Flashback Friday...Cort and Eric

Here is a cute picture of Eric and Cort. Arent they so cute. I love Eric's look of concern because of the way that Cort is restraining him. The look reminds me of Marcus when Emma is trying to stop him from doing something
Love, Tamber

Dominos Night

One night Emma was bored, so Eric and her played dominos. Emma loved it. Here is the video.

Then Emma and I made a spiral.

Love Tamber

Marus in drawer

This is a picture of Eric when he was little. He loved playing in drawers. Marcus also loves to play in our kitchen drawers. It would entertain him all day if I let him. Here is a video of him playing.


Love, Tamber

Pumpkin Walnut Cookies

Pumpkin Walnut Cookies
By: Land O'Lakes

Cookies Ingredients

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup (8 ounces) canned pumpkin (pumpkin comes in 15 ounce cans; not pumpkin pie filling)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice or ground cinnamon (I used pumpkin pie spice)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped walnuts

Frosting Ingredients:

2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened (I used 1/3 less fat Neufchatel cheese)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice or ground cinnamon (I used pumpkin pie spice)
Walnut pieces, if desired

Directions:

· Heat oven to 350°F. Combine butter, brown sugar and sugar in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add pumpkin, egg and vanilla. Continue beating until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; add flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat, scraping bowl often, until well mixed. Stir in 1 cup walnuts by hand.

· Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls, 2 inches apart, onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Cool completely. (I let them cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring them to a cookie rack to finish cooling - they are soft and delicate, so be careful.)

· Combine all frosting ingredients except walnut pieces in medium bowl. Beat at low speed, scraping bowl often, until smooth. Frost cooled cookies. Garnish with walnuts, if desired.

Yield: 5 dozen cookies

Love, Tamber

Adventurous Marcus

One of Marcus' favorite things is to dive from the couch to the recliner chair. He thinks it is so funny. I love that he is amused by simple things.

Family Pictures

We got some of our family pictures back. I love how they turned out. Here are a few of them. Thanks Kim!

Love, Tamber

Usborne Books

Hey everyone,
Have any of you heard of Usborne books? Well, I am having a book party this Saturday. You are all invited at my house, if you dont know where I live, then leave me a message with your email and I will let you know. I love Usborne books. They are great learning tools for kids. Here is my invitation, check it out if you want to come and have free food on Saturday at 2 pm.

http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?inviteId=TUCSCFAXVSZMKBVDJHBW

Love, Tamber

Playing together

I love how my kids are starting to play together more. Marcus LOVES to play with Emma. He just followes her around.
Love, Tamber

Abby's Funeral

Today we had the chance to go to Eric's Cousin Summer's Daughters funeral. I am sad that I never had the chance to meet her, she seemed like an amazing little girl. Since she was a newborn she struggled with 'Bubble boy disease'. The last three years she has been really healthy, but on Monday she started feeling sick and Monday night she passed away. It was such a great experience to see how family pulls together during rough times. I had not met any of Eric's Cousins or his Uncle until now. They are all very strong people and we were glad that we could go support them.

I hope that in the future I can learn from Summer's great example as a mother. She seems like the type of person who cherished every moment with her children. At the end of my life, I hope that I can at least say that I did that as well.

Abby was a poster child for the Make a Wish Foundation. She had the chance to go to Disney World with her Parents and her sister Zoe. The night that she passed away she said...'The Butterflies are watching me'. The interesting thing about that is that her Gramdpa had tickets to Madam Butterfly that night and the room that she was admitted into at the hospital was covered in Butterflies. That is where she passed away. I thought that was really neat. I scanned the program from the funeral.

Marcus Climbing

This is just a random video of Marcus climbing. He is so silly. The other day he pushed the back of the recliner so that he could reach the top of the computer desk. Then he grabbed the top of the computer desk and let go. The recliner top bounced back up and he was just hanging a couple feet in the air from the computer desk. Not to mention, he was laughing. I do have a crazy kid.

IL Divo

Has anyone ever heard of IL Divo? I heard one of their songs today on Oprah and I loved it. I was just wondering if it was worth buying or if that one song just happened to be good. Please let me know if you have heard anything.
Love, Tamber

Flashback Friday...it's been a while

This picture was taken of Eric when he was little. I am not quite sure how old he was, I am guessing 2 or 3. Isnt he so cute
Love, Tamber

Great new website...for moms of babies

I just heard about his amazing website. They have a feature baby item each day that goes on sale at 9 am each morning. Today they are featuring the baby legs, I think they are so cute, and if I had a little girl or a kid that was still crawling, I might be tempted. They only have so many of each item, and they may sale out in 15 minutes, and or they may have enough to last for most of that day. They have some really cute booties coming up tomorrow and a $200 diaper bag (one of Oprahs favortie things) on sale for $69 on Monday. Normally they don't tell you ahead of time what the product is going to be, but they gave a preview today, so check it out.

http://www.babysteals.com/

Love, Tamber

Amy's Birthday

I wanted to tell my sister-in-law Amy Happy Birthday Yesterday! I didn't forget, just had a crazy busy day. Anyway...I hope that you had a wonderful Birthday.
Love, Tamber

Marcus Scrapbook

Here is a project that I have been working on.....




Love, Tamber

Family Pictures

Last night we had our Family Pictures taken. One of our friends from our old ward is getting into photography and so we decided to take her up on her offer. If you live in the Utah Valley area, check out her website...she is really good. Her name is Kim Wheeler.

She did a great job dealing with out cranky kids and the fact that Eric completely forgot to bring Marcus' pants. I was mad at first, but then I figured that at least we would always remember those family pictures by the ones that Marcus had a diaper on. Anyways, I will try and post some when she gets us the CD.

Love, Tamber

Emma Look A Like O Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph
Love, Tamber

Marcus looks like me...what do you think?

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebrities - Collage - Morph

Everyone tells me that Marcus looks like his dad. This website says that he looks like me, what do you think?
Love, Tamber

Economy worries....Get Thrifty

As many of you, I am very worried about the economy. I feel like Eric and I are in a crummy situation since we can't support ourselves on regular income (we are currently using student loans). Eric quit his job in August so that he could take 23 credits this semester and be graduated in April. Well, this leaves us worrying like crazy. Anyway...I have been trying to find ways to save money. I recently came across a bunch of money Saving tips, and thought it might be useful to share them with you all. So here it goes....

-Use your local library...
1.) Check out books
2.) Check out DVD's and Video's.
3.) Children Games (Orem Library has a game section were you can check them out).
4.) Story and Singing Time (Most library's have so many options for diff. age kids).
5.) Friday Night Movie
****Check your local library for different options*****

-Unplug all of your appliances when you are not using them...including your TV. Even when a
light is plugged in and you dont have it turned on, you are still using power. There was a
lady who's bill went from $269 to $70 from May to June when she started doing this.

-Save on Groceries by...
1.) Plan your meals and shopping lists around what is on sale.
2.) Use your coupons when items are on sale. If you do this you can get things for almost
nothing.
3.) Stock up on common items when they hit a low price.r
5.) Check out your resources....www.couponmom.com and
www.pinchingyourpennies.com

-Create a spending plan and stick with it...
1.)One thing that they suggested on the recent Oprah show about becoming Thrifty was
to create a budget for each expense, and then take the cash out each week. When the
cash is gone out of the envelope, then you are out of money for that area. Example.... You
budget 600 for food for the month. Each week take out $150 and put it into your Food
envalope. If you spend all the money on Friday, then you are out until Monday.
2.) Any leftover cash at the end of the month, apply toward debt or savings.

-THIS IS MY FAVORITE IDEA....Swap with your neighbors. If both of you want a new couch
becuase you are sick of your old one, trade. Also, here are some great websites for
trading things...all you have to pay for is the shipping.
1.)Zwaggle- obtain points for selling certain things and then buy other peoples items with
your points. This isa site for parents...toys, games, children's stuff, etc.
2.)Swaptree - A place were you trade items for Free.

- Don't Spend money on a gym membership....instead, go ask if they are looking for teachers and
ask if you can swap gym membership for you teaching one of their classes (may only work
for people with a health background.)

-Learn how to trade services...I remmber as a kid, my dad was a brick mason and he would
trade his work. He would trade a brick job in our dentists backyard for our dental work
for that year. (needless to say our dentist had a lot fo great brick work done on his house
and we had great looking teeth.)

Think about all the options, you could tutor your furniture salesmans child if he can get
you that new table. Or teach yoru auto mechanic's children swim lessons, or something
like that.

You will be suprised at how willing people are to accept an offer.

Let me know if you have any other money saving tips that you use. I would be very interested in hearing from you all....

Love, Tamber

Menu Planning Monday

So, last week I was very bad at sticking to my plan. We had a lot going on. Eric had Construction Company Information Sessions at School as well as interview from those companies. I was so buys writing cover letters, looking up information about the companies, and dreaming of an amazing job for him right out of college, that I lost focus on preparing for our dinners.

Anyway, long story short....This week I have a lot of repeats. I will try and get all of the recipes by the end of the week.

Monday- Turkey Avocado Sandwiches

Tuesday- Parmesan Pork Chops, Strawberry Summer Salad

Wednesday- Turkey Tetrizzini

Thursday- Mexican Meatloaf served with chips

Friday- The Roof Restaurant...It will be our 5th wedding anniversary on Thursday and Eric is taking me to a nice restaurant on Friday Night.

Saturday- French Dip Sandwiches and Salad.

Sunday- Chicken Broccoli Casserole

Love, Tamber

Monday Menu Planning

Okay, here we go...
Another week of meals. I am trying to eat a little healthier, so I am trying to go by the rule...the more healthy protein is the animal with the least amount of legs. From least in fat to most in fat....fish, turkey and chicken, then beef and pork.

Monday: Brick Oven Chicken Noodle Soup - This is my husbands favorite. Does anyone have a great recipe for homemade Chicken Noodle Soup that is filling, not so brothy, bot more thick and has homemade noodles (these are the requirements by Eric).

Tuesday: Mock kneaders Turkey, Avacado and Bacon Sandwiches (made with crockpot turkey).

Wednesday: Salmon, Rice and Green Beans

Thursday: Turkey Tetrizzini (this recipe is DE-Licious, you have to try it).

Friday: I have work late, Alumni Swim Meet, Eat Out

Saturday: BYU Football Game, Eat Leftovers

Sunday: Italian Chicken Strips with Spinach Pasta Salad (minus the chicken)

And sometime this week I will be trying these brownies from Annie Eats...probably on Sunday. They are Pumpkin Spice Kiss Chocolate Brownies.

General Conference

I love General Conference weekend. I love laying around my house all weekend listening to inspiring talks and of coarse, I love spending the weekend with my family with no interruptions. We have some Conference Weekend Traditions that we do in our familyI always look forward to having crepes with Strawberries and Whipped Cream. We usually do this on one of the mornings of conference. YUM! This is a tradition that I started my sophmore year in college. I use to invite the swimming girls, roommates, etc. But now it is fun to do this with our family.

I think my favorite parts thus far in the Conference are: the little children's choir yesterday afternoon (Emma was mezmorized by them, and sang every song with them), Elder Uchdorfs talk on Hope, L. Tom Perry's talk on Simplifying your lives, Joseph B Wirthlin's talk on 'come what may and Love it' (I love him, he is such a sweet old man), Jeffery R Holland's talk on Angels around us, and David A Bednar's talk on More meaningful prayer.

I love coming away from conference with my spiritual well refilled and ready to endure whatever comes my way. I hope that you have all had the chance to watch Conference. If you havent, I suggest that you go back and listen to the talks on the internet, or read them in the ensign.

Marcus' Birthday Party

We had a little birthday Party for Marcus today. I don't think that he even realized what was going on, but I did it because I love to entertain. Here are a couple of pictures from the party. I will add some more in my scrapbook format later.