Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. A major holiday that is all about FOOD, family, and gratitude. This post will be about our Thanksgiving week....yes it lasted a whole week.
My Dad was invited to his sisters house in California for Thanksgiving, and he is newly retired, so he stopped at our house for a few days on his way. The boys loved spending time with Grandpa Jeep. He made us his version of Thanksgiving dinner, which was very yummy, including his "mile high pumpkin pie". Seriously, the thing is almost 4 inches thick. But it is good. And we made it together, which was fun! Since I have not had the opportunity to make Thanksgiving dinner yet, I still want to practice making all of the parts of the dinner, so when it is my turn, it will be fabulous. So I went through a pie craving phase, and within a week and a half I helped make this pumpkin pie, I made an almond pear pie, apple pie (didn't get to taste this one, it was for Carson's class) and a cherry pie. I found a pie crust recipe that I LOVE because it uses butter, not Crisco. And it is thin and flaky and beautiful, and yummy! And easy! I made a turkey pot pie too. Pie is good.

Then we headed up to Utah, we left earlier than planned to miss driving in the "storm of the decade", which ended up not being so bad after all. It waited until we were going home! There was plenty of snow for the boys to play in, and they loved every minute of it. They didn't seem to notice that it was FREEZING cold with a daytime high of 9 degrees. Yikes, I do not miss that kind of cold!

For Thanksgiving dinner, we went to Little America Hotel in Salt Lake. These are most of the Beynon cousins, waiting for our turn to be seated.

The food was great, and no cleanup! We went to the Beynon's afterward and played games. Thanks Beynon's!

The next day, we went with the other side of the family. We went to the movie Tangled (so cute), and to the Sandy aquarium.

We went to my moms house for dinner later that day. Thanks mom!

Then the next night I was lucky enough to get to go to the Rockettes with my mom and my sister. It was so fun! A really good show.

We even went to Red Iguana after for Killer Nachos... again, yum!

Then we made the trek back home on Sunday. The weather was horrible, it took us soooo long to get home, we saw so many cars and trucks off of the road, and accidents. They eventually just closed the freeway altogether, but luckily we made it safe and sound back home before that happened.

And after we had been home for a few days, and we were outside doing yard work in t-shirts and flip-flops (bye-bye daytime high of 9 degrees, hello daytime high of 65) I was pleasantly surprised to find an orange growing on our tree! This was super exciting for me because I was so excited to have citrus trees when we moved here, but in almost 4 years....nothin! Apparently there are male and female trees, and we must have all of the same kind cause....no fruit, until now! It's a Christmas miracle!

Let me just take this Thanksgiving opportunity to say how grateful I am for family, and dear friends. We love you all so much!

Fall Soccer 2010

Another season of soccer has come to a close. The games just kept getting better and better throughout the season. They even got me jumping out of my chair and cheering a bunch of times! And if you know me, you would know that that is a very rare occurrence, I'm just not a big sports fan. But I guess when it comes to my boys, I am their biggest fan, their #1 cheerleader! Cory coached both teams again, this time they both had the same name, BLACK HAWKS!!!
Tyson Tyson's team. Check out that cute face!

Carson

Carson's team.

My handsome boys

Coconut Syrup

WARNING: Highly addictive recipe to come!



I am not even really a coconut person. I would not choose a cookie, pie or cake with coconut in it. I like an occasional pina colada smoothie by the pool now and then, but that's about the extent of it. Then this syrup came along. One of my favorite things to do is read food blogs. I discovered them about a year ago, and ever since I have been following a couple of them religiously. They try out recipes and then post only the ones that they think are fabulous, so there is always good stuff, new stuff to try. Love it. So one day I found a recipe for sour cream pancakes, I love a good pancake, and this coconut syrup was there too. And I thought that sounds good, especially if you served pineapple with it, and I saw this whole Hawaiian themed breakfast going on in my head. I made this breakfast for everyone at Lake Powell, and the kids loved it. Carson who would never eat pancakes before, now loves them. What is even more exciting is that we have found another yummy use for this delectable syrup. We use it to flavor and sweeten our oatmeal! It is soooo good. You MUST try it. I like to make my own oatmeal instead of buying those little packets so that I can control the amount of sugar that is in it. Homemade strawberry jam is another favorite oatmeal additive, and I just found a recipe for apple cider syrup, which makes an awesome apple-cinnamon oatmeal. It is also great on pumpkin pancakes! Yes, I love food. I get excited about it, it's in my genes, I can't help it. Enjoy!!!

Coconut Syrup:



1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. coconut extract



Place butter, buttermilk and sugar in a pot. Then turn stove on to medium and stir until butter melts and sugar dissolves. Bring to a boil and boil for one minute. Remove from heat and add soda and flavoring. It will bubble up, just continue to stir and give it a few minutes for the 'fizz' to reduce before serving.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday Mom!!
We hope you have a fabulous day, and know that we will be thinking about you.

We had a little party to celebrate while she was down here visiting a couple weeks ago. So glad you could come!


Love you, lots!

It's a GIRL!!!

We found out... we are getting a little PINK bundle of joy! And we couldn't be more excited. It still hasn't really sunk in, every time someone asks what I'm having and I say a girl, in my mind I'm like WHAT? a girl, I only know how to have boys! It's going to be a new fun adventure. The whole family was able to go to the ultrasound with me and my mom came too. The boys were so cute and so excited. Tears were running down my face as soon as she said "it's a girl", and Jaxon came right over and started to try to love me, which made me cry more because I just sat there looking at my little family and my baby feeling so grateful, and just the luckiest mom in the world.
We found out it was a girl a couple of days before Halloween, so I had to put a little PINK bow on my baby skeleton...




My mom was so excited too, I'm glad she was able to be there and share that experience with us. Our baby girl already has 2 pairs of shoes and a dress thanks to Nana.

This baby stuff all happened on Halloween weekend.We never went trick or treating, so I didn't get my usual Halloween-night-in-costumes picture, but I did get Tyson before he went to his Halloween party at school, he was Dracula!!

I took treats to both boys classes this year, so much work, but seriously so much fun too. These are the treats for Carson's class: spider crackers and cheese, monster eyeballs,mouths and fingers. Thanks to my mom and Allie for all of their help, couldn't have pulled it off without them.

Carson was Iron Man. This is him in his parade at school. For a picture of Jax, see previous post. He was a knight. I missed his parade at his preschool :( I can only be so many places at once! It was a fun weekend!

Our life

There is always so much going on around our house! We definitely stay busy. But at least it is mostly a FUN busy.
Jaxon was invited to a little girls party where all of the girls dressed up as princesses, and they asked the couple of boys that they invited to come as a knight. It was a very cute idea, and there just so happened to be this darling costume at Costco...I couldn't resist! He is also going to use it for Halloween- easy for me! Here is is dressed up all knightly on his noble steed right before we left for the party. This is him at the party when I came to pick him up, amongst all of the princesses. He got hot, it was still 90 something degrees a couple of weeks ago! So off came the costume.

Soccer season is in full swing. We spend our Thursday nights and Saturday mornings on the soccer fields. Cory is coaching both of the boys teams again. They are really doing quite well this season, it has been a lot of fun. Carson's game last week even got me jumping out of my chair it was so exciting.

This picture is of Tyson's game, yes that would be my son that has his hands in the air like he is going to try to catch the throw in :)

He is a really good little goalie, nothing gets by him!

It's your birthday shout HOORAY! Cory celebrated another birthday recently. Poor guy was so busy all day, we didn't get to celebrate his birthday until the next day. The boys helped me put the candles on the cake...I never would have thought to put them sticking out of the SIDE of the cake, but Carson did, and insisted on them being that way. It gives some serious character to that otherwise kinda boring white cake. Happy Birthday Cory! I luv u.

One of the best parts of pulling out all of the Halloween decorations is pulling out the old costumes too. The boys love this one, it was pretty funny watching them walk around in it and trying to wrestle each other.

Daddy's little shadow. I just thought this was cute how Jax followed around his dad mowing the lawn.

This is what I woke up to this morning. You might be thinking, did a burglar break in and ransack the place? Did they leave the windows open and a mini tornado came through? Earthquake? Nope you would be wrong, it was my boys, who I left playing peacefully with the cushions building a fort. Well at some point they got bored with that and thought couch olympics would be more fun. They were jumping off of the mantel, they broke a lamp, they have so much energy! I am sooooo missing our trampoline. They seriously NEED that thing. We had to take it down last week because the mat got a huge hole in it, and having the extra space in the back yard has been nice. BUT... I once saw a squirrel in a cage at a zoo. It was running around and around the cage really fast and just never stopped. That's what my house feels like sometimes, I'm in a cage with a bunch of wild squirrels. Of course I wouldn't have it any other way, I LOVE my little wild squirrels. Ok then, we are off to the park...to let the boys climb some trees or something :)

Lake Powell

Cory's still got it... I love it! This really was such a fun trip we went on a couple of weeks ago, none of us wanted to leave! It was so easy to pack for- swimsuits and t-shirts. And the kids had so much fun. Sand+water=happy and entertained kids. This is the group photo. From left to right: Roger, Colleen, Jamie & Scott, Tyson, Ellie, Cole, Cory & Tyson, Jaimee, Carson. In front of one heck of an awesome boat that is Scott and Jamie's, on our fabulously perfect beach.

Carson and Ellie on the knee boards.

Cutie Jax, lovin the houseboat life.

Our fearless captain Cory.

Happy Kids.

This was cute. Jaxon went for a ride with grandpa on the jet ski, both of their hats are on backwards. Cute.

Jaxon on the knee board.

We, well mostly scott and Cole beacause they had the right stuff to catch bass, did a little fishing.

Carson and grandpa on the jet ski.

Jaxon and Ellie on the Tube.

Scott and Jamie.

Ok, so Carson would not ride in the tube. He would not go down the slide of the houseboat. But oh, take him to a 20-25 foot cliff and he'll jump right off. I couldn't believe it when I saw it! This is a group jump. This one is only about 10 feet. Jaxon even did it!

Cory surfin'. If you have never done it before, notice that he is not holding onto any rope. Pretty dang awesome. I wanted to do it so bad!

Sometimes the kids were having too much fun to come in and eat dinner, so uncle Scott was nice enough to bring it out to them.

Me and our great beach behind me.

Of course playing games is one of the best parts of going on vacation with the Beynon's.

Scott found that he had a little shadow named Jaxon.

Awe, Jax and Daddy.

Another picture of happy kids! What a great time. Thank you to Scott and Jamie for sharing your cute family and your boat with us. And thanks to Roger and Colleen for sharing your jet skis with us. Fun times.