Salem Days

This past Saturday was really fun! Minus some really sore feet afterward :) But really, we had a blast! Rick had to work at the MTC that morning so after he got home we finished getting ready and headed down South. We made a quick stop in Payson and then headed back to Spanish Fork for the first part of the afternoon. My dad and some of my brothers were swimming in the backyard and Kimbri desperately wanted to be part of the action so my dad offered to hold her and let her play in the pool with him since I didn't have my swimsuit with me. I should've snapped some photos of Kimbri in the pool with my dad! I thought they looked quite a lot alike. Kimbri was sporting just a diaper since it was a kind of a spur-of-the-moment activity and my dad was sporting his swim trunks. Both of them have not so much hair, dark eyelashes and eyebrows, and both have the same round type of head. It was especially in that moment that they looked so much alike to me. While they swam, my mom, Rick and I sat under the grape arbor and snacked on some fresh grapes from the vine in the shade! Yum! 

After a while we went to Salem to meet up with some of Rick's family for some of the Salem Days activities. The plan was to walk there and then walk back. That didn't sound so bad. But this is what ended up happening...and it still wasn't too bad but I had some serious foot aches after that. We walked down to the Salem City Center - I think that's what it's called- for the dinner that raises money for the Salem City Ambulance. It sure was incredibly delicious! And Kimbri sure enjoyed it too!! She was too cute to not snap some pictures of her enjoying her meal full of corn, potatoes, beef, and part of a roll. Of course I gave her a few bites of my dessert too...peanut butter bars! I love those things.

After the dinner is when more walking came into place. Everyone had decided to meet up at Rick's grandparents house. So we walked there to wait for the fireworks to starts. Really it wasn't too far but it involved a pretty decent hill and I was in flip flops. Thank goodness Rick pushed the stroller up the hill, a full on run. I don't know how he did it! It was really fun to visit with family and hang out until heading back for fireworks. They had more dessert there - ice cream cones. 

Kimbri started to get pretty tired because her nap schedule was way off since we were all over the place that day! We fed her some milk in her sippy cup. Rick put her burp cloth on her face and she didn't seem to mind. She just left it there for quite a while. She was just getting so sleepy.

Then Kimbri and her Aunt Cosette decided to lay down on the floor and rest. As you can see, Kimbri has gotten only a tiny bit more hair...haha:) She's working on it! She'll get there someday.

After everyone ate ice cream we all started to walk back down to Salem Pond where the fireworks were being done. It was a fantastic firework show!! Kimbri fell asleep on the walk there and when those fireworks started I thought for sure she would wake up but she was just so tired she didn't even flinch! We sat on the edge of some grass and the sidewalk in some extra chairs the some of Rick's extended family had and enjoyed the show! You would know that part way through the sprinklers would go off and we were sitting right in the line of the water! We quickly moved to the street and sat there for the rest of the firework show:) 

It was so fun to get to spend the whole afternoon and evening together as a family. All of it was great!

Colorful Polka-dotted Balloons

I was at Sam's Club Saturday afternoon on my way back to Provo from Spanish Fork. The only thing I needed to get was whole milk for Kimbri. It's only $2 there instead of over three at other grocery stores.   I got Kimbri out of her carseat and went in with just her, my keys and my wallet. We got two gallons of milk and went to the checkout lines. One checker at the very end who does the flatbed line didn't have anybody in his line and saw that I only had two gallons of milk and let me come through his line. Totally beats waiting in a super long line for only two gallons of milk!

We got checked out fast and then headed over to the line to get our receipt checked. It was way longer than usual, which was fine, but it was backed up to where they do free hearing tests at their little hearing center. Attached to a sign was a beautiful fun bouquet of balloons with white polka-dots. As soon as Kimbri saw them she pointed her finger and excitedly went "Ah! Ah!" The lady running the hearing booth looked over and grinned and asked me if she would want to have one of the balloons. So she was unwrapping the knot and when she got them all un-done she said, "Why don't you just take all of them?! They are just leftover from a baby shower I went to." Haha! That was so nice of her! 

Kimbri was in balloon heaven the whole way home, trying to pull at the strings and making the balloons float all over the back seat of the car and it sure put a smile on both of our faces! These fun balloons now have a place in our front room, tied to one of her toys and she has quite enjoyed them!

Dinner Time!

For the past few days Rick has not been feeling too good. It started last Friday and got worse by that night and in to Saturday morning. Enoch's baptism was on Saturday morning down in Spanish Fork so after the baptism (which I will definitely make a separate post about that) and family lunch Kimbri and I stayed in Spanish Fork so that Rick could just be at home and have some quiet, relaxing, restful time. 

I guess to make a long story short, right before we left Spanish Fork to head back home that night my dad loaded us up with a whole bag full of fresh produce from the garden!! It included squash, zucchini, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, a green and orange bell pepper and even some fresh beans! My dad has an amazing garden!! He then added in a couple cups of rice and two chicken breasts to the bag of produce and instructed me on how to make a primo stir fry! On the way home I called Rick to see if that even sounded good to his throat and he said it actually did.

When I got home I started in on making the stir fry and oh boy did it turn out oh so good! I big thank you to my dad! It was delicious. And we even had leftovers for the next day! There's just something extra yummy about vegetables from the garden. And I can't wait for homemade salsa with onions, tomatoes and peppers from my dad's garden! Yum :) 

Anyway, I also tried a recipe that I found online that we tried making for dinner tonight.  A couple of days ago I went through our pantry/food storage area to do a little organizing and to check for expiration dates to see what we needed to use. Everything is still good for quite a while still except for two cans of tomato soup that had a "best by" date of August 2, 2012. So, since I didn't know of any easy recipes off the top of my head that used tomato soup as an ingredient I looked online.

I found that one lady posted a meal that she often throws together for her family which she called "goulash". Rick informed me that that's a term people use when they just throw a bunch of stuff together and mix it up for a quick easy meal.  Well, this recipe sounded good so we tried it for dinner tonight! And we even had leftover bell peppers and onions from my dad's garden that we used in it! 

Here's the recipe in case any of you want to try it:

½ lb. ground chuck 

garlic

green bell pepper

fistful red onion

1 tsp oregano 

2 cans Campbell’s tomato soup

1 Tablespoon white vinegar

ketchup to taste

¼ cup of water

black pepper 

2 cups elbow macaroni

Cook the macaroni in a large pot of boiling salted water (rinse and drain if you are cooking it before the sauce is done). Cook the beef, onion, garlic, and green pepper all together. Add soup, 1 tablespoon vinegar, ketchup and water. Simmer for half an hour partially covered and then stir in the cooked macaroni.

 I didn't add any ketchup because I thought that sounded weird, but that's just me. And I used a regular onion instead of a red onion. I also decided to throw a little mozzarella cheese on top since we had a little extra that is about to expire in a few days. And also a huge thanks to Uncle Doug for the beef! 

Well, Rick and Kimbri approved of the new recipe! And naturally I took some pictures of Kimbri eating it. Don't worry, I didn't take any of Rick eating it, that would just not be quite as cute. Haha:)

Kimbri is so good at feeding herself!

She often tries to feed me...

I love that messy little face. It's too cute!

Well, needless to say, Rick gave me the okay to keep this recipe and make it again. It was way easy and pretty tasty! I always like to try new recipes!

Kimbri's First Top Tooth

 Just two or three days ago Rick and I were playing with Kimbri when she suddenly leaned her head back with her mouth wide open, probably because we were tickling her - we do that quite often. When she leaned back I thought I saw something coming through her top gums. I immediately stuck my finger in her mouth to double check what I thought I'd saw and sure enough! She is breaking her first top tooth! She will soon no longer look like the toothless picture below ;) 

Into the Cereal...

I was in the kitchen just before noon, preparing lunch and washing dishes. Kimbri was occupying herself with the bottom drawer of the little black basket/stand thing that we have in our kitchen (it is slightly shown to the right side of the pictures below). Anyway, this bottom basket/shelf thing contains unbreakable things like a cheapy calculator, pens, markers (all with lids of course), rolls of tape, etc...

Kimbri often goes to this drawer and plays with all the miscellaneous things that are in there while I am cooking or doing dishes etc. She quite enjoys taking nearly everything out of it! :) I kept glancing over just to keep an eye on her. In between my glances she somehow got the cereal down from off the top of the black drawer thing, got the clothespin off the rolled up bag and quickly had tons of little chocolatey cocoa puff things all around her! All between quick glances from me!

This is what I saw when I first glanced back over to see what she was up to.

She was bound and determined to get every little cocoa puff off that floor and into her mouth! Haha:)

Then she pulled some classic Kimbri faces. I love her so much! Even if she sneaks into the cereal:)

Kimbri's guilty, sneaky, happy face! 

She sure takes after her daddy over her absolute LOVE for cereal!!

My Little Girl

Today just before Kimbri went down for a nap she was standing, holding onto my knee when all of the sudden she let go and walked to the bookcase in our room all by herself! She's taken steps before by us leaning her up against the couch or wall and then having her walk to us but this was the first time that she has just let go of something all by herself and decided to walk to where she wanted! Yay Kimbri!

Here are some recent pictures of Kimbri:

We set up the pool that Kimbri got for her birthday and she's been playing
in it for the past several days with her other toys she got!

Kimbri's cowgirl hat Olivia got her for
her birthday. She won't ever leave it on...

One of her new birthday outfits:)

Ready for church! 

That facial expression cracks me up :)

These flowers go on a tree/bush thing outside our house
 and I think they are so pretty!

On our way back to Provo from SF and the sunset was so gorgeous!!!

So beautiful!

We also got to go to Seven Peaks today! It was way fun and as always, Kimbri LOVED going down the "Flash Floods" slide! Then we floated around the Lazy River a few times, Kimbri in her pink and orange floaty that Grandma Haycock got her and she loved it! After that we hung out in the wave pool for a while. Kimbri started getting tired and ready for her nap and so we left and she fell right asleep before we even got home! It was a fun morning:)

Fiesta Days Parade ~ July 24, 2012

We finally got to go to the Spanish Fork Fiesta Days together! 

When Rick and I first started dating it was in the Spring of 2010. Every summer my family goes to the 24th of July parade for Fiesta Days in Spanish Fork. When Rick got his work schedule and ended up having to work that morning I was a little bummed and said something like, "Oh well. We'll just make sure you don't have to work next year so we can go together!" 

Ha. Little did I know...

The next summer, which was also last summer, I was big pregnant and due to have Kimbri mid-August. August 16 to be exact. The parade was scheduled for July 25 because July 24 was on a Sunday. We spent July 24 at Rick's Grandparents house in Salem for a little get-together and had dinner. That night we decided to just spend the night in Spanish Fork since we didn't leave Salem until  after 11pm and the parade was the next morning. We figured that it would save us some time and gas money driving all the way back to Provo just to turn around and go back to SF. 

To make a very long story short, the next day as we were getting ready to go to the parade,

 my water broke.

So, for obvious reasons, we did not attend the Spanish Fork Parade last year either. And I was just fine with that because I got to go and deliver a beautiful little girl into this world - Kimbri.

Anyway, this year was the year! Rick did not have to work. My water didn't break. And we went to the parade together as a family with my parents and siblings and a few other people that we've known for a long time that we always sit with on the same corner every year for the parade.

It was really fun and Kimbri sure enjoyed her yellow popsicle that Chris Smiley gave her. Thank goodness it was yellow and not red otherwise her shirt would have totally stained!

She sure loved it!

She kept grabbing the popsicle part with her hand. Let's just say that by the time she was finished eating both halves of her popsicle, she was very VERY sticky. But hey, it was fun for her!

Her 'worn out' face. By the end of the parade we were all very hot and ready to go home, but we still had a great time!

Enoch got to ride on the Maple Mountain Martial Arts
float because he takes karate from them.

Happy 24th of July everyone!