Update on the Fam

Things have been crazy around here and I haven't always had a lot of access to a computer so it has definitely been a while since I have posted. Just a quick update on what we have been up to in the last few weeks and then in later posts I will go back and detail more stuff with pictures

Sheldon:

We'll start with bad news first and then the good news! Sheldon's whole department got laid off at Symantec about a month ago. It was totally a shock, but I guess they just didn't have the budget to keep his department. Which is kind of funny because I think they were just doing some hiring a few months ago. Anyway, Sheldon got some great experience and contacts from this job so he has been able to find a new job really fast. His new job will get him started in the marketing field which is where he wants to go and it is actually a better paying job, woohoo! The only downside is that the job is in West Valley, so for now that means he will be commuting. Boohoo for me :( He starts his new job on June 1, so we have 1 week left to party it up!

Elaine:

Things are pretty much the same for me, hanging out with family that visits, cleaning, laundry, tucker, etc. A few weeks ago I was called into Young Women's as the Beehive Advisor. I have never been in YW's before, so I am a little nervous, but I think it will be fun. There are a lot of fun leaders that I am excited to get to know better, and the beehives are pretty cute and fun.

Tucker:

Learning so many new words all the time and tries to copy everything we say. Loves LOVES being outside and running down hills. He's also such a water baby, he loves the kiddie pool our neighbors just bought and would stay in there forever if we let him.

Check back soon for more pictures and updates! The pictures below are from one of Sheldon's soccer games, which of course he won. I can't get any good action shots of him with our camera, but he is the one in the green.

duck, duck, goose!

My Mom came to visit last week and we had a lot of fun shopping and playing with Tucker.One of the best things we did was go feed the ducks at BYU. Tucker kind of thought the ducks were cool, but he really just loved throwing the bread, because he loves throwing anything. I love that whenever Tucker throws something he says "Ohhh!"

Focused on trying to throw his bread in the water.

Tucker and Rach practicing stomping.

Trying to catch a duck and having to slow down a little bit on the hill.

I don't know what Tucker was trying to do here, maybe pretending to be a duck? It was pretty cute though.

I was so excited when we found baby ducks!

They let us get pretty close before we finally scared them and they started running back towards the pond.

I think Tuck was saying bye-bye to the duckies here, one of his favorite things to do. He loves saying bye-bye to things and it's funny because he always adds in few too many consonants, "bye-bye-bye duh duh dah" something along those lines.

Tucker got really excited when he found a little tree 'hill' that he could run down, just like he does at home.

Spinach Salad with Strawberries

I had a few people request the recipe for the salad I made at my friend's baby shower, so I thought I would post it. It really is an amazing salad, tastes great and looks pretty, totally great for entertaining. I made it again the next night after the shower because I loved it so much and one person I made it for said they liked it even though they won't eat any vegetables. So if this salad will please a vegetable hater, I figure it's a winner.

Spinach Salad with Strawberries

from Lion House Entertaining

DRESSING

2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar

3 Tablespoons sugar

1/2 cup oil

1/2 teaspoon dry mustard

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup strawberry jam

SALAD

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup cashew pieces

15 wontons, cut into thin strips*

1 large head red leaf lettuce, washed and broken into pieces

1 package fresh spinach, with stems trimmed

1/3 cup bacon pieces, cooked and well drained

1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped

1 purple onion, sliced

1 cup strawberries, sliced

To make dressing, mix together vinegar, sugar, oil, mustard, salt, and strawberry jam. Mix until all ingredients are well blended. Set aside.

Heat a medium frying pan and add sugar and nuts. Stir constantly over medium heat until nuts are coated and slightly browned. Remove from heat and set aside.**

Fry wontons in hot cooking oil and drain onto paper towels.

When ready to serve salad, put lettuce, spinach, bacon, red pepper, onion, and strawberries into a large bowl and toss. Add salad dressing and toss. Add sugared nuts and wontons last. Makes 10 servings (They were definitely 10 generous servings).

Variation: Use fresh raspberries and raspberry jam instead of strawberries and strawberry jam. Substitute almonds for cashews. When fresh berries aren't available substitute dried cranberries.

*I didn't use wontons because it seemed like too much extra work, I'm pretty lazy, and the salad already had bacon in it so I thought it didn't really need anything fried in it. I did the raspberry jam variation the first time, but the second time I was out of fresh raspberries so I just used fresh strawberries but with raspberry jam in the dressing and it still tasted good.

**Be careful not to overcook the nuts, mine tasted slightly overdone on their own, but you couldn't really tell in the salad. Sheldon thought it might be easier to melt the sugar by itself, and then add the nuts once the sugar is liquidy.

Finished!

BEFORE:

AFTER!!!:

After much blood, sweat, and tears, ok maybe not so much the blood and tears part, but definitely sweat, we finally finished our table and chairs! Of course it was definitely more work than we were expecting and more time, but I love the way it turned out. I really love the way it looks but I think I also love it because I'm proud of all the work we put into it. Some of our friends came over last night and saw the table and they told us, "yeah, it looks nice." I totally thought to myself, "Nice?? Are you kidding me? Try, A-MAZ-ING! Do you realize that we have spent pretty much all day on this for the past week? It's pretty much the coolest table you've ever seen!" Obviously I am proud of my work. The hardest part was probably getting all the stain off and then it was really hard getting the right color of stain on the table. It took 2 or 3 coats to get the color I wanted. I love the fabric on the chairs even though it is kind of crazy, but in a year or so I can just recover them if I get sick of the fabric. Sheldon really wanted some manly fabric like brown suede, but I vetoed saying I didn't want to live in a bachelor pad. He criticized my fabric saying it looked like alien fabric from Roswell :) I think it's growing on him though. I'm glad we are finished, it really was a lot of work. The next project I take on will probably be significantly easier.

sneak peak!

Sheldon and I have been wanting to restain our kitchen table for quite some time. It was my Great Grandma's and actually in almost perfect condition when we got it. But we have since added a few scratches and heat marks, and the color has not been my favorite. So when our neighbors mentioned they wanted to restain their table I jumped at the chance to be able to do ours at the same time. Work is always more fun when you have someone to do it with. These pictures are just a sneak peak because we aren't finished yet. Our goal is finish all the staining this weekend and then next week I will recover the chairs. It has been so much work getting off all the stain, but I am so excited to see the finished project. It looks so much better already!

Our table before:

Sheldon working hard at stripping the stain. Sheldon's an excellent worker, even though he is sometimes a little bit too perfectionist ;) j/k I love you honey!

Our table with the stain all stripped off, you can see more of the wood grain. It still needed to be sanded there so it looks even better now.

Our cute neighbors, we never would have been able to do this project without them!

All the chairs needed the stain stripped off and that has definitely been the hardest part of this project. But it's all done and now just the easy stuff is left, paint the stain on and then the clear coats on top of that. I'll post pictures as soon as we're finished!

cRaZy hair

You may have noticed that Tucker's hair has gotten pretty long and crazy, see below picture. In my defense, I did try and comb it on Easter, but Sheldon said no, he liked it crazy.

Today we went and got it cut at Cookie Cutter's in American Fork. It's cute place just for kids and Tucker loved playing on the slide while we waited our turn.

Thanks to a million distractions, Tucker did pretty good while they cut his hair. He had a cracker in one hand, bubbles in the other, Elmo on the TV, and he sat in a car and honked the horn. I was pretty impressed with the guy that cut his hair, he was super fast and could cut with one hand while distracting tucker with a comb in the other. Those are some serious skills I definitely need to acquire.


The new hair-do, much less crazy. Although sometimes I do like it when his hair is crazy, it's always funny to see what it will look like when he wakes up in the morning.

Easter!

We spent Easter Sunday at Sheldon's parents house. It was a fun day filled with good food, general conference, and a great Easter egg hunt. I didn't know if Tucker would like finding eggs, but he totally loved it. He would grab the eggs and run back and put them in his bag. It was serious business to him, which is why I didn't get a picture with him smiling as he is looking for his eggs.

He loved dropping it in the "basket" we just used whatever we had on hand for his basket since Tucker's not picky.

There was an egg hidden in the middle of the grass and he was afraid to get it. I think he was worried the grass would poke him after he had touched some poky logs earlier.

I just like his expression in this picture.

Eating chocolate is also serious business for Claytin, although it kind of just looks like he is wearing lipstick on his lips

Tucker also had fun swinging on the swings with us in the backyard. Sheldon always loves to tell me about the crazy games he would play on this swing set as a kid. For example, in one game someone had to run across while everyone was swinging and try and not get hit. Sounds dangerous and not fun to me. Sometimes I don't know how Sheldon survived his childhood :)

Hopefully everyone had a great Easter! I keep hoping spring is on it's way here, but we had snow yesterday and hail/rain today. I can't wait for summer!