Sugar Cookies

A couple of days before Christmas, we made sugar cookies. I have a few issues with sugar cookies and children. Well, just one issue. It's an all-day affair. By the time you make the dough, cool it in the fridge, roll them, cut them, bake them, frost them, and decorate them; then factor in how many times you must wash the little hands of children during the whole process, you better plan on sugar cookies being dinner because dinner is not getting made. But it is worth it because there are few things that make my kids happier than making sugar cookies. Here are the three kids who's jobs were to roll, cut, frost and decorate. Check. Check. Check. And check.

This fourth child's job was to look cute. Check. Then take a nap while we busted out the frosting and sprinkles. Check, check.

See how far I've come in the blogging world? I have not yet remembered to rotate the pictures before I up-load them.

This year, instead of making a bunch of different colors of frosting, I just made white frosting, and then handed them a bunch of different colored sprinkles and let them go at it. They loved that because no matter what color the frosting is, it just gets completely covered with sprinkles anyway.

Here is the darkest part before the dawn.

And here is the dawn. (Un-rotated. Sorry.)

And this year I found the secret to the sugar cookie process. I only made half of the recipe. Score! They didn't get bored before the end and we now only have half as many cookies to add to my thighs. Check.

Perfection

Perfection.

The Cougar is enjoying the BYU basketball game right now.

Travin's Birthday

Because Travin's and Morgan's birthdays are so close, we had a family party for both of them. These parties include my parents, my Grandma Bradshaw and my Aunt Barbara, Uncle Layne and their last two kids left at home, Brogan and Shelby. And just for the record, Brogan and Shelby are never allowed to go to college. Those two are my kid's hero's. To say that my kids get a little hyper when they know Brogan and Shelby are coming over would be a bit of an understatement.

Here is Travin on his actual Birthday. He is one happy two year old.

Here he is again. Happy. Presents make for excited children.

Travin could easily be the happiest two year old I have ever met. Besides being cuter than heck, he is pretty much a happy-go-lucky little guy. So. Fun. In addition to being happy and cute, his is also very busy and talkative. Very talkative.

Happy Birthday Travin!!

Chores

Chores.

Jobs.

Indentured Servitude Obligations.

Slavery Task's.

I have four smallish children ages 2, 4, 6, and 8. How do I teach them to work?

When I was growing up we had one of those famous "job wheels." The ones' where you each had your name on the outside circle, then the inside, smaller circle was filled with different jobs that could spin around. So once a week, my Mom turned the wheel and the jobs that landed under my name were the jobs I had to complete that day. Basic stuff, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning bathrooms, etc.

I have heard of the "sticker charts." Where each child has a list of age appropraite jobs to complete and gets a sticker for each job completed.

I have never made any sort of "chart." I don't know why, they just never spoke to me. My kid chore motivation usually revolved around me telling my kids several thousand times to go do this or that. Bribary was often used. Threats were threatened regularly. My 8 year old daughter can do most things pretty well. My 6 year old son can do some things pretty well. Other's not so much. (I.E. Bathroom cleaning, not too thorough.) My 4 year old daughter is in about the same boat as my 6 year old son. My 2 year old son's main job is to be cute. And he does that extremely well.

About two months ago, I decided to try something. I wrote some different jobs down on slips of paper and had my kids draw them out of a bowl. It was something about not knowing what they were going to get and the fact that when they were done, they got to pick again. The element of suprise was fun for them, as was not always having to do the same job. They loved it! After a few weeks, I added more jobs. More nit-picky jobs (wiping the fridge, microwave, front door; washing the wall down the stairway, and so on.) Then I started paying small amounts of money for each job completed well. Then I decided to type them up with a money amount next to each chore. And while I was doing that I thought of some more nit-picky jobs for them to do (wiping the window seals, washing the chairs and barstools, etc.) As of right now I have around 20 jobs, each with a money amount. Here is the finished result.

They frst get to reach in and pick a job. Then once it's completed to my standards, they get to reach in the other jar and get their money. It's not a lot of money, most jobs are worth $.25 and some are worth $.50. But it's not bad, them having money. One of the first things Braxton bought was a wallet. Smart kid.

The best part as of right now is that only Micah can read. So if Morgan pulls out "clean the kids bathroom," I just tell her is says to empty the laundry hampers, or wash the windows. Something she can do. Then after she scampers off to do it, I dig through and find what I sent her to do and put the harder chore back in the jar. (Micah hasn't quite figured our how come she almost always ends up cleaning bathrooms, but that's okay. She actually does a pretty decent job. And the kids bathroom is worth 50 cents instead of the usual 25 cents, so that helps.)

This is what is currently working at our house but I am still open to suggestion. Does anyone ou there have something that works for their family? I would love to hear what it is.

In case you were wondering...

In case you were wondering why I haven't written for a while.

This is why.

Amen.

My books were returned to me last Monday. And I could not resist. My self control only goes so far.

How you ask, could I have managed to read all three of these blessed books in only a week's time?

This is why. The view from my front door.

Snow. Lots of snow. Starting last Monday there was enough snow and wind (wind being the key word here) for school to be cancelled on Tuesday and Wednesday. And no school on Thursday or Friday because of Thanksgiving. Safe to say we were snowed in. Hills were sledded on, cocoa was drank, movies were watched, popcorn was popped, and books were read. Oh, books were read. Snow days mean gymnastics was cancelled. Activity day was cancelled. Basketball practice was cancelled. Fattening things were baked. And ate. Cousins were played with. Sibling rivalry was had with a vengeace that only being trapped in your house for an enitre week can bring. Boise State lost. (sniff) BYU lost. (sniff) To Utah. (sniff, sniff)

By Saturday we thought we were out of the snowy woods. But alas more snow and wind made for church being cancelled. Which meant more reading. Then school was cancelled on Monday, which meant more fattening things were baked. And reading. And just for the record, I love these books. That being said, I am still not satisfied with the ending and have therefore come up with my own personal little "alternate ending." **Spoiler Alert** I won't go into the details, but trust me I have them worked out; in a nutshell, my ending goes something like this: Prim lives, Peeta dies, Katniss and GALE live happily ever after. Nothing against Peeta, I like him and everything. It's not that I want him to die, but someone has to die and in my soul of souls I believe it should be him. But don't worry, Katniss takes a whole year to mourn him before she marries Gale. No hard feelings Peeta. May you rest in peace. Haymitch also watched Katniss while she was growing up and picked her to become the face to the rebellion. He knew she had the talent and heart to win the games. He knew she needed to make a splash and get everyone's attention and he knew that she would volunteer for Prim if Prim's name was pulled. Therefore every slip of paper in that drawing had Primrose Everdeen written on it. I could go on, but if you haven't read the books you are probably pretty bored right now. So do yourself a favor and read the books. Then tell me which ending you like better. Collins's or mine. I won't be offended.

I have to go and get on with my life. But here is another picture of my front porch. Can you tell we are not ready for winter yet.

We still haven't gotten rid of the pumpkins.

Morgan's Birthday

Can you pick out the birthday girl? I'll give you a hint, she is wearing pajamas. Oh wait, they all are. She is not looking at the camera. Oh wait, neither of the girls are. Here is another hint, she likes Ariel.

Remember the non-pretty birthday cake I warned you about? Morgan wanted an Ariel cake with pink frosting and purple writing. I rest my case.

Morgan wanted a glow in the dark baby. I FOUND ONE. Thank you very much. She also got a Rapunzel dress, Dora shoes and Tinkerbel sunglasses. Then in true four year old little girl fashion, she proudly sported them all at the same time.

FYI: The off-the-shoulder wardrobe malfunction was quickly remidied with a safety pin.

Micah's Baptism

Micah turned 8 in September so of course that means that in October she made the decision to be baptised. It was a great day for our family. Her Grandma and Grandpa Whitesides had just returned from serving a mission in Nauvoo and were able to be there. Her Grandma Whitesides very happily (not) agreed to give the Holy Ghost talk and my young cousin Shelby Mackay did a great job on the Baptism talk. And because we are NOT a musically enclined family we had exactly one piano player present (Brandon's Aunt Abby) who nervously did a great job at the piano and Micah's Grandma Bradshaw knew how to lead and agreed to lead the all the music. Yea. Both of Micah's Grandpa's were the witnesses and we had a special surprise. Micah's Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Cunningham drove over from Blackfoot to watch her be baptised! And Micah's Great-Grandma Bradshaw was able to be there as well. That was so special. It was a great day. Thank you to everyone who was able to come and be a part of it!

Micah was baptised and confirmed by that good lookin' guy standing next to her. Who just happens to be her father and my husband. How lucky are we?!

And then there was this.

Yeah. Right. Micah's freakishly talented Aunt Cindy called about a week before the baptism and asked if she could make Micah a baptism cake. (As if I am really going to say no to that.) A-MAY-ZING. She knows how to do fondant (I don't even know how to spell it.) And then she just whipped this up. Micah's other Aunt Caitlin helped with the cutting and frosting on of all the stripes and stars. I took one look at it and swore I would never make another cake as long as I live. Then a week later I turned around and made a birthday cake for Morgan. It was not pretty.

Here is Micah and the cake-whisperer. It was a great day. It is fun to watch Micah growing up into a beautiful, smart and caring youny woman. (Who just got her ears pierced by the way.) It is so wonderful to see her starting to gain a testimony of the gospel. We love her so much and are so glad she is ours!

More Bridal Pictures

So I just sat down to post more individual bridal pictures when I remembered that all I have are the ones of just me. I was planning on posting a few individual shots of each of us brides. Individual shots that I just realized I don't have. And I'm not about to post pictures of just me. So if you want to see some, you'll have to hit Cindy's website. Sorry for accidently lying in my post yesterday. Honest mistake, promise.

Never too late Bridal pictures

So it has been 10 and a half years since Brandon and I got married. I had bridal pictures done at that time and hated every single one. Every. Single. One. Yuck. So when my beautiful, talented, photographer sister Cindy casually, jokingly asked me if I wanted to put my wedding dress on and let her take a few pictures I jumped at the chance. Literally, jumped. Scroll down and you'll see. Then Cindy got our sister-in-law's Tracy and Caitlin on board to put their dresses back on. We picked a day we would all be in Rupert with babysitters/husbands. Tracy the beautiful beautition did our hair. My Mom helped with our, I mean my make-up because lets face it, I don't even own eye-shadow. And then the real fun began. Cindy even put on her dress for a couple of shots that my Mom took, but the rest of the time she was the one behind the camera calling all the shots. Much fun. Much, much fun was had that day.

It's sad being 5'6" and the shrimp of the family.

Yes, it was just as much fun as it looks.

How cute is this picture??? LOVE. IT.

I am still figuring this blogging thing out and forgot that I needed to upload the pictures in reverse order. So I will end on this note and post some more individual shots of us tomorrow. OR you can go to Cindy's photography website and see them all at www.cindylynnphotography.com Brouse the site or click on the "blog" button so see the one's she posted on her photography blog. So cute! I'm voting to do this again in another 10 years as motivation for us to still fit in our dresses.

Bubbles

What happens when you put three rather small children into one rather large bathtub? Then the youngest one gets a hold of the shampoo. And then the oldest one turns on the jets. And none of them turns off the water.

You get bubbles. And lots of them. And with bubbles comes smiles. Lots of smiles. And a happy Mom because she came in and turned off the water before it ran over. The end.

Pictures

So we moved into our house back in April-ish, May-ish. Can't quite remember exactly. After the previous owners moved out in February we knew we needed to do some work before moving in. The main thing was strip wallpaper and paint. We ended up painting the entire top floor, ceilings included. And we I say "we" I mean "we" wrote a check after an awesome painter lady painted everything. "We" did strip the wallpaper though and might I just add that it was a pain in the.... I have stripped A LOT of wallpaper in my day and this was the WORST stuff I have EVER encountered. Ever. So anyway, this first picture is what the kitchen looked like right after the previous owners moved out.

Very monochromatic. The counter tops needed replaced and once we did that, the new one's made the back splash look even worse. So we ended up re-doing that as well. And that ended up being my favorite part. Here it is and no, I don't know why it is so dark in the picture.

The paint I chose was called Stony Creek from Pittsburgh Paints and it was a grey/greenish color. I needed something a little on the darker side to contrast with the cupboards. Now, this next picture should show you why I was willing to shed blood, sweat and tears in order to get that wallpaper down. As bad as it looks in the picture, believe me, it was worse in person. It was like having our very own circus in our dining room. Well we have four small children, that's plenty of circus for me.

And here is what it looks like today. The picture is still darker than it should be though. But the whole "busyness" has been toned down just a tad, don't you think?

Here is the main family room that is just off the dining area above. Only this is was it looked like after they "moved out." Yeah, none of that stuff was ours. They did come and get it. Eventually.

And here is what it looks like today. It is the same stony creek color. Aahhhh, much more my style. Notice "The Cougar's" 42 inch baby on the wall. The salesman (a 20 year old tech-savvy boy almost croaked when we told him our TV was a 27 incher. With a built in VCR and DVD. I'm pretty sure he had never even heard of such an antique before.) Yes, The Cougar's baby is 42 inches wide. My baby is about 42 inches tall and wears a diaper.

For the rest of the house minus the kids bedrooms, I chose a lighter color called spiced vinegar also from Pittsburgh paints. With oak trim to contend with all throughout the house, choosing paint colors was a little challenging, but I'm happy with the results. The pictures you see on the wall were taken by my sister Cindy who is a photographer in Logan, Utah. Her website is Cindylynnphotography.com And she is awesome!! These pictures were taken about a year ago and I love them! I'm having a hard time wanting to up-date them because I love them. Love them. A lot.

Here are some family pictures she took this summer. I love these as well. Love, love, love them.

So you can get an idea how big they are on my wall, here is a picture with Morgan standing by them. They are a size 12x20 mounted on gator board. And yes, Travin is being held upside-down. When you are a 20 month little boy, you do not want to stand still for pictures. So upside-down was about the only option.

And here is a wall in my hallway that I finally did something with. We have lived here how long? And I just now got these up. I have all these awesome pictures from Cindy over the years so I finally just randomly put some of them in frames of various sizes and stuck them on the wall. Morgan was sure she needed to be in the picture again. That's okay, she's cute.

All done. I didn't take before pictures of the rest of the house, but I really like everything we did. And just for your information. There may or may not be some picture of some 30-ish year old brides who have been married for over 10 years placed on this blog in the near future. IF these alleged pictures are ever to appear on this blog, I will explain. Until then, I had better go see if I can zip that alleged wedding dress up. Wish me luck!

Sunday Evening

Have you ever wondered what people who live in the country do on a Sunday evening? When there are no grandparents home to visit. And the nearest town with a playground is 17 miles away. And you need to wear your kids out so that they will go to bed good because you and your husband have a date with Russel Crow. I mean Robin Hood. Well, I'll tell you what they do. The term "playground" can have several different meanings. In this particular instance it means feed bags. These large white bags are filled with corn silage and they are just a hop, skip and a jump down the road from our house.



See, they are slides.



You can climb on them.




Have Dad catch you on them.




Sometimes Dad has to help you climb back up them too.

Guess who learned to tie his shoes???? MILE-STONE! Hallelujah!

Travin had great fun playing on the bags until he discovered that they sat on the corner of a field of freshly dug potatoes. Freshly dug potatoes = soft, powdery dirt.

And lots of it!

I could just feel their little bodies getting worn out.

We would like to give a big shout out to MacRae's Custom Farming for providing the playgound for this evening.

They have been a little busy.

It's getting dark and Russel Crow awaits. Good night kids!

But before bathes could be taken, snacks could be had, and sleepy kids could be bedded; we came home and had to chase these cows back into their pasture. And that is what country people do on a Sunday night during harvest season. Russel Crow and all.