Do you ever do something you absolutely love and haven't done it for a long time and remember how fabulous it is?... Well I keep thinking how much fun I had skiing on Tuesday. My friend Sarah and I went here and do you see all those cute little black diamonds?---Oh yeah--we tore it up! It was awesome! Everything about the day was great---except the 6$ slice of pizza and
5$ diet coke. but... it was good times. Yes most of you have heard me complain about my sore knees from the bumps and my sunburned face from the beautiful sun----(I'm peeling for the second timeright now) but every bit of it was worth it. I havent had that great a ski day in a long time. Woooo!

So what else have I been doing?-----You might think I'm a good wife and spend time with my hunny....or youmight think I'm a good mommy and spend lots of quality time with my critters....or you might think I'm a good housekeeper---no you all know I'm not a good housekeeper--anyway the answer to all of those is NO! All I have done for the past week in my coveted spar time is.... ROCK MY HEART OUT!! Thank you so much Zalia--I'm blaming it all on you!!

GuitarHeroIII is extremely addicting even if you can't stand listening to those horrible metal headbangers & whatever they call "music". I'm totally hooked. I have completely mastered -- well--maybe that is not such a great term--barely squeeked through the entire easy level and I'm on number 5 song on the medium. This is really stupid--I think about it even whn I sleep. All I see is red, yellow, and green circles coming at me and my fingers move uncontrollably. I'm a lost cause. Yes Noelle I did change my music for you--no more La la la la--at least not immediately, it is still there though...

My parents are coming for dinner tomorrow and I still don't even know what I'm going to fix, and my basement is a disaster. Oh well, maybe I'll have a little time to jam tomorrow before church.....

I think I figured out the linking thing Noelle.

I survivied!!

I didn't ever think it would be over--but here it is. Yeah! We actually survived the audit. We passed with flying colors--not even one major violation (never happened before). Oh yah Uh huh! We did awesome. So now back to the grind...



Was that really Easter that happened ysterday? It seemed like it came and went without it ever reeally being here. I was a little occupied this last month--but WOW! Karson begged me to put up the Easter decorations--so I did--well some of them anyway--Saturday afternoon. Now its Monday and they need to come down.
I'm so lame!!
The Easter Bunny did stop at our house this year. he brought Guitar Hero III for the Wii. (I'm taking you down Zalia! We need to have a rock off--when I get good of course!) Now if you thought we spent too much time in front of our television--you were wrong.



We did something a little fun this year at my mom & dad's. We had an Easter egg Roll. Here are some photos. It was pretty fun. All of us lined up and nudged the eggs to get them started and it ws a rollie pollie race. Fun!! Everyone had a good time. Then we all went into the backyard and had our annual egg hunt for the kids. We have 10 eggs a piece and all eggs are a different color. So the kids only get to find their own eggs. It's really fun cuz we get to hide the older kids' eggs in really hard places. In fact--Mom usually finds 1 or 2 eggs in the middle of summer weeding :) This year it will be an orange one. Eric (13) couldn't find his last egg. (neither could any of us who hid them) Traditions are so great!!

So I took today off to spend with the critters before they went back to school. But--Mom got sick on Friday when she was planning on having a cousins sleep over (she does this every St. Patrick's/Easter/Spring break) so she changed it to today. Hmmmmm. Whenever I wish for a day to have to myself I always have a huge long list of what I would like to do. But now when it's here..... I slept in. I read. I took a shower. I went to breakfast with my honey. I played guitar hero--oh yeah I'm on tour and passed 9 songs and now I only have to battle some dude before I can go on tour again but my fingers are too tired to play that anymore. I downloaded 3 disk fulls of photos off of our memory cards and depositted them to their apropriate files. and then I decided to blog. So here I am. What I really need to do is what I am not even doing. You know--a months worth of mail stacked on the table, cleaning my terribly cluttered house.... That list is always endless. Now I think I'll order some sandals from Land's End and then maybe go to the temple. Or read a little more. Maybe make some brownies. Wow. So many choices :)

Soup Social & Cake Auction

On Saturday night we had a really fun night. Every year for the past ~7 years our ward has had a soup social. Everyone brings a pot of soup to share and we have hot scones. YUM! It's a great time to socialize and eat yummy stuff. This year I brought my favorite soup. Mexican Chicken Corn Chowder. MMMmmmmmm. This year we had a cake auction for the cub scouts--to raise money for the cubbies to go to camp and other fun stuff. It was a booming success! They made just over 800$. (Right Noelle?) There were some FANTASTIC cakes--I should've brought my camera. I spent 31$ and was greatly rewarded. Noelle's cake was absolutely amazing!! I felt silly only bring my salted nut roll bars--but they brought in quite a bit :) I've had multiple requests for recipes---so here they are.

Mexican Chicken Corn Chowder

1-1/2 lbs chicken 1 (16oz) can of creamed corn
1 onion, chopped 1 (4oz) can chopped green chilies
3 TBL butter 2 cups half-and-half
1 cup hot water 2 cups shredded Jack cheese
2 chicken bouillon cubes ¼-1/2 tsp cayenne pepper or Tobasco
1 tsp cumin 1 ripe tomato, chopped

Cut up chicken into bite-sized pieces, cook until firm with onion and butter. Dissolve bouillon in water and add to chicken with cumin. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes. Add corn, chilies, half-and-half, cheese, and pepper/sauce. Cook until cheese melts—Do Not boil or cream will separate. Add chopped tomato and serve immediately.



And for dessert--these are great. Russell loves them cuz they don't have any chocolate in them--but I just thought hmmmmm they would be even better dipped in chocolate... What do you think??

Salted Nut Roll Bars

Yellow cake mix
1 egg
2/3 cup melted butter
4-5 cups mini marshmallows
2/3 cup light corn syrup
1 pkg Reeses Peanut Butter chips
¼ cup butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 can (or a little more) salted roasted peanuts

Mix together cake mix, egg and 2/3cup melted butter.
Spread onto jelly-roll pan. Bake at 375 for 10-12 min.
Or until lightly browned. Spread mini mallows on top
Of crust, and bake another 5-6 minutes until puffy.
Cool completely. Melt together corn syrup, peanut butter
Chips, vanilla and ¼ cup butter. Spread evenly on top
Of marshmallows. (do this quickly because it will set up)
Sprinkle nuts on top. Let set a few hours before cutting.
ENJOY!!

Are you ready for Easter??

Just thought I'd share a funny with you i got today and just chuckled. Ha ha ha ha










If you haven't purchased your eggs yet I suggest you do so soon. Hard boiled eggs are much easier to peel if they're old. FYI :)

This is cool!!

OK guys--did you notice my new addition??? the little slideshow in the left corner--way cool. Found out about it from a friend's blog. Go to picasa.com. Here are the photos from the last 2 BBall games. Way to go girlies!! They worked sooooo hard and had lots of fun--but alas--did not go on to the championships. They looked awesome as you can see. Well you can kind of see because it is pretty darn hard to take photos of rapidly moving subjects (they had really quick motion skills :)) Well enjoy! Deb is it ok if I'm displaying photos of your kin?? hope so--if not please let me know. It is a really cute pic though.

You Go Girls!!

Way to GO!!!! You girls Rock! These beauties won their 2nd regional

girls basketball game tonight--Wu Hoo!!!!

You should've seen how hard they worked--and they had fun!--well

at least they looked like they had fun. These 6 girls are truly amazing!

The other team came out and unfortunately dominated the first quarter,

but they must have gotten a touch of altitude sickness

(four of them were at least 5'11")

cuz they couldn't touch us the rest of the game!!

You girls were all team players and it was so exciting to be there cheering you on.

We hope nobody was offended from the loud cheering section.

Sorry.

I'll try to keep Michelle under a little more control tomorrow :)

I'm charging the good camera for tomorrow's game as well. I took about 32 photos--only 2 were salvagable due to the quick moves and skills of these hotties!!

Boom Baby!!

It's totally weird that I don't have a thing to blog about....My brain is exhausted from another solid week at work, and so is my butt. It is so sore from sitting in front of my computer at work--the last thing I want to do is sit in front of my computer at home. Oh well.


We did have a bit of news this week--Russell got laid off....again..... Hopefully this time it won't be for as long. The market is pretty good right now and he has a couple of companies that may be interested already. It would be nice to have him home and do some things though..... I can think of a few things to keep him busy for months--but we do need the income--and the insurance--:) I woke up this morning to the sound of talking and laughing from Kamryn's room---this is what I found. Doesn't Russell look great in purple?




















Yes--Kam still uses a binky to sleep--disgusting isn't it. Dr. Bean says let her have it and wouldn't it be so wonderful for each of us to have something so comforting. I just roll my eyes. We've tried everything, bribery, threats, exchanging for different items....but no go. It is still there. Maybe when she goes to girls camp she will break the habit.


Here's a link to the Wiggles' Taba Naba--Kam's favorite song. (we all know the actions too) It's pretty catchy if you have to listen to it 376 times. It's what I'm listening to right now as a matter of fact. Enjoy!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UgyBFdppm48

Sunday Yummies

March 2nd--Happy Birthday Martha!! Hope your day is great!

I was thinking about a fun little post by the name of Mama's Kitchen--and every week or so add a recipe I love or a new on I am trying out......but that's way too much work--and commitment for the moment. Sooo I had the most wonderful little goodie at our payday potluck lunch at work. (Thanks Pam!) She got the recipe from Good Things Utah. And I experimented on my family. Everyone loved it!--the only problem was trying to make the decision of what to put on top of it--apple pie filling or berries. My vote was definitely the berries--kind of the tart with the sweet--nice little utopia in the mouth action. So here it is:

Sopapilla Cheesecake

2 pkgs refrigerated Crescent Rolls

1 80z pkg. cream cheese

1 tbl. vanilla

1 1/2 cup sugar (divided)

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup butter (I used less)

Topping of your choice

Press 1 pkg. crescent rolls into 9 X 13 pan (or a little larger). Mix cream cheese, 3/4 cup sugar and vanilla; spread over rolls. Place 2nd pkg of crescent rolls on top of mixture (pat thin to cover). Melt butter; mix with 3/4 cup sugar and cinnamon then pour over top, and spread to edge. Bake at 350* for 20-25 minutes until brown. Serve with topping.

Topping: fresh fruit, frozen berries thawed, any can of pie filling, ice cream topped with crushed cinnamon toast crunch cereal (or cinnamon & sugar), or just eat plain.

Wow! the possibilities are endless.

Do not cover tightly or it will get soggy. (yah right--like there's gonna be anything left.)

Yum Yum!! Caution--you may ingest more than you intend to. My brother ate 4 pieces very easily until I told him what was in it. Mmmmmm.