More Fun at Our House!

Like many other fellow Utah Valley Mormon's we've had our hands full with bottling this week. Or is it canning. I never know. We are grateful for the plentiful harvest we've had (and that of our bishop - who gave us some wonderful beans and a wonderful fruit place in Alpine that had yummy peaches and apples (and raspberries soon) - thanks again for the recommendation Jenna!) Needless to say, our kitchen has seen a lot of this...way to work those arms Doug!...and this...salsa (two kinds), applesauce, peaches, apple butter, beans - you name it, we canned it...and this...oh how I love yummy, sweet, soft peaches...and this...apple butter! This is the first time I tried it and I was pleased with how it turned out.and this...peach salsa. I was so pleased with how it turned out. It was actually a little spicy!...and unfortunately, plenty of this...we'll get to that later. My favorite it the Doritos bag that's piled in with all the dishes. Can you spot it? It was usually about 11:30 pm by the time we finished and we are suckers for late night munchies - and anything to keep us awake and going. Don't worry my sistas. I'm fixin' to send you fall packages full of our canned yummies. We have also been doing a lot of fun things and this afternoon had a fun time doing this...oh how I love my girls! We had a fun time wrestling today!...and this...sleeping (kind of)
and this...getting caught pretending to sleep!Last but not least, Sophia was downstairs coloring today and I came down to check on her and she said, "Mom I drew my family!" I thought "yeah sure...we'll see what it looks like anyway." I was so shocked when I saw this! I wasn't drawing pictures like this until 1st grade (not that that says much) I'll have to post a picture that I drew before Kindergarten that my mom has hanging on her wall. It's hideous. She definitely has Doug's artistic talent. Anyway, Doug and his big head are on the right. Me and my droopy eyes (although I as impressed that I at least had eyebrows) are in the middle and the sweet little artist herself is on the left. Lilly was sort of an afterthought and is floating above us. Again I was truly impressed (and I'm just a tad bit biased). It's so fun to see her view of us translated onto a chalkboard.Here's the little artist standing next to her creation. I'm sure this will be the first of many of her standing next to her wonderful works of art!P.S. I signed this little beauty up for preschool the other day. She's going to be going to one a few blocks away and we're both excited about it. We went to check it out the other day and when it was time to go she said, "mom, I want to stay at my school." I thought that was a good sign. While we were walking home (I love that it's within walking distance) I told her that she was going to be at the school by herself and that I was going to be home with Lilly but that she could call me on the phone if she needed me. I asked her if that was okay and she said, "yeah. I'll go to school and I'll call you on the phone." Let's hope that all goes well!

More Birthday Fun!

We had such a fabulous weekend celebrating Sophia's birthday! On Friday we picked up Doug from work and surprised him with a hotel in Sandy for the night. We had a lot of fun up there. We were all in need of a break and we definitely got one! We went to the Mayan for dinner (Sophia only freaked out for about the first 5 minutes) and then we went back to the hotel to swim and Jeffy, Thomas, and Merzy came and swam with us. It was so much fun! We woke up the next morning and had a yummy breakfast at the hotel and then came home and stained our fence. That night James, Tiffany, their cute kiddos, and Tiffany's sister all came down to celebrate Sophia's big day with us. We were going to go the Owlz game that night but the kids were having such a great time playing together that we decided to stay home. We were glad we did because we heard the game was packed!

Here's Sophia lounging at the hotel.Here she is blowing out the candles for the second time.
Here she is opening a present from Grandma Miller. She gave her a cute ballet skirt and matching hair thing.
Here she is posing by the second Blue's Clue's cake I made for her for Sunday night.
Here she is blowing out the candles for the third time (thank goodness she's three!) Another one of her presents came today. Doug found this pool online for about $8 and we couldn't pass it up. Sophia had a great time in it today (before grass got in the pool and she could no longer swim in it).
Hope you all had a fabulous weekend!

P.S. Sophia had dance again today and did great! She went in all by herself and I was able to watch from the window! She did everything her teacher told her and loved every minute of it! She came out so happy and excited about it. It was truly a proud mom moment!

Have a Happy Birthday Sophie!

We had such a fun party today for Sophia's birthday (that's not until Saturday)! It was so much fun that instead of cleaning up from it I decided to blog about it! We had some fun friends come over and she got some nice gifts. Her favorite was the drink and wet baby dolls and she also got a fun book called "When Sophie Gets Angry - Really Really Angry". We had a fun time playing pin the nose on Blue, eating Blue's paw print cake and ripping open the Blue's Clue's pinata (there's a picture with Sophia and the pinata after the party). Enjoy the pics! We sure love our Sophia and are so happy she's 3!
Here's a video of Soph's telling you how old she is.

Here's a couple of bonus pictures. Last Sunday I had way too much fun with the girls' hair. I put Lilly's in 2 tiny piggies and I put Sophia's up in a bun so that she'd look like a princess in her fun princess dress (thanks again for the clothes Liza!).
She also went to dance for the first time on Monday. She didn't like it too much but we're hoping she'll get the hang of it and be more willing to go in the future. I think she still looks pretty dang cute even if she didn't have the greatest time!

Good Ole' Timp Cave

Saturday we had such a fabulous time hiking with cousins up to Timp Cave. Doug and I hadn't been since we were engaged so it was fun to go again with our kids. They loved it too. Sophia didn't freak out as much as we thought she would in the cave so that was a plus. Here's a couple from the trail.
Here's a couple from inside the cave.
The good ole' "Heart of Timpanogos"!
Here we are outside of the cave.
After we got home we had a little belated Birthday party for Jeffy (FEJF). My mom got him this awesome video game cake. Thanks for planning it Lissa and thanks for the awesome execution mom!On Sunday we did more matchers! These dresses were from my brother Stuart's wedding 2 years ago. The dress Lilly is wearing was Sophia's and Sophia's was cousin Jane's. The hat only went with Lilly's dress but of course Sophia had to wear it too.
In other news, after a fabulous sacrament meeting on being prepared Doug and I decided we needed to get busy on the whole food storage thing. We canned more apricots and did some apricot jam. We also canned some beans and black current jam and jelly (so yummy) for my parents. We also did salsa, pesto, more shredded zucchini and I made some zucchini bread. We're very tired from all the canning but are feeling good about what we have saved up. We're definitely grateful for our plentiful garden this summer!Bonus picture time. This is a fabulous replica of the Salt Lake Temple that Doug put together before church a few weeks ago. Sorry that this wasn't your wedding gift Leda. You had to settle for another piece of Doug's original works.

And the winner is...

Doug's mom actually. She's the only one that guessed a tomato. Everyone else had some great guesses though. She wins a jar of salsa but she's going to have to wait until she comes home next summer to get it.

We've had loads and loads of fun with cousins here this week. We've done so much and we truly have loved having them here so get ready for some picture overload! On Sunday we went to my mom's for some yummy food and to celebrate Elizabeth's birthday. Here's the cake I made for her. Thank you Family Fun! (the link of the right for fun cakes and cupcakes has the recipe). I dressed the girls in their matching dresses that they just got (thank you Old Navy stock up sale!) . They looked so cute.My sister also had her boys in matchy outfits so we had to take a picture of the cute cousins in their matchies.The kids all had a blast feeding my mom's neighbor's goats and could not get enough. It was so fun. This was also the first time in a long time that we had so many cousins together (there were 9 of the 17 there) so we had to take another picture to document the momentous occasion. We'll see if we can't get all of us together some day. Maybe for an upcoming wedding? hee hee.On Monday we met for lunch at Max and Cheese and it was fabulous! The kids all had a great time playing with Grandpa and all the toys and Sophia greatly enjoyed her cheesy pasta. See my post a few posts back for more about this awesome place!
I also got Lilly's hair in it's first pony on this day. It's pretty small but pretty cute (you can barely see it poking up behind the bow)! Poor kid had to come to a mom that has too much fun playing with hair!After that a few of us headed up to Park City and had a great time. The Alpine Coaster is awesome! Sophia rode it with me and had a great time. I also got a shot of Jeffy and cute Lexie enjoying Lillers.Tuesday we went to Thanksgiving Point for 2 buck Tuesday. Unfortunately all of Utah County had the same idea. We ended up ditching the dinosaur museum (the line was wrapped around the building) and went to farm country instead. 2 of Doug's sisters met us there as well so we all had a fabulous time riding the horses and seeing all the animals. Here's a few of Bubs and Josh on the horses.This ones for Liza. Thanks again for all the clothes! We love em!The next day we had the Chipman's (our wonderful friends for the Provo Peak 1st) over for dinner. She had acute baby girl a few weeks ago and it was so fun to see them again. Sophia and Emma had a great time playing together.
Finally, last night we got together with the cousins on Doug's side to celebrate birthdays. Andrew and Carson turned 1 recently - my how the time flies! - and we also celebrated Sophia's birthday. It was fun to do this cake for her (thanks again Family Fun) and thanks for all the gifts everyone! After I finished the cake Sophia saw it and said, "I don't like dogs. I love cats!" Sorry Charlie. This is all you're getting.