In the Kitchen

I have started cooking again...I know, my poor family. I used to think I was a good cook, now I just know better. I make 3 things really well, other than that, oh well...I put some of my favorite recipes on the blog earlier this year, but I wanted to add a few more to the list.

I made this the other night for dinner and Ryan really liked it. It is Rice-A-Roni with Chicken and Broccoli. I used a can of stewed tomatoes instead of fresh (I don't keep fresh tomatoes in the house, they disgust me) and I added a 1/4 of a cup of Sour creme, because honestly, what doesn't taste better with sour creme? The entire dish was so incredibly easy to make and was pretty good.

I can't remember if my Ziti recipe got posted...I got this from my mother-in-law. It is really good and easy, easy, easy.

1 box of ziti pasta

1 jar of spaghetti sauce

2 c. of heavy whipping creme (that is what makes it yummy)

chicken or sausage

Cook the pasta. Mix the sauce and creme together, add to pasta once it is cooked. Put in a casserole dish and top with mozzarella cheese and bake at 375* until the cheese melts.

Have I posted my easy cookie recipe? I got it from my mother-in-law too, it is the best.

1 box of cake mix (whatever you want)

1 stick melted butter

2 eggs

Mix together and add whatever else you want. My favorite is German chocolate cake mix, coconut, chopped walnuts or pecans, and milk chocolate chips. Yum-o. Cook at whatever temp the box says and it takes about 10 min per cookie sheet to cook. This is what I made with them for Madison's treat day at school.

I used a chocolate cake mix and peanut butter chips. I made little chalk boards using chocolate covered graham crackers and regular white icing and used the white icing to stand them up. M wanted to add sprinkles (because hey, sprinkles make life fun) and that was that. It was super easy and really cute. I got the idea from a parenting magazine, they did this with cupcakes, but cupcakes are too messy for school.

I have also been working really hard to get a decent food storage going for us. I finally learned how to coupon correctly and have saved soooo much money and gotten a lot more food. My food storage is starting to grow and I can actually cook because I have food in the house. It is fun and it definitely satisfies my incessant need to shop all the time.

Just us Girls

Every now and again Madison and I get to do something together, just the two of us. In Memphis over Christmas my mom, some of my sisters, Madison and I got to have a girls night out. The boys went to a basketball game and Allie's boyfriend watched Hunter sleep for us. It was so fun. I just could not get over how grown up Madison is....some times I look at her and realize that she is not a little girl anymore. I loved how she insisted on taking her purse with her to the restaurant. It makes sense, all the rest of us did! She just has such a personality, I swear her personality is going to kill one of us some day...I just don't know which one of us it will be.

So anyway, we chose to go to The Melting Pot for fondue because the guys don't really like it. They say it is "Chick food," they just don't like having to work for their food. I just like the cheese and chocolate. We had a great time, and definitely loved our food. Madison loved being such a grownup and cooking her own food and choosing all the fun sauces/dips they have. She was exhausted by the time we got home, but it was worth it. I love girls night out.

Kids

What do you write for K? I had a hard time with this one, but I thought a post on sibling love would be appropriate. Our kids love each other so much, which I am so grateful for, I just hope it never changes. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the two of them together. Madison will constantly run over to Hunter, look over at me and tell me to take a picture of them together. Her favorite thing to do is to go through the camera and look at all the pictures. She gets so excited and happy when she sees one of them together, especially if it's a video...I have to physically take the camera away from her or she would watch the video's over and over and over again.

Pictures clockwise from left to right: One of our many pictures taken to distract the kids and keep them happy; M clapping for H sitting up; M holding H's hand to try and make him happy; Mom, M & H at Trunk-or-treat; M & H sliding together at Thanksgiving Point; Dad, M & H on our hike at Kiroli Park in LA; Entire family at Thanksgiving point; M & H at Trunk-or-Treat; M swinging H and trying to do an "underdog" at Kiroli Park

Let's Play Ball

We love sports in our household....Ryan much more than I, of course, but I love going to games. I am not picky, I'll go to any sporting event and cheer on one of the teams. I LOVE trash talking, I suck at it, but enjoy it nonetheless. Las Vegas does not have a pro team. Of any sport. So we get behind UNLV basketball....it's all we have. Or we travel. We saw quite a few games on the road this year. It was a fun sports year for us.

Ryan got to go to ESPN Game Day in February for his birthday when Univ. of Memphis played Univ. of Tenn. (I have posted that a few times already, so no additional stories here folks....).

In March we got to go to a Jazz game, Ryan loves the Jazz. I still don't know if he loves the Jazz or Lakers more, but hey, I figure I shouldn't know everything about him, right? Anyway, we got to go with Parker and Jessica, that was so fun! We rarely get to do things with just the two of them so it was definitely a treat. The biggest treat was leaving my 3 month old baby with my Mother-in-law and hoping he would take a bottle for her. He did beautifully, thank goodness.

We went to 2 BYU football games in Provo, I LOVE BYU football games, that was probably my favorite thing to do in college. I am a little biased considering Ryan and I fell in love all due to the All Sports pass the students buy. (Hmmm, maybe I will post "our" story at some time....that will be a long one). Anyway, we always go to to the season opener (apparently I don't always have my camera at the ready, hence, no pictures to share) and we went to the BYU vs. UNM game when we drove up for the Kelly Clarkson/Reba McIntyre concert.

What? You want new stories to read? Well, let me tell you about our Christmas vacation. We went to Memphis for 2 weeks and in Memphis there are 2 things to do...Eat and go to basketball games (in the summer it is Redbirds season so the city goes baseball crazy and gets behind the AAA team for the St. Louis Cardinals). So, what did we do? We ate, really well, and went to 5 basketball games for me and 6 for Ryan. Considering that we watched almost every college football bowl game (there are 30-something) in between basketball games, I was completely "sported" out (yep, that is my new word). It was so fun though! The best part is that at the beginning of Univ. of Memphis basketball games the student section gets a copy of the newspaper and when the opposing team starters are introduced all of the students hold up papers and yell "You Suck" after each name is called. It entertained me to no end....I loved that tradition. The problem that arises for me is that when I see a crossword puzzle I cannot NOT do it. It is a sickness that I get from my daddy dearest. So Aunna and I challenged Allie and Brent to a "Race to the Finish." Every timeout, all of half time, and each break of any sort resulted in our heads together, and only a little cheating from both sides, trying to finish the puzzle first. Who won? My dear Aunna and Myself, of course...plus we cheated less, so the win was even that much more satisfying. Don't worry, I did watch the game, there was plenty of yelling at the players coming from me and only one text from Ryan telling me to put the dang paper away and watch the game (I was in the student section and he sat with my dad on club level...there was a ton of texting between us).

We even got to bring Madison to one of the Univ. of Memphis games. She loves going to basketball games, and did really well during it. She watched most of it and like to cheer the teams on, but her favorite part was the frozen yogurt Ryan shared with her. She is definitely her parent's child. We love ice cream in our family, NOT that Hunter gets any yet....He is still a little young and I am super anal when it comes to food for my kids.

Ryan and I got to go to the Memphis Grizzlies game when they played the Lakers. The sad thing for me was that there were as many fans there for the Lakers as the Grizz. Poor Grizzlies...They played great, I really thought they were going to win the game. The Lakers trailed the entire game and the last few minutes they showed up to play and ended up winning by just a few points in the end. At least it was a really good game.

I just can't resist

I am going out of order, but I have to add this to my favorite postings list....Amy, I hope you don't mind, but I wanted to share your story in hopes that it would bring as much joy to others as it did to me.

It is a short post, but check it out. Only a busy mom could get away with this. Now I am wondering if I could do something like this on purpose and get take-out without the guilt? I wonder how many times I can do it before Ryan would catch on??? Hmmm......

This is the problem I am having....I am super behind on blogging, but every time I log on to blog I end up reading about all of my wonderful friends fun postings and all my blogging time disappears. I do promise to get caught up soon, I just get distracted really, really easily.

M is for My favorite things

I thought it would be fun to have one posting for all of my favorite things from this last year, more of a list than commentary, but hey, it's my blog so why not? So, without further adieu, here are my favorite things that I have learned, found, experienced, or whatever else I deem worthy of this post.

My Favorite...

... headline from the past year

This has to start off my blog posting because I still cannot get over the sheer stupidity of Plaxico Burress. First of all, having a name like Plaxico just screams newsworthy, but shooting yourself in the leg with your own gun while carrying concealed illegally at a club in NYC, makes it my favorite. Sadly, he has gotten more publicity from this act then he did being a top wide receiver. Go figure.

...Mommy Moments

Madison is regularly in time out. When she gets whiney or obnoxious (what, my kid?) she goes straight to time out. It is my saving grace. So anyway, a few months ago I was finishing dinner and ended up sending Madison to timeout for something or other. She was so quiet and actually went up there without much argument. I was talking to Ryan on the phone a while later while taking Hunter to bed and noticed that she was laying on her bed all quiet and everything. I commented to Ryan that she must be really tired if she went to bed all by herself before eating dinner. It still didn't hit me that she was in timeout. About 10 minutes later she came down crying, asking if timeout was over yet. She had been in timeout for about an hour and never said a word! I felt so bad, so now when she goes up to her room for a timeout she asks me not to forget about her. In my defense, she has never had a timeout, before or since, that she did not start yelling "Mommy, is timeout over yet?" within 1 minute of getting there, so of course I forgot! I never have to remember, she constantly reminds me!

Now Hunter, he is a fantastic child. He doesn't give me any grief, he is happy most of the time, and he actually likes to cuddle...he gives the best hugs. But man, the little stinker can crawl like a speed demon. Not too long ago we went to a friends house for a few minutes. The kids were all playing in the backyard and so we went out there to say hi. I put Hunter down and was kind of following him around a little bit because they have a pool. He kind of started crawling towards it and then would turn and come back to play somewhere else. He started crawling towards the shallow end again and so I was watching him, he kept getting closer and so I started walking towards him. He saw me so he sped up (he does this all the time) and went right over the edge into the cold water. I was there, literally, a second later and grabbed him out. He was under about a second and a half, but he was not happy. He was fine, he didn't even swallow any water.

So, Ryan comes home from work, says hi to Madison and she, before a hi or anything, tells him that Hunter fell in the pool today. He looks at me and says, "Well, there goes your mother-of-the-year award." Smart-A.....

...Kid moments

Madison has finally figured out how to say "I love you" to people. She used to just say, "I Know" when people said it to her or ignore it. Now she will say it to me just out of the blue...which is so sweet. But, she is also trying to figure out if saying it will get her something she wants. The answer? Nope, I am not that gullible, but I sure love hearing it anyway.

Moment #2 is becoming somewhat of a daily thing. We were in the car a while back and I told her that I needed to grab a coke from somewhere. She agreed and told me to hurry because coke makes me happy. Yep, my 4 year old lets me know when I am grumpy by suggesting we go on a coke run.

...Moment of Despair

The saddest moment of this past year was when Madison cut her hair. Many of you might be wondering why she has a semi-bowl cut in our family picture. It is because she cut her hair right before we had it taken. I took her to a hairdresser and had it evened out the best we could, but it still didn't look great. It has almost grown out now, thank goodness. She looks so much better with hair!

...Blog entries

I love reading every one else's blogs, especially the funny stories. So, here are my favorites...

I got hooked on this girls blog through a friend, and even though I don't know her I still love to read her postings. She is a fabulous writer and I love her adventures. This has to be my favorite though, I made Ryan read it, and if you know Ryan he doesn't read blogs (apparently he only reads chat rooms), and he even laughed.

On to people that I know, Brynn, you win the best blog entry with Haley running around nekked and playing with your unmentionables. I love this picture!

What is my favorite blog posting that I did this year? Hmmm, this one I suppose. Even Ryan got a kick out of it. I rarely am witty, and even more rare is when others get my wit. I suppose I am like Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail" where she never comes up with a good retort at the moment she needs it, I am much like that....they always come to me later, ahhh, but this posting, it was a moment of sheer brilliance on my part. Those moments come few and far between so I am savoring this one for a while.

...Household Tips

I put on my posting about baking soda earlier this year, it works, try it. I have also started putting about a 1/4 of a cup in each load of laundry, I swear it makes my clothes look cleaner and fresher.

Vinegar is another new found love of mine. When I have new clothes I put a few tablespoons in the wash with my regular detergent and it seals the colors in. It keeps my blacks and reds from fading and bleeding onto other clothes. I also use it to clean everything. I have a spray bottle of 1/2 vinegar, 1/2 water that I use to clean my counters (vinegar is a natural disinfectant and sanitizer), but the best is using 1 gallon of warm water, 1-2 cups of vinegar and 3 T of ammonia to mop with. My floors have never looked better, although it did take a few moppings to get rid of the buildup of floor cleaners. Seriously, try it, those nasty black spots that show up after you mop won't show up when you use this.

I have a few kitchen items I can't live without anymore. The first is a scooper from from Sur La Table, I found it for just a few dollars, but I use it all the time, it really cuts down of the messes I make when I cook.

The second is Wilton brand baking pans. They are a few extra dollars at target or wherever, but they are worth it. They mean it when they put non-stick on the label. Next time you have to buy a muffin tin or something, get Wilton, they rock!

I finally found a brownie mix that I like. I tried a bunch and never really fell in love with one kind, until now. They are my favorite (in my opinion only, everyone has their own favorite style) and they are so easy to make. I make them as cupcakes when I make treats for Madison's class. Try them and see what you think. As a side note, they usually go on sale for a $1 a box every couple months, I never pay $3 - something for a box of brownie mix.

Now, for one of my favorite things period. Makeup! I love makeup and hair products, I might have a bit of an obsession with them, but heck, if you've seen me without either you must understand why. It took me a lot of years to figure out how to use makeup properly and really understand what it can do for you. This year has brought several favorite items into my collections.

If you have uneven skin (like me) try a green tinted concealer. I got one from Clinique (it was the only counter that had a girl working it when I went to buy some). It makes my skin look so much more smooth and even when I put my foundation on over it.

I have dorky, stubby eyelashes so I am constantly trying to find awesome mascara. I love, love, love Christian Dior's backstage mascara. It actually gives me eyelashes. If you don't want to spend $23 on mascara (I don't blame you) I also really like Maybelline's Colossal Volume Express, not quite as good, but only about $7 instead.

...Quick and easy recipes

My mother-in-law taught me the easiest cookie recipe ever. Any time I am in a bind and need a treat (or really want an easy sweet) I make these. Take a box of cake mix, any cake mix you want, add 2 eggs and 1 melted stick of butter. Add whatever other sweet you want in it and bake at the cake box temp until done (usually about 10 min). They are yummy and easy. My favorite is a German Chocolate cake mix, chopped walnuts or pecans, coconut and chocolate chips. They are so good! I made German Chocolate cake mix with peanut butter chips for M's preschool treats the other day (more on those later). You can use yellow cake mix with chocolate chips for an easy basic CCC recipe. Enjoy!

My wonderful friend Amy taught me her chicken secret. She gets the bag of frozen chicken and puts it in the crockpot with chicken stock and cooks it, chops it and then separates it into freezer bags for use later. I used to do this with ground beef. I got the big thing at Costco, browned it all at once and then put it in bags in about 1 lb size. It made it so much easier for dinners and I didn't have to thaw it for very long.

I could go on and on, but I think that should do it.

New Home

N is for New home, because that is what we got this year, a new house. I love our new home, it is so nice to finally be in a home that we can grow into and move around in. Keeping it picked up and cleaned, though, that is not very fun! I haven't taken that many pictures of the inside of the house, you have to come visit if you want to see it :)

This is what we had:

1850 SqFt single story home, 4 (yeah, right) bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 car garage, no storage space

This is what we have now:

3800 SqFt 2 story home, 6 bedrooms, 4 baths, 3 car garage, LOTS of storage including a pantry!

On the Road Again

Yep, O is for On the Road Again...we traveled so much last year and loved every minute of it. We won't be traveling quite so much this year, but we are so grateful for the memories we made during each of our trips. I looked at our calendar last night and noticed that the month of February is empty. I mean EMPTY, I have 2 birthday's and Valentines day on it. I turned to Ryan and told him I was bored just looking at the calendar.

I don't have the time, nor the inclination, to recap each of our trips last year, but several of them are already posted on our blog. Here it is, though, our year in travel:

January
Ariane and Brian came to visit (That's a picture of the three of us at the top of the Stratosphere at dusk)

St. George for MLK weekend with Thomas and Amy (We have done this for the last 4 years and I finally got our first picture this year, stay tuned for a posting dedicated to all of our fun with the Simms' family)

February
Ryan's birthday trip to Memphis for the University of Memphis vs. University of Tennessee basketball game

March
Allie came to visit for her 21st birthday

Easter Party in Utah

April
Amily and Aunt Lori came to visit

May
Utah for Collin's graduation

Memphis in May canoe race

June
Utah for Parker's wedding

Hawaii ( here is another one )

July
Alyssa and Colin come to visit

Omaha/ Bemidji/ Minneapolis/ Des Moines (it was exhausting but awesome)

August
Disneyland

Utah

September
We moved, I count that as a "trip" but not a vacation because I cannot count the amount of trips I made from our old house to our new house with a car full of stuff and two kids

October
Dad and Ariane come to visit (we always hit up In and Out Burger when they come, this time Hunter got a hat, I think he ate more of his burger than Madison did, too)

Utah ( see this post too! )

November
New York City (I know my post says part 1, there will be more when I make some time to put it all together)

Ainge family comes to Thanksgiving

December
Utah for the Ainge family Christmas party

Tennessee for Christmas

Whew! We had lots of fun travels and a few different visitors, hopefully this year will have more visitors and less visiting! We love our family and really enjoy all of the time we get to spend with them each year, I wouldn't trade the exhaustion, hassle, and messed up schedules for anything.

As I link up all of these I must say how impressed I am with myself, I was worried that I didn't have all of these posted, but I had most of them. Yeah! I will blog about December's trips when I finally finish this darn Year End recap.

Princess Madison

Princess Madison: \ˈprin(t)-səs, ˈprin-ˌses, (usual British) prin-ˈses\ (noun)
1: a woman having sovereign power 2: a female member of a royal family ; especially : a daughter or granddaughter of a sovereign3: the consort of a prince4: one likened to a princess ; especially : a woman of high rank or of high standing in her class or profession



See also: precocious; tenderhearted; fun; intelligent; persistent; inquisitive; curious; lovable; creative; sharp; nurturer; cheerleader; devious; clown; big sister; teacher; energetic; witty; student; independent; confident

There is so much I can write about her that it is a little hard to know where to start. She is now 4 1/2 years old, and so incredibly grown up. It is amazing to see the difference one year makes with her age. She is very articulate and is really beginning to understand the world around her.

Preschool I notice the changes most in her preschool behavior. Last year she had bad days on a regular basis; she had a hard time sitting still, paying attention to what was going on around her, and she loved to distract her friends sitting next to her. She has done so much better this year. The preschool teacher has a system, when the child behaves acceptably during that day they get a sticker on the sticker chart. When they get 5 stickers they get in the Treasure Box. This year she has gotten a sticker all but one day. That is incredible! That tells me that she has learned how to sit still in class, participate in the activity, not distract the other kids, but most of all, it tells me that she has matured and is ready for a good kindergarten experience. She is so excited to go to school every day, I know she will really calm down and relax once she is able to have mental stimulation every day. She is too darn smart for her own good! She needs to put that energy towards learning and I am not able to do that for her like school will. She already loves homework, in the mornings when she eats breakfast she gets out one of her activity books and does what she calls "homework." She loves learning and just can't get enough of it.

Big Sister She loves her little brother so much and wants him to play with her like her friends do. Unfortunately, Hunter is not very good at taking directions! She likes to give him hugs when he is sad, he does not care much for them, but she just wants to comfort him so much. When I ask her to leave him alone (she often tortures him while thinking she is comforting him) her favorite thing to say to me is, "But I'm the big sister!" She takes her job as big sister seriously! She does such a good job of thinking of him and taking care of him, when he cries she goes immediately to his side and tries to calm him and make him happy.

She loves to make him laugh and is constantly making funny sounds or playing funny games to make him giggle with her. She grabs him, looks at me and asks for a picture to be taken of them together. On the other hand, she thinks that because she is the big sister everything belongs to her first. She is constantly stealing toys away from him and putting up barricades around her dollhouse so he can't get in and play with her. He just absolutely adores her. When she goes outside to rider her jeep she always asks if he can ride with her. Whenever she pushes the "gas" pedal he bumps his head, so all on her own she has started putting her hand on the back of his head when they go so that he doesn't get hurt. Little things like that just melt my mommy heart.

Devious she is starting to figure out little things that she can do to get her way in a "sweeter" manner. Recently she has started asking me to do things for her, like find her sippy cup, and before I answer her she will say, "I'll give you a sticker," in a sing-song way. It is so cute! Not that it works on ol' hard hearted mommy, but I sure do get a kick out of it. She has also started closing her bedroom door when she is doing something she is not supposed to, and she has started learning how to lie. That one makes me the saddest. I am working really hard to teach her that lying is not okay and that she will get in bigger trouble if she lies than if she tells me the truth. It's a hard age for mommy!

Creative She is so creative! She takes business cards from everywhere we go because she calls them her "credit cards" and puts them in her purse for when she "goes to the mall." It cracks me up. She also loves to cook and play in her kitchen. She is always whipping something up and asking us to eat it. She even has her own aprons and is always asking if she can help cook dinner or put snacks together.

She loves money and loves to play with my parents' change. When we visit she heads straight for the kitchen and puts together a batch of money for us all. It worries me a little that she is "making" money at such an early age. Should I worry?

Each of these pictures remind me of a special even from the last year, we were so busy and had so much fun. She grew and developed so much and I can't wait to see who she becomes this upcoming year.

(From the top, clockwise) Swinging high at the park, Super Girl in mid-jump, playing at the beach in Hawaii, mommy and Madison, Karoli park in La with Paw Paw and Dee Dee, playing around on the firetruck at the children's museum, sleeping in the stroller after a long day at Disneyland, her real smile while playing with Hunter's bat costume hat, and her love of all things princess comes out in her balloon animal request at the Halloween carnival.

2008 Q

Quilting


The last two years I have finally learned how to use my sewing machine. I have always wanted to learn how to sew, I figure it is my creative outlet. Some people can paint, others can write poetry, yet others are crafty. I am none of those things, however, sewing I can learn to do. I have really enjoyed it. I have to thank my friend Cori for getting me into it, she convinced me to take a beginners class with her when I was prego with Hunter and now look at me, I always have a project going.

Since we live in Vegas and have little to no need for multiple blankets I decided to make a quilt for each of my sisters and surprise them for Christmas this year. These are the end results. I used only a few different patterns, and they were definitely easy ones, and I finally completed them the week before we left for Memphis ( I started this crazy scheme in April, but I got so caught up in getting our house rented, packing and moving).

I tried to make each one unique and incorporate something about their personalities into the actual quilt.

The top left was for Allie, and you can't tell from the picture, but he green has little pink flamingos embroidered on the fabric. She loves Polo and really digs the seersucker look, so I found something that looked a little bit like that.

The top middle was Amily's. She loves neutral colors and I flat out fell in love with the pattern on the green fabric. She was a little tougher because there is not one specific thing that she really digs, so I went with a neutral I thought she would like.

The top right was for Alyssa. She was like Amily, she doesn't have a specific taste that she leans towards, but she does like color, and I liked this one so much I made one for our house. It was just fun and bright, but not overwhelming.

The bottom left was for Ariane. She loves girly, pretty things and I fell in love with the baby blue/brown flower fabric and searched for a while to find something to compliment it. I loved this one.

The middle was for Aunna. This was the first one that I made and the reason I decided to do a quilt for everyone. I was at my Block-of-the-month class and saw these fabrics on display. I fell in love with them and had to buy them. I didn't know what I was going to do with the finished product and thought, "what the heck, I can make one for all my sisters" and that gave me an excuse to sew and put together some really fun quilts.

The last one was for my Sister-in-law Jessica. She is a super cute girly-girl that digs the cute girly skater look and I saw this and thought of her. I really like how it turned out.

I loved this having this project throughout the year and loved walking the fabric stores, seeing a fabric and it screaming to me, "This one!" I feel like each one of them has a piece of me in them and hope they bring as much joy to my sisters as they did to me.

2008 R and S

Ryan

Since I am going backwards through the alphabet Ryan is the first one of us that gets a posting. Lucky guy, huh! Ryan is doing great, he is still working as the Controller of his uncle's workers comp insurance company. He loves his job and his co-workers. I do too! When we lived in LA we almost never saw each other, he worked between 50 and 80 hours a week and had between a 45 min and a 1 1/2 hour commute, it depended on which job he was working. It was so hard on us, but now he works 40 hours and gets to spend quality time with our family. Madison counts down to when he gets to come home, she looks forward to their time together.

His co-workers introduced him to UFC and he has become quite the fan. Thankfully he has enough friends that watch UFC that we don't have to order the Pay-per-view fights, he just has a guys night at someone's house. I watch the free ones with him and actually really like the reality show (shhh, don't tell him, it gives me leverage when I want to do or watch something he doesn't). He got to attend a UFC fight in February last year and snuck down to the floor seats to watch the entire night of fights. He gets to go to one this year too, I let him have one per year, and Parker gets to go with him this year. Apparently I got him tickets for Christmas. Merry Christmas to me!

Ryan and I team teach the primary at church and really love it. We have the 4-5 year olds and Madison is in our class this year. The kids are so cute and make the best comments. It is amazing how much they know about Christ and His teachings. I always end up learning something from them.

He is such a great dad, I had no idea when I married him that he would be so willing to be involved in our kids lives. I got super lucky there! Everything I do he can do too, which takes so much stress off of me. We have a great little routine going, the kids get up at 7am, which is when he wakes up, he gets to see them and visit with Madison while he gets ready, I get up when he leaves and take over from there. He gets off of work at exactly 5pm and is home by 5:45, which is right when the kids go to bed. I feed them dinner at 4:30 and get them ready for bed so when he gets home we take the kids upstairs, read stories, have prayers and they are both asleep by 6pm. It rocks! Jealous of our kids schedule? Read this book, it changed my life, but it is up to the parents to commit to the schedule, we don't have much of a night life, we don't go anywhere together at nights unless we have a babysitter, which explains why we watch so much TV.

Surgery


This year each member of our family ended up with some type of surgery. None of us have had surgery before so it was quite an experience for our little family to end up with 4 in one year.

Hunter started us off with the normal surgery little boys get. I don't think I need to be more specific with that, let me just say that it about traumatized me, I told Ryan that if we have any more boys he has to take care of it. The Dr. had me in the room feeding Hunter a bottle, I cried the entire time, and if you know me I do not cry very often at all. It was really difficult for me. Poor little guy!

Madison got her surgery in March. What a blessing that has been. She had her tonsils and adenoids out, her tubanates (sp?) shrunk and her ears drained. Thankfully she did not need tubes. She has become a completely different kid, it is amazing how many different problems those things caused. She sleeps much better and she eats so well now, she has gained 8 pounds since March and she looks so much healthier, she looked a little bit like a Holocaust victim, her ribs stuck out so far and nothing fit her. She also speaks softer now and pronounces her words much clearer. The biggest thing for her has been her health. She used to catch every little bug that was out there. She always had a runny nose and about twice a month she got a 24 hour bug where she would throw up for a day. It was awful!

During her recovery she received her first flowers from a boy. It was so cute. Lindsay brought over a little care package for her and she put in a cute card that folded out into flowers in a flower pot. I consider it her first flowers from a boy! She still has them and knows they are from Riley, so thank you Lindsay, it was so sweet of you!

Here are her and Riley playing together. It seems like all of her friends are boys and so she has become quite a fan of swords. Don't worry, she is usually the princess, her friend is the prince and they often end up married after the sword fight.

Ryan was next. Sometime in the summer he had oral surgery. His root canal got infected so they had to drill through his gums to fix it. It was so nasty. I just felt so bad for him because his mouth was swollen for a few weeks and towards the end his cheek was all yellow from bruising. He looked like he had been in a fight!

I had my surgery in October. It was the most minor surgery ever, I got a deviated septum fixed. My nose looks exactly the same, which is great with me, but I was having headaches every day and nothing was working. I tried allergy medicine, migraine medication, sinus everything and nothing worked. I was mainlining coca-cola trying to get through the pain because nothing else even made a difference anymore. I was taking way too much Excedrin migraine. Finally I went to see Madison's ENT guy and he said that fixing my deviated septum, shrinking my tubanates (they are in your nose, I have no idea what they do) and clearing out my sinuses would give me a good shot at getting rid of my headaches. I am happy to say that since my nose healed I haven't had a headache. It is such a relief, it had really started to interfere with my life, I couldn't get anything done!

2008 T, U and V

Tunes

Reading our blog I am sure you can't help but notice our obsession with music. We have definitely passed that on to our children. Madison has figured out how to use my Ipod and regularly will go over and turn the music on. She likes to dance and twirl. She really enjoys listening to Taylor Swift right now, her favorite songs are Love Story and Picture to Burn, which funny enough, are my favorite songs by her, hmmmm. Seriously, who wouldn't love a song that says: "So go and tell your friends I'm obsessive and crazy, that's fine, I'll tell mine your gay?" I laughed so hard the first time I heard that line. (BTW, it's only on her album, not on the radio version)

Another line that I just love is from Pink's So What song. Again, how can you not love a song that calls her ex a tool? Sometimes there is just no other way to describe someone, tool works very well in those situations.

Many of you will wonder why I have a Britney song on my playlist (or at least those of you who know me really well and know I can't stand her, she is such a mess), well, let me tell you why....Madison heard Womanizer ONCE in the car, with Ryan of course, I change the stations the moment she comes on, and all day long she wandered around the house playing and singing to herself, "I'm a womanizer, womanizer, wom, wom, womanizer." We both had to leave the room so that she wouldn't see us laughing so hard and wonder why we were laughing at her.

Nothing gets by her.

If you doubt our obsession with music, please review a previous post that lists what we have seen the last two years. We will NOT being seeing quite so many people this next year or two. We now have two houses, that is our entertainment!

For Christmas Madison got 2 musical things from my mother and father. She got a Hannah Montana guitar, she loves it. It has a head set that she can sing into and it amplifies the singing through the guitar, so it is like singing into a microphone. Yep, it's as fun as it sounds. She does love it, and I am just excited she is interested in playing music. She also got a Barbie jeep which has a radio. She rides around the backyard with Hunter and they take turns turning on the radio and seeking through all the stations. She is way too much like me, she is not happy listening to just one stations when there is a possibility that there is a song that you would like to listen to more on a different station. It drives Ryan absolutely mad.

Udder Disbelief

This is one of my favorite stories from this last year that I never had time to blog about. Every other year Ryan's mom raises 2 cows from about April until October and then they slaughter them and we buy a quarter, Ryan's parents keep a half and they sell the rest off to whomever is interested. They were out of town, I can't even remember where now, but the cows got loose and my sweet cousin-in-law blogged about their experience rounding them back up. Read about it here, I couldn't stop laughing, then I called Ryan in to read it and he couldn't stop laughing. Every time I take a piece of meat out of my freezer I think of their wonderful sacrifice to get us our delicious meat. Thank you Brittany, Jason, Cody, Natalie and Grandma Ainge! We would eat a lot of chicken if it wasn't for you!

As a side picture, here is one from our wedding (I can finally put in old pictures now that my dear, sweet hubby bought me a scanner. I couldn't go another year without one). His mom made a cute sign to hang on the barn for us, so of course we had to get a picture. There were no cows or chickens at the house for our wedding, so I didn't worry about getting trampled :) We did, however, stop at Wendy's after our reception, Ryan was hungry (read the story and you will get that reference!).

Videos

I took some really great videos of the kids this last year. I missed so many sweet moments with Madison because I did not realize our camera took videos, (Yes, I am a natural blond), but how was I supposed to know? I even read the booklet that came with it, I just didn't realize I could take them....who knew? Anyway, the one thing I wish I had gotten of Mads was her sneezes. The first few months of her life she would sneeze twice and then sigh. It was the sweetest thing and just melted your heart. I would give just about anything to have gotten that on video....we were so sad when she grew out of it. She just all of a sudden stopped one day to our great sorrow.

So, back to the point of the entry, the videos I got of the kids. Some of them I have published before, some are new. It seems that almost every day Mads comes up to me and asks to have me take a video of her and Hunter. She loves flipping through all the pictures and especially loves the videos of them together. She gets such a kick out of it!

This one is of Hunter swinging, mostly I love it because he keeps laughing when he swings. He was just loving it that day. I think he even laughed so hard he gave himself the hiccups. We took this when we went to Louisiana to see Ryan's grandparents over Christmas. It was perfect swinging weather.

This one cracks us up when we watch it. We went to Lily's birthday party in October and she got a ball from Brado. All the kids wanted to play with it so they were in the grassy area and one of the kids would throw it and the rest would chase it. When one of them ended up grabbing it they would get tackled. They were tackling way more before I got to my camera, but it was so cute watching the kids come up with their own little version of football with the princess ball. It was such a fun night for all of us. We miss having them close by and hope they are enjoying Utah.

What are our other favorites from the past year? Well of course we have to review Hunter pushing Mads around the house, that was too funny to pass up.

We have to watch Hunter walking around the kiddie pool in Hawaii again, he did that for hours on end.

And Madison's preschool graduation, she is just little miss helpful.

Here is my dear, sweet daughter being taught Soulja Boy by my sisters. They are available for babysitting if anyone needs someone, ha ha.

Hunter finally figuring out his sippy cup was a classic. He hasn't done this since, but we sure enjoyed it that night.

Here is a video from when Mads was about a year old or so. She was so in to her food we loved it, so enjoy her Um, Yummy video. Allie and I still talk about it every time we see each other.

Last but not least is little helper Madison getting Hunter for me. This is still a daily occurrence and yet he still regularly gets in to mischief. Apparently that comes from Ryan's side of the family, I was a perfect angel of a child :)

Christmas Letter W-Z

Walking, see also: lack thereof

Hunter is just not that interested in walking yet. He is just so content with crawling, (I am not worried, I could really care less when he walks as long as he is developing fine, which he is). Over Christmas we were sitting on the floor cleaning out some cabinets at my mom's condo and Mads was playing kitchen with some of the cut and bake sugar cookies she and my mom made. Hunter came over and, of course, wanted to eat some. The boy thinks that if anyone else in the room is eating he should be too! So what did we all do? We made him "walk" for it. We made a triangle and he would walk to each of us and get a TINY little piece as a reward. We figured if it works for dogs why not for kids too? So, now he will walk a little bit until he falls and then he crawls to his destination.

Xylitol

This letter is so hard to fill, but I was so happy to find out about Xylitol I had to share with all of you mom's out there. I took Mads to one of her dentist appointments and she had to have a few spots scraped off so they wouldn't turn in to full blown cavities, the hygienist told me about Xylitol to see if that would help in the future. She said that 80% of cavities are gotten by 20% of people, they are caused by a bacteria in the mouth/body and no amount of brushing and flossing can completely get rid of them if you are predisposed to getting them. She recommended getting a form of Xylitol for her, I guess Xylitol kills the bacteria that causes a lot of cavities. So I ran to Whole Foods and grabbed some raspberry flavored mints and gum (my daughter has an obsession with gum, she loves it) and she gets one per day, in addition to brushing and flossing as usual. It hasn't been six months so we shall see if it helps. It is not very expensive and I feel like I am helping her with future pain and discomfort :) Check it out!

Youth

This year was a milestone for both Ryan and I. Ryan turned 31 and I turned 29. One of my sister's, I won't say who *Amily*, talked about how she couldn't believe she had sister's in their 30's. I told her to speak for herself, I wasn't the big 3-0 yet! For those of you confused, I am the oldest, so if I am not in my 30's yet none of us are. Her math is a bit circumspect. She was talking about her boyfriend a few years back and was telling me how she couldn't believe she was dating someone almost 40. I asked her how old he was and she told me 32, but, according to her, 32 is almost mid 30's and that is almost 40. I didn't put too much stock into her comment, it just shocked me a little bit.

I have noticed from talking to some of my friends that it seems 29 and 31 are harder birthday's than 30 is. Needless to say I am not super excited about my birthday this year. I have such a hard time reconciling that Ryan and I are older than the college kids we run into all over the place.

For Ryan's birthday this year we flew to Memphis and he got to go with my dad to the University of Memphis vs. University of Tennessee game and sit in my dad's club level season ticket seats. We were totally bummed that U of M lost, I still claim it was because of free throws, that is my pet peeve with basketball, if you play you should have basic skills down, there is no excuse. If you want to read about our fun adventures that weekend click here for my previous blog post (Just to remind all readers: I had a 2 month old baby in these pictures, so yes, I was fat- it takes me forever to lose it after having a baby). We were also supremely disappointed with their loss to Kansas during the National Championship game. You can see my cute kids dressed in appropriate "Go Memphis!" attire that day here.

For my birthday we stayed in Vegas and got to eat at my favorite restaurant, Morton's. I have eaten some really good food, and I LOVE steak (I also dug Jessica Simpson's shirt and had to put it with this posting) but nothing beats Morton's. Best steak ever, best menu ever to be more accurate. I have eaten everything on it and haven't had anything that wasn't wonderful. They used to have veal and would do it sicilian style, it was incredible. I keep hoping they put it back on the menu. Anyway, back to the story. So we went to dinner and Ryan had told them it was my birthday so they printed a menu especially for me and then the Maitre 'D came by and took a picture of us, printed it out and put it in a nifty little picture envelope. That is where the picture of us comes from. They just do things right there. We only go once a year and last year for our anniversary they offered us liquor as a congratulations. I declined due to pregnancy :)

After the amazing dinner we went to see Mamma Mia! at the theater. We love that musical and I loved the movie too. I didn't think Pierce Brosnan ruined it, he just didn't shine when he sang. Who cares? I don't, the movie really brought the play to life, I was fasinated by it. I love when they make movies from the play. We love Chicago, Rent, and Phantom of the Opera. Chicago definitely tops the list with Mamma Mia! I just love watching them over and over and we don't live in NYC so I can't.

***As a side note... funny story, I was typing out this posting and Mads looked at the picture of Jessica Simpson and asked me if it was Aunna. I told her no, but it does look like her, doesn't it? I thought Aunna would enjoy that one....I think all my sister's are beautiful, but at least Aunna is a little sharper than our dear, sweet Jessica. I am still a fan of hers (JS) even when she leaves her "thinking cap" at home.

Zeta Beta Zeta

Now, for any Greek fans you will recognize this Sorority. This obviously has nothing to do with our life as a family but we are so in love with this show. Ryan and I watch a lot of TV, for a few different reasons. First, it is something we can at least do together, and second, our kids go to bed between 5:30 pm and 6 pm. No, I am not joking. What else are we supposed to do with all of our time together at night? If we didn't have shows to watch Ryan would surf the web and read WAAAAY too much about Guns 'N Roses (have I mentioned that he has become obsessed since their new album came out? He can spend hours in the GNR's chat room) and BYU Football (he also loves the cougarblue sports website). What would I be doing? Probably reading in our room by myself. I already have a hard enough time finding good books to read, I can't imagine what I would do without TV.

What other shows have we discovered this year that we love? Here is my list of our favorites:

Greek - This show is actually much better than I thought it would be, it is not near as risque as many college life shows are. Way to go ABC Family! WE bought season 1 and rented season 2 and watched it during the summer. It's not like there is much else on...except for So You think You Can Dance- we think it kick's Dancing with the Stars trash.

Gossip Girl - I am so glad for the TV strike and Aunna's "gentle" prodding to get me hooked on this show. Ryan and I look forward to it every week.

90210 - Of course we watch this! We loved the original. I am collecting the season's right now. I am up to 5. I figure when 7 comes out season 6 will go on sale. I fell in love with the original when it was aired live, and then fell in love with it all over again when we were in LA for Ryan's internship. He was working full days and I only worked at Chevy's during lunch, from 11 to 2. It did not take me long to discover that FX was showing 4 hours of BH 90210 IN ORDER at 9 am, 10 am, 3 pm and 4 pm. Could it have been any more perfect? We didn't have any money so it's not like I could shop all day, the library wouldn't give me a card because I didn't really live there and I didn't know 1 person in LA. I watched a lot of TV and hung out at the pool in hopes of going back to Utah with a tan- have you seen my skin? That didn't work out too well.

Psych - If you are not watching this show you HAVE to start. We bought seasons 1 and 2 and have gotten almost all of Ryan's family hooked on it. You have to pause the episodes to finish laughing it is so funny. USA hit a home run with this one. We also love Burn Notice on USA, the season premiere was this week, whoo hoo! Thank goodness for DVR.

House - Ryan doesn't watch this one with me, but I love it. Parker and Jessica got me hooked on it, it is an awesome show, except I am a bit disappointed with the story lines of the new doctors. The only one I like is Kal Penn as Dr. Kutner. He is awesome....I could completely do without Thirteen- I fast forward through most of her scenes.

Bones - I can't remember if I started watching this last year or the year before, but I have to say it is my absolute favorite show on TV. If you missed Thursday night's 2 hour premiere, you missed out. The Circus episode was the funniest episode I have watched in months.

Our favorite commercial

We can't help it, we about fell out of our chairs when we saw this the other day.


I can't get it to work from youtube so click here to view our favorite commercial, it's the birthday one

Another typical day at home in Utah, I mean Las Vegas...Wait, I'm confused, did we move?

We were in Utah last week and it snowed quite a bit on us. I was so relieved to come home to Las Vegas where we suffer through 115* summers for the sheer pleasure of not having snow in the winter time. So I thought, anyway. Apparently all the weird weather has landed in Las Vegas and we had a freak snowstorm yesterday. It hasn't snowed this much here in about 40 years. Here are a few pictures of the snow at our house. Our area, it seems, got hit the hardest, we had 5-6 inches of snow by the time it finally stopped. The freeway exit to get to our house was closed and the last car to attempt going up it only made it half way. It's not like Vegas has snow plows! It was still pretty warm so the snow was slushy, which just made it super slippery. Ryan got stuck on our street right next to our house and we had to get 2 neighbors to help me push him in to our driveway (He is not that bad of a driver, his car just has rear wheel drive, which is a no-no in the snow, but we live in Vegas! ). I did take a loaf of my Pumpkin chocolate chip bread to them as a thank you today. Madison loved that!

So enjoy laughing at us crazies for suffering through the blistering heat and now the stupid snow.

We aren't.

This is what our back yard looked like after about 2 hours of snowing. Not bad, right?

Can you see the table in the back? It is dark, I know, but you can see the depth of snow on top of it.

This is our front yard and the street where Ryan got stuck.

Look for the bike in the top right corner, it is buried.

Thanksgiving at the Ainge's!

This was the first year we have hosted the entire Ainge clan for Thanksgiving. It was so much fun! AND we finally had enough room to do have more than one visitor.

Here is a recap of all the fun we had.

First, before anything else is said, I was in charge of the turkey and so I decided to try a salt brine. I was told to use Alton Brown's method from Food Network. It turned out amazing, and it really wasn't that difficult. I highly recommend it. I got a bucket at Home Depot for $2.89 and that is what I put it in. Next time you make a turkey, try it out, it made the gravy turn out AMAZING.


Madison helped out during the cooking process that day too, she made the rolls. Kathy had seen an idea on TV using Rhodes dough and putting them together to make a turkey with almond slivers as the tail and peppercorns as the eyes. They turned out so cute and she loved helping do something fun. They made fun place settings and you could eat them too! Doesn't get much better than that. They have a tone of fun ideas on their website for all the different holidays.



One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is being able to use my china. I love china and glassware and have ended up kinda/sorta unintentionally collecting it. I just love pretty things. I don't use it that often, especially with small kids, but any time we have a holiday meal I pull it out. It makes the day that much more special to me, and my dishwasher has a china setting so I don't have to hand wash them!





The big question on everyone's mind has to be, "Where were all the boys and what were they doing?" Watching some football for sure, that is a given, especially in this family. But mostly they pulled out Guitar Hero. Collin brought his Wii, along with all the attachments. The boys had way too much fun, but they entertained Madison pretty well. They even let her play a little bit. Later in the weekend they even started teaching her golf. It was really cute! She was obsessed with playing the drums, I think she is going to really get into music when I finally get around to putting her in lessons.

I love how any holiday of any sort has become a reason to shop, you know what I am talking about, "Come on down it's National Eat Pig Day, that means lowest prices of the year!" Are you kidding me??? Just because I think it's ridiculous doesn't mean I don't take advantage of any and all sales and Black Friday is a sacred day. We definitely got some shopping in. There are two guarantees when we see the Ainge's: one, somehow we will watch a sport of some kind, and two, we will shop. I love it! Two of my favorite things together in the same trip! We tried to hit up the Premier outlets downtown at Midnight Thurs night/Friday morning, but that did not work out too great. We spent 1/2 and hour just trying to get off the freeway and once we realized we would be waiting at least another hour and both parking garages were full, we left. It wasn't too bad though, there wasn't anything we HAD to have. We went there for a few hours on Saturday and got everything we wanted. It was fun. We definitely helped stimulate the economy on "Black Friday" and the following Saturday. We were able to get everything on our lists for the kids and plenty extra for us :) We always save up so we have some spending money for all the fun deals that weekend.


Since the family was coming in to town we waited to open Hunter's birthday presents. Like he would know that difference... It was fun watching him, he is much more interested in tearing the paper and opening the gifts than Madison was. It seemed like years before we could convince her to open more than one present. Hunter totally dug it! He loved finally getting some trucks and "boy toys" to play with. He usually ended up playing with Madison's princesses before his trucks "arrived."




During the week I had tons of great help, the best part was having someone to feed the kids while I cleaned up, put stuff away, or ate while my dinner was still warm. The simple things you miss when you have kids....Anyway, Hunter likes to play around once his belly starts getting full. One of his favorite tricks is biting the spoon and not letting it go. He just giggles and gets such a kick out of teasing us that way. I think he is going to be a practical joker when he gets older....Anything that gets a laugh becomes a common occurrence in his behavior. At least he is a happy child, right?



Everyone left us on Sunday, but Craig had to stay in LV for his yearly continuing education, so Kathy stayed with him. It was fun, they stayed at the MGM but hung out with us all day. She and Madison got to make their gingerbread house. They did this last year and Madison has been so excited to do it again. She gets to wear her apron and feel like an adult, she is so patient and exact when she puts it together, but I think her favorite part is sampling all the candy. You have to do that, right? Here she is with her finished product.


At the end of the week Craig and Kathy took Madison back to Utah with them for a fun-filled week. She had the best time talking to all the BYU kids that came over for family home evening, playing with Sophie at the ward Christmas party and while Kathy worked on Wednesday, and getting to help decorate for Christmas. It was fun for her to get one-on-one attention with her grandparents. I am a huge supporter of extended families and the importance of them in our kids lives, I love that they want to spend time with our kids separate from us. Plus, we love the break! I call my 2-4 weeks a year that our families take the kids my "paid vacation." This is my full time job after all!

Hope all of you had as much fun as we did! Thanksgiving and the 4th of July are my two favorite holidays, they are the only two that are not overly commercialized. They are all about spending time with family, visiting and eating and being thankful for all we are given. I am thankful for so much this past year, I feel so blessed to have a healthy, happy family and an amazing husband that does everything he can to make me happy. We are blessed enough to live in a country that has sacrificed so much to give us the unique opportunity to become whatever we dream of. I am so grateful for that, being a citizen of the United States of America is a blessing in itself, I still tear up every time I hear our National Anthem and love the reminder of the opportunities provided us.

Happy Holidays!