A couple of things...

~First of all, I would like to tell all the news reporters out there that it is a terr-OR alert, not a Tar-A alert, thank you very much!!! I'm just sayin!
~Secondly, I can't think of anything cuter in the world than Gracie's 17 month-old belly laugh when she's playing peek-a-boo!!! She is just SO cute and fun!!! We all just love her so much!!! She has been such a wonderful addition to our family and she and her brothers make life worth living for sure!!!

We survived...barely

Last year Matty and I got the H1N1 vaccine because we have asthma, just in time for Matty to come down with it after being exposed before getting the vaccine. Well, everyone in our little family got it except me. I just got to get up all night each time one of them got it so I could give them their ibuprofen to keep their fevers down. Poor Matty had such a rough time with it! He was one sick boy! Luckily he was able to make it through without being hospitalized. Course he later had pneumonia and was hospitalized for that. Well, Zack has started having asthma problems this year and has an inhaler and everything now so I decided we better ALL get the vaccine this year, except for Brian of course because he's stubborn  :). Last year when Matty got the shot I had Gracie with me and had to hold her while trying to drag him, literally, kicking and screaming to the room to get his shot. I begged Brian to come with me this year to help control kids and to help fill out paper work since we were getting them at the health department. Thank goodness he eventually agreed to come with me. We got in the van as soon as Matty and Zack got off the bus. Once we started driving down the road, Max broke the news to them that they were getting flu shots. They both started bawling! Poor guys! Then when we headed for the shot room Matty started freaking out! He does that thing where he goes completely limp. Gotta love it when they do that. Then he starts screaming...I want it in my bum, I want it in my bum.  hahahaha He thinks it hurts less to have a shot in his bum than in his arm. Once I pried his coat off of him and 3 of us held him down, he got the shot in his arm and immediately stopped crying. Poor guy! You should have seen poor Gracie's eyes at this point. She thought he was being murdered or something. We are quite an entertaining group for shots. Sheesh! But at least we survived...barely!!!

A Funny

The boys wore sunglasses to school today for Red Ribbon Week. Matty came home from school and laughed as he told me that his teacher told him he looked like Bono in his glasses. I laughed too and asked if he wanted to see who Bono was? He said sure so I showed him a video of U2 singing Beautiful Day on youtube. Zack was like, he sings this? Dang! He's pretty good for an old guy! HEHEHE!!!!

Randomness...

~I love that the kinda older lady I visit teach has Dynamite by Taio Cruz playing when you call her phone instead of hearing ringing when you wait for her to answer. Not sure what that's called but it totally cracks me up every time I call her.
~We had a great activity on Friday with the youth. The Bishop invited the youth and leaders to his house for a Book of Mormon read. During the summer they had an all night Book of Mormon read-a-thon at the church. They would each take turns reading a page and then once in a while they would have a break and eat snacks and stuff. It sounded like a lot of fun to me. They had some of the kids and leaders talk about the experience in Sacrament Meeting that week. Well, they all loved it so much that our Bishop invited everyone over to his house for a mini read-a-thon. Just 3 hours this time. From 6pm-9pm. He ordered Pizza Hut pizza and had plenty of pop. One of the leaders brought homemade salsa and chips and another brought homemade oreos. It was fun! And so neat to read and then discuss some of the scriptures and have some spiritual insight from everyone. It was just a neat experience that I am grateful I was able to be a part of this time.
~I'm so excited to start working towards achieving my Young Women's Medallion as a leader. They even have fancy new ones that are really pretty and I'm hoping to get one of those! They have a garnet I believe and you can get it in either silver or gold.
~The kids had their Primary program today and they did a really good job. It was really a neat concept that the ladies came up with. Matty did the opening of the program, Max gave a talk we had to write for him for the program, and Zack had a part as well as reading the conclusion of the program. I was thinking how well behaved the boys had been through the program. Zack was reading the conclusion. I started to get choked up for some girly reason. Some ladies started making their way to the front while the pianist started playing Teach Me To Walk In the Light. I realized the ladies were going to sing the verse that starts, Come little child and together we'll learn. More tears. Then the kids started doing the first verse in sign language. Flowing tears came as I thought about my cousins sweet little son, Parker. Then......Max (who is sitting on the front row on the stand and is realizing that it's hard to do sign language while holding a talk in your hands) threw his wadded up piece of paper (talk) to us seeing as how we were on the 2nd row of pews (and I thought making the walk of shame to the 2nd row since we were late was going to be the most embarrassing moment of the meeting). Instant end to flowing tears. Silly boy! We were SO CLOSE!!!
~Went to the Soup and Bread Dinner last night at church. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that night each year! Brian made ham and potato soup (clam chowder with ham instead of clams since Matty is allergic to fish). So yummy! It was the first soup gone and everyone loved it! One old guy was even scraping the pan to get the last of it on his second helping. Good stuff! Bonus...The Banasky's let everyone fill up the cute little bushel baskets with gourds that were decorating the tables and take them home. I was so excited! They grow tons of gourds and pumpkins. They sell them and donate all the money to the Angel Tree at Christmas. Super neat people! Such HUGE hearts they have! One of their daughters is one of my Beehives. Love her! She is just the sweetest girl in the world!
~ Brian and I made this apple crisp together a few minutes ago. It is SO yummy and the house smells just like Fall!!! LOVE IT!!!

It's official...I'm old!!!

So, yesterday I saw an email from Facebook that was from someone I went to high school with announcing that we are going to be having a 20 year reunion next year. THAT'S OLD!!!

Later, I planted some tulip bulbs and dug out the dead tree stump that has been in our yard for who knows how long, then decided to rake the yard. We were planning to take care of it Saturday, now that Zack's football season is over and we could actually plan something like that for a Saturday. Well, the weather forecast is iffy for Saturday so I figured why not just do it and get it over with. Raking is hard work when you are OLD!!! My shoulders and biceps are feeling it big time! It sure is nice to have a cleaned up yard though. It was totally worth all the pain! It looks nice and I can cross it off my list now instead of dreading it. I posted some cute pics on Word From The Zoo of the kids again. Check those out if you get a sec. Did I mention that...

I LOVE FALL!!!



Oh, and now that we have a frig lock on our garbage can so Gracie can't throw random things away anymore she has started throwing random things in our kitchen sink. Off and on, all day, every day I find silly things in there. This is what I found this morning....

That is a wad of playdough under the dolls hand. I have no idea where she found the playdough but I am so glad she threw it in the sink instead of smearing it all over the house. Since my mom might see this I feel I should apologize for the pot marks in the sink.  :)

A love letter...

Dear Ikea, Target, The Sweet Tooth Fairy, University Mall, Provo Towne Centre Mall, Olive Garden, Costco, Sam's, Quilted Bear, Seagull Book, TaiPan Trading, Robert's Crafts, JoAnns, Gracie Lou's, Kohl's, Toys "R" Us, Park City outlets, Papa Kelsey's salads and "mater bread", Cute little store inside of the Conoco in Salem, etc.,

          It's been so long, so very looonnngggg!!!!

I MISS YOU!!!

I can't stop thinking about you and all of the good times we've shared.

               The holidays just won't be the same without you.

  If loving you is wrong...I don't wanna be right!!!

                    They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and it's oh, so true!

I thought time would make the loneliness go away but it just seems to get worse with each passing day.                                
                         How do I live without you? I want to know...

                                                             

I'm SO over my relationship with Walmart, Penney's, KMart, and the $1 store. They've done their best to fill the void and heaven knows we've tried to work things out. It's just...not the same.

                I need YOU!!! 

Though the miles may separate us,
 just know that my heart is with you!!!

Love always,

           Tara              

                                         

It's beginning to look a lot like...

Halloween!!!!

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Fall!! I love the food, the smells, the holidays, the slight chill in the air (usually but so far not so much this year but I'm sure it will happen eventually), and the super fun decorations!!! Halloween has always been a favorite holiday of mine to decorate for. We used to have an entertainment center to use for surfaces to decorate and we usually have fun, wide window sills or counters or drop cabinets to decorate. Here we don't have ANY surfaces! I was so sad when I got out the decorations and couldn't decorate because we don't have anywhere to put our cute things. There are 6 plant hook things in our living room ceiling. I decided to Google homemade Halloween decorations. I found a couple of fun things to make and saw this adorable idea where you paint B-O-O on 3 white pumpkins. We broke out the egg cartons, black craft paint, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners and I let the kids go to town. Then we hung their creations from the plant hooks (at least their good for something).They LOVE making craft projects so they loved making these. I think it's cute and helps the house feel a bit more festive. Some day I hope to have another entertainment center and some more fun places to decorate but at least for now this does the trick!

My mom gave me this black table cloth a few years ago

 and it really makes the white pumpkins stand out on my kitchen table!
Kind of fun!

Kind of hard to take pictures of these bats since the window is right there making it so bright.

I made this next one out of some old decorations I had. I saw my friend, Jenn make some similar decorations before so I decided to turn the old decorations into a new fun one.

Show and Tell

 I saw this advent calendar idea on a blog a while back and have wanted to make one. I just needed a cookie sheet. I have tons of magnets and all of these cute little chip board pieces and letters from a kit I bought on QVC about 5 years ago. They have been collecting dust so when I saw this idea I figured this would be the perfect project to use them for. I figure, use what you have when you can, right?! I would have liked to use all red letters but I didn't have enough red letters and I was too lazy to cut any out so I just used green and red together. I still need to get some ribbon to make a bow for the top of it and then it will be complete but I thought I'd share it really quickly now since it may be New Years before I remember the ribbon. :) You can see the original idea here. 



silly me

Max hated preschool for the first 2 weeks this year because his class was quite large and he only new one little girl from t ball. I had to force him to go each day. I figured I'd give it 2 weeks and if he still didn't like it I was NOT paying for something he hated. Well, I kept telling him he would make friends and then he would like it. He made friends with a boy named Logan and that helped tremendously! He started being excited for school each day. We have all...day...kindergarten here which is pretty tough for most kids to get used to. It takes around 2 weeks for them to adjust but if they haven't had some sort of school experience before it's even more difficult to adjust so preschool is pretty much a MUST. I know of parents who enroll their kids in 2 preschools to help with the adjustment. I think that's pretty extreme and costly. Anyhoo, yesterday was Max's class pumpkin patch field trip. I have been trying to be more involved in school activities with my boys this year since I didn't do much last year because Gracie was so little so I happily signed up to be a driver. Well, all morning yesterday Max kept telling me to forget to go on the field trip. I was a bit hurt and asked him why he didn't want me to go. He told me he wanted to get to ride in Logan's car with him. WHEW! He likes me he just wanted to be social. AWESOME! He's come a long way in just a few short weeks! I talked with Miss Tawnya and she said that Logan's mom wasn't going on the field trip so she made sure Logan got to ride with Max so he would be happy. We were excitedly walking to the van to start on our fun little adventure when I realized I locked my keys in the van. NICE!!! I left my purse in the van and locked it but apparently dropped my keys on the floor in the back when I was getting Gracie out of her car seat. SO.LIKE.ME!!! Thankfully one of the other mom's had room in her car for the 2 boys and even had a car seat for Gracie to ride in and happily offered us a ride. So we all jumped in and made our way to the pumpkin patch. I called Brian from her cell phone and asked him to get the extra keys and unlock the car so I could come home after the field trip. A really nice preschool mom decided it would be fun to have a pumpkin patch for the preschool kids to go to so she planted pumpkins in her garden and bordered the garden with hay bales and corn stalks and scare crows. SO CUTE and FUN!!! It was awesome! I guess she has done it for a couple years now. The kids were all so excited to get a pumpkin. Max looked and looked for the biggest, best pumpkin. Unfortunately it didn't take him very long to drop it and break it on the way to the car. Poor guy! Thankfully the nice pumpkin patch owner let him get another one and even let Gracie have one. When we got back to the preschool the van was unlocked and Gracie and I made our way  back home. It was a fun little trip! So glad to be past that first year of Gracie's life so I can feel more like I can do stuff. I cherish that first year of her life and really made an effort to enjoy her and her little sweet stages since she is the caboose of our family. I'm a bit sad to see that time gone but also happy with each new stage and each new milestone. So glad for nice mom's who plant pumpkins for preschoolers to enjoy and for nice mom's who come to the rescue of "silly" mom's like me. So glad for super nice preschool teachers who try to make each child happy. And especially glad for a wonderful husband who saved the day and unlocked the car for his "silly" wife! Of course, I forgot my camera which wouldn't have mattered even if I remembered it since it would have been locked in the car anyway. So no pictures to share. I keep kicking myself over that one. There were tons of fun photo ops yesterday. Oh well!

WANTED:

A good apple crisp recipe. And a good peach cobbler recipe. If you wouldn't mind sharing your recipes I would greatly appreciate it!!! My email address is tarafree26@hotmail.com.

Thanks bunches!!!

We love Lucy!!!

We have another dog. She's an 8 week old puppy. She's a Red Heeler. Her name is Lucy. I picked the name and everyone liked it. She is very cute, very sweet, and just the best puppy I've ever been around. The kids adore her. I even like her. And of course Brian loves her, she IS a dog after all and he's wanted one for years. Gracie can't get enough of her! When she saw her this morning she said, hi daw (dog) and waved. She is constantly trying to escape outside and Lucy is constantly trying to get inside so it's kind of interesting when someone needs to go in or out the door between the 2 of them. They keep life fun!



Oh the horrors of Sunday School...

LOL! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our ward!!! We love all the members we have met so far and feel so welcome and at home. We're making friends and really enjoy going to church each week! The Relief Society teachers are amazing and we are really learning a lot about the Old Testament in Sunday School from our regular teacher as well as lots of subs that have taught the class. I even LIKE going to Sunday School here EXCEPT...I'm not a big fan of reading in public. It intimidates me. Especially reading Old Testament scriptures in public. I'm a chicken! Well, each of the teachers, the regular one as well as the subs, start at the front of the classroom and then everyone takes their turn reading until everyone in the class has had a turn. UGGHH!!! There is actually a rule in our church that you aren't supposed to do that for several reasons. One of the reasons is that someone might not be able to read well and it might offend them to be asked to read in front of everyone. One of the reasons is sometimes people have been disfellowshipped or excommunicated and they are not supposed to participate in prayers or any part of the service. They are supposed to just be there to learn and listen through their, hopefully, very PRIVATE time of repentance. None of these apply to me, I'm just EXTREMELY uncomfortable reading difficult scripture in front of people, call me crazy! But I really enjoy benefiting from this rule!! Reading in class or praying is supposed to be an entirely voluntary thing. Well, apparently our new ward does not know of this rule and they do this each week. Well, we are studying Isaiah and this week there was a DIFFERENT sub. Not only would she MAKE you read the scripture but then she would ask you to EXPLAIN or EXPOUND on the scripture. Can you imagine! It's Isaiah remember!! Seriously intimidating stuff! Finally, it was my new hero, Cristen's turn. When she finished reading the teacher asked her to explain the scriptures she just read. She said something like, I don't know, that's why I came to this class, because I don't understand Isaiah. I was hoping someone else would explain it to me. I had to force myself to not stand up and cheer! I did however, tell her how great I thought it was that she said that when class was over.  I'm sure for some people it seems just silly to be so uncomfortable about this but I'm also sure I'm not alone. I think it just always pays to try to be considerate of others and to try to always follow the rules that are set in place. Even if you don't understand the reason for the rules, they are in place for a reason.!!!

Silly Max...

K so Brian asked Max today if he has thought of something different to ask Santa for besides a baby (see previous post).  The conversation from there...

Max: I'm going to write Santa a letter and ask him for an iPod Touch.
Brian: Santa doesn't bring iPod Touches to 4 year olds.
Max: I won't tell him how old I am! (Max talks very dramatically with lots of influxion ending the sentence in a way that makes you think his next word will be DUH!! making this statement even cuter!)
Brian: Oh, Santa KNOWS how old you are!
Max: Really?!?!?
Brian: Yeah! Santa knows EVERYTHING about you!
Max: Made the cutest look ever like HOLY SMOKES!!!

Very interesting...

This morning in the car on the way to preschool I asked Max what he thinks he'll ask Santa for this year. He said he is going to write Santa a letter and ask him for a baby.
uuuhhhh...WHAT!!!!
I hate to break his heart but all Mommy wants for Christmas is her tubes tied so this may not work out as he would like!!!
We may have to take a little trip to the toy store so he can find a little something DIFFERENT to ask Santa for!!!! 
OY VEY!!!