Oops!


So I forgot to post this a couple weeks back but it was just too funny.  Guess what this is a picture of?

Well I decided to make some cookies.  In between baking the cookies I was making a list.  I was using keep a pen  on the fridge that is held by a clip magnet.  Halfway through my baking process I lost my pen.  Yes you guessed it, when I had taken one of the pans out of the oven the magnet – with the pen attached – had attached itself to the cookie pan without me noticing.  So back in it went with a tray full of cookies and the pen and magnet fell on to the bottom of the oven.  Boy did it smell!  I had to run the self-cleaning cycle that night after we went to bed and shut the doors (it got a lot worse before it got better, I know because I came back downstairs for a minute and I swear I couldn’t breathe). 

 Moral of the story?  Well I’m not sure but if you think of a good one leave it in the comments.

On to better things I was feeling like a health nut today so I walked 2 1/2 miles with Ann and our kids then took them to a park.  Liam fell asleep by the time we got to the park but Brooklyn, Scotty and Ann had fun on the swings.

 

Doesn’t Ann look so cute?

LOVE the tongue, guess she’s just having too much fun to keep it in her mouth, he he.

Then I came home, played some Wii Fit (Chris got me one for my birthday, it’s fun) and made a fantastically yummy yet healthy dinner that I devised.  I call them “Yummy Chicken Spinach Rollups”

I started with a whole wheat tortilla, covered it with Tzatziki Sauce, added 2 layers of baby spinach, grilled chicken, diced grilled onions and orange peppers, 1/2 slice of lowfat pepper jack cheese and a sprinkling of feta cheese to top it off.  Heaven I tell you, heaven.

If you want to try some other great food add this new blog to your list: http://dontforgettolickthespoon.blogspot.com/  my cousin Heather and her friend Ashley are the authors.  Maybe one day they will let me do a guest blog on there (hint hint Heather ;-) )



And we lived happily ever after


Today me and my partner in life and crime celebrate our 6th anniversary and exactly 6 1/2 years since the day we met.  I am so lucky to have a husband who is so thoughtful, selfless, loving, sensitive, hard working, funny, a great dad, handsome, smart, creative, and loyal. 

In the past six years we have moved 4 times, owned 6 different cars, had 7 different jobs, welcomed two beautiful babies of our own into the world, had happy times, sad times, devastating times, growing times and blissful times.  We still feel like we are in the honeymoon stage and are so utterly happy to have eachother.



Schizophrenic weather


Yesterday:

Snowy, pretty, cold…………

But today:

Warm, sunny, springlike day at the park – snow melted and all!  Brooklyn and Scotty had an absolute blast sharing a swing and Liam loved the swing too!

We had a lot of fun both days.  Yesterday Brooklyn had her cute little friend Julia over to play, they are really cute together!

 

 

 

 

 

The 19th was my birthday and my super duper awesomo husband threw me a surprise birthday party!  He got my parents and sister to come from out of town, also Ann and my friend Breanna came.  It was the best!

Also last week Ann bought Scotty a tunnel to play in, she brought it over and we put my tunnel on the other end of it.  Scotty and Brooklyn had tons of funs crawling through it over and over, they were screaming and giggling in delight.

Aren’t they just the cutest little buggers you ever saw?  Oh, and check out this cute little bugger too – I think I’ll keep him :-)



To Chubbuck and back


So went for a visit to Chubbuck last week.  Chris stayed home but Ann and Scotty came with the kids and I.  In case you didn’t already know, 3 babies + 4 hour drive = headaches.  Ann was a trooper because as the front seat passenger she kept turning around giving bottles, snacks, etc and trying to make the kids happy.  We did have have a really good laugh making animal sounds.  Ann made a sound that I can only compare to a dying cat in heat but apparently it was supposed to be a sheep.  I laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe and Brooklyn liked that I was laughing so she laughed too.  This is what the happy times look like:

We had a lot of fun while we were there.  We stayed with my Mom, Dad and Melanie.  I also got to see Spencer, Todd and Lindsay, and my friends Jamie and Cassie.  The kids had fun at Grandma’s house.

They played until they were all worn out.  Poor Scotty was getting a tooth and had a cold so he and Ann did not get much sleep at night, but he tried to make up for it during the day.

Umm, can he get any cuter?  It snowed twice while we were there and they were forecasting more snow so we ended up coming home a little earlier than planned. 

I really wish would could get some of that awesome snow that D.C. and Texas have been getting – this year has been a big disappointment in the snow department (my saying is “The more snow the better.”)  But the good news is we had clear roads the whole way home and got home safely; and the kids were good most of the way too.  Liam earned the gold star for being the best behaved there and back.

Anyone have any ideas how I can get a 1 1/2 year old to keep barrettes/ponytails in her hair?  The barrettes never stay in for more that 5-10 minutes and the ponytails she likes to rip out and put them in her mouth (I’m really afraid of her choking on them!).  Her hair grows straight forward so her hair is always in her face/nose/mouth if I don’t pull it back.  By the evening I usually give up and it looks like this (still cute as ever):

Is there not an infomercial product out there to solve this problem?  And, no, she won’t wear a hat or headband.



Waffles a la yummy


So may I recommend the following as a super yummy breakfast:

I used this mix to make waffles the other morning.  You can’t even tell it has 5g of fiber – just the perfect tint of sweetness and super easy to make (just add water and oil).  I also made a really scrumptious topping, I put some frozen blueberries, peaches and non calorie sweetener in a bowl and put it in the microwave for about a minute then pulverized it in my Magic Bullet blender (I did leave a few bigger chunks of peaches that were oh so good).  This is what it looked like:

Yes, it looked like someone who had recently eaten spaghetti and meatballs yakked on my waffle.  So I decided to make it look a bit more appetizing (and a little less healthy) by adding some whipped cream:

See?  Cool whip covered barf looks much more appealing.  (Honestly, though - it was delish!!)  By the way, I am trying to keep up on my other blog, “Say What by Emily” so check it out.  www.saywhatbyemily.com



Look-a-like pictures


This morning Brooklyn was playing on the couch and fell off.  She hit the wall with her ear before she made it to the floor.  The whole top of her ear is blue and purple, poor thing.  Later today we had fun playing in her room.  She likes to get in the closet then open and close the doors, it is so cute!

Here are some pictures of my little look-a-likes!

Can’t tell they’re related, can you???



Why buy toys when you have cooking utensils?


So Brooklyn’s newest thing is raiding my cooking utensils drawer.  It has a baby lock on it but she has skinny little spider monkey hands so it barely slows her down.  Here are just a few of the things she pulled out today.

Yesterday Chris had a client over and they did a video shoot for his website.  After the client left all of Chris’s video and lighting equipment was still in the living room so we put the gate up to keep the kids out.  This left no gate to put on the stairs.  We tried putting the ottoman in front of them but, alas, that is not enough to stop Brooklyn or little Scott.

Today I tried to take a picture of Brooklyn and Liam to put in my Valentine’s Day cards but taking a picture of them together is nearly impossible.  Here is one of the few decent ones.

I think I’ve decided to forgo the pictures in the Valentine’s cards.  Speaking of Valentine’s, this morning I discovered my sweetheart had done some very nice things for me!  First of all he cleaned the downstairs (I love waking to a clean home) and he had installed a Christmas present I got like 3 years ago.  It’s hard to explain what it is so I took a picture.  (What me take a picture?  Noooo!)

Basically it is a piece of hardware that holds a grocery bag and is used as a garbage.  We had one in our kitchen when I was a kid (it’s still there), a few years back my sister and dad figured out how to get it replicated and had them made for everyone in our family.  I didn’t want to install it in any of our rentals so it has been in a box since then.  So thank you Melanie and Dad!

Now that Brooklyn has learned how to climb she is climbing all sorts of things.  She is climbing into her old baby swing, and her old exersaucer.  The only problem with her getting in her exersaucer is she can’t get back out.  So I tried taking out the the middle seat and putting her in it.  She didn’t like that because then she couldn’t sit down.  So she climbed back out, got the seat off the couch and put it back in herself.  She continually amazes me!

In other super fabulous news, Liam slept through the night last night!  12 hours total.  So I got 9 hours straight – can you hear the angels singing “Hallejujah” in the background?  And here is a picture of a happy baby that got plenty of sleep.



Facebook Intervention and other stuff


So I gave myself a Facebook intervention yesterday.  I came to realize that it was becoming more of a chore (for lack of a better word) and a real time waster.  I decided I would take a month or so and stop getting on altogether.  I figure that way when I get back on I will be on less.  I also plan on getting a lot done this month!  Hopefully, my mom and my sister, whom I just convinced to to get on Facebook won’t be too upset with me.  But I do plan on doing a bit more blogging.

Last week we got some snow (not much but even the smallest amount excites me!).

We also went to the park on one of the nicer days last week with Ann and Scotty.  Scotty let Brooklyn borrow his hat, what a nice cousin!  We had fun feeding the ducks (we’ll have to get pictures of them next time), swinging on the swings and going down the slides.  It was pretty cold so we didn’t stay too long.  But Liam even had fun, he was smiling and hanging out in his car seat.

So the past couple nights Liam has not been sleeping very well, and since he sleeps in our room we haven’t been sleeping well either.  He has been stuffed up so I think he is having a hard time breathing and he has also been talking in his sleep, which he must get from me!  He was up early this morning (6:30) so I fed him then put him on his lay down toy in our walk in closet (which is connected to the master bathroom) while I took a shower – he loved it!

He is also getting very close to rolling over. 

Since we were up so early and ready I decided to get Brooklyn up and ready too.  By 8:30 we were out the door and on our way to Walmart for a little grocery shopping.  Shopping at 8:30 am is awesome, we practically had the store to ourselves and all the shelves were stocked and the store was super clean.  I normally go after 8:00 pm when the kids are asleep, but a lot of times they are out of items I need and I have to try to get around all the employees stocking the shelves.   By the way, I bought the Great Value brand paper towels today, they were cheap (around $6 for 8 rolls) and they are like Bounty paper towel quality, which cost about $2 a roll.  Okay, now that I’ve completely bored you with my thrifty deal excitement…….

Brooklyn screams if I try to feed her yogurt, she only likes it if she can feed herself.  And here is the mess she makes – note the well placed yogurt in her hair…

Whenever I feed her Liam sits next to her on the floor and I do dishes.

It amazes me daily the interaction that my kids have.  I never thought that babies so young could be so social with eachother.  Brooklyn is constantly making Liam laugh, she’ll push him while he is in his swing then pretend that the force of the swing makes her fall down, then they both crack up laughing.  I LOVE my life….

P.S.  Do I ramble on too much?  Sometimes I wonder if I am the only person that thinks my blog might be slightly entertaining….



Climbing!


Well I have really been grateful that up until now Brooklyn has not been much of a climber.  But today it happened.  It was close to bedtime and I had put a video on for her in her bedroom while I bathed Liam and put him to bed.  She got bored and went downstairs by herself.  One of the places I keep things that need to stay out of her reach is the on the couch by the back pillows.  Well tonight she found something worth crawling up for – my cell phone.  I came downstairs and she was sitting talking to herself and playing with my phone.  I acutally don’t mind her playing with it as long she keeps it out of her mouth and it is pretty hard to unlock for a one year old so not worried about that.  Guess it’s time to find a new place to put stuff – unfortunately she can now reach stuff on the table and the edges of the counters too.

Sooo funny, Chris is taking out the garbage right now and found a crumpled up one dollar bill in his office garbage can.  Really need to start watching Brooklyn like a hawk!   Apparently she thinks we have too much money!

Well here are some cute pictures I took this week.

 

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A New Year


This month has been a trial of faith.  It seems like every year I make the goal to read my scriptures more but it only lasts a week or two.  However, this year has been different.  First of all, our family has been given some trials this month and I have really been trying to turn to the Lord and put my faith in him to get through them.  Second, I decided to give my life a mini makeover and change some of things I didn’t like about it.  This has included cutting back severely on the amount of television I watch (my goal now is only 1/2 hour a day except Tuesdays when I watch Biggest Loser), reading my scriptures more (I am already in Alma after just 2 weeks!), leading a healthy lifestyle by exercising and eating less processed foods and just having a more balanced life in general.  I am already starting to notice the positive changes.  I am more in tune to the Spirit and I am a lot less stressed about certain things than I probably should be. 

In nonconsequential news, I got a haircut this week, yay!  The long hair was really getting in my way and the kids just loved to grab it as an anchor – oww!  Here’s what it looks like now:

 

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Good grief, I look more and more like my sister Ann everyday.  Good thing she’s pretty!

Brooklyn has been wowing us and challenging us everyday.  Some of her new “tricks” – she likes to pull up her pant leg and say “Mee, Mee” (knee), she likes to find any shoes that Chris or I have left out and try to put them on her feet,

 

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She also likes to hug her brother and when she sees him she says “bebe, bebe” (baby), which is funny because we always call him Liam or Brother.

 

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And then we have Liam who isn’t doing much that is new but is still the best at what he does – SMILE!

 

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I can’t believe that by this time next year he will be walking and talking just like Brooklyn is now.  Oh the fun we’ll have!  Yesterday Chris finally put together the slide my mom gave us for Brooklyn.  It’s more of an outside toy but it works in her playroom for the winter – she absolutely LOVES it!

 

 

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