Thursday, December 9, 2010

Baptism Day

My sweet Austin chose to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.It was a such a special day for our family. It's always tender as a mom to watch the man you love in these special rolls as father and worthy priesthood holder.
It's always tender as a mom to watch your son take these big steps in life. Steps you know will lead him to happiness and eternal life.
This is part one of what we are working towards with our little family here.
I may become a crier after all as these parts continue to unfold.

Thursday, December 2, 2010

How Have I Never Seen This?

(Another thing I can blame on my mom...)

I can't believe I have never seen this classic Christmas movieI watched it tonight with my kids and it is my new favorite Christmas movie. It's such a darling story about how Santa Claus became Santa Claus.

It is a MUST SEE this Christmas
(and every Christmas from now on!)


(Mom, you can come over and watch it. It's on my DVR)

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Conversations with Adeline

How I love my Addie Girl. She is 5 going on 16. Allow me to prove this point with a few stories...
(Waking her up on Saturday morning for dance dress rehearsal. She usually sleeps until 10am)
Me "Addie it's time to wake up"
A "No. I want to sleep longer"
Me "You need to go to your dance class"
A "What I need is more sleep!!" (and dramatically throwing her covers over her head)
My first thought was "How unfair that I am dealing with this now. I thought I had 10 more years"

Adeline can have quite the sassy mouth and is no stranger to soap in it. One day I was wandering the house cleaning up and she was on my heels, sassing every other word. I finally got tired of listening to it and turned on her
Me "Addie I'm sick of you acting like a snot. I'm sick of you saying mean things to your sister. I'm sick of you sassing. I'm sick of..."
(interrupting me with her hand on her hip and her eyes rolling)
"Well, I'm sick of you saying sick"

Recently I bought "The Sound of Music" and we watched it 3 times in 3 days. On the third day I walked in on her watching Liesl and Rolfe singing '16 going on 17' and she said to me longingly
"She's so lucky. She has a boyfriend"

Just getting home from kindergarten one day she says to me
"Mom, someone at my table at school is going to marry Taylor AAAND Sam."
Me "Really? Who?"
A "ME!!!"

Another day just home from school
A "Mom, you should've seen Taylor today. He was dressed soooo cute. I'm in love with him."

What's a mom supposed to do?

Sunday, November 14, 2010

It's Great to be 8!

My little dude, Austin turned 8 this past Friday Nov.12, 2010.

We had a BYU party! (Duh!)
Pizza
PresentsCake
Then we loaded all 10 kids into the car and went to the BYU basketball game
(the only girls braving the chaos)
Dad and birthday boy
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY FIRST BORN!

(ps...Did anyone noticed that my Halloween decor is down and Christmas is up? I think my goal each year now is to have Christmas up by Austin's birthday. I don't even care if you think I'm crazy)

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Have you ever...

  • Used dish detergent in the washing machine? (it was just for my rugs, ok)
  • Made dinner. Thrown it out. Made dinner again. Had your husband try it. Took one look at his face, threw your arms in the air and called for everyone to get in the car? (Kid's eat free on Tuesdays at Denny's)
  • Laid down in bed mid-morning "just to warm up" and got woken up by the phone 30 minutes later? (in my defense, I ran 4 miles in the cold and my hot shower didn't quite do it for me)
  • Wondered how far into November you can keep your Halloween decorations up before being considered WT? (I really would like the answer to that)
  • Ignored your cell phone because it's new and you don't want to learn the system? (I miss my Iphone)
  • Spent a day running errands and visiting other public places, then catching a glimpse of yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and realized that you never put on make up?
  • Gotten up every 30 minutes through the night with a puking child?
  • Went the next morning to buy ginger ale and Toy Story 3 to honker down for the day?

WHAT A WEEK!

Kim's Award Winning Cheesy Corn Chili

This recipe wins me every chili cook off I've ever entered. To really test it, I gave the recipe to my sister to take to her ward's chili cook off and guess what?

You got it!!

She won!!

booyah

And since I'm totally against "secret recipes," let me share the love

1 lb ground sausage
1 can tomato paste
2 cups water
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cans chili beans
1 package chili seasoning
2 cups frozen corn or 2 cans of corn
16 oz Velveeta cheese
(pictured is Italian sausage because that's all I had, but you can use regular or hot or whatever is to your liking)

1. Brown sausage in skillet
2. While that's cooking, whisk tomato paste and water in a large pot until smooth on high heat
3. Add seasoning, beans (I like to leave them in their juices), and drained corn and tomatoes
4. Stir in browned sausage
5. Add Velveeta (I only use half of the block pictured)
6. Reduce heat to low, cover and let simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally

VOILA!
It's seriously the easiest thing on earth, so no need to be impressed.

If you really want to knock their socks off, serve with scones or corn bread and
Kim's Magical Honey Butter:
Honey
Butter (the real stuff)
Marshmallow cream (this should be a stable in your pantry from now on. Sound advice from an expert! It's really sweetens up fruit dips, frostings, cookies, fresh whipped cream, or anything else your sweet tooth craves)

Try it and let me know what you think. I'm open for improvement (ALWAYS)

Monday, November 1, 2010

St. Paul

Bailey and I spent most of last week in St. Paul, MN. The weather was cold, but the company was warm. Charis has a cuddly 2 month old that I wanted to get my hands on and we needed to get a head start on a courtship between Bailey and Tate. I didn't take many pictures and didn't get any pictures of the new Thatcher boy, Finn, but he's a babe!
Among other things, we shopped, ate out, cooked, exercised, and took the kids on little adventures. Even though my camera was locked in my purse most of the week, I freed it when Charis and Tate did a little Karaoke at the children's museum.
The kids also got to paint their own faces

Bailey cuddled up with Mimi, Tate's cousins dog.
I love my friend Charis and was so privileged to be in her home. I'm also very fond of my 3rd child and loved our time, just the two of us.

I'm surrounded by angels!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

This is Halloween

We're going to pretend today that this is actually 5 different posts that you've seen over the past couple weeks.

We will also pretend, humor me please, that I am a photographer.

Post #1: Halloween Crafts for Adults
Sparkling pumpkins with my sisters (I've dropped the whole in-law thing with Lexi (and Shelbie) b/c I like them so much). It's about the easiest thing on earth and sparkles do something to my insides- it's euphoric!
Paint a pumpkin in sections with mod podge and shake a generous amount of fine glitter over the section. I find that if you have 2 paper plates to catch the glitter (alternating between the 2), it's helpful. I sparkled everything I could get my hands on. I'm already eying things I can sparkle for Christmas.

Post #2: Halloween Treats
I found twigs outside and used them as the sticks in my carmel apples. I didn't take a picture of every step (for real life step by step, check this out). I dipped in carmel, dipped in chocolate, rolled in nuts or toffee or whatever else sounded yummy, then wrapped them like this...

I got the smaller brown bags at a craft store, cut one down the corners the cut into strips, leaving the bottom intact. Then cut the top off another bag to shorten itPull up the sides and tie with yarn. Does it look like a witches broom to anyone? See how the stick in the apple is the handle for the broom? Tell me this is cute because it went to school teachers, visiting teachers, etc.
Post #3: Halloween Crafts for Kids
Foot Ghosts
Paint the bottom of your child's foot
Press onto paper
Wipe foot with wipe before letting them run around
Let it dry then have your child draw a mouth and eyes on the heel of their painted foot and you have yourself a ghost that you can keep for years to come and wonder why your children's feet just won't stop growing.
Paint or carve pumpkins (if you're as clever as I am- you paint pumpkins a week before Halloween then go out of town the week of and get grandma to the house to do the carving. BAH HA HA! I hate carving- Sorry mom!)
Paper doll of your child's Halloween costume (ok, fine, this was a school project), but still crafty

I also had my kids make their own trick or treat bags. I bought canvas bags at a craft store for $2 and let them go nuts with permanent markers.

Post #4 Halloween Decor
I wanted to take a picture of my very favorite Halloween decorations.
I bought these skull candle holders a few years ago at Big Lots (for real) and added a little glitter (duh), set them on top of black candle sticks and below orange candles and...


I'm so glad I took these pictures because 2 days later John was swinging a BYU flag around the house and I asked him to stop before he broke something, but he didn't stop and broke my favorite Big Lots candle holder. For those of you new to my blog, John is not my son. But he did glue it back together for me, so all is well in the Jonas home.

I have a hard time doing above my cabinets. I really needed Shelbie here.
But I liked my skull with the witch hat
and my symmetrical mantel


Post #5 Halloween Costumes
My lil sis Cara is NOT too old to dress up (and I have not lost my "bangs to heaven" skills)

This lady is quite a sassy little Angel (side note: my mom made THAT dress for me to wear when I was that age. I need to dig up that picture)
I bought Bailey a Sleeping Beauty dress, but on the day of she decided she wanted to be a lady bug (an older costume we already had) and since I'm trying to let go of some of my controlling tendencies, I allowed it.Even though it rained, we had a great Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

A Story Problem

What do you get when you add 7 women (minus children) with 7 crafts, 1 beach house, 2 nights, endless sugar, and the beach?

Michelle's 30th birthday party!

My dearest friend Michelle Hemple Jolley turned 30 over the weekend and you better believe I would not miss the chance to watch the gal I shared a college room with turn into an old lady. So I flew into Charlotte, NC (where Michelle now lives) and we drove with a group of friends to Charleston, SC.
We started the weekend off right...with food We stayed in this darling beach house
Our fuel for a long night of crafts
Each of us had to bring a craft for the others to do. Allison brought T-shirts to cut up and sew into scarfs. We also got creative with the scraps.
Midnight snack
No words
I think this pic was taken sometime after 3am
The next "morning" (we slept until noon!) We slipped in a little more crafting before heading to the beach

Michelle and Tiffany were the only ones brave enough (or stupid enough) to get in the water

Dinner in downtown Charleston
And drooling over all the yummy treats thereWe talked about doing a ghost tour, which I'm glad didn't work out because I'm a super wimp, but we did see this cemetery on our way back to the car, so I looked up some SC ghost stories on my phone and read them in my scariest voice.
And back to get our craft on...This massive glue stick gave me the giggles somewhere around 2am

Sunday morn was the big day, so we bought and cake and did the candle thing, but I think we were all on sugar overload by that time the we didn't even eat it
The birthday girl and me

I sure love that lady!

(but my own bed at 10pm felt sooo good)