Jeremy's Birthday #36

Holy Cow! Jeremy can now officially round his life years up to FOURTY! I remember when that sounded so old! (Oh wait! It still does sound old...) he he

Jeremy's birthday was on Saturday 8/25.

*Tangent* Here in Australia they would say the date was 25/08 or the 25th of August instead of August 25th. It always messes me up when I read expiration dates since the day/month is backwards from the way I've done it my whole life.

Anyway, as you know, Jeremy is the 1st Counselor in the Young Men (YM) Presidency at church and the YM had their temple trip from Friday through Saturday evening. Jeremy went up to Sydney with them and had a blast! He said they had so much fun and really got a chance to get to know the boys better. When he got home Saturday night we had a little party waiting for him. We had shredded a bunch of construction paper up in the shredder and the boys and I threw it at Jeremy when he walked in the door. We hung balloons up with ribbon, hanging from the ceiling and had presents and cake waiting. The boys made Jeremy a card and each of them wanted to make a spider on it (which is ironic because of how much Jeremy dislikes spiders). Jeremy also got an Australia jacket that I've been proud of keeping hidden from him for a whole month! This family is no good at surprises, even though I LOVE surprises! I also printed out many of the photos we took from the boys little photo shoot earlier in the week and framed them. Jeremy ended up getting home a little later than expected on Saturday night so we missed being able to hang out with the Swift's, but they gave Jeremy an awesome KangaRang (a boomerang that is shaped like a kangaroo). On Sunday we had our Utah friends (the Wainscott's) over for dinner and had a little birthday dinner. Jeremy got about five new DVDs from them which means MOVIE night for us! Yipeee!

Jeremy's birthday weekend was a lot of fun! I hope you had a great birthday babe!

Love you! (Even though I now have no picture of you on your own birthday.)

***

PS. I am so mad at myself. I was playing around with the camera settings and reset the settings, and it deleted all of the pics from Jeremy's birthday off of my camera. :( Sad! I had some really cute ones of Jeremy and the boys holding all the presents up in front of the cake. I took these pictures of the "after party" when I let the boys play with the confetti (which probably won't happen too often after you see how much of a confetti explosion there is all over). We will probably be cleaning up confetti until the day we move out.

 I think Teagan looks exactly like Jeremy in the picture below. Despite his strawberry blonde hair and his white, white skin, I've always thought Teagan looked more like me and all of my kid pictures. But I think Teagan looks more like Jeremy here.

Feeding the Birds

Yesterday the boys and I made a bird feeder for all the beautiful, exotic birds that visit our yard. We put peanut butter on a toilet paper roll for each of them and then they got to roll it in sunflower seeds and granola. We put the rolls on a branch out in our back yard and then waited for some birds to come by. Of course we never saw one bird anywhere AT ALL after we made it. Birds are constantly in our back yard except for when we are patiently waiting and watching out the window ever 5 seconds for one to come. Go figure!

Today I finally saw some parrots come and eat off of the boys bird feeder and yelled for Teagan to come and see (because Tate and Steffan were napping). He didn't come, so I ran in to get him and lo and behold, Teagan was asleep too. Double Go Figure! :)

...So I took these pictures to show them when they wake up. After I ran to get the camera, I didn't get a picture of one of them 'actually' eating... I of course missed that too, but they were close to it in the picture. They didn't really seem to like it. They always eat the dandelions in the grass and the flowers from the trees, so I don't think seeds and granola are their thing. You have to look really close to see the bird feeders in the tree. Can you spot them?

 

Here's a close up.

 

Postie Bike

Did you know that Australian post (mail) is delivered via the Postie Bike? They do not have mail trucks like in the US. Teagan and Tate get so excited when they hear the Postie Bike come each day on their little Honda motorcycle. Rain or shine, they deliver on a postie bike.

The Ugly Truth Revealed

You know, there is one thing that I hate about reading other people's blogs... It's that it always makes me feel bad about myself and wonder why I can't do it all. Everyone else seems to have it all together on their blogs, don't they? They cook, clean, have nifty ideas that they came up with all on their own and it appears that they have the most amazing childhood dream laid out for their children each day. I bet those kids can't wait to get up and see what their moms have planned for them today. Does anyone else feel that way? I saw this on Pinterest today and it made me think of it.

I don't know if it like this for anyone else, but I find that if I'm reading someone's blog that I actually know... then it makes me feel even worse. It's "Inspiring" if it's someone I don't know. ha ha  (Why is that? Or is it just me?)

I have to remind myself that it's rare for people to reveal the "ugly truths" in their lives. And really, who wants to post the 'ugly truth'? It's not stuff you want to remember for the most part. It's like that line on the movie "Just Married" when they are looking at a picture book and his dad says something about how the good pictures/good times gets you from one picture to the next.

Well, I wanted to post about my "ugly truths" and I know this makes me extremely vulnerable to people's judgements, but here goes...

The truth is:

• I hate doing laundry and there is always a LARGE, OVERSIZED pile of it either waiting to be done or waiting to be put away. This has been my life long battle. But, it has proceeded to grow to insurmountable measures when you add the laundry for each addition to my little family. Jeremy does more laundry than I do.
• My kids fight constantly and it drives me nuts to hear them pushing each others buttons all day long.
• I have constant food on my floors and sometimes I don't clean it up right away because I am sick of cleaning it up every five seconds. This is something I never thought I'd do.
• My kids don't like to eat anything healthy. I really try to keep their junk food intake down to a minimum so that they can eat good meals, but sometimes they would rather starve than eat anything I have to make.
• I LOVE making treats! Whether it's to have a movie night with the family or take them to someone (or intend on taking them), I make a lot of them and I eat a lot of them! It is more fun (to me) than cooking something healthy. Everyone gets excited for treats... no one gets excited when you say, "Hey guess what? I just made this great recipe out of quinoa today. Want some?"
• Sometimes I'm so mad at my kids I want to send them far, far, farrrr away (like back to the USA) and then feel bad about it.
• Sometimes I would rather go days with out talking to my husband than to talk about what is bothering me because I don't want to fight about it.
• I'm perpetually late to just about everything. Even when I try, it seems that something happens that stops my efforts... like one of the kids will have a major poop blow out the moment we step foot out of our front door.
• I can't stand to hear my kids whining and crying. I have to send my children into the other room where they can cry and scream before they come out to talk to me ("talk" being the operative word).
• I'm in debt, I'm in debt, I'm in debt... I haven't used a credit card in three years, but the debt still follows me like a bad nightmare!
• I don't like to exercise. I like the way I feel afterwards and I like the feeling of accomplishment, but I never get excited to do it.
• I often feel like it's pointless to show up to church because I spend most of the time walking my kids around in the halls and don't always feel like I'm getting anything out of being there.
•  Although this is supposed to be "the time of my life" from what others tell me, sometimes it STILL SUCKS!
• Sometimes I find myself being fake to people only because I'm too afraid to let my guard down.
• I go to therapy and am always worried I'm doing something wrong that is going to mess my kids up forever.
• I miss my friends and family back home and want to hang out at their houses. I really miss that feeling of relaxing comfort and not having to worry if they like me when I'm having a good day or a bad day.
• When something comes up that I don't understand culturally here, I just pretend I do because it's exhausting to be the one that doesn't get it all the time.
• I'm sorry that I don't want to home school, but I'm looking forward to my kids "GOING" to school (going, going, going)
• I hardly ever do my hair and make up anymore. Sometimes I feel like it's a luxury to shower. I've been told this is a phase from my kids being young, but I don't like feeling 'non-cute' all the time. But when it comes down to how I spend my time, it doesn't seem to make sense to spend time getting ready while my children watch t.v. (since it's winter here) and then have absolutely no one see me. Why spend time doing it?
• And for the people that CAN do it all? Good for freakin' you! ;)

 BUT...

• I TRY EVERY DAY to be better! There's not one thing I wrote down above that I'm not actively working on. And when I succeed from one thing from the list, one new ugly truth will take it's place.

Who needs to smile?

Bet you can't guess which aunt gave us this shirt Tina? ;)

NASA: Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex

A couple of Saturday's ago we were invited to accompany some of our friends (The Wainscott's) to the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex for their little boys birthday. Their little boy turned four and the NASA center is somewhere he really enjoys going. It is only about 30-45 minutes away from our house. It was a great little birthday. They bought everyone lunch and bought our kids a little space ship to take home with them. Today, the Canberra space station stands alone as the only deep space tracking station in the southern hemisphere of the world. It is also the place that is providing all of the images for NASA's Curiosity rover, which safely landed on Mars, August 6, 2012. It takes 3 days to get to the moon and about 7 months to get all the way to Mars. I thought it was pretty cool that we could go and see something like this when there is not very many of them in the world. We even went home and watched the old 90's movie, "Contact" with Jody Foster, that night. There was a brief mention of the Australian satellite in the movie. Pretty cool, huh?

This pic of Jeremy holding Steffan is adorable! Steffan is such a CUTE baby!!! I can't hug him enough. I don't want him to get bigger. Can he be a baby forever?

You can see this picture was taken before my boys had their nice hair cuts. Their hair was sooooo looooong! Too long! It just costs so much to get their hair cut that we waited until I couldn't stand it anymore (that and because Jeremy decided to attempt cutting both boys hair himself while they were standing in the shower one day... uhhh). We don't have the luxury of having friends and family that cut hair here like in Utah. It's about $25 for each of our kids to get their hair cuts at a place like Super Cuts. Can you believe that?

ANYWAY, that had nothing to do with NASA (ha ha)...

Something else that was kind of cool is that they also had a small rock from the moon that Neil Armstrong got after he first landed on the moon in 1969 for you to view.

After we left the satellite station, we went back to have birthday cake at the Wainscott's. They are from Layton, Utah and will be moving back home in December of this year. I'm excited that we will have some Aussie friends near by when we move home.

Pre-Birthday Photo Shoot

Jeremy's birthday is coming up at the end of this week, so the boys decided (maybe with a little help from me) they wanted to give their dad some new pictures of themselves. I'm no professional by any means and I don't have any special sort of camera... But I think they turned out pretty good. I'm going to enlarge my favorite one at Costco and frame it on our wall.

I always have a hard time getting Tate to smile. Every time I tell him to smile, it's like he doesn't know how to and gives me a really fake smile.

This next one is my favorite out of all of them.

Book Review: Escape, By Carolyn Jessop

 RELEASE DATE: October 16, 2007

The dramatic first-person account of life inside an ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect, and one woman’s courageous flight to freedom with her eight children.

When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church that had settled in small communities along the Arizona-Utah border. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy.

Carolyn’s every move was dictated by her husband’s whims. He decided where she lived and how her children would be treated. He controlled the money she earned as a school teacher. He chose when they had sex; Carolyn could only refuse—at her peril. For in the FLDS, a wife’s compliance with her husband determined how much status both she and her children held in the family. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. No woman in the country had ever escaped from the FLDS and managed to get her children out, too. But in 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name.

Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive their followers the right to make choices, force women to be totally subservient to men, and brainwash children in church-run schools. Against this background, Carolyn Jessop’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did she manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.
*Click HERE for the referenced link of the info above. 

***

MY REVIEW:

I rarely read for leisure because I feel like there is always something else I should be doing. The last time I really read a book that was NOT self-help was five years ago (this month) when I went on a 30 mile hike/ 3 day camp, to the Wind Rivers in Montana with my friend Angie. I had nothing else I could possibly be distracted with (cell phones, email, text, etc) and read the Kite Runner while we were there.

A couple weeks ago we were at our Utah friends home, Brian & Andria. Andria, was feeling sick and Brian was out of town, so we brought over some dinner and chatted for a minute at the door. She asked me if I had watched any of the reality show, Sister Wives, which I love watching although it is so twisted from my actual religious beliefs with the polygamy and all. If you are not up on what Sister Wives is, here is a clip from TLC about it.

Apparently “Sister Wives” is also part of the FLDS but are a different sect than what Carolyn Jessop came from. At any rate, Andria handed me this book and said, “Read it!” I didn’t know if I would get around to it, but finished it in 4 days.  Once I started, I couldn’t put it down!

The book was maddening and very emotional for me. I gained a greater appreciation for the life I have and am so grateful that I was not born into a situation like that. I have been thinking a lot about it since I finished the book last week and have even gained a greater testimony and appreciation for our church and our church leaders and their goodness and graciousness. I am sickened by the corruption of the men in the FLDS church and how degrading they are to women and how they take their priesthood power as a type of authority over another person. I am baffled how so many people could be totally and completely brain washed into thinking that this is right or OK.  If you get a chance to read this, I would definitely recommend it!

She has a new book out called, "Triumph" to talk about how her life has been after her "Escape". I will have to read that now.

More Teagan Talk...

Teagan: Mom, we made a bridge and are walking on it. It’s very dangerous!

Me: What are you walking over?

Teagan: Nothing... well, it’s not very dangerous, just a little bit. It’s very wobbly. We just need something to hold it up. Bye mom.

(sounds safe)

----

About 6 years ago, my step brother passed away from a drug overdose. I sang the song, “I know that my redeemer lives” at his funeral. On Sunday we were listening to church music and that song came on. I said to Teagan, “Did you know that mommy had a brother that died a long time ago?” And Teagan said, “Did he die from a shark eating him?”

(lol. Jeremy had just been watching some shark attack show on t.v. and had just mentioned that he thinks it might be scaring Teagan and maybe shouldn’t watch it.)

----

Yesterday the boys got into my Mary Kay Night Cream which is super expensive for a small amount, a bottle of baby powder and an entire bottle of pain cream. They smeared it all over toys, the carpet, their clothes, their beds, MY bed and in the living room. The whole time I thought they were being so good watching a movie. We had gotten back from our play group and then they ate lunch and took naps so I thought they were just being good and content from a busy day. 

When Teagan came in I saw he had something all over him and they smelled like mint (pain cream). I got up to see what was going on and then kind of freaked out. Teagan said, “Sorry mom, I didn’t know!” And I said, “Yes you DO know. You know better than that.” Then Teagan said, “Tate did it!”

I told the boys they were cleaning it all up. I started barking orders and telling them what to do and where to put stuff away and to get wet towels to start cleaning things up. Teagan actually enjoyed it and started saying, “Ok Sir! What’s next sir!” At the time it made me a little madder because he wasn’t getting how mad I was. So, I said, “...AND I’m taking some of your toys away too.” Well that did it. It made Teagan very angry. He started growling and yelling at me and said, “I’m sooo mad at you mom! I’m mad at your face! I’m not going to play with you anymore... and I’m not going to play with daddy either!  ...And I’m going to ruin your shoes!” I said, “You better not ruin my shoes or I will take more toys away.” And Tea responded, “Tell me mom... tell me what toys...” I was a little puzzled thinking, “Are you just checking with me to see if ruining my shoes is worth the toys that are getting taken away?”

----

Why do kids want to pile as much crap as they can find in the biggest pile in the smallest room you have. Teagan and Tate just piled every blanket and pillow and random other items in the smallest room we have as high as they could. Then they came out and got me and wanted me to close my eyes and yelled “SURPRISE!” when I opened them. Teagan said, “Are you so happy Mom?

Learning About Colors

This activity was a spin off of something else I saw on Pinterest about mixing colors. The original post mixed colors by letting the water creep up a paper towel into another cup with another color to watch it mix. This is too slow to do with a 3 year old and 2 year old. So we did three cups of water with Red, Yellow and Blue and then mixed them to make the other three colors. They liked it so much we did it three times.

Carey's Cave

It's been awhile since we have taken one of our day trips and I was kind of missing it. This last weekend we went to Carey's Cave in Wee Jasper with the Swift Family. It was about 2 hours away from our house. It was a really cool cave, but probably not cool enough that I would recommend anyone going to see it if they come visit us. It was a 1 1/2 hour tour and just about 1 hour and 15 minutes too long for the kids to sit through. Plus the cave guide didn't seem to like kids much and kept making parenting comments which I didn't fully appreciate. He thought he was being funny, but for me... not so much. At any rate, I'm glad we went. I always enjoy going somewhere new. The boys still thought it was fun to see all the cool rocks inside and ran around.

Tate has no fear. He marched right in to that big, dark cave in front of all of us with out knowing at all what he was doing, where he was or where he was going. He was the first one to head on in. Teagan is so different than that. He hid behind Jeremy and waited to see what was in there and what, if anything was going to happen. Often we have found Teagan has crawled into bed with Tate because Teagan gets scared at night and Tate doesn't seem to be afraid of anything.

Later that night when we got home, we actually headed over to the church for Samoan Night. I wasn't too keen on the food because although I may have Tahitian blood, I'm not much of a Polynesian. Most of the food was sea food, raw fish, taro and a few other things I'm not sure of. I did try some of it, but politely didn't eat much. :) After our big Saturday adventure, Teagan and Tate were so tired for church the next day. It made it a LONG Sunday. However, Teagan fell asleep on the way home from church and didn't wake up until the next day. Woo Hoo! :)

Italian Zucchini Pie

There are a few reasons I am posting about Zucchini Pie.

1. I LOVE Zucchini Pie!
2. It reminds me of my grandma's house when I was younger
3. My husband LOVES it!
4. My kids will eat it... 

Whenever my Grandma Pat let me choose what I wanted her to make for dinner when I was little, I would ALWAYS choose Zucchini Pie. My husband is not a fan of zucchini so I have never made it. He told me to stop trying to cater to what I think he will and won't eat and to just make what I want and promised me he would always try it. Well we got some zucchini the other day so I asked my Grandma for her famous recipe. Jeremy tried it and LOVED it! We ate more than half of the pie ourselves! Teagan of course only liked the crust and Tate ate only the filling... so between the two of them, they ate a whole piece.

Here is the recipe if you would like to try it yourself. My grandma got it in Relief Society when she was living in Illinois about 28 years ago and said that it won a $25,000 bake off for a Pillsbury contest.

For crust:   
1 pkg. Pillsbury Cresent Rolls rolled out and pressed into pie plate.
OR 1 unbaked pie crust  (your choice) *I used a pastry crust dough already made from Costco

Press into 10" pie plate
Spread w 2 tsp. mustard *Which I forgot to do now that I'm reading through this again

Pour in filling and bake 18-20 min. at 375 degrees
Use foil to cover edges last 10 min.

Filling:
4 C sliced Zucchini & 1 C chopped onion......cook and stir in 1/3 c olive oil *I used a little less

While cooking zucchini and onion, add:
4 c chopped parsley or 2 T parsley flakes
1/2  tsp. of salt & pepper
1/4 tsp. of garlic powder, basil, & oregano.

Combine 2 beaten eggs with 2 cup cheese *I used half Mozzarella and half Mexican Cheese blend
Add to above mixture

Pour in filling and bake 18-20 min. at 375 degrees
Use foil to cover edges last 10 min.

How it all began...

I was looking through my old blog and came across this awesome pic's of me and Jeremy on our first date. We went out on our first date on Halloween. Jeremy was dressed up like a beer girl in a dress and I was dressed up like a mobster. I had been dressed up like that all day at work and changed in to the bare minimum of my costume to go out in public for dinner. I remember I was cringing inside about Jeremy's costume but of course didn't say anything until after we were married. ha ha Jeremy's roommates also dressed up like girls and we all went out in a big group. We ate at Chilli's and then went to a couple of haunted houses after.

Tara's Costume Awesomeness?

5 Star Rating
Plus, I had a gun!
So... make that a 6 Star Rating

Jeremy's Costume Awesomeness?

I will let the public decide.

Keep in mind that his beer girl boobs were coming out all night and he kept shoving them back in. Also remember that he was walking in heels like a guy. ;)

I think the question you're looking for is, just "HOW" did it all begin?

 I'm just kidding honey. I love you more than life itself!

Pumpkin Creativity

If you read my "All About Food" post, then you saw that I couldn't find canned pumpkin the day I wanted to make mini pumpkin pies for Family Home Evening. I saw some good ones on Pinterest that looked easy and fun to make with the boys. Both boys (especially Teagan) look forward to Monday/FHE nights because they know we get to make a treat that day. Anyway, since there was no canned pumpkin and I wasn't about to go to the effort of using a real pumpkin and cooking, cleaning, smashing it up... I looked down the baby food aisle and got my secret weapon---

BABY FOOD: Heinz Pumpkin, Sweet Potato & Carrot!

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes- no separate filling, just one batter, which creates a crust-like outside with a custard-like center. Top with whipped cream and cinnamon.

It worked perfectly and you couldn't even tell the difference. I had to put in a little bit more flour so that it would thicken up a bit, but other than that, no one would've known. I didn't tell Jeremy until after he ate it and told me how good they were. :)

Here is the link for Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes if you want to try making them for yourself.

It was a good day...

A few weeks ago we decided to take the boys to Questacon. It was a good day to go because they were doing a Dinosaur Puppet Show that day. I took the worst pictures for it cause you can hardly see the anything in the pic's above. The kids enjoyed it. They gave everyone a chance to go up and talk to the puppets after the show and Teagan wouldn't dare. He is not a risk-taker. Tate never thinks twice about doing anything... which is good and bad at times. He wasn't giving the puppets any sort of a smile and he wouldn't respond to them when they spoke to him, but he was very excited to go see them. He was just giving them "that stare down" you see in the top pics.

After we left Questacon we walked around. Just across the street is the Australian National Library. It is a very large building (that has nothing inside for kids to do), but the kids enjoy running around outside because of the water fountains. You can see we went on one of the better/warmer days. It's been so cold here that last week. It's been in the 20's and 30's. Brrrrrr! I can't wait for it to warm up (but not excited for it to warm up for the spiders to come out and play).

Side Track: On that note, I'm happy to say that when we got our first electric and gas bill (per my previous post about costs), it was only 1/3 of what other people in our ward's bills were. For both, it averaged about $200/mo for gas/electric. So, we were very conservative! But, it was also fall and wasn't too hot or too cold for most of the time and we dried our clothes on the line 90% of the time and didn't turn the heater on hardly at all. I don't know if I can say that since it's been in the 20's and 30's more consistently as of recent. So we will see what are next bill is like... that one is going to be the kicker.

Tee-Tee Did It

I don't have very many conversations that make enough sense to put up of Tate, but I had one today.

Tate: Mommy... cereal mommy
Me: Tate I don't like to give you cereal because you always dump it on the floor and make a big mess.
(Both boys like me to give them Crunchy Nut cereal in a cup and like to eat it dry/no milk)

Tate: I no make mess mommy.
Me: Ok Tate. Please eat it and don't let any cereal get on the floor. (...knowing well enough the inevitable is going to happen.)

***About 5 minutes later...***

Tate comes back in the kitchen and says...

Tate: Mommy... Big Mess... I did it mommy.

Me: Shocker
(I walked out into the living room to see it.)

Me: Tate, it makes me really mad that you dumped out all your cereal when I asked you not to.

Tate: Tee-Tee Did It!
Me: No... You did it.
Tate (In a high pitched, innocent voice): I did it???
Me: Yeah, you told me you did.
Tate: Why?
Me: You tell me why.
Tate: Tee-Tee Did It!