Cookin' with Friends

I have been promising many of you that I would start posting dinner menus here, and I will! I just need a little more time. Until then, check out the blog where I will be posting all of the recipes for the menu. Yum Yum. May I recommend you try the "Stacked Enchiladas", and soon! You will love them!!

Everyone is welcome to view and contribute to the blog. If you have some to share, we would love it! On the sidebar you will find the instructions to become a contributor.

Click here.

'Til We Meet Again..

Here is a tribute to our beloved prophet and leader of our church, President Gordon B. Hinckley by
Glenn Beck.

Handstamped!

That is your hint for what's going on at the giveaway blog! Good luck!

January

I thought I'd post a few pics of January. Not much exciting news here. Because we only leave the house unless we have to. Like only for really important things like work, school, church or a chocolate craving. 'Cause it's as cold as the South Pole, remember??


Here are pics of a couple times we didn't leave the house. Not even for school.....

Soon after coming home from Texas, we got hit with a bug. Those poor children suffered through hours of movies, tv, and having to sit up so they could eat from their own trays. I felt so sorry for them. Then I got sick. And I didn't get to sit and watch tv all day. Nor did I have a princess tray to eat from. I'm not bitter about this, no I'm NOT!



Here's another day we stayed in. We had a quiet celebration for Logan's birthday. He was perfectly fine with that, as we promised that as soon as it warmed up a little we'd take him to Chucky Cheese to play. Still waiting.

We did make it out to church, and Miss Mariah graduated Nursery, Com Laude. She looks so proud she might go cross-eyed. She is loving Sunbeams- she has incredible teachers!!




Since January has been somewhat boring, we took the opportunity when Logan had a day off school to spice things up. I took the kids to the church and they flew their airplane and helicopters and played with some friends. To make it wild and crazy, we deciced to have "crazy hair day".






We are a rebellious bunch, I tell 'ya. (this picture didn't do much justice. It was a mohawk all the way to the back, rock on buddy!)


And as I mentioned before, we do leave the house in order to feed our chocolate cravings. South Pole or not, we have priorities!

BRR!

I heard last night on the news that some places in Iowa are as cold as the South Pole! Soon instead of squirrels and bunnies in my backyard, I will be seeing penguins sliding around!

Quotes of the week:

Logan (while building something with his K'nex): "Mom, the Lord has blessed me with so many talents...."

Mariah (while in time out): "Mom, you are wasting my time!"

Harrison: "eh,EH!" (slap, slap)

This Week

Don't forget the new giveaway for this week! Hint: It's SCENT-sational!! Now go win yourself something! www.ilovegiveaways.blogspot.com

Happy Birthday Logan,

It was 7 years ago on January 12, Logan entered our lives. He has richly blessed our lives in so many different ways. One in particular is his strict obedience and honesty. He has a desire to do what is right. He has a new nickname in the family "Honest Abe". Some of the things Logan likes to do.

1. Read with his mom.


2. Play with his friends.


3. Loves Baseball, Basketball, and football.


4. He enjoys wrestling with Dad.


5. Takes seriously his responsibility as a big brother and watches out for his younger sister and brother.


6. Enjoys school. Favorite subjects are math, simulated learning games on the computer.

Happy Birthday Logan and we love you very much.

Reminder!

I am so excited to start my first giveaway on Monday! I have had great responses from businesses and we have enough weekly giveaways to post through February!

Please let everyone know about the giveaway blog. Everyone in the U.S. is eligible to win. The more people we get the more often we will have giveaways, and the bigger they will get!

Thanks, and good luck on Monday!!

A caucus to remember!

As many of you know, I have gotten really involved with the Romney campaign. Even before I decided to support him, I was so excited to get involved with politics because of the great opportunities to experience it firsthand living here in Iowa. I have made hundreds of phone calls and have attended a lot of events for him, and for other candidates.
I was invited by his staff to represent Gov. Romney by being a precinct leader at our caucus. I agreed to and was told it was no big deal. I really didn't fret about it too much until the day of. Then I freaked out. They said I would have to give a speech, but it was no problem because they already had one for me to read. Then all I had to do was watch them count the votes and make sure there were no errors there. I was told there would probably be about 100 people there. I've given talks at church to about that many people. Easy enough, right?
Well. First of all, it is important to have a good hair day for such an event as this, right? Well, that was my first problem. For some reason, we had an uncontrollable case of static electricity at my house. Mariah and I literally had our hair standing out for most of the day. So my friends, I started with bad hair, and it all went downhill from there.
I go early so I can have a few thoughts to myself. Right when I walk in, I overhear the only other people in the room with me talk about how horrible Romney is and that they are going to form a coalition to stop Romney. They could clearly see who I was there to represent because of my Romney shirt and stack of stickers, but he carried on. Then the rest of the people came. And they kept coming and coming. The room was packed with over 300 people. I started to get a little nervous, but not too bad. Then the chairman stood up and said that it was time for our speeches. I figured that everyone else was like me. Just an ordinary citizen there to read a letter from their candidate. I was the 5th to speak. First up was the man who had been there earlier bashing Romney when I walked in. He was older, more educated and didn't have a boring script. He spoke from the heart. Then another McCain's rep also came without a script and shared how he had flown in from Colorado on his own dime to stand before us and tell us why we should vote for him. He knew McCain personally and had great things to share. Then we had a respected doctor share from his heart about another candidate. Next up was another distinguished, older gentlemen who happened to be the guy who helped start the "young replicans for Ronald Reagan" back in the 1970's with another unscripted intelligent speech.
By the 3rd speech in, I started to panic. I really felt like I might pass out I was so nervous. I've never gotten that scared before. I felt I was so out of my league. I was all dizzy and thought I was going to lose my dinner any minute. My friend Sandy tried to comfort me and said, "Robyn, just think stake conference". That made me laugh, but I'd much rather speak at stake conference. At least everyone there is on the same page and supporting the same person I am there to speak about. I think that is what scared me so much. I was to speak to people who didn't necessarily agree with me, and even had a coalition against my guy!
So up next was me. Ordinary me. A young lady who doesn't have any impressive titles, experiences, or even education. I don't remember exactly what I said before I read it, but I did make some sort of joke (I hope it was a joke, because I remember people laughing) and pretty much asked them not to judge my candidate because of my presentation.
Immediately after I finished I got slammed with the biggest headache I've ever had. I had just put my poor body through the most acute stress in the shortest amount of time. My headache lasted all night and into the next day.
But do you know what? I am dang proud to have done something like that! I would have to say that this past year has been such a growing one for me. I have done a lot of things that have challenged me and forced me out of my comfort zone, and I have felt so empowered! Scared, and nervous too, but it has been worth it!

After the caucus, my friend Tiffany and I went to Mitt's caucus party. Tyler forgot to take pictures of the speech (according to him, he was just so mesmorized, he completely forgot).



If you click on this one, you should be able to see it better. This is the whole Romney family when he came out to speak to us after learning he had come in 2nd after Huckabee.

We had a wonderful Christmas! Get ready for lots of pictures

I mentioned in a prior post that I spent an entire day on a gingerbread house. Please allow me to point out the stained glass windows and the candle in the wreath that I designed by delicately trimming a gumdrop and placing it atop a carefully crafted candlestick made of icing. I sound like Martha already.

We had fun in the snow before heading to Texas for Christmas....

..and Logan really loved waking up one morning to hear that school was cancelled. I must admit even I got the butterflies myself. I remember how exciting that was when I was little. So we had to make sure we had some fun. We watched movies..

had a "picnic"....

and even had time for some chores. As you can see by the way Mariah vacuums, our house is spotless! Poor thing, I don't think she picked up one crumb.

And before you know it, we were off to Texas to spend Christmas with the Sander's family!

Vovo waited for us to arrive so we could all trim the tree. I see why they call it "trim" the tree, because Harrison was taking stuff off of it faster than we could get them on. That strong little man would squeeze the shiny ball ornaments and break them in his bare hands.

Hence the humble, top heavy tree.

One of the first things we did was to go see Santa at the ward party. Mariah LOVES Santa. No matter how many times we have talked about the real meaning of christmas, Mariah will still tell you that the reason for the season is : "because Santa comes to bring you presents." Logan had already been to see the big man, so he was confused as to why he should have to sit on his lap again just to tell him something he's already told him? I didn't argue with that, thus no picture of Logan with Santa to share.

After a hilarious stare down with Santa in which Harrison won, he got friendly with the big guy, but didn't take his eyes off him for one second. Even when he got down. He finally stopped staring. When we left.

Funny story: When this Santa walked in, it wouldn't take an adult one second to notice that his beard was on wrong and that he clearly had a rectangular pillow for a belly. When my niece Toccoa saw him, she ran to her mom and said, "mom that is NOT the real Santa. I KNOW it's not him because he doesn't have white eyebrows!!"

Mariah with "Uncle". This is my baby brother Erik who is preparing for his mission. He is so great with kids and will be an awesome dad someday.

This is Uncle Petes. He is also my little bro by 8 years! He just came home from an incredible mission in Brasil and is off to BYU to find a wifey, I mean get an education.

Logan with Vovo who is clearly enjoying his dinner and tempting Logan to eat his cookie before finishing his dinner. Not gonna happen. This is Logan you're dealing with vovo!

This is my oldest brother John and Paula's family. Paula's sister, Elizabeth, is in the picture too. They have the cutest girls. Coa is going to be baptized this year and is so fun to play with, and Savannah is a chatterbox, and a bit bossy. You have to be when you have a cousin like Harrison close to your age.

This is Fred. And thank goodness for Joana. Just kidding. I love this couple! They are so fun. They have 2 cute kids, Jasmine and Van. They are in some other pics to come.

It didn't take long for Harrison to learn that Vovo is the source of all things sweet: Hugs, kisses, and lots of desserts.

One of the highlights of the trip was our family service project. We made lap blankets for a nursing home, and the kids really got involved.....

and it's a good thing we had child laborers, 'cause some of us couldn't stop dancing!

My friend Shannon came with her Dad, Gene, and they brought Ruby, her pug, decked in a Christmas sweater and jingle bells. They were a big hit! I was so thankful they came.

I was so proud of the kids. They had so much being the little elves and delivering the blankets. I think the residents loved the kids almost as much as the pug!

Caroling. Hopefully they have recovered from our visit!

This year the cousins drew names and swapped ornaments. It was great!! We will continue this for years to come, and when they move out, they will have ornaments for their own trees.

Merry Christmas!

Commercial Break

Hello Friends,

I beg your pardon, but today instead of sharing my "touchy feely" comments about our Christmas and my nerve racking speech at the caucus, I am taking this time to promote a new blog that I've created:

It's a give-a-way blog and the address is: http://www.ilovegiveaways.blogspot.com/ . I started doing this because I wanted to help some of my friends that have their own online businesses promote their products.
To win, bloggers simply leave me a comment about the featured give-a-way item. There is no registration, fees, or forms to fill out. It is super simple.
If you or someone you know has an online business that would like some attention, email me at ilovegiveaways@gmail.com more information.
The first give-a-way will begin Monday, January 14th- so spread the word, put this link on your blog, blog about it, tell everyone you know! The more people participate the more give-a-ways will be offered!
I'd also love any suggestions and feedback you have to offer!

Thank you, and we will return to our regurlary scheduled posts shortly!

Christmas with the in-laws...

The warmer climates of Texas was a much needed break from the harsh brisk winds and frozen tundra of Iowa. We spent Christmas with the in-laws in Texas. We were welcomed back with a very warm 65 degrees. I got a chuckle from my niece (Taccoa) that night when she said that it was freezing cold outside. To put into context the difference between the winters in Iowa and Texas you only need to watch the weather. In Texas when the temperature falls to 32 degrees it's called an Arctic Blast. In Iowa when the temperature rises to 32 degrees it's called a heat wave.

Robyn will provide an update shortly on the specific activities and the touchy feely warm fuzzy feelings that attended these events. It is sufficient for me to say that fun was had by all.

What I enjoy the most about these family events is spending time with my nieces and nephew. Being the tickle monster, playing make pretend, wrestling, and playing with play doh were just a few of the things we did together. Here are some pictures of the fun times we had.