I have to brag just a bit!

So once again I played suzie homemaker this year and canned my little heart out. I started keeping track of everything I did but then there was to much to count. I do have to say that this years salsa I think was the best yet. Note to self though. ALWAYS use gloves when dealing with peppers. I have never had a problem in the past but this year 2 things. I touched the top of Ridge's bottle with my fingers after holding the peppers and then he drank from it and the poor kid cried and cried and I could not figure out what the problem was for the LIFE of me. Well by the night time my hands burned so bad that I actually had to take a benadryl because that is what poison control says to do and after hours of pain if finally felt better. So here is a run down of what I did:
10 bottle of grape jelly
12 bottles gape juice
20 bottles salsa
15 bottles canned tomato's
12 bags frozen corn
5 jars raspberry jam
and a partridge in a pear tree!

Hodge Podge!

All of my kids have loved to ride on the lawnmower with Justin and Aspen just started. With this new mower Justin is actually able to set a car seat on it and then he puts head phones over her ears for the noise. She has been the best rider by far and loves when dad fires the mower up!
Hunter has asked for YEARS to do Karate but with having to drive to Ogden for it and the expense we have just never done it so when the Gym up in the valley started offering it we had to jump on it. He absolutely LOVES it and has already earned his 1st stripe on his white belt. The only thing I hate is that it is Tuesday's and Thursday's at 4pm and he doesn't even get home from school until 3:50 so its a mad dash and on nights that I have shows I don't get to see him much! But its worth it because of how much fun he has!
I realized that I never posted about Hunt's 1st day of school. I will be honest with you the 1st 2 weeks were a nightmare. He HATED going all day but we feel so blessed to have the most amazing teacher in the world and she along with us has really worked with him. I was so worried because we didn't work on his reading as much as we should have during the summer but he has done great and is right where he needs to be. The biggest issue that we have is school lunch. He is such a picky eater that we do have to send a lunch most days and on the days he does eat school lunch I worry he isn't eating enough. I am sure it will get better!
After 9 years of marriage Justin and I finally broke down and bought a TV for our bedroom. We have lived most of our married life with 1 tv in the family room, but we were sick of falling asleep in the basement while watching the news. So now the kids favorite hang out is our bed. I walked in this day and was just tickled by what I saw. Aspen all snuggled up to Hunter and he had his arm around her and all 3 of them were on top of one another! It just was too cute to not share!

Tippets Family Reunion/Balloon Festival

Well once again this year the Ogden Valley Balloon festival came around. I decided earlier in the year that I wanted to offer this as a chance to have all the Tippets family get together for a family reunion. So many of my neighbors have all of their families over for huge campouts and I thought we should be no different. The main reason is because the festival is in the field behind my house. You can't get any closer than where I live to see the balloons. We had so much fun. We played old fashioned games with the kids, talked, laughed and ate way too much. The only bummer is that the balloons were not able to fly Saturday morning while all the family was here because of the bad weather but we had fun in spite of it. Maybe next year we will get lucky!

Our Family Trip to North Carolina!

I know that I am a bit behind with these but I had to share these fun pictures. We asked the kids in the spring if they wanted to go to Sea World for family vacation this summer or to North Carolina to see their cousins (Justin's brother and family) well without hesitiation the answer was North Carolina. So this was our 1st trip on a plane with all the kids! Justin and Hunter go every year and have a great time and I was so excited to be able to go myself. The plan ride was about how you would expect it with 4 kids (yes 4, we brought our niece Savannah back with us who had been visiting in Utah. But it is all forgotten when the fun begins. We were able to spend a whole week and my kids and myself truely had the times of our lives. Justin and Travis went wakeboarding 2 times a day (morning an night) everyday. They live in a beautiful home that's back yard is Lake Hickory. They have their own boat dock and all sorts of toys. The kids LIVED in the water. Hunter got up on the wakeboard and Ridge (yes my baby boy) got up on the ski! We were able to even get an adult night out for dinner and a movie and a trip up to the smoky mountains which were gorgeous. Hopefully we will be able to do this EVERY year!

Ridge, Hunt, Cameron, Aspen, Savannah & Austin in the Smoky Mountains



Justin and Ridge
Aspen and Travis

This was what Ridge did 900 times a day. Jump in the lake, swim to the side, come up on the dock and do it again!

This is my favorite picture of her yet!

Busy Summer Days! A full update!

I am embarrassed to look at our blog and think that it really has been since the 4th of July since I updated! Well we have been busy for a reason and boy have we been having fun. So here is an update of our crazy, busy summer that is coming to an end since Hunter's 1st day of school is today!



This was my last year as Girls Camp Director (they put me in the RS presidency) and I am going to miss it so much! This year because we only had a couple of girls going we did an overnighter in Salt Lake and visited all of the historical sites, made lunch's for the Ronald McDonald house and spent the night at the Marriott (I know aren't we roughing it) It was so much fun to spend time with the great girls!






SO once again this year I made my annual trip to Chicago for Pampered Chef's National Convention! It is a jam packed trip that is full of lots of great training that is so helpful to my business but also a little bit of shopping (did I mention Chicago has great shopping)! This has been my best PC year in the 6 years I have been selling. I think with the economy being so crappy more people are cooking at home and are looking for cheap, great tasting recipes and the awesome tools to cook them with!

Me and one of my super cute consultants Destine!


One of the kids chores this year is to water my flowers in the front yard and almost daily it turns into an excuse to get one another wet. Even Aspen follows the boys outside to join in the fun. Here are a few cute pictures that I caught of them!


Poor Ridge was born just like his dad with NO BUTT! I can not keep a swimsuit on the kid to save my life. But I LOVE the little white butt hanging out the back!

Justin and I have been talking about going to Lava Hot Springs for years with the kids so at the last minute I invited the the whole neighborhood to join us for a weekend camp out and much to our surprise everyone wanted to go. SO with about 7 of our favorite neighborhood families we went for the weekend to Lava. The kids had a ball!





Who knew a $25 slip and slide could be so fun!!! Justin's mom bought the kids the fun toy at summers beginining. The kids were so excited to pull it out and break it in. The boys were right at home and I never thought about even bringing Aspen out to use it. After she woke up one day I brought her out to check on the boys and she crawled right over to it. (still wasn't walking at that point) She slid right down and sat at the bottom of the slide in the freezing cold water and much to my surprise she had a BLAST! She loved every minute of it!





In July we made our Annual trip to Lagoon with Justin's family. Our cute niece Savanah was here from North Carolina and we had so much fun spending time with her! Hunter was finally tall enough to ride some of the BIG rides like Wicked and the roller coaster. Apsen actually was able to ride quite a few and Ridge thought it was GREAT to go on anything that moved!

Savanah was so cute to ride in the cars with Aspen, her long legs didn't even fit, she had to squish in!

All the kids with dad, grandma and cousins on the little tidle wave!


Apsen and Maddie in the boats!



Another place my kids just LOVE is the Roy Aquatic center. So 2 days after Lagoon we went with Justin's family again to the pool. (boy are we lucky for grandma) Ridge is such a fish that he won't leave the water even for a second. And Aspen was just getting ready to walk and loved just splashing around in the pool. Hunter felt so big because he can actually swim this year and loved the freedom to go on the water slides, diving boards and big pool without mom!
Aspen eating her Icee and loving every second!

Jaxon and Ridge
All the cousins having an ice cream
Grandma and Aspen
Mom and Apsen