Virginia Caramel apple salad

Okay so here is my wonderful sister-in-law's recipe. She found this when living in Virginia a few years ago and has been making it since. It is very delicious!

Virginia Caramel Apple Salad

5 large or 7 smaller granny smith Apples (cut up with skin)
20 oz crushed pineapple (drained well, save juice)
20 Kraft caramels, cut into small pieces (Now they have caramel bits in the baking aisle, next to the chocolate chips.)
2 cups dry roasted, salted peanuts
8 oz cool whip
2 Tbls corn starch
1 cup sugar
2 beaten eggs

Mix cornstarch, sugar eggs and pineapple juice in saucepan. Cook and stir til thick and bubbly. Cool well. Pour cooled mixture into serving bowl. Add cool whip and fold together. Add first four ingredients. Fold to mix. Garnish with nuts and caramel.

Note***This salad does not store well--But we usually don't have leftovers anyway.

Amelia was blessed on April 10Th by her wonderful father. T.J. gave Amelia such an amazing blessing. I'm grateful for T.J. and his worthiness to hold the priesthood. I have such wonderful family and friends that came and supported us on this special day. I love to see all the men that we know stand in the circle and participate in the blessing. Such a special moment.

Amelia was really fussy before the blessing and the rest of the meeting but during the blessing she was a quite as could be. Amelia is such a sweet little baby that is so smiley. She has her fussy time of day, every day but for the most part she has become a good tempered baby.

Thank you to all that came and supported us. Our house was packed to the brim with people but it was still great to have everyone there. My little sister Abby made Amelia a beautiful cake. She always does such a wonderful job. WE had lots of yummy treats and salads that everyone brought. I will be posting some of the recipes that you all wanted on here shortly.

So Sick....

Last week over conference weekend Olivia came down with Strep.. Poor thing was soo sick! I haven't seen her that sick ever! She had a temp. consistently for five days that didn't go below 101. She couldn't breath very well or talk because of her tonsils and stuffy nose. She didn't sleep for days. I felt so bad for her and I wanted to make all her pain go away:( We took her to her pediatrician and he gave her an antibiotic but after three days of no improvement we had to get her on a new one. We also took her to the ENT to look at her tonsils and they were so big and infected. He said that they needed to be taken out as soon as possible. I hate to have to see her so sick but I think her getting this sick was the last straw to them taking her tonsils out. I'm pretty sure it isn't going to be very fun for quite a while but in the end I know she will be a happier and healthier little girl.

I took these a few days after she had already been on the antibiotic and she still looks so miserable and sick:(

TwO MonTHs

2 Months already! She is getting so big and developing so much! She is her happiest in the morning and loves to smile. We love having her beautiful spirit in our home and couldn't imagine life without her. Olivia is doing really well with her. She helps with just about everything. Amelia had her two month check up yesterday and she is looking healthy.

Over the last few weeks she has become really colic. She cries quite a bit and doesn't seem to be satisfied with anything. I have tried a new formula for fussiness and it seemed to work somewhat. The Dr. wants me to start her on a different formula for babies with colic due to digestive irritability. We will have to see if it works. If it does we will all feel better. It's hard to have her so sad so much.

Here are some recent pics (one at bottom is a phone pic and was way to dark, but very cute) The picture of them together is the best picture I have gotten of both of them.

Amelia"s stats:

Weight~ 11 lbs 57%

Height~ 21 1/2 in. 16%

Head~ 15 in. 29%

Ready Set Go...

Yep it is finally time to start running again. It has been forever since my feet have been in these shoes but I'm ready and willing. That is until I can't breath and I have a huge stabbing pain in my side. Haha. I'm really excited to get back in shape but not only that TJ and I are running the Wasatch Back in June with almost my entire family! I'm totally excited but completely nervous for the whole thing. A few of my family members have run it several times before and have let me in on all the details and yet I still signed up to run it. It will be a great experience for TJ and I . I think we will have a lot of fun together with the whole experience. Being that it is about three months away I'll keep you all updated on how the training is going.

In LOvE...

Yes I'm in LOVE with this camera bag! Isn't it just adorable? I must have it! I guess I'll be saving my pennies for quite some time

My Girls....

Olivia...
"There's a Monkey on my bed!" Olivia has never been a real good sleeper but she was at least good at going to bed and staying in there. Well that has changed since Amelia came a long. She has gotten worse with her sleeping. A few weeks ago she went through this phase of being scared to go to bed because there was a monkey on her bed. She had to sleep with her light on and if she woke up in the middle of the night and we had turned it off, she would start screaming and turn it on. I'm not sure what brought this about but I felt bad for her. No one likes being afraid to go to bed in their room. We bought her some princess night lights but she still insists on turning her light on.
Olivia does pretty good with Amelia. She loves giving her kisses and wants to hold all the time. For some reason though she doesn't like other people besides me to hold Amelia. She will tell them no! Olivia is a great big sister and is getting really good with helping me out.

Amelia...
Six weeks already! The newborn stage goes by so fast and before I know it my baby is no longer the tiny little baby I brought home. She is a great eater! Her sleeping patterns however are not so great! I'm not sure if it's something that I do wrong but Amelia doesn't like to sleep either. I was hoping that she would be the opposite of Olivia and sleep really well. She is a fairly content baby. She is becoming more aware of things and people around her and small smiles are starting to appear. She also is making more little noises. She is losing her hair, which doesn't surprise me because Olivia lost her hair as a baby and didn't have any until 18 months. I have a glimmer of hope that Amelia's hair will be red or at least have some red in it. The hair that is left looks like it has a tint of red in the natural light. Maybe just maybe I'll get a child with red hair:)
I love being a mom of two beautiful girls! It definitely has it's challenges but the good always out ways the bad. I have a love hate relationship with Olivia. She has such a sweet spirit but there for sure is some fire in her. She already knows how to push my buttons. I have a feeling when they are both older I will have my hands even more full.