Who knew chopping wood could be so funny!

Summer Dayz!

Sorry I haven't had time to post for a while, it has been a busy summer. which is fine and fun! Here is a little of what we have been up too!

My family and I have gotten together to raise money for Alzheimer's. My grandmother past away about a year ago suffering for this disease and with it being a hereditary disease we all have the chance of getting it. We have raised over $1000 doing just bake-sales and a few other random donations. We will be walking in her name on Sept. 18th in Murry, Utah, which happens to be her birthday. We are called Pat's Party! Grandma always loved a good party!

We went to California the first part of July to visit with Rob's family out there. We had a niece and nephew get baptized on the third. We went to the beach, a children's park in San Fransisco, and hung out at Grandma Marva's house. (Rob's mom)

We had cousins from California come visit Utah a few weeks later we went to Pizza pie cafe, Very good. Brig is sort of the star of the show when we get toether with them can you tell?

We also went to the Zoo again, we have a pass so it happens often. Even though we were there in the after noon the animals seemed to be very active this time, it was great! We also went to the bird show, we have never done that before it was fun!

we attempted to go camping a few weeks ago, but got rained out. Dean still managed to get filthy in about ten minutes!

Butterfly Fun!

We received a Butterfly garden kit for Christmas this past year and we decided to try it out. We ordered the caterpillars on line and they came in the mail. We received them on May 21.

They come in a cup and feed off the stuff in the bottom of it.

They seemed to almost double everyday. I was surprised how fast they grow.

Eventually they started to hang from the lid of the cup.

they started to build their cocoons.

It didn't take long to build the cocoons only about 24 hrs or less each.

We then transferred the paper lining from the lid to the butterfly cage.

I thought it would take two weeks of being in the cocoon before they would come out as butterflies. (I guess the Hungry Caterpillar book is wrong) They came out in about a week. On June 9th.

We fed them orange slices and watermelon.

Today June 14, we woke up and one of them had died, not sure why. Anyway we decided it was time to let them free. So we went to the near by park.

Dean didn't really want to let them go.

He loved to chase them after the were out.
In fact the first one landed under his feet and had a sort free life.

Check out this 2 min video of us letting them go.

Memorial Day

For Memorial Day this year we went to Brigham City with Rob's sister and her family. My mother-in-law was born and raised there and they have a lot of family buried there. We also went out to Promontory Point. This as any of you that know my son, knows this was the highlight of our day. Here are some pictures of our adventure.

They did a reenactment of the ceremony to the best of their knowledge. It was pretty good.

The original trains where both sold for scrap of a $1000 each, so these are remakes. The only problem is they had to go off of pictures, because they had nothing else to go off of. They believe they are accurate to a .25 of an inch of the originals. And they are painted the same.

Dean always has his fingers in his mouth in pictures because he has to make sure he is smiling. I'm not sure why?

Making Baby food?

So I have been really into reading food labels and and also shopping sales and using coupons lately. After reading labels on my babies food and seeing even at that young age they are giving these little ones processed food, I started to wonder how easy it might be to make baby food. After becoming health cautious as of late, learning that to much processed food is not a good thing for me as an adult, why would it be for babies?

I was a little scared to try to make baby food on my own, not knowing how safe it would be. They make a big deal on baby products now days, (I'm not saying it is a bad thing) that I was worried I would feed my baby something that would make him sick. Then the other day I was watching Good Things Utah (I learn a lot from that show) and someone was on there showing how to make baby food. It was so simple, so I went to her blog and found the web site that she loves. It has everything you need to know how to do this. I was so excited.

I got everything I needed to try my first batch: ice cube trays, frozen or fresh veggies, food processor and/or blender, plastic wrap. I figured I would give my self all afternoon today to work on it.

Result: It took just over and hour to make and stick into the freezer( a lot faster than planned); butternut squash, carrots, peas, corn, and green beans. The best part is that I saved money doing this. I made around 80 oz of food that is the same as 20 jars of baby food. I normally buy Beechnut brand for .44 a jar that would be $8.80 I spent 6.58 that is a $2.22 in savings and it would be even more savings if the squash was in season.

$2.22 may not be worth an hour of your time, but I think I will stick with it because I like the piece of mind of knowing my child will not be eating so much processed food. My next adventure will be homemade cereal then meals with meat.