Country Fair

2 months ago I was called to be Relief Society Activities committee leader. We only do a couple big activities a year but the lady I replaced is so awesome I was really feeling like I had some big shoes to fill. The RS President is so super amazing (seriously, I want to be her when I grow up. A million times cooler than Martha Stewart) and her counselor that I work with and they were really patient with me while I tried to keep up with them. I'm an organized person but when it comes to planning I'm a "throw it together" kind of gal. So this threw me out of my element and it was a huge learning experience for me.

It was a mother/daughter activity and it turned out so great. We took a hayride up to the house and had chili and rolls. We did a blue ribbon contest for jams and Jellies, Pies, and an "other" category for cakes, cookies and any other desserts. (ps: my pumpkin bars won this category!) We did a sewing and pie crust class. Then the girls got to go to the country store and pick out carmel apples, hair band kit, pumpkin bracelet kit, caramel balls.... it was so fun for them!

My committee is amazing. They did all the decorating and set up. There were lights... I really wish I got to take more photos once the sun set. But it was a perfect evening! (I wish I got pictures of my girls too!)

So I tried a couple new recipes this week.
Swiss Steak (my mom's is better, sorry Paula)
Scalloped Chicken (it was kinda bland. I might do it again and add some more veggies, and a more flavorful scallop potato mix)
Slow Cooker Tamale Pie (super good! For sure doing this one again!)

Nothing

As I mentioned before Chris was sick. So we didn't go anywhere. We didn't do anything. Actually I take that back. I took Chris's car to get a carwash for our one year anniversary. It has not had a wash since we left AZ. Anyway, we watched a lot of TV, played a lot of wii, and ate a lot of pumpkin bars (and ditched homework).

Chris downloaded the dumbest, most addictive game for the ipod. It's called pocket frogs. You breed frogs and create all kinds of rare breeds. We just sat next to each other and played it the whole time.

Fiona found her tongue. She sticks it out all the time. And if you stick your tongue out at her she'll stick hers out. Too cute! I'm getting it clipped at her 4 month appointment on Friday. So no more heart shaped tongue.

When Asher goes to the bathroom he likes to lock himself in the bathroom. He can unlock it but sometimes he'll lock it before he closes it and we have to take the door knob off. He got stuck in the bathroom the other day and was calling for us from the door knob hole.

And we had a tea party in the basement with the girls.

It was a wonderful weekend and hopefully a wonderful week.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

Random Friday

-I finished Mockingjay (FINALLY!) I had a hard time getting into it because I didn't like where things were going with it. Even though the book wasn't that great, I felt like the whole series was wrapped up in pretty paper tied up in a nice big bow. So I'm content. I really don't want to post any spoilers, and Chris hasn't even tried to finish reading it so I'm trying to keep my feelings inside.

-I made THESE awesome pumpkin bars last night. So yummy. For the powdered sugar part of the cream cheese frosting I only put 1 1/2 cups cause I wanted to take more cream cheese and it was perfection. So moist. So yummy.

-Fiona and I are making a trip to Mesa Oct 8 - 11. I'm pretty excited to eat sushi, the good egg, costa vida, native new yorker and filburtos while I'm there. Oh and see everybody too. (winky face)

- Chris and I got a wii and the wii fit plus. I have been weighing myself everyday and it's been so great to see my progress. The other night Chris weighed in and it said he lost a pound. He did some exercise and then weighed in again and this time it said he lost 4 more pounds. Kinda weird. He did it 4 times and came up with the same weight every time. So I did it and I had lost a pound since weighing in that morning. Score! The next morning I weighed in and it said I had lost 9 pounds overnight. Ummm... pretty sure that's wrong, and physically impossible! I did some research and found out when weighing in on carpet the little feet need to be on the board. I was so mad! So I did it and I've still lost weight since my last doctor's appt in July. I just haven't lost as much and I weighed 5 pounds more than what I thought so that always sucks. Oh well, now things are more accurate.

-Chris got a C+ in his history class. He didn't even give us credit for the discussion questions we answered. A big fat ZERO!

-Cecily's new favorite color is rainbow. 

-This week Chris and I went as a family grocery shopping. This was a bad choice. Oh but then the next day we decided to go to Sams Club all together again. Another bad choice. As fun as it is for Chris and I to be together it's just too much for Asher. Maybe in a year we can all go together. I had Fiona in the snuglie and people could not get enough of her. She's such a ham!

-I just learned in my employment law class that more truck drivers die every year than police officers/detectives.

-Chris is home sick today so I get to play nurse. Except I've been told I'm a mean nurse. I like to think of myself as a concerned nurse.

-This Friday last year Chris and I were living the craziest day of our life. We had our whole house to pack up and 2 weddings to photograph. We just told our parents we were pregnant and we were moving to a new state the next day. Very stressful. This has been the fastest year of my life and full of new things.

Thank you craigslist!

Since I had to start over with everything for Fiona I've just been buying things as she gets to the age. Well, she's full on playing with toys. I'm sure she would be content chewing on her hands and feet (my favorite) she gets so nasty wet. I bought her one toy at walmart for $4 bucks. I decided it wouldn't be gross to look on craigslist for chew toys. I found 30+ toys for $20. I probably could have offered $15 but that's just not my thing. I brought them home and dumped them all in the washer to clean off the nasty cat and baby germs. 2 hours later it was play time! Except she was asleep. The kids were biting at the bit to play with the toys and Fiona so I let them at them. Note to reader: playing with infant toys is over stimulating for 2+ year old kids. Holy cow they were crazy and the toys were all over the house. Fiona is loving all her new toys. I got some teething toys set aside for when she gets to that point.

We've also sold almost a $1000 worth of stuff this month on craigslist. It's pretty much awesome. So if you know anyone who wants 300+ DVD cases. I'm the one they need to talk to.

Sorry no menu planning this week. I can't even remember what I made for dinner the past week! I'm trying a new recipe tonight though. It should be good! I did want to try THESE last night but Wal-Mart has been out of pumpkin forever! I was just informed by Molly that there isn't any anywhere because of the frost last year. You know what I say to that? Poo!

Here is a video of Fiona laughing filmed with Chris's new ipod touch.

A green weekend

Chris did a photo job up here 2 months ago and we just got paid, and we sold our video camera (hallelujah!) so we took a trip down to Boulder to buy Chris the new ipod touch with camera. He was pretty excited. We had driven down last weekend but they sold out within the time we left our house for the hour drive. We called before we left again on Friday and they had plenty this time. When we got there the lady recognized us (hard to miss a family with 4 little kids in Boulder. We were a freak show!) and told us we could have 10% off for making the drive again. Turns out we couldn't get that because it was still too new to offer discounts on it and they gave us apple care for free instead.

I hit Old Navy up cause they were having a huge clearance sale and got a ton of stuff for cheap. Including a nice pair of khakis for Chris for $1.38! I found these shorts for Chris and he calls them his train conductor pants. Choo! Choo!

This mall is super nice. I figured out only rich people live in Boulder. They had this awesome sand play area with sand toys provided. The kids had a blast.

Fiona started to fall asleep while in the snugli. People were whispering and pointing at me and I couldn't figure out why. But it was because Fiona was nodding off and then kept waking up cause she didn't have support for her head. Pretty cute stuff according to Chris. I couldn't see her cause she was forward facing in the snugli.

Chris and I watched 180 degrees south on Friday. It was a beautiful movie. Then on Saturday we watched No Impact Man. It was very entertaining and got Chris and I thinking about the things we can do to be a little greener. I think what made such an impact on us was watching 180 degrees and to see how beautiful and amazing the earth is. And then to watch no impact man and see piles of trash and what not. People throwing trash out their car windows and all the take out boxes... it was offensive.

Saturday we woke up and it was super cloudy with this weird mist rain. It was beautiful! And stayed around 48 degrees all day. Around 12pm I realized this is not good cause my family pictures were at 4pm! I waited till 2:30pm and decided to go ahead with the pictures cause the weird mist rain stopped. We looked good and I hope we got a couple good ones. Asher was super cranky, the girls were wild and Fiona was a perfect happy baby. She looked and smiled at the camera better than anyone else. I can't wait to get them back cause I really want them to be perfect but I know I need to have realistic expectations with 4 kids. I wish I got some pictures of just the kids all dressed up so you can get a taste of how cute they were but it was seriously so exhausting getting them ready and wrestling them while at the park I didn't care anymore at that point.

Sunday was a really nice and relaxed day. I love getting to recharge and do nothing. I'm usually very crazy about having a nice Sunday dinner with my fancy dishes but I felt like wearing my pjs all day and eating pigs n' blankets (with cheese). The only bad thing about yesterday was Chris scrubbing Asher's poo out of the carpet. No bueno.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

Random Friday

-Toe infection still raging. Time to go to the doc and get it cut off.

-Mockingjay is just annoying me so I'm not in a rush to finish it.

-Potty training is going really well. He pooped for the first time on the toilet yesterday. I almost cried in happiness. We've had 3 accidents today but that's expected in this stage.

-Looks like no family photos tomorrow. The dumb photographer hasn't gotten back with me. It's really disappointing too because I won the gift certificate at a breast cancer fundraiser so I think that's why she doesn't want to do it? I don't know. I told her I would purchase the CD of images and we scheduled it and now nothing. No call backs or email backs. I know she's alive cause she blogged yesterday. ***UPDATE*** She just called and we're doing them! I'm leaving this rant though.

-Chris got a B+ in his psych class and we're waiting on the dumb constitution class grade. I'm so glad that class is over. I'm getting a chocolate crepe today in celebration. It'll be totally worth it since I'm not getting the family photos tomorrow anyway and I did some of Chris's homework for that class.

-I got my haircut on Wednesday and the lady who cut it had the most gorgeous hair. Seriously, I have a girl crush on her hair. My plan was to cut my hair short once I lost all the baby weight but now I know it must be grown out so I can have amazing hair like this lady. I catch myself thinking about it, that's how awesome it was.

There really hasn't been much going on this week. Not even random happenings. I mean, I haven't even taken any silly photos! So for my random photos this week I'm posting some family photos. Most flops but they are fun to look back on.

One of those days...

Asher is potty training himself today. He's basically proved himself and awesome kid right there. He's doing great! Only one accident and that was my fault.

This is what I feel like this week. Cross off the career part and put school, church calling, hobbies. This is me.

Chris is amazing and knows how to take care of me so everything always gets better when I get a phone call or email from him. And then when he gets home at 6pm I am one happy lady. (ps. today I'm getting my haircut. Not a lot just layered so I don't have "pyramid head" anymore.)

So no meal planning again this week. My meals have consisted of breakfast for dinner and leftovers. I will tell you this though, Buttermilk is gold in the kitchen. I have never tried it cause I've never bought it and I never bought it cause I thought it was pointless. I would make my biscuits, waffles, fried chicken... all with regular milk. Nope, not anymore. I will always have a carton of buttermilk in my fridge. I VOW TO THE BUTTERMILK GODS. I made the world's best biscuits with THIS recipe. Seriously, they are to DIE for. And if I had some homemade jelly left from Amy then I would be eating one right now. (She seriously makes the yummiest variety of jellies).

epic

So yesterday I was cleaning the kitchen while listening to pandora and enjoying the music. Next thing I know I'm lost in a thick forest, wearing some sort of medieval garb trying to find Chris. Then a big sumo wrestler comes up behind me I'm doing crazy yoga-karate moves and kill him. I find a castle to sleep in and Braveheart (aka Chris) comes and I join his army. That same night I birth 10 babies and I'm riding away with them on a fluffy unicorn to keep them safe from the baby-napping witch hunting me down. After years of living with gypsies to raise my babies I am at last brought back in the forest from the beginning, looking for the moon and stars, and running towards my lover, reunited at last.

Doesn't make sense? Listen to this song...

Random Friday

- I hate when there are any flashing lights when I am trying to go to sleep. I will get out of bed throw a dirty shirt or towel over it so I can sleep but I also hate a messy room so I would end up picking up whatever we used to cover it up the night before the next day. Then the cycle would repeat. We turn the light off and the dang light is flashing again! So I made a permanent fix. Hole in sock and put it over the light. Genius I know!

-Monday Cecily played outside and rubbed some sort of plant on her face. It ended up looking like a sunburn. So before I put her to bed I gave her some benadryl and when she woke up in the morning she went in the bathroom and burst into tears. I asked her what was wrong and she cried "my face!" I called her into my room and you could not even recognize her cause her face was so swollen. I kept her home from school cause it looked like someone beat her up. This is a couple hours after she woke up and it's not even as bad as it was. The swelling went down but then she got bruises under her eyes from her face being so swollen and then today her face is so dry and gross looking. I have no idea what's going on.

-Fiona is now playing with toys. I can't believe she's old enough to do that, as much as it makes me sad it's so freakin' cute! Then last night she rolled from her back to her stomach. And she' s wiggling around a ton of ground that she's basically crawling. I may have another early crawler on my hands like Jocelyn.

-We are getting family pictures done next weekend and I ordered all of the kids clothes online and I'm SOOOO excited. It's going to be good. Is it possible to loose 5 pounds in a week?

-The masterpiece 2009 version of Wuthering Heights is pretty dang good. That Heathcliff is one psycho dude.

-While Darcy was here we talked about our favorite albums. She said if she were stuck on a desert island she would bring Weezer's Pinkerton album and I argued that their blue album was by far the best. After much thought and consideration I've decided what 5 albums I would bring with me.
1. Weezer Blue Album
2. Dashboard Confessional A Mark A Mission A Brand A Scar
3. All American Rejects Move Along
4. Adele 19
5. 500 Days of Summer Soundtrack
I think this is a good summary of my taste in music. Of course I would rather bring my ipod with me and have a mix of music but that's not the point of the game.

Well, that's all I've got... for this weeks random photos in memory of September 11... My senior trip in 2000 And Chris took a trip there to see SNL in 2008.

Daaar the Visitor

Darcy came Saturday afternoon to come stay with us for a few days. We had a total blast with her here. Asher fell in love with her and the girls loved playing and talking with her. As soon as she got here we loaded everyone up and headed down to downtown to help celebrate "tour de fat". Everyone dresses up like it's Halloween and rides around on their bikes in celebration of the beer that's brewed here in Ft. Collins called Fat Tire. It's really big especially with CSU here. It was pretty crazy but fun to see what people were dressed up as. We ate dinner at a pizza place and my head moon-landed with the gorilla man's mohawk sitting behind me. We then got cookies and played in the water at the oak street plaza.

I think this is when Asher fell in love with "Daaar" cause she played swords with him while we waited FOREVER for our pizza.

Cecily was starving and I showed her the honey. Big mistake. She ended up eating it with everything, even her chicken nuggets, and just started using her licked finger to put honey on.

Sunday we spent at Rocky Mountain National Park. To get there you have to go through Estes Park and it was CR-A-ZY! The line for Subway was out the door so we went to a little deli and it took us an hour to get lunch. The Stanley Mansion from the Shining is in Estes Park. We found it by accident and it was pretty cool.

Once we got in we had a picnic then went and found a little stream to play in. Yep, that means Asher got naked.

We took a one way drive up to the top of one of the mountains. It was a gorgeous drive. We stopped and played in another stream. The water tasted SOOOOO fresh and wonderful.

Then we met this big guy...

The open part way down in the valley is where we picnicked.

Up on the top.

On our way down the mountain we were stuck in traffic. It took 30 minutes to move a mile. We were joking that there better be a heard of buffalo holding us up cause we figured someone had stopped to take a picture and was holding everyone up. Well, it wasn't a heard of buffalo but I counted 22 Elk. Totally worth the wait and holding up the line a little longer so we could get our picture. (This is only a section of the group)

Then back in Estes Park we ran into another heard of 12 Elk.

And then we met the big daddy elk. I totally thought his antlers were going to scratch our car as he walked by.

Monday Darcy treated me to lunch at the bluebird cafe and then we went and hit up all the thrift stores and flea markets. Darcy went and got dinner from Whole Foods and we made little pizzas. Sooooo yummy! It was a nice relaxed day while we worked on school and napped and ate. My favorite kind of vacation.

Darcy's flight was at 6:30am this morning so we left the house at 4:30am to get her there an hour early. She BARELY made her flight cause security took so long. Sorry Darcy! Thanks for coming it was such a blast to have some one-on-one time with you like the good ol' days. And thanks for sharing her with us Nathan!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!