30 Things by 30 revised...

I am going to just mesh my two ideas. I decided my 30 new things are going to be just 30 things I want to do before/around my 30th birthday. There are fun things I want to do this summer but have already done them in my life...like camping, hiking ect. But these are the kind of things that make me happy. The list will still include some things I've never done...like canning. 

So yeah...30 Things I Want to do by 30....

I have already done two on my list....

1. Sell something on the WillowSprings yard sale page and try to make a little extra money....check
2. Read a book I've been wanting to read...Goodbye, I love you...check 

Here are some of the things I have on my list...

• Go on a hike in the mountains
• Have a bon fire
• Have a picnic
• Eat dinner outside
• BBQ at out house
• Camp
• Zoo
• Tulip festival
• Make a craft from Pinterest
• Lindon Water park
• Finish my shirt blanket
• Read a book - “goodbye I love you”
• Eat a slushy
• Swim with Cade
• Go on a family bike ride
• Run 5k with Cade and Brice
• Try canning for the first time

Funday22 Happy Birthday Uncle Ben!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY UNCLE BEN!

We met at the Maceys in Orem to have a little ice cream to celebrate his birthday. Brian was gone in California (Ben and Brian are my twin brothers). I love this picture of them. Both so happy. We saw his new truck and had a good time talking and catching up with life. 

Later that week we took our friend to run an errand. This is her sweet little boy. They were so cute in the back together. I sang, read, and played with them while she was inside and they both looked at me like I was a little crazy :) I was thinking, "Maybe this is what it would be like to have twins". ha They are a couple months apart but Eli is a big boy.  

And then we went on a walk. It was so nice to be outside and get some fresh air. Look at those beautiful mountains!! That is the mountain with the Y. 

Mommy and Cade boy

Funday21 Cabelas

Family time at Cabelas. Brice is teaching him early to be a hunting turkey calling boy. He already has big plans to make him his little hunting buddy one day. :) I think Cade thought the turkey call was a pretty neat toy. 

Looking at the fish...

Trying out some turkey calls...Brice practiced a lot when I was pregnant because he was getting ready to go turkey hunting. Sometimes I wonder if it sounds familiar to him because he always smiles and seems to really like it. It just reminds me of morning sickness. Its weird how sounds and smells can do that to you.

Scary weird picture of me. Brice told me to look scared because of the Polar Bear in the back. 

We left with a sample of fudge and the amazing licorice they have there. Gotta get the necessities when you go. 

Letter to my Little Boy

                                                                       March 8, 2013
Dear Cade, 

Sometimes when things mean a lot it is hard to find the words to explain yourself. Thats how I feel about you. I am so grateful that you made my dream come true of being a mom. It has been the best thing that has ever happend to me. I love being your mommy and seeing you grow and change so much. 

I always heard that there was nothing stronger than a mother's love. And now I can see how true that is. My heart expanded to a new place I didn't know was there when I had you. When I see you driving in Dad's car I feel that dread that you are my heart walking around and the more you grow up, the more I cant keep you forever safe. 

I want to be the very best of everything for you. I want to love you purely, be the person you trust when you need advice, and be someone that you like being around :) .... I hope to teach you by example but I know the truth of it is Im still learning about life through you. I wish I could be everything I want and hope you to be...confident, brave, selfless...but I still doubt myself, I still listen to my fears too much, and I dont reach out always the way I should. I still worry too much about what others think. I wonder what good I will do for you and what things you will have to overcome because of me. 

One thing you can be sure of is that I will always love you and I will always want the best for you. I have high hopes for you. I have high hopes for our family. I want to make our home a place that can build a strength and confidence in you, so that when your trials come, you will have the faith and and resilience to get back up. 

I want you to know its ok that you fall. In fact, its a wonderful thing. That means you are learning some great lessons about life and yourself. And just because life does things to you or people say or do things, doesn't mean any of its true or that you are less than you really are. Assume the good and doubt the bad in yourself when life starts to get to you. Yes you can make. Yes you are strong. Yes you can make a difference in this world through your life story. 

Learn to feel the fear and do it anyways. Everyone has fear. We all worry about the unknown. Learn to overcome your fear and follow your heart. Do something you want to do without worrying how others may see you. It can be scary...ok terrifying...but when you feel the thrill of doing something anyways, you are really starting to live. 

Live for others. Learn to think of others, to give of yourself. To give a compliment, to give a smile, to make some one laugh, to be a true friend, to think about what will make that other person happy and do it.  It will be hard and it may not seem worth it at times. But even if you dont see it, the difference you make by being the best you is no doubt real. Know you may not get back what you give but thats ok. Isnt that what Christ did for us? 

Love yourself. Make mistakes. Laugh at yourself. But dont think too much of yourself. I love this thing I heard once...get ready and look the best you can and then go out and forget about it and focus on others...I think thats great advice. If they can do it, why cant you?? They arent any more special than you. Follow your heart. Follow your heart. Follow your heart. And if the world gets so loud and you cant hear what it's saying, and things get a little foggy, just ask yourself, whats right? Do that thing and see miracles happen. 

I love you Cade. There is nothing you can do or not do that would ever make me love you any less or make me see you any less than perfect. You will always be my baby boy. 

Love,
MOM

St Patty's Day 2013

Happy St Patricks Day! 

It just occurred to me how odd it is that this Irish tradition has become so American. We do have Irish ancestors though...if you havent been able to tell yet by the freckles and red hair :) So... growing up my mom always made it a special day by making the traditional corn beef and cabbage meal. 

But I've seen some other fun things done too. One of my friends shared some recipes and fun traditions (here) on her blog including chocolate mint brownies. Yum. Ive seen people paint little green foot prints leading to the gold (candy rolos, coins, butterscotch candies ect.) And dying the milk green too is always fun. 

This year we made the traditional corn beef and cabbage but learned a trick that made the corn beef go from good to SOOO good. Im excited to share it with you! 

Amazing Corn Beef

1. Cook the corn beef in the crock pot 7-8 hrs until can pull shreds with fork

2. Mix brown sugar and mustard together in a bowl to make a glaze

3. Take corn beef out of crock pot and put glaze on top

4. Broil until top is bubbly and looks like its getting crispy on top

**Be sure to watch it carefully so it doesn't burn

Cade even liked it! He ate the most last night in one sitting ever! 

And for dessert....

Made these cookies for my church nursery class. Just from a box with green dye. Nothing fancy.

pistachio pudding

Cade even helped himself to some in the fridge haha silly boy.

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30 new things by 30

If you can believe it (Im not sure I can yet or that I am having the guts to write about it)..I will be 30 this year. Thats right the big three zero. I keep telling myself its not a big deal. Because after all age doesn't really matter right? Right. I kind of dont really care that much. But I do want to do something fun and blog about it. So I need some help. 

I want to create a challenge. Starting at some point to be determined until July 22, my birthday... I want to do 30 things Ive never done before. Some categories could include...

art/crafts
new adventure/activity
social
social media
food
new places
random
ect....

Some ideas I have so far are...

• Start a twitter account and right something on it
• Call a radio station to try and win something
• Fun a 5k with my husband and baby
• Post a Vlog
• ......

Alright thats all I got...so I need some help. I know that it might be a tough because you may be thinking, well Emily I dont know what you havent done...thats ok. I probably havent. :)

Then I will blog about each thing Ive done and you can see if I did the thing you requested. 

Thats it! Thanks ya'll!! :)

Funday20 BYU Art Museum

It was time for a Funday! Hooray for us cause it was about time to get out of the house and doing something new. We headed down to BYU to walk around their art museum. They have an exhibit up called Monsters and Heros right now. I didn't know this before but they have an educational section in the museum with art classes and a hero dress up and activity room. When the Cade man gets a little older I want to take him back. It looked like fun.

Entering the Art Museum

A little freaky...but hey its art so its alright

Cutie Patootie

Cade looking so thoughtfully into the distance, contemplating the deeper meaning of the piece

Mommy and Cade boy

After the museum we went to the BYU bookstore to look around. It always does something to me when I go back there. It still smells the same, sounds the same, and the people all look the same (minus the printed skinny jeans and neon colors...those were definitely not there when I was there) and it feels the same too...like time stood still but I kept getting older. Even though school was stressful and a lot of work, when I go back and see it, I only have good feelings when Im there. Its kind of where I feel like I started to grow up in a way. Learning about life and being on my own. Lots of good memories. 

We ate pizza in the cougar eat and listened to the music that was playing. I let Cade get out and hold on to the stroller. He liked holding on to it and made it move like a toy car. Then all of a sudden he let go and was standing still for what seemed like a long time. For sure the longest Ive seen yet!  I tried to get it on video again but all i got was this...

Whenever he stands now alone he gets the biggest smile on his face and kind of laughs like he is so proud of himself. Its so cute. 

What should we do for our next Funday??

Cade is almost a year!

I seriously cant believe we are coming up to almost a year of having Cade!! I remember back when he was first born and I still remember it very well... those first few months were so exciting and hard and tiring and emotional...

I knew having a baby would be hard. I've seen movies and heard some  traumatic birth stories before. I went in very confident that I could do it though.  Needles usually freak me out and I dread the whole experience...but when you are pregnant..its amazing what you are ok with people doing to you. You are so excited for your baby that its all ok because you are going to meet them soon!

The day I had him I wasn't nervous really, just excited, and relieved it was finally the day to have him. No more waiting and wondering. I felt confident (naively) that I could handle what would come. They broke my water and within 30 minutes I was having pretty strong contractions without any pitocin. I lasted four hours of having contractions without any medicine. I gave it my all and went as far as I wanted to take it, and then an epidural became my best friend. Finally I can relax!! 

If someone can tell me how to relax during having a baby I would love to know!! I felt like I needed to get up and do something, not lay there and just wait for the next one...(His whole birth story if you want to read about it :) So yeah, it wasn't as easy as just relaxing and doing my hypno birthing stuff. It wasnt easy or that fun, at all. Im in awe of woman who have gone through this crazy experience, especially all the woman who have/had to do it naturally. Wow.

He was born and it was amazing to have him here and see him. It was pretty amazing and humbling and surreal really. They put him in my arms and suddenly I was a mom. I was now suppose to know exactly what to do. He was my baby. 

The next few days were the most exciting and hard days. WAAYYY harder than I expected. Your body just birthed a human being...and depending on the size that can determine the damage...Cade was almost 11 lbs...10lbs and 11 ozs to be exact..and he was my first. But no matter the size, it is still some serious trama to the body. I still wonder how the heck he actually came through me. Birth is nuts! Seriously. I was there experiencing it and I still look at him sometimes and think...holy cow I had a baby!! How did that happen?? aha 

One of the hardest predicaments about birth is that you really need to sleep to heal. If you had major surgery or an accident the doctor would tell you to rest. But sadly that cant happen. The truth of it is you probably havent been sleeping that great lately anyways, since you have this huge bowling ball for a belly. Then if you were like me you were up all night having him. And then once hes born I was like on the highest high, like I was a kid again the night before Disneyland. I couldnt sleep. The mommy stuff kicks in and you feel like you need to always be there to know what he is doing and watch him and make sure he is still breathing. When I finally did go to sleep, it was like a nap. An hour or so after Id be asleep, they would be in waking me up telling me he needed to eat and check my vitals. 

You seriously need like two days to just sleep after this whole experience but it aint happenin' sister. I use to think Id just take naps and Id be fine. Well naps are good and all, but you have been going years and years with 7-8 of one chunk of sleep and then suddenly not to do that is a serious shock to your body. I would set my alarm for every 2 1/2 hrs to wake up....all.. day..long. Because he had jaundice they told me I had to feed him a lot and to make sure I fed him 2 or 2 1/2 hrs even if it meant waking him up. That was from beginning of one feeding to the beginning of another. My alarm would go off, I'd go get him, change his diaper, feed him for like 40 minutes with burping during and after, rock him to sleep if he wasn't sleep, then down to sleep...by that time I was setting the alarm for the next hr or so to wake him up again. All day long. Craziness!! 

We had to go back to the hospital everyday to get his blood tested. That was hard in itself seeing my little baby poked. Not fun. The nurses would call everyday for a check up from me about how many peeps, poops, and how many times and how long he was eating. Between writing down his hourly happenings and my medicine schedule and hygiene regiment..i thought I was going to go crazy. I had to go to the doctors twice myself within the first week home because I had some blood gushing out and an inflection where I tore and had to be restitched at the doctors. Honestly worse than having Cade, since I could feel every stitch that went in. It was traumatic. 

Did I mention it was hard? :)

Having a baby was well an experience to remember...and its amazing the courage we as woman have to do it again and again...I've figured there is only one word to explain it ...CRAZINESS! :) 

I still remember what it was like and this time Im more scared because I know what it feels like during and after, but when I remind myself of this little face...he is my heart crawling around on the outside... 

I know I'd do it all again in a heartbeat. 

Funday19 Slam Dunks and Uncle Time

Im starting to think I may change Fun Fridays to just Fundays. Sometimes Fridays are hard...like we are sick, Cade is grumpy, Im grumpy, or we are all just too lazy and tired to want to go out into the cold.  Free and fun is a little hard to come by in the winter. Im still sticking to making the fun...keeping the tradition to have one time a week that is out of the norm, different from the day to day kind of life stuff, to make something a little special with my kids. Cade is still so little but he loves to get out of the house still and see new places and people, that's different than our usual trip to Walmart or church. So its good for both of us. And if Daddy comes and we make it a family fun thing, even better. 

The uncles had some time open in their week and so we headed down to Provo to hang out. Uncle Brian played with Cade teaching him how to be a basketball pro...

and he played and we talked. He put a movie on for Cade to watch...and made a little mini pancake for him to eat :) 

Uncle Bri and Cade

Uncle Mark came by later to say and hang out and it was fun. Cade loved crawling around and trying to get into all the new fun stuff. It was fun to get out of the house and see my brothers.    

FunFriday 18 Dining on a Dime

Brice got home from work and we headed out to make something fun for our family day. Living on a budget means you have to think smart and cheap. We went to Blockbuster to get a dollar movie and then to Maceys grocery store for an ice cream cone. Brice was eyeing the fried chicken and I happily agreed :) I think it was like 4.99 for a 4 pieces of chicken, two sides, and a drink. The guy hooked us up with with extra chicken and 30 cents when we didn't have enough change....wondered what he thought of us sorry looking people getting all excited about 30 cents and an extra chicken wing :) Cade was a happy boy as long as he had his straw and plastic fork, that he continued to throw on the ground ha We took turns eating and headed out to the icey cold wind and icey snow. Brice was nice to get the car while I kept Cade bundled in my jacket. Its the little things like this that make me smile. 

Our glorious high class meal for champions

Spaghetti Pie

I found out another way cool trick that can cut down my prep time in the kitchen and it really worked!! 

I made a big batch of my version of my mom's spaghetti and froze half of it. Im still not sure how long things can be in the freezer but it was in there about a month (Its such a gut kind of thing for me still :) Anyways, I was running low on food, and made Spaghetti Pie with the sauce for dinner one night. 

Its something Ive never tried before..a twist on regular spaghetti. And its basically the same thing but it tastes even better because the flavors really seep into the noodles and the little crunch on the top with the cheddar and parmesan cheese is so good. The trick is using angel hair pasta. I honestly liked it better than regular spaghetti.  I loved that I could just whip this up with not too much effort, time, and mess in the kitchen. 

I made a fresh 'weed' salad with cucumbers, sunflower seeds, tomatoes, and olive oil and balsamic dressing. Just simple.  

Spaghetti Sauce

1lb ground beef

1/2 cup onions

2 garlic cloves

28 oz diced tomatoes

15 oz stewed tomatoes

15 oz tomato sauce

garlic powder (I did 2-3 shakes)

onion powder (2-3 shakes)

1 bay leaf

generous pinch of brown sugar

Saute ground beef, onions, and garlic until brown. Drain if needed. Add rest of ingredients and simmer on low for 20-25 minutes. Serve immediately or freeze in air tight container for later. 

Spaghetti Pie

Angel Hair Noodles

Spaghetti Sauce

1/2 cup to 1 cup Cheddar cheese

1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese

Boil noodles and defrost sauce. I did about 1/3 of the box of the noodles and about 2-3 cups of sauce (depends on how you like it). Mix cooked noodles and sauce together and add about 1/2 cup cheddar cheese to mixture. Put into pie dish. Sprinkle with a little more cheddar cheese and Parmesan cheese on top. Cook at 350 for about 35-40 minutes.  

It was awesome that Cade could eat it and we all had it for lunch the next day. I sure love when that happens! :)

Pumpkin Muffins

Months ago, when pumpkins were in season, I attempted to make my own pumpkin puree. I was pretty proud of myself. I got a couple of containers out of the process and have kept them in my freezer this whole time. 

Just a few days ago I decided it was time to get rid of those containers and free up some space in my freezer. I put a container in warm water to defrost a bit and started making these amazing whole wheat pumpkin muffins. I added some chocolate chips to half of the batter and boy were they good!

Pumpkin Muffins (here) From 100daysofrealfood

I was out of stuff to make breakfast smoothies the other day so I made this for my husband as he hurried off to work...banana, orange juice in a mason jar with cut straw for on the go, and two pumpkin muffins. YUM! :)



What I like about these muffins is that they are a great breakfast alternative if you are out of ingredients to make smoothies or just needing a change. And I also LOVE that they are a great healthy snack, especially if you are craving something sweet. 

4 Meals Using WHOLE CHICKEN

One of the best feelings about cooking is when what I cook is efficient! I made this whole chicken recipe from 100daysofwholefood (here) and I figured out I used that same chicken for at least 6 meals. I bought a large whole chicken at Winco for 6 dollars and some change. Not bad!

Meal 1:  Chicken Greek Salad (here)

Meal 2: Chicken Wrap with Sun dried Hummus from Sweet Luvin in the Kitchen (here)

Meal 3: Spinach Salad with Mandarin oranges, almonds, and poppy seed dressing from "Cooking For Two" by Debbie G. Harman

Salad

1 1/2 cups spinach

1 4 oz mandarin oranges

1/4 c water chestnuts

Shredded chicken

Toast 1/4 slivered almonds and 1 tsp sesame seeds in 1 Tb of butter until light brown.

Dressing:

2 Tb vegetable oil

2 Tb lemon juice

1/2 tsp poppy seeds

1 Tb sugar

1/4 tsp salt

Meal 4: Chicken Noodle Soup (here)

I loved too how the chicken and soup were something Cade could eat. One less thing for me to worry about! :)