Sunday, February 21, 2010

Valentines is for the Birds...

With Springtime just around the corner (I know... Wishful hoping...) I thought we'd do a fun Valentine's activity for our little birdie friends outside the window. Dallin had a friend over and we put these together for a little Valentines Party.

You will need a small bag of pre-mixed birdseed, Knox Original Unflavored Gelatine, A Plastic Mold, a drinking straw, and ribbon. Mix two envelopes of unflavored Gelatine with 1 cup of water. Simmer on low until the gelatine has completely dissolved. Stir in 2 Cups of Birdseed until completely mixed. Spray your mold with a coat of baking spray and scoop in birdseed mixture pressing lightly to pack down. We used a little heart mold since it was for valentines, but any type of mold would be cute! :) Cut a drinking straw in small pieces and insert into the top of each mold making sure the straw goes completely through. Leave the straw in and chill for 2 Hours in the fridge.

Stephanie Lynn at "Under the Table and Dreaming" gave a great tutorial with photos on our activity here (I forgot to take play by play photos myself)...

They turned our really cute and Dallin had a fun time. He loves to go outside to check how much the birds have eaten everyday too.

Monday, February 15, 2010

That's MY kid...

I never thought that I'd ever have to have this kind of day...
Where it was MY kid...
MY kid to come home...


with a NOODLE up his NOSE...


Luckily...
Noodles get soft over time...

Family Fun Weekend...

A few weeks ago, Jeff and I had an awesome weekend with both of our families. We came down Cedar and spent the night there, and then went with almost his entire family (minus Steve and Lindsay) to the LDS Temple. Grandma Corry and Danny and Laura watched the kids in the visitors center while everyone went in to do some kind of temple work. It was so nice to go in and do temple work and not worry about the kids. Our ward was actually there doing Baptisms, so Jeff and I decided to join them in there. My brother also had a free day (which is very rare), and came over with us. We got to go into the confirmation room together. That was the first time I had ever been in the temple with my brother- so it was really fun! He's such a good kid! :) It was so wonderful to be there with Jeff's family too. I love that we are all sealed forever. :)


Cute Cousins:

Afterward we all went to Golden Corral- SOOO yummy! :) We had fun eating to our hearts' content! :)



Later that night, we went to my mom's house. It was my brother-in-law's 24th birthday (You're gettin' old man!) :)... My mom made an awesome dinner of "Cafe Rio" Pork Salad, and a yummy jello-poke cake! She's an amazing cook! :) We had fun playing Apples to Apples and making a lot of laughs! :)


The next day, we didn't really have much going on- so we gave my great-grandma Ilean a call and came over for lunch. Kellie, Connor and Scott all met up over there as well. My grandma made a delicious lunch (like usual). Scott decided to put on the record player and we started to look through some pictures my grandma had out. One thing led to another and we ended up going through her whole chest of old pictures and things. There were old newspaper clippings, and some of my grandma's old clothes. Baby clothes, documents and pictures from the war time and before. It was so awesome to look through and hear my grandma tell all of her old stories and her and my grandpa. I think it's a day that us kids will always look back on and remember!

We also took Dallin to my Great-Grandpa's grave for the first time. I miss him a lot.


We then headed back to Cedar since we had the Monday off and spent some more time with the Corry's. The next day, we got together some peeps and went to the church to play basketball. Everyone had a good time and it was fun to talk and have fun.


We were having so much fun and would have loved to stay longer than we did, but the weather was starting to get pretty bad and we knew we needed to get on the road. We decided to go through Springdale instead of over Cedar Mountain- hoping for better weather. We had just gotten through Zion National Park, when all of a sudden we realized we were overheating and had no power steering. Jeff and I are not really "car" people and had no idea what we were going to do. The kids were now awake and wanted out of their seats... But we were stuck in the middle of nowhere, on a dark night, in the middle of a snow storm. I started to kind of panic... and was trying to figure out the best way for all of us to stay warm enough. Amazingly... by an answer to prayer- we saw some headlights far off in the distance. We waited and realized they were coming our way. I tried to flag them down but they passed us... But luckily decided to turn around. It was a very nice couple from Boston who were headed down to Springdale for the night. The man had worked on cars a little bit and was trying to figure out what was wrong. We thanked them for the advice and decided to see if it worked as they watched us pull away. We started to go again, and realized that we were still overheating. The couple saw us pull over again, and came back over too us. The man said... "Ok... you guys have little kids. This isn't going to work. Let us give you a ride home." We were so Thankful! We couldn't believe that these total strangers were giving us a ride home- to a town that was going to be an hour out of their trip! We were so blessed with an answer to prayer and the generosity of this couple! We were also blessed with a great friend who was willing to go tow our van that very night (It was late!) before the snow piled up too high, and then fix it the next day. Thanks so much Bruce! We are very very thankful for wonderful people that were willing to help us! :)

We were also blessed with cute kids who had no idea what was going on, and were happy no matter what. :) (Dallin and Allison were both jumping up and down laughing)