Ravenous Wolves

I don't claim to be a wonderful cook...but there are some foods that I make that my family will simply devour! Salsa being one of them. (Since we signed up for Dish Network...I know shocking, the Holmes' actually have TV...my favorite channel is the Food Network, and my older 3 love to watch it with me.) In the summer when our garden was producing tons and tons of tomatoes....we always had fresh salsa in our fridge. So it's been a few months since I've been able to make fresh salsa, I did bottle quite a bit, but our favorite of all time is the fresh stuff. They all get their own little bowl and gobble it up. Even Hannah loves it, in fact if I make a batch that might be a little too spicey, she will still eat it. But it just cracked me up when I 'caught' her drinking the salsa from her bowl...she didn't want to miss a morsel. Nate walked in just then and said no boys would be kissin' her tonight with her garlic/onion breath. (I'll have to remember that when she and Rachel turn 16.)

Yummy Chips and Salsa...but it's the best on scrambled eggs!

The Salsa Queen.

I ran and grabbed the camera...but she was more than happy to shoot a retake of her drinking salsa out of the bowl.

Brady's Wax Museum

Today was the wax museum at Brady's school for the entire 5th grade. Since we've never had a 5th grader before, we didn't know what to expect, but now we'll be prepped for the rest of the kids. Every 5th grader is asked to do a report on an American Hero, they need to research and type the report and then come up with a costume for the 'wax museum'. Here they stand in a pose while parents and other students walk around to see everyone and then we are able to push their button on their desk, and the student then gives a 1 minute prepared speech about their hero, and quickly returns back to their pose. Quite entertaining....I even learned a few facts myself like why was Buzz Aldrin called Buzz when his real name was Edwin? Helping Brady with his report about Babe Ruth also gave me a better insight into Babe's life and his accomplishments. I had always heard the "Curse of the Bambino", but never really knew what it meant. (I guess growing up in a family with 7 girls, we didn't talk that much about baseball...although my brother says that if I would have asked him, he could have told me.) It was a great day, and I'm really proud of Brady for all his work that he put into his report. I did help in the finishing/polishing stages, but that was the fun part.

The kids love it when Nate is able to skip out of work to come and see their performances....even though Nate always says to me, "I can't be to everything." He sure makes a great effort to play hookie!

And it's always fun to see our other kids at school...here is Rachel listening to Brady's speech on Babe Ruth. Later that afternoon, when she came home from school, she asked who my favorite wax museum character was, I just smiled and didn't say anything, but she quickly said, "Mine, was Brady." See they do get along sometimes!

Family Fondue for FHE

For Christmas Nate bought me an electric fondue pot, which I have been dying to use. (We went to a fondue dinner party a few months back and it was absolutely delicious and fun, and I've secretly wanted one ever since.) So with trying to teach our kids manners and experiencing different ways people eat, I thought that it would be fun to try out a fondue night on my family first.

And all I can say is, "WHEW! That is a lot of work!"

Now I can see why all the fondue restaurants charge a small fortune to eat there, with all the prep work that goes into fondue.

I tried to keep it simple with chicken, beef, and shrimp for our meats. And then potatoes, carrots, broccoli, and mushrooms for the veges. (I knew I couldn't get anything to 'weird' because the kids probably wouldn't eat it.)

The kids had a ball cooking their own food. But it was a lot of work for Nate and I since we had to cook not only for us, but also for Jace and Hannah. (Who probably ate the most since we were all giving them food to keep them occupied.)

Nate and I got to the point where we would just toss in a whole bunch of meat and let it all cook and then distribute it, that seemed to work better for little impatient tummies!

The kids REALLY want to try a chocolate fondue. I told them, that maybe for Valentine's day, we could have that as our special treat after dinner. We even started making a list of all the things we could dip in chocolate, amazing of what they came up with.

Here are a couple of pics before we got started.

Our Sweet Tabby

This past Monday our sweet Tabby was hit by a car. I went outside for just a moment and a construction worker across the street came up and asked if I owned a cat. I grabbed my shoes and quickly crossed the street to see if it was her. She was actually right in front of our house, and then they noticed her and put her in the bucket of the back-hoe. They didn't see it happen, but offered to bury her for me since they were digging anyhow. I quickly said yes before I lost my composure and went back inside. There I lost it...but without saying anything, my sweet Hannah came up and gave me a huge hug and patted me on the back for a long time. (She sure can brighten my day.) I told Nate, but we decided to wait until he was home from work to tell the kids. So that night, we told them and had a good talk about life in general and some fun memories of our Tabby. Here are some memories that the kids thought up:
-Nate bringing Tabby home in a cardboard box for the 1st time.
-How soft her fur was, everyone would always comment on it.
-The first couple of nights she slept just above Rachel's head on her pillow.
-We tried and tried to get her to eat dry cat food, but she would rather starve herself. She always had to have soft canned cat food. If we ran out of canned food we would use dry cat food as a 'cereal', in a bowl with milk poured over it. She would tolerate that for a day at the most.
-That cat loved every couch in this house, but really enjoyed sleeping by the fire to keep warm.
-We found a mouse in our house Thanksgiving Day (the first one ever), and we captured it and let Tabby play with it outside for a while. She had a great game of 'Cat and Mouse'
-No quail problem this summer in the garden...she was a great bird chaser.
-Tabby loved playing in the plants in the garden, the pea patch was her favorite.
-She would let Jace and Hannah drag her all around the house, without getting mad.
-Jace would always call her Tabbers when she first came here.
-The fun 'Cat House' that Nate and the kids built for her.
-Zack found her tooth under the kitchen table...we didn't know cats could loose teeth.
-Rachel taking her for Show-and-Tell.
-She of course hated baths, but would always bump into the shower curtain when Nate or I were showering. Even peeking her head in a few times. After we would get out, she would immediately enter and splash around in the small puddles.
-Climbing all the trees in our yard, especially if a dog chased her up there.

We will miss you Tabby...you were a Sweet Lovable Cat!

What a Morning!

We've had crazy mornings, but this morning wasn't really crazy...just funny. While I was getting the older kids off to school, Nate relayed this story/conversation to me:
Jace walks in saying, "Hannah, wanna wrestle?"
"No!" she squeals running away in a hopeful glee that he will chase her.
Sure enough he tackles her and starts to wrestle her. All the while she is screaming and enjoying EVERY minute of it.

The older 3 head off to school and Nate and I start to get ready for the day. Before I headed downstairs to quickly hem a shirt for Nate, I notice Hannah has my purse, so I retrieve it and put it on the top shelf in my closet. Five minutes later I enter our bathroom to find Hannah with my entire make-up bag dumped out, every lip-stick, eye liner, and anything else with a lid....off. And foundation all over her face. Yes I swore....but I actually spelled it out, so she really didn't know what I was saying (it's my way of staying calm, but releasing some frustration.)
Nate and I joke all the time that Jace and Hannah pretty much parent themselves, because we've all but given up.

Nate leaves for work and I start to get Hannah and Jace ready to leave to take Jace to preschool. Well luckily this morning Brady and Zack got Jace up with them and had him all showered and dressed when they came up for breakfast. (Yes I did thank them both...that saves me a lot of work.) But today was Pajama Day for preschool. We even chose PJ's for Jace to wear last night and had them on top of his dresser. I told him he needed to go and put those PJ's on. And for the next 15 minutes tried to convince him that he needed to wear PJ's to school. He fought me tooth and nail, until he finally said, "Mom, I don't want to sleep at school." He's a pretty logical thinker I guess. He still didn't believe me after I told him what he would be doing for pajama day. So when we got to school we asked his teacher if he had to go to sleep, only when she mentioned that they would be watching a Chipmunk movie did he do a 360 and decided that pajama day would be fun.


These are just some random pictures I had of Jace and Hannah...I'm sure they'll always keep us hoppin!

Moulton Family Party

Since Granny and Pa passed away, it seems harder to get everyone together for a HUGE Family party. Even the Great-grandkids have started to have their own children, so a party at a church is hard to organize and put together. But my mom and her siblings have come up with a great solution for the past few years. We have a roller-skating party at Classic Skating in Orem, on a Saturday around the holidays. This year it was on January 2, and what a fun day it was. The kids can skate, or ride a scooter, or a rip-stick and everyone has a ball. I am so happy to be able to see some of my cousins, chat about times growing up, and to see how big their kids are getting. Not everyone can make it every year, but most everyone tries to make an effort of attending. We all bring snacks to eat and have a great time hanging out for a couple of hours. And what's even better, it that there really isn't any clean-up...not that we are that messy, but when the party's at a church someone always has to stay behind to clean up. I love my extended family and look forward to seeing them at least once a year. (There's talk of a summer party in the works.) Nate also loves attending and can't get enough of the roller-skating. You may not know this but that boy has some serious skating skills. When Jace and Hannah have been small enough, he'll put them on his shoulders and skate around with ease...they love it! Here are some fun shots from my sister Ashlee again!

Brandon and Nate helping Jace and Zack on roller skates. Zack was determined to conquer the skates, maybe we better take him skating more.

Me and Happy Hannah!

Aunt Aubree with Bella and Hannah...she was a great babysitter since they didn't enjoy skating as much as the rest of us.

Uncle Brandon really got a good arm work-out with Jace. After one lap around the rink...Jace was done for the day and went back to the scooter.

Bella and Hannah playing in a car.

Broadhead Family Party

This year we were finally able to get the whole family together on New Years Day. The Bethea's were up from Blanding, and that evening we had our family party at the Butlers' in Highland. We have so many people that I wonder how long it will be before we have to meet in a church for a family party, (25 grandkids, 2 grandparents, 8 Broadhead 'children', and 7 spouses) Whew...that is a lot of people, but we always have a good time and yummy food. This is where the kids get to exchange cousin gifts and us couples get to exchange gifts, thank goodness we drew names or else we would all be broke! And a big THANK YOU to my sister Ashlee, for snapping pictures that night, since I forgot to bring our camera.

Hannah and Branten using the cats' dishes as hats...good thing they were empty.

Megan, Sara and Emma...this is a one-in-a-million picture with me actually showing my braces.

Uncle Kyle...aka...'The Jungle Gym'...is giving a 'beat down' to Jace and Mitchell...aka...'The Instigators'

I told my sister's that Brady and Zack 'needed' head lamps to read at night...now I can have mine back.

When Jace opened his present Ashlee asked him if she could name his new toy dog and he said yeah. So she said "Ok let's call him Garbonzo!" Jace just looked at her with wide eyes and said, "I know, let's just call him Bob!"

Jace and Hannah playing nicely....for the moment.

Kyle usually ends up falling asleep on the floor...but first he needed his back popped by Nate!

This is how the older grandkids enjoy a family party...reading a book or listening to their Ipods. Love you Jess...please stop growing up...your making me feel old!

Any present for Rachel just needs to have a hint of pink on it, and she'll absolutly love it!

I had to add this picture of Bumpa...this is how he ends up enjoying all our family get-togethers!

The Broadhead Beauties!