I'm no Martha Stewart...

... but I do visit her website frequently for some awesome recipes. This year I am hosting Thanksgiving for the first time. By Wednesday all of my siblings will officially live in the same town! Avree's family is moving here on Wednesday-- (I am so thrilled about this, it is too good to be true! Avree's husband got a job at the CPA firm where Mitch works just recently)--and my brothers are here for school. Anyway, since we are all here, my parents are coming to us. Of course, my mom will be making the pies, homemade rolls, and funding the whole event, but I did get to decide the menu and do all the shopping. So I turned to my trusty friend Martha for some yummy ideas for side dishes and some tips on how one goes about cooking a turkey (I was a little ambitious and bought a 21-pounder). Anyway, Martha didn't fail me. Here is one of the side dishes I will attempt on Thursday:


Here is the link to the recipe: Roasted Vegetables

So no one in my family likes yams (including me), but Mitch does. I found this awesome recipe in place of mashed up yams with marshmallows or brown sugar or whatever the heck people usually put on those things that make them look like orange puke. Anyway, here's the recipe. Doesn't it look yummy? I even bought shallots for the first time! Happy happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I'm just wondering...

When making comments on others' blogs, do the rest of you struggle with those scrambled letters you have to type in before you can comment? I seriously have an impairment when it comes to this process. I have been known to try 5 times before I was actually able to make my comment, and it is pretty standard that I'll have to try at least twice. It shouldn't be this difficult, and yet, every stinkin' time I mess it up!

P.S. I know, I know-- I have this on my own blog (I got some weird spam-like comments so I had to add the feature).

P.P.S. And I'm posting a few pictures of Marin just to "cuten" up this post!

Drumroll please....

.... AND, it's another girl! We just found out today that we are having another little girl. For some reason, both Mitch and I kind of expected another girl-- although we would have been thrilled either way. The 4-D ultrasounds are so amazing. Now I will have 2 girls who are 3 years apart, just like Avree and I-- and since Avree is my best friend, I'm excited for Marin's new little best friend to arrive!

October fun

I must admit, I am a little sad to see October go. I really have enjoyed the Fall season since I've moved to Logan (almost 8 years ago!), because in St. George where I grew up, there's just really not much of a Fall. I enjoy the crispness of the air and the amazing fall colors on the trees. Now that it's November, it means the cold and snow are coming soon and I have to say, winters here are a trial for me. They're just so LONG... well anyway, here are some cute pictures taken of Marin over the past few weeks. Goodbye October!

This is our family's attempt at pumpkin carving. I know, we should go pro. I'm the one who carved the retarded "Boo" pumpkin. I truly expected the middle of the letters "B", and "O" to float magically inside the hole I carved out. No such luck.


This is Marin as a ladybug and Spencer (Avree's little guy) as a hotdog. I apologize the picture's a little fuzzy, but it's the only one Marin is even attempting to smile. Spencer kept trying to touch Marin's hair and face during the pictures and she kept swatting him away and getting mad.


Doesn't she just look thrilled for trick-or-treating? I couldn't get her to smile in these pictures either. She really did LOVE trick-or-treating though. At one point in the night she said to Avree, "People just keep giving me lots of candy!"


We had a little Halloween party with our friends. We ate pumpkin-shaped pizza from Papa Murphys and caramel apples (made by me, not pictured because I don't generally take pictures of food, and because they looked disgusting. They did taste really good though). Here is a picture of the kids. This was the best picture I got! I am in desperate need of a new camera with a faster shutter speed! Lately all of my pictures have been blurry like this! But we had to document the cute costumes Scott and Allie were wearing!

First Haircut

Well I know this little red-head doesn't have much hair to cut, but it was time for a trim. I busted out my hair-cutting scissors (used for the purpose of cutting my bangs that grow like weeds) and with 2 swipes, it was done. Marin was pretty excited about the whole thing. We talked for a long time about how only moms can cut hair and never never little 2-year-olds. Don't be surprised if my next post is a picture of Marin's hair chopped to the scalp though. Anyway, I love this cheesy picture!

Sweet, sweet appetite!

I just have to announce that my appetite has returned! After 18 long weeks of absence, my appetite has made its appearance once again-- along with my sanity! I am vomit-free for 2 weeks! I've always enjoyed a healthy appreciation of food and eating (I went to college and studied food, for heaven's sake!) and I was really beginning to miss it! Now if I could get a little more energy (to do such things as organize my disaster of a basement) my life would be complete!

I don't have pictures to prove it, but Marin and I have been doing all kinds of activities in the past week. We are doing art projects, Halloween projects/decorating, dancing like crazy, pretending all sorts of fun games, and we even made Halloween cookies and invited friends to come over to help decorate them. Marin was not interested at all, but hey, I tried! I am trying to make up for the lost brain activity Marin may have experienced from having had such a deadbeat mom for the past few months! Seriously, I didn't realize just how crappy I felt until now when I am feeling back to myself. I think I may even venture back to the gym after my LONG absence. I'm sure there will be more gym stories to come-- oh, can you imagine if I was clutzy at the gym when I wasn't pregnant how clutzy I will be now? I'll have to be careful! Well I think I will now go and enjoy a nice bowl of my favorite ice cream! :)

The Joy of Motherhood...

Last night I looked through all of Marin's baby pictures... not necessarily because I was feeling nostalgic (although that has happened a lot since I've been pregnant), but because I needed a friendly reminder of the end result of pregnancy. Yesterday was not my best day. It actually started the night before, when I had to wake up FOUR times to use the restroom. My kidneys must be working overtime at night, and I'm positive my uterus is squished up against my bladder-- well, the combination keeps me up at night. Then in the morning I woke up feeling sicker than usual--geez, I'm 17 weeks along, don't you think the nausea should be letting up? Anyway, I tried to hurry and eat, but it didn't last long in my stomach. I went to a doctor's appointment and realized I had gained 9 pounds! I busted out my first pair of stretchy pants and noted that my arms and face are looking quite a bit fatter than usual...

So, I broke out my journal and read about when Marin was born and looked at baby pictures and remembered that the end result of these 9 months will be something like this:



And I felt OH so much better!