Valentine's Day

This year we had fun making cookies for our neighbors and for us.  The kids helped deliver them to people who were members of our ward and to those who are not.  They loved to give this service and see the neighbor's surprised faces.  This was an all day project but a fun one we like to do each year.

I thought that we should make homemade valentine's this year.  McKay helped quite a bit and also Erica as they got their's ready for school.  They were a lot of work but I think they turned out so cute and it was worth it!

New Recipe Posted

Check out my taco salad recipe on the right side of this blog under My Favorite Recipes.

First Recipe

Check out my first recipe in my RECIPE link.  If anyone knows how to add the "Printer friendly" option to the end of my recipes, please share.  I could not figure out how to do this but would like this feature.

Favorite Recipe Link

I am going to really try this.  I have wanted to post my favorite recipes for a long time and finally made a new blog and link to it.  Go over to your right and it will be located under recipes.  There is nothing there yet, but hopefully soon I will start adding these for all of you to try.

Erica Turns 4

Erica turned 4 on January 16 (I am a bit late posting this). This was the first year she was allowed to have a friend party. Her birthday was on Sunday this year so we mainly celebrated on Saturday. In the morning we were busy decorating and making the cupcakes and getting games ready. Our party guests came in the afternoon and seemed to have a great time. After everyone left, I took Erica and McKay to Bounce for about three hours. After that we were exhausted but needed to eat. We went as a family to On the Border Mexican Restraurant. It was a fun filled day. On Sunday we took it easy but still opened presents and ate a yummy cake and had to sing Happy Birthday again. Erica, you are a great blessing to our family and we love you very much!!!

Getting ready for the party.

Cupcakes for the girls at the party.

Here are all our party guests (Kason had to join in on the fun). One of the girls brought her brother for McKay to play with. He did not join the party.

Playing a fun game where you try not to knock off the fish or you have to eat it with just your mouth if you make it fall. One girl decided she liked knocking down the fish and eating flour. The game was not quite as fun after that.

Erica with her presents from her parents, brother McKay, and both Grandmas and Grandpas.

This had to be the best birthday cake I have ever made. It was simple yet super yummy. A Jello poke cake with a kind of lengthy to make icing but is so worth it.

Mm, Mm, Good!

Our Children's Eating Habits

Last night, Kory and I made an interesting discovery with our children and what they eat that we have never realized before. So for dinner I served White Fish on top of beans and radicchio with lemon vinaigrette, rice, garlic bread, and green salad. As we were eating, our kids picked out what they wanted to eat and they were all a bit different and it showed how our children eat most of their meals and what they prefer to eat. McKay ate the bread and rice, thus he was deemed the carbohydrate boy. Erica ate 2 servings of salad and a little bread, thus she is our vegetarian. And Kason gobbled up the rice and beans, thus he is our Mexican. Kory and I are the well rounded ones as we ate everything, including the fish which the kids did not want to touch. This was an interesting and funny discovery as Kory and I giggled, shook our heads, and sighed over this.

Pneumonia

I have caught a terrible bug. It started about the week before Thanksgiving. I lost my voice and it was hard to breathe. We went down for Thanksgiving to Toquerville and some of my family know that I was sick. I thought it was just a simple cold but I kept getting worse with a productive cough, runny nose, aches, and my lungs hurt every time I breathed. I finally last week went to the doctor thinking I had bronchitis. He listened to me talk and listened to my lungs and said I had left-sided pneumonia! That's a lot worse than I thought. Well he put me on antibiotics, an inhaler, and told me to drink water and take cough medicine. I went back just a few days ago and he said my lungs were clear but it would take a few months to fully recover from this. I do feel better now but still have a nagging cough, my voice is still hoarse, and I am tired. The symptoms are improving but I feel far from well. I have seen many blessing through this illness though. First is that no one else in the family has caught this bug, just me. Also these last few months I have been involved in a Christmas production put on by our Stake called "Savior of the World." I just played a small part as a townsman and angel and had to sing many songs, some very high ones, and perform in an auditorium for three shows worth to hundreds of people. I did not think I could do it with all my coughing and my voice not quite there, but through many prayers and cough drops, when I stood up to sing, I was able to not cough and actually sing really well. My prayers have truly been answered and I am so grateful for this. Now I am hoping I get better some time in the future and not any worse again.

Snow, Snow, Snow!

These are kind of old, but a few weeks ago we had our first big snowfall. It snowed so much they cancelled school. I think Kory said we got 8 inches. It was awesome. We went sledding and walked around the neighborhood pulling Erica and Kason in the sleds, and making snow caves. It was not fun driving in though. I got stuck once in the snow and it was sure slippery.

I made some edible peanut butter playdough for the kids that they loved and spent about an hour playing with. It was extra good with chocolate chips, pretzels, and raisins to decorate there projects with.

Halloween Pictures

Spiritual McKay

I have to tell you what McKay said to me tonight. First of all, it was time to clean up toys. We have the kids clean up their toys every night or I would go crazy and to teach them to take responsibility for their stuff. Anyway, I set the timer and McKay was slow and when the timer went off he had a few things left on the floor that he did not pick up and so he was not allowed to have any of his Halloween candy for dessert (that is usually their reward, dessert). He was not very happy about this and cried and sulked. Before he went to bed I put him on my lap and held him and rocked him and told him I loved him and then he went downstairs and said good night and I love you to Kory. He went to bed and I was down working when Erica came down with some excuse of why she could not sleep. So I took her back to bed and when I got her down McKay sat up in bed and said with a big smile, "I have to tell you three things. First, when I grow up, instead of a Lego Designer I want to be the Prophet. Second, my favorite book is the scriptures. Third, my favorite thing to watch is the BYU channel, and (he added another one) my favorite day of the week is Sunday." He then told me that at school during math his teacher gave them some coins and he noticed on them that they said "In God We Trust." He said that when he was trying to sleep those words came into his mind and he said he couldn't help but sing "I Am a Child of God." Then he said that this was the best night ever. He was just beaming with happiness. I slipped in that he was feeling the spirit. I was kind of in shock as I have never heard anything quite this deep and spiritual from him before. He often surprises me with things like this just out of the blue. Amazing what goes through the mind of a 7 year old. I sure am glad I made sure that he knew I loved him just before bed. I think that helped bring the spirit back into our home.

We are ready for Hallooween

So yesterday I went grocery shopping and candy shopping. I think I bought too much. All the candy just looked so yummy. We have a fun thing our association does where kids just walk around the park with their costumes and the parents hand out candy. I never seem to have enough, so this year I guess I am prepared. We have already started eating it though.

Here is Erica at preschool. They are having a Halloween party. She is the penguin. Julie gave us this costume long ago when McKay was just little. It is still a favorite and will be passed down to Kason next.

Things that are going on around here

Here are a few old pictures I needed to put on the blog. Erica is in this cute little ballet class. It is fun to see all these cute little girls dancing around to beautiful music.

These two are buddies since McKay is back to school.

I turned 31 in the middle of October. I took the day off from work and had fun with the kids in the morning and then read in the afternoon. We went as a family to the mall where I could buy a new white shirt and then ate out at Cafe Rio (yes, we have a Cafe Rio now here in Boise, yummmmm) and then got a quick pie from Marie Calendar and had a quiet night once the kids were in bed. It was a good birthday!

I cut all three boys' hair one day. Kason's was the most dramatic. Here he is with his long hair. He was not too happy to be getting it cut.

Here he is afterwards, so handsome and grown up.

Life at the Hall home

I am a lousy blogger. I just cannot seem to sit down and post pictures and talk about them. Lately life has just been normal around here with its ups and downs. So, I am going to try and be more consistent and not just blog when I have a picture to talk about or some great thing our family did, but just about our day to day lives. I don't see many of my family because of how far away everyone lives and all of our busy lives, so hopefully this can give you a little glimpse into our daily life.

So to start, our family is beginning to be plagued with sickness. It always comes on strong and suddenly. Kason was hit first, and his was mild with just yucky nose goopies. Next comes McKay who caught his yesterday. His is worse with runny nose, cough, and body aches. I am guessing I will be next followed by either Kory or Erica, I can't decide. Luckily Mckay's illness came at a good time (blessing from the Lord). He is off from school for two days and he does not have a soccer game this weekend. However, we are planning on getting the kids' flu shots next week as Kory's work offers them to all the dependents for 2 days at a discounted price. He needs to get better before then and the rest of us need to not catch it until the flu shot is administered, then the sickness may continue.

Well our garage opener broke today. It has been extra loud lately and making a big clank/crashing sound when it opens and closes. We knew it was only time. Today a sprocket finally broke. Kory went in search of a new part at Lowe's and Home Depot and returned saying that he could either by a kit with all sorts of parts, but it may not even have the one part we need, for $130 or we could just buy a new opener for a little more. I guess we are getting a new opener. When it rains it pours. Let's see what breaks next around here.

Our New Bed

We have been at another project but for some time now. We decided to get rid of our old 70s style waterbed and get a new one. We never found one that we liked and they were all very expensive, so Kory decided to build us a new waterbed. We bought a headboard and footboard that go to a regular bed and he built a brand new base using a few pieces from our old waterbed to make it all work. When Mom and Dad were up here last, Dad stained all the wood to match the headboard and Mom and Dad both varnished it. It took a long time and after many months of labor, we finally were able to put it all together and we love it! It looks like a regular bed and we have tons of new storage underneath the bed. It is a lot higher up and fills our room, but we really like the end result. Thanks Mom and Dad for all your hard work. Thank you Kory for this great anniversary present, even though it is a month or more late, it was worth the wait.

Nighty, night.

Pioneer Breakfast

For Pioneer Day (July 24) we had an early breakfast at the park that is across the street from our house. Our Bishopric put it together and provided the pancakes and the rest of the ward members provided all the trimmings. There was a lot of food and fun visiting with each other and watching all the kids play together. We had a great time. Here are some pictures from the event.

Good-Bye Tooth

We had something terrible happen last Wednesday. I was making dinner, McKay was playing with Legos on the kitchen island, and Kason was on a kitchen chair playing in the sink and watching the rest of us when all of a sudden he slipped and hit his face on the edge of the chair and fell to the ground. I hurried and washed my hands, as I had bacon grease on my fingers, and picked him up and noticed blood in his mouth and a huge tooth on the rug in front of the sink. He must have hit the chair just right and out popped one of his top teeth. IT WAS HORRIBLE. What was amazing was that the tooth and the root came out with one nice hole left behind and no other damage was done. He was truly blessed. He could have fractured something or lost more than one tooth, so we feel he was protected from above. Amazingly he got over it very quickly and was able to calm down just fine and eat dinner like nothing had happened and he has been fine ever since. The worst thing is now he has a huge missing tooth and it looks funny. Our poor baby has had a really hard time with his outward appearances ever since he was born and this just adds to it. His eye doctor is going to check his eye sight on his next visit in November to see if he needs glasses (one more thing to add to his poor face). Oh well, he is still a cutie to me!!! Now I have to prepare myself for all the people who are going to ask, "what happened to his mouth?!" It get a lot of people asking about what is wrong with his eye, and now I will get to answer more questions down the road. What fun!

Baseboard Fun

Since Mom and Dad were here visiting, we decided to put them to work and get some of our long awaiting projects done. We decided to replace our baseboard all over the house. It started with when we did the tile in our kitchen and entry way at the beginning of the year. We had to rip up the old baseboard and replace it. Kory found out at that time that our baseboard was not really baseboard but the casing that goes around our windows and door frames. So we put in taller, true baseboard on our lower level. It looked so nice we said to ourselves, "Someday maybe will will replace all of our baseboard." Well that "someday" came a lot sooner than planned. Mom did such a great job caulking, puttying, and painting the new baseboard, we knew we needed her expertise to do the rest. So Kory slowly began ripping out the old and putting in the new baseboard and when Mom got here we hurried and finished putting the new baseboard down almost throughout the entire house. Mom was able to finish it all and it looks fabulous!!! It was a lot of work, like all of our projects are, but worth it in the end. We are not completely done, still have a few closets and the office to do, "someday."

New baseboard.

Our house was a mess as we had to move furniture, toys, closet stuff out away from the walls.

Mom working away.

Family Time

I love taking pictures of my family. This was on Sunday and we we were bored so we decided to get our cameras out and start clicking. We got some good ones but most were blurry and had to be deleted. Oh well!

McKay Turns 7

McKay turned 7 on June 26th. We had a fun day. I took the kids to a place call Monkey Buizness with lots of inflatables while Kory had to help a coworker with sprinkler problems. The kids had a fun time, even Kason went down the slides and over the obstacles.

We had a little friend birthday party that afternoon at our house which involved lots of water games.

McKay picked out his own cake from Costco.

That night we ate at Red Robin and opened presents. McKay got lots of new balls and sports things for the outdoors, some books, and picture for his wall and his favorite, Legos.

I think Kason enjoyed the cake most of all.