Queen of Scum!

I love to play Scum.  I think it's one of the best card games around.  We recently taught Mike and Larri how to play.  I love having friends to play this game with!

We went over to their house this evening for pizza, games, and a little New Year cheer.  We took Apples to Apples and Parcheesi, but Mike wanted to play Scum.  All I could say way, "Yes! Bring it on!"  Well, those probably were not my exact words, but I was saying it on the inside.  It was great!  We played for approx. 3 hours.  Once again, it was great!  I never made it to scum and I was only slime once.  We laughed a lot and Mike only swore a couple of times :-)

Okay Millers, keep practicing and we'll be back for more later!

hApPY neW YeAR!!

Blast from the Past

This post is mostly for my brother and sisters.  I was helping my friend, Cheryl, clean her house a few weeks ago.  She is moving to Utah, she actually left today (I'm going to miss you, Cheryl!). 

Anyway, while we were cleaning she brought out this vacuum.  I couldn't believe it.  It was like I was back on Roan Ct. in Beaverton.  This is the EXACT same vacuum my parent's owned.  The funniest thing about these pictures.....when I was uploading them to my computer, Dave came over and said, "Hey!  That's the same vacuum we had when I was a kid!"  I guess Kirby's were popular back in the 70s.  Good times!

Flashback Friday (a day late): August 1988

My friend, Jennifer (Carlson) Randolf, just added this to her blog.  It's a picture of us in 1988.  She had moved to Ohio after living in Beaverton for five years.  She was able to come back to visit me and some other friends.  We were 15 years old.  This was taken out front of my house in Beaverton.  Look at how GREEN that grass is!  My dad was OCD about the yard, so I wasn't surprised to see that.

I had won tickets to see Dana Carvy (that SNL comedian-the Church Chat Lady) from a local radio station.  So, luckily Jennifer was able to come with me.  That's why we were all dressed up. I even had earrings on!  I remember seeing him in concert, but I don't remember why we felt like we had to get all dressed up?

Thanks for the great memory, Jen!

Merry Christmas and a

Happy New Year!

from the

Carattini Family

Dave, Julie, Bryn, and Nick

Steve's Birthday

Today is my older brother's birthday.  He would have been 38 today.  I found a couple of cute pictures of him.  The first picture was taken at our house in Aloha, Oregon, but I'm not sure what year it was.  I'm sure my sister Nancy (aka Rainman) would know.  Speaking of Nancy, that's her in the second picture.  That was taken at our house in Beaverton, Oregon.  Hey Rainman, what year was that?  The last picture I know was taken at my brother Dave's wedding in 1995.  I thought he was a handsome guy!

Dave turns 40!!

Wow!  I can't believe I'm married to a 40 year old man.

We had a babysitter over tonight to watch the kids while we went out to dinner.  She's about 13 and when I told her that Dave turned 40 today she said, "My dad is only 38."  All of the sudden I couldn't believe that this girls dad was younger than my husband!

The first picture was taken back in 1995.  We weren't even dating at that point.  He was 26.  The second was taken earlier this year.  Not too bad for an old man, huh?

Happy Birthday, Dave!

Flashback Friday: The kids approx. 1 year old

Since Christmas is just around the corner, I thought it would be fun to show pictures of Bryn and Nick when they were approx. 1 year old at Christmas time.  

December 2002.  We were living in Layton, Utah.  I love those curls on the back of her head!

December 2007.  Here in Avondale just last year.....Nick loved pulling the ornaments off the tree.  He still does.  We'll see if that changes next year.  Love the rosy red cheeks!

Happy Holidays!

Visit with Santa

We went up to the Arrowhead mall to visit Santa this year.  We waited in line for over and hour!  Well, I waited while Dave and the kids walked around the mall.  They found a wii Experience center where you can play all kinds of wii games.  We could have spent the whole day there.  It was lots of fun.  And, of course, we had a Wetzel's Pretzel before leaving.

This is the first picture I took and the only one where Nick would look at the camera.  He wasn't too afraid, I think he just wanted to get down and run around.

Here he is trying to escape.  Notice the smile on his face....what's up with that?

Bryn told Santa she wanted a bouncy ball and a Star Wars board game.  Dave told her she should have asked Santa for the really expensive stuff so we wouldn't have to buy it :-)

Santa tried to pound knuckles with Nick.  It took him a few moments, but he finally gave in and gave the jolly old man some love.  Of course, I couldn't take the picture fast enough, but this

was close enough.

Christmas Party

Our ward always has a Christmas breakfast to celebrate the season.  This year, along with all the wonderful food, they had this cute painted board where we could have our pictures taken.

What's wrong with this picture?  That's not my Frosty The Snow Man.  That's Benjamin Taylor....didn't even know he was there.

That's better.  Thanks to Larri for chasing Nick down and shoving his face in the hole!

Flashback Friday: December 2003

In December of 2003, Dave, Bryn, and I were living in Syracuse, Utah.  We had a LOT of snow that Christmas.  Bryn loved it.  We had a snow blower, but it wasn't working well.  Dave would go out almost every day and shovel snow.  One evening, our neighbor brought over his 4-wheeler that had a plow hooked up to the front.  He had our drive way clear in just a few minutes....it was really nice.

Bryn loved to wear this hat and the gloves even if we were in the house.

This is Dave shoveling our huge driveway.  That's my sister, Nancy pulling in  behind him.

This is our house with the lights up.  I loved that house!

Holiday Humor

Christmas Trick

Charilla emailed this to me today.  Pretty good trick!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Birthday, Holly!

Today is my niece's birthday.  She is 10 years old!  Bryn loves her, as we all do, and wanted to put some pictures of her on our blog.  She picked her favorite pictures from our time with her this past summer.

Holly is always so nice to Bryn.  She always includes her, even though she's 3 years younger than her.  And she always helps her and shows her new things.  She is also a HUGE help with Nick.  She babysat him a lot this summer and never complained about it. (not to me anyway :-)  Notice anything different between the large & small pictures?  She got her hair cut while we were visiting.  She's so cute!

I really love this picture of them in the car on our trip home to Arizona.  She always makes Bryn laugh.  She's a great kid and we miss her so much.  When are you guys moving to Arizona?

Service Swap

My ward's Relief Society (my church) recently had a service swap.  It was such a great idea.  I wasn't able to attend, but my friend Brenda swapped for me so I could still give service to someone.  How it worked is that you think of some kind of service you could give; whether it be babysitting, dinner, decorated birthday cake, what ever you are willing to do for someone else.  At the meeting, everyone wrote what their service was on an index card.  They then played that game, you know, the white elephant game.....you can pick a service out of the basket or steal what someone else picked.  Brenda said it was really fun.

My service was 20 handmade Christmas cards.  I had actually sent Brenda with a card that looked like the ones in the pictures.  Maylene ended up with mine, but only after stealing it from someone else.  I wish I could have been there, it sounds like they had a fun time.  Anyway, I finally finished them.  I hope she likes them.  It was fun making them.

By the way, I "won" free babysitting.  Can't wait to take advantage of that one!

Late Flashback Friday: Todd & Vicky

Honestly, I don't remember what year this was.  Probably around 1992.  I know this picture was taken in Tracy, CA at my grandparent's house.  All I can say is.....love the mustache, Todd!!

left to right - Allison, Vicky, Todd, Janelle

Mesa Temple Christmas Lights

Each year the Mesa LDS Temple covers their beautifully landscaped grounds with Christmas lights.  This is the second year we've taken the drive to the east side to see the lights.  Of course, we stopped at Taco Time for dinner ahead of time.

Pictures don't do these lights justice, so I'll just show you pictures of us while we were enjoying the sights.

Merry Christmas!

Cinnamon Rolls

My Friend, Jennifer, asked how I made those cinnamon rolls I mentioned in my Thanksgiving post.  They were very yummy, so here's how I did it......

First, you need the dough.  Click on this recipe link and you'll find the Pesty Rolls recipe.  After that dough rises, you'll need half of it.  Roll that half into a large rectangle.  Don't make it too thick, roll it to about a 1/4 of an inch thick.  Then spread butter all over it.  I used about 3/4 of a stick of butter.  Then sprinkle cinnamon, sugar, and brown sugar all over it.  Don't be stingy, get lots of brown sugar on there!  You then roll it up the long way so you have a long skinny roll and not a short fat roll.  Cut it into 3/4 to 1 inch slices.  I put mine on parchment paper and covered with plastic wrap.  Let rise until double in size.  Bake at 375 for about 12 mins.  One time we put frosting on them while they were warm and they were soooooo good.  Another time I let them cool completely before I frosted them and they were just as good that way.  Here's my frosting recipe:

Cinnamon Roll Frosting

1 stick of butter (real butter)

2 C powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 Tbsp milk

Mix until smooth.  If you like a frosting that isn't this thick, just add milk until it's the consistency you like.

Movie Review: Twilight

This weekend, I saw Twilight.  I went with some friends who wanted to see it.  I didn't really have any desire to see it since I haven't read the books, although my nieces told me I should.  They love the books.  Before seeing it, I went online to view the trailer.  I was very excited to see the Columbia River Gorge and other beautiful scenes from the Pacific Northwest.  I knew that the book was about teenagers and vampires, so after seeing the preview I had a better idea of what the movie was about and it looked interesting to me.  So off I went to see this movie that people were going CRAZY over and I have to admit I loved it!  It was a little slow at the beginning, but the second half was great.  I even think Dave might like it.

The friends I saw it with said it wasn't as good as the book.  So I've decided to never read a book again until I see the movie first, that way I'll never be disappointed again :-)  I've also decided that I want to read these books, so I've added them to my Christmas list.

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year.  My brother and his family came out from Buckeye and our friends Jeff & Deborah joined us too.  Jeff fried a turkey.  It was wonderful!  We're now thinking about buying a turkey fryer.  My brother said he'd go in on it with us and then we could share custody of it.

I had some dough in the freezer from my friend's roll recipe, so I pulled it out the night before and  made cinnamon rolls with it.  They were awesome!  The only problem is that now Dave thinks we should have cinnamon rolls for breakfast every year for Thanksgiving.....like I'm not busy enough on that day already?  If I had known ahead of time how crazy that morning was going to be, I would have left the dough in the freezer.

After dinner, we played with the wii and then later enjoyed pumpkin, apple, and cherry pie.  Well, I didn't really enjoy the apple pie....I made that one myself and I didn't add enough sugar, so it wasn't very good.  Lesson of the day; add more sugar to apple pie next year.