is anyone else grossed out by this?

Family tradition dictates that the birthday boy or girl gets to choose what to have for dinner on their birthday.  After Luke's birthday I am seriously considering changing this tradition.

Luke's birthday menu...

mashed potatoes

Kraft macaroni and cheese

chicken noodle soup

I felt so sick after eating this meal.  The potatoes are to die for yummy (recipe here) but the combo of those three things was major starch overload.  Ick, I feel nauseous even typing this.

Here's to hoping his 9 year old palette will be more refined.

another school year

Oh the joy of the alarm clock early in the morning - Summer is officially over.  The morning started early with most of us waking at 5:30 am - yikes!

The morning wouldn't be complete without our traditional first day of school pictures.

Megan heading off for her Sophomore year.  Before long she'll be off to college and the thought of it makes me terribly sad.  Honestly, I am not sure why the school years seem to fly by so quickly. 

Emily starting her last year of Middle School.  This is hands down my favorite picture from the morning.  Her expression makes me smile.  She was laughing at someone coming up the front walk for a breakfast we were having (more on that below)

Nate, fifth grade - his last year of Elementary School.  My kids are all growing up so fast.
My little Luke is off to 3rd grade and heading there blind.  Late Sunday night his glasses broke and the office was not open on Labor Day.  I had no choice but to send him to his first day of school (at a new school) with poor eyesight.  I took care of it though so you can all rest assured that I am a fairly good mother (post coming)

Since the boys were heading off to a new school because of our move in April there were a few nerves bubbling.  During the Summer I tried to figure out how to make that first day of school a little better and decided to have all their friends from church that were going to the same school over for breakfast on the first day of school.

It worked out really well.  We all met at our house at 6:45 am and all the moms brought food to share.  It gave my kids a chance to start of the morning with familiar faces.

After breakfast we all walked to school together.  It was so nice for my kids to head to a new campus with friends in tow.

stan is the man

I'm not sure who Stan is but his little hole in the wall burger joint is a family favorite.

image via flickr

Usually after our traditional BYU bowling trip we head over to Stan's for a bite to eat. Derek ate here often as a student and then as a young married couple we ate here as often as finances would allow (which if I remember right was not as often as we would have liked)  Our kids now love it as much as we do and I'm sure it will become a favorite place to eat when they are at BYU.

We kept burgers, etc. to a minimum and loaded up on the really healthy stuff - fries, fry sauce and shakes.

The fries are amazing - click on the picture to enlarge and you'll be able to see all the seasoned goodness.  

The fry sauce is an always welcomed trip treat.  I'm still at a lose to figure out why all of America hasn't embraced fry sauce.  Why must we go to Utah to enjoy the pale orange tastiness?  Occasionally it is available at a local Target and others say make your own but it's just not the same.  What is wrong with the fast food world?  We want fry sauce, we want fry sauce!  Join with me in bringing fry sauce to the masses.

a family trip tradition

My mind doesn't compute in order therefor the next few posts of our family vacation will be out of order.

As is tradition for our family when traveling to Utah, we always go to BYU to bowl.  It is cheap, allows you to escape the horrible heat (Summer) or frigid cold (Winter) and we all have a fun time.

The last few times we have gone we started taking a bowling shoe family portrait (photo below from our trip in December)  We thought we were being so creative with the number 6 on the ball since there are 6 of us in our family but we soon realized most of our "bowling shoe family portraits" will all look the same.  Oh well, we still do it anyway.

But hey, look at this - the ball from this Summer's traditional bowling trip says 12, we have a different portrait - Yippee!

We happened to run into the Webber's (who live by us) and some of the Udall's (that used to live by us) in the BYU bookstore so we challenged them to a game of bowling.  Everyone was up for the challenge except Wendy and Beth, something about not eating all day and needing food. Do they not know that truly dedicated bowlers sacrifice their nourishment needs for the game? I happen to think they were just scared - the food was just an excuse. 

We played on 3 lanes, adding up each families score so that one family would be crowned the ultimate winner.  Since this is my blog I feel justified in saying the Bakers swept the floor with the Webber/Udalls.  If you talk to any of the Webbers or Udalls and they tell you different just know it is because they are bitter poor sports.  It was a Baker victory all they way.

To protect the innocent (and the bad bowling scores) names have been changed.  Most of us went with the Harry theme although there were constant name changes on one of the lanes - each time someone would finish bowling they would look up to check their score on the screen and find there name changed yet again.

It was another fun trip to the bowling alley, made better because we got to be with good friends.  Thanks Webbers and Udalls for hanging out with us!

really? you want that for dinner?

Today we are celebrating a birthday - Luke is 7! I can hardly believe that my baby is 7 yrs old.


One of our family traditions is letting the birthday boy or girl pick what we eat for dinner. Today I contemplated doing away with this tradition.


Here is what Luke picked...macaroni and cheese - not homemade, mind you (and I do make some pretty good homemade macaroni) but good ol' Kraft macaroni and cheese - the cheesiest! To round out the meal we had chicken noodle soup, corn and cantaloupe - a colorful meal if you like shades of yellow and orange. Not my favorite birthday meal in case you are wondering. I'm going to have to prep him a bit before he turns 8 so we can eat something a little more enjoyable.
He also requested a Lemon cake (there's that yellow color again - what's up with that?) with sprinkle frosting. He wanted a Pokemon theme and asked that Nate decorate the cake. I guess he's a kid that knows what he wants. I am assuming that Nate was given cake duty because Luke was probably worried that the rest of us did not have enough Pokemon knowledge to pull off a realistic cake.
I mean look at this cake. Does it not look like it came right our of a scene from the show?!?! I am sure I would never have pulled off such fine work - way to go Nathan!

So in honor of the birthday boy here are 7 things about Luke that you may or may not know...

1. Luke was my biggest baby weighing in at a respectable 10 pounds, 9 ounces. Yes, you read that right.


2. Luke is the comedian in the family although we let Derek think it's him.


3. Although Luke has the bottom bunk bed we very rarely find him in it when we go up to bed. He usually has set up camp in the hallway, on the floor in his room, Megan's rooms or Emily's room.


4. Luke can get his groove on like nobody's business. The boy has a mean booty shake.


5. Luke has an active imagination and can keep himself entertained for hours if he has some action figures, cars or other toys.


6. Luke picks nasty meals for his birthday dinners.


7. Luke is affectionate and cuddly. He is always willing to climb in your lap for a big squeezy hug.


Happy Birthday Lukey - we love you!

halloween phantom

Each year our family spends family home evening nights in October "phantom'ing" some people call it boo'ing. Our ward (church congregation) has done it for many years and our neighborhood does it occasionally. We combined out invitation delivery with phantom this last Monday so here are some phantom shots...The kiddos ready to deliver. They love the ding dong ditch part of being phantom. I happen to love it too. Why is it that we find joy in disturbing someones evening by ringing the bell and running? Oh, well - disturbing or not I think it is way fun.Here is a bad picture of the treats we left. I couldn't get the color adjusted on the computer but rest assured the cupcakes were orange not this nasty yellowish color. Keep in mind that when you phantom your identity remains a secret or should if you don't get caught. I am fairly sure that no one from my ward reads this blog (at least not the people we phantomed) so I believe our identity is safe and secure.

If you don't know how phantom'ing works you leave a note with the treats. At one home we didn't leave enough cupcakes for the family - we were one short, we just weren't paying attention. This picture is of Derek writing on our phantom note so we could go back and ding dong ditch again leaving only one cupcake to go with the 5 we had already left.

Our phantom note reads...

halloween time is here, hooray!
the las flores ward phantom has struck today
we hope you like this spooky treat
because we think you're really neat
hang this in your window for all to see
so the phantom strikes once, that's how it should be
wouldn't it be lots of fun,
if you'd be the next phantom to strike someone?
then what a happy loving sight...
a phantom in every ward members window
by halloween night!!

make two copies of this poem and deliver it along with some goodies to two families in the ward. please "phantom" in the next 2 days so that we can be sure every family is included - Have Fun!!

The words could easily be changed for your own ward or neighborhood. This is one of our favorite family traditions.