Heather Homemaker Time!

Annually my ward gets the opportunity to order plums and peaches by huge boxes, like 40 lbs each for a really good price! $9 a box! So this last week my plums and peaches arrived (via Tiffany, thanks Tiff!), 1 box each and it was time to eat as much as possible and then decide what to do with the rest of them! Unfortunately, Seth and I are not able to eat 80 lbs of fruit before it goes bad! :) I decided that regular jam was not the way I wanted to go this year, since I still have jam left from 2 years ago! So I found a great recipe for PLUM PIE, so amazing and YUMMY! And that's what I did with the plums, in the pic above it shows a big one and little bit size ones I did in a mini-muffin pan! Then with the peaches my friend Marcie came to my rescue by volunteering her kitchen to a bunch of us to have a peach madness day! I made freezer jam(so yummy and fresh tasting, great on ice cream), Peach Pie Filling (freezable and then you just drop into pie crust and cook in oven) and then I canned the rest of the peaches! I wish I would have gotten another box of peaches just to can, then we could have had a good supply for food storage! Oh well, next year! Click on the items that are blue to be taken to the recipes for making! Thanks Marcie you are awesome for letting us come and destroy your kitchen! :) Here are some pics from that fun day...

Us and the destroyed kitchen! Notice the table with with the peach junk all over it!

A closer up photo, luckily not too close! We were all so sweaty and covered in peaches by this time!

Goodbye Birdsnest...

The Olympics are over and this is kind of bittersweet for me! I have really been loving it this time around cause it is all I have been really doing I think! I have really enjoyed watching Michael Phelps win his 8 golds, so exciting! I really felt like I knew him by the end, watching his mom and sisters and to see what a great relationship they have was so awesome!












I also enjoyed watching the mens and womens gymnastics, always my favorite! So crazy the things their bodies can do!



The all around competition for the women was the best! The friendly, but intense competition between Nastia and Shawn had me at the edge of my seat! When Nastia won and Shawn took silver it made me cry!

And then when they got their medals and the national anthem for the USA played minutes later, I cried again. These olympics have really been a tear jerker for me! And also made me laugh a little, there are a lot of crazy sports in the olympics! Trampolining, Speed Walking - hilarious(check out this great video if you haven't seen this wonderful sport!) , Rythmic Gymnastics - which is floor gymnastics with a hula hoop or jump rope with a single person or group, Table Tennis - which is Ping Pong People(!) and any sport that goes longer than an hour with only running, walking and bike riding - so boring! But all around these 17 days of Olympic events have been really entertaining and now that it is over I'm kinda bored and have no excuse not to get housework done! But that is probably a good thing! :) Good bye Olympics until February 2010!

Mommy & Doggy Playtime!

These are pics of us and our babies! Sarah and (huge)Echo, Emily and Dodger, Me and Harley and Jenn and Chief! We all got together for a doggy playdate last night and it was a lot of fun! Harley has had playdates with a couple of them before, but having them all (plus more, a few random dogs showed up later so at one time there was 8 dogs!) at once I'm sure was pure ecxtasy for her! They ran around, wrestled, slobbered all over each other, hopped, skipped, jumped and literally trampled me a few times! Pretty funny cause when run dog runs over you, the whole pack does! I wish we had gotten some video of that because it was pretty hilarious! Drink time was special too! Next time I will be more on top of funny video opps! For now you get this one, sorry once again for my annoying voice! Enjoy...



Running & chasing each other!

Wrestling around!

Getting ready for another chase!

The big doggy portrait, this took some effort! LOL! I love how huge Echo's tongue is! And all their eyes look spooky all shiny from the flash! LOVE IT! Cannot wait till next time!

Gotta have faith...

So I am currently working on completing my Personal Progress and receiving my medallion, hopefully before the baby comes! This is something I did not do as the young woman, but as a Young Woman Leader I am able to work on now to achieve it! I'm glad because I really do want to get this and think I need to! :) So a lot of the value experiences have you write your thoughts in your journal and this is mine, so feel free to enjoy my thoughts! I might not do this with all of them, but this seemed really appropriate to share at this time anyways! Feel free to chime in!

This value experience is on Faith and focuses on preparing to be a mother! How perfect for me at this time! I have really been focusing on faith along with my husband this year and we have really been tested on this subject as of late and I'm happy to say that having FAITH in our lives is working for us! I went over a few scriptures on Helaman's Stripling Warriers and the faith that was taught to them by their mothers and I hope that my children will be able to say that their mother has taught them how to be faithful! I also read through "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" and it spells out the responsibilties of a mother...

"Her sacred duty is to rear her children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Mothers will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations... Mothers are primarily responsible for the nuturing of their children."

What does a woman need to be able to do this? Well for me I think I would need to be a good example of all these things. And then I would need some patience, love and understanding, willingness to learn from them and the ability to change when things aren't working so well. I have good examples of this all around me luckily and I know when this time comes that it will be so hard at times (because I was hard on my mom), but through faith, prayer and sacrifice I will be able to handle this duty! I know that faith is what has gotten me through a lot this year and I look forward to sharing these experiences with my children so they know that I have lived it and that faith is something you need daily! I'm so bleseed by this gospel and knowing that I can be with my Heavenly Father again AND be able to be with my family FOREVER! What an amazing gift and I don't even have to be perfect... I just have to be trying to be!

A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

I have gotten together with some friends this last week and wanted to share some fun pics! I got to see our friends Janitsy and Nathaniel on Saturday, they brought their baby boy Jalen out to see us! He is so cute, looks just like his Daddy! They make the cutest little family and are just so good at the parenting thing! Even Nathaniel has got it down...

This baby is so in love with his mommy, just kept staring at her! I can't wait till my baby looks at me like that!
The Anderson Family
Daddy multi-tasking at dinner!

Yesterday a bunch of us from our ward got together for a birthday lunch for Shelley Cook, it was adventure! :) We went to Friday's and the Hostess was calm at first and then slowly got more and more stressed out when more and more people arrived with their kids, it was hilarious! She doesn't even have the hard job! She finally got us seated, all 20 of us = 7 adults, 9 kids and 4 babies! The waitress had a really hard time getting everything done, it took about an hour(no joke) for us all to get our food and about another hour and a half for the check to be settled! Everyone's kids were getting a tad impatient and I really don't blame them, cause I felt the same way! Once we got our food someone else's kids were running around the lobby area and the hostess came over and told us that the kids can't just be running around out here! So rude! They weren't even part of our party, I told her "Great, they aren't ours!" She went back to her station and didn't even try to find the people they belonged to! We still had a good time despite the long wait and bad service, I felt a little bad for the waitress since she really didn't have any help and it seemed that the registers were really screwed up! Good Times! Happy Birthday Shelley! Here are some pics from the crazy lunch...

Davis, aka the "cheese monster" LOL! A lovely nickname from his sister Tatum!

Ashton, Camden, Daxton and Brock - these are in a sequence of pics! Crazy little boys, Camden's facial expressions are the best!



The back of of the table, Nikki, Shelley, Kyra and kiddos!

The front end of the table: Katie Gunnell, Melissa, Kati Bruer and kiddos!
Me & Kati

2 Month Baby Update!

I can't believe it is already 2 months, it feels like we are still trying to get pregnant some days and then I have a spell of fatigue or nauseousness and it reminds me that we already are! So crazy, it has felt unreal! We had our 2nd ultrasound last week at Kaiser and it was a little disappointing, their machine isn't as good as our in-vitro office so the pics weren't as good and they didn't spend much time pointing and explaining. I think we have been spoiled... case point: We had our 3rd sonogram at our in-vitro office yesterday and their machine is so awesome, perks of in-vitro! We got some 3D done and got to tape it! So neat! The doctor pointed out everything! I cried through this one, it was so cool to be able to see the baby's arms and legs moving! We are 9 weeks now so the baby is about an inch long, so still super tiny and we could see it moving! AMAZING! AND it looked like a baby - maybe more alien like, but still SO CUTE!!!! Such an awesome experience! I took some video of the video to share with you...


And one with some 3D...


We got some pics too...

This is one of the Kaiser ones, just not as good but it was still nice to know that the baby was growing and healthy.


This is a really good 3D shot, you can see the face really good! :)


This shows the heart beat, the doctor said it was faster than normal cause the baby was moving alot. Must have been as excited as we were!


This is my 2 month shot, as you can see my gut has gotten bigger! :) Bound to happen! I read that the uterus is bigger than a grapefruit now, somehow mine feels bigger than that! LOL! And some other areas are increasing in size, can you guess where? :) I have lost weight with the nausea and vomiting, I had a bad week of it earlier this month after getting over my cold. But I'm feeling a little better now, hopefully it will stay this way! I'm very tired all the time, sensitive to smells, craving salad like crazy(better than Funyuns, which was last weeks big craving!) and getting car sick a lot! I'm having some emotional mood swings today... Seth tried to cuddle when we were re-watching the ultrasound video today and I almost lost it! why does it make it so much worse when your husband points it out that you are emotional? I just wanted to punch him in the face as he smiled at me! Poor guy, I gave him a really good massage last night though, so I'm not the worse wife... right? Well that is about it for now, hope you have enjoyed the videos and pics!

Fire Station Tour

Yesterday I was able to visit Seth at work with some friends and their excited kiddos (I don't know who was more excited, me or them?), to get a fire station tour and see a day in the life of one HOT Firefighter (that would be my husband!)!! :) While we were there they got a call and had to take off, it was like a live demo just for us! Luckily no one was hurt and they were back pretty quick to complete the tour! The kids were really impressed with how much ice cream they keep in their freezer, Ethan said, "You are SO LUCKY!" So cute! They also got to try on Seth's turnout jacket and helmet and try out his spot in the engine. He works with some great people there and they were all so welcoming to us! It is nice to see where Seth is when I am missing him, I'm glad he has such a great job that he loves! I took a lot of pics and these 2 are my faves...

Seth and the kids, so cute! We could totally handle 6 kids! LOL!

My Firefighter and I, he is so hot... want to touch the hiney! I can't remember what that is from, but it is funny stuff!

I put the rest of the pics in this slide show for your viewing pleasure...

Afterwards we went to Doheney beach to have some more fun and we had gotten all our stuff out of the cars and onto to the beach and then we noticed the "Warning No Swimming Signs" due to sewage in the water! Oh well! We let the kids play in the sand for awhile and then went back to Natalie's so the kids could swim there!

The girls checking out the signs, we had to tell them the was poop in the water cause they didn't understand sewage! :) Good times!
The kids playing in the sand! We had a great day!

Harley Time!

Our little puppy has gotten so big lately and she is having a big week! She just graduated from her Puppy class last night at Petsmart and she got fixed this morning! We decided to get her fixed ASAP, we only want one pregnant bitch in our house! LOL! Sorry if that offends anyone! Anyways, she did really good in her training and learned so much! It really helped us to know all the tricks to make her a more obedient and happy dog, the Trainer Sue was so great and patient with all the dogs and us crazy owners! She walks with us so much better now and stays, high fives, rolls over and crawls! It's super cute! I caught some on video to share...
This is Seth and Harley at the end of her "Graduation Walk" doing a High Five and a Crawl.
Here are some pics too...

Seth and the Graduate!

All of us together, I look like crap... Oh well! At least Harley is cute with the graduate hat!



Harley has also had a friend visiting this week, her girlfriend Dodger! They just love each other and have been completely wearing each other out playing all day, which is so nice! They are both half American Bulldog but Dodger's other half is Dalmation and Harley we think is Pitbull. They are about the same size and same age and it's fun to get them together to play without worrying that they will get knocked up! Although we now no longer have to worry about that! Here are some cute pics of them...

Playing around!

Looking super cute!








Last but not least pics of Harley and our nephew Tate! She would not normally be just lying there, kids make her so excited normally! But she is just home from being fixed and is super lethargic from the meds, Tate couldn't resist giving her some love!

Ahhhhhh, hugs!

So freakin' adorable!

Breaking Dawn Release!

I went with friends on Friday night to get the newest book in the Twilight Series "Breaking Dawn"! We had a fun waiting in line for the bracelets to be able to procure a copy and then went to dinner at BJ's AND then back to Barnes & Noble to wait in another line to actually buy our copy! It was quite a scene! So many Twilight lovers were there to get their copy along with us and it was crazy crowded as they tried to organize us till it was 12:00AM and then they could actually start selling the books! We had a great idea about 10 minutes till to have Rebecca(Melissa Gargalis's sister) run to the 24hour Walmart to see if she could get them there! Cause we still had at least another hour wait ahead of us since the line was so long! So she ran over there and was able to get 5 copies within minutes! AND CHEAPER! Hooray! It was a fun, girly night and I was glad I was able to share with close friends! I made some fun shirts for Kati and I to sport! Check em out...
Yay! Team Edward!
Me, Rebecca, Marcie, Kati and Melissa waiting in line!

P.S. I have sinced finished the book and it was AWESOME! I won't ruin it by disclosing any details, I will just say I'm sad that I've finished it! I wish it could go on forever! Happy reading everyone!