Happy Birthday!

I had a most fabulous birthday this year. Zac spoiled me yet again, I such a lucky woman. He had the brilliant idea to get me gardening things for our new house. I got mud boots, shovels, and gloves and some beautiful flowers that are still thriving. I really am excited despite the face in the picture (we were trying to do a serious face...scary...remind me NOT to try that again!)

Sorry the pictures didn't work in the last post, here are a few we took yesterday at the inspection....

Teagan's favorite part of the new home (and his only request when we asked what he wanted in the new house); stairs.
Zac's favorite things about the home; everything in general (he really hasn't stopped talking about it for the last 3 weeks, he's so excited!)

PS: do you like my cute mud boots?!? Imagine that instead of me use see a beautiful, blossoming honey crisp apple tree (it's already ordered along with another apple, two pears, and two peaches that are supposed to be cold hardy!!!)

We all love: the big backyard. We went to the garden section at wal-mart and had fun planning out all the fun things we can do back there. We tried all the furniture out and picked out the dream set to buy when we're rich and famous. :)
My favorite part; the garden area. It's not much now, but check back in 4 or 5 months and you'll see the bounty (fingers crossed!). I'm marking where the corner of the garden is going to be. I've pre-ordered raspberries and strawberries that will be delivered a few weeks after we get moved in, yeahhooooo I (hopefully we) have a lot of grass killing, manure spreading, tilling, and planning to do before then. Anyone know where I can get a truckload of manure for free?
Lots of excitement is going on in our home right now! There might not be another post until we're moved in since I'm going to New York this weekend and then we'll only have about 10 days before the big day. Wish us luck!

Long post with a Surprise at the end!

Teagan's been saying/doing some funny things that I want to document:

Last night we were reading and I had to explain what marriage was.

I kept it simple: "Mommy and Daddy met and fell in love so we got married, and now we'll be together forever."

T: "Oh, are Ethan and Grant are married?" (his two cousins who are brothers)

M: "No, but aunt Elise and Uncle Brian fell in love and got married" (their parents)

T: Who else?

M: I listed a few couples he knows..."One day when you grow up you'll find a girl that you love and you'll marry her"

T: "huh?!?!? A girl?!?! No, I don't want to marry a girl. I'll marry you mom."

M: I teared up and said okay. :)

Zac: "Hey! You're already married to me! She's taken."

I bought some wheat yesterday and hurt my back so I couldn't dump it into the bucket. Jokingly I asked Teagan if he wanted to transfer the wheat for me with a measuring cup. He enthusiastically replied yes and proceeded to transfer. Every few minutes he'd come get me "MOM! you've got to see this! Look!" and I'd ooo and ahhh about how hard he was working. He didn't complain once and every time I offered to help he replied "no mom, I can do this by myself." The amazing part was that when he finished he asked me to get the vacuum out so he could vacuum the pieces that fell!

We were hanging out with Zac's family in Idaho Falls watching the BYU game last Saturday and it got late so the kiddos had a bath and wanted to put on PJs...these were the most masculine pjs little miss Taylin had and Teagan LOVED them! I haven't returned them yet and he keeps BEGGING to put them on. (The pants are super soft and velvety and he says he loves the way they feel....haha!)

This is what he did when I asked him to pose like a girl.
When he was sick I let him watch movies pretty much all day. The last few weeks he'll force out a cough and say "Mom, I'm so sick, I think I need to watch some kid cartoons." We laughed at first and let him watch about 1/2 the time. Then finally I got sick of it and said "Look, if you want to watch TV just say you want to watch TV, don't make up excuses." So yesterday he comes up to me "Mom, I am not sick at all, but I really just want to sit and watch some cartoons." (I let him)

There were more, but I can't remember darn it....

And now for the surprise!!!!!

We're buying a house!

This one to be exact.

I love it so much, it's perfect for us, not too huge (the basement isn't completely finished yet), but plenty big for our family.

Nothing too fancy, but I love it. I'm extremely excited to plant a garden and grow my own food, I've been waiting too long!

We should be moved in by May if everything goes to plan.

My dream come true

I made my first batch of homemade bread in 2006. In 2008 we started using homemade bread exclusively. Over the last few years I've accumulated everything I need to make the Ultimate homemade bread. It began with my bosch that I got as a wedding present from my bro and his wife. I borrowed a wheat grinder for a year and paid a loaf of warm bread to the owner every week to use it. That was until I got my wheat grinder for Christmas from my dad and stepmom. I got an electric knife to cut the bread a different Christmas and that made an incredible difference! All the while my mom let me borrow one of her large loaf pans...til I moved to Idaho and had to return it.

I decided that large loaf pans were something I couldn't live without so I started doing mind numbing product reviews to get money to Amazon.com and after thirty-one, 900 character reviews I saved enough for these 2 babies! They arrived on Monday of this week.

Aren't they beautiful??? I love them so much.

It's amazing that bread goes from small dough to terrific tasty loaves.

(Teagan get REALLY excited to lick the bowl when I'm done...not really my cup of tea)

And now my bread looks like tall, luscious bread instead of like a short, fat bread. I'm in love. I can't wait til we run out of bread so that I can make it again.

In case you want the world's best bread recipe, here it is.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

1 cup warm water

6 cups whole wheat flour

3.75 cups warm water

2 tablespoons salt

5 tablespoons lemon juice (fresh or concentrate or use vinegar)

3/4 cup oil

3/4 cup sugar or honey

6-8 more cups whole wheat flour

2 large loaf pans

1. let yeast do the yeast thing

2. Mix in next group on medium for 10 minutes

3. Add enough flour so that the dough just pulls away from the edge then mix 5 minutes on medium

4. Make loaves and put in large loaf pans and let raise until doubled

5. Bake at 350 for 37-55 minutes (this is the variety that my family uses and we all use the same recipe!) I did mine 43 minutes and it was perfect for us.

ENJOY!

Why are they so darn sweet?

Just a few fun happenings....

The other day Teagan saw me making dinner so he climbed up and got everything to set the table, without being asked. He was so proud (so was I). He always gets anxious for dinner because he knows that's when Zac comes home.

Today I made this cute little backpack for Teagan. It is FARRRR from perfect, but I do think it's pretty fun still. It is the first thing I've ever sewn using an actual pattern by myself. I'm secretly really proud of myself even though it was a very simple pattern.

The good news is that Teagan doesn't realize that the button holes are wildly terrible and that I busted one of the buttons in half and that the fabric turned out looking a little girly. His cute face makes up for any imperfection gotta love it.
This is the grand finale. Yesterday we were coloring and Teagan drew a picture of us together. It was perfect and then he scribbled with blue and yellow all over the top. I'll try to explain (understanding is important to the story). I'm in yellow, you can see my two stick legs, then the three horizontal lines for my stomach, all the red stuff is my eyes, nose, mouth and hair. He's the similar looking one in blue to the left of me.

So as he is drawing me I start asking him about what he's drawing...

Me: "What are those three lines for?" (pointing to the 3 horizontal lines in my mid area)

Teagan: "Oh! (tries to lift up my shirt, I refuse so he lifts up his own and attempts to make fat rolls on his stomach) They're these mommy, on your stomach"

Sad day. Winter go away so I can start running again PLEEEEAAAAAAASSSE!

Happy Birthday Zac!

Zac had a birthday a few days ago, sadly he was at a seminar in Long Beach so we had to celebrate a little early. He got to celebrate all weekend though. Birthday party with us Wednesday, my mom took him to dinner on his birthday (she happened to be at a show in anaheim the same weekend), and some other members of his seminar brought him donuts and sang to him on Saturday.

Teagan was very excited about the whole thing, wrapping presents and blowing out candles was his dream come true.

I had a little birthday party for us and it was a blast if I do say so myself. Zac had been talking about doing a "Minute to Win it" Party for a while, not necessarily for his birthday, but just as a fun night. So me and my dorky self went a little wild and made a whole PowerPoint game based on a bunch of the games off the show. If you haven't heard of it, it is basically a game show where contestants have to perform really "simple" challenges in less than one minute.

Things like blowing a deck of cards off of a glass bottle, but leaving the last card...this one, we've decided, is completely impossible!
...and stacking and unstacking 36 plastic cups. This one is almost doable, but it is still really hard. We did a bunch of other ones and it was so fun I think we might be hosting minute to win it parties at our house in the near future.
While Zac was at his seminar I got to hang out with my sister and her family in Salt Lake. They(Julie and Jeff) went on a little overnighter and I stayed with all the little ones, ages 3,3,2, and 2. You'd probably guess that it was insane the whole time, but it really wasn't. They play together so well, I have to admit that I sent them all downstairs to play and read a book for probably an hour one day. They were all so sweet and I really had fun with them. The thing that was crazy was meal times. I'd try to sneak into the kitchen and prepare the food and have it divided up before they came so it wasn't chaotic and they would somehow sense that I was making food and they'd all come running. Then I'd hear four versions of "can I please have food" all at the same time and getting louder and more intent all the time. That was wild.
It was also doable because we watched all three Toy Story movies in the course of about 30 hours...
It was a great weekend and we're ready to be back home and back into our groove. I'm trying to avoid the huge laundry pile right now....but I guess I'll just go face it.

Lately...via pictures

We've had a busy week, here is some documentation...

We went to Driggs last weekend. I spent a few short hours (way too short!) at my family's house where Beth taught me how to alter men's dress pants. It was actually really fun and I love learning a new skill! I almost have all of Zac's pants done, one to go. Thank you Beth! and thank you Teagan and Zac and Dad and Rachel for letting Beth and I work on our sewing!

Then we headed south to celebrate the Super bowl with the Daniels family (yes it is a holiday in the Daniels family). Teagan and his adorable cousin Taylin having a tea party with REAL water. He was in heaven. We had delicious food and great company, it was too short too. Why can't weekends last longer?

Teagan got a Valentines pillow and blanket from g-ma and g-pa Daniels that he still hasn't parted with. They are so soft and fuzzy and he takes them wherever he goes. They have been weapons, hiding places, sleeping apparatuses, and homes for his action figures. He had so much fun playing with everyone....

We got to go night skiing with Zac's work this week. Talk about a complete blast!!!! I grew up skiing and tried to be cool and snowboard when I got to be a teen. I was terrible and learned to hate snowboarding passionately. Last night I tried skiing for the first time since I was probably 11 and I LOVED it. So much less painful and cold. Zac is a total pro on the snowboard, I think we might have found something to keep us busy in the winter!

I've been trying to structure our days better to see if I could ever handle homeschooling and be an effective teacher for Teagan. Good thing I have a few years to practice!

We were talking about emotions the other day during learning time and drawing pictures of things that made us happy, sad, and mad. Here were his expressions:

Happy

Funny

Sad

Mad

I've been getting him to do lots more chores and I've noticed an interesting correlation. The more responsibilities I give him the happier and more obedient he is....it's weird, but I'll go with it! Here he is clearing out the silverware and making himself some toast....the toast was a surprise. Seriously he said "mom, I have a surprise, I made me and piece of toast and you a piece of toast, surprise!"

Some of the jobs he does: clear out silverware, sort dirty clothes (still with my help), take clean clothes out of dryer, put them in a basket, and bring them to the kitchen, find all the socks when I folding clothes, put away his clothes, vacuum up crumbs under the table after dinner, and take out garbages. He wants to help with everything I'm doing like making dinner or cleaning bathrooms. He is actually to the point where he is helpful and about 50% reliable. When he gets frustrated I just remind him of the little engine that could and he chants "I know I can, I know I can." Somedays he's more willing then others and the days he's not I just have him do the silverware, even if it takes him two hours, and then he plays while I work. I kind of love it.

Today we played Doctor's office and made hospital beds out of the cushions, we took turns treating each other. Check out his knees.

And in our spare time we turn on music and dance around so I can stop gaining winter weight, it's not working so far...summer please come soon.

Cinderella Cinderella....

Today I was reading Teagan some random book from the library for his nap and it was about a servant.

Teagan: "mom, what does servant mean?"

Me: "A servant is someone who does all of the chores for rich people, they make dinner and clean dishes and do laundry and dust and vacuum"

Teagan: "OH! Mommy is a servant!"

Me: "pretty much"

I could go off on some of my deep thoughts on the idea of servitude, but I'll just keep it short. I don't feel like a servant at all, but I really do seem to have the same jobs. Maybe it doesn't seem horrible because I love my family a lot and I want to do things for them so it doesn't seem so bad...and they are always really grateful and loving and that sure eases the burden.

(I wanted to include a picture of me looking like a happy servant in the olden days...but I ended up with a really foggy looking picture of me with a double chin...haha I should leave this stuff up to my mom!)