Easter!!!

I am a little slow getting these pictures up, but better late than never. One reason is we were asked on Easter Sunday if jff and I would give talks the next Sunday. So I spent the week after, researching, worried, and then writing my talk. I am glad to say that it is finished and hopefully I do not have to talk in sacrament meeting for years. 

Now it is on to the Easter festivities. The week before Easter Dallin and Isaac had spring break so everyone except Jeff headed up to Logan to spend some time with my family. The main reason is because this week jeff is doing a PMP training, and he needed that time to get ready for the training and get caught up with his new promotion.

Everyone had a lot of fun and the real party didn't start until Thursday when we had a craft day. My sister, Debra, picked out a couple of crafts for us to do and my mom, my sister Amanda, my sister Debra, and myself all took the afternoon and made some crafts. If you would like to see the pictures, I will blog about it on my crafting blog Splendid Failure Crafts.

On Friday, we went to the baby animal days that is put on at the Heritage Center in Wellsville. The kids had fun going and looking at the animals. I think Dallin had the most fun seeing the animals. We saw baby ducks, chicks, rabbits, ponies, pigs, lambs, cows, and even some baby bears. Kaden didn't really care for the animals, until he saw them in their pen. He loved them. There was also a white peacock on site and I have never seen one of them. I made a collage of the pictures.

On Saturday, there were a lot of stores running an Easter egg hunt. I wasn't planning on going to any that began at 8:30 in the morning, but Kaden woke me up at 7:30 on Saturday, so we went. The first place we went to was, Smith's Marketplace. Smith's was also serving donuts and juice so the kids and I also got some free breakfast while waiting for the hunt to start. First up was Kaden and I had to leave Dallin and Isaac by the cart, while I went to help him find eggs. He was a typical 18 month old, find the first thing and is just happy with that. I ended up helping him put the egg in the bag and finding 4 more eggs. At that point I was happy and we left to go see Dallin and Isaac.

Dallin and Isaac were in the same group so we went to their area. Dallin is not a fan of running to try and get candy in public, so I was giving him a pep talk. I told the boys that we should just try to get 1 egg and be happy. It turned out that it was inspiration, because both of the boys got just 1 egg. It was a mad house. But everything was great.

Smith's also had a egg decorating place, so we decorated some cookies and then back to the grandparents to wait for the next hunt. The next hunt was at the mall, and unfortunetly Dallin didn't want to participate, so he went and played on in the child area, while I waited in line with Kaden. Isaac had to stay in line by himself because Kaden and Isaac were hunting at the same time.  He did fine and got lots of candy. Kaden did better this time and even came away with a baloon. Everyone had fun.

Later that day everyone came over and we had egg olympics, and everyone had fun. the kids and I left after dinner that night for home. I was tired the next day and occupied with practising for the choir number the next day, that I didn't take any pictures of the boys playing with their toys and eating their candy. But it was a great week. I also made a collage of pictures for the Egg olympics.

February Activities

I noticed today that it has been over a month since I have updated the blog with what my family has been doing. So here we go.

Dallin- Has been playing basketball in two places. We signed him up for the Stansbury Stallions and for Jr. Jazz in Magna. He wasn't as excited about practice this year as he was last year, but I think it is because he would see that he wouldn't get to do some things that we were doing that night because he would have practice in Magna. He hated to go to the Stansbury Stallions this because it was for an hour and a half and was with over 100 people so he would have a lot of down time while the other people were getting their turn. But he had fun at the Jr. Jazz games and towards the end of the season he actually started to go after the ball.


Isaac- At the beginning of the month he started getting a fever of 103. I would then give him some medicine and it would work its magic and bring the temperature down and he would be fine for the rest of the day where the fever would stay around 99. The next morning it would start out at around 99 and then after lunch it would spike again to 103. I would give medicine and then he would be fine for the rest of the day. His body would have this pattern for around 10 days. At around day 5 I took him to the doctor and there was no infection that she could find. He even had to go get his blood drawn and pee in a cup for tests for different infections. All tests came back negative. At around day 8 when the fever roller coaster still hadn't gone away on its own, the doctor started him on antibiotics. He had the fever for the next couple of days, but it finally did break and not come back on February 13th. So he was able to go to his valentine's day party the next day. he was so excited. It was sad to see him so happy and playing in the morning and then after lunch he would lay down and stay that way for a couple of hours until the fever broke and then he would start to play a little bit. After the 10 days of fever though he wouldn't even start to play. We don't really know what was going on, but he is back to his old self now and we are happy to have our Isaac back.

Kaden- What can I say about our baby. Yes we still think of him as a baby even though he is 18 months old. Yesterday he went to nursery for the first time. Jeff went with him and he thought he would have to stay the whole time through the play with toys time, but Kaden was having so much fun playing with the toys, that Jeff left to come join me in Primary to help with your 10 yr old class. No one came and got us, and when we went and picked him up he was happy to see us. Jeff got to the room first and was calling Kaden's name, but he didn't drop his toy and come running until he saw me, and knew that it was time to leave. He is such a cute boy. This month Kaden figured out how to get his own cereal out of the bag, when I forget to shut the pantry door. I was making dinner one night and turned around to find him like in the picture to the left. It was so cute that I took the picture. He was such a sneak. We call him our a ruckus when he gets into our things, but he is such a cute ruckus that he makes us smile when we find out.

Parents- This year for valentine's day I thought I would give Jeff 14 days of valentines instead of just one. So it started with me leaving a note in his gym bag so when he went to play racquetball with some guys at his work he would know that I loved him. He found the note a little early and the snack that I left in there, but he loved the gesture. I would leave a note every day for him somewhere where he would find it. Sometimes I would leave one of his favorite snacks. By the end of 14 days, Jeff was starting to say that I was making him fat, but he loved all of the notes of love and kindness. Jeff ordered me flowers on valentine;s day and it was a new experience for both of us having flowers shipped through UPS. I don't think Jeff liked how it turned out and will not be buying flowers over the Internet again, but I loved the flowers and I felt very loved that day. I snapped a picture a couple of days after valentine's when the flowers looked their best. It was definitely a bouquet of flowers that got better over time. In fact they are still doing just fine sitting on my kitchen table. We also went out to sushi that weekend when we were up at my parents and we had a ball being out together. We need to do more of that.

Family Activities-I love doing things together as a family, especially when we got to a sporting event. This year Dallin became in love with the Jazz. He went to one game when they came back from the lockout, which was free for us because of Jr. Jazz, and he had fun and actually followed the game the whole time. So we planned to take everyone to a Jazz game this month as a reward for working on the basement. The day that I had planned to take everyone turned out to be on the only weekend that was perfect to go see my family over a couple of days. So i cancelled the Jazz game. The day before we left I thought about seeing if the Utah State basketball team had a game that we could replace the Jazz game with. It turned out that they did and I bought 4 tickets, which turned out to be a lot cheeper than going to the Jazz game. Everyone had a lot of fun at the game. You can see from the picture that I took with my phone, that Dallin is paying attention, Isaac is being his normal self when I pull out a camera, and Jeff he looks bored, but if I remember correctly the Aggies weren't doing the best at this time so he might be a little frustrated. Utah State didn't win, but we all had fun and I was able to tell the boys that I used to work here and be up in the media box and on the floor taking stats. It was a little sad, because I miss taking stats for Utah State. It was one of the happiest times that I had at college. We all had fun and that is a plus.

I had to share this last photo becuase Kaden is just too cute. He is funny in the fact that he will let you put something on his head and he will keep it there for awhile. He was in the bath and I put his vampire duck and an alligator toy on his head and he thought that was fun. He wold actually continue playing with the other toys and leave these toys on his head. We play a game with our kids where we put an animal on there head and then name their heads the animal with head, brain, or any other name for the head we can think of. So since I was able to get two animals on his head I named him ducky head alligator brain for this picture.

So we have all had fun enjoying our new basement this last month and Jeff and I can't believe how we ever lived without the basement being done. It took along time to finish, but now that it is done we love it. Next project will be our pantry shelves, and then it is on to my craft room where demolition will be involved. I can't wait to try my hand at breaking down a wall with a sledge hammer. It should be fun.

Basement is FINISHED!!!!

For the past 7 months Jeff and I have been working hard to finish our basement. On January 16th we finally finished our basement. We took our time and worked on the basement here and there on a weekend or two. Then in October we got serious about finishing the basement because our kids were starting to keep each other up at night. So we started working on the basement constantly on the weekend from that point on.

We mostly did all of the work ourselves. We hired out the plumbing because it would have taken forever for us to chisel into the concrete to move the drain for a shower, the toilet and as some of you might remember to add in one for our washer that we moved into my craft room. The drywall and mudding was also hired out because Jeff had tried to do some in his room before and he didn't like how it turned out. We also hired out the carpet laying. We ended up finding a really good deal on carpet and the labor at Factory Flooring Direct that is located here in Tooele County.

The drywall was completed on the Monday before Christmas and from then on all of the spare time that I had was spent on painting the basement. I had some fun painting, but by the end of the 3 weeks I never wanted to see a paint brush again.

We are all really happy with the results of our basement. I love the colors that were chosen by the kids and Jeff and I. My two favorite parts are the cabinets in the bathroom, that were made by our wonderful neighbor Tim whose family has a cabinetry business called Canyon Craft Cabinets, and the carpet. The carpet is really soft and comfortable. We now spend a lot of time in our basement because the whole family loves being down there.

This whole experience has been good. Now I want to finish my craft room and we have a lot of ideas on renovating our upstairs.

Here is the scrapbook page I made for the reveal:

CHRISTMAS VACATION!!!

What can I say about Christmas this year.....CRAZY, Yes that is a good word to describe it. The week before the kids got out for school the drywall got finished in our basement so much of our Christmas vacation was spent working on the basement. Wasn't much fun for the kids, or us for that matter, but it is getting closer to being finished. (I'll post later on the basement)

The Friday before Christmas we packed and went up to Logan to spend Christmas with my family. The Christmas Eve party that my Aunt Susan throws every year was great, but with all of the games that we were playing we lost track of the time and hurried home at 10 to put the kids to bed. From that point on it seemed that Christmas was always rushed and chaotic. My family has a tradition of taking a picture of everyone before we enter the front room, where the Christmas tree is. Lets just say that it didn't turn out very well.

After the picture we all filed into the small front room and started to look at what was in the stockings and then open the presents. No one was quite sure what everyone wanted to do so it seemed that it was mass confusion and no one could really see what everyone else got. We finally go through all of the presents and then we preceded to open the toys that the kids got. It was then time for the kids to play for a little bit before breakfast was ready and before it was time to get ready for church. My sister Amanda and her husband Scott made pancakes and crepes and they were delicious.

It was then time for everyone to get ready to go to church and it become hectic again. It seemed that Jeff and I were not happy with each other, but we got everyone ready and we made it to church just a couple of minutes after it started. The speakers at church were wonderful and Jeff and I both got uplifted and when we got back we were a little more happy. The day was spent eating good food and playing with all of the toys that the kids got. I think one of the favorites was the Beyblades. Dallin and Isaac loved to pull the cord and watch to see which top would win.

On Monday, Jeff's parents, brother, and his brother's in laws went to Harware Ranch to ride a wagon and see the elk that gathers there every year. It was fun to see all of the elk out there not really paying any attention to the 20 people being pulled by a open 2 horse wagon. The kids had fun looking at the elk. There was not as many elk there as there should be because of all of the warm weather we have been having. Kaden was a little cranky because we had to wait for a long time to get on the wagon and he didn't really get an afternoon nap. But he did notice the elk and liked them for a time.

Dallin and Isaac had fun while we were waiting by playing on the snow covered hill that was next to the line. It was a little cold, but we all had a good time talking and looking at the elk. While we were waiting for everyone to come to Hardware Ranch we were in the visitors center, Kaden was walking around and he started to finally blow kisses.

After the ride with the elk we all went back to the Luthy's(Jeff's brother's in laws) home in North Logan and had a wonderful dinner and talked and some people played Foosball. We had a lot of fun and didn't want to leave but we had a 2 hour drive home and didn't want to get home at a late hour. The next week we spent getting the basement painted and ready for our New Year's Eve party the following weekend. We did get enough of the basement finished so that we were able to set up the TV and the xbox to play a little. Everyone had a fun time playing games, talking and some people actually went geocaching. 

It was good to get some work done on the basement so that I can put my van back into the garage and to see all of our family and get to play some games with them.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Temple Square Lights

Another Christmas season arrives and it it time to do our yearly activity of looking at the lights on temple square. This year with Dallin having Jr. Jazz games every Saturday in Magna, we decided to spend a little extra time in Salt Lake after the game and then go see the lights.

After the game we drove to Toys R Us and had the kids get a gift for each of their siblings. I know my kids our not very old, but I thought that to make it easier for them to give to their brothers when they are older I had better start now. It was hard because both Dallin and Isaac were focused on what they wanted and not what the other one wanted. We split them up and off it was a little better.f jeff then joked about that the gifts cost too much so the boys would think that they didn't get anything. I know it is a little mean, but it has made it so that either of the boys isn't tellling the other what they got for them.

We then had a little more time to kill before the sun set, so we went and parked at the gateway and went into Clark Planetarium. They boys love to look at all of the toys in the gift shop and then they go explore the exhibits on the second floor. Since I didn't want to climb the stairs(I was sore from my workout on Friday) I stayed downstairs with Kaden and Jeff and the boys went exploring. It took up just enough time and then it was time to go get on the TRAX train and see the lights.

The train ride was a little crowded, but we made it work and the boys loved having to stand up while the train was moving. We had fun looking at all of the lights. We did the rounds and I took a couple of pictures. I took a little bit of time trying to figure out the best settings for my camera. I had read an article earlier in the week about how to take good christmas tree pictures and I thought it would apply nicely to the lights. I was excited that I was able to take a lot of pictures that looked really nicely all without the use of the flash, and yes it was at night. Just for knowledge I had more mishaps than good pictures this year. It will take me awhile to get the use of taking pictures without the auto settings.

 Here are the rest of the pictures that I took. The green picture to the left was just a test to see if I had the settings right and it turned out to be really pretty. The temple had a lot of mini christmas trees in different colored lights in two of their flower beds and I loved the color and was trying to get those, when I discovered that it was perfectly set with the conference center so I took that picture and loved how it turned out.

There was also I lot of red on trees that made it look like the trees were on fire. I took this one while the boys were walking ahead of me. I just have to say that I was left behind a lot this time because of all the time that it took to get the settings on my camera just right to take a couple of pictures. My family was very patient with me. The boys loved it because it gave them more time to run around I also saw this star that was hanging from the tree and thought it was pretty. I know it looks like I took it when there was still light, but it was just the exposure on my camera was turned up to make everything a little brighter. I love that feature.

I am not really a fan of having blue for christmas. I don't really know why I just don't think it goes really well, but when I saw all of the blue trees that they had I thought they were really pretty with the reds, greens, yellow and clear lights that they had. So I had to a pciture of 2 lonely blue trees that were next to the church office building. Just to show you that I do make mistakes I put in a picture where I moved the camera and made it blurry, but it turned out that the design that came out looks pretty cool to me. I think I might have acidently made a bokeh effect.

It was fun to spend some time together while our drywall is being put up in our basement. I love that Jeff and I try to do this every year. There were times that we were a little frustrated, but on the drive home we all had a good time and it was a good day.

Thanksgiving at the VanShaar's

This year my family was switching which family we were celebrating the holidays with, and so we invited grandma and grandpa VanShaar to our house for Thanksgiving. I was a little scared because this would be my first time ever cooking a turkey. To tell you the truth I am not a fan of turkey mostly because it is dry.

I had a quest of finding a good recipe for the turkey and the stuffing. At this time I had started to watch The Chew on abc4 at noon and had loved some of the things that they had done so I went to there site and looked up a recipe for the turkey and stuffing. They had both and I printed them out. Also, while I was on the site I watched a couple of segments on cooking the turkey and I found out that cooking the stuffing inside the turkey actually will actually dry out the white meat because the bread stills the heat that the meat needs to cook. I was sold. No stuffing the turkey with stuffing this year.

When I would tell people my plans for the turkey I got some weird looks. When I told my mother-in-law that she seemed a little apprehensive. But she was fine the day of thanksgiving and couldn't wait to try the turkey.

I did stuff the turkey, I just used herbs instead of bread. It didn't take as long to cook the turkey and it was really moist and the flavors had seeped into the meat. Jeff carved the turkey and we finally got to use the electric knife we got for our wedding. It was really good I found myself wanting seconds and I hardly ever eat leftovers.

We had the wonderful pie and then we all packed up and the grandparents went home and we traveled up to Logan to do black Friday shopping. That was an experience. We got all of the things that we wanted, but our favorite thing of the night was waiting in line for Kohl's to open and we ordered the products that we couldn't get at Walmart. We had so much fun trying to think of everything that we wanted so we could look it up and not have to stay up all night. We were able to get a little bit of sleep during the night, but most of our sleep was the day after.

Also, over the weekend we did something a little different at my parents. With me trying to lose weight(as of today I have lost 20 lbs this year) I am always looking for ways to be active to burn the calories. So on Friday we took my sister Amanda and her husband Scott to play racquetball. We also took Dallin to teach him how to play. The next day most everyone went over to the church and we played basketball. It was crazy with everyone there but it was really fun. We even got my dad to play with us.

This year Thanksgiving was wonderful and I am really thankful for my family. I love them all and wish we lived a little closer so we could spend more time with them