to the birthday girl

To the BIRTHDAY GIRL!
Oh how I wish I was up there with you to celebrate this exciting day.
Even the sun is wishing you a happy day.
I know exactly what we would do.
First we would start the afternoon off at lunch with the girls, followed by dessert at your newly favorite (thanks to your uncle's in-law?) RED MANGO.
Which then we would proceed to some fancy little place to get our finger nails and our toe nails rubbed down and freshly polished.
And to go out with a bang on your 27th day we would invite ALL your family and friends over for Cake and Ice cream, and a round or two of your favorite game. Which would last until the wee hours of the night.
I hope you have a delightful 27th day and don't have to wear once, today, the apron I sent.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
Much love and kisses
-ash-

all work and no play

This is how we keep Chamberlain entertained when we go to work at Moqui Cave. We play dress up. This time it was cowboys, next time who knows. I just love the way the Cave shows in the pictures. Its great for photo shoots (even the photogs for anthropologie (my favorite place/store/eye candy etc...) came the summer josh and I got married and wanted to "someday" use the cave in a shoot.) and as soon as he recovers from his dog bite (which I will be posting later) we will get Easter photos done (cross my fingers.) I guess I should mention the the bollo tie Chamberlain is wearing is Vintage, its made out of turquoise and other precious gems. My grandpa made it for my dad when he was a little boy. And yes, if you visit the cave today my dad still wears it!

$@%# happens!

This is how I started my day.
Chamberlain is "Potty Training" and doesn't quite get it. He went in his diaper first then ran to the bathroom, stripping down on his way. What you don't see is, the whole role of toilet paper unrolled scattered throughout the house. At that point he then yells, "Mom come wipe my bum!"

This is how it ended.
Shoveling Manure for our garden! on my family's land we started a Community Garden last summer. Its really rad because people from ALL faiths are coming together, gardening! Especially, during these tough times, people are and will, really benefit from this. In fact there is a 12 year old boy growing this year. 12 years old. The sad thing is, this is what his family is going to live off and depend on for food this summer. Other growers are growing for the Kanab Care and Share which is constantly running out of food. There is just not enough to go around. For FHE we decided to get our garden ready. I have never gardened (is that a word) before. I am so looking forward to this, the whole night my mouth kept watering just thinking about the corn, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, and sugar snaps that would come from the poop! It was a fun night we worked till the sun went down.

The picture with Chamberlain in the Wheelbarrow, yes, that is where we would shovel the poop and then we would haul it over to the plot and rake it in. Chamberlain would jump in for a ride back to the poop pile. All night long he kept saying "mom, can we play in the poop" and I would answer "yes we can son!"

My name is Ashleigh Burgess and I am a Pack Rat!

Let see this last week went by so fast. We finally sold our house after 9 long months. Great, however we had been using our house as a storage unit for all our lovely things. You think that I would have been slowly packing things up now and then with our trips to Utah County, but, of course that would have been the easy way out! We had from Monday to Thursday to pack everything. In those 3 days I discovered that I might show signs of being a pack rat. I KEEP EVERYTHING!!! I don't like to throw things away besides old and moldy food. I realized that for me everything had either a memory or it might just come in handy one day, or better yet, my kids might want it for their homes. CRAZY, I know. I just like old things. I realize that I would rather get something old with meaning then something new. I just couldn't throw anything away. It was really hard, to see this sick side of myself. I didn't realize that I had this issue until it came time to hall my grandmothers car off to the scrap yard. Its a 1989 Grand Prix LE. I wanted to keep it, even though it hasn't run since 2006, and when it did run it didn't go over 35 MPH, you had to keep jugs of water and oil in the car because it had a crack in the radiator and the oil had a mad leak! Yes, Josh and I have been hauling (i mean we paid people to tow) this car around to the 4 different houses that we have lived in in the past few years. I even went as far as, well, we can just get a tow with the uhaul and let it rest in the parking lot of Moqui Cave. I mean this car has memories people. Its the only car that I know of to date that has made it to the TV towers and floated down the creek, and still ran like a gem. Not to mention all the other random things its been through, we, as in my siblings minus Sage, all drove the car in high school. Except when Shelbie and I drove it, it was in its glory perfectly running in fact the smell was of my grandmothers perfume, Beautiful. She wore it by the bottle. It was great for us, it was this cute little sports car that held just enough people. And for my brothers it became the "Timmy" on Rod Dyrdeks Fantasy Factory. They destroyed her. Then Josh and I bought it from my father for a dollar when we were newly married. She was ours and yes josh drove it to and from work at 35 mph from Provo to Draper. The only thing I have left of her is her License plate. That is all we have left, and I have already hung it in the trophy room.

americas favorite cookie

Part one.
Tonight was my first attempt at making HOMEMADE Oreo s. I guess I can't take all the credit. I had two very handsome helpers. Lately, it seems that I cant get Oreo's off my brain. After all they are Americas favorite cookie! Last weekend I made Oreo truffles for my in-laws and then today when I was thinking about Oreo s, it hit me, I have never made nor attempted to make, homemade ones. It was an easy and short process. I cant believe I have never tried this before. They are quite tasty and a cinch to make. And did I mention DELICIOUS!!!

Part two.
On another note, its Thursday night and if we were back in sweet Utah Valley we most likely would be heading over to the Smith's abode for a little "Office" party, where we would have dinner and dessert. So in parting these are for you Micah, Jill, Taj Man, and Eden Girl. Enjoy! We sure did.

Pete and Re-pete!

Truett came for the weekend and lets just say that Chamberlain was in Heaven. The whole weekend long Chamberlain had to do everything Truett was doing. Even down to the same clothes. No Joke(although I didn't seem to get any pictures of them in matching outfits! One thing about Truett is, he cant sit still, he constantly has to be doing something productive. My mom bought this dinosaur, around Christmas time, to be put up at the cave. It has to be assembled first, so of course since it has been in the box since December, Truett, made it "his" project over the weekend. Chamberlain has been waiting for someone to put it together. It has been torch er for the little boy, since its just been sitting on a chair in grandmas room. Truett was kind enough to let chamberlain be his assistent during surgery. Truett is also a perfectionist so it was very hard for him to give up some control and let Chamberlain help! In the end we had two very happy campers. Lets just say Chamberlain cant wait to see Uncle Truett again!

Happy St. Valentines

I love this holiday!