Skippy

Yesterday, Scott bought every jar of Skippy Natural that Target had. They were on sale. How long do you think it will take him to eat all of them?

The Kitchen!

Welcome to our kitchen.

It has been forever ago that Nicole and I painted the kitchen and fixed it up. However, I thought that it would be great fun to film the kitchen. The video is not very good quality, but you get the point.

Mandy gives Scott a Birthday Present

Here is Toby. He is beautiful. Look at his crazy tongue and toes!

Birth and Family Place

On Wednesday, Nicole had an appointment at the birth and family place to check up on the baby! Kennedy and Scott went along for the fun. We heard the baby's heart beat and the baby kicked a lot! Very active baby! Nicole is excited to have the baby at the Birth and Family Place. Kennedy even exlaimed, "This is the perfect place to have a baby!"

Above is a picture of one of the three birthing rooms to choose from. Nicole hasn't chosen a favorite yet. They all have big wonderful tubs to use and queen size beds. Here is a picture of Kennedy and Nicole having fun with the blood pressure machine. Below is a picture of Kennedy playing in the "forest" just outside the birthing center. Please go to http://www.birthandfamilyplace.com/ to learn more about this amazing place to give birth!

We will find out if we are having a boy or a girl right before Christmas! Nicole is very excited so she can buy clothes and things for the baby. We have tons of things to get. We are a bit overwhelmed. Nicole has been looking for a bassinet and a stroller and a car seat and a crib and clothes and blankets and toys.... lots of stuff. If anyone has advice and/or hand me down baby stuff, it would be very much appreciated!

nolsen's secret bump cookies

23 March 1980

"Here is my recipe for nolsen's secret bump cookies. Nobody likes them except me...

at least 3/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
a little bit more than 1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup flour
no salt
1/2 teaspoon soda
a lot of oats and some corn flakes or other cereals

Beat together shortening and sugars. Add egg water and vanilla. Stir until creamy. Add flour and soda. Blend well. Stir in oats, cornflakes, and chocolate chips until they won't mix in or at least hard to stir. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. They should come out flat and a little crumbly. Save the crumbs and pour over ice cream...

...Why don't you make some for a party now. Your friends will be amazed."

I stole that from my Dads journal. Hope you don't mind. It is my favorite entry in one of the journals of my Dad that I possess. Did you know that I have one of your journals?

Anyway... Kennedy and I love these cookies. Diana (K's grandma) does as well. Diana had been asking me for some time to make them, so Kennedy and I thought it would be a lovely Sunday activity to make some and deliver them to our friends throughout the neighborhood. We didn't end up with a lot of cookies, so if you didn't get any, I'm sorry. You'll have to ask me to make you some. Kennedy had lots of fun and made up this song. Enjoy.

Nicole can predict the future!

We were looking at our blog today and noticed that we have been blogging for almost a year. Since February. I don't know if you can remember, but when we first made our blog, we had a put baby widget on our blog. We were kind of just making fun of how weird the fetus's looked floating around on peoples blogs. When Nicole made the baby widget, she put that she was due in 15 months. May of 09! and lo and behold, she is due in May of 09. She knew 6 months before she was pregnant that we would be having a baby next May.

Halloween!

Kennedy dressed up as a vampire this halloween! She made a great vampire! Scott was a lucha libre wrestler, and Nicole was a witch.

In Remembrance of Mr. Cat

When I (Scott) was in 5th grade, Mandy had a black cat. She was a friendly cat. Every time I went out my back door, I would see a black cat dart under the porch. I thought, "what is wrong with our cat? She never runs and hides." After a couple weeks of this I decided to crawl under the porch and see what was wrong with our cat. To my surprise, it wasn't our cat. It was a small stray. I got some cat food and coaxed her out from under the porch, and sure enough, it was not our cat.

Over the next few weeks, I would go outside and feed her and slowly I gained her trust and she wouldn't run away anymore. She was a very pretty cat with the softest fur I had ever felt. Since she wasn't our cat and I didn't know we would be keeping her, I called her Mr. Cat. (at the time, we thought she was a boy) After a few months, she was always at our house, and somehow or another, she had claimed us as her family. Since I had been calling her Mr. Cat for so long, it just kind of stuck as her name, even though it is not a good name for a cat.

One of the first surprises we had from Mr. Cat is when she gave birth to a litter of kittens. Remember, we thought she was a boy. She ended up having several litters of kittens. I think three, but I can't remember because it was so long ago. Every time she would have a litter of kittens, we would take her in to get fixed, and she would be pregnant again so we had to wait until she had the kittens.

During one of the litter of kittens, we had a small baby white rabbit. I think it was Mandys rabbit, I don't know why we had it. Anyway, Mr. Cat took it in as one of her own kittens and even nursed it. Notice the picture below! It was very intersting. Kind of odd, but very sweet at the same time. You would think that a cat would just kill the baby rabbit, like it would a mouse.

When I was in high school, I remeber one night, Mr. Cat keept bugging me while I was trying to sleep so I shut here out of my room. About an hour or so later, after I had fallen asleep, I herd a thump againts my door. A second later, another thump, and then another. I felt bad, and decided that she must rely want in my room, so I went and opened the door and there she was tossing a dead bird against my door. She looked up at me so proud as if to say, "Look what I have caught! I have brought it for you!



Mr. Cat was the only cat I had growing up that really loved me. The other cats all liked me, but they all LOVED Mandy, and were kind of Mandys cats. Mr. Cat loved me. She almoast always slept on my bed. She was a great friend for me. I have had her sence 5th grade. I have lived with her longer than I have lived with anyone else except for my dad. I lived with my dad 18 years, and my cat for almost 16 years.




This is my wonderful cat, Mr. Cat. She passed away this week in her sleep. She died happy and content, so I am thankful for that. She was 16.

Fun with Mandy

Mandy came up to visit last weekend. Amongst other fun we had, we carved pumpkins and made a cartoon. Here a picture of Scotts pumpkin. It is a bull. Here is a link to the cartoon we made! hooray!

Katy and Kennedy

I got this picture from Mandy of Kennedy and Katy from this summer. The picture is from when Katy, Kennedy, Jason, and Scott went bowling for Katys birthday.

Mcdonalds

Due date May 22

Nicole and I went to the University Hospital yesterday and had an ultrasound done. Nicole is not as far along as we thought she was. They estimate her to be 6 weeks and 5 days. Her due date is May 22.

The ultra sound was really quite neat. We got a short video and a picture. In the video you can't see much, but you can see the heart beating.

After the ultrasound, Nicole's mom treated us to lunch at the Point, at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital. If you have never eaten there, you should! It is the highest building at the University up on the hill, and the restaurant is on the top floor. When you are eating you have a 180 degree panorama of the Salt Lake Valley. Very impressive. Also the food is really good, and it costs as much as a regular hospital cafeteria.

The wrist is healed!!!

GREAT NEWS!!! Scott's wrist is finally healed!! The bone has healed!! He injured it in JANUARY!! and now it is finally better. He is currently rehabilitating the tendons and ligaments that have not been used much since last winter. It still hurts, but it should not be long until he is shooting 3 pointers again and acting as his normal self again!

K falls in the river!!

For family night on Monday, we all decided to go to the Jordan River to go for a walk and enjoy the outdoors. Kennedy brought her scooter and Scott and Nicole walked. After we had gone about a half mile, we stopped and rested by the side of the river. We went down to the bank and saw muskrats! Or something things like that swimming in the river! They were really neat. One of them came and swam right past us. Scott could have reached out and grabbed it it was so close. As the sun was setting, Nicole and Scott got up and told K that it was time to head back to the car. Kennedy totally ignored them, so Nicole started walking back to the car, and Scott got and the scooter. Scott told Kennedy that we were leaving and started scootering away. A second later, Kennedy started screaming! Scott thought she was throwing a fit that because he was leaving her behind, but quickly he relized that those were some very serious screams. Scott hurried back to her on the scooter and found her climbing out of the river, completely soaked and covered in mud.

Scott took off his sweater to give to Kennedy and took off on the scooter for the car. Nicole got kennedys wet clothes off, Kennedy put on Scotts sweater as a shirt, and used Nicoles sweater as a dress! We are so sad that we did not get pictures of Kennedy.

Although Kennedy was pretty traumatised at first, she took it pretty well, and on the way home we were even teasing her about how the muskrats must of helped her get out of the river.

Maple Canyon

Kennedy had wanted to go camping lately really bad. I don't have school on Monday and I'm all caught up on my homework, so I decided that this weekend we could go on an overnighter. I told Kennedy and Nicole more than a week ago that we should go and everyone seemed to enjoy the idea. But when the day came, Kennedy decided that she was going to stay home because her mother was having a baby shower for her new baby boy Ethan. Cole and I went any way.

We were going to go to the San Rafael Swell, but as we were climbing Fairview Canyon to cross over the mountains between Ephraim and Castledale, the Subaru over heated and the radiator broke. We turned around and cooled the car down as we coasted down the canyon back to Fairview.

Once in town, I got some radiator stop leak and bought some more coolant. (all the local mechanic shops were closed) Surprisingly, the radiator stop leak worked, so we headed back up Fairview Canyon, but about 1 mile up we started overheating again, but now the radiator wasn't leaking. We drove back down and asked one of the locals if there was a place to camp that was close by that didn't require us to climb up over the mountain. They said there was a really cool place just west of Moroni called Maple Canyon that was only a small climb.

We head off and sure enough Maple Canyon was awesome! The fall colors were amazing. The Subaru stayed within temp range just long enough to make it to the first campsite and than overheated.

The canyon walls were really neat. It almost looked like someone had cemented these giant cliffs with cobble stones. I don't know how well you can see in the pictures, but the cliff walls were made of small stones with the biggest stones being about a foot in diameter.

Another interesting thing was

these HUGE nests of caterpillars that looked like big spider webs. The were everywhere. While we were making breakfast, the caterpillars kept falling from the trees on to us. They were really fuzzy and cute and because Nicole missed Toby, she took a liking to them. Nicole found one caterpillar, I guess they are called Wholly Bears, that was black and orange and really fuzzy. She really liked that one.

Even though we missed Kennedy dearly, we still had a great time. It is nice to go and enjoy being outdoors from time to time.

There is a bun in the oven

About week ago, Nicole decided at 12:30 a.m., to take a pregnancy test. Bad Idea. Nicole had already taken several pregnancy tests that week, and all of them had come up negative. She was so disappointed, but we didn't really expect that she would get pregnant on the first try either. So, she told me, "the test will come up negative, but I want to take one anyway." I told her to go ahead. That was a mistake, because we ended up getting very little sleep that night.

The test came up positive. We are expecting in May. It took awhile for the test to come up positive, and she said that she hadn't been waiting that long on the previous tests before she threw them away. We took a couple of the old tests out of the trash, and sure enough, they were all positive.

Nicole has been acting pregnant as well. All of a sudden, she hates garlic and she can smell things from a mile away(I now have to shower more often). She was craving ground beef so I baked her a meatloaf and she was very excited. That is not at all like Nicole to crave ground beef. She has also been craving bell peppers which is good because I love them.

We have plenty of boy names, but currently no girl names. So anyone who would be so nice as to suggest girl names would be very much appreciated. So far Nicole doesn't want to use a girls name that is really popular. She like M and A names, but your suggestion doesn't have to be one of those. Leave your suggestions by leaving a comment.

Mandy and the Clay Pigeon

Mandy can not throw a clay pigeon.

Blueberries for Breakfast

Scott woke up this morning and decided to make a lovely breakfast. We thought it was worthy of a picture. Scott loves blueberries a lot. We are very happy when the price of blueberries goes down!

Kennedy went to Washington with grandma Diana. So she will be gone until Monday. We have missed her all weekend and are very excited for her to return.

Scott started school at Westminster College. He is taking Trigonometry, Airline Management, Aviation Law, and a Political Science class.

This is a picture of Converse hall at Westminster. That is were Scotts math class is.


We have finally finished the basement for Kennedy K. I took a picture of it, but it didn't turn out so well. The basement looks great though, and Kennedy loves it. We painted a big rectangle on the wall with chalk board paint so K could color on it with chalk. It turned out really cool. Scott and Nolan sheet rocked the ceiling in the basement and it made a huge difference so it is not a scary place anymore.

Kennedy, Hannah, and Olivia Camping

Dustin took Grandpa Nolan, the girls, and I camping a few weeks ago. Here a couple pictures from the camping trip. Kennedy and Hannah are swimming in Payson Lake

Kennedy Starts 4th Grade

Kennedy has been doing gymnastics. She is awesome!!! She is incredibly flexible. She is not even trying in this picture of her doing the splits. She goes to gymnastics every Tuesday.




She also started 4th grade on Monday. She is very excited to go back to school! Her teacher seems like she is going to be great.

A bat at Payson Lakes.

While Kennedy and I (Scott) were camping at Payson Lakes, I found a bat!! He was crawling along the path and jumping and trying to fly. He never could quite get airborne. We thought that he must be hurt. We were not sure what to do, so we thought that it would be best if we just let him go on his way.

Later on though, I found out that if bats land on a flat place, they can not fly! Bats have to be up high like in a tree or the top of a cave, and drop themselves off to get enough airspeed to actually fly. They can't get a running start like birds can. So i guess this guy was just stuck on the ground until he climbed a tree or something.

He was very neat to see and I feel very lucky that we were able to take some pictures before he crawled off into the forest and foliage.

The best yogurt

We haven't posted for a while, and there is lots to post about. Kennedy is in gymnastics, we remodeled the kitchen and I spent last weekend out of town having fun.

So, I will post about those other things latter when I get pictures. For now I will post about my love for yogurt! Mountain High yogurt is my new favorite food. It is up there with peanut butter and waffles. This yogurt is seriously way better than yoplait or generic brands. It is real yogurt! It has this splendid tart taste. It doesn't have tons of sugar and gelatin in it.
Almost every night I eat it with multi grain Cheerios.

Nicole loves it too because it is healthy for you. It is made with crystaline fructuse and natural flavors. It is totally natural. Not artificial anything. Oh yea, she also is happy about it not have rBST.

Nanci and Kennedy go to the ophthalmologist

I copied this straight from Nanci's blog.

Kennedy and I went to the ophthalmologist yesterday. We went a little early so we could be on time. Her appointment was at 9:30 a.m.

We checked in and sat down and watched videos without much sound. It was REALLY loud in there besides. Kennedy checked out the play room but wasn't much interested in that. We looked at a few books but they were kinda kiddy books. There was one about planets (we thought) but only the first and middle pages were very educational. The rest of it was a bear telling us a bunch of stuff you can do on earth. I think we already know that after 8 years of being here. I tried to make her read a book about dinosaurs but she would NOT. I kept threatening to make her read it and she would just laugh at me.

We 10 minutes, maybe less, to see the nurse. She did a few simple eye tests with the eye machine thingy adjusted to her old prescription. I explained that Kennedy lost her glasses and we hadn't bought new glasses in anticipation of this appointment and her new prescription. She did pretty well with the right eye but the left eye was pretty bad.

We sat in the waiting room for a while longer. We were getting impatient as we had already done everything that was offered to us. We were both starving and Kennedy kept telling me we should just go down to the cafeteria and I told her we couldn't because we would miss her appointment.

The OTHER nurse finally called us back and we waited a minute for the Dr. Kennedy was making strange and loud noises. I think she must have been getting nervous or something. I told her people were trying to work around here and if I could hear them outside the door (and I could) that they could probably hear her. I told her she was going to be embarrassed when someone besides me came to tell her to shut up. Then the just said, "We have to dilate your eyes." So the nurse came back and put the drops in. I guess this is kind of uncomfortable. Kennedy didn't "make a noise" and the nurse asked her if it hurt so she must have thought she missed her eye.

We went back to the terrible waiting room. We were getting so grumpy. When Kennedy's eyes started to dilate she complained that she couldn't see very well. She wanted to see what they looked like so she went to the bathroom twice to try to see but she couldn't. I kept forgetting and I asked her about something on her pants and she got frustrated and said, "I CAN'T SEE, REMEMBER?" I almost burst into tears it was so pathetic. She said, "I can't even READ!" Oh it was so sad.

The Dr. called us back and looked in her eyes. He said that her prescription was "much different," for each eye and had changed quite a bit but that it was not like it was getting worse or anything bad was happening. He gave us a new prescription and then they wrangled us into making a new appointment in 3 months. Kennedy was picking her sticker and I had to tell her what they were. SAD! Then when we were in the car she had to ask me which way it went so she could put it on. OH NO ALMOST BURSTING INTO TEARS! Oh it was so pathetic I couldn't even stand it.

The doctor gave her those crazy sunglasses and she just hated them because they made her look like a dork. So of course I made her take a picture in them. I had to remember this terrible day!

Her eyes were still dilated last night before she went to bed. It was crazy. They were even still dilated this morning. So I took a picture of that too.

The Neighborhood Owls!

The other day I (Scott) went to an open house for a house for sale in our neighborhood. As I walked out in the backyard, I looked up at the beautiful large apple tree. To my surprise there was an owl looking down at me! I looked around and there was actually 2 owls in the tree. A couple days later, I returned with my camera and got some pictures. I have visited them a couple times since then, and they have been there, so I think they live there. If you go to see them in the evening though, they are gone hunting.

Deseret Peak

On Thursday, Scott hiked to the top of Deseret Peak with his friends John Coloum and Mica. Deseret Peak is the highest peak in the Stansbury Mountain Range just west of Grantsville. The peak is 11,031 feet high.
The big picture is looking up at the peak about half way up the trail. We started to encounter snow at about this point and the snow made the journey very difficult. We totally lost the trail at times. The toughest part was when the trail went to switch backs up the steep mountain side, and the trail was completely hidden by tons of snow. We had to climb up the cliff, making our own way, through the snow. At times we would sink into the snow past our knees. Most of the time though, we were able to stay on top of the snow.
It turned out to be a great hike. My favorite part was down lower, were there wasn't a lot of snow and we were hiking through beautiful aspen and pine trees. From the top of the mountain, we could see the Wasatch Mountains to the east, and the Salt Lake and the salt flats to the north, and the Deep Creek Range to the west. You could see for ever.
I was also amazed at how little oxygen there was up on top. As we descended the mountain I seemed to get more and more energy the farther down I went.

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day!! This morning Scott woke up and Cole and Kennedy had cooked him the most amazing breakfast! We ate ginger bread waffles!!! YES!!! They were so good!! Nicole also go Scott an incredible gift basket. She made the gift basket of all sorts of intersting things Scott would love. Scott just finished his rum cake and real brewed ginger ale before posting.

Gardening!

Scott has been doing some Gardening. He is so proud of all of his plants. This year, the Bakers are not going to be using there backyard, so the have aloud Scott to plant in there back yard as well! We have got pumpkins, corn, tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, raspberries , and blackberries! Soon we will be planting the Okra! I know that the pictures are kind of boring, but Scott is excited to go back and look at them some time.

Lagoon

This is Kennedy, The Vicster, and Nicole riding the Music Express, and the Tilt O Whirl at Lagoon. Scott is not on either ride because he would vomit if he rode them. Lagoon was great fun. Kennedy is finally getting to the age were she will try some grown up rides. I think next time she goes she will try the Wicked and the Colossus. Nicole and Scott did ride the Colossus 3 times. Nicole now wants a season pass. Scott thinks that a season pass would cause motion sickness, for more than one reason.

Hair Cut

The time has come. Scott's hair is all cut off now. No more mohawk (mullet) Nicole and Scott thought it would be fun last Sunday to take out the scissors and hack away. Nicole had a great time and giggled and giggled.
The hair looks kind of funny in this picture, but you get the point.

Escalante! Day 4

After rushing to get packed in the morning, one of the local outfitters came up in a big Suburban to pick us and a our gear up and take us back into town. We were all very sad to leave the cabin. It had been a wonderful place to stay. Once back in town, we got breakfast and waited for the news on the Charger. Luckily, the local mechanic was able to fix it. He did have to use Ford parts though. With the Charger back on the road, we were ready to head back home. We took our time leaving town, and had lunch with the Bakers on the banks of the Escalante River. On the way home we had to stop for more picture opportunities. Highway 12 has to be one of the most amazing highways in the world! After leaving the Escalante River canyons, you climb Boulder Mountian to enjoy some amazing over looks of the desert!

The Charger made it home great! Although all of us were very tired, we all made it home great as well! It will be a trip that we don't forget, and we are excited to visit that part of the state again. Here are some more photos from the trip!