CROCH SHOT

If you don't laugh at this, something is wrong with you.

I laugh every time I see this picture. 

I stole it from my brother Dallas's facebook photos.  He likes finding funny stuff and I like taking it and sharing.

BIG EYES

Tonight we went to my moms neighborhood party.  In the gift bag there were these funny eyes.  I put them on and Jolie really wanted to put them on too.  So here she is.

Oh man. . . That's some funny stuff.

MY SWEET LAINEY HAD A BIRTHDAY

I asked Lainey if she wanted to out to dinner for her birthday.  She said "No, I just want to go to McDonalds with grandma.  She was very excited to go.  I guess it is one of her favorite places. My mom use to take my girls there when she whenever she would watch them in the morning. Or when we lived in Flagstaff and would come to visit.

I can't believe she is already 6 years  old.  She is getting so big.

Lainey is such a special part of our family.  She makes me laugh everyday (even though she doesn't like it sometime when we laugh).  She is such a smarty pants and she loves kindergarden and going to school with her sister.  She is such a good friend and has so many little girl friends.  Lainey is a perfectionist and so obedient (I usually only have to ask her once or twice to do something).  She likes to help me clean the house and she is a super awesome bed maker.  She loved dancing and she love going to her music class.  

Happy Birthday Lainey.  Thanks for being mommies sweet heart.  I Love You!!!

tippy toes

This is the fourth U2 concert Morgan and I have been to together.  Morgan is a big fan and so am I, but I come in second after him.  

It was totally awesome!!!

We went with Morgan's brother and our sister-in-law.  They also brought their two oldest daughters who are 11 and 8.  They had to stay up very very late with us to see the whole show.

This is the stage with all the lights on.  Our view from where we were sitting wasn't so bad, I thought.  The big stage is suppose to look like a space ship.  

There's Bono and crew

I took this picture on the "fireworks" setting on my camera.  

So awesome.

My niece had to rest her eyes during the long show.  We didn't get home till almost 1:00am.

They still had to wake up early to go to school the next morning. Poor girls.

But I hope they think like me and know it was worth it.

I had U2 dreams all night long. It was great.

DISNEYLAND, THE HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH

We got to go to Disneyland also on our trip to California.  My mom, sister and her three kids were going and invited us to join.  So we of course said sure.

Yeah!!! We're at Disneyland, the happiest place on earth.

Jolie loved the carousel.  Lainey was just a little too short for the Screamer roller coaster, so she got to go on this ride with Jolie.  She was OK with that.

My gorgeous sister with two youngest kids.  The older one wouldn't get in the picture, he was too cool for it.  

We're getting ready to go on the toy story shooting 3-D ride.  It was super cool.

My sister and I on the Tower of Terror.  My favorite ride.  So fun.

Here we are all on the Jungle Cruse boat ride.  Jolie loved seeing all the animals.

We are stuck on the Indiana Jones ride.  Right when it started, we turned the first corner and stopped.  We had to wait about 10 minutes for it to get going again.  

This is what we were looking at for the 10 minute wait.

This is my favorite picture of the trip.  Avery cracks me up all the time, but this face is the funniest.  I hope she won't get too mad at me for putting this on here.  But I just had to share.  

Isn't she just hilarious.

It's a Small World.  Lainey and Jolie's favorite.

The end.  We didn't leave till about 11:00 pm.  We all had some super sore feet.

OH MAN!

I was flipping through our beach pictures and noticed something funny in the background of these pictures.  

Jolie's pooping.  

I laughed very hard when I saw these.   I hope she won't hate me when she's a teenager cause I put this on the internet.  

CARLSBAD STATE BEACH TRIP IN OCTOBER 2009

Our girls sure love the beach. 

 Jolie didn't play much in the sand this trip.  She loved the stairs and would go up and down.  She is definitely not afraid of the water either.  Which is a little scary, so we had to stay real close to her when she was out there.

Avery and Lainey love playing with her cousins.  They also made some new friends.  There were a lot of families from AZ camping at the beach along with our family.  It was fun for all.

Both Morgan and I had to wear long sleeved shirts.  It was windy and cold the first couple days.  Some people still braved the cold water to boogie board.  My girls got in.  They said it wasn't that cold till they got out and then they wind blew.  The water about froze my feet off and that's the only part of me that got in.  

CAMPING AT THE BEACH

We set off to the beach early in the morning.  I must say we had a "Morgan packing miracle". That is when Morgan manages to fit EVERYTHING.  

He was able to put in one trailer, and not that big of a trailer, the stuff for three families.  I didn't think he could do it, but he did.  He is an awesome packer.  

Here is the trailer filled to the brim with all the stuff.

Even the back of our car is packed to the ceiling.  

All my girls were super excited to hit the road and get to the nice cool beach to play play play.  

This is what I did to make Jolie happy at the beach.  

Gave her a sucker.  

This is our campsite.  We shared it with Morgan's parents.  Their tent is just to the right of this picture.  We have four awnings up to help keep the sun and rain off our stuff.  Yes it rained on us.  But not too bad.  That is our small tent there.  We had beds lining the whole thing but we were a nice and cozy family.

This is our view from our campsite.  We could hear the ocean waves the whole time.  We loved to sit and watch the surfers and pelicans.  

The waves were a nice sound machine, so my kids and I slept very well.  It was cold and windy the first couple days, but we stayed warm enough.  

IT'S ABOUT TIME

It has been quite a long time since I have been able to go do one of my most favorite things in the world.  Last Friday I got to.

I love to scrapbook.  I love anything with paper crafts.  And when I can combine some cute pictures of my beautiful family and my love for paper crafts, it is just awesome.

After many invites from my sister in law Kelli to come with her to Scarpbooks Etc. all nighters, I finally could say yes.  

I have had to take a two year break from this hobby due to lack of funds. But since we finally have income, I was so excited to be able to go and have tons of fun.  

Kelli is the one who got me into scrapbooking in the first place.  She bought me all my first supplies for a birthday present about 8 years ago.  So I have her to thank for my love of it now.

Some day when I can afford to get a scanner, I can scan some of my scrapbook pages for my blog.  

It is a very time consuming and expensive hobby, but it is worth it I think.  My girls will get to enjoy their scrapbooks of their cute childhood years for a long time and be able to show their kids.  

JAM

I have such an awesome mom.  One thing she does that I love, is she is a very passionate person. Every once and a while she gets really "into something".  Those things which she can "get into" can be anything from painting, scrapbooking, cooking, shopping, church callings, books, people.  When she gets "into something" she goes all out and is really busy doing that thing for days and days, all day long. 

When thinking back, almost all the projects I can remember my mom "getting into", it has almost always been for the benefit of some one else.  My mom is such and wonderful example to me of selflessness.

Luckily for me she was "into" jam this month.  She started with peach jam.  She ordered a box of fresh Utah peaches and decided to make peach jam.  We enjoyed one of those jars, and it did not last long in this house, cause it was soo yummy.  

Then my mom decided it was about time she taught her daughters how to jar jam.  So she took time to go to each of her daughters homes, to show us how it's done. 

She ordered a couple more boxes of peaches and some fresh raspberries.

We made raspberry/peach jam.  Holy Yummy!!!

Here's the box of the most delicious peaches.

The raspberries

The cut up, juicy peaches.

Cooking the peaches, raspberries and sugar. Lots of sugar.

Here's the finished product.  We love it on my fresh made bread. 

 Soooo good.

Here's the recipe:

Raspberry Peach Jam 

10 cups sugar (5 lbs. bag of sugar less 1 cup)

7 cups peaches (cut up in small pieces)

2 pints frozen raspberries = 4 cups

2 pkg raspberry jello (small)

2 TBSP fresh lemon juice

 

Cook sugar, peaches and raspberries.  Bring to a rolling boil and stir constantly to avoid scorching.  Skim out top while it is boiling.  Cook 10 – 12 minutes.

Remove from stove and add jello and lemon juice.  Stir well.  Pour into hot jars.

Use a knife around edge of jar to release any air.

Wipe top of jars to clean and then boil lids to seal.  Screw down lid tight.