Teaching Moments...

Last night we were driving from my sister-in-law's house back to our hotel and remembered we didn't have milk for Santa. We decided to stop by Harmon's and grab some milk from there. I forgot that on Christmas Eve everyone closes early!! So we sat in the parking lot trying to figure out who might be open for milk. I suggested the little shop ("In a Pinch") in our hotel but it was REALLY expensive. Jakob piped up from the backseat that we could just go to Grandma's and get some from there. Steve and I hadn't even thought of that!!

We started driving towards their house and I was praising Jakob about thinking of such a good idea and he told me got it from me. I tried to remember the conversation to think of what I might have said that made him think of his grandparents.

Finally he reminded me of what happened a month ago. We'd been at Red Balloon letting the kids pick out gifts for each other and were hungry. We'd been trying to figure out what to have for dinner and Steve suggested Cafe Rio. I was all for it! But we both knew we should just go home. On our way out of the shopping center parking lot, I told Steve I was REALLY wanting some Cafe Rio so we turned around and went back into the parking lot. I sat there debating whether to take the kids in or leave them out in the car with Steve while I lugged 6 meals out to the car. Finally my good reason won and I told Steve we should just go home and eat there. Now, for me that's a big thing because I love to eat out. But I knew I needed to be a good example and back away from something that we really didn't "need". We went home, had dinner (chili), went to bed and that was the end.... I just didn't realize at the time that I'd taught my son the importance of saving money!! It made my night and I just hope I can continue teaching him the important things he needs to know in life.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and everyone is safe!!! We had a fantastic Christmas and its been fun spending time with Steve's family. :)

Blackmail Material

Poor Gavin. He sure loves his sister's princess room. He can name all the Disney Princesses and wants the pink cup at meals. Ethan needs to grow up fast so Gavin will play HIM! In the meantime we'll enjoy some of the great photos this provides! our camera is blurry because he likes to move instead of standing still for photos but they're still worth keeping!

Wow, I love the pretty shoes! This is Ashley's church shoe and halloween shoe. The bandaid on his eye was from stitches he got while at a yard sale...

Yes, those are little butterfly clips in his hair. I wish he would have let us take one while he was looking at the camera because with his big blue eyes framed in long lashes he was really pretty. ;) He's a sweet boy with plenty of fight. I guess its good that Ashley has SOMEONE to play with!

Gingerbread Men

I decided to try something new this year for goodies. I usually do a lot of candy but I wanted to try cookies. So I got a recipe off Food Network and started on it. After having a rough start from not finding my ginger (kind of important for gingerbread!), I got to cut all the men and trees out and bake them. They came out rather crunchy. The three older kids LOVE them and Gavin tolerates them.

For Family Home Evening we did our cleaning of the toys and got rid of a bunch (yay!) and then started our decorating. We had red(well, pink) and green frosting and I let the kids do it. Ashley had fun making dots all over and Andy and Jakob got creative. I just let Gavin squish the bag while I held it. Ethan just hung out and watched everything happening. It was a fun night and we had some yummy cookies to show for it! We even hung some on our tree afterwards!

Andy's working really hard on his! He actually did a pretty good job with the designing and you could tell he was concentrating on getting the eyes and buttons just right! He sure enjoyed eating them too. :)

I didn't quite trust Gavin with the frosting so I decided to do it for him. He did squeeze it like I said before but I did the actual frosting! He promptly licked all the frosting off and left the cookies on the table! Do you like my bow in my hair? :)

He's sure proud of his cookie though! He just loved the frosting even more. Mmm pure sugar!

Jakob had a fun time making his cookie look crazy. He and Andy were both laughing pretty hard at how they were decorating!

Ashley loved her cookie and wanted to keep decorating - so she could eat them!

And here's Steve's. He was holding Ethan and helping make sure that no frosting ended up on tables or floors. Jakob decorated two for Steve and two for himself. It was a great night! My next attempt will be to make a gingerbread house! Wish me luck!

I just went back and reread my post. Man, do I like exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MmmmYummy Crackers!

Ethan was chewing on everything he could find yesterday(and as he was on my lap and has only so much arm length, it was generally my arm or hand...). So I found him a graham cracker which he gnawed to pieces. I realized that as it was a honey cracker it probably wasn' the best so I gave him a teething biscuit (for babies not dogs...) and he went crazy on that one too. Here is the aftermath of the whole cracker meal. A great big mess!!

Thanksgiving 2008 - One For the History Books

This was one crazy but very fun Thanksgiving for me and mine. We had the opportunity to go to Idaho for the first time in 8 years. Mostly because I've been selfish and kept Christmas with my family(as in my parents and siblings and our 22 kids) to myself instead of sharing our family with Steve's family. :) So this year we decided to reverse the visiting.

We left early Wednesday morning and had an uneventful trip to Idaho. I did get to stop in Ogden to pick up a package for Kristen but otherwise it was pretty quick. Steve slept through the trip and most of Wednesday since he had to work the night before.

Thursday started bright and early at 4:30 when my sister brought my little Andy in to change out of wet clothes(always fun). He was also nice and toasty with a fever and had a croupy cough! What a wonderful thing to wake up to! I gave him tylenol, got him settled and went back to sleep. The poor boy slept most of Thanksgiving and only ate a few bites of Thanksgiving dinner. Gavin was also coughing by that time. GREAT.

We did have a VERY enjoyable, VERY delicious meal. Nothing beats my moms noodles n' gravy!!! You think gravy on potatoes is good? You have no idea until you try my mom's noodles and gravy! Everything else was fantastic and I ate WAY more than I'd planned. But hey, it was Thanksgiving right? The others ate well. Gavin especially enjoyed the corn and stuffing. We got to have my aunt, uncle, Grandma and my brother-in-law's grandma all have dinner with us. It lively and fun to be with everyone.

My uncle took this picture. Yes, there are three tables just to try and fit us all. And that's not even all of us!

We had more family come over and then put all the kids down for naps. I had quite a nice nap myself! We enjoyed Kung Fu Panda as a family and then of course had our pie - pumpkin, cherry and apple oh my! There was blueberry too. MMMMM!!!!!

I tried to get to bed early that night but it didn't quite work out that way. I had just closed my eyes when I remembered I had made the extra trip to my sisters to get the humidifier so I should probalby use it(and I'm glad I did). Plus, I forgot the motrin and vaporub for my boys. So I finally got to bed only to wake up at 2:45 and then again at 4:45 with Ethan. By that time I just got up and went and did the whole Black Friday thing. I got a few of the things I'd hoped to get and 4 hours later I made my way back home.

My dad put up the millions of Christmas lights while I went from helping my mom with decorations throughout the house to checking on my poor Andy. By afternoon his fever had broken and he was getting back to his normal goofy self. We decided to take him and Gavin in to make sure they didn't have strep. We got in pretty quick and they gave us medicine to get rid of whatever it was they had. (I WISH they had swabbed them for strep instead of just giving them the meds because now I'm pretty sure it was just a virus...). We rushed over to Guadalajaras for some delicious Mexican food. So among fighting a whiny Gavin, upset Ashley, Crying Ethan and spilled Root Beer, I had a most delicious meal. Typical family meal. :)

By Saturday morning Steve was feeling a cold coming on so we took ourselves to Smiths for medicine for us too and headed on to Twin Falls to get our sicko family away from everyone else for a few hours. Gavin and Andy had been going crazy staying in one room. But hey, when you have 30 people in one house, you gotta do something! So I took Steve to a few landmarks we'd never been to before. Well, I had. But he hadn't. We looked down into the Snake River Canyon and then headed over to Shoshone Falls. The wind was COLD so we ran the kids over to the stairs, let them look and then ran them back to the car. Steve and Jakob went to another place and got this fun picture.

We then headed over to the mall and checked out some of the stores. We found a few cool deals at JC Penney and then I distracted the kids while Steve went back to get a gift we found. I thought it would be fun to get pictures with Santa. It wasn't until oh, 3 days later that I realized I shared the very germs I was trying to keep away from my family with Santa!!! Hopefully he's better by Christmas Eve. :)

We finally returned to Grandma and Grandpa's house and got to help decorate the tree and have egg nog milkshakes. We also let the kids dress up in the clothes that my sisters and I dressed up in when we were young! The kids had a BLAST.

Sunday was a nice day at church. We enjoyed the lessons, the kids enjoyed nursery and primary and then we got to see our sweet little niece be blessed. We had dinner over at their house before heading back home.

It was a crazy weekend but it was so much fun! I just hope that among all Thanksgivingness of the holiday, we didn't "give" the gift of strep to everyone else!

Thanksgiving Leftover Recipe

Hey,
So Steve and I did our usual pre-Thanksgiving turkey this weekend. We got a small one because we are going to go enjoy our REAL Thanksgiving dinner with my family in Idaho. YAY! Anyway, We came up with the idea after that dinner to try a new recipe. Its chimichangas turkey style. Not greatly original but SO good! Here's the recipe as far as I can remember:

2 cups ground up or shredded turkey(we used both white and dark, deboned once you've decided that it is a leftover)
1 cup turkey juice (ours had gellified because we used it the next day. you can use gravy too)
2 cups rice
1 can refried beans
1 cup grated cheese
1/2 cup salsa (or to taste)
1/4 cup green onions
tortilla shells

Because the turkey juices were gellified(new word), we put it on medium heat on the stove until it melted back into juices. We then added the rice, beans, salsa, cheese and turkey. Heat it through until its all warm and then add the green onions. While this is heating, turn your skillet on to medium.

Scoop some of the filling into the middle (about 1/2 cup or so) and the fold the top and bottom of the tortilla and then the two sides. Warm on the skillet until brown and then flip and brown the other side. If you're making a lot, you can keep them warm in the oven. The amount we used ended up making about 12 chimichangas. You can serve it with more salsa, sour cream, or whatever you'd like. We ran out of sour cream, so we had to use salsa.

Anyway, just wanted to share our tasty leftover ideas! Hope you enjoy!

My Baby is 6 Months Old!!

Ok, has anyone seen the last 6 months because I'm looking for them!!! I know time goes fast but this is insane.

Ethan's getting so big and doing all sorts of new little firsts all the time. He rolls over, smiles, laughs, grabs and plays with his binky - or anything near him, spits out food I try to feed him, and I'd like to say he sleeps through the night but that's just not happening. :) He's getting close though!

So on this momentous occasion of my little one turning 6 months, I decided to look back and past pictures - to actually prove that time did exist between May 22, 2008 and now - November 22, 2008!

Here is my sweet little boy only a few hours old. I didn't want to put him down! He reminded me so much of Ashley and Gavin when he was born.

Here is Ethan when he was 1 month old. He's so tiny but still has nice, chubby legs. :)

Again in the bouncer, he is now 2 months old. He is the best little stretcher! He apparently decided that was the most comfy position for sleep at the time.


Ethan was having fun at Grandpa and Grandma Weist's house when he was 3 months old. He was a good little boy all weekend while we were there visiting! He got to meet his cousins from California and all kinds of other fun things while we were there!

Daddy and Ethan (and I) had fun at the BYU football game against Wyoming. We enjoyed watching Wyoming get stomped... kinda like Utah did to BYU today... but we won't go there... I might cry!

Ethan is now 5 months old in this picture. Maybe I should find another place for him to hang out. But he loves the bouncer and I sure love having somewhere he enjoys laying down in so I can get stuff done!

And here is my chubby little Ethan at 6 months old. The game (sniff) and 4 wild siblings tired him out. Actually, sitting on my lap watching me type this tired him out. :) But I'm sure the rest of the excitement of the day helped! What happy sweet little boy he is! We are so blessed to have him in our lives and I can't wait to see all the other milestones he goes through as he gets bigger! I know he will enjoy playing with Gavin as he gets older - he already laughs hysterically at Gavin no matter what he's doing!!

Halloween

We did all kinds of fun things this year for Halloween. We skipped Steve's work Halloween party as I figured something bad might happen to his boss if I were to enter into that building. But that's a whole different story we won't get into!

We woke up and dyed Andy's hair green with kool-aid. Don't worry, it was out by Sunday. Or at least it was a fluorescent yellow instead of green... We got everyone else ready, took a picture and headed for school.

Aren't we cute! Steve was taking the picture... He was Space Ghost for the night

Here's my dear Stitch - I mean Jakob. It was a looooong parade but it was fun to see all the different costumes.

No, that's not moldy mac and cheese. But it is dyed mac and cheese! I put some blue food coloring in and had yummy "brains" for lunch. The kids giggled and then ate it all up!


Here are our pumpkins... mabye we should have taken the picture inside first...

We were going to go to the Trunk or Treat but I was making last minute touches for each of the costumes. Steve's belt needed fixed, Ashley and I needed headbands, etc. So we got there when there were only four people left. Steve went trick-or-treating with the boys down a couple streets before coming home so I could take them the rest of the way. My kids were AWESOME! Ethan stayed home with Daddy and helped with candy. I took my kids down several blocks and got TONS of candy. We're talking a gallon ziploc bag for each of them - plus an overflow bag for Steve and I to share! It was rainy but warm so we had a lot of fun!!


After a rather disastrous church volleyball tournament, I wanted to blow off some steam. And what better way to do that than go - to a volleyball game...? We went to Provo for a trick-or-treat with Cosmo. It was so much fun! We met athletes from every sport(except football since they were playing at the time in Colorado...) and the kids got to do different activities. Gavin and Ashley were waiting in line to play tennis.

Andy threw the ball and hit the cups every time! This was with the Men's baseball team. They were pretty impressed!


Jakob and many of the other kids were enjoying watching Cosmo (aka Batman) shoot some hoops!

Andy's trying his hand at tennis.

Ashley enjoyed attempting to bounce the ball on the tennis racquet. She had a harder time but the guy was very patient with her.


Jakob hit the ball as hard as he could at the net. It went really high before coming down!

Between the trick or treating and game we decided to go to dinner. We went to the Brick Oven(a rule if you're going to a volleyball game at BYU I think...) and enjoyed yummy pizza. There was a balloon guy there that made amazing balloons figures! Ashley got a pink elephant with purple husks, Andy got a two sided light saber(Darth Maul's), Jakob got a monkey and Gavin got a twisty sword. He wanted a pink parrot... I said no!

And to end our Halloween weekend, here is the Volleyball game. Unfortunately, they lost to New Mexico but it was still a really fun game to watch. The kids had fun climbing the chairs and watching the scoreboard make funny pictures. And using the restroom about 3 times each. Next time maybe we won't get them refills at dinner... Steve and I enjoyed some good volleyball - well, except that they lost... If you look closely, you'll see that Cosmo is riding a unicycle in the picture... He did all kinds of fun things. Gavin kept calling him Baby Jaguar(from Diego) and at one point when he couldn't see him, he announced that Baby Jaguar is going to the potty.... What a great Halloween week we had! And now we're zooming ahead to a great Thanksgiving...

Halloween Party '08

On October 25th, we had a Halloween Party at our house. After cleaning, watching football, running to Smiths for groceries, enjoying a delicious raspberry cheesecake shake and enjoying time with Mom and Dad at Arctic Circle, we zoomed home to make the food and get ready for the party. We invited as many as we could and wanted to spread the word. And Steve was a little worried that our house would burst at the seams...

People started arriving and helped us out with the food. I think the food was a HUGE success which I was thrilled about. There were a few other things I wanted to make but didn't get a chance to. As it was, I think we had plenty! Steve made mini burgers with waffle fries, mini burgers, cheese and a tomato. YUM. I made mummy dogs where I wrapped hot dogs with breadsticks. And then there were candy corn crackers which were triangle crackers with cream cheese dip and three different colors of cheese on top. Other people brought apples, caramels, chips, salsa and other yummy things!! Steve made homemade rootbeer to top it all off. The dry ice froze to the spigot so we had to ladle it from the top. :)

The costumes were GREAT!!! We had a friend dressed as the Papparazzi and she took pictures. Can't wait to get those! There were princesses, gypsies, pirates, Mother Nature(me), Bees, ninjas, workmen, etc. SO here are a few of the pictures. I may change them once I get the better ones. :)

Somehow at the party, the women managed to stay in the living room while the men hung out in the kitchen... :)

Gavin the pirate had had no nap and wasn't too thrilled about pretty much anything. Have his home invaded probably didn't help much either. But he was sure cute!



Everyone enjoyed the yummy food. Has anyone else noticed I dwell on the food subject a little too much?


The guys had a donut eating contest. The donuts were on string and the guys couldn't touch them with their hands. I would have loved to do it too but I felt blah. Otherwise I would have won. ;) As it was, Steve Weist was the winner! YAY!

We decided to let the younger girls have a go at it. I think they had more fun than anything. If anyone knows who won, could you tell me?!

We had so much fun and from what I've heard everyone else did too. Thanks everyone for coming! I'm very glad we were able to have family and friends come and share with us!

Cornbellys

This week has been so busy with fun things I could post on here that I don't know where to start! You'd think it would be easy enough because I just start with the first thing. But then what fun would that be? Plus the pictures I wanted to post from last Saturday are on Steve's phone still...

So we'll start with Monday. We went to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point. The kids had fun. We started out at the jumping area.

Gavin enjoyed the little jumping tarp. He'd gone on the big one at first but decided that was just a little too bouncy for him! I thought it was cool I managed to snap him while he was up in the air!

They had fun little rocking, uh, donkeys to ride on. Gavin could get going pretty fast on his!

Next came the dune buggies. Man they had fun on those! And the fastest was - Ashley! You should have seen how fast her little legs were moving! Jakob was pretty close but I think Ashley was able to control it the most. Although I must say that Jakob probably should have been in the bigger ones - his legs were too long!

They had a princess land with this gorgeous carriage inside. I only wish it was a little lighter to see everyone in it!

And here's my little Princess Ashley. She can ride, wrestle and tackle with the best of the boys but there is a sweet little princess in there that likes to shine through - every once in a while! And no I didn't pose her like that. That's her "I'm being sweet" pose. I love my little girl!

Getting Beat Up By a Movie Theater

We went to St. George this weekend to visit Steve's family over UEA weekend. We had a nice time while we were there. We went to see Wall*e with his sister and her kids. It was fun but poor Gavin may never want to go into the theater again!!!


He actually sat pretty well for most of the movie. But he wanted to sit all by himself in one of the chairs... He was leaning on the seat to get in, and it swung (swinged?) up and made him lose his balance and he smacked his cheek on the armrest. Now he looks like a mini football player with the smudge under his eye!!

If that wasn't bad enough, once he calmed down from that, he tried a different seat and got his foot stuck down inside the chair... Poor kid. He managed to leave in one piece so we're happy!

Wonderful News!

I decided to call the company that was printed on the pen to see what they would suggest. The lady groaned when she heard the story - which generally isn't a good sign!!! She had to hang up and call back later and told me that NOTHING will take it off. Alcohol is what takes it off skin (So Stephanie wins there!!!) but she said I might not want to put that on walls.... After all the other stuff I tried I'm not sure I want to!!! Soooo, the best thing for us to do is get the primer that will not allow grease or pen or marker to bleed through it so we can paint over it. I had a few people suggest the painting over....

The most suggested thing however is the Magic Eraser. After obliterating one eraser on the wall it still looks about the same as when I started!!! It took off the brighter stuff but until I can repaint, we have a nice purple line on our walls. GOOD ONE GAVIN!!! And good one Mom for not noticing when he went running off with the pen!!!

Contest

Today I was typing away at my computer and had just started on my next project of fixing the sleeves for my Halloween costume, when Ashley came running in to tell me that Gavin had drawn all over the wall and the kitchen. As she was saying this I was praying she wouldn't say couch...

So I ran in there to find that he had used a purple skinmarker (don't ask) and it was on the wall and linoleum. NOTHING I've tried has worked!! SO I decided to have a little contest. I would like suggestions on how to get it off. Whoever's idea actually works will win a homemade cheesecake from me. Just so you know, I've tried Comet, a sponge, Orange Clean, and that Green Advanage stuff they sell door to door. So good luck and may the winner eat cheesecake!