Must have cleaning product

So is this a worthy blog post...I think so! Seriously finding a good cleaner is like finding a new best friend. Plus I spent years in AZ looking for a cleaner for my tubs the just kept looking browner and browner and I couldn't find anything that would get them white again and wish I had heard about this earlier! If you have hard water or hate the residue that gets in your tub you have to try this product! Especially now that tubs come with that anti slip bottom that catches all the grime. I'm not kidding this line of products will have your tub looking new. Its the easy off BAM. John and I have been lazy about squeegeeing our shower door and we have really hard water and the door was all spotty and gross. I sprayed this on it, let it sit for 3 minutes, rinsed it (that's right no scrubbing), then dried it with a microfiber towel and our door looked NEW again. Its also great for making sink faucets and drain look new and perfect too! So if you are needing a good cleaner because your tub products aren't cutting it. Try this out! one WARNING: it says wear gloves and they mean it! Otherwise you will feel your skin burning (no wonder its such a great product)!

Making President Hinckley Proud

Today they came out with the list of Party schools for college. I remember when this list came out and I was at BYU and President Hinckley was there for the devotional. He started out by saying that BYU was rated the most "cold stone sober" school in the country...then added, "I knew you would make me proud!"
Well, President Hinckley we did it again, and again, and again, and even again this year!

Go Cougars!

I think Im insane

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results...what does that make me as a stay at home mom who spends all day cleaning hoping to keep on top of it and then find that once again its destroyed!!!!!!!!! I had such a great and productive morning. The house was spotless and gleaming. By around noon though I was feeling a lot of pressure so I felt like it was time to take it a little easier. In a few short hours the boys had officially completely trashed the house! How do two small boys makes such a big mess! John came home and honestly it didn't look like I had done a thing all day long! Its a good thing we don't have cable because he seriously might be able to think I had a secret soap opera fix because no mater how hard I work the house stays the same!!!!!

Here it is!

About 2 years ago my mother passed her beautiful china onto me along with a little hutch that I could store it in. I have wanting so badly to paint it because it was such a great piece but the wood and stain just looked a little dated. I have been scared though since I'm not a great painter. On the right of my blog is a blog called V and Co. and she is great at painting and restoring things so I peppered her with questions and then pick a nice safe color then got pregnant and sick and never got around to it. I'm so glad to because I decided I wanted to try something a little more bold and so I picked out this great Terra Cotta color, distressed it, and then used a tinted polyurethane to glaze it and I'm so happy with it! I feel like it does my China justice since its so pretty and now its holder is too! I was on cloud nine because I was so happy with it but then to top it off John said, "I don't know why I ever worry, you really have a way with color." Ahh, I'm blushing, sweet boy!Just had to try to give you an upclose picture at how simply beautiful the china is!

Happy Pioneer Day!

Today is a special day here in Utah, so special in fact that John gets the day off (yes, we laughed a little when we got our offer from Sunroc that Pioneer Day was a holiday off, its a big deal here though and so fun!)..... We had a really great day and it just reminds us of how much we love living in a small town!

This morning started out with the Pioneer Parade. Each primary in Hurricane makes a float and the Mayor rides on an ATV throwing candy. There are also some horses, the missionaries of course, and some retired military in the parade. It was great. You can show up a minute before it starts, get a great seat, and its over in 15 minutes! My kind of a parade! It was so cute to see Caleb up there waving and having such a good time.

After the Parade there are all sorts of little food booths and then they do races. They divide them between boys and girls and start with baby crawlers, one year olds, two... up to 20 and older. Davis and Caleb both had fun racing. Its more like a big dash for your parent but they loved it! I thought Davis would freak out but he started hopping and then got into the groove of running with everyone else. Caleb was so serious before he started. I couldn't even hardly get him to take a picture because he was lined up and ready to go! John was going to race in the 20 or older but it was getting hot and we had a lot to do at home so we took off.Watching the races

We worked hard all day and I'm so excited to unveil my project that I did but I will wait for tomorrow because it deserves its own post! We also went to a pool party/BBQ and John got to watch the MLS All star game in home theater so he was in heaven! All in all I have to say thanks to those Pioneers because of them we had a great day!

Just when I thought it couldnt get any better....

Our El Pollo Loco opened yesterday and today we met John for lunch there! It was even better then I remember it from when I was a kid. Poor Caleb was so sad to find out that his "crazy chicken" was not in fact nuggets...

Poor Jack in the box and Del Taco. In-n-out opened up right next to Del Taco and then right across the street El Pollo Loco opened right next to Jack in the box. Both In-n-out and El Pollo Loco had lines that wrapped through the parking lot and poor Del Taco and Jack in the Box didnt have anyone in their drive throughs...But seriously can you blame people. I sure cant!

Beauty and the beast

I know I'm their mother but seriously
THESE BOYS ARE SO STINKING CUTE!
And then to the not so cute....
We found another one. This huge one was on our front porch. It was about 3-4 inches long. I guess we are "lucky" they are so light since they lighter the less poisonous but seriously I don't remember signing up for scorpions. I mean I know they live in the desert but I have lived in the desert for a long time and never seen one until now! YUCK! Thankfully its been John that has found them and not me because I would PANIC!

Brave Boy!

A couple of days ago we went to the dentist. It was for Caleb's first actual cleaning and x-rays. I was so worried because he really does not like new things and lets just say that the last two "happy" visits did not go well. They put me in a chair first and started on me and then another hygienist came in and asked Caleb if he was ready. He said sure and hopped down and went to the room next door. He took bear out of his bag to sit on his lap with him. They opened the little doors between our rooms so I could see a little but they just put the x-ray cover over him and he was great. I cant believe he let them get in there and clean and polish! He asked tons of questions and did say a few times, "all done now!," even when they were not quite done. Then he got a goody bag and he was so concerned that I wouldn't get one so he kept saying things like, "shes being really good. Looks like she will get a bag." It was pretty darling.

Here is a little fact that we found out at the dentists office too. Caleb has an extra tooth. The dentist says it actually pretty rare to find that and what is ironic is that as a child I was missing a baby tooth and a permanent tooth. I'm interest to find out what his permanent teeth are like but they didn't get x-rays of them yet. I had noticed the tooth because its really crooked but I never noticed that it was extra (give me a break this kid bit your fingers off if you tried to see his teeth when they were coming in!) If you blow the picture up you should be able to see that he has 5 teeth between his canines instead of 4. He now tells me how special he is because he has an extra tooth! I was so proud of him!!!!

On a scary note we found a baby scorpion in our garage. It was dead but still that seriously freaks me out!

Telemarketing revenge...ha ha ha ha

I hate telemarketers! I know I should recognise they are just trying to make a living...BUT I have run into the worst telemarketers ever!!! I'm always nice but I have been yelled at, hung up on, cussed at...you name it! Plus I feel that since I'm a stay at home I find it offensive that they think they should be able to call me all day long and try to sell me stuff. If I want something I will go to the store. No one thinks to call other people at work and try to sell them stuff. I'm sure John has never had a telemarketing call while at work and since this is where I work I don't think I should have to either! We are on the do not call list but that still doesn't seem to stop all the calls so I'm always trying to find ways to kind of get my revenge but nicely of course.

Today the phone rings and I see that its a telemarketer. I have the genius idea and say "Caleb the phones for you." This is what I hear from Caleb...

• Hi
• No, its me Caleb
• Yea (pause) hi (im pretty sure they asked to talk to me here)
  
• No (pause) No!... guess what I'm playing a game on the computer

Then he hands me the phone and says they aren't there anymore. I love it. Caleb gets excited to have someone to talk to and I don't have to deal with them. Next time I will be sure to be on the other phone just to make sure they don't say anything bad (yes, I have been know to call people back when they are rude) and so I can secretly listen and laugh inside!
HA HA HA HA (evil laugh)

Hold on tight if you can!

You have to enlarge these two pictures just to get the full effect of how hard Davis is laughing!

Well you cant really live in Utah without having a trampoline in the backyard! My parents let us bring theirs back from when I was in high school and we set it up yesterday and we all had so much fun on it! I think John had more fun than anyone else. We are anxiously awaiting the net that we ordered to go around it because like all things from my childhood we have to revise them for safely! Seriously though its hard to jump with the kids because they both weight around 30 pounds give or take a little and so if you give them your bounce they take off flying!

After we put the kids to bed there was lightening in the distance so John and I went outside and laid on it watching for a while and it was the perfect weather, warm but overcast. We had a few bum wars, which I of course won, but maybe I should start taking it a little easy on the trampoline until I have the baby. I'm sure when I'm 9 months pregnant I will be jumping like crazy! :)

We are so excited for the hours of fun we are going to have and its so nice when Caleb and Davis are bored from being inside to just send them out to jump. I think the only disadvantage is that Davis just sits by the back door whining because he always wants to be jumping! Here are a couple videos to let you see how much fun they were having!

Caleb has been tagged....

1. What is something mom always says to you? You have to be nice
2. What makes mom happy? when I'm nice
3. What makes mom sad? not listening
4. How does mom make you laugh? tickling me
5. What was mom like as a child? ummm a baby
6. How old is your mom? 86
7. How tall is your mom? big
8. What is your mommy's favorite thing to do? wash dishes
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? sleep
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? i don't know
11. What is your mom really good at? praying
12. What is your mom not very good at? wash
13. What does your mom do for her job? i don't know
14. What is your mom's favorite food? delicious apples
15. What makes you proud of your mom? to be happy
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? dora the explorer
17. What do you and your mom do together? pray
18. How are you and your mom the same? because we are
19. How are you and your mom different? because we aren't
20. How do you know your mom loves you? you say it
Caleb tags: Ashlynn, Briggs, Audrey, Hudson, Zachary

Henderson Family Kitchen Favorites

Hey everyone! I know that I have given cookbooks to my family and some of my friends in the past. Each year I print a new one that is updated. My brother Mark kept telling me I should do a consolidated cookbook so I decided that I would put all the recipes onto my own cooking blog. I know I write on the Good eats and Sweets but I don't want to take that one over with all my recipes from my cookbooks. I only have about 1/4 of the cookbook (perhaps not even that much) up on it yet and Ive added a lot of recipes that we have been collecting for this years new version. Anyway check it out at:
http://lisascooking.blogspot.com/
I will keep getting recipes up over then next couple of weeks until the whole cookbook is up and then I will just add as we try new recipes. I will still be printing a new cookbook in January for me since its more convenient to have a cookbook in the kitchen then on the computer. If anyone wants one at that time I will make sure to print them for those who want them for the cost of printing. Keep sending me recipes too folks...I love new ones to try!

I always knew I was a feminist's nightmare!

81 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Superior Take the test!

Weekend in Cali

We had such a good and relaxing time in CA. We were having a bit too much fun that we forgot to take a lot of pictures. On Thursday we went and saw Wall e which was not my favorite Pixar movie (should have know the critics liked it).
Friday we had a big pool party with some good Friends. The boys had a very good and competitive volleyball game. I think Caleb was in the pool from about 11:00 to 5:00 without a break. It was heaven for him! We then went to a great Angels game and watched the fireworks there.
Saturday was busy with the boys golfing, the girls shopping, more swimming, and then a nice trip to the Newport Beach Temple and dinner at Islands. The cousins had SO much fun playing together and all seemed to get along really well this trip.
To top the whole weekend off we got to be in Vegas on Sunday where John got to set Nic apart as an Elder. All in all a great weekend and now I'm here with a big messy house and a lot of work! So worth it though! Thanks fam for such a great trip!

(Oh yeah Im going to just gloss over the way the weekend started. Lets just say it took about 12 hours to get from St George to Brea and that includes a 2 hours parking lot on the freeway, a dead battery, a tow truck, meeting a very kind grandpa and grandma in Apple Valley at ~4:00 am and then hitting early morning traffic on the way home and not getting there until 6:00am. It must have been a good weekend for me to have almost forgotten about that!)The not so serious game!

Look at that determination!

Happy 4th

I know I'm a day late but still after watching the fireworks last night at Angels Stadium I just felt like I wanted to express how much I love my country! I will never forget what it felt like to live outside of the country and coming back on the plane and being so excited to just touch down on soil. I really did want to kiss the ground when I got back because there is something that is special about this land and I'm so glad that it is my home.

Right now it seems like things are so divided and sometimes I get discouraged but I was thinking about it yesterday that I love my country like I love my Family. Sometimes I get frustrated, sometimes I don't agree with the way things are done, and sometimes I even get really disappointed. In the end though I love it, I will stand up for it, defend it even with my life if it was necessary!

Thank you to our brave military past and present who do sacrifice it all for the life that we get to live!

God bless the USA!

Feeling good!

John and I have really felt the pressure to get our food storage together. We've been buying extra rice, flour, and sugar when we have Costco trips and yesterday we went to the Cannery for the first time and had fun putting it in cans and canning some of the things the cannery has to offer. We have made a goal sheet for food that we want to have saved that will feed our family for a year and we are about half way there. Some items we are finished collecting and some we still have a ways to go. The church has a sheet that you can enter in the number of people in your family and they will tell you about how much you need. Some of it was just not reasonable because seriously who can rotate out 75 cans of corn! Not us!

We have two more cannery assignments in the fall and winter and will just keep trying to build up our supply. It feels good to feel like we are getting prepared for emergencies. Now if I could just figure out where to put it all since if we want to keep it all good we cant put it in the garage because it needs to be kept at a pretty consistent temp. Were shoving it under beds and in the tops of closets! Next house we build will have a food storage room in the garage that is temp controlled! We also are feeling GOOD because we are taking off for a much needed little break to Cali tonight! Johns boss was very nice and told him to take tomorrow off without having to use a vacation day (shhhh dont tell) So we have a long nice weekend planned in cooler Cali and we are so excited! Guess I better go finish packing!

.....4 hrs later

We are sitting around waiting for Daddy to get off work and I was cruising around etsy.com. If you have never been its the best! My sis-in-law Lisa has a store called See Kam Rock, check it out (I have a link on the side of my blog). Anyway I just thought I would check if there was any BYU homemade things and I came across this...I was cracking up. Is it in good taste? I'm not sure but I do know that when BYU football starts in the fall of 2009 we will have a 9 month old crawler and I'm not so sure that I will be able to pass this up. Sorry if there are any U of U fans reading this but you have to admit its pretty funny! Co Cougars!

Clearplay

We found out about this product a few months ago and bought it and love it and thought we would pass the good news along! For those of you who mourned with us over the loss of clean flicks this is a DVD player that edits movies. Its protected by congress because you are buying editing software not an edited movie. What you do is use a USB drive to download filters from your computer and then plug it into the DVD player and then it will upload the edits for the film you put in at the time. It just mutes out profanity and will cut out bad scenes. I especially like it because it will take out things like the Lords name in vain on kids movies too.

Anyway you do have to pay like $8 or $9 a month for a membership to get all the new edits but its so worth it to us. We were really starting to be bothered by PG-13 movies since the new PG-13 movies seem to be like the old R rated movies. The best part is you never know what your missing!

At Christmas time Target carried these players for $60 but I couldn't find them there so I just ordered it off clearplay.com and they are like $100 for the player the membership hookup, shipping, and first months membership. I know you can buy them off of amazon for a little bit cheaper but I think there is a $25 activation fee they will charge you when you activate your clearplay membership that they otherwise wave if you buy it off clearplay.com so it might not be worth it to buy it somewhere cheaper unless you get it for over $25 cheaper than the cost of the DVD player off clearplay.

Anyway, it is kind of pricey up front but seriously its so nice to sit down and watch a movie without wondering whats going to be coming! Check it out if your interested (and no I'm not a salesperson....I just love it so much!)