Before and After

Destrie before his haircut.





Destrie after his haircut.

A Great Sense of Style!

The other night we told Destrie to go get ready for bed and put on his pajamas. This is what he came up with. I have no idea why he thought he needed cowboy boots on to go to bed!

Happy Birthday Kile- October 11th

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband! We celebrated with Kile's family @ Texas Roadhouse for dinner. Then it was off to Snowbird for the weekend. Hope your birthday was great! I love you Kile- you're the best!

5 Things

Those of you who know me, already know that I don't like change. I especially don't like the changing of the seasons. A big part of this may be the fact that I get sick every time the weather changes. I am sad every year to see summer end. So, on a positive note, I tried to think of 5 things that I like about this time of year.

1) Corn on the Cob and Giant Potatoes from Idaho. Kile's dad always hooks us up with corn on the cob each year. Yum! My parents go to Idaho each September and bring back 50 lb. bags of potatoes. These potatoes are the best and they are huge! Much better than the crappy ones that you get in bags at the grocery store. I look forward to this each year because I am such a fan of potatoes- I could live on some sort of a potato every day. (Home made french fries with fry sauce are a favorite of mine and the kids.

2) Boots- I love to wear boots. "Hooker Boots"- as my brothers call them... but that's ok. I like them!

3) Sweaters and Hoodies- Fall/Winter clothing is so much more fun than boring Summer T shirts.

4) Soup- I love soup! My family will grow tired of eating soup for dinner fairly soon- as they do each year. Following is my current favorite soup recipe.

Zuppa Toscana (like Olive Garden's)

1/2 pound of sausage
minced onion flakes
Hormel real crumbled bacon pieces
6 potatoes-peeled and sliced fairly thin
7 cups water
7 chicken bouillon cubes
3 cloves garlic- crushed
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 bunch kale
2 cups heavy cream

Bring water and bouillon cubes to a boil. Add potatoes and cook until tender- about 10to 15 minutes. Brown sausage and minced onion flakes in a separate pan. Simmer potatoes, chicken broth, sausage, onion, bacon, garlic, salt, and pepper for about 10 minutes. Add cream and cut up kale to soup and simmer about ten more minutes or until ready to serve. (this original recipe came from the 16th ward cookbook-the recipe above has a few of my changes.)

5) Cozy, Warm Blankets. Kile has the best blanket ever, that his Aunt Faye made for him when he was in high school. Everyone at our house loves "The Soccer Quilt". There is nothing better than this blanket on a cold day.

Road Trip

Here are photos from our Utah road trip. We started at Warren's in Ogden for dinner. If you have not eaten here, then give it a try. It has some pretty good fries and pretty tasty burgers, chicken sandwiches, french dip sandwiches, salads, etc. It's on Wall and right by Riverdale rd. It's across from the Texas Road House. So, if Willy's place is too busy, then walk across the street. It's not the same, but you'll get a good meal anyways.

This is a dinosaur/indian museum in Price. Why Price you ask? Well, that's a longer story.

Glowy rocks. They light up under a dark light. They get blurry also. Weird.

Kile and the Kennewick Man. Same stature, just a bigger belly on the red shirted one.

One of Price's finest Hotels? Motels? The only one with an available room. There was a big Shindig going on that weekend. The gal checking us in when we got there, while outside having a toke, asked if we were there for the races. Boy, did we miss out.

On down the road. A long, boring ride.

I can't imagine what sweet tunes they must have been listening to.

I wonder if this was a shortcut.

Not a bad place to eat in guess where?

We had a couple towers named after us while we were there. This is actually outside of Arches.

Getting dark on us. This looked like someone standing next to a building. Not Fisher Towers, just a cool pic.

Fisher Towers.

Playground outside the gift shop at the Big Rock Candy Mountain.

And there she blows... Big Rock Candy Mountain, that is.

Kile bought his girls bracelets and the boy a gun and a Marshall's badge.

Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon.

After this, we stopped in Layton to eat at the Red Robin. $5 Cheeseburgers and endless steak fries. Red Robin... Yum. Then we came home. Ahhhh. There's no place like home.

Breakfast

I love breakfast. It is probably my favorite meal. I usually wake up starving every morning. And let's just face it- breakfast food is the best! The problem is that no one else at our house has the same admiration for it as I do.

When Kile and I got married, I had every intention of getting up every morning and cooking him breakfast before he went to work. My mom had always done that for my dad when I was growing up. In my world, that's just what people did. I found out however, that this was not the case. Kile informed me that he was not a fan of breakfast, he didn't want it, and there was no need for me to get up and cook it for him. Oddly enough I was a little bit sad about this.

As we had kids, I hoped that I could cook breakfast for them, and I tried. Funny thing is that when I would cook breakfast for them, 2 things usually happened. 1) they would not eat it or 2) they would tell me, "We don't want that, we want cereal."

I still usually get up on Saturday and make breakfast and as usual no one wants it. I have even taken Kile breakfast in bed, he tries to humor me and eat it, but I can tell he is force feeding himself just for me. So, here I am in this family of non-breakfast eaters. What's a girl to do? Maybe I should invite some people over who like breakfast, and I could cook for them...

Bribery

I have a confession. I have never been one of those good moms who right from the start taught their baby to go to sleep on their own. Instead, I was with them every night when they went to sleep. With Kiley, I rocked her to sleep every night. Madee hated to be rocked, but wanted someone to lay by her. Destrie was fine with either way, being rocked or having someone lay by him. Let me just say that Kile was always against my bed time rituals with the kids, but he let me do my thing. Another thing that usually happened, was that the kids would end up in our bed most every night.

Long story short, night time has always been a problem at our house, and I know it is my fault. Destrie is almost 4 years old and can't go to bed without one of us laying by him to get him to sleep.
Last night, we told Destrie that if he would go upstairs and go to bed, "my lone" (that's what he calls going to sleep by himself) we would take him to the store in the morning and he could pick out a toy. He went right upstairs and went to sleep, and we didn't see him until 7:30 this morning. So, now I know that he can do it by himself and believe me, from this point on- he will. We went to Shopko, and he chose a toy that he wanted. The rule attached to this prize is that he has to continue to go to bed by himself from now on. I am so excited to be done (I hope) with the bed time drama.

If I had it to do over again, I would have my babies going to sleep on their own right from the start. Oh well, I guess you live and learn.