41st Week of Pictures - Kitchen

This week in pictures is about the Kitchen.  One of my favorite rooms in the house yet many projects need to be done in this room.  First off are the cupboards.  I am in need to stain these cupboards darker and add handles.  Second I need to get rid of the blue countertops.  Ugh!  One day my dreams will come true.

But out of everything in my kitchen, my favorite thing would be my Kitchen Aid!  Love this machine!  It makes me happy happy happy.

40th Week of Pictures - Bad Habits

We all hate to admit bad habits but we all have them.  This is one of my worst... chewing the skin around my nails.  I am awful about this.  You can tell when I am stressing alot because my fingers will look awful.

2013 Halloween Pumpkins

Here are our pumpkins for this year.  Home grown!

Order of pumpkins:  Mom, Jacob, Matthew, Kimberly, Dad, & Duke

Fall Soccer

Well fall soccer has come and gone for another year.  I have to say I really enjoyed fall soccer.  Could be that the weather was much better than spring soccer!  Could be that Matthew played with older kids!  Could be that they played positions and had a goalie!  Could be that they worked with a special coach that taught them great skills! 

 

All in all it was a fun season and yes Matthew did score a goal!

He is #10

Happy October

I can't believe it has been 1 year!

I am so amazed that today marks 1 year that we have been in our house.  Where did that year go to?  Seriously.  I can actually say that I have everything unpacked.  Now is everything exactly where I want it to go... nope.  I still have many projects to work on and that excites me.

We can say that everyone has experienced a birthday in our house and we have seen every season in our house.  As for birthdays, we have a much bigger house to decorate and I love it.  I have always been someone who loves every season and I can't say I have a favorite.  Well after spending 1 year in my house and with my beautiful view, I still can't say I have a favorite season.  I love them all and am so blessed to have an amazing view of them.

We have had some firsts in our house.  We had our first winter in our house with a basement.  With the house I grew up in, the basement was freezing in the winter.  We didn't spend much time down there because it was cold.  I had that same fear for this house, especially since my boys would be sleeping down there.  But just the opposite happened.  Our basement is almost warmer than our upstairs in the winter.  It is nice and comfortable.  Very pleased with that.

We also got to use our snowplow a lot more for our own house.  We now understand why we were pushed to buy a snowplow for our 4 wheeler.  We would be hurting if we didn't have that plow.

We had our first summer in our house without A/C.  In our last house we were lucky to have A/C but this house was not so lucky.  We knew that we would be hot but we never expected it to be one of the hottest summers on record.  Wow we sweated a lot.  So this fall/winter, we are purchasing an A/C.  We are going to be in this house for many years and it would be a great investment.

We also experienced irrigation.  When we moved in irrigation had just ended so we had all winter to ponder how and when and what irrigation would be about.  I can honestly say that we did a great job keeping our yard from burning up with the help of irrigation.  I am proud of us.  I had to do most of the summer myself because our irrigation times happened during brian's work or sleep schedule.  I absolutely hate watering in the night.  I just am not a night person.  It scares me terribly.  But when you have free water, use it!  So I put on my big girl panties and got it done.  I can tell you I have visions of much easier ways to use this irrigation water and I do hope in the future we can do them.  But for now... I love the free water.  One of my favorite things that came out of irrigation... there are not too many 2 year olds that can say irrigation and understand it.  I loved watching Jacob try to make his own irrigation pipes to move water around.  Super cute.

I love our house.  I am so grateful for this house and where we live.  We have amazing neighbors, a loving ward, a great school, and so much more.  We thank our Heavenly Father every day for all these amazing blessings.

So happy!

Fishing fun

We sure have had some fishing fun.  We haven't gone much but I think the bug has caught on for my kids.  They are asking all the time to go.  I know that my Grandpas are up in heaven smiling down at the joy my kids are having doing something they both absolutely loved.

39th Week of Pictures - Eyes

Eyes are the theme for week 39.  I love eyes.  I think they are one of the best features on a person.  Of course I think I have some of the most beautiful eyes in my family. (Minus the messy faces and hair)

Love these beautiful eyes!

38th Week of Pictures - Pets

Week 38th is about Pets.  I love dogs.  I have always loved dogs.  When I was born my parents already had a dog.  Her name was Pretzel and honestly she hated me.  haha.  I am serious.  This dog was jealous of me coming into her territory.  She was a cute dog and I loved her dearly but she never was the dog I dreamed of.  I wanted a lap dog that wanted to sleep in my lap while watching tv and I always wanted her to sleep in my bed.  Neither of which she did.  She loved my dad.  I got to enjoy her 15 years of her 18 years of life.  She was very old when it was her time to go and I was terribly sad (even though she didn't care for me).  My parents took her passing pretty hard and vowed that they would never get another dog.

About 7 years later my mom was going thru some hard health times.  My dad thought she needed a dog to play with and comfort and had his heart set on a Bassett Hound.  They found Lizzybelle and she was a sweetheart.  Her ears were bigger than her body and she was always tripping over them.  I wasn't living at home at the time but loved coming home to visit her.  She was the dream dog I always wanted.  She loved to lay in your lap and she loved sleeping in your bed.  She gave my parents a run for their money.  My dad always thought bassetts were lazy dogs and that is what he expected from Lizzy.  She was anything but.  She was always running around and digging holes.  If you look at my parents backyard, most of the trees in their backyard are from holes dug by Lizzy.  We had 14 good years with Lizzy.  She got old and passed on perfectly, during a boarding while my parents were out of town.

When I met Brian there were two things I fell madly in love over right away:  his truck and his dog.  Brian had a beautiful chocolate lab named Abby that was about 3 years old when we met.  She was a good dog and listened to Brian fully.  My dad jokes that I ruined that dog by letting her in the house to be my buddy.  We had many great memories with Abby.  She was a great watch dog, especially when I had babies in the house.  We only had her a short 9 years before her time was done.  Her ashes are where she always loved, up in the mountains.

2 months after Abby's passing, we found Duke.  He is also a chocolate lab but he is a huge dog.  Abby was fat at about 90 pounds.  Duke is stout at about 115 pounds.  He is a strong big dog that thinks he needs to be a lap dog.  haha.  I love him dearly.

We will always have a dog.  We just love them too much. 
That folks is my Pet!

37th Week of Pictures - Hobbies

So I have been a bit behind in my blogs.  With school going full blown and all our activities, it seems my days just run together.  Week 37 was hobbies.  Honestly I was stumped.  I really didn't think I had a hobby.  Then I was looking at my life and what I like to do and something just stuck out like a sore thumb... I love to cook.  When my hubby and I first married, cooking was not in my vocabulary.  It wasn't until I was on maternity leave with Kimberly, watching the Food Network, that I realized I could enjoy cooking.  I learned I could experiment and try different recipes.  Since then, we enjoy trying new things.  The other day I was looking at recipes and realized I had all the ingredients for stuffing.  I know stuffing is normally a Thanksgiving dish but I was craving it.  Plus I never get to make it during Thanksgiving because I don't have to cook.  So we had stuffing the other night.  Totally put me in the mood for the holidays.  I am ready to break out my pumpkin candles and get this Fall season started.  I am already planning my yummy Christmas food day!

Maybe I am a bit Julia Childs!

36th Week of Pictures - Back to School

These are the back to school pictures I took today for picture day.

 

35th Week of Pictures - Self Portrait

Self Portrait - UGH! As you can see there is no picture.  I am still trying to muster up the courage to take a self portrait of myself.  I have also been trying to decide if I should go all natural, all made up, or basically put a helmet on my head and hide my face all together.  I really hate my picture taken.  There are so many flaws I see.  One day I will like myself...

Since my dear friend said to put my big girl panties on and just do this, stay tuned for a picture or two!
Alright... here you go (thank you special features that get rid of bags under eyes and wrinkles around the eyes)

34th Week of Pictures - Clouds

Clouds.  I love clouds.  I have always loved clouds.  I was the kid that loved to lay down and look at the clouds and determine what shapes they were.  I still love to do that with my kids.  Our summer has been an interesting dry one.  We have seen some clouds but not many.  My favorite clouds are the big puffy white clouds.  These usually peek over the mountains.  Below are some of my favorites that I found throughout the week.

The other day we had some really dark clouds form over the mountains and they were so pretty to look at.  Too bad they didn't produce any rain for us.

Such a fun summer time activity... looking at clouds.

33rd Week of Pictures - Tan Lines

In our family, we have tan lines.  We don't run around naked so of course we have tan lines.  Some of us have them darker than others.  Tonight Jacob was running around with no pants on and just his diaper and I noticed he had little white thighs.  So cute.

 

The darkest of the family would be my hubby.  Mainly because he choses to have them.  You might be wondering if he ever takes a shirt off and the answer is yes... BUT he had a bad sunburn when he was younger on his back and has not liked the sun on it since.  So we invested in a nice swim shirt for him.  The pictures tell all....

The good thing out of all this is our boys think they need a swim shirt on most of the time too (even though I do slather the sunscreen on those little white bellies). 
Gotta love summer time!

Peterson Family Pictures

On Brian's parents' 50th Anniversary, we took some family pictures.  My friend Nicole did the pictures and she did a great job.  Not everyone could be here but we did get the majority of us.  It was pretty fun.

Here are just a few of my favorite shots: 

Thanks Nicole!

32nd Week of Pictures - Mom and Dad's Room

The master bedroom in our house is one of the reasons I fell in love with this home.  Let me give you a picture of how our room in our old house... Our bed, dresser, night stand, and hope chest barely fit in the room and you still had to turn sideways to walk around and out the door.  It got worse when you added a cradle for a baby.  It was pretty tiny.  So when we walked in this master bedroom for our first look, I was in awe at how big it was.  Bonus was it had a master bath with shower and a walk-in closet.  I loved this bedroom.  Not only can we fit all our bedroom stuff, we added a desk and my big round chair.  We still have plenty of room to do stuff.  I am so happy with my bedroom.  Now if I can just decide on a color scheme and really go to town decorating.  I am looking at red, black, and white (funny thing because those were both Brian and my high school colors!).

My bedroom is my retreat place.  I am so happy when kids are in bed and I can spend a few hours doing whatever in my room.  I love my bedroom.
Happy mommy!

31st Week of Pictures - Favorite Meal/Food

 I am a foodie.  I love food.  I love to try new foods and I savor my old traditional foods.  Of course I have many meals that are my favorite so I decided to go with my favorite foods.  First off I love chips.  I have always loved chips since I can remember.  I seriously can finish a whole bag in 1 sitting.  When I am watching what I am eating, this is the number 1 thing that I have to watch.  I either have a tiny amount or none at all.  My weakness... chips.

I love stuff that comes from the garden.  One of my absolute favorites is corn.  We are just getting some great ears of corn coming out of our garden and I am super excited.  But if I don't have my own corn, I love Tremonton corn.  I love when it is in season because we stock up on it.  My favorite thing to do is freeze some ears so we can have corn on the cob in those cold winter months.  My kids feel the same way about corn.  They love it slathered with butter.  I seriously think Jacob could eat a whole meal of corn on the cob.

My last picture is homemade cookies.  They are a staple at my house.  Everyone loves their cookies.  I am always looking for a good recipe because we get tired of the same old cookies.  Awhile ago my mom gave me a peanut butter cookie recipe that is delicious.  Fat, moist yummy cookies.  Yes another watch for my diet.
Unfortunately I can't get my beautiful picture of my homemade peanut butter cookies to load.  I will have to try another day.
Enjoy eating!

My mom's 60th birthday

Happy Birthday Mom!  We love you!

30th Week of Pictures - Red, White, and Blue

Red, White, and & Blue is the theme this week.  Normally I would be showing pictures of the July 24th parade and our fireworks but we had a different version of red, white, and blue this week.

 

Tuesday afternoon the boys were practicing their golf swings with daddy on the watch.  After they finished that, daddy told them to put the clubs away and came in the house.  His mom called and he was upstairs talking to her.  I was downstairs with Kimberly.  I heard a noise outside and instantly got this really sick feeling inside and knew I needed to go upstairs and check on the boys.  At this time, Brian didn't see anything but also heard something.  Then he heard Matthew asking Jacob if he was ok and then Matthew started screaming that there was blood.  Brian ran out to get Jacob.  I came upstairs to see Brian coming in with Jacob in his arms.  Blood was just gushing out of Jacob's head and running down his cheek.  That would be my red.

 

I was ready to pass out.  I couldn't believe my baby had blood everywhere.  I then needed to know what happened.  Well Matthew was running around outside upset at what happened.  I got him in the house, gave him a good spanking and then found out that he decided to practice hitting the baseball and didn't look to see if anything was around.  Oh boy that made my heart sink.  I could see Matthew was really upset. We already had a rule at our house that you don't play with the golf clubs without an adult.  I guess we now have to have the same rule for baseball bats.

 

I then could hear Jacob upset and fighting daddy so I knew I was going to have to suck up my fear and deal with Jacob.  I went in and tried to clean him up so we could see what we were dealing with.  But Jacob would not let anyone of us get near his head.  I was able to clean up a little blood on his hands, face, and legs but I could not touch his head.  From what I could tell with all the blood, he had a good cut and possible indention.  I knew we had to go to the hospital and I also knew I couldn't send Brian alone.  With some great help from a visiting teacher, Brian and I were able to head to the doctor within a few minutes.  White would be the color I turned when I saw all the blood and the fact that Jacob was wearing a white shirt, now stained with blood.  (We threw the shirt right in the garbage.)

 

We decided the Instacare would be closer and faster so we went there.  Unfortunately Jacob wouldn't let us cover his head so he looked pretty gruesome.  It was pretty busy but they took us right in.  Now Jacob is a cute boy and the nurses were gushing over him.  He was loving all the attention.  He got a sucker, a squirt gun (syringe), a sticker, and a movie all so they could clean his wound.  He wanted me to hold him and that was good because I couldn't really see how bad things were.  When the nurses cleaned it mostly up, they gave us good news.  The cut looked minor and very clean.  The dr came in and agreed with the nurses that it was a minor cut and Jacob was going to be ok.  The cut was big enough for some glue and Jacob took that great.  The dr was so happy with him so she gave him a popsicle.  Jacob had a big smile leaving the hospital.  I was just grateful it was so minor.  This could have been extremely serious.  After the glue, Jacob's wound looked blue... hence the Blue.

Here is the wound.

Here is my happy boy after all the crazy.

The only downfall from all this was Jacob is not allowed under water for a week.  After a couple of days, Jacob let us touch his owie.  He still loves his brother and brother, I think, has learned a valuable lesson.

We did get to enjoy a parade and fireworks on the 24th.  Here are some pictures:

He finally liked sparklers.

He was acting scared about sparklers.

Having fun for a minute.

I will tell ya.... I was pretty ill after all this.  I couldn't get that image of Jacob and blood out of my mind and it was making me sick to my stomach.  The worse thing... all these ladies kept telling me this is just the start.  I really hope we don't have anything much more serious than this.  I don't know if my heart can handle it.