Month: April 2011

Easter

Post author By Joy
Post date April 28, 2011

Hope everyone had an enjoyable & uplifting Easter! I’m sure many are tired of reading about people’s Easter Egg Hunts. So I’ll just post some photos from our Easter Sunday at GG & Grandaddy’s place! Their yard isn’t as green as ours yet, because they live “way” up north where it’s still cold all the time.

Blinking Beauties!

Of course, Casey was making a weird face when I was trying to snap the photo, so I told him, “Normal face!” and waited, & that smile is what he eventually came up with.

Charlotte Chase Family Fun

Kids Enjoying Life

Post author By Joy
Post date April 28, 2011

When my family was visiting a couple weeks ago, my brother Gino took some entertaining photos of Chase & Charlotte enjoying watermelon and playing in the backyard. Here are a few:

They love Uncle Gino!

Deals Family Fun

Big Day Tomorrow

Post author By McAdmin
Post date April 27, 2011

Well the big day is here. Tomorrow we find out if this new child is a male or female. So far the Doctor has prematurely proclaimed that it has been each, first he said he thought it was a boy, then he thought it was a girl…. why he said that, I have no idea. Please post your guess in the comments and the winner might win one of these. (Fine print: if Joy tells you and you post after you know for sure, you will owe me a chocolate malt milkshake from Smashburger)

Family Fun Personal

Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival

Post author By Joy
Post date April 19, 2011

When my brother Gino was here, he taught Rachel & me a thing or two about how to use our cameras. I kind of understood, but I’d like to learn more… It seems so complicated! Now, I’m not trying to be some sort of all-star photographer by any means, but I AM interesting in knowing how to take decent photos. Especially because I have such cute kids to take pictures of!

The photo below is just silly. I was trying to get a sweet, sentimental shot of the kids together, but to no avail. Chase just can’t resist large, grassy banks. He enjoyed somersaulting his way on down! And Charlotte was just… running wild. It was great!

My parents took Chase, Charlotte, & me to the very first day of the annual Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point. It’s always nice to have my mom along to tell us what the names of the plants are! Unfortunately, the tulips were not yet in bloom or even close for that matter, but good times were had nevertheless. Especially because cotton candy was involved!

Cotton candy is yummy to kids of course, but also to me because it reminds me of when we used to get it at the Sonoma County Fair (way back when I was a kid). For some reason, my parents didn’t want any! What??? My dentist father refused to eat pure sugar!?!

Although there were little to no blooming tulips, at least the daffodils were showing their bright, shining faces. I really didn’t know how to photograph them. The next picture looks like it has some odd Photoshop effect on it, but I’ve never even set foot in Photoshop! I like the effect anyway.

And then there were the beautiful man-made waterfalls! My parents kept marveling at how much $ the Thanksgiving Point Gardens must have cost to build, & to maintain now. The 55 beautiful acres are pretty impressive.

Charlotte enjoyed peering down at the waterfalls from way up above, but Chase would have no part in that. My dad said he didn’t blame him. Chase definitely inherited his grandparents’ fear of heights!

Charlotte is asking these tulips WHEN, exactly, they plan to emerge. Smile

We were all tuckered out by the end of the outing. *Yawn.*

Gotta love Charlotte’s little Panty Bum peeking out!

Chase

Here’s Our Five-Year-Old, Chase!

Post author By Joy
Post date April 18, 2011

We’ve been loving this month of April. It’s one of those busy birthday months. We had 4 family birthdays close together. Chase’s was the only child birthday, so naturally, he got the most attention & celebration & presents. Here he is enjoying breakfast in (bunk)bed.

He had awakened at his usual 7am time and called out, “Mom, are you getting ready?!?!” I groggily stumbled out of bed to whip up a breakfast feast for the beloved birthday boy. It was all he could do to stay in bed & wait to be served! Most of my family was here to visit from CA, so they soon came over to give more birthday love to Chase.

I made him a pirate cake. I tried to make it nice & moist, which backfired because it fell apart while I was decorating it. But thanks to Rachel’s moral support & my decision to resist re-doing the entire cake, this semi-Perfectionist actually didn’t lose it. Whew!

In all honesty/I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t think it turned out all that amazing, but everyone gave plenty of (undue) praise. Most importantly, the birthday boy enthusiastically approved of the cake! And it was fun to make, too.

I loved my brother Gino’s close-up shots of the pirates too much NOT to post them. (Proud to add that he took these pics with our little point ‘n’ shoot.)

We didn’t do a friend party this year because we’re going to go check out Thomas the Tank Engine next month at Heber Valley Railroad. So for the family party, we decided to go to Pirate Island Pizza because we hadn’t eaten there yet. We had some family there for dinner, cake, & arcade games. It was fun (even though it ended up costing MORE than a friend party would have. Haha!)

Chase got tons of presents. Thanks to everyone! Here he is enjoying his new Slip ‘n’ Slide from GG.

Deals Reviews

Greg’s

Post author By McAdmin
Post date April 8, 2011

My Dad has turned me on to the best food in Utah County! Better yet, you get a six course meal, drink, and fun for $10! It’s the Culinary Arts School at UVU as they practice their fine dining dishes. They don’t do it regularly, but when they do, it’s amazing. I took a group from work about a week ago for Wild Game day and here is what we had:

Alligator Etouffee
Classic Cajun Stew featuring tender pieces of alligator and cajun spices in a rich brown gravy.
Served over Cilantro Lime Rice and topped with fresh salsa and cilantro cream

Elk Tender Loin Griller
Grilled Achiote basted Venison with barley risotto, caramelized berry sauce and tempura fried
vegetable garnish

Pheasant Consommé
With quenelle of herbed scented Pheasant and Vegetable Garnish

A duet of Buffalo
Slow cooked BBQ Pulled Buffalo with fresh slaw and grilled bun
Hand Pressed Grilled Slider with cheddar, caramelized onions, and spicy remoulade sauce and
grilled bun.
Both sandwiches are served with Pomme Frites and house BBQ sauce.

Roasted Venison Roulade
Stuffed with duxelles, spinach and red pepper and barded with smoked bacon, nested on
ratatouille, accompanied with stuffed potato and crispy chip.

Family Fun

We Definitely Have a “Kid House.”

Post author By Joy
Post date April 6, 2011

Sometimes, I want to be “fun” by letting my kids do things that are out of my comfort zone, because I don’t want to be super controlling and say “No, no, no” all the time. I mean, why not let them do what they want?

Live it up! Let kids be kids! Life is short!

But sometimes, the whole thing kinda sorta backfires and the joke’s on me.

Example: When I allowed Chase to play/rejoice in a huge box of styrofoam packing peanuts and it took a long, long, long time for us to get all those tiny, sticky pieces all cleaned up! I was not pleased with the outcome, and I kicked myself.

Or a couple days ago, when I let Charlotte carry around my deodorant stick, because she JUST wanted to “hold it & smell it,” and we later found this mysterious white, chalky stuff wiped all over Charlotte’s face & hair, the couch, end table, and all the coasters:

Sure enough, the deodorant was all used up! Silly me. I wasn’t sure how to get the coasters all cleaned off, so I stuck them in the dishwasher… Bad idea. Deodorant residue all over "freshly cleaned” dishes! I had to laugh at my silliness.

Also, on the same day, Chase wanted us to go out & build an igloo in the snow (we hadn’t had snow in forever, until a few days ago!). But there wasn’t enough snow to build a large, person-sized igloo like he wanted, so I got out our dozens of toilet paper & paper towel rolls that we have stocked up. We built a nice igloo with a blanket over it & a tunnel going inside.

However, after about 5 minutes I really should have snatched those things up & put them far, far away from Chase’s grasp! Because he threw the rolls all over downstairs, unraveled a few rolls of the paper towels & toilet paper all over downstairs, & also snuck a toilet paper roll up to his room so he could “TP” the bunk beds. I caught him in the act! He was bummed that he wasn’t allowed to continue.

At least he had fun while it lasted.

And I later informed Pace that we officially have a “Kid House.” I figure you know what I mean by that!

Tech

Firefox Speed

Post author By McAdmin
Post date April 6, 2011

On of the great things about Firefox is the huge library of add-ons. It’s a double edged sword though as anytime you add abilities to the browser you run the risk of adding more time to each page load, especially if that add-on scans the page for content. Lets look at a flash ad blocker, the ad blocker can’t block ads until the whole page loads and it can then figure out where ads are to block. For you the end user the page won’t appear fully loaded until that whole process is complete. This isn’t a problem with just Firefox, it’s a problem with any browser that allows you to add functionality to it. To stop this fomr happening you can uninstall add-ons that you don’t use, and you can disable the add-ons you don’t use daily. Then just enable them when you need them. Firefox also just started publishing which add-ons slow down the browser the most. I was bummed to see add-ons I use on there, and I laughed when I saw the faster browser add-on on there (just proves that those lame add-ons do not increase speed). Hopefully this helps or perks your interest.

Check out the list of add-ons that slow down the browser

P.S. Thanks to everyone who made my b-day so awesome!

Charlotte

“Pem-pess” (=Princess) Charlotte

Post author By Joy
Post date April 4, 2011

Our little girl truly enjoys being a girl. Can you tell?

She wears dresses every single day, she LOOOOVES jewelry & Mommy’s cosmetics, and she likes wearing her clip-clop shoes when we go to the store so she can hear them clip clop as we walk along. (It takes us a long time to walk anywhere, though!)

She also loves princesses and Barbie. When I was dropping Chase off at preschool a couple weeks ago, Charlotte suddenly pointed & shouted, “Barbie!!!!” I looked out the window to where she was pointing, and sure enough, it was the preschool teacher’s next door neighbor, who truly DOES look like Barbie! What a hoot.

Charlotte’s a BIG girl now, because she’s potty trained! We did it. We have to deal with the occasional accident while she’s playing & doesn’t think about getting to the toilet, but she’s doing very well overall. No more diapers!

We had Sarah K. from our ward babysit our kids the other night. She did Charlotte’s hair—I loved it! I need to learn how to french braid! (this photo is of the next-day version of it)

Sarah also brought Charlotte a Sleeping Beauty locket, which Charlotte instantaneously fell in love with and grasped tightly saying, “It’s mine. You can’t have it! It’s mine.” I said to her, “What do you say to Sarah?” and she immediately wrapped her arms around Sarah while exclaiming, “Thank you SO much!” We put tiny pictures of Rapunzel & Ariel inside the locket so she could have various princesses with her at all times. Such a sweet girl!