Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Eva Marie Ann

Sunday the 18th, was the day that Ben gave Eva Marie Ann Stier her baby blessing. It was a beautifully warm summer day filled with many family and friends. We had a wonderful time celebrating this new little member of our family. Ben did a great job with the blessing (like usual - he's a pro!). Sacrament meeting was especially nice as well. There was a return missionary speaking and he had some really great things to say.

A few hi-lights from his talk were that people in Brazil use the word Blessing instead of how we use the word Luck. So instead of saying how lucky we are to have this wonderful new baby in our lives, I would say how blessed we are to have her in our lives. I really like this and am going to try to abolish the word Luck from my vocabulary and use Bless instead.

Another comment that he made was about the Plan of Salvation. He said that each of us has our own Plan of Salvation to return to our Heavenly Father. It is an individualized plan formulated for our individual needs and experiences. I liked how he put that because it really centers around the fact that Heavenly Father knows and loves each one of us individually.

After the great Sacrament Meeting we returned to our house and proceeded to eat a fantastic spread. BBQ pork, BBQ baked beans, coleslaw, rolls, smoked salmon, pasta salad, potato salad, pickled beets and cucumbers made by Aunt Pam and a few dessert breads. Then we had a super yummy carrot cake and homemade strawberry ice cream. So yummy!!!!!!! Everything was just delicious.

Here are a few photos of Eva Marie on her big day.

Eva Marie with Papa.

With Great Grandma Allen. It was such a blessing that she could be there for this special day. The circumstances of her being in Utah were not so happy as she was down for her sister's funeral but we were happy to have her with us on Sunday.

The little princess in her beautiful dress.

With me.

Hanging with daddy.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Diet Schmiet!



Making this delicious coffee cake with Number 1 Helper, Magnus and enjoying gobbling it up with all my boys was a whole lot more fun than sticking to my diet.






Since I can't just cook a recipe the way it is written out, I had to add a bit of quick cooking oats an extra egg and a 1/2 Cup of dry milk. Next time I make it, I want to add a dollop (maybe 1/4 Cup) of applesauce. It was a tiny bit on the dry side. Just a tiny bit. But oh so yummy!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Summer Fun

This is a double post since I just put these up on MomShots. These are some photos from the past couple of weeks. They include a couple from the 4th (actually the 3rd this year in Utah), the Pleasant Grove carnival in celebration of Strawberry Days and a little cookie making extravaganza.

Fireworks

CarnivalTrains

CarouselMag

CookiesMag

Monday, July 05, 2010

3rd of July

We live in Utah. No surprise there.

In Utah when a holiday like the 4th of July or Halloween fall on a Sunday then the community celebrates it on the Saturday before. It is kind of fun because then you get an entire weekend of festivities.

That was my surprise.

Ben has been working so hard on all of his projects that we couldn't get away to go up to my family Walker family reunion this year (which we celebrate over the 4th weekend) so we stayed close to home and had a fun little time. We went to Ben and Kristina's house for a little BBQ. Sarah and Kala'i were there with there kids too.

Good food. Good folks. Good fun.

After eating, we all left their house and found an empty parking lot behind the Highland high school to put on our own mini pyrotechnics display. They kids loved it. They thought they were in heaven.



My favorite picture of the night was this one of Gar holding a California Candle. That's like a Roman Candle except it doesn't shoot out balls of fire it just emits a nice shower of sparks. Unfortunately it is slightly out of focus. Oh well. Squint your eyes and it looks like it is supposed to be that way!
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More out of focus shots, this one is of Uly. The sky is in focus though...
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The crazy beautiful sherbet colored sunset.
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Uly wearing the flag t-shirt he painted that day:
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Uly & Eva Marie all dressed up for the 4th of July:
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