Merry Christmas!!

We had a perfect Christmas Eve (It snowed ALL day!!!). My parent and Spencer and Valerie came over for Christmas Eve. We did the Harts' traditional pizza and a movie. We ate until we were sick and then some. One of the best parts was watching good ol' Lewis and Myrs play the Wii. They really got into it. Mom said she's never done that well bowling.

We had a wonderful Christmas!! Camille was totally spoiled. We went to Rexburg and got to chat with Elder Hart on the phone, then Grandpa Lewis busted out the airplane and gave the traditional Christmas day rides (We sure have some good traditions for being the family that doesn't "do" traditions!) Camille got her first airplane ride and loved it! Below are a million of cute Christmas pictures... My Dad asked my Mom if they were ever as gaga over their kids.... Brad and I are TOTALLY gaga!!

Camille LOVES her wagon.

Grandma Hart makes cute quilts!

Camille and Wyatt getting ready for an airplane ride.

Grandpa and Mil

Evelyn and Millie in their Christmas PJs

Shh...you'll wake Evelyn (which they did!)

Santa Claus is in town!!!

This morning I noticed a car stopped on the road in front of my house. (Dangerous because it's a 50 mile an hour zone) I figured it must be stopped for a school bus but it was stopped for a really long time. I look out the window and there wasn't a school bus this Chevrolet Caviller was just stop in the road. I thought it was weird so I looked a little closer and what to my surprise there were no tiny reindeer but Santa inside. My little friend Kurtis saw it too and say "Hey but Santa has a sleigh!" I told Kurtis Santa must have just wanted to drive the car today. (Silly Santa if he wanted a car he could have done better then a Caviller!)

Small town stories

I took my lil gangsta' (see photo) into town (by "town" I mean Rigby population 3,007) to run some errands today and had a few experiences that just rewarmed my heart to living here. First, my colleagues at the Jr. High invite me to come have lunch which was delightful.

Next while shopping in Broulim's I saw a kid from my primary.

"Hey, Mckay."

"Oh, hi.... I didn't know that was you because of your green sweater!" Lots of grinning.

"I know you're use to seeing my in a dress uh."

Mckay then turns and runs off.

Okay, sunbeams don't always have the best social skills. Later while I was in the checkout line Mckay finds me so he can introduce me to his Grammy (Who he makes give me a hug because I'm in primary with him). It was very sweet and I left the store smiling and glad I have such a great calling.

Then we were off to the post office where an older (I'm guess 85 or so) gentleman saw me pulling Camille out of the car came to my assistance. He got the package I was mailing from off the front seat, helped me into the post office, and made sure I'd be able to make it up to the counter without any trouble. It was very kind of him. When I thanked him he said, "Oh, I'm sure you've done something to help someone before."(Does he have the naughty and nice list?) I'm fully in the Christmas spirit now!

A Winter Weekend Wedding

Here are some pictures of this last weekend. We journeyed down to Utah to attend my friend Tristen's wedding. We stay at my brother's house, it was fun to have some one-on-one time with them. Friday we spent all day doing wedding stuff, the ceremony, the luncheon (yum), and the reception. We got a good snowstorm on Saturday and my nephews couldn't wait to get Brad out to have a snowball fight.

Timmy is ready for anything.





Gus in action



Brad the fearless leader.

The joys of a Johnny Jump-up!

Maybe I don't feed her enough.




In case you couldn't see it on the video...

Thanksgiving

I love Thanksgiving. We went up to Washington to spend Thanksgiving with Brad's family since half of his siblings have now moved there. We had a lot of fun. We had family pictures, Evelyn's baby blessing, grandkids pictures, Family Home Evening, went shopping, went to a hockey game, had good food and great company. It's amazing how much fun you can pack into a week! Some of my favorite lines from our trip:

• Bo (3 years old) after racing Uncle Brad across the basement. "Oh, I need bigger feet."
• Bo after playing soccer with Uncle Brad. "I can't kick the ball, I need bigger feet."
• Kaylee (almost 5 years old) on discovering the doorstops in her house. "Mom look these things are just growing all over our house. It's kinda making me mad."
• Ashlyn (almost 3 years old) pointing to Camille's pink bug blanket. "I LUB dis blanket!"

Something that Brad will never forget is coming out of the Hockey Arena to see me feeding Camille in the Beer Garden. Hey, the place had tables and chairs and a TV to watch the game. Besides Camille likes her "drink"!

One big (mostly) happy family

Camille & Evelyn

Cousins always a shoulder to lean on

Camille & Kaylee

I was tagged!

I was tagged which means I'm suppose to post six things not commonly known about me.

Six things not commonly know about me...Mmmm my life is pretty much an open book...

1. I LOVE to sing,but not in public! (I'm not saying that I can sing but I LOVE to sing) You know in the movies when they are watching people through the windows sing and dance in their kitchens with their brooms. Let's just say that happens at my house more often then I'd like to admit! I think I was a pop star in a former life.

2. As a lot of you may know I won a poetry contest in high school and have had two of my poems published. However, it's been a long time since I've written anything new. The other day I found a folder of my poems and was reminded of the parable where the servant buries his talent, so I've put all of my poems in a book (portfolio of sorts) and decided I'm going to take a little time each week to work on poetry.

3. I've never really liked the name Camille. Ironic, now that I have a daughter named Camille. I just never had it on the "list" of names I wanted to use. The only way I agreed with Brad to use it was if we didn't let people call her Cami. Now, I love the name Camille. I think it's beautiful and we've come up with a list of nicknames that are way better then Cami: Millie, Mil, Camel (Kacie's Fav), Chamomile, Mckillie, Sweet Potato (well we are Idahoan), Vanillie, etc.

4. I wish I wasn't afraid of E.T. but I am. I don't like to watch the movie, I don't like to see pictures, I don't like to think about him. (Everyone is thinking "DUH Karen we know this") I don't think anyone could have convinced me to ride an E.T. ride. However, I went on the E.T. ride at Universal Studios in Florida with Brad and I had my eyes opened most of the time. I think that shows just how brave I can be!

5. I love to put my feet on people, especially when I sleep. My sister, Vicky, use to hate it and would tell me I was disgusting but I'd do it to her anyway. (Hey, what are sisters for?)

6. I like living in Idaho. In fact, I'd be happy to live here until I die. Okay, so I confess sometimes I dream about moving. Lately, I've been thinking about moving to Virginia. We spent some time there last summer because of Brad's job and I really took a liking to it. I seriously would consider moving there. It's a great place and close to a lot of historical sites. The only downside is there are too many people. (Okay, I was having trouble coming up with six things but this is true even though it's more of a daydream.)

(Washington D.C. Temple)

It took me a couple days but I did it. Six things, this was challenging. I was up part of last night because I couldn't think of the last one. Okay, Kacie, Karlie, Erin, and Barb it's your turn!!

I'm no Martha Stewart!

I have a bad habit! (Surprise, surprise) It's not biting my nails (although I've been very good about that the last 11 months, it was my new year resolution!)

I LOVE to start projects. I get these grand ideas and just can't wait to get started then somewhere along the way I get bored, or forget about it, or it's harder then I envisioned, or I think of an even better project. Needless to say, I've have SEVERAL half finished projects lying around the house. We'd only been married two years when I got some of our wedding photos made up. I did finally finish a scrapbook of our trip to Europe in 2005. The Noah's Ark cross stitch that I started for the nursery BEFORE I was even pregnant still only has about 6 stitches in it.

The good news is I finished the baby quilt I've been working on for months and Camille isn't even 3 months old yet (okay, not until this Sunday). The quilt is far from prefect but I'm very proud of it. As my friend, Erin said the imperfections just give it character. (Oh, this quilt has a whole lot of character!) Here are some photos of the process!

Just getting started....

Making progress...

Almost there....

AND DONE!!!!

Boys will be boys

There are great big trees to the South side of our house (one reason we picked this lot). The top part of the trees are dead and need to be topped. Our hope is that they will sprout out the top next spring and look better than they do and that they won't break and fall on our house during a wind storm possibly killing us while we sleep. Brad rented a genie lift, borrowed his dad's chainsaw and with the help of Ron and Steve had fun playing lumberjack for the day. Of course, you can't rent a forty foot lift without having a little fun! So I got a ride and little Kurtis went up with Brad and his Dad. He said it was so cool. He liked being higher then Howard (our truck).

"Whoa, it's a long way down!" (Actually, they are spitting lougies!)

Kurtis will show you how to run it!

Happy Halloween!!

I awoke to a very erie foggy morning. What a perfect Halloween day. I had a plethora of ideas for Halloween costumes: a kangaroo with Camille as my joey, a web and Camille as the spider, a family of whoopie cushions, a monkey and Camille would be my banana. However, Brad found the cutest costume for Camille so we built our outfits around her costume. She is going as a cob of corn and we are going as corn farmers.

(Brad isn't just any corn farmer, check out his t-shirt.)

We love seeing people's costumes!! Here's one of my sister Lisa's family.

One man's trash...

For my 26th birthday/Christmas/you just had a baby present, Brad bought me the treadmill that I've always wanted. After getting the treadmill set up in the basement in front of the big screen (that's the only way to exercise!) we were left with a ginormous box in the garage. Brad hates to throw away big boxes (We still have the box our 5 year old TV came in) and asked me what we should do with it. Thinking about our attempt to organize the garage I suggested just cutting it up and throwing it away. It's too big to pack anything in besides pillows because you'd never be able to lift it. So, Brad grabbed a knife and decided to start the deconstruction process. Well, after the first cut (a big square out of the middle) we both knew we couldn't say good-bye because standing in front of us was no longer a big box but the beginning of a fort. Brad continued to sculpt the fort, a front door with a handle and another window. Then to put the finishing touches on he placed a Steelers mat in front of the door. We knew this would make our garage the place to be.



Well, our vision was correct! This weekend our friends, Steve and Erin, came with their kids, Kurtis and Kylee (two of our favorite little people) and we had a great time in the fort. Kurtis even mowed the "lawn" in front of his "house" and went and got the "mail". Kylee seemed to like it too. Brad and Erin even made visits to the new neighbors. Oh the fun you can have with a little bit of garbage!

Food Glorious Food

This is one of my favorite soups to make on a dreary fall day. (We had this when we were in Hungry and this recipe is actually very authentic!)

Hungarian Gulyas or Goulash

Ingredients:
1 lb beef chuck cut into 1” squares (I use left over Sunday roast or just cook some chicken)
2 tsp salt
2 medium onions diced
2 Tablespoons butter (or olive oil)
1 Tablespoon paprika (or more if you like)
3 medium carrots
1 quart water
4 medium potatoes diced into ¾ inch chucks
¼ tsp. black pepper (or to taste)

Optional ingredients (I always use these)
1 ½ to 2 cups sour cream
2 medium cans of tomato sauce

Directions:
Mix the salt into the beef cubes
Brown the onions in oil. Add the beef and paprika. Let the beef simmer in its own juices for about 1 hour.
Add the sliced carrots and simmer for 30 minutes. Add the water and diced potatoes and remaining 1 ½ tsp salt, the tomato sauce, and sour cream. Simmer until the potatoes are done; add the black pepper. Add dumplings
(Also easy in a crock pot!)

Egg Dumpling dough for the Gulyas

3 eggs
3 cup flour
1 Tablespoon salt
½ cup water

Directions
Make while the beef is simmering
Mix all the ingredients together and beat with a spoon. It will make stiff dough. Place the dough mound on a cutting board and slice small sections of dough off with a knife or spoon. (About the size of a quarter) Cook these dumplings about 15 minutes or so in a pot of boiling water. Drain and rinse with cold water. Serve the cooked dumplings in the cooked gulyas.

Trying something new

My friends must think my life is interesting because in the last week I've had 3 of them tell me I should start a blog. So, since I have so much "extra" time on my hands, I thought I would.
I can't even manage to keep the checkbook balanced so I don't know why I think I have time to blog. (It's like an electronic journal so I don't have to feel completely guilty about using my precious time on a blog, Right?) I can't promise anything funny or witty but I'm willing to try...