Domestic Diva

It's me. I'm the domestic diva! This last week I (with help) not only pickeda ton of apricots, but I also made jam, fruit leather, and canned over 20 quarts of apricots. I may be clueless in the kitchen on my own but with my talented mother-in-law taking me under her wing, I was able to domesticate myself and do what women for years and years have done. Store food for the winter. (I feel like such a grown up.) And it really didn't suck that bad either. Along with feeling some what sticky, I felt rather accomplished after it was all said and done. I think that this is something that I may be able to do on my own now and not completely and utterly fail. But, I can't totally celebrate my perceived accomplishment yet... we've yet to taste the final product and see if any of us die of salmonella poisoning.

Behold nature...

Mary Kay... the talent

My Mom... the lady who let us pick her tree for free.

Lucy Jane... the baby who took little bites out of a lot of apricots and put them back in the box

Emma and Iza... Partners in crime. They made about $10 selling bags of apricots to neighbors for $2 a bag. Emma pulled a wagon full of apricots and Iza pushed a stroller with stuffed animals and the money. It was the cutest thing ever. Emma's sales gimmick was this. "I'm selling apricots for $2 a bag or $1 if you don't want to pay $2." The best part was how they looked. They were all dirty with messy hair and wearing scroungy clothes. It was classic.

My three

Ahoy, the final product! Delicious. Can you guess what you're all getting for Christmas this year?

The Dark Knight

Okay, for the record I am a huge batman fan. However, the newest batman was way to violent for me. In my opinion this movie should have been rated R. As I'm typing this post I have to wonder to myself why I didn't just get up and walk out? Can you say spineless? My good old BFF Harmony and I watched most of the movie with our hands covering our eyes. I am very disturbed at the pg 13 rating and how this movie is being marketed towards kids. Within the first few minutes at least 10 people were killed. I wish the movie would have dropped the F bomb a few times or showed a boob so that it would have got the R rating it deserved. I hate to think of kids watching it. But with that being said... I really liked the movie!

This was the best part of the movie... Christian Bale.

Oh how I adore his mouth. I very much enjoyed watching him!!! I have been in love with him since Newsises. I once dated a very boring guy that I had nothing in common with just because he looked so much like Christian. I ended that relationship when I found out that he only took baths. Gross! Sitting in a pool of your own filth and calling yourself clean?!! Uggg! Looks don't mean everything. Anyhoo, back to my movie review... The acting in this movie was amazing. All of the reports of Heath's performance as The Joker are true. So, if you like violence and crazy people, you'll love this movie. If you're at all like me and are disturbed by nonsensical killing save your money.

Family

Last weekend was spent in good 'ol Paragonah (it's pronounced with a short ooo) for our yearly family reunion. This may seem an odd place to gather but, considering the enormity of our family, there is really no where else that we can hang out all day and not disturb the peace. Besides that, it's where grandma lives and we really like being there! How big is my family you ask? Well, just to give an idea, My grandparents have 10 kids, 36 grand kids, (plus our spouses)and I think 41 great grand kids. So, you can imagine how big of a gathering the weekend was.

A weekend spent in Paragonah (remember the ooo) is like taking a trip back in time. This town doesn't change at all. It's been the same since I was a baby. My kids spent the entire time playing outside with their cousins and playing night games until we forced them to go to bed. Lucy was fascinated with the long driveway. She walked up and down it a million times. Besides the rattle snake that my cousin Camille almost stepped on, we didn't have to worry about the kids being in danger or getting lost and all the other city worries that keep parents on the lookout.

I tried to get artsy and take some candid shots of Lucy and her fascination of the driveway. I call this shot, "The Road to Grandmas".

One of my Grandma's many talents is gardening. I'm afraid I bugged her all weekend with my endless gardening questions. I'd kill to have the space for such a garden.

Here is some of the fam gathered for our annual family auction. We bring stuff to bid on and the money is used for next years food.

All of the kids favorite pastime was this rope swing. I for one hated it. I couldn't help imagine the rope snapping in mid air and Emma sailing across the yard to her instant death.

Giddy up!

What a kid... Only my Iza would ride a horse in a sun dress in this day and age. Way to have style baby!

One of the highlights of our weekend was discovering what we think is a new species of creepy crawlies. To the touch this feels like a stick but it moved around into twisty shapes. Weird stuff. So Craig, I assured my family that if anyone would know what the heck this thing is you'd be the one.

This is my niece Emma Belle. This is my favorite picture of the weekend.

Lou dragged her blanket {AKA huggy} with her everywhere. It was black by the time we got home. The little kids left some art for Grandma just before we all went home.

Wahoo!

This is the biggest slip n' slide in town. What fun we had. A few of us lost our shorts on the way down but it was worth the peep show to give our kids a great afternoon of sun and fun! My friend Cami Thorson was the one who put this whole shebang together. In case you couldn't tell, we are sliding down 3 billboard signs. I'm afraid that today could be the last time we'll be able to do this. A few thugs from AF city (I think one was Boley Greenwood but I'm not sure) stopped by and said we were hurting the grass and tried to shut us down. I won't be surprised if the city park people put up a sign saying "NO FUN ALLOWED ON THE GRASS". Geesh... What a bunch of party poopers!

The little dot in the middle is Iza... It's as if she's ready for a chiropractic massage as the billboard suggests.

Emma had a blast even though she said it burned her butt

I took a few kids with me on the way down for support cuz I was sort of scared. What can I say... it was a big hill.

My two little posers. Isabelle and Kaylen-- BFF.

4th of July

This was an odd 4th of July for us. It was the first time in 5 years that we didn't go to the Freedom Parade in Provo, BBQ with my mom or have a big neighborhood street party. It was very quiet and strangely calm. We met my Dad and Aunt for a very tasty and fun picnic in Cedar Hills (forgot the camera again) and then Brent took Emma and Iza to a movie. It was a nice day but not one I'd like to repeat next year. This is the last time I break tradition! All day long I felt guilty like I was ditching school or something. It was odd... We did have a fun night with our good friends the Shepherds at TG Point for the fireworks.
Emma and Jake sitting in a tree... {I'm saving this picture for when they grow up and get married}

Our busy week

We've had a very busy and fun week. Last Thursday I picked up two of my nieces (Lexus and Cassidy) from the airport to stay with me for the week. In order to keep my title as favorite Aunt, I tried to plan a great week for us all. We did every thing from the Lehi Rodeo (thanks for the tickets Mom), to picnics, parades, and movies and museums. We even took a trip over to Mona for the Lavender Fair. My mom took the cousins on a hike to Timp cave and she took Lexus to visit UVU. {We're hoping she chooses to move to Utah for college in a year.} We stayed so busy all week we hardly had any down time.

These are some pictures of us at the Lavender Fair

I think that my favorite part of the week was our crafts! Lucky for me both Lexus and Cassidy love crafts. So we spent a lot of time making some really great things. Here we are making hair bows.

We made personalized journals. They turned out so cute. We ran out of time before we could make matching Book of Mormon covers. I sent them home with all the supplies so hopefully they can make them without my genius crafting skills!

We had an early dinner at the Myan on Wednesday. This is always a fun place to take "out of towners"!

We went to Clark Planetarium for a movie in the Dome Theater and then went shopping at Gateway!

Because I'm me, I forgot my camera for most of our outings. Lexus on the other hand took a ton of pictures. I'm hoping that she starts a blog soon so I can see all of them. It was a fast fun week. I wished my other two Nieces could have been with us. Next time...