Egg-static!

Steve and I were in the office chatting the other night about this and that when we didn't hear anything!  Usually in our house that is a sign that something is about to be in disarray or worse.  A while back you may remember a post about Abigail getting into a whole dozen eggs and smashing them on the kitchen floor?  She thought it was SOOOOOO neat to be able to crack eggs.  I don't blame her, I still like cracking eggs myself.  Well, I asked Steve to go check on her while I finished a few emails I was sending.  He started to laugh and said "go show Mom!"  She came in with this!  One of her little bowls with an egg perfectly cracked in it....no shells or anything.  She had gotten into the fridge, cracked an egg leaving no shell pieces in it and had thrown the empty shell away in the garbage!  She amazes me by what she does on her own.

Here she is showing us how proud she is of the egg in her bowl!

The Happy Couple!

Last Saturday I had the opportunity to attend the sealing of my cousin Natalie Pond.  Her husband Omar is the sweetest man!  The sealing was wonderful and I am happy that Natalie now has an eternal family of her own!  The Rexburg, Idaho Temple is just as beautiful as I remember it being at the open house.  I brought my camera just in case and ended up being the only one that had a camera with a charged battery.  LUCKY!  I snapped probably too many photos considering the weather outside had to have been around 10 degrees.....but you can never get too many pictures of a happy family right?  I am definitely learning how to even use my "new to me" Canon EOS Rebel...if that is even the official name of it.  It has an SLR something in there somewhere also.  Anyway, I enjoy taking photos, but really need to take a class or read up on some of the functions.  I thought some of them turned out well.  Natalie called me today to tell me that they went to get some of them printed and that the retailer gave them a fight about the  photos being copywrited and they weren't going to sell them the photos.  Those of you that are photographers, is that some setting I have put on accidentally to cause that to show in the file or something?  I had to laugh when she told me that they weren't going to get them because they were copywrited by a professional photographer!  HA!  I didn't even know what I was doing, I was just snapping shots.....lol!  Maybe I am better than I thought, or .......maybe not?!!!

Generic Happy Birthday!

Several of our family and a few friends have birthdays in January.  We have been a little 'off the ball' and have not sent cards to any of them!!!  So, just to cover a few bases here is a 

Happy Birthday!!!!

to all of those that we have missed already.  I hope your birthdays were/will be fabulous.  Love to all!

Steve, Katie & Abigail

Let it snow AGAIN!

Last week it seemed like we were having an early spring here in Idaho Falls.  I quite liked the weather!  Then, last night it just dumped again.  The snow is very wet and heavy and perfect for building snowmen!  Emily called and invited Abby and I over for a play day for the kids and ourselves.  We dressed the kids up in their snow clothes and sent them out to play.  Meanwhile we got busy making hair bows for the girls.  We both took a little break and put our snow boots on to help the kids build not one, but two snowmen.  So here they are playing the snow having a grand old time.  Sadly to say that my camera battery died before the snowmen were built so I don't have a shot of them.  Hopefully Emily will read this and post some :)  She has them all on her camera!!!

Princess Luncheon

Today most of the kids didn't have school so Abby hosted a princess lunch.  Pictured here from Left to Right are Amelia, Abigail, Olivia, Rebecca, Isabel & Shayleen.  They all dressed up in princess clothes and had a sack lunch.  My friend Bonnie brought all her fun colors of nail polish and painted all of the girls nails.   In the picture with Abby getting her nails done, there is a silver tray with petit fours on it.  Abby helped me make them for all of the girls to enjoy after finishing their lunch.  Isabel also brought a very fun treat to share while we watched our princess movie!  The girls ended up choosing Barbie and the 12 dancing princesses to watch during lunch.  We had a very fun time!  

Here are all of the girls taking a bite of cake.

Bonnie painting Abby's nails with cakes in the background.

All of the girls with their nails painted.

Here they are having just finished lunch and watching their movie.  I think Abby is in mid-spin in this shot.  She LOVES to dance along to movies with singing and dancing in them!  A characteristic that her parents admire and love also!

This slideshow has Abby in her element.  She loves to 'dips' with her Dad (dancing, with a dip at the end), so there are a few pics with her in her cinderella dancing shoes doing dips.  She loves to cook in her kitchen.  The other night we got out her tiny but real bake set and put her to work in the kitchen.  It was awesome how much fun we had together!  She is a natural little baker.  There are also some in here with today's fun hairdo accompanied by a ladybug clippie.  She loves nothing more than to see the finished hairdo with something frilly like a bow or clippie.  She actually sits in front of the mirror for 5 minutes telling me how pretty she looks!  I love that she does that, but realize that may turn into a bit of a problem in future years :)

TWO DREAMS!!!!

I had 2 dreams yesterday and one of them actually came true!!!!  Dream #1 - Steve and I have been wanting to upgrade our car to something a little newer so we took a spin yesterday in the Volvo you see here.  It was NICE & we WANT it, but we will see!!!!  Dream #2 -  that Abigail would actually go to bed at a decent hour and sleep in her room all night long!  About 6 months ago, she was very sick so we kept her in our room for several night to monitor her health during the night.  The habit stuck and we are just now making a break through to stop it.  She went to bed at 7:30 and I woke up this morning at 8:00 wondering where she was and what had happened to her because she wasn't in our bed.  I lay there thinking about how nice it would be for her to actually still be sleeping in her room.  I waited 10 minutes before getting up and by that time was worried that maybe something HAD really happened to her.  I slowly started up the stairs and saw a glimpse of light coming from her room.  It was very quiet, and then the stairs creaked and gave me away.  I hear a sweet little voice shout Mommy?  I asked "what are you up to in there?"  "I am having a party with my babies in here Mom!  I found ALL of my blanket and I love them!"

It was fun to have her actually stay in her room ALL night, and then to wake up and play in her room with her babies was even better!  I need be less anxious when I wake up with a childless bed and be thankful that my daughter is learning a growing EVERY minute of every day.  She is a darling child and I love her SOOOOOO much!

Anyway, one day we will own this beauty!  It has really great features.  It is a 2005 Volvo XC90, has 7 seats and the 5 in the back all lay flat for cargo.  There is SOOOO much more space than in the Jeep.  Abigail is always kicking one of our seats in the Jeep and I am ready for something larger.  Here's to dreams!

CHEESE!!!

Here are a few pictures of Abigail creating things in her kitchen and also of our family trip to the ice rink.  Abigail has been begging and begging to go ice skating since we told her what it was.  Once we got there she was so excited to get her skates on.  As soon as we hit the ice, she cried the entire time.  "I just don't want to ice skate mom" she said.  "I don't like the ice"....I had to laugh at that.  We ended up just putting her boots back on and dragging her a bit and then carrying her as we skated.  She enjoyed that much better because she had more control over her feet :)

Oh, I forgot to add this little bit of info that Steve reminded me of today.  Later that night Abigail was having a nightmare and was actually screaming the words "I don't want to ice skate, get me off, I don't like to ice skate" in her sleep!  It was priceless.....I think she will wait a few years before venturing that route again!

Back by popular demand

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Abby sitting on the growth chart that Grandma Forrey made for her.  Thanks grandma, we already have it hanging in her room.

Abby taking time to pose for the camera with her tutu and stick lip!

pots and pans to use in her new kitchen.  Thanks G & G 4E!

Abs cooking up a storm in her PINK kitchen.

Abigail dancing in the tutu that I made her for Christmas.  I was glad that she loved.  I think it always makes a Mother feel glad to have her child love something that she made, instead of having it sit in the dress up box, never to be worn.

Abs after she did a superman dive toward Daddy's office chair.  This was taken right after it happened and had already started turning colors.

Abs at the beginning on the month getting ready to play in the snow.

Steve being CRAZY and taking a dive into the deep snow in our backyard.  He was pretending that he was in high school and still living in Alaska.

Steve stealing a kiss :)

Candy baskets that we (me, Emily & Tina) made for my brothers

The music in ME!

Abigail LOVES listening and dancing to music, so much so that she steals my iPod all the time!  She is jammin out in her jammies to High School Musical 3 (which we LOVE by the way)

The day after Thanksgiving was a great day for shopping!  I went out with my sister Emily and my Mom and had a great time.  We came home around 10, got our kids and headed back out for more of the madness.  In the middle of all of this we ended up with these sparkly reindeer horns.  Steve and Abby had a great time sporting them around the house.

Abby got a package in the mail that said to open immediately so we did.  Inside were griddle mold things.  We enjoyed making these funly designed pancakes for breakfast on Sunday!  THANKS AUNT SARAH & UNCLE SAM!!!!!

Noodle chillin' in her new peacoat from Uncle Clayton & Aunt Elizabeth!  She looks just adorable in it, especially with a scarf wrapped around her neck.  THANK YOU!!!!!

AND........last but not least,  After an unfortunate turn of events last week, this week actually turned out okay.  My dear sweet Stephen came home from work late today.  I automatically jumped down his throat asking where he had been because I needed the car.  He graciously walked toward me with a smile on his face and handed me a dozen beautiful red roses!  I feel so blessed to have a husband that is so in tune with my needs.  Without going into detail, last week was difficult on our little family and Stephen has been amazing through it all.  I am sure he has wanted to leave this home a million times because of all of the emotions that a woman can have.  Instead, he came home with a smile on his face AND with flowers for me!  I LOVE YOU STEPHEN!!!!  Thank you for everything that you do for our family!

I love my family, they are the music in ME!

Thanksgiving Day

We started out the holiday this year heading down a day early to Jon & Mohna's (my brother & his wife) home in Inkom.  The boys headed out to go pheasant hunting early so we figured it would be better to go wednesday to avoid having to get up at 4 to drive down.  Pictured are the 2 pheasants that Jon got.....Steve took these pictures, they are beautiful birds.

Mohna, Elizabeth, Andrew and the back of Abs head.....baking in the kitchen!

Back at the house I helped the kids put a few puzzles together, played with play doh and tried to keep them entertained while I frugally helped Mohna in the kitchen.  I took several pictures of Andrew and his funny faces......but I decided to put this cute one with his Mother (Mohna) giving him a little smooch!   

Mohna also though of another way to keep the kids entertained....she covered the kid table with butcher paper and they were able to draw their own place mats.  It was pretty fun except for the part where Abby got ahold of THE ONLY non-washable marker in the bunch!  She still has that marker on her hands, I am going to have to get out the steel wool to get it off :)  !

After dinner we headed outside for some fresh air.  After all that work in the kitchen on everyones part, I didn't even get a picture of the Turkey spread!!!!  But I did manage to get a picture of one of the pies.

Abby giving Daddy a kiss on the front porch.

Taking a blurry stroll in Jon's back yard.  Abby enjoyed seeing the horses close up and just running in all of the open space.  We got a little adventurous and decided to do some shooting with a shotgun.....HA!  They were shooting at clay pigeons.  I didn't do well, in fact from the one shot that I did get off, my shoulder is STILL a little sore.....I know, I know, I struggle.  I had to take a shot of Mom shooting because she just looks like she should be in a film or something with that coat and gun!  AND, I had to show you the silly picture I got of her face while shooting her first shot.  It is a little blurry, because she is in action, but you can see how far back it kicked her.  All in all, everyone did a pretty good job.  Caleb even fired a few shots with the help of Mohna, even though the gun was bigger than he was, he did pretty good.

Mohna and her wonderful tasting, wonderful looking apple pie.

We had a wonderful time spending the holiday with family.  Thank you Jon and Mohna for inviting us down and opening your home for such a special and fun time.  Much later that night when we arrived home, we did a little iChatting with the Forrey family.  It is pretty much the same as doing a webcam.  All of the other family members in Steve's family were together in Oregon this year.  So we got to see them all and talk with them for I think about an hour.  It was fun to catch up and see how wonderful everyone looked and that they too had a great time spending time together at the Forrey Home.  We love and miss each one of them!

Okay everyone.....do YOU have YOUR tickets for tonight?  I am going with a fun group of gals and am excited and nervous at the same time.  I really loved these books so naturally I would want to see the movie about them.  My dilemma is that I read them all before they came out with the cast list so I had a different image in mind for Dear sweet Edward Cullen!!!  I am a little disappointed in who was chosen for this role, so I hope ROB P. lives up to my expectations...LOL!  I am sure I will enjoy the film either way.  If you have your tickets and I don't see you there, or you live in a different city....

HAVE FUN!!!!!!

Randoms

This was taken last Sunday after Abby got into a dozen eggs.  Those of you that know her well, know that she is allergic to eggs.  She has grown out of many of her allergies but not eggs yet.  We went in to the kitchen and she was eating them raw, they were all cracked on the floor (which is carpet BTW) Her reaction wasn't all that bad but you can see in this picture her left arm has a HUGE red spot on it....that is a welted up spot from the reaction.  She had a few of those on her back and got a really bad rash on her bum as well.  Poor child!  A double dose of her allergy meds fixed her right up. Within about 5 hours her skin was pretty clear.

The other day Abby and Steve were running on the hard wood floor playing around.  They were starting to get too rowdy so I told them that if they didn't stop someone was going to get hurt.  Well, Abby tripped/slipped on the floor and landed right on her forhead!  She had a unicorn horn on there it was so swollen.  The very next day she was trying to climb up onto a stool and it tipped over causing her to whack her head in the same spot as the day before.  You can see it right between her eyebrows in the next two shots.

Katie donates plasma and Abby is intrigued by it.  Every time I go she has to play doctor and try to stick something in my arm.  

Abby: Mom you need to give blood.

Kate: Okay Dr. Abby put a line in.

Abby:  Sit down and hold still.

Abby pretending to be asleep in a cave.

Dead tired

Tonight while I was updating my blog, Abby came in and said she was tired.  She held my thumb like she has done since day one of her life and just stood there.  I proceeded to type with one hand and I kid you not within just a few minutes she dropped to the floor.  She had fallen asleep standing up.  It wasn't even late enough to be bed time yet so I thought she just wanted to snuggle.  WOW...she was really tired.  

Husband Tag!

I was tagged by Shayna so here it goes...Here are the rules:

Make sure at the end of this tag, you tag 4 people and post their name, then go to their blogs and let them know they have been tagged.

What is your husbands name? Stephen R. Forrey Jr..

How long have you been married? We just had our 4th Anniversary.

How long did you date? 3 months!

How old is he? He just turned 33

Who eats sweets? We are both guilty....I eat them a little more often.

Who said I Love you first? He did!

Who is taller? Steve

Who can sing best? I am going to go out on a limb here and say me, however, Steve has a great singing voice, it is just hard to get him to use it!

Who is smarter? depends on the subject!!!

Who does laundry? I do most of it.  Every now and then he will throw a load in.

Who pays the bills? I do that as well.

Who sleeps on the right side? ME

Who mows the lawn? On a regular basis?  I do, Steve does it occasionally!!

Who cooks dinner? ME

Who drives? Depends on where we are going.  He usually drives unless I am dropping him off to work.

Who's first to admit when you are wrong? We both need work in that department!

Who kissed who first? Steve kissed me first and I wasn't expecting it AT ALL, but I welcomed it...teeheehee!!!

Who asked who out first? Steve asked me over to watch a movie....I am pretty sure it was Pride and Prejudice (A&E version)

Who wears the pants? It depends. I think I do and I am sure He thinks He does....we are pretty good about talking things over to agree on most things.  I usually get the last word! So I guess that would mean I wear the pants most of the time....lol!

I tag :Emily, Bonnie, Beth & Elizabeth Thuernagle.

Blog to Book

So I found a link through a friend about making your blog into a book.  The website is http://www.blurb.com/my/dashboard 

Unfortunately, they have had some problems with their system compatibility with blogger.....NOT TO WORRY!  You can either paste your pictures and words page by page (very time consuming) or you can wait patiently until they fix it and then you can do what is called a slurp which takes your whole blog and slurps it into that program, making it easier and more convenient to make your books. The older versions will still work for those who downloaded it before september.  

 

I have also made a book through www.mypublisher.com which is a good site.  It is through Costco.  On that site you do have to start from scratch soooo, if you are making something for a gift or a brag book or something this site will be a great one.  Blurb is less expensive for some types of books and has more options (for the hard bound and larger sized books)  Cosco is less for the smaller, paperback books and gets them to you super fast.

Whatever you choose, your product will turn out great!  Explore for yourself and see what you like.  I will keep everyone updated on when the problem is fixed with blurp because I am VERY anxious to get going on my blog to book for 2008.  Hopefully this was helpful to someone with the same questions I am having.

Have fun and BE CREATIVE.  It may change the way you blog if you know it will eventually be in a book.

Oh, I forgot!

I didn't put up a picture of Abby and I.  I like dressing up, I think it is fun!  This year I went as a witch, like you can't tell.  Abby kept saying to everyone that I was a good witch not a mean and scary witch.  It took her a few minutes to get over the fact that my skin was temporarily a different color.  Abby was just finishing a chocolate cupcake so her face was a mess! Oh well!!! This was taken at the ward party....thank you Sister Demitropoulos.

Catching up!

We haven't posted for awhile now and have had so much going on.  We want you too see so, here is a catch up  from the last week.  The pictures are backwards so that when I make it into a book, they are in order of the events happening.  Sorry for the inconvenience :)

Here are a few kids from the ward Trunk or Treat.  We had a great time seeing all of the fun costumes.  We missed most of the festivities because we were having festivities of our own with our family.

This is the kind of trick or treating that happens in Oliver's neighborhood (my brother, for those who don't know)  There were nacho stands, hotdog stands and scone & doughnut stands.  They have a feast....it was really fun and delicious.  Steve especially liked the nachos with jalapeno's.  I liked the scones.  

Here are the cousins in costume. L to R we have Oliva the duck, Aubrey the feather witch, Vaughn the chicken, Joey the ninja, Isabel as Super girl and Abigail as Tinker bell. They all looked so adorable.

Here is Abs playing in Uncle Oliver and Aunt Keisha's kitchen.  Her makeup was starting to get a little smeared but she still looked great.

Here is a shot of Abs trying to get out of her room.  A while back, the crystal door knob broke on Steve slicing his hand pretty bad.  We haven't replaced it yet because they are hard to find.  Anyway, at night we put her to bed and after she is asleep we close her in, for several reasons(to keep the heat in, to keep her from coming down to our room 3+ times a night, etc.....)  So this is her waiting un-patiently to come and get her out....it was too funny not to post!

Our new computer has a ton of fun things to play with.  This is a shot I took while checking my email......it takes really good pictures, I was surprised!  We have been nothing but pleased with our iMac.

Went to a baby shower and this is what Emily and I went in on for our cousin Patricia.  She is due in like 2 weeks now with her 3rd girl.  I just LOVE making these cute diaper cakes.  It is fun to stuff them full of goodies for the babies.  GOOD LUCK PATRICIA, we love you!

Here are a few shots of Abs dancing in her oversized fairy dress.  When she watched any movie with dancing she has to join in.  She immediately runs to me to ask me to get her a dress and quick so that she can dance along to whatever it is.....usually a Barbie or Princess movie.

These next 2 are some of the first pictures that we took with our new camera and I thought they turned out cute so I had to put them in.  We got a new to us, used Canon Rebel digital camera.  I don't know all of the specs but it is nice, and we LOVE it!  Thanks Christina for getting a new camera so we could buy your old one!!!  Steve is excited to invest in some better lenses.  Emily also got a pretty fancy camera so the three of us (Christina, Emily and myself) are planning to take a photography class in January.  It should be pretty fun, that way we can learn how to use these cameras!  We are glad to be rid of the 2.0 megapixel that we have been using for 4 years now.  The pictures from the old one weren't good quality so we had been looking into a new one for a while now.  We definitely found a deal that we couldn't pass up.  Just look at our little Noodles face, the difference in the photo quality is astoundingly good compared to the older posts on the blog.  Enough about that....onto the next!

This last one is a big deal for me.  I got my first season of canning behind me!  THANKS MOM for helping me out so much and especially for showing me the ropes.  I had a really good time doing it minus the mess.  My Mom came over to help me get started with my very first batch.  I did peaches, pears, apricots and apples (pie filling and apple sauce) It is really addicting.  I am ready to rip half of the back yard out next year for a garden!  I love home grown produce and would love it even more year round.

That's the update!  We hope everyone had a great Halloween and Fall season.  We are having a wonderful year accompanied by a load of fun!