She's my newest hero!

If you haven't heard of Stephanie O'Dea, you've been missing out! She is not only a fabulous crock-pot chef (so to speak), she's also hilarious!!

So, for her 2008 New Year resolution, she decided to use her crock-pot every single day in 2008--which she did!!!

I've tried one of her recipes so far and Paul and Madi loved it! I even made enough for Paul to take to work the next day, but he loved it so much..he ate it for breakfast...(kinda gross, but still)!!

Trust me, if you have a crock-pot you will LOOVE her!!! You can check out her blog at http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ or go out an actually buy her cookbook. It's called "Make It Fast, Cook It Slow"

Anyways, I just thought I'd pass on my excitement!! I rarely ever pulled out my crock-pot unless we were making pot roast for Sunday dinner, but now I think it's safe to say, I'm addicted to my slow cooker!

The End. :)

Christmas bug

Yep! That's right, I got bit by the Christmas bug!! Probably the earliest I ever have! I couldn't wait any longer to put up all our Christmas decorations. So I had Paul bring them in, and Madi and me put them up! She helped put the hooks on the ornaments, and helped fluff out the tree..and Tann helped take the ornaments off the tree! After we put our tree up, it's not Christmas without a 'pine' scent...so...in went our Pine Scentsy..and wa-la! Our house is 100% FESTIVE!

Later that night, Madi and I made our annual Gingerbread House! We had so much fun! Madi probably ate more frosting than she should have, but we had a blast!! It's our little fun tradition to do together, until Tann gets old enough to want to help! All in all, we kicked off our Holiday Season with a great day!!

Here are some fun pictures from Saturday! :)

He's doing it!

So Tann took his first crawling scoot on November 2, since then...he's mastered it! He moves all over the place! His favorite thing to do is torment Madi. He chases her around the house and Madi screams at the top of her lungs "HE'S DOING IT!". He thinks it's all a game and just laughs! It's pretty cute! He's such a fast little robotic mover! I love my little guy! :) Here's a video of him crawling baby!

Madi's room and movie night!

Earlier this week, we finally moved Tanner into Madi's room! He LOVES it!! He also realized he can pull himself up to stand! He loves to pull himself to stand up in his crib and bounce! It's his new favorite game! :)

So Madi had a fun little idea last night to have a movie night! So, Paul went and got pizza and I laid down a blanket in the front room, and we turned on Monsters VS. Aliens and ate our pizza! It was so much fun! Madi had such a good time. After we finished eating, she snuggled Tanner to sleep, and then snuggled me and Paul! Tanner LOVED his first taste of cheesy bread-sticks! It was a fun, cheap little family activity! :)

AND, Tanner finally slept the longest he ever has!!!! He went to bed at 8:30pm, and didn't wake up until 3:15am! I woke up around 2am and had to go check on him to make sure he was ok! I was so happy, I'm crossing my fingers it wasn't just a one time thing! I could totally get used to this!!!

Ever sense we moved him into Madi's room, he's been sleeping better and more sound! It's so cute to see them share a room! Madi just loves her brother! Sometimes, she sits on her bed, turns on her lamp and reads stories to him! I love my babies!

Halloween adventures!

So I totally spaced it and have been crazy busy with school, but here are some fun pictures we took on Halloween. We went to a fun little petting zoo called Hee-Haw Farms. Madi had a BLAST! She fed the goats, petted the sheep, the pigs, the horsey, she rode the barrel train (along with me and Tann), she rode down the fun bumpy tire slide, and her and Paul rode down another fun steeeeep slide in a potato sack, and then we did a fun trick-or-treating hayride! We had so much fun there! Here are just a few pictures from our little adventure to Hee-Haw (if you haven't ever been there, I highly recommend it! It's in PG)!

After Hee-Haw, we took the kiddies to the mall to trick-or-treat! Let me just say, that is probably my favorite way to take small kids trick-or-treating! It's fast, safe, warm, not to mention FUN!! (I forgot to take pictures of them at the mall..whoops)

After the mall, we took the kiddies to the church, our ward had a fun little chili/pie bake-off! Oh my goodness, everything was DELISH!!! Madi and Tann were (in my opinion) the cutest kids there!! All the decons commented on "how cool" Tann's football costume was! I think his costume was a hit! AND, the entire night we didn't see another football! :) So, after the yummy food, we all headed outside and did a trunk-or-treat! That in my opinion gave the trick-or-treating experience a little more justice since you're outside! Again, I forgot to take pictures! Darn it!!

Anyways, that was our awesome Halloween in a nutshell!! I hope you guys all had as good of a time as we did! :)

Happy Halloween!

Witchy Witchy

Screamy Screamy

Happy Happy

HALLOWEENY!

PLEASE VOTE!!

http://www.thecutekid.com/ckgallery/votemypic/email/28905

Thanks a bunch! :)

Pig skin

So ironically, Tanner got sick with the Swine at the same time he's going to be a football (pig skin) for Halloween! Here are a fun cute pictures of him in his costume!




Also, my cute little brother Jas turns 20 next Wednesday! I can't believe he's going to be that old..cause that only means I'm not as young as I thought! Ha! So for his birthday, we videoed Madi singing a Good Morning song in Spanish to send to him while he's on his mission..anyways, here it is! :)

Seriously? Do we ever get a break?

So a week ago today, I got bombarded by the stupid Swine! Let me just say, it was the roughest cold I have ever had! It hit me like a train! And I just barely started to feel better yesterday! A WHOLE WEEK LATER! Gross! So anyways, while I was still miserable and struggling getting better, Tann decided he'd spike a fever and cough! I took him into his Dr. on Thursday evening and they sent us over to AF Hospital because they were sure he got the Swine Flu from me! Lovely right? WRONG!

So last night his Dr. calls me with the results that baby boy has not only Swine flu, but influenza A too!! Needless to say, the poor kid is miserable and not a happy camper! I felt like crap all last week, I can't even imagine baby Tann being as sick as I was and not being able to communicate what he wants/needs to feel better!

So, that's the story on how come we haven't been blogging this past week!

For anyone who hasn't had the swine flu...I highly recommend NOT getting it! It SUCKS!

Idaho getaway

This past Wednesday, Madi, Tanner and I took a little roadtrip up to Idaho to visit our good friend Linds cause it was fall break. We had SO much fun! We took little detours of the city to try to find the Idaho Falls temple which was really neat, and then we ate at this fabulous sandwich shop called Mrs. Powells. LInds also taught me how to make home-made Chili....which turned out to be a hit with Paul..he made me make it for dinner tonight! :) Here are a few fun pictures we took while we were up there!
Thanks Linds and Kam for having us!

Here are a few of my favs!

Tann Tann..my cute little Man!

Just a few fun, cute pictures I took of my cute little guy last night and earlier today! He's so darn cute...who couldn't love that face?? PS..compare Tann's 6 month pics to Pauls! CRAZY!

Baby Benjamin Franklin (excuse the messy face)


His newest game...take the bib off and play peek-a-boo


...and Paul at 6 months..

Who woulda known??

Pickles!!! Yes, Dill Pickles soothe teething babes!!!
In my desperate search to keep my sanity, I came across a site about pickles soothing babies gums. I thought no way something as simple as pickles could do the trick, but sure enough..I pulled a jar of baby dills out of the fridge and handed two to Tann (lately known as G-Rump), one for each hand. He started gnawing on the cold pickles and within seconds he was completely content and from what it seemed like, not in pain anymore from his teeth trying to pop out!!

Just thought I'd pass on this lovely solution to moms with teething babes!! So far so good for us!!

catch up!

So, finally after playing around with blogspot and dumb photobucket I FINALLY was able to make my own blog background that works and fills up the WHOLE page! I'm just a tad OCD, so it had to be perfect!!!

So, a few things we've been up to lately...well, we've been up to ALOT so I'll just let the pictures talk for themselves! After all, a picture is worth 1,000 words..right?

(ps, the pictures are backwards in order..we did the sundance thing first, then Grandma Joyce, then Madi got sick) ENJOY!!!

Poor Moosie got sooooo sick over Conference weekend (see earlier post about Swine Flu) Anyways, here are a few pictures from her miserable weekend! Her and daddy had a sleepover in the family room watching Dragon Tales. Thank goodness she's feeling better now!!

Her highest fever over the weekend got up to 104.4..but her Dr. didn't want to see her until it got up to 105???

Grandma Joyce came down to play with the kids last week and took them swimming at the hotel she stayed at. Madi had a BLAST!!!



Our trip up Sundance Canyon and to the Heber City Cemetary..(you'll see where Tanner got his name from :))


Aspen Grove, BE-A-UTIFUL!!
I love this time of year..I think Christmas should be at the end of September, cause then you have both green AND red trees! :)

Seriously???

So Sunday morning we got a call from Madi's Dr.'s office. The nurse said they made a mistake and Madi doesn't have the swine flu!!! Thank stinking goodness!!! But, just to be cautious..we're all going into get flu shots just in case!

Swine Flu anyone??

I know it's been a while since I last posted. I finally got my new computer and I PROMISE to post pictures with all our latest adventures. I just thought I'd update everyone/anyone who cares....

Yep, Madi has it! She woke up this morning with a fever of 103.8, and as the day progressed so did her fever. (Her highest temperature of the day was a whopping 104.4) I took her to the Dr. and by then her fever had gone down a little bit, but they checked her for strep and it came back positive and then sent us over to the hospital to do a nasal wash (HORRIBLE HORRIBLE procedure for somebody who already feels like crap!!!) which would ultimately check for Swine Flu...so..after 5 stinkin hours of waiting we finally got word back about her lab results that she did in fact have Swine Flu, but since we caught it in time, they're vaccinating Tann tomorrow and me and Paul need to get vaccinated soon too. They sent her high dose anti-viral medicine to our pharmacy, but I guess every pharmacy in Utah County is out of it..so poor Paul has to drive all the way to Draper to get Madi's meds. It's a epidemic down here!

Anyways, we're being quarantined for the next few days...so...pray for Mads that she'll start to feel better soon, and pray that poor little Tann wont get it!!