Natalie's Baptism

Natalie was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on November 29, 2008. It was a special day for our family. Natalie was all smiles and very excited to be baptized. We are so proud of her. She is always reminding us to say family prayer. She recently took our family challenge to read her scriptures every day for a month. She started over a few times but was determined, and finally completed it about a month ago. She is a sweet girl and we are so glad she is part of our family. Thanks to all our friends and family who came to see Natalie be baptized.

Happy Birthday Natalie!

I'm a few days late but I wanted to say happy birthday to my girl! Natalie turned 8 on November 7th. She is so much fun to have around. Here is a picture of the birthday banner I made for Natalie and Hailey's birthdays.

Here is the sweet birthday girl ready to open her presents.

Natalie and Hailey each got a baby kitty for their birthday from Grandma. They are named Shadow and Boo. Dad can't stay away from them even though he is allergic. They are so cute!

We love you Naty! We hope you had a great day!

Halloween cuties!

Halloween is so fun! I love dressing up the kids an taking tons of pictures before we go trick-or-treating. This year I made 4 of the kids costumes. It was a lot of work but so fun to see them all dressed up Halloween night.
Natalie was a cute witch.

Kyle was a pirate. He is holding one of our new kitties that we got Halloween night.

Hailey was a witch also. She is holding the other kitty. We had to be careful not to let her squish it to death.

Jacob was a bank robber. What a cute boy!

Cody is obsessed with The Magic Treehouse books so he chose to be Merlin the Magician.

This has been the year of the bat for Lucas. He is crazy about everything Batman so of course that is who he had to be. He had a mask that he wore trick-or-treating but I love to see his cute little face.

We didn't end up with near as much candy this year, but that was just fine with me. It was lots of fun!

Our baby is 1!

I can't believe it has only been one year since Hailey entered our lives. Already we cannot imagine life without her.
Hailey loves:

her bottle - she carries it everywhere and sucks on it even if it is empty.

going outside - she is no longer content to play at my feet while I do the dishes or fix dinner. If the door opens she yells to go outside with the big kids.

fishy crackers - since she loves her bottle so much she doesn't eat much solid food but she loves goldfish.

climbing on the table - she is a monkey, and she has no fear.

talking to dad on the phone - or should I say listening to her dad on the phone. She lights up at the sound of his voice.

She is growing up too fast. Usually during family prayer she just toddles around and we don't pay much attention to her as long as she is being quiet. Tonight after we said the prayer I looked back at her and she was standing there with her little arms folded looking at us. It was so cute. Then she started clapping because she could tell we were all so thrilled with her for folding her arms. I guess it is time to start including her in saying our prayers.

Happy Birthday Hailey! We love you!

Fall decorations are up!

I love fall. I love pumpkins, pumkin pie, pumkin rolls, pumpkin cookies. Oh, you get the idea. Not only does fall put me in the mood to bake but I get a serious case of the crafties. Meaning, all I want to do is stay inside where it is warm and make something crafty. Let me tell you, I have a list a mile long of things I want to make. First on the list is halloween costumes for the kiddos. Can't wait to show you what we are working on there, but it will have to wait until halloween.

I have been selling some scrapbook pages on ebay. I will have to link to them later when I have more time but if you would like to go take a look you can search for "premade scrapbook pages by Amber".

Happy fall y'all!

Washing machine, now wash!

After two months of hauling my laundry up to my Mom and Dad's house every week I finally have a new washing machine. Our house had no laundry hookups so after much blood, sweat, and tears on Randy's part it was finally hooked up at 3 am sunday morning. We put in the first load of laundry and just stood there in amazement as we watched it do it's thing. It reminds me of a book I loved as a child. I can't remember the name of it but the story goes something like this: a little boy goes out and plays and gets all dirty. He knows his mother will be upset if he comes home dirty so he goes into the forrest by his house where there is a huge washing machine. He walks inside and says "washing machine, now wash." It washes his hair and clothes and everything and he walks out shiny and clean and goes home to his mother. Now if my boys could only find a washing machine like that after they were done playing my problems would be over. For now I will settle for this little beauty and continue to stop and stare in amazement as I walk by. By the way if anyone remembers that story or knows the name of the book please let me know. I would love to find it for my children.

Happy Birthday Kyle!

It's been a busy birthday month around here. Kyle celebrated his 12th birthday on the 11th! He is growing up so fast. He was ordained a deacon and recieved the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday. I wanted to get a picture of him and Randy after church on sunday but everyone changed so fast I didn't get a chance to. We are so proud of Kyle and the young man he is growing up to be. Happy Birthday Kyle! We love you!

Baby Steps

Hailey took her first steps a couple of weeks ago. She can now take several steps at a time but prefers crawling most of the time. Her brothers and sister make a great cheering section everytime she decides to take off walking. They sure love their baby sister.



She has finally learned how to wave. We have been working on this for a few weeks now. At first she would just wave her arms in the air. She has now mastered opening and closing her hand. From the look on her face it must take lots of concentration.


They grow up so fast. I can't believe she will be 1 in two months. We are sure enjoying watching her grow.

Settling In

We finally made the move from the big city to the country. We have only been talking about it for two years now. It has been quite an adjustment, mostly for me. I probably cried every day the first week we were here. The kids are adjusting well. They have started school and have already had play dates with cousins and new friends. Natalie asks to call Rachel almost every day. The other day she said "it has almost been two weeks with no Rachel and I am still alive!" Poor thing, she was so broken hearted about moving. She still misses her best friend but she is making new friends and loves her new school. Here are some pics from the first day of school.




I guess the kids should have all had haircuts before school started but we were too busy to even notice.

There are some perks to living in the country, even if there is no Target close by. This is the view down my street on my morning jog.

This was the view out my kitchen window tonight as I fixed dinner.

We are missing Randy like crazy since he is still working in the valley and we only see him on weekends. Hailey now calls the phone "Dad". Thank you to all our friends and family that helped with meals and babysitting and cleaning and packing. We don't know what we are going to do without you (probably cry every day for a week). We are serious when we say come visit us. We miss you all like crazy!!!

Take me out to the ball game

We went up to the white mountains for the 4th of July celebration. We enjoyed the nice cool weather. On thursday morning we went to the parade then to my grandma's house for a 4th of July picnic. In the evening we went to see the Webb cousins and had a fun baseball game at the little league field. The kids had lots of fun and I think it made them more excited about moving up there in a couple of weeks. Jacob said he wants to move to Aunt Julie's house though. I guess he had fun there. We are back home for a few weeks, then we are going back up for the 24th of July celebration and Randy's 20 year high school reunion. OUCH! Is he really that old? Here is a slide show of the baseball game. Enjoy!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Sew much fun!

Many of you know I am a big Heather Bailey fan. I was on her blog recently when I saw that she was having a sewing class at a nearby boutique. I just happened to mention it to Randy and he just happened to call and sign me up. So on saturday off I went to meet the "Queen of cute fabric."

I know, this is a super cheesy picture of me but look who I am standing next to! You can see part of the cute store in the background.

We made these cute little strawberry pincushions, and ate some of her amazing strawberry pretzel desert ice cream. You can download the recipe from her blog. It was so delicious, I think we need to make it for the 4th of July.

We got the stuffins to make a red strawberry pincushion also and her new pattern that is not yet released. It includes a pattern for a pear, apple and tomato. She printed some cute recipe cards for her ice cream and she even signed our patterns.

It was so cool to meet her and ask questions about her fabric and learn some cool sewing tips. We were chatting after the class and she pulled out some of her scrapbook line. It is so cute! I am going to have to get my hands on some of that. It was tons of fun. Thanks Randy, for letting me have such a fun treat, I will never forget it!

Happy Birthday Lucas!

Lucas is 4 today! What a cute little farmer. We love you Lucas!

Strawberry Salsa with Cinnamon Crisps

Yum! I got this recipe from a friend about a month ago and have been wanting to try it ever since. I finaly got around to making it today and let me tell you it is delicious! This is definately a new summertime favorite. Thanks Melissa!



I had one of those rare moments today when the two littles were sleeping and the three bigs and 1 little were off playing with friends or helping their Dad on his new truck and I decided to make this. After I tasted it I was hoping they would hurry up and come home so I wouldn't eat the whole thing by myself. Yeah, it's that good! After I pigged out I realized I was going to need more cinnamon crisps so I had to make another batch. Thank goodness I did because when everyone got home it was gone in a few minutes.


Here is the recipe:

Strawberry Salsa
2 kiwis peeled & diced
2 apples peeled & diced
8 oz raspberries
1 lb strawberries
2 T sugar
1 T brown sugar
3 T fruit preserves, any flavor

In a large bowl, mix all the fruit together with sugar and fruit preserves. Cover and chill 15 min.

Cinnamon Crisps
10 flour tortillas
cooking spray or oil
cinnamon
sugar

Coat one side of each tortilla with butter flavor cooking spray or brush with oil. Cut into wedges with pizza cutter. Arrange in a single layer on baking sheet and sprinkle with desired amt. of cinnamon sugar. Spray again with cooking spray or baste again with oil. Bake 8-10 min at 350. Cool 15 min. and serve fresh.

This is the recipe the way Melissa gave it to me. I didn't have raspberries so I didn't put them in. I used strawberry preserves and only added a sprinkling of brown sugar and no regular sugar. It was plenty sweet enough for me. You might want to play around with it and add different things like blackberries or pineapple. I had a pre-made pie crust in the fridge so I used it for some of the chips. I thought the flavor was better than the tortillas but the dipability (is that a word?) was not as good because they were flakier and tended to fall apart. That is when a spoon comes in handy.


I promised to update you on the progress of my recipe book so here goes. The boys were all up at my Mom and Dad's for a week so I was able to actually get some stuff done around here, and have some fun girl time with Natalie and Hailey. I started working on my book but I have to admit I am not done because I kept thinking of great recipes I wanted to add to it. Here is the progress so far.





Speaking of fun with the girls, we had lots of fun. We discovered Redbox movie rentals at our local Walmart and watched a movie almost every night. I took Natalie to a ceramic store that we have lived 1/2 a mile from for 3 years for the first time. She painted a ceramic butterfly with her friend Kylie and can't wait to go back. She pulled out the Easy Bake Oven on more than one occasion to make cookies.

She was so cute. I had scouts on Wednesday and she wanted to make cookies for them for refreshments. She made them all in her Easy Bake Oven.

Notice the tatoo on her arm in the upper left hand corner of the picture. She cracks me up. She even melted some chocolate in a little bowl on the top burner to dip cookies in.

It was a good week. I was excited to go get my boys though. We drove up on Saturday to get them and back on Sunday. I got to see my sister Shara and her daughter Avery and new baby Aiden. I didn't get any pics though. We got back on Sunday night and started swimming lessons Monday morning. The kids are enjoying their swimming lessons all except for Jacob because he says the teacher won't let him do whatever he wants, too funny. Hopefully I will get pictures of them swimming next week.

Sorry, I know it is a long one but so much is going on it is hard to keep up. I would rather be busy than not though, thats what keeps life fun!

Work in progress

I am trying to get better at this blogging business and post more often. Two posts in one week, yea!

I have been working on a couple of projects for weeks now and I just can't seem to find the time to finish them. I thought maybe if I posted them here I would be motivated to get them finished so here goes.

I am trying to get all my favorite recipes compiled into one book. They are printed out and ready to go I just need to put it together.


This is a dress I am making for Hailey. It has been sitting on my ironing board untouched for two weeks now.

Hailey has been working on this -



She mostly just rocks back and forth on her hands and knees but I'm sure it wont be long before she is crawling everywhere. She is such a cute little bug.

I promise to keep you updated on the progress of all three. See, now I have to finish them. Lets hope this speeds up the process.