Anonymous Valentine!

I actually really love Valentine's day!  I like to tell people that I love them so I like having an entire day to tell people how I feel.  I bought myself some flowers because I think they are nice and pretty.  I received several notes, cards and text from family and friends to tell me I was loved.  And I received this.......

.... an anonymous beautiful, inspiring, valentine. I have no idea who it is from. It came in the mail with no return address and no name is signed. It was a tender mercy in my life. Whoever sent it should be blessed.. they made my day one of the most special kind. Thank you and I love you my most amazing anonymous valentine!

Happy New Year!

I had a really great New Years Weekend.  One of the reasons was an extra day off of work.  I spent the weekend with great friends and lots of good food.  I spent New Year's Eve with close friends playing cards and eating.  We rang in the new year with noise makers, party hats and glow in the dark jewelry.  It was a good time the very conservative Mormon way.  On January 1st some girl friends and I took advantage of the day off of work and went to Solitude to stay in my bosses condo.  It was nice to get out of town but only be 45 minutes away. 

We watched a couple of movies, played some more games, read horoscopes, listed our resolutions, painted our nails, watch more movies, ate good food, ate more good food and headed back home.  It was a great weekend and I am very very excited for a brand new year!

Christmas Time

I absolutely loved Christmas this year.  It was a tiny bit hectic because I didn't have as much time to prepare this year because of school.  It started out with a really great party for work.  We ate at the Market Street Grill and went bowling and had a competition.  It was very fun! 

Then I hosted my family Christmas party again.  We ate Lasagna, rode front runner to see the lights, exchanged gifts and beat a pinata.  Colette and Aaron surprised me with a Tebow Jersey as a gift.  I was so excited.  I felt like Christmas could have ended that minute and I would have been fine.

At the end of the night we read from the Bible the story of Christ's birth.  Then each of us in turn said one thing that makes us grateful.  Many of the kids and the adults said they were grateful for a good family.  I do honestly believe I have one of the best families on the earth.  All of us have flaws.  Some of us have many but I truly know they would do anything for me whenever I need.

The day after the family Christmas party I went to Morgan to stay at my parents.  We had nachos for dinner and watched a movie.  I ate breakfast on Christmas Eve morning and headed to Colette's to have dinner and watch their nativity.  We went up early so I could watch the Denver Broncos.  I wore my new jersey and thought it would be good luck. Tebow played the worst game of his life.  I truly hope the jersey is not to blame because I have no plans to stop wearing it.

I learned that day the importance of service.  My sister Colette was busily making and taking treats to her neighbor who had fallen on hard times, were sad, or alone.  It was amazing to see her follow the spirit and serve so many others. She spend a lot of time with some children of a family who lost their mother to Leukemia.  The five little children have been left to be raised by their grandmother.  I will never forget hearing the five year old boy talk about how he missed his mom.  It made me so so sad for the little boy.  I have so many blessings.  My life has been so easy.  I thank the Lord for all he has given.

Christmas morning was spent with my parents.  The opening of gifts and a yummy breakfast. We then went to Sacrament meeting and home to a yummy dinner.  I love the spirit of the Season.  For the time of giving. I love the happiness in the atmosphere.  I truly truly do love Christmas.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.  Maybe all of the holidays are my favorite but I particularly love this one.  I love making and enjoying amazing food.  This year I made Cranberry Sauce, Lion House Rolls, and Seven Layer Salad. I love spending time with my family.  This year at my sister Colette's house, with my parents, my sister Monica and many of my nieces and nephews. I love wearing stretchy pants, laying on the couch and watching football.  This year we watched Texas vs. Texas A&M, LSU vs. Arkansas and Florida vs. Florida State. And I love thinking and reminiscing about all of the things that make me thankful.  My life, my health, my family, my home, my education, my Charlie, my work, my testimony of a loving Heavenly Father. I hope all of you had a grateful, blessed Thanksgiving Day.  I hope that all of us remaining thankful for all of our bounteous blessings and the gifts we have been given.  HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Proud to Be

I am very proud to be an American!!

I hope everyone has a safe, happy and respectful 4th of July weekend!

Egg Roll, Toss, and Smash

I colored Easter Eggs for the first time as an adult this year.  I didn't do great at it.  I didn't realize it works best if you use vinegar and I didn't have any so I just used water.  The colors didn't turn out very vivid but they were only for the egg roll we had at my moms so it didn't much matter.

Addi and Miya getting ready to roll some eggs.

The egg roll I had planned quickly became and egg toss, then gradually turned into an egg smash!

Gracie getting ready to toss some eggs. 

Easton, Gracie and Kim getting ready to smash some eggs.  We ended up having a contest to see who could them the farthest or throw them the hardest at the fence post to see who could get the best smash.

Addi and Miya gathering the results.  It was so much fun!! Next year the smash is on!!!

Charlie's Easter

 

I didn't get anything for Charlie for Easter.  I'm sure he probably doesn't care because he is a dog.  I'm certain he didn't really know the day was any different, but I felt bad when I realized I didn't buy him and special doggie treats.  To compensate I let him have it out with the bunnies on my Happy Easter sign.  I didn't let him attack if for too long but he seemed to enjoy himself while it lasted.  I'll do better next year, Happy Easter Charlie!

IRISH for a DAY

I made Charlie wear a shamrock and took him to work with me for St. Patrick's day.   He's always such a good sport with me dragging him everywhere and dressing him up for everything.  Bless my children when I have them one day.. they don't stand a chance of not celebrating holidays!! Haha!

Happy St PaTrICK's Day!!!

I made Vanilla cupcakes with eatable glitter to celebrate St. Patrick's Day.  I want to say thank you to St. Patrick for going to Ireland from Rome to teach about Christianity.  And thank you for using the Shamrock to teach about the holy Trinity!!

Creative Cravings

I love to celebrate holidays..especially with food! I made a heart shaped pizza for Valentines day. It was very easy. I cut a pita pocket into a heart shape using my kitchen shears. Topped it with pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese. I used my chicken shears again to cut my turkey pepperoni into heart shaped! I baked it on my pizza stone for about 15 mins at 350 and then broiled it for about 3 minutes to make it crispy. Topped it with fresh basil and ta da...Heart shaped pizza! Yum!!

Christmas Celebrations

The night of the Turner Family Christmas party. Aj, Savanah, and Vanessa stayed over night. In the morning I made them Red and Green Pancakes. I get so excited to celebrate holidays.

Bless Charlie's heart. I always pester him in some way making him participate in the festivities! It is probably a good thing I don't have kids. I would show no mercy in making them celebrate.

On Christmas day I made dinner again for my whole family. I had bought myself a new Bosch mixer with my bonus from work and couldn't wait to put it to the test.

The Red Velvet Santa Claus hat cake I made. Yummmm!!!

Christmas Day dinner.

Christmas truly was such a good time. I love my family very much! I can't wait for next year to see what type of great celebrations we come up with. Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year!

A Christmas Party

Something you didn't know about me is that I love to host parties. I wanted to visit Temple Square this year during the Christmas Season. I asked my family if any of them would like to go with me. I told anyone who wanted to come to Temple Square with me they could meet at my house, I would make them dinner, we would get on the Front Runner Train and go to Temple Square to see the lights. Well they all decided they wanted to come. Rather than trying to schedule another time for the Turner Family gift exchange we decided to have the Christmas party at my place. I was so excited.

Here are just a few pictures of the night. It was so much fun!! I love my family very much!!

Alysha holding Baby Seth.

Colette and Aaron. I made Lasagna dinner for everyone. It was delish!

Eric and Kim.

Mom and Dad... the creators of us all!!

The kids table.

Three little Princesses.

Riding on the train.

The family at Temple Square.

I love the Christmas holiday. It is always so happy, full of service and fun. I also love to reflect on the true meaning of the holiday. The birth of Christ our Lord. I know that he lives. I know that he is my Savior. I know that he knows, I love him will all my heart. Merry Christmas!

A Texas Style Thanksgiving

Because my family celebrated Thanksgiving the Saturday before Thanksgiving. My parents and I along with Charlie decided to drive down to Texas and spend the real Thanksgiving with Monica, Scott, Milo and Holly. We left the Friday before Thanksgiving after work and drove straight there only stopping for fuel and the bathroom.

It took us about 23 hours to get there. It wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be driving all the way through. Although, while it was happening I thought it was taking forever. My dad and I did all of the driving switching ever couple of hours to sleep. One of the best parts of the drive was watching the sunrise. I have always loved to watch the sunset, but it is rare that I am ever awake to watch the sun rise.

Charlie did great during the long ride. He probably did the best of all of us because he slept the whole time. He only got upset once when Mom dropped a book on his head and he let out a growl to make sure she knew he was there.

I had so much fun spending the week with them in Texas. The weather was warm, we went shopping, to a movie, ate Amy's ice cream, went out to lunch, ate other great meals and spent a lot of good quality time together.

I had the pleasure of sleeping in Holly's bed while she took to the floor and we became roommates. Here is a picture of Milo and Holly on the blow up mattress. They both loved sleeping there. The first couple of nights I was there Holly would get up in the night, come stand by the side of her bed and start talking to me. She talked to me about how we needed to check on Charlie or that she needed a drink or a snack. One night I woke up and heard her say she was hunger. A few minutes later she had gone down stair, woke her parents and game back to the room with a bowl of pretzels. So, I sat there awake at 3:30 in the morning listening to Holly carefully crunch on all the pretzels. A little chomp chomp chomp, then a sip of water. After she finished the bowl she rolled over and was fast asleep.

One night Holly dressed up in a Darth Vader Halloween costume and wouldn't let us call her Holly. She quickly corrected all of us saying, "I'm not Holly I'm Darth Vader." It was so fun to be around the kids.

Thanksgiving day was a special treat because we got to enjoy all of Scott's cooking. YUMMMY!!! The meal was delicous!! One of the best I have ever eaten.

Mom spent time reading to the kids while everything was prepared for dinner.

Dad and I kind of did nothing but hang out and look pretty for the pictures. HeHe!
We look good, huh? :)

As part of the Texas tradition the day we left to come home we decided we need to make a stop by Round Rock Donuts. Dad and I went over at about 9 o'clock in the Morning. The store actually opens at 4 am. Crazy!! I didn't think we would have a problem getting donuts. The line was out the door and down the sidewalk. There were cars and people everywhere. Dad wanted to bag the whole idea of getting donuts but I insisted. I dropped him at the front while I went to search for a parking spot. I would say we had hot fresh Round Rock donuts in our hands about 45 minutes later. Not too long of a wait. What else did we have to do besides drive all the way back to Utah.

It was a great, great Thanksgiving. The company, the food, the memories, I loved every second of it. Thanks so much to Monica and Scott, Milo and Holly for letting us spend Thanksgiving. It truly was such a joy to spend time with them. I love you! Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving before Thanksgiving

Every other year my family celebrates Thanksgiving the Saturday before Thanksgiving. This is so that those people in our family who are married can celebrate Thanksgiving with their in laws on Thanksgiving day. Of course we started the night before with an appetizer dinner. Why stuff yourself with food on just one day when you can stuff yourself with food for two days? It is always so fun.

Everyone brought some things to share. I made these little name tag, center pieces out of sugar ice cream cones. They were a little bit of a pain to make. Only because I had to make almost 30. And I could only cook two at a time so it took some a while. It was late at night so I was in a hurry and kept burning my fingers. Ouch! But, I thought they turned out very cute, so I was happy.

Here is a picture of one of the kids tables. We had a few tables for the kids.

I didn't get a picture of everyone at the dinner but I was happy to have most of my siblings and their kids their. One of the greatest blessings of my life is my family. I love them all very much.

Charlie being a very important member of the family also attended the dinner. He took his usually place under the table waiting for any sucker to give him food against my very strong wishes. Will, my cousin's little boy, instead of just wanting to slip him food Spent most of the day with Charlie. We found him several times under the table petting and playing with Charlie's ears. It was very cute. Charlie and Will, best of friends forever.

HaPpY NeW YeAR!!

I feel like 2010 was a great year. So many good things happened. I adopted Charlie. I donated more time and money to volunteering. I finished a lot of remodeling on my house (yay). I spent time...Seattle, Baton Rouge, Mesquite, St. George, Capitol Reef, Denver, San Diego, Los Angeles, Irvine, Boston, New York and Austin. Some for work, some for play. I developed a love for reading, I became a better cook. I saved more money. I paid off debt. I became happier and more confident about my life. And I spent more time with friends and family.

Life just keeps getting better. I'm very excited for 2011. I have quite a list of goals and I am excited to see if I can get them all accomplished. In 2011 I want to..

Be a better Neighbor, participate in more church activities, speak Spanish fluently, take a cooking class, make a quilt, get scuba certified, ride my mountain bike to the top of elephant rock, run a half marathon (maybe a full marathon - i'm kind of scared), read 32 books (age I will turn in 2011 YIKES!), keep my blog updated, go camping, go on a trip out of the country, be more healthy, lose weight (always a goal..hehe!) Serve more and be more giving.

I can't wait... look back to my blog throughout the year to see how I'm doing. Good luck to everyone who sets resolutions and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!

SpOoK and SpRinT

A few days before Halloween my sister Colette called me to see if we wanted to participate in a Spook and Sprint Halloween morning. I had planned to stay at her house the night before Halloween anyway so I said "Of course" and was very excited, especially when she told me there would be costumes.



I bought a pumpkin Halloween costume for Charlie. When I got to Logan I decided I should try it on him. It didn't fit! Ahh, it was the night before Halloween. Colette, Vanessa, Savanah and I went to find Charlie a new costume. We went to four different stores. Who would have thought it would be so hard to find a dog costume? We had nearly given up hope when we found a puppy banana costume that was Charlie size. It fit him perfectly. A.J. decided he would take advantage of Charlies too small pumpkin costume and wore it to the race instead. I'm glad it went to good use. You can see him in the background of the picture. Ha!



We woke up got ready and headed to the Spook and Sprint. Charlie as a banana, me as an In N Out worker. When we got to the Spook and Sprint it turned out there were fewer people in costume than we had thought. It turned out to be a very fun morning. I always love spending time with Colette and her family. And Charlie was an outstanding little banana dog racer! Happy Halloween everyone!

The Nativity

One of the many perks of staying with my sister Colette over Christmas was watching her kids reinact the nativity. Vanessa didn't want to do anything or participate until all the other kids started rehearsing parts and getting there costumes ready. As we were about to get the production started she decided she wanted to be Mary. It turned out so good. I was really impressed with how they all did. We sang songs and Journeyed through the back yard to Bethlehem. It was really fun to see and participate in.

Christmas Diva

I spent Christmas with Colette and her family. The kids were all riled up on Christmas Eve. Vanessa pulled some stockings and Santa hat out of a closet and put them on to model. I had to take some pictures she was so darling!