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I have awesome friends, a great husband, and wonderful kids who helped me have a wondeful birthday.
Olivia wanted to go and get her nails done with me for my birthday. Our friends Taylor and Kindra came with us and we had a really fun time.


For my birthday, Jere and the kids brought we me breakfast in bed. Olivia made me a delicious fruit salad and on the tray with the the food were these beautiful flowers and box with a heart necklace in it. They were so thoughtful. They also got me new pajamas, a new blender, and some new cookie sheets. (I really needed some new cookie sheets my old ones looked pretty worn out). Later we went to to Cafe Rio and Cold Stone as a family. Garrett kept asking who else I was going to invite to my party. I think he was disappointed when I said it was just us and Jennifer. But we all had a good time. Then later that night Jeremy and I went out without the kids to Texas Roadhouse. It was a fabulous day.
My friend Melanie also gave me these pretty flowers for my birthday.
I also had several friends and family call me,stop by, send greetings, and cards to wish me a happy birthday. I appreciate all these people!

3 cute kids

I went to look at the images on my camera and found these 3 cute pictures that Jeremy had taken. I really like them. Even the one with Garrett's tongue sticking out. That is so like him anytime you get out the camera.

Bread

Here is my second attempt with the homemade bread. It turned out better than the last ones I made. I used the recipe that Kristi gave me and it worked pretty well. The bread still did not raise as much as I would have liked. I don't know if it is a yeast issue or if I am just impatient. The kids really like the cinnamon rolls that I made with some of the dough.

FUN DIP

This is one way to eat a fun dip

Then when you do you end up looking like this.


Thanks Grandma Doolittle and Grandma Vickie for the fun sweet treats for Valentines Day. The kids were so excited to have a packages in the mail for them.

Notice Devin's haircut we just cut it. He is looking so grown up.

Homemade Bread

I AM HORRIBLE at making homemade bread. I got out the wheat grinder, ground up the wheat and made bread. I used a recipe from a friend. The bread tasted good, very sweet but it didn't raise very well, and was still really doughy in the middle after baking it for a long time.
. I was really hoping for a light airy bread. I used soy lecithin, dough enhancer, and applesauce (all recommended by my friend who makes bread all the time) in hopes to get a great tasting light and airy bread. At least it tasted good. I told Jeremy if we ever had to live off the wheat in our food storage I needed to get way better at this bread making thing. I was going to take a picture of the bread, but I was too embarrassed at how it turned out to even take a picture. Maybe next time.

Legos and Pretzels

This past week for Family Home Evening for the game we got out the legos and we were going to build with them. But the kids had so many little things that they had built we decided to take pictures of all the creative creations and then have them take them apart. I am amazed at some of their designs. I love Legos. The kids get to be so creative and they aren't watching t.v. or playing on the computer. I don't always like cleaning up the mess afterward or finding random legos around the house. Then we had baked pretzels with cinnamon sugar on them for the treat. They are really good.
So I say Baked Pretzels and Legos = A Successful Family Home Evening.

Valentine's Day

Our tradition on Valentine's day is to give the kids some kind of small gift. This year they got little puppies and a red shirt. Then afterward we had Strawberry short cake. YUM! Devin did a get a puppy too but he wouldn't let me take his picture. I really love how the kids made hearts for Jeremy and I this year and taped them on our door.

Playing Rough

Poor Jeremy, whenever he lays on the floor he becomes the kids' personal jumping on toy. I like the kick in the nose from Devin in the bottom picture. I know Jeremy loves every minute of it.

Shannon Hale

I am a big Shannon Hale fan. I have read almost all of her books. I have read some more than once. Last night I got to go to Salt Lake where she was presenting and her her talk. It was great! She was so funny and entertaining. After we got there Jeremy and I were wishing that we had brought Olivia because she would have enjoyed listening to her too. She talked about how she had wanted to be an author since she was 10 years old. Well Olivia also wants to be an author.
The funny thing is that Jeremy came home one day and said, "I am going to a Literacy Conference and the Keynote speaker is Shannon Hale." I was so jealous. I wanted to go.
I asked Jeremy, "So do you know any of the books she has written?"
He replied, "Yeah, didn't she write Ella Enchanted?"
I said, "No, that was Gail Carson Levine."
He said, "Oh yeah, She wrote Beauty."
I said again, "No, that was Robin McKinley."
So I went and got from the bookshelf some of the books that she had written. He knew that I had liked her but didn't know any of the books that she had written. But to go and listen to her you had to be signed up for the conference. So Jeremy, being the nice husband that he is, asked his co-workers if they were going up to hear her on Wednesday night. One of them wasn't going to go so I went and pretended to be her for the night. I was so glad that I went. It was so fun. I love these type of fairy tale books. Someday I hope to be able to write and publish a book of my own and I think I would want it to be a Fairy Tale book like she has done.

A MILLION!

I PASSED A MILLION VIEWS ON MY YOUTUBE VIDEO. WAHOOOOOOOO!

Sweetheart Ball

Jeremy and I went to a dance last night. To get ready for the dance I went and got a new dress and went and got my hair done and I wore my pearls that Jeremy got me for Christmas. We had a really good at the dance. We don't dance very well but it sure is fun and it was fun to try to remember some of the moves from our dance class a long time ago. Jeremy and I haven't been to a dance since before we got married. I think we make a cute a couple.

I wish I had curly hair like this all the time.

Sharla and I went together and got our hair done.
We had a lot of fun with some other couples in our neighborhood who went to the dance too.
Sharla and Eldon CarbineHeather and Zach Mckay
We thought that the BUD Weiser Cups were funny since all of us there don't drink.
Kaylynn and Rex Funk

An Interesting Discussion on Education

It's 19 minutes long, but very insightful:

Paper Back Swap

One of my friends at the book club that I joined was talking about this site.
http://www.paperbackswap.com
At first I was a little skeptical but here is the basis for the site you become a member of the site. You post books that you have that you don't mind getting rid of. Then when you post your first 10 books they give you 2 free credits. You use your credits to pick books that you want. The books shipped to you are free. Then all you have to pay for is shipping your own books which is around $3.00. For every book that you ship you get another credit so that you can pick another book that will be shipped to you. So far I have gotten three books: A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louis May Alcott, The Smoke Thief by Shana Aba, and The Outlaws of Sherwood Forest by Robin McKinnley. I have 3 more that are being shipped to me right now plus I have 3 credits for books that I can pick. And I have 2 more books that have been mailed and as soon as the other books get to where they are going then I will have 2 more credits. I am having fun doing this. Plus when you get a package in the mail with a book it is like Christmas. The first book I got was actually wrapped in Christmas paper.
So Far
I have Mailed booked to:
Virginia
Massachusetts
Tennessee (2)
Indiana
Maryland
Florida
Maine
Utah
California
Wisconsin

Recieved Books From:
Nebraska
Missouri
Alabama

So if you are a book reader this is a fun and inexpensive way to get books.

Nights Out

Jeremy and I lately have been trying to go out on a date each week. So last night we met our friends the Crapos and went out to dinner at Iggies. We always have a lot of fun with them and we laugh a lot.
Last week Jeremy and I went out to Rodizio Grill and then went and saw a really funny movie. We went and saw "When in Rome" It was such a cute funny movie. As we were watching the movie we were laughing out loud.

Sometimes I meet my friend Michelle and we go and hang out. We went and saw Leap Year a couple week ago. It was also a really cute movie. I like romantic comedies. The fun thing about hanging out with Michelle is that we can talk for a long time.

But this coming up Friday Jeremy and I are going to go to a Sweet Heart's Ball in our neighborhood. We use to go to dances when we were dating, we took a dance class together in college, our first date was going to a dance. So we are excited to go dancing again. Well I am at least. I am thinking about going and buying a new dress.

So I am really enjoying going out with my husband. I think it helps us to have a happier marriage.

Funny Math Video

Ma and Pa Kettle- On doing math

We had a teacher work day and we were talking about teaching math. We watched this video. It was pretty funny. I think it is funny that they proved the wrong answer in 3 different ways.

Betsy Ross

Olivia got to be Betsy Ross for a day in for her 3rd Grade Wax Museum. Isn't she a cute little colonial girl. Shee read books, looked up information on the internet to find out information about her. She made a poster, practiced her oral presentation, and got to dress up like her.
Here is Betsy Ross

Here is Olivia dressed as Betsy Ross. Doesn't she look just like her.


Thank you, Mom for sending me the bonnet and shawl

Banana Bread for Dinner

I needed to get rid of some bananas so I decided to make banana bread. Well as soon as Devin and Garrett saw that I was getting the mixer they both wanted to sit on the counter and help. They were excited to help and they were excited afterwards to lick the beater. I use to do this a lot with Olivia and Garrett but I haven't done it as much with Devin. He really likes dumping the things in the bowl. So for dinner that night I had homemade banana bread, homemade applesauce that we had canned a while back, and apple juice. All my kids were loving dinner. It was right up there with Jeremy feeding them cereal for dinner in their eyes.