Payge's Hair Cut

Payge decided that since we didn't get her a pixie cut this summer, she'd take matters into her own hands.  After she cut off as much of her hair as she could on her own, she made sure to tell me that it was MY SURPRISE.  She was so proud of herself.  I did my best to keep her smiling.  We took her into Great Clips to get her hair evened out. 

Quin's First Birthday

The "Smash Cake" from Macey's

Our fun birthday decorations.

Quin was very reserved at first.

Just a bite, Mom.  Trying to decide if I like it.

Maybe one more bite...

Oh, well, yeah.  I think I can munch on this.

Yeah!  This is cake!  I'm ONE!

Bug are much worse than theft.

Today, Payge asked where some of our Disney DVDs were. I told her that they were part of what was stolen when our home was broken into a few years ago. She asked me if I had locked the doors. I replied, "Yes, but they broke out the window." Her response? "What! That's dangerous! Bugs could've gotten in!"

Blog Book

I just received my printed blog in the mail.  It really is a treasure to have such detailed posts, with photos, of all that the older children did when they were tiny.  If you notice an increase in posts (after I make more room!), it's purely out of selfishness.  I want these records.  I want to remember how my children were when they were small.  I want to look back and laugh, and cry.  Now...to put the oldest years on a disc.  :)

Chayce on being lean

"Mom, my goal is to be lean"
"Chayce, you were born lean"
"Mom, lean means strong and small, not just small"
"You've always been pretty strong"
"When I was born, could I lift two stuffed animals?"

Almost like graduate school

I work from home, but my back is to the window. When I woke up, it had been raining and the roads/driveway were clear. Jillian just returned from visiting teaching and related the harrowing experience of driving back up the snowy road home. Half an in out there and visibility about 100 yards. I should turn around occasionally, or put a mirror on my wall so I'm not ignorant of the weather as I was in graduate school.

While working today, I overheard Chayce looking for Zachary. She wanted him to see her lego castle. She usually is uninterested in legos, especially building, and it was interesting that she sought out Zachary first and not me. Maybe they are getting along today. This is good.

Website Up and Running!

For now...

I'm trying to decide how helpful having a website is, via just contacting people and talking to them about the freeze-dried fruits and vegetables.  Do me a favor, check out the site, and let me know if you think it's helpful to you.  If you'd rather talk to me in person, I'll work on my people skills.  :)

http://jtueller.shelfreliance.com/jtueller

Beautiful North Carolina

Hello! 
What a beautiful snow-covered day here in Utah.  The mountains are majestic and white, the trees are sparkly, and the garden looks like a fluffy marshmallow.  There are sled tracks down the back of my yard, where the children slid this morning. 

I suppose I should be making my Christmas card, but first, I want to document my great trip.

Wednesday, I left to visit Stephen (he'd been working in NC, and I planned to meet up with him).  Around midnight, my plane landed.  Around 2 AM, I made it to our hotel that was only 10 minutes from the airport.  Details about the visit to the rental-car place will be conveniently left off the blog.  Let's just say it was a bit crazy.

I woke without a voice on Thursday, and quite the sore throat.  Darn.  Not the way I wanted to start a trip. I tried to cheer myself up with some shopping, but nothing was really hitting home for me.  I hit all my east coast favorites (I'd packed light!), but bought nothing (this means I didn't feel well...I love to try new things!).

My awesome husband bought me some all-in-one cold/flu medicine (because I didn't think of it...derr), we went to dinner, and then squeezed in two wonderful, wonderful, wonderful visits with friends we missed dearly. They weren't as long as I would have liked, nor did I get to see all of the people I wanted to, but when you set a tight schedule, you take what you can get. 

Here's the (kind of) sad part.  I was supposed to have Friday free to do whatever I wanted.  A free woman!  Instead, I slept until noon (by this time, the cold I thought I was beating had begun to beat me--mercilessly).  We went to Blue Sky Oil & Vinegar--wow!!  Heaven on earth, if you're a foodie.  I hadn't even eaten--decided to do vinegar and oil samples on an empty stomach.  I've never had better balsamic.  After taming our desire to buy the place out, we went to Southern Season (ANOTHER wonderful food place.  My, my...looks like we know what my trip centered around).  Stephen found 6 new ginger beers to try, so we brought them home.  He'll post on those later, when he's tasted them all. Then, we went to dinner (heh, yeah...), and I was done.  We tried to walk around the shops on Fayetteville Rd. but my cold was winning.  So, by 8 PM, I was back in bed--watching the Food Network, no less. I said kind of because, really, when you're a busy mom, sometimes having a reason to sit in bed, drinking a milkshake and watching Food Network sounds kind of nice.

Around 10 I was uber hungry, so I sent my saint of a husband out for shakes from CookOut.  Because we don't have one here in Utah.  Blueberry-Cheesecake-Fudge.  Whew!  yum.  I slept more, and Friday came.  A hike at Crabtree park was perfect.  The weather, amazing.  I didn't feel great, but knew I had 6 hours on the plane ahead of me, so I decided a hike was in order.  We finished our hike with 2 hours to spare, so we went to the History museum in Raleigh for an hour, giving ourselves plenty of travel time to the airport. 

Then, we came home, I partook of NyQuil, and slept more.  Picked up my kids from grandmas...slept more!  Hopefully I can shake this thing soon.  It's mostly nasal, but the pressure is killing my head at times.  But home...home is good.  Sick or not, being with my munchkins has definitely been wonderful.

Thriving

Many of you know from past posts that we moved out to the country because I wanted to have a beautiful garden, and a place where Stephen could work from home in peace.

We love our yard.  We have a large garden (9 4x4 square foot gardens!), an orchard (pears, grapes, apricots, apples, cherries, plums, blueberries, gooseberries, blackberries, strawberries, and peaches) and many herbs.  We're working on getting chickens (such cute hen-houses out there!), and have delved into seed saving.  I'm pretty in love.

There's still the issue of time sometimes, or what to do when the chickens aren't laying, or forgetting to take some of our deep frozen meat out of the freezer.  Or what if there is an emergency and I lose all the frozen food? I don't really like preservative laden canned foods, and though I enjoy canning, I still don't like adding a cup of sugar or salt to a recipe. I'm still working on the perfect solution, but I'm pretty sure a large part of that solution is going to be Thrive Foods.  They are completely additive free.  Want strawberries?  Freeze-dried strawberries.  That's it.  Want green beans?  Ingredients?  Freeze-dried green beans.  Viola!

Due to the simplicity of it all, I decided to sign up as a rep.  Whenever I let people taste the foods, it pretty much sells itself.  It has a shelf-life of 25 years (unopened) if it lasts that long around your kids!  The shelf life is still a full year once opened, so even if you need a scoop of tomato powder (awesome stuff!!--ask me and I'll tell you more!), that can isn't going to go bad that week, or that month.  You have a YEAR.  It's great for food storage, emergency supply, or just having on hand for that day that you have run out of food (or even just produce!) and don't want to make a special trip to the store.  The variety is HUGE! Broccoli, beans, carrots, asparagus, zucchini, potatoes, corn, peas, and more, more, more.  Then there are the fruits.  I almost think I should do a post per veggie and fruit!  Maybe I will.

Anyhow, if you want more information, or samples, let me know.  I'd love to set you up with a great supply of healthy foods.  Also, I do in-home parties (if you are far away, I'll send you a party in a box!), where I make dinner, you sit back and relax (invite lots of friends) and then, when people see how easy it is to store and prepare the produce, they buy some, and you get free food for your food storage.  You can't beat that--FREE food.