Newly Decorated

Last night while I had a minute I got to re-decorating my mantle. I haven't even touched it since before Christmas, and yes that meant the wilting poinsettia's had to go too! But I love how it turned out! I printed off new pictures to put up and found all the Valentine Decor. I really like Valentines Day- I think because I LOVE hearts & because you have a special day to show those that you love the very most, more than anything, how you feel!

help with my blog

i thought I knew just about everything about blogging- but today has thrown me for a loop. My background will not show up. I have tried erasing the original and starting over, but it won't show up. Any ideas on how to fix this problem?

Run to Daddy

Several nights a week when I get ready to put Teya to bed, she will run to Daddy and lay on his shoulder and pretend to sleep. It is the funniest thing. It's like I don't know that she has been running around for the last hour! :) :) :) Jake doesn't mind it, because Teya doesn't really snuggle with anyone, me included. Although when she does feel like giving out a love, I am usually the reciever! So when Jake can get in on the action, he will take it!!! It usually prolongs the inevitable for 10 or so minutes, but then the bed time draws near and she has to get into bed! Good Night Teya Janie Bop!!!!!

This is usually how she looks right before bed time! She looks really tired huh? :) :) :) This girl would never sleep if I didn't make her go into her bed!

It's what's for dinner:

My sister gave me this recipie a while back (not sure where she got it) but everytime I make it, I think "why haven't I made this in a while?" It is super easy, and I usually have everything on hand (other than I use frozen broccoli-which this time around I didn't cook long enough) Give it a taste! Thanks Lacey!

Chicken & Broccoli Mashed Potatoes

Drizzle 4 Chicken breast in EVVO & sprinkle with seasoning.
Add to hot grill and grill 6 min. on each side.

4 potatoes:

cook in a pot, cover with cold water.
Boil approx. 12 min, then add 1 cut up head of broccoli
cook until tender. Drain.

Mash together, add ½ cup chicken stalk


Cheese sauce

melt 2 TBS butter, then stir in 2 TBS flour-cook 1 minute
whisk in 1 cup chicken stalk & ½ cup milk-cook 2-3 min
season with salt and pepper
add 1 ½ cup Mexican cheese-stir in figure 8 until melted

serve cheese sauce over the potatoes & chicken!

It's on Now!!!!

I was watching KSL on a very RARE occasion the other night at my parents' home. There came a segment on food storage and grocery shopping with a very up to the minute chick that has started an online business helping people get their food storage, "your year supply, one week at a time." I was instantly interested when I saw her pantry and her story if living off her storage at any given moment. i mean come on look at her storage room, who wouldn't want that security? The more I have looked into this, the more I get excited. The only problem I face down here is our grocery stores are limited in number. We don't have the 5 major stores, only one. So with the help of my mother (THANK YOU- THNAK YOU-THANK YOU) who lives up there where the stores are plentiful, we are going to be getting our food storage done together (she will be the runner girl & I will be the internet & list maker). I signed up for all the emails and online help that shows Great deal, good deals & only get if you absolutely need it deals. All the work is done for you, the add shopping, cupon crap, and all you have to do is make your grocery list of things YOUR family will eat & use in the future.
So wish me luck as I engage in this "your year supply, one week at a time" voyage!!!
http://myfoodstoragedeals.com/

Honestly at a loss:

Ever since before Christmas I have been planning on going through the girls' toys to organize, downsize, and hide! Today was the big day that I finally decided to undertake this HUGE project. I am not sure which chore is worse, going through kids' old clothes that are to small or this!!??!! But I decided that each roll out box under the bed was going to have a label on it with what was going inside. (Examples: My Little Pony stuff, dress up/hair/purses, baby dolls & train set) Well that is all good and fine, but now here is the problem, "What do you do with the rest of the crap?" The above picture is just to show my problem. So does anyone have any ideas for me. I ended up just putting it all into the last roll out drawer just to get it off the floor so their room looks decent, but what the crap? I know some of you are going to say, "JUST THROW IT AWAY!!!!" But I have gone through stuff and gotten rid of things that the girls are no longer interested in or out of their age range. But most of this stuff they still play with on a weekly basis. So HELP ME!!!!!!!

Time Out for Teya

Today was Teya's first official "sit on a chair where you can't see anything but mom, set the timer" Time Out! She threw one of her elephants and it hit Tai (you can imagine the DRAMA)! So she had to go sit for one full minute! And in child terms that is "amost one full year."

Horsin' around

Last week Grandpa Kendall called to see if the girls wanted to go for a horse ride! Uh, we couldn't get ready fast enough! Throw on their shoes and coats and out the door we went. We were greeted right on our front lawn with Paco! Tai loves the horses so much, Teya likes them but only for a minute, then she wants down to run around. So Tai got to go for a pretty long ride up the lane and down the road. Thanks Grandpa Kendall!

Another Weekend, another "Up North" Trip

Jake went to Park City for a couple of days, so the girls and i rode with him and he dropped us off at my dad & mom's to hang out! We had fun playing with Maili and Lexi, and running all my returns back to stores from Christmas. Ok, that wasn't really fun, but at least it is off my mind now!

Me, Maili, Tai, Mom & Dad
Tai was our photographer so we got some pretty funny shots. She kept getting upset at Grandpa cause he would do things like this almost every picture. She would take the picture and then cuss grandpa out for "looking up", "finger in it", or "sticking your tongue out"!!!!

Here are my parents. Love you guys!!

Walking with Dinosaurs

Tai got to go on a "Daddy/Mommy/Daughter" Date!!!! She has been so excited for months for this! I must say, I was pretty excited too because I knew how much she was going to love it!! Here are a couple shots that I got. I think that they make it so dark in there so that people can't get a decent picture:

People have been asking me how big the dinosaurs were, and here you go, they were huge:

Jake, Tai & I waiting for the show to start:

Everyone sat and watched Tai, she was so full of questions and wonder. Some of the parts she couldn't bear to watch, but yet she couldn't not watch. She was so funny!!! She loves dinosaurs so much, I am so glad we got to take her!




Tai was super excited to get to go with two of her favorite people Porter & Drey! They are so cute with her.

I wanted to get a picture of Tai with her favorite Dinosaur in the background "Brachiasaurus".

Call me a bad mother, but I wanted to get Tai and Teya a little souvenier from the Dinosaur show. Well looking around at all they had to offer, everything was a fortune. A stuffed animal was $25.00 and a little dinosaur light spinner was $18.00. I was so bummbed that we left without anything. But man what a rip off! So call me what you will, but I couldn't pay that kind of money for a small toy!

Stolen Photos:

I stole these photos from my sister. These were taken at Baby Alexa's blessing in November. But I thought they were cute of us.

I love it so much when my girls are good by eachother and not poking, hitting, pushing, or yelling at one another. I turned on a movie for them to watch and next I know, they are laying by eachother like this!!! They really can be angels (on occasion)!

Cute sighting

My little one is getting into putting on anyone's shoes. i came from the back of the house and saw this! Jake and I just love her little legs. So this was super cute to see her in her diaper with her snow boots on!

Favorite Pictures

These are some of my favorite pictures from Uncle John's funeral. Can I just tell you that the smiles on people's faces just shows you what kind of a man he was and what kind of a funeral it was. It was definitely a celebration of his life!!!! I have never laughed so much at a funeral. Yes, it was sad at the same time, but he loved to laugh and that's what we all did!

Here is Tai with one of her favorite people on this earth; Poe-Poe: aka Porter. She just followed him around, and he was so good to let her play with him.
Tanner and i at the grave site: he is gaining on me. I used to be so much taller than him, now he and I are almost the same heigth.

A very rare photo right here, with all 6 original members of the Quarnberg family: (and all of them looking at the camera)

Just the boys: (not everyone looking)

Me and some of my favorite girls: Jami & Jodi- Love you guys!

Teya getting a drink at the luncheon. Yes, she always does her own thing and this is one of those things:

My cute family:

Me & My Sister

Shout out to my cute little sister Lacey!!!! Whom I love dearly! You are so much fun, a great sister and I love you to pieces! This is us on a normal day-(Not very often with 2 kids each) And here we are every other day!!! Never a dull moment at the Snell household.

Up north!!!

This weekend was fast and crazy! I went up for a cheerleading competiton, shopping, and then Uncle John's funeral. One of the nights we were together at my mom and dad's and I was snapping a couple pictures. These are a couple of my favorites. Jake will hardly ever be in pictures, but here is a cute one of us:

Here are the Snell Grandgirls!!! Teya, Maili, Tai & Alexa! People always make fun of me because I take like 20+ shots of the same thing when it involves groups, but here proves my point; I took around 20 pictures of these girls sitting here together hoping to get just one that had everyone looking. After all those shots, still not one of them had everyone's eyes on me! Close though:

Here is my bro-in-law Brock's big debut on my blog. My sister and Brock are so much fun to hang out with! Love you guys!

Uncle John

This post is in memory of Uncle John!! Jake's uncle (Paula's brother) passed away this morning! He will be missed so much! We have missed the "Old John" for years-but now we will miss all of him!!! He was a guy that everyone loved and admired! He just had that way with people that you just loved him and his sense of humor! To be quite honest, the first couple of times I was around him I was a little on edge, he just loved to tease and I was always scared he was going to embarass me! I soon learned that he loved to get it back just as much as he gave it. So I tried my best to get him back, but you never could get the best of him. He was so full of fun and life that it was infectious. You just got caught up in the laughter of life when you were around him. Uncle John, we love you and will miss you so much! Our lives have all been blessed because we knew you! You weasiled your way into many peoples' hearts and none of us will ever be the same!!!! Jami-I hope you don't care I stole a photo from you!

Christmas 2008

Well I can't believe how fast Christmas came and went. I am really sad that December is over. We had such a wild December that I feel like all we did was run here, clean up one disaster after another, and get those people we love so much taken care of & well! Sickness plagued our home with one cold after another for most of the month, Jake dislocated his OTHER knee, Karter was is ICU twice, and I didn't get my own Christmas cards done to send out!

But with all that said, Christmas was amazing. I have felt almost guilty as I take down and put away the girls' nativity scenes, kind of like I am putting Jesus in a box for next year. So my new goal is to have something that reminds us of Jesus out at all times through out the year, whether it be a FHE lesson picture, a picture of Christ, or just something so that we remember him all year!!!

Another thing I tried this year was down sizing the amount of presents my children recieved and also shopping months ahead of time. I felt less stressed with each of those aspects! We are so blessed with what we have and there was not really any need to go overboard. The girls have toys that could keep them entertained for years to come all of which have been in their possession for years already! But they each got a couple things that they really wanted (all under 30 dollars- yipee!!!) and they were happy as could be!

I like to take pictures of the girls with the presents that they got: here is Teya minus the clothes she recieved:

My mom made the girls each dresses (I will post later) and aprons! So cute!Tai loves, ok that is an understatement!!! But she is EXCITED about her new robe!Tai with her presents (minus the clothes).

Trimmed up

Jake asked me to trim Teya's bangs cause they were always in her eyes and he felt bad for her. I am not much of a hair cutter and she wouldn't hold still, but this is what we got! A little off here, more off here, and there you have it! She really looks quite cute!

CRAZY

What the flip? This little girl is so silly!!! I was just glad that I caught this on camera. She seriosuly makes me laugh!

A Little Spoiled

I feel a little spoiled this year! Jake suprised me with these amazing new diamond earings! Let me tell you- it was a total suprise! He wrapped them all by himself in a cowboy boot box over at Burn's, in the same wrapping paper that he wrapped his dad's new boots in. I totally thought that I was getting some boots. (I was a really nervous, I have never even tried on boots to know whether I like them or not). But boy was I surprised when I opened the box and it was full of newspaper and a small jewlry box. I cried, I have always wanted diamond earings. All he said was "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas!" My mom and dad got me a Speedlight for my camera. I am stoked!!! This will help me so much in my picture taking!!! Now this is what you will see when I take your picture:

Mom and Dad Q got me new cartidges for my cricut! I am so excited about these too! A font that I have been wanting and also a new on called Wild Card to help me make cards for all you fans out there! And it has been tradition for Paula to give me a new pair of fuzzy socks and I was so sad that they weren't under the tree. Later that day, Paula remembered she had them in the back and went to get them! Smiles everywhere!!!!

Thank to all my family for my gifts-but just being you is gift enough!!!!