This is so my life.....

My mom sent me this card yesterday....it pretty much sums up how my life is....just....."daily"! If I wasn't married to the energizer bunny who likes projects I might never have anything to write about....

First Day of School 2009

Our first day of school was yesterday. I was worried about getting up on time to get the kids to school, as I had been sleeping until Nate woke me up, or 7:30 whichever came first. I woke up at 6:59 and looked at the clock and thought, okay I better go get the boys up. Then I heard the crinkle of a package of chips that one of the kids was putting in their lunch box. I went out to find that Adam was up, dressed and making his lunch! I had to go wake Michael up. Once everyone was ready, we walked to the school. This is Michael in front of the school, he is starting kindergarten!
This is Adam, he is in 2nd grade!

When we got to Michael's room, there were parents everywhere. My friend Sharon had saved a seat for Michael next to her son, Logan. Michael sat right down and started playing with play-doh. He would smile whenever someone told him to for the camera, but otherwise, he was ready to begin his day.

Kindergarted drop-off took longer than we thought it would, and so by the time we got to Adam's class he was very ready to go in. He was pretty annoyed that I was going to take his picture, can you tell?

Ellie's first day of preschool was today. This year she is going to Miss Cheryl's preschool (her old teacher decided not to teach this year). Miss Cheryl is the same preschool teacher that Adam had and we LOVE her. She was sad all day yesterday that she didn't get to go to school, but she was very happy today to go to school!

When they got home, everyone seemed to like their teachers, and they all had a good day. I'm very happy for the kids to be back in school and not "bored" all of the time.

Kid Projects

There are a lot of things that surprise me about how I mother. I always thought that I would be one of those mothers that was always doing craft projects with my children, since I love crafty things and I always wanted to do them as a kid. To my surprise, I am not. In fact, we rarely do them. I can think of a million reasons why I don't do them: because they make a mess, and that I never have a big block of time that I can dedicate to doing a project with the kids. Then there is also the fact that when everyone needs my help at the same time, I don't do so well with that. Plus I have boys...there are a lot of craft projects for girls, but not so many for little boys....and I could go on, but I won't. Anyway, last Christmas, I got the boys kits to make little a little plane and helicopter that have propellers that move through the use of a solar panel. We actually got around to doing it last week. They were really too young to put it together, but they enjoyed painting it, and although the picture is lame, they turned out pretty cute and actually work. (Not bad for $3).

Ellie got to do her own project the other day....a foam mosaic. Cute huh?

You know, the biggest surprise to me that we do is playdates...we have them ALL the time. We never did that when I was a kid...I don't know if it was where we lived (we didn't have neighbors) or if my parents weren't as social as we are...anyway...I feel like we get plenty of play dates, and the kids have many friends, but I am not sure they appreciate it as much as they should (because really, this is all new to me... and keeping 3 kids busy with play dates is a lot of running around). It's worth it though, they only get one childhood...I just hope I am doing it well for them....

Summer is for Swimming

...at least in our neck of the woods. Ellie just finished her second round of swim lessons with "Miss Lori" and she did great! She learned to swim with her face in the water this time around and so now she can swim about 15 feet by herself! She also learned to float and swim on her back...which is a really big step for her. Good job Ellie!



We try to go swimming a lot in the summer...it is a good excuse for the kids to get some physical exercise and to play with other kids at the pool. This year we haven't gone to the pool quite as often as other years....probably because Nate is so much work at the pool. The boys love to swim though, and can move throughout the pool (even in the deep end) as they want.



We try to go swimming a lot in the summer...it is a good excuse for the kids to get some physical exercise and to play with other kids at the pool. This year we haven't gone to the pool quite as often as other years....probably because Nate is so much work at the pool. The boys love to swim though, and can move throughout the pool (even in the deep end) as they want. Its nice to not have to worry about them.



The other day we went out to our land and the kids and I went swimming in the "lake." (Personally, I would call it more of a pond/swamp). Since we are in a serious drought, the lake is down quite a bit, so the boys could walk all the way to the island. I hadn't previously swam in the water (I was pregnant the last time everyone did and I wasn't interested). The bottom of the lake is so soft that I sunk to mid calf in the dirt/ muck. I tried not to complain too loudly though, because this kids were really enjoying it, and seriously this will probably prove to be one of their more fond ongoing memories of childhood. (I don't want them to remember with it that mom was a complainer).

Ellie just swam around, while the boys pulled up handfuls of mud and threw it at each other. Luckily they were both wearing goggles so their eyes were protected.

Nate liked the water if he was fully in it...he wanted me to let go of him, but I wouldn't. Then I put him in the floatie and he wanted to drink the water (yuck). Pretty soon we opted to sit on the side and he didn't really like the mud on the side. Oh well, you can't make everyone happy.

I did get to walk on the island for the first time. It looks just like the rest of the land, but there are a lot of holes from whatever animal lives over there.

Hmmm, school is starting in a week and so we won't have as much time for swimming. We sure will miss it!

"Canned" Chicken

I know it looks disgusting, but don't write it off yet... there is a reason that canned meat at the store is sold in opaque cans and not jars...it actually is quite tasty.

In our relief society a couple of months ago, they had a class about canning chicken. At first I wasn't interested in trying to do this....why would I want to spend a bunch of time canning something that I would never use? I have my years supply of many foods, but I would like to have some additional foods in there that I will actually eat that are not wheat or bean based. I also want to add in foods that I will rotate through... I don't see the point in storing a bunch of foods so that when they expire I can throw them away and buy some more foods to throw away especially of the expensive foods. My mom did a class in her relief society and I got to try some of her meat. It tasted good, not so different than any cooked chicken, basically bland but easily seasoned. As I continued to think about it, I thought of many times that I could use canned chicken, in fact, on a day to day basis it could actually make my life easier... instead of thawing out chicken and then cooking it to use, I can just open a jar of chicken, and use it in whatever recipe I want to use. Yesterday, I actually went ahead and made my own. It was surprisingly easy to do....just takes a lot of time for you to wait for it to cook, but you can be doing other things at the same time. First of all, you need a pressure canner. Mine looks like this: but you can buy a cheaper one on amazon.

T

hen you just follow the instructions as told by Wendy Dewitt on her blog. Its under the entry from Wednesday, November 12, 2008 for everything under the sun and then under the canned meats section.

Once you are done canning you can use your chicken in many recipes. Things that I would use canned chicken in are: soups, salads,your favorite kind of enchiladas, casseroles, pot pie or chili. You can also cut it up and fry it with cumin, chili powder and lots of lime juice and use it for tacos or fajitas or taco salad. (The lime juice makes it taste like fajitas from Lupe Tortilla). You could also cut it up and saute it with onions and green peppers and put it on a sandwich roll with cheese melted on top. You could use it in pastas: saute with chicken broth and white wine, add tomatoes and any other veggies you like and possible melt swiss or Parmesan cheese on top over linguine. (Joe says I make too many things with meat, cheese and bread...but I think you can never add too much cheese). Apparently, you can do the same thing with pork loin and even make the pork loin like they use on Cafe Rio (in Utah if you've never been there you are missing out). I haven't tried that yet, I'll have to try it sometime and get back to you.

Does anyone else have any good recipes they can use this chicken for?

Happy Anniversary

Can you believe it, it has been 11 years since Joe and I got married? We started dating in January and got engaged in May and married August 8! When I first met Joe I thought he was very cocky, he was bragging about how he was going to go to business school at Wharton (its #1 you know). He thought I had a big chip on my shoulder. We were both probably right.

This is us on our first date. Joe took me to a murder mystery dinner. He totally figured out the murderer. At the end of the date, I felt so dumb because I had no idea who was the murderer so I thought he would never ask me out again. Funny, he did....

This is our engagement picture. He took me back to our bishops back yard where we first met and knelt down and popped the question. I was shocked because not 10 minutes before we had been talking about the possibility of marriage and I said it freaked me out so he said he wouldn't mention it for the rest of the evening.

This is our wedding day... we got married in the Las Vegas temple.

This is my favorite picture of us. It was taken on a cruise ship when I was 3 1/2 months pregnant with Michael (it seems like all the pictures of the last 7 years have been when I was either pregnant or just had a baby).

I am so glad that I married Joe. People sometimes ask me why I married him (I think/hope they are joking).... the best answer for that question is that he makes me laugh. I tend to be quite serious and he is not at all, so he often can make us all laugh when we are grumpy. But one of the the other things that I just love about him is how smart he is (apparently the smartest in the Frost bunch...at least so far), I think he is probably about as smart as me;) We stay up at night in bed an talk, sometimes for hours and I really enjoy all of his thoughts. The one other thing that I just love about him is that he can do anything....seriously...he decides he wants to do something and then looks it up on the internet and then tries it out until it works. He's pretty amazing that way. Happy anniversary sweetie! Here's to many more!

New England Cousins

Here are the pictures of all the kids that were at Nana's house on the last day of our trip. It really was fun to see everyone.

(Left) Megan, Cole, George, Adam, Jack (holding Nate), Michael, Josh, Ellie and Tyler

The oldest kids: back left Jack and Josh, front Megan and Adam. Megan and Adam are 5 months apart and in the same grade.

Ellie and Cole. They are both 3 and will be in school the same year. It took them a while to notice they were about the same age, but by the end of the trip they were getting into plenty of trouble together.Joe with Margie (left) and Jayne. Joe is oldest, then Jayne, then Marge

Joe, his Mom and her Steve

Joe and Jayne

See, I did go on this trip too!

At "Camp" in Maine

Joe's mother's family has a "camp" on Branch Lake in Maine. It is a glacial lake that is about 40 minutes from her house (20 minutes outside of Bangor). "Camp" is a two room shell of a building that has one room that is a bedroom, living room, kitchen and a bunk room in the back. Its a perfect little get away for a few days. We spent 4 days and 2 nights there. (Only our family stayed the night). Margie and her boys would come down during the day and play with us. Nana and Bampi would come too!

It was fun to play in the lake, there was a little area of sand next to a big dock that the kids could jump off into the lake from. There were also kayaks and inner tubes to play with. The last day, Jayne and Ken came and brought a floating trampoline, which was a lot of fun too. The water was cool, but not cold. The weather was perfect almost the whole time that we were there!

Josh, Jack and George on the floating trampoline.

Joe loved swimming and playing with the kids.

Michael loved the paddleboat...he stayed on there for hours, giving people rides.

There are two islands on the lake. Joe and I rode the canoe out to the island one day, towing the boys in their kayaks. The rope going from us to Michael was almost always taut, but from Michael to Adam it was often lank. The islands have wild blueberries growing on them, and we found that on one of the islands, the blueberries were ripe, so we were able to pick enough to have blueberry pancakes!

Notice in the next two pictures that Adam is smiling and Michael is terrified.

We were surprised by how quickly the boys picked up kayaking...they got in and were immediately rowing around in the lake.

Joe, of course, had fun diving and jumping and cartwheeling off the dock.

Ellie swam a little, but since it was cold, she mostly stayed on the shore.

It was a lot of fun!

A Visit to Aunt Jayne

Last week, we went to visit Joe's family in New England. We flew into Providence, RI and drove the first night to visit Jayne, who lives in Springfield, VT. She has a beautiful house on a few acres and has lived there for several years. Since we have never visited, we decided we should. We had a great visit...the kids really enjoyed playing together and we enjoyed seeing what Jayne and Ken's life is like.

The kids had fun playing the Wii (they have a wii fit which was new for us). Adam also really enjoyed playing with their Legos. Ken is very organized, and has all of his Legos organized into the little drawer organizers with the pieces separated by size and shape. Adam loved being able to see what he could use to build...he's been begging me ever since to get some for our legos. (Ours are in big bins).

Ellie just loved Megan, she followed her around and played with her and climbed all over her. Megan was very patient with Ellie.

The kids on the hill in front of Jayne's house (New England has hills...lots of them).

Tyler, Adam, Ellie, Megan, Michael (with Nate).

The kids on the porch. Jayne has chickens so you can see the chickens in the picture.

We had a wonderful time reconnecting with Jayne's family. It was nice to spend time with just them and enjoy them.