Farm Country and girls night out....again?

So I think I have posted about this before, but my kids absolutely LOVE this place...and I am in need of something to update about so here are a few pics of the kids....

Oh, and I went to a girls over nighter in Park City last weekend...love girls night out, and love the girls in my neighborhood, It is such a fun thing that we can get a condo for a night and have so much fun together! We went hottubbing, played games, ate lots of junk food, and did a lot of shopping! I feel like such a better mom when I can get away and play for a night every once in a while....anyway, thanks girlies and thanks honey for taking such good care of the kids!

Crazy 8's (Tag)

8 things that Happened today
*Ran my husbands forgotten wallet to him
*Spent three hours standing in lines to get 99 cent milk and Grandma Sycamores bread at the Smith's Marketplace grand opening
*Fed the kids lunch then put them down for a nap
*Checked into switching medical insurance for the coming year
*Spent a while on Facebook and did some laundry, and straightened the house
* Had Ramen and leftovers for dinner (something simple while the hubbys at school)
*Gave the kiddies a bath and got them ready for bed
*updated my outdated blog :)
8 favorite places to eat
*Tepanyaki
*Chili's
*Papa Johns Pizza
*Home (when I get the urge to cook a really good meal)
*Cheesecake Factory in Vegas (it's tradition!)
*Applebees(santa fe chicken salad)
*Cafe Rio
*JCW's (REALLY good local burger place, best shakes ever!)
8 favorite movies
*Ocean's 11 and 13
*Count of Monte Cristo
*Broken Down Palace
*Meet the Robinsons (hey, I have 2 kids)
*Actually, I have lots of favorites...we have movie night in our basement almost every weekend with some friends after the kids are in bed, and I am constantly finding movies that I really like and that I have never seen before...
8 favorite TV shows
*Scrubs
*CSI
*Law and Order
*Cold Case
*Without a Trace
(some of these I watch in the middle of the night between patient rounds at work, otherwise I don't really watch much TV)
8 things I wish for
*A house in St. George
*My Nursing Degree, Mike finished with school
*More patience with my kids!
*I wish my house would stay clean for longer that an hour
*all the little projects around the house could be done.
*family vacations.
*Date night just one night a week, or even once a month!!!
*A car that I actually like and will fit all my family comfortably...and no honey, that doesn't count our 88' Suburban!
8 adventures I'm looking forward to
*Going back to school someday
*Adding more kids to our family and NO! that is not an announcement! Just a thought for the future :)
*hmmm, sad that I can't really think of anything else, I am just excited to see what the future brings!
I tag Alecia W.

Halloween at Heritage

Heritage Care Center had a halloween carnival last night and I decided to take my kids since Mike had class...it was so fun to let them meet all the elderly people and staff that I work with. They had fun games and lots of treats, Ty and Madi loved getting all dressed up and all the attention!

Halloween

I've never been the party throwing type, but with all our new extra space I thought it would be fun to throw a little Halloween Party last Friday. It turned out to be soooo much fun! We had just a few friends from the neighborhood and my sis and a couple of other friends come over. We had lots of food and played some fun games. All in all I think it turned out to be a success. There were some hilarious costumes and my kids actually stayed asleep! (almost the whole time)

(The awesome invitation that our friends James and Shelby made)

A few of the fun costumes

There were more great ones but I didn't get them all on my camera...I need to get them from my friends camera since it was much nicer, she took most of the pics.

Thanks to everyone who came and made the night a success!!

Gripe session...

Typically when people see a closed sign, that means that they go away and come back later. Safe assumption, right?

Ten after six on a friday night, I'm sitting in my office finishing up a few things. Next thing I know there is a lady pulling on the locked door, with a "closed" sign staring her in the face. She persists on pulling the door, in hopes that it will magically open. I usually wait for their reading ability to come about, and then they leave...not her! She looks over to me in my office and asks if we are open. I shake my head no and hope she will go away, buuuuuuuut no.

At 15 after, one of my tellers is headed out the door. As he goes out, she pushes past him Like Harvey Unga running into the branch and says "I have to make a deposit!

Evidently you are good to go if you mow down an employee and make your way into a closed store! Only problem, no tellers are around to help this lady. Dumbfounded by what she sees, she turns to me and says "where is so and so?". I was kind in my response, "ma'm, she went home because we are closed." Good one Focker is all I can say. I have learned that CLOSED signs are now optional.

Millions of Peaches, Peaches for me....

well, it's obvious I havn't had much time to blog, in fact I should be making dinner right now but I thought I'd share what I've been doing lately...

First: I turned 27!! My wonderful husband and friends threw a suprise party for me...Love them all, thanks so much it totally made my week!!

Second: We went to Pine Valley for a family reunion then hung out in SG for a couple of days...had a blast and "attempted" a family pic... I stayed for an extra day and visited Trish and Mikes fam.

Mike whistling and Madi trying to run away

Madi trying to rip out her headband and me trying unsuccessfully to keep it in

Ty and Madi at the splash pad...we came kind of unprepared but they had a ton of fun!

Third: Canning, canning, and more canning. I have never been a "susie homemaker" but I figured I better learn the art of canning just in case I ever needed to use it...well, being unexperienced, I bought three boxes of peaches thinking I would get two batches...ummmm yeah, I think I am all peached out!! It was very self-satisfying to see them all lined up after all that work though! ( I also did a couple of batches of tomatoes out of my garden)

Well, that about sums it up for the last month...I'll try to do better in October!

Football Season is Here!

Okay, so we're not really HUGE football fans, but we do enjoy a good game once in a while. Last weekend we had a chance to go watch the BYU game with our good friends the Harpers. We haven't been to an actual game in a few years so it was a lot of fun to go and be with the "fans"...they can be CRAZY!!


Good ol BYU Stadium...






LABOR DAY
well, usually on labor day we do something other than labor...however....Mike got up at the crack of dawn to work on our neighbors car and found that it had a blown head gasket....if you don't kn0w what that is, it is a huge job that requires tearing the motor completely apart. They worked from "sun up to sun down" literally. I was totally impressed that he was able to take it completely apart and put it back together and make it work! I don't know why he works at a bank when he can do that.

Good Job Hon!

Work and School

Tuesday was Tysons first day of Pre-School. He absolutely LOVED it!! He came home super excited to sing me all the songs he'd learned and tell me all about his fun class. I am so glad he liked it, he is a pretty social kid so I wasn't too worried. Madi really wanted to go too, she kept asking where Ty was for the whole two hours...such fun kids!

Mike also started school so it's back to the nightly class routine for him...it was a nice little break but now he's back to the books!!


My job is okay, it's nice to only work two nights a week and my kids not even know that I was gone...they do however get to go "play" at the neighbors house for a couple of hours while mommy goes home to take a nap. Thanks Heidi for helping me keep my sanity!


My garden is out of control!! I have sooooo many zuccini and bell peppers that I don't know what to do with them all....I have tons of tomatoes too, but my friend is going to teach me how to bottle them so we can have them till next summer hopefully. Everything else I have cut up or shredded and put in freezerbags hopefully to be used throughout the winter...

I have this many every week!

Crazy? I think so...

So my life has been a little crazy lately, Our renters have moved out and we have been moving into our basement. We moved our entertainment center, computer, toys, books, etc and have been so excited to double our living space. We have had the bug to move for a while now but with all of this extra room it's settled down for a bit. Unfortunately though with the renters went a good chunk of moolah, so I have decided to renew my C.N.A. and get a job working a couple of graves a week. I am actually pretty excited about if because it will give me a chance to get out and work with people in the rehab unit at the Care Center by our house...I start on Thursday and work for three nights in a row for training...whew...should be interesting!

We went camping on Friday night with some friends (thanks Eric and Kati!) and had lots of fun horse-back riding and hanging out on the mountain watching everyone get ready for the bowhunt...we're not hunters, but it was pretty entertaining to see all of the prep that goes into that hobby.

I also got a new calling as the Stake Sundayschool secretary which should keep me pretty busy too....so yeah, like I said before, I think I am crazy and we'll see how long I can play the balancing act of mom, cna, secretary, babysitter, etc...oh yeah and Ty starts pre-school next week!!! I am so nervous for him but so excited at the same time anyway wish me luck, I think I'll need it!

Summer Fun

Summer is absolutely my favorite season and we have been loving it! Kiddies get to play in the pool, and mommy gets a tan...what more can you ask for?

Summer is also the time when we have American Fork Steel Days. We love this because of all the fun things there are to do during the week. They have what they call "Picnic in the Park" which my kids loved. You bring a picnic to eat and then they have tons of free things to do like carnival games where they get little toys or candy, then they have the BIG blow-up toys for the kids to jump around on. They have face painting (or arm painting in Madi's case) and a little train ride. Then at the end they have an outdoor family movie. Of coure the other nights they have the carnival rides and they have a HUGE fireworks show in the park on Saturday night.

This was by far the favorite thing of the evening!


Train ride and Madi admiring her beautiful butterfly!

(A funny side note, Saturday night we were waiting around for the fireworks to start and this little kid walks up to Madi and gives her the stare down...all of a sudden Ty steps in front of Madi and sizes up the kid who was bigger than Ty by the way but Ty stuck out his chest in defense of his little sis...the kid backs down and walks away while Ty eyes him close...then once the kid was a safe distance away, Ty put his arms around Madi and says "Come on Madi" and ushers her over to us completely unaware that we had just witnessed the whole thing. We totally praised him for taking on the big brother role so well...it was awesome!)

So much to do...so little time to blog...

The last few weeks have been absolutely crazy, and so much fun! First of all , our family loves AF Canyon...we head up there just to get a break from the heat, hang out with friends, hike around, and see nature.

Feeding the ground squirrels

The last week in June, we took a little vacation to spend time with some friends in Vegas for a few days...we dropped our kids off at my moms house (thanks a million mom!) and drove down for a relaxing weekend of laying out by the pool, walking the strip, shopping, and lots of really great food.

Mike and Mike grew up in Cali and they are totally back in High

school when they are together...it was so funny to watch!

Then we drove home Sunday night, Mike worked Monday, and we drove back down in the Burb on Tuesday for the infamous Bundy Reunion....Crazy, I know...but so much fun! I love the reunion so much and when I tell people about it they look at me in awe or like I'm crazy, I'm not sure...anyways, this year was especially fun because the kids are getting to where they really love it too. Seriously, what's not to love about a ton of family, a lot of sun, getting unbelievably dirty, dutch-oven cooking and eating all the junk and soda your heart desires? We went four-wheeling, hiking, and did A LOT of visiting with people we hadn't seen since the year before. We also celebrated Madi's birthday...I can't believe she's two already!! I made her a dutch-oven peach cobler and the poor girl fell asleep and didn't even get any. I've decided that since her b-day will fall during the reunion almost every year we will have to make it tradition to have a cobler cake!

What are they doing?

Ty found the cactus...

Running the races and Madi's b-day,

All worn out!

Say Cheese!!

So this is Maddi indulging herself one night while we were busy working on our kitchen, hilarious!! I just had to laugh and capture the moment....

These are just some pics we took on our walk last Sunday

They love going to the pond by our house and look forward to it when the weather is warm.

Awwww....how sweet! (I did try to get them to smile ;) )

Women and Girls

So this past weekend I had the fun opportunity to go to a condo in Midway with a bunch of my friends for an overnighter....I will just say that I thought I knew a lot about them before, I had NO idea....we had so much fun staying up all night and laughing that my cheeks hurt the next day. I totally felt like I was in College again when I could eat anything I wanted (i.e. a ten lb. bag of chocolate from Costco and almost a full batch of brownies) and sleep only a few hours, but I'm now suffering the consequences of a slowed metabolism...enough said...Anyway, thanks AGAIN to my honey for giving me up to a bunch of women so we could be girls for a night.

"PROJECTS"

Well, there hasn't been much to post about latley so I guess I'll post some pics of our latest projects...

Project #1

Our newly finished (well, almost finished) kitchen floor...

my flash apparently didn't work but you get the idea anyway :)

Project #2

My first try at planting a garden all by myself...not to bad eh?

(Don't mind the beast in the background...I swear it finds it's ugly self in every picture!)

Graduation 2008

My baby sister is graduating tomorrow! I can't believe it....she was only 10 when I graduated and moved out. The kids and I are headed down today with my sister and her hubby, anyway should be fun, it's always a good break from the cold. The best part is that when we get back, our kitchen floor will finally be done and my dishwasher will no longer be in my living room! Hooray!

Congrats, I love you Mandy Lee!

Mother's Day

So For mother's day Mike gave me an ENTIRE day off for BYU Women's Conference and a night of hanging out with the girls...of course, I forgot my camera, but so did pretty much everyone else....so needless to say, I have postponed a posting because really, what fun is it without pics?

Well anyway, we started by leaving around 7:30 in the morning and headed down to find seats...the first meeting was so great, we heard from Sister Beck and Sheri Dew who both gave inspirational and uplifting talks about our role as women and what an important part we play in the world...then we all split up and went to different classes, all of which were so good to hear and I learned a lot about myself and my Divine role as a Mother and how to cope with the stress that sometimes comes with it.....anyway, it ended with one last gathering with everyone and learned more about our homes being like temples (I still have a ways to go on that one ;) )

We went to PF Changs for dinner....mmmm.....then did some shopping.....then rented a chick flick and got giant milkshakes....

I had sooo much fun getting to be just a girl for a day and not having to worry about anything. We had so much fun that we all decided that next year we're going for BOTH days and an overnighter in the dormes! If anyone wants or gets the chance to go, I highly reccommend it, I took lots of notes and still read over them to remind me of what I learned, I am so glad I got to go....Thanks again hon! (He got to hang out at the neighbors house and the kids played all day! How would it be?!)

What we've been up to....

First of all, this weather has been CRAZY up here!!!! Will it please stay warm for a while? We have tried to make the most out of our "hit and miss" warm days so here are some fun pics....

Zoo Day with my freind Cat and her three adorable boys

Us on the Zoo Train...Madi wasn't so sure......

Maybe not fun, but sure glad it's finally in the works....

this was ugly linoleum and we ripped it all out with the ply wood and are in

the process of laying backer-board for tile!!! Yay!!

Madi striking a pose before braving it down the slide....

Last but not least, I get to go to a day at the BYU Women's Conference with bunch of friends from my ward tomorrow... The day will begin at 8 am and end long after the kids are in bed. Thank you to my wonderful husaband who is taking the day off of work and school to let me have this fun, and spiritually uplifting, much needed day away. I am sure I will post more pics and tell more about it after, I am so excited!!

Cardboard Creations

So the other day, Tyson wakes up and says "Mom, I'm a Lamanite!" ( first read-headed Lamanite I've ever seen!) anyway, he is very persistent and decides that the chop sticks in the drawer make nice arrows... and that he needs a sword and somewhere to put his arrows.... I decided that I had to start being creative since his imagination is hard to keep up with, and this what we ended up with....

Tyson the Lamanite!

Ty, the King (me) and Queen (definately Madi)

He had to find someone to dominate!

Never under-estimate the uses for shoe and fruit snack boxes!! They may come in handy!!

Other recent happenings at the Baxter house:

Ty finally learned how to ride his bike that we got him for Christmas!!

Madi learned how to feed the Dog:

And they both had fun on the ONE warm day we had this spring at Farm Country:

well, kind of fun...they weren't too sure about all the licking and trying to eat out of their hands!