from the Pollard kitchen

I will be the first to admit that cooking is not my forte. Prior to marrying Jason, I could comfortably live on three squre meals of cereal a day. If not that, I could whip up some pancakes or scambled eggs for a meal. I lived off of breakfast foods, and I still love them. Well, those days are gone, and I have been trying to improve my cooking skills not only for Jason's sake, but for mine as well. (This was taken back when we were dating.)

Shortly after we got married, I decided to make my own recipe for dinner. Like a good little housewife, I had planned to have dinner all ready for Jason when he came home from work. I began to conjour up some sort of casserole that I had heard about. It didn't look or smell the way I had heard, but I, nevertheless, gave it to Jason to eat. Although he ate everything on his plate, Jason told me afterword that it was "very creative" (not exactly the words I was looking for). The casserole was promptly thrown in the trash, and I have yet to try that recipe again.

In all fairness, I do try to cook. Sometime I forget some ingredients in the recipe, like salt in the bread (but who needs flavorful bread??) or flour in the german pancakes (not a good idea). Other times, I get too excited and add a bit too much of one ingredient. That is when the sugar cookies end up tasting more like a blob of shortening (yucky). However, on those rare occasions, when I'm lucky, my cooking turns out to be pretty good. Resently, I tried a new recipe and it didn't turn out too bad. It's called Ritzy Pork.
It is no surprise that Jason is the better cook. He's specialty is stir fry (Honduran style) and anything that involves the crock pot. I look forward to the days that he makes dinner, because we both enjoy it a bit more than when I cook. I am very blessed to have such a good cook in my apartment (not to mention he is very good at washing dishes as well). Below is his Italian Chicken crockpot meal. Thank heavens he can cook, or we would be starving now.

Rest assured, though, that if you come over to eat or when we take food out to you, Jason will be doing the cooking.

back to school

I told Jason on our first day back to school that I wanted to get a picture of us both before we headed off to classes. He thought the idea was completely crazy. So, these are the pictures I got of us a few nights later while we were studying.

Below are all the books that I have to read for my classes. Who wouldn't want to read these?? In complete fairness, my semester has been very interesting so far and I am loving it, but by the looks of these books, you wouldn't think so.

(My plan was to get a picture of me hard at work. However, after a quick look at my appearance, I decided a lovely pictures of my text books would suffice.)

This is Jason's second semester at Utah State, and, I must say, he is a very dedicated student. He definately is not the procrastinator that I am. Every night when I get home, he reminds me of not only what he has to complete for next week, but he also makes sure that I am on top of my school work as well.


And now it is off to the homework...again.

babysitting adventures

The past few weeks, Jason and I have been able to tend our neices and nephews. We, in our unbias opinions, think they are the cutest kids ever. These are a few of the babysitting stories.

A few weeks ago, Jason and I were lucky to have Kayson come over to our apartment and play with him while his parents were out. That night Kayson wasn't feeling to well, and he wanted Jason to hold him. This picture was taken at dinner time. Jason's stew was on the menu as well as some breadsticks. Kayson was a good sport and tried everything we gave him to eat. However, he got frustrated quickly with the whole situation. Kayson is quite the indepentant little boy now that he can feed himself. Well, the Pollard apartment doesn't have the little spoons to fit into his mouth. He would put the big spoon up to his mouth and when it wouldn't fit, the stew would dizzle down his face. The thing is that Kayson is quite the clean little boy. After his attempt to eat, he would freeze as to say "Ummm...I'm dirty." On top of that, Jason and I don't have a bib, so what should we do? That's right, we improviced and loosely tied a big cloth around his shoulders. Kayson wasn't too thrilled about the whole idea, but he ate his dinner. I think he enjoyed playing cars with Jason more than eating dinner with us. Next time, Jason and I will make some thing a little more easy to eat for Kayson.

Just this past week, Jason and I tended Garrick and Holly's kids while they were out to hear Mike Lee speek. We picked up Hannah and Kaitlyn from gymnastics and drove out to their house where we ate dinner and played Sorry with the kids. These are our little gymnastic stars.

Of course, Trevor played with his gates and animals most of the time. He would tell the animals where they needed to be and was a pretty cute little farmer. When it was time for bed, he really didn't have a desire to get in his pajamas at all, so rather than make him mad, Jason and I let him parade around in his underpants. Right before we took him down to bed, Trevor randomly put his hands in a gun position and pointed them at each person in the room and yelled, "Put em up!" He is so crazy and really keeps us all laughing. What a boy.

Amoung other things, we made sure the kids got their homework done before bed. Rachel was working on a story for her English class and Kyle read to Jason. They are both very smart and got their homework done in no time.

Casen was so cute as well. He was such a good boy being away from his mother. I had a difficult time trying to get him to sleep. I guess I need a mother's touch (something I don't have), but he was a cute little boy and we love him so much.

We enjoyed spending time with our neices and nephews. Thanks to their moms and dads for letting us tend them! We hope we see them all again soon!

a very merry first Christmas

Our first Christmas together was wonderful. This whole holiday season was fun for Jason and I to share traditions and make our own.

*This Christmas Eve, we went up to Lewiston to Grandma Hall's for our big family get together. Growing up, the grandchildren would reinact the nativity, but now that we are all older, the younger generation has replaced us. I must say that they do a wonderful job and it is always fun to be together with the whole family. Grandma even said that Santa stopped by and dropped off some extra gifts that he had earlier that day. I received a nice dish towel for the apartment, and Jason got some winter gloves. Thanks Santa! We had a wonderful evening with the family.
A little explanation is needed for this collage below. The top picture is of Jason and me with Casen. Kaitlyn and I are seen making a funny face in the next. Grandma Richards and Mom are next. Grandma Richards came up for Christmas and it was sure nice to have her there. Below is Grandma Hall in that tiny picture, Jason, Me, and then the cutest little shepard, Trevor.

* This is Christmas morning. We look lovely, but I still need to document it. I was the first to wake up at about 5:30 a.m. Yes. I was very excited to see what Santa brought. I feel asleep soon after as we traveled.

My mom and dad gave us some cute new Aggie shirts. This is the only picture we have of us together in them. Go Aggies!

* After traveling up to Lewiston to see the Halls, we made our way up to Burley to see the Pollards. We had nice Christmas night and weekend with them playing games and watching movies. I had good intentions to take more pictures while we were up in Burley, but I have some much fun hanging out with the family that I forget. These few will have to do until we are in Burley again.
Jason and I love to play games and every time we go to Burley, we have so much fun playing all sorts of games with the family. Jason has taken a liking to playing chess lately. He has grown tired of playing it with me though, because I'm not much competition. Apparently, his uncle, Tony, is the master and Jason has been looking forward to playing him for some time. Jason does what every one to know that he, in fact, did win this game.

These are some of the gifts we received from Jason's parents. We got an external hard drive for our computer, and Jason was oh-so happy about that. He has been talking about it for days now. He also got some pajama pants. I got some cute cloths and a huge jug of Paul Mitchell hairspray. I love it! It smells so good and works wonders. Thanks for the gifts!

It was very good Christmas and now we are already talking about what we are going to do for next Christmas. Only a year away.

one crazy cute little boy

Jason's nephew, Kayson, is such a cutie! Jason sure loves that little boy and talks about him all the time. Last time we drove out to Richmond to visit, Kayson was talking in his own little language and apparently telling us about his new curtins in his room, the beautiful Christmas tree, and just about everything under the sun. He was quite the talker, and I'm sure I will one day understand what he is saying. Jason was having a great time playing with Kayson and got some cute pictures of him.

He caught some especially silly expressions of Kayson, and they make me laugh each time I see these pictures. He is one fun little boy.

This is the expression Jason got when he told him to smile.

We sure love that kid and can't wait to see him again.

a Christmas tradition

Each year my family would decorate ginger bread houses at Christmas time. Mom would spend the entire day baking ginger bread, and at night, everyone would gather round the table to make the perfect ginger bread house. This particular tradition is my favorite and something that I look forward to every year. Jason, however, apparently has never decorate a real ginger bread house before, so this was something new for him.

My brother, Garrick, and his family were present for the decorating family home evening. Courtney even came too. Jason and I decorated our own house. It ended up turning out very cute (thanks to all those who helped us). And, I must say, Jason did a wonderful job for a first timer.

We had some wonderful helpers. Rachel, Kyle, Kaitlyn, Hannah, and Trevor all helped Jason and me decorate our house. We even used some of their ideas from their own houses (The heart on the back of our house is a copied idea from Hannah's house).

TA-DA! Here is the finished product. We loved making the ginger bread houses with the family. Thanks mom for baking all day long so that we could decorate these houses!

After we made an entire mess of the house, my mom helped me make a wreath for my apartment. It's a little difficult to decorate for Christmas when there are no Christmas decorations. My mother has been wonderful to help me learn how to make my own decorations. While Jason and Dad cleaned up the mess of the ginger bread houses, my mom and I made a wreath. I think it turned out super cute. Thanks to Jason, it is now afixed to our back door (since that is the only door we use).

Thanks again, Mom.

Christmas Tree

Our first Christmas together has been quite an adventure, and we have had a good time sharing traditions and ideas for our Christmases together. This year, we decided on going to cut down a real tree for our home, even though neither of us have had a real tree before. So, Jason's sister and brother-in-law, Jessica and Bryan, were kind enough to let us come along with them to pick a Christmas tree. After wondering the mountain side for a while, both of us decided on a tree. We appreciate Jess and Bryan for letting us come along with them and for help us find a good tree.
( don't mind my 1980's style clothing. My family is not big into winter sports, so the winter I have are the out of day moon boots and crazy colored cloths. Cute.)

We didn't realize it before, but the fake trees are nothing like the real trees. They are not as full as the bushy fake tree I have always had. Let me tell you, it was difficult for me to decorate. I was quite a bit frustrated and grumpy. After a few hours of unsuccessfully lighting the tree, I threw the wad of Christmas lights hard on the floor and yelled at the tree, and Jason was nominated to finish wrapping the lights around each branch of the tree. He did a wonderful job, and after I decorating, un-decorating, redecorating, un-decorating, redecorating, our tree was finished. It turned out to be cute, and love the way it looks in our tiny apartment. It's perfect for us.(needless to say, this picture was take the next day when we were both a lot happier about the whole decorating ordeal)