Food Nanny

Over my birthday weekend we met the author of this book
She is actually the mother-in-law of a girl who grew up in my homeward. It's funny how small of a world we live in. Anyways... If you see this book, I recommend you buy it. It has such great simple recipes!

Birthday pictures...

Per request of aunt Michelle, here are some pictures of my oh-so-gorgeous jewelry from my family. While I'm at it, I might as well post some pictures from temple square... :)

I also got some AMAZING gifts from Jason's parents, but I haven't taken any pictures of them yet.

Birthday Weekend

 Crazy weekend! 

Friday I skipped school and went up to Salt Lake with my mom, dad, Tanner, Janna, Kate, and Penny. Jason had school and couldn't skip, so he wasn't able to come. We went to the Lion House for lunch, it was super good! Then we walked around temple square, took a LOT of pictures, and went to the visitors center. We then went to the Gateway mall. We walked around for a while and went into a kitchen store. As I was looking at the baking things a guy who worked there came up to my mom and me and told us there was a woman in the back promoting her new cookbook and there was food. I went back there and realized I had seen the book before on a blog of a girl who was in my home ward growing up. The book was written by her mother-in-law! I introduced myself and my mom and we eventually bought the cookbook. The recipes are so simple to make and taste really good. We shopped around for a little bit longer, and then my family left. I stayed at the Gateway for about 10 minutes and then Jason picked me up and we were on our way to the BYU vs. USU football game. Jason and I got there a little late and met his parents up there. The game was a lot of fun! The referees were annoying and stupid, but the game was fun. 

The next day Jason's parents went up to conference and then the Weber state vs. MSUB football game, and Jason and I stayed at home and watched General Conference. In between sessions we went to the mall so I could try to figure out what I wanted for my birthday... I ended up not finding anything, but we did get some coldstone ice cream and then go back home to watch more conference.  When Jason's parents got back we went to Los Hermonos for dinner. It was so funny! Denny kept talking to our waiter, as usual. Denny eventually told the waiter he was Norwegian. The waiter told us there was someone who worked there from Norway, and he called her over. Denny said something to her in norwegian, and she responded and he said something else, and she replied, and then he switched to english and asked her what part of Norway she was from. She looked at Denny and said, "Is that all you know, that isn't even very impressive." It was so stinking hilarious (maybe you had to be there). They finished their conversation in english and then as we were walking to our car on the way home Jason told me what Denny had said. It was something along the line of, "Do you speak Norwegian?" "I speak Norwegian." It was hilarious.

Sunday we watched general conference on tv and then went to my moms house, had dinner and then my mom gave me a BEAUTIFUL bracelet and pair of earrings! They are both stunning! 

Today was a little hectic! We went to breakfast and then Jason and I had to go to school. Right after school I had to rush to the store and then rush to work. Work was great. The kids were so good today! I share my birthday with twins in my class so I brought them a treat and little cupcakes for the rest of the class. After work we went to PF Changs and had dinner and then came home and opened presents. 

I have had such a fantastic birthday this year! I got to spend so much time with my family and Jason's family, it's so great to be able to spend time with everyone. 

School/work

My first week of school has been VERY interesting! 

Day one, Monday: I met my Monday volunteers and then the kids came into the lunch room for snack time. They seemed fairly calm and I was pretty excited. We went outside and played kickball and then we went to our classroom. This is where the troubles started. We went into the room and the kids were yelling and hitting each other (kind of wrestling). I tried to get them to do their homework and had no luck. One of the boys sat at a different desk and did his homework, but the rest wouldn't. I tried to have the kids come up with class rules and they refused. (Good luck me.) Finally one of my volunteers starting quizzing the kids about sports teams and where they were located. The boys LOVED it! Luckily I had some M&M's with me and each time someone guessed the correct state of the team they would get M&M's. When the volunteer couldn't think of any more sports teams, he would tell the students a city and have them guess the state. By the time we all got really into the game our time was up and we all went home. 

Day two, Tuesday: I met my Tuesday volunteers and the kids had their snack then went to the gym. (We switch inside/outside days with the younger grades) After play time it was back to the classroom... I was hoping things would be better than they had been on Monday, but they weren't. They were worse. I asked the kids to sit at their desks and start their homework. I came up with rules for the class and tried to motivate them by telling them they could work towards a party and they chose a pizza party. Unfortunately the kids really just didn't care. They didn't want to do their homework, other than the same kid who did his homework the first day, and refused to do much else. The kids did not like the Tuesday volunteers. I felt really bad. The kids kept telling the volunteers that they liked their Monday volunteers better. (I'm going to have to teach these kids to be polite).

Day three, Wednesday: We started the day with a snack and then went back outside to play. Most of the kids wanted to play soccer and the rest wanted to jump rope and hula hoop. FANTASTIC IDEA! By the time we went back into the classroom, the kids were just so tired that they sat right down and only complained a little bit, but they started their homework. It was fantastic! After homework we played a game called, "Whoonu" it's the cranium version of apples to apples. The kids didn't throw the pieces. They didn't even bend the cards! After that game we played the "States" game, and class was over!

Day four, Thursday: The daily ritual began again with snack in the lunchroom, and then in the gym to play. We played tag (great way to get the kids to get tired) and then went to our classroom. Homework was a little bit more difficult than the day before, but still a lot better than the first two days. We played whoonu and one of the kids wanted to play the states game, but the rest of the kids wanted to finish their game of whoonu and then we left.

The kids are so fun, and I am having such a fun time with them. Overall this experience is fabulous so far. I have a couple of ideas to keep the attention of these kids for next week. Jason even suggested getting the game, "Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader?" I'm also going to try to slowly increase the time of homework/ reading (because I'm sneaky like that).

Top 20 "Romantic Movies"

The other day I was checking Yahoo's homepage, because that's what I do when I am bored, and found a list of the top 20 (ish) romantic movies. I found the list to be odd. They had some really stupid movies on it and the order was ridiculous, so I decided to make my own list.

1. The Princess Bride

2. What Dreams May Come
3. The bodyguard

4. The fountain

5. The Notebook

6. Just Like Heaven
7. Love and Basketball

8. Romeo and Juliet

9. Tristan and Isolde

10. Sliding Doors

11. While you were sleeping

12. Fools Rush In

13. Sweet Home Alabama

14. Sabrina

15. Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind

16. Hitch

17. Simply irresistible
18. Mr. and Mrs. Smith
19. The Cutting Edge

20. 50 first dates

(I know I'm missing a few) Does anyone have any that I'm missing?

Jon and Kate plus 8! + babysitting!

I love love love love love!!! Jon and Kate plus 8! Jason thinks I'm crazy for loving this show, but I just can't help it. It is such a stinking cute show! The husband and wife had trouble getting pregnant so they had fertility treatments and ended up having twins! A couple of years later they wanted to have another child. They had to get fertility treatments again and wound up with sextuplets!! Oh my goodness, I don't know what I would do if that happened to me. Anyways here are some pictures, and if you enjoy little kids I am pretty sure you will like this show!


Anyways... Today I got to hang out with a girl in my wards daughter. Yes, she is the super smart 2 1/2 year old I have posted about. Today we watched The muppet christmas carol, we actually only got about 2 minutes into it and Ruby told me she didn't want to watch it anymore and instead wanted to watch Finding Nemo and play with playdough. We started to go on a walk and then Jason called letting us know he was ready to come home from his lab. Luckily we had already put Ruby's carseat into my car, so we got to go on a mini-road trip to BYU. Jason had a basketball in the backseat and Ruby asked if she could hold it while we were going to get him. When we got closer to where Jason was, Ruby said, "I'm going to tell Jason I have his basketball." Haha. We got back to our apartment and finished our walk to the apartment office to get some cookies. My apartment complex offers free fresh baked cookies daily so we went and partook. Here are a few pictures.

I just threw up a little in my mouth.

Last night ANTM was on, and I remembered I had not blogged about it yet. I enjoy ANTM a lot. I think it's so fun to look at the pictures, and see their crazy makeup and hair. If I were only 4-5 inches taller (and super thin, not to mention didn't have high standards) I would love to be on the show! That was until this season started... They decided it would be a great ratings hike to put a transgender person on the show. HE is NOT a SHE. He would like to have a sex change but has not undergone the surgery yet. I find it horribly disgusting and disrespectful that they are allowing this. Although I am sure the J's would change if they could... The show is called America's next top model not America's Next Top Female Model, but it is implied when all they have on the show is females. I find it disrespectful to those female models who have tried and tried to get on the show and they get beat out by a man. Honestly I would become massively depressed to get beat out of a beauty contest by a man... I think it is disgusting. If the man wins ANTM this season I will be forced to never watch the show again.

Here are two of the ugliest, in my opinion, people on America's next top model ever... Can you tell which is the man?