Kurt and Bonnie

Shawn's brother Kurt married his sweetheart Bonnie on Saturday. Richelle's family came in from Alaska and Bart and Katie came from Pennsylvania. The whole weekend was really fun and we are super excited to have Bonnie in the family. Hopefully she can put up with us.








































Hopefully we can convince Kurt and Bonnie to join the blogging craze soon.

A snow death with skills

I went snowcaving with the scouts over the weekend. Somehow I'd managed to avoid that experience back when I was a scout - we winter camped in cabins with electricity. This was the real deal though. We started digging the caves for our young men's activity on Tuesday and then finished on Friday. Talk about work! We had to help the boys a lot too and didn't finish the caves till nearly 10 P.M. Then we lit a fire and started working on dinner, finally collapsing into bed about midnight. I was worried about being cold and brought two sleeping bags - one slid inside the other. No need to worry though - I was too hot most of the night - took off my hat, unzipped the bags etc. We woke up Saturday to a beautiful sunny day and so I showed the kiddies a few of the mad sled skills Kurt taught me!

Going Ons in February

Here is a glimpse of what we have been up to in the last month. The girls have made the most out of the wintery weather. Check out Syd's very cool snowgirl. She offers her own explanation of it's making in the video.
We also got the girls' new room in the basement all painted, got the bunkbeds put up, and moved them into their new room. I haven't finished decorating it yet, but you can get an idea of what it looks like from this picture. They love the bunkbeds and think it's very cool to live in the basement. I think it's very cool too. When they are downstairs, you would not even know there are kids in the house!


Other than that, the girls and I have been fighting a very nasty cold bug. Syd's cold turned into an ear infection and she missed 6 days of school. So for the last 1 1/2 weeks we have pretty much been laying on the couch in various states of exhaustion. Hopefully we are on the mend now, and hopefully Daddy will not get whatever we had. We love our Daddy!

One cool thing I did get to do: I spent a day in SLC with Robyn doing a dinner exchange. I made 11 dinners (all the same), and then we met together with other women she knows and swapped out the meals. So now I have a freezer full of dinners for when this baby decides to come. It was very cool! Robyn does it every month. It was really fun to spend the day with my sis! There was a fair amount of giggling that went on. Rob, thanks for the much needed day out.

We are looking forward to the Anderson's all coming to town next week. Yay for family weddings! We will have some good pics to post for sure.

Yummy Chicken, Awesome Husband

Shawn made me the yummiest dinner for my birthday. He found the recipe, went shopping, and even did the clean-up. The chicken he made was really good, and it was really easy to make (I watched). So here is the recipe:

Chicken with Carrots and Cauliflower

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 1 pound (4 cups) carrots, peeled and cut into 1 1/2-to-2-inch chunks
• 1 pound cauliflower, cut into medium-size florets
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground coriander
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper
• 4 whole chicken legs, skin-on (about 12 ounces each)
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 475 degrees. In an 11-by-15-by-2 3/4-inch roasting pan, combine carrots, cauliflower, 1 teaspoon coriander, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, 3/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper; arrange around sides of pan.
2. Place chicken legs along center of pan, and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 teaspoon coriander and 1/4 teaspoon cumin; season generously with salt and pepper.
3. Roast, stirring vegetables once, until chicken is well browned and crispy and an instant-read thermometer inserted in a thigh (without touching bone) registers 180 degrees, 40 to 45 minutes. Transfer chicken to a platter, and let rest for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, add lemon juice to pan; with a wooden spoon, stir and scrape up drippings, mixing with vegetables. Serve.

Tagged!

So I have to thank Becca for tagging me. There hasn't been alot going on around here lately so I needed a reason to blog. So here it goes:
1) The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
2) Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3) At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

What were you doing 10 years ago?
Wow, I am getting old! 10 years ago I was attending BYU. So I have to admit that I wasn't crazy about BYU as a school, but the social life there was fantastic! I'm sure I was in one of my many short-lived relationships from that year. It was probably around the time I dated Jason for a total of 2 weeks. I also was just turning 21 at this time 10 years ago. I think me and my roommates went to dinner at Grandma Lee's house. Yay for Grandma. And my parents completely forgot my birthday- no card, no call, nothing. Very memorable. :)

Name 5 Things on My To-Do List:
1) Have baby-10 weeks to go, it's a work in progress
2) Move my girls downstairs to their new room
3) Get the baby's room set up upstairs
4) Take a nap (seriously)
5) Try to be nice enough to my family that nobody moves out between now and April
Can you tell what I am focused on lately?

Things I Would Do if I Were Suddenly a Billionaire:
The first thing I would do is buy a new house. One where each of the kids could have their own room, and my kitchen could be 10 times bigger than it is now. Then I would pay off my car- I love my car, I just want to own it outright. Since lots of money can't make you have a baby, that would really be about it for now. I'm sure my answer to this question would be entirely different 12 months from now. Something involving a cruise maybe.

3 of My Bad Habits: Shawn says I don't have any. Well, even he knows that is not true.
Eating too much junk food
Getting mad too easily
Swearing (me too Bec)

5 Places I Have Lived: It's really not that exciting.
Amalga, UT
Jackson, WY
Rexburg, ID
Provo, UT
Smithfield, UT

5 Jobs I Have Had:
Cake decorating Instructor
Fry cook- I cooked chicken at Hardee's
Waitress
CNA at a nursing home
daycare slave, I mean provider

Things People Don't Know About Me:
What flavor of baby I'm having (I know!)
I have a secret affinity for garden gnomes
I once went skinny-dipping when I lived in Jackson
I won't allow my second set of earring holes to grow in. . . just in case the prophet changes his mind

People I Tag:
Anyone who wants to. Everyone I know that blogs has been tagged recently. So if you want to reply to this, go for it!

My Cookie Monster

Grandma Julie got Brynn this sweater, which I think is so cute. It is soft and fuzzy, and the sleeves are a little bit long, so they cover Brynn's hands, and when I first saw it on her, all I could think was "C is for cookie, it's good enough for me." I told Brynn this so she decided to sing for me. . .

Christmas at Our House

Here are some fun pictures from our holiday season: The girls in their new Christmas p.j.'s, our family's
version of the Nativity- including Shawn and Brynn as Mary and Joseph, a reluctant shepherd(played by Jack), Mindy as the shepherd wrangler, a sleepy wise man (played
by Bobbi), and Syd as our very enthusiastic angel (Hallelujah!), and the girls ice skating with the help of little walkers, which I think are a nifty idea. Overall we had a great Christmas season. We enjoyed spending lots of time with family and generally playing like crazy. We are all in recuperation mode now. We hope you all had a great Christmas too!