Meet the Taylor's

The Taylor's live up the street from us, my kids love playing with them. The other day Kristen (the mom) and I were husband-less and went together to a BBQ, so her older children watched Wes and Brooke up at their house. Brooke adores Whitney (on the left) and Courtney (on the right) of her. They always primp her whenever we go over there. They introduced her to nail polish. Carter is a couple of months older than Brooke. It looks like tonight Brooke had the royal treatment. She put makeup on Whitney and Courtney, they put it on her, they played dress up, and did Brooke's hair.

Seaka and Carter.

I'm a "Girl Cow" oh, I mean Cow Girl

My mom, sister Emily, Wes, Brooke and I went to Cracker Barrell for dinner the other night and while waiting for our table looked around the gift shop. I love their Halloween costumes for little girls. It's where I bought Brooke's witch costume last year. The past couple of times our family has gone in there to eat I have been eyeing a princess costume for her. My mom found this cowgirl one and we loved it.
My mom and sister babysat the kids when I went to back to school night and Brooke played dress up. She put it on and called herself a "Girl Cow"! They corrected her, I hope!

I caught her mid twirl. It makes her look chunky! How cute is that.

Pose for the camera. I love the hand on her hip and the knee slightly bent.

So this is Ashley's costume, but I had to put it on her. Sorry, Becky! I couldn't pass it up. It was way too cute.

I loved the headband that comes with it. And the wings were so stinkin cute. If Brooke could just be 3 things for Halloween, it would be perfect!

Brooke Loves Makeup (and my 100th post)

Everyday Brooke is asking if she can have makeup on since we played dress up at Aunt Becky's house. Today I finally gave in and put some eye shadow on her and some blush and mascara. Not too much.
Here she is, the final product. She loved every second of it. What a pretty smile, I think. I made the mistake of letting her put the eye shadow and blush into her purse that she is clinching in her hands.

I love how long her eye lashes are. Thanks Papa Wes for passing those down to me and my kids!

See the colors aren't too bad. Her expression is great. Now go back to the school lunch entry and see what happened when I came upstairs for a few minutes. She went wild with the white eye shadow and smeared the mascara making it look like a black eye.

When we came home from eating with Wes, I wiped it all off and she went right back to work, this time with pink and did a pretty good job keeping it all on her eye lids.

Nicole & Kelsey's Cooking Class Begin

Did anyone watch this last season of Next Food Network Star? Remember Kelsey? She was our favorite. Well, she made it to the final 4 and was cut in Vegas. She is now back in Utah and living around here, newly married and she and long time friend Nicole (who also went to the French Institute of culinary School) have started doing these cooking classes/demonstrations.


So I brought my nice big camera to take lots of pictures of the food (and Kelsey) because we were obsessed with the show. Even our husbands would watch on Sunday nights up at Dave's parents after dinner. We had our opinions on everyone, we would tell Lisa to open her eyes and chill out. It was fun to watch together. Anyway, I left the big camera in the car so I wouldn't be a stalker again. You read it right. Last year while we were all in the Hamptons on vacation (Dave's family) we had an Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) day. We went and visited different places that were mentioned in her cookbooks. One of them being Iacono Farm, were she buys her organic fresh chicken. The chicken lady gave up Ina's home address (and told us to tell Ina that she sent us), where her show is filmed, and we went to spy and hopefully get a glimpse of Miss Barefoot herself. We did find her house, here is my proof.



The next day I took Dave back to show him where she lived and somehow, don't ask me how, we ended up driving up her driveway! Then I guess Dave can talk me into anything, he convinced me that we are only here once and that I will always regret not doing this, that I need to walk up to her door and see if she was home. Ya right! But I did. It must be the crazy Newman in me. As I approached the front door, she was coming down her stairs inside and saw me, so she opened the door, she looked awful. She asked if there was something she could help me with. I basically told her we are a crazy family from Utah and other states that came to the Hamptons just so we could have a Barefoot Contessa day and make all her yummy recipes that we needed to get the ingredients from her local stores. She thought that was really neat. She told me how she was very sick, but still stuck her hand out to shake mine (I am a total germaphobe now that Brooke was in the hospital from being sick so young with RSV). She said it was very nice to meet you. And I couldn't wait to go and put GermX on my hand to get it clean or at least think it was clean. So now I am the family stalker...



Now back to the cooking class.

Meet Kelsey and Nicole. They make great food. If you want to go to one of their classes here in the valley, go to their blog at Nicole and Kelsey's Cooking Classes.

These are the champagne grapes that were grilled and go with the grilled flat iron steak with blue cheese butter. Delicious.

Kelsey is grilling the peaches for the skillet scones with homemade vanilla bean ice cream. So good, I wanted seconds.


Oh look. I had to take another self-portrait of Holly (my sister-in-law) and I for my family. The tradition lives on. (Man do I look short or what?!)

Ok, let me explain. We could eat more, I had just eaten quite a bit of the appetizer of grilled pita with pesto, white bean puree, and olive tapenade. So my plate wasn't very full. It was more like a very expensive restaurant. Here we have a sampling of the steak with the butter and grapes, and the grilled asparagus with lemon. I didn't want to eat too much, I still had dessert coming.

It was so good. I have to thank Kay for taking all of us to this. I had such a blast talking to Kelsey and getting to know both of them. She was great answering all of our silly questions.

It's Been How Long?

I wanted to go and have lunch with Wes to see how they do it at his school, they actually have choices there. So my friends, Steph and Tausha came with their little kids too. Steph's boy (Karson) and Tausha's daughter (Kinzie) are in Wes's class. They are all good friends, so we all had a lunch date together, in the elementary cafeteria. Hmm, delicious, especially after last nights dinner, which I will post pictures of later. Went to a cooking class with the 4th place contestant of Food Networks Next Food Network Star (Kelsey Nixon).

Here we are, Wes and Brooke loving that they got Strawberry Milk with lunch. 25 g sugar.

Brooke's lunch, didn't eat very much. She did drink her milk and mine. Both "Strawberry Shortcake Milk".

Wes chucked his lunch before I could get a picture of it. Looked like Karson's here minus the salad, banana, and watermelon. He just had the creamie, strawberry milk and Trix yogurt (16 g sugar). So for lunch he had a whopping 41 grams of sugar (not including the creamie, he didn't eat it all). Nice. They offer yogurt instead of the main dish if the kids don't want the pizza or whatever. That's great, fill 'em up on sugar. How can I get him to take the fruit they offer if I am not there and not take the yogurt too? Guess he will be getting a home lunch everyday.

Kinzie, Wes, Karson, Taylor (Karson's sister), Kooper (Kinzie's brother), Seaka (with her makeup she did, which she is VERY proud of).

Such cute kids.

Brooke always calls Kooper "Clifford". Don't know why. So now he responds to Clifford! What sweethearts.

So after lunch Steph, Tausha and I went outside to recess with the kids. We wanted to see the girl that has been chasing Karson around. We watched the kids play for awhile, let Brooke's creamie melt all over and make a huge mess and then get a kiss from Wes and leave. I was surprised he gave me a kiss infront of all his friends. I loved it. It won't be long until he stops that.

Wes and his Monster Trucks

If you have been to our house lately, you would know that Wes is completely into Monster Trucks. He lives, eats, breathes, drinks, sleeps, plays, wears, reads, watches, dreams, talks, and earns Monster Trucks. And apparently checks them out at the library at school. For back to school night he strategically placed this book further out than the rest of his school books so I would notice it when I sat at his desk. He wanted me to look at his favorite one, Grave Digger. That's who is on the cover of this book.

At school the kids each get a day to be "King" or "Queen" for the day. For homework they have to make their own crown and decorate it however they would like. Can you guess what Wes's says? Each color has a different letter in it. It spells "Monster Trucks". Yep, he made it and cut it out himself. Dave and I had to let go and he did it...alone. It was a little hard for me to just walk away. He was proud of it, that made me happy. He wore it all day, even at home! Notice his shirt, it is Monster Trucks.

Playing Dress Up Again

This time it was Roxy's turn! We were bored one day and Brooke and I wanted to paint Roxy's nails. Each paw was a different color. She just sat there while we did it. The first paw Dave had to tell her to "stay" a couple of times and after that she just sat there and watched us. Then somehow Dave and I had the grand idea of putting some of Brooke's headbands that don't fit her anymore on Roxy. Once again Roxy just sat there!


Well maybe she was a bit humiliated!

"What are you looking at? So I have 'Pink Bikini' on one paw and 'Orange Crush' on the other. Whatcha gonna do 'bout it, huh?"

After Roxy was finished with her photo shoot, Brooke took her headbands back and put them on and it was like putting a rubber band on her head. They rolled up and pushed all her hair to the top of her head. I guess you had to be there.