My brother, Eric got engaged last week and I thought I should post some pictures they sent. Readers, meet Ashlee (told you she was a doll) look how happy she is with that ring on her finger.
They're flying to Washington this weekend to spend time with the family and we're going to have a great time. I'm excited!
This past winter has been especially cold with more snow than I ever could have imagined. There is nothing like hot soup on a cold winter's day so all winter long we've consumed soup by the gallon. This has been one of our favorites this winter. It's a tasty that I thought was worth sharing.
Baked Potato Soup
6-8 servings
2 med. potatoes
3 Tbsp butter
2 c. half and half
1 c. onion
1/2 c. pre-cooked & crumbled bacon
1 container mushrooms, quartered
2 Tbsp flour
4 c. chicken stock
2 c. water
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 1/2 c. instant mashed potatoes
1 tsp salt
3/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp basil
pinch thyme
Opt. Garnish:
1/2 c. cheddar cheese, shredded
green onions, chopped
Preheat oven to 400 and bake the potatoes for 1 hour or until done. When the potatoes have cooked, remove them from the oven to cool.
As potatoes cook, prepare soup by melting butter in a large saucepan and saute onion and mushroom until light brown. Add the flour to the onions and mushrooms and stir to make a roux. (Sometimes I have to add more butter.)
Add stock, water, cornstarch, mashed potatoes, and spices to the pot and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 5 min.
Cut potatoes in half lengthwise and scoop out contents with a large spoon. Discard skin. Chop baked potatoes to make chunks 1/2'' in size. Add chopped potato, half and half, and bacon to the saucepan. Simmer 15 minutes or until thickened.
This past week was busy. I've really gotten busy with my church calling and several days in a row I had to call Jenny and one night after I just gotten home I said, "Oh, I've got to email Jenny." And Tim said, "Could you just stop thinking about Jenny for one minute and think about me?" I had to laugh, we both did I guess he was feeling a bit ignored.
Jayden started gymnastics with his friend Jacob. They're the youngest in the class and have the shortest attention span. It's funny to watch them get so distracted and hear the teacher say, "Jayden ... come back!" They get distracted by the big long trampoline.
Darcy is starting to get back to her old self again. She hasn't been feeling good for a while, it's nice to see our busy Darcy again. She finally started using walking toys to get around. I've been trying for a few weeks now and she would promptly sit down and crawl. She's also starting to need entertainment. She can't sit on my lap during R.S. anymore, only 6 more months until she can go to nursery!
Tim is starting the night shift this week. UGH! I hate the night shift, I have a hard time doing the night time routine alone and then I can't sleep without him and he'll want to sleep in... yada yada yada. I need to have a better attitude about it because it is what will work for his school schedule and will be best for him.
On our last visit to Utah about two weeks ago we went to dinner with Tim's parents and had a good time. And they're coming up at the end of the month for birthday week at our house, Darcy and Jayden's birthdays are exactly one week apart. We also got to visit the Draper Temple during the open house. They bussed you from different church buildings up to the temple for the tour. I love showing and teaching my children the gospel.
Afterward they had refreshments and I'd have to say that was Darcys favorite part - she is such a little eater! That girl can pack it, you wouldn't tell by looking at her but she's a foodie. 
So I'm trying to catch up and I'm posting a ton of pictures that I wanted to post about but never did. Scroll down, there's a lot more. This is a picture of Darcy in my favorite church outfit that she wore last fall. (Sept 08)
The following pictures are from the Puyallup Fair. We decided one Friday that we wanted to join my family and hopped on a plane (I LOVE flight benefits) and spent that night at the fair.
I was glad we went because Jayden was brave enough to ride the rides and loved them! In the past he would scream and we'd have to stop the ride and get him off.
In the beginning of Sept we visited family and Utah and stayed with Tim's brother and family. Their son, Loren is Jayden's age and they had a blast together. We always have such a great time with them and they never disappoint.
They were so cute running around together in their batman pajamas at the Alsop family reunion. It just happened to be the same week we visited and so we got to spend some time at Tim's uncle's house - Steve and GeAnna Alsop in American Fork, UT.
September was a busy month for us. Tim started school the last Wednesday of the month and so we tried to cram in things we had been hoping to do. We drove to Idaho and rode the Route of the Hiawatha trail. It was a great bike ride, they had huge trestles that you could bike over. They were so tall that you were above most of the tree tops and to look down over the sides was a bit unnerving. 
These are some more pictures from our Utah trip. We went to the Utah fair with Chris and Laurie and had a great time. We went to the rodeo and walked through the displays. We let the boys go down the giant slide and Loren was a pro! He held his hands in the air just like his dad and loved it. Jayden on the other hand, not so much. He screamed and cried he went twice and then refused (gotta give him credit for going twice.)
Natalie got to ride a horse she was excited to ride then when she got on she was so still took in every moment. 
This is my favorite picture from that trip - Darcy spent most of her time in that pack. 
Here are those cousins together again. They played endlessly and Jayden still talks about Loren.
This is Darcy 2nd or 3rd time eating food. It's her favorite, peas. This little girl loves her vegetables!
Darcy loves baths. She has the best time splashing and kicking and it always as happy as can be in the water. She even cries when we take her out. Now that she's crawling and cruising like a pro I find that she's dropped all the bath toys in the tub and is leaning over and whinning until I run water and put her in. She knows what she likes and I can't blame her. I love a good book and a hot bath.
This is after the bath see her red face from crying because we took her out. Sheech ... what kid does that?
Our little girl is getting so big, she wore her first pigtails. We just had to take pictures, they may be small but they're there. And look how happy she is about them! 
See that scab on her nose? She fell down stairs the other day and got scratched. The few seconds between me hearing the sound and realizing what happened were agonizing. I was happy to see it was just a small scratch.
I just had to share these pictures of our winter. See all that snow? That ALL came in less that 48 hours and it was still snowing when we took them. It was crazy! I mean just insane and I have to say that Spokane city has been the absolute worst at removing the snow. 
That is Tim's truck, it didn't move for weeks.
Tim was trying to find the driveway so he could shovel it before it froze and turned into ice.
You couldn't see out the basement windows because the snow was so high. I have to say we had a lot of fun the first day or two and after that Jayden wouldn't go out in it. Fresh clean snow is fun but black dirty ice isn't.
We had to post this picture. This is the day after Christmas and was our last and final day of potty training. And let me say we were all exhausted. We did it in 8 days and I call it an ambush, Jayden didn't know what had hit him. He fought it every step of the way for the first 4-5 but by day 8 he was going by himself and that night he went in and never came out. This is how we found him. I feel for you little dude I really do.
We are seriously lacking in the picture department with our children. I hate to admit it but Darcy has never been in for pictures and she's 8 months old! We can't find anyone in Spokane who has a style that we like so we just haven't gone. Here are some ones I snapped today. 
Jayden is 2 1/2 now! He's so talkative and exuberant as most know. He loves batman, spiderman and transformers and does all the sound affects. He's definitly all boy.
Sister D is 8 months and she loves food, especially vegetables. She is such an eater but doesn't care for fruit (didn't get that from my side of the family.) She sits, rolls, crawls and says " Mamamam" and "Dadadada." She is 15lbs. 2 oz. And once again I don't know what she's doing with her lips either. I know I'm a month late with this post but I really wanted to do one this summer. Some of our summer highlights, we had one busy summer this year and it was tons of fun.
June:
July:
August:
