Ashton Painted his Pumpkin Today

Ashton had a lot of fun painting his pumpkin today. He started with black and made what looked like an eye but then it morphed into a very colorful work of art. Way to go Ashton!

More Pictures from My Family Hooray!

My sister Ami sent more pictures and I made these scrapbook pages right away. I am sooo excited!

On Heathers page I found a basketball in google images and put a circle of gold paper behind it. Then I use a shape cutter to cut a pumpkin face out of the basketball image so the gold would show through. Pretty cool!

On the other pages I took the swirl element from another piece of paper removed everything but the lines with the magic wand. Then I made the lines orange. Pretty cool!

These were a lot of fun to make. I'm glad that I invested in the software.

My Family Sent Me Halloween Pictures!

Hooray!!! I am sooo happy I got pictures from my family today! My sister Ami sent me pictures of her family dressed up for a family Halloween party. If you couldn't guess they all went as rockers. Ami said this was a very cost effective way to go this year because she was able to make their costumes from old clothes. I think that they all look really great and will be excited to post pictures of my other family members as I get them.

This is also my latest scrapbook page. I have been experimenting with the magic wand and curved line tools. The original page had the filigree in white so I cut around it and changed the color to red. I think that it gives it kind of a spooky Halloween look. It was a lot of fun to do.

My Favorite Sugar Cookie Recipe

Sunday was the primary childrens program and I promised that I would bring my class a treat for sitting so quietly. So I made my favorite sugar cookie recipe the one that I got from Kelly Wilson.

Sugar Cookies

2 cubes butter
2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 c plain or vanilla yogurt
2 tsp vanilla

cream together then add

2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
6 1/2 c flour

Refrigerate 1 hr. Roll, cut, bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Frosting

4 Tbsp
3 c powdered sugar
1 t vanilla
1/4 c plus 1 Tbsp milk

Whip together until smooth and creamy add food color if desired.

Heather offered to taste test one for me. I put candy corn faces on the ones that I made for primary, but not everyone in my family appreciates candy corn so I left most of them without faces.

Walker Family Friday Project

Here is a picture of Mom and Dad Walkers new home, as you can see it is a work in progress. The picture was taken from what will be their living room looking towards what will be their bedroom. On Nov 1st they will be moving in with us so we moved Heather from the basement to the spare bedroom upstairs.

Here is what Heathers new temporary abode looks like. I think that she looks quite cozy. It was a tight squeeze to get her stuff up there but we managed.

I am really impressed with Heathers unselfish attitude through this change. I think that if my grandparents needed to move in with our family when I was Heather's age and my parents said that they would have my room...I would have thrown a huge fit, with a lot of door slamming and shouting.

This is what Heather's room looks like now, all cleaned out and waiting for another twin bed so Grandma and Grandpa will be comfortable while they stay. She even cleared room in the closet for them. She really did a lot of the heavy lifting. She managed to carry all of the books from her shelf up in a laundry basket. I tried to lift it and said we need to do this together she just asked me to step aside and heaved it upstairs by herself. What a She-ra. This will be quite the experience...it will kind of be like living at the Walton's...Good night John Boy!

The last picture shows the 8 short feet that Heather is from our bedroom. We are very lucky that Heather doesn't listen to loud obnoxious music. Well she might listen to it but she doesn't torture us with it. I know she is an unusual teenager.

Macey's BYU Tailgate Party

This is something extremely new for me, Macey's, our favorite grocery store ofter puts on these very well attended tailgate parties. Usually I'm not real big on cozying up to one quarter of northeast Orem, but I made an exception last night.

We got steak dinners for $3.00! Wow! They had 1,200 steaks to grill up and sell to fans to munch on while waiting for the drawing. They give away several pairs of tickets and lots of BYU game gear.

The kids love it because they have those giant inflatable slides for them to play on and the bounce house. They also had a Halloween Cookie decorating tent. Heather made me a nice green ghost with sprinkles, then she bit off it's arm and Bob broke off his head. I got the rest of him though and it was really good.

The party started at 4pm and we didn't get there until 5:30 so we had to wait in a huge line that wrapped around the side of the building. We had passed Bob's Mom and Dad just sitting down to eat on our way to the end of the line so they saved us some seats at their table. Bob's brother Wade joined us in the line and we had some fun conversation. We also had the cookie that Heather made as an appetizer.

We didn't win any prizes but the steaks were great and the company was wonderful. Before we left we were able to grab some scones with honey butter. I would say that we had a lot of fun!

My latest scrapbook page

Here is the latest scrapbook page for Heather. I think that we did a great job catching all of the glory in modeling new school clothes. You can definitely see that Heather is into it with that devil may care pose with the hand on her hip. Actually getting Heather to pose for any picture is like pulling teeth. Hopefully when she is as old as I am she will appreciate being able to look back into those fun filled teen years.

This page only took about 35 minutes to complete. I love being able to create pages digitally. I will really love it when I can actually get the page printed and put it in her scrapbook.

Hooray! Ashton came over to play today.

It was fall break for schools last week, so Ashton was with his Mommy instead of coming to play here. We had a lot of fun building with the legos today. I have a Harry Potter set, so we built Hermione's castle. I think that we did a really great job. Ashton put flames on all of the towers.

Ashton wanted to have his head in the shot with the castle.


Here he said that he was trying to get his bum in the shot with the caste. Silly little guy. We also made a picnic basket out of a paper bag. We glued pictures of picnic food from the newspaper to plates and put them in the basket. We spread out a blanket and had a picnic in the family room. It was a very fun day.

A Promotion for Chris

We got some great news from Chris on October 14th he was promoted to Maintenance Supervisor. Hooray! He has been waiting for this since the spring so we are so happy that it finally came through for him. Hopefully he will be on track to be a property manager in a year and maybe even manage a property in Utah. We miss him so much and are looking forward to seeing him at Christmas time. Congratulations Chris! (we owe you a family dinner of your choice)

FHE with Pumpkinhead.

Happy FHE, Happy Halloween! Today we decided to work together as a family and get the outside of the house decorated for the trick or treaters at the end of the month. I've had the inside decorations up since the beginning of the month. Heather and I were goofing off with her pumpkin making it look like she was a pumpkin head. Bob made a giant spider web for our gigantic spider, he is so handy to have around. Heather was very good at getting on the ladder and helping to get the light up spiderweb up. We had a lot of fun. I wish it was as much fun taking it all down.

Later after Heather goes to open gym we will have our scripture study, treat and family prayer to round out our family home evening.

Applesauce!

I just wanted to take a moment to brag a little bit about my amazing husband Bob. Last week on Thursday he singlehandedly put up 19 quarts of the most delicious applesauce. He did two kinds of apples red and yellow together and it made up into the thickest yummiest applesauce that I have ever tasted. I don't think that I will be able to go back to store bought ever. I just wanted everyone to know how amazing he is and how lucky I am to have him! (I know it isn't a picture of him canning up a storm but it is a cute picture nonetheless. I was gone visiting teaching and didn't capture the moment.)

Pumpkin Cap

Here is a little pumpkin cap that I crocheted. I don't really like the brim so I'm going to try and re-work it a little bit. I thought that it might fit Faith or LaReina but it is too small. It would probably fit a nine month old. Practice makes perfect so I'm just going to keep crocheting until I get the whole gauge thing down.

Heather got her actual permit today!

Heather is now officially permitted to drive by the state of Utah! AHHH! Scary for me! I think that she would have liked to drive home from the DMV, but she's not sure about driving the van yet. After lunch we decided to go for a spin in the Kia. She drove us down to Orem City Park. She got out to swing on the swings for a second and so we could get a better picture of her huge smiling permitted to drive face.

As far as I can tell Heather is a very responsible driver, but then my parents would have said the same about me because I did all of the scary stuff when they weren't in the car. I hope that Heather will continue this pattern of safe driving throughout her life. Way to go Heather! We are very proud of you.

Ire Kuchen

Here is the latest scrapbook page. Heather is always a fun subject. She makes the best faces. It's hard to tell if she's really enjoying breakfast or if she's mad at it...grrr! If any of you would like to try this old fashioned breakfast here is the recipe:

3 eggs
1 c milk
1/4 c melted butter
1 c sifted flour
1 T sugar
3/4 t salt

Blend all ingredients in blender until smooth.
Fry in butter (cooking spray is not recommended)
Sprinkle with sugar and enjoy!

Girls Camp scrapbook pages

I have been enjoying my scrapbook software, I recently completed these pages. Eventually I will be able to print them and put them in the book...right now I can view them as a slide show on my computer. Felicia wanted me to post a picture of her and Heather on the blog so I am. Here ya go F-dawg! There is also one of the Meganator too.
Girls Camp was so much fun! It's nice to have these pages done so I can look back and remember all of the fun times. Our new ward will be camping just as a ward this up coming year and I'm sure that the ward leaders will be able to handle it (besides I'm in primary now so I need to focus on the 7 year olds), so I will have a break next year from the bugs and snakes. But I will miss all the fun and the green of camping in the Northwest.

First snow of 2008

This morning we woke to the first snow of the winter. Here are a few pictures taken in our back yard at 9:30:

Fun at Aunt Dani's

Happy 19th Devon!

Today is Devon's birthday, I'm not sure what he has planned but I am sure that he will pull something together with his friends. We will celebrate as a family on Sunday. He hasn't told us what he would like for his special dinner, I think that Bob is planning a dutch oven turkey dinner with rice.
Heather passed her permit test and as soon as we feel like going down and waiting half the day at the DMV she will be permitted to drive. Look out Utah, family and friends in Washington and Oregon can breathe a sigh of relief. Just kidding I am sure that Heather will be a very safe and conscientious driver...right Heather?

Okay maybe technology isn't so bad

My e-mail is working today so I was able to finish what I wanted to post here. I think that tonight we are going to video a walk through of our home so that you can see whats happening here in Orem. Heather is taking her permit test again after school, she said that she was able to study during her drivers ed class so I hope that she passes this time. They say it may snow a little bit this weekend so Bob is trying to flush all of the water out of the sprinkler system so that we don't get any broken pipes. It's the middle of October...I'm not used to preparing for snow. I don't have Ashton today so I have a lot of time on my hands, I'm going to try to work on several of my various projects. I'll have to let you know how that goes, first I am going for a walk around the ward.

Technology Stinks

I was really excited to create this blog spot for my family to go to to check up on me but my e-mail isn't working so I can't finish a you tube video that I wanted to post here. (grumble grumble grumble) I watched Ashton today for a couple of hours and as his dad put him in the car to go home he called out "Bye Mom and Uncle Bob!" Bob said that the neighbors are going to get the wrong idea if Ashton doesn't learn to call me Aunt Dani. We're lucky because almost all of our neighbors are in our ward so they know that we are the aunt and uncle.