Catching up!

I just blogged 5 posts (6 including this one) so if you're just noticing the new blogs, there are 5 of them. Enjoy!!!

Book Club

I'm in a fun book club with two ladies. It's great because it's easier to schedule get-togethers when there are only three calendars. It's also fun because we're great friends! This past book we read was my suggestion. It was "We're Just Like You Only Prettier - Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle" by Celia Rivenbark. It's hilarious!! When we get together to discuss the book, we have dinner and we like to match the theme of the book with the dinner. Since this book was about southern things, we had a good southern meal.

We had an amazing beef brisket, collard greens, black-eyed pees, salad, corn bread and a homemade blackberry lemonade. It was soooooooooo good! Then for dessert we had an incredible peach and rhubarb cobbler with vanilla ice cream. Jealous? You should be.

Or you could be jealous that you're not in a book club with these two amazing and wonderful women.

JT Reunion

Each year Hutch's Dad's side of the family has the Jorgensen/Taylor Family Reunion. This year Hutch's sister Tifany, her husband and us were in charge. We were lucky enough to have plenty of family members help out.

Here is Hutch driving us to Idaho. My parents let us use their trailer.

Agent P is relaxing in the back watching a movie. We did pretty well on the long drive.
Since we were involved in planning we didn't get to spend much time together and a family doing stuff. We did, however, get to go on a mini-hike.

Hutch helped Agent P up the mountain. We actually had to help him slow down because he just wanted to run straight up.

The view of our campground. It was a very beautiful location. Hot, but beautiful.

Agent P trying to eat a rock. He thought it was funnky to pretend like he was going to eat it.

Me and my sweetheart!
Here is a video of Agent P hiking. It's funny that even a pile of dirt is a slide to him.

Coming back down the mountain. P preferred to ride down the mountain on daddy's shoulders.

There was a great climbing treen in our camp. Agent P enjoyed sitting in the middle and relaxing with a lolly pop.

Defending his tree. He has a stick and a sucker and knows how to use them. :)

Swinging on the tire swing. He only rode this once because he didn't like that he couldn't hold his sucker and swing at the same time.

Helping Uncle Vondell put the cooker together. They have their own language. P would talk to him with his gibberish and Vondell would answer back in the same gibberish.

Hanging out in the trailer, coloring and watching Toy Story.

Heading home after a long and fun weekend.

Agent P's 2nd Birthday!!

Agent P turned 2 years old this year. I can't believe that my baby is already 2. He is growing up way too fast. Luckily he's not too grown up to cuddle with me. We had a Dr. Seuss party for him at our house. We invited lots of family and friends. He loves having people over, especialy when they bring him presents. :) (this will have a lot of photos, enjoy!)

The pile of presents. He got A LOT of gifts. He is loved!

This is our backyard. We set up tables and canopies for everyone to sit under and eat their lunch. We set up Dr. Seuss books for the centerpieces and hung different colored paper lanterns.

Here are some family members waiting for the party to start. I used the same "Happy Birthday" sign that I made last year. Hanging from the ceiling are quotes from different Dr. Seuss books. We also had the movie "The Cat in the Hat" playing on the TV.

For lunch we served Green Eggs and Ham Sandwiches. The eggs were very tasty! After hard boiling them I cut them in half and put the yolks in a bowl and put the whites in a bowl of water with green food coloring and let them sit for a bit.

After lunch we played some games. This one was "Pin the Hat on the Cat". A special thanks to Stephanie for printing the cat out for me.

Even the grown ups played along.

The birthday boy preferred to sit and watch the games and read a book.

More family watching the games.

The winner of pin the hat on the cat! He won two rackets and a ball for playing with in the pool.

The birthday boy steeling candy. We had a small candy buffet for everyone.

The other game we played was a fishing game. I cut out pictures of fish (One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish) and had them in two bowls. We had two teams and each team had to fish out one fish, run to the end end and put it in the bowl. The first team to get all of their fish to the other side won a basket of candy bars.

It was finally present time. P had fun opening his presents. Then he opened the present from his mom and dad. His very own vacuum!

The boy loves to vacuum. After opening that present, that's all he wanted to play with. He didn't want to open anything else.

He's crying because I gave the vacuum to Uncle Jamie to take out of the package. He didn't understand that it needed to be taken out of the box and put together. Jamie said he has never felt so much pressure to be fast at opening something. He was nervous. Agent P didn't care to open anymore presents until I opened this one for him from Grandma and Grandpa Beardall.

Buzz and Woody dolls from Toy Story. He was excited to get them. He stopped thinking about his vacuum for about a minute. Then he realized that they had to be taken out of the box too.



He finally got to play with his vacuum. He was very happy about that. I'm surprised he didn't want to sleep with it. But then he did have his Buzz and Woody dolls to sleep with.

Then we got to sing Happy Birthday to him and he blew out his candles. He loves blowing out candles. When we're at someone else's birthday, we have to hold him back so he doesn't blow out their candles. Isn't the cake awesome! I wish I had a better picture of it. I'll have to get one from my mom. She made it. It's the Cat in the Hat's hat. Around the rim of the hat are prints of Dr. Seuss books printed on edible paper and put on fondant. It was a really fun day!! Happy Birthday Agent P, we love you!!





Midvale Elementary

I went to Midvale Elementary when I was a child. It was a great school and I had some wonderful teachers. I met a lot of my friends there that I'm still friends with today. They're tearing down Midvale Elementary to building a new one a block away. So they had an open house to celebrate the school. My friend Jessie and I went. We've been friends since first grade. In fact, this is the room we met in. Our teacher was Mrs. Kemp.

This is the inside of the classroom.

This is outside the classroom. Everything seems so small now. I remember feeling so overwhelmed at the size of the school when I was little.

This is the first stage I ever performed on. We had a program every year. There was even one year when Margo Watson came and led a special choir of students from every grade for a special concert. I was in the choir (pretty much anyone who wanted to be in it was in it) and my mom played the piano for it. Such memories!!

Agent P loves the stage!! Here he is performing on the same stage as him mom did many years ago.

A Day with Thomas the Train

I'm very behind on my blogging. So please bare with me while I post 5 or 6 posts today.

A few months ago we took Agent P to the Heber Valley Railroad for A Day Out with Thomas the Train. He really loves trains or "choo choo's" as he calls them. So Hutch and I, my parents and Hutch's mom all went to ride Thomas the Train.

Here's Agent P and I in front of the train poster.

P's favorite part was riding on the train. He got very impatient waiting for it to arrive.

Waiting with Grandpa to be able to get on the train. You can tell by Agent P's face that he does not like waiting.

Looking out the train window. (side note, yes my child is on a leash. Don't judge. You would too if you saw how fast he runs.)

So excited to be riding on the train!!!

Looking at everyone outside the train.

There were many activities for kids. Right after the train was a hay maze that he loved running through. This is P playing with bubbles. He LOVES bubbles. He also got a train temporary tattoo that you can see on his arm. He loved showing it off to everyone.

Afterwards we went to an ice cream shop that has a train going around the ceiling and this train outside. He thought it was fun to climb all over it.

Playing with Grandpa again. They are buddies. It's usually the two of them against the rest of us. :)

Cookie Monster

This is Agent P's theme song. I love this re-make of "Call Me Maybe". Agent P is our own little Cookie Monster. He's so adorable when asks for one that you can't help but give him as many cookies as he wants. (I think he knows he's that cute).

50 Shades of Magic Mike

I came across this blog by Melissa Jenna talking about the book 50 Shakes of Grey and the movie Magic Mike. She is a Christian and she points out that these two things are inappropriate. Please read her blog. I do agree with her. I've never had the desire to read that book or watch that movie so it's nice to see that there are others out there that feel the same way.
 http://melissajenna.com/2012/06/30/50-shades-of-magic-mike-in-which-i-am-very-uncool/

"It is our responsibility, as daughters of the Heavenly King, to remain set-apart from the poisons of our culture, to rebuke temptation, and to celebrate and honor righteousness."

Water Fest

I've been trying to eat healthier, exercise, etc. I'm trying to make my life better. In doing so, I've realized that I need to increase my water in-take. I do drink a lot of water at work but I know it's not nearly as much as I should be drinking. I found an idea on pinterest on how to make sure I get a good amount of water. To guarentee I get at least 2 liters of water while at work, I have a 1 liter water bottle (I purchased this years ago I think at Target or Shopko or Harmons) that I marked times I should be done drinking certain amounts of water.

As you can see, this first side shows how much water I should drink by 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 11 a.m. and I should be done with the bottle by noon.

On the other side, it shows how much I should be done by 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m. and finish the bottle by 5 p.m.

This is the first day I've done this and I already feel the difference; and not just from the amount of times I've used the restroom. :) I'm more alert, have more energy and I'm not snacking as much as before. I think this water thing is going to be a good thing.