Sunday Photo Shoot

So I thought that this past Sunday, the kids looked TOO TOO adorable in their cute Spring/Easter duds. Fortunately, Kate was being SUPER cooperative and I got some adorable pictures of my little princess. Unfortunately, Dallin was not. The above picture was the best one of them together. Enjoy!
He was so absolutely adorable that I HAD to get some pictures of him all dressed up. The only way I could get him to stand still and look at me was if he was holding Kate's hand....hence the floating hand in all the pictures.
Thoughtful AND handsome!
Got A LOT of this. I don't know why he was so ticked on this particular afternoon. Normally, I can't get a decent picture of Kate on a Sunday.
Here is Kate's cutie patootie butterfly hairdo. It is our quick fix when we want to look really fancy and are out of time before church.
See! See my dress! The mice made it! I am Cinderyeya!
What a beautiful princess! I really do like having a girly girl (most days....NOT the days we fight ALL DAY long because she won't wear anything but her best dress). She is even getting big enough to wear some of the beautiful jewelry her Grandma Faye has sent her (notice her pretty necklace and bracelet!)
LOVE MY WONDERFUL KIDDOS!

Remember When......Naughty Naughty Naughty

So, my children are in this nasty habit of stealing my camera and taking pictures all over the house. Dallin especially likes to pretend that he is Peter Parker and is snapping shots to sell to the newspaper. This session happened back in January. You will have to ignore the mess. Our room is never particularly clean (which I am working on changing) and my children do not know how to frame the picture so as to minimize the mess. Normally, I would not publish these messy pics, but....they are pretty funny (looking back...way way back)
Anyways, apparently on this particular day.....Dallin/Peter Parker, my naughty little photographer, terrorized the dogchased down the cat and took pictures of her under the bedtook pictures of Kate pretending to be a Princessand the piece de resistance.......they decided to open the VERY FULL paper shredder, have a "snowball fight" with the paper inside AND Dallin took pictures to make sure I knew it was them(or at least Kate). Ummmmm....haven't you ever heard of destroy the evidence. I just remember them yelling "Snowballs snowballs! It's a snowball fight" Then they came downstairs covered in paper. In case you can't tell, I had a layer like 2 inches thick of shredded paper over the ENTIRE upstairs. Paper is still migrating out of places...STILL! LOL Crazy naughty children!

Snoozin

Yep....that is Christopher sleeping on the couch under a blanket which is under the dog which is under my clean laundry. How can this be comfortable? LOL Maybe it helped that he wasn't feeling well. As for the dog....she LOVES the clean laundry straight from the dryer. Maybe I should be mad....maybe I should shoo her away and yes I realize that many non-dog lovers (and even some dog lovers) may think this is all kinds of nasty, but part of me thinks "ahhhhh clean laundry straight from the dryer" and I think that if I were a dog or could get away with it...I would snuggle under the freshly dryed laundry on the couch until it was all magically folded as well. So I simply pull bits of laundry out from under the dog until it is all folded. She always looks a little disappointed then, but she never grumbles as I rumple her toasty warm "bed". I suppose she knows that it never lasts forever.....or that laundry never ends anyways...there will ALWAYS be more! LOL

Happy, Happy Birthday, Christopher Dear!

Christopher celebrated his 29th birthday on the 19th! It is hard to believe that I have known him for 10 years now! We had a quiet celebration at home for his birthday. We opted for a late dinner so that we could have dinner WITH him when he got off work at 7. I made him his favorite foods-a seafood feast! We had king crab legs, shrimp, rice pilaf, stuffed mushrooms, tossed salad, fried asparagus, garlic cheddar biscuits, strawberries n blackberries, and pop. Yes....I took pictures of the food.....it was sooo beautiful and colorful and I doubt that I will be that ambitious again (at least not in the near future) as it took me 4 hours to prepare and loads of dishes as well. But it was DELICIOUS and it made Christopher feel special :)
Then the kids and I quickly wrapped our gifts and they were presented to Daddy for opening. I love that the kids are picking out their own gifts now (we still foot the bill a little longer). They are always sooo proud of what they picked out. I am always impressed at how intuitive they are about getting people what they would ACTUALLY want. I don't think I was that tuned in until much later.
Dallin gave Christopher a new toolbox and measuring tape. He is really into tools and building things with Daddy and seems acutely aware of every tool Daddy is missing. LOL He has already helped Christopher load up the tool box with ALL of the tools he could find in the garage. The kids also helped Daddy open his gifts....so it was hard to get a good picture of JUST Christopher....too many little heads LOL Kate got Christopher a new belt. It was a very nice brown/black reversible belt. She always likes to get Daddy clothes and likes picking them out herself. This time the belt was a little small (but Christopher didn't let on...hopefully we can get it exchanged). I got Christopher a BlueRay copy of "The Phantom" and a DVD of Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. It was a fun family evening and Christopher was able to relax and get lots of birthday wishes from family! :) It really made for a special evening.
I made Christopher a homemade Splenda apple pie. It is soooo good. I even got creative with my crust and put a 29 on the top! He was too stuffed to eat any, but I took his picture anyways and the kids sang Happy Birthday.On Saturday evening, we went to my parents home for Christopher's BIG family birthday dinner. It is a fun tradition that when your birthday comes around, you get to pick what you want for Sunday (or in this case Saturday dinner) and everybody brings you presents. Christopher picked BBQ steaks. The weather was somewhat uncooperative...VERY COLD! But my dad, the grillmaster, managed to turn out some wonderful steaks, pork chops, chicken legs, and sausage! My mom also made baked potatoes, broccoli, rolls, orange salad, tossed salad, and strawberries. It was super good! After dinner, Christopher opened gifts. Here are the girls dancing in the living room while we sang "Happy Birthday!" He got a the 12th Wheel of Time book from Michael, Will, and Tammy. Here is Maddie giving him the gift. It was really funny because they told Maddie to go give the gift to "Uncle" so she went over and gave it to Michael. LOL He also got Final Fantasy 13 from my parents. He was a very lucky man!
Finally we had cake. My mom, in her quest for birthday perfection, made 3 DIFFERENT cakes so that everyone would be able to celebrate: a sugar free german chocolate cake for Christopher and Dad, a gluten free chocolate cake for Dallin, and a regular chocolate cake for everyone else. We sure love mom (and her delicious cakes!). It was really fun celebrating with everyone and recognizing Christopher. Happy Birthday Christopher! We love you!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

It is no surprise that with a red-headed husband and two red-headed kiddos, St Patricks Day is a celebrated holiday in our house. It includes traditions handed down from Christopher's family with a few of my ideas thrown in.
Dallin dressed himself this morning to make sure he had green on. Gotta love his outfit of choice, but we weren't going anywhere. Kate realized almost too late that she had no green on so we stuck a Christmas scrunchie in her hair until she picked her "outfit" of green Tinkerbell pajamas. Yep...we are really classy some days. On a side note: Nana and Uncle Michael showed up later NOT wearing green and were greeted by LOTS of over zealous pinching fingers! LOL I finally had to call them off....it's serious business at this house! I made the kids green eggs and ham for breakfast. I am trying to be aware of food colorings in our diet, but today.....we HAD to eat some seriously green food! It was fun and the kids were so excited about it. There is something about green food though.....it is just hard to eat without thinking about rancid meat and ensuing food poisoning. I think the pictures of the kids are funny because they were totally excited about it, but the pictures make them look really concerned. LOL Dallin cleaned his plate (and part of Kate's too)
Later in the day, we built leprechaun traps. I think as the kids get older, they will each want to build their own and they will become more elaborate, but this year Kate wasn't too interested in building it. Dallin was very enthusiastic, but we did good to prop up a mini tote with a t.p. roll connected to a string. Then Dallin put some shiny yellow marbles inside to entice the leprechaun and some wadded up t.p. for his sleeping comfort. Oh yeah.....we are sooooo classy. LOL They were hoping for a pot of gold, but Dallin's big wish was the Mirror of Sashen (from American Dragon Jake Long). Apparently this mirror is used by leprechauns to switch places with another person. Hmmmmm.....I told him they don't usually carry it around.
The kids were sooooo excited when I called them in from the backyard (yes...Dallin was playing in the mud....is there anything else in the yard to do?) because their trap had been "sprung". Inside they found magic leprechaun dust (gold and green glitter-you can see it a little bit in the picture under the gold coin) and gold coins. Dallin kept jumping up and down saying "we're rich! we're rich! I can't wait to cash them in". When I pointed out they were chocolate, the disappointment didn't last too long and the snacking commenced.We finished our evening with a traditional dinner of corned beef and cabbage with potatoes. The kids are liking it more each year. They still don't have mustard on top, but they both ate up the corned beed and all their potatoes (I think some cabbage may have even gone down by mistake...lol) Dallin was practically inhaling the meat and kept calling it the "slimy roast beef". I think this is because of the fat on the meat. He really loves the "slimy roast beef!" We even had green jello for dessert.
It was a fun day and I hope to do even more next year! Happy St Patricks Day!