Baby Steps

There has not been too much going on here on the home front lately. Not much other than spinning our heads trying to agree on what fun family investment we want to make. Let me back up and give you some back ground. Gregg has had quite a hard time the past 7 years! He is only 34 and well at 27 let's just say (as one of his good friends once said) he heard his warranty ripping the year he turned 27. He first dislocated his knee and had a really bad torn mcl wakeboarding. Then on his 27th birthday he dislocated his shoulder riding his dirt bike. Then when we moved into our new house he threw out his back and continued to finish the yard before he would take care of it. He is a very cautious soul and since then all activities have been on the kobash! We actually sold our boat before we moved into our new house. Then once we were in he sold his dirt bike (that was a very sad day for him). And since then (5 years later) we have not had much outdoorsy activity since.
Well he has quite an antsy wife and I will just say I have been driving him nuts for the past 2 years to do SOMETHING. Growing up we always went boating, camping or something. It has driven me nuts not to be camping and boating. So we have been looking for probably 2 years to try and agree on a camper, trailer, 4 wheelers, or boat. He has been very cautious with this decision because he did not want to relapse with a bad reaction with his back. I got him really moving about 3 months ago starting on a new workout program. I think it has been really good for him becasue it has given him the confidence that he CAN do things and not have too much pain.
So needless to say we got pointed in the right direction and ended up with this this weekend.....
no that is not Gregg in the picture. That is the guy we bought it from. We are so excited to start boating again. He is going to take it slow and make sure his back is feeling good with the new adjustment. But the boys and I are driving him crazy to take it out. Jaxon and Kaden have already informed us they will try wakeboarding first (yikes! I hope it goes well) then they will ski later. WOOHOO fun times ahead. I feel like we are so out of the loop with boating. The people we talked to at MasterCraft were talking about wake surfing and I had no idea what it was! Duh! It sounds so fun! I want to try it. I hope I do it better than skurfing....man I looked like a dork! And wakeboarding lets just say when I landed a jump I thought was at least 2 feet off the top of the water everyone in the boat told me the back of the board was not even out of the water......Now we just need to work the boating time in between Utah football and soccer...........ouch!

CASE IN POINT!!

Okay so do you remember before when I was saying there is nothing girl at our house..... Well let me tell you of a conversation I had with Kaden the other day. I am a HUGE fan of Halloween. I normally spend a lot of money on costumes and a lot of time making the costumes. Well since my boys are huge Star Wars fans and the new movie 'The Clone Wars' is coming out, I thought it might be fun to dress up everyone as Star Wars characters. I knew Gregg would want to be one of the dark side......then the rest of us can be on the good side, ha ha ha. I am thinking in my head all of this before I mention it to Kaden. I am thinking well I can be Princess Leia or Padme. Thinking of all the beautiful dresses Padme wears, oooohhhh I could make one of those, that would be cool.
So I approach Kaden with this idea. He jumps right on board saying he wants to be Yoda. I say, let's let Zeke be Yoda, since he is the smallest. He says okay that's cool. I will be Anikin or Luke. Okay, I say. Who do you think I should be? I say Princess Leia or Padme? He says, Mom you need to be a jedi. I say what? You don't want me to be a princess? He says no way. There is even a girl jedi......(this is new to me - I told you I don't know much about Star Wars). He proceeds to get his Star Wars book and points out the wonderful girl jedi he wants me to be.........

I rest my case...........

Kaden's First day of Kindergarten

Tuesday was Kaden's first day of Kindergarten. He is not excited or anything from the pic. He is in Afternoon kindergarten, so he doesn't go until 12:32. So from 8:15 when we dropped Jaxon off it was all he could do to sit and ask me every 5 minutes when he was going to go. Finally by 11:00 I thought we could drag lunch on and on and at least waste 45 minutes. Lunch lasted 10 minutes and he continued to ask every 5 minutes. He is SO ready for kindergarten!
So we decided to go a little early and waste some time playing on the kindergarten playground.....whew what a relief. There were all the other kindergartener's there as well. He had a ball playing while we waited. Later in the day he said it was his first recess. He had two recesses that day?! He even slid down the slide with his little brother.

After school he told me everything....totally opposite of Jaxon. Jaxon thinks if I ask him what went on I am trying to interrogate him (much like his Dad). Kaden wanted to tell me all about his treasure hunt he went on and his two recesses. And the best thing of all is kindergarten homework. What did we do the first day? Well, Kaden had it really rough and had to jump up and down 10 times, then he counted all of his shoes and he got a story (as usual). I wish school stayed as tough as kindergarten!!

Honey-Chipotle Barbeque Chicken Sandwiches

We had the Petersen dinner at our house on Sunday. It was great. Talk about the all American meal. We had Honey-Chipotle BBQ chicken Sandwiches, potatoe salad, baked beans, chips and homeade chocolate chip cookies and ice cream. What more could you want? It was a great time to visit with family. I am so glad we are doing it. We have gotten together at least once a month for dinner now for I think 2 years? (maybe more) What a great idea Connie. It is so important for us to stay connected and let our kids know how important family is. Hopefully they can and will want to do the same when they are older.
Anyway, I got many requests for the recipie for the chicken. Gregg is a bit of a worry wart. He doesn't want me taking ANY credit for it so he is insisting on me including the link to the website where I got it. Have at it...... enjoy!!

http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=printerFriendly&recipe_id=1054888

It is a recipe we make quite often. It is one of our families favorites. We like spicy food. This one actually calls for 2 whole chipotle chilies. That is WAY TOO spicy for us. So I usually use 1/2 of 1!! Also, you can save the remainder of the chilies after you use them. They stay good in the fridge in an airtight container. However, fair warning, if you do this the spice intensifies. Sometimes we have actually only used 1/4 of 1. But you can play with the recipe and add more or less if you like. This pic also shows cheddar cheese we do prefer Monterey Jack cheese. Also, one last note, I really like to toast the buns first. It is best to toast them on a skillet for a while with a little butter. Then after you put the chicken on and cheese pop it in the broiler for a few minutes with the bun top too. This melts the cheese and gives the bun a little buttery crisp! OOOOOHHHH my mouth is watering talking about it......try it out. Let me know what you think.

Finally DONE!

Friday was a WONDERFUL DAY!! Gregg finally finished his MBA. He actually graduated in May, but I refused to celebrate too much because I know my husband. It is so like him to just get a little more than what he 'needs'. He decided he would like to finish one more class as school. This was not a required class, but me knowing my wonderful husband just knew that if he did not take it it would always haunt him as to the reason he is not getting the promotion he wanted or the specific position he wanted.....needless to say he had my full support.

So I willingly supported my husband and let me tell you if the first 2 1/2 years were not rough enough let me just tell you how hard it was for these last 11 weeks to be supportive. Actually I was horrible! I was not very supportive at all. I just wanted it done. I did not encourage him to study like he should have, and to be honest it wasn't that hard to tear him away from not studying but it was the longest 11 weeks I can remember.

That morning Kaden decided we needed to throw him a surprise party. He is so sweet and wanted his Dad to know how happy we are that he is finished! So bear with me, I am going to add 4 a whopping 4 videos. Not because it is necessary to tell the story, but because a couple of them are super funny.

This first one I LOVE Kaden's face at the end.



This one we tried it again. Jaxon is having a hard time focusing here.....



Okay.....I will remember NOT to turn the point and shoot camera sideways when filming a video on it....This is funny to see how excited the kids are to hide for the surprise.



AND NOW THE BIG REVEAL!!! Hold your breath, really it is so exciting!!!

Just like Brother...

Friday Zeke decided he wanted to be just like his brother....not much different from any other day really. However, today he wanted to eat breakfast just like him. There was NO WAY he was moving.

He is a very stubborn child anyway, but when he has his mind set on something honestly, nothing will change it. Kaden didn't mind. In fact he put his arm around him and ate chocolate chip pancakes with Zeke. The funny thing is, Zeke's chair is just around the corner and it actually helps him to at least reach the table. As you can see his eyes are barely above the table. They can be so sweet with each other. It is times like this I always want to remember, not the many other no so sweet ones!!