Picture This

Here are some pictures that I have been wanting to post. Let's go in chronological order, starting with April Fool's Day. It is our little family tradition that I mess with our food on April Fool's, typically dinner. This year Tiff and Carter were with us (Mike was flying), Shelby's friend Krista also joined us for dinner so I went with the classic meatloaf cupcakes. I was certain that Carter's reaction would be the same as Shelby's the first time I made these. She was so excited about having cupcakes for dinner, that when she realized they weren't cupcakes she was MAD, so mad that she wouldn't touch my fried egg sundae that was made with lemon pudding and ice cream. Carter surprised us all by just rolling with it, he wouldn't eat the mashed potato frosting, but that was because he's going through an "I don't eat potatoes" phase.

Our dessert was fish sticks and peas. Don't these look awesome?! The 'fish sticks' are wafer cookies with peanut butter spread on the outside and then rolled in corn flakes. The 'peas' are made from laffy taffy. The best part (other than the cookies being really good) was that Shelby was nervous to eat them, even after she told Krista that she thought they were made with cookies and some kind of cereal. I LOVE that even though she's totally on to me, I can still get her!

Here is my new coat closet! Yay!

This is the school room. The art above the bed was painted by Shelby and Sarah just this week. I still have more decorating that I want to do, but we love going in here for school, it is such a bright, happy room. I should have taken a picture that included the curtains, they are white with colorful circles made from dots, they look great with the quilt. Mom, do you remember this quilt? This was my final Laurel project (the YW program was a little different then) I took this quilt with me to college, each circle is tied with yarn in the matching color. It was sooooo much work, but I still love it today!

And now for some Las Vegas Highlights.Here is Shelby outside her world headquarters. We like to tease Shelby that she was named after the Shelby Cobra.

This is Shelby's favorite CobraThis is Darren's favorite.So, I guess its a really big deal if you get Carroll Shelby to sign a piece of your car, like the dash board, or maybe the mirror cover on the visor. You can actually send them to him and for $250 he will sign them. So when you visit the factory, you get to sign the wall. I figure for our four signatures Mr. Shelby owes us $1000. The kids love the Rainforest Cafe, we go there for lunch everytime we visit, not because the food is great, or because its cheap(its neither of those things), but because the atmosphere is cool. There are animal statues all over that move, and about every half hour there is a thunder storm. Its pretty cool, and the girls love it.We also love a visit to M&M world, the girls like the 3D movie. This time I decided I wasn't getting sucked into buying M&Ms there, because they are stupid expensive, we can find a Smith's later and buy as much as we like, and still have money for our favorite Thai food!

So, there you have it. Hope you enjoyed a little look into our lives this past April.

Love Is In The Air

I am a huge Jon and Kate plus 8 fan. In one episode about Valentines Day Kate had these cute bags that she strapped to the kids chairs and filled with goodies for Valentines Day. I thought that was so cute. Well I decided to have the kids decorate these little mailboxes, and then the kids could spend the month of February delivering little things to each other. We decorated the mailboxes on Friday and immediately the kids started delivering notes and treats to each other. They raise the flag to let the person know they have mail. I thought the novelty would wear off by the end of the day, but they are still at it. It has been a lot of fun. We will have special prizes for Valentines Day. We are also our Valentines dinner, since the big day is Saturday, and it will be crazy busy everywhere Darren and I are going out Friday. Saturday we are having heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphys and I have ordered and ice cream cake from Maggie Moos (cinnamoo and dark chocolate ice cream with Heath bar and chocolate cake), I think we still need cookies from the Smart Cookie to finish it off. It is going to take some extreme points managing to pull it off, but I am up for the challenge, I think.

Yesterday we got a delivery from FedEx. I called Darren to tell him a package had arrived, and ask him what it was. I got the typical Shipley response "Its too close to a holiday to be asking those kind of questions". When he got home from work he handed me the box, I opened it and found this!



Isn't it cute? I LOVE red! I did already have an i Pod, its and old (in the i Pod world) 2G, I have to take stuff off anytime I want to put something new on. I like to listen to General Conference on my way home from the gym, now with a whopping 8G, I can have all of Conference on there at once! I am rather pathetic, because I don't know how to use i tunes or rip music. I tell Darren what I want on there and how I want it organized and he does it for me. Lame right? or is it love? I am so excited about my new ipod. In honor of Valentines Day I have decided to wear red shoes everyday this week! Today my red shoes are red slippers, cuz hey I'm not going anywhere until yoga class (tonight is my first class, I'm excited about it too).

Family Production Numbers

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do was organize a family production number. I would take the Janeen Brady stuff, or whatever, assign parts to my brothers and sisters, and we would put on show for our parents. Our stage was usually the hearth (sometimes pronounced hearther, and also used by Garrett for cracking open his head during an exciting night of spinning), we also would perform on the trampoline or swings.

Well, this morning my kids were listening to an oldie, but a goodie, My Turn on Earth. The song "What does it take to make a family" started to play. It all came back to me. How about at Garrett's wedding luncheon we do a production number!? The words are "What does it take to make a family? People who love and laugh, people who sing a song". Come on, does this not sound like us? Tori could be our choreographer (be sure to include lost of jazz squares). So are you game?

Ok, if not a production number maybe we could make a video with pictures of Hayley and Garrett and put it to that song. I hope you are all laughing with me!

The Progression of Big Hair

Thursday night I went to Mandi's for a fun Girl's Night Out. We watched an awesome movie and then sat around and talked, and laughed. We reminisced about all the trends that we thought were so cool in the '80s, pegged pants, plastic charm necklaces, and Unit clothes (remember the jumpsuits and the bands you wore layered around your waist?), oh, and layered socks. Well my pride and joy of the '80s was my hair so I thought I would share some pictures of my beautifully big hair. The pictures aren't great, they are pictures of pages out of my mom's scrapbooks, but still fun.

This is 8th grade. Notice how my hair looks wet on the sides, that is from the hairspray.

This is 9th grade, the hair clipped up on one side is very stylish. Also notice the scarf-fabulous.

This hair do is work of art. To get it to just flow like that, took talent. Don't you love the little cowboy slide thing at my neck. It was a stressful picture day by the time I got to sit down for the picture I didn't notice that my neck slide was twisted and one end was in my pocket. This was my sophomore year of high school.

So there you have it. Trends I did once that I don't have to do again. I do think it would be fun if our neighborhood party gals all dressed up like it was 1989 for Halloween!

Chickens-Saturday Sentiments

My computer says its 12:22AM so, I guess technically this is now a Sunday Sentiment. I know that when I try to get up at 7:00 to "surprise" Darren with breakfast in bed I am going to regret being up so late. But, I felt bad that I have skipped my weekly Saturday Sentiments post, and I have been wanting to write about this so I am going to just do it. I should be able to get a nap tomorrow.

There is something that I just love about chickens. I started collecting different chicken things when we moved into this house. I think its the earthiness of them. I love that I look out my window and see my neighbor's chickens. I also love the rooster/chicken stuff that friends have given me, that just makes them special. The yellow chicken on the shelf is from Mandi, and has rebar legs-so cute. The white chicken is a pitcher that Darren brought home from his mission. It is called the barfing chicken and comes with a ceremony-weird missionary stuff.

When I saw this plate rack I had to have it, and I had a great time accesorizing and figuring out what I wanted to go on the plate rack. Yellow and red are my favorite colors, so I look at this and smile.

Now, this isn't a rooster or a chicken, its a Turkey. This platter was given to my by my mother in law, it belonged to her mother. No one else wanted it-I can't imagine why. I saw it and fell in love. My Grandpa Harward was a turkey farmer in Richfield. I remember going to see the turkeys (not pleasant, turkeys flock to the fence when you drive by ugly things happen to the ones in front and they stink, but I'm talking about happy memories here). Making marinated turkey is a close to a religion in my family, and eating is the best. My grandparents and uncle's homes where decorated with all kinds of turkey things. So, I love this platter. It gives me a connection to my Harward roots, even if it came from Darren's family. Like I've said before, it doesn't have to make sense to you, it does to me, and that's enough.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

After our trip to Logan, in April, Darren and I thought it would be fun to take the girls to Ephraim, to visit Snow College. Darren and I met during our first year at Snow, so this is where it all began. Plus, we try to talk about college whenever we can to get them pointed in that direction, so visits to college campus' are a must. My parents did the same thing with my brother's and sisters and me, it must have done some good even if I did decide at an early age that I definitely did not want to go to BYU (not that I had the grades that made that an option, but I digress).

We thought it would be even more fun to go during the Manti pageant. Darren's parents have some property in Fairview so we decided to camp. We didn't make it through the entire pageant, Sarah woke up about 10 minutes before it ended and was crying because she was so cold, so we left.


This trip was a little different for me than our trip to Logan. I had a great time in Logan, going to USU. I had great roommates, I really figured out what I wanted to do with my life, I got engaged, and then got married. Everything that college should be. Oh yeah, I did graduate too. The thing that made this trip different was that as I walked around the campus of Snow College I remembered how hard life was. I was always worried about my grades, that during my first year weren't very good. Meeting Darren was great! Saying good bye when he left for his mission was hard. My good friend at the time also left on a mission a year later while I was still going to Snow. It was a time to grow up and learn some hard lessons, like you have to study to get good grades, and if you don't get good grades they take away your financial aid, and if they take away your financial aid, all the studying in the world doesn't matter when you can't go to school. I also had lots of roommate drama. Note to Moms: If the kids don't really like each other when they are in high school, its not a good idea for them to live together. That might be a good topic for a future post: What I learned from living with 27 different girls over 4 years.

So, why is this post titled Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy? Two reasons. First, I did figure out a lot about who I was and who I wanted to be. I learned that I could do hard things, I actually made the dean's list the next year. Quite a leap from academic probation. I figured out how to live with different kinds of people. By the time I went to USU I knew what to do and how to do it and I got to have a lot more fun.

My most inspiring thought came as I was watching the pageant. There was Mormon handing off the plates to his son Moroni, and going off to battle knowing that he would die. As Moroni walks off all alone thinking "Where I go mattereth not." I thought about my life now. I know this world is changing and things seem to be getting harder, and there seems to be a lot to be worried about. But, I felt so grateful that I'm not alone, like Moroni was. I still have my family. I still have great friends. I most of all I have the gospel. This came to my inbox this week, and I've thought about it a lot.
"We all go through different life experiences. Some are filled with joy, and others with sorrow and uncertainty. . . .
". . . Aren't the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and our membership in His Church great reasons to rejoice?"
(Dieter F. Uchtdorf, ""Have We Not Reason to Rejoice?"" Ensign, Nov. 2007, 18)
I've been reading the Conference Ensign this week, and have found a lot of joy and comfort in the words of our leaders. There is much to find joy in. I am so grateful for my family, my home, Darren's good job that lets me be home with my family. I am so grateful for the gospel it is the good news. I love my Savior. I just want to put some happiness out there!

Saturday Sentiments on a Monday/Topaz Mountain

I want to first thank everyone for your response to my last post. I was totally in a mood, and writing it down does help me feel better, I'm just usually not so public about admitting faults. It really is nice to know that I'm not the only one that struggles with these things.

Now, onto other things. This weekend we went to Topaz Mountain with some friends, and family. Darren had taken the scouts there last fall. Afterwards, he and the other leaders wanted to take their families back for another trip. We had a great time! We went the the Davis', Fletchers, and Palmers(even though we didn't really see them much) and Darren's brother Brett, and his family. Brett brought his 4-wheelers that everyone loved, especially the kids. Even Sarah learned to drive, and Shelby quickly became a pro. We dug, sifted, and broke rocks looking for Topaz, and found some really nice pieces. I'm wondering what do do with them now. (Jared, do you have any ideas-hint, hint?)

I'm combining this with my Saturday Sentiments because it really made me happy to spend time with my family and friends. I thought about how happiness really can come from small things, like sitting in the dirt looking for things that sparkle. The time spent together and relationships that are strengthened are priceless treasures.

I also have a new appreciation for how hard my parents had to work when we went camping as a family. The kids, just enjoy themselves while parents are preparing meals, setting up camp and everything else. But, its so worth it to watch them have a good time.

I really love camping, as long as I don't have to sleep on the ground, can stay warm, and have a toilet. I am really looking forward to our next trip. Darren is already scoping out new rock hounding spots!

Yeah! I got my trip to Logan!

After being so nostalgic on Sarah's Birthday I really wanted to take the kids to Logan. To show them around the town Darren and I spent the first 5 months of our marriage, and where I went to college. We couldn't go because of the snow, and Mary and Wicket were in the back yard, and we didn't think it would be a good idea to leave them there for too long. So, we decided to plan our trip for Thursday. I packed a lunch, and we went and picked Darren up from work, and we were off. Our first stop was the Logan Temple. We used to go every week- the things you can do when you don't have any kids. Sarah was most excited about the water fountain as you can see by her running in the background.


Our next stop was USU campus. We stopped at the "A", and then went to the bookstore to buy the girls USU T-shirts, we have to start the brainwashing early. It was also fun to talk with Shelby about college and all the things you can study, she was most excited about animal science (so, this counts as a school field trip!).

Next we showed them where our little one room "studio" apartment was and "The Pink Palace", where I lived before we got married. "The Palace" is a cool old house, and really I have some of the best memories there.

We had dinner at the The Bluebird, which included buying chocolate as we left. I bought a chocolate dipped York(along with some other delicious treats), but as we drove home, I thought the chocolate dipped York is kind of redundant, isn't it? I'm mean its already chocolate, but double chocolate can't be a bad thing-or maybe it can. I'll let you know, I haven't eaten it yet, sometimes just having chocolate in my house gives me comfort. Anyway, back to our trip. We followed up dinner with a trip to Charlie's for shakes. The weather was perfect, and the day was perfect. Thank you Darren for giving me such a perfect day with my family in a place I love!

April Fool's Day

A few years ago on April Fool's Day I made meatloaf cupcakes with colored mashed potato frosting. I got the ideas from Family Fun Magazine (just so you don't think I'm creative on my own). Shelby was excited that we were having cupcakes for dinner. One bite, and total disappointment. For dessert that night I made a fried egg sundae (also from Family Fun), it was cool whip with lemon pudding in the middle. She wouldn't touch it, now she didn't trust me.
One year we ate our meals backwards. So, for breakfast we had ribs in BBQ sauce and eggs or something for dinner. So, when I found a recipe for Fauxberry pie I knew I had found this years prank! Shelby still doesn't trust me when it comes to dinner on April Fool's day, but it was still fun. The pie is supposed to be Shepard's pie, but it has cocoa powder, molasses and BBQ sauce mixed in with the hamburger so the meat part is a little sweet. The "frosting" is once again mashed potatoes colored with beets.
I love our April Fool's day tradition. Mostly because its something I started on my own, my kids love it, and look forward to it every year. Last year I don't think I did anything and they were disappointed. We always look back on the year of the meatloaf cupcakes with great fondness.