YUMMY!!

My mom sent me this beautiful and delicious edible arrangement as a thank you from all the family for hosting them the other week. Nothing is cooler than opening your front door to this! There was strawberries, pineapple and cantalope flowers, grapes, oranges, cantalope and honeydew slices, as well as chocolate covered strawberries, apples, and bananas! It was fantastic! The kids loved it as well - they kept asking for more and more! I was a little hesitant, only because I just wanted to sit and look at it!

Finally, Our Easter Pics!

I'm sorry to all those that have been cursing me for not updating my blog lately. I had my mom, brother, dad, and sisters (that includes in-laws) with their daughters here last week for a fun Scrapbooking week! It was a blast! We played all day and scrapbooked all night. We put all the tables and supplies in my living room - it was packed! The nice part was everyone brought their paper, stamps, and embellishments and everyone used what was there. We had two Cricuts going along with about 15 cartridges and had a Cuttlebug. It was a scrapbookers heaven!

Scrapbooking is hard work! (note all the mother's asleep on the couch while the kids watch morning cartoons... thanks goodness for Dora and Diego!!)

Then there was Easter. We had an Easter Egg hunt on Friday before everyone left. As a result, Sunday was relaxing - The Easter Bunny came and left his trail of bunny "droppings" (jelly-beans) which led the boys to their baskets. I made them each a crayon roll this year - mainly so they would each have their own crayons to use in church. (there's nothing more embarassing than Andrew yelling "STOP!!" in the middle of church as Zach is trying to take "his" crayons.)

Don't I have the most handsome boys in the world?!? :)

This week has been spring break and I've totally enjoyed not having a schedule to get up to. I did still teach preschool Monday and Wednesday, so I did have to get up by 8:00, but the other days I've thoroughly enjoyed laying in bed for as long as I want to. It's really making me look forward to summertime! We've been staying busy - Monday we had the neighbor friends over (between them, the little boy I babysit and my boys, I had 6 boys at my house!!) and we took everyone to the park. Tuesday, we packed a lunch and took it over to Tingley Beach where we had a picnic and threw rocks in the water. Wednesday, Porter and Zach played all day with the neighbor kids again - I finally had them come inside at a little after 5:00. They were exhausted! But not too exhausted to go to McDonald's for ice cream cones and a little more play time on the playground. Today we had some other friends come to play. Tomorrow Rhett's staying home from work and there's talk of going to see Horton Hears a Who. I think Saturday's scheduled for getting the garden ready for planting - springtime means it's time to get planting those peas, carrots, and spinach!! I'm really excited. I love seeing the plants grow and being able to harvest and eat what I've grown myself! Not to mention the money I save...

I'm off to start dinner - we're having the missionaries over tonight and on top of making sure dinner is ready at 5:00 (we usually eat at 6:00) I have to make sure we have PLENTY to eat!

Watch out for those Rhinoceroses

I was upstairs watching TV in our loft relaxing on this Sunday afternoon. Porter and Zach were in their room, putting together their latest Lego creations and talking. "Guess what Uncle Dan told me," Porter said. Interested on what divine words of wisdom my little brother had told my son, I put in a listening ear. Here's what he said:

Porter: Never laugh at a rhinoceros.
Zach: Why?
Porter: Because it will knock you over.
Zach: Oh.
Porter: But you can laugh. Because you'll never see a rhinoceros.

What to do with the Wheat

I have been working on doing what the prophets have said and do food storage. My current goal is to accumulate enough for one month, so I've been storing sugar, milk, oatmeal, oil and other things. And I've also stored wheat. I also have been trying to rotate my food storage - but I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to rotate through wheat. I don't have a wheat grinder, so making loaves of bread is out for now. I keep thinking that I need to find recipes, but the thought of cooking wheat just reminds me of this mixed-grain cereal I had at my grandparent's house once. It was so bland and gross and it seemed like for every bite I took of it, it would multiply. But then I found this recipe. It was super easy and very tasty - my kids even liked it!! They ate it without complaint; and Andrew couldn't get enough. So here's a way to EAT THAT WHEAT!

Cracked Wheat Casserole

1 lb. Ground Beef
1/2 Cup Chopped Onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups water
2 Tb. chopped parsley
1/2 cup uncooked cracked wheat (I didn't have any actual cracked wheat, but I took the regular hard red wheat, and ran it for a minute in my food processor. I don't know exactly how that is different from actual cracked wheat, but it worked fine!)
1 tsp. Beef Bouillon
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. oregano
1/4 tsp. Pepper
1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese
1 cup chopped tomatoes

Brown beef with onion and garlic until pink color has gone from meat. Drain. Combine rest of the ingredients except the cheese and tomatoes. Pour into a 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Bake in a preheated 350* oven for 45 minutes or until the cracked wheat is tender and water has been absorbed. Stir in the cheese and tomatoes. Let stand a minute before serving. Enjoy!

Here ya go -

Thanks to everyone who comment on my first digital scrapbook page! I appreciate all the comments. I have to admit - I thought traditional scrapbooking was addictive - digital scrapbooking is worse! I have been itching all day to get on the computer and do another page. And when it's as easy as clicking a few buttons, it's hard to resist.

I know of two sites as of now that have lots of free downloads. One is The Shabby Princess (thanks Jana, for this site!). This one has tons of fun kits and papers. Everything on the site is free. And I tell you, once you get started, you can download all day! Make sure you have lots of room on your computer - the kits average 20-50 Meg of space - but they are well worth it! The other site I found is Free Digital Scrapbooking. This site has lots of cute alphabets and papers. Just click on the "Featured Freebies" at the left to find the free stuff. I would also suggest some of the other digital scrapbooking sites; many of them have freebies. And I've found the stuff to buy is really inexpensive - and the best part, is you can use them over and over and over!

Some other sites:
Digital Scrapbook Place
The Lily Pad (my personal favorite, so far)
Scrap Girls
Digital Scrapbook Pages
Peppermint Creative
Atomic Cupcake

Anyways, there are tons out there. Happy Scrapping!

I'm going Digital!!

I've decided to start scrapbooking digitally. I figure it's the only way I will be able to catch up on my boys' books - my goal is to have them all caught up by the end of the year. I thought I'd never make the change to digital - I like the touchy-feely stuff and I didn't like the idea of my pages being so "flat." Plus, I would have to start all over getting "supplies" and everything. But I've been looking up the free scrapbook downloads on the internet and, suprisingly, have been able to find lots and lots - enough to get me started. Luckily, I got a photo editing software with my scanner, so I've been using that until I can get Photoshop. I'm really excited about it - although it will increase my time on the computer.

For all those who are worried about what I'm going to do with my Cricut, I'm still going to paper scrap as well. I still do cards and I'm going to finish Andrew's first year in paper. And I'm sure I'll find plenty of things to cut on the Cricut for preschool. (speaking of that, I need to get the My Community cartridge!!)

Anyways, here's my first attempt - I think it turned out pretty good!