My Three Children

Evan and Tori recently brought home their school pictures and I had to share them. My children are the most beautiful children in the world. I don't care what you say or how much you argue that it's possible your children might be more beautiful, I just won't listen because mine are the most beautiful and talented and amazing!





















Here's my amazing Evan. He's now in 8th grade and doing fabulously. He's always done well in school and shows a talent for math and science. He dreads his English and history classes but still manages to plow through and get the grades. I love Evan's quiet self-confidence and his great laugh. If you can ever get him to really let loose and tickle his funny-bone, he's got a laugh that will put a grin on your face and start you laughing also. He's a great baseball player and really just all around talented at everything he does. I love you Evan!

Here's my beautiful daughter Tori. She's now in 7th grade and loving every minute of it. She tells me that everyone in the school knows her and she just "loves" 7th grade. Tori is very smart, quick witted, and can carry on a conversation without any response from you. :-) She just loves to talk. Tori is talented academically and physically. She's a great softball player, gymnast, volleyball player, and cheerleader. She always wants to try new things. I love you Tori!

Here's my handsome oldest son, Spencer. He doesn't have school pictures anymore but, of course, he had to be included in the praise of my wonderful children. I love Spencer's way of intuitively knowing your moods and his ability to cheer you up or comfort, along with the sweet kindness he gives to those around him. He has a real talent for making friends with everyone he comes in contact with. He's currently working full-time and enjoys the friendships he's made at his work. Evan and Tori adore their older brother and just love it when he plays board games with them or speaks in his "squeegie" voice or Cartman voice. He's a wonderful son and I'm blessed to have him in my life. I love you Spencer!

Speaking of Recipes...

I think I'll just continue my ramblings on recipes by posting a couple family favorites. The other night I made my famous potato recipe. I call it Marcy's Potatoes. I probably shouldn't take full credit for the recipe because I could have easily gotten the idea from some book or article or neighbor but over time I've forgotten where the recipe came from and have just made it my own. So, I'll just go ahead and take credit. All righty then!

Marcy's Potatoes

3 large potatoes (3 usually is enough for my family of five)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
2-4 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. rosemary

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Wash and scrub potatoes. Poke each with a fork 3-4 times. Cook in the microwave then let them cool for 10 minutes. While potatoes are cooling, mix olive oil, garlic, thyme, rosemary in a large bowl.. Cut the potatoes into bite size pieces then toss in the olive oil mixture. Make sure the potatoes are nicely coated with olive oil. If it looks to dry, add a little more oil. Spread the potato mixture on a foil covered cookie sheet. Cook for 20-30 minutes, depending on how crisp you want the potatoes.

Here's my lovely daughter enjoying her meal with the lovely potatoes. I think Spencer found my camera on the table and took this picture. Had to add it 'cause it gave me a chuckle.

So, hopefully my potato recipe is easy to follow. I don't think I've ever written a recipe. Fun times. Do you like my picture thrown in for visual effect?

Another favorite family recipe is Ranch Chicken. I don't have a picture of this tasty recipe so you'll just have to visualize on your own.

Ranch Chicken
5 thin boneless chicken breasts (you can buy the thin sliced chicken breasts or pound them out, up to you)
1/2 cup ranch dressing
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese (must be fresh shredded)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine chicken breasts, ranch, and parmesan all in one bowl and mix together. (please note: I've never actually measured this, I usually do it by sight, so you may want to add more dressing or parmesan if it doesn't look coated enough). Place foil on a baking sheet. Place 1/4 cup butter on baking sheet and place in the preheated oven for a few minutes to melt the butter. Place chicken breasts on melted butter in the foil lined baking sheet. The chicken should be thickly coated with both ranch and parmesan cheese once it's all mixed. Cook for 20 minutes or until chicken is fully cooked (time depends on thickness of chicken breasts). Enjoy!

Have I shown off the love of my life? Oh, wait, Of course I don't really mean this beautiful oven and microwave.... my hot husband is the love of my life.... but I do truly love my oven and microwave set-up. My hot husband is responsible for my fabulous kitchen and I just love it and had to share with all of you!

Hope you enjoy the recipes. Happy cooking!

101 Things to Do with a Slowcooker

My lovely cousin Sean commented on my last posting that he was just a little offended that I wouldn't mention his wife's cookbooks. Sheesh... sorry Sean, don't hate me. :-)

So, I'm taking a little time to mention these wonderful cookbooks, called "101 Things to Do With a Slowcooker" and "101 More Things to Do With a Slowcooker". It's a cookbook that I've used extensively and just love it. Since I'm a busy working Mom the Slow Cooker, or crockpot, is my friend. My lovely, lovely wonderful friend.

I have a crockpot that has a large clay dish that can be removed from the cooking element, and I LOVE it. I can prepare the crockpot meals in the evening before I go to bed, place the clay dish in the fridge, then in the morning put it in the cooking element, plug it in and let it do it's thing while I'm busy at work.

Can you tell I like crockpot better than slow cooker? Who came up with the term crockpot anyway? Is it just me? Anyhoo, I've gone through most of the recipes and put smiley faces next to the recipes the family likes and use them on a regular basis. One of our favorites is the Rootbeer-BBQ Shredded Beef sandwiches... mmmmmm mmmmm good.

Whew... ok this posting should put me in the good graces of cousin Sean. :-)

What's for Dinner?

Tori and I went to a Women's expo last Saturday at UVU and we stumbled across this small booth with a lady selling books called "What's for Dinner?". Tori immediately grabbed the book and said, "you gotta buy this Mom". I know it caught her eye because that is the question she asks me every, stinkin', single day. So does both her brothers and my lovely husband. It's a question that starts to haunt me just after lunchtime every day... a question that's hovering in the air behind me, that follows me the rest of the day until around 5pm when it pounces and attacks! uugghhhhhh. You think I'm exaggerating? You don't have school age kids.

Had to throw in this picture because while, yes, it's gross, it displays the big looming question I face every day.

So, after flipping through the book I realized that, yes, I gotta buy this book. It's more than a recipe book it gives you weekly menus with all the recipes organized by the week. Gives you tips on how to prepare ahead and all sorts of other great tips. I had to buy it because, as many of you know, I usually plan my menu each week and go grocery shopping each week to buy the needed items for my menu (ya, I'm just good like that). Anyhoooo, the thing I hate is trying to come up with the menu each week, which means either going through my pile of recipes... some day I"ll organize them all.... or thinking in my head of what's easy and what the family likes. It's truly a pain in the you know what. So, this book caught my eye and so far I JUST LOVE IT!

This book is full of basic homestyle cooking, with recipes that have basic ingredients. It's a great book that is written in great detail so my numb 5 o'clock brain can just open it and do and not think. I looked online to see if this book is available online but it's not. I did find plenty of websites that are dedicated to the same thing... obviously I'm not the only one struggling to answer the "What's for Dinner" question. But after looking through a few of the sights, I think this book is better than what I saw online. The author of the book is Jana Schofield and her e-mail is heywhatsfordinner@hotmail.com. I just thought I'd pass this along to those of you interested. I don't know this woman, I'm just sharing with you all 'cause I love ya!

Cheerleader Tori

Those of you who know Tori well will not be surprised to hear that she's a cheerleader and loving every minute of it. She had her first game the other day and was just so dang cute. I was actually very impressed with her team... oops... her squad. I have to get used to this new terminology. Her squad was very well rehearsed and did a great job cheering on the football team.

I know I'm a little biased but.. ya gotta admit... she's just so cute!

Here's her squad lined up on the football field during half time ready to do their dance or cheer or whatever it's called. Tori's on the front row.

Here's a video of her first routine at her first game. :-) They are just 7th graders so it's nothing fantastic but... on the other hand I was pretty impressed knowing that they ARE just 7th graders. Tori's on the front row 3rd from the right.

One final shot of my husband watching the game. I didn't know what was going on with the game and he didn't know what was going on with the cheerleaders. We make a great team. Oh, I also threw in this photo to show what a beautiful area we live in.

School Daze!

Yes... I spelled it correctly... School Daze! I'm in a daze that it's back to school. My children are growing up so quickly and I'm in a state of shock. It's especially shocking that my baby girl is in 7th grade! Junior High School! She's my baby, she shouldn't be in Jr. High! Then my wonderful, amazing middle son is in 8th grade?! What's going on here. I can't be old enough to have my two youngest in Jr. High. I don't even want to start into the fact that I have a 21 year old. (gulp)

So, I had hoped to post a picture of my two youngest on their first day of school but my lovely baby girl got a hold of my camera and deleted the picture. It wasn't intentional but .. still... grrrr. Instead, I'll have to post my most recent picture of the Glassford family.
















Such a beautiful family, right?! As for school, Tori is very excited to be in school and going to Jr. High. She is miss socialite and doing very well. Even isn't really thrilled about the whole thing and has told me he would like to find whoever invented school and have them shot. :-) This cracks me up because really he's such a smarty pants and is doing well also. They're all great kids and I'm blessed to be their Mom.

Costa Rica - Final Post!

Yes, believe it or not, this will be my final post on our trip to Costa Rica. Day nine is our final day in traveling Costa Rica; our true final day is day ten but we're just traveling home that day. Once again I have to say what an incredible experience this was for me and Todd and what a beautiful country. I highly recommend traveling there.

Our final day was spent seeing the sights of San Jose and the nearby city of Orosi with a side trip to visit the Bomberos. If you don't know what a Bomberos is, you'll just have read this post to find out.


















Our day started in the capital city of San Jose. A big, busy, crowded city. Our tour guide mentioned that 1/2 the population of Costa Rica lives in the city of San Jose and the surrounding cities, which I believe is around 2 million. The remaining 2 million live spread throughout the country. It really was quite crowded but still had it's own beauty. I'm standing in front of one of their theaters, built many years ago but maintained beautifully.


















This is the central park within the city. We thought this structure was cool. Spread throughout the park are a variety of metal oxen. I think I mentioned that the ox and oxcart are important symbols in Costa Rica. The ox and oxcart were an important part in building this country.

Here's one of the metal oxen. Each oxen is painted to portray various things that are important to the country. I have no idea what this oxen is supposed to portray.

Here's another metal oxen. I believe this one is portraying something to do with politics. (really have no idea).

Before I go much further with my post, I had to show a picture of the bus we traveled on throughout the country. This was a really nice bus and I shouldn't complain.. but let me tell you... it was freakin' scary to ride this bus through those narrow roads and across those narrow bridges over extremely deep chasms with rushing rivers below. Whew! Ok, I feel much better. On to more of the beautiful country of Costa Rica.





















From San Jose, we traveled to Sanchiri Lodge overlooking the gorgeous valley of Orosi. What a perfect location to end our travels. The valley of Orosi was just breathtaking. It was hard to believe that it was just a few minutes outside bustling San Jose.




















We ate lunch at Sanchiri lodge and enjoyed every minute of it. The lodge was perched on the edge of the valley and was open to the outside. The temperature was perfect, around 80 degrees, with a slight breeze and relatively low humidity. It was just a perfect day.



















This is our view during lunch.

















From the lodge we could see this strange triangle house. We asked our guide, Paul, about the house and he said this house belongs to Michael Landon's family... you know .... "Pa" from Little House on the Prairie. Michael Landon used to live in the home before he died and now his family owns the house. He didn't know if "Pa" had the house built or if it was built by a previous owner. Interesting shape for a house.

















Here we are in Orosi Valley. Next to their church is a park with this painted mural. Much of the export from Costa Rica is coffee. This mural depicts the early people of Costa Rica harvesting their crop of coffee.

















Orosi was really a beautiful little town. Surrounding the town were beautiful rolling hills with houses and small dirt roads all over the hills. This was our view from the Orosi church. The picture does not do justice to the beauty.

















I took this picture for my Dad. You can't see clearly, but there is a lone house at the top of the hill. This home and the beautiful valley made me think of Papacito and his love of Costa Rica. I imagine this house as my Dad's dream home.. maybe someday huh Pop?

















Orosi is really a small town but within the town they had this gorgeous church.
























A beautiful church and beautiful valley. I must say that in my opinion, Orosi valley was the most beautiful little town. It was a town that made me wish I had a better camera to better show off the beauty. A perfect place to end our Costa Rica travels.





Before we say farewell to Costa Rica, here's some final pictures. The entire trip, Todd was hoping to visit the Bomberos, firefighters. After returning from San Jose and Orosi, Todd and I got a taxi and took a trip to visit the local fire house in San Jose. The men there were so kind and friendly. Todd brought a couple extra shirts from his fire station hoping to exchange shirts with them. They not only exchanged shirts but gave him a great belt buckle and badge.








It was really cool to see the camaraderie between the firefighters and you could feel the brotherhood between them even being from different countries and cultures. Todd enjoyed this final adventure.
Adventure is the best way to describe this entire experience. It was fun to relive it all through my posts. I'm now done and loved reliving every minute. Adios Amigos and Amigas!