Yippee, a NEW camera!

Whaaw-Hooo! We got a new camera... and whoa, it's nice... we all took a turn getting our picture taken... LOVE IT!

Justin, laughing at a 'sand covered caitlin'...

Posing with the family dog... yeah... look at my garden in the background... love my tomato trees?Will, Nothing but boy... Dirt and Trains... :)

J. enjoying an after work strech on the grass...

"Twain!"

These next few pictures are of Caitlin modeling her 'bear' hair do, and her new $4.00 outfit from Sam's Club!

Caitlin REALLY wanted to take our picture with the new camera...

"NO WAY... you broke the last camera... you're not touching this one!"

but thanks for the good laugh...

The Olympic Age Debacle

Justin writes:

4:23 P.M. UPDATE: I swear to you, I wrote the below post hours ago this morning before coming across this article. Love it! (Perhaps they read my post and were inspired? haha)

When I saw this comic in today's paper, I couldn't help but chuckle... then cut it out, scan it, and post it here to share! From opening night, I have been one of the many glued to the Olympics, and thank heaven for TiVo because I couldn't do it without the miracle of fast-forward.

In spite of the glorious opening ceremonies, the Phelps/US Swimming triumph, the "lightning" Bolt on the track, ALL the new world records that have been set, etc., there is no question that these games have been plagued with issues, whether politically-motivated, money-motivated, emotion-motivated, and who-knows-what-else-motivated. Central to that is this glossed-over issue of AGE of the olympians, particularly in women's gymnastics.

Last night, Amanda and I watched the showdown between Nastia Liukin and He Kexin--the now infamous tie that came down to a computer-decided tiebreaker awarding the Gold to Kexin and the Silver to Liukin. The commentators lost themselves in their critique of how Liukin's performance was more flawless and should have won the higher honor.

My argument was different. "Look at that Chinese girl... how old is she? Seven, maybe?" What an immense blow it would be if the IOC decided to listen to proof that has been publicized already about the age of some of these olympians. Sure, China wants more than anything to produce a memorable olympic games and to come out on top as part of it. But MAN, if the IOC investigated and reversed medals awarded to illigitimate participants, they'd really make a memorable mark of the variety they certainly did not set out to make.

Come on guys and girls, let's play fairly. What has happened to honesty in this world?

So, it's true... :(

Next 'Harry Potter' film to be delayed eight months?
Warner Bros. says the schedule shift from November will take advantage of a summer short of blockbusters.

By Geoff Boucher, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 15, 2008

Talk about a disappearing act: Harry Potter just vanished from the 2008 movie schedule.Warner Bros. shocked fans around the globe Thursday when it announced that " Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth installment in the massively successful film franchise about a young wizard and his friends, would not hit theaters in November as planned. The film will instead be delayed eight months and arrive on July 17, according to Alan Horn, Warner Bros. president and chief operating officer.The postponement was made to exploit the "relative dearth" of major summer blockbusters next year in the wake of the recent writers strike, Horn said. He also pointed to last year's summer success, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which grossed $292 million in the U.S. after its July 11 release. That was the second-highest total of any of the Potter films, behind only the first movie in 2001.

Click HERE for Half Blood Prince Trailer!!!

Breaking News!!

Mr. & Mrs. Cracroft-- 6 wonderful years!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Breaking Dawn...

FINALLY! I'm Done!

Kristin Chenoweth... Broadway 1999

PS. to listen to it... you might have to Mute my Music on the bottom of this page!

Your a Good Man Charlie Brown!
"My New Philosophy"



PS. YUP. i'm still reading Breaking dawn... What? I just can't amandond my family... they need me... (and Justin's reading too... so it's taking us twice as long. :) it's getting good!!)

BREAKING DAWN PARTY!!!

Last night my friend Yung and I went to her friends house for a little "count down" Breaking Dawn Party... we all made t-shirts (mine says, 'real men sparkle'), and ate 'black, red and white' treats, played games and got totally excited before we all went to the midnight release parties, at the book stores!! (which surprisingly enough, didn't take very long... only 25 minutes after 12am we had our books!) Way to go Yung for getting our place in line earlier that day! Rock on!

These girls are now like my new best friends, they share the same love and excitement for these amazing books... It's just AWESOME!

They made these darling little Breaking Dawn Survival Kits!! Inside:

Bottled water, (plus fruit punch powder to add in the water, 'blood')

Cookies

Tissues for the wedding

snack mix pack

Big Red gum, for when Jacob comes into the story, ha!

Mounds candy bar, because it's 'Mounds of fun!!!'

Breakfast bar

Also inside each little bag, was a CD with play lists for all the 'songs' Stephenie picked to go with her books, The Host too!! Wow, I'm totally stoked...

CUTE IDEA HUH?? I made it till about 5:30 am... and i was so tired i was reading with one eye open... I just wanted to keep reading and reading... It's VERY interesting, i can't wait to see how it ends!

BAH!

What am i doing, blogging... I NEED TO BE READING!! See ya! :)

Breaking Dawn!

Ahhh! OK, Tonight (sometime past midnight) i will have a copy of my very own last and final addition to the Twilight saga!

Whoa! Can't wait, and can't THINK or Breath or DO anything... OK, that is being a little melodramatic...

I'm just a little excited to see what happens, that's all...

If you don't already know, HERE is a link to 'quotes' from the book... fun to see a little sneak peek!

Need a good laugh?

Three women friends, one in a casual relationship, one engaged to be married and one a longtime wife, met for drinks after work. The conversation eventually drifted towards how best to spice up their love lives.After much discussion, they decided to surprise their men , The following week they met up again to compare notes.

Sipping her drink, the single girl leered and said, "Last Friday at the endof the work day I went to my boyfriend's office wearing a leather coat.When all the other people had left, I slipped out of it and all I had on wasa leather bodice, black stockings and stiletto heels. He proposed to me right then and there.The engaged woman giggled and said, "That's pretty much my story! When my Fiancé got home last Friday, he found me waiting for him in a black mask, leather bodice, black hose and stiletto pumps. he wants to move up our wedding date!

The married woman put her glass down and said, "I did a lot of planning. I made arrangements for the kids to stay over at Grandma's. I took a long scented-oil bath and then put on my best perfume. I slipped into a tight leather bodice, a black garter belt, black stockings and six-inchstilettos. I finished it off with a black mask. When my husband got homefrom work, he grabbed a beer and the remote, sat down and yelled, 'Hey,Batman, what's for dinner?'"

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NANS!

Nans and William, 2 months old

Justin's mother, Terese had a birthday yesterday!

Thanks Nans for being so wonderful and Happy Birthday! Love you!

Summa Family Fun!

We had a really great time this past week! I only wish i had a camera with me to document all the fun! :( however it was still a blast!

July 23- Rodeo! Justin's family, friends included, met at Justin's work downtown, where we then took the TRAX a few blocks to the Energy Solutions Arena.(The kids LOVE riding the 'train'. It was so cute Caitlin said, "All aboard!" as we were getting on!) We had a good time at the Rodeo...My favorite part was the barrel racing! Those horses are SO fast and it takes serious skills to get the horse around those barrels, it was SO COOL! The kids liked the baby cows, the music, Lazer show and the clown doing Micheal Jackson impersonations! The bull ridding was pretty exciting too! Those are BIG animals! Yee-Haww!

July 24- Pioneer Day! Lindsey ran in the Salt Lake City's 10K...Go Linds! We ate a delicious breakfast together and watched the Pioneer Day Parade at Justin's parents house.
-I finished making a 'Wall-e' blanket for Will... he loves it! It's cute to see him cuddling in it and he says 'Wall-e' (just like they do in the movie) all the time now!
-Later that night we had Dutch Oven lasagna dinner at Justin's parents house and then we headed over to the Bee's (baseball) game, and enjoyed an exciting game (Bee's won!) followed by fireworks! Great show!

July 25- Because of the holiday on Thursday, Justin took off work on Friday (as well as Monday!) My good friend Yung invited Will and Caitlin over to play with her kids while Justin and I went to see a matinee of the new BATMAN movie- The Dark Knight!! AHHHHHHHH! It was so good! Scary good and super action packed, we loved it, both of us had to go the bathroom half way through the movie... but we risked the embarrassment of peeing our pants just to see the whole show!! So worth the wait!
-For dinner I didn't feel like cooking, so we went to Cafe Rio!! Yea! Justin and I shared the most perfect Grilled Chicken Salad with black beans and creamy dressing... Ohh, I could have died right there! Mmmmm!

July 26- Justin, Lindsey and I took Caitlin and Will to see "Wall-e" It was a really cute show, That Wall-e is one darling little guy! "Put on your Sunday clothes..." CUTE! I did miss a good chunk of the show because Will lost interest and decided to go exploring in the theater... He ended up running out of the theater, and I followed (full force) right behind him. I just didn't realize that he went out the door just to turn around to come back in when I slammed right into him with the door... (he runs fast, so I was trying to catch up...) Oops... the door gave him a bloody nose, and his big toe got stuck under the door... and it had scraped off a bunch of skin... EW! SO, I ran to the bathroom to clean him up... he calmed down and we made our way back to the theatre for the last 5 minutes of the show. It will be nice when he can sit through a whole movie and not get hurt or run away me!

July 27-28 Park City here we come! Every year for Justin's mom's birthday we do a little family vacation get-a-way to the beautiful and relaxing Park City! What a beautiful place!
We ate an early dinner at Baja Cantina, where it was Caitlin's turn to do some damage. As we were leaving, she tripped and landed right on some high chairs stacked in a corner; and suddenly her mouth started gushing blood!

(What's a Cracroft outing with out some blood? Guess if there is none, we're not playing hard enough!) ha, that makes me want to read Twilight!

Anyway, off to the 2X2 bathroom, (let's see how many people we can get in there, shall we?) Turns out Caitlin bit the side of her cheek when she fell... Poor little Caitles... it was pretty gloomy out, so we decided to go back to the roomat the Marriott where we all took a little nap. After our little snooze, we headed down to the pool... it was pretty chilly so we stayed int he hot tubs most of the time, That was super relaxing... I LOVE HOT TUBS! The weather started getting a little windy and then started to sprinkle. We went back to the room -did 5 minutes of Karaoke and then we watched STAR DUST! (One of my favorite movies of all time!)

The next morning, Justin made a French Toast Birthday breakfast for his mom! We headed to the Pool. Nana and Papa came to visit with us, after the pool we all did the Alpine Slide! This was SO much fun! I took Will down on my slide, and Justin took Caitlin... we raced! It was awesome, Will said "WEEEEEEE" the whole way down. I was laughing non stop at him... he's such a cutie! It was awesome! Then we got some lunch and we headed home. FUN FUN WEEK!

And... as an added BONUS! Caitlin didn't have any accidents!

WE ARE POTTY TRAINED!!! YES!

I'm so happy I could bake a cake!

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago... Caitlin had her 'snake' (it's a neckless) and she wanted to wear this cute little hat (of Will's) to the store...

While I was taking Caitlin's pictures... This is what Will was doing! He was so proud of himself... "King of the Mountain!" It's a wonder I don't have more grey hairs!

Camping... in the back yard!

These pictures were taken before the passing of our camera... and i just forgot to blog them! Enjoy!

Justin and I really wanted to take the kids camping this summer, and being the forward thinking parents that we are, we thought we'd do a little 'test run' before we are out in the wilderness...
Glad we did. This is our awesome tent... it was a wedding gift... and one of our favorites! We've put some good use to it in the (almost) 6 years we've been married. (funny, in this picture: you see pepper-the wild-eyed-dog, a 'bouncing' Caitlin and Will's feet and of course, Justin!)

Caitlin was so excited to see this little 'bed' for her to sleep in, inside the tent. You can see it in the picture above... to the right of the opening of the tent.

What is it about small spaces... that makes her think... "Oh, I can sleep in that!"

When I told her it was for shoes... she thought about that for a minute... and then said, "No-shoes sleep outside, this is me bed!"

Justin with the Shop Vac hose to inflate the air mattress! (rarhh)

Scary noise from the vacuum... but boy were they excited to see that mattress fill up!
TRAMPOLINE!!! YEAH! Those little jumping beans were at it for hours!

Almost bed time!!So, what 'camping' trip is complete with out "making delicious hot shmoes..."

"Their called s'mores Buzz!"

Anyway... I'm thinking that ever one else in the stake of Utah thought of that idea that night toot too... because Albertson's was Completely OUT of the regular marshmallows! Can you believe it! So, we got creative... we got toasted coconut mellows. Eeeh... not bad, but there's nothing like a REAL S'MORE! (Um, side note... Justin called this part of the night 'Urban Camping'... we used the grill to toast our Mellows!)

Ha. and no, it does not work very well.

And so, Daddy read books to Will and Caitlin (and Pepper) before bedtime. Then after about 40 minutes of Will 'exploring' the tent... we ended up putting him in the house, in his own little bed!(Not to mention, before that we had the pack-n-play out in the tent too...) and that didn't work.

Anyways, Caitlin, Pepper and Daddy slept fine...

Me?... i was happy staying in the comfort of my own bed! Ahh! I love Camping!

Happy Birthday Mamma Sue!

Yeah, it's my mom's brithday today! I thought it'd post this cute picture of mom and Caitlin (8 months old!) CUTE CUTE CUTE!!

LOVE YOU MOMMY!

Ziploc Omelets?

This works great!!! Good for when your alone of when all your family is together! Best Feature is that on one has to wait for their special omelet, while others eat right in front of them! Have guests write their name on a Quart Size Ziploc Freezer Bag with a permanent marker.

1. Crack 2 eggs into the quart sized Ziploc bag. (no more than 2) shake to combine.

2. Put out a variety of ingredients such as: cheese, ham, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, hash browns, salsa, etc.

3. Each guest adds prepared ingredients of choice to their bag. Shake the bag to mix ingredients well!

4. Make sure to get all the air out of the bag and zip it up.

5. Place the bag into rolling, boiling water for exactly 13 minutes. you can usually cook 6-8 omelets in a large pot. if you have more omelets, make another pot of boiling water.

6. When done, the omelet will roll our easily. (Note, if you put cheese in your bag, it will look mushey, like it's not totally cooked... it is... the cheese is just needs a minute to cool down and solidify!) This is great because everyone gets involved in the process and it becomes a great conversation piece.

Imagine having these ready the night before, and putting the bag in boiling water while you get ready, in just 13 minutes you have a nice omelet for a quick breakfast (Esp. great for easy no-strees-Sunday-morning-before-church- breakfasts!!) Another idea, have a New Years Eve Ziploc Omelet party!! Enjoy!

Click HERE to see the new Twilight Trailer!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Gurr!

The kids broke our camera.

Up-Sidedown Lemon Cake!

Not to totally sound bitter, but I'd have a wonderful picture of this cake i made... but it's on my broken camera! Whoopy! how happy am i, on a scale of 1 to 10... oh take a guess!?

Anyway, the cake is Delicious... Not too lemony... just the way i like it. It's perfect for summer time, light and fluffy!

Cakes
3 Tbsp butter, softened, divided
3 Tbsp sugar
2 lemons, divided
1 pkg yellow cake mix
2 eggs
1 16oz container sour cream

Glaze
3 Tbsp lemon juice
3 Tbsp butter
1/3 cup sugar
zest of lemon

1: Brush entire glass baking dish with 1 tbsp of the butter, place sugar in bottom and rotate dish so that bottom and sides are covered.

2: Optional, i think it tastes better without, but it looks really pretty :) Thinly slice one of the lemons, almost paper thin, remove any seeds from lemon slices and place slices in the bottom of class pan. Set pan aside.

3: Zest 2 Tbsps of Lemon (set aside 1 Tbsp for Glaze)

4: Prepare batter: Microwave 2 Tbsps of butter 15-20 seconds. Add 1 tbsp lemon zest, cake mix, eggs and sour cream to butter. Wisk 1 minute, or until smooth.

5: Pour batter into prepared dish. Bake 350 degrees 25-30 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake for 10 minutes.

6: Meanwhile, for glaze, juice reserved lemon to measure 2-3 Tbsps juice. Melt butter in micro safe bowl, stir in juice reserved zest and sugar; microwave on high 30-60 seconds until boiling.

7: Turn out cake on to serving platter and drizzle with glaze. Best when served right away warm!

Dig deep people!

This is fun!

My friend had this on her blog and I thought I would be a copycat...

Memories

Here are the directions:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my blog's comments.

Eww!

OK? I thought Edward was supposed to be attractive,??? This is a little Scarry! and is that Kristen Stewart? She's supposed to be the pail-paisty-average looking one! weird!?


Think i'm gonna loose my lunch!

Thank You Disney!

Serious Props to whom ever wrote the story of Lady and the Tramp! Because of it, my kids actually eat dinner! Of course, there's a lot of barking during the meal... but I'm just happy they are EATING! whoo-hooo!

My Mom will be happy to know that I carried on the tradition of setting off the smoke alarm while making the Spaghetti for lunch today! I remember as a kid... it was 'our job' while my mom was cooking to 'fan' the smoke alarm when it went off... (Ahh, the memories!)

we never needed a 'cow bell' to tell us dinner was ready... some how we just always knew! I'm not doggen' on my mom's cooking... or mine... in fact we are both great cooks... I guess you can say... we Italians just like it hot in our kitchens, that's all!

And to top it off... Will actually eats salad! If you've read The Host, Justin has a funny theory that Will is actually playing 'host' to an older 'soul'... because eating salad just isn't normal behavior for a 2 year old!

Caitlin playing with her 'worms! (oh, to be a kid again!)WE LOVE "BA-SKETTY!"

Now, if we can only get Disney to write a story about dogs eating veggies and fish.....

Must See Movies!

10,000 BC
This movie looked interesting... and it was... I really liked it. Justin fell asleep with in 2 minutes... (long pre-views!) But I just thought it was an awesome show. The story and the culture and different kinds of people and tribes and languages etc...it made me think of the Book of Mormon... (even though this was way before BOM times...) Still i loved it... so much that it made me cry!! So worth the rent!

The Bucket List

After seeing this movie, Justin (fully away) said,"There need to be more movies like this out there!" Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman were amazingly wonderful together... :)

We both loved it... and yes, I cried with this one as well!

Bag!

I was so excited about this bag I made for my sister's birthday. It's an Amy Butler pattern, the Swing Bag... and it's super fun and EASY, and it's reversable! How cool is that? (No woman can have too many bags, one for each day and occasion!)

Happy Birthdays!!

Wow, this week has sorta gotten away from me... but i just wanted to let my sister and bro-in-law know that I love them and wish them both the best birthdays EVER!!

love you guys!
Amy- July 2
Kevin- July 5

Here are a few cute pics over the years! :)

The Emmeline Apron

Many of you were wondering where I got the cute apron pattern! Montessori By Hand is a sweet web site i found off of the Amy Butler web site (MY FAV!!) Here is the actual link to Montessori's Etsy shop where you can by the pattern! umm, i think she only has one more in stock... it's $11.95... but if you get there, and your too late... i could lone you my pattern, cause i'm nice like that!

Ok. happy sewing!

Ohh, Amy Butler has a buch of FREE PATTERS that you can download! check them out!