Cookbook Giveaway!

That's right!  I'm giving away a cookbook!  I was so excited to win a cookbook that I thought I would give one away as well.  I have several to give away, and first up is Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything.  All you have to do to enter the contest is comment on this post.  I will pick a random winner on Friday at noon, and that lucky person will get this book!  Don't worry if you live far away from me, I am more than happy to ship it to you.  Good luck!

Hawaii and Free Stuff - How Much Better Does It Get?

love winning free stuff!  I just won a cookie cookbook from one of my favorite cooking sites, bakingandbooks.com

hate that I never win the KitchenAids or other large and expensive items from the Pioneer Woman

love that we get to go to Hawaii in 2 weeks

hate that we have to have almost an entire day of flying with a 15 month old to get there

love that we finally are taking some initiative and moving on with our lives

hate that I can't really talk about it for another week (don't worry, I'll post about it)

love that I get to go see Harry Potter on Wednesday!

hate that we will have to get there super early to get in line

love that Kennedy's last molar finally seems to be coming in

hate that she has a fever and some severe crankiness because of it

love eating

hate that in order to lose weight I have to control the eating

love that I get to go to Education Week this year

hate that they don't allow children under 14 into the classes

Cousins at the Cabin

I know I'm a little bit late on this one, but here's what we did over the 4th of July weekend.  Brett's parents are building a cabin up Spanish Fork Canyon, so we camped there on Friday night in order to help build on Saturday.  On Friday night we had a big birthday dinner for Brett's sister Jamie who turned 18 on the 5th.  We played games and had a huge number of people there to celebrate.  On Saturday morning we got to work on the cabin.

All of the main floor windows were installed and some other minor adjustments were made, but the boys did a good job!  We got to see some family that doesn't live in Utah, including Kennedy's cousin Nick.

Nick is 2 months older than Kennedy, but lives in California, so they don't get to play much.  They sat down together on this wood pile though, so everyone had to whip out their cameras.

Of course, Kennedy had to put on her cheesy smile as soon as she saw the cameras.  She can't help herself.  That night we headed to Santaquin for the annual block party and fireworks.  It was windy and cold and started pouring before we really got going, but Kennedy loved the fireworks she did see.  She clapped every time she saw one.

Yes, her mouth is blue from treats.  I couldn't tell because it was so dark.  All in all we had a great time with family, had some great food (including Snickers Salad!) and were exhausted when we got home.

Word Count

Kennedy's vocabulary is growing alarmingly fast.  I can hardly keep up with her.  Here is a list of her newest (and some not so new) and cutest words.

Ready: this usually sounds more like "ree!"  She says it whenever we are going out somewhere or when she is getting out of the car.  She is ready to go!

Shoes: or "shis".  She knows we're getting ready to go outside when she sees her shoes.  She knows what they're for and she gets really excited for me to put them on now.

Book: she has a hard time ending the word on a hard letter I think, so it sounds more like "booky" or "bookuh".  She loves to say this one though.  We went to the library yesterday and she just about lost her voice because she saw so many books.

Jesus: since Kennedy doesn't sit still at church very well, lately we have just been wandering halls for a while.  I took her around and was pointing out Jesus in the pictures.  After a few she caught on and started saying it for herself.  Now, when she sees pictures at home she points and says "Jees-s!"

Hi: she has only recently picked up on hi.  But it's really cute, because now she starts all of her pretend phone conversations that way.

Hogwarts and Horcruxes

I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince again yesterday.  I love that book.  It is my favorite in the series, closely followed by Goblet of Fire.  I am so excited for the movie to come out in a couple of weeks that I can hardly stand it.  It's going to be amazing!  The previews that show my favorite part of the book look awesome and very well done.  We are old fuddy-duddies who have a baby, so we won't be going to the midnight showing, but I will be buying tickets for the night of the 15th so we can go enjoy Harry Potter!  Thank you for indulging me.  And on a Harry Potter note, on Monday night I had a dream in which Voldemort and some Death Eaters did Thriller.  That's right.