splotches all over his face and it doesn't matter what I do, they're permanently on his head! I don't think "How to get cherry icee stain off your child's forehead" is in the "Mother Handbook."

Blast from the Past

It's amazing how in the past 2 months I have reconnected and visited several very dear friends and from very different times in my life. It was only fitting that one of my best friends from high school called me up and let me know that she would be in DALLAS!!! I was so excited! I haven't seen her since the summer after we graduated which is 8 year ago!!! Now I have to do a little background so you can know and love Liz just as much as I do. We all ran around as a trio: me, Liz, and Tiff. We were all on Student Council together, Liz was the executive board president, Tiff was Senior Class President, and I was Senior Class Treasurer. Always good times planning and attending school events and so many memories like pool club, mountain dew slushies, Liz being Winter Coronation queen, football games, midnight madness, Queen Bee, Spanish Class with Senora Teen, stuco meetings in Mr. English's room, all the plays, dances. I could go on and on. Anyway...Here are some fun pictures of us. This first picture was Homecoming when we decided to all go together since we were all dating guys away at college at the time. We went together and picked out matching outfits and had a great time.

This next picture is all of us ready for Prom. Our school colors were Black and Gold so it's kind of funny that we ended up wearing our school colors. Don't worry, we actually took dates to this dance. Tiff arranged for an 18 passenger van for a bunch of us to go together. Her dad drove us all there and he even wore one of those tuxedo t-shirts, hilarious!

This was graduation night June 2001. Such a great night and a great summer that year! I couldn't have asked for better friends!!! Then we were all off to different colleges, Liz went to Luther and is now a teacher, Tiff went to BGSU and is also a teacher, and I went off to BYU and I'm a nurse.

Anyway...back to our visit. I only got to spend the morning with Liz, but it was so much fun! I have to say that there was an empty place since Tiff wasn't there. I miss you TIFF!!!! I picked Liz up and brought her back the house so she could hang out with me and the boys. E just LOVED her! He was so excited to meet her and then the fact that she brought him presents was just icing on the cake. She brought him these awesome chocolate rocks that E thought were the coolest things ever and also a dinosaur cookie mix. He has been begging me to make them.



It was way too short and I was so sad to see her go, but we're already planning on meeting up again when she comes back in January or next summer. Her husband just graduate from Michigan and they're in the midst of job hunting so I'm hoping they move to Dallas! I would love to have her close by and I would love even more if she could be E's teacher! Now wouldn't that be amazing! Liz, I had so much fun! Let's plan a girls reunion really soon!

Cake Truffles

We have a mother/daughter activity coming up this Saturday so I've been busy pulling stuff together to get ready. I decided to make little treat bags for everyone to take home with some cute little homemade truffles. I think they're super cute! Here's the recipe for both kinds:


Cake Truffles
1 cake mix (and additional ingredients to make the cake)
1 can of frosting
Bake the cake as directed and let cool. In a largo bowl, break cake up into a fine crumbs. Add the can of frosting and mix up until combined and it holds together. Refrigerate (I put it in for about 1 hour, but it can be in there covered for up to 3 days). Roll into balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Dip in chocolate. Decorate as you wish.


Oreo Truffles
1 bag oreos
1 pkg cream cheese softened
Put oreos in cuisinart and crunch to a fine crumb. Dump into a bowl. Put cream cheese in cuisinart and add 3/4 of oreos and pulse together until combined. Add more oreos as needed, but keep some aside for decoration. Roll into balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Dip in chocolate.

For the cake truffles I made a white cake mix and put a little bit of red food coloring in it to make it pink. Then I dipped it in chocolate and sprinkled pink chocolate on the top. So now when you bit into the truffle it's pink inside. The oreo truffles are dipped in pink chocolate and have oreo bits on top. I tried one and they are super good. All the leftovers will have to go to my friends or else I will consume them all!

Posts to Come

I have a lot of posts to go so here is a little preview for this week...
-drugstore deals
-blast from the past
-4th of July (anyone from the family please send me pictures)
-run on
-9 months
-one liners

Drugstore Deals

This was from last week, but I had to share. I don't have time tonight to go through the breakdown of it all, but here's a little look at what I got and how much I paid. I ended up breaking it down into 2 transaction and my grand total out of pocket was...$1.76. I now have $11 in Extra Care Bucks to use this week and I still money on my CVS gift card. Somehow I forgot to use my gift card instead of my cash, but still $1.76 isn't all that bad.

Sewing Project

Despite all the sewing talent that might come from my family, I am a complete novice when it comes to anything with a sewing machine. I see all these blogs and etsy shops with all this crazy sewing creativity and I just sit there and wonder how the heck do they do it! Well, my mother-in-law found a super cute pillowcase project that she could teach me to do so we could make the boys some travel pillows for our trip to family reunion in Utah.

Okay, so seriously, I totally don't know a thing about sewing so Cheryl was patient enough to get me through and my pillowcase turned out to be an actual pillowcase! I couldn't believe it and it wasn't too hard. E had to see every little thing that came out of G'ma's bag and what each instrument did. He especially loved the magnetic pin holder. E even figured out how to run the sewing machine and wanted to "drive" it so G'ma let him take it for a spin a couple times.

So here are the finished products. E's is the red one with the horses and Max's is the one with the Sheriff badges. Super cute!
We're going to have horse back riding available to us at reunion so G'ma wanted to get E excited to go ride some horses with her. She brought some really fun pictures and told him all about her favorite horse, Gala. E loves his little pillow and believe it or not, Max loves his too. I have no idea why my kids have an affinity for pillows and blankets. E has an entourage of 5 blankets and 2 pillows that he takes to any room that he's playing in. At least my little cowboys will each have a little pillow for the car ride to Utah.

Blackberry Picking

We had our 3rd annual blackberry picking day! I was looking back at pictures from our previous visits and I can't believe how little E was! Here's a look at our first time there. And this is E now. I couldn't believe how many people were there this year! I got there right at 7am on Saturday and they were all picked by 7:15 am! The whole field was full of cars so I had to park all the way at the end, but nevertheless, we went picking. It was really great to have E there to pick all the ripe berries at his eye level. He was finding them left and right. Had he not been there, I don't think I would have picked as many as I did. I had Max in the stroller picking them off the bush and putting them right in his mouth. Oh my, he was a mess! There were a few people asking me if they could take his picture since he was quite a site to see. I feel bad that we didn't make anything with our fresh blackberries this year. E kept asking to make jam. He was asking me if we "had all the ingredients" so we could "make our recipe" when we got home. I made so much freezer jam this Spring that I didn't have anymore room for it so we just ended up flash freezing all the berries and we've been enjoying them ever since. Can't wait for next year!

Slip-n-Slide

Okay, it's time to catch up. No more tip toeing around it. I'm just going to sit here until it gets done so prepare yourself for an all nighter. The other day I received this little freebie in the mail from a mail in rebate from some batteries. You see all those fun little offers on the packages, but does anyone really take the time to do it? I do. My friends at book club were laughing about this the other day when the package of Twizzlers had an offer for a Twizzlers pool noodle on it. They were wondering when they'd see me at the pool with it. Haha, guys.

We did some yard work a couple weekends ago and E was being such a great helper so we helped him set up the slip-n-slide and we all took a turn to cool off. E LOVED it! He couldn't quite get to the end by himself, but with a little help from Daddy he could make it. Max loved just watching E from his exersaucer. Max loved the little sprinkler parts and we let him play in those for awhile.
What a happy boy! I totally had flash backs to being a kid with our slip-n-slide. It was big a yellow and so much fun. Our friends even put a couple of tarps down to extend down the hill. Now that is fun!

As you can tell from the first picture, the garden is doing great this year. I'm growing tomoatoes, rosemary, basil, jalapenos, dill, and cilantro. The cilantro has come and gone and it was great this year. Everything else is ripening as we speak. Great stuff this year!