Lagoon Day!

We’ve decided Kaman is going to be an engineer when he grows up. We went to Lagoon the other day and the first thing Kaman did when he got on a ride was look up to see how it worked…



Kaman’s favorite ride was the bumper cars. I’ve never seen such a big smile on a little boy.

At the end of the day, we let Kaman ride the bumper cars over and over again. He absolutely loved it!

A little enticement never hurt anybody

The potty training isn’t going as smooth as I would have hoped. We’ve had many accidents, crying fits and stomping feet (mostly by mom). I’m sure I’m not being the best teacher either. We’re fine for the first half of the day, and then when I leave the house I end up putting a pull up diaper on him. I’d rather not have to clean up pee in the middle of the grocery store.

We decided to give him a Hershey’s chocolate kiss every time he goes #1 and #2 (although he hasn’t pooped in the potty yet), and then when he is completely potty trained he gets a toy he picked out himself.


Motivation? Hmmmmmm...maybe. Would you go potty in the toilet for a new truck?

The infamous grade-school-peanut-butter-bars recipe

Last Friday my niece, Megan, got married and for the reception I was asked to make 200 peanut butter squares. I may not be making them for a while, though, after taste testing every batch to make sure they were ok, and cutting off the ugly edges to be eaten later, I'm a little sick of them.

But I've had many requests for this recipe, so I’m posting it online for anyone that wants it.

I remember eating these for school lunch in grade school and being reprimanded by my principal for always eating them first. I finally found this recipe a couple years ago and was excited to find one of my childhood favorites.

So without further ado…

Glazed Peanut Butter Bars

¾ cup butter, softened
¾ cup creamy peanut butter
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup packed brown sugar
2–3 t. water
2 eggs
1 ½ t. vanilla extract
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ cups quick-cooking oats
¾ t. baking soda
½ t. salt

GLAZE:
1 ¼ cups milk chocolate chips
½ cup peanut butter chips
½ cups creamy peanut butter

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, peanut butter, sugars and water. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, oats, baking soda and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture.

Spread into a greased 15in. x 10in. x 1in. baking pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 18-22 min. or until lightly browned.

For glaze, in a microwave-safe bowl, melt chips and peanut butter; pour over warm bars and spread evenly. Cool completely before cutting. Yield: 4 dozen.

Danielle's first swim meet

This summer we signed Danielle up for the swim team. She’s a great swimmer and loves the water, so we wanted to give her a chance to compete with other swimmers. On Tuesday, she had her first swim meet and competed in freestyle and the backstroke. She and her cousin, Mya, both signed up for the swim team this year, and it being their first year, they were a little nervous.

This is Danielle waiting for her name to be called - she looks nervous…



She’s waiting for her turn…



Here she is diving off the platform. She’s so nervous she forgets to put her goggles on and you can see the judges on her right with a concerned look on their faces.



This is Danielle on her freestyle race. Most swimmers do the front crawl on a freestyle race, but she wanted to do the butterfly one way…



and the backstroke the other way.



Here she is on her backstroke race…




She did a great job and took last place on her first race (because she had to stop half way and put her goggles on), and then took 3rd place on her second race.

This swim meet was a trial run, so the kids could get an idea of what will happen at a real swim meet. She’s a great competitor in any sport she tries and I’m excited to see her excel in swimming.

camping in Mapelton Canyon

Continuing our active summer….

We decided to give camping another try this summer in hopes that Kaman would do better this time around.

The first year we went camping I had to take Kaman home in the middle of the night because he wouldn’t stop crying. The next year, he kept waking up in the middle of the night and finally ended up in my bed. This year we decided to leave the travel crib at home (since he’s a big boy now) and had him sleep in a sleeping bag. To keep the kids warm, we thought we'd have them share one sleeping bag. That lasted until 3:00 in the morning! Kaman eventually ended up in my bed, which kept me from sleeping, so I got up at 6:00am, made a fire and read my book until everyone woke up at 9:00am.

We actually found a really nice camp spot in Mapleton canyon. It had a gentle slop down to the river, plenty of room to run around and we ended up being one out of 3 families staying in the camp ground.



It was nice to have a quiet camp spot, which was probably due to people leaving on Saturday night to make it home for church on Sunday. Not us! Well, to be honest, it was Stake conference, so we thought we’d play hooky and try our camping out that week.

We had my parents out for dinner on Saturday night.

And then we had Duane’s parents out for lunch on Sunday afternoon.

Kaman had a good time fishing with his ‘princess fishing rod’ that the girls so graciously let him borrow.

I don’t think he knew the difference – not yet anyways, but we did bring his monster trucks so he could have some boy toys to keep him grounded.

The girls spent most of the time playing with sticks in the fire and jumping rope with a rope we tied around a tree.

Duane and I both grew up camping quite often, so I think as soon as we get Kaman 'sleeping like a baby’, we’ll continue the family tradition.

The search for the perfect cookie is over

Why is it that some of us can spend a lifetime searching and searching for the perfect chocolate chip cookie. We hunt tirelessly for days, weeks, months, even years to find that perfect cookie. Just to say after thousands of blah, flavorless cookies that it still isn’t right. Maybe it’s our destiny to be the one person to find that cookie, the one that satisfies our every taste buds desire. Well, maybe I am that person. I can now say I have found the chocolate chip cookie. Yep, it’s the one, but what’s funny, it was right there in front of me the whole time…

The Original N E S T L E T O L L H O U S E Chocolate Chip Cookie!

Who would have thought that if you just went back to the original you’d find that it was perfect to begin with?

So, incase you are still looking for the perfect cookie recipe, look no further…




Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ packed brown sugar
1 t. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups (12 oz. pkg.) N E S T L E T O L L H O U S E semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in mixer bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9 to 11 min. or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheet for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

And voila, the perfect cookie! Yum! Enjoy!

And, you’re welcome…

In loving memory of a great man...

This post is late, but I wanted to get it on my blog to remember and honor a great man – my grandpa, Woodrow Marsh Thompson.

We decided on Memorial Day to go and visit my grandpa’s grave at the Springville cemetery. We were just getting out of our car and walking over to the grave when my parents drove up with my grandma - that was a nice surprise. I don’t know if our kids remember my grandpa very well, Danielle was 5 and Ashley was 1 ½ years old when he died.

My grandpa, Woodrow Thompson, was born in Evanston, Wyoming on December 24th, 1916 to Charles and Sarah Thompson. He was the youngest of 5 brothers and sisters. They lived on a 360 acre land in Evanston and moved into town during the winter to put the children in school. My grandpa was only 22 months old when his father, age 39, died of the flu. His older brother, Fredrick, age 16, ended up being the breadwinner for the family. His family moved to Provo in 1930. He had various odd jobs in his life, but eventually found one he enjoyed – accounting.

On July 3rd, 1937, he met my grandma, Veryl Davis, and was married 4 months later in the SLC temple, November 23, 1937.

They had their first child, Karen, on December 29th, 1938 and their second child, Stephen (my dad) on May 12, 1944.

They enjoyed life as a family for about a year when my grandpa was drafted in the Infantry at Fort Douglas, Utah during World War II. He completed his basic training and was sent to Yokohama, Japan to serve in the Depot Surgeon’s office for 13 months.

After being discharged he worked for Anderson Lumber Co. for a while, and then in May of 1947 he began a Public Accounting and Tax practice working out of his home. They had their 3rd child, Sue, on April 20th 1949 and their 4th child, Philip, on December 2, 1952, and then their last child, Jill, was born March 5, 1956.

My grandparents went on numerous trips to China, California, Alaska, Hawaii and Europe and they traveled around the US in their old green RV camper. (I can still remember the smell of that RV).

My grandpa died on New Year’s Day 2004.

The memories I had of my grandpa was his wonderful disposition, he was a quiet man and always in high spirits. I also remember his great love for my grandma, you could always catch them holding hands during every prayer. He was an inspiration and a huge example in my life.

The start of our active summer...

This year Duane declared he wanted to have a more active summer, so we got the calendar out and started planning. One of the things we wanted to do this summer was go to more local events and just get out of the house. I got on our local cities web sites and searched out their summer activities. I was on P.G.’s web site and saw that the Fire department was having a breakfast on the 30th of May, so this year we got the kids up early and headed down to the fire department for some fun and interaction with the fireman and our community.

Kaman, of course, loved every minute! He loved seeing all the fire trucks up close...

and sitting in the HUGE fire trucks driver seat. I don’t think he moved at all, though, he was to fascinated with everything.

The girls enjoyed it, too.

After having breakfast, we decided to continue our active streak that day and hike the "Y".



This was the first time for the kids and they were excited for about the first 1/8 of the hike.



Then it got to be a little to much for some of them and we did end up caring Kaman for most of the way.



And resting every 10 steps...



But we did make it and the kids can now say they've been to the "Y".

Attempting a garden

We decided this year we would attempt a garden. When we built our house we laid out a spot along the back part of our yard for a garden, but I never got up enough nerve to plant. I guess I thought it would be more work then I wanted. I was worried that I’d have to take a gardening class before even attempting to plant, so I went to one my mom was attending at church. I got really concerned when I found out there were several classes and each one lasted 2 hours long! But I gave it some thought and decided this was my year to set all my fears aside and just go for it.

Our strategy…we’d plant a whole bunch of stuff and see if any of it grew.

This is what we planted…

2 Aristocrat zucchini plants
2 Burpless cucumber plants
1 green sweet pepper
5 strawberry plants
Pumpkins
Watermelons
Corn
Carrots
Cilantro
Lettuce
8 Big Boy tomato plants
2 yellow squash plants
Sunflower


So, May 23rd we took the bark and weed control off the plot, mixed in mulch and fertilizer,



and planted our 1st vegetable garden




Then we hired a very efficient little boy to water our plants.



Here is one of our zucchini plants about a couple weeks after planting. I’d say it’s actually working.



And here are our strawberry plants.



This is one happy customer who LOVES strawberries right off the vine.



We are excited to see if we get any edible vegetables this year. And if it ALL works we will have more then enough to share, so come on over and help yourself.

My little funny guy.

It's so fun to hear what comes out of my little 2 year olds mouth. The other Sunday Duane said to Kaman, "Mom's hot, isn't she?" He very casually walked over to me, touched my leg, and said, "No, she's not, Dad."

And just today he had gotten a muffin from the kitchen and brought it into my bedroom to show me, and I told him he needed to go sit down and eat it on one of the bar stools. Well, a few seconds later, I come out of my bathroom to see Kaman sitting on a bar stool right in front of my bedroom door. I meant for him to sit on the bar stool IN the kitchen. I'd say he's a little smarty pants. Wouldn't you?