English Triffle

Porter Bear is my little helper in the kitchen. He helped me make the delicious dessert for our New Year's Eve Party. I wish I had a picture of each layer of this mouth watering extravaganza! For those of you who have yet to try this Delight the bottom layer is a buttery crisp crust, next comes a fluffy cream cheese cool whipped layer, then creamy chocolate pudding, followed by tasteful vanilla pudding, then cool whip, and lastly chocolate shavings! MMM Good! It was often eaten for birthday dessert for us growing up, especially since there were four of five birthdays in one month. (No plain ole cake for our fam, we had to be creative.)

Here is the recipe (Kasey it is well worth the dirty bowls, gotta try it.)

Crust- 1 cube butter or margarine melted, 1 cup flour, and 1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional) Mix together and spread on bottom of 10 x 13 pan. Bake at 375 15 minutes. Let cool.

1st layer- 1/2 of 12 oz cool whip, 8 oz cream cheese, and 1 cup pwdr sugar. Beat together and spread on cool crust.

2nd Layer- 1 box small or large Chocolate pudding

3rd Layer- 1 box small or large Vanilla pudding (you can pour these on before or after the pudding sets up)

4th Layer- the other 1/2 of 12 oz cool whip

Top with shavings of chocolate bar

Cool in fridge before serving and ENJOY

Quite Humorous

Funny little thing happened on our
drive back from visiting Grandma... I drove Don (my future step dad) to the airport and the boys were in the back seat talking or so I thought. After coming home, and posting pictures I noticed at least 20 something crazily odd pictures on my camera. The first 29 were of nothing but the boys shoes, shirts, and unnoticeable images. The few that came out was a picture of Porter, a big cheeser of Seth, and a few of Don and I talking. I had not clue they even had my purse, let alone my camera. Oh those boys :) I guess it kept them busy and quiet for a little bit of the 4 1/2 hr drive!

Fun Fun Fun

The boys and I adventured our way to
visit Grandma. My sister
met us there and stayed a few days. We enjoyed delicious dinners- tamales, burros, beans and rice, ham with all the works, and incredible barbeque tacos. Now I am back to real life at home and have no desire to cook. IT was very cold there, wich is silly of me for saying since I come from a cooler climate, I am just glad I wasn't home for the really cold weather. The boys had a blast out at Cluff's riding their Christmas mini horse, power wheels, and playing on the trampoline and swingset. Jarom was so funny- when he saw the hoop he shot everything he saw (the picture shows him shooting the string to the lawn hedger thing) I enjoyed my visits with my sisters, my mom and her fiance (yes you read that right, after 11 years of being single, my mom is getting married! We really like Don and are excited to welcome him into the family.) and my cousins, aunt and uncle, and friends! I had good intentions to see all my friends down there- sorry guys, Linda was the only lucky one to be graced with my presence! What a fun few days we had, but I am glad to be home and in my own bed (for more than one reason lol)

Christmas Dinner

I wish I had a picture of our wonderful Christmas turkey dinner at the Burch's! The table was beautifully set and the food was absolutely delicious- thanks Kerri for sharing your meal with us. The boys had a blast playing with the kids. We had fun playing a few games with the adults. What a memorable day!

Christmas Morning

The kids were so fun this year with their excitement! And Jeff and I were so excited we put them to bed by 7 Christmas Eve :) They were thrilled as ever to get Star Wars Legos Nintendo game and a spaceship. Jarom loved his hoop that is just his size and every present he opened he would shoot it in the hoop! It is so fun to watch their faces light up with excitement. They were so happy that Santa brought chapstick, keychains, and candy in their stockings.
They have been playing Nintendo non-stop (not that it totals much time considering we were gone by 2 Christmas Day and left the next morning for Safford until Saturday at 2. Now it is Christmas all over again!
Jarom is still at it... dragging me in to the playroom to watch and cheer him on while he makes his hoops. He is quite adorable as he is so proud of himself every time he makes a basket. I love my boys!

Christmas @ Dads

The pictures show some of the fun Danish traditions we do at my dads. Porter is playing BINGO which we absolutely love doing... we just love the feeling of winning, even if it is just candybars! Jarom is saying CHEESE to the camera after eating the rice pudding dessert with danish sauce on top- mmm yummmy. Whoever gets the almond in their dessert wins the prize. There it is the prize winning again :) Seth is opening gifts, that is just as good as winning a prize. We had a wonderful delicious turkey dinner with red cabbage making it most traditional! Thanks dad and Lorie for the fun ever memorable day. (Of course there was the smeared something on the carpet, broken glass ornament, and Jarom discovering he doesn't like soda so he dumped it all out!)

Shumway Time

Last Saturady all of Jeffs family was able to come for the day. The cousins love being together, which is something my boys dont get with the Shumway side too often. All of the adults went to Red Lobster in memory of Turk, which was a first (adults going to eat without children). I think I got everyone addicted to the cocconut shrimp, except Jeff who will go no where near cocconut. We were quite surprised when the waitress brought our bill and said that it had already been paid! It was a very nice gesture of kindness from a friend who saw us there and knew we were there for Turk. Grandma voted to stay and play with the kids. The rest of the day the daddies played at the carwash. To end the day, we all went and saw the Christmas Lights, before they all headed back home. What a fun time, just didnt last long enough.

Boys will be Boys

A common occurance in our household is wrestling. Even little Jarom stands his own. If a ball is not involved then it must mean pin your brother down like a ball. They love it... until someone gets hurt. Maybe someday, we will be blessed with some more estrogen in the house... maybe someday :)

Seth's Star Wars Party

We had a ton of fun with ALL the kids that came to the party! We started the party by having a COLORING CONTEST wwhere they got to color their favorite Star Wars character. Then we ate yummy PIZZA and played all sorts of GAMES like save Princess Leia by popping your balloon to get the puzzle pieces and work together to fit it together, making edible light sabers, Yoda/Vader (red light green light), Hot lava, and the most popular fighting the dark side- Jeff dressed as Darth Vader and each kid got a chance to use a cool light saber to battle him. These games were quite the hit. And of course the was the star wars Cake and candle blowing out and the opening of the presents which resulted in Jeff and I having to take back some of the Christmas gifts we got for him because of doubles. All in all it was such a fun 2 Hours! Thanks to all his friends who made it such a party.

Gingerbread Decorating

We had an absolute Blast decorating our gingerbread house for family night. Jarom loved sitting on the table and picking at all of the candy, he managed to throw a lot of it on the ground, breaking the gingerbread men to pieces as well as the candy canes. But don't you worry, Porter new just how to fix Mr. Gingerbreads broken arm- pudding, or so he called the frosting all night. So Porter glued his arm back on with frosting and continued to decorate away. Seth loved the roof top and every single little colorful candy went straight to the roof. They were all very proud of their masterpiece and could barely sit still for the rest of the family night, probably due to a sugar high, needless to say Jeff and I are grateful that their cute little heads are resting ever so quitely on their pillows and the house is peaceful :)

Triathlon

It was a lot of Fun, a lot of Cold, a lot of Uphill, a lot of nose drippings (enough to give me a sore before the bike was over), a lot of Cheers, and a lot of Wanting to do another one! It was held on a windy chilly day, but thankgoodness it only sprnkled once- while we were standing in our swim suits waiting to swim- Burr Cold. I finished with a good time of one hour 37 minutes, just missing my previous tri time by under 30 seconds. This tri was much different with the run being a mile and a half up a mountain, so I am trying to tell myself not to compare. I look forward to the next one... in a few years:)

Family Pictures

The boys did AWESOME while we took family pictures at a park here. The leaves are beautiful and added nice scenery for our perfect pictures. It was a much better experience than last family picture adventure- with Seth hiding behind a tree for the first 45 minutes. So I would have to say they turned out quite INCREDIBLE!