Crafty EJ

I guess all my years of mom-led art projects have rubbed off a bit on EJ because she has been organizing art projects all by herself lately.  One day, she helped Birdy and Bear "draw" with glue on paper.

Then they took it to the sandbox and shook sand all over it.  The result was a cool (but messy!) bit of art. She came up with the idea and execution all by herself- I was so proud!

Next, she really, really wanted to invite her friend G over to make sock puppets. She gathered supplies (including old socks) for a week or two and they had plenty of fabric scraps, yarn and ribbon to choose from.

They even got to use the hot glue gun! The girls used their finished puppets to perform a very silly puppet show for Mom, Birdy and Bear.

And then I had a Birthday!

I had a good birthday this year. I'm very excited to be 33 in 2013.  It is a great year for 3's in our family- Bear is 3, Birdy is 6 (which is 3+3) and EJ is turning 9 in a couple of weeks (3+3+3, of course).  Seems like 3 is our lucky number!

I used my birthday to justify all sorts of "presents" for myself- a dog and a food processor and pretty much anything else I wanted. Birthdays are good like that.  DMP took me out for real sushi, at a restaurant (SO Yummy!). I haven't had sushi at anywhere but Walmart (also really good) since we moved to TX, so it was really fun.

Not so fun was when DMP had to fly to Atlanta the day before my birthday. I got a lot of mileage out of it with the kid, though, so and I was mostly able to guilt them into being good for most of the day :)  Bear is posing with my birthday feast- Funyons, Diet Coke and Walmart sushi (seriously, it is good- hand-rolled right in front of your eyes at the fanciest Walmart ever).  It was a yummy feast!  There were also neon pink cupcakes with animal-print rings in them somewhere, but this is what happens when you don't have backup to photograph important events!

I'm looking forward to my year of 3's. It is good being a double-digit year. It feels lucky- like major foundation problems lucky! Just my year!

Texodus: Food Part 2

Holy cow. This is a Burger Supreme Bacon Cheeseburger. It has officially replaced the Bowling Alley burger as THE burger standard. So, so good! I love their thick-cut fries with just the right amount of salt and "real" ranch dressing, too.  We did go to the bowling alley but we realized that it just hasn't been up to par lately- the burgers were dry and not as tasty as before :(

I think I ate my weight in beautiful, sweet and delicious UT sweet corn. Dad seriously bought it for me and cooked it up every meal. For some reason, the corn on the cob we get in TX is woody, dry and bland- so sad!

Grandma K's special pancakes with blueberries and chocolate chips. It might not seem like a big deal to Grandma, but this is something my kids talk about and remember all year long, especially Birdy!

 I can't express my deep love for Kneaders. I wish we had it in TX.  I love their key lime tart (nice and tart, not too sweet!) and their fruit tart (love the pastry cream!).  Their asaigo bread is to die for- that and jerky was pretty much all we ate on the drive home! I just love all the fresh sandwiches and soup options and the fact that it gives you a non-ice cream option for dessert :)

Mmmm... Pita pit.  Just as good as I remember (and the parking was just as crappy...)

Last but not least, I rediscovered my love for JoJo potatoes at the Mountainland gas station in Heber. These are so good- battered and fried with just the right amount of spicy. Seriously, does anyone in TX know where I can get potatoes like this? Not the wimpy stuff they sell in your average grocery deli...

Other food shout outs that I didn't get pictures of include the really yummy meatloaf sandwich and lightly pickled carrots and cauliflower that I had with Kim and family in the Nordstrom's restaurant (can't remember the name, but you can bet I'm throwing carrots in my favorite pickle juice for 24 hrs to see if I can copy those veggies!).  Of course I had a heavenly Logan's Hero- a must anytime we are even CLOSE to Logan! 

Pioneer Play Date

The girls and I were inspired by our visit to the This is the Place park and some great new books from Grandma to have a pioneer day.  To make it extra-fun, we invited some of our friends to dress up like pioneers and come and join us.  We read the pioneer books and learned about what it was like to cross the plains.  While we were reading, the girls took turns "churning" and making butter.

The girl's favorite activity was doing the laundry.  We got some dirty clothes and washed them the pioneer way (you know, if pioneers used a bar of zest soap...).  They had so much fun and washed until we ran out of line to hang them on! Now if only it really got the clothes acceptably clean I'd let them do it every day!

In true pioneer style, we made our own toys. We made super-easy and fun yarn dolls. The girls did a great job making them and they were thrilled!

We topped off our play date with slices of bread and fresh-made butter!  Side note- I had intended to make home made oatmeal bread, but my bread machine "walked" off the counter while it was mixing and broke beyond repair! Luckily we had a loaf of regular bread to save the day!

Bear's "Real" Birthday

We were driving ALL DAY for Bear's real birthday day, so we told him his birthday was Sunday after we got back. I love that 3-yr-olds have no sense of time at all!  After he woke up and had breakfast, Daddy set up the bubble machine Aunt Cyndi gave him. It was so fun!

Then he opened and played with his presents from the family.  Note: The jaunty open-collar polo is courtesy of DMP dressing him that morning. You can see in the top picture that he is also wearing plaid shorts that don't even pretend to match.

For dinner, we had what passes for this guy's "favorite"  meal. Spaghetti and meatballs with fruit and bread is what he will eat the most of, most consistently :)

Sometimes, when you are the third child, your Mom skips the homemade cake (for both birthday celebrations!) and doesn't even bother to take the cupcakes out of the package. This is probably why I shouldn't have more children. Just think how number 4 or 5 would be neglected!

At least the cupcake toppers were lots of fun!

Texodus: The Food - Part 1

Sorry, family, but a lot of the attraction of the Texodus lies in the FOOD. There is so much good food to eat from all of our favorite places.  First above we have the awesome breakfast steak burrito from Rancheritos. Giant, cheap, yummy green salsa sauce, amazing tortilla (fresh!) and AMAZING if you squeeze a lime onto it. I won't say how many of these I ate over the month we spent in UT.

*Sigh* Is there anything better than Utah scones with honey butter? Only Utah Scones with cinnamon honey butter!

Chuck-A-Rama.  Unfortunate name, awesome food and scones. It's a UT must-visit.

Dairy Keen- a.k.a. "The Train Place".  Not a big fan of their food (chicken strips are OK, but the burgers don't excite me too much...).  However, they have the fancy soda machine that dispenses the perfect cherry-vanilla diet coke. This summer they also had these AWESOME lunch lady peanut butter bars. Yum!

The extra-special Grandpa-only tradition of "squirty cream".  Isn't he a great Grandpa, folks?

Bear was eager to participate, but the idea ended up being better than the reality. It was pretty traumatizing :)

Dill Pickle lays! These are SO good and apparently you can only get them in the West. They aren't sold in TX. They are so good.

Ahhh- fish and chips at Bertrams in Salmon. The perfect fish and chips (for me).  Crispy beer-battered fish, home made tartar sauce and beer battered fresh-cut fries. Yum (and oh, so good for you!)

There was so much yummy food to document I had to split it up into multiple posts. No wonder I gained weight this trip but it was totally worth it!

Texodus: Bailey's Farm

We were so happy to visit with our friends the Bailey's on this trip.  They didn't tell their girls that our girls were coming to visit and they were so happy and surprised! It was a fun reunion. These girls have been BFF's since they were babies.  

The Bailey's have a great new house that the girls refer to as a "farm".  It is a huge lot and it has horses and cows on both sides. It is a great place to play, with a fantastic back porch and view.  The girls went to visit Scooter, the neighbor's horse.  Their neighbor is older and Stacie and the girls help take care of him and ride him.

The Daddies played darts.

The kids had fun picking mulberries from the tree in the back yard.

Birdy loved cuddling the two barn kittens!

Both girls were SO EXCITED to ride Scooter!

These two just played and played (and emptied an entire big cooler of water!).  The big girls are convinced that they are going to get married someday, so maybe this is a photo for the wedding slide show :)

Texodus: Bear and Grandpa Share a Birthday

Bear and Grandpa K got to share a Birthday party again this year.  We had planned to have a birthday picnic in Provo Canyon, but our plans were changed at the last minute by a big wind and rain storm.  I'm so grateful to Aunt Cyndi for being such a nice and calm hostess. She had no problem staging and hosting the party at her house at the last second. She is great like that- I want to be like her when I grow up!  

The menu included yummy Winco sandwiches, chips, grapes and TWO birthday cakes- Superman for Bear and Carmel Pecan cheesecake for Grandpa (Cyndi made it and it was AWESOME).  Bear got such a kick out of having two cakes, he now thinks every party should have them!

Bear was totally spoiled with lots of presents and hugs from Grandpa.  Also, apparently when you turn 3 you get crazy eyes!

Texodus: Temple Square

EJ and I met Aunt Cyndi and her kids (plus Minnie and Grace) at Temple Square to explore all the fun stuff to see there. Birdy and Eli stayed at home with DMP to play with the other CA cousins.

This is the best miniature dollhouse EVER! The kids loved looking at inside the temple and playing with the interactive touch screens that have virtual tours.  It is kind of funny- at this point in the visit, Cyndi had to leave me for a bit with all 6 kids. 3 people talked to me (asking if Grace and Minnie were twins, telling me "Good job, Mom" and etc.) and assumed they all belong to me.  Only in UT would someone with 6 kids 9 and under be unremarkable. If I were in TX, people would be asking me if I knew where babies come from and secretly snapping pictures of me :)

We found one of the chunks of temple granite with the drill holes in it!

I just love this pretty girl SO MUCH!

The kids loved the reverent spirit in the Christus room.

We made our way to the Book Of Mormon children's exhibit after a whirlwind spin around the Church History Museum (the littles were getting restless).  The kids had a blast building a wall together!  Grace and Minnie were just happy to be out of the stroller and running around.

This is probably my favorite thing from the whole Texodus.  This girl LOVED getting dressed up and dancing with the other kids at the Mexican dancer exhibit. She would twirl, curtsy and hold her arms out like the other girls. I have a video and it is the cutest thing EVER. I'll upload it soon to the blog to share.

We didn't get to see everything (again) this visit, but it was a whole lot of fun. I can't get over how beautiful the flowers and landscaping is around the Temple. I love it!