A sweet moment

I forgot I had this picture, until I uploaded the pictures from my camera and found it in the file. Sharon fell asleep on the couch in her boppy pillow, with her thumb in her mouth (of course) and Jack curled up in the available space next to her and went to sleep. They were so cute all conked out together that I just had to take a picture! Aren't they sweet! This was on March 11th.

Ruffle Butt Onesie

I felt the need to create this morning, so I pulled out a couple of new white onesies that Sharon fits in right now and got crafty. I've had some eyelet lace & decided to ruffle up the onesies. I just sewed three lengths of lace onto the butt of the onesies, and added some cuteness to the front. I did a blue felt heart on the white lace one & you can see the red squares I sewed onto the front of the red ruffle one. I think they turned out so cute, & they just add a bit of girliness to my bald little baby. I think she's so cute in them!

More from Family Reunion 06

Old pictures, new page

Just catching up on some old pictures, and my next scrapbook is going to be 12x12.

6 months

Frog-Eyed Salad

I love this pasta salad & am planning to make it for our upcoming Relief Society activity. Just thought I would share the recipe.

Ingredients
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 3/4 cups unsweetened pineapple juice
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 3 quarts water
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 (16 ounce) package acini di pepe pasta
• 3 (11 ounce) cans mandarin oranges, drained
• 2 (20 ounce) cans pineapple tidbits, drained
• 1 (20 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
• 1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed
• 1 cup miniature marshmallows
• Maraschino cherries (I just add these with the rest of the fruit)

Directions
1. In a sauce pan, combine sugar, flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, pineapple juice and eggs. Stir and cook over medium heat until thickened. Remove from heat; add lemon juice and cool to room temperature.
2. Bring water to a boil, add oil, remaining salt and cook pasta until al dente. Rinse under cold water and drain.
3. In a large bowl, combine the pasta, egg mixture, mandarin oranges, pineapple and whipped topping. Mix well and refrigerate overnight or until chilled. Before serving add marshmallows and coconut. Toss and serve.

A Sharon Update

Right now Sharon is zonked out on her belly on a blanket on the floor, one sock on, one sock off, eyelids partway open but definitely not seeing anything, sucking her pacifier to death. Here, I had my camera really close by, so I decided to snap a quick picture of her.She's slept pretty well the last two days, mainly because she had her 6 month check up & shots yesterday, so she came down with a slight fever. 6 months...I can hardly believe it. Her entrance into the world was harldy easy, but these last few months have just flown by! Her check-up went well yesterday. She's up to 9 lbs 4 oz & is 22 inches long (I know, some of you are thinking, holy cow, my baby was bigger than that when they came out!). She is doing so well. She rolled over for the first time last week, though she hasn't done it since then. She loves to watch people. We were at Stake Conference this weekend, & I took her into the foyer to give her a bottle & once she was done she would have nothing to do with me holding her up on my shoulder, she wanted to sit on my lap and watch the other kids run around. She also loves to sit on my lap & watch the computer while I check email & scrapbook. I think she is getting close to being able to sit up on her own. For now, this is what we've resorted to:
She is such a little character, & it's even more fun now that she is smiling all the time. She really loves it when we figure out she has a messy diaper. You lay her on the changing table to get started & she is nothing but grins. We are so blessed to have her in our lives! I love my sweet Shari Jo!

Scrapbook Collage

I found a link to a collage making site and decided to give it a try with all of my scrapbook pages. I think it looks pretty fun!

Easy Scrapbook Page

The final pages

I figured out my problem

I know some of you may not care, but this is a big part of my life right now, so I am going to blog about it. The last few days of trying to pump have been nothing but frustration. I began to think that I was probably just losing my milk (sad) because I was barely getting anything each time I pumped. I resorted to self expressing into my pump, which worked fairly well but took a lot of time & gave me sore hands. So, this morning, I noticed that my hand pump just didn't have a lot of suction, so I started to examine it. The plastic bladder (yes, that is what it is called, I looked it up) that creates the suction has a hole in it from use. So, I had to find a replacement and order it online. Hopefully it gets here soon because my other hand pump is terrible & makes my hands really sore.

A thought from me

I like to read Becky Higgins' blog. I like it because she is a scrapbooker & creator of scrapbooking tools, so I get a little inspiration creatively when I read her posts. I also love her blog because she throws in her life with great pictures, small pieces of advice about kids, & a little bit of spirituality. Today I read one of her recent posts about nurturing creativity in our kids & I just wanted to share a link to her site so that you can read it if you want. I loved her advice, because it doesn't just work for kids. Everyone loves to hear what a good job they've done on something they've worked hard to create, whether it's a craft project, baked goods, a meal (grand or simple), written work, or even just a neat idea. It makes people want to do more creating & thinking when they realize that other people value what they've done. So, if you see it & you like it, compliment it. Becky had this to say:

"We should never hold back complimenting those we love the most. Our families should have no doubt how talented, smart, charming, funny, and creative we think they are. So if you think it, say it."

Sometimes it's easy to jump to scolding for what a huge mess had been made, rather than seeing the magic in a pipe cleaner creature, the imagination in a drawing made mostly of magic marker scribblings, but it is so important that our kids hear that they've done a good job, & more importantly that we love them, which is expressed in smiles, hugs, kisses, & time spent listening. Just my thoughts, hope you enjoyed!

An Easy Dinner

Tonight I didn't feel like making a grand meal because we'd just gotten back in town. So, I went to one of my favorite easy recipes. It's kind of an easy chicken pot pie.

Easy Chicken Pot Pie
Ingredients
1 can chicken (as in a pint of home canned chicken) or you could cut up a couple of chicken breasts & cook them in the skillet first
1 can cream mushroom soup
1 can cream chicken soup
1/2 cup milk
frozen vegetables
About 2 tsp poultry seasoning
salt
pepper
biscuits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Cook your chicken if you aren't using the precooked canned stuff. Warm your chicken in a large skillet. Add poultry seasoning, salt & pepper. Add soups & milk & stir to combine. Add your frozen vegetables. I use whatever I happen to have. Tonight I used the last bit of frozen corn, some frozen peas, the last bit in a bag of carrots, cauliflower & broccoli, & some mixed frozen veggies. It really doesn't matter, use what you like or have. Stir to combine. Add your biscuits. I used some of the canned refrigerated biscuits that are premade because I didn't feel like making my own. If you want to make your own, just use your favorite biscuit recipe, whether it's drop or cut out & place them on top of the chicken mix in the skillet. My skillet can go in the oven, so I just place it into the oven as is. If yours can't go in the oven, just transfer it to a 9x13 pan. Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits are golden brown. Super easy & fast, & very tasty. Makes great leftovers!

What I'm Working On

A Calendar
I have been making these digital calendar pages as a gift to my mom, but I will probably also print a set for myself to go on my calendar board (seen here). I made these the same way that I do my digital scrapbook pages, but made them 12x12s instead. Once I have them all completed, I will print them using Scrapbooks Please an online printing source. Hopefully they will turn out as well as they look on the computer.

Camping Page Two

Page one of Camping

Fashion Show

A page of Ammon

Catching Up

I am just doing a little bit of scrapbook catch-up, so this is a page of a few pictures from our family reunion in 2006. I'll be doing the rest in the next week or so.

Breanne Wedding page

I realized recently that when I did Breanne's wedding pages I didn't finish. I still had pictures from the reception that I hadn't scrapbooked, so I did that today. Here is the page that I did for the reception.