Family Pics

My sister in law Carrie took our family pictures this last weekend. She took them out at Goldfield Ghost-town. It was a really cool place for pictures. The only problem was that Tate was totally being a stinker and he wasn't cooperating at all. It didn't help that we started at 4 PM right in the middle of what should have been his nap time. Also, I don't think that he was feeling to great. I'm HAPPY though because Carrie got a REALLY GOOD picture of Bryan and me. Oh and we did get a picture by Mater!

Superstition Sunrise!!!

Tate and I woke up REALLY EARLY the other day and sat in the spa while watching the SUN come up over the Superstition Mountains! It was seriously the funnest thing ever. Were going to have to do it more often.

Too bad Bryan can't join us in the mornings. This week he's been starting work from between 12 Midnight and 2 AM. It's been a little crazy for me because I have a hard time going back to sleep when he leaves. So mostly I have just been staying awake and trying to survive on like 5 hours of sleep.

So, it's extra relaxing for me to get to sit in the hot tub! It's just hard to keep from falling asleep while in there...

Family Picture Pedigree

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE doing family history work. Okay, I can't say that I've done much "true research" at all. But, I do enjoy reading family histories and looking at old pictures. Someday soon I would love to learn the ins and outs of it all! It would be REALLY COOL to actually bring my own family names to the TEMPLE...

I put this little picture pedigree together. It's been really fun trying to figure out who looks like who!

It may be a little hard to tell from this picture of my brother Thomas, but I think that he looks REALLY SIMILAR to our Great Great Grandpa John Thomas Craner.

What do you think? Any guesses on who I look like? I haven't quite figured that one out yet.

It's beginning to SMELL a lot like Christmas!

Don't you just LOVE the smell of Christmas? I'm talking about cloves and cinnamon, christmas trees, hot chocolate, candy canes, and the smell of an open fire. It's one of my favorite things about this time of year.

Here's one of my favorite recipes for making a "Simmering holiday Spice" that will really put you in the Christmas mood!

• 1 small lemon, sliced
• 1 small orange, sliced
• 2 (3 inch) cinnamon sticks
• 2 Tbsp. whole cloves
• 1 bay leaf

Slice orange and lemon and mix all ingredients with 1 quart boiling water. Simmer on stove for holiday scent. Renew by adding fresh water.

Priorities!!!

BeforeAfter

Sometimes I spend my time doing the oddest things-like editing photos for hours on end. Bryan keeps reminding me of Dallin H. Oaks' talk from Conference on "Good, Better, and Best". Well, I guess my priorities are way off because right now this seems to be TOP PRIORITY and the best use of my time!

Maybe one of these days my priorities will change to something more important like keeping my house clean or making some money, etc.

Crayon Cozies

IF YOU'RE FAMILY-CLOSE YOUR EYES AND STOP READING!!! j/k

It's not even Thanksgiving yet, & I'm totally thinking about Christmas...

We're going to TRY to do HOMEMADE GIFTS this year because they are inexpensive and they are usually the BEST gifts anyway!

So today I got all CRAFTY and decided to make some cute crayon cozies. I got together with my Mom while Tate was at Preschool, and we just sewed away! My Mother is a FABULOUS SEAMSTRESS and I always learn a ton when I sew with her.

We only got one made-but I think that it turned out pretty cute! Click HERE for the tutorial.

I couldn't wait till after Christmas to show this. Just thought I'd share the idea incase anyone else wanted to make these.

Thanksgiving Rolls

If you want to make mouth-watering dinner rolls with your Thanksgiving meal, try this recipe. It's the best!!! And, it's not hard-ANYONE CAN DO IT!

Ingredients:

3 C. Milk

1 C. Potato Flakes

1 Tbsp. Salt

3/4 C. Sugar

1/2 C. Butter

4 Eggs

7-8 C. Flour

1 1/2 Tbsp. Yeast

Instructions:

Scald Milk, Melt Butter. Place potato flakes, salt, sugar, milk and butter in mixer. Stir briefly and bring mixture to a lukewarm temperature.

Add eggs, yeast, and flour 1 Cup at a time, mixing well between additions. Mix until dough pulls away from the side.

Place dough in a large greased bowl, cover lightly with saran wrap, and let rise until doubled in bulk.

Smash dough down, and form balls for rolls.

Place dough balls on greased cookie sheet-spaced evenly. Let dough rise again. No need to cover them this time. Rise until they look about the right size to eat.

**Okay I know my cookie sheets look so gross and nasty. They aren't dirty I promise, just stained.

Bake at 375 for 9-11 minutes. Remove from cookie sheet, brush tops with melted butter, and allow to cool.

This recipe makes approximately 40 large rolls. So, don't get carried away and eat them all at one sitting!

Hope you all enjoy this recipe...This has been a favorite of mine for years now

Ü

Track your Walking-This is AWESOME!

Have you ever gone on a walk/jog and wondered how far you actually went and how many calories you burned? Well, my Father-in Law introduced me to Gmaps Pedometer. This is a REALLY REALLY REALLY cool website that I've been having so much fun with.

Now I know that I've been walking 4.2798 miles and that I've been burning 426.74 calories every time I walk! Yeah me!!!

Click HERE if you want to try it. If you click on the "Hybrid" mode in the top right corner of gmaps pedometer, then you can see your house, trail, etc. really close. It's pretty cool!

Hope you have as much fun with this as I have!

Oh wow, I just found some stats that are really interesting...

Holland - 45% of daily travel on foot or by bicycle.

Sweden - 33% of daily travel on foot, 10% by bicycle.

France and Italy - More than 25% of their daily travel is on foot.

USA - Roughly 5% of people's comings and goings are on foot.

Tate's Traumatic Experience

Bryan's Mom bought Tate a ton of new clothes! They are almost all VERY CUTE, although I had my doubts about the outfit featured above. Well, yesterday all the laundry was dirty and these clothes were clean, so I had Tate wear them to Preschool. BIG MISTAKE! I was really good about not mentioning to Tate that I didn't really care for the clothes he was wearing. Anyways, after preschool on the ride home Tate said "I'm never wearing these pants from Grandma Stradling ever again!" He sadly said, "The boys at preschool didn't like my pants-they kept saying NA-NA-NANA-NA WE DON'T LIKE YOUR PANTS!" When we came home, he literally cried for 1/2 hr. straight. Neither Bryan or I could console him! I felt so bad for him! Seriously when did 3 year olds start caring so much about who's wearing what?

Fun Morning Hike

I started something new... Three times a week I'm walking with some of my neighbors. It's been lots of fun so far. Yesterday, I had an idea to hike "Silly Mountain" instead of doing our regular around the community walk. So that's what we did. I'm not sure how many of you have been there, but it's a really nice hike. I mean it's really quite steep, but it's also pretty short. It was lots of fun! Tate hiked the entire way up and down. I am really proud of him! He got pretty tired at times, and kept asking to take a break...
and play in the dirt. But isn't that what boys do best?
We were happy to finally reach the top and take a real break.
This is the view from the top. It overlooks the city, and it's really pretty! Tate figured out how to get down the mountain pretty easily. He just sat on his bum and went down the slide!!!
We'll definitely have to hike this one again!

Fraser House Part 1

When Bryan and I were first married (and for the first 2 years of our married life), we lived in a cute little apartment in Mesa that was really close to the temple. It was a home that had been made into a triplex. The part we lived in was no more than 900 sq ft, and we paid a total of $300/month. Can you imagine that? And that was only 6 1/2 years ago.

Anyhow, we had a double bed and so we were forced Ü to sleep very close together. If one of us had to roll over, it would usually wake the other up. One night, I rolled over and was very quickly awakened by Bryan grabbing me by my shoulders and neck and shaking me REALLY HARD. I was soooooo scared being the middle of the night and half asleep myself, I screamed. Thankfully that woke him up and he stopped and proceeded to tell me that he had been dreaming that he was in a truck that was being mugged. He thought that I was the bad guy and he was attacking me. So that's a story that I'll never forget!

We really didn't take very many pics of the apartment (at least I couldn't find them) so here's a few that we do have...

This is our little bathroom. Sorry for the crazy pic of me (Bryan totally caught me off guard while I was washing my face).

This was our kitchen. There was NO DISHWASHER which was a nightmare in and of itself for me. I was really glad whenever I got the dishes done!

Oh, and the fire alarm was just around the corner from the oven, so it would go off just about every time I cooked-dumb thing.

This was our living room/study. Bryan and I were both in school while we lived there, so we always had a ton of homework laying around, etc.

So yea, there's our little apartment on Fraser St. in a nutshell.

Newest Pages

I'm having so much fun catching up on Tate's scrapbook (seeing as I started doing the whole digital scrapbooking thing 3 years after Tate was born)! Here's some more pages I've finished recently.

The Good Ole Days

I've been sorting through all of my pictures and trying to organize them. Here's a good one that I came across. This is ALL of my siblings!

I can remember very vividly road trips with my family. We had an old old suburban and the fabric ceiling was always falling down. Six kids on one bench was not always typical, but either way we were usually quite crowded (no wonder James was crying). The AC rarely worked, we just rolled ALL THE WINDOWS DOWN; which explains the hair in my mouth.

Despite all of that, we did have lots of fun together and believe it or not, this is a REALLY GOOD memory for me.

(Aaron, Thomas, Jonathan, Christina, James, and Me)

Meet Rascal

Hi, my name is Rascal. I was born on September 1st, so that makes me 9 1/2 weeks old. My family loves me very much, even though I can be a stinker some times. I love playing in the backyard and chewing up all of Tate's toys! Eating things is what I do best. I zip through the house eating whatever I can find on the ground (pennies, rubber door stoppers, marbles, etc). My favorite thing to eat is manure that I find in Mom's garden, I also like to eat big sticks. Oh, and grass is another favorite!
When Mom rubs my belly, I just hold still and relax-I love it. I also like to be rubbed right behind the ears.
My favorite place to go potty is on the nice soft carpet. I hold it until Mom lets me in the house. I can't understand why, but that makes her mad for some reason. Mom says that I'm supposed to go on a potty pad but I would rather eat it, they taste yummy!

Here's a little clip of me playing soccer-I'm really good.

My LUCKY Day!

My friend Jodi called me this morning and asked if I would be a model for her beauty salon. They hired a professional hairstylist from Scottsdale to come and teach their beauticians some brand new cuts, and they needed someone to work on. I had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into, but I'm soooooooo glad that I agreed to do it for her. When I got there, I learned that the man who was going to cut my hair travels ALL OVER THE PLACE doing shows and teaching the best techniques, etc. (He actually just got back from VEGAS doing a show there). His haircuts run from $150-$175, and I got it all for free! Also, just for helping out-Jodi gave me 2 FREE products for my hair! I feel so spoiled and I absolutely LOVE MY NEW CUT, it's so easy to do and very manageable!!!

Eating Make-Shift Smores

What do you do when you're craving smores and you don't have any graham crackers? Use A TON OF CHOCOLATE ON BOTH SIDES of the marshmallow of course!

Tate's Bedroom

I've been working on painting Tate's bedroom for a while now, and I'm finally getting close to being done! I still need to finish the black and white checker border at the top of the wall by the ceiling. Sometimes it's just hard to find the time for everything that I want to do!!! I'm sure I'm not the only one...

Counting Candy

I think we need to work on counting a little bit! Who ever heard of ELEVENTEEN? I think it's so cute! Oh, and listen to his voice, it just keeps getting higher and higher and higher-too funny!

Halloween Recap

Halloween was fun! I dressed up for my first time on Halloween Night since Junior High. When I was twelve, my parents told me that I was to old to trick-or treat, so I kind of figured that there was no point in dressing up-boy was I wrong :) We had so much fun FINDING THE MATCHING SWEATERS AND PATCHES and then wearing them!Here's our little family; of course Tate wouldn't smile for anything! He had woken up at 5 AM and he had no nap, and he stayed up until 10 PM, so he wasn't the happiest dinosaur around...
Here's Bryan as Draco Malfoy. Look at those EVIL EYES!
Me as Hermione Grainger. I couldn't get my hair to look like hers, but it was fun trying.

And here we are together!

My AUNT ELLEN has a HUGE halloween party at her house every year, so we went to that.

Her house was amazing (like always)! Just look at some of the decorations and try to imagine the entire house filled with similar things. It was AWESOME!!! I can't even begin to think of all the work she puts into a party like that.

My favorite thing was the GREEN CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN!