Happy 30th Birthday to Preston!

This last Sunday, Preston took a major step in life and turned 30. He was a good sport about it. Friday we had a party for him and Chi Ming (who also turned 30). We took advantage of the grill one last time, and Preston made some amazing Chicken. Just so you know, that was the side dish, the main dinner was something more fit for an old man... Tomato soup and Grilled cheese sandwiches. Preston even tried to grill the grilled cheese sandwiches... (I think he was just trying to take advantage of the coals.)

He didn't want a cake, so we made Dirt instead. I made tombstones out of Rice Krispie treats (his favorite), but they had a problem staying up. ha. Here are some photos.

In traditional Birthday fashion, we had a pinata.... it is located in the right hand corner of the above photo... yes, it is the 12 pack case of Mountain Dew and duct tape. It was filled with Butterscotch and peppermint candies ( in lue of his age...) and one kitkat. It was funny.

His actual Birthday was nice, it was Conference, so we stayed in our jammies all day (even when we went to a friends house for dinner...) He got breakfast in bed (which JoJo and Thurston ate 1/2 of) and he got his real birthday presents. His absolute favorite book growing up was Pickle Chiffon Pie by Jolly Roger Bradfield. It was out of print until a few years ago, and the other 2 he loved by the same author are still out of print. I spent more money than I would like to admit collecting these childrens books, but he was so excited. They really are great books and I just love the authors sense of humor. A new favorite memory I have now is all of us (yes, even the cat) snuggled in our jammies in our bed reading these 3 books. It was so sweet!

Fabulous Fall

We seem to have skipped early fall and have jumped into the final days of fall when you are freezing... or is it just me? Last Monday it was 90 degrees and I used my air conditioner. When I woke up on Thursday, I was freezing and had to turn on the heater. So much for the lax months where the heater and gas bill both are under $20. Such is life.

With the season change, I have embraced the cold weather and have started baking like crazy. This is where the pounds of pregnancy will start catching up to me! I made some fantastic Taco Soup yesterday, the prob with me is that I will throw things together but not write down what I did... so I actually paid attention yesterday to my process/ ingredients. I am writing this here more for me, but anyone who is wanting a hearty yummy dish, here you go:

* I may not have exact amounts of things, because I go more by taste

TACO SOUP

In large pot, ground 1 lb of ground beef, season as you would tacos

* you can use taco seasoning packets, but with my allergies I have to use another route... The Taco seasoning in the jumbo jar at Costco is MSG free and it is fantastic. I add this with some season salt and a titch of pepper. I season the meat really well here, because I HATE it when the meat is not seasoned.... just my preference!

Add 1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes, then fill with water and add to pot

1 15 oz can of black beans

1 15 oz can of kidney beans

1 2.25 oz can of sliced black olives

15 green olives sliced (why 15? because that is how many I had left in

the jar...add as many as you like...)

1/2 cup of frozen corn (add more if you are a fan... this is my tolerance

level of corn...)

From here I just let the ingredients mix and simmer a bit and let the flavors mix etc.. then went back about 1/2 hour later and added more taco seasoning and seasoned salt to taste. I like my stuff very flavorful, so do as you like. If you feel you want more water, I usually add water from the cans of ingredients so the water has some flavor. As for yield, thus far it has provided 4 children servings, 2 Hollie Servings and 2 **Preston servings (this may be equal to a small family size...) :) And still have some left. It is great frozen (not really, more it keeps well frozen and it is good when it is reheated). We usually put a bit of cheese on top and eat with tortilla chips.

Then I decided to do dessert. Lately when I make cookies, I freeze 1/2 the dough (this is more to control my consumption). We made some Pumpkin Spice Sugar cookies that I found here: http://www.recipezaar.com/Pumpkin-Spice-Sugar-Cookies-133186Preston really liked the recipe, but I think next time I will just use the trusted Nana Hammond sugar cookie recipe and add pumpkin spice to that. We originally ate them with a powdered sugar and milk glaze. Well, yesterday I decided to be daring. I used the rest of the dough and put it on my pizza pan and baked it like a giant cookie/ dessert pizza. I made a cream cheese frosting with cream cheese, sugar and almond favoring (I was out of vanilla) which was soooo yummy! I sauteed some apple slices in butter, cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg and then added to the top. Yeah, it was fantastic! See:

!

We ate well.

Now, for my final thingy.... You know how each spring you plant a seed, or buy a plant and plant that and look on happily as you watch it grow, and then come Fall, you get to enjoy the fruits of your labor? Well, what happens when you suck as a Gardner and you kill your Azalea plant? Don't be embarrassed, embrace what you have done and tell people you did it on purpose. Dead plants make fantastic haunted tree's for your Halloween decor. See:

That is all for today.

Happy Fall Everyone.

Things

You know when your kids are driving you crazy and you tell them to go run around the house a couple of times? Well, I do. Unfortunately, Joseph ended up using his eye to run into Thurston's Forehead. This picture doesn't do it justice. It took a good week (at least) to clear up. Poor kid looked like I beat him. We do have witnesses from cousins that we did not.:)Thurston wasn't effected at all. See that little red dot on the top left corner of his forehead? Yeah, that's his battle wound.We celebrated the first day of fall by reading about the season change, pumpkins etc, then went on a scavenger hunt to find all kinds of leaves. I was surprised how many we found in our yard. We did leaf rubbings and then drew tree's and glued the leaves on. Don't trust the facial expressions, they did have a blast!This Last Sunday, Preston and I celebrated 7 years of marriage!! We can't believe it's been that long, yet at the same time, we both think it's weird that there was ever a time we didn't know each other. We went out Saturday to celebrate. The plan was to go to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the Utah game. Well, Boise state was playing at the same time, and Boise State fans are as bad, if not worse than BYU fans. The place was packed and they said that we could have a small tv changed to the game if we found one.... never mind the other 50 large screens that were all showing the Boise state game. We found no room except at the actual bar, not facing any "small" tv's, so we left. We next tried the Ram, the pretty much told us "We are watching the Boise State game" and refused to change the channel to ANY other game! Yes, once again the wall were COVERED with TV'S and they usually have several games on. We then tried Iggy's and the guy said that he too was a Utah fan and was dying to watch the game, the manager was a huge BYU fan and wanted to watch that game, but since Boise State was playing, they had to keep ALL tv's on that game, or else they would get yelled at by all the customers. We were a little T-O'd (say it like Kip) 3 sports bars, prob close to 120-150 TV's, and they would not change any of them. So we went to the Cheese Cake Factory and stuffed ourselves beyond recommendation and had a very nice time. Preston said he felt like a dumb a@@ for wearing his Jersey, but I still think he was handsome!Thurston was in desperate need of new sunday clothes. He actually spent his own B-day money on this suit. I asked him if he wanted a new toy, or church clothes and he chose this! He looks so handsome!!He needs a hat to top it off, don't you think?Ally, this is for you... this is me at 19 weeks.

Mini Me?

Now that I know that our little one is a girl, my thoughts have been turned to "what will she look like? Will she me a mini me? Mini Preston" (hopefully minus the beard). Preston and I looked a lot alike when we were little so either way...we think she will be adorable. I came across a Xerox copy of my favorite picture of me, and had Heather send me a copy of the real one. I was 3 when this was taken. My smile looks innocent enough, but the story goes I would not smile for the photographer so he came up with a little way to get me to "appear" to smile. Apparently I am trying to bite his finger and he snapped the shot. haha. Sounds like something our boys would do! I wounder how much she will look like me....

My son the stunt man

A month or so ago, the primary had a water activity for the kiddos. The activities chairmen are always so good at taking pictures. This is JoJo on the slip and slide, and I think it is so awesome. He's my little dare devil. Gotta love him! :) And I think the face he is making is just priceless!

We're having a GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was pretty much like Christmas morning for me today! The ultra sound went great, she was in some sweet yoga positions for awhile and didn't want to show us too much at first, they even had me get up and go to the bathroom and move around, then we were able to get some clear shots. It looks like she will have the Thomson toes and feet! :) We are super excited to finally have our girl... and yes, I did stop my the fabric store on the way home. It was fun!

Here is a shot of her cute nose/ profile Here are her long skinny legs and giant feet! I love this one, her fist is on her forehead.. D'oh!Looks like she has her hand over her ears... probably to stop the noise of her brothers screaming

We have a name picked out, her name is Aleah and I found out it has arabic roots (spelled slightly different) meaning exhaulted. As for her middle name, we are thinking Gioia (pronounced joy-a) which is Italian for Joy. So she will be our exaulted joy! :)

Catching up!

The last few weeks have been crazy busy for me, and I haven't had time to sit down and catch up. Ok, maybe I had time but I was just lazy!

Thurston turned 3 on the 31st of August and we had a couple of parties for him. Friday the usual crowd gathered for cake and dinner and Uncle Kimball was on his way home from Washington, so he was able to stop by for a bit! The next morning we had some of Thurston's buddies come over for a water party. He had a blast! He had a Wall-E theme this year and got a Wall-E cake and Eve pinata. I forgot to add a string to the pinata, so we just put it on the floor and let the kids have at it!

The next crazy event was Enrichment, which we did a world culture theme. We ended up having a very good response from people bringing items and food from around the world. It was Robyn and my first time doing enrichment, and we had so much fun! We had a good turn out and had sooo much food there it was ridiculous! Preston was awesome and made his famous pasta for everyone. That's how we do Enrichment, lots of food and a fun game! Now to do Super Friday! The next adventure happened 2 days later as we went back down to Salt Lake for Preston's Nana's 95th birthday. I volunteered to do the cake and was so nervous about it! I was able to stay with my sister Julie who has done cakes, so thankfully I got it done with her help and advice and adorable fondant flowers. I was super happy how it turned out and it was very very tasty! I made the fondant myself with Marshmallow fondant. The black is chocolate flavored, and I added almond flavor to the white. ( My father in law thought it was marzipan!) Here is a link to the recipe, it is super easy and tasty, just a little messy.;) http://www.cakejournal.com/archives/how-to-make-marshmallow-fondant We had a fun evening with Nana and I think she really appreciated everything. There are more photos on my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=36252&id=1360418656&ref=nf

Our next adventure: I go in tomorrow for the ultra sound!!!!!! Here's to the baby cooperating!