California Pixton Family

Parker's 15th Birthday

2012-01-19T06:46:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday Parker turned 15! We celebrated his birthday three days in a row. First on Sunday I made his favorite dinner: roast beef and Nauvoo Potatoes. Monday we went to Burgermeister. And finally on Tuesday (his actual birthday) we made his a birthday poster with treats!

He requested a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and M&Ms.

Here's a look back just two weeks ago when he had braces. I can't believe that he is 15 and has his braces off. Scary to think that he'll get his learner's permit in six months! We sure love you Parker. Thanks for being such a great son and wonderful big brother!

The Christmas Season

2011-12-28T09:21:00.000-08:00

We decorated early so we could enjoy the Christmas season. I love having a mantel to display my Santa collection!

We visited Thompson Lane and got a photo with Santa.

We decorated a ginger bread house and ginger bread men.

We let the kids sleep around the Christmas tree one night.

We stayed busy during the break with crafts. Here's some of the girls paintings.

The kids made shrinky dink necklaces for their friends.

Porter loved making Star Wars ones.

Christmas Eve- we are ready to party! We had some friends over and lots of great food!

We acted out the Nativity and substituted hippos for the sheep.

Christmas morning the kids woke us up at 6am on the dot.

Porter with his Star Wars Wampa Cave legos.

Eliza displaying all her Christmas loot.

Emma with her Griffandor T-shirt and leg warmers.

Parker with his Star Wars computer game.

It was a great Christmas. We also took the kids to the Nutcracker, a Hand Bell concert, watched lots of classic movies and baked and ate all our favorite foods!

Our Top 10 Christmas Books

2011-12-12T14:34:00.000-08:00

Every year when we decorate for Christmas I pull out two big boxes of Christmas books. We love to read them throughout the season. After Christmas I pack them away until next year. Here's our list of our favorite Top 10:

This book is lots of fun and written by my friend Sam Beeson. He has a bunch of books and they are all witty and fun.

This is a beautiful story full of beautiful illustrations of quilts. My aunt Shannon gave this to me one year-- it's a must for anyone who loves quilts.

This is packed with photos of real snowflakes-- magical!

Love the illustrations in this book. It's a wonderful story of friendship. Gayle gave it to me one year with a big bag of oranges.

A classic!

Another classic. We all love this story. It's fun to read while drinking hot chocolate!

I'm in love with any book illustrated by Jan Brett or Eloise Wilkin!

We love this story! I can never read it without crying--It's in our top 3 of all time favorite Christmas books!

Mom gave us this book in 1997. It's a picture book with no words. We love it, especially the kids, and I really like the other picture books by Peter Collington.

This is our number one favorite book for Christmas (or Easter). Jim always reads it to the kids and cries. This year while Jim was reading it Porter exclaimed, "I feel the Holy Ghost!" and cried for about ten minutes!

What are your favorite Christmas books?

Arizona Trip

2011-11-30T18:32:00.000-08:00

We drove down to Arizona on the 17th. Jim and I left our kids with Marilee and went on to Tucson to ride El Tour de Tucson. 111 miles! Here I'm walking my bike through one of the river bed crossings.

This was the second year that Jim, Gayle and I rode El Tour de Tucson. We had a blast--it was so easy compared to the Deathride!

We then spent a week with Marilee and Brandon. We enjoyed hanging out, playing night games, hunting for scorpions, exploring, playing with cousins and, of course, eating! We introduced the kids to Cafe Rio. We tried Joe's Farm Grill (above pic) which is featured on the Food Network--amazing! We also loved Frost--a gellato shop.

One day we hiked through Usery Canyon. It was beautiful with all the different types on cactus and dessert plants. We had one cactus injury, but the rest on the hike was great!

In the middle of the hike we found this magical play ground!

We explored the Greenfield Ghost Town. There were lots of cool shops and everyone was dressed in period clothing.

We got to see a wild west shoot out.

We spent Thanksgiving with Marilee and Brandon's family, Elder and Sister Clarke, Jalee Clarke and the Jeppsons. This is the adult table. (Marilee's home is gorgeous!)

Here's the kids table.

The food was delicious!

Mignon made lots of yummy pies.

The Friday after Thanksgiving was Porter's 8th birthday. He had his own special baptism!

Our friends the Teuschers were in Gilbert and attended the baptism.

Gayle's parents, John and Jean Groberg also came. Elder Groberg gave Porter a special blessing when he was only 4 months old and just diagnosed with leukemia. We were so glad they could come!

The weather in Arizona was perfect and we had the best vacation. I love you Mar!

8th Birthday Party!

2011-11-12T11:45:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Porter's 8th Birthday yesterday. Emma made this amazing cake- the girl has skills! Somehow we've managed to never have a "friend" party for him- probably because his birthday is on the 25th which is right on or near Thanksgiving and we're always with family. So this year he had some friends over for a Star Wars party.

We made Darth Vadar masks.

Posed for lots of photos.

Made origami Star Wars characters.

Ate lots of pizza.

And opened several wonderful presents. It was a great day and he gets to celebrate his actual birthday again on the 25th! We love you Porter!

Spirit Week

2011-11-12T11:38:00.000-08:00

This week was Homecoming at Parker's high school, so all week long was spirit week. It's fun to see him participate in the craziness!

Halloween/Thanksgiving!

2011-11-07T10:04:00.000-08:00

The Friday before Halloween Porter had a carnival at his school. Here's his class all dressed up!

Porter and he's classmate both had "Snake Eyes" costumes.

The Sunday before Halloween we baked lots of treats and took them around to all our new neighbors.

Here are the kids before they went trick-or-treating.

The Halloween decorations are down and it's on to Thanksgiving!

We are looking forward to spending Thanksgiving in Arizona with Marilee and her family this year!

41st Birthday!

2011-10-28T10:36:00.001-07:00

I had a great birthday. My friend Rochelle treated me to a pedicure in the morning. I got lots of fun gifts. These books: The Dead and The Enemy are a new zombie series from England. LOVE them!

I ate lots of sugar!

Emma and Eliza gave me these sushi earrings- I suspect that they are going to borrow them.

Jim made me a CD of all our favorite songs!

My friend Gayle gave me this awesome Death Ride bike jersey! You can only buy a "finishers" jersey if you complete all 5 mountain passes on the Death Ride. There were 3,068 riders at the Death Ride this year. 459 of them were women and only 256 women finished all 5 passes.

Would it be bragging if I wore this everywhere? It was a great birthday!

Dining Room Chairs Makeover

2011-10-19T17:28:00.000-07:00

We inherited this dining room set from a woman in our church. We love it, but not the fabric on the chairs.

Here's the before shot of the orange, blue and brown velvet. I got some beautiful upholstery fabric from my friend Gayle.

Here's the after shot.

Here's the whole set. Now I need to work on the table!

Fall

2011-10-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

We have had a busy fall. It's quite the juggling act to stay on top of four kids at three different schools, but I think we are getting into the routine! The Roziers came in town. We met up at the Disney Museum in the Presidio in SF. It was really neat but mostly for adults.

We went to a great pumpkin patch with the kids on Saturday.

They had tons of amazing bounce houses and slides. Here's Eliza and Emma.

Here's a view of some of the fun!

We've been all over watching Parker play in waterpolo tournaments. He is getting really good and has the guns to prove it!

Our friends, the Thurmans, were in town and we got to visit. Andrea was my first friend in Alameda- almost 14 years ago!

We sold our Dodge Caravan- we had that minivan for over 11 years!

We bought a Ford Expedition. It seats 8 and has four wheel drive. It also costs a fortune to fill up the gas tank!

We inherited this beautiful dining room table, 8 chairs and sideboard. I'm searching for the perfect fabric to re-do the chairs. We have finished unpacking and would love some visitors! Life is busy, but great!

Help with blog!

2011-10-09T18:14:00.000-07:00

Help! My blog posts are getting harder and harder to do! I can't "publish post" unless I save it in "draft" and then go in and publish it and now I can't upload photos. Anyone have a solution?

Halloween is coming!

2011-10-09T16:48:00.000-07:00

It's my favorite time of the year. The weather gets cool, you get all the great fall fashions like sweaters and boots, scary movies are on every night! I LOVE Halloween! I also love decorating a new home!

This beautiful sideboard was given to us last month by a woman in our ward. It also came with a formal dining table and eight chairs!

My very talented mom gave me this cute quilt!

Love crows!

We have a tradition of taking a Halloween photo of the kids each year. I'm running out of places to display them. Happy Halloween!

New Car!

2011-09-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

We bought a new car today- a Ford Expedition. We love it!

Our New Home

2011-08-30T08:16:00.000-07:00

We moved last week, just across town. Here's the view of the front- it has a big, beautiful front yard.

Plus, a two-car garage --never had one of those before!

Here's the front of the home. It's a craftsman bungalow style, right in the Gold Coast, next to the park and pool.

Here's the view of the yard from the front porch.

Front porch/patio.

View when you open the front door.

Living room to the right.

More living room. I didn't get a good shot of the front with the windows, but the room is huge!

To the left is the dining room.

Cute pink retro kitchen. I'll have to be on the lookout for vintage McCoy and milk glass!

Side of kitchen into the breakfast nook.

China cabinet in breakfast nook.

Breakfast nook.

Landing at top of stairs.

Master bedroom.

Best feature of master bedroom- our own closets!!!!

Girls bedroom, the door on the right goes into a craft room.

Big family room with tons of built-in book shelves, cabinets and drawers.

Boys room- they finally have a closet! We haven't set up the home office and there is another bathroom and a laundry room. Also a cute patio and shop in back. More photos later!

Hawkins Reuion 2011

2011-08-19T12:47:00.000-07:00

We went to Utah for 5 days for our family reunion. Here's the whole family (minus Jason who had to go into work this day!)

We stayed 2 nights at mom and dads farm. Our kids love it here- they run free, catch snakes and bugs, ride the horses, play dress up and eat delicious food from the garden.

We love the tree swing!

We played some practical jokes on each other! (Jake pretended to steal the pot roast!)

Got to attend baby Gouverneur's baby blessing. Then we headed up to Brighton to stay in cabins.

We played hours of pool!

Hiked around the lake.

Enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Jim and I even got a bike ride in which was great!

Did lots of fishing and caught lots of fish!

Parker cleaned his first fish.

Our family.

Becky and Hema's family.

Jacob and Tyra's family.

Josh, Laura and Bryn.

Marilee and Brandon's family.

Jessica and Sterling's family.

Rindi, Joe and Beckam. We didn't get a family shot of Jason and Brandi- darn! It was a great reunion. We love you all!

happy Birthday Eliza!

2011-07-14T10:53:00.000-07:00

Eliza turned 11 on Monday. For her birthday breakfast she wanted bacon and toaster strudles!

Every year for dinner she wants spaghetti!

She asked for cheesecake this year instead of cake.

Her favorite gift was a cell phone! We sure love you Eliza! You are so sweet, kind, helpful, thoughful and fun!

The next night we rocked out at The American Idol concert!

Death Ride 2011

2011-07-12T14:01:00.000-07:00

Well, after months of training I did it! I rode and completed the Death Ride. My friend Gayle trained with us and also rode it for the first time. This was Jims seventh time. Here is a picture of me and Gayle after we picked up our registration packets. We're standing in front of the 2009 poster.

After registration we ate dinner then headed back to our camping spots. We needed a good nights rest! Gayle and I were laughing when we pulled off the road and Jim said, "Great, here's a spot for our tents!" It was a gravel parking lot with weeds!

We set up the tents and sleeping bags. Then checked the bikes, pumped our tires and loaded every pack and pocket with food. We were in bed by 9PM, but with nerves and noise we didn't sleep much.

We started the ride at 5:20am. It was really cold at 40 degrees! We rode all day. We were well prepared physically, but didn't have the best time strategy and almost missed the last two cut-offs. Here we are at the top of the 5th mountain. We were exhausted but happy!

There were 3,500 riders. About 500 are women so Gayle and I were pretty proud to finish it. It was 5 mountain passes, 15,000 feet of climb and 129 miles! It was long and tiring but we had trained in the Oakland Hills riding roads with 25% grade. The highest grade on the Death Ride was 20%.

We stood in line for about 45 minutes to sign the 2011 poster that will hang in the lodge at Turtle Rock!

If I ride it again I'll be much better prepared: 1- I'll take a sleeping pill the night before. 2- Start riding earlier, between 4:30 and 5am. 3- Less rest stops, there are so many that we could cut out 1 or 2 of them. 4- Better strategy at rest stops- divide the work so one person fills water bottles, one person grabs food and one person gets in the line for the bathrooms.

It was great to train and complete something so challenging. Thanks Gayle for doing it with us and thanks Jim for sharing your passion for riding with me! I am officially a Death Rider!

Happy 4th!

2011-07-05T15:04:00.000-07:00

We had a great 4th- the kids dressed up in matching flag t-shirts.

Me and my sweet girls!

Emma with her friends Caroline and Ruth.

We had a potluck breakfast at the church and then watched the parade. Our friend Rogan shaved his beard into a star and dyed it blue!

We made cupcakes with atomic fire balls on top.

We loved the tiny ponies.

This was our favorite car in the parade.

Porter rode his bike with the cub scouts!

We swam all afternoon then rested before watching the fireworks! It was a fun day.

Graduation and Father's Day

2011-06-28T08:55:00.000-07:00

On June 16th, Parker graduated from middle school!

Here's the gang: Sara, Maddie, Lucas, Kyle, Linnea, Parker and McKenna.

I can't believe we have a kid who will start high school in the fall!

On Saturday we celebrated Father's Day.

Jim got a double waffle maker, Belgian waffle mix, syrups, a new fountain pen and jade colored ink! Saturday night we drove down to Visalia for Nick Rozier's mission homecoming. It was wonderful and we are excited that Nick is home! We are also enjoying lots of waffles!

Death Ride or Bust!

2011-06-12T22:57:00.000-07:00

So we've got only 27 days left until the Death Ride. The Death Ride is a killer bike ride near Tahoe that is 130 miles long with 15,000 feet of climb. This will be Jim's 7th year and my 1st. We've been training like crazy to be ready. I not only want to finish the ride, but I want to enjoy it and not have it be painful and miserable.This last Saturday we rode from Alameda to the top of Mt. Diablo, down to the base and back up to the top again and then home to Alameda. It was 95 miles and 9300 feet of climb. The ride was great except that Jim got 4 flat tires- a new record!

My friend Gayle is doing the ride with us. She beat us both to the top (both times!). Gayle and I are nervous but Jim keeps telling us we're ready. So only 27 more days!

Update

2011-06-12T22:46:00.000-07:00

So we've had a busy week. Our sweet Eliza graduated from elementary school!
She had a great year and has loved Franklin Elementary School! Next year she'll be in middle school.

Proud mom.

Happy Dad.

And look who got glasses! She's thrilled that she still has 4 days left of school to show them off!

Family Camp 2011

2011-05-31T10:50:00.000-07:00

So, what did we do at Family Camp this year? Played silly games.
This was our favorite game this year: Headbandz!

We made lots of crafts.

Made TONS of friendship bracelets.

Got to spend time with old friends and make new friends.

Porter got to ring the dinner bell!

Played with Boom-whackers!

Danced the night away!

Explored and hiked all around the beautiful camp.

Fished at one of the gorgeous lakes.

Emma and Eliza both caught 2 fish each!

Sang silly camp songs and did skits.

Made at ate delicious s'mores.

It was another fabulous year at Camp Okizu and we made it home in time on Monday to host a big Memorial Day BBQ!

Mother's Day 2011

2011-05-31T10:43:00.000-07:00

I had a great Mother's Day. The kids made my favorite breakfast: oatmeal and white cheddar popcorn!
Jim grilled shrimp and chicken for dinner.

Emma made a chocolate, butterscotch pudding dessert.

I was spoiled with gifts and got to take a long nap. The Saturday before I got to do a 90 mile bike ride out to Mt. Diablo and back with my friend Gayle while Jim watched the kids! It was a perfect weekend!

Easter 2011

2011-04-26T21:05:00.000-07:00

We had a great Easter. The kids woke up and went searching for their Easter baskets. Here's Emma:
And Eliza:

Parker taking it easy:

Porter is super excited! Rina found a basket too, but I swore not to post the early morning photo!

The girls in their Easter dresses.

At church the girls sang in sacrament meeting and played the hand bells. After church we ate our delicious Easter feast!

Later we went to our friend Kris's home for an Easter egg hunt.

Some of the eggs had money- it was a huge hit!

Check out the desserts:

And more delicious food:

Then we drove Rina all around Alameda showing her the kids schools, our old home and then went to the beach.

It was a great Easter weekend with Rina. We love you Rina! Come visit again!

Weekend with Rina

2011-04-23T20:13:00.000-07:00

Emma's birth-mother, Rina, came for a visit this weekend. Here we are meeting her in the airport.
Emma and Rina.

We went home and then out to lunch. After lunch the girls got pedicures.

Friday night Emma made her famous dish "Steak Diane" for us. We went to Tuckers for ice cream after dinner and then to bed early.

Saturday morning we worked on decorating our Easter bunny cake.

Emma had the idea to frost it and then stick on mini marshmellows that we cut into a curly design. After frosting both halves we put them together.

I think this years Easter bunny cake is the cutest ever!

Eliza decorated the Easter egg cakes.

Then we went to San Francisco for the day. Here we are in front of Alcatraz.

We loved Pier 39. This was our first time not bringing a stroller for Porter and of course, he got lost. Only for about 5 minutes, but it was scary!

We ate delicious doughnuts from Trish's.

We tried on hats at Crazy Kaps! Eliza was a shark, Emma is the mad hatter, Rina is the Queen of Hearts, Parker has dreads and Porter was Zurg from Buzz Lightyear.

We watched a street performer walk on broken glass!

We loaded up on chocolate from Chocolate Heaven.

We drove down Lombard Street and then we posed in front of the Golden Gate Bridge.

We are so glad Rina came. We had a great time and will post more photos later!

Just saying....

2011-04-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

Life is good!

Ready for Easter

2011-04-20T21:03:00.001-07:00

Monday we had our Easter FHE lesson. Afterwards we had some festive desserts.

Which were great.

Then decorated eggs.

No one spilled the dye this year... I guess the kids are growing up!

We love this tradition

Here are some of our finished eggs. We are looking forward to Easter- we get to have Emma's birth-mother, Rina, come visit for the weekend!

Happy Easter!

Spring Break 2011

2011-04-20T20:55:00.000-07:00

So I'm way behind on blogging. We had spring break in March! Eliza had five of her friends over one day. Here is Eliza with Andi, Emma, Emily, Sarah and Emily.

We had a cooking class and made shrimp curry. Is was delicious!

Everyone enjoyed it.

We went bowling one day and to Sky High Jump one day.

I love spring break.

Ahh...Date Night

2011-03-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

Many of you have heard me bragging about how great my kids are and how nice is it that since they are older Jim and I can leave them for a night out. Well, last night we returned from "date night" to the smell of cleaning products. "Wow" I thought, those kids were cleaning the house....WRONG. One of our dear kids decided that since the parents were gone, they should take bright red punch into the family room and drink it on the light tan carpet. When they spilled they decided to pour bleach on it and mop it up with a black towel. When some bleach spilled they wiped it up with Porter's blue jacket and then set the before-mentioned black (soaked with bleach) towel on our denim sofa.

After viewing the disaster I gave myself a time-out. Then we called a family council to re-establish the family rules about food and drinks in the family room and discuss the amazing bleaching powers of straight bleach.

St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

We started St. Patrick's Day with our usual green pancake breakfast.

The Leprechauns really made a mess of the house this year!

For dinner we had corned beef and cabbage with mashed potatoes. We had green sugar cookies for dessert.

Our kids love corned beef. I pickled it for 3 days- it's so much work that we only eat it on St. Patrick's Day.

This was our best St. Patrick's Day ever!

The Bacon Maple Bar

2011-02-27T17:28:00.000-08:00

Somehow this photo got deleted from the post below. So here it is, the bacon maple bar from Voodoo Doughnuts. If you like bacon with pancakes and maple syrup you'll love this!

Quick Trip to Portland

2011-02-27T16:48:00.000-08:00

On Friday I flew to Portland, Oregon to see my dear friend Julie Peterson. I arrived at 8:15am and after a stop at Starbucks we headed over to the Lan Su Chinese Garden.

We had a tour of the gardens and buildings.

Had orange and cranberry tea in the tea house where this man was performing.

Then on to lunch at Andina a Peruvian restaurant that was AMAZING! Here's the bread and 3 dipping sauces.

We started with conchas a la parilla: grilled diver scallops with garlic lime butter sauce and crispy onions, empanadas caseras de carne: flaky pastry filled with slow-cooked beef, raisens and Botija olives and my favorite palta rellena de cangrejo y langostinos: avocado stuffed with crab and prawns.

For round 2 we had yuca rellena: cheese-stuffed yuca with an amarillo and cheese sauce and pimiento piquillo relleno: piquillo peppers stuffed with cheese, quinoa and serrano ham.

Then we went and relaxed and got manicures and stopped by Julie's house to say hi to the family. After that we headed to Voodoo Doughnuts where there was an impromptu concert.

These doughnuts are legendary and have been featured on tons of food shows.

It's pretty seedy inside and always packed.

Their most famous doughnut is the voodoo doll with pretzel stake and yes if you get there early they will put any name on it that you request! My favorite doughnut was the maple bar topped with bacon! It was divine.

Next stop: Nicholas for dinner. It was middle eastern/labanese food. The servings were huge and very reasonable.

After dinner there was more talking and eating doughnuts and then Julie dropped me off at the airport. My flight was delayed, but I managed to caught an earlier flight home and was back to my house by 9:30pm. What a fabulous day! I love you Julie! Let's make this an annual tradition!

Sky High Jump

2011-02-27T16:29:00.001-08:00

We took the kids back to Sky High Jump on President's Day. We had a blast. Here's Jim doing a front flip! It's awesome to see a 6'6" guy doing front flips!

Here's me landing a back flip.

Jumping fun!

And our new favorite snack "Raisels". The tart orange taste like sour patch kids. We love them!

Valentine's Day!

2011-02-16T16:50:00.001-08:00

We started the day with the traditional pink pancake breakfast.
I left Valentine's all over Jim's office, bathroom and car.

Emma made this cake to take to school. Needless to say, it was a hit!

Jim gave me See's chocolates- my favorite.

For dinner we invited the Teuschers over for a seafood feast: Salmon, shrimp and mussels. We also had bread, green beans and mashed potatoes.

It was a very fun (and very loud) dinner!

After dinner we decorated sugar cookies.

Then delivered them to some people in our Ward. It was kind of late and we woke most of them up!

Jim really came through with these gorgeous roses!

And a Galaxy Tab! I've already loaded my favorite games and movies!

Hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!

Parker's 14th Birthday!

2011-01-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

Today is Parker's 14th birthday. I can't believe how fast the time has gone! Eliza and Emma made the cake. Emma decorated it.
He invited some of his friends: Maddie, Lucas, Adam, Parker, Luna and Alli.

We went to Sky High Jump in Concord. We had a blast. There are trampolines all over the floors and walls. Jim and I did some serious tricks- front flips (both of us) , back flips (me)- all the other parents were jealous. They wouldn't allow cameras on the floor so you'll just have to take our word for it!

They also had a room where you jumo into a foam pit and a dodge ball court. It was a great work out! We were all tired at the end. Emma was complaining about feeling dizzy. On our way out she threw up all over the floor. We told an employee and then hustled out of there! She made a quick recovery.

After jumping we came home for pizza and cake.

Then Parker opened his gifts.

We are so grateful to have Parker in our family. He's smart and funny. He has a great sense of humor. He's a loyal big brother. He makes his parents very proud. We love watching him pass the sacrament and will be excited to see him now prepare it as well. We love you Parker!

Girls trip to San Francisco

2011-01-17T15:33:00.000-08:00

Emma, Eliza and I did our annual Christmas trip to see the holiday windows in San Francisco. The girls love to ride BART.

We saw lots of beautiful window displays.

We shopped until we were exhausted.

Our favorite store was Anthropologie. They did tons of displays out of sweaters!

I'm looking forward to lots of future shopping trips with my girls!

New Year's Party!

2011-01-05T18:38:00.000-08:00

We had a New Year's Party. We made lots of noise.
Ate lots of good food.

Drank a keg of root beer!

Acted goofy with friends.

Played wii all night.

And rang in the New Year. I think 2011 is gonna be our best year yet!

Porter's 3rd day back at school...he ran into a pole.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-28T08:17:00.001-08:00

Emma left a treat of egg nog, Christmas tree shaped biscuits and strawberry honey butter for Santa!

Porter opening his double light saber.

Emma got these cute shoes and more cake decorating tips from her birth-mother, Rina.

Parker with his loot.

Eliza with her gifts.

The family got some nice presents from Emma's birth-grandparents, Vicky and Gary.

Our family gift was a wii! We LOVE it!

Christmas breakfast:

Emma looking grown-up in her new jacket, hat from Vicky and shoes from Rina.

Porter with his favorite lego characters.

Eliza looking grown-up with her new clothes.

Cute pajamas from Grandma and Grandpa Hawkins.

Christmas dinner. One of the benefits of living in California is that you can get delicious seafood for reasonable prices!

Hope you all had a great Christmas. We sure did!

Christmas Eve 2010

2010-12-28T08:06:00.000-08:00

We spent Christmas Eve day cooking and baking. Emma made "pigs-in-a-blanket".

Eliza made stuffed mushrooms.

We baked bread and made strawberry honey butter.

Emma made cheese dip.

We went to our friends (the Teuschers) for the evening. We ate lots of delicious food.

We sang and the kids acted out the nativity.

They played their piano pieces. Parker and Adam played two duets.

They opened one present- new jammies!

Ready for bed!

We missed our families in Utah, but had a wonderful Christmas Eve!

A Holiday Weekend-

2010-12-20T08:10:00.001-08:00

The kids had their Winter Recital this weekend. Here's Emma:
Here's Eliza:

Here's Parker (He was there early practicing a duet and yes, I forgot to bring his Sunday shoes!) He played a great duet of "Jingle Bells" with Adam on Friday and another duet of "Angels We Have Heard..." with Adam in sacrament meeting on Sunday.

We got some great family photos in this beautiful church.

Not happy about how grown-up my girls are getting!

Last night we went to Thompson Lane. Every home on the street is all decked out. It's hard to see in this photo but the house is all hot pink and looks like a candy house.

Another favorite-

Each year this house does the latest movie. Here's Rapunzel:

After seeing the houses we stopped by to see Santa. Porter told us ahead of time, "If Santa asks if I've been good I'm going to tell him that I'm working on it!"

It was a great weekend!

Food Fun!

2010-12-13T00:11:00.000-08:00

Inspired by Julia Child's book, "My life in France" I had a little French food party.

I'm not a big fan of pate, but I keep trying it anyway.

These mini cupcakes from Trader Joe's were fabulous.

Baked brie- yummy!

The cornichons were tasty- like little pickles.

Last Monday we made ginger bread houses.

Everyone had fun decorating them.

Porter ate his right away.

Here's the village.

Tonight we baked sugar cookies.

Porter ate more than he baked!

Jim made green wreath cookies.

Hope you are all having "food fun" during the holidays!

Ready for the Season!

2010-12-02T11:34:00.000-08:00

We are ready for the Christmas season!

We put up our Christmas tree this week.

We have a tradition of each child getting a chance to put the star on top!

Here's Porter.

Parker's turn.

And Emma.

Nice work team!

Our tree:

Over a year ago I bought this cute Mount Vernon advent calendar in Virginia when I went to visit Jessica. I just found it so now I can use it this year.

The dining room.

We love to snuggle up and read different Christmas books each night. We buy a new one (or two) each year.

The nativities.

This year we'll be staying in Alameda for Christmas. I'm excited to wake up and celebrate in our home this year. We will miss our Utah families though. Merry Christmas everyone!

Thanksgiving Weekend

2010-11-27T20:28:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Modesto at Matt and Shanon's home. There was lots of delicious food. Check out the desserts:

The "kids" table.

The "adults" table.

Lots of good things to eat- turkey, mashed potatoes, butternut squash, collard greens with turnips, 4 mushroom dressing, salads, 2 kinds of cranberry sauce and applesauce. YUM.

After lunch we celebrated Porter's 7th birthday! His birthday falls on Thanksgiving every 3 to 4 years.

He mostly got legos.

We had a music recital. Maddie and Jo played the cello. Emma, Eliza and Tori played the piano. Alex played the sax.

There was some napping.

Alex came home with us for a couple days. We saw the movie "Tangled" (loved it!) and went to "Color Me Mine" and painted pottery.

Everyone got along great and had a fun time.

Jim even went shopping with me early on black Friday ! What a great weekend!

My New Obsession....

2010-11-10T12:05:00.000-08:00

Street tacos!
One of the benefits of living so close to Oakland is that there are tons of taco trucks nearby. I've recently tried a bunch and the hands-down-best is "El Taco Oaxaco". They sell their street tacos for $2 a piece. I always get 2 shrimp and 1 fish. They come with pickled carrots and radishes and home made salsa. It feels a little white trash to eat them in your car, but they are so worth it!

Next time you come visit we'll go get some. If you live nearby you can find this taco truck off the 23rd Ave. exit, near the Rainbow Bread outlet. Enjoy!

Halloween Party!

2010-11-01T10:26:00.000-07:00

Since Halloween was on Sunday this year, the kids invited their friends over on Saturday for a Halloween party. We added more scary decorations to the house.

We made lots of yummy, scary food. Jess sent me a cute Halloween food cookbook that had lots of great ideas.

Emma baked and decorated tons of cupcakes.

She is so talented and creative!

Eliza put together cute party favors.

Here are some of Eliza's friends.

Here is Emma with two of her friends: Bailey and Caroline.

Here's Parker with Alli, Luna, Lucas and Adam.

Here's Jim with his "Facebook" costume!

We had a costume contest, Halloween quiz, played "pass the poisen apple", and pin the tail on the cat. Then we split into groups. The teens went and watched "I am Legend" and the younger kids watched "Signs".

We had puzzles for the kids who didn't want to watch the scary movies.

On Halloween we stayed home and played games and passed out candy. It was a fun weekend.

New Things

2010-10-15T18:18:00.000-07:00

Guess who's a Tiger Cub Scout? Guess who his Den Leader is?

Emma used her new cake decorating kit to decorate my birthday cake. She got an amazing Milton set from her beautiful birthmom- Rina.

Here I am with my birthday cake that was decorated by Emma. 40 is great!

Breaking records

2010-10-15T17:55:00.000-07:00

Jim and I did "our ride" today. We broke our record by reaching the top in 56 minutes, 30 seconds. Our previous record was 58 minutes. Best part is: I'm now 40 and still breaking records! I love cycling!

Levi Leipheimer's King Ridge GranFondo

2010-10-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday Jim and I rode in the Levi Leipheimer's GranFondo. It was 103 miles and started about an hour north of us in Santa Rosa.

There were 6,000 riders and we all lined up and started riding at 8am. Levi Leipheimer was there. There were lots of other pro riders and Patrick Dempsey!

It was a crazy to start riding with so many people. For the first several miles we were just trying not to run into anyone else. After 30 miles 3,000 of the riders had split off onto different courses so then it wasn't as crazy.

There were tons of volunteers and lots of great food at the rest stops.

The ride sold out in 3 weeks. Luckily I got a ticket from a guy who couldn't make it. The ride was billed as "spectacular views and 6,900 feet of climb." Well, the views were spectacular but the climbs were SO hard. More like 8,500 feet of climb and one climb that was 11 miles long with 11 - 18% grade! Ouch! I'm proud to report that Jim and I didn't walk our bikes once. It was awesome to pass riders all decked out in their team outfits walking their $10,000 bikes! Maybe by next year I will have forgotten how hard it was and be ready to do it again!

French Pumpkin Soup Recipe

2010-10-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

French Pumpkin Soup

This recipe is from The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market Cookbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Impeccable Produce Plus Seasonal Recipes by Peggy Knickerbocker and Christopher Hirsheimer (Chronicle Books, 2006). The heavy, dense flesh of the pumpkin helps it to hold its shape during baking. As it cooks, its juices are slowly released into the stock, where their flavor intensifies.

Ingredients
1 (8- to 10-pound) Rouge vif d’Etamps (Cinderella) pumpkin
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature, divided
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
3 leeks, white part and 2 inches of green, cut into 1-inch-thick rounds
6 (1-inch thick) slices country bread, torn into bite-sized pieces and toasted
1/2 teaspoon ground dried sage
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Coarsely ground black pepper
2 cups shredded Gruyère cheese
5 cups lower-sodium chicken broth
2 bay leaves

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Cut off top of pumpkin, creating a lid about 4 inches in diameter. Scoop out seeds and strings. Rub cut side of lid and inside of pumpkin with 1 tablespoon butter. Season lid and inside of pumpkin with half the salt and place pumpkin, cut side up, in a deep baking dish or pan that you can bring to the table. Set lid aside.
3. Melt remaining butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add leeks and cook, stirring, until soft, about 8 minutes. Add toasted bread and sprinkle with sage, nutmeg, remaining salt and pepper. Stir well and remove from heat.
4. Spoon a layer of bread mixture into pumpkin. Sprinkle a layer of cheese on top. Repeat layers with remaining bread mixture and cheese. Pour in stock to within 1 inch of the rim. Lay bay leaves on top, and then fit lid onto pumpkin.
5. Bake until pumpkin begins to soften and brown on the outside and stock bubbles, 1 1⁄2 to 2 hours. Carefully remove baking dish from the oven.
6. With a long-handled spoon, scrape flesh from bottom and sides of pumpkin into soup, being careful not to puncture walls. Ladle soup, including tender chunks of pumpkin flesh, into warmed bowls and serve. Serves 6 to 8.
Relish the Season, "From Patch to Pan," October 2007.
Nutritional Information
Per serving: 330 calories, 21g fat, 13g prot., 24g carbs., 3g fiber, 740mg sodium.

October Fun!

2010-10-07T14:35:00.000-07:00

It's my favorite season!

We did the Grizzly metric century ride last weekend. Parker and his buddy Adam (and Adam's mom Gayle) rode with us. We had perfect weather and a fun ride!

My aunt Shannon gave me "The SF Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market Cookbook". I made the French pumpkin soup baked and served in the shell. It was a lot of work but looked amazing and tasted delicious!

Guess who lost his first tooth?

Someone loves me!

2010-09-22T17:24:00.000-07:00

Don't you love getting flowers? Thanks Jim!

Yet another reason...

2010-09-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

Why I hate rodents.
Parker's pet hampster (Lily) pulled the leg of his pants into her cage last night and chewed away! His pants are destroyed. It wouldn't be so bad if Lily were cute and charming, but all she does is bite! By-the-way, Parker is only pretending to be sad. He's already planned an awesome Halloween costume using the shredded pants!

First Day of School

2010-08-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

The kids went back to school today. We had a great summer, but were ready to start school.

They all packed their backpacks and got up early to get ready.

Eliza is in 5th grade, Porter is in 1st grade. Both at Franklin.

Parker is in 8th grade. Emma is in 6th grade. Both at The Academy of Alameda. I love the uniforms! Emma found plaid shoes that match her backpack.

I've got no kids at home from 8:15-2:50 each day. What will I do with all my time? I was released as Young Women's president last week. I'm now the primary pianist and have about 70 songs to learn so I guess I'll be doing lots of piano practicing!

Emma's Birthday Weekend

2010-08-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

We celebrated Emma's 11th birthday by spending Saturday at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom.

We love this theme park. It has tons of wild crazy rides like "Kong".

They have all kinds of animal exhibits.

We have gone to the dolphin show in the past. This time we went to the tiger show. These white tigers dive in the water for meat. It was really cool.

The baby tigers were cute.

They have a whole kids section that Porter loved.

The girls did this log ride 4 times at the end and were soaked.

We got Emma a funnel cake, stuck a candle in it and sang the birthday song.

Sunday was her actual birthday. She got lots of great gifts. Her favorite is the purple cell phone.

She covered Porter's mouth so she could blow out the candles by herself!

Happy Birthday Emma. We sure love you!

20 Year Anniversary!

2010-08-30T21:31:00.000-07:00

Jim and I celebrated our 20 year anniversary last Friday. Jim came home with these beautiful roses.

Our girls were so excited that we were going out to San Francisco for the evening. They helped me get ready and took lots of pictures.

We went to Teatro ZinZanni on Embarcadero in San Francisco for a delicious five course dinner and theater. It was amazing with singing, dancing, magic show, aerialists and acrobats. Our favorite performance was a "vertical tango." The female star of the show is a talented aerialist that choreographed and performed with Pink at the 2010 Grammies. Here's a photo taken at the show:
Sunday was our actual anniversary (and Emma's birthday--I'll post more about that!). Emma made us this romantic, candle-lit dinner!

I'm grateful to celebrate 20 years of marriage. I've now been married longer than I've been single! I love Jim and am excited for all the years we've got ahead of us.

Marin Century

2010-08-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

Here's the official photo from the Marin Century that we rode last Saturday!

What a great weekend!

2010-08-08T19:22:00.000-07:00

Friday we celebrated Jim's 42nd birthday! He requested a German chocolate cake.

We had a BBQ dinner. Jim and I "carb loaded" because we rode the Marin Century on Saturday.

The century was really hard (106 miles, 7000+ feet of climb), but really fun. We finished in just under 10 hours.

It was a great weekend!

Quick trip to Utah

2010-07-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

I was able to make a quick trip to Utah last weekend for my Grandpa Hawkins' funeral. I got to see all my siblings and Jessy's baby, Dellin, and Becky's baby, Cora.

Grandpa was a WWII hero, so they did a 21 gun salute.

Grandpa was a wonderful man and an amazing example.

I ate almost an entire loaf of my mom's home-made bread. It was a great trip!

Eliza's 10th Birthday!

2010-07-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

On July 9th we celebrated Eliza's 10th birthday!

We had a pizza party and then went to watch "Despicable Me." The movie was great.

The table is ready!

Emma, Sarah, Eliza and Andi.

After the movie we came home for cake and ice cream. Then we did tons of party poppers. Yes, we were cleaning confetti for days.

We love you Eliza and we love having two ten-year-olds!

Vacation to Oregon

2010-07-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

We had a great vacation to Oregon. We stayed with our friends, the Peterson's. We went berry picking one day. We picked 2 flats of berries and then went home and made freezer jam.

We picked raspberries and taeberries (a with between raspberries and blackberries).

Julie and Jen at the rose gardens.

The Portland temple is beautiful!

We had fun jumping on the trampoline.

We tie dyed t-shirts.

They turned out great!

John and Jim served in the same Paris mission.

We did lots of sparklers.

Porter didn't burn anyone with his!

Eliza didn't get burned this year! It was a great trip!

Eclipse Party!

2010-07-07T16:29:00.000-07:00

We had a fun party the opening night of Eclipse. My friend, Connie, brought this awesome cake!

We had lots of delicious food.

Most everyone was "team Jacob"!

We made t-shirts.

Parker was greatly out numbered by cute girls! I don't think he minded it at all!

We had a blast, screamed like crazy and made some fun memories!

Emma's Graduation

2010-06-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

Our sweet Emma graduated from elementary school last Friday. She got picked to present the graduating class gift to the principle. (It was a hard bound copy of the Percy Jackson books).

Proud parents!

The graduating class.

Emma and her buddy Sophia.

After graduation we went to eat at Emma's favorite restaurant "Panera Bread." She loves the clam chowder in a bread bowl. When we came home she baked and decorated this cake to celebrate the start of summer.

That night we had a pizza party.

The kids invited friends and we ate pizza and then went to see "Karate Kid." What a fun night.

We are so proud of Emma. She is such a fun, smart, creative, beautiful girl!

Century ride in Tahoe

2010-06-08T20:57:00.000-07:00

Jim and I have been doing a lot of training rides. Last weekend we went to Lake Tahoe for a century (100 mile) ride. It was beautiful and such a nice get away.

One of the best parts of long bike rides is "carbing up" the night before!

The Team in Training kick off was wonderful. Check out the ice sculpture.

The only bad part of the weekend was having my first bike crash at mile 36. Some guy in front of me wasn't paying attention and ran into another cyclist. He fell right in front of me so I tried to jump his bike. It didn't work and I went down hard. Luckily I only had this nasty scrape on my elbow and a bunch on bruises.

This was my second century and I loved every minute of it! It was so fun to ride with Jim. We are planning several more rides this year.

I was sore and tired at the end, but it was an amazing day. Thanks Bret and Whitney for watching our kids. We had a great weekend!

Jelly Belly Factory

2010-06-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

We finally went to the Jelly Belly factory in Vacaville. They offer free tours of the factory.

We had a great time and learned all about how they make jelly beans and lots of other candies.

One of the highlights was buying big bags of "jelly flops" for cheap! Also, they have a great cafe that serves jelly bean shaped burgers and pizzas!

If you're ever in Vacaville I'd recommend the tour.

Family Camp

2010-06-07T14:32:00.000-07:00

We had a great Memorial Day Weekend. We went to family camp at Camp Okizu. This was our 6th year. Here are some highlights:Canoeing

Swimming

Banana slugs

Making and eating s'mores.

Catching lizards and salamanders.

Jim climbing the ropes course.

Jen way up in the trees.

Eliza doing the zip line.

Porter climbing down from the trees.

Jim showing Parker how to be "cool".

Meeting new friends.

Dancing! We had a blast and are looking forward to next year!

Porter Update

2010-05-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

It's been two weeks today since Porter had his surgery. Here's a look back:

This is the night before surgery.

After Surgery. Look at all the fun things his friends and class mates brought him!

An oreo ice-cream cake from the Teushers.

The bandages are coming off!

Now the tape.

And that's the incision. Not bad- it will continue to fade with time and his hair should cover it. He will stay on anti-seizure meds for 3 months. The best news is the doctor cleared him to go back to school next week! YEAH! We are so grateful that the surgery is over and that everything went so well.

Conservatory of Flowers

2010-05-20T16:22:00.000-07:00

We took Mom to Golden Gate Park to see the flowers at the Conservatory of Flowers. Here are some of the things we saw:

It was beautiful, the only down side was wading through all the crazy drunks that were still partying after the Bay to Breakers. We all got an eye full!

Piano Recital

2010-05-20T16:18:00.000-07:00

The kids had their Spring recital last Friday. They all did a great job!

Mom was here which made it extra nice!

Happy Mother's Day!

2010-05-09T08:44:00.001-07:00

Jim got these beautiful roses for me and Mom and he bought us each a panini grill!

It's so nice to have Mom here. She is the best!!!

These adorable outfits the girls are wearing were made by Mom and Becky. Becky made the shirts and headbands. So cute!

Happy Mother's Day to all moms and to all wonderful birth moms. We love you Jillyn and Rina!

Porter's surgery

2010-05-09T08:34:00.000-07:00

Our sweet little guy had brain surgery on Thursday to remove a cavernous malformation. The surgery was a success! Here he is right after.
He was up and playing Nintendo in no time. He is only taking tylenol for pain! He was so busy that he didn't notice he kicked out his IV in his foot! (This is the 3rd IV he kicked or pulled out!)

My friend Gayle came by and brought a huge bag of toys, clothes and books that she, Michelle and other friends had pitched in to buy. Porter's favorite gift was a brand new Nintendo DSi! Now he has his own!

Jim spent the night last night so I could come home for Mother's Day. Thanks honey!

We are so glad the surgery is over. It's been on our minds for the last 5 years!

Amazing art experience...

2010-04-29T17:00:00.001-07:00

Got to go to San Francisco to the Gap headquarters and view the private art collection of the Fishers who are co-founders of Gap Inc. The collection was modern and contemporary art and was AMAZING! My friend Gayle won the tour at a school fundraiser. There were several pieces from Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Duane Hanson, Sean Scully, Sigmor Polke, Chuch Close and Ellsworth Kelly just to name a few. We weren't allowed to take photos but the collection will go to the SFMOMA starting this summer.

After the viewing we ate lunch at the Gap cafe. This is the view from the rooftop. The bow and arrow sculpture was commissioned by the Fishers and then given to the city of San Francisco. They maintain the park around the sculpture. What a great day- thanks Gayle!

Day 3 of Spring Break...

2010-04-08T07:43:00.000-07:00

A new driveway and side walk!

We went swimming for a couple hours in the afternoon since it was a nice, hot day. But the most exciting thing was watching our new driveway and side walk get re-done. We've had a broken side walk and driveway for years.

It was finally getting so bad that you could trip on the uneven cement.

The kids loved watching them take out the old cement.

We added another foot of driveway and, of course, let the kids make hand prints!

They loved making their hand prints.

I love how they turned out! And can't wait to park on our new driveway!

Day 2 of Spring Break...

2010-04-08T07:37:00.000-07:00

Eliza and Porter have had these awful coughs. We went to the doctors and they have... Pneumonia! Walking pneumonia, which is not as serious as regular pneumonia. They are taking meds and feeling better. We did go to the farmer's market and to the movies, so we still had some fun!

First Day of Spring Break.

2010-04-05T23:28:00.000-07:00

We went to San Francisco to Golden Gate Park. It's only 10.6 miles from our home but we hardly ever go there. They have these cool lawn bowling courts. (Don't ask me what Parker is doing!)
There's an amazing Children's Playground with long, cement slides.

All kinds of things to climb.

We had great weather.

We went to the Conservatory of Flowers. They have over 800 kinds of orchids. I couldn't believe we got a parking spot right in front. Then we found out they are closed on Mondays- Shoot! We'll have to come back again.

The grounds were beautiful. There is so much to see and do in San Francisco. The kids are finally at the ages were they are interested and we don't have to worry about them running away and getting lost. We plan to do lots more exploring this year.

We found a great pizza place.

Ate incredible pizza.

It was a great day. Now, what should we do for the rest of the week?

Easter Weekend

2010-04-05T23:00:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend. We ate way too much candy.

We dyed Easter eggs.
Updated all the perishable food in our 72-hour emergency kits.

Made griddle cakes and vanilla syrup.

Had an Easter egg hunt.

Found tons of eggs.

Stayed in pajamas all day (the kids did!)

Made a fun Easter cake.

Ate a delicious Easter dinner.

Read the Easter story, watched all sessions of General Conference and took lots of notes. I wish all weekends could be like this!

Catching up with old friends.

2010-03-28T21:52:00.001-07:00

Our dear friends, the Petersons, stopped by for the weekend on their way home to Oregon after visiting Disneyland. Saturday was great weather and we got up and went to the farmer's market and then to the beach. Eliza loved their youngest daughter, Anna. She asked if they would trade Porter for Anna- I'm sure she was kidding, right?

Eliza and Emma were both very interested in 16-year-old Jacob and 12-year-old Joseph!

We spent hours flying kites.

Jim and John served in the same Paris mission and we all became great friends when we lived in Provo and were attending BYU. We went to Paris with John and Julie in 2006.

Julie and I spent hours talking and getting caught up on each others lives. We went to the Young Women broadcast on Saturday night. It's so great to see old friends. We made plans to get together over Labor Day. We've never been to Oregon. Now hopefully we didn't send them home with lice or they may never want us to visit!

So my worst nightmare came true...

2010-03-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

HEAD LICE!!!! Yes, there was an out break in our elementry school. Let me tell you about the past couple days-First I spent $87 on lice shampoo, new brushes, combs and rubber bands. Then we spent $300 visiting "Nit Pixies" where we were professionally treated. Then bought new tea tree oil shampoo & conditioner, peppermint spray and medical nit remover combs (another $60). Then had the pleasure of bagging all stuffed animals, washing all clothes, pillow cases and bedding, drying all decorative pillows on hot for 20 plus minutes, vacuuming all furniture, carpets and matresses and everything in the car.

After all that we shaved Porter's head just for good measure (plus he'll need it shaved when he has surgery, but that's a topic for another post). I wanted to shave all of our heads, but the older kids protested.

I think we're safe now, but we'll still be washing all clothes and bedding everyday and doing the fun combing of the hair for the next few weeks. If you've never had lice, consider yourself very blessed!

Some things I love about spring...

2010-03-21T17:36:00.001-07:00

First thing I love about spring is spring cleaning. My sister Becky has really motivated me to dig in and clean and organize. Jim put boards down in our attic and now we have TONS of storage! I sorted through all the closets and organized everything and put several boxes up in the attic. It feels great to get things shaped up around here!

Another thing I love about spring is that all the flowers are blooming! It's great to work in the yard.

And of course I love to decorate for Easter!

Since I have lots of new storage I bought a few more decorations this year. My favorite is still the little pink wall hanging that my talented friend Jill made for me years ago.

Happy Spring!

St. Patrick's Day

2010-03-21T17:14:00.000-07:00

We had a fun St. Patrick's Day. I loaded these photos backwards, so I'll tell you about our day in reverse order! At night I had a "green potluck" dinner with my young women. I made these green cupcakes with green frosting. There were lots of creative dishes and I love my young women. I've been YW president for three years this month!

For dinner I did our usual corned beef and cabbage dinner. I make it every year on St. Patrick's Day and the kids love it. It's a lot of work to make corned beef but I can handle once a year!

All the kindergarten classes made leprechaun traps. Porter didn't catch any but they left gold coins and green glitter! He asked so many questions about leprechauns and was really disappointed when he didn't catch one. He even planned to keep it in a hampster cage at home!

Parker didn't wear green but said the green rubber bands on his braces counted (see photo below!) Lots of his class mates didn't agree and the poor kid got pinched all day!

It's Official....

2010-03-03T12:05:00.000-08:00

We've got a teenager with braces.

Fun and Delicious!

2010-02-24T10:27:00.000-08:00

If you have kids you've got to get some Bendaroos:

Bendaroos are "magical wax over super strong string" that you can shape into all types of things. The kit comes with traceable templets and my kids have spent HOURS making things.

They stick to almost every surface and don't leave a mess like play-dough. I highly recommend them!

We've been mourning the loss of our favorite thai food restaurant. They made the best lime-prawn soup. My mom told me about a recipe she found for it and I made it last night. It was delicious- all of us loved it and I'll definitely make it again.

Here's the recipe:

In a large pot heat 1 T. vegetable oil with 1 clove minced garlic, 1/2 t. chili paste, and 1/2 t. red pepper flakes. Cook about 2 minutes. Then add 3 slices galanga (or ginger) and 1 stock of lemon grass diagonally sliced into 1 inch pieces. Brown them. Next add 6 c. chicken broth, 2 T. fish sauce, 4 t. sugar, 1 t. salt, 2 lime leaves, 2 chopped plum tomatoes, 1 can asain corn (drained) and 6 chopped mushrooms. Bring to a boil, then add 1/2 lb. (I used 1 full pound) of cleaned, de-viened, large shrimp. Cook 3 minutes and remove from heat. Add 1 sliced green onion, 1/4 c. lime juice, some basil and a few stems of cilantro. Cover with lid and take to the table. Serve in bowls (over rice if preferred).

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T14:58:00.000-08:00

Hope you all have a great Valentine's Day! We started off the weekend with a "Percy Jackson" pizza party on Friday night.

Parker invited several friends over to eat pizza and then go watch the movie. It was great.

After church today we had a feast! It's so nice to have two capable, helpful daughters. We had teriyaki salmon, shrimp, Mussels Marinieres. pink mashed potatoes, french bread, veggies and chocolate torte for dessert.

The beautiful flowers are from Jim.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Praying and Crying

2010-02-07T19:29:00.000-08:00

I found this blog and have been praying and crying all weekend and holding my kids a little closer.

DVD release

2010-01-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

New Moon is being released on DVD on March 20th! I think that calls for a release party, what do you think?

Our Star!

2010-01-27T09:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, this post is a little late. Emma got the role of Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" and did an amazing job of singing, dancing and hamming it up! I forgot my camera and only had some fuzzy cell phone shots, but my friend Joni emailed this photo to me. Way to go Emma- we think you've really got a flare for drama!

Sewing and Legos

2010-01-26T14:24:00.000-08:00

Emma got this cute Singer sewing machine for Christmas from her birth-grandparents, Gary and Vicky. Last Saturday I spent the afternoon teaching the girls how to sew. First they practiced threading their machines (Eliza used mine). Then they practiced sewing lines that I drew on paper. After they mastered the paper they tried real stitches on material.

After they got good at sewing on material we cut some squares and they starting sewing quilt tops. They want to make quilts for their little neices and nephews.

Here are their first quilt tops made completely by themselves! (Excuse the water spot on Emma's quilt- Porter got carried away with the water bottle!) They picked out fabric for the backs and now we'll work on quilting and binding them. They did a great job and caught on to using sewing machines fast!

The boys got some serious lego time in on Sunday while the girls were quilting!

New Beginnings

2010-01-23T09:02:00.000-08:00

This week we had New Beginnings. We decorated in pink & white.

We picked these colors to go with the new personal progress books.

We introduced the new class logos and statements.

We had delicious pink drinks and refreshments! I love the girls in our group, they are so great!

Parker's Birthday Party

2010-01-23T08:47:00.000-08:00

Monday Parker celebrated his 13th birhtday. He had four friends over and they went bowling.
Then they came home and opened presents.

Played the candy bar game.

For the game you take turns rolling dice. If you get doubles you put on the oven mits and try to open and eat a giant chocolate bar using two butter knives. You get to try and eat until someone else rolls doubles.

Then we ate cake and ice-cream. What fun!

Happy 13th Parker!

Happy Birthday Parker!

2010-01-17T19:35:00.000-08:00

Parker turned 13 today! I can't believe we have a teenager!After church we ate his favorite dinner: roasted chicken and nauvoo potatoes. The girls made him this brownie cake!

Our friend Penny joined the party and gave Parker a Boarders gift card!

Parker also got a new DS game, a board game and nerf dart guns. Tomorrow he's having some friends over for a party and to go bowling.

Parker is a great kid. He's kind, smart, funny, helpful, loving, creative, sensitive and witty. We sure love you Parker!

Fun!

2010-01-17T19:21:00.000-08:00

Emma got a pet this week. A hamster named Peanut. He is cute and loves to be held and played with. Parker and Eliza have dwarf hamsters and they are cute, but don't love to be held and always jump out of your hands and get lost.

Jim and I did a 20-mile ride yesterday. I haven't been on my bike in a while (I hate riding in the cold so I've been doing spin classes). It was a great to be on my bike riding with my sweetie -I can't wait to go again.

2010: The year of trying new things!

2010-01-14T09:34:00.000-08:00

On January 4th I chaperoned a fieldtrip with Emma and Eliza to the de Young museum in San Francisco. We got to see the Tut exhibit (which was fantastic!). I hate to admit that I've lived in the Bay area for 12 years and that was my first trip to the de Young. It is amazing- they have lots of arts and things to see all the time and then have special exhibitions 2 to 3 times per year. Besides the King Tut they have amish quilts and this summer they'll have collections from Musee D'Orsay in Paris! We decided to get a family membership and take advantage of the great museums in SF.

Here's Eliza with her best buddies, Sarah and Andi.

The girls wanted a room make over. I wanted them to keep their pink fairy room forever, but I guess Rindi and Grandma Pixton were on their side because they got the Dumbledore saying from Rindi and new bedding from Grandma Pixton. Their room is cute and they really like the change.

At our local farmer's market I always stop at the egg booth to look at the exotic eggs. They sell duck, goose, quail, chicken (of course) and sometimes ostrich eggs. I finally decided to try the quail eggs since I always see people using them on the food network. They were $1.25 for a 10-pack. We bought 2 packs to try.

They were delicious and the kids loved the tiny size. They all ate several so we'll buy them again.

We're excited to try new things this year!

Christmas 2010

2010-01-03T19:52:00.000-08:00

We had a great Christmas in Utah. The kids got to play in the snow.
Eliza lost a tooth so she got visits from Santa Claus and the tooth fairy!

We played basketball with the Pixton cousins.

Had a fun party with Grandma and Grandpa Pixton. There are 4 girl cousins and 13 boys cousins on the Pixton side.

We ate lots of delicious food.

More yummy food.

Played with the Hawkins cousins. There are 11 boy cousins and 10 girl cousins on the Hawkins side.

Acted out the nativity.

Danced around in our new slippers that Grandma Hawkins gave the kids.

Eliza was in baby heaven!

Parker loved his nerf dart gun and Sansa fuze.

Emma loved her cupcake maker and her sewing machine from Gary and Vicky (her birth grandparents.)

The kids got lots of gaming and video watching in while we were in Utah.

It was a great vacation. We sure love our families!

New Year's fun

2010-01-03T19:03:00.000-08:00

We had a fun New Year's Party on Dec. 31st. We played games.

Ate lots of yummy food.

Made lots of noise with 72 "poppers," (we set off our fire alarm) and had piles of confetti to play with!

Jim and I celebrated the New Year by going to see "Wicked" in San Francisco. It was fantastic!

Happy 2010 everyone!

Enjoying the Season

2009-12-21T22:22:00.000-08:00

We are having a great holiday season. We went to the creche exhibit in Palo Alto. They have thousands of nativities displayed from around the world. This was our 5th year attending. (I wanted to get some photos of the German and Russian nativities but right after I took this photo I saw a sign that they prohibit photography.)
We got to watch the kids perform pieces in their winter recital. Here's Eliza.

Here's Parker.

Here's Emma.

I had a fun Christmas brunch for my awesome Young Women leaders that I serve with.

We had baked french toast with vanilla syrup and breakfast casserole with salsa and sour cream. I work with a very fun group of ladies!

Instead of building a ginger bread house we made a ginger bread train this year. Thanks Penny!

It turned out really cute and Porter tries to eat it everyday!

I took Emma and Eliza on BART to San Franciso.

We loved all the beautiful window displays. I used to do visual merchandising back before kids and love to see the creative windows in the city. The girls favorite was the SPCA windows at Macy's with the cute kittens and puppies that you can adopt.

Macy's also had a station set up to write letters to Santa!

They mailed them in this adorable mail box. We've had so much fun this year. Now it's time to pack for Utah!

I'll post photos from Emma's play and our visit from Mom Pixton later!

Ready for Christmas

2009-12-04T19:28:00.000-08:00

We put up the Christmas decorations last weekend.
The kids love to help and the girls are getting really good at decorating. Eliza did most of this shelf!

Just thought I would throw in a shot of our painting now that it's hanging on the wall.

Every year after Christmas I buy a new santa.

All the kids want to put on the topper, so Jim helps them all.

Here's Eliza.

Here's Emma.

Parker can almost reach by himself.

Merry Christmas!

What a weekend!

2009-12-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

On the Friday after Thanksgiving we went to alcatraz with the Roziers. The tour is fantastic. You wear headphones and here stories narated by former inmates. The cells were so small (5 x 9) and cold!

This is one of the cells where the inmates dug out through the air vent and escaped.

Parker and Alex (they look right at home!) :)

Some of the buildings are falling down but most of it was in great shape. The gardens are beautiful.

We had to stop by Pier 39.

The following night we went to the Oakland Temple for a Christmas program and to see them turn on the Christmas lights.

It was beautiful and not too cold!

It's a great way to start the holiday season!

Thanksgiving!

2009-11-27T07:38:00.000-08:00

Eliza, Emma and I painted the front porch and stairs to get ready for hosting Thanksgiving dinner. We liked the pumpkins stacked this way. Inside was all decorated.

Aunt Suzanne brought delicious appetizers.

I made 15 pounds of mashed potatoes and stuffing with sausage, chestnuts and mushrooms.

We had cranberry sauce, turkey (of course!), roasted brussel sprouts, salad & rolls (made by Shannon) and lots of pies- also made by Shannon.

Here's the young adults table-

Here's the older adults table-

Here's the kids table-

We had all of Matt and Shannon's girls and the three new spouses with us.

Here's Shannon, Matt and Suzanne. We didn't get photos of John and Alex, but they were here!

We had a great Thanksgiving, we missed Julie, Nate and Clara and Nick who's serving his mission. Today we are off to Alcatraz!

Happy Birthday Porter!

2009-11-25T16:43:00.000-08:00

Porter turned six today! It's fitting that his birthday is close to (or some years on) Thanksgiving. We are so thankful for this sweet kid (who had to have strawberry cupcakes, NOT a cake)!

He was spoiled with presents.

He loved them all. He's playing with Spiderman and Wolverine and making martians as I blog.

I've spent the day reflecting on Porter and getting teary eyed (not just because of all the onions and shallots I've been chopping). I think back to all the doctor's appointments, tests, treatments, and surgeries this little boy has endured in his short six years. I remember doctors telling us his chances of survival were about 29%. I remember crying myself to sleep and spending hours on my knees pleading with the Lord to let him have a normal, healthy life. Well, here we are six years later. He's a miracle. He still has leukemia, he still has Noonan's Syndrome, he still has a mild heart condition and he will endure yet another surgery in January, but he's growing and thriving and making us laugh each day and melting the hearts of everyone he meets. The Lord has answered our prayers. We love you Porter!