Rex is Old(er)!

What a busy week the middle of February turns out to be for us.....

Of course, our biggest event was Rex's birthday on the 12th. After going to storytime with the girls and running some errands, we made a trip to Blackfoot to see Rex at work and to take him some presents and some cookies. The girls had picked out something at the dollar store to give him (ceramic horse and puppy to "help" him paint) and we had made sugar cookies the day before. Later that night, we made him Linguini and Clam Sauce (his favorite thing to eat in the whole entire world.... see the recipe below. He would lick the pan if I would let him) and we had cake and ice cream. We hope he had a great day!

Linguini and Clam Sauce

• 4 green onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 C chopped parsley
• 1 can minced clams
• 1/2 C clam juice (I actually just use the juice from the clams themselves)
• 1/2 C cooking wine (if you are opposed to cooking with wine, use 1/4 C lemon juice instead)
• sprinkle of crushed red pepper
• small container of shredded Parmesan cheese
• linguini noodle

Cover the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil and on medium heat add the onions and garlic to cook until the onions are a light color. Add the clam juice, parsley and red peppers. Start the noodles. After 5 minutes, add the wine and boil for 3 minutes. Add the clams and let cook for 5 minutes before slowly stirring in the shredded Parmesan cheese. Serve over top of noodles. Great with Texas toast and salad. (I always double the sauce ingredients so we have more of the topping on our noodles.)

There is a warehouse in Idaho Falls that sells great soup for really cheap and my Mom and I wanted some for our food storage. So, we went there and let me tell you, that was enough of an adventure to last me for the rest of the year. I was sure we were going to get arrested for trespassing. You go to their warehouse and there is no readily available office (much less a front door), so you go in through their shipping docks, through all this equipment and supplies, up some rickety old stairs and finally come to some kind of office. All of the office staff looks at you funny when you walk in as if to say "how did you know we were up here?" Seriously good soup though, even if I ever do get arrested for trespassing to get it.

I watched a couple of movies this week- Iron Man and Dark Knight. (Yes, I know they have been out for awhile. I am way behind on movie watching.) I really liked them both, especially Christian Bale, er, I mean Dark Knight..... :)

Our Valentines Day was nice and relaxing. Rex made me breakfast and gave me a box of chocolate candy. Yummy! On Sunday was my sister's birthday and so we went to Rexburg for her cake and ice cream. (A delicious ice cream cake by the way!)

In honor of Rex's birthday and Valentines Day, my favorite's list this week is :

Things I admire about Rex:

• His integrity- Rex his very honest in all of his doings. His work, his personal life, his church callings all benefit from his honesty. He strives to do right with other people. He does the best in all that he can do and puts in an honest days work.
  
• His work ethic- Rex is a very hard worker. He not only works full time at Bingham Memorial Hospital in the marketing department doing a heck of a lot of stuff there, but he then comes home and works for at least a couple of hours for his own clients for his own company, ADvantageous Design. Not only that, but he is the ward clerk and the building scheduler, is a husband and father, and helps many, many people in our family and in our ward with computer problems.
  
• Charitable- Rex is always concerned about other people. He is always thinking of ways to help other people.
• Funny- Rex is funny. Many of you may not know this but he really has a sense of humor. He makes up funny songs and keeps us laughing frequently.

We love you!

The last few weeks

I read other people's blogs and feel bad that I don't have anything terribly exciting to talk about. I also used to think that I took quite a few pictures of my girls but yet, I don't really have a lot to post on here. Oh well, here goes nothing.

I went up to Mackay with my Mom a few weeks ago to spend time with my Grandpa. We did a little bit of house cleaning and then I tried to take the girls sledding. I have fond memories of going sledding by the cow trough. The trough would spill over and then freeze up and it made a great sledding hill. But, I took the girls up on the mine hill this time but the snow wasn't good. And, we didn't have sleds and were trying to use trash bags. That didn't work at all and so they rolled down the hill while I took pictures. The pictures aren't of the girls but of scenes from around Grandma and Grandpa's farm. It is the first time I had been back to Mackay since my Grandma died in October. It was obvious something was missing there and I can see why Grandpa gets lonely there. It is funny how much someone fills your life with light and you don't notice it until they are gone.

Grandma and Grandpa's house

Scenery from Grandma and Grandpa's
Chimney where we used to "bake" our mud pies.

I would post a lot more but these pictures are taking a long time to load so I'll just keep the rest to myself. But I did get some nice pictures and it was a fun walk through memory lane.

I have been busy with Primary stuff for the last few weeks. We had a Primary Activity on Saturday which went really well. We filmed the kids doing a talent and then they decorated boxes to look like cars. They decorated heart shaped sugar cookies and they watched their talents on the TV in their "drive-in" cars. It was cute and we had a good turnout.

I had to teach the Senior Primary boys how to sing "How Firm A Foundation" today. That was a heck of an experience. I have a greater respect for Primary Chorister and there is one 10 year old boy in our ward who is lucky I didn't smack him on the head a few dozen times.

I also got to attend Achievement Days for their Mother/ Daughter party. We have some great A.D leaders and I am grateful for all they do.


We had Elder Ballard come to our Stake Conference last week. That was a really neat experience. He told a neat story in the Adult Session about the power of the Priesthood and the power of family. It was really neat.



My girls have been really sick the last 2 weeks with really awful colds. Tayla usually suffers through a cold pretty well but this time it kept her up at night coughing. And when she doesn't get enough sleep, everyone suffers. And of course, Ashtyn is miserable when she gets sick. I bet you she has asthma and she really coughs a lot when she gets sick. Poor kids. (And of course I have a cold now too. It was inevitable I guess.)

My list of favorites this week are Favorite Websites:

• Check out www.topsecretrecipes.com. This guy duplicates restaurant recipes and they taste so good. Some have weird ingredients but for the most part they use common items. I love the recipes from the Macaroni Grill and the Reses Peanut Butter Cups. This is such a fun site. You can also sign up for an email to be sent to you once a week that has a free recipe. It is a great resource for great food.
• Need help in almost every church calling? Check out www. sugardoodle.net. This has fantastic sharing ideas, singing time ideas, visiting teaching ideas, YW ideas, etc, etc. There are also links from here to other sites that also have great ideas. This is a wealth of information.
  
• Hate cleaning your house? Try www.flylady.net. She presents house cleaning in a whole new way. I have adapted this method and I love it. I will admit that I don't do EVERYTHING that she says like getting dressed to the shoes and I have yet to become a dishwasher Nazi; but I do take 15 minutes a day to do some deep cleaning. I really feel like I stay on top of things that way. I love this method.
  

Anyhow, I hope you find some of those useful. Until next time.....

Fiddles, Basements and Randomness

I have been so involved in playing around in my new Facebook account that I have neglected my blog. I am so ashamed. I am here to make amends though, that is if I can think of anything to keep you updated about. I guess that the funnest thing that I have done in the last few weeks is go and see the performing group Barrage at BYU-I. It was fantastic. They are a fiddle group from mostly Canada. But they do more than just fiddle. I was completely floored when they started doing things like Russian sailor dances WHILE they fiddled. It was amazing! When I play my viola, I can't be moving a whole lot or it just doesn't sound right. So, to see them dancing and hopping and fiddling, no less, I was awestruck. I found myself gripping my seat and trying really hard not to shout out (Rex wanted to know if I was turning into a "groupie"). I was also amazed at the fact that even though there were 5 fiddle players playing the same thing all at once, it only sounded like 1 instrument. Even now, I am shaking my head at how wonderful I thought the whole thing was.

We finally bit the bullet and hired someone to finish our basement for us. Rex just doesn't have the time and we really want it done. Even though I am hating the Rubbermaid containers stacked clear to the ceiling in the Family Room, having a completed basement will be so worth it.

My list this week is not going to be a list of my favorites, it is just going to be a list of random things about myself that many of you probably don't know.

• Animals- I cannot and will not watch a movie or read a book where an animal gets hurt. I don't care what kind of animal it is. I don't care if a person gets the snot beat out of them. I can't watch it if an animal gets hurt. I can't watch Marley and Me. I don't like Fox and the Hound. I won't watch I Am Legend. I don't even like Man from Snowy River. That being said, I am reading Chicken Soup for the Dog Lovers Soul and every single story has made me bawl. I have to take a break between each story and recover.
• Automatic Doors- I have a phobia of automatic doors (like at the grocery store) not opening automatically. I know that is weird but it is true. I always make sure the shopping cart goes out first (obviously- who goes out backwards of the store with their shopping cart in tow.)
• Toes- I cannot stand to have my "pointer toes" pulled or stepped on. Even the thought makes me hurt. You can do whatever you want to the other ones, but don't touch my "pointer toes." (Are they really called pointer toes? You know which ones I mean...)
• 4th of July- This is my favorite holiday. Not Christmas, not Thanksgiving, not my birthday. I have a whole wall in my Living Room dedicated to a Patriotic theme. I bawl every single 4th of July at everything- including Clydesdale horses at the fair. What a bawl baby I am on this day.
  

Maybe I have revealed more about myself than I wanted to but I couldn't think of much else to say and I have been thinking about my weird quirks lately. Anyway, now I have shared them with all of you and I feel even stranger......

Happy New Year!

I know I am a few days late in posting for the New Year but here I am anyway. We had a great New Years Party at my Mom and Dad's house. We were actually up until 2 AM! I haven't stayed up that late since I was single. And since it was so late, most of us just slept somewhere at Mom & Dad's house. We sure had a good time though. We played lots of games like Cranium (ask Aunt Chris how to swim) , Apples To Apples, Imaginiff and then we did some Karaoke. Anyway, it was great. I love to play games as a family.

I had kind of a strange incident happen to me a few nights ago. I think I got into something I was allergic to. I couldn't sleep at all that night, I kept jerking awake and I was very nervous and jittery. So, I got up to get a drink and I felt like my lip was fat. So, I went to check it out and my left eye was severely swollen and the left side of my lip was numb. Weird huh? So, then I really couldn't sleep- probably because I was scaring myself. I was sure I had had a stroke or something equally horrible. But the next day, I was fine. My lip still doesn't feel normal although it and my eye aren't swollen anymore. Kind of scary!

I'm not going to do a favorites list on this posting because I am in a hurry and I can't think of anything anyway. I didn't take any pictures on New Years Eve so here is a picture of my wish for Spring/ Summer to come early (even though I know that we need a lot more snow to survive...):

Merry Christmas!

Things have finally settled down here thank goodness. You look forward to Christmas all year long and the closer it actually gets, the sooner you wish it was over... At least that is how I feel. I love Christmas but this year especially was crazy busy. I was still up on Christmas Eve trying to finish Christmas presents and that is so not like me! Anyway, things have finally begun to settle down and for that I am grateful.

We went to Salt Lake last Sunday to meet up with Rex's brother Jared and his family. We were a little worried about the weather but our drive down to Salt Lake was just fine. Coming home on Monday was a different story. Salt Lake to Ogden was snowy. Ogden to Pocatello was just fine (including Malad and the pass). But Pocatello to I.F. was awful and especially Shelley to I.F (that's where all the cars were off of the road.) Anyway, we made it without incident and I was really glad to be home. We had a great time on Temple Square. It is so beautiful there. Ashtyn and Tayla got along really well with Brooklyn who is just a month or 2 younger than them.

Ashtyn and Tayla on Temple Square

Tayla, Brooklyn and Ashtyn

I thought these pictures of Temple Square itself were beautiful.

We had a really nice Christmas. I got a new Cricut cartridge that I am really excited to try out. I can't wait to get scrapbooking! We went on Christmas Eve to my Mom and Dad's house and had dinner and reenacted the nativity. Here are some of my favorite pictures:
Kylie as a Sheep------------Rex (wiseman) & Nana (sheep)

Ashtyn and Tayla as Mary and Joseph

On Christmas day we got up early and opened presents and then went to Rex's mom's and opened some there. My parents were snowed in and so we couldn't go out there. We went back to Rex's Mom's that night for a really good dinner. On Friday, my parents finally got plowed out and so we went out there and had Christmas all over again. We had a great time.

I have to tell everyone 2 funny things that Tayla told us this week: On Christmas Day, she would open an present and look at it and then say to us, "That is not what I ordered." Then she would set it aside and go onto the next one.... Then, just a couple of hours ago, she asked me to make her a new sticker chart. I told her I would do that for her after she went to bed and her reply to me was. "You can just email it." I had to laugh!

I had a hard time coming up with a list to include in this weeks post. I decided to list my favorite TV shows, even though I haven't watched TV in months. Maybe these shows are no longer airing, I don't really know...

• Lost- I am a season behind but I still like this show
  
• Dancing With The Stars- I only watched the first season but I did really enjoy it.
  
• Prison Break- This is a great series- one Rex and I like to watch together
  
• Amazing Race- As a family rule, Rex and I don't watch TV on Sundays but I desperately want to break the rule on this one. I love this show!
  
• Survivor- I don't really like this show anymore. But I used to love it.

Well, there you have it. Until next time......

Still Crazy Here....

Merry Christmas everyone! I still don't have time to detail out everything that has happened the last 3 weeks but I am going to take the time to highlight some of the big events.

• Dental Appointments- About 6 months ago, I took the girls to the dentist for the first time and it was a terrible experience for them. They ended up with 7-8 cavities EACH and a "baby root canal" the dentist called it. It was a horrible experience for all of us to go through. Anyway, they had their 6 month check up a couple of weeks ago and I was not looking forward to the dentists' verdict. But we only had 1-2 cavities each and no root canals! Yippee! And the girls weren't scared to be there. They did really well at having their teeth cleaned and the cavities filled. Ashtyn did bite a HUGE hole in her lip when she was still numb. Seriously, it was the biggest canker sore I have ever seen- it was the size of my thumb from the first knuckle to the end. It was huge. But she only complained about it a few times.
• Ashtyn's rough week- Not only did Ashtyn have cavities filled and bite a huge hole in her lip, but she also was sick one morning and cracked her head open. She was spinning around making herself dizzy and fell against the kitchen counter. She didn't need stitches but you all know how much a head wound bleeds....
• Teton Chamber Orchestra- Back in February, I received a phone call from my high school orchestra conductor who wanted to know if my sister Kylie and I would be interested in playing with the Teton Chamber Orchestra. We jumped at the chance and played with Jim Brickman in February, Sara Hickman in October and this past week we have had 3 concerts with Kurt Bestor. Kurt Bestor is amazing. The songs were so fun to play. He had Jenny Oaks Baker as a guest performer. She can play the violin like no one else! It was spectacular. For those of you who have seen a Kurt Bestor concert you will maybe agree that he puts on a great concert and his reading of "Twas The Night Before Christmas" was a highlight of the evening.
  
• Shanda's Party- We went to my sister Shanda's Christmas party last night. Luckily the roads to Rexburg were drivable. We had a great time. If you ever want to have an original game made up to play at a party, contact my brother-in-law Jade. He makes up these games that we play at their parties and he does a great job.

Well, those are the big events that are happening around here. With a trip to Salt Lake tonight and Christmas right around the corner, I will hopefully have more to write about later. Until then, I leave you with my Favorites list.... Favorite Things to do in my Spare Time:

• Read- I love to read. I could waste days at a time reading a good book. I am currently reading the Shadow Children series by Margaret Haddix. Good series!
  
• Scrapbook- I love to scrapbook. I am fairly caught up on all of our scrapbooks. As soon as Christmas is over, I will have more to do though and I am looking forward to that.
  
• Balance my checkbook- I know that sounds really strange. It must be the Accountant in me. I really enjoy doing the books for our company ADvantageous Design and I consider a great mail day if the bank statement comes in the mail so that I can reconcile it.
  
• Visit with family- I love to spend time with my family. We have a great time together. Even though we all live fairly close together, it is still nice to be in the same room with everyone.
  
• Watch movies- Although I hardly ever feel like I have time for movies, I still really enjoy it and find it a great way to relax. Yes, Twilight is still probably my favorite movie.
  

Until next time..... Merry Christmas!

Too busy, too tired.....

I was chastised by my sister for not updating my blog more frequently. It has just been one of those months, you know? I have a humongous list of things to get done before Christmas but I don't even know where to start and so I haven't done anything at all. Ever been in that position? All I want to do is sleep. I am exhausted. Kylie and I played in Pocatello at a Kurt Bestor concert (more details on that when I have more time....) last night. When the concert ended at 10:15 PM, I said to Kylie "great- I have to get up in 7 hours and I'm not even home yet....." That is pretty typical of how much sleep I have gotten lately. And for the first time in 3 1/2 years- it isnt' the twins fault!