What a Fun Day!

A fun day was had by all in our house yesterday. Doug and Sophia got to go fishing with grandpa Wilkins and cousins and Lilly and I stayed home to can. I made raspberry jam, chocolate raspberry desert topping (delicious!), plum jam, peach pie fillling, peach salsa, salsa verde, tomatillo salsa, zesty salsa, and tomatoes. It was quite the project! Doug did help me with the 4 salsas after he was done fishing and a quick trip to the temple. I started the tomatoes around 9:30/10 pm and then saw that they had to process for 85 minutes! Does anyone have a different recipe for tomatoes or does it really just take that long? Anyway, needless to say I'm grateful to have all this done but not grateful that I finished so late. My favorites from the day are the peach salsa and chocolate raspberry sauce. I'm pretty sure that they're things my food storage is in dire need of. Everything I made came from this book. I love it and would highly recommend it! Doug and Sophia had a great time fishing! She couldn't stop talking about it and was pretty excited to go. She had a hard time sleeping the night before and was even willing to get up at 6 and go. She even caught a fish and was so proud. Doug caught 3 and was also so proud because he caught the most out of anyone.

Here's Sophia and cute Bridger waiting for the fish to come in. I like that I got a good action shot of JD in the background.

The cute fishermen.

Here's Sophia with the fish she caught. The fish seeking revenge on Sophia.

Scofield Resevoir

Watching her line.

Here's a random from last week. Sophia has been obsessed with stories lately. She's constantly asking us to tell her a story. We usually end up telling her some story from Doug's childhood like how his mom hated to put socks and shoes on him because he always complained about "the bumpies" (I wonder where Sophia gets it from) or when his parents dropped him off on the side of the road in Nebraska and drove away (both true stories). I guess we'd had enough of picking on Doug and so I told her about how when I was little and I loved to set up all my animals and have school. She decided that it sounded fun enough to give it a try. I was working on something downstairs and came up to find them doing this. I love when they play together! The happy assistant. (She would not look at the camera because she was so intent on making sure her baby was looking at the camera.)The class. I love how she included the princess mirror she got for her birthday. What a great 4 year old! She starts dance again tomorrow and preschool again next week. We're both excited about it!

Birthday Par-tay

Warning: This post contains a lot of pictures in no particular order.

Yesterday we had a fun princess party (a little cliche, I know) for Sophia's Birthday. Her actual day is today so it worked great to have a party yesterday. Here we are waiting for guests to arrive.

Here's the birthday girl in her new princess jammies.

The highlight of the party was a visit from Cinderella herself! It was so fun to have her there!

She even brought Sophia a Cinderlla crown - so cute!

Another cute princess

Don't laugh too much but here's my attempt at the cake. Doug is pretty sure it belongs on Cake Wrecks so watch for it there. It's supposed to be Cinderella's carriage and I think it turned out okay. Not great, but okay. My great friend Nancy is still away for the summer so this is the best I could do without her.

Here she is blowing out the cake.

Opening gifts.

The loot. I think we could have used a few more princess items.Here's all the friends with Cinderlla.

Cinderella and Sophia's friend Rachel.

This was Sophia's expression when she first saw Cinderella. She wasn't overly excited but she also wasn't screaming so we were pleased. She was a little nervous about Cinderella coming a few weeks ago and I told her it wasn't a scary thing and that it would be fun. She thought about it for a minute and then said, "but is she bringing her stepmother?". I assured her that she wasn't and so she was okay with it. The night before we went to an Orem Owls game and Sophia was totally freaked out by the owl and we had to leave early. Doug was saying that she would probably react the same way to Cinderella at her party. Sophia assured him that she wouldn't be like that because Cinderella talks and is not as big as a mountain.

Cute shot of the Lils.

We also played Pin the Crown on the Princess (although she looks a little like Miley Cirus). Thanks again fro all the princess party goods mom! Unfortuntately the mask that came with the game didn't do the greatest job of covering eyes (or Will is just really good at this game).

The snack table. I think the rose suckers were a hit!

Here's the backdrop for taking pictures with Cinderella. My mom had all this stuff. It was amazing!

The birthday girl with her favorite soon-to-be aunt Lexie!

Iron and Wine

Last night we headed up to Salt Lake to see these guys as part of this.

Instead all we saw was this


Except for I didn't so much have a view of the stage thanks to my being vertically challenged (I had to raise my hands really high above my head and jump to take this shot). I had a better view of everyone's backs. I think we'll stick to paying for concerts from now on to avoid the crowds.

Bit by the Bug

So as much as I hate to admit that I follow Utah County trends I've really gotten into couponing. I've not that great at it (yet) but I feel good about it. Doug and I realized I'm not necissarily spending less but we're definitely getting about twice as much food/household items. There have been some pretty good sales lately and we're totally stocked up on shampoo, body wash, and toothpaste to get us through the millenium. I'm not as good as my amazing sister-in-law but then again we don't have a Harris Teeter with triple coupons so I have to settle for Albertson's and their double coupons. Anyway, I get most of my good deals from She Shops Smart and Grocery Smarts. I know I'm evil for not doing Savvy Shopper like everyone else but I like the Grocery Smarts method better because you only clip the coupons you need. It works for us. Anyway, I've loved the She Shops Smart website and all the deals that they post. It's nice to at least know about the deals even if I'm not taking advantage of everyone. They also do occasional giveaways and I won one! Here's what I won. I'm excited about it. Especially the bamboo mats!

Sweet Deals!

Before I get into the sweet deals from this week here's a random from Sophia. She worked very hard on this project last week. She cut out a piece of wrapping paper all by herself and then very caredully layed each of these things out on the paper. She then came to get me and showed me what she had done and asked "can you wrap it now?" Now to the deals. Deal #1: I've gotten into couponing and there were some pretty good deals in the stores last week but I'm not going to post about how much I saved (cause I also spent a lot). Sunflower Market had peaches for $0.39/lb and I thought that was a pretty good deal. I called to see if they'd sell me a whole box of peaches and they said they would set one aside. I went in the next day to pick it up and they told me they don't hold fruit for customers and that it's just first come first serve. Because of that they were out of the peaches on sale. The worker told me though that since someone had told me they had a box for me they would give me a box of white peaches instead. Have you ever had a white peach? They're delicious. They're much sweeter than a yellow peach. Anyway, I was more than happy to take home a 25 lb box of white peaches for $10 instead of yellow ones. They canned pretty nicely as well.

Deal #2 The scrapbook sale that I blogged about a few months ago took place again this past week. They had good deals again and I got some good things. They also had a seperate sale going on where you could fill a bag for $4 and a box for either $15 or $25. I opted for the bag and got a ton! It's a little hard to see but I seriously crammed a lot in that tiny bag.

My friend went back later that afternoon and told me they were no longer doing the bags because people were fitting too much in them. We went back the next day and they had smaller bags for $6. I still filled one and got quite a bit. When I got the $4 bag I was able to stuff about 12 packs of die cuts into the bag. I pulled a few (65) out of the bags and put them on paper for a little book for Lilly. So cheap!

When I was there the next day two of my friends filled one of the $15 boxes. We came back to my house after and unloaded it. Here's what they were able to fit inside:

It's a little hard to see but they had over 65 packs of cards (with 4-5 cards/pack) a bunch of stickers, a stack of paper, a handful of die cuts, 5 gift bags, and a bunch of single cards. It was crazy! They were pretty much giving the stuff away.

Here's a close up of all the cards. We figured out each pack was about $0.20 a piece without counting all the paper, stickers, and bags.

I also got some wall art that I used for my farm window instead. (Don't hate me Jen! Sorry that I didn't let you make the flowers for me). I thought it turned out pretty cute. Thanks again for the suggestion for how to arrange it mom!

They also had a cheap table in the other sale. I got the Happy Halloween metal holder for $2 and each of the albums (the blue and pink ones) for $0.50 each!

They also had cute pressed flower key chains and push pins for $0.10! They're having this sale again in 2 weeks. Let me know if you want details. It really is not one to miss.

Here's a bonus fun thing we did lately. Sophia and I made this alphabet book for her using pictures from magazines. She asked me to start cutting out letters one day and so we thought it would be fun to make an alphabet book. She had a great time looking for pictures and I thought it turned out pretty good.

Bits of Randomness

Here's some random happenings from our last little while. My mom and I started up our quilt class again. The theme for this quilt is "Flowers from my Garden". Here's the first flower. I loved it! I'm so exicted for this quilt!

Speaking of flowers, my sweet husband gave me some real ones last week. He's the greatest! I thought he vase was pretty cool too.

Last week we went to the zoo with some friends and cousins. Here's Sophia's friend Rachel on a polar bear. Random story about Rachel: Last week I asked Sophia who she wanted to marry (seeing if she answered "Will" since Will had already decided he'd marry Sophia. She thought about it for awhile and then answered "Rachel". I told her that she couldn't marry a girl and that she needed to pick a boy. She then said "Max" (who is Rachel's dog). Thank goodness she's not going to be getting married for awhile!)

Here's Sophs on the other polar bear.

Sophia's fav cousin Bridger.One night last week the girls put these bowls on their heads and thought they were so funny. It was hillarious becuase Lilly could get the metal one over her fave just right and it would stay there. She kept walking around crashing into everything. She was laughing her head off and so were we!

Last but not least, we have cousins in town! My sister Melissa and her boys (husband included) are in town for the next few weeks. Sophia has loved having Josh here and Josh has been a good sport to have tea parties with her. My brother-in-law and his brothers have a little band and they had a backyard concert over the weekend. It was such a blast! I'll post pictures from that soon.