Happy Birthday Party Day!

My little big girl turns {THREE} on Monday!  (And W turns 28 years older than that on the same day!)

These are my girls at about the same age! Crazy huh!  It's the party day!  stay tuned for the merriment!

Wave Your Magic Wand!

We were supposed to have a visit from W's Mom and sister this weekend.  They had car trouble and aren't coming.  We were all looking forward to seeing Sarah and Gma Jan

Yesterday, M said Grandma Jan is Flora, the fairy from Sleeping Beauty.

If only she could wave her wand and still visit!  We'll miss them and hope to see them soon!!!

my 25

I have trouble filling these out when I'm only supposed to share six things!  

1. I'm the middle child of five and, to this day, people ask me if I'm older than my two brothers! (they say it's maturity level, but I must just look really old! :)

2. I was born the day before my Dad's birthday. 

3. I like to make stuff.  I make handbags, quilts, clothes for my girls.  

4. I am scared of sink disposals.  They are a necessary evil but I'm scared to death of chopping up my fingers. I blame my grandma.

5. I used to collect Bears.  I have a couple hundred of them.  I still get one every once in a while and I love them but most of them are in a trunk or in boxes.

6. My brother once convinced my cousin and his family that I got kicked out of college for smoking pot...really. me. 

7. I was the president of the Asian American Student Council in college.  It was fun and I had a lot of very interesting friends in college. nope, not even a bit Asian!

8. I once "trimmed" my left eyebrow in fifth grade thinking no one would notice if I just cut off a little. My plan failed miserably!

9. I have lived in Arkansas, Utah, and Minnesota twice.  I need to live in California again to complete the circle.

10. I married the first man I kissed.

11. I'm a speech therapist. 

12. Yes, I listen to people and analyze their speech.

13. In fact, I'm such a speech nerd that I like to write secret notes in IPA.

14. I used to be very humor-impaired. It took going to college to note take every joke literally.

15. My Mom says I should list that I graduated from college before both of my brothers :)

16. I broke my leg three times in the course of four months in ninth grade.

17. My husband and I own a house but we live with my parents.

18. I love music.  I used to hum all the time as a kid.

19. I have a few strange things wrong with me that don't bother me or affect me in any way but wreak havoc on my medical record.

20. I went to grad school in Minnesota, not really knowing anyone at all in the entire state (except for my parent's friends) and moving all by myself in with a complete stranger.

21. I used to write poetry in junior high and high school.  Now when I read it, it makes me laugh.

22. I have two beautiful daughters and always knew I'd have a bunch of girls.  

23. I'm scared to have another baby because of one of the things in #19

24. I have terrible balance and have never been able to skate or ski-ice, water, snow, you name it!

25. My father in law thinks I make the best pies in the world!

Only in Arkansas...

yes, that's right, slap me sooie!

it's good too! it has raspberry gel in it.  hat's why I picked it, not because of the razorback or the name.  that just makes it fun

If you liked the Twilight movie, or even if you didn't...

then you have to see this video! My friend Marla posted the link on her blog.  It made me laugh!

I love this movie-despite its cheesiness and the parts that shouldn't have made me laugh but did.  But it's still funny!

The crafty mamas are at it again!

while our children slept, in one fashion or another,

we made some cute dresses!

the dresses are a modified version of a friend's cute pattern!

so i had to make matching bows! i tried a new style i saw on another girl-so simple yet soooo cute!

and then we learned how to make yoyos courtesy of heather bailey!  (so easy!!)

LG and Ruby have matching skirts-but this was after the drama that was our Sunday church-so she was napping and M is sans tights and shoes-better pics next time!!

She wasn't happy about it

LG had her first bottle a week ago.  She wasn't thrilled and kept fussing and then deciding it was okay and sucking on it for a while and then fussing and then drinking for a while.   When M was bottle training, she refused to take the bottle if I was even around.  She would glare at me like "I know you've got the good stuff-you're not fooling me!" But LG actually did better when I was there holding her hand.  But it was worth it! She survived my four hour job interview and took a bottle from Grandma last week!

and yes, I kind of have a job!  I'm going to be an on-call therapist for the children's hospital here.  it's going to be slow at first, i'm not sure how much i'll actually work until a therapist is out for a maternity/medical leave and we don't know when that will be, but it's progress and it's where i want to be!

5 month LG

She's five months already!!! It's crazy how time flies!! She chews on EVERYTHING!! She drools like a maniac and she wishes her hands worked better so she could hang onto her toys and chew on them more! Then life would be really great.

except she's really weirded out by the camera.  I swear she smiles all the time, but when she sees the red-eye light, she immediately switches to this very bewildered look.  

and sometimes, the chewing requires TWO fists!

she talks and smiles and is so mellow it's wonderful

she sits up great on the couch so she should be figuring out the real sitting up soon

she loves attention-she can be squawking and complaining but once she gets your attention, she just grins!

she sleeps like a dream!  four naps and all night long! love it!

she has the absolute best cheeks in the business! they get all rosy and pink after she's done eating :)

I'm no good at the toddler age

This was me shortly after losing it because my daughter had tagged my mother's walls!!!!!!!

We were sitting at the dinner table when M showed me her red finger.  Luckily, she openly admitted to drawing on her bed and showed it to me right away.  

I was not very good at remaining calm, however.  I sometimes wish that our kids could go away when they're toddlers and come back potty trained and post-tantrum phase. Then my mom reminds me that they'd come back as adults and I feel bad. :)

Pain is weakness leaving your body!

My brother started the Police Academy this week. I never pictured him as a police officer but I think it's pretty awesome and I know he'll be pretty awesome at it.  

The title is a quote that is on the wall in the training center.  poor guy, they actually aim to inflict pain! good luck!

ps-I thought the inauguration was wonderful!! 

A big week

It was my brother's 16th birthday! scary!!!!  I cannot cannot cannot believe that he's sixteen already.  

Teriney was sworn in as a citizen of the USA.  Our friend did a much better post on it here. 

This is LG before my kids started to implode at the restaurant!!

And here's my yummy picture of the yummy food-apparently we both thought it was picture worthy. 

It was also the anniversary of my grandpa's death and my other grandpa's first birthday since his passing.  

Last week was an eventful one at our house

when they weren't screaming or hitting each other today...

...they were the best of friends!

Only in Arkansas

I followed a car the other day with the following bumper sticker

Squirrel: It's Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

Classic

C'est La Vie!

We had family pictures taken over Thanksgiving!  I wish we'd been able to get the girls to look in the same direction more, but the pictures they take are always wonderful!  

Which are your favorites?

The Hit List

We are all still enjoying the generous presents we received this holiday.

I'm loving having a functional ipod again and hoping that it starts to motivate me to work out more...

We cannot go anywhere, even home, without W's GPS.  I guess it was a spur of the moment present from my Dad and it was kind of a tongue-in-cheek joke really because W gets so mad when he's lost, but W {loves} this thing! Her name is Mabel because she sounds like a chain smoker and he loves taking orders from her!

Refer to the previous new year's post for M's favorite present.  She is in {love} with dressing up!  She wants to be a princess every single day and changes her clothes multiple times during the day.  But this toy kit was another good hit!

And LG? Well, let's face it, she's too little to care about Christmas and doesn't know her new toys from her old...so as long as it fits in her mouth, she's happy! (stay tuned for her real favorite toy story, the mammary pig!)

So, if you have a music lover and hummer, a directionally challenged person, a princess, or an orally fixated baby and need a good gift idea, I highly recommend any of the above!!

The Princess Potty Diaries, the sequel

...or are we on book three by now??

We're back on the wagon and it's rolling! We have good days and bad days but in general, M is getting better at going on the potty.  She still saves it all up, especially poop, for naptime, but we'll deal with that as she gets older!

In other news, we discovered that LG gets very worried when she gets zerberts on her tummy.  Which her cousin Hazel is very happy to distribute and Ruby is just as happy to watch and giggle at!

how exactly do you spell zerbert????

Here's your video for today

Enjoy your newest way to get 8000 calories...in one meal!

my "secret" faith

While we spent much of 2008 in Utah, I have spent much of my life outside of Utah, and many of you (my family and friends and readers) are not of my faith.  I was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon) and my sweet husband joined the church when he was sixteen.  My Dad shared an NPR excerpt about our faith that I enjoyed.   I love that I have gathered many friends who are different from me all over the nation so that I have learned from them and hopefully them from me. Enjoy!

I heart rick rack!

I'm in LOVE with my newest creation!! I wanted a "winter" diaper bag and so used some fabric that I had on hand. I love love love it!

And look! I made pockets!!!

Can I tell you how stinkin' proud of my pockets I am??? :)

This last one is the secret project I made for my Mom's macbook. It's a computer bag and I'm pretty proud of it as well! It needs some minor modifications and then I'll post detailed pics because it took some brainpower to figure out how to do this one! In the meantime, I get a lovely new diaper bag!

We Miss Gracie!

Gracie went back to BYU-I last weekend and we miss her! All of us! I miss someone to help me with my girls all the time and my girls miss their favorite person!!

Holidays

I was so bound and determined to take pictures of our parties this week but I sooo failed! So you get a picture I found from the internet and a picture from a previous party! Enjoy!

New Year's Eve, the hubby, baby, baby sister and I went to my brother's house for a sushi dinner party. It was fabulous! We rolled sushi together, snacked on treats and edamame and made some mighty tasty sushi! I love love love sushi (spicy tuna rolls are my absolute fave!) and Jake did a great job hosting. He put tables on bins low to the ground so we sat on the floor and ate a low tables and it was so fun. There were a few people there who hadn't had sushi before and we got some of them hooked! We then played catchphrase and Wii and had a good new year's!


Last night was my family's annual Dia de los Reyes party! (correct me if I got the title wrong, Ire!) It did not disappoint! We serve a bunch of tapas (Spanish appetizers) and had people bring their own favorite appetizers. Everything was so tasty! We had a large fun crowd, everyone made yummy food, Jake and Dave got their Spanish food fix, everyone missed Mike and Irene, and a good time was had by all...plus some elves cleaned up the play room before they left which was the BEST surprise of all!

This is a rosca de reyes which is a traditional sweet bread "cake" that has candied fruit on top and little plastic baby Jesus dolls hidden inside. Traditionally, whoever finds the baby in their cake gets to bring the cake the next year. Ours this year was tasty dipped in Jake's chocolate (thick hot chocolate spiced with orange zest and nutmeg-very yummy but sadly the cornstarch made funny lumps-oops!).

Chocolate Mousse Cake Trifle

Several people have asked me for this recipe, so here it is, courtesy of Kathy Adams and Bobby Sevy (which means it's really really good!)

Fudge cake:
Preheat oven to 350*F and grease and flour pan or pans (I made mine in three round pans for the trifle but we've also done a 9x13 pan or two larger cirlces-they all work, you just have to watch the time it cooks more)
1 large box instant chocolate pudding
1 chocolate cake mix
1 cup sour cream (don't use low fat, go for the real stuff)
1 cup oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup warm water

Mix until smooth and add 1 cup chocolate chips. The mix is thick and fudgy. Bake 35-40 minutes...or more based on your pans.

Mousse filling:
2 cups heavy cream, whipped stiff
1/4 cup Karo syrup
1/4 cup whipping cream
1 3/4 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Whip first cream. Microwave chocolate chips and 1/4 cup cream and Karo 1 minutes, stir and microwave more if neede. Stir until smooth and let it COOL! Fold into whipped cream. Refrigerate at least four hours before layering in cake.

Icing: I LOVE love LOVE this icing!!
3/4 cup softened butter
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. almond extract
1 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup half 'n half
1/4 cup half 'n half

Melt together chocolate chips and first 1/4 cup half 'n half until smooth and let cool. Beat together the rest and add cooled chocolate. You want the chocolate still liquid and smooth but not hot enough to melt the butter!!!

Spread on layered cake, cool in fridge for 2-4 hours or overnight. It is oh so tasty and I love it!

Yes, Even GRANDPA has a Princess Movie!

Remember how everyone has their "own" princess movie?

Yesterday, Grace was putting in a movie for M. M saw Grandpa's Ironman DVD and picked it up and said, "This is Grandpa's princess movie!"

Happy 2009!

Here's to a little more laughter this year!

Here's to no more moves for a while so we can stay near family.

Here's to lots of family time

and yes, here's to more princesses!

She said the dinner prayer tonight and thanked Heavenly Father at least four times for princesses, princess food, bless the princess food, bless our princess family and cousins...you get the picture!

Happy New Year! May this year go smoother than last year!