Marshmallows

Our FHE treat. MMM Pistachio Marshmallows. Yup they were good, no great!! Nick and his crazy good wacky ideas.

Working Hard

As you can see Nick was really happy with me snapping away at the camera! I love you honey.

T is for Taylor

 

So, I really wanted to put Taylor in a Pre-School but we just didn't get around to it this year so I have started doing "Learning Time" where we learn numbers, colors, shapes and of course letters. We are just getting started and I am not very structured for her yet but she likes it and we only do it for about 30-45min a day but already it is making a difference. She is a sponge. It is amazing to see what a 3 year old can learn and retain. We are working on writing and spelling her name. She loves to write letters so that is fun but hasn't really grasped the names for the letters...but she is catching on. I was so excited about this I had to share!!

Life

This weekend we went to Home Depot looking for other things and found toilet paper. These babies were $.53 a pack, that is my kinda deal! So of course Taylor and Nick built a tower. Why is Nick Shirtless you are asking yourself, pretty sure I cooked some bacon that night and he smelled it on his shirt and Yes it had to come off. (plus Taylor says he looks stronger than Hercules without it so that might be a little factor as well!)

Corn from the garden. While picking the corn, I got bitten? Stung? by a nasty wasp.  I don't know the term but it hurt!

Taylor asleep Sunday night in her tent tired of Football.

Swim

 

I can't even type I am laughing so hard...

 

Our little swimmer. This is like the first time it really clicked with her and she was really getting comfortable to the idea that she could swim. Now that is all she thinks and talks about.

Yes more waterpark, we just love it

You can't really see it here but this was cracking us up. Taylor couldn't figure out what this kids M.O. was.
We sat there laughing because this kids shorts are like all the way off is rear exposing his very tiny white hiney. Taylor looked at me like "Mom what the heck is going on here?" So funny.

The breath before the crash! Love it.

I am all about laughing at yourself and someday that is all Taylor is going to do with this picture, (well maybe hit me a few times)
Nope, can't get much dorkier than this, but I absolutely love it!

Taylor and Dad in the Lazy river only......



there is nothing lazy about it when you are in there with Taylor.

FHE

  

So we haven't been the Best structured FHE do-ers so Nick and I decided that we needed to make it a priority and have a structured FHE now and teach Taylor the importance of it. So I was very proud of Nick when he called us together for FHE this week. We learned about the prophet and the temple. She learned the porphet's name and we counted apostles and talked about how they go to the special "temple castle". Then Taylor and daddy made a temple out of over sized legos and even made sure to have a little yellow one on top for Angel Moroni. Then she put other legos in the temple that represented her family and the prophet. I thought is was great that we are doing FHE but I didn't expect her to be so attentive. I guess it made an impression because she has been talking non-stop this morning about going to the temple with her family. 

This has shown me that we are examples and that doing the little things and starting while Taylor is young really can lay that foundation that she needs. I am so proud of my little family and grateful for the opportunities we have to learn and teach one another.

More at the waterpark

 

Swimming in the waves. 

 

Magic Carpet

 

The green snake slide

sweet things

Cinnamon Roll cupcakes....So I needed to make a treat for a Thank you and my cinnamon rolls ended up looking like a bunch of pug puppies (wrinkly and bunched). Although they still tasted good they were just too ugly to give away so I whipped up some cinnamon roll cupcakes. They were a success and I urge you all to give them a try.

This is far sweeter than any dessert. I love this guy! He is such a great dad and a WONDERFUL husband. I haven't been my "normal" (if you can even call it that) self lately, meaning this pregnancy has been kicking my butt. I haven't had the normal energy I usually have so Nick has been there to help out a lot. From cleaning up to doing dishes to making dinners, he has been super dad! Thanks honey for all you do. I love you!!!

the waterpark yeah!

We found out that this year Taylor can ride some of the bigger rides so of course we took her down every ride that she could ride. Above, what we call the spaceship (because you go through a dark tunnel and it has little holes in it that look like stars so it looks like you are in space), is I think Taylor's favorite ride. The only sad thing about it is that she will only go with daddy. I asked her if I could go with her and she said, "no mom I only go with daddy."

Excited to go again!

swimmers take your mark.....

set...

POW!!!!(gun shot)

Diving like a dolphin.

Yes it is true, Taylor is now a swimmer. Don't go calling the US women's swim team just yet, she still has a long ways to go but she is really comfortable in the water and I think she is off to a great start. She loves the water and Nick and I have worked with her this summer and after a lot of swallowed water and near drowning experiences, she can now stay afloat. Here she is in the wave pool swimming under the waves as they hit her. Nick is so great with her, he takes her out and they swim and swim and swim!

BRAG MOMENT!!!
Taylor loves the lifeguards, clearly she is sitting on the slide talking to her. She has been a lot more independent this year so she will go up on slides by herself and talk with the lifeguards. This day I went up with her to ride down the yellow slide there and the lifeguard said to me, "You guys come here a lot, huh." and I told her that we come as much as we can and we love it. She then went on to tell me that she knows our family, that she loves watching Taylor and that she and other lifeguards know the "little girl with the short hair". I was beaming. She asked me how old she was and couldn't believe that we taught our 3 year old how to swim without lessons. Yeah I was a pretty proud mom at that moment, not because Taylor can swim but because they know her because she is a sweetheart.

Honestly!?

Waiting....(off in the distance she gets quite the group of spectators)




SPLASH!!!

Magic carpet. Taylor is in the 2nd from the right slot.

Long way to go but she loves it!

here fishy fishy

So thanks to my wonderful father who has an obsession with fishing, Taylor is now "hooked". (ha ha ha) My dad stayed with us for a little while and went fishing a lot and took Taylor a lot and she LOVED every minute of it. Naturally Nick and I felt the obligation to take her after my dad left. This is our first family fishing venture and the above picture is the most exciting thing that happened....yup we GOT NOTHIN!!!!!

I told Taylor that the fish were probably really tired and were sleeping so she started calling to the fish trying to wake them up... I felt so bad, I would have settled for a one inch goldfish at this point just to get Taylor something, but nope. I was thinking it was us but no one else fishing had anything. (phew!)

Using food to help her cope. (really she just loves zucchini bread)

At first I was disappointed that we didn't get any bites, but then I realized how great it is to get to spend time with my wonderful family. I hope to have many more outings with these two, even fish-less fishing trips!

Things that make me happy

This is our office/music studio/craft room. It also stages as a dumping ground for all things JUNK related. So most of the time it is filled with storage and boxes and donation bags piling up but I got really ambitious and started organizing it and was happy to finally see the floor and to get a lot of my crafting supplies semi-organized. I am so grateful for our house and that I am luck to have a crafting section in our home where I can store my stuff and have my little "me space" in our home!

This also makes me happy. I love my little girl. She make life so much better. I don't have a problem with "girlie girls" nor with "tomboys" but I really want Taylor to be well rounded, balanced. So when I found this it really made me smile. A pony coloring book with a dragon coloring book and a worn baseball in her princess purse. I mean, come on, what more can I ask for!

Poor Taylor

 

The other day Taylor and I went to the store. We were in the laundry isle and I was on the phone with Tawnee and then all of the sudden I hear a CRASH . I looked around and saw Taylor on the floor with the grocery cart on top of her. I asked her what happened and she said that a mean spider was after her so she climbed on the cart and it fell over her. Poor girl I felt bad but I couldn't help but laugh. I thought she learned but the very next day we were with some friends and she did the same thing! Oh Taylor

I got a little fish

I LOVE OUR GARDEN

I know I post Pictures of our garden all the time but I am super excited about it. Every night Nick goes out and brings in a bunch of bell peppers and tomatoes and zucchinis. The fresh veggies have been piling up and I have had to start using them. I had a lot of tomatoes so today I made tomato soup (never done that before) and it turned out pretty good (I'm not a huge tomato soup fan). I got the recipe here and revised it using some of the comments below. It is good enough to keep so I plan on freezing that and adding either salsa or cream cheese to it when I reheat it. Nothing like soup on a cold day!

Now about the pepper and Zucchinis. I am running out of uses. I have shredded zucchini and fried it and roasted it and made it into bread and look at all that I still have!!@!! I also just found this site that is going to be a huge help. We use bell peppers in many of our dishes but now we have too many to use and I don't want them to go bad so FLASH FREEZING is what I am going to try and do.


I am so glad and BLESSED that we are able to have a garden and that it does so well. (this is the best it has ever done.) Next year I hope to make a bunch of salsa and canned peaches and pickled peppers. I also can't wait to someday get a freezer so I can freeze my own corn and make TONs of Zucchini bread and freeze it.

WHAT???

 This is so disturbing. I was talking with my sister and was asking for ideas for Halloween costume ideas, and this is the idea that she sent me. Who does this? We were seriously laughing so hard!! So if anyone has any ideas for a cute fun costume, let me know!