Bountiful Basket

 I had heard of this co-op (bountifulbaskets.org) a few times and thought, hey I should give that a try, and then never did anything about it.  Well last week I finally did something about trying it.  And I loved it.  I went Saturday to pick up my "basket" and I was pleasantly surprised by what I got.

The only scary thing was the purple lettuce stuff, which I later found out was savoy, and found some recipes for how to use it.  We are going to get the organic basket next week, they only offer it every other week.  I'm really excited.  Now to make sure that we eat it all up before it goes bad.  

Sledding

We have the perfect sledding hill... next door!!!  While I am not a fan of sledding, myself.  I would rather stay inside where it is nice and warm :) My kids are very excited when I offer up sledding as a choice for something fun to do.  I haven't let Abbie go sledding before, thinking that she was too little to actually enjoy going down the hill over and over again in the snow, and then having to climb back up.  Well, I have to admit that I was wrong....  She had a blast!!  It did take her a while to get the hang of climbing back up, but she loved going down and would squeal at the top of her lungs every time.  Here are a few pictures.

at the top ready to go.

going back up the other side once they got to the bottom.

starting the long climb back to the top.

Christmas Card-the one I never sent :(

Picture Joy Christmas

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New Year's Resolution

Here was our morning snack yesterday.  Organic fruit kabobs.  What is significant is not what we ate exactly, more how it was grown that is important.  Throughout last year we started making some significant changes in the food that we eat.  Gone were high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, and white flours.  (As much as possible) We also limited our eating out and completely banned a few fast food establishments.  I have become much more of a label reader when it comes to food and will pass up anything that includes any of those things.  But this year I am taking it even further, we dabbled in organic products some last year and I had a hard time justifying the add cost of most of the items.  But I am trying to keep an open mind and realize the extra cost now will better our health and overall well being, saying nothing of what it will do for the environment.  I am going to try and buy only organic produce while growing what I can in my backyard garden.  I recently finished reading The Organic Manifesto and while I agreed with a lot she said, the book is a little too politically minded for my liking, overall the book gave me a lot to think about.  I would recommend that everyone read this book and think about the food that you eat and where it might come from.

How Ironic

I had the opportunity to speak in church this last Sunday.  I say that with all the sarcasm you can picture because I really dislike getting up in front of everybody, but overall the study and preparation were a good experience.  Doesn't it always seem that whatever topic we are assigned seems to be one that we struggle with?  Well we were asked to base our talks on President Uchtdorf's talk Of Things that Matter Most I took the first  half of the talk which talks of slowing down and focusing on the basics.  I found this quote from a prophet in a book that I was reading today, I wish that I had found it before my talk it would have been perfect.
"This is the counsel I have for the Latter Day Saints today... Do not be in a hurry... You are in too much of a hurry; you do not go to meetings enough, you do not pray enough, you do not read the scriptures enough, you do not meditate enough, you are all the time on the wing, and in such a hurry that you do not know what to do first..."  That sounds like today, imagine my surprise when I saw that it was from Brigham Young!!  I wonder what he would think of the pace of life today?

Crazy Boy!

This morning I told Ashton to go and get dressed before his cousins got here. This is what he decided to put on...

What is the problem with that outfit you may ask, well first off we live in Utah and it's January.  This is what it looks like outside.  The official temperature outside is 11.  But it feels like -2.  Yes, at 10:00 am.  

(sorry not the best picture ever, through the screened window, but you get the idea) 

I couldn't make him change after I heard his logic for why he choose this particular outfit.  He had obviously spent some time thinking about it.  

1.  We wouldn't be going anywhere so he wouldn't have to go outside.

2.  He doesn't like being hot, he would rather be cold.

3.  Dad wears shorts in the winter all the time and I don't make him change (thanks Jake)

4. They were clean.

I couldn't come up with another reason for him to put on pants, so shorts it is.   I guess it could be worse, we could be in Idaho and he could be wearing that outfit.  It's -3 there, but it feels like -16.

The Year in Review

I saw this on my cousins blog and I thought it was such a cute idea I am copying it. Our year in review.

January:

Found us playing with cousins lots, as I babysat both my sisters kiddos. Here are the little three musketeers and the big three musketeers. How fun it is to have cousins your same age to play with.

We also moved Abbie out of her crib and into a shared bed with Lexie. (this was solely for my sanity as Abbie has always felt the need to sleep with someone and I couldn't take any more of getting up in the middle of the night with her.) This did solve the middle of the night wakings!! And the girls loved sleeping together.

February:

Sweets for our sweets. The day after valentines day, Jake took the kids to the store to pick out treats at a discounted price. They had a great time and each came home with their favorite.

March:

Brought a case of spring fever to our house. We played outside in the cool spring weather,

made a trip to Vernal to see Trisha's headstone which had finally been placed.

While in Vernal we got to see spring on the farm which included feeding a calf with a bottle.

And a small ride....

or two...

oh, and I did celebrate another birthday too.  

April:

 Lexie celebrated her 10th birthday this month.  She had a friend party and then a cousins party where we celebrated Lexie, Abbie and Natalee's birthdays.  I can't believe how old she is getting, and she is the sweetest girl around.  And a huge help to me too.

May:
Abbie turned 2 on the 1st.  What a cutie she is getting to be.  She definitely has her own opinions on how things should be.

Ashton graduated from the co-op preschool that we had been doing

May also brought big changes for our family, Jake took a new job in Idaho Falls, so we (mainly he) said goodbye to this place 

and hello to this (what a drastic change in surroundings)

June:
 We got a membership to the zoo this month, and had a great time seeing all the animals with our cousins.

and played outside as much as we could.

July:
We found lots to do in and around our own backyard during the summer.  We played in splash parks, on our slip and slide, visited Kennecott and the zoo and went to a family reunion or two.

Lexie also started 5th grade.

August:

Ashton started preschool this month, much to his dismay he didn't get to go to school with some of his friends.  (he missed the cutoff for kindergarten by 7 days) 

We also made what has become our annual trip to Yellowstone.

September:

Ashton turned 5 this month and had 5 parties to celebrate.  It wasn't planned, it just worked out that way. He always tries to do what is right and is very anxious to learn how to read.       

October:

We returned once again to Yellowstone at our children's request, it would seen that they can't get enough of that place.  And it doesn't hurt that it is only two hours from Idaho Falls, so it makes for a fun all day trip when we are up there.  

We also celebrated Jake's birthday while we were at Yellowstone.  And yes we did go trick-or-treating on Halloween, got rained on and soaked to the bone.  It's really not my favorite holiday so that didn't help much.  

Lexie went trick-or-treating with her friends and I didn't even get a picture of all three kids together in their costumes.

November:

 I won some free tickets to Disney on Ice from a blog that I frequent and we had a great time. We went downtown, had a fun dinner and then hit the show. All the kids we entertained for the entire show.

December:
Wow! We were so busy.  Jake's brother came from Texas for about 10 days and we had fun getting so spend some time with them.  We were greatly blessed this year and our family had a great Christmas.  Ashton got glasses to help him see better, and last but not least, Abbie fell getting out of the bathtub and cut her chin and had to get stitches.  

Overall we had a great year and are looking forward to 2011 as an even better one.  

So Much To Blog About So Little Time...

Our December was crazy, especially the week before Christmas and las week.  I am going to try and get caught up this week but here are the highlights...

• Jake was home from the 23rd til the 2nd.  That was a great 10 days!
• Ashton went to see an ophthalmologist after failing his kindergarten eye test and now (finally) has glasses.
• We had a great and busy Christmas visiting with both of our families on Christmas Day.
• Abbie fell getting out of the bathtub and had to get stitches in her chin.  
• Ashton was determined to stay up til midnight on New Years Eve and made it!!  He almost fell asleep on the couch at 11:45 but we managed to keep him awake.
• Lexie was off track for all of December and we managed to have a fun time going lots of fun places.

I am planning on doing a year in review soon and have lots of pictures to share, hopefully I will get more time this week to upload everything.

Visiting Santa

On Monday we braved the crowds at the mall for a visit with Santa.  Nobody was scared and we didn't have to wait too terribly long it was good.  And nobody surprised me with their request from Santa.  Here is the cute picture we got.

Decorating for Christmas

On Sunday Jake brought out tree up from downstairs.  The kids have been dyeing to decorate for Christmas and finally on Sunday we found the time.  It was fun to watch them decorate the tree, even if they put all the decorations on the same side of the tree.  We eventually got it all evenly decorated.  (but I am thinking that I am in need of some new ornaments)