Butterfinger Brownies

This is awesome. Very easy... We had them on Father's Day.

Ingredients:
Your favorite brownie mix
6 mini butterfinger bars or 2 full size bars
1/2 cup of chocolate chips

Directions: Prepare the brownie mix as directed. Fold in the chocolate chips. Spray pan and pour batter in 9x13 pan. In a ziplock bag, put your butterfinger bars in. Take out your frustrations, and beat it with a rolling pin to crush them. :) Then sprinkle on the top of the brownie batter. Bake as directed on the box.. And wha-la, you have yummy butterfinger brownies!

My new hair!

BEFORE
AFTER!
12 Inches shorter and a lot blonder!
What do you think?
My friend Jenie did it! We had a blast at her salon!

A Sweet Salute!

I have always loved our country. I have had a special feeling of pride for the US from a young age. And now being a mother in America, I have had two main goals as a parent. (among many smaller ones)
1. To teach my children the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I want them to understand Gods plan for us, the beauty of His love, and the blessings of the Atonement of our Savior.
2. To teach my children to love our country! The USA! I hope to teach them to support our troops, and be thankful for those fallen soldiers for the freedoms we enjoy!

Today I was blessed to see that I was able to teach Kaylee a small glimpse of those two goals.
We live in close proximity to a military base. And today we were leaving Walmart when it happened. Kaylee and I were pushing the cart to the truck and right in front of us were two soldiers. Kaylee asked, "mom, who are they?" I told her that those are soldiers. They defend and protect our country. We should always give them respect, prayers, and gratitude. We got to the truck and realized that these soldiers were parked right next to us. I told her that she should give them a "salute". I showed her what one looked like, and then she waited until they were watching, and proudly put her hand up to her brow and gave her best 3 year old salute. They saw her, and thanked her for her salute. She said, "Thank you for being soldiers. We will pray for you." One of the soldiers replied, "Thank you, I needed to hear that today. We can always use the prayers." Then we waived at the soldiers again, and pulled away. While driving home, I told Kaylee, "Thank you for saluting our soldiers, that was very nice of you." She replied, "Mom, can we pray for them now?" I said, "of course we can, but mommy needs to keep driving the truck, so you will have to say it." So, Kaylee began to pray in the truck on the way home. It was a very sweet, sincere, and loving prayer for all of the soldiers of our country. One of the things she said was, "Heavenly Father, thank you very much for all of our soldiers. Bless them with the things they need and protect them."
I was very proud to be her mother, and to see that I have started to accomplish my two goals as a parent. I will never forget that Sweet Salute from my 3 year old, daughter Kaylee!

Our first family dinner party!

The first of MANY dinner parties! (if I have anything to do with it!) :)
Those who came were, Kathie, Paul, Keith, Lynn, Emily, & Tyler. Later that night Jake and his friend Mike came over.. and we had a big sleep over! (Keith, Lynn, Jake, & Mike) Let the parties begin fokes!

Home Makeover part 2

Kaylee wanted a princess-horse room. Yep, she loves princesses and horses. And she always says, "well mom, every princess has a horse!" So we started by painting her room 2 shades of pink. The 2nd pic shows the colors better. My camera was doing funky things with the lighting. We got the princess canopy at Bed Bath and Beyond. Our next step is to do some horsey things. Any ideas? If so, send them my way. More pics will come!

Lil' Princess Photo-shoot!

Princess Best Friends Forever! Ayden, Kate, Kaylee, & Claire trying to be "proper lil' princesses".
Wendy, Shelly, and I decided to have a princess photo-shoot. Since our girls are ALWAYS wearing princess dresses and accessories, we had to get some pics of it! Kaylee already moved away from her friends, and in 2 months Ayden and Claire are moving to Michigan. These princess friends will never be cul-de-sac neighbors again. Our plan is to put a couple of these pics in frames so they can always remember their adorable friendship! Here are a sample of these adorable princesses (and a prince).

They love each other a ton, and it shows.
Here we have; Jasmine, Ariel, Arora, and Cinderella smelling the wild flowers from the meadow.

The Band

Ok, so here is our band playing in Manti, Ut. It is the Rat Fink Reunion/Car Show.
The band name is "Plan B". For the last 5 years we had a little family band. Kyle plays the electric guitar, I played the bass, Cody sings and plays acoustic guitar, Amber played the keyboard, and our friend, Jason plays the drums. Last year I was on bed rest with Konnors' pregnancy. So, I had to take time off of the band. So we got Brent to play the keyboard, and Amber moved over to the bass. This pic is of my amazing husband and our little ones are up close cheering him on!For the record: I really miss it! It was so much fun to play in a band right next to my amazing and talented (not to mention, very handsome) husband!
Below: This was our band playing in a parade! Amber, Cody, Jason, Kyle, and I.
That was so much fun!

The Race Is On...

Ok, so Konnor used to love diaper changing time. He used to love to lay on his back and smile at me. But lately, .... not so much! Now anytime he is laying on his back, it seems as though he feels it is is just wasting his time. He could be crawling around exploring the world, but no- he is trapped on his back until his evil mother changes his bum. He is so squirmy and wiggly! He tries to roll over the WHOLE time! GRRRR! Today, I was wrestling him so much that I TORE his diaper. Who does that? Apparently, Me! I guess I just have to distract him long enough with something and then race against his attention span! Let the races begin Kon-man!

NEW Home Makeover - part 1

Ok, this may come as a shock to most of you, so brace yourselves. We loved our red wall in our last house. But we couldn't decide to do it again here in our new home or not. We wanted to do an accent wall in the living room again, so we toyed around with reds, greens, and greys. But we couldn't decide on a color for our living room. Then Kyle said, "Why don't we just paint an accent wall black! All of the light fixtures in the house are black, the kitchen, the stair-railing, etc... are all black" I said, "Are you serious?" So, needless to say... we now have a black wall.
Our first house, the first wall we paint here, is BLACK! I think we have lost our minds. What do you think?
Below is the prep-work for the paint. I taped the bottom and Kyle taped the ceiling. (9ft. ceilings)
Here is the first few strokes of paint on the wall.... wow. What did we get ourselves into?Here is the finished wall.... Ta Da....
Now the plan is to do bright RED accents in the room. We are going to put small tables on both sides of the fireplace, then put bright red lamps on the tables, with some shiny red vases on the mantle. Two matching pieces of artwork on either side of the tv too. What do you think? Any good ideas of home decor? Stores? art? Help!

Konnor's First "real" haircut

Konnor is growin' up so fast! Too fast. He is 13 months now, and so far, I have just trimmed his hair on the top and sides with scissors. (That is a scary thing too) But this weekend, I begged Kyle to help me with cutting Konnors hair with clippers. I had no idea that he was going to take the reins. Without a word, Kyle just grabbed the clippers and started going to town. :) At first Konnor didn't know what to think, but he soon realized he didn't like dad munipulating his head around with a buzzing contraption that he couldn't touch. (Hence the reason I don't have an "After" pic. He was too mad.)

Bridal Veil Falls!

When my sister Tracy came last week, we went to Bridal Veil Falls. It was a fun time even though there were a TON of people there for Memorial Day.
Here are some of the highlight pics of my cute family.
Kaylee is becoming such a little poser! (She is glowing in this pic)
My flower child! Isn't she cute?
We stopped by Subway on the way. So, we had a little picnic lunch. Here is Konnor eating some of my sandwich and giggling at the same time.
Kaylee loves to go exploring... This picture looks like it could be framed.
Konn-man chillin in the stroller.
Kaylee stepping into the freezing cold water at the falls. (Not too often you get to see a little girl playing in the water with her jacket on!)
Kaylee and Tracy in front of the falls.