Thankful for fun

We spent this last week in Klamath with my whole side of the family for Thanksgiving. We had an amazingly fun time. Between DDR, the girls in our nuggy pants, the Christmas tree almost falling in our living room, "Dad, you have glitter on your face", card making, puzzle putting, home video watching, face stuffing, tee pee playing, kitty holding, and four wheeling... there was a lot of laughing. I sure am thankful for such a wonderful family. We hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

Grandma & Grandpa Stewart with the grandkids in their Christmas pj's....

Thanksgiving Dinner...

Tree getting...

Cousins: Carter & Grayson:

Mommy Moment: Prayer time

Carter is the best at remembering to pray. He'll constantly remind us that we need to pray at meals by just sitting there with his arms folded until we say the prayer. Granted, he'll usually sneak a few bites of food during the prayer, but still pretty impressive for a 1 1/2 year old. His folding has improved over the last few weeks. He used to just tuck both of his hands beneath his chin, but now he actually folds his arms. The trick is to get this habit to stick for the rest of his life.

You Say It's My Birthday!

So, yes, today is my birthday. Usually I wouldn't really be announcing that, but I do have to let you know how wonderful my husband is. It is just after 7am and already I have been served breakfast in bed and two tickets to see "So You Think You Can Dance"!!!!! (the tour) It is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and we have the best seats! They are on the floor, middle section, 7 rows back! I think I am going to die!!! For any of you not addicted to the show, you are missing out! It is incredible. I would even venture to say better than "American Idol." That good! Then, on Jefferson's way to school he called to let me know that he had made some arrangements for a beautiful sunrise. I looked outside, and sure enough, it was a beautiful hot pink sunrise. Happy 25th Birthday to me! :)

Lettuce Wraps

Here is a delicious recipe for lettuce wraps:

1.5 lbs ground turkey
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tsp. Chinese 5 spice
1-3 tsp Szechwan seasoning (Mcormicks. Amount depends on how spicy you like it)
8 oz can drained water chesnuts, finally chopped (i just slip them in my food processor)
1 cup shredded carrots (or again, i just pop them in my food processor)
1/2 cup sliced green onions
1/2 cup chopped, toasted nuts (pecans are yummy)
1-4 tbs soy sauce
(you can also add a small shredded zucchini if you want to add some more veggies, I don't really like them so I usually don't use one)

*Cook meat in skillet with oil and seasoning. Add remaining ingredients. Cook and stir 2-3 minutes. Spoon into bibs of lettuce. YUMMY! I usually serve brown rice on the side.

Shout out

I just wanted to give a shout out to my little sister Alli. She just got accepted into the social work program at BYUI. I am so proud of her!! We, of course, were not surprised that she was accepted, but still very excited for her. She is amazing!

(isn't she cute?!)

Blog makin'

I have had a few people ask me where I got my blog layout... I actually designed it! I am quite proud of myself for being as computer illiterate as I am. If you visit http://sjhblogdesign.blogspot.com/ she walks you through how to download different digital scrapbook pages and how to put them into the html of your blog. I am probably not making any sense, but just go to that website and you'll see what I mean. Happy blog designing!

Happy Days

Here is my smiley little girl. She really is this happy all of the time! Ok, most of the time. Unless she is really tired or hungry, she will just smile and talk all day. It doesn't take much to get a smile out of her and that makes her mama smile.

Mommy Moment

Carter loves standing on the counter. I think he would stand up there all day long if I let him. He will also eat anything while on the counter, like a whole bowl of peas this afternoon. I think he thinks if he's super good I'll let him stay up there. He likes playing "Where's Lasso?" while on the counter. He'll put Lasso, or whatever stuffed animal he has that day, in the same cabinet every time. Then he'll close it and wait for me to say "Where's Lasso (or Bear, or Lamb, etc)?" Then Carter will hold up his hands, like pictured, and say the same thing in his own way. Then I'll proceed to ask "Is he in this cabinet?" "Is he in the oven?" "Is he in the fridge?" And I'll open all these places and Carter will shake his head and say, "Noooo." I wish I had it on video. It is adorable the way he shakes his head and says no. Anyways, it's his favorite game, and if we're not playing it, he'll stand reaching up for the counter saying "Up. Up. Up." It's really cute the first couple hundred times. :)

It's that time of year...

Yes, with Halloween behind us, now we can move on to bigger and better holidays... Thanksgiving and Christmas! We'll just call it the holiday season. I thought it was appropriate to change our background to something more Christmasy. Only 51 days until Christmas!