How Many Of Me

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 6 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I came across this site and decided to see how many people in the U.S.A. share my first and last name. Really?!?! Only 6?!?! I thought there would be a few more but if you know our last name, then I guess it is not that common (or desirable. It is not like you have a choice in what your last name is, right?! :) After you receive your results, this site will let you know some more information about your first name and your last name and how common it is.

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Here are the results for the name Natalie:

• There are 150,280 people in the U.S. with the first name Natalie.
• Statistically the 402nd most popular first name.
• More than 99.9 percent of people with the first name Natalie are female.

And the results for our last name:

• There are 11,930 people in the U.S. with our last name.
• Statistically the 3154th most popular last name.

Since it was so much fun seeing how many share my name, I decided to try everyone in our family. Here are their results:

• Scott: 33 - More common than I thought!
• Lindsay: 4 - Less than me!
• Caleb: 1 - Ha! That is weird. Do you think this is accurate?
• Zeke: 1 or fewer! I had to plug in his name too just for fun!

Have fun seeing how popular your name is!

Lindsay's Fifth Grade Graduation

Fifth grade graduation was on June 10th. I can't believe Lindsay is headed off to Middle School. She is excited - me, not so much - but I am not letting my emotions show. We had a fun girls night out the evening before trying to find something new to wear. They were asked to wear their Sunday best. I was surprised that we found something so fast AND at the first store that we went to. It is hard to find clothes for Lindsay that we both agree on. We must agree that it fits properly, is modest and affordable. I refuse to pay a lot for clothes that she will outgrow in a few months. So this is what we agreed upon:

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A yellow, white and black blouse (Go Steelers!), a black skirt and yellow flip flops with yellow gems on them!

Lindsay the morning before school.

Lindsay receiving a certificate from her teacher, Mrs. Pensinger. She was a great teacher. I hope Caleb is in her class in 2 years.

A picture of Lindsay and Sierra. Lindsay received some beautiful yellow flowers from Granny at graduation - Thank you!!

from left to right

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Great Grandma Stout, Grandma Vicki and Grandpa Ken (Scott's parents) came to watch Lindsay at graduation. Thanks for coming!!

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** An interesting fact: Grandpa Ken attended this same elementary school ?? years ago **

The Eventful Month of May

This past month has been so busy. I can't believe that I have not had time to blog. Since I could not pick one event, or so I would not have to create 9 individual posts, I am going to make 1 looooooong post with lots of pictures about things we have been doing. Hopefully you won't be too bored:


Choir

Caleb: front row third from right

Lindsay: back row fifth from left

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Both Lindsay and Caleb joined choir at the beginning of the year. This program is for students in 3rd - 5th grade. Practice was held after school on Tuesday and Thursdays. After the first week, Caleb regretted signing up but he signed a contract that he would participate all year. So it was a constant struggle with him not wanting to go. He knew he had to but he was not happy about it. Lindsay has been in choir for the past 3 years so she was ready to be done around December. This picture is from one of their last field trips. Our school participated in the Oregon Children Choir festival with students from all over Oregon. "It was a long and boring day", if you ask Caleb.

Father/Son Campout

I spy Caleb, Reece, . . that is all I recognize.

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Scott and Caleb went on the annual church Father/Son campout, without camping out. They decided to go and not spend the night because early the next morning was the District Pinewood Derby. They stayed for the evening and returned home around midnight. Another father thought that was such a good idea that he and his son left early too. Nothing like sleeping in your own bed at night. One of the highlights for the boys is catching salamanders. Another highlight is the campfire, of course. The camera cord was in the last picture but there were only a few pictures to choose from.


District Pinewood Derby

Caleb's orange Beaver car with flames. Yes, it is the same color as last year and since we still have some paint left, it will probably be the color for next years car too!!


Getting ready to race -

Caleb, on the right, during the race - .

Caleb and his good friend Trevor from school.
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District Pinewood Derby is sooooooo long! We were there for hours and Caleb raced for about 5 minutes. Now I know why someone pays their son not to go ;) I won't name who, but it is a brilliant idea!!


Mother's Day
Lindsay made me breakfast in bed. Yummy homemade waffles!

I had a wonderful Mother's Day. I was spoiled. I received my gift a few days before which I was surprised to receive. On Sunday morning, thankfully the Bishopric meeting was cancelled at church so Scott was able to be home. I was treated to breakfast in bed along with a couple treats. I love the box of cereal they gave me. Look at it closely. It is called Honey Sunshine. I have always called Lindsay, Sunshine and Caleb is my Honey! And have you tried those natural fruit leathers??? So good!!


Caleb's Field Trip to the
Wings of Wonder
Butterflies everywhere!

Caleb's third grade class went to the Wings of Wonder, a butterfly exhibit. There were butterflies everywhere. You had to be careful where you stepped because they would land in front of you or on you!!

Here is Caleb and Logan at the Wings of Wonder.
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Meet the Author
"A Day In The Woods" written & illustrated by, Lindsay

One of the assignments in Lindsay's class was to write a hardcover book. The students spent a lot of time with this project and they all turned out very professional. There was a Meet the Author party. Parents were invited and the students would read parts of their stories. They all have such creative imaginations.


Basketball Party
Basketball season is over. Caleb had a fun time this season. He was on a team with all of his friends and he had the same coaches from past seasons. They are getting better and better each season. The team and parents went out for pizza and an award ceremony. As you can see, the boys had a fun night!
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I promise I am almost done, just a couple more events . . .
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Lindsay's 5th Grade Field Trip

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Lindsay's class went on a walking field trip to a few places. First stop was a senior center and the kids took their books they made and read them to the residents. Our next stop was to a museum in our town where they are making a carousel. I (yes, I go on practically every field trip) was so impressed with the work that was being done. Everything is hand carved and painted by volunteers. There are many different animals being created, each with its own unique story. There are about 5 more years until this project is completed. It was so much fun to be there and see the work in progress.






The carousel's platform.
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and last, but not least. . .
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The Iris Gardens

This is a day of my very own. A field trip with MY friends, a day without kids :) Today, Julene, Kris, Sarah and I went to the temple, out to lunch, shopping at Dessert Book and then to the Iris Gardens. What a fun day. Here are some pictures that Kris took with her cell phone. The flowers were gorgeous and very fragrant. I had such a fun day and I appreciate such good friends.

Julene, Kris, myself & Sarah

The gardens were beautiful


Hopefully you were not too bored. If so, sorry - this is also my way of journaling what is going on in our life. School is winding down, just a week and a half left with plenty of fun activities for the kids. We are all anxious for summer break and having a lot of fun!

Our 16th Wedding Anniversary

Today is our anniversary! I promise I am not going to get all sappy with this post. I am going to keep it simple. Can you believe that it has been 16 years already?! I am truly blessed with such a wonderful husband and friend. I love and appreciate him so much! Last weekend we celebrated by going to dinner at Chili's and shopping afterwards. It was a wonderful date night.

Now don't laugh at our wedding picture - this image is not the best. Since we do not have a scanner, I took a picture of our wedding picture! The flash made everything brighter :)

The Washington D.C. Temple where we were married-

Harry Potter Books

Lindsay & Caleb have started reading the Harry Potter books. They both are enjoying them so far. Lindsay was undecided about reading this series. She almost started reading them in 3rd grade but decided not to because she thought she would not enjoy them. But now she is and it is fun seeing them read the books & talk about them together. The Harry Potter books are really good for the Accelerated Reading Program at school. After a book is read, students take a quiz to see how well they understood the book. After the quiz, they receive points based on the book's point value and how well they did on the quiz. Each grading period, they have a personal goal that they have to meet.

When Lindsay & Caleb are both done with a book, they want to watch the movie. Personally, Harry Potter is not my favorite but Scott enjoys it. He will answer questions they may have and likes watching the movies with them too.

Food Storage Ideas

I am sitting here at our computer while a 105 page book is being printed on our printer. I HAVE to grab every page when it is completed or else the printer will damage the bottom of each page if I leave it in the tray. Who knows what happened to our printer over the years. I guess it is time for a new one. So I thought I would share a few exciting links that I have recently found while I am grabbing pages.

I am on a food storage kick right now and I want to get organized with our food. Yes we have somewhat of a good amount of food in our storage, but I want to make sure we have all the things that we need. Our storage is mostly made up of flour, rice, oatmeal, pasta, milk, sugar. We have some vegetables, fruit, sauces, among a few other things in there too. But I am asking myself, do I have everything for certain meals? Do I have enough of certain things for 3 months? For a year? How can I be better at rotating our storage? So of course I went to the Internet for some ideas and I want to share a couple that I have found.

www.foodstoragemadeeasy.net

This site is really nice. It has so much information and videos for me to learn from. They have step by step instructions that you can accomplish so you don't forget anything. They will also send you an email every two weeks letting you know what you should do next. There are Excel worksheets where you can put in meals that your family will eat and it will multiply the quantities so you know exactly how much you need. You can put in how much you have on hand so you know if you need to buy more. My suggestion is to go to their website and browse around. I am really enjoying browsing and learning from their cute site. This is where I am downloading the book from.

The second thing, that my mom suggested, is a series of YouTube food storage videos by Wendy Dewitt. There are 9 videos from a class that she taught. As I was watching them, I was really wishing I was better organized. She has every meal planned out for a year. A loaf of bread and desserts for every day too!! I am so impressed.

Wendy Dewitt videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGaTlwYs-s&feature=related

Another blog I found with a lot of good information along with some good sounding recipes is called Preparedness Matters. "This site provides information to help individuals and families become more prepared for adversity in life". This site emphasizes five areas of preparedness:

1. Food and Water Storage
2. Financial Preparedness
3. Spiritual Preparedness
4. Emergency Preparedness
5. Provident Living

Prepardness Matters:

preparednessmatters.blogspot.com

And finally, I would like to thank my friend Kris for giving me a start of her Oregon Pioneer Hop Yeast Starter. I do love homemade bread but never take the time to make it. So with this starter, and the recipes she gave me, I am going to fill the house up with the scent of homemade fresh bread. It is going to be so yummy!

I hope you enjoy these sites. If anyone has any other good food storage sites that they like, please let me know. I would love to hear about them.

Video Of Caleb Riding On California Screamin'

(Link to the California Screamin' video is below)

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I feel bad that I have not blogged about our Disneyland trip yet. We purchased a new video camera before our trip and I want to incorporate the videos into our blog. Unfortunately, I am unsure how to transfer the videos onto our computer. Scott has been too busy lately to help me figure it out so that is why I have not posted anything from our vacation. I surprisingly figured out how to get a video onto YouTube.

Before you watch the video, I need to tell you about our favorite ride California Screamin' first. We all enjoyed this ride so much. This is the first time that we all went on a "big" roller coaster ride together as a family. The kids were not interested this year in the Dumbo ride, Toon Town, the Tea Cups or seeing any of the characters. They mostly wanted to go on the bigger rides like the Tower of Terror and California Screamin'. I am not sure how many times we rode this roller coaster. LOTS! It is well worth it to us to pull the kids out of school for a week so we can be there without the crowds and the heat. We would ride California Screamin' and get right back on again and again.

Caleb wanted us to video him on the ride. Caution, this video has some bumps and turns so hopefully no one will get sick watching it. Scott tried his best to keep the camera on Caleb's face at all times but that too was a challenge. Caleb, of course, is being silly, acting like he is scared but believe me, he is still talking about the ride today. "When can we go back? I had so much fun!"

To watch our YouTube video, click on this sentence! (not on Caleb's picture :)

Enjoy,

Easter Weekend

We had a wonderful Easter this year. We started celebrating Friday night coloring and decorating eggs. I am glad the kids still have fun doing this. Who knows - maybe next year they will be telling us that they are too old to dye Easter eggs.

On Saturday, we went over to our friends Kris & Steve's house for their yearly Hop Along Easter Brunch - lots of good food and fun! I will let Kris tell you about their event - you can read about it here. Since I did not have my camera, I am stealing a picture that Kris took of Lindsay & Caleb. Thanks for having us over for your fun yearly tradition.

Saturday night, the Easter Bunny came to our house. Yes, he was a little early but it worked out better for us that way. Since Scott has early morning meetings at church, we thought it would be better to find baskets the night before. The kids wanted a challenge in finding their baskets this year, but after about 15 minutes, they wanted us to give them clues to help find them. I did not take any pictures :(
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On Sunday, after church, we went to Scott's grandmother's for Easter dinner and a family get together. We had lots of good food, fun and it was nice visiting with family. Since, again, I did not take any pictures, next week I will try and remember to have them dress up in their Easter clothes and take a picture before church. I can just pretend that it was Easter Sunday, right?!?!
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We hope everyone had a wonderful Easter too!
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Love,