Happy birthday to me!

It's that time again. Another year older. Can't say I'm wiser, just older. Turning 31 wasn't as bad as turning 30. Last year I had a hard time leaving my 20's behind.

The only thing wonderful about birthdays are the presents! I can't have buyers remorse if I didn't actually buy something for my self right? I have been wanting a KitchenAid mixer for years and Morgan finally bought me one! yay!

My mom got me something AWESOME too. She bought me a Nook! I haven't put it down since Friday. There is seriously over a million books that I can download. It's sweet!

It just so happened that j&j had their free pumpkin picking on my birthday. Unfortunately, Morgan had to work this day and I had to juggle four kids and six pumpkins!

I love to dress my kids in Halloween attire.

Here we are on the wagon ride going out to the pumpkin patch. Here are the usual friends minus a few.

I told the kids that what ever pumpkin they decided to pick , they had to haul it out all by themselves.

I love Logan's shirt. It says, will trade sister for Candy. He he! Bay finds this really mean :)

For my birthday Morgan and I went on a ghost tour of Salt Lake. We had to meet behind the old Rio Grand to get on the tour bus. Since the train station is right next to Gateway, we decided to get something to eat and do some shopping there. I decided to eat at Rumbi. Yummy!

On our ghost tour we went to 19 different places. On our tour bus we and had a tour guide that told
us story after story of ghost sightings around S.L. We went to the S.L cemetery and even stopped at Fort Douglas Museum and walked around.

Here we are at the Fort Douglas Museum. Morgan found an under ground room and made me go in it with him.
It was so small I could barely stand up inside. Boy was it dark. Creepy!

After reviewing all of our pictures, I am sad to say that we didn't get any full body apparition, but we did get some orbs :)

Tailgate party, UTE style!

*This post is a bit late, but better late than never right?

On September 26th Logan turned 7! My little boy is a big kid now!
For Logan's birthday this year he decided he wanted a Utah party. I went with a tailgate type party, Ute style!

When the boys showed up for the party, I put some eye paint under their eyes.

Next, each boy received a lanyard with a VIP pass. This pass got them into Logan's party and to get them into the training camp.

Meet the coach. This is the man that got those boys in shape with some football drills. I love his mean face and his little pink whistle. lol

We had the boys do a bunch a drills, from sprints to situps and even some jumping jacks.
After the tough stuff, we had a little fun with some silly games. The boys had to throw a giant football through some hula hoops. The boys had a hard time and Carson showed them all up by getting the ball through both hoops on his first try! It's actually harder than it looks.
After training the boys were ready to play some ball!!
Uncle Tyler was there to help the boys play some flag football.
Huddle!
After the big game we had hotdogs and sang to the birthday boy.
It's present time!
Nana got Logan a Captain America shield.
Dad got Logan a Xbox 360! The question is, was it for Logan or for dad?
Logan was super surprised! Morgan put the Xbox in one of his wooden chests he made. Nice "wrapping"

Thanks to Aunt Kristy and Uncle Kody, Logan had two new games to play. Tony Hawk shred, complete with a skate board and a race car game. Awesome!

Here we have our little cheerleader

I cut out each Utah logo and taped them to these kisses. I know, I'm crazy!
Football cake pops
Munchies. I even found football Oreo cookies.
Here is Carson "helping" me make the red velvet cake. Every kid deserves to lick the beaters.
Here is the cake. This was my first time making butter cream frosting. I'm hooked.
Each boy went home with a drawstring bag filled with football favors. I bought red and black bags to go with our Utah theme. Gotta love Dollar Tree!
7 years ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. I look back at that day and can't believe it has been seven years since I held my first son in my arms. He was perfect. I'm so grateful to have been blessed with a wonderful son. I'm truly one lucky lady to have such a beautiful family. Happy Birthday Logan!!

Salsa

I was given a TON of yummy tomatoes! I had no idea what to do with them, then I remembered that a good friend of mine had a way yum recipe for bottled salsa. I have never canned anything before (I know sad) so I asked my friend Allison if she would give me a lesson. Luckily, she had to use up her tomatoes also, so we made salsa together.

Here is a picture of Allison's huge tomatoes that she grew in her garden. She let me use some in my salsa.

These tomatoes were the size of my hand, no lie!

Isn't this tomato cool? It's yellow with red veins.


I would like to thank Allison for letting me stay at her house for seven hours and for allowing me to make a big mess in her kitchen.


Yes, that is me wearing sunglasses. Let me tell you what happened. My eyes must be really sensitive to onions. As soon as I started to cut them my eyes started to burn and got very watery. So much so, that I had mascara running down my face. I decided to wear some sunglasses to help with the fumes from the onions :) Don't know if it made a difference.

When I was done cutting up the onion, I started to cut up some anaheim peppers. Allison had told me that the seeds in a anaheim pepper were not hot, so I wasn't careful when cutting them up. I touched the seeds and was fine. Well I had an itch and rubbed under my eyes and they started to BURN like crazy!! It hurt so bad! I had to get two ice cubes and rub one on each eye. It was terrible.

Since I had such a bad experience with my first batch of salsa, Allison and I traded jobs. I peeled her garden grown garlic, and she cut up my onion and peppers. On my first batch I just used anaheim peppers, on the second batch I added some jalapenos. Allison got a little a lazy towards the end of cutting and wasn't careful about touching the seeds. After a while her fingers started to burn and no matter how much she washed them the burn would not go away! They even hurt into the next day. What a good friend.

After seven hours and 24 jars later, we had some super YUMMY salsa! Well worth the time and effort.

3 years and counting

Two years ago we went to Salt Lake. Last year it was Logan, and this year it was St. George. For three years now, some gal pals and I have made it a tradition to have a girls getaway once a year.
I have to say that George will be our spot to stay for years to come. What better way to spend a getaway than with shopping, dining, laughing and even going to see Grease at the Tuacan!
Next year, we will go see The Wizard of Oz!

Our four hour drive was not as bad as I remember. Maybe it was because I didn't have a car full of ornery kids. Instead, we had giggly adults who laughed over the funny saying of Scipio :)

Thanks to Michelle, we were able to rent a condo in St. George. It was perfect.

Way to use that mop Michelle.

One of the ladies took a picture of me sleeping with my body pillow. I can't sleep without it.

"jumping on the beds"

Shopping always has it moments where you just have to laugh. There was no way anyone could have gotten their head through that head hole. It didn't even stretch!

The night we went to see Grease at the Tuacahn we ran a little late. We got there just in time, due to Allison's lead foot. Here we are running up the stairs hoping not to walk in late.

This was the first time any of us had ever been to see a show at the Tuacahn. The outdoor stage and rock background was so neat. We had awesome seats too.
Yes, we had to act like little girls and get pics with some of the cast.

Kenickie and Rizzo

Frenchy
Eating out was a lot cheaper and much quieter when it was just the gals.

On our way home we decided to go see the Temple. Right after we took this picture, a heavy rain storm hit. That was the only rain we had all weekend. Clear skies until the very end.

I'm so lucky to have such great friendships with these amazing ladies. I'm thankful to the hubby for allowing me to go and get away for a few days. I can't wait til next year!