I have a friend.....

Lately I have been thinking about all the wonderful people that help me in my life. I have so many people who offer me acts of service, my parents, Ty's parents, Ty, neighbors, friends, relatives...I am so blessed. I wanted to do a special post about someone in my life who has become one of my very bestest friends...

I have a friend, she is 5 years older than me, but it has always felt like we are the same age. This friend has never judged, she has always been there to listen and to talk. She gives good advice and is very smart.

I have a friend who has been through a lot, and lost a mother and a brother, yet she is one of the best mothers I know and a wonderful sister to her family as well. This friend has much patience and understanding for those around her.

I have a friend who sacrifices her time for me once a week to watch my sweet little boy. This friend does not know how much this means to me. To know I can leave Karson with her and that he will be safe, secure and happy while he is there. I am so thankful that this friend is willing to do this for me.

This friend also burns me DVD's of shows that I have missed! How great is that?

I have a friend who I have called "my cousin" my whole life, yet we are not related by blood, but I have never thought of her other than anything else but family.

This friend and I have never fought or argued or been upset with each other. We love to read, scrapbook, watch movies, cook new foods, and be with our boys! We have lots in common.

This friend has helped motivate me to want to get into shape. We run along side each other sweating, hurting, breathing hard, but we do it, because we want to help each other.

This friend is my cousin Tara! I just wanted to give a little shout out to her today, and tell her THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart, for being the wonderful, giving person that she is! I am so lucky to have such amazing, inspiring people in my life!

Love ya Tara!

Love Happens

I netflixed this movie and Tyler and I watched it last weekend. Without trying to give to much away for those who haven't seen it, I will keep my explanation light. This is one of those movies, that really makes you think and ponder about life. It helps you to put things in perspective and have more sympathy for other people who have experienced different things throughout thier lives. I really, really liked it. I bawled my eyes out and thought it was an excellent movie. I highly recommend it for you all! :)

L.O.V.E.

Yes, sadly I missed the deadline to post about Tyler and my love for him before Valentines, don't worry we have our anniversary in March so I can gush about him then! :) But since it is still February I thought I would write some fun, quirky things about my hubby that I love!

* I LOVE how he is my shoe fairy. He likes to go around the house and pick up the 5 pairs of shoes, I leave by the garage door, the stairs, the kitchen, in the bathroom etc. Hey a girl never knows when she might need some shoes, but if he wants to pick them up....so be it!

* I LOVE how my hubby likes salads. This might sound odd, but a lot of guys don't really like salads, and Ty is good at eating veggies and what not! What's even better is that he is the KING of ranch dressing! He piles it on! It makes me laugh to watch him always ask for an extra ranch!

* I LOVE how Ty is a germaphobe, he washes his hands like 30 times a day, and when we are at a restaurant he washes them at least 3. I am glad that he likes to be clean, but it makes me laugh! I think Kars is turning into him, because he never wants stuff on his hands, and loves using hand sanatizer!

* I love watching Karson play with Tyler! They are best buddies, and Tyler always makes him laugh! They play catch and jam out to Tyler's ipod together and Karson's face just lights up! I love watching my boys together! It makes me so happy.

* I love that Tyler has been so supportive of me in going to the gym. He will stay home with Karson so that I can go, it usually is when Karson is in bed, but it's nice to know that I can go and not have to worry about Karson.

* I LOVE Tyler's dancing skills!

* I love that I can be myself around Tyler at all times, and I never have to worry about him judging me or thinking I am dumb! Usually he thinks I am pretty dang funny!

* I LOVE that Tyler takes care of the cars, so that I don't have to worry about it!

LOVE YOU BABE!

Valentines Weekend

We had a great Valentines weekend as a family ( despite Karson's little belly bug) Friday Kars and I headed up to get Kaili, we only had to drive to Kaysville though so it wasn't bad at all. We had spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner and hung out together, Larry and Kay stopped by to give us our v-day gifts. Ty and I watched some Olympics!

Saturday we ran some errands and went to Chili's for lunch since we had a coupon for a free kids meal. We went home so Karson could take a nap. Ty and Kaili went and visited his grandparents and took them a Valentine. Saturday night I made haystacks and decorated our table for Valentines. Kaili got High School Musical 2, a sticker workbook, socks and a pen and Kars got an Elmo DVD, an Elmo Book and some plates for him to eat on.

Karson was so cute opening his stuff, he wanted to do whatever Kaili did. Of course we watched High School Musical that night!

Ty and I watched the more Olympics after the kids were in bed! Sunday we celebrated my Dad and Roury's birthday at my parents house. Ty and I went home and watched the movie " All About Steve" I thought it was funny. Monday we had a good day. I got up and went to the gym, then we went to Wingers for lunch and to the store. We went home and put Kars down for a nap, and you guessed it watched MORE Olympics! We went bowling with my family at 4:00! I think I did the worst I have ever done in bowling a 66 and 76! PATHETIC! Tyler got a 213 on the second round! He got 5 strikes in a row!

Karson just wanted to play in the arcade because of all the balls he saw. On our way home from bowling we had a minor mis hap. Karson started crying and we could suddenly smell. " the smell" you know...we had to stop at wal-mart so I could change him. Not realizing how bad it was, when I got him into the changing place he had #2 all down his leg, and into his foot. I won't go into details, but let's just say it was SO bad, I had to throw his pants away that he was wearing. Luckily I had more clothes in the diaper bag, poor thing. I felt so bad for Karson. We got La Puente for dinner and you will never guess what we did, watch more OLYMPICS! It was a great long weekend! :)

For me? How sweet!

So Tyler came and surprised me at work today! I was sitting at my desk working away and he came into my office with these flowers and a card! This doesn't happen too often so I was quite taken aback. I opened the card and he had written me the cutest poem and a sweet note, so of course the tears came. He also gave me a gift certificate to get a spa pedicure! Which is pure heaven! Thanks honey for the early Valentine's gifts! I love it and appreciate your sentiments so much!

Valentines Day 6 & 7

So for Day 7 I gave Tyler these cute heart shaped things, for the whole pack they were only $1. Any way I wrote little coupon things on pieces of paper, folded them up and put them inside of each heart!

Day 6. Anyone that knows Tyler knows that he is obsessed with popcorn! Ecspecially my homemade popcorn. So I gave him 4 coupons for me to make him popcorn, whenever he wants. He has already used one of them! :)

Special Dinner..Valentine's Day 3

OK so for Valentine's Day 3 I wanted to make a yummy dinner, something I have never really made before, I have to say this was quite ambitious of me because all 3 of the things had to be cooked and I was trying to entertain Karson and make the food, we had a few minor mishaps but all in all it turned out pretty well. I made the above menu for Ty and thought it turned out pretty cute.

I tried to set the table as festive as I could, but I don't have a lot of Valentine's stuff, not even a table cloth! Karson kept taking the candy hearts off the table putting them in his mouth and then back on the table, because he did not like them.

I have always wanted to make bruschetta, and I have to say this turned out so yummy, so I was very happy with the results. What I did was roast 2 pints ( I only did 1, but recipe calls for 2) of grape tomatoes. You put the tomatoes on a cookie sheet, drizzle extra virgin olive oil over them salt and pepper and then mix it up with your hands. Put in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 mins, you will know when they are done with the tomatoes have burst open. Put the tomatoes in a bowl and mash with a fork, add 6-9 green onions chopped up, 1/2 cup of basil, I just used the dried basil I have at home, because I didn't want to pay $4 for fresh basil. Mix that all together. At the very end before you eat, broil some french bread ( cut the loaf in half) I pretty much burnt the bread, because I had too much going on, lucky for me Ty likes burnt bread, any way you take the bread out and rub garlic cloves all over the bread. So tasty and pretty easy!

These are the delicious red potatoes that I made. I make something like this already, this recipe was just a little different.What you do is you cut up some red poatoes, cut up 2 green peppers and one onion. Put this all on a cookie sheet, and coat with 2 to 3 tlbs of extra virgin olive oil, mix around. Add salt and pepper and then you add 4 garlic cloves, mashed up or sliced or whatever you want.I have a garlic masher thing so I use that. You cook these at 450 in the oven for about 25 minutes, at the last minute I add a sprink of chedder cheese on them! MMMMM good!

The finished product!

Now the chicken was the tricky part. I hate cooking chicken in a skillet because I always feel like I over cook it and dry it out. This recipe told me to cook it for 7 minutes on each side, and it turned out juicy and perfect! The only issue was the recipe called for SHREDDED parmesean cheese and for some reason in my head, I thought it said GRATED, so I got the wrong kind of cheese, but it still worked out. I got 4 boneless chicken breasts, poured the parmesean on tin foil and pounded the chicken into the cheese, tried to coat it as best I could. You heat a large skillet over medium heat with 1 tlbs of evoo, you could add a little more if you think it neccessary. Oh and I added some halved garlic cloves to the skillet for seasoning, the recipe didn't call for that but I thought it would be good. Season the chicken with pepper as well but no salt. Set the chicken into the skillet and coook for 7 minutes of each side as I already said above. Tyler ate the chicken plain but it says to serve with chopped up tomoatoes and basil. I ate some of mine like that and I thought it was good. But what I was actually thinking was that the bruschetta sauce would be excellent over this chicken, and the chicken in pasta! So I might try that another time.

You want the chicken to get this golden color.

And for dessert....a scrumptious chocolate cup! I actually made this first before everything else because it needs to set up in the fridge. For this you need:

2/3 cups whole milk

1 egg

2 tlbs sugar

pinch of salt

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 1.2 tsp of vanilla

( this would also be good with almond flavoring)

In a blender or food processor combine egg, sugar, pinch of salt, semisweet chocolate chips and vanilla, run blender to mix this together. Heat milk in a small pan on stove top until it comes to a boil, pour milk in a slow stream while blender is running, the hot milk will melt the chocolate and cook the egg. This can make 4 small servings or 2 larger ones. It is quite rich, so you decide on what sizes you want! I let my chill for about 3 hours. It is like pudding, but much thicker and richer, and very good. I made real whip cream to top it off with.

It was a lot of fun making this meal for Tyler and also a lot of work! One day I hope to have more time to explore new recipes and try them out!

For Valentines Day 4 I gave Tyler a six pack of Coke and some chocolate covered pretzels, for Valentines Day 5 I gave him the gift of TIME! Meaning he was able to watch the Superbowl in peace by himself on a nice reclining lazy boy in our family friends home theatre in thier basement, while I watched and played with Karson for 4 hours straight! I saw the half time show of the Superbowl and that was it. :)

First Valentine's Day Date

Last night while I was trying to fall asleep, I started thinking about my first Valentine's Day with Tyler.....

We had been engaged for two months, and I had told him I hated going out to eat on Valentine's Day because it is always so crowded. So right after work we went to TGIF's and we got right in. We had a great dinner and then headed back to my townhouse. ( at this point Tyler was actually living in the town house and I was living at my parents.) Any way we got back to the house and Tyler turned on the lights and he had blown up like 20-30 red and pink balloons and they were all over the living room and my present was in the middle of them. It was so cute and I was so surprised. He had gotten a cute Valentine's bag and had bought me the movie Catch and Release, (one of my fave's) and some warm fuzzy socks! Of course that night we watched the movie and ate some chocolate covered strawberries that I had gotten earlier that day! It was a great first Valentines together!

What was your first Valentine's day date like with your current husband/boyfriend? I want to hear about it! Post it on your blog!

Party Blogs!

Ok I have become obsessed with looking at people's party blogs! Wow, some people are TRULY AMAZING at what they can do. I know just from looking at these blogs that these parties are VERY expensive. I mean wow are they creative or what! I would love to do parties like that all the time, but obviously that can't happen! I am trying to plan a cute High School Musical Birthday party for Kaili and I have some fun, cute ideas up my sleeve to tie it all together, but trust me, it would be nothing like these below parties. Check them out.

http://karaspartyideas.blogspot.com/2009/07/dr-seuss-baby-shower.html

http://karaspartyideas.blogspot.com/search/label/construction%20party

http://karaspartyideas.blogspot.com/2009/09/poolbeach-party.html

I found this website on my friend Cheryl's blog, and this Kara person has no clue who I am,but I think she is awesome!

This blog also has some amazing party ideas as well!

http://www.hostesswiththemostess.com/

So although I don't have the cash to throw a bash like one of these, at least they give me ideas for a more simpler, cheaper version of the awesome stuff they pull off! One day I would love to throw a KILLER party, hopefully I will get that chance! Until then I will keep blogging around and looking at these awesome parties!

Valentines Day 2

So this morning I Gave Ty this gift. It was two DVD's, The Simpson's movie and Office Space. I got them for $4 each at Wal-Mart, I love $4 DVD's nothing can beat it! :)

Ty's shirt from Valentines Day 1

Here are some pictures of the cute hubs in his Colts shirt, he was so excited to get it that he drove to Valley Fair Mall last night to pick up the XL shirt, I swear that is the only FANZZ in the state who had the right size. Good ole Vally Fair Mall, I grew up in that mall, I hear it has changed quite a bit since I have been there.

GO COLTS!

Valentines Day 1

So every year I try to do the " 12 days of Valentines" for Ty give or take a day or so....I gave him his first present this morning. Which was a Colts T-Shirt, so he could wear it during the Super Bowl. It is a little tight, so we need to go and exchange it, but I will take a picture of him in it and post it up. I have fun doing this for him, and expressing my love to him in different ways. I don't always buy an item, some of the things I give him are free like his favorite dinner, or homemade popcorn and a movie, you know stuff like that.

Any way happy First Day Of Valentines, Babe. I love you!

CHEESE!

I just thought this picture was so cute. Karson now says " cheese" whenever I take his picture. I just love this kid so much!

Kaili and Karson

These two silly guys love to sit on my step bench. It is the funniest thing. Karson always has to do what Kaili does so he loves to sit on little stools and benches like her. He loves Kaili so much. When she left on Sunday, he started crying and went running to the door.

On Sunday Kaili and I were playing school. She was being the teacher and was asking me questions like this. " What does a pig do when it's really hungry?" and I would tell her, then she would go " Ok now what does a pig do when it's REALLY hungry, and I mean hungry!" and how about " what does a pig do when it takes a nap?" I don't know what her obession with pigs was that day but it was pretty funny!