Friday, July 31, 2009

Counting...

Days until Em's 7th birthday: 22
Days until Erin's 29th birthday (again): 18
Days until St. George trip: 13
Days until Lake Powell trip: 2
and most importantly (and what I am REALLY counting down....)
Days until School Starts: 20 days, 15 hours and 12 minutes
Heaven help me to hold on that long....

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Hamburger Anyone???

Our ward/neighborhood has an annual tradition of celebrating Pioneer Day (a Utah state holiday marking the day that the state was first settled by Mormon Pioneers, for those of you non-Utahn's) with a small but big hearted parade, a carnival for the kids, a picnic lunch, cake baking competition, and pie eating contest. It is alot of fun to participate in and the kids have a blast every year. It's always pushing a hundred degrees, but we muster through it and it is always worth it. This year for the bake off, I decided to enter a cute little idea that I saw on someone else's blog....I'm a blog stalker, especially ones that have recipes and baking ideas. It didn't sound hard, just time consuming. So, yesterday, I spent the better part of the day gathering ingredients and supplies and getting most of it ready for assembly this morning. Here's the finished product: Aren't they the cutest??? The "bun" was a cupcake, the "burger" was a brownie, "ketchup, mustard, lettuce" was made out of icing. The top of the burger was sprinkled with a few sesame seeds. The "fries" proved to be the most time consuming: sugar cookie dough rolled out, cut individually, and baked to perfection. Then sprinkled with a little sugar to add the "salt" effect. I had purchased a few cardboard boxes, picnic tissue and large toothpicks from the deli in our local grocery store. Yesterday was a huge pain as I had to do all the baking - but this morning was kind of fun, seeing the finished product left me with a smile....you can just call me Martha, I don't mind at all! You can see the original here: http://bakerella.blogspot.com/2009/06/fast-food-fun.html


Here comes the BIG parade....don't blink...you may miss them!

Here's Em marching in the big parade...pioneer dress, a floppy hat, flip flops and a ukulele....I'm sure that the pioneers had those, right???

After the parade, the kids met at the church pavilion and had carnival games, snow cones (always a huge hit) and an obstacle course. A picnic lunch followed all the activities as well as the cake judging contest....I got 3rd....can you believe that garbage??? All that work and a 3rd place finish! I demand a recount! To make me feel a little better, they did award me a first place paper ribbon for "Best Appearance"...apparently those cute hamburgers didn't taste as good as they looked!

To finish off the day, we had a pie eating contest. There was supposed to be a youth contest, and then an adult contest...somehow when it was time for the adult contest, there was hardly any of the usual participants around....what the heck??? Troy??? Sam??? Alan??? Greg??? Where the heck were you??? Kim has participated a few times and he was sure that this was the year that he could/would win. Since there was no one around, they just skipped over the adults and gave the pies away - I guess he'll have to wait until next year to claim the prize! The last picture does however, show our lovely and not so lady-like Abby participating in it with her friends Kacee and Alex -it was a HUGE mess, and mean old mom made them walk home! It was a fun day for the kids and adults alike - we look forward to it all year. Although next year, I may be boycotting the bake-off....

Monday, July 6, 2009

4th Festivities

Our holiday weekend actually began on Thursday - Jake's Firecracker Tournament started in Heber that morning. We played 2 games, and won them both....the 2nd game was such a fun game to watch. Jake's team was literally getting squashed. They were down 3-10. It was almost painful to watch as they missed fielding balls and struck out at bat. But then, one boy got up to bat and made a great hit and it was the beginning of a complete turn around. In the last inning, last at bat, each boy got up to bat and had a great hit. We ended up winning 13-10! It was so fun to watch them just keep plugging away at it and never give up. We played again on Friday morning in Salt Lake winning both of those games as well. On Saturday morning began the championship rounds and we started the day playing the Las Vegas Torros. They were a great team and we ended up losing 3-5. It ended our weekend of baseball, but I think the kids all had a great time playing.

We came home from our game in Heber to find Grandma and Grandpa Lueck. They had ventured out this way (well, sort of our way...) to see my brother Steve and his new twin boys in Las Vegas. They made a short trip to St. George, spent the night in their condo there, and then came up to see us for the day on the 4th. They were hoping to see Jake play in the championship game, since they had been doing so well, but it was not to be. Instead, they met us at home to BBQ and light fireworks with the kids. They always seem to spoil the kids no matter what and their visit was just not a visit until the kids had collected their grade $$ from Grandpa...(my dad pays them $1 for every "A" they get on a report card. Although for some reason, they always seem to over-collect on those "A's" and make out with plenty more to spend on a treat!). Burgers, Brats, Baked Beans, Watermelon, Chips, etc.....is there anything better than picnic food??? I'm not sure that there is anyone out there (except maybe my bro-in -law, Mike) who enjoys a brat more than I. It has to be grilled and crispy and loaded with mustard. Not heart healthy in the least bit, but oh so good! We ate and ate and then ate some more & we enjoyed every bite. My mom made us homemade strawberry ice cream and our neighbors Jen and Sam made homemade chocolate....they were both scrumptious and the kids came back for seconds and tried really hard for thirds! Our evening came to a close with our own fireworks display. We had friends and neighbors come to our end of the street and we did our own "Street of Fire" (our personal rendition of the "Stadium of Fire" minus the crowds and traffic, and we didn't have a performance by the Jonas Brothers, but no one missed that!) The kids were having a blast lighting fireworks - even the littlest kids had their own sparklers and snaps to throw. We woke up on Sunday morning to a yummy smell from the kitchen...my mom had gotten up to make the kids her famous buttermilk pancakes. The kids request them each and everytime that she visits. I've tried to make them for the kids, but I just don't do it the same way as grandma does. She makes them flat and crispy....I just can't get it right. My parents left soon after breakfast and we were off to church. We then spent the rest of the day just being lazy...naps included. I literally felt sick all day Sunday - I think all the yummy, but not figure friendly food had caught up to me! We had a fun weekend....now, back to real life!