Odds and Ends..

Now that we are into March, guess I should wrap up our February happenings. Always a quiet month. Winter is starting to wear out its welcome. We have seriously had snow covering our yard since Christmas, finally this week it is warming up!!! Near 60 by next week. That is BIG news for us northern Utahners....yay, spring is in sight!

Way back on Super Bowl Sunday I made a few new recipes that looked fun. Found this recipe for shracknel dip (as they called it). So yummy. Black beans, northern beans, corn, tomatoes, avocadoes, red onions, green peppers...it was alot of work chopping up all those veggies so fine but the end result was well worth it. We grabbed some tortilla chips and used it as a dip, but the dressing you covered over it was so good, I was just eating it by the forkful. Yummy.


And then one of our tried and true family favorites. Lil' smolkies, wrapped in bacon and brown sugar and thrown in the oven. My family of meat loving boys is all over this. Their favorite. These things go fast in my house. This year we went over with some of our friends to a little super bowl gathering. It was fun. They have a family of four little girls, right around the ages of my boys. They have so much fun together. I had no idea who was playing, or who won for that matter. But all the food was delish!!


My big boy got the chance to be star student of the week. Big event amongst First Graders. He was so excited, aren't they all at that age. We spent hours pouring over our photo albums picking out the perfect pictures to display on his poster. He for sure wanted one of him and his best friend/cousin Lance, one of him skiing, one of San Diego and our annual family trip to Island Park, one with his brothers and he wanted to draw a picture of his Lego Ninjagos (to display his love of building legos and his love of drawing). Sweet boy, loved that he had such an opinion and saw a vision of how he wanted it to look. I was to happy to put that vision into a real life poster all about him.


I had the idea to back all the pics in blue, since that is his favorite color. Pretty much the best idea ever. He thought I was the coolest mom for coming up with that idea. Kept telling me that none of the other kids had thought about that on their poster, they had just put the pictures up. Haha. So there you have it, I am pretty much a genius in the eyes of my 7 year old. Love him.


In other 2 year old news...look at the baby. Does he look different? He's sportin' a new do. Finaly decided to spike up his hair like his big brothers. Not sure why I waited so long. Actually, I do know why I waited so long. I was trying to keep him a baby and thought his hair not being done accomplished that. Sadly, he is not a baby though and I think he looks pretty stinkin cute with his hair done.


Along with the rest of the world, we have been passing sicknesses back and forth. Like I mentioned in my Valentines post we all got a bit of a stomache bug. Carson was the last to get it. I kept hoping he would remain untouched but nope, it got him too. He had to miss two days of school because of it. Missing school gives me anxiety. Oh well.


By mid morning of the next day he was doing much better, sitting up in my bed and playing with his brothers. I think he secretly loved his sick days. Who doesn't like to play hooky, lay in your moms bed and be loved on all day long. Sounds pretty fabulous to me. Wish someone took care of me like that when I was feeling under the weather.


Baked up a holiday staple. My homemade oreos...I always alter the frosting to fit each holiday. Pink and white for Valentines. They are another thing that goes pretty fast in my house. Carson alone can pretty much eat the whole stack.


Spring cleaning has begun. I had quite a few people on instagram think I was kinda nutso for starting spring cleaning when there was still snow on the ground. But no, I tell you, I am not crazy. Every week I do a quick cleaning job on my house, just the basics. But come spring I like to deep clean each room. Which means closets, walls, bedding, dressers, light fixtures, blinds, fans...you name it. Obvisously this takes a while. I start in February and work on one room a week in addition to my fast job on the other rooms. So it pretty much takes me til May to get it all done. And when real spring hits, who wants to be stuck inside cleaning? Not me. I want to be out in my yard, getting it all cleaned up. So I start in February...makes perfect sense.


My baby boys have spent quite a few days in their pj's as I have cleaned.


Happy campers surrounded by all their toys and no place to go but home.




No rhyme or reason to these two pics...I just thought they were cute.


A couple Sundays ago, we were staying home for dinner. I recently got a new cookbook that I am way excited about and decided to dig into for Sunday dinner. I basically spent the entire day in the kitchen and while I did that and the baby napped my big boys brought out their watercolors. It was such a great afternoon. The sun was shining, church was over with for the day, we were all in comfy clothes, and I got to bake away as I listened to my boys chatter. Moments like that I know I will never forget. This time while they are young is so fleeting, and I know in a few years from now my heart will ache to have those little boys back. It was a beautiful day.


My food turned out pretty good too. We had roast chicken, loaded mashed potato casserole, broccoli with cheese, parmesan rolls and for dessert cinnamon roll cake. Sorry I didn't get pics of all of it, but it was fabulous. I pride myself on big Sunday dinners. Feels like I am turning into my mama, which is a pretty grand thing. Always happy when I pull off a big meal like that. Go me!


I leave you with this final pic of my cake.....it was divine!