Fun in California!!!!

We had so much fun spending 6 days in Cali! It was nice to spend some time with Landen and I know that Andie loved seeing her Daddy more then just on the weekends. This is what we did:

Day One

We flew out of SLC at 8:15 a.m. When we arrieve to Long Beach airport and checked into our hotel we were off to Universal studios. Without realizing it we left our camera in one of the bags we left at the hotel. We had no camera for the whole first day. My sister took some for us though so when we get those from her I will post them. One of Andie's FAVORITE things that we did there was see Curious George. Right when she saw him walking around she ran right up to him and started hugging his leg. It was so cute. She loves George. It is so cute how she says his name.

Day Two, Three & Four

We spent those three days in Disneyland and California Andventure. Right when we walked into Disneyland and saw the castle Andie said, "Princess" Oh how she loves the princesses and tinkerbell. She had so much fun on all of the rides. We weren't sure if she would get scared on any or them or not. The first ride we decided to go on (because we were walking by and there was NOBODY in line) was pirates. Andie didn't get scared at all. She just sat there and watched things as they went by. She didn't even get scared on the big drop at the begining. After that ride we pretty much knew that none of the other rides were going to scare her, and none of them did. We mostly stuck with all of the kids rides, except for pirates and the haunted house ride ( which also didn't scare her). She had a lot of fun seeing all of the different characters and going on the different rides. On the third day they closed California adventure early and did a trick-or-treat thing with the characters. We went to that and Andie had a blast. She was dancing all over the place and just having a good time. We did so much those three days that I can't even remember it all.

Day Five

We spent the day at Sea World. The shows were really fun to go to and Andie can't get enough anykind of fish. She liked seeing the Dolphins jump in the air. By the end of the day I was SO EXAUSTED!!! This whole week it was SO HOT there. I was not expecting it to be so hot. All the people that worked at the different places that we went to kept saying that it is too hot to be October. I packed clothes for milder weather. I had to keep wearing the same couple of shorts or I would have died in the heat!

Day Six

We packed up all of our stuff and headed down to Huntington Beach. Of course right when we get there Andie falls into a dead sleep. There was no way the stroller was going on the sand so we just walked out on the pier while the rest of the family played in the water. We ate at some yummy place right by the pier and by the time we were done it was time to head back to the airport for our 7:00p.m flight home.

We have so many pictures and I have no idea what pictures go to what days so I am just putting them all at the end.

We stayed at Landens Grandparents house for two nights and spent the rest of the nights at the disneyland hotel. We are so greatful for all they did for us while we stayed with them. They made us some wonderful dinners and breakfasts. They did way too much for us but we really appreciate all that they did.

She is ready to go have fun on the new toy story ride! (it was such a fun ride)
She got so hot that day she just started laying in the shade!

She loved playing with these goats at Disneyland.

Minnie!
Andie and Evan in jail
Evan and Andie on Grandpa's lap.

watching the princesses dance


Me and Anjali on the Merry-go-round

Mickey!



Running across Tarzans bridge
ELMO!!!

Grandma & Grandpa Patten

Our flight to California. She wasn't too happy when she had to be seat belted. Our flight home. Notice all the new princess toys

So many pictures and so much fun. We love pictures if you can't tell. If I didn't think I was already boring everybody I would have put more on here. Good thing I am using this as a type of history/journal for my family.

A very needed VACATION!!!!

I haven't posted anything exciting for awhile. That's not because I haven't had time to it, it is because nothing exciting has happened and if something exciting did happen I forgot my camera or the batteries were dead.
We are flying out early Monday morning to California. Andie's first plane ride.......Andie's first for a lot of things. We will be leaving late Saturday night. We are planning on going to Disneyland for 3 days, Sea world, Universal Studio's and the Sandiego Zoo. Hopefully everything goes as planned and we have lots of pictures and stories to tell. We are going with my whole family (Except for a couple of people) and I am so excited! It will be a lot of fun. The last time we went on a vacation with my family was to Hawaii and it was a couple of months after we got married. Lots of fun.
We are so excited!! It is definatly long over do and needed very much. Landen needs a break from school and work. We just need time to spend together as a family and this is the perfect way to do it.

The most delicious salad!!

My friend Heidi linked my blog to her blog for a salad I made. I decided to put it on here so everyone can try it!! My Mother-in-law Melanie gave me this recipee. This is the BEST salad I have ever tried.

Strawberry Salad

1 large head red leaf lettuce

1 package fresh spinach

1/3 cup crumbled bacon

1/2 cup red bell pepper chopped

1 red onion thinly sliced

1cup strawberries sliced

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup cashews

15 wontons

Pull lettuce apart. Fry bacon and chop into tiny bits. Chop red pepper, slice onion and strawberries. Put cashews in frying pan with sugar and cook until sugar has coated nuts. Cut wontons in to strips (each wonton about 3 strips) and fry in oil. Add everything to the red leaf lettuce and spinach and toss.

Dressing

1 TBs red wine vinegar

3 TBs sugar

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 tsp dry mustard

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 cup strawberry jam

Add dressing to salad and toss or serve on the side

10-12 Servings

So easy but so Yummy.........

I made this delicious.........well I don't even know what the name for it is but it is yummy no matter what the name is. Kacy gave me the recipee and it was so easy to make. Some people were asking me for the recipee and I never got it to them. I am going to put in on here because it will be easier that way.

You will need:

-1 cup butter

-1 cup brown sugar

-Pecans (as much as you want)

-1/2 cup caro syrup

-Big brown bag or two big mixing bowls (one of the bowls has to be able to fit in your microwave)

-1 box of Crispix cereal (if you can't find crispix you can use half a box of rice chex ceral and half a box of corn chex ceral)

Put butter, brown sugar and caro syrup in a pan and bring to a boil. Let it boil for 2 mintues. Do not over boil.

Put ceral in brown paper bag or big mixing bowl.

Pour sauce over ceral and pecans and shake the bag.

If you are using mixing bowls then put the other mixing bowl over the top of the other one so there is a tight seal and shake the bowls so the cereal is being tossed and mixed.

Microwave one minute

Shake again

Microwave for another minute

Serve

I didn't put pecans in it when I made it.

I just used mixing bowls because I didn't have a brown bag.

I couldn't find the crispix cereal so I used chex, half a box of corn and half a box of rice.

I am blessed to have two sisters

I have been thinking of my sister Anjali a lot today. Probably because her birthday is today. I have been thinking about how blessed I have been to be able to call her my sister. Growing up I only had one sister, Lisa, who I love SO MUCH. I never thought I would have another sister. My parents made it clear they were done having children. Me and Lisa were out numbered having three older brothers, which was ok because we had good relationships with them.

When I was in high school our family was blessed by our Heavenly Father to trust our family with one of his precious daughters. Anjali lived with us for 3-4 years and was as much a part of the family as I was. We called her our sister even though by law she wasn't. In 2007 she was offically and legally a member of our family. My parents adopted her after a long but well worth it process. On February 16th 2008 she was sealed to our family in the Manti Temple!!! That was an amazing experience and made our sisterly relationship eternal.

When I got home tonight from visiting my family I just couldn't stop thinking about her and the love I have for her to the point I was getting emotional. I don't know where this was coming from. To have my thoughts so overwhelming and powerful. The spirit was touching me and I know that Heavenly Father loves her and I could feel that love.

I feel very blessed to have Anjali as my sister and that I am able to learn from her and share life with her. She added such wonderful things and qualities to our family that no one else could.

I used to have one sister but now I have two and she makes our family complete.

She is expecting her first baby in February and I am SO EXCITED for her and Garrett. I am happy to be able to share this experience with her.

Well I guess what I am trying to say is that I love Anjali very much and our family wouldn't be complete without her. I just wanted her to know that!!! I know that the rest of my family feels the same way.

I LOVE YOU ANJ!! Happy birthday!

Reflecting........

The past two years have gone by really fast! I can't believe that Andie just had her 2nd birthday!!!! She is growing up way too fast. It goes by faster and faster. I love her so much. I was just looking at some pictures of her when she was born. She doesn't even look the same. She looked so much like Landen and now she looks more like me. She had dark hair and it was straight. Now she had curly blond hair. She was 6 pounds 10 ounces and was 21 inches long. She was born on her due date september 11th. Which I was very happy about. I was not looking forward to going over my due date.

Andie one day old

I thought she looked so much like Landen when she was born







One year birthday

September Birthdays~ Happy Birthday

Andie 11th

Anjali 17th

Jayden 23rd

Andie's Birthday

We had a great weekend celebrating Andie's birthday. On saturday she had a little party with her friends from nursery. She loves nursery so much. I don't think she realized what was going on but she liked having all of her friends over. The girls decorated little foam princess hats and little purses. The boys decorated foam pirate hats and foam pirate swords. Andie decorated for a little bit and then decided that other things were more exciting. They all looked so cute when they were done. I pute butcher paper up on the wall and my Dad drew little animal caracters on it so that they could color.I think Andie had more fun coloring then decorating. I still have the paper up and she has been coloring on it all weekend. It will probably be coming down today so I can get into my laundry room. Here are some pictures from the day.

After they got done decorating their crowns. Not everybody wanted (or would sit still) to be in the picture. They are only two year olds after all.

Ok. So that was a lot of pictures but I just couldn't choose which ones to leave out.

On Sunday night we celebreated Andie's birthday with our family. We had every kind of pie you could think of and ice cream. It was yummy. Here are some pictures from that.

We had such a fun weekend celebrating Andie's birthday. We loved having friends and family spend time with us. Andie got way too much stuff but she has been having so much fun playing with it all. She got enough princess shoes she can wear a different pair for almost two weeks (at least she will leave my shoes alone now!!!!!). We are just so thankful for our families and all that they do for the three of us. We are so blessed to have such a loving family.

A big Thank you to:

Mom for helping me make all of those pies and everything else you helped with!

Melanie for making some pies!

Anjali and Garrett and Amy and Aubrey for helping me so much this past weekend! Thank you

DAD for also helping me with so much! The butcher paper turned out so cute!

Everyone that came and celebrated Andie's birthday!

Changes

ok....so it has been a little while since my last post. I will probably be posting less than I have been. Landen started school a couple of weeks ago and he takes his lap top with him and then he goes straight to work until about midnight. I only have the weekends or sometimes he leaves his lap top home and sometimes I go to my parents house to use their computer.
Landen got a new job at U.S Sythetic. He started on Monday. He works the 3-11 shift and goes to school in the morning until about an hour -to a hour and a half before he has to go to work. He has worked there once before. It is a good job and has WONDERFUL benefits. It will be a good job while he is finishing school. The only downfall is that Andie and I will never see him and Landen will always be exausted. We feel very blessed though that he got this job and he got it when he did. We know that the lord is blessing our lives.
Andie has gone two weeks not wearing diapers. It hasn't been perfect but she has done pretty well. She has had a couple of accidents but the amount of times she makes to the potty outweighs the accidents. It has definatly helped on saving money. No more buying diapers and wipes. BIG MONEY SAVER!!!!
Tomorrow is Andie's two year birthday. I can't believe how fast the time went by! My little baby girl isn't a baby anymore.
Hopefully I will be able to post about her birthday and all the fun that we have!

Big Girl

SHE DID IT! Andie is now officially wearing panties and NO MORE diapers! It has only been two days but a good two days. She has been very good at telling me and making it there. Today was the first day that I took her somewhere in just her panties and she did great. We were in the car and she told me she had to go potty and she held it until we got home. She is doing so well!!! I can't believe how well she is doing. She is only 23 months old! The first time I put panties on her she thought they were diapers so she started to go and then instantly stopped and ran to the potty and finished. Now that she knows they are not diapers she has been golden! I was so excited I had to share my news. I will let you know how the next week goes. Hopefully it will be successful

Hogel Zoo

Landen got yesterday off from work. It is always nice when he gets to spend a whole day with us. We decided to take Andie to the zoo since she loves animals so much right now. She had a really good time but didn't really like the idea that she couldn't touch the animals. One of her favoirte toys to play with right now are her two stuffed animal monkeys. She goes to bed with them and everything. It is so funny to watch her with them. Of course we had to go take her to see the monkeys. She loved them. After I downloaded all of these pictures on here I realized that we only got one picture with a real animal. All of the rest are with fake statues. That is pretty funny.

When Andie saw this Ape she said "Monkey!" and ran over to it and gave it a big hug.
Andie and Daddy and some random girl

She really like this playground

She of course loved this because there was water

once again......water The only picture with a real animal. The white alligator


Andie had fun but I think liked being able to touch the animals at the petting zoo more. I think he favorite thing at the zoo were the monkeys and the girafs. Oh and of course all of the water features that we saw.

Irrigation

On Monday night my parents had irrigation in their back yard. Of course we had to take Andie over there. She loves anything that has to do with water. She had a lot of fun. She just kept running back and forth through the water. She didn't really want to sit in the water or lay down, just run through it. When my Dad was out there watering the garden and doing different things she would just follow him everywhere he went. It was so cute. She had fun but I think she would have had a lot more fun if she had a little friend to play with in the water.

Andie with Papa Tipton

We had fun. Maybe next time we will bring a friend for her to play with in the water.

Petting Zoo at Thanksgiving Point

On Saturday we decided to take Andie to the petting zoo at Thanksgiving Point. SHE LOVED IT!!! Right when we walked outside to where all of the animals are she ran right over to the cow and stuck her hand inbetween the fence and started petting the cow. She was so excited to pet all of the animals. I knew that she really liked animals but I have discovered that SHE LOVES THEM!!! She has always been drawn to dogs and cats but I thought every little kid was.

Right when we got into the building she was drawn to this big cow.

She weighs as much as a couple new born Lambs

She was SO EXCITED to pet this cow!!!

Her favorite thing of the whole day was riding this pony. She absolutely loved it! She got to ride on the pony twice. I am sure we will be back just so she can ride it again.

Who needs to pay to go the aquarium when you can go to Cabelas?
She loves fish. She calls them "Shishies".

If we were looking at something in the store and we set her down she would run at fast as she could back to where the fish were.

It was such a fun day! I am sure we will take Andie back to the petting zoo. She gets in for free and we only had to pay $3.50 to get in.

We ended the night with a BBQ at Anjali and Garretts for Brian's birthday. It was yummy food and good company.

Happy birthday for the month of August!

Michelle (10th)

Brian (11th)

Bryce (17th)

Matt G. (22nd)

Back to normal life..........

well...whatever normal is. I finished the final book, "Breaking Dawn" to the Twilight series yesterday. I am sad that there won't be anymore books. I have heard some people say they didn't really like this book. They liked the beging but not the rest. I like the whole thing. I thought it was good. There is just so much more that could be written after this book! One thing about this book though is that I don't think that it is written for the same age group that the rest of them were. This one seemed to be a little more adult and not so much for young teenagers. Anyways I am glad that I am done and get back to normal life. I am sure Landen is pretty happy about me being done too so that I will actually fold the laundry that has been sitting in a basket after it go washed last week. Maybe I will do some posts this week that have nothing to do with this book. I think I have got that all out of my system.

Lesson Learned

Of course I have to learn the hard way. On one of my recent posts I had a picture on there that I thought was cute and funny. Well it turned out that everyone else just couldn't get enough of it. I am thinking that was a BIG mistake that I put it on here. Therefore I have removed it. Sorry if you didn't get the chance to put it on your computer as your screen saver or e-mail it to all of your friends and family. You had 2 days to do so and now it is gone. For all of you who saw it I hope that you enjoyed it while it lasted. From now on I am going to definatly be thinking of who may be reading and looking at what I put on here. You never know, you could become famous by me putting a picture of you my blog :)