After five years of cheer, Lauren gets her first major injury! We are feeling pretty lucky about this because Cheer is pretty dangerous! She was doing of all things- a cartwheel and broke her little pinky toe. Which you would think this wouldn't be that BIG of a deal but she is on crutches and pain meds, poor girl! Which also means no Cheer for THREE WHOLE weeks. That seems to be the worst for Lauren and her team- they really count on her! If you miss a practice it isn't like dance where they just fill in your spot, all the stunts are dependent on each person, without one the whole stunt group can't practice. Not a great time with competitions right around the corner!

Blue Lily Photography

After being recommended several blogs this week...who knew how many bloggers were out there, I found this amazing photographer who lives in CA but does sessions in UT I quickly emailed her to see if by some off chance she would have any openings left and luckily she did! She keeps adding dates and times because she has had so many people asking for appts. I know she has a few times left so if you need your family pics done here is your chance! I thought she was pretty reasonable pricing wise but I am comparing this to WA prices so maybe Utahns won't. Speaking of WA, she is coming there as well so if you would like to get an appt. your in luck! I swear I am not making any money off of this, but I just think she is SO SO SO good!

Now for the blog links....WARNING: THESE ARE VERY ADDICTING!
http://www.bluelily.squarespace.com/
http://www.seriouslysoblessed.blogspot.com/
http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/
http://blog.cjanerun.com/

At least I am not as crazy as this mother!

I know I said we are cheer obsessed in my family but I think this mom took it to a new level. Follow this link to get the whole story....

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ipppcZU-H4xC9lQiAOQFSF-cfrdAD935H3G80


Thanks Molly for sending this to me!

LOTOJA 2008

This weekend Zak participated in the Lotoja which is a bike race from Logan to Jackson Hole. It goes through 3 states and is 206 miles long. It has some grueling terrain which I got to witness firsthand as his support vehicle driver. After dislocating his kneecap this summer in an unfortunate boating accident, he recruited our good friend's son Tanner to help him do the ride. Tanner is an impressive kid who is only 14 years old and rocked the whole last 67 miles out with his dad encouraging him the whole way. They finished in 12 hours 58 minutes. It was exciting to watch all of these amazing athletes push themselves as hard as they could go. It even inspired me to maybe try it next year! Okay probably in a relay team! Anyone want to do it with me?
The race started at 6 am, all the bikes had to have lights on them, just so they could kind of see. First hour is spent riding in the complete darkness with only small bike lights to guide your way. That's Mark Nordstrom with Zak!


The Amazing Relay Team!

Zak in Action!

The Support Team! That's Tanner's mom- Sydney


Victorious at the Finish Line!

Chloe's Political Views

Okay, so I don't want to start any controversies in the blog world, so having said that I thought it was funny to hear my 9 year old daughter and her views on who should become the next President. I will start by saying we discuss politics a lot in this home, for some reason Zak and I are obsessed with following all the latest, even when it is not an election year. I will give you a little glimpse of how crazy we are....we stayed up until 1:00 am last night to hear Sarah Palin's speech twice and then hear all the commentary about it.
So imagine my surprise when Chloe came in this morning (of course the TV was on the news) and said matter of factly, "I don't like Obama, he doesn't like this country and shouldn't you like the country that you trying to be president of." Okay, maybe we have discussed this in front of her, but I honestly cannot think of when it was. We had just had this discussion the night before as we were listening to the speeches, so maybe she is psychic. Either way, I thought she pretty much hit the nail on the head! Again, the reason why I LOVE this country is because we can all have our own opinions! If you have one let's hear it....leave a comment!

It was like a dream....

Okay, so anyone who knows me knows I HATE to cook. Why you ask, well maybe it was because I was raised by a mom who didn't have a clue in the kitchen and hired multiple people to cook for us while we were growing up. When we weren't being cooked for we ate frozen fish sticks and mac n' cheese or fast food. Can I tell you how excited we were when Dominoes Pizza invented home delivery! Sadly, I am carrying on in this legacy, but I don't really have an excuse of working a full time job to get out of this responsibility. Maybe the other reason I hate to cook is because Zak is never here and whenever I do cook, there is always some complaining which doesn't make me real eager to cook again. I will admit I am probably not that good at it and my meals are not made with love, but obligation to provide some sort of nutrition. Thankfully someone invented Dream Dinners.

It is a magical place where the meals are all ready for you to put them together, you just follow the easy recipe cards and dump all of the ingredients together and voila.... a healthy gourmet meal! Each meal only took a couple of minutes and after only one hour Zak and I had put together 12 meals. Of course there will be the cooking time but most only take about 20 minutes. Here are some of the meals we made..

Chicken Parmesan w/ Garlic Bread

Pesto Ravioli with walnuts

Pecan crusted Chicken

Asian Orange Chicken

Italian stuffed shells

Parmesan crusted Pork Chops

I would never even attempt to make any of this at home, not to mention all of their meals are less than 400 calories per serving. The total cost for all 12 dinners was about $200, I am pretty sure I couldn't buy all the ingredients at a grocery store for that. All of the dinners are 6 servings which will mean when Zak isn't home we will have leftovers which will provide another meal. I feel like one of those housewives in the 50's when they invented the microwave.....Yea for modern technology! If you want to check out the website here is the link.

http://www.dreamdinners.com/

Holy Moly Guacamole!

As Ethan would say....his new favorite saying among a few other choice ones that are not fit to put in print. I don't know where he learns these things, he certainly never hears them from me!
This week has been FULL of getting ready to get back to school activities. Here is a rundown....
1. School Shopping- all three kids need at least 4 or 5 outfits and 2 pairs of new shoes. Oh and underwear and socks.
2. Supply Shopping- I know Utah provides most of them, but they need to express themselves in their binders, folders and backpacks.
3. Dentist- All three kids get check ups and cleanings- all three have cavities. Whaaa! That means we get to go back for more appts.
4. Orthodontist- for Lauren-guess who gets braces in a couple of weeks? Zak voted to wait till she was 16 to cut back on potential suitors, but I thought that might be a little too mean. His fall back plan if she misbehaves then he will just shave her head. Yep, that ought to do it!
5. Haircuts- now that Lauren is older, we can't just go to Supercuts. We have to go to the fancy salons and the haircuts now include coloring. Oh and eyebrow waxing. She was cursed with Zak's eyebrows.
6. Doctor appts- Ethan has to have a check up for his preschool. He is not going into the army just preschool, not sure why they need to make sure he is in tip top physical health. Maybe so they can make sure he can climb the monkey bars and that he has no communicable diseases.
7. A dozen trips to each child's school- Registration, schedule changes, lunch payments, school bus payments, locker assignments, one trip to the district to fill out homeschool PE form (Lauren opted out of one semester of PE, I figure she does 6 hours of cheer a week, that should be plenty. Of course instead of taking art or some other class that forces her to use her brain she chooses Office Aid. I guess I have to pick my battles.)
You can imagine the hundreds of dollars that Getting Back to School costs. Not to mention the gallons of gas.
Will it be worth it? OH YEAH!