August

Oh, I love this girl!

My parents have a swimming pool at their new house. We have had lots of fun swimming there this summer and will miss it dearly until it is open again!!


I signed Jared up for a six-week soccer league through our city. All of the kids on Jared's team are three- and four-year-olds in our neighborhood and his coach is a mom who lives a few houses down from us.

Jared is the one kicking the ball! I'm wondering where the other team is...

Since Alan and I are both "athletically-challenged," Jared has had a big disadvantage and we haven't practiced with him as much as some of the other parents have, but he is finally starting to get it. We went for several weeks where he was running around saying to the other players, "It's my turn to kick the ball! It's my turn!" So we had to have a little chat about how nobody takes turns in soccer! Right before last week's game he was saying, "Mommy, I hate soccer! I don't want to play!" or "Mommy, I can't wait until I'm a grown-up so I don't have to play soccer anymore," and so I said, "Well, Jared, you don't have to like it, but you have three more games to play." Well, something seemed to click during his last game. Jared suddenly figured out how to play or something--he did a great job chasing after the ball and even made two goals! Today he said to me, "Mommy, I could play soccer all day long!" We'll see how these last two games go...

Cedar City Trip

We are in front of a bristlecone pine, which can grow to be thousands of years old!

This year was our 4th annual trip with my side of the family. We have gone to few different locations, and this year we decided to go to Cedar City. We rented out a cabin with lots of bedrooms and TONS of amenities, and we had lots of fun attending plays at the Shakespeare festival and hiking in places nearby. Mostly it was fun to hang out as a family.

Lots of my family (not everyone)

Jared holding hands with his cute cousin

Alan and the Magster on a hike

We went to Mammoth Cave, which was pretty awesome

More of Jared's Bday and Neola

Jared's real birthday was sandwiched in between two family trips, so we had to try and cram celebrations in where we could. We had a quick celebration with Alan's family on our trip to Neola and then we had my parents over for dinner on Jared's real birthday.

We have gone to Neola three years in a row now with Alan's family and have loved the tradition. This year I think the highlight was swimming in a lake near Vernal. But it was tons of fun to just hang out and eat good food with the family. Thanks, Lani and Steve, for letting us stay in such an awesome place!

The three Stout hearted cousins with Uncle Spencer in Neola

Jared and Uncle Beef in Neola

Grandma and Papa, plus Jared's favorite dinner: rigatoni noodles

Happy 4-year-old!

One of Jared's favorite things to do lately is to play restaurant. I have all the play food from when I was little, and recently my sister-in-law gave us this cute used kitchen set that she no longer needed. I was going to save them for Maggie for when she was older, but since Jared is totally into pretending right now, I decided to give them to him for his birthday now. Jared LOVES playing with them.

Jared's presents. Maggie's looking a little jealous, I think. Or maybe just tired. :)

Birthday Party

Well, we wiped our laptop clean this weekend and *I hope* things are faster now so that I can get back into blogging. I downloaded tons of pictures today and have a lot to write about. First up, Jared's birthday party...



We had a Backwards Birthday theme. I got the idea online, and it seemed fun for some of Jared's older friends but was over the heads of some of his younger friends. Oh, well. I wrote the invitations so that they had to be read in a mirror and we asked everyone to wear their clothes backwards. Friends were greeted by a "Birthday Happy" sign on our front door, and all of the balloons and other decorations were upside down. The treats were cupcakes inside of ice cream cones, and the kids had to sit on backwards folding chairs! We played backwards games, sang "Birthday Happy to You," and read a story about a family who does things wrong all of the time. There were several minor things that went awry with the party, but none of the kids noticed and they had fun, which is what is important. It was a good learning experience for me.

Maggie enjoyed setting up for the party, too!

We played Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and the winner was the person whose tail was farthest away from the correct spot. Jared didn't want me to take his picture.

Some of the guests at the party with their Eeyore tails. I didn't get a better picture of everyone together. Oops.

Opening presents

Story time!

Jared enjoying two of his presents--finger paint and his Toy Story T-shirt.

Zucchini, Zucchini, Zucchini

Our vegetable garden consisted of three plants this year: a tomato, a zucchini, and a crookneck squash (sadly, our pumpkin plant died because I think I planted it too early). Our small garden has been very prolific. Jared doesn't like either squash or zucchini, but we make him eat three "Jared-sized" pieces every night with his dinner. He now gobbles them up without complaint.

Last night with our dinner we had zucchini in three forms: cooked zucchini with butter, zucchini bread, and zucchini in our spaghetti sauce. The spaghetti sauce is actually a chicken spaghetti sauce, and was delicious! I thought I'd share the recipe for all of you out there that are trying to use up your zucchini like I am.

Chicken Italian Sauce

• 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
• 1 small can mushrooms (yuck, I left those out)
• 1 small green pepper, diced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 medium zucchini, chopped
  
• 1 26-oz jar spaghetti sauce

Put everything in a crockpot and cook on low for 6-8 hours. Yum! Serve over linguini or spaghetti.

Anniversary Party

A couple of months ago my siblings and I threw my parents a surprise anniversary party at a church to celebrate a milestone anniversary for them. It was a lot of work, especially to keep it secret, but it was well worth it! We sent out tons of invitations and had about 150 people show up. Alan and my other brothers strung countless Christmas lights and Japanese lanterns across the ceiling, and my sisters decorated with tea lights, roses, ribbons, and pictures that we stole from my parents' house.







There was a also a beautiful video with songs and pictures from my parents' courtship, delicious eclairs and cheesecakes for treats, and even a fancy wedding cake with chocolate-covered strawberries that I had Alan's cousin make.





We love you, Mom and Dad! We hope the night was magical and that you felt loved.

Still Alive

I've had a couple comments from friends that I haven't blogged much lately. We are still here. Right now we have 2 very slow computers and are trying to figure out what to do: wipe our 6-year-old laptop clean (after saving everything on an external hard drive) and try reloading everything in hopes that it will be faster, or just buying a new computer. It has been really frustrating. Sometimes I get on the computer to send an important email and then I get off of the computer 45 minutes later without having been successful at sending it (rebooting the computer and just waiting and waiting for pages to load up or for programs to end....) It is ridiculous.

Anyway, I have so much to blog about but no patience to do it. We went on a couple of fun vacations in July (one with Alan's whole fam and one with mine), Jared had a birthday, and we did lots of other fun things. Maybe someday I will share it with you.