Where or where did my Girlfriend go?

I have been a faithful attendee of My Girlfriends Kitchen for over 3 years. I would go once a month and prepare my meals with my mom or sister. I loved it. I loved the smell of all the fresh ingredients and chatting with my girlfriends. I loved getting to sample new items and sip lemonade while I assembled my meals. I loved leaving with a laundry basket full of meals in less than two hours. It was great to have a healthy variety of meals and to never have to think about what's for dinner.

So I went online to book my appointment in April. The website said they were having some technical difficulties and to call the store to book your appointment. I called the store. Their voice mailbox was full and no one answered. Guyfriend Dave, the owner, always answers. I started to panic. I drove by. It was locked up tight. No signs or anything and the place was cleaned out. Now I really started to panic. I drove Kevin crazy with my worrying. "You used to cook before Girlfriends", he calmly stated. "You will be alright."

My answer was a panicked "I had a lot less kids back then. And what about all our favorite recipes?"

I started to call other locations and do some detective work and I found out that MGFK was bought out by some company in California and that a few of the local owners were so upset that they had closed their doors. This included the Parleys Way and Fort Union locations so now the closest stores were American Fork, Layton and West Jordan. I then found out by pumping the owner of the West Jordan store for info that they were changing their name to Dinner A'Fare and increasing their prices a lot. More panic. The owner of the West Jordan store took a road trip to California to check out the Dinner A'Fare chain and said that it was not for him. His store was going independent and would keep the same menu items although they would have to change the recipe names and alter a few ingredients. Whew.

They are keeping their prices almost the same and it is close to my work. They are not quite as good as my beloved Parley's Way store, but they are a very close second. There is one bad thing though. I can't go and assemble my meals myself anymore. They assemble them for me. You would think this would be a good thing as it is less work. I really enjoyed the little break with time to myself though and I could always say that I made the dinners myself so I sounded less lazy. Oh well. At least we won't be starving.

If any of you would like me to pick up meals for you once a month just let me know. The West Jordan store is now The Dinner Market. I highly recomment the Steller Chicken (formally All Star Chicken) and the Texas BBQ meatballs this month!

Reflections of Christ

Kevin showed me this awesome video that is done by a photographer in Arizona who was given permission to photograph the Mesa Arizona Easter Pageant cast members recreating scenes from Christs life around Arizona. They are beautiful and amazing photos. They almost look like paintings. I couldn't figure out how to post the video on my blog and get the pictures to be high quality so please follow this link. You won't be sorry. Make sure to enlarge it so you can really see the pictures and turn on your speakers because it has amazing music.

http://mabrystudios.typepad.com/reflections_of_christ/2008/03/reflections-sli.html

Note: This link was not working the last time I tried but you can also view the video on this link.

http://www.christ.org/

Asher Quirks

You may think that a 9 month old can't have many quirks, but Asher is already off to a great start.

1. When Asher really wants something he puckers up his lips to get them closer to what he wants. It is like he is trying to vacuum stuff up with his mouth.

2.Asher has to cover his head with his blankets when he sleeps and rub them between his finger.

3. When he is excited he does this crazy head shake and laughs. I love it.

4. He hates baby food. He only wants to eat what you are eating and if you give him and M&M he will literally laugh out loud with joy. ( I know, my 8 month old should not even know what an M&M tastes like, but when you are on a 5 hour car ride and he is screaming from the back seat you will do whatever it takes.)

5. He can tell when his sisters are doing something fun (like swimming) and he will not give up until you let him join them. I am sure he will be torturing them like only a brother can as soon as he can keep up with them.

6. Recently Asher got a cold, and I know this is kind of gross, but he loves to lick his own snot. He will stick his tongue clear up and touch his nose to get it. It makes me gag just a little bit.

London's Quirks

1. London must have multiple night lights on in her room ever night.

2. She does not like melted cheese (she must have been switched at birth since I must have cheese on everthing).

3.She loves, I mean LOVES animal shows. She can watch animal documentaries all day long and never get bored. She also remembers all kinds of weird facts about these differant animals and will tell you all about them. Her favorite animals are sharks and so when discovery channel has shark week, she watches all week long. After shark week last year I could hear the girls playing from the other room "May day, may day, our ship is going down." (Maybe I should cut back on the amount of shark week she watches this year.) She even had a shark birthday party when she turned 4.

4. She still needs a nap. She is getting a little too old, I know, but when we switched to late church, she started falling asleep in sharing time .

5.London loves to travel and has a whole list of places she wants to visit. Alaska is at the top of her list right now, probably because she has seen a lot of animal shows in Alaska lately. She also thinks that everyone has a city that they are named after and asks me where my city is and where Pyper's city is.

6. London has the best laugh. It is a little crazy and it always makes me smile.

Pyper's Quirks

So I have been seeing a lot of blogs lately that have a tag where you list 6 quirky things about yourself. I thought I would do this for each of my kids because I am sure that they will grow out of their crazy little quirks and I want to remember them. So this is mostly for myself, but hopefully you find it intereting to. I am starting with Pyper because she is my quirkiest kid.

1. Pyper cannot take a nap in her regular clothes. She has to strip down to her undies or change into p.j.'s.

2. She loves to play dress up and when we are at home she is almost always in a princess costume or a swimsuit.

3. Whenever I ask her to dance for me she does this crazy chicken dance that always makes me laugh.

4. She is the neatest eater. She has to wipe her mouth with a napkin after every bite and if she doesn't have a napkin she uses her sleeve so she always has little stains on her shoulder.

5. She cannot stand being wet. If one of her sleeves gets wet when she is washing her hands she must change immediately.

6. She says "I love you mom," at least 10 times a day and I never get tired of hearing it.

Here is a picture or her in our backyard a few weeks ago. She lives in this little ballet costume and would wear it everywhere if I would let her. Which I do, most of the time.

Yellowstone '08

We went to Yellowstone for Kev's B-day / our anniversary. We saw tons of bears and other animals, but no wolves :( We had great weather though. These are just a few of our pictures.

It's official, I'm obsessed

So it was year ago that my mom introduced me to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. She gave me the first two books for Mother's Day and I immediately became obsessed. People would ask me what I was reading and what it was about and I was really embarrassed to admit I was reading a teenage vampire series. Pretty soon I had everyone at my work reading it and they are all obsessed too. I have read all three books at least twice and am anxiously awaiting the fourth book in August. Twilight the movie is coming in December and they released the trailer this week. I know there are other twilight fans out there so I post this for you!!