Fashion Show Pics...as Promised!

Aspen with the whole group before the show started. She is in the back left hand side.
Don't they look ready to ROCK?!?

Oh sure, she strikes a pose backstage....

AND...here we go!

She had a GRIP on that necklace!

Sorry that they weren't in any kind of order, but I GAVE UP after messing with it for so long!
Can you believe this girl is ONLY 13?!?

Divine By Design

Last night, Aspen was invited to be a part of an awesome program put on by the Stake Young Women's (YW) Presidency. It was a MODEST fashion show called Divine by Design. Talking about how we are designed by our Heavenly Father in his Divine wisdom. Aspen felt really special for being invited to be in it, especially since only a handful in the whole stake were chosen. The fashion show was before the YW General Broadcast last night, and tied in really well with all that the General YW Presidency and Elder Uchtdorf had to say. The leaders in charge of the fashion show had no idea that the General President and Elder Uchtdorf would bring up the same theme, so it was just a really nice night and went together perfectly!

They really went all out for this program and I was completely surprised at what they had planned. Before the fashion show started, one of the leaders talked about how the media is distorting our views about beauty and how FAKE they are in their advertising. She went through lots of time periods and discussed how certain fashions were "in style" and how the media played into those fears that women have about their bodies. She talked about how plastic surgery is really popular now and how that may be as crazy as when the Chinese women would bind their feet to be smaller. I think it made complete sense and I know that she had all the girls' attention in that room. She showed a couple of videos that showed how a picture of a model can be so distorted and how when you look at and think about how beautiful the model is, you really are not even seeing the real person! Here is one of the videos by the Dove and their campain for real beauty.



She also talked about this picture that Ralph Lauren had as an ad. I mean this model doesn't even look human anymore after all of the photoshopping!

There was another video that she showed, but I can't find it. It was just a really nice program with a great message. I'm glad that Aspen and Sierra were able to be there last night.

I got some video of Aspen walking the runway, while a friend of mine took some still pics. I'll post those as soon as I get them. She was so super nervous, but still had fun! She did GREAT!! The first time they modeled their hair that they had done by professionals, then they modeled a casual outfit, and then they modeled a Sunday Best outfit! She thought is was so funny that the hair people told her she had a beautiful mane...ha ha! I'm so proud of her & so glad that she got to spend a couple of days with some great girls getting pampered! Everyone came up to me all night telling me how beautiful she is, which I of course already know!

It's About Time

Ryker is FINALLY beginning to lose some teeth! He is so overly excited. It's just adorable! He lost one on the bottom a little while ago, but he lost another one yesterday. His adult teeth are starting to come in behind his baby teeth. They're tired of waiting, I guess. He has an adult tooth on the bottom coming in under his tongue. The picture of the one below was starting to wedge his loose front tooth and wouldn't let it come out. It's been loose for awhile, but it's just been stuck on the one side. So, yesterday we decided it needed to come out. Ryker couldn't pull it, and didn't want us to pull it, so Thomas suggested to Ryker that we wrap a string around it to try and get it out. He did, and he pulled and pulled and it came out! His face was priceless! He was so proud of himself!

AWESOME GIVEAWAY!

Hey Everyone!

My good friend over at www.sewmanybooks.blogspot.com is doing an awesome GIVEAWAY!! Get on over there to enter (CLICK HERE to go directly to the giveaway post) and tell her that Jamie sent you! Don't forget to reference my name people!!

What are you waiting for? GO NOW!!

Brace Face!

Aspen got her braces on today! I think she was a little excited, but didn't want to show it too much. After she came home, she didn't hurt hardly at all. I kept asking her because I KNEW it was gonna hurt. Sure enough, about 5 hours later it hit her like a brick wall and she was in tears! Poor thing! She looks great with them on and I'll be glad to have ONE kid in braces done with and FOUR more to go. I was told awhile ago by our dentist in Vegas to start saving because ALL 5 kids were gonna need them. Boy, was she right! We definitely got the bad teeth genes in this family, for sure!

Valentine's Day FUNdue

On Valentine's Day, I decided to start a NEW tradition! We had FUNdue for dinner. We kept it a secret from the kids, and then when we told them what it was and gave them directions on how to eat it, they had a BLAST! They just couldn't get over the fact that we were gonna let them dip their dinner all night. I had a lot of fun putting it together and am so glad that the kids enjoyed it.

First, we had a Cheese FUNdue! We dipped cut up french bread and cut up ham into it. Here's the recipe for the cheese. It was super yummy! I doubled this, but I really shouldn't have. It made a LOT! I got the recipe from HERE, but changed the cheese. I used half Swiss and half Cheddar.

Non-Alcoholic Cheese Fondue

1/2 lb. Swiss Cheese
1/2 lb Cheddar
2 Cloves Garlic
3T Flour
2T Butter
1 1/2 cups Milk
1/2T Lemon Juice
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
Salt & Pepper to taste

Peel garlic and slice the cloves in half the long way so the most inner surface is showing. Rub a heavy saucepan with two halves of the garlic for flavoring. Rub the fondue pot with the other two garlic halves.

Grate the cheese and mix with 1 T. of the flour.

Melt the butter in saucepan over medium-low heat. Add rest of flour. Stir well till smooth. Add about ½ cup of milk and stir till smooth. Slowly add the rest of the milk, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens to about the consistency of light cream. Add a handful of cheese and keep stirring. Let the cheese melt and then add another handful and stir until it melts. Repeat the process until all the cheese is melted.

Once all the cheese has been added and the mixture is smooth, you can stir in the nutmeg, salt and pepper. Finally, add the lemon juice. Stir well till the mixture is smooth once again.

Then I added the cheese from the stove to a crock pot. It worked out really nice!

Eat Immediately!!

Then we moved onto the Meat FUNdue. We started off putting chicken broth into a Frydaddy. The chicken we cooked in there tasted GREAT, but the broth kept trying to boil over. So, we emptied out the broth and put in some oil. It worked great, but didn't taste as good as the broth, but it was still YUMMY! The kids got a little bored waiting for their meat to cook, so this wasn't their favorite course.

After the chicken, we had DESSERT! It was so good, and definitely the kids' favorite course! I used white chocolate because some in my house aren't big on the regular chocolate. (That would be ME & Aspen!) The white chocolate was HEAVENLY! Seriously...the kids were in heaven! We dipped strawberries, marshmellows, pound cake, pretzels, and bananas. I got the recipe HERE, and we followed it exactly!!

Ingredients

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
• 2 (12-ounce) packages premier white morsels

In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine cream and butter. Bring mixture to a simmer, stirring constantly. Remove pan from heat. Add white morsels. Stir until melted and smooth. Cool slightly. Transfer to a fondue pot, chafing dish, or ceramic bowl. Serve immediately with sliced apples, sliced bananas, strawberries, cookies, pretzels, and pound cake.

It was so much fun and

I'm so glad I started a new tradition!