Book Review

Check out this book review from my sister-in-law, Corinne, for the book An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination. You can also enter to win a copy of this book. You can also check out her blog but don't be jealous of my super cute niece and nephews. Good Luck!

Scalloped Potatoes

This recipe is really yummy. Makes great leftovers and can be made in the morning and baked in the evening.

5 large potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced (this is when a mandolin comes in handy)
3 T butter or margarine
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups chicken broth
2 T mayonnaise
3/4 t salt
1/8 t pepper
Paprika

In a greased 2-1/2-qt baking dish, layer potatoes. In a saucepan, melt the butter; stir in four until smooth. Gradually add broth, mayonnaise, salt and pepper; cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thick and bubbly. Pour over potatoes. Sprinkle with paprika. Cover and bake at 325 degrees for 2 hours or until tender. Or set aside and bake later.

The best 93 cents I have ever spent.

Chad and I couldn't decide what to do last night (Friday). The Salt Lake Valley is getting ready for Halloween. I heard an ad for discount tickets to Thanksgiving Points Cornbelly's corn maze and pumpkin fest. It was good for Friday and Saturday night, tickets 93 cents each. Tickets are normally $10.50! Lets just say I would pay $10.50 for this event but it is even better when you only pay 93 cents. There are a lot of photo op areas already set up. These are the highlights:

* Pumpkin Princess Playground including a inflated castle bouncer, princess carriage and a real pumpkin princess

*Kitty Courtyard which included horse swings, play on trains, tractors and pickup, slides, corn box (with dry corn) play farmer stand and duck races (with rubber duckies).

*Huge Jumping Pillow which had a big and small pillow for all ages and ride on toys.

*Slides everywhere. They had a huge platform that had 5 slides coming off of it. You could get up by the stairs or the web wall.

*Petal Kart Raceway.

*The corn maze was for all the Archie fans you know "Utah's Idol" David Archuleta. There were also smaller mazes for younger ages. But right next to the corn maze was a huge building full of corn for anyone to play in.

*Big Singing Chicken Show.

All in all it was a really fun evening. Next year I hope we can get in for the same deal.

Benjamin's first pow wow!

He's a boy we can't call it a play date. The other day a friend let me watch two of her kids while she went to the dentist. Her youngest is the same age as Benjamin. They had a lot of fun playing together or with the same toys. A bucket of cars and boys are happy. Benjamin got to see Kaymen crawl around and get some ideas.

Aquarium

Today we woke up to cold, rain, wind and blah. What has happened to our summer. I decided that since we are already "on the way" that after Rebecca's gymnastics class we would go to the aquarium. It is a nice quick indoor activity and somehow we are always their during storytime. They have really nice put together exhibits, a boat for the kids to "drive", sting rays to touch and a fun coral reef play area at the end. As we left to go home we walked outside to sunshine.

Guess Whose Feet

Can you guess the owner of these feet? Scroll down and I will give you a hint.

This is why HE is such a good Daddy!

Lovely paint job Rebecca.

Creamy Italian Chicken

I got this recipe from a girl who used to sit next to me during spinning class. It is really simple. I was telling my sister about it this summer and she had the same recipe but she does it in the crockpot. Here is both ways. Makes great left overs.

4-6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 envelope dry Italian salad dressing mix
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese (I use the 1/3 less fat cream cheese)
1 can (10 3/4 ounces) cream of chicken soup, condensed (I use the Healthy Request condensed soup)
1 can (4 ounces) mushroom stems and pieces, drained and optional

Place chicken in 8 x 14 baking dish or crockpot. Combine together salad dressing, cream cheese, soup and optional mushrooms; pour over chicken. The sauce may look very lumping and you are thinking this will not turn out very good but it will. Cover dish with aluminum foil or place lid on corckpot. Cook at 350 for 45-60 minutes or on high for 4-5 hours, do not cook longer.

Enjoy over rice, noodles or potatoes.

The Bean Museum

Don't be confused this isn't a museum about beans. The Bean museum is a life science museum on the BYU campus. (Rebecca started to chant go Utes as we drove up!) Rebecca, Benjamin and I went with Chad's parents (Boyd and Lolly). I had always heard of this museum but had never gone. Rebecca has been once before. First of all, FREE!!! (Accept for the gas it takes to drive down to Provo.) This museum is huge. It has every animal from the Antelope to the Zebra. Some animals are from the Hogle Zoo (that have past on after many years of entertaining children.) They have a beautiful exhibit of many butterflies placed together to look like one large butterfly. Everything is so well organized. The museum has some very exotic looking animals. There is a nice atmosphere that invites families. There are actually three levels to explore, we found this out when we took the elevator from the third floor to what we thought was the main floor (or the 1st floor). But the 2nd floor is the main floor so we got to explore the 1st floor that had even more exhibits but is probably used mainlyfor classrooms. Rebecca's favorite part was pushing all the buttons and pushing Benjamin in the stroller. Benjamin's favorite part was playing with the velvet ropes that surrounded the exhibits. After we walked around the museum for a few hours we went to the children's room which had drawers and drawers of blocks and lincoln logs and books for children to explore. Everyone was tired, even grandpa!!

Mani and Pedi by Rebecca

Last night within 30 minutes of going out with some girlfriends, while nursing Benjamin, Rebecca comes over to me and summons be to lift up my feet. She starts to polish my toes. I wanted to say no because I was leaving soon for a girls night out but knew she really wanted to paint my toes. I let her. No one looks at my toes. Well then she preceded to paint my finger nails. I didn't want to remove the polish in front of Rebecca because she was so proud of herself. I left it on and decided to continue on with my night out and I could look down at my nails and see how much my daughter loves me. (Don't laugh at my small toes.)

Princess Kitty

We welcomed a new member into our family today. Princess Kitty Dansie. Rebecca is totally and completely in love with her new kitty. I promised her we could go out and play with princess as soon as I got Benjamin to sleep. She happily reminded me as soon as I came out of their room. Benjamin also loves princess. He sees her and puts out his hands to grab her hair. Princess is very patient and lets Rebecca hold and play with her (within reason.) What a happy new addition.

Utah State Fair 2008

Thursday evening we (myself, Chad, Rebecca, Benjamin, and Chad's parents (Boyd and Lolly)) went to the Utah State Fair. Chad and I were reminiscing about how we had brought Rebecca to the fair 3 years ago when she was only a couple of months old. The State Fair is a lot of fun. We stayed for 4 hours and still didn't see everything. Rebecca, Lolly and I did a hands on craft at the Stampin Up table. Rebecca had fun stamping and punching out circles. Rebecca and Chad danced with the "square dancers" and Boyd dreamed of driving a race car. We got close and personal with pigs, cows, goats, bunnies and pigeons. Rebecca got to feed three goats some animal crackers. Chad and I got to compare out garden produce to the award winning vegetables (we could have gotten best in show.) Lolly and I got to go into the Home Arts building and admire all of the quilts and other homemade items. I picked out my favorite quilt and awed at the difficult binding (which is the scariest part of quilting for me.) The rest of the gang had some required funnel cake and gazed at the tiger exhibit. All in all we had a fun time.

1st Day of Preschool

Today was Rebecca's first day of preschool. She has been soooooo excited to start school. After she got dressed she said, "school now mommy." I told her that I had to get dressed also. She thought for a moment and gave me a look of "well if it is necessary." We made it to her preschool and she ran in without looking back: no hug, no I love you, no goodbye. Benjamin and I got home excited to have some one on one time and he decided he needed to take a nap. When we got home, after picking Rebecca up, Rebecca told me "I was a good girl, mommy." She is such a good girl. I am glad she loves school so far.

Madam Secretary

On Saturday we had a primary activity. Chad helped out at a eagle scout project so I "got" to take the kids with me to the activity. Rebecca had a lot of fun. She loves playing with older kids. Rebecca made a new friend. I asked her what the little girls name was, Rebecca told me Abby (that is her cousins name).

Two of a kind

Rebecca and Benjamin just love each other very much. I am sure this will not always be the case. The other day I caught some precious pictures of the two.
Same Smirk
















A blanket Chad's Aunt Margee made for Benjamin.