Thayne's Pinewood Derby Car and another recipe. This is from my friend Heidi Mumford. She gave it to me years ago in Colorado and it is one of my favorites still, but ironically it is not one Thayne likes. He has a thing against spaghetti sauce! So I leave a few pieces of breaded chicken naked for him.

Make a Smilebox recipe

Pizza Dough

This is our favorite pizza dough recipe. I got it in college from Eileen ? (I think it is Mumford now) at Continental Apartments at USU. Anytime I'm feeling like just ordering pizza, I remind myself that this only takes 30 minutes to make a pizza and the cost is SO LOW. I've been working on a new recipe book as my Young Women value project (the 10 hours are LONG past! It'll be more like 100!). I'm going to share lots on my blog! So enjoy--you can print these out or email me and I'll send it to you as a picture.

Make a Smilebox recipe

To my husband: Why I Love You More 15 years Later

Lance and I have been married for 15 years now. It amazes me that as time goes by I don't feel older. I love Lance and like him even more than when we got married 15 years ago. On June 17th, 1994 we had so many adventures to look forward to together: finishing at USU, a real job, children, buying a house, church callings. We were ready to move on in life and do everything together. Our plans for the future were well grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ and our hopes were realistic; so, our 15 years together has looked a lot like our original hopes. Our hopes and dreams didn't have places or names assigned to them in 1994. Over the 15 years we added names to our hopes and plans. Lance got more schooling than we had hoped for, we saw more of the the great USA too. Happily we have ended up in a community our family can call home. Our boys fill our house with love and they help make it a home.

Fifteen years ago I loved Lance for lots of different reasons and why I love him more now:

To my husband and love, Lance,

• You were so cute!
• You still are--I love your blue eyes, profile, and how your hair has a smattering of gray in the temples--mmmm, very sexy.

• You had a plan for your professional life and you were working hard to reach your goals.
• I love that you think ahead, plan, study, and worse case scenario with your career--and then work like crazy. You are very good at your work. I think you are a favorite engineer for many the cities in the valley because you are honest and very thorough in your work.

• You had a job and you were working while in school. You grew up working and farming. I love that you already knew how to work and that you liked to work. I know you didn't necessarily like THE work, but you liked to work.
• I love that as my husband will do whatever you can to provide for our family. Thankfully, right now it is still work you love to do. And you are seeing success with your own company.
  
• I've love that you are extremely self-motivated. I don't worry that you are working from home. You stick to your work schedule and can rarely be tempted away (but it is worth it when we do tempt you away, huh?)
  
• I LOVE that you are a nerd--the best person in our marriage to take care of our money! Life has been so much more peaceful since you got us on the "Dave Ramsey Plan" and we got out of debt.
  
• I love working on goals with you. We make a good team. You keep me on track and realistic.
  

• When we were dating, I was always impressed that you were so kind to other people. You were always first to help shovel a sidewalk or offer your seat to a woman on the bus.
• You still do that stuff, even for me. I can always have the last of the ice cream or even the last potato chips--if I wanted them, but I usually let you have the potato chips because I know you love them.
  

• You're just smart--book smart, gospel smart, common sense smart
• You're even smarter now--and more experienced in life!
  

• Having a family was important to you. You came from a great family too. I just loved them then.
• I love your family even more.
  
• You're a really good dad. I don't even know how to quickly write about this--you just are
• You placed the Lord first in your life and you knew the gospel well.
• You still strive to do all that you are asked to do and we work as parents to teach our children the gospel. You teach by example.
• You attended the temple and could take me there
• We still go to the temple together and you've always remained worthy of that privilege
  

I am sure I can go on and on. But time is a factor now, and I have eternity to tell you these things. I know I need to be better at telling you. I hope you don't mind if I write it--that is so much easier for me. I love you.
Melissa

Third Grade Wax Museum

The third grade at Indian Creek Elementary has a wax museum every year. Each student gets a person to read a biography about. Then they create a poster with life facts on it and put together a script and costume to wear for the museum. Bruce was Wilbur Wright. He had so much fun preparing for it and the best part was that his best buddy, Tucker was Orville Wright. They got to stand next to each other for the museum and they looked pretty authentic, for third graders!



Thayne spent a lot of time getting together ideas for his costume for Paul Revere. He looked so good in his tri-corner hat and gold vest. His script, which he wrote, was practiced a lot at home, but I think he gets nervous for the camera! He's so cute though, I just want to hug him when I see this and his eyes moving around to remember everything.

Each class had their own time in the gym and different classes came around to visit the museum along with that classes parents. Thayne didn't have much time to just stand around--there was always someone new to come along and push his button!

This was a great project--I hope they keep it for my younger children!

Almost Old Enough

Dallin at twelve, almost 13, has been funny about upcoming growing older changes. He has teased me that he is growing armpit hair, but it is PINK! He's a bit happy that he's starting to get "guns" and he gets mad if I take the razor to his fuzzy face when I cut his hair. I mean, not every twelve 1/2 year old can grow a goatee!

Okay, okay, it is just pretend. Dallin really wanted to try on the fake goatee just to see what his Grandma and Grandpa would say when they got here for their visit in May. It does match his hair color very well and he is tall enough to pull it off. (He's over an inch taller than me now and his feet are huge!) He no longer wears glasses, but he thought he looked like Danny Goekey, from American Idol, with them on.

During spirit week at school, Dallin was pretty stoked to participate in crazy hair day. The only colors of hairspray we had were white and black--so a skunky do made perfect sense to us!

Luke at Four

Luke at FourOn May 5th our Luke turned four. He had been looking forward to his racecar cake for a while. We had a party for him with his Grandma and Grandpa Warnick on May 4th since they were here visiting. But even though we were having a party he would still tell people he was 3. The next morning when he got up I asked him how old he was and he said 4.

The past year he has changed so much. He talks all the time now and we understand a large part of it. He acts just like the big boys and wants to do everything they do: ride bikes, build with Legos, play pretend, color, write, and pretty much everything else, except work. He doesn't like to work and he tries to get out of it by saying "I'm too tired." He can write his name by himself (he likes it to look just right too) and he can write "mom." He gets his colors, but he can't remember their names. He identifies them by saying, "it's the color of a banana or it's the color of grass." My favorite was when he couldn't remember the color orange, but identified it by saying, "It's the color of an orange." One other funny language thing: He only uses the pronoun he/his/him even for girls. We don't use she/her very often at our house.

He's all BOY. At speech he refuses to say a few words that are just TOO girly for him. He won't say "fairy" and sometimes he won't say "ladybug." But his teacher asked the right questions at first and she could trick him into saying, "I won't say fairy." Sneaky, but it only lasted for a few weeks until he wised up to the trick!

Strangers talk to Luke about his hair color quite a bit. One lady was admiring it one day and asked, "Can I have your hair?" Luke, a bit indignantly said, "No, you have your own." She replied, "But it's not your color. How do I get it your color?" He just looked at her surprised she didn't know and said, "You eat a lot of carrots!" Luke does like carrots! He'll eat a huge carrot, unpeeled straight out of the fridge. He also says that his hair is "the color of carrots, red."

Luke loves vegetables and fruits. He is a blast to shop with in the produce section. He begs for avocados and kiwi like some kids beg for candy. He had me buy an eggplant because it was purple. He tells me when were out of "leaves" (spinach) and I need to buy more. Just a couple weeks ago, when the snack selection at our house was non-existent I found Luke and Hunter eating spinach right out of the bag like potato chips while they watched a TV show--proof that kids really eat what is in the house and parents have control of what is brought home.

A good bedtime story is still at the top of the list for Luke at bedtime. He is just like the rest of the boys that need their books. I won't be surprised if he tries reading this year.

When Luke grows up he wants to be an engineer just like dad (Luke drew some really good subdivision plans on the back of an old blue print sheet)
Favorite color: All the colors, but he likes blue the best today
Favorite TV show: Curious George
Favorite Fruit: Banana
Favorite Vegetable: eggplant
Favorite book: Library books--Nate the Great

Hunter Can Whistle...

Hunter's top front teeth got a little wiggly before Christmas. He kind of wanted to lose them before Christmas but we had to tell him they had to get much loser.

Early in February I got a call from the school saying Hunter had gotten hit with a jump rope during recess and his mouth was bleeding a little bit. So I had to talk to him for a minute. I couldn't resist asking him, "Don't you know you're supposed to jump rope with you feet, not your teeth?" He had actually been swinging the rope around over his head and the handle smacked him in the face. He must have been swinging it pretty fast because his gum was really red and a bit swollen. His tooth, that wasn't too lose yet, was really lose. So a couple days later he pulled it out all by himself so he could get money from the Tooth Fairy. He was very happy to finally have another tooth come out for the money!!

Then two days later, I'm in my room and I hear yelling and crying "Thayne pulled my tooth out of my head!" Oh, Hunter was mad about it. Thayne said he didn't really do it--I hear that way too often! Well, the real story was that Thayne was playing with an ACE bandage and was trailing it around. Hunter pretended to be a dog and bit the bandage and stopped Thayne from moving it, for a second anyway. Thayne just gave the bandage a big yank to get it out of Hunt's mouth and out it came along the the other lose tooth that flew across the family room! What a way to lose a tooth!

After Hunter got over the initial shock of his tooth popping out of his head, he can't stop grinning about his cute toothless grin! And that money from the Tooth Fairy sure helps too!