Last minute BBQ, etc.

This just happened this morning, I checked on him a couple times and he was doing something different every time with his cars. I was soooo cute and amazing to see my "baby" doing it.

A NEW POOL FOR BRAX!

He was so excited when he realized what was going on at the store. I told him exactly what we where we were going to go and what we would be doing a couple times. "Go to walmart get dog food and a swimming pool to play in the water."

Well all he heard was play in the water, he assumed that we were going to the fun splash park. When we pulled up to Wal-mart he started screaming, "No water! water!" So I explained again and then we went inside, he saw the fish and got the dog food. Then I took him out to the garden center to get the pool. When he saw them he got really excited. So I let him get out and choose his new pool color. He chose green out of yellow, blue, green and orange.

So I'm glad I had the trailblazer, the thing barely fit in the car! If I would of had my car I would have been in a pickle.

So he helped me hold onto it while we walked to the car.

Helped me put it in the car.

Then wouldn't stop talking about the "waters" the whole way home.

Then helped me carry it into the back yard.

He ripped off his clothes so fast to get his swimsuit on... it was so cute.

After about 45 minutes of swimming with mom he wanted to come in for lunch and then downed 2 1/2 hot dogs with chips.

Okay, Brandon came home Friday night and told me that all the guys wanted to do a BBQ for Memorial Day Weekend Saturday night or the next night! So he told me to plan on 20 guys who average in age from 19-24 plus a few wives and kids! I said okay and then not thinking at all what I had just said I offered to do it here at our house instead at the pool. That way we wouldn't have to put up with other people and I would have a kitchen.(it keeps underlining and I can't get it to stop, ugh)

GOOD THING I LIKE TO DO CATERING, BUT THIS SHORT NOTICE WAS A LITTLE OVERWHELMING.

Well, that night I realized what I had just gotten myself into, in the next 19 hours I had to have a whole meal planned, bought, prepared, and ready to eat for 25 people on only $100.00.

So I planned it out and looked through my ads to get the best deals the next morning.

So I wanted to get out to the stores by 7:30am, but it didn’t work that way. I didn’t leave the house till 9am. So I spent 2 hours shopping for all the food. And I got it ALL for $99.25!! I was happy with that!

Alright now, I unpacked the car and put brax down in his bed ( he fell asleep in the car, thank heavens) and then looked at the clock it was 11:30am. I had 7 ½ hours to get everything prepared and cooked. Along with my house presentable.

So since I had such a giant dinner to prepare in such short time, I took a pics of most of the stuff I did.

This is all the the chicken I got. Around 30lbs breasts! But they had the bone-in and had skin. So I skinned all the breasts and organized all 48 legs so that I could bake them throughly before we fried them to make them crispy and dressed them with the buffalo wing sauce I made.

I got the breasts for .77 per lb and the legs were .74 per lb.

Made the marinade for the breasts and coated them mixing them up to get them all coated evenly every 2 hours.

Now onto the Dessert

I made up a "Chocolate Fudge Peanut Butter Trifle"

I wanted to get it done so that it would have time to cool and set up properly for the flavors to mesh together.

Made the Peanut Butter Pie filling

After the cake was baked and cooled I sliced it up into bit size cubes

Then started to layer all the ingredients in this order:

Cake, PB Pie, Hot Fudge, Carmel Sauce, Cool whip.

Repeat

Potato Salad

First I peeled, washed and cubed 5lbs of potatoes.

Then boiled them in 2 pots.

While the potatoes were cooking I chopped up all the veggies for the salad.

Which were Green onions, Celery, and Cucumber.

Along with a can of olives and some cheese cubes.

I also bought 3 packages of Bratz for 2.99 ea. and 1 pkg of hot dogs (for the kids) for .58

6 bottles of BBQ Sauce for .88 ea.

and 3 cans of Baked Beans for 1.66 ea.

and I also got 2 bags of Lays potato chips for 1.77 ea.

A medium size Seedless Watermelon for $2.88.

Which I also slice up and then stacked.

Some of the finished products!

Potato Salad

which disappeared a lot faster that I thought it would.

Bratz

Chocolate Fudge PB Dessert

I didn't get a picture of the Hot Legs they disappeared so quickly, So here is some chicken breast pieces with the buffalo sauce on them. They were amazing!

The BBQ Chicken

and 24 Grilled Corn on the Cob!

6 for $1

After all that preparing, cooking, etc.

I realized that I had done it.

I was quite impressed with myself at the moment, that I had done all this by myself.

I also had :3 qts of Koolaid mixed with 3 cans of squirt

2 liters of A&W root beer

4 liters of Pepsi

The small item's I bought within budget:

ketchup

relish

ranch

hot dog buns

olives

celery

onions

Plates

utensils

napkins

cups

Majority of the guys watching the end of the game.

(sorry the pic is so bad)

After the game was over and everyone was starting to leave Parker and Dallas took turns tossing Brax around in his room. Brax was in heaven and if they tried to leave the room, he would have a melt down.

Tyson also went in with him and watched the end of his Your Baby Can Read video and did all the actions with him, like row your boat and head, shoulders, knees and toes. Brax LOVES all three of these guys. I didn't catch a pic of Tyson with him I was busy cleaning up.

So this is Parker.

And here is Dallas, Dallas said that he was a scary kid and he really is when he gets in his swords/dinosaur playing mode. He is quite frightening you have to watch him really careful or you'll get hit pretty hard or tackled when your not expecting it.

Gila Valley Open House

(First off I got these pictures off the website, I didn't take any pictures while we were there.)

I should of post this a while ago, On May 5th we went as a family to the Temple Open House in the little tiny town of Thatcher, AZ . We went because 1- it was close and 2- it will be our new home this coming August for 2 semesters.

It was very small but very pretty, It was said that the artist that painted one the rooms spent 3 days sitting out in the mountains to get his inspiration. Brandon and I both agreed that it reminded us a lot of the Rexburg Temple.

Well Braxton was extremely good, calm, and QUIET! I was amazed and while we were in the celestial room Brandon said something to Braxton and Brax put his finger over dad’s mouth and said shhhh. It was so darn cute, we didn’t even have to tell him to be quiet he just did this all by himself.

Lake Creator and Fish Killer

Well the title says it all... Braxton my energentic 2 year old boy managed in a matter of minutes to cause extreme havoc and destruction in my living room.

Here's the story:

I took the fish out of the tank and put them in a LARGE bucket to chill for a bit while I cleaned the tank, So I realized I needed to go to the store and get some filtered water to fill the tank back up because our tap water is so chlorinated I try not to use it. So I went into my room and started putting on my makeup and getting my hair up when I thought I could here splashing... I ran out into the living room and saw what he had done and screamed!

He had emptied the bucket of water all over the floor and left the fish with none laying in the empty bucket. So I grabbed the fish and immediately put some water in the bucket with their air tube, then grabbed my child, gave him a firm swat on the butt(which didn't phase him) and put him in time out (this phased him, he knew he was in trouble).

After that I grabbed every towel I could find to try and mop up the fish water, luckily we have tile so hopefully no damage was done to the floor.

During all this chaos he had slipped off time out and went into the front room to play with his toys. NOT GOOD, I was so frustrated! I picked him up again and showed him the mess and told him that it was a NO NO! He just giggled at me, so I locked him in his room.

I was soooo mad/upset with him.

And to top it off 2 of the smaller fish were dead within an hour and my large 7in. fish that I have had for 4 years died last night. The other 2 are still a little sluggish.

Alright now, that's my venting.

And Lesson learned for me, but honestly I never thought that he would empty the bucket.

Forget Rednecks!

This is Jeff Foxworthy's input on Idahoans!

ENJOY!!

If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don't work there, you live in Idaho .

If you've worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you live in Idaho .

If you've had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed the wrong number, you live in Idaho .

If "vacation" means going anywhere north of Salt Lake City for the weekend, you live in Idaho .

If you measure distance in hours, you live in Idaho .

If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you live in Idaho .

If you have switched from "heat" to "A/C" and back again in the same day, you live in Idaho .

If you install security lights on your house and garage but leave both unlocked, you live in Idaho .

If you can drive 75 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you live in Idaho .

If you design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit, you live in Idaho .

If the speed limit on the highway is 55 mph -- you're going 80, and everyone is still passing you, you live in Idaho .

If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow, you live in Idaho .

If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter, and road construction, you live in Idaho .

If you find 10 degrees "a little chilly" you live in Idaho .

Bored and another sick dog

Okay, Poor Lucky got Parvo too.

Luckily for him I took him in the minute I got suspicious of his behavior.

He never got as bad as Cooper thank heavens. If you know Lucky you'll be able to see a little difference in the next few pics. He is double his size and looks really really fat. He was so against his treatment I had to hold him down so we got the after pics of him all wobbly and full of fluids. It's interesting. They pump the fluid into them right under the skin and then it absorbs over the next 24 hours. Unlike Cooper who's fluids stayed around his back, Lucky's dispersed all over and settled on his belly.

It was so squishy, you would touch it and it would jiggle a lot.

We had to go in Morning and Night for his treatments and we would get pretty bored.

Braxton grabbed my phone one morning and gave it to me and said cheese, so we started taking pictures. You can definitely tell which ones are morning and night by my makeup and puffy tired face.

I love this one, He was laughing at me pretty hard I don't remember why.

he wanted these pics with Lucky, he was quite demanding on how we took the pictures.

silly kid!

Giving Lucky sweet hugs

Looking at the birds in the trees, I knew Lucky felt yucky because normally he would of been out that window and jumping up the tree.

Good Morning World!

He had just woke up, like less than a minute before this picture and he was already cheesing it up.

This is my absolute favorite!

and some silly ones!

He was being a 2 yr old and not listening to me to get back in his chair.

Well there is a Police station right next the to animal hospital so there was police coming and going, well since he wasn't listening I told him the if he didn't get buckled right now that they would take him away from me. He jumped in the back so fast and buckled up, just not where he was supposed too be buckled.

At least he buckled.

I scored again and got Braxton a toddler bed with mattress and "Lightning McQueen!" sheets.(Brax was very excited about the sheets.)

FREE off of craigslist.

He loves to sleep in it and I find him in it all the time.

Once I got it into his room which was quite frusterating, I put it together in the front room and then rolled it towards his room and... it wouldn't fit through the door!! Ugh!

Okay, breathe and then took it the long side off it and dropped it on it's side and then wiggled it into the bedroom.

I took his toy story bed tent and attached it to the top of the bed, he loves it even more.

Lately he has started reading the back of the cereal boxes while he eats.

COOPER!!!!

Cooper is feeling much better and is begging and stealing food more than ever! Now we just have to retrain him, I am constantly finding him in the high chair.

Yes, he's sleeping

He kept trying to sit on the ball in the water and it never quite worked the way he wanted it too. :)

I Love this cheesy kid!

From our little redneck swimming I draped the tarp over the trampoline to dry so I can fold it up. Well, Braxton thought it was so cool and wanted to jump on it. So I let him, my heart stopped a few times when he was inches from falling off. But he thought it was great!

The wind would blow up under the tarp and he would stop jumping and just look on in amazement.

And Cooper gets beat up just as much as Lucky does now from this boy.

Cooper asking to get off

I found these buttons and I think they're pretty funny!