The weekend

Friday was a very exhausting day. The girls and I worked from 7:45-4:30. The kids in my class at school were all very cranky, and it was a stressful day. Luckily for me Ryan got off of work early and came and picked the girls up. It's so fun to see them with their daddy. It was really weird to have no kids at school with me, I felt like I should have been at home. After that I came home and made dinner. Later that evening the missionaries came over for dinner and then to spend the night. That was fun. We have sister missionaries, and I love it. During Dinner Ryan did something to make Kaitlyn mad (I don't remember what) and Kaitlyn said "NO... twooo". It was hilarious. She was counting for her daddy. I guess I count a lot when she's in trouble. It just made me laugh so hard. After we had dinner the girls went to bed and the sisters and I played games while Ryan went and worked on his desk project (it's almost done!). The sisters and I had so much fun. We played scrabble, and used all the letters in the box! I thought that was pretty cool. Here's our board and a picture of the sisters:




The sisters and I had fun turning our game into a gospel activity. Most of the words worked, but I don't think we could have found Goon in the bible. lol. After that we played 2 truths and a lie. I had such a great time. Other than enrichment night, I don't get adult girl time, so I really enjoyed the evening.
Saturday morning Ryan went out with the sisters. He's the branch mission leader, so he works with them a lot. Most of the rest of the day was spent with me resting. I was so worn out after Friday's busy day.
On Sunday we had stake conference, which means no nursery for Kaitlyn, just 2 hours of sitting. That is always hard for her. Plus stake conference is in Madison, about a 2 hour drive. So Sunday was rough for Kaitlyn. She only took a half hour nap all day. That meant an incredibly cranky 2yr old.
Guess what!!!! On Monday Kaitlyn had a GREAT day at school! YAAAAYYYY! No listening to my little girl scream and cry for her momma for hours on end. It was wonderful. I can't believe how much of a better day I had because she was doing well. Yay for my baby FINALLY adjusting. Hopefully she will do as well on Friday.
And for a new Kaitlyn story. She defiantly keeps me on my toes. Kaitlyn has discovered the microwave. She LOVES the microwave. She can open it, close it, turn it on, and set the timer. She is very good at using it. That means I am constantly running to the kitchen to see what new thing she has cooked. Besides a few food experiments the first object she cooked was a spatula, a plastic spatula, which melted. Due to the intense, HORRIBLE smell I didn't get a picture. The second was a CD. Yes, a CD. In case you didn't know it's made of metal. The CD was only in there for 2 seconds before I could get to it. In those two seconds sparks were flying! It looked really cool, but I like my microwave, so I took it out as quickly as possible! This is what a CD looks like after being defrosted in the microwave for 2 seconds:




That story reminded me of another. Kaitlyn also loves the stove, oven, and the dishwasher. She knows how to put a pan on the stove put food and water in it, turn the stove on (although she doesn't know which knob goes to which burner, making it even scarier), how to turn the oven on, how to open the oven, how to open the dishwasher, how to close and lock it. I once found a towel she hid in the dishwasher. After I do a load of dishes she likes to help unload. (yay) The bad thing is she sometimes starts with out me, and invariably finds the sharp knives first. It's a miracle she hasn't yet cut herself. On to my story. The other day I was making a batch of cookies. I had never made this kind before and they were dark, so it was hard to tell when they were done, because they were already brown. So I set the timer, cooked them. Timer rang, I checked the cookies not done, put them in for a few more mins. Set the timer, timer rang, still not done... I repeated this like 3 times before I was like what the heck why aren't these cookies done yet!! (picture me ready to pull my hair out) I had set the oven on 350, and even preheated the oven (a rarity for me)but little miss Kaitlyn had at some point turned it down to 100. No wonder the cookies weren't cooking.
As you can probably tell Kaitlyn's FAVORITE room is the kitchen. I just keep telling myself, maybe one day she'll be an extraordinary chef, and she'll make lots of meals for me. Maybe, hopefully. lol. Now maybe your 2 yrd old won't sound so bad, or you'll have some similar stories and know your not alone. I love my girls!
P.S. I heard there are microwave and stove locks at Wal-mart. I'm defiantly going to check that out!

President Hinckley

Our Latter Day Prophet, President Gordon B Hinckley passed away Sunday evening. He was a wonderful man, a great leader, and an inspired prophet of God. I'm so thankful to him for guiding our church durring the last 12 years. I know he is happy to be reunited with his sweet wife once again. I'm sure the angles sang and he was welcomed with loving arms. I will miss this wonderful man of God. I know that our Savior has not left us with out leadership, he has prepared a new leader and prophet. I'm exctied to hear his testimony, and gain mine of our new prophet.

A novel

A LOT has happened since the last time I did a real post. So I’m not going to write about everything. The day after we found out I was pregnant I got a phone call from the day care 3 houses down wanting to know if I wanted an interview. This was a complete surprise. I had turned in a resume in August because we were not meeting ANYONE and the girls and I were going CRAZY! So, anyway I was very surprised by this. What a blessing it has been though. Ryan and I were worried about finances, and I was still having a hard time meeting people. So I took the job. The girls and I now go to “school” 2-3 times a week. This is a picture of the girls before their first day of school:



Yes, Emily is ceying in this picture, but I had to get a first day of school picture.
Well, it has been good for me. I really like getting out of the house and being around adults during the day. It does however leave me EXHAUSTED on those days. The bad part is Kaitlyn is not doing so well. I had hoped she would enjoy playing with other kids, since we hardly ever have play dates here, but she just cries for mom the WHOLE time, I’m talking hours. I don’t know how her teachers don’t throw her across the room. I feel so bad for them. Emily does ok. She doesn’t sleep very well there, and is pretty clingy, but other than that she’s good. She is so much calmer than Kaitlyn, it’s amazing they’re related. As for the money, after paying for child care for the girls, I get paid almost $3 an hour. Pretty sad, but still worth it. Crazy huh.

So as far as my pregnancy goes, I have been doing very well. I am 10 weeks and so far I have only been sick once, and that was the flu. I’m defiantly counting my blessings there. The only hard part has been emotionally. I am beyond exhausted everyday and I have a can’t do attitude that is driving me crazy. I’m normally a very can do person so this feeling that I can’t do anything is very frustrating. So with the new pregnancy, the new job, and my way fun can’t do attitude (heavy sarcasm) not much has been getting done around here. Hence, no blog long time. If I can convince the girls to relax, this is how I would spend the day:



Just laying on the couch cuddling with my 2 girls. Of course they hardly ever want to just sit still. Oh well, can’t blame a mom for trying.

Other new news, Emily is an official crawler. In fact it has been so long, that she now is pulling up on things and standing up, her new favorite thing. Emily started crawling just before Christmas and really picked it up over the break. A few days ago I was reading some blog’s and she crawled under my chair and got stuck. I thought it was really cute, especially since Kaitlyn had done the same thing a few years ago!



I have searched all the pictures and can’t find the one of Kaitlyn. I was excited to see them at about the same age, doing the same thing. Oh well. For the first time yesterday, Emily pulled herself up to standing in her crib. It was so adorable. When Kaitlyn did it for the first time Ryan and I freaked out and video taped her and took pictures. I had to get one of Emily too.



While we were in Texas we had a great time. The only thing that sucked was the entire time we were there someone was sick. Emily and I started everyone off the night we got into Texas. After that it went through our whole family, Ryan’s family, My family, Mindy’s family (Ryan’s sister) and Katrina’s family (Ryan’s sister). I felt so bad. Then After all that Emily got pneumonia. Poor girl. I think we were all ready to go home and stop being sick. It was so nice to be pampered when I was sick though. Ryan’s mom took great care of us and the girls.




Poor Emily didn’t feel well most of the time we were in Texas. While I was in Texas a bunch of my high school friends got together. It was fun to see everyone and the kids running around. Aria and Mandy both weren’t able to come, but we had Krista, Stephanie, Adrienne, Suzanne, Jenny, and Me. Between the 6 of us there were 5 babies and 2 on the way. It’s crazy how much everyone has grown up. This is the group of us girls.



The only one not in the picture is my mom, how took the picture and Emily, but I figure you know what she looks like. We had a nice time, and I’m glad so many were able to come. Adrienne, Suzanne, and I all live out of state- in different states, so it was cool we were all there together.

We did lots of fun stuff, but I didn’t take many pictures. Kaitlyn was attached at the hip to bomp pa (Grandpa D). She wanted to go everywhere with him and had a great time hanging out with him. It was really cute. When Ryan was a toddler he did the same thing to his Grandpa Fox. This is Kaitlyn playing in the couch next to her bomp pa.



The girls loved playing with their cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. This is Emily with her cousin Collin



Ryan is 30! Ryan had his birthday on the 15th. He is such a wonderful man, great husband, and amazing father. I am so lucky to have him for eternity. He takes such good care of our family, and I love to watch him play with our girls. We went out as a family for dinner at our favorite restaurant in town, twin dragons. You would think that Chinese would suck here because there isn’t much diversity, but this place is AWESOME, we love it. In fact, I came home from work one day, completely worn out and my sweet husband ran and got us take out from there. He certainly knows how to make me feel better! Ryan loves to snowboard, so I told him I’d watch the girls all day on a Saturday so he could go snowboarding for his birthday. He was very excited about it, but that next Saturday was WAY to cold to go. He decided to build something instead. So, he is now making a computer desk for us, and having a wonderful time doing it! It’s turning out very nicely. I think he just has to wait for it to warm up a little before he stains it. When it’s finished I’ll post a pic. It’s pretty cool.

And now for some Kaitlyn stories. If you know my sweet Kaitlyn, you know there is always a new story with her.
The other day we had a very lazy day, so I didn’t dress Kaitlyn. When Ryan put her down for nap, we put some pj shorts on her so she wouldn’t take her diaper off. When she woke up she was quiet for a long time, so I went to check on her, this is what I found



She had taken off her shorts, attempted to put on a night dress, and in one hand she had her blankie and in the other was a purse she had packed full of panties. What a goof ball. I had a pretty good laugh about that one.

Kaitlyn loves to move the chairs from the table all around the house, to anywhere she can get into something. Usually it’s the sink to play in the water. Recently she has discovered that she can climb up onto the counter. The first time I found her she was sitting on the counter with a container of Tums dumped out between her legs, happily eating her new found “candy” . She was also experimenting with what happens when you soak them in water. I almost had a heart attack when I found her. She had gotten into our medicine cabinet and gotten into some medicine! This is one of every moms worst nightmares. So I quickly took them all away and called her doctor. Luckily it was just Tums and the nurse said she would be ok. I was having nightmare thoughts of having to take her to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. SCARY. This is what I found today:



On the top shelf is a cookie jar that we moved off the counter because she kept getting into it. She is consistently asking for candy. I’m just glad Ryan put it on the top shelf, if not she might have knocked it down on her self. I don’t know what I’m going to do with this girl! I sure do love her though.

Chocolate Raspberry Cake

A friend from Iowa posted this on her blog. I imediatley thought of my mom, she LOVES Raspberries. I haven't tried it yet but it sounds delicious. This is what she had to say about it;

"So I tried out this recipe, and oh my word, it is to die for. After I told Cameron the secret ingredient, he was hesitant to try it (baby food), but once he did, he ate most of it by himself. It is so moist and good, you would never know it was light."

Hope you enjoy!

chocolate cake with raspberry filling
Canyon Ranch Cooks | 2003

Servings: Makes 16 servings.

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 4-ounce jar baby food carrot puree
1 4-ounce jar baby food prune puree
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon pure almond extract
2 tablespoons brewed coffee
1 whole egg
1 egg white
1 1-ounce square unsweetened baking chocolate, melted
1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup nonfat fudge sauce
1/2 cup raspberry all-fruit preserves
1/4 cup nonfat fudge sauce
Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly coat a 9-inch cake pan with canola oil. Dust with flour.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

3. In a medium bowl, combine buttermilk, carrot and prune puree, extracts, coffee, and eggs. Beat lightly to mix. Combine with dry ingredients, using an electric mixer on low. Add melted unsweetened chocolate and beat on medium until glossy and smooth. Fold in chocolate chips.

4. Pour into prepared cake pan and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Place on rack and cool.

5. Invert cake onto dry surface and slice in half horizontally. Spread raspberry preserves on bottom layer. Replace top and frost with nonfat fudge sauce. Slice into 16 servings.
Nutritional Information

Each serving contains approximately 135 calories, 26 gm. carbohydrate, 3 gm. fat, 15 mg. cholesterol, 3 gm. protein, 153 mg. sodium, and 2 gm. fiber.

Surprise!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I hope everyone is having a great time. We have had a great time, but I'll write about that another day. So it is official our little family of 4 is growing. I am pregnant and baby number 3 is due Aug. 19th. We are very excited and a little nervous about our new addition. Ryan REALLY REALLY REALLY wants a boy. He feels there is too much estrogen in the house. I think why ruin a good thing? We're good at girls, plus I'm terrified of having a boy. Lol. I really do want another girl, but I'll be happy for Ryan if he gets his boy. This means that Julia and I get to be pregnant together! Coarse she's much further along. If this one is a boy then he'll be happy cause all of his cousins are boys! Julia's baby is a boy and Mindy already has 3. I guess it would be fun, maybe I can have a boy. I guess we'll see in a few months. Merry Christmas all!

Catch up, again

So lots happened since the last time I blogged. Unfortunately I have a pretty bad memory so I really only blog about the things I take pictures of. The rest gets lost somewhere up in my head. I do know it has snowed TONS and the snow hasn't melted yet. I actually have helped shovel the driveway 3 times already. I was pretty proud of myself the first time. I felt like supper mom. Ryan couldn't shovel before work, so I thought I'd surprise him by shoveling the whole driveway for him! So I bundled the girls and I up and we went outside. Emily just cried the whole time, until I put her in bed and she went to sleep. Kaitlyn wasn't even almost interested in playing in the snow (she must get that from me). She just wanted to help mom shovel. We got half the driveway finished and then she realized that she could run strait out into the street. And she did, like three times in a row before I gave up and we came inside. So I only got half finished, but Ryan was still pretty impressed when he got home. I have to say it is a lot of work! It's not easy to lift that shovel full of snow and throw it wherever it goes. I think we are going to have to invest in a snow blower in a few years. I'd say now, but they're like $400! We've made a couple of friends in this town (yea!) So one of the weeks we were house bound we invited friends to come and play with us a couple of times. The first one was a family with 2kids each just older than my 2. They all get along well and have lots of fun, so we like to hang out with them. Her husband is a preacher for a church in town. It's so interesting to get to know how that all works (our church has a lay ministry-they don't get paid). I don't think I've ever known a preachers wife. It has been really fun getting to know them. And it's nice because they have the same standards as us. Unfortunately we just found out they are moving to Missouri just after Christmas, so we are bummed about that, but it's a good opportunity for their family. The church there has a parish (sp?) which means they'll have a house to live in. So different. Anyway when they were over, Isabelle the girl about a year older than Kaitlyn and Kaitlyn had fun playing dress up and then playing in her toy boxes. I couldn't get the two of them still long enough for a picture, so this is the best I could get.



Pretty sad, but you can almost see Isabelle. They also have a little boy that's a few months younger than Kaitlyn. His name is Isaiah. He is SO cute. He's Kaitlyn's age, but he's very short and not chunky, so it looks so cute when he walks around. He looks like a skinny 8 mo. old baby that can run and play like Kaitlyn. Poor kid though, Kaitlyn just takes everything away from him and bullies him a little. Later that week we had the Stauders over. Danni (the mom) is one of those women who never stops moving. She has 3 children, The oldest (Emily) is a kindergartner, but Danni home teaches her and she is as smart as like a 3rd grader, it's amazing, then she has Noah who is a home school preschooler and is at least up to kindergarten level, plus little Lilly who's Kaitlyn's age. Not only does she have very smart kids, that she teaches herself, but she also always has a clean house. AND she is the president or runner (I'm not sure of the title) of MOPS, a group I go to once a month. MOPS stands for mothers of preschoolers. We (the moms) have a discussion, a guest speaker, an art project, and food, while the children are in other age appropriate rooms with child care provided. She does all of this plus little field trips (educational of coarse) for her kids. She's amazing. So anyway, I'm sure she wouldn't care, but I feel like the house has to be clean and everything in order before I invite her over. That doesn't happen very often! Usually I just go over to her house. But this time I had her come over. I was so proud of myself. I had the house clean (as long as you didn't look in the bedrooms or at the dirty dishes) and I had an activity in mind for the kids. Pretty amazing. So anyway they came over and we all had a great time. My project for the kids was making gingerbread houses. I got Gram crackers and icing for the kids. They each had a little container of icing and pretty much just ate it as a snack. I figured that would be how it went, but we had fun anyway. Emily and I made little houses and then ate them.






And for the random pictures of the day. Kaitlyn likes to find interesting and new ways to eat her food. This particular morning she was putting Kix on her toes and then using her toes as a spoon to eat them. Crazy girl.





Here is Kaitlyn dressing up like Daddy! She is such a Daddy's girl.

December

It’s hard to believe that it’s already December, even with all the SNOW outside. It has already snowed 3 times here in Lancaster. I have to admit I was not one bit sad to miss the first one while we were in Texas. It had even all melted by the time we got back. We defiantly have been here for the last two though. On Friday we got a call from the Relief Society president saying church was to be canceled on Sunday due to the storm coming in. I don’t think I’ve heard of church being canceled in advance before, but it defiantly was a good thing. We got a huge storm on Sat. It snowed for the first part and then turned to freezing rain. Which meant there was a layer of snow and then a layer of ice on everything! It made shoveling much harder for poor Ryan and our upstairs neighbor. On Sunday we went outside to play in it. Kaitlyn was so excited and Emily was just kind of like whatever. We bundled everyone up and headed out doors. It was the weirdest feeling because normally when you step in snow you sink down a few inches right away, but because of the ice in was delayed. So you’d step down and then a few seconds later you would sink a few inches. Very interesting feeling. Anyway Kaitlyn didn’t really know what to do. It was hard to walk and you couldn’t play with the snow, but she managed to have a good time before coming in. Here’s some pictures of us braving the weather. (there was a bitter cold wind that afternoon)






A close up of Kaitlyn’s snow pants booty. Ryan and I got a kick out of this!



My husband looking super handsome as he shoveled our driveway! The first ones my favorite.





Yesterday (Tuesday) during the evening we got another layer of snow. 6 more inches. Pretty crazy. Ryan was supposed to drive up to Prarie for a meeting last night. I was very glad they found somene in Prarie to go. Ryan wasn't too worried about it but just thinking of sending him out in that storm for a 45 (in good weather) min drive made my chest squeese together and I couldn't breathe very well. So I said a huge thanks to Heavenly Father when another priesthood holder was able to go instead.

On Saturday we put up our Christmas tree and decorations. It was really fun. Last year my aunt Sheri gave me a bunch of PURPLE tree decorations. I LOVE them. Purple is by far my favorite color. So we have a very cool purple tree this year.
It’s a little fuzzy, but you can see the pretty purple bows.



I also decorated our mantle. I love having one. My favorite Christmas decorations are nativities. I LOVE them. I so want a particular one my mom has from when I grew up. It never was quite Christmas until it was set up. Over the past 3 Christmas’ I have been slowly collecting some. I’m proud to say I have 3 already. And I love them all. So here’s our Christmas mantle.



Kaitlyn had fun playing with the stockings before I put them up. She decided to wear them so I got a quick picture.



Kaitlyn discovered that if she dumped all the toys out of one of the toy bins, it makes a perfect play toy. This entertained her for quite a while.





And another thing turned into a toy. I had cleaned this out and given it to her to use a drum, but she found a much more fun use for it.



And I don’t feel like I post enough pictures of Emily so here’s a couple.

What a look




Enjoy!