It's been a year

A year ago today I moved out of my house in Payson and up here to Smithfield. That was quite the day. We had some really good help that morning and it was all done and cleaned in less than 4 hours. Matt took a load up a few weeks before, so what was left fit into Matt's truck, my car and my parents truck. I remember being sad to leave my family and friends, but also looking forward to finally being together with my husband. It was a long day, but we unloaded everything that night. I won't say that I got all my stuff put away though - that took weeks to do! I can't believe how fast the time has gone. It took me a few months to adjust but now it just feels like home!! I am grateful to be able to visit my family and friends as much as I do, and for all the visits I get from them!! It's been a great year and I am looking forward to many, many more!!!


My piano was one of the first things Matt brought in. Once we had everything unloaded he asked me to play something for him in my new music room. This is about the only picture I have of what the music room looked like before I redid everything.

Shelby's baby blessing

We had a terrific time this weekend with all of our family that came for Shelby's baby blessing on Sunday. My family came up on Friday and Saturday and the kids just had a blast playing outside - climbing trees, playing zombie tag, riding bikes (Isaiah learned how to use the peddles on the trike!!) and walking to the dollar store to spend the money that was burning a hole in their pockets! The moms got a chance to visit our favorite store -Sugar and Spice - where we went shopping for our own treasures!
Saturday was Brenda's birthday and we celebrated it in style!! Kara, Dennis and their kids came down from Star Valley and we had tons of pizza, cake and ice cream! It was so much fun visiting and Matt did a slide show of his trip to London, Dubai, Bahrain, and India for everyone. (Matt went on an international study tour with his MBA class the first part of March. He was gone for 11 days touring through these countries visiting the WEIR facilities. He brought back some amazing stories of wealth and poverty. I will post some pictures on the blog and have him share some of his adventures soon!)
Sunday Matt's family arrived and he gave Shelby a wonderful blessing at our fast and testimony meeting. I don't think there was a dry eye among us. It was very special having all of our loved ones there to share that with us. After church we all headed back to our place for lunch. The time for family to leave came too quickly (darn weather - it's supposed to be spring!!) and it was hard to say goodbye. I am so thankful to everyone that came - we love you all so much!!

On a side note: I am happy to report that Shelby is doing much better!! She had some more blood work done this last week and although her jaundice levels are higher than they would normally be at her age, her liver and kidneys are functioning well. Her reflux is also a little better with the medicine she is now taking. And the best news of all.... she slept for 6 straight hours Saturday night!!! I was so thrilled about that I had to share it in the good news minute at church!!

Shelby's Blessing

Learning to cook

Shannon has expressed a growing interest in learning how to cook. So far we have attempted the basics - cookies, brownies and cakes. She loves to chop up vegetables (no more onion tears for me!), in fact she chopped up all the peppers last fall for 6 batches of salsa! Anyway, she is constantly asking me if she can make things. Lately she has been bringing home recipes from school, or achievement days for things that aren't really edible. Such as "rock candy". We tried that last week. It was supposed to crystallize over a period of two weeks and then you could break it up and eat it. Sounded good, but all it did was harden into an ugly purple mess that no one wanted to touch. We threw it out last night. Her next project seemed a little more reasonable - play dough. She wanted to make this yesterday, but I wasn't able to help her because I was either teaching, or feeding and taking care of Shelby. She claimed that she could do it with out my help. I thought, "It's just play dough. How hard could that be?" So I gave her the green light. She went to work... got out a big pan, water, salt (reminder: need to buy more salt at the store today since we are now out), flour, oil, cream of tarter... Oops. Shannon learned a valuable lesson in cooking: Make sure that you have all the ingredients before you start. We tore the cupboards apart looking for cream of tarter. (What is this for anyway?? I have a vague recollection of using it for a pie once... I guess that shows you the extent of my cooking knowledge.) But luck was with us and we found some! That put the smile back on Shannon's face. I helped her at this point in putting in the correct amount of cream of tarter. This is where I noticed the concoction in the pan on the stove. I asked her, "Do you have to heat this?" Blank look. "Shannon, did you read the instructions?" Blink, blink... Uh, oh. Another lesson learned. As I took the recipe from her I scanned through to the baking instructions at the bottom. It read, "Bring water and salt to a boil, let cool then add the remaining ingredients." We looked at all the cold ingredients swimming together in our pan. I couldn't help but think out loud, "What a waste. We don't have anymore salt so we can't make a new batch." Shannon was more optimistic. She was sure that it would still work! She turned the burner on and began to stir. I walked away thinking that I hope it wouldn't harden into plaster and be impossible to clean up. About ten minutes later I heard her holler out to me to come here. I found her kneading a purple mass on the counter. She was beaming! "It worked! It has big icky chunks in it, but it worked!" I was impressed! She continued to knead the purple blob and those chunks disappeared. She proudly packaged it up last night and she has been playing with it all morning!