My Garden...of Sorts and Memories of Deo

This is what I found when I went to use my rice vinegar today.

Its a MUSHROOM!

Yep thats right, apparently now I grow mushrooms... yeah.

Thats almost a whole bottle gone to waste. I don't even think I've had it that long... and its vinegar, thats supposed to last forever isn't it?

I only knew that it was a mushroom because when I was little, ha my ma is going to kill me for sharing this, my great grandma Deo used to grow mushrooms in vinegar and then her and my Ma would drink the vinegar after they grew the mushroom and discarded it. I'm not sure what healing quality it was supposed to have or why exactly they drank it. I just remember going into the storage room and smelling vinegar, peeking under the cheese cloth and seeing the big mushroom just floating on top of the vinegar in the big punch bowl. Ha weird.

Deo was awesome. This mushroom business was when my family lived with her and I was just a wee thing. She was always trying weird "health things." She was from Texas and she cooked like Paula Deen, with LOTS of butter! She called us kids "lovey" and though I don't remember her saying "y'all" I remember her saying "you all" a lot. Even before we moved in with her, we went to visit her and she always had candy in the cupboard by the rocking chair. I mostly remember her having those chicken bone candies.

I LOVED hearing her stories about growing up in Texas. Her family would have to hide when Pancho Villa and his gang would come around because her father rode with the Texas Ranger. She had so many cool stories.

She was a published author too. She wrote a children's book that was published in 1969 and a poem that I think was published... I'm actually not sure on the poem. But she had many stories and poems that she wrote that were not published. I remember her writing stories or plays specifically for our family home evenings.

Deo wanted my sister and I to learn to be ladies. She held a class for us and our cousins so we could learn things like how to walk with books on our heads, and drink out of tea cups properly. No joke! It was awesome!

I also remember her having one of those awesome tall phones. You know the really old ones where you have to spin the thing to each number? Yeah it was a fancy tall one right by her bed.

Well I could go on and on about her but I will just say that I love her and I am lucky to have known her as well as I did. And I am grateful for all that she taught me.

CREEPY!

Jarod was watching/reading the news on KSL.com the other day and he asked me if I had heard about this certain story. The story was this one about the two men arrested for the two women found dead in St. George. I told him that I had heard something about it on the radio in the car earlier bu that I didn't really listen. And then I saw a picture of one of the men arrested. I immediately recognized him as a guy, whom I knew as "The Pirate Guy," who hit on me! It was my first semester at Dixie State, in fact it was one of the first few days of that first semester and my sister, friend and I were in the bookstore looking for our books. I don't remember what book I was looking at when this weird guy who looked like a pirate told me that I didn't want to buy that particular book. When I asked him why he said that it was missing pages. Weird. "Really?" I asked weirded out. "No, I'm just kidding." He said like, 'crap my plan isn't working, I don't think she's falling for me.' I don't really remember what he said after that. I just remember that he was weird and creepy. After that I saw him on campus regularly and ALWAYS avoided him! Not that he was the only person I avoided, I avoided a lot of people. Mostly anyone who was awkward to talk to or anyone who would recognize me and want to shoot the breeze, unless we were friends, because I am super good at making those situations awkward. Anyway, I bet if you look at that story and see the pictures you can guess which one is "The Pirate Guy."

Too Cute to Not Share

We were just getting ready to go to my parents' house for Sunday dinner and he started cheesin' up a storm! I love his eyes in this, all blinky when he yawns!

6 weeks and Chicken and Dumplings

Yes this is Sawyer at 6 weeks and he is smiling so big! He's probably smiling at his Daddy, he sure loves when his Daddy talks to him! We love this little guy!

I made this for dinner last week and it was so delicious!

Mmm hmm I do love me some chicken and dumplings!

This is where I got the recipe. Definitely a fun cookbook!

Crest Commercial

Ha ha ha ha! I had to Share this with you!

I thought about this commercial the other night while I was brushing my teeth.

When my sister and I were little, after seeing this commercial, we tried squeezing the tube of toothaste into the sink to see if the Crest Sparkle guys would come out!

Hahaha we wasted at least a quarter of the tube in the sink! Man what silly little terds!

A Cake and a Cane

Last week was my dad's 50th birthday! We celebrated with an "Over The Hill" cake and a cane. Ha ha my sister-in-law Laura got him a cane and I made the cake! Needless to say he wasn't very happy about them. J

Happy Birthday Dad! You know we wouldn't do it if we didn't love you!

No, it's no beauty, but beauty wasn't really the goal on this cake. Ha! I got a kick out if it anyway.

My family almost never has family pictures taken, so I decided that we should at least get a snapshot of the whole family.

Yap, thats us!

We also took some 4 generation pictures too.

So here we have my Dad(50), my oldest brother Christopher(27) and his daughter Bailee(3), and my Grandpa McClellan(almost 76).

And thats me(24) and my son Sawyer(5 1/2 weeks) with Dad and Grandpa.

And my brother Shane(22) and his son Easton(9 1/2 months) with Dad and Grandpa.

Thanksgiving

This year we had a relatively small group for Thanksgiving dinner. There was my parents, my Grandpa, my sister Shilo, my brother Cole, and Jarod and Sawyer and I. My other brothers joined us later that day/evening. For dinner we actually sat at the table, something we haven't done in years! Mostly because there are too many of us to fit now. Dinner was delicious! (As usual) I was in charge of the sweet potatoes, and I rocked it! They were very yummy, no canned 'yams' for us this year!

I was super tired on Thanksgiving though and I didn't even take all of the pictures that I wanted to.

In fact this was the only picture that was taken that day. Its a terrible picture of me, I was SO tired! Its a super cute one of Sawyer though! Sad that this is the only one from that day but at least I got one of Sawyer. That's the important one to photograph anyway, right?

Oh and I love pie. I ate WAY too much of it! But it was worth it and of course, that is what Thanksgiving is all about! I know that is cliché but I don't really care. J

I love my family and I am so thankful for them!

Little side note: I have decided that it doesn't matter what you call them, sweet potatoes or yams. Technically they are sweet potatoes and that is what I will continue to call them, but "yams" is recognized in North America as the orange flesh tuberous root vegetable. And I don't actually know anyone who eats the lighter flesh yams.

Adventurous 4:00 am

Sawyer and I were up for the usual 3:30 am feeding this morning, which went like normal; he woke up just enough to eat with eyes still closed and then he fell asleep, I burped him, he spit up, and spit up again, and once more, then just as he fell asleep he pooped. So I went to change his diaper and what did I find? Yes, poop spilling out the back of his diaper, yay. Luckily its just on the onesie and not the sleeper. So I travel into the freezing cold room to retrieve a new onesie and then I'm back, trying to get him out of the poopy one without getting poop all over him. I somehow manage to do so and proceed changing his diaper and, of course, he starts peeing. I have gotten pretty fast at catching it so he didn't get it everywhere, just on his head mostly. Bah! So he got a nice warm 4:00 am bath. Then, (oh no not over yet) after I got him dressed in the new, clean onesie and his still clean sleeper, I sat down in the dark to rock him to sleep, since he was wide awake by that point, and I heard him gagging. I got a light on just in time for him to full on puke, twice, all over me, his blanket, and his sleeper. Nice. I cannot believe it! One more change and then bed? No just bed, there was only a tiny bit that got on his sleeper so I just wiped it off, wrapped him up in a new blanket rocked him for just a minute and put him to bed. Was there a point in getting up to feed him at all? I'm almost positive there was nothing left in his little tummy.

To mothers: KUDOS!!