Collection

For Cub Scouts, Ryan needs to have a collection. It can be of anything. Since he started playing guitar this summer, he decided to start collecting guitar picks. Aaron works with Shauna, the mother of the lead guitarist for Maroon 5, James Valentine, and I mentioned how it would be so cool if we could get James to sign a pick to put in Ryan's collection. I mentioned it over Thanksgiving break and Aaron was like, Shoot, you should have mentioned it sooner cause he is home for Thanksgiving and won't be back again for a while. But he mentioned the idea to Shauna anyway after the break. Well it turned out that he came back in town again right before Christmas and he was thrilled to sign the picks for Ryan and they also gave us a copy of the latest CD (autographed) and an autographed photo of the band. It was so nice of them to take the time to do that for Ryan. It was his favorite gift that he got for Christmas and helped complete his collection. After Christmas he asked his guitar teacher to teach him how to play Won't go Home Without You and he uses his special pick to play that song only--like he's channeling James Valentine or something. It is too cute.




This was a really special gift to Ryan and to us. We were so glad that the Valentines were willing to add this special piece to Ryan's collection.

• Won't Go Home Without You by Maroon 5

More Maroon 5 music on iLike

Birthday Week-end

We had a great little week-end celebrating Aaron and Tessa's birthdays. We kept it pretty low key since Aaron was gone all week, but still had a lovely time. Aaron came home from his conference with 2 new games--Word on the Street and Cosmic Cows. We had a great time hanging out and playing them together. Aaron is planning on coaching Ada's softball team again this year and wanted some gear to help him with coaching so we got him a few things in that realm.



Tessa got to go to a BYU Women's Basketball game with her Daddy today. She got some fun presents and we FINALLY hung her canopy--I'll have to post photos of that later. It was Ryan's idea. She got the canopy for Christmas and it still hadn't been put up. He thought it would be so fun to hang it up while she was at the game. When she got home, she went in her room and gave a shriek of delight and came running back upstairs to give me and Ryan big HUGS! I had a lot of fun making her monkey cake. I thought I was making death by chocolate cake but turns out I made it with a brownie mix instead of cake! oops! It still turned out really well. She will be going to Build-a-Bear next week. I am pretty sure she wants to make a Monkey! Whodaguessed?

My Baby is SEVEN!

When did that happen? I can't believe how quickly Tessa has grown up. It seems like yesterday I had a houseful of babies and now they're growing so fast! Tessa has such a great personality. She is so loving and fun. She is always good for hugs and kisses and she is constantly drawing pictures and making love notes for everyone. More than anything she wants to take ballet classes right now--(I better figure out a way to make that work soon :) ) She still loves monkeys and her favorite color is brown. Her favorite food is homemade Chicken Pot Pie (which she gets for dinner tonight!) I love my sweet little Tessa and am so glad she is a part of our family.

This week we picked out a bunch of photos for Tessa's Superstar poster at school. I thought I'd share some with you.

We always take pictures when we pick cherries. I think this one is sweet:

Tessa, Mischievous? No.....

I love this photo. We went to California for a Family Reunion several years ago. We went to the beach while there and Tessa wrapped herself up in everybody's towels.


Such a little princess:


We love visiting the Gardens at Thanksgiving Point:

With her big Sisters:

How Do I Love Thee?

Today is my Sweetheart's Birthday. I am so blessed and lucky to have him in my life! He is a great husband and father. He is pretty much easy going and easy to be around. He talks me down when I'm ready to lose it and can make me smile when I really don't want to. He is personable and can set others at ease. I went to the eye doctor's office to pick up his contacts a few weeks ago and the staff went on and on about how nice my husband was. They said I trained him well. I wish I could take credit, but he came to me that way. He really is wonderful and amazing and I can't wait to see him tonight as he has been out of town the last few days!
I LOVE YOU AARON! Happy Birthday!

Valentine's Gifts

This year we decided to give the kids books for Valentine's Day. It was so much fun choosing out books we thought the kids would enjoy. Nathan has been looking for a new series to read so we got him the first three books in The Ranger's Apprentice series, Kielle got book 5 in the 39 Clues Series, Ada has been dying to read Calamity Jack, Ryan loves The Magic Tree House so we got him a new one in that series and Tessa got the much anticipated Fairy Haven and the Quest for the Wand. I'm excited to get to read these books with them!

The extra fun thing is that the illustrator of Rapunzel's Revenge and Calamity Jack created an avatar of Ada as Rapunzel. We were able to receive one thanks to a promo he did during launch week of the book. We turned it into stickers for her. It is super cool and I knew she'd love it because she loves these books so much. She recognized that it was Rapunzel right away, and then after a second look realized it was her! Lovin' it!

I love my kids and my husband we spent a great day together. I made them Beef Stroganoff for Dinner with Gouda covered aparagus-yum! And topped it off with more Molten Chocolate Cake! Delish!

Tessa's Favorite Christmas Gift

The only thing Tessa wanted for Christmas was Santa's Magic! At first we doubted Santa's ability to deliver this gift, but he is Santa and so amazing and well, he does have magic so why couldn't he share it with her? She was confident he could deliver and we soon became believers also. We all eagerly awaited Christmas day to see how Santa would share his gift of Magic with her.

Santa made Tessa a personalized book sharing the secret of his magic with Tessa along with a box that fills up with his magic. The book explained how Santa's magic comes from following the example Jesus set by being kind and loving to others. Tessa loves her magic book. She has taken very good care of her book and her box. Her book has journaling pages for her to record special magical moments she helped create. The box has magic dust in it that grows and shrinks according to her behavior. She says every night she hears a tinkling of bells and that is when her magic dust comes or goes. She recently told me that when she has kids she is going to put her box on a high shelf so they can't ruin it. She also told me that she wants to be buried with her magic box when she dies.

We were able to get Ada a very special Valentine and Tessa asked me if I had borrowed her magic to make it happen. But Ada told her that moms already know the secret to magic--which is true, but I think Santa's Magic Box helped me remember even better. So I will try harder to be kind like Jesus was and create some Magic of my own.

Valentines

Tessa did her valentines this year with no help from me whatsoever. She found a white bag lying around the house and coevered it with drawings and stickers to make it hers and then she proceeded to cut out hearts for each of her classmates. She did amazing and I love it when the kids get things started and finished on their own.

Kielle, Ryan and Ada made these cute Mad Libs Valentines. We got the idea from Design Mom and we liked it because they weren't lovey-dovey. We bought a huge book of Mad Libs from Borders for $6.99 and it took care of everyone's Valentine needs and left us with a ton left over for the kids to play too. We just cut out the mad lib sheets with a razor blade, rolled them up, wrapped a piece of colored paper around it and tied it with embroidery floss. Design Mom had other messages like "I can't lib without you" and "I'm mad about you" but the kids unanimously agreed that "you have mad skillz" was as sappy a sentiment that they wanted to express.


For the girls in Kielle and Ada's classes we made the scrabble tile necklaces. I found instructions for these at Make n Takes. I actually used clear nail polish to finish them off instead of a glaze and I used epoxy to put the bails on. We had made these in Young Womens and had leftovers so I let the girls use what was left. They put stickers on for their classmates first initials. They were easy and fun and a nice change from the store bought valentines.



Aaron & I went to Valentine's dinner on Friday to the Timberwolf Grill up Hobble Creek Canyon. It was a really great deal and a nice meal for the price. It was served mostly buffet style. I was expecting it to be a lot more upscale than it was. But it was nice enough that we would agree to go again. But what we are really excited about is the new Magelby's in town. We will be trying that on our next date!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's day!

Disney's Give a day, Get a Day

On Martin Luther King Day, the kids were out of school. We thought it would be the perfect opportunity to render service for Disney's Give a Day Get a Day Program. BYU was sponsoring a huge service event, so we signed up! We ended up going to a place called Hoofbeats to Healing. You can read all about this therapeutic horse ranch here. We cleaned up garbage, spray painted posts, raked up straw and Tessa was ever determined to go feed the horses, so she made sure to do that too. It was a very good experience and a great way to spend the day off school. And now we have tickets to Disneyland!!! Afterwards I took the kids to Cracker Barrel for lunch and we sat at the table next to our favorite mailman, Mr. Grover. He's retired now but he always was so happy and knew each of our names. We miss him so it was nice to talk to him again.

Snowboarder

Kielle is blessed to have a really good friend whose family is wiling to take her along AND teach her how to snowboard! She has only been up the mountain once, but we were told she did great and she can't wait to get back up again. I love how Utah has a special for 5th graders to use the slopes for a flat $25 fee. We also got all of her equipment for a great price, thanks to these friends again! Kielle saves her money well and paid for half of her equipment to be able to have this experience. I've finally accepted that we live in Utah, so we might as well let our kids do those "Utah" activities that they are interested in, right?

Roasted Potato Wedges

I actually created a separate blog for my "Robyn/Ree Project" and soon I'll add a button link on the sidebar for it but for now if you are interested in reading all about it, you can go here.

The Robyn/Ree Project

Have you seen Julie & Julia? I had heard mixed reviews of it. Many people said it was ok, and maybe worth watching once. But Aaron & I loved it. Maybe it is because part of it is set in France (where both of of hearts are.) Maybe it is because of all the delicious food--(Like Babbette's Feast--another AMAZING movie.) Or learning about what a positive woman Julia Child was. I don't know, but I truly enjoyed the movie. So much that the minute I saw Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child I HAD to buy it. Our love french cuisine helped in making that decision too. I am reading my way through the introduction and have already made her Potage Parmentier. But I make that for my family anyway :). I didn't even realize that this book existed till I saw the movie. Truly inspiring and I have been working on creating slightly more gourmet meals for my family lately.

But as much as I loved Julie & Julia I am really here to talk about Ree. Do you know Ree? If you have never heard of her. She is Ree Drummond also known as The Pioneer Woman. She lives out in the country in Oklahoma where her husband is a cattle racher. And she blogs. All about different things--life on the ranch, homeschooling, photography, home & garden and COOKING. Now Ree has NEVER steered me wrong. I am not kidding you. Everything I have made for my family from Ree has been a huge overwhelming success. After I make a dinner from one of her recipes I get oohs and ahhhs and "when can we have this again"s! And with a family of seven when a majority or ALL of your family loves something. You gotta stick with it--for that is rare indeed. So I was thinking I should do the Robyn/Ree Project--where I make one of Ree's recipe's everyday for a year and blog about it just like Julie did. But really we all know how that would turn out. Maybe something like my December Advent Project or my Project 365 attempt. No I won't commit to blogging daily about it. But I am shooting for at least trying something new of hers once a week ( or every other week at the very least.)

Last night Aaron really wanted me to make wings for the Super Bowl, so I turned to Ree and she taught me how to cook them right. We didn't go with the Hot sauce, but I'd be willing to try it because Ree says it so good (and I don't even like spicy hot foods!) I just didn't have time to run to the store and get Franks Hot Sauce. We did BBQ sauce mixed with butter and it was delish. I bought a huge bag of chicken and they were inhaled in no time! I only got ONE!)



Other dishes we have tried and have met with much success:
Perfect Potatoes au gratin
Roasted Carrots --Part of Thanksgiving Dinner Yum!
Molten Chocolate Lava Cake
Cake Balls a la Bakerella
Roasted Garlic--I may or may not have gone a little crazy overboard in using these gems.
Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Pot Roast--The one that started the obsession--Thanks to Heidi for introducing me to it and Ree!

I know there are more. Going through her list to find these fueled my desire to make more Ree-inspired food. Not to mention that she has mouth watering step by step photography too! Can't wait to try them all! Have you tried Ree's recipes? What's your favorite? It might end up next on my list!