One Little, Happy Hat Trick

Hat Trick: When a player scores three goals in a hockey game.

Braden Alexander Bowman

Born: Monday, March 2 at 11:00 am

Weight: 8 pounds, 3 ounces

Height: 20 inches

Proud Parents: Kevin and Emily

Proud Sister and Brother: Rebecca and William

I'm So Excited About This

Last week, five gorgeous ladies and I got together to do freezer meals. We put together 14 meals for each of us to keep in our freezers, which is a total of 84 FREEZER MEALS. And those 14 meals cost us each $108, which turns out to be about $7.71 per meal. Awesome huh!


These are the five other ladies that are part of my group. I told you they were gorgeous. And yes, that is Kindra Stevens for all of my Chaparralians out there. In the picture I'm holding the antibacterial cleaner. We had to use a ton of that stuff. There was raw meat juice all over the place. As hostess, I got to store all of the raw meat and other refrigerated items in my fridge for a day. I wish I got a picture - the only things in my fridge that were not for the freezer group were some condiments on the door and a gallon of milk.

We each got assigned a different job as part of the group. We're supposed to rotate jobs after every get-together, but I think we decided that we each liked what we did so much that we are sticking with our original jobs:

Leslie - The Shopper (She's in charge of buying ALL of the food we need for the meals, which is a ton of food. And I'm glad she likes that job first of all because she is a great bargain finder and secondly because I cannot imagine trying to buy 64 pounds of chicken, 15 pounds of hamburger, tons of canned veggies and soups, and the list goes on and on, with three little kids.)

Krista - Food Preparer (Some of the meat needs to be cooked and cut or shredded beforehand to save time when we get together. Krista was in charge of cooking and preparing 30 POUNDS of chicken. Phew. That's a lot of chicken.)

Alli - The Shopper (Alli is Leslie's sister, so she gets to help Leslie do all of the shopping. Alli - I don't think you realize how much I appreciate you are your sister doing this job.)

Kindra - Food Preparer (Kindra got to brown 15 pounds of hamburger meat. Can you imagine all of the grease that would need to be thrown out from that?)

Rachel - The Organizer (Rachel was the pro who had done this with another group twice before, so she sent out the emails containing the shopping list, the recipes, and our responsibilities in our specific jobs. Rachel loves being in charge, which is awesome because I don't.)

Emily - The Hostess (I'm in charge of getting my house cleaned for everyone to come over and prepare the meals. I also call the prep girls to let them know when Leslie and Alli have dropped off all of the food so that the prep girls can pick up their stuff to prepare. Then I organize the remaining ingredients by what meals they are going into. I love this job.)

We had a few minor mistakes being that this was our first time doing this together. I think we will get better as we go along. Here are some of the fun things that happened that we just had to laugh at:

• Rachel didn't put sliced Swiss cheese on the shopping list, so I had to run to Smith's to get some. We needed some chocolate to snack on anyway, so I was glad that I had to go.



• Cooked chicken was used to put together the Chicken Parmesian meals when raw chicken should have been used. No big deal - we just had to cook a few more pounds of chicken at my house. We did that while we continued putting other non-chicken meals together.



• All of the hamburger was used up before we put together the 6 lasagne meals. We thought only two recipes called for hamburger when it was actually three. So we made meatless lasagne instead.

Here's a picture of all of my finished freezer meals (and my frozen chicken):

All of these meals just need to be thawed and put in the crock pot or the oven. I've had other things to make for dinner in my pantry, so I've been making dinner instead of using my freezer meals. I want to have all of my frozen meals when the baby comes. It will be so nice to not worry about what to do for dinner when I'm trying to get used to having three kids. And the six of us marked our calendars to get together on March 12 to do this all again. I can't wait.

Thanks for getting this together, Rachel, and for getting me to be a part of it. Life should be a little easier while I'm a part of this group.

Valentine's Weekend

I had a great Valentine's weekend, and although I didn't get any pictures (like always), I wanted to share a few of my favorite parts of the weekend.

• I had a doctor's appointment on Friday, and I picked Kevin up from work to go with me since he is on the way. As we drove, I started to tell him how Leslie from my Freezer Meal group did not like the movie He's Just Not That Into You. I had previously mentioned that that was one I wanted to see. He said, "Well that's too bad. I was going to take you to see that movie tonight." I was completely surprised. That night we dropped the kids off with his parents and went to Outback (my favorite) and still went to see He's Just Not That Into You. I really liked it, and surprisingly, so did Kevin. I still want to ask Leslie what she didn't like about it.



• Saturday we had an fun Valentine's Day ward party planned by the Shumways. They did an awesome job putting the party together. All of the couples were split up to go play three different games, and in each game we ended up with a different group so that all of the couples got a chance to interact. We played The Newlywed Game where Kevin and I got four out of ten questions right. We did worse than the couple in our group who had only been married for three weeks. We also played a game about remembering our first date and a telephone charades game invented by my friend Rachel. The women were asked to bring their husbands' favorite appetizer or dessert, which we enjoyed after the games. Then the husbands were invited to share a poem about their wives which they had been asked to prepare beforehand. Kevin's poem to me went something like this:

You are hot,

like the fire of a really big blow torch,

spaghetti.

(I later found out that this poem was written by our Elder's Quorum President and emailed to all of the Elder's Quorum as an example of what they could say in their poems.)

The party ended with a slow dance, which Kevin and I don't ever get to have together. Thanks for the great party, Shumways. I wouldn't have wanted to spend Valentine's Day any other way.

• Sunday night we went to my parents' house in New Harmony so that Kevin could go snowboarding at Brian Head on Monday for President's Day. The weather wasn't great, so a few of the lifts were closed, but Kevin had a good time with his brother Brandon and sister Melissa who came with us. While they were on the mountain, my kids got into their snow suits and had some fun in the snow in the front yard.

Here's a picture of the house minus the snow.

We really had a long, fun-filled weekend. Kevin - thanks for making this Valentine's weekend one to remember.

I Can't Believe I Missed This

Justin Timberlake is my favorite entertainer right now. I love his music, but I have to say that his work on SNL is what really made me a huge fan. This is just clips from a skit he did with Beyonce. I posted the whole skit on my Facebook profile. If you're my friend on Facebook you can go there to watch the whole thing.

Enjoy!

I have to say that I like this song a lot more since I discovered this video.

I Love My Sister...

...and her pretty headbands,

and her pink bike helmet,

and her princess crown,

and her Dora Ugg boots with the fur trim,

and her Minnie Mouse ears.

My mom also has some pink fuzzy slippers that are fabulous.


My dad isn't worried about me...well not yet anyway.

Grateful

First of all I have to say the boot is off. It's been less than three weeks since I broke my foot, but I got these great flat boots for Christmas, and when I wore the left boot to my orthopedic appointment last week, the doctor liked the way it fit my foot. So he told me to try taking the "big boot" off of my broken foot this week and replacing it with my Christmas boot. It really hurt to get the new boot on, but now that it's on my foot, it feels just as supportive as that other big clunky boot, yet it's a whole lot easier to get around on. Walking around with one foot higher than the other gets old fast, and I don't even think I noticed how annoying it was until I went walking around the house today in two boots that are the same height. I think I even got more done today because I wasn't bogged down by a stupid gimp walk. I really hope when I go in to see the doctor next week that he tells me the Christmas boot is doing a good job because I just don't think I can ever go back to that other boot.

The last few weeks have really been hard for me. Because I broke my right foot, I couldn't really drive. So I've been stuck in the house for the past two weeks slowly going crazy. I'm so used to my independence and being able to go get what I need when I need it that it was really hard to go back to having Kevin and my family drive me around to appointments and other places I needed to be. And to top things off, I had the flu this past Saturday and Sunday due to a flu shot that my doctor gave me because of some flu symptoms I started to have before my prenatal appointment. The weekend sucked due to fever and achiness, a hurting foot with a big clunky boot on it, and a big huge belly that is starting to get hard to maneuver around. It just seemed like things kept getting worse and worse.

But I have to say that when things seem to get really hard, Heavenly Father sends his angels to help take care of us:

• Like today, and this is silly, but I really want to include it, I went to Taco Bell (because I can now drive in my new smaller boot) and got food for the kids and a medium cherry Pepsi for myself. The guy at the window gave me a large cherry Pepsi, and said, "Here's your medium cherry Pepsi" with a wink and a smile. I don't think he knew how much I really needed those extra few ounces of caffeine, and I know he doesn't know how much I truly appreciated his extra kindness.
  
  
• My in-laws took care of my kids the whole time we were in Reno so that the kids could still have a fun vacation in spite of their mother's broken foot.
  
  
• Two weeks ago, my friends from high school and Hot Dog on a Stick Laurie and Kim called to have their kids come play with my kids. I had had a whole week of being stuck in the house with only kids, and I don't think they realized how nice it was for me to finally have a little adult interaction. Laurie showed up with breakfast for me and my kids, and Kim came back later with a nice cage for the backyard for our bunnies to run around in and some dinner for our family.
  
  
• My sister Jodi took me to my first orthopedic appointment way out in Henderson and watched my kids while my other sister Denise sat at the office with me for an hour and a half while I waited for the doctor. Then my mom treated us all to a nice lunch after my appointment. And Jodi came back later in the week to bring us some more dinner.
  
  
• My neighbor and good friend Emilee took Rebecca to dance class last week and offered to take her for the rest of the month until I could drive, even though she is about six months pregnant and has her own four-year-old and two-year-old to take to the class. She also brought us some delicious taco soup last night for dinner.
  
  
• One of my oldest, bestest friends in the world Julie came by with a big dinner and some Anderson Dairy ice cream last Friday even though she and her family were getting ready for her husband to start a crazy year of paramedic school this week.
  
  
• My mom took me to my second orthopedic appointment last week and sat in the car with a movie on for my kids to watch while I was inside the doctor's office.
  
  
• And last of all, Kevin has been so wonderful through all of this. He carried me around in Reno, pregnancy weight and all, before I could really walk around in my walking cast. He helped me get in and out of the tub and helped me get dressed before my foot was stable enough to let me do these things on my own. He's been making dinner on the nights that we haven't had leftovers from our friends and family, and he's been cleaning the house so that it hasn't become too much of a disaster. When I had the flu he took care of the kids all weekend so that I could sleep it off. He even took both kids to church by himself. He knew that I really wanted to mop the floor, so he mopped the entire downstairs. He's been taking care of all of the grocery shopping since we got back from Reno, and he's been willing to go do anything I ask him to do to help me out.

I'm so grateful for you all, and I really don't think I could have gotten through this tough time without all of your help. Thanks for being my angels.

Fun Things

What is a fun thing to have when you are 31 weeks pregnant?

A broken foot.

Here's a closer look at my fun new boot. Now I really feel like Bella.

And what's a fun thing to do on the first day of your anticipated visit to Kevin's sister in Reno?

Fall down the stairs and break your foot. I picked a great time to get my first broken bone. The last few weeks of this pregnancy are going to be lots of fun.

On a lighter note...

What are fun things to get for two kids who really want a pet and two parents who don't want to do any serious pet maintenance?

Bunnies! This was what Santa brought our kids for Christmas this year, and we are loving these sweet babies.

William might be loving them a little bit too much. Feel free to come visit our new family members any time.