The Last Little While

Well, the last little while has been so busy!!!! So here's a recap of the last month or so:
First, we celebrated Lizzie's third birthday. I can't believe how fast she's growing!!! We threw her a little party at our house and she had a blast. We had pizza, ice cream, cake, candy, and opened gifts! HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZ!!!! Then we celebrated Easter. My parents put together an Easter egg hunt for the kids in their backyard and they had a blast! The weather actually cooperated for an afternoon and they just thought that it was so fun to find eggs everywhere! Thanks mom and dad! Then we barbecued afterward and just had fun! then the next day the Easter bunny came to our house and filled our Easter baskets with candy and goodies. We went to church in nice outfits. Then we had an Easter dinner that night at my mom's. Then later that week my brother Daniel graduated from BYU-Idaho. We threw a huge party for him at our house and had a wonderful time!

She's a little candle-shy!

Opening a gift with Jessica

My mom and Anna took Liz to breakfast and the park for her birthday! She had a blast. They also did her hair and nails at grandma's!

This is the cake that Liz picked for her birthday: Diamond Barbie Castle

The Easter bunny visited our house and filled every one's baskets with goodies. Carter is checking out a new rattle and car!

Liz wearing her new Easter dress!

Kate in her new Easter dress before church!

Liz and Anna hunting for eggs!

Kate showing her basket full of eggs she found! There are tons! The sugar high lasted a while!

My wonderful brother Daniel on graduation night at BYU-Idaho! I'm so proud of him! He's off to Ohio State University on a full-ride scholarship!

Anniversary Photo Session

As I mentioned in my last post, Paul and I just celebrated our six year anniversary and he planned a photo session for us. We had our engagement pictures taken at this park a little over six years ago and here we are six years later at the same park. We've both agreed that we're a litte "rounder around the edges" since then! This wasn't all of them but these were some of my favorite! Enjoy!

Love Stories

Wow!!!! I can't remember the last time that I went more than like a week without posting and here I am at over a month!!!! This past little while has been crazy and I hardly know where to begin. But mostly our life lately has been all about wonderful love stories. Let me explain. Paul's grandpa died about a month ago so we took a two week trip to California. We left on a Wednesday, had his grandpa's funeral on Friday, and then while we were visiting there his grandma died two days later on a Sunday!!!! It was totally unexpected but such a happy moment for all of us because now his grandparents were together. They were terribly in love while they were living and just couldn't live without each other and they died exactly one week apart. Isn't that just amazing? I want to do it that way! So we had her funeral three days later to celebrate their re-uniting and then Paul's youngest brother got married two days later in the Oakland Temple. Another beautiful love story!!!!! Kate and Liz were flower girls and LOVED getting all dolled up all day. Carter had a little suit on too. All three kids looked just adorable! And then we came home and celebrated our own anniversary and love story of six years. Paul was SO cute and planned a photo session (stay tuned for pics coming soon!) for the two of us at the same park that we had our engagement pics taken at!!!!! It was so fun and then we went shopping and out to dinner and just had the nicest night!!! Also big in our lives right now is the fact that we're trying to sell our house!!! the day after we returned from Cali we were told that Paul was being transferred to Blackfoot. so we talked that week, put our home on the market and here we are hoping it sells so that we can move closer to work to have more family time. Whew!!! What a mouth-full! Life has been so crazy lately, but if it wasn't crazy what would it be?!

Daddy and his girls at the wedding!

Carter, my little man all dressed up.

Kate in her flower girl dress and her little bouqet! So Pretty!

Can I just say MODEL? She looked so pretty and loved playing princess for a day!

Paul and I with his grandma LaVonne Fairbanks just two days before she died. We were at his grandpa's funeral. We're so glad that we got this picture and had the time to spend with her.

Good Cookin' and Influenza

Sweet and Sour Chicken from the kitchen of Sarah

Well, to start with I thought it would be fun to share one of my favorite recipes. Everyone loves good food and this is one of my favorites. It's a sweet and sour chicken and every single person in our family will eat it. I have some that say it's a little time-consuming but it's so worth it! It takes me about thirty minutes to throw it together and then it takes 30 minutes to cook. So while it's cooking I make my vegatables and rice.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

4 Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
1 egg
Cornstarch to coat chicken
Vegatable Oil for cooking

Sauce (bring the following to a biol and cook until thickened. Continually stir so that it doesn't burn! Don't worry if it doesn't thicken up much. It will in the oven when it bakes.)

1 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup apple cider vinegar
2 TBSP soy sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
1 TBSP cornstarch


First defrost the chicken. Then cut it into small cubes. Take a large ziploc bag and crack an egg in it. Put all the chicken in the bag with the egg and close it. Roll the chicken aournd so it gets coated by the egg. Then pour cornstarch in the bag (enough to coat all the chicken), close the bag, and roll the chicken aournd again to coat it. In the meantime, heat a skillet of vegatable oil. Pour your coated chicken in the heated oil and brown all pieces, tunring occasionally. while your chicken is browning, make your sauce listed aboce. Then put all your browned chicken in an oven-safe baking dish (I usr a 9x13) and pour sauce over it. Bake entire dish for 30 minutes @ 350 degrees. Serve with steamed stirfy mix and white rice. Yummy!

Secondly, it's been a long week! All the kids have been sick but Liz seemed especially bad and it hit all at once. I was worried and so I ran her to the doctor and they ran a test. She had influenza! SO, a shot later we left the office and headed to get antibiotics. I felt so bad for her! Here she is when we got back from the doctor - totally tuckered out!!!! The only risk is that it could become pnuemonia and that's what the medicine is for. So hopefully it runs it's coarse quickly! We want to be better!!!

Valentine's Day and Cross-Country Skiing

Well, for starters I've always said that Paul outdoes himself when it comes to holidays and for Valentine's Day he thought that it would be fun to go cross-country skiing. Neither one of us had ever been and now I think that I have a new favorite sport!!!! It was SO fun and I can't wait to go again. It was a great workout and being outside to enjoy all the amazing scenery was great. We went up to the mountains and I loved just being away from everything for the day. We went with some friends from work and they were so much fun. Below that I posted a pic of Carter that I just thought was funny. After that is a pic of my WHOLE family (minus the brother on a mission). I just recently ran into some old friends who asked to see pics of my whole family so here they are!

Paul and Sarah after a 5.5 mile loop around the lake!

Our group for skiing! So fun! We spent the whole day laughing!

Carter sporting his new hat. Is he happy, sad, or kinda mad?!

My whole family this last summer. My hair is lots longer now and my kids have grown quite a bit but you get the general idea!

Just Another Glorious Day

I never have anything very momentous to post but I just had some cute pics of the kids and thought I'd sahre. I also included pics of cugar cookies that they decorated. I LOVE sugar cookies and I LOVE Valentine's Day so it was the best of both worlds. My mom is great at doing fun activities with the kids and so she called and told me to bring them up to decorate and just have fun. I was nice to get out of the house on a cold day! Thanks mom!

Pre-Decorated (but still oh so good!)

Post - Decorated. My mom makes the best cookies!

My Dad came over and he and Carter are best buds. He was making Carter laugh (who has applesaace all over his face!).

I call Lizzie my "Purpleicious Princess" and she loves it! Here she is for some snowtime fun in her purple hat and jacket!

And Kate is our "Pinkalicious Princess" and she adores this hat. We don't know why cuz it's really pretty crazy! But she makes it look cute!

My New Venture

SO, Paul got me a new camera a while back and I've been taking a class at BYU-Idaho to see if I could be any good. Here's my recent attempts at photos and photoshop. I think it's so fun and I'm hoping to get better. I think I have a new favorite pasttime!

A leaf in my yard. I blurred the background color for more emphasis.
I'm sure some of you are saying, "How'd she take this?" The beauty of a self timer. It worked!

My gorgeous Kate

Liz and her "Fairbanks Smile" (classic in Paul's family! They all have this smile) I love her eyes in this pic!