Necklace is for love

I've been wanting a cute silver pendant necklace and I found one at Kohl's for a great deal. But when I got it home and tried it on it was just a little too short and felt too much like a choker. So I told Emma I would give it to her. It is a little heart and I told her its a very nice, special necklace and to take good care of it. I told her it can remind her that I love her. She said, "and if I'm ever alone, I can look at this heart and know how much my mommy loves me." What a doll!

Weekend stuff

We actually managed to clean out a good portion of our garage this weekend. We packed the van full of DI stuff and created quite a few bags of pure garbage that have just been sitting in various places in our garage for who knows how long! Richard has yet to tackle his tool bench, which will free up quite a bit more space when he does! Saturday night I stayed up way too late making strawberry jam. I bought more strawberries than I realized and had to make an extra trip to the store for pectin and corn syrup. All but one batch (that turned out really runny and syrupy) look and taste fabulous. Sunday I played the organ, was the primary pianist, and did sharing time. I also volunteered Richard to teach the Gospel Doctine class- lucky him! We had dinner with my family on Sunday, which we haven't done for about a month. We love spending time with our families. It was a good weekend and today we are enjoying the beautiful weather. I know, only to possibly snow again on Wednesday. Is anyone else sick of this ridiculous weather?

Richard bought a camera!

Hip, hip hooray! Richard bought a camera yesterday! Happy Early Mothers Day! It's basically the same camera, only nicer. And we will be a lot more careful with this one. Thanks, honey.


Behold, the wolf Landon and Uncle Jon created. If you zoom in you can see all the great detail that went into it!
This thing was literally hanging by a thread.
Daniel had the pliers all ready to pull it out ( I was teaching piano) and I told him to just try twisting it before trying his hand at the pliers. It came out easier than he thought, as you can see by his expression!

Best Ice Cream Recipe

This is post #3 for the day, but I told Layne I'd post this delicious recipe. If you have an ice cream maker you really ought to try it. It always turns out fabulous! Layne did rhubarb in place of strawberries and it was awesomely good! I actually got this recipe from Tami. Enjoy!

Strawberry Ice Cream
1 pint cream
1 can evaporated milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 quart whole milk
1 small pkg. vanilla instant pudding
2 c. sugar
4 Tblsp. vanilla
1 quart mashed strawberries (or raspberries or rhubarb)

Butter Brickle Fickle
1 pint cream
1 can evaporated milk
1 quart whole milk
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 sm. pkg. vanilla instant pudding
3/4 c. sugar
4 Tblsp. vanilla
3 crushed Butterfinger bars (add about 10 minutes before ice cream is done)

Mint
Same as butter brickle except substitute vanilla pudding with chocolate. Add 1/2 tsp. peppermint extract (I don't and it still turns out yummy) and 1/2 pkg. crushed grasshopper cookies and 1 pkg. crushed Andes mints.

All three recipes- throw it all in together and follow your machine instructions. It blends together just fine and is yum, yum, yummy!
Mint

Emma has been tagged!

I love this picture of Emma from last summer in Park City.

*Emma's middle name, Jae, represents Mom (Jenny), Grandma (Judy), and Grandma (Joan) - all important "J" people!

*Emma is only three but she seriously acts like she is seventeen.

*She can play Mary had a little Lamb on the piano all by herself.

*She is a true princess and loves pink, sparkles, ballet, shoes, make-up, all that.

*She is the most fun to hug and kiss.

*Emma loves going shopping with me and I love going shopping with her and I actually value and trust her opinion when shopping for myself.

*She loves to dance while I play the piano.

*Emma has a great imagination and can keep busy with a paper and pen or two dino nuggets for hours.

*Emma surprises me on a daily basis with her grown up attitude. Such as, "Mom, you can go pick up Daniel. I will be just fine! Give me the phone and I'll call you if I need you, OK?"

*She loves to help me cook dinner and she can brown the ground beef all by herself.

*She usually changes her clothes two or three times a day.

*I absolutely love having a girl and she is such a sweet angel. I truly adore her and am so blessed to have her in our family.

We tag Hailey, Connor and Olivia when you get a chance!

Sheep Shearin'

We let the kids miss a day of school yesterday to go to Spring City and shear sheep. Of course, we didn't actually do any of the shearing. They have leather skinned, tooth missin' Australians to do the gruntwork in a big shearing plant that is really quite interesting to watch. Our kids loved watching the process, helping push sheep through the chutes, jumping on big bags of wool and just plain being in the good, clean, sheep air. It was a beautiful day and it was fun to watch the kids enjoy every minute. The boys buddies, Ky and Cole lassoed a couple sheep and of course Landon and Daniel thought it was great to hang on to the rope and help tackle the sheep to the ground to try and untie them. I know its not as important or as meaningful to me as it is to Richard, because it is such a part of his up bringing, but I really am grateful for oppurtunities like that. Not many kids get to experience anything like that these days (except maybe the Huff's) and we all really enjoyed the day. Sorry, no pictures.

Wood Burnin' Wolf

Landon has a school project to create a sculpture, painting, etc. of the wild animal he chose to do a report on. Of course his first choice would have been a horse, but seeing as they aren't "wild" enough, he chose the wolf. He decided his art project would be to do a wood burning picture of a wolf that Uncle Jon could help him do. Uncle Jon drove from Logan and spent a good 5 hours helping Landon create and burn a very impressive wolf. Thank you, Jon! We're not even half way done! We've got 2 more days before the "Animal Museum" exhibit at school and I think he should win a prize because it looks pretty nifty! I sure wish I could take a picture of it so you could all behold its nifty-ness. (sigh!)

St.George Spring Break

We had a wonderful spring break. We left on Friday afternoon to head for St. George. It's the farthest we've ever done a car trip with our kids and they did OK. Of course, we had to stop for treats and potty. We had to stop again 15 minutes later in the middle of nowhere for potty again, even though we just went! We had to stop for dinner and we made an extra stop for an irritated Daniel that gave a swift elbow to Landon's face that resulted in a bloody lip and a lost tooth! That's the boys for ya'! We arrived at "Hotel Steurer" and had a fabulous time. We couldn't have asked for a better few days. We went to the Scout Expo on Saturday morning and then to West's for lunch. They came back with us and spent the afternoon in the pool and went out to dinner that night. We went to church with Heather and Brent on Sunday and had dinner and more Wii play at their house. On Monday we went to Snow Canyon and the kids just loved it. The weather was gorgeous and the scenery was truly breathtaking! The kids exceeded my expectations for hiking and had a blast at the petrified dunes. We spent the afternoon swimming again and more fun together. Tuesday we went to the St. George temple visitor center and really enjoyed it. We swam a bit before packing up and heading back to freezing temperatures in Lehi. We experienced a 55 degree drop from the time we left until we got home. Yuck! It was so nice to be in sunny, warm, green weather. We really had a fun time and enjoyed every minute. Oh...except one minute. That was the minute Richard had already been in the pool for ten minutes and said "Oh no!!" He had jumped in the pool with our digital camera in his pocket. Miraculously our memory card was OK, but the camera is a loss. Sooooo sad!! So these may be the last pictures I can post for a while until we get a new camera. I'm just glad these pics were saved- hope you like em!

Avacado Smoothies....Yum!

I normally don't post recipes, but I'm telling you, my kids literally beg for me to make these smoothies. They might sound kind of crazy, but they are really, really good! I just made them with our lunch and I haven't made them for a while and I was just reminded how much I really love them.

1 ripe avacado (peeled and pitted, duh)
1/3 c.-1/2 c. sugar (depending on how sweet you like it)
Half a blender of milk (about 2-3 cups)
1 tray of ice cubes
1 tsp. vanilla

Put all ingredients in blender and blend until nice and smooth and creamy. Let me know what you think if you try this one out!

It's Official!

For those of you who didn't already know, I just wanted to say that we are pregnant! After trying for 9 months and wondering what was wrong with me it finally happened the same month that my mom found her cancer has miraculously disappeared! I think the stress may have had something to do with it. We are just grateful that it happened and that we can welcome another member to our family. We had our first Dr. visit today and even though I've seen it four times now, it is still amazing to me to see that little being on the screen wiggling and moving inside me even though I cannot feel it yet. The due date is November 1.

I just have to add my miserable blood draw experience. Emma was a trooper for the 2 hour appointment. Yes, I said 2 hours!! It was a full hour after I arrived before I even saw the Dr. which made me very irritated. Then I had to have my blood drawn. This has never been an easy thing for me and almost always results in many tears. I warned the nurse I had weak viens that are very hard to find and that I might cry. She acted so confident. Ha! The tears flowed freely as she stuck me (and dug) twice in one arm. No blood. Twice (more digging) in the other arm. No blood. Let's try a butterfly needle in the hand. I've had that before. She found a vein, but the stupid thing only bled half of what she needed before it filled with pressure and made a big blood bubble under my skin. She wanted to send me to a different lab and I told her to just do the other hand. Luckily it was just barely enough and we were done. Emma watched as I cried and cried and left with mascara stained cheeks. But its done. I'm sure I'll have nice bruises to show for it. And it's OK because I'm having a baby!

Hoorah for the Ensign....

Thank goodness we can catch all the talks from conference in the Ensign. Perhaps I should have prepared more to have little activities to keep my kids busy today, because realistically I think I listened to about 20% of conference. Plus, we are babysitting our niece, Olivia, to add to our brood. I think tomorrow we'll just pack 'em all in the car and take a nice, long drive to actually hear some of the talks! I remember conferences when I was younger as my parents sat peacefully on the couch while we all gathered round and listenend intently. OK, I know it never happened exactly like that (except maybe when we were all teenagers, and even then we were probably dozing in and out of sleep for parts of it) but it's nice to think that maybe someday we will enjoy a peaceful conference Saturday. However, I simply must add the highlight of the day. Richard tried his hands at making wheat bread and did a mighty fine job. It was impressive and quite delicious. Good stuff, honey!

Winter Family Fun

Take three snowmobiles, four adults, eight kids and a whole lot of "stuff" and you have a recipe for a fun weekend. We had a great time at Layne and Sarahs cabin. The boys especially loved every minute out in the snow. Its a beautiful place (otherwise known in the temple movie as the "lone and dreary world") that is not lone and dreary at all, but a white winter wonderland. We had a great time! Thanks Jensens!

I apologize that these pictures are all out of order. I couldn't figure out how to rearrange them once I had downloaded them. But here they are...such fun!


Daniel was an amazing skier and snowboarder. He has great balance and determination and did surprisingly well!
Emma tried the skiis for about 5 minutes and that was enough for her.

Emma chose to spend the majority of the time inside the cabin playing barbies, drinking hot chocolate and sitting by the fire.
This began as a snow cave, but Richard turned it into a tunnel the kids could crawl through and come out about 6 feet over on the other side.
Landon and Emily- one of the few moments spent inside the cabin for lunch and playing a quick game of chess.
Daniel, Jake and Isaac keeping busy and warm by the cozy fire.
Richard and Layne after a good, hard snowmobile ride- Dads only!

Daniel and Jake riding on the coolers in the sled on the five mile trek into the cabin.
Landon and Emily enjoying the ride in on the snowmobile.
Richard the snowmobile stud.
Emma the movie star snow queen.
Ahh, we made it! Cabin Sweet Cabin.