The King and The Queen

I helped out with a Primary Activity Days Daddy Daughter Activity last night. They had some crowns left over and they sent them home with me to give to the kids. I don't think I could have come home with anything more exciting. They wanted me to put them on right away and they ran around the rest of the evening playing with them. Zach kept saying he and Hailey were queens, but we quickly explained to him that girls were queens and boys were kings. He seemed to be fine with it and quickly changed to telling us they were the king and the queen. Anyone who's met our children know that this is probably more of a truth than just a make-believe thing. I think the two of them do rule our little home "castle."







Too cute.

There was a Melon who had a name ...

And BINGO was his name-o.

Our little garden has really done well this year. Last year, we lost a few plants (probably because we thought we were watering better than we were), so thinking we would lose about as many, we bought the same amount. Of course we changed our watering habits (ok, we just adjusted the sprinkler) and we haven't lost any. So our little garden is more than overflowing with plants. I think it looks more like a weed patch, but I promise they are all plants.



So far we've harvested quite a few items from the garden. We have 3 tomato plants and 4 cucumber plants (we lost 3 of our 4 of these last year, but all 4 are going strong this year). While our tomatoes have been fairly normals size so far, our cucumbers have been huge!



In addition to the cucumber and tomato plants, we planted a watermelon and cantaloupe plant too. Nana and Papa gave us 2 huge pumpkin plants last year that the kids just loved. Unfortunately, we didn't get out early enough to get any pumpkins this year, so Zach decided he wanted to try a watermelon plant - I think he was thinking he wanted something BIG. The other day when we were out weeding the garden and searching around for cucumbers, we saw a strangely shaped cucumber. After looking at it for a few seconds, we realized that it was the beginning of our first watermelon!



When we told Zach to come over and see, he was so thrilled, he starting jumping up and down. We told him we should give it a name while we were watching it grow. When we asked Zach what he wanted to call his little watermelon, he enthusiastically said, let's call it BINGO! So we have a garden blooming so much that it's starting to grow out of the garden and our first little watermelon named BINGO.

GOOOAAALLL!!! (Well, almost)

This last Tuesday was Zach's first soccer game. He's had a few practices, but nothing came close to the fun of watching the first game. He was all decked out his his soccer shirt, official soccer shorts, soccer socks, and his very first pair of soccer cleats. It was so cute, because he couldn't stop smiling.














Once we got there, he could hardly wait for the game to start. Once it did, he ran and ran and kicked and kicked.











He did so great, he was a little runner the whole time. He probably handled the ball more than any other player on the team.

And he almost scored a goal!

Nana and Papa Hawks Visit

Last Week, our Nana and Papa and Uncle Troy from California came to visit us. We hadn't seen them for over a year and it was great to spend some time with them. Zach and Hailey are getting old enough to remember them more and more every time we see them and amazingly enough it only took Hailey about 30 minutes to warm up to them once they got here. For those of you that know how funny she can be about strangers sometimes, you'll know this was a miracle.

We had a ton of fun while they were here. Below are some pictures of places we went and things we did.

The Owlz Baseball Game
(eating yummy popsicles!)











Playing Board Games at Home
(this was our favorite thing to do)














Bowling











The Kangaroo Zoo
(jumping and sliding on big blow up toys)














Liberty Fun Park
(a mini amusement park with rides just for little kids)











Zach riding all by himself on a go-cart (his first time!)


Dad and the kids on the boat ride (Zach was really into spraying everything with water - even us spectators!)

Obsessed with Emergency Preparedness / Food Storage

Just ask anyone in my family and they will tell you that when it comes to Emergency Preparedness or Food Storage - I'm obsessed. Like everything else in my life, I can't just do things half way. I guess that comes from being a perfectionist.

Recently, a friend of ours sent us a link to a food storage blog (thanks Thelissa!) and ever since then I have been looking at different sites on the web trying to find some ideas and suggestions on emergency preparedness and food storage. Since everyone's tastes and situation are different, I like to see the different ways people like to do food storage. While I've been searching, I have found some really great sites that I thought I'd share with everyone. Here are just a few:

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net
This website has a lot of great ideas. It's done by 2 stay-at-home mom's trying to do their food storage a little bit at a time. It's great because they break things down into what they call "babysteps" so it helps you do things a little at a time.

http://thecrazyshopper.blogspot.com
This is a lady after my own heart. In fact, I got my inspiration for this post title from her blog. Looks like I'm not the only one who's obsessed about this stuff. She has some great ideas and even lists some deals that she shares.

http://grocerysmarts.com/utah/lists/splashg84cso.php
This is by far my favorite. Have you ever looked at the weekly ads and asked yourself - is that a good deal for that? Well, this site does all the hard work for you and it's free! They take each of the ads and break them down into excellent, good, and ok deals. That way you know right off the bat whether something is a good deal or not. They also have linked the deals with coupons that you can get out of the paper or online. They have listings for all of the stores I know of in Utah. I'm sure for those of you out of state, they might have a section for your state - you may have to go to their home page to find it. The crazy/obsessive shopper site above also shows you how to sort these lists - for example, if you're like me and only want to see the 4 or 5 star deals. This is my new favorite shopping website!

http://www.myfoodstoragedeals.blogspot.com
This site also has great ideas for food storage. There are a bunch of recipes and ways to store things. They have another site entitled http://www.myfoodstoragedeals.com where they do the sorting of the ads (like the grocery smart site above), but they charge a monthly fee. However, they do offer more services like a meal planner - which takes the items on sale each week and comes with a list of weekly meals - so if you're pressed for time, that can be a great benefit. They also have some free downloads that are great, so it's worth taking a look on their blog.

So for you emergency preparedness/food storage gurus out there, here are some sites you might be interested in. If any of you have others you have seen or use, please leave me a comment - I would love to have more.

I'm also leaving these on my right sidebar for my own reference, so if you aren't into food storage yet, but find you are later, you can always find the links there or feel free to email me and I'll send them to you. Good luck!

Happy Birthday Nana!

Today was Nana's Birthday. If you know the grandkids in our family, then you know how much they love birthdays. Doesn't matter if it's theirs or someone elses. They love doing party hats and favors and spend all day playing with them. Today was fun because almost everyone had on a party hat, so we had to take a picture of the birthday girl with her grandkids - all with their hats on.



Even more exciting than party hats or favors is the cake. Honestly, I don't think you get to blow out your own candles in our family if it's your birthday unless you're one of the grandkids. As you can see, there wasn't any room for Nana to blow out her candles today. Usually we do the "blowing out of the candles" multiple times.



Of course, Nana didn't care one bit. She had so much fun with the kids, she told me that was the best birthday present ever.

So, you're probably asking yourself, just how old is she? Well, if you ask the experts, here are their responses:

Ashton - 15
Zach - 8
Hailey - 4
Branson - 2
Papa - almost as old as dirt (as old as mud he said a second time - I think Papa's in deep mud if you ask me - just kidding).

No matter how old you are Nana, we love you. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Extreme Makeover - Hailey Edition

Ever have one of those days when you should be angry and punish your little one for something they've just done, but instead you find yourself trying to hold back the laughs because the scene is so funny you can barely stand it? Well, let's just say that tonight was one of those nights. I had run to the store to pick up a few things right after putting the kids down for the night. Hailey has been a bit stubborn about going to bed lately and has invented all sorts of excuses to get up, including having to go to the bathroom 3 times in 10 minutes, if need be. Well, tonight as I was coming in, we heard a noise upstairs. Since I was busy putting away groceries, I sent Jeremiah up to check on which child it was and get them back to bed. Not more than a minute later, he came back downstairs and told me that he needed my help with one of the kids upstairs. He had kind of a strange look on his face (which I now realize was his "holding back the laughter" face), so I headed upstairs to see which one had gone potty in their pants or threw up all over or whatever. In the upstairs bathroom, I found this scene:

Yes, that would be make-up all over her face and pj's - including foundation, eyeliner, and mascara. Apparently she realized she was going to get in trouble, because when Jeremiah found her, she was trying to wash her hands with soap. The bottle of lotion was also on the floor, so apparently she was trying to moisturize as well. Have I taught her well or what? The funniest part about this whole thing was her answer when I asked her what she was doing. Her response: "I'm putting on my make-up Mommy!" With a look that said "Duh, what you do think I'm doing?" I stood there for about 10 seconds, trying to keep myself from bursting out laughing at what I was looking at. After I regained my composure, I was able to get things cleaned up (including her) and give her a little bit of a talking to about getting into Mommy's make-up. Luckily, she decided to do this little self makeover in her bathroom (which has a vinyl floor) instead of our master bathroom (which has carpeting) where the make-up was actually located. Other than a few little drops of foundation on the carpet (which happens to almost be the exact same color) so there are no noticeable stains, we came away with little effect other than a good laugh and a great story for the blog.