Girl overload..

This last week has been a fun filled week. All of Todd's brothers were in town. We had a mini reunion last weekend up in Prescott with everyone. Talk about girl overload. Poor Shayne only has 2 boy cousins on the Smith side and they are much younger, but he takes it in stride and loves to play with them. We starting the weekend at Links Lake. All the kids went fishing. Emily gets the prize for most improved. By the end of the day she was no longer casting her line hooking Todd's arm or hat or face!
Megan and her cousin Tessa were two peas in a pod.

Shayne took full enjoyment grossing out his sisters and myself putting on these worms! Todd dared him to eat one.. I guess the price wasn't high enough!

Ashley was actually the best fisherman! I don't know how I didn't get a picture. She could cast her line farther than just about anyone!

We rented this little boats to mess around in. The peddle boat made for some great laughs. Todd and Mike peddling against the wind for a good 30 mins was pure joy! Doug opted for the power boat with all the girls, I don't know which one was smarter!

Me and Laura had our turn luggin the girls around... not quite as much joy! Of coarse the wind picked up when it was our turn!

We had a great time everyone in town! The noise level has gone down a bit. 28 people in one confined space makes for some loud but great memories! Thanks Laurie for planning the whole sha-bang!

Emily

How do you know your baby is growing up?? She starts doing her own hair! Today, Emily came downstairs all ready for school...outfit and hair created by her.

Notice the twist curl on the side of her head

Her version of Princess Leah without ever seeing the movie!

She even figured out how to use a crocodile clip!

Man I love this girl!

Are you smarter than a kindergartener?

Todd is the CTR 5 teacher... 7 kindergartners all to himself. Todd is such a great interactive teacher. The kids love him. Our Emily is one of the kids in the class so it makes it so much fun for Todd to be in there with her. If you know Todd, you know he is the king of bribery. Each week he has some sort of snack for those little ones. Yesterday the lesson was on following the Holy Ghost's promptings. He took each of the kids and blindfolded them and had another kid whisper into their ear to guide them around the room. Well after all the kids had a turn, Todd decided to blindfold himself and have the kids lead him around. After several minutes of vague directions and a bit of sideline whispering, he took off the blindfold. All the kids were laughing. He looked around to see what was so funny to discover the bag of candy he had brought for the kids was empty! Those sneaky little kids! While his eyes were covered our angel Emily, aka the ringleader, when and unzipped Todd's bag, took the candy and passed it out to all the kids. Todd discovered candy in every ones pockets and of course their mouths were stuffed full!! Too funny. Todd was offically outsmarted by a band of 5 year olds! I love it!!

It's whats for dinner tonight

So all that know me know that I love to cook and bake. Not only do I love to be in my kitchen, I love to create or warp recipes into my own little creations. I am so inspired by all those food blogs out there. I have my favorites that I visit on a daily basis to help me create my next recipe. Sometimes when I'm looking for dinner ideas, I'm like huh.. I don't have any of those fancy ingredients! So I've learned how to "dumb" down the recipe to work with my pantry. I really have a secret desire to be in a cooking contest or try to make it on that food channel, maybe someday.

My family loves all things Italian.. pizza, pasta, lasagna, spaghetti, you name it, we love it. I have perfected (in my eyes) my homemade pizza, even sold a few to some willing friends, and have many go to recipes that we love. So I thought it would be fun to post a tried and true recipes my family loves. Its a "go to" on nights like tonight when we had football, scouts, meetings and had to be done before the Olympics started! So I decided to start little. This is a family favorite.. a simple staple.. it's whats for dinner tonight!

Meatball Subs

1 1/2 lbs hamburger
1 pkg onion soup mix
salt and pepper to taste
1 clove garlic
1 pkg sub rolls (I get the fresh ones at WalMart)
2 C Italian sauce (I dress up the traditional prego brand with a little sugar, cider vinegar, fresh basil and garlic)
Fresh Mozzarella cheese

Combine the hamburger with the dry soup mix, garlic and salt and pepper. Roll into balls. Cook in a 2 in frying pan until brown. Remove from pan and set aside. Pour Italian sauce to pan to pick up drippings. Dress up the sauce with any extras (see above) if you desire. Add meatballs back to pan and let simmer for 20 mins. Slice sub rolls (careful not to cut all the way thru) and lightly butter them and sprinkle with garlic powder. Place rolls under the broiler until bread is slightly browned. Remove from oven and place meatballs onto the garlic bread rolls. Add fresh mozzarella and return to broiler until cheese is melted.

Whip these up next time you don't have much time! My family LOVES them. I'd love to hear some new idea's from all my blog friends. What's on your table tonight?

Four in One

The day has come... all four of my kids are in school! Not to mention the same school. For one year only, they will all attend the same school. I feel like this is my last year of really knowing what is going on. Next year its like feeding my son to the sharks. Junior high, are you kidding me.. but for now, Shayne is big man on campus and I'm so glad to have one more year of innocence with him. So since all of my kids are at the school, I guess I lost my mind and decided to be PTSO president! Yikes! Being president does have its perks though. Like my choice of classroom placement for my children, getting my two cents worth (or more) with the Principal, getting any and all info that happens on campus (although most of it I'd rather not know of) and I've got to meet so many great people that I would have otherwise never met. We'll see, I may be a one term president, only time will tell!

So I sit here, in the dead silence. Emily just left for her 1st day of Kindergarten and the others have been gone since 7:30 this morning. I have so many mixed emotions! I have loved having my whole family home all summer. We even got to have Todd home since he's in between jobs. We've been spoiled rotten having him around so much. Now what? After the cleaning is done and laundry is put away I'm not really sure if I'm going to like this silence! Okay, well for the next week or two I'm not going to complain too much, but for the rest of the year!! I'm finding myself in the next "stage" of life and I'm not sure that I'm ready. Sure this year will be filled with YW stuff and PTSO stuff and really Emily is only gone half of the day, but.... time flys by so fast!

I was telling Todd that I guess I have to figure out what exactly I want to do with the rest of my life. I've never really thought about it. It's always been my kids, now the scary thing is.. its all me. So I'm trying to figure out.... me... maybe I'll enter a weight lifting contest (totally kidding), or maybe I'll starting playing tennis more, or I've always wanted to go to pastry school, or maybe I'll go back to college, or ... My SIL Carrie, just started cosmetology school, same "new" stage as me, but she was so sure of what she wanted! I just don't know.. Thankfully I have one more year to figure out my future! Good thing, I'm going to need all that the time.

So here's to the first day of my "new" stage in life and my new found silence!