Catherine Newman Is Coming!

Have I mentioned her before? Well, too bad, because here I go again. She is my favorite writer ever and so very, very hilarious. Her memoir about motherhood and parenting is Waiting for Birdy and you must read it if you haven't already. She currently writes the Dalai Mama Dishes weekly blog/recipe column. I totally adore her food, as do my kids and husband. That's a tall order to please all of us!

And...She's coming here to teach 2 cooking classes at the store! She'll be here on Friday June 12th and Saturday June 13th, teaching two different menus. I know this is a totally shameless plug for the store, and I truly hope you don't mind. Here's the link:

http://www.luvtocook.com/products/prodDetails.asp?pID=54

The second class should be at the bottom of the page under "you might also like"

We are working on our coupon codes for the site, but they aren't working for the buy one get one free classes yet. So if you do want to sign up in the next few days before we get those codes organized, call down to the store (the phone number is at the bottom of the website pages) and they will get you signed up for the buy one get one free. If you don't, I won't feel bad, I promise. I will probably tell you how amazing it was, though.

New Website (FINALLY!)

After much (impatient, by me) waiting. We are ecstatic to announce that the new luvtocook.com is finally wheezing to life. This partially explains why I have been slacking on the blog lately. I'd like to say I'll do better, but I probably wont anytime soon, so sorry!

And, I know, I know there's only one measly product on there now, but they are being added as frantically as we possibly can. So, for now enjoy the beautiful main page and browsing the cooking classes.

Summer Might Actually Come!

Please, brace yourselves, because we actually went outside today without down coats and snowsuits!!!! I know this is shocking, but let me tell you it was fabulous! I am getting the gardening bug and have to keep reminding myself that if I plant tender plants now, they will surely die. So, we planed peas, spinach and beets and are waiting till mid-April for the rest. Here's a few pictures of the kids lately:

Reading books with Grandpa

Cowgirl Calla

Play-Doh, oh how i hate thee. For some reason, I was out of my mind the last time we made it to Target, maybe because when I'm there I have to buy things to make up for not having a Target close by, I don't know. I bought this Play-Doh ice cream parlor set. It lives on the top shelf of the pantry and doesn't come down unless I'm feeling very nice and the floor is looking like it needs to be mopped. But the kids absolutely adore it and it does occupy them for a long time, so maybe I should let it out of jail more often.

The kids watching conference on the laptop, next to the TV, which isn't actually on because we dont' have TV reception. We do this fun snack activity for the kids, which seems to work well. It doesn't, however work for kids who aren't generally foodies, but my kids didn't seem to mind 8 hours of weekend snacking.

Here is the snack table. Each bowl is assigned a word, which I also print a picture for, like "Jesus," "temple," "prophet," "tithing," etc. Every time the kids hear one of the speakers say one of the words, they get to pick a snack out of that bowl. Hadden ate himself sick on chocolate covered peanuts during Elder Bednar's talk on temples.