Halloween...

I am not a fan of Halloween.

Nary a decoration in sight this year - sad I know!

I cannot really put my finger on WHY I don's like it,

I just don't.

I really thought I would be past the ole making of the costumes but

Brenn had a specific want and she was trying to do it and needed help.

So....

Tah Dah!!!

The pictures don't do it justice!

Logan went to a party on Saturday night and hadn't dressed up, when he and his friends arrived at the party everyone else had a costume so they improvised.  Logan took off his shirt and was an Abercrombie model....not sure I like that!  He is so very proud of his abs and pecs, almost too proud!

Wrestling practice starts today - I think Logan will be very tired when he gets home.

It is starting......

If you give a mouse a cookie...

Or, If you buy a new TV,
then you have to have something to put it on,
then you have to shop until you drop to find a cabinet,
then you have to hang it from the wall,
then you have to figure out how to hook up your Tivo,
then you have to figure out how to hook up your stereo,
and your DVD player, and your Wii.
Then you have to refigure the wall art,
then you steal from other walls and have to redo them too.
Then you frantically call your bestie,
interrupt her bedtime routine with her kiddies,
to help you, reassure you, and generally make you feel better.
Lastly you have to figure out how to run your new TV.

Times 2!!

I wonder if it was worth it?

Funniest sign on the way home!

In Kanab. Late Sunday night.  We had to stop and eat.  Where else would you find Steak, Ribs, Burgers and VEGAN??

October Break

It has been 2 weeks since October break and I am just now recovering!!  We went to Utah for my nieces wedding.  The original plan was to go up on Wednesday, help where we could and enjoy the time up there, but Ben Kjar and the Kingdom Klub invited the Mountain View wrestling team to a 3 day camp starting on Monday.  So we left on Sunday, Brenn, Logan and I.  We had a great trip up considering it was snowing on Saturday!  The fall colors were beautiful!!

Before we left we had to bid good-bye to our sweet Jeff Moore who would be entering the MTC on the following Wednesday and we wouldn't get to say good-bye.  My plan was to be ready to leave by 8am, shoot over to his house and catch him before 8:30am church.  Silly me!  I thought especially since Ken was staying to work and fly out on Wednesday we would be able to get out without a hitch.  Unfortunately I did not count on a sleepy daughter and son!  So by the time we left it was more like 8:15 and I knew Jeff would be at church.  Luckily Logan has a motto, "Never be embarrassed" and he is really good at following this motto.  So dressed in our traveling clothes (stretchy black pants and a t-shirt) we drove to the church and sent Logan in to find Jeff and bring him out to us.  Mission accomplished and we departed for the land northward.

It was lovely to sleep in on Monday morning and just sort of relax until noon, especially since my MIL and I stayed up talking until 2am.  I am not great at that kind of thing but it was to be a foreshadow of the next 7 days!

I wish I would have taken a few pictures of Heber City Utah.  What a beautiful place!  My in-laws have a gorgeous house there and it was so nice to stay.  We went to lunch with the parents of the bride at the restaurant where the reception was being held.  Really nice place but not real convenient to decorate because they were open for business all day Saturday and time was limited between the wedding and the reception. Thankfully they did agree we could put up lights anytime that week.

So then I had to hightail it up to north Salt Lake to give the wrestlers a ride to a BBQ and then they were wrestling at UVU.  So Brenn and I took the opportunity to shop a little for the wedding and for shoes for Sonja.  She had bought a great dress but didn't have time to find the shoes and since she was in Hawaii (such a tough life) we bought her 4 pairs of shoes to choose from.  She ended up keeping 3 of them, I'm just sayin'....  We found a great fabric store, I could have spent MONEY in there but we were trying to stay focused and since we were not quite sure what the Bride wanted and we had a meeting with her that evening AND the next day was senior day and if we brought our senior we got a 10% discount we decided to wait.  We rushed back to Heber, needless to say the fabric store is exactly the farthest point from Heber either go through Salt Lake or Provo either way it was the same distance and time.

We meet with the Bride and she has a list of detail stuff she wanted to do but didn't have time for, she and her parents work full time, actually Shelley is a teacher so she works more than full time and Mike is trying to sell solar power to Hawaii and he works WAY more than full time and Michelle, the Bride, works lots and then is in the throws of love so she has no time either.  But Brenn and I had lots of time so we were happy to do the projects.

I will not detail out the rest of the week because it was just lots of work and LOTS of fun!  Sonja came Wednesday night and baked cakes like a maniac for 2 days, 42 cake mixes and made me feel lazy going to bed at 2am.  Not a single night did I go to bed any earlier, but we sure enjoyed being together and having fun creating Michelle's vision.

My List:
16 white pumpkins for the family dinner - burlap underneath with a scarf to make the pumpkin pop.
Signs for the reception
2 30ft curtians - one to block of the business part of the resturaunt and one to frame the doors.
3 wooden signs to point the way
Dessert favors for the family dinner
help set up and take down the reception.

Results:

Lights

Sonja made this wedding cake plus 4 decorative cakes and 4 cakes to serve to the guests.
4 different flavors too!

I will leave you will some pictures of the wedding - Ken and I missed all of them because his mom, Kathy, was really sick and we took her home pretty fast after the wedding.

Shelley and Michelle

Mike and Michelle

Bridesmaids

Sisters

Can you pick Brenn's "white like flour" leg?  Hard to believe they are cousins
and I have the darkest skin and she is the palest girl!

Ed and Nate - I think Ed is getting passed up by his grandsons!  He's not short either.

Lauren and Spencer

Sonja and Mike

The Ginger

Handsome!

Kate

Tyse

Rylee

Jason and Scott

Avery

Marrawge...

I found this and I love that it is celebrating something I think is important.  It encourages me to see things like this featured on the Yahoo info bar.  I think good values are mocked by the media, good things are portrayed as naive or old fashioned, out of date and I was glad to see such a great video.  Not to mention what a sweetie the guy is!

Enjoy!

Recipes

I am not much of a cook....wish I liked it better.

I have been looking a Pinterest* lately and it seems like I am drawn to the food and the recipes.

I find this weird!

But I did stumble across someone who made no bake cookies and used half Nutella, half peanut butter.  I love the no bake cookies and since I found out I am sensitive to peanuts they have been on the DO NOT EAT or you will have a headache the size of Australia list.  Thanks to Pinterest* I started to crave them like I do a good cold Ding Dong.  So I thought I would try it.

a food photographer I am not!!

Yummy!  They turned out pretty well and although  they lack the lovely peanut taste and the texture is really smooth but they are really good and healthy too!  Whole grains baby!!

My Recipe (which means I got it from my mom!)

Chocolate No-Bake Cookies

2 cups Sugar                   1/2 cup Nutella

1/2 cup butter                             1t vanilla

4t cocoa powder                   3 cups dry oatmeal

1/2 cup milk                                          . 

Combine the first column in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil on Med high heat, stirring to prevent burning.  Boil for 1 minute.  Remove from heat and add the second column.  Stir to combine and drop about 1 tablespoon per cookie or so on wax paper to cool.  Fight over who gets to clean out the pan!

As a kid I got many a mouth burns because I couldn't wait for them to cool before eating!

As I try more of the recipes I will blog about the best ones (or worst) as I go.

*Warning:  Pinterest is addicting and time stealing!  

Homecoming 2011

Logans first date and what a lovely date she was!!

They went to the Lake for the day date and then the mom's hosted a dinner and then on to the dance!

Lis and Logan

New person

We have a new person living at our house:

It was her 21st Birthday too:

I am not too sure I have gotten used to the new do but she looks good!

Blue Boy

The tradition at Mountain View High is the wrestlers are the 'Blue Boys' - they paint themselves and help the cheerleaders excite the crowd at the football games.  They also have to do push ups on a board elevated by the cheerleaders as the team scores.

It is a right of passage for my boys.  I think Logan enjoyed it.  He could be as loud as he wants and flirt will all of the girls in the front row!

 Do you wonder what they use to get blue?

Do you see the paint brushes?  I am pretty sure they are the same ones they used last year.

Sadly, the football team is awful!  MVT is usually a power house when it comes to sports but the game on Friday was saaddd!

On another note, Grandma is not doing well.  I am pretty sure the end is near and I am both happy for her and sad for me and my family.  She has been such a great Mother and Grandmother.  Service has been her life, I cannot remember a time she was not taking care of someone, neighbors, friends and even strangers.  I love her and hope I can be like her!