This month...

Garrison loves playing with Daddy's "guitar".


















And showing off his new train outfit from Oma.

Pillow Pets

Garrison has been very excited about something called a pillow pet lately. I'd never seen one myself, but Justen described it to me as a pillow with a stuffed animal head attached. Everyday for the last two weeks Garrison has been coming home from school telling me he wants a pillow pet like two of the girls have, and everyday I tell him his regular pillow works fine. Of course I was thinking this was just something silly and his focus on it will fade. It hasn't. Then the other day Justen and Garrison stopped at Walgreens to pick up my prescription and there they were. The often heard about but never seen pillow pets. Garrison was so excited to show them to Justen and tell him all about the ones the girls at school have, and how much he wants one. Justen thought about it for a minute, and luckily his common sense told him I'd kill him if he spent $25 on a silly stuffed animal. Now had it been a stuffed tractor pillow, he probably wouldn't have thought twice, but that's a story for another day. They came home and Garrison proceeded to tell me the account of how they saw them at the store, and how much he wanted one but Daddy said they were to expensive. As Justen described it, I got thinking, how hard can this be to make? So my quest today while I laid in the recliner (thank you crud that just doesn't want to leave me), was to find out what these things were and more importantly how to make them.
Here are the tutorials I've found out there in the blogosphere (seriously what did we do before the internet?)


Part 1
http://twelvecraftstillchristmas.blogspot.com/2010/07/pillow-buddy-tutorial-part-1.html

Part 2
http://twelvecraftstillchristmas.blogspot.com/2010/07/pillow-buddy-tutorial-part-2.html

And one about how to make one using a dollar store stick horse (I wouldn't use a unicorn like she did)
http://www.filthwizardry.com/2010/08/home-made-freaky-unicorn-pillow.html

I'm thinking about doing a brown puppy because I already have some brown fleece up in the cabinet. Or maybe a lady bug one because I have those colors of fleece too. Now, the real question... Will it actually happen in time for Christmas? I honestly don't know. We had planned on finishing the front landscape this weekend but now we're all sick. I had taken a day off last week in hopes of cleaning my house and all I managed to do was organize my fabric closet. So reality is it may not happen, but I figured I have a better chance of doing it if I post it here than if it's just one more idea running around in my head.


Edit to add: The other idea running around in my head... Could you put a zipper in it and use an actual pillow as stuffing? That way I could take the cover off and wash it. If anyone can figure out an easy way to do that please fill me in, because around here everything needs to be washable.

Our Anniversary

Last night was pretty fun and kind of funny so I thought I'd share. It was Justen and my anniversary. We've been married 8 years now. The sad part is we forgot. Nanny called at 4:30 and reminded us. Opps, but it's ok we're going out of town this weekend and already have plans and reservations made. But the funny part came when Justen tried to explain to Garrison what an anniversary was. He said it's the day we celebrate when mom and dad got married. Well, he made one big mistake, he said the word the word, celebrate. Garrison got really excited and proclaimed, "Celebrate! That means we go out to a restaurant! Lets go!" He is totally obsessed with eating at restaurants lately. Last night he decided the hamburger stroganoff we were eating was "fancy food" and that we were at a restaurant. Then when he cleared his plate (and scraped it in the trash) he told us that he was the bus boy at Mommy's restaurant. We didn't have the heart to tell him that we were going out alone this weekend (he knows we're going but we didn't discuss the going out to eat part). So we took him to burger king and used some coupons, I was proud of my coupon accomplishment. For $7 we got a meal to share with an extra burger for me, a happy meal for him, and three mini ice cream cones for dessert. What can I say, I love cheap! And Garrison got to play at the play land. It was a win-win. And after we went freezer shopping, and to home depot to pick some stuff up for the shed Justen is building. It was a really fun night.
Now as for what we have planned for our anniversary, we're both pretty excited. We realized a couple of weeks ago that we have not been anywhere that wasn't for work without Garrison since he was born. We haven't so much as gone to dinner or a movie in 2 1/2 years alone. We decided it was time to get out. So we're going down to Salt Lake for the weekend. We're excited to go see the SLC temple, we've never been to that one. We're excited to go see whatever new movie is showing in the Joseph Smith building. And we're going to go eat at two of my favorite restaurants, Ruby River and Olive Garden. YUM! And Justen really wants to take one of the horse drawn carriage rides around temple square, neither of us have ever done that so it should be fun. Oh, and a big thanks to Grandma, Nanny and Morgan who have it all worked out to take care of Garrison for the weekend so we can go! It's a long overdue vacation for us.

For Nanny to see

These are the carts. They are at the Utah Co-op in Murray this weekend for $25.

Some pictures

I didn't take a lot of pictures this summer but I did get a few. Then today was just hilarious. So I thought I'd post a few. Garrison loves animals, that's no secret. He especially loves his Tia dog.




Garrison and Daddy like to lay around on a lazy Sunday morning.





And finally this was today. Garrison didn't like the pants he was wearing. He insisted he wanted pants like Daddy's. No amount of trying would convince him that his 3T wranglers were the same as Daddy's. Garrison ran down the hall and when I walked into the bedroom this is what I found. He didn't want to wear pants like Daddy he wanted to wear Daddy's pants.

Green Bean Tractors and Humpty Hondo

A big thanks to Aunt Tanya for remembering to grab the camera to catch a few of the funny things Garrison says. His favorite song is Big Green Tractor and Johnny Cash ( by Jason Aldeen). He CAN sing them all the way through with no radio but of course when the camera comes out (or any time you try and get him to do it) he doesn't. But we at least got a snippet of his two favorite songs. The home depot thing is kinda confusing. One day he started saying, I want Humpty Hondo. We spent days trying to figure out what he was saying. Finally as we were driving past it he shouted, HUMPTY HONDO, and pointed. We would have never figured it out on our own. On our way to Nanny's after shooting this video he started saying home depot the right way. So it's a good thing we caught it when we did, because that may be the end of humpty hondo.

OAMC for Sept.

I don't have a ton of time, but since I type out my menu to hang on the fridge I thought I would put it here too. This is our menu for the next month +. It was 27 meals total and we only use about 4-5 meals a weeks so it will last about a month and a half. This time it took me three days to get everything done, but I did some extra. In addition to all the dinners, I also did breakfast and snacks. For breakfast I made, Banana Choc. Chip Muffins, Sausage/ Cheese Corn bread Muffins, Waffles, and French toast sticks. I made lemon bars, and a huge batch of cookies. I froze the cookie dough so Justen can pull it out and bake cookies whenever he wants this way. So here's dinner for the next while.

Menu
-Spaghetti (x2) ____ ____

-Mac & Cheese Cassarole (x2) ____ ____
Thaw, bake 30 min @350

-Sicilian Supper (x2) ____ ____
Thaw, Bake Covered @350, 30 min, uncover, sprinkle w/parmesan bake 5-10 min more

-Stroganoff (x2) ____ ____

-French Bread Pizza (x2) ____ ____

-Cheese Burger Packets (x1) ____

-Stuffed Green Peppers (x2) ____ ____
Thaw, bake @ 350 20-30 min.

-BBQ Ribs w/ Crispy Cheesy Potatoes (x2) ____ ____
Thaw, put in greased pan, top w/ crumbs, bake @ 350 1 hour

-Basil & balsamic Pork w/Rice Pilaf (x2) ____ ____

-Citrus Marinated Pork w/ Crispy Cheesy Potatoes or Rice (x2) ____ ____

-Carolina Pulled Pork w/Baked Beans (x2) ____ ____

-Alfredo Pizza (x1) XXX

-BBQ Chicken Pizza (x1) ____
Bake at 450 15-20 min.

-BBQ Chicken Calzone (x2) ____ ____
Reheat from frozen in Microwave or Oven

-Chicken Supreme (x2) ____ ____
Thaw, put in dish, top w/ bread Bake 350 – 30-35 min.

27 total meals.