first day of summer vacation.

Today was the last day of school for the boys. So to keep to our end of year tradition {B} helped me decorate a banner that we hung up in the front door while the kids were gone.


Here she is explaining to me about how they are all done with school and they have to run through the banner to officailly start our summer full of fun.



the boys were excited to find the banner



{B} of course wanted to be in on all the action.


We of course had to re-tape it so they all could have a turn.



I'm so excited for summer with the kids. Can't wait for swimming, late nights, lots of ice cream cones and all the other fun things that summer brings.

Fathers and Sons Camp Out + GNO = super fun weekend

I Love Fathers and Sons campouts. The boys were sooo excited to go. They went up early with one of Ry's buddies and the kids thought it was great to get to play ALL day long.


The boys did a lot of exploring.

{B} and I of course had to make a girls night out of it. I made these icecream invitiations. The cherry on top is missing on purpose. Inside was a poem about how the cherry on top is the best part of a sundae and if they were missing it wouldn't be as good either.




Everybody brought a topping and we made yummy sundaes.




We stayed up late and did a lot of talking and laughing.




I just love these ladies and was so happy to get to know them better. I feel so blessed to be around such amazing people who inspire me to be better.

Our little airbender

{J} LOVES Aang from Avatar the last airbender. The kids are so excited for the movie to come out.

I thought it was so funny when {J} came out the other day in this cute costume he put together. He has always been one to get all decked out and in character for what ever he is playing. It totally cracks me up.

Lets build a Temple

The kids LOVED the temple open house and it has been on their brians every since.

{K} made this cute temple out of legos. I love it!!!

During sacrament on Sunday {k} drew this picture of a temple. He desined it and said that he is gong to build it someday.

He told me he was going to save his money and start buying the supplies to build the temple. He started a list of all the things he needs to buy. He asked me if Dad could take him to Home Depot on Saturday to start buying the wood. ha ha. It was very sweet. It was also a great opportunity for me to teach him about how when we pay tithing we are helping to build temples. We also talked about the different kinds of construction there is and what he would need to learn to someday be hired by the church to help build the temples. He is such a cute kid.

Temple Open house

We are so excited for the new temples that we are getting. Ry and I were excited for the opportunity to take the kids to the open house. They were excited to actually get to go inside. They were all taken away by its beauty.

We didn't tell the kids we were going. We had them get up friday morning and get ready for school as usual. Then when it was time to go we told them what to pack and that we were going on a little get away. They were ecstatic and I loved watching their excitement.



We went to a yummy Mexican resturaunt. It was soooo yummy!!!



It's so fun that the kids are starting to enjoy trying new places. This place was a hit.





The kids had a lot of fun on the balcony at the hotel.


We specifically got a hotel with a pool. It was our first officaly swim for 2010. The boys are both signed up for swim team and {B} is going to do swim lessons. They all love to be in the water, it's going to be so fun.


{B} loved the water and kept running back and forth between the pool and the hot tub.




after playing in the bubbles from the hot tub {J} came out looking like Santa and {B} got so excited and started calling him Santa. {J} was so cute with her about it. When he asked her about what she wanted for christmas she answered very excitedly PRESENTS!!!!

FHE service lesson

I am very excited about all of the recipes I have gotten for the crock pot. THANK YOU. I've decided to start another blog to put all the recipes on. I am also going to add freezer meals and food storage ideas on it to. Please feel free to share any of your tips, recipes and ideas with me. You can email me at debbmoody@cox.net. The new blog address is easydoesitcooking.blogspot.com. You can also get to it from my side bar.
My sister Kathy sent me the first recipe I tried. It is a whole chicken done in the crock pot. It was soooo easy and juicy and went a long way.

I love that you get a lot of yummy broth out of it too.

I made this chicken and then was able to make some freezer meals with the rest of the chicken. I ended up making 8 for my family, 8 for my cute friend who about to have her 4th baby BOY, they are all under 5. and 8 for my sweet neighbor who is suffering from a bulged disc. I spent the entire day in the kitchen and then that night we had a FHE lesson on service and then delivered all of the food to our friends.

The kids were very excited and it was so fun to do. I LOVE when we are able to find ways to teach our kids hands on.

Both familys were so sweet and appreciative and it made it so fun for us. We talked about how good we felt inside. Kyle said "it was almost as exciting as Christmas". WOW, that made me so happy to hear.

This is how our kitchen looked when we got home. Typically I would have dreaded having to clean up such a mess, but I felt so good about the experiences and memories the kids and I just made that it gave me a natural high and made me more than happy to clean it all up.

Calling all cooks!!!

We were sick last week and I was craving a yummy easy stew so I got online and found this one. It was done in the crock-pot and super easy. The kids all loved it and it was just the comfort food I was looking for.

Well...It got me thinking about how much I LOVE a good easy crock-pot recipe. I want to try and gather more crock-pot recipes especially since it is only going to be getting hotter and HOTTER here and any chance I can cook with out heating up the house sounds really good to me. I thought it would be fun to try and collect some more recipes and post them on the blog. So...if you have a crock-pot recipe that you love send it my way please. I will make it and post the recipes on here as I get them and try them.

Here's the recipe:
Slow-Cooker Beef Stew
2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 onion, chopped (of course I left this out!)
1 1/2 cups beef broth
3 potatoes, diced
4 carrots, sliced
1 stalk celery, chopped
Place meat in slow cooker. In a small bowl mix together the flour, salt, and pepper; pour over meat, and stir to coat meat with flour mixture. Stir in the garlic, bay leaf, paprika, Worcestershire sauce, onion, beef broth, potatoes, carrots, and celery.
Cover, and cook on Low setting for 6-8 hours. (mine was done in about 5, but my crock-pot must get really hot! Just check it every so often and when the veggies are soft, it's done.)