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!

My baby turned 1!

I can hardly believe my baby turned 1!. It feels like I just had him. He has been such a joy to have, we actually feel like a family now. You know how when you have just one child it still feels like you are a couple with a kid tagging along? Now that we have two we are actually starting to feel like a real family, we have more of a schedule now, a system has come in to our household, and we have so much more fun. I never thought I would love being a mom so much, life sure changes perspectives. At least it does for me.

For his birthday I made him a cupcake with chocolate frosting (I know, another example of what a great mom I am-most mom's get a cake or make something fancy, my kid gets one cupcake)...That one cupcake he did get did not have a chance. Madison kind of picked at her cake a little bit and needed a little help figuring out what to do with it. Hunter needed no direction. When we were singing to him he was reaching as far as his little arms would read! If he could have gotten out of his chair he would have. He even licked his little fingers clean.

I even got a picture of the "How you doin'" face he makes. I have been trying to get a picture of it for months and I simply got lucky with this picture. There are quite a few things I can say about this picture, but it captures Hunter in all his "Hunterness." Do you see the crumbs on his tray? He tried to get every single one of them in his mouth. This was one item of food that did not get thrown of the floor.

The next question that arises when a birthday is celebrated is: "What did he get for his birthday?" Answer: A haircut!



I took him in to the girl that does my hair for his first haircut. I have no clue how to cut boys hair, eventually I will figure it out, but until then I will pay for the privilege of my child not looking like he cut it himself. He did not know what on earth was going on...poor kid! He gave me a few interesting looks when I was buckling him in to his booster and Karie was putting on his cape.

He sat still and calm the entire haircut, until she started styling it. Is he a boy or what? Little to absolutely no maintenance is his philosophy. He still doesn't like me styling it. But look how cute he turned out! He looks all grown up, and all the red that he had is gone. Looks like I might get my wish of a blondie! When I was prego with Madison I was convinced she was a boy because about once a week I would have a dream about a little blonde toddler boy-I took a yellow outfit to the hospital because I just KNEW they ultrasound was wrong. So maybe I was dreaming about this little guy-I'll say this, he is a dream! I cannot imagine an easier child. He is so calm and easygoing, nothing phases him. That will come in handy because he has one domineering, bossy older sister. (Can't figure out where she picked those traits up? Here is a hint: They come naturally from mom.)

Here is my big guy, in all his grown-up-looking glory. If only I could get his hair to look this cute. I didn't wash it for 2 days because he looked so cute and I knew I couldn't replicate it. Someone needs to teach me how to do kids hair, I am just finally figuring out how to do my own and I am almost 30.

Carrying a heavy load

Madison is such a helper with Hunter. As I have mentioned before, she wants to be his mommy so badly! When she has to get him for me this is what she does. It cracks me up, but I sure appreciate it!

Football and Doughnuts

We love football season in our house. We watch games all day on Saturdays (by we I mean Ryan watches them all day and I catch a glimpse of the score as I clean around him, unless it is a team I actually like, then I will sit down to watch the game). We also try to get up to Utah for a few BYU games each season. We always go to the first home game of the season, and then look around our schedule for one or two more. It is fun: we visit family, we visit friends, and we get to root for our Alma Mater. We both loved our time at BYU, I miss it so much. There was something really special about my time there...I am incredibly grateful that I was able to attend such an amazing University. Not only did I meet my husband, but I became the person I wanted to be.


Anyway, on with the story...We went up to Utah in October to see Reba and Kelly and thankfully there was a home game that weekend. BYU vs. UNM. It is funny. I usually only go to one UNLV football game a year and every other year it is UNM, and for some reason I usually go to the BYU/UNM game. So, every other year I see UNM play twice. How random is that? Am I being told something? Am I supposed to be a UNM fan? Or maybe always root for them to lose? I can't figure it out.


So this year when we went it was supposed to be snowing and raining and just plain cold. I don't like cold weather, so I was not excited, to say the least. I debated going with Ryan and made a deal with him. He had to buy me long underwear, new gloves, an ear warmer and hand warmers and I would go (because of course I went to Utah without my winter apparel. It was still 90* in LV, so I can't imagine why I wouldn't remember to pack my snow wear?) So, off to the game I went. I wore my long underwear. I wore a long sleeve t-shirt. I wore my green fleece zip up jacket. On top I wore my BYU Hoodie. Yeah, we saw my brother-in-law when we were walking in and he asked if I was prego again or just fat. He got a dirty look. I admit, I look super fat in the pictures b/c I had been canning all day and didn't do my hair and then I was wearing a ridiculous amount of layers. But, I did not get cold (I brought a blanket to sit on and one to wrap around my legs, that helped too).

We get there and the entrance to our seats is right by the "Cougar Tail" stand. Now, what is a Cougar Tail? A long maple bar doughnut. The Creamery makes incredible doughnuts, I have missed them for years and anyone that knows me knows I love doughnuts-I don't eat them often, but I absolutely love them. Parker had promised Jessica that we could share one at the game, but he had forgotten his wallet, Jessica did not have her purse and I didn't either. So I looked over at Ryan and he said no. (Ryan is my self-appointed diet watcher. He won't let me eat sugar unless he wants to share something-this is a big bone of contention in our marriage because I love sugar, but I definitely don't over due it. I am, however, a big girl and can decide for myself if I should eat something). So the entire game we are giving Ryan and Parker a hard time about this, we both really, really wanted a doughnut. About the 3rd quarter of the game Craig (Ryan and Parker's Dad) realizes what is going on and give us money to go get one. We were giddy with joy! So we run to the stand and wait in line. We ask for one and the guy tells us that they just ran out. Now, you can imagine our devastation over this new development. It had taken us almost the entire game to even get money for a Cougar Tail and now they were out. One of the girls working there must have seen how far our faces fell and came over to tell us that she had just found one last doughnut tucked in the back of their cart. I almost jumped over the counter to hug her! So, alas, Jessica and I did get our Cougar tail to share. I even gave Craig a piece as a thank you. So of course we had to get a picture to commemorate our achievement at the game. I ate almost half of mine before I could sit still for a picture, Jessica and I did have equal pieces, I am just super impatient when it comes to treats.

The game went on, we won, of course, and it did not even get cold and snowy. I was so worried. Last year we went to one game in October and toward the end of the fourth quarter we could not even see the field it was snowing so badly. We left with 6 or so min left of the game. I really did not want a repeat of that weather-it just ruins the experience for me. So thankfully this game was played before the storm hit and we were able to enjoy it without getting too cold. A good ending to a great day.

I'm Hungry Mommy

The other day Hunter was crawling around having so much fun downstairs. I was getting dinner ready or something so the pantry was open. What did he do? He crawled in, found his food and proceeded to grab it off the shelf. He sat there for quite a while trying to open the container. He even gnawed on the outside for a while trying to get in. It was sooo cute, so of course I had to grab a picture.

What's for dinner?

More NYC posts are coming, I promise! I just haven't had time to sit down this last week. However, I have been wanting to post some of my favorite recipes. Please post yours too! I am always looking for yummy things to make, especially ones that are tried and true. Here are some of my favorites.

I have 2 that come on the back of the Stovetop stuffing box that our family loves, they are so good!
Easy Chicken Bake
Bruschetta Chicken Bake This one take about 5 min to put together- you don't have to make the stuffing or the chicken! I love it!

My mom sent this one to me, it was so easy and we really liked it
Pecan-Crusted Pork with Pumpkin Butter I didn't have any pecans, but I did have walnuts and they tasted great with the food.

This is our FAV recipe. It makes a huge amount so what I do is get the throwaway casserole pans and split the dish into 3's. Then I freeze 2 and when I take one out I cook on 375* for about an hour or so, until it is warm throughout. It looks really complicated, but it really doesn't take me that long to put together. One tip though-cut all the veggies up before you start browning the ground turkey. Turkey browns really fast. It's a great way to get kids to eat veggies-my picky little Madison will eat every bite.
Italian Shepherd's Pie I don't like peppers at all so I use zucchini and squash instead. I also use whatever kind of cheese I have on hand, but you have to use poultry seasoning, otherwise it is not as tasty.

Another favorite recipe of ours is Mac and Cheddar Cheese with Chicken and Broccoli. This is really good with left over ham. Anytime we get a Honeybaked Ham I make this and eat it for days.

I promised a few people I would post my Pumpkin bread and Banana Bread recipes. I have tried so many and these are my favorites
Banana Pumpkin Bread I will add some Chocolate Chips to this one, because really, doesn't chocolate make everything better?
Walnut Banana Bread

And guess what people are getting for Christmas this year?
Banana Nut Bread Baked in a Jar How cool is that?

NYC Part 1

I don't have 3 hours to do a full posting of our trip to NYC so I will post just one of the crazy things that happened to us. (BTW, if you are wondering, we had a fabulous time. We really enjoyed this trip)

On with the crazy story. So, I never run in to famous people. We lived in LA for 3 years and I didn't see a famous person once (unless I paid to see them at concerts, plays, etc). Not that I really cared because I am not much of a starstruck type person. They don't really do much for me, you know? Seriously, what am I going to do with an autograph anyway? But it is fun to tell the stories, right?

When we finally left Grease ( I decided to use the restroom at the end of the show) we were the last people out of the theater. We walked about 5 feet and saw a group of people exiting the show across the street. Who, you ask? Jeremy Piven (my 3rd favorite actor-hello, how can you not fall in love with him after watching Serendipity-which we were headed too. How crazy is that?) and Fergie (have you read how many times her song "Big Girls Don't Cry" has come up in my blog?). How nuts is that? We walked over there and I convinced Fergie to get a picture with me. I figured M would love seeing it since she loves the song so much. Mr. Piven was already in the car, but let me just say, she is even more gorgeous in person and soooo tiny! Plus, her jacket rocked, it was softer than any leather I have ever touched.

So, here it is, the downfall of my non-starstruckedness (like my word? yea, I made it up. I think it works in this sentence).

***PS, how awesome is my jacket? It's Amily's. I keep begging her to give it to me, I think it looks better on me - She is too skinny to pull it off. Cross your fingers for me, I think my borrowing time is up.

My little monkey in action

We go to the park semi-regularly, more now that it has finally cooled off some. The plastic burns their skin during the summer! Anyway, Hunter is obsessed with slides. He loves to climb up them, so I guess he is more obsessed with climbing? Doesn't matter, I think he figures it is the only way he can get to the top.

I watched him do this and I was amazed. He did get to the top of the smaller one when I was behind him. I won't let him get higher than this on the big one.

Cafe Rio, Yummy!

Well, Hunter finally got to eat at Cafe Rio with us this last trip. He LOVED it! Can't say I blame him, especially since I ate it all the time when I was prego with him. Usually he just gets crackers or something, but now that he can have cheese and such he got his own quesadilla and went to town. He even ate the entire meal without throwing any of it on the ground. It was a miracle.

Almost there....

This is a few weeks late, but Hunter if finally standing on his own really good and should hopefully soon start walking. He will take a few steps while he falls towards you, but other than that he is not doing much walking.

When he stands up he gets to excited and loves when we cheer for him. He looks around at us and wonders what are we doing? It is cute how shy he gets!

I LOVE Baking soda

My sister just shared this secret with me. I am not the biggest chicken fan, I just can't ever make it to where I like it. This is supposed to make chicken so tender and juicy. I am trying it tonight for dinner to see if it will do the same thing with pork. Chicken is on the menu for tomorrow.

Marinade the chicken for 15 minutes. Just kind of rub the baking soda in and pat it on. No need to add water, the juices from the chicken will take care of it. Once the 15 minutes is up wash it off and cook as desired!


A few months ago Madison had written all over her bedroom wall with pencil and I could not get it off. So I googled how to clean the wall. Baking Soda. It worked! I made a little paste and rubbed it all over the wall and wiped it off with a damp cloth. Thank goodness or she would have been dead. There was no way I was going to repaint her room 2 weeks before we moved.

Another trick I learned over the years with baking soda is using it to clean off the bottom of pans. If you cook something and burn the bottom of the pan put some water and baking soda in the bottom and gently simmer, the stuck stuff will come right off. It works!

What are your secret tips?

***FYI, keep it marinating for no more than 15-20 minutes otherwise it will taste like Baking Soda and be sure to wash it off. ENJOY!!

Want more tips on baking soda? click here

Fun with Strollers

Madison wants to be the mom of the family so bad, so when I grabbed these pictures it was all I could do to not call her mom. She is so good at keeping Hunter entertained. She was so sad when he was born and just slept all day long. I think she thought we would be bringing home a BFF for her to play with all day. At least she is not mad at him for not being able to play with her much.

After we went trick-or-treating the stroller was in the house for a few day until I got off my lazy bum and took it back to the garage. I would like to say that it was because the kids were having so much fun playing with it that I did not want to interrupt that, yeah, it is because I get lazy with the easy stuff. Anyway, H found it so quick and started crawling up to the "Big Kid Seat" and held on and had so much fun. M found him and got in his seat to walk him around the house. I about fell down laughing when I saw them doing this. At least they were having fun, but don't worry, I am not so lazy that I let them get away with it for long. I didn't want H to fall and get hurt, so needless to say, after this escapade the stroller went back to the garage for storage. But look at their huge smiles! They were having so much fun. If I could have figured out a way for them to do this and have it be safe I totally would have let them keep at it for a few more days at least.

Now, when I need to keep H out of something for a while I convince M to be a great big sis and take him for a spin in her doll stroller. I just know it will get broken from having too much weight in it one day. He is a chunk! I think M was about 20 months old before she weighed what he weighs now. But it is fun and he really enjoys it. And she always makes sure that she buckles him in tight. Yeah, like a velcro seat belt is really gonna help. Her favorite game to play with her stroller is "Going to the Mall." If she is not her parents daughter, right? She gets her stroller, her diaper bag (full of toys), her purse and puts on jewelry and then tells me she is going to the mall. I don't think she has made it to the purchasing part of mall-going yet, but I am just waiting for that after the holiday season is over. We really don't go to the mall much. I spend too much money, but they have a play area for the kids so she loves going. When it is really hot or cold we will go and get lunch and play for a bit, she just loves that.

***Oh, and by the way, you can see my beautiful new blinds in the background. They turned out so pretty I didn't even regret not getting shutters again. Only with blinds the kids end up wanting to play with them more. So now I am constantly worried about them breaking a slat.

It is purge time!

I have finally made some time to catch up on the month of October. It was so busy and it just went by so fast. My friend Cori has a cute way of naming the process of blogging when you blog everything all at once, but I can't remember what she calls it, so I will name this posting "purging." I still have some fun things to blog about but don't count on anything this coming week. Ryan and I are headed to NYC for some fun time together. He has to work one day during the trip but the rest of the time we will be able to do some fun things. Ryan has never been to Ellis Island so this trip we got tickets to go. I love Ellis Island, but each time we went together it was closed. The first time R went to NYC was November of 2001. That was an eerie time in NY history. Definitely a different experience for us at tourists.

Last time we went there was no time. We had a few hours here and there but not enough time to get out there. So, this time we get to go, I am super excited about it because Ellis Island has the coolest feeling/spirit about it. I love history and Ellis Island is such an integral part of our American history.

So, enjoy the posts I have put on and I will have fun pictures and stories to share with you all.

***Correction: R has informed me that I forgot to add Evanescence to our concert list. How did I forget that one? It was the grand opening of The Pearl at the Palm's Hotel and Casino and we sat right in front of the Maloof brothers and actually talked to one of them. I was prego with H and sick, but I made it through the entire show without having to run to the bathroom! Yeah!

It's bath time!

We have lots of bath time in our house. It is nice, our new house has the shower next to the tub so I can put the kids in and watch them in the mirror while I shower. They much prefer that to showering, they don't like the shower that much.

Anywhoo, Halloween night M picked out a stamp instead of candy at the carnival we went to. We woke up the next morning and she had stamped all over her body, including her face. So, we had a bath day that morning. I had to get a picture because this is not a new experience for us. She loves stamps. It is funny, whenever she sees someone with a tattoo she points them out and says "look mommy, they have stamps on their arm." I like the idea of them being stamps. I dread the day when she figures out they are permanent and asks me for one.

Hunter hates when I do his hair. Is he a boy or what? I can kind of dry it with the towel and then he crawls away from me, after giving me the "look of death." I got a picture of his crazy hair because I am going to cut it on his first birthday, which is only a few weeks away. I cannot believe it has been an entire year since I had him. He is just so cute!

The cutest part of bathtime for me is H and his chubby bum and legs. He was born looking like this, only they are much larger now than they were when he was born. I kept trying to get a picture that showed his cute thighs off without him being naked, but no such luck, so I colored over the "sensitive" areas. Seriously though, is that not the cutest thing ever. He has his little hips and then, Pow! Out come the thighs. He has rolls on top of rolls, and hey, there is no other time in his life that it will be okay to have fat rolls so I am enjoying them now. I will admit that he got them from the Hanson side of the family. No one in the Ainge family has big thighs.