Did you know?

Did you know that when you upload photos to Blogger, you are actually uploading them to a separate Picasa account, that Blogger automatically created through your Google account?

And did you know that while Gmail has a limit of over two gigs of storage space for free, Picasa limits you to one gig of storage for your photos?

And did you know that Blogger no longer just resizes your images and keeps a small image file like it used to when I just started blogging, it saves the whole file to Picasa (which can fill it up quickly if you have a camera with gianormous file sizes like mine) so if your house burned down or something, all the high res files you ever posted would still be saved out there somewhere in the cyberworld for you? (another Fabulous reason to blog!)

Well, I learned all of that the other night when I went to add a photo to a post and got the message, "You have exceeded your photo upload quota." Yikes! Originally, when I joined blogger they had really limited photo storage, which I should have exceeded a very long time ago, but I never checked to see what the deal is and now I know. Don't worry, for an annual fee you can upgrade your Picasa account size (the minimum is to ten gigs for $20.00/year and that would take me ages and ages to fill).

And did you also know for those of you that have password protected blogs, you still should go into your Picasa account and check the privacy settings there so that you are not sharing your photos, they will not come up in photo searches, and other people cannot download them? Or if you want to, you can share your Picasa accounts and allow all the grandma's out there to order their own copies of pictures of their darling grandkids.

I guess that you learn something new every day!

Focusing on the positive

I haven't been posting a lot of personal thoughts lately because Creed attacks the keyboard tearing off keys everytime he can get his hands on it so I've been keeping posts to a bare minimum, but there are so many things tumbling around in my head right now: all the things we need to do to get ready to sell our house (including finding a realtor, any suggestions?), what to do for the Relief Society lesson that I'm teaching on Sunday and what I'll do with Creed during the lesson since Larry will be working, so many ideas for new craft projects that I don't have time to work on yet, some book reviews that I've been meaning to post, the debate over whether we should head to Punxsatawny this weekend for Ground Hog's Day with Creed in tow, and why does Larry have to work so so much! And really, who wants to hear me complain so here are a few things that have made me incredibly happy this past week.

My mom has started her own blog called "Charmed, I'm sure". I've been telling her that she should for ages because she's always telling me about her projects, but I wish that I could see them, and she finally did it! She thinks that no one will be interested in reading it but her own kids, but I'm betting that's not true.

Then in the midst of teething weariness, I ran out to pick up the mail and lo and behold, Laura, AKA Texas Girl, sent me this bag, even though we have never met in person because it reminded her of the tree quilt that I wanted to make. I LOVE IT! Isn't that incredibly nice? And speaking of incredibly nice, have you read the comments to my request for recipes? Thank you all so much!

And last, but not least, my long lost friend Jay found my blog!

Jay was one of my best friends. I think I saw him just about every day the summer before I moved back to the mainland, and I could say just about the same thing for the summer before my sophomore year of college when Jay moved to Utah too. He's such a great guy and I'm happy to have him back as a friend and the bonus is that his wife seems awesome and they live in Utah now so Larry and I will actually have some friends when we move.

And I'd just like to note that one of the first things Jay said to me is that I craft like an 80 year-old woman! Hmmmm . . . I'm sure he meant that as a compliment . . . Actually that was pretty funny because I'm always telling Larry that he has the vocabulary of an 80 year-old man so I guess we were meant for each other in many many ways! Jay also kept pointing out how old I'm getting so I'd like to take this opportunity to let him know that he's also getting up there! The little guy in this picture, his brother Mikey, is now a senior in high school (yikes!) and Mikey made a very wise decision to go to my alma mater, Kahuku instead of Jay's, Kamehameha (Ha ha!)

And now we are all caught up and Jay and his beautiful wife have a blog too! We can't wait to meet his wife Sarah and their new baby Adalie!

Mr. Grumpy

Creed's second tooth has decided to make an appearance and the shirt pretty much sums up how that is going. Poor guy! I probably shouldn't have put him down to snap a couple of pictures, but I promise he continued to be miserable no matter what I tried, and at least Larry gets t know a little about how Creed's day went.

A Great Man

President Gordon B. Hinckley, the President of our church, died last night at the age of 97. To say he will be greatly missed is quite an understatement.

Creed's New Monster

I love Uglydolls and I've been meaning to attempt making one instead of buying one since they look so easy to make. I couldn't sleep Friday night so I got up around midnight and decided to choose a project from my crafting To Do list (yes, I have a crafting To Do list! Don't laugh). One hour later I had this (mind you I bought the fleece for this project before Creed was born so I didn't exactly finish this quickly, did I?)

The hardest part was just deciding what to use for the face. I went with some towel scraps that I have from making monster towels because Creed loves to feel different textures, but fleece would have been easier to work with. I finished stuffing the monster last night so now he's finished.
I think this project would be a lot more fun if you had your child draw a monster and turned that into a stuffed monster (in fact, I think maybe I saw them do that in a Martha Stewart Kid's magazine . . .) I guess I'll have to make another one when Creed can draw.

Creed at Ten Months

Creed seems to suddenly be so big! His stuffed doll has become the incredible shrinking Max.

He's also becoming so expressive. He only says mom, dad, dog, and sometimes ball, but he can communicate so much more. For instance, here he is letting us know he wants us.

He's eating us out of house and home and gaining some pretty chubby cheeks in the process. After nursing in the morning, he'll still eat a bunch of Cheerios or goldfish crackers, half a banana, a whole Yoplait yogurt, and a whole stage three jar of baby food.

He's starting to stand so well, but is pretty hesitant to walk on his own

He's also so dang smart. Today he figured out how to push the little lever in to open the back of our TV remote over and over again. He watches everything going on around him in wonder and is pretty amused with just about anything the first time he sees it. Here he is amazed by a wrapping paper tube today.

Creeders still only has one tooth and Larry managed to snap some pictures of it for you.

And I just wanted to add this picture because I didn't want to forget that every night when we peek in on him, he's sleeping all curled up with his little bum in the air.

He's an incredible sweet, cuddly baby (which makes it a little difficult for me to do things at times, but I try to remember that soon he won't want me to hold him all day long). I've started taking him to baby storytime at the library and he's not really sure what to make of such a big group of babies. This week he actually did venture off of my lap with a wary eye watching for any babies that might head towards him while he made a mad dash to pick up a ball and carry it back to my lap.

I think Larry and I find ourselves saying, "He's so cute!" several times everyday. I don't think we could possibly be anymore enamored with him!

Another Reason Why Larry & I Were Made for Each Other . . .

Stephanie and Marissa being "Bag Ladies" in 1988

Larry, Scott, and Keri as the Three Bears

Our Baby is Such a Punk!

Whatever he's wearing, whatever he's doing, he's just so cute!

Got Glasses?

Ok, last night I asked Larry to take a picture of me in my new glasses, and looking over them now, I think they say a lot about us so I'm sharing all of them. First off, the glasses. I'm 100% sure these are not the frames that I ordered, but when I went to pick them up and get my RGP contact lenses fitted, the contacts were totally messed up (I couldn't even read the huge E at the top of the vision chart, which I can read just fine without contacts) so they had to remeasure the shape of my eyes and send them back and I already felt bad about that so when they handed me my glasses and they were the wrong pair, I couldn't bring myself to say anything. I'm pretty sure that I did try these frames on, and they are growing on me, but they are not the frames that I decided on. The ones that I chose were a bit more funky because I almost never wear glasses, so they might as well be fun, right?

Anyway, I knew I liked these, I just didn't love them so I took them home and figured that I could always work up the courage to say something when I go to pick up my contacts if I'm still not loving them by then.

In this first picture I was just watching Larry get ready, and I didn't know that he was taking my picture. Sheesh, I am so awkward in front of the camera!

Then he took this picture and I thought, "Ok, fine. Whatever. Now we're done."

And I was telling Larry something and making faces, which was when he caught this.

And he says this is the look I often give him; sort of amused and a little confused about whatever he's doing or saying

And then you can't take a bunch of pictures without trying the Blue Steel pose, can you?

And I am not the only one in the family to get new glasses! Larry got his first pair! His optometrist told him that he doesn't really need them, but that he could have them for driving at night if he wanted them, and how could he resist when they are free with our insurance? Even Creed admires them!

What's cooking?

I've never had much of a desire to learn to cook. I wish that it was something that I loved but, I've tried too many recipes that I've put a lot of effort into only to end in disaster and frustration so I mostly gave up. Unfortunately, Larry doesn't love to cook either. He says that if a recipe has more than three ingredients, it too complicated for him. So as you can imagine we eat out or we eat simple meals A LOT! We were both busy with other things so we were both fine with that, but now that I'm staying at home and Creed is eager to nibble anything that goes on our plates I really need to step things up around here. Our doctor says this is the perfect time to evaluate our eating habits to make sure that we are having balanced meals for Creed's sake and I have really taken that to heart.

I have most of the basics of cooking down (or at least I can call Cat with all of my stupid questions and she's always happy to explain them), but I'm really in need of EASY delicious recipes. And since I hope that you will share some recipes with me, I'm going to share a few with you!


Meal planning has never been our strength, but I'm greatly improving and this week I bought my first cook book!!!!! We have a few that were wedding gifts (and are mostly way over my head so every time I attempt a recipe I have to buy a million ingredients) and a few ward cookbooks put together at church (but how many recipes do I really need for tuna casserole? Gross!). Friday I was browsing Michaels and I had a JoAnn's ad sticking out of my bag, and an employee told me that I can use the JoAnn's coupons at Michaels. I never knew that! And you can use them on the Martha Stewart line there, including her books and magazines! So the new Everyday Food cookbook, Great Food Fast, caught my eye, and I decided to buy it because it sounds like just what I need (granted, I could probably get most of the recipes for free from their website or check this book out from the library, but hello? It was 50% off with my coupon!)


I haven't tested any of the recipes yet, but I was feeling encouraged because I tried an Everyday Food recipe for Soy-Glazed Salmon on Thursday and it was simple and so good. You can get the full recipe here, but all you do is mix together 1 Tbsp of soy sauce, 1 Tbsp of honey, and 1/4 tsp of ground ginger (or 1 tsp fresh ginger). Brush it over your salmon (I used fillets instead of salmon steaks) and cook it under your broiler for 5 or 6 minutes. Even Creed liked it! Next time I may make a little extra sauce to brush on just before it's done cooking too. I made these Sesame Green Beans to go along with it and the whole meal was done in less than ten minutes.


Another really simple meal that we had this week was from an idea I got from my friend Amy Hall. She makes awesome black bean tacos. I don't usually have a lot of meat on hand, but we almost always have canned black beans. For these tacos you just rinse a can of black beans and heat them in a pot on the stove with about half a packet of taco seasoning (or whatever amount you prefer) and a teeny bit of water to help it dissolve and mix in. The we just heat flour tortillas in a skillet on the stove and add whatever taco toppings that we have on hand like cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, avocado, corn, etc.


And as long as I'm sharing, I tried another new recipe this week, that actually turned out well. This one takes a little more effort, but it made enough for a few meals and I was able to freeze some so it was well worth the effort. As I mentioned, Cat gave me some of her recipes for Christmas, including this one for meatballs, which she said I could share with all of you. I'm not a big meatball recipe, but these are not made with red meat and they are so good!


Meatballs (You can also use this recipe to make meatloaf)

1 lb. spicy pork sausage
1 lb. ground turkey
1/2 large onion chopped
olive oil
1 - 2 cloves of garlic minced (optional)
3/4 cup (more or less) oatmeal uncooked
2 eggs (they make everything stick together)
1 - 2 Tbsp basil
Generous teaspoon seasoned salt

Dump the ground turkey & sausage in a large bowl. Splash some olive oil in a small skillet and cook the onion over medium heat, stirring while it cooks (sweating the onions). They're done when they're clear. Add the garlic when they are about halfway done. This pre-cooking softens the onion taste in your meatballs.

Now you mix everything up. Form meatballs.


You can bake them @ 350 degrees for about 20 minutes until done. Cut one in half - they're done when they're no longer pink in the center.


Simmer them in spaghetti sauce for a nice long time to make them really tender. All day in the crockpot is excellent - and you come home to a wonderful warm smell.


So do you have any recipes that you would like to share? I don't have the best of luck with recipes I come across on my own. I'd rather have recommends from friends that are tried and true (and that way I can call you for help if I become lost!)