Meatloaf Surprise!!!

Long, long ago when Steven and I were the only members of our family we went and visited Grandma Blake. It was around lunchtime and she asked if we had eaten yet. We innocently said, "No." She then pulled some cold meatloaf out of the fridge and made us cold meatloaf sandwiches. I loved mine. Yummy! Steve was a good sport and choked his down. At a later date I decided to make meatloaf, because what I liked was supposed to be important too, right? Well I made him Scottish meatloaf that had a whole boiled egg in the middle of each small loaf. He said he liked it and seemingly enjoyed it. I have made meatloaf maybe five more times in our sixteen years and everytime he has said, "Why don't you make that one with the egg in it, you know I liked it." Well tonight was the night since Ceci had been asking me all week when I was making meatloaf. She is like me and really likes it. I made 9 individual loaves all with a surprise boiled egg in it. The conversation around the table went as follows: Ceci, "Oh, Mom this has an egg in it. Hum." Baxter cut into his and said, "An egg, wow!" Zane noticed his too. We then had prayer. Noah started to eat his loaf. He then completely stopped, got an amazed look on his face and said, "There is a whole egg in here, and it's not even mixed in or cut up." He looked up at all of us with total surprise. He couldn't understand why we all burst into laughter. We don't know where he was but he obviously missed something. He just kept shaking his head and looking at that egg and we kept on giggling. Steve again seemingly enjoyed his and much to his joy he gets another for lunch tomorrow.

I have been enjoying Christmas break because.....

I have been enjoying my Christmas break because.....
1. I have had time to read.
2. I have had time to make a menu and go shopping for it.
3. I have had time to make meals for my family.
4. My family has been very grateful for the homemade food being placed on the table.
5. I have been able to say "NO" to each of my children as they have asked me if I had homework to do.
6. I have enjoyed Stevie helping me to plant a lily and an amarylis and she has also been helping me cook.
7. I enjoy watching my children and husband enjoy all of the Christmas toys.
8. I have not been thinking about school, well at least not much anyway.
9. I have been filling in my new calendars with all our upcoming important dates.
10. I have spent quality time with my family including G and G and the Stevens.

Bainter Menu

I thought I would post our menu for the two weeks of break and see if anyone ate the same thing or something similar.
Dinner

Chicken enchiladas (no green chilies)
Sweet-n-sour meatballs
Hawaiian Haystacks
Lemon Linguine (new and they loved it)
Aftons Blue Ribbon Chicken
Meatloaf
Cranberry Apricot Pork Roast (new, haven't made it yet)
Puna Style Ribs
Chinese (Homemade sweet-n-sour chicken, wontons, etc.)
Chicken tacos and spanish rice
Porcupine Meatballs (Jackie wouldn't eat these!!!)
Pasta Fagoli Soup
Chicken Noodle Soup

Lunch is not as planned since leftovers occur and sometimes I force my children to eat sandwiches.
Has your menu been close to the same or not? What are some of your family favorites?

Maybe I'll be a Hair Dresser?

Mom and Ceci asked me to dye their hair today. This is the before picture. Mom needed hers done since she had about an inch of regrowth. Ceci told me that she was tired of her highlights and wanted to go back to natural. So the process began.
It was Ceci's turn first. She was a little bit trepidicious. She also complained constantly about it itching. I'm not sure that she will want to try that again!
Next was mom. This is old hat for her. She loves "red".
Ceci sitting aside scratching her head with a comb.
This is the after picture. They both look great!!!! Do you think I should hang up my teaching shoes and put on beautician shoes?

Dad and Tina practicing, "The Holy City"

I'm so sorry that it is sideways, just crank your head so that you can see it better. I forgot that I haven't figured out how to turn a video yet. HUM do any of you know? I also started videoing part way through so only part of the song is here. I was also the page turner so that caused even more technical difficulties. You'll have to imagine the rest:)

"Happy" Thanksgiving

Noah is "happy" that he made a gingerbread house.
Zane is "happy" that he has a mom like me.
Justin and Chancy are really "happy" to get such a fine dinner.
Baxter and McKay are "happy" that McKay can eat with his left hand.
Stevie is "happy" that Ceci curled her hair and Ceci is "happy" that Stevie let her.
Dad and Mom sat on different sides of the table so here they are above and below.
Don't they look "happy"?
Tina and Lincoln looking "happy" too.
Steve and I look "happy" too!

I think we all enjoyed a lovely day. I didn't hear any raised voices. Everyone was helping everyone else. It was definitely a "love"ly day.

Oh those boys!!!

Oh the things I have to endure around here. Just take a gander at what my brothers are up to now.
Zane just loves squishing orange jello through his teeth while eating turkey.
Noah ate so much stuffing that it started to fall out. We tried to tell him he was stuffed, but he wouldn't listen.
I think maybe we'd better stop making orange jello and mashed potatoes. Maybe Baxter was just hiding his braces.
McKay is wondering if his mother would kill him if he tried it. HUM?????

The TRIP

My Surprise Party

Trudy's ramblings on a weird Saturday

I sit here amongst a crew of people that are driving me nuts. All of the boys are disappointed by the storm. They went out yesterday and tied stuff down and made sure that other stuff wouldn't fly away. (We have had problems with the trampoline before) They have been gazing out the windows and watching the forecasts on the TV and computers all day. They have been moping!!! Zane and Noah have gone out and got soaked three times. Stevie even ventured out once, she's been dying to use an umbrella. They wanted to stand in the eye of the storm and see how it would feel. Did they actually think that if it was really bad outside that their mother would let them go out there. I thought that it was funny that it took a downpour for them to go outside and play basketball since that basket hasn't seen any action all summer. Now I sit here in my bedroom with the door shut trying to avoid the noise of the BYU football game in the other room. I personally couldn't get emotionally attached to a football game even if someone offered me 10 new free books! I am glad that the game has seemed to take a turn for the better because the noise has lessoned somewhat. What a relief!!! My TV is turned to PollyAnna, Hallmark channel which is more my speed. Stevie is also roaming the computer chair with me combing my hair and cleaning out my ears. Am I a lucky ducky or what? I actually do enjoy being pampered and my six year old loves to pamper so I guess I am as close to heaven as I'll get during a BYU game. Hope you are all having a great day!!

Stevie's Sunflower

Once upon a time while Stevie was in Kindergarten, sometime around the end of April, she along with her fellow classmates made sunflower green houses and planted three sunflower seeds in each one. She excitedly watched them day by day and became even more excited when her sunflowers were the first to poke out their heads to greet their new world. They quickly reached toward the top of her sunflower house and started to escape from the top. She then brought the sunflower house home and the sunflowers even survived the perilous ride home on the bus. The sunflowers then took up residence on the ledge above our kitchen sink. Her mother finally when they reached about 18-20 inches planted them out in the pots on the deck. They steadily continued to grow and finally just within the last week blossomed. Stevie is so thrilled as am I since I have always feared that once the plants reached home that they all died. Well this year I know that at least three survived!!!! We are so happy!!!!! Maybe later we will even get to enjoy the seeds that we see developing as well. If we do we will share that as well. (I just love lifecycles)

On the note of lifecyles-- Can you believe that we STILL have tadpoles that have not turned into frogs. Had we left them in the pool the kids wouldn't have swam at all this summer!!! I am hoping to take them to school when it starts on the 20th an share them with my class, how exciting hum????

Trip into D.C.

Ocean City

Cub camp and other info

Noah had cub camp this week.  He LOVED it!  He especially enjoyed the bb shooting and archery.  Looks like he also enjoyed the cub wash.  Steve was a den walker for two of the days and he dragged Zane along on the first day to be a helper.  Zane did not want to go, but once there changed his mind and then went the second day without any drama.  Stevie also went the second day and spent the day in the tot lot with one of the teachers from my school.  She really enjoyed herself too.  Baxter and Ceci have been at Scout and Girls camp all week.   Steve went to scout camp after he had finished his two days at cub camp.  I was finishing up my class for the summer, if you are wondering what I did with all that alone time.  I wasn't having fun I'll assure you.  I had 20 assignments due in 15 days.  I kid you not.  A three week graduate class is a killer.  The kids thought that the computer was completely attached to my fingers.  Yesterday, I refused to get on the computer or clean house.  My plans changed slightly when Tina called to ask if she, Halley, and Chancy could come out.  I said sure and flew into a tornado of cleaning just so that I wouldn't be too embarassed.  It wasn't too terrible, but I hadn't done much on the house for three weeks due to previously mentioned activities.  It was so nice to see Halley again and Tina and Chancy too of course.  I love it when they come to visit.

The Three Musketeers

My kids are enjoying the pool.  I am enjoying it a lot more too since I changed it over to a salt system.  The pool stays crystal clear and all I had to do was dump 110 pounds of salt into it and start the machine.  (Well actually Steve and Baxter put in the salt and connected and started the machine, but I purchased the stuff!)  The hardest part this year has been to keep destroying the birds nests under the deck so that the birds won't swoop past and poop in the pool.  Yes you read it right--poop in my crystal clear pool.  I have had to go out and scoop poop.  The kids think I am terrible to destroy nests, but I say too bad!!  We also have a resident frog living in the wall of the pool where the metal posts go around the pool at the top.  He is a hold over from when the pool was full of tadpoles or polliwogs whichever you prefer.  Steve wanted to wait to get the pool going until they had all turned into frogs, I said, "No way!"  We compromised and took some of them out and put them into a tub and a pondish thing and then let the rest drain into the grass.  The birds loved them.  I was happy to see them go, Steve wasn't so happy.  But I'll tell you what, it's been almost over a month and those little polliwogs (my preference) are still swimming around in their respective places.  Stevie told me just yesterday that she thought she saw some legs growing, I'll have to go check.  Just think, my kids would have still been waiting to swim.  HUMMMMM I'm sure glad we didn't wait.

Pool pests

Here is the evidence of those rascally polliwogs.  We had left about six inches of water in the pool over the winter so that the pool wouldn't blow away during storms.  Well the storms whipped around so much that Grandpa couldn't keep the cover on and then finally it just split and broke.  By the end of the winter season the pool was almost all the way full again and we had become a rest stop for frogs to lay their eggs.  The whole pool was just swimming with them.  WE HAD TO DO SOMETHING!!!

Our 16th Wedding Anniversary

We got married June 16th, 1992 in the Manti Temple. The only one that objected was Halley who just couldn't understand why we wanted to ruin her birthday! What a beautiful day, even with the light sprinkling rain.
Boy don't we all look young, no pun intended.

Anita, Glen, Steve, Trudy, Cecilia, and Sid at the open house in West Valley City.

Here I am feeding Steve some cake. He sure did enjoy it!!!

Trying to catch up!!

Well, my two master's classes have come to an end and my next doesn't start until this next Wednesday. I am going to try to catch ya all up to what we have been doing in our lives. Hang on, it is going to be a speedy ride!!! By the way, I sure do LOVE looking at all of your blogs, it helps me pass time when I don't want to start an assignment or I just want to get away from it all. I'm not the best at commenting though and will try to do better in that department. Trudy

Newest Project--Tree House

Steve and the boys and sometimes Stevie are engaged in building a treehouse. Not even just an ordinary one, but a huge one. Maybe the kids will move out when it's done and stay there. The treehouse will have a main treehouse and then a rope bridge crossing over to a smaller one. They are all having fun working on it together.

Yuck!

Me letting a huge cockroach crawl up my arm during Career Day! I had to be a good example for my little ones. Even so, Stevie refused to touch any of the live things.

Anniversary Trip

Steve and I celebrated our anniversary early this year. I am going to be embroiled in classes during the real event so we took off early. Steve had heard of this place called Smith Island. He became intrigued and spent time researching it on the internet. He then rented a cottage for three days for us to stay in. On Friday, May 16th we got up and left the house by 7:30 am. We then drove 3 1/2 hours to Crisfield, MD. There we caught the mail boat for a 45 minute ride out to the island. It is located out in the Chesapeake Bay. We really enjoyed the ride. We got to the island and were met by the lady that takes care of the cottage. She took us for a ride around the island and then to the cottage, the ride took all of 5 minutes. Small island. The cottage was nice. The islanders almost all have golf carts to get around in and some have vehicles as well. The cars are in a state of disrepair and are all very loud, they also do not have current tags. When the islanders know that a law man is coming, they all park their cars because if it isn't moving it can't be sited. We enjoyed our restful time there and were impressed by how friendly everyone was. We enjoyed learning more of the history of the island and eating crab cakes. Steve went out on a boat tour, while I stayed being a little sickish. He saw snowy egrets, a peregrine falcon, some osprey, herons, sandpipers, tons of sea gulls, and even goats. He loved it! We really enjoyed our time together. Oh, we also tried the famous Smith Island cake. To tell the truth it just tasted like homemade cake with frosting, nothing special.

Mother's Day

Tina on Mother's Day. She is enjoying a rousing game of UNO.
These are the cards that my children made for me. They presented them to me as they served my breakfast in bed. I have convinced them that all that I require is toast and jam. Two years ago I was served blackened scrambled eggs. Baxter told me that he was really sorry but that the lid of the pepper had come off. Tee Hee
I love the inside of this card. When I open up the card everything is upsidedown and she is even in my class. How did that one get by me?? It was a pleasant surprise.
Mom on Mother's Day. Doesn't she look nice?
Me on Mother's Day. I hate my hair by the way. It has finally grown out a little, but not enough. I got scalped at the hairdresser!