A walk around Temple Square

We weren't planning on stopping at Temple Square on this particular Friday but we had some time to kill in Salt Lake before heading up to the UofU to get Brent all registered for classes.  So anyway, we happened to have our camera with us and we got some nice pictures. I'm going to have to frame these first two even though I didn't have the boys in clothes I would have chosen for pictures and their hair is uncombed. Oh well!

After taking pictures I had the idea to call my sister to see if we could go with her to the COB cafeteria. It was a bit crazy and I felt like we were making a scene bringing in our two boys. I think Em had fun none the less and we had fun seeing her.

My brother's wedding!

My brother got married this month, it was a beautiful occasion and we are so happy for him that he found such a wonderful woman.  Brent and I weren't the photographers at this wedding, they wanted us to be in some of the pictures I guess. :)  Anyway, here are some that we took just for fun.

One of the cute kids. Together he and his new wife have six kids and their ages range from 4 to 10.  It's a bit crazy but they all get along really well for the most part and it will be a really good thing for all of them.

Don't they look good together? :)

And of course we couldn't resist taking some pictures of my cute little Grizzly Bear in his new tie. :)

Look, he's playing peekaboo! I love when he does that! My favorite is when he plays peekaboo by laying his head on my chest and then pops up  with the most adorable excited expression.

And yes, Griz and I have matching ties. ;) Isn't that an attractive look on me? lol Speaking of attractive, look at my cute little sister. :)

Well, I wish I had taken more pictures of the wedding, I guess I was too busy with the kids and talking to family and old neighbors.

You know, I just realized I forgot to post some pictures we took for table top reception pictures. Here are a few:

Love this candid one of them.  Congrats Nate! Welcome to the family Ellen and kids! We're so happy to have 4 new members of our family all at once! 

Sue's Hot Fudge

Sue, whoever you are. We love you here at our house. Thank you for coming up with a hot fudge recipe that my husband actually likes. This stuff is SO good. If you want to become the most popular person on the street whip up a batch of this beautiful stuff, make some brownies, serve it with ice cream, and invite your neighbors over for a party.

Ingredients

1 cup butter

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3 cups white sugar

1 (12 fluid ounces) can evaporated milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Combine the butter, cocoa, sugar, and evaporated milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and boil for 7 minutes while stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Don't skip this next step: Carefully pour hot mixture into a blender and blend for 2 to 4 minutes. Serve immediately and store in refrigerator.

Super easy to make! AND you have TWO dishes that you have to lick clean. What could be better than that?

my boys

This boy loves the dirt. Especially eating it.  I couldn't help but take a picture of the remnants of a muddy treat he was enjoying.

He could play outside forever if I let him. He loves pushing the dump truck and Chico's big wheel all over the yard.

 Our yard has been chuck full of toys this summer. It's funny because I'll be cleaning up when someone is coming over and I'll get the inside of our house looking pretty clean, then they come to the door and I open it and our yard is strewn with toys. Guess I have another "room" to keep "clean" for a few more months.

When Chico is begging to watch t.v., throwing tantrums, acting exhausted, etc. I open the door to the yard, and all is right in the world again.

FHE

We thought our car was broken down a couple weekends ago so we dropped it off at the repair shop in a really cool way that involved a big foam wedge strapped onto the front of the 4Runner early in the morning when traffic wasn't too bad.  I was the driver of the car and was slightly terrified of this whole situation but I did fabulously if I do say so myself. :)  Anyway, so our car was still in the repair shop on this last Monday so I had to drive Brent in to work and then pick him up.  I had the idea that when I picked Brent up for work we could swing over to the Church's Art and History Museum for a fun Family Night!  I made some clam chowder and bread bowls and we ate that at the park right after he got off work then we went over to the museum. The kids had a blast and we had fun capturing their excitement.

Please excuse the poor picture quality. (We didn't have a flash, it was extremely low lighting)

They love playing in the back of this truck with all the stuffed animal puppets.


I can't get over how funny that face is Griz has been pulling lately.  Silly kid!






They have these computers set up where you can paint an amazing landscape just like the featured artist! Chico loved it.




Griz can stand on his own!






And he loves pointing at things he's excited about (things he wants or things he wants to show you or places he wants to go).














We did some Spanish dancing and had a lot of fun.  Who doesn't love getting to wear a skirt like that!?










This 12ish year old girl kept hanging out with us while we were there so she could play with and hold Griz.  It was nice!


So, if you haven't been to the museum before and want to know more information send me an email! It's so much fun and it's free!

Grace

On a Tuesday in July I was having a rough morning with the boys and by 11:00 am I was needing to get out of the house badly. So, I threw the boys in the car and was going to go on a drive with them. Right as I turned on the car the BYU Devotional was beginning and Brad Wilcox was the speaker. I don't feel that it was coincidence that I was able to drive around in peace and quiet while listening to that talk.  He spoke about grace.  His talk has given me a whole new perspective and my understanding of the atonement has deepened.  Please listen to the mp3 or if that's not an option you can download the pdf. No matter what your association with the LDS church is, I think you'll get something out of it. It's an amazing talk.

http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1966

Crafty-type stuff

The curtains in this first picture are my pride and joy. Hours were spent on this project. Hours have been enjoyed sitting in my recliner looking at these curtains instead of the ugliness that is usually on the other side of that window.

Want to know how I made those curtains? Well, this is our comforter and I wanted something to kind of match it.:

So I drew the design on ironing paper. (Remember I was an art major in school, so that was the easy part). Then I ironed it onto the green fabric. Then I cut it out while watching The Biggest Loser with my family while Brent was in a night class. After hours of cutting it was finally ready to iron onto the white fabric. Then I hemmed it and put it up! ALL BY MYSELF! I was so pleased with how it all worked out. The curtains have been done for a while. I don't know why I didn't post sooner!

These next two are of the boxes I mod-podged. They've been done for a while too.  I had a bunch of free scrapbook paper given to me and since I do digital scrapbooking I put the paper to good use.

This box below was the first one I made and I covered every inch of that box.  I originally made it for Chico but after seeing the contention it would cause between the two of us (me yelling at him not to get in the box or draw on it) I decided I should just put some of my craft stuff in it. I gave myself a little area in our big closet for crafting.  I need to use it more often. Oh, and  you get a little sneak preview of my next craft project in the background there. I'm really close to having it done.

This box is bigger but didn't take me as long.  (I didn't do the inside or bottom). I patterned the tow truck off of one of Chico's toys which seriously just happened to be in the background when I was taking the picture! How funny is that!?

And lastly I made this wall hanging for my bathroom. It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped because you can see the wood through it but it's nice to have something on the wall finally. For some reason I'm not big into having pictures of people in a bathroom. I don't know why, maybe because my bathroom growing up never had pictures of people. I think it's fine when other people do, it's just not my thing.

Anybody else notice I've got a distinct color theme going on in these pics? And also, I used a different uploading company instead of Photobucket. Any problems with being able to see it anyone?

The rest of the Hatch Family Campout

We woke up and hurried and packed up our stuff so that it wouldn't get caught in the rain that looked like was coming. Then we ate a fabulous breakfast. Word, bacon on a grill on the fire tastes good. Just saying. Good job Christa.

This child eats with intensity. 

And his cousin E intensely loves him and loves to give him hugs. I've noticed that when Griz feels nervous he shoves his fingers in his mouth. (He also does it when he's tired or hungry).

After we cleaned up and packed up camp and played a few rounds of "Spoons", we headed down to the reservoir and Simon and Nate pulled out the fishing poles. C & K were eager to try out some fishing and the rest of us threw rocks or just took pictures.

It was so nice of Simon to share his poles

And it was so nice of K to let Chico try to use the pole too.

I told Chico to hold up his dinosaur for the picture. So cute. :)

Brent and Nate were skipping rocks and it was hard to say who could skip them the farthest.  We decided that if we want to have a true contest we'll have to time how long they skip rather than the amount of skips because it's hard to count the amount of skips once you get past about 8 because they're all so close together. :)

Griz got super grumpy after this point so I took off to try to get him happy at this point and we didn't get any pictures of Chico getting into the water. I think Christa got some though, so luckily I'll have those for our scrapbook. :)