Tagged

Well, 'J' apparently tagged me, so I must comply. I don't know the rules, and even if I did I can't promise I would follow them. As with most of my posts, I don't know how long it will be before I get bored with writing, because I write until I get bored, and usually people get bored long before I am done, so here is my tag post.

1. I love to talk/teach in front of large or small groups. Give me a topic (but it isn't required) and the amount of time you want me to talk and I will go. I rarely get nervous talking in front of large groups. I actually look for opportunities to do it and I love it.


This leads me into number 2.

2. Where I thrive in speaking situations, I hate being in front of large or small crowds doing anything musical. Quick example. When I was a Deacon I was asked to lead the music in Priesthood. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was wearing a white shirt and tie, sitting with my friends. Bishop what's his name asked me to lead the music. I tried to get out of it, but no go. I realized no one really pays any attention to the person up there leading, especially the one playing the piano or organ. The one playing really goes at the pace they want and it is the job of the person conducting to keep up with them. The other reason there is a conductor is to give those singing something to look at. If there was no conductor people's minds would wonder and they would forget with they are doing. Anyway, I got up there and the second the electric piano began to play the sweat began to dance to the beat. I don't think any of this sweat was visible, but I sure felt it. I'm talking about pit sweat, and a lot of it. Remember the old Sure deodorant commercials? Well, if I was in that commercial at that time I would be unsure. So I refuse to lead music to this day even though I can, and I am terrified to play my violin in front of people as well, I just don't like to do it. My wife has only see me play a few times, that tells you how much I don't like it.

3. I just pulled part of a wart out of my wife's foot with needle nose pliers. That was fun. She is a baby, she wouldn't let me pull the rest because she was afraid she would lose too much blood.
4. My 18th birthday sucked. Lone Peak Soccer team 2000 hates me to this day and Lincoln Westcott is my best friend. Those who know what I am talking about know why I got offers to play soccer for colleges around the country.

5. Friendship. I value a good friendship like you wouldn't believe. If you are a friend yet only take, our friendship will be/is probably short lived. I view friendships this way: A friend is someone that would do anything for you at any time of the day or night when you are in need, and you would do the same for them. If that isn't the case, then that friendship is doomed to fail. If the friend doesn't care about me enough to give, then why should I care enough to give to them. I have many friends that fall into this category, and family is included. Those friends know who they are.

6. I have a twin.
As much as he believes that is true I do as well. Yes there are 17 years between us, but there is a bond. We look alike, we act alike and at times we talk alike. I have a deep unexplainable love for him, and when he is sad I am sad, and we can feel it. We love each other. I am not sure if we bonded because we look alike or if the bond was there before we realized the physical similarities, but the bond is there and it is real, and I know it goes well beyond this life.

7. I love popcorn. The biggest mistake my wife has ever made when it comes to our food budget was to buy me a popcorn maker for Christmas last year. We go through butter, popcorn, oil and salt faster than you wouldn't believe. We moved to Boise with over 2 gallons of cooking oil, we now have about 1/4 of a gallon of oil left. (Granted some of that oil went to making egg rolls and home made french fries, but trust me, I love it.)

8. I love my job. I love talking to people and reporting the things that are important to a community. I love being a person that people look to for an example. I like leading, and this job allows my personality to come out.

9. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I love serving in the church. I love helping people become better. Church on Sunday is fun to me.

Well, there you go. That is me being tagged. I know I could do the blanket tag, but that is weak sauce. So if the words Horned Frogs, Vi swa (I know I don't know French), mean anything to you, then consider yourself tagged, and if you think you know what that means, then you can be tagged too.

p.s. 10. All my love. :)

Photo Shoot

After my ride to the doctor today to look at the growth on my ear (cyst) I came back home and found my beautiful bride and some random kid on my bed. So me being the excellent reporter I began to ask questions. Once I realized they weren't talking, and they would only smile after my questions I thought I would start snapping some pictures on my iPhone. So here are a few of them. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.


The downside with the iPhone camera: if you move at all it goes blurry or fuzzy.
If you have a good investigative eye, you won't be fooled by the horizontal stripes on Tiffany's sweater, she is great with child. If you have a great investigative eye you will see the sweater is a few inches too short and her brown shirt is showing, hence her giggling. By Katie's face you can tell she knows about the sweater too, but she is trying her best not to let the cat out of the bag.


Yes, that is the Bob Evans hat, made for my dad. He's famous.


Like our new pillows with the nifty cases?

This is my smerk. If I was showing my teeth you would see I have a wicked cross bite when I smile. Brian, I have a patient for you. :)

One Exciting Week

Okay, so the week started last Sunday with my brother Dave, his wife and four kids meeting us at church on Sunday. They stayed with us through Tuesday morning. It was so much fun. We watched movies, played the wii, went and played in the church gym...had a trip to the hospital...everything turned out okay. One of Dave's kids had a problem with her eye. They got it taken care of. We even went to work with Scott and Dave, Michael and Sarah had a little photo shoot. It was really good to see them! So after they left on Tuesday morning I watched a four week old for a few hours and got to see what it is going to be like with two kids. It wasn't too bad Katie just wanted to touch the baby the whole time. I wonder how long it will take for that to wear off when we have a baby around ALL the time.
So Wednesday comes along and I clean up the house and that evening along comes...Mark and Jody! They came and stayed with us for Thanksgiving. It was awesome. Wednesday night Mark went and saw Scott at work while Jody and I made the pies for Thanksgiving...and when I say the two of us made them I really mean it was mostly Jody. Thanksgiving comes and we make the whole turkey dinner. It turned out really good. Scott said the only thing that was wrong with it was not everything could be hot hot because we only have one oven. The meal was great and we have been enjoying the leftovers ever since. (We went shopping for the turkey a little late and ended up with almost a 19 pounder) My fault. So we load the dishwasher and much to our surprise it stopped working. Great time for it! We left everything alone and went back to enjoying the day. Friday morning Mark, Jody and I got into the spirit of Black friday and left at around 4:45 in the morning and got back around 9. I ended up spending less than I saved so it was worth it for me. Saturday morning we lost our house guests and in came the dishwasher repair man...long story short I am washing by hand for a week and a half...we are waiting for a part to come in.
And Sunday we got to do one of my favorite things. Here is our lovely Christmas tree. I love Christmas time. We listened to the music and everything. It was a lot of fun...Scott watched Katie and I put the whole thing up, decorate and everything and he helped Katie with
the star. It was one crazy week and we had a ton of fun with everyone that came to visit.

Christmas

Sorry it has taken so long for me to post this, but here it is at mother's request:

Christmas gift giving/exchange/etc.
The pattern here is go up two and you have that person.

Brian & Natalie - Michael
Scott & Tiffany - Paul
Leslie & Jared - Brian & Natalie
Mark & Jody - Scott & Tiffany
Craig - Leslie & Jared
Steven - Mark & Jody
Stacey - Craig
Lisa - Steven
Michael - Stacey
Paul - Lisa

Let's try and keep the spending between $20-30. If that is too much please let me know. If you notice the younger kids aren't on here, and that was done on purpose. Since they can't tie their own shoes then they don't need to buy a gift. Also, Mom and Dad aren't on here, so we (Brian and I) wanted everyone who can, to chip in some money (Bling Bling) so we can get the parents something.

Please let me know if that works. We are thinking of getting them their own Xbox 360 for their room so they don't have to go all the way downstairs to get their fix.

Tagged

I guess it is my turn to tell a little something about myself...

Let's see

1. I have started to love to bake. It is so much fun. I love to make pies, bread, cookies the list goes on. It has gotten to be a fault this pregnancy though because I have a little bit of a sweet tooth so I will make these things and end up eating it all as well. Sure it takes me a few days but Scott usually doesn't get much of the goods.

2. I love doing things with my hands. Scrapbooking, sewing, doodling...not saying that I am great at any of them I just like to have my hands busy. It is hard though to be able to do them all that often because it is so expensive...that's where number three comes into play

3. I love shopping for deals. We get the Sunday paper and we use coupons all of the time. I think Scott is a big part of why I use more coupons now. We would use them on dates when we were going out. I guess it kind of stuck. I love finding good deals on the kids clothes. My sister told me about a place called other mothers and they have a 25 cent sale every month, so I have been able to get all of Katie's winter clothes and most of the babies clothes for 25 cents a piece. You can't beat that. 

4. I am a huge outside person. Sports, excercising, camping, swimming you name it and I love doing it. I love hikes too. I think mostly it is the adrenaline rush of all of these things but I love the challenge of most of the outdoor activities.

5. I love just sitting on the couch cuddling with Scott, we don't have to be watching a movie or anything I just love sitting with him. I think this has come from childhood when I would just like holding things. At night I would always cuddle with a teddy bear, pillow or something. It probably goes back to #2. 

6. I love to read.  I will read any sort of suspense or mystery or whatever. I like to try and figure it out before it actually happens. If the book can get me hooked in the first 10 pages I am good. If not, I will pick up another one.  I have to admit...I wasn't going to read the Harry Potter books when I first started...it took SO long to get to the story...good thing my sister kept me reading because I would have missed out on 7 great reads. I have just started to really enjoy the nonfiction side of things, I have been reading some of the church history books and really enjoy them.

If you haven't got tagged I tag you...It is fun to read about everybody, so I hope you enjoy the little tid bits about me.

Happy Halloween!!!

Last night we went to our ward Trunk or Treat. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Katie was our little ladybug. She was so cute. By the end of the night she was quite effective at trunk or treating. She would run from one car to the other grab the bowl and pull it down so she could see in, grab a few pieces of candy and put them in the bag that I was holding for her. It was so cute! I dressed up as the pregnant hillbilly...didn't really need a costume I guess. It was fun. Scott was of course a news man. He was only able to come for about 45 minutes but he definitely left his mark. The men in the ward had a chili cook off. Scott signed up and made chili for the first time in his life. It turned out really good. He ended up getting third place out of 12 or 13 pots of chili! I told him that he should be the one that cooks from now on.
I'll put the recipe on in case anyone wants to try it. It was a little spicy for my taste buds so if you don't like the spice you can alter it to fix it.

Scott's award winning chili! The pot was full at the beginning of the night...by the end it was one of the few pots that were scraped clean.

Scott's Chili

1 lb ground beef
1 lb hot sausage
4 cups tomato juice
30 ounces tomato sauce
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 onion, chopped
1/2 cup diced celery
1/4 cup diced green bell pepper
1/4 cup chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp granulated sugar
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

Cook up the meats and then just throw it all in a pot. Simmer for an hour and a half...enjoy.
He found the recipe on cooksrecipes.com but ended up changing a couple of things. What I wrote down was the variation. The title is Rich and Meaty Chili on the internet if you want to find the original.
Doesn't he look so excited? I made him get the picture :0)
Katie was so much fun! The only time she would wear the hat was for the picture. I put two pig tails in her hair right on top of her head so it looked like she had antennas without the hat on. Hope you all had a Happy Halloween!