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     July 4th, Independence Day, is Tuesday!  We have been talking about what to do for it this year and what our favorite memories from years past have been! 

Favorite Memories of Fourth of July!

     Some of my favorite memories are crafting things to display and add as a reminder of the day! The red, white and blue and the beautiful colors of the fireworks fill me with exhilaration and excitement. Family times together in a free land have always been important to me.  The photo above is something I made two years ago while I was staying with Alicia after she had given birth to my grandson.  Her husband was playing in a locally popular band that year in Provo and they were able to perform in the preliminary show ahead of Journey in the BYU stadium! That is an exciting memory!     You can go to the directions for the patriotic wall hanging here.  You can find other patriotic plans and songs here and here.  Don't forget our free printable and frame idea here! 

     Alicia says that she loves a good barbecue and swim party on the Fourth.  I am with her.  Here in Phoenix, you can't have a barbecue without the swimming, or you will die.  But, anywhere you are, swimming and food are always fun to enjoy together before the fireworks. 

     Maddy says that part of that barbecue food should be pie! Her favorite pie is Strawberry Rhubarb! We did an entire series on pies, plus we have added a few more.  You can find them all here.  But, Lindsey is the one who makes a mean Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie in this family and the recipe isn't on our blog yet.  So, maybe we are just going to have to have her put it on here as one of Renny's Recipes soon. 

     Lindsey says she loves a good fireworks show! Growing up in Phoenix, we were never able to do our own fireworks.  Just recently they have been made legal again.  But, we would take the kids, when Glen didn't have to work, to watch one of the big shows somewhere.  Lindsey says it was always exciting. Now, even if it isn't July 4th, fireworks make her feel very patriotic. 

     What do you love to do on Independence Day?  Whatever you do, do it safely and have fun and remember to give pause and think about our free land! Talk to you next week! 

If you get our newsletter then you read about my big announcement that PH and I are expecting our first child, a little girl coming at the end of December. If you don't get our newsletter, what are you waiting for? Look up and slightly to the right and you'll see where you can enter your email and subscribe.
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Well I am not going to lie to you, I am over the moon about having a baby. We're very happy and excited. I am also exhausted, and often sick, and more than once I have dissolved into tears while my husband sat there in  terror wondering 1) what happened to the person he married, 2) what did he do wrong, and 3) how can he fix it? 
Well as you saw a few weeks ago he took it upon himself to not only make me dinner but take pictures so I would have something to blog about, since he is the best husband ever and he takes really good care of me even though I get home from work and lay down and do nothing because I am dead tired and dreading that I have to do it all again tomorrow. He doesn't complain when I ruin our trip to France by being sick, or when he makes me a nice dinner and I eat three bites and then can't stomach anymore of what I would, under normal circumstances, devour (because my husband is no slouch in the kitchen my friends.)
He is helping me bear this burden as best he can, and we are looking forward to when our sweet little one arrives and these days of sickness are long forgotten as she keeps us up at night, but we just find her so beautiful that we're still feeling happy and blessed despite our mutual exhaustion.

Now that I have thoroughly terrified anyone reading this who has not yet been pregnant, let me talk about the plus sides of pregnancy.
You can take naps whenever you want.
People have to move and give you their seat because you are pregnant and they are not.
You can eat popsicles and ice cream because it is hot, and you are pregnant, and nobody can judge you!
My food palate this last 14 weeks has been interesting. While in France cheese made me sick, just the smell of it made me want to die (which by the way, is very depressing, especially in France, the land of cheese.) However, string cheese sticks helped with nausea. I could eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which makes packing my lunch every day much easier. Also, I bought a box of Otter Pops, and found out they took out all the food coloring so now all Otter Pops are white.

Needless to say, making ANYTHING has been a struggle for me lately. Except Sunday I made cookies because I was craving cookie dough and I had to make the recipe without eggs so I could eat some of the dough. They turned out great, so I'll share some recipes like that with you soon.
Anyway, if  you too are pregnant, enjoy! And eat an Otter Pop!
If you're not pregnant but thinking about it don't let my description scare you off. Everyone says the first trimester is the hardest, and now that I am entering the second trimester zone I am starting to feel more normal. It's all worth it in the end, because we're going to be able to bring our sweet little girl home in December.

Speaking of which, remember when Alicia talked about the Amazon baby registry? Well, I made one!!! Now, I am not posting the link to mine here to say you must buy me something from it. (But if you wanted to I wouldn't stop you). It is more to show you how one looks and let you know how easy it was to do. As I went through Amazon even had a checklist of items for me to consider adding. They have categories to take you through and it really helps. They even offer suggestions, plus, they give you free stuff, who doesn't love that? So take a look and then hop on getting your own registry together!

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     Yesterday I wrote about my experience at Girls Camp. One thing I left out of that post is what I am going to write about today, because believe me, this thing deserves its own post!  One night, the leaders of the camp came around to each tent site and gave each person a thing called a Stuff 'em Stick! Along with the stick, they gave us biscuit dough, pie fillings and whipped topping and explained to us how to roast the biscuits over the coals of the campfire and make ourselves mini cobblers.  It was so much fun and amazing! Our camp leaders made us these sticks and engraved the theme of the camp on each one.  

You use them by taking a can of biscuit dough and cutting each biscuit in half.  At least, at camp we used biscuit dough, but I heard a rumor that crescent dough is better and so I tried it, and guess what! I liked it even better!  But, either one will work and in a minute I will show you some other variations! 

So, when I used the crescent roll dough, I took one big triangle of the dough and I cut it in half and then wrapped it and squeezed it around the large knob of the Stuff 'em Stick.  The sticks had been soaked in oil, so there is no need to spray it, but you can if you want.  Maybe as it gets older and starts to dry out I will have to soak it again or spray it.  So far, there has been no sticking.

I decided that apple pie filling would be delicious is a cinnamon roll crust! 
I simply opened a can of refrigerated cinnamon rolls and smashed a roll flat in my hand.  Then, I wrapped it around the Stuff 'em stick.  Make sure to stick the layers of the spiral roll together! 

    I think that another beauty of these sticks is that you don't have to worry about kids stabbing each other in the eye like you do when you are using marshmallow roasting sticks! Plus, there are so many other variations!  Wouldn't it be great to use cookie dough to make the shell for the chocolate pudding?  Add marshmallows and you have a s'more like final result! Since you use only half a crescent roll, one can of dough will make 16 Stuff 'ems.  Here are a few more photos:

     You can make these sticks, like our leaders did, for yourself! That is what I want to do as gifts to my family.  Or, you can order them from a couple of places.

   What a fun party around the campfire, either in your own backyard or up camping! I fell in love with this Stuff 'em Stick idea! You could even do little pot pies or brownie cups! The possibilities are endless! Let me know what your ideas are!