So Berry FUN

Dax and I hosted the Berry funnest birthday party today for Little Babe. Three days before Christmas (and the final Saturday before, too) and every person she invited came. I guess it is 2 free hours for a parent to do stuff with one less kid in tow.

Dax made, frosted, and decorated the cake-- a very cute job, I might add. He totally saved the day-- the party could not have happened without him. We played games and did presents. Holy cow, it must be the giving season--Preslie made out like a bandit.


I had to post 2 group shots, just cause I think they are cute. We decorated these Strawberry Shortcake hats and wore the glasses. And I have no idea what my son is doing in the second pic. As this was my second kid birthday party, I've learned a couple things:

1. It is slightly more tricky to throw a party if there are boys and girls. For instance, girls like to decorate hats, boys do not, hence the photo. And if you are going to have prizes, get a few more than you need and some generic ones. I made the mistake of getting 2 "boy" prizes and I knew I was in trouble when one darling little girl saw the prize bucket and said, "Oh! I love Hot Wheels!"
2. Keep it simple. Last year, we had a Royal Ball for Preslie's party and went all out. It was tons of work and a complete blast. This year, we spent a fourth as much money and even less time and still had a complete blast.
3. Let them play. The activities and games are great, but playing is where they have the most fun and get to know each other better. And the birthday kid just got a bunch of new toys so ta-da!, you're set.

daddy's boy

This is probably the cutest thing I've ever seen. This baby is in love with his dad. It is SO adorable to watch Mack smile so big and talk and gurgle and almost start to laugh when Dax talks to him. I can hardly get a smile out of Mack anymore! He only has eyes for his dad right now, and I think it is so darn cute!

Gingerbread House

My kids have been asking every day (it seems like) when are we going to make a gingerbread house. I just couldn't bring myself to make one this year. Well, thank goodness for blogging because I saw that my friend just buys the kit that comes with everything. So I picked up the kit at Wal-Mart for $7.97. This is just my way of trying to simplify my life, one gingerbread house at a time. What a fast, easy, and comparatively inexpensive way to do a gingerbread house! WHEW! Thanks Wal-Mart! And thank you fellow Blogger!

Matt & Natalie !

Congrats to my brother, Matt and his new wife Natalie who got married yesterday in Key West, Florida! I've never seen him happier!

The funny Christmas hat

I think babies in hats are so cute. Even this funny hat that came with these Christmas jammies. Funny, too, how fast a baby's mood can change.

a year without TV (and still alive!)

I've been loving reading my friends' blogs, lately. Must be the season, because there have been some good stuff going in the blogging world lately. Some people have posted recently about wonderful family traditions they enjoy, others about self-mastery and self-improvement, and others are simplifying their lives. I'm inspired by what people are doing to strengthen their families! And I'm loving all the great recipes. All this good stuff has made me want to post about our year with no TV in our home.

Last December, we decided to turn off our cable. There are lost of reasons we did it. We'd talked about it for months but never had the courage to actually do it until Comcast raised our rates; I think it is ridicuous to pay to receive the very basic channels, anyway. I'll show them, I thought. So we cancelled. I knew it would be hard for my husband who likes to relax in front of TV after work, and my kids who love the shows on PBS and would turn on the TV the minute after they ate breakfast. But I was surprised at how hard it was for me. The biggest adjustment I had to make was using my brain to think of things to do instead of just turning on a glowing box that gave endless hours of mindless entertainment. It was surprising how much we depended on TV to fill our time and entertain us. Well, it seemed so quiet in our house for the first couple weeks. And my kids kept asking 2 things over and over: "Why did you turn off the cable?" and "What can we do for fun?"

Fast forward a few months...We had no idea how much fun spending time together is! How great is it to have conversations with one another? (I am only kind of exaggerating.) Logan (where we lived at the time) is such a fun place to live. It has so much to do. We had tons of grass to play on, a swing set, a sand box. The pet store, book store, and Old Navy were a stick's throw away from our apartment. We had bikes to ride, good neighbors, a huge grassy field across the street at the middle school. There are awesome parks to play at. Then there's Logan canyon...a, not joking, 5 minute drive and you can be in the mountains surrounded by beautiful scenery and not be able to tell you are very near a city. There is first dam where you can go fishing and feed ducks. I could go on and on. The point is, we needed to get rid of the TV so we could enjoy life more. And I don't think TV is bad or evil, and it is fine to have TV in your house. There are uplifting programs, and it is a very nice break for a mom with young kids that needs to make dinner or have a shower without her kids screaming outside the bathroom door, etc. But it was just too easy for us to let it steal away all our time. Maybe we are the only ones who would turn it on at 6 or 7 to watch our fave show and before we knew it, Jay Leno was on. There needs to be a balance. Anyway, I am glad we did it, because now we don't live in Logan and we miss it so much. When we think of all the fun things we did, the shows we watched are not included on the list. And my kids never ask what they can do for fun, anymore. They play for HOURS imagining the coolest scenarios; I love to hear their creativity. My husband and I have enjoyed reading the last 2 Harry Potter books together and just finished Angels & Demons, by Dan Brown.(Side note, if you have any good books to recommend, we need another one to read! Please leave your suggestions in comments) We still love to watch movies, and do that fairly often. But we've not payed a cable bill for a year!

I barely even notice it's gone anymore. Except around General Conference time, that is a bummer. So there are a few drawbacks. But, all in all, it's been a positive experience.

new family pics

I wanted to brag about my friend Val. She took this photo of us as well as the one on my header and some in the margin. We get our family picture taken every year, and this was my first time having someone take it outside. This also turned out to be the most positive picture taking experience, ever. If you need a photographer for anything, she would do a great job!

Mack - 2 months

Mack is 2 months and so sweet. He is responding to us more and more each day and can smile on cue. He talks back to us and has even slept through the night twice! He weighs 13 1/2 pounds and is 22 and 3 quarters inches long. What a chub!

Mack's 2nd Month

3rd time's the charm

We are so in love with this baby! The first 2 months of a baby's life are pretty crazy for the mom and dad. But this has definitely been my best newborn experience. I can attribute this to a few things:

1. Mack sleeps at night. I really think this has a lot to do with how smoothly the transition goes with having a baby. Getting sleep not only allows mom to recover faster but helps attitude and perspective and gives the energy it takes to run a family and a home.

2. I've learned a few things along the way. This being my 3rd time around, I have a different perspective than I did with my first and even my second (but especially my 1st). I wish I would have known then how fast a baby grows up and to not worry about all the little things I thought I was missing out on. The sacrifices are great, true, but they are so short-lived that if you focus on them, you will totally miss the good stuff about having a baby.

3. Things are so much better when no one is thrashing on the baby- translated: spacing your kids out a bit can be a blessing. The 1 and 2 year old Preslie was a beast to baby Hunter. She was a baby herself! Now that they are older, it was so worth having them close, but I have to say that this almost 4 year span between my boys has been wonderful. The older kids really understand that the baby is a living human that will get hurt if you poke his eyes, pull him off the couch, pinch his arm, etc.

4. There are more people to enjoy this with. My other babies were mostly enjoyed by my husband and me alone (Preslie was too young to get it), but now we have 4 people that love and adore this little baby and it makes it so fun! Love truly multiplies when you divide it among more people!

Deer Gone Wild Video

I am hijacking Tristie's blog to post some videos I shot of deer the other day while I was at work.

what a chore

I have such a problem with keeping my house clean, lately. But it is even harder to try and
involve the kids. It takes 5 times as long to teach them to do the job! We did ok today. These two were earning money to buy each other a Christmas gift.

feed my craving.

Most of my friends and family know that I love to make crafts! Well, since moving out here, I've gone on a major fast from crafting! In Logan, I was always either making, dreaming about, or looking at crafts. I loved to treat myself with delicious eye candy at On The Avenue and Sugar & Spice, which are wonderful crafty stores with tons of ideas just waiting to be re-created! I also miss my major supply stores- Michaels and Home Depot! So I was online yesterday and was having so much fun looking at other people's crafts that I had to share them as well as some of my own.

{the rest are mine}



I am going to start crafting again... I just need to be more creative with the resources that i DO have...like my giant bin of fabric and my sewing machine.So watch out, world, I am back. Oh, and if you have any crafts I should know about, email me a pic at tristiemangus@hotmail.com .

Published Author!

I never read hunting magazines (even though we have hundreds in our house), but I am very excited about this month's issue of King's Hunting Illustrated because my husband wrote an article that is published in there! I am super proud of him!

merry tree

I am so excited to have a tree up finally. We were going to cut one in the mountains, but scheduling and snow prevented that. So we bought one (a real one) at one of the grocery stores here in town. My kids asked, "Why are we buying a tree at Stewarts? Mom hates that store." Ok, so I mention casually ONE time that I think Stewarts is kind of dumpy, and I can NEVER live it down with my kids. Every time we pass it, they say, "There's Stewarts Market. It is the dumpiest place in Roosevelt." So watch what you say in front of your kids. Back to the tree...

We had a wonderful time decorating the tree. The kids wanted the colored lights this year. And we put every ornament on. So not matching, so not coordinated, but so beautiful! I love it. Some day I will do a gorgeous theme-y tree (maybe-I am kind of cheap so I will have to find the ornaments on clearance after Christmas), but I love every tree and all decorations so it always turns out so great. As a side note, I would love to meet the person who designed the layout of our apartment and ask them what they were thinking. Our front room had no room to put the tree, so we moved the chair and put the tree in its place. Now...where to put the chair? In the spare bedroom, no. Thanks to the genius who decided to put the closet right next to the door making the doorway a bottle neck, there was no way of getting the chair into the bedroom. On the back porch? No. In the dumpster. Maybe. Ok, how about the bathroom. Yes. That is the only room in the house where the chair would fit. Who designs a bathroom with all that wasted space? And who needs a bathroom that big anyway. Leave all the space in the most used rooms--kitchen and family room, duh! So we have a giant chair in our bathroom, and a beautiful Christmas tree in our family room. Hooray.

Get To Know You- Christmas Style

I got this emailed to me so I filled it out and I'm just posting it instead of filling up everyone's inboxes. I am also not going to tag anyone, but if you want to post your own answers, please do!

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? paper
2. Real tree or artificial? we usually cut a real one every year but i love both
3. When do you put up the tree? usually the first of december (even though we don't spend Christmas at home, I think a tree is a must for this season! I feel sad when people don't have one or choose not to put one up.)
4. When do you take the tree down? after new years day
5. Do you like eggnog? kind of. it is definitely a once a year thing for me.
6. Favorite gift received as a child? blue Muppet Babies keyboard from Santa, tons of homemade barbie clothes from my mom.
7. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes. a few. and i want more of them.
8. Hardest person to buy for? my brother-in law, Matt
9. Easiest person to buy for? My kids. And me.
10. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? underwear when I was 10. (I cried when i opened it)
11. Mail or email Christmas cards? mail. I love getting cards in the mail, especially ones with a family picture, hint!
12. Favorite Christmas movie? A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th, Rudolph, Frosty, almost all.
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? when I see good ideas, good deals, or know what people want. I started in the spring this year.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? not that i can remember, but i don't think it is wrong. If someone else will enjoy it more, why not?
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? gingerbread boys and girls cookies, pumpkin pie, Ham.
16. Clear lights or colored on the tree? clear, but i love all lights
17. Favorite Christmas song? Sleigh Ride, Joy to the World, Carol of the Bells, Songs from Handel's Messiah, Blue Christmas (by Elvis) every Christmas song!
18. Travel for Christmas or stay home? usually go to parents or in-laws...I'm excited to stay home soon! Maybe next year?
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer? hel-LO? who can't? Thanks to the song.
20. Angel on the treetop or a star? star. The angels I've seen are sort of freiky looking and belong in the Halloween section. And the pretty ones are too pretty for all my fun mis-match ornaments.
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? morning, Preslie gets Christmas Eve to herself (its her birthday)...except I might do jammies this year before bed on the Eve.
22. Most annoying thing about this time of year? Goes by too quickly, buisnesses all trying to cash in on the Holiday.
23. What I love most about Christmas? The reminder, the feeling of giving and Christlike love, lights, family, surprises, decorations, excitement of children, songs, pretty much everything.

elf on the bus

As the bus pulled up out front this afternoon, I looked at the kids getting off and saw one with a Santa hat on.
Then I remembered that Preslie had taken our Santa hat for show-and-tell today.

daddysitting

Thanks for keeping an eye on him for me, bud.

my little project

Whoa...Christmas is coming --fast. I was just thinking about what I was doing a year ago. Working out at 6 am, making a Christmas activity chain, gingerbread houses, Christmas cards, b-day invitations, party favors, sewing a princess gown for my daughter's b-day, cookies, carmel apples, etc. I was so busy last December, it was awesome. I loved doing all the fun holiday projects and having my hands so busy.

This year, my hands are just as busy but in a totally different way. Yes, I will probably do a lot of the Christmas-y stuff like bake and decorate. But I won't be sewing a princess gown (sorry Pres). Sometimes I think it is easy for moms with very young kids to get frustrated that they are not getting a lot done. I've felt that way before lots of times. But I think one of the best things about having a baby 3rd time around is the realization that all that stuff is just stuff. It has taken me this long to realize that holding and feeding and playing with my baby is accomplishing quite a lot. I am helping nurture this little person physically, mentally, and emotionally. He is learning to trust me. He is learning to smile. He knows he is safe. He knows I will change him and make him comfortable if he cries. That is huge. But it is not something I can cross off of a to do list. For task-oriented people, being a mom can be hard. I am thankful that I am starting to "get it". It isn't easy all the time. And the fact that the baby slept a six hour stretch last night makes things so much more clear today (amazing how that happens!). So thank you, baby Mack for sleeping so well and for coming to teach me what being a mom is all about.

"Watch This"

If you ever have to travel a long distance to see family, I recommend getting a super entertaining travel buddy like my husband. While gassing the car in Filmore, he noticed a tree near by that was sounded like it was full of birds. He motions for me to roll down the window and says, "Hey, guys. That tree over there is full of birds. I am going to go kick it and see if they will all fly out."

He totally called it. HUNDREDS of birds came flying out each time he kicked the tree. I tell ya, this is live entertainment at its finest.

Giving Thanks in Southern Utah

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and visit in Santa Clara. No, we did not go para-planing. But someone did, and I thought it looked way fun so I snapped the pic. Anway, I am very grateful for the charmed life I live. I have it so good.

sent to bed with no dinner

He is a pretty picky eater lately. He told me he didn't like the chicken noodles we were having. I told him to eat it anyway. He said he was tired. Eat it anyway, I said. And then this.



Love how he is still gripping his spoon.

BOOK IT!

She was not excited about the "Pizza Tickets" she could earn from school for reading 10 books; she doesn't even like pizza. Then one night Dax took her with him to pick up a pizza for dinner and redeem her ticket for a personal pan pizza. The clerk gave her a sticker and a special key chain that she could fill up with stickers each time she earned a pizza. "I'll carry the little pizza, ok Dad?" she says. We get home and she was so proud of it, she actually tried it. Now when asked if she likes pizza she replies, "Well, I only like Pizza Hut pizza."

yum stick

Anyone know a 5 year old who can polish off a whole turkey drum stick?

more rockin' pumpkin recipes

Pumpkin Roll


Pumpkin Cake


Pumpkin Roll---------------------

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup pumpkin (canned)
1 tsp lemon juice
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
dash of ground cloves
powdered sugar (to sprinkle on towel)

Beat eggs together in large bowl. Slowly add sugar, pumpkin & lemon juice. Sift flour and baking powder together and add while mixing. Add salt and spices. Grease large cookie sheet with shortening. Pour mixture into cookie sheet and spread out evenly. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and run knife around edges then immediately turn onto a kitchen towel dusted with powdered sugar. Roll cake in the towel and let it cool. Unroll and spread with filling. Roll again tightly; wrap the pumpkin roll in wax paper and ten aluminum foil. store in freezer until ready to serve.

Filling---------------------
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 pkg 8 oz. cream cheese
4 Tbsp. butter

All ingredients must be at room temperature. Beat all ingredients together until smooth and creamy.


Pumpkin Cake------------------
1 box of yellow cake mix
4 eggs
1 cube + 3 Tbsp margarine or butter
1/2 c white sugar
1 cup milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
1 can pumpkin (30 oz.)

Preheat oven to 350. Save 1 cup of the cake mix for topping later. Mix the rest of cake mix, 1 egg, and 1 cube of softened butter. Press into a 9x13 cake pan. Mix 3 eggs and the 1 cup of milk with the pumpkin, then add the spices. Spread that into the cake pan over the cake mixture. Mix the remaining cup of cake mix with the 1/2 cup sugar and 1 more tsp of cinnamon. Cut in the 2 Tbsp of soft butter and sprinkle over top of the pumpkin filling. Bake at 350 for 60 minutes or until cake bottom is done (do knife check).

7 year celebration!

Our anniversary was Saturday, the 17th, so The Man got us a hotel in Park City for Friday night and we took the whole family. The kids were so excited to stay in a hotel- they think it is so cool. We got to the Marriott in P.C. and it was super nice...comfy beds, tons of fluffy pillows...and then my kids start yelling, "Look, there's a TV, theres a TV!!!" We turned our cable off last December so TV is quite a novelty to all of us. The big kids loved jumping across from one bed to the other. The baby loved eating and being held. The adults loved RELAXING! It was so nice not to have to DO anything! Just chill. We ate great food...Don Pedro's in Heber City was delish. The next morning, after a nutritious McD's breakfast, we hit the stores. I was so excited to SHOP. But so were the hundreds of other people taking advantage of the wonderful, warm November Saturday. It was quite a thing trying to shop in such crowds with a stroller and two other kids. But we managed, thanks to a patient husband and the playground equipment! The kids pooped out early on in the day so they went back to the hotel with dad and had a nap. After that, the baby and I did some major power shopping and we accomplished my one mission which was to find one pair of jeans and one shirt that fit me. I did that, and also got a few necessities for the children, as any mother would. It was a fun and refreshing vacation and a great way to celebrate being married for SEVEN great years! Wow!

Wa-HOO! So excited to be at the hotel!

Bed Jumping!



my babes relaxin'
"Mom, can we please ride the truck?" then 5 seconds into the ride..."When is this going to stop?"

We made it back at home, worn out, but so happy together!