General Conference Weekend

We had a great General Conference weekend with a tent set up in front of the TV just like in the Book of Mormon and King Benjamin addressing the Nephites. Our latter-day Prophet Thomas S Monson and other church leaders addressed us while we sat in a tent in our family room. The kids loved it! We also ate waffles with strawberries and whipped cream with pork sausage. It was delicious and kept their attention during Saturday morning conference. Later Saturday night the girls got together at my mom's house and worked on crafts. We stayed up until after 1:30am. The next day we watched Conference at my mom's with her, Goldie and kids. It was nice to have a little extra running around room for the kids while we watched conference, played with babies and just enjoyed the company. Later on we traveled over to visit with Grandpa and Grandma Belt. Joshua slept the whole visit but Matthew made up for it by being so sociable! He jabbered and jabbered at Grandpa, Grandma and I laughed at the little man. He's such a cutie and growing up too fast!

We got ourselves a serious teether

Our little man is growing teeth like weeds! At only 7 months he already has four teeth. His two little front teeth finally made their way through his gums yesterday. He's been rather miserable for the past week with these little teeth pushing their way through. We decided to try a little watermelon to relieve some of that frustration. He loved it! Cameron's brother in law, Dave is a local area farmer who sells to the grocery stores here in town. He is always giving Cameron and Jennifer some extra produce which they share with us. They gave us a huge watermelon and it was some of the sweetest and juiciest watermelon I've had! The boys were showing off the watermelon juices dripping down their bellies aren't they cute!

Recipes: Skookie

Outrageous Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Skookie

Suzanne Eliason-Utah’s Down Home Cook Off Winner!

2 C. oats
1 ¼ C. all purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. salt
1 C. butter
1 C. peanut butter
1 C. sugar
1 C. light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 Lg. eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 C. chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a medium bowl, combine oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine butter and peanut butter with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in the sugar(s) until blended. Add eggs and vanilla then add flour mixture until combined. Stir in chocolate pieces. Refrigerate dough 1 hour or more.

Spray Camp Chef Skookie pan (or the dish you found) with cooking spray. Add hand full of dough to skookie. Press onto Skookie pan ½ in. thick, leaving dough ½ in. from outside of pan. Bake for 10-15 min. or until top of cookie becomes light golden brown. Top with ice cream, caramel sauce and hot fudge/chocolate sauce.

Hannah Montana Concert

Katelyn got to go to the Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus concert in Salt Lake City!

Jennifer, Stephanie, Hailey and Katelyn all drove up to Salt Lake and rocked out at the concert! Katelyn was thrilled! She told all her friends that she was going and loved every minute of it. They got seats on the eighth row in the Energy Solutions Arena, front and center. She said that she was dancing the whole time and was able to see everything. She really liked when they brought out a motorcycle that Miley Cyrus was on. Katelyn knew most all the songs and sang to her hearts content. I am sure she had a blast, she came home rather excited after the long drive home. I think she'll remember this for a long time!

I took this picture before she left to school all decked out for Hannah Montana, notice the shirt! Doesn't she look excited?!?!

Babies, babies and more babies...

My sister-in-law Kelsey's friends threw her a baby shower and so I made a diaper cake for fun. It was really simple and we filled it up with little hair clips that we made, also Jennifer added a little dress for the centerpiece. Kinda crazy but it seemed to work! Kelsey is due to have a baby girl in November. So far there has only been one girl per family no sisters to speak of on my side with the grandkids!


My little guy, Taylor has been playing flag football for the past few weeks and loving it! He had a game on Saturday and really got into the fun of the sport. He likes being rough so it works for him! They didn't win the game but really are young enough to just enjoy running around and chasing each other.


Lastly Brandon and Goldie came in town to have their baby, Cody David, blessed in her parents' ward. We all got to attend and then Goldie had a little birthday party for Julia at the park after. Might not sound like too much for one weekend but it kept us pretty busy!

Activity Days: Grooming & Hygiene

This week for Activity Days we talked about personal hygiene & grooming. First of all we had a skit where we had one leader dressed nicely and all clean and the other leader was a wreck, hair and all. I got to be the messy leader. Then the girls picked out items from a basket and we discussed their use and the importance of our appearance. We finished off with manicures and pedicures plus a healthy snack. The girls loved painting each others nails!

Matthew is 7 months old!

Our little Matthew is now 7 months old today. This month he has achieved a lot more mobility than before. He scoots around a little on his belly, loves sitting up and reaching for objects around him. His special interest lately has been hair. He loves to grab it, pull it, chew it and twist it. Unfortunately Katelyn and my hair are his absolute favorites! Matthew has really found his voice, already started saying Dada. He has been trying lots of new foods and gets rather frustrated unless we share with him. He is a great little brother and puts up with all the attention his older brothers show him. This little guy is such a joy to us. He has brought a lot of love to our family. We love him so much!

Katelyn is growing up so much. She has really become a very beautiful little girl. She wanted me to give her bangs for the past several weeks but it took me a while to be convinced that she wouldn't change her mind as soon as I cut them. She loves them though so it worked out well. They are called side swept fringe/bangs. I got a great tutorial from ehow.com, I think it makes her look a little older but I guess I'll just have to get over it!

Recipes: Ice Cream in a Bag

We had a lesson on keeping the commandments as a family so that our home would be protected. We read Ethan the Brave, which comes from the Friend Magazine 2005, to go along with the lesson. We made ice cream as a treat.
Ice Cream in a Bag
Each serving needs:
1 Gallon size Ziploc Bag
Ice
1-6 tsp Rock Salt
1 Sandwich bag with a seal
1/2 cup half and half
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp sugar

Fill gallon size bag 1/2 full with ice and add rock salt. Pour milk, vanilla, and sugar into the sandwich bag and seal securely. Place sandwich bag into gallon size Ziploc bag and seal. Shake for 5 minutes or more until cream is solid. Serve and enjoy.

My sister thought I should try this recipe for Activity Days but since we ran out of time on Friday, I thought it would be perfect for family home evening. The kids loved it!

Activity Days: Paper Heart Attack

We needed to complete some type of service activity and my original plan was to pick up trash on the streets of the neighborhood or local park and then do ice cream in a bag but it was way too hot! I went with a paper heart attack, this is where you cut out paper hearts and write messages to the person you will be attacking. We chose the primary presidency in which we thanked them for all their hard work. We also made rice crispy treats which we left at their doorsteps and covered their doors with the paper hearts, then we knocked on the door and ran. The girls enjoyed all the work but really struggled leaving the rice crispy treats. We had to send them back after knocking at each house because they kept walking off with the treats instead of leaving them on the porch. It was rather silly of them! They enjoyed a rice crispy treat after.

Labor Day Weekend

In a house full of young children most every day is eventful! This past weekend was no exception. The kids and Zack had school off for a nice four day weekend so we made it a busy one:

As we finished up loading the van Taylor surprised us with loosing his first tooth! I took a couple snapshots of him as a keepsake. Don't worry the tooth fairy happened to find him later that night and left a $1! He was thrilled and made sure to spend it on a treat to share with his brothers and sister! What a nice brother!

We went over to Derek's house (one of Zack's friends while growing up) and finally met his wife, Tawna and little girl, Kiley. His poor wife is due to be induced on Wednesday with their second child so a houseful was probably a little more than she wanted but she was so kind and friendly anyway! Their house looked great with all the hard work Derek has put into it and I loved the decor and colors that Tawna picked out. They were very gracious hosts. Thanks for dinner Tawna! It was great to visit, it would be fun to live closer to all of our friends up in Salt Lake. We sure do miss them!

We spent our first night in Grandma Benson's backyard camping out since Mark and Cheryl were in town with their family. Mark's father had passed away earlier in the week and he had been there dealing with all the responsibility of getting things taken care of for his family. He seemed to be handling everything rather well and really had a positive outlook on his father's passing. He said that after nearly 33 years his parents were finally together again and probably dancing! What a sweet thought to such a sudden tragedy for their family.

We were also able to visit with Grandma Benson briefly and then Saturday morning Charles and Erica were around to chat. Ryan and Krystal invited us at the end of July/beginning of August to go camping with them for Labor Day weekend. We found a cozy spot up in Hyrum, Utah at the state park which is right between Brigham City and Logan. Since they live in Boise, Idaho and we live in Southern Utah it was a pretty equal drive for both parties. Jed and Aubrey also ended up coming and joining the party which was a pleasant addition.

The campsite was more of an RV park which was good on all accounts except that we had to go hunting for dirt for the kids to play in. Who can't find dirt while camping? Obviously RVing doesn't mean actually getting dirty since you sleep in a camper! Don't worry we all slept in tents and just roughed it enough to consider it camping. We did have the benefits of hot showers, flushing toilets, grass, water/lake, electricity and even pavement to run around on.

We kept ourselves rather busy throughout the weekend with swimming,

rock skipping,

rolling down the hills,

eating lots of good food,

laughing at way too many silly things,

playing cards and Frisbee and getting to know family a little better. It was a good time had by all. Sorry to those other people who were too busy to join us. We were sad you couldn't make it but don't worry, we had fun without you! Maybe next time we can get all the siblings and their families to party with us!