Boys and Brownies

Even though I am a mother of 5 boys and not a single girl in the bunch, my boys have learned some great homemaking skills :)

I've taken from my experiences, the opportunity to prepare my boys to be fathers and husbands and good missionaries. Each one of them has had some great times in the kitchen sharing and learning how to cook many different things from snacks to breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Aaron has been such a huge help this past year for me and has made so many dinners. He's gotten creative and made some super yummy dishes and some have been huge learning experiences for him. Even the rough times haven't scared him away from cooking, for which I am so grateful.

Dallin has shown an interest in learning how to cook this past year as well as Josh. They've learned how to make jello, pudding, cookies.

This afternoon, I asked Aaron to make some brownies. Dallin asked if he could make them instead...so Dallin got to make brownies on his own for the first time today :) I was in the kitchen making queso for dinner and supervising Dallin's brownie making. He did a great job and made some very tasty brownies :)

What a blessing that my boys are willing and eager to learn how to cook. That is one area that I don't worry about them, they will be able to feed themselves and their roomates, companions and wives :)

Happy 4th of July!

What a blessing to live in such a wonderful time and a wonderful country. We have so many freedoms and are so blessed to be able to continue some of those freedoms... .I pray that th Lord will continue to bless us that we may be able to share these freedoms with others.

I am so very grateful for all those who have gone before and have sacrificed their lives for our freedoms. I thank each and every one who still continues to sacrifice for our great country!

In our travels this past month, we have been so blessed to see some amazingly beautiful country. Each scene and picture I took was a reminder to me how blessed we really are. There is so much beauty that God has created in the natural landscapes from sea to sea. We saw such majesty in the snow covered sawtooth mountains of Idaho.... deep red and flat plains of Texas... We saw so many colors of the gorges in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and more majestic mountains of Utah. What a blessing to have had this opportunity and the privilage of being able to travel freely from state to state :)

I am filled with gratitude today.... Thank you!!! God bless the USA!!!

Happy 4th of July from the Hallam's!!!!

HOME!!!!

We're home now! What an adventure! Pictures to follow at some point lol.... the hardest part about a vacation is getting home and unpacking and getting back to the grind lol... Although there is a ton to do to get things back in order, it was so nice yesterday to realize that I don't HAVE to buy groceries in order for us to eat.... WE HAVE FOOD IN OUR FREEZER AND PANTRY!!!! Thanks to a wonderful couponing teacher and some sweet deals!!!!

Since we had some time to choose our own adventure home, we decided to stop at places we had talked about going to one day.... Monday was the day!!! Craters of the moon, Sun Valley, Pepperidge Farm thrift store, Indian reservation for fireworks, driving through the Sawtooths!!! All things on my bucket list lol.... not to add to it :)

Cooling off in Texas!!!

Tuesday we went to Lubbock Rampage water park. The temperatures have been in the 100s since before we got here to Lubbock and the wind has blown so bad since we got here most afternoons. We decided to take a day and relax in some cool water and a lazy river and tide pool :)

The boys all had a great time playing in the water and racing down the slides. When we first got to the park, there weren't many people there, but by the time we left there were a ton of people at the park.

I think Kyler's favorite part of swimming was the fact that he could push and pull the tubes around the river while the floater relaxed lol.... He pulled and pushed Tim around the river a few times; then he did the same for Aaron.

In the tide pool, we all got on our tubes and got into the middle of the pool at the front of the wave pool where the waves were made. We held onto each others tubes and enjoyed some big waves....that was really fun although there are no pictures.... I need to invest in a waterproof camera I think hehehehe ;)

We stayed from noon to about 4pm, then went for some ice cream...errr frozen custard YUMMY!!!!! For dinner, we brought home some J&M BBQ super yummmy!!!!!

ARCHES!!!

On our way to Texas, we were going to go by way of Rock Springs and Martin's Cove... however, as we looked at the map closer, we realized that Martin's cove and Independence Rock were about 400 miles out of the way :( Instead of going that direction, we decided to go back to our original route choice which was south through Arches and Moab.

The drive was just as beautiful as it was last year :) When we got to Arches and were driving around the park, the boys were amazed at the beauty. We parked at double arch and windows parking lot and decided to hike to double arch.

We had a great hike and a wonderful time climbing all over the formation and taking pictures. The boys had so much fun just climbing and posing and being silly :) We had some great laughs and got some hilarious pictures :)

Brandon and Tim were doing a photo shoot for a new verizon wireless ad ;) lol not really, but it looks good anyway ;)

Aaron and Dallin were my "thinkers"

All of them were hams for the camera!!!!

Even my caveman Aaron....

he also tried to be a muscle man and lift the big rock hehehehe

Chip off the ol' block

I've been couponing now since April and have loved finding some awesome deals and tons of FREEBIES :) I try to go without the boys so that I don't get upset at them for asking for things or making me lose my concentration. However, Dallin had wanted to go with me and learn some of the couponing magic that goes into the sweet finds that I've brought home.

When I take Dallin shopping with me, he's my extra eyes, he has found some interesting coupons... some are really good deals making somethings almost free.... then I look at the expiration date andthey have been 2007 and 2010 lol some shoppers haven't kept up on their coupons and have slipped these coupons onto th shelf instead of using the trash can lol... Dallin has really learned a lot about couponing and has even been able to get us some great deals. He loves helping me get things off the shelves or just count up items and make sure we have all of our coupons in place.

Yesterday, when I went to Walgreens, I took Dallin... he had a dollar in his pocket just burning a hole in it lol. I told him that there woud be a ton of transactions because I was getting some sobe lifewater that was on sale for 99cents with a register reward of 99cents thus making it FREE or something else FREE!!! but either way FREE STUFF!!!! As I was doing my transactions, Dallin was wandering the store looking for his own SWEET deal ;) He saw in the ad that there were store brand orange slices on sale for 49 cents. I gave Dallin a register reward to use to make his purchase... he got two bags of orange slices and one coconut twix for 57 cents :) YAY!!! He was sooo excited to get to use his very own "coupon" that's what he called it hehehehe

Another really sweet victory happened yesterday as we were driving to Utah.... Aaron had made some sandwiches for dinner and I had packed a ton of food, drinks and snacks... As we were eating and enjoying, I passed around a bag of m&m's for each of the boys. Aaron asked me "Is all of this food from couponing?" I told him it was all from couponing and was all super sweet deals, he then asked me "When I get married can you please teach my wife?" hahahaha this is such a change from a few weeks ago of Aaron's view of couponing I LOVE IT!!!! The boys have caught the craze!!!!

YUM YUM YUM!!!!

A friend from work that I had lunch with everyday told me about a meal she makes for her family and they love it... she calls it inside out pizza..... well I took that idea and decided to make pizza braids for dinner tonight using my Rhodes bread dough that I got on a great deal with coupons :)

I used two of the loaf rolls to make the pizza braids for dinner and left the third one on the counter to rise. With the third loaf, I made a triple berry cheesecake braid!!!!

The pizza braids were so yummy. Everything I used to make the braids were bought with coupons :) I used some pasta sauce, mini pepperoni, ground beef, itallian cheese with philly and of course the rhodes bread dough. I know they don't look professional but they sure were tasty the boys ate them up!!!! I think this is a new hit in our house, so I am going to have to be on the lookout for more Rhodes coupons unless I want to make the dough myself hahahaha

The berries that I used in the triple berry braid were blackberries from the bountiful baskets, raspberries from the berry farm in New Plymouth gleaned lastyear :) and blueberries bought from the bishop storehouse last year :)

The smell in the house is so inviting and pleasant!!! I LOVE IT!!! Can't wait to let the boys eat these berry braids for breakfast in the morning :) and can't wait to make these in Texas for everyone!!!!

oh by the way.... 10 DAYS!!!! Dallin is counting down the days for our family :)

Eagle Project madness!!!!

Today was a major packing day for Butte View Elementary where I was working this year. The school is closing due to budget cuts and to make better use of the newer elementary schools in Emmett.

This is a huge consolidation and has been a huge undertaking for those involved in the planning process. I do not envy the administration positions at all, but do admire them for doing such great work in such a short amount of time.

We had a levy vote the first week in May, which passed... HUGE BLESSING!!!! However, Butte View is still closing as an elementary school, but will be school district head quarters and the alternative school now.

Today, all the teachers were packing up their classrooms.

There were tons of volunteers helping pack and move classrooms out of the building. One young man in our ward took this opportunity and made an eagle project out of helping move the library to both schools last week.

Brandon decided to do his eagle project and help move the extended resource room from Butte View to Carberry were they will be working with the special needs teir three children. This project was HUGE!!!!

Brandon did a great job leading the other young men and other helpers to empty the classrooms and move the boxes to the trailers.

We had two trailers and tons of strong hands to help.

The moving took just under 2 hours to complete from loading boxes to move to unloading boxes in the new classroom at Carberry.

The teachers and aids from that classroom were impressed with how fast and efficient the boys/men worked. I was also impressed as well.

They all did a fabulous job. I am so very grateful for all who helped Brandon put in the hours for his Eagle project :)

What a blessing all were to the extended resource room, the ladies can now focus on setting up their new classroom and not be working all summer on getting moved and organized :)

Thank you all so very much!!

WOW!!!!

Ok, so it's been too long since my last posting! So much has been happening in the Hallam household.

We now have a senior in high school!!! AAAAHHHH not sure how that happened? I guess I didn't find the snooze button soon enough :'( I never thought the time would go by so fast. This morning Aaron was telling me "This year went by so fast" I told him that next school year would go by even faster... time never slows down, it only speeds up.... The song is so true to words "Time flies on wings of lightning, we can not hold it back"

All of the boys have learned a lot this school year and have grown so much! Next year, there will be two boys at the high school.... one in middle school at the junior high and two at Carberry (hopefully).

We're looking forward to a great summer vacation with tons and tons of fun things planned :)

Happy 8th birthday Kyler McKay

Kyler is 8 years old now!!!! Holy canoli the time has flown too fast. As much as he would tell us he's never going to grow up, he has, much to our dismay and sadness and joy. It has been such a blessing having Kyler in our family. He has been a joy and a ray of life.

Many know of Kyler's struggle to get here and the miracle of his birth. At Kyler's baby shower that a dear friend put on for us, another dear friend gave me a little stuffed teddy bear. Her suggestion was to take a picture of Kyler each month next to the bear. This idea was a great one since, when he was born, Kyler was smaller than the bear. He didn't get any bigger than the bear until about 6 months of age.

Although it was a stuggle to get Kyler here safely, I am so grateful that he is here and healthy. Kyler is very VERY active and just a sweet bubbly little boy. He loves people with all he's got. When he sees someone he will give them a hug no matter if it's a boy or a girl... he's a very huggy loving boy.

Kyler has been having fun with sports this past year. He did flag football this past fall and just finished with wrestling. He's also very excited to be in cub scouts. His favorite thing about school this past year has been the fact that he gets to see mom everyday. It was always such a treat to get a hug from Kyler at recesses. He loved telling the other kids that I was his mom. I soaked it all in as much as I could, it never got boring. I know that in a few years, it will be the opposite, I pray that it won't be that way, but who knows with teenagers sometimes. I can wait for him to be a teenager though. He's my baby and I want to enjoy every moment of his childhood... it passes all too fast.

Happy happy birthday sweet Kyler McKay Hallam!!!! We love you!!!!