Family Pictures- Nov. 2009

Yummy Cookies!

This recipe is courtesy of Misty Stratton from my ward. Her daughter brought them to Young Women's one night and they were to die for! I posted the recipe on a Ward Recipe Blog, but they're so good that I have to share the recipe with more people, so I am posting it on my personal blog as well. Try them! I'm a sucker for anything minty!

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 1/4 Cups Flour

1 tsp. Baking soda

1 Cup Butter or Margarine, softened (I used butter flavored Crisco for my first batch)

1/4 Cup Sugar

3/4 Cup Brown Sugar

1 tsp. Vanilla

1 3.5oz Instant Chocolate Pudding Mix

2 eggs

1 12oz Package Mint Chocolate Chips (Wal-Mart doesn't have just the plain green ones, but they do have the Andes Mint chips. I found the green mint ones at Harmons)

1 Cup nuts (optional)

Combine flour and baking soda and set aside. Cream butter, sugars, vanilla, and pudding in bowl. Beat in eggs and gradually add flour mixture. Stir in mint chips and drop onto cookie sheet. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

You can use any variety of pudding and chips. Maybe Vanilla Pudding and Butterscotch chips will be my next experiment!

I have a favor to ask.....

I entered Ryker into an "Adorable Baby Contest", and the contest is now available for voting! Can you PLEASE vote for him?? Because he IS the most adorable baby ever! Of course, I'm biased ;) But I thought we'd give it a shot.

Go to this link: http://www.rltphotography.com/ , and right in the middle of the screen, click the box where it says "Click here to vote for the most adorable baby" and find this picture of him:

Then just vote for him. It only takes 2 seconds. You can even see the results! You can vote more than once, but you have to wait 12 hours to vote again, not that I'm asking you all to do that ;)

Also, if you become a follower of RLT photography on Facebook, or the blog, they are randomly sending out free family photo sessions to their followers! So just go to the left side of the blog http://rltphotography.blogspot.com and click on "Follow this blog", and become a fan of RLT photography on facebook, and you're eligible to win!

Thanks for your votes!

The most wonderful time of the year

The Birds

So I love to see birds in my back yard. I have a bird feeder outside my bedroom window, and we always have tons of those cute little brown birds, I guess they're finches or something along that line. Some have a reddish face and brown body, some have a black head, white chest, and brown back. They're so beautiful! I sometimes catch myself just staring out the window and watching the birds for quite some time. But I really love the mourning doves. They are usually on the ground. And when I go outside, they fly off and go on the neighbors roof until I leave, then they come back. Over the summer, I would sometimes have 4 doves at a time, and for some reason that made me happy to have so many! But this past week, every time I would go outside to fill the bird feeder, there would be more and more that would fly away, and I'd hurry and try to count them! I saw seven one day and even called Kevin about it. Then one day I looked outside and saw this:

ELEVEN Mourning doves!! I was ecstatic! Kind of wierd, I know, to get so excited over birds. I'd just never seen that many at once before, and they were hanging out in my yard!
Then, as each day passed, there would be more and more. I kept counting them, and the most I counted was 31!! Aren't they cute??










I just wish they would sing more. They always sing in the summertime, but I haven't heard one sing ONCE in this cold weather! Maybe they're using all of their energy to stay warm. Or maybe they only sing when they're trying to attract the other birds, but they don't need to because they are already ALL here! ;)

Here are some shots of the smaller finch birds outside my bedroom:




And the other day I saw this bigger black bird trying to get in on the goods. I'd never seen one of those eat out of the bird feeder before.


I think my new nickname should be Snow White. Maybe I should go out there and try to convince a deer to eat out of my hand next?

I can't stop it!

Ryker LOVES to color. He's always saying "color paper?" So I strap him in his high chair with a piece of paper and a pen/crayons/pencil, and let him have at it. However, we have too many pens/crayons/pencils in the house, and he always seems to find them. I try so hard to keep them hidden, but the girls use them throughout the day, and don't always put them away. If he finds one, he's some how magnetically attracted to the walls, floors, or furniture, and starts his artwork! Aaahhh! I've caught him SO many times, and I always yank it out of his hand, and tell him NO, NO, NO, NO! Don't color the walls, only color paper! So when he sees his markings on the wall, he'll point at it, and say "no, no, no". I think he gets it, but he keeps doing it! My magic erasers have been wonderful, but there are some spots that just won't come out, such as the black sharpie on my bathroom wall, (see last picture), and the pen on the microfiber couch and chairs. I'm planning on renting a rug doctor for the furniture, but I think I'll just have to re-paint the bathroom. I hope I have some spare paint!

So what tips do you have for getting pen out of microfiber?? And how do you keep your kids from coloring all over the house? I use pens all day long, and can't keep him away from them.

I present to you, Rykers artwork:

Thanksgiving 2009

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year, and I'm just now getting around to getting the pictures posted. Warning, there's a lot of them!

It was our turn to go to my side of the family this year for the meal, but first we stopped over at Kevin's parents beforehand, just to say hi to everyone. We left just as they started eating. Here's a couple of shots at the Chapman's......





Then we headed over to my parents. Here's Season making her yummy candied yams.

And here are Kody and Brianna making the mashed potatoes......

My mom's beautiful table setting.....

Shane & Tyrel watching football......

Mom making stuffing.....

Trin loves green punch!

My nephew Luke.....

My niece Katie.....

Brianne & Kyle cutting the turkey that Kyle made. He's SO good at it! It's moist and delicious!

Ryker and Katie getting ready to eat.....

My niece Maci.....

Tyrel & the yams.....

12 grandkids in all......

Dad & Mom

Shane & Dawna

Me & Kev

Kyle & Brianne

Brianna & Kody

Tyrel & Season

It was a wonderful day! And Ryker fell asleep just like this......