Do Caramel Popcorn and the beach go together?????????????

















Uh! Yah!!! A group of people from our ward are going on our annual Labor Day weekend beach trip. We are heading to Half Moon Bay for a fun day in the sun.
Last year we had a blast and are hoping to repeat that this year. Who knows , it could be our last beach trip for awhile.
Very sad to think about that.......Anyhooooo, I wanted to make something yummy to take to the beach with us.
Not wanting to turn on my oven, since it is already hotter then hell here, I opted for one of my favorite childhood treats, caramel Popcorn.
I have great memories of my Grandma Lila coming over and making popcorn balls for me to take to school for my Bday treats. YUM! I am too lazy to form them into balls so I just lay it out on pans until it cools and then slap them bad boys into baggies. So GRUB!!!
I tend to love my popcorn extra gooey, but made them a little less sticky so nobody will get sand in their popcorn. I will post some pictures of our day at thebeach tomorrow. Have a great weekend!!!!


******TIP ALERT*****

I absolutely HATE grannie kernels in my caramel popcorn, so I found that if you put your popcorn into a paper grocery bag and cut a small hole into one of the corners, you can shake them all out.... hot dang!!!!!!! My teeth did a happy dance when I learned this trick!!!! I am sure that a lot of you pros out their already know about this trick, but some of you like me are a little slow at being clever. :)

First day of school!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you feel all of the excitment coming from all of those exclamations marks??? Good times indeed! Yesterday was the first day of school and everything went rather smoothly. Dallin was out the door first and this was the first day of being a big Sophmore. At least he is not a "Baby Falcon" anymore. I remember being called a "maggot" when I was a Freshman. Being called a Baby Falcon is nothing compared to maggot. As you can see from this picture of him, he looks less then thrilled at the photo-op.



The next group out the door was this cute little trio! My cute little 3rd grader aka "Sweatshirt child" (notice the sweatshirt even though it was warm outside this morning)???? UUUGGGG! I have to take a few deep breaths for sure.
Next is the always camera ready 7th grader. He was excited to see who was in his classes today. His one big bummer of the day was that he has 6th period lunch, which means that my poor baby has to pretty much go all dang day before getting to eat his always healthy lunch. :)
Last but not the least is my sweet 5th grader, big man on campus this year. My cute little scholar is always prepared and ready for the day. He never needs to be reminded to do his homework or anything else for that matter. I would be a gazillionaire if I could figure out what I did during my pregnancy to have him turn out so easy and mild mannered!!



And after all of those rugrats are out the door, who do I get to spend the WHOLE rest of the day with????????






These little angels!! Arent the cute!?? Even though I am trying to survive these days chasing after Messy Marvin and fighting the urge to go to my "happy place" and escape the madness, I wouldnt trade it for anything. I am trying to enjoy these days that I have them home with me. They grow up so fast. Pretty soon, they will all be gone during the day and I will have to do lunch and shopping with my freinds ALL BY MYSELF! Oh wait, that sounds pretty good actually...........HEHE

Well, I need to get back to motherhood. I have Back to School Night, dinner, homework, and Young Mens tonight. Good thing I have a tub of cookie dough in my fridge to get me through the night!

Let the Countdown begin!!!!!!!

5 days 7 hours and 5 minutes until school starts! It seems like yesterday the dark cloud of Summer break was upon me and now it is over!!! It has gone by way too fast. I never thought I would say it,but I am NOT looking forward to school starting next week. Oh, I guess that is not completly true, I am getting a little tired of the fighting, the "Im bored" "what are we going to do today?", but not the homework and al of that garbage.

We have had a pretty good summer. It has been filled with baseball, Baseball Allstars, Chuck E Cheeses and camping with a little mumbo jumbo in between. Good times. This past week we met up in with some of our Fremont friends at Chuck E Cheeses. I have know these girls since I have lived in California. That is 12 years and 4 kids later. It was alot of fun hanging with them for the afternoon. I even let Landon take a picture with me in it!! That is big progress.....

My summer has also been filled with some stressfull and busy moments. Busy doing what you ask???? Busy getting ready for this:

Thats right, we are moving. Do you think that Utah is ready for the Smith family????? We might just turn it upside down! Chris took a job with a company in South SLC area. We are excited for the change, but oh so sad to leave our friends. We have been fortunate enough to have made some great friends out here. Friendships that will last forever, but it is will be so hard to leave.

Our house was just listed so who knows how long it will take to sell. With this crappy housing market who knows. It sucks! Hopefully not too long. I am so tired of keeping my house clean 24/7. I love that it is clean, but with 6 kids--------total headache!!!!!

So all of you Utah bloggers out there, I need you to pump me up about the move. My kids took it pretty well, except for Dallin. When we first told him, he called us "life ruiners" He said that we were moving to "freakville" I am sure he thinks that Utah is out in the boonies or something. He is warming up to it. He thinks that it is cool that Seminary is part of the school day and wont have to get up at the crack of dawn anymore.

Well I need to go get my rugrats to bed. It is going to be rough getting them back onto the school bedtime schedule. GOODNIGHT.

BARGAIN!!!!!!!

I just wanted to share a bargain that I found at Bed Bath and Beyond today. Every once in a freakin blue moon, I manage to do something that makes me say "good job Linda".

I have had my eye for a few months on the cutest Quicksilver bedding at Bed Bath and Beyond. At 150.00 for a twin bedset I have found it hard to want to choke one down and spend 300. for bedspreads for kids! Boogars, bloody noses etc........ I dont think so!
After my annual womanly Drs appt. today, I headed to Bed and Bath to see what they had. I happened to find this cute, black, grey and white comforter set for 50 bucks! I then grabbed 2 decorative Quicksilver pillows that were discounted because they were out of the package and BAM!!!!! Instant wannabe Quicksilver knockoff!!! I bought 2 of everything and with my awesome Bed and Bath coupons I managed to only spend 140.00 total!!!!!


Go ahead and give me a virtual pat on the back! LOL

LOVED IT!!!!!

A few of us girls went and saw this movie last night and we loved it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have heard so many mixed reviews on it but I would go see it again in a heartbeat. I loved the music. I have always been a huge ABBA fan and so many times during the movie I wanted to get up and shake my money maker (Not one part of my body could ever be a money maker, but you get it) I wanted to dance!
Pierce Brosnen was a little off but I thought he did a great job. If any of you are on the fence about seeing this movie---just go! You wont be disappointed.

This weeks adventure-----or lack thereof
















Friday I took the kids and drove 2 hours to Roseville to pick Judson up from my SIL Dana. She was nice enough to offer to take him for the week. She lives in Fernley NV so this was sort of a good spot in the middle to make the exchange. We decided that since it was a hotter then snot day in Central Cal., we would opt for an indoor activity. What do you think it was?????? That is right, one of my favorite places to go with the kiddos is Chuck E Cheeses. Oh I can already hear the dry heaving from some of you Chuck haters. LOL
It was fun. Well, the drive wasnt. It actually sucked. Who wants to listen to a baby crying the WHOLE time???? I could handle Lawson crying, it was the other kids that were driving me nuts. They were saying "shut him up" "why is he crying" blah blah blah!
When I finally got home I made Chris take me out for a quick bite to eat at our favorite Indian Resaurant, Havali in Dublin. It is so good!

Saturday we or I should say Chris worked his tale off in our backyard and running a ton of errands. He was one busy guy.

Today I am actually 2 kids less instead of 1. Dallin is still in Vegas and Bowen is at Scout Camp, so it is just me and the 4 other rugrats. We ran to Costco so that I didnt look like Old Mother Hubbard with her bare cupboards anymore.

Today after running to Costco, I told Lawson to go get his blanket. He went and got it and this is what he did. It was so cute. He just laid down and fell asleep. This is definitly a first and probably a last. He usually has a nap, but since he didnt get up until 11:30 this morning I was going to hold him off and put his butt to bed early!! No such luck. He instead is here under the desk with a toy drill, drilling my feet. He is my little shadow today.

Well I am off to attempt getting the kids to bed. They have been up for the past hour playing Mario Kart. UUUHGG! Heaven forbid they read a book or something!! Goodnight!