This week, at I Heart Faces, is “focusing on angles” and I thought I’d give it a try. The girls were having a blast riding their bikes and I got this picture of Ivy.
Check out the other pictures of great angles at I heart faces.
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 Amy's bookshelf: 2024
So so good! Orla and Kate are long-time best friends off on a girls' weekend away. Kate is a bit of a player who is trying to get back at her soon-to-be-ex, causing her to spend frivolously and do drugs and hook-ups. Orla is a new mom ex...
Parts were a screaming 5 and parts were like “what?” And just irritated me. It is a Groundhog Day premise about a family of four - the mom is caught up in her own life and missing all that is going on around her with her kids and then he...
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This week’s photo was taken by my husband. Last week was Scott’s birthday. Neither one of us were real excited about our birthdays this year – maybe it has to do with getting old and trying to watch our pennies a little closer. But, we just didn’t want to make a big deal about them. Scott’s friend, Mark, had made plans to head to the Sand Dunes for a few days while his wife was at a conference. Mark has a trailer that could sleep 5 people and the two of them are always up for an outing in the dunes. This sounded like the perfect way for Scott to spend his birthday.
So, the group left straight from work and took Friday off. Thursday night they did a night ride and then played Carcassonne into the wee hours of the night. Apparently the game was so much fun they played until the generator kicked off at about two. Then they finished the game by the light of a flashlight. If you haven’t played the game of Carcassonne, I highly recommend it. It is more fun than Settlers (or so I’ve been told). It is a relatively quick game – an hour and a half if 6 people are playing. The whole game is only around $60 (but Amazon is currently out of them). The big box (for $60) includes all of the expansions. We haven’t started playing with ALL of the expansions yet, and we’ve been playing at least once a week since Christmas. Scott and I will play it many nights after the girls have gone to bed. Or we’ll let them watch a show and we’ll play. Or they’ll play with us. Ivy is not good at it but Jade is starting to get it. If you are color blind the game is much harder to play – just a quick fyi. Back to the guys and the dunes. They enjoyed the game so much in the evening that they got the table out and played another game during their lunch break. The silly guys thought they might be able to beat Scott – but alas, even with ganging up on him, they couldn’t do it. What a beautiful place to spend your birthday playing a game you enjoy and riding around in the warm spring sun. Well – that’s my photo story and my husband’s best shot. Swing by Cecily and Lolli’s for more…
Hosted by Cecily Last week I mentioned that I needed to build a list of favorite family meals that are easy and quick to make. Then I need to take that list to the store and always have the ingredients on hand. With both me and Scott working full time, more often than not we default to the frozen foods purchased at Costco. (Don’t get me wrong, I won’t stop buying the frozen stuff, I just want to eat it less often). Oh, you are wondering what frozen stuff we enjoy? Well, there are the Hawaiian rice bowls, the chicken taquitos, the beef burritos, the chicken potstickers and occasionally the Rhodes sweet rolls. We eliminated the chicken pot pies from the list when we noticed that 1 has 650 calories. YIKES!
Meal number two – Turkey Chili It’s easy, fast and because it has ground turkey, it is a little bit better for you. But a warning, ground turkey is a little softer than ground beef. The texture kind of bothers Scott. 1 lb ground turkey 1 onion – chopped 4 cups chicken broth 1 can kidney beans 1 can great northern beans 1 can of corn 1 can diced tomatoes 3 Tbsp sour cream
Brown the meat and saute the onions. Then add everything but the sour cream. Simmer for a while – until it is hot and you are ready to eat. Top with cheese and you are good to go. …my wedding day. Today, I am participating in a writing workshop with MamaKat. The prompt that I have chosen to write about it is “If you had to relive a day in your life what day would it be?” I loved my wedding day, and would love to have that day to do over again. There was so much about it that I loved but I have a few important things that I would change. Allow me to start with a list of some of my favorite parts of that beautiful day in May 2001. This was the day that I said “I do” to the most amazing man. I married the man of my dreams and I didn’t settle on a thing. (Even though at 29 years old it was tempting. Oh and yes, I realize 29 is only old outside of the Mormon Utah community). Where I got married was beautiful and perfect. We were blessed with a sunny and warm day, following several long days of heavy rainfall. The rain helped the flowers and the ground cover grow and cover the grey remains of winter. Speaking of flowers, my flowers were amazing. My mom is a wonderfully talented floral designer. She was able to make the bouquet that I had always wanted – white tulips. The rest of the flowers all around were tasteful and beautiful.
Our cake – perfect. My 5th grade teacher became a cake decorator after she left teaching. It was delicious and elegant. Unfortunately the frozen top was ruined when the freezer broke – only months before our first anniversary.
I loved my dress but it was not my dream dress. My dream dress, you ask? Oh that was a Melissa Blackburn original. Unfortunately we had a short engagement and there just wasn’t time for one of her masterpieces. We did get to have the flower girls in dresses from her children’s line. They were beautiful and my girls got to have them as their easter dresses a couple years ago.
I would love to relive that day and be reminded of the love and support that surrounded us that day. The happiness that is reserved for wedding days and births of your children is so intense that you seem to forget it.
So what would I change?
1. We had a very tight budget and my husband wasn’t big on the idea of a great big bash. So for lunch, following the ceremony, we had a barbecue. I honestly don’t remember eating it, but from what I remember hearing it was wonderful. But we were limited by budget to a small number of guests. We didn’t even invite most of our cousins. Because we had narrowed it down to such a small group, there were some important people left off of the guest list. One of my closest, dearest and longest friends was left off the list – and I’ve regretted it always. My parents also left some of their closest friends off the guest list – something that they have regretted as well. 2. The next big thing that I would have changed was that we should have hired a photographer. I have some beautiful pictures from that day that my mom took and that my talented cousin took. But, both of those people were also part of the wedding. It is always worth hiring someone, outside of the family, to focus just on the pictures. I have no bridal portraits. I have no great pictures of the two of us. I’m just lucky that my mom and my cousin are both so talented.
If I could relive it, I would embrace every single moment. I would make sure that I was a gracious and loving bride. If I could capture the excitement of the moment and draw from it every day – I would. It is sad that the biggest and most important days of our lives are so full that we can’t remember the sweet little things forever. Luckily we have pictures to prompt our memories. Or, maybe, it’s just me who doesn’t remember the big days as well as I would like. Either way, those are the reasons I would do-over.
Be sure and visit MamaKat’s workshop and see how other people answered her prompts.
This is my first time participating in Wordful Wednesday. Earlier this week, I shared some of Jade’s disappointment with her gymnastics meet. But, since she actually did a wonderful job (despite her fall), I thought I’d share some of her high points.
For some reason, most of the girls were really struggling with getting their windmills during the meet – Jade missed it during warm-up but hit it during the competition.
Her scale has come such a long way in the past month. It is fun to watch the grown and improvement from one meet to the next.
Finally her vault – somehow her tongue found its way back in her mouth after the big jump.
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