Blue Steel

Davis loves to style his own hair. He will stand in front of the mirror with the spray bottle and a comb for half and hour. He combs to the left, then he combs to the right. For a long time he wanted Wilbur Robinson hair from the movie Meet The Robinsons. I don't know whose hair he is trying to copy now, but he makes it work. He also has the "Blue Steel" look from Zoolander. Davis has had no formal training in modeling the "Blue Steel" look, but I have found information on line for those that want to learn how to do this. Click here to learn more.

Beef Jerky Smoothies

When I was pregnant with Tess it was summer and very hot. All I wanted to eat/drink were fruit and fruit smoothies. My sister Cherie, and her friend Satchie came to stay for a few weeks before I had Tess. The night before I went into labor, I made smoothies. I used the basic recipe I always used: yogurt, ice cubes, fruit and juice. Nothing crazy. Well, this time it just didn't taste right. The smoothies tasted like hot dogs, and beef jerky. I am not even kidding. They were disgusting. I cried blah blah. Mike took us out to Jamba after we threw the beef jerky smoothies down the drain. Ever since then Davis has loved Jamba Juice. Cherie FINALLY paid up on a bet we had for a Jamba smoothie. She gave us a gift card Wednesday night, and Thursday morning the kids were begging to go. So thanks Cherie for the smoothies.

Carrots

I made some carrot softies for Easter.

Don't be fooled by their shyness. They are a lot more spunky in person.

New pair of shoes

Last Saturday, I went on a date with Davis. He does chores around the house to earn stickers. When he has 15 stickers he gets to go on a one on one day with Mom or Dad. Davis decided he wanted to go to the pet store to check out the hamsters. Davis has been saving money for the last eight months to put towards a hamster. Which, by the way, he has already names Jonathan. We drew a line on a mason jar and told him when his money gets to the line we would go get Jonathan. Davis told me on the way to the pet store he would know the right hamster because it would look at him. I told him we weren't ready to buy the pet yet, but we could go look. No hamsters looked at us, but Davis was okay. I think he wants this pet just for the cool plastic pet houses. I talked to one of the store employees about getting a hamster vs. guinea pig, and she said guinea pigs are really stinky. Davis heard this and was totally grossed out. I am pretty sure whatever we end up with I will be taking sole care for it. I don't know about this pet ownership thing. I'm not sure I can handle one more dirty thing to clean up after, the kids are bad enough.

After the pet store, we went to the shoe store. Our family is going to vacation in St. George this weekend and the kids needed hiking/running shoes. Davis tried several pairs on and tested them in the store. He settled on the blue with fluorescent green. We picked shoes for Tess, and how could we go wrong with silver and pink. Davis and Tess are so excited about their shoes, they both wanted to wear them to church. Funny kids...

This pineapple pin belonged to my Grandma Mothe. This is the same grandma that had the pineapple chair. I had this pineapple pinned to the lapel of one of my jackets for quite a few years. Last winter I donated my jacket and put the pin away in my jewelry box. I thought I would give it some limelight again and share it with you. I love the suede green leaves. Very vintage, very cool.

Happy Earth Day

I watched an Oprah show a couple of years ago on Earth Day. I decided I wanted to "Go Green." There are so many easy things to help your family be earth friendly. I love using my Harmon's reusable groccery bag. Just about every store sells some kind of reusable bag for about $1 a piece. I starting using earth friendly laundry deterget, and house hold cleaners. Switching from dryer sheets to liquid fabric softener helps the earth too. Dryer sheet don't decompose very quickly or easily.

You can google your local recycling program to see what your city offers.

Draper City:

Please use your recycle container(s) for the following recyclable items only:
Cardboard (milk cartons, drink boxes, cereal & shoe boxes, corrugated boxes, etc.)
Paper (printing/writing paper, pamphlets, brochures, file folders, card stock, etc.
Newspaper (the entire newspaper is okay - just check for sticky labels or glues)
Phone Books
Magazines & Catalogs (Slick colored papers are okay)
Brown Paper Bags
Aluminum Cans
Tin/Steel Cans
Plastics Bottles No.1 & 2 (Consisting of two liter pop bottles, milk jugs, water bottles, laundry detergent bottles, any other plastic bottle labeled No.1 & No.2)

Collin's BIG sad day.

This morning was Collin's big day. He and I left the house a little after 5 am and headed for Primary Children's Hospital. Collin has had constant ear infections since he was 2 months old. After talking with our pediatrician and visiting an ENT (ear, nose, throat) doctor, we decided putting tubes in his ears was a good idea. I struggled with it because I couldn't fathom putting my baby to sleep under general anaesthesia. Over the past few days, Collin, has been exceptionally happy and talkative. I had second thoughts about the surgery.

Last night I was so nervous I think I made myself sick. I was prepping Mike on where to go in case I couldn't go. I was worried about Collin being hungry in the night because they didn't want him eating anything after midnight. My anaesthesia handout said you shouldn't eat before a surgery because the anaesthesia relaxes your stomach muscles. This in turn cause things to come back out of it... I never knew that. Collin survived the night with a binky, and my nervousness cleared up enough to take Collin in.

When I got to the same-day surgery check in I couldn't believe how busy it was. Lots of tired babies, Moms and Dads. When we went back the nurse was very sweet to Collin, she even blew bubbles for him while the machine took his heart rate and blood pressure stats. Then we changed him into a hospital gown and socks. His hospital gown was a cuddly pajama fabric with a koala bear and kitty on the front. The socks are just like the ones adults get during a stay in the hospital. Collin's didn't have grips in the bottom, but the bigger socks did. We were then moved to the "Toy room." This is where everyone waited for their doctors to come talk to them before surgery. It was like a big meet and greet, lots of hustle and bustle. The toddlers and older kids got to ride to this room in a wagon, or in a plastic car. Collin was too little, and could care less at this time.

The staff was so great. I wondered if they are always like this, or if they could tell I was about to cry every time one of them talked to me. The anaesthesiologist took Collin to the operating room, and I went to the family waiting room. I was in there feeling so sad, and I heard a dad checking in to the waiting room. He couldn't remember the name of his baby's doctor. The receptionist was trying to find his name on her list. He told her his baby was having open heart surgery, and she found his name on the list. She said, "Oh you've done this before, go ahead and leave your stuff on the chair." He was going to get something to eat. I then felt really foolish for crying over ear tubes, when his little one was having such a serious surgery, and not for the first time. After hearing this I cried even more and harder.

Collin's doctor came to get me a short 15 minutes after I left him. I was relieved all was well. It was a good thing we did the surgery, his ears were full of infection. I guess Collin was learning to deal with the pain because I thought he was doing alright. The poor guy didn't wake up happy and it took 20 minutes for the Tylenol to kick in. I am so happy we are home, and now it's off to nap with Collin.

Afraid of commitment

When Mike and I were first married we went to Target to pick up some household items. We stood in front of the salt and pepper shakers for over and hour. We didn't know what our design style was and were to afraid to commit to something. (Yes, we are still talking about salt and pepper shakers.) We left with plain ball shakers. The salt was white and the pepper was black.

Shortly after the shaker incident I decided I wanted to paint our bathroom yellow. I don't know if anyone else has painted, but colors look different from paper to the wall, not to mention lighting in the room and size of the room. Let's just say the yellow bathroom was brighter than the noon day sun. Mike has been very skeptical of my color judgement every since. (sorry no photo available, but if the was one it would be too bright to even look at.)

When Mike and I started putting our yard together, choosing plants wasn't any easier than choosing the salt and pepper shakers. We had a gift card to a local nursery to use on plants and trees. We thought we would get trees because they were the most expensive. When we couldn't decide on a tree we loved, we started looking at the plants for our flower beds. This got us no where, so we left. I went back two more times and brought nothing home. Finally I told Mike I was going to make a decision. I walked through the nursery and just bought anything that was a perennial. I didn't want to have to do this again. I haphazardly picked this and that.

I have some pictures here of a plant I picked that day. I absolutly love it, but have no idea what it is called. I think it is a succulent and it's definitely tough enough for the winters at our house. Does any one know what this plant is, or how I can find out? I want to plant more of these, but havn't seen them anywhere since.

Taking flight

Davis is flying so fast he is almost a blurr!

Angry Toast

Davis and I were having fun thinking of things to make into softies. We thought toast would be a good one. While he was sleeping I made "Toastie" and set her on his bed. In the morning he was so excited. He renamed it to "Butter Toast Man." I thought the toast was a girl, but Davis decided he was a boy. He has angry eyes because he was toasted ;)

Augustos save some room for later!

To the left is Augustus Gloop from the

1971 Mel Stuart film

Willy Wonka

And The Chocolate Factory

To the right is our little Collin.

Isn't the resemblance striking!

Easter Festivites

This was the first year I colored eggs with the kids. I didn't want to end up with dozens of hard boiled eggs, so we decorated plastic eggs too. The kids had a good time adding googly eyes and stickers to them.

On Easter Sunday we went to Grandma's house for dinner and an egg hunt. The kids were looking forward to hunting for eggs. We went to a neighborhood egg hunt in Saturday and were really disappointed with the way things turned out. Davis didn't get any eggs at all! He cried when we left, and while we were at home that afternoon he would spontaneously burst into tears because he was so heart broken.

I wanted to get a nice picture of the kids in their Easter outfits, but there wasn't enough time before church in between breakfast, egg hunting and showering. So by the time we got them together for a picture it was just before dinner and Collin wasn't really into a photo shoot.

The kids looked so cute. Tess loved her dress, which made me really happy. I made Davis' tie from a pattern I found on the purl bee. It was super easy. I was going to make Collin one too, but thought he might eat it and make it look slobbery. I ended up making him a bow tie and it was perfect. The dress and ties are all made from Amy Butler's daisy chain fabric.

I think I am going to make it an Easter tradition to make the boys a tie and Tess a dress. Well, at least as long as they will let me.

Food coloring and the park

The weather has been really nice in Price this week. We have been spending a lot of time at the park. There are two playgrounds next to each other. One of them has sand and the other has wood chips. The kids choose the playground with the sand so they can dig. We brought buckets and shovels and they think they are at the beach. Davis keeps asking when we are going to the real beach. I might have to plant a seed in Mike's head for a beach vacation.

Why is it more exciting to eat colored food? My kids have been requesting food with fun colors. We have been coloring our vanilla yogurt, and this morning I had to think of something else to color. We decided to color our butter and I let the kids paint it on their toast. It worked out quite nicely.

Tess is addicted to cheese. She ate all the string cheese I brought down the first day we were here. She saw my grated mozzarella cheese for lasagna and wanted that. Today she was crying for cheese and all I have left is grated parmesan. She didn't even hesitate to eat it and asked for a spoon. You would have thought she was eating ice cream. I know her Aunt Rachael ate parmesan cheese like this too. It must be genetic I think ;)

Surf's Up

I recently read a little magazine article about these surfing rats in Hawaii. There were newspaper articles about them all the way to the U.K. That's not something you see everyday. Check out this You Tube footage of a couple of mice in Australia riding waves. Pretty funny.

Butterfinger Tornado

While Mike was traveling in Kansas he stopped in a local diner for dessert. That night when we spoke on the phone he couldn't stop telling me how good this dessert was. We decided to recreate it at home, and this is the recipe that we came up with...

Ingredients:
1 quart vanilla ice cream
4 Butterfinger candy bars










Crush up your candy bars in a food processor or smash it in a plastic bag. You want them to be the consistancy of bread crumbs.






Next, in blender, mix one quarter of crushed Butterfinger bar and the quart of ice cream. This will be really thick, but don't be tempted to add any milk.








Now grab some glasses and start layering! You start with a layer of Butterfinger crumbs. Next add a layer of your ice cream. Alternate layers until you fill your glass. This makes approximatley 4 (1 cup) servings.




You can substitute any candy, or cookie for the Butterfinger and it would still be really yummy.