Wrapping Things Up in 2008.........

How time flies! It's scary and sad yet exciting and hopeful. I often wish these little guys would stay babies forever. But they have so much living to do and so much to look forward to. May we all have the guidance that we need to endure, succeed, and be strong.






May our children be good friends forever.

May they remember how much daddy played with them.

May they remember how much they are loved.

May they remember a Happy childhood.

(May they forget my impatience)


May they remember my love.


May they remember hugs, kisses, and I love yous.

May they have a warm and loving home.

May they feel heard and feel special.

May they feel peace and the spirit in their hearts.

May they be brave.

May they remember fun times with mom.

May they remember how important Family is and one day have one of their own.

Christmas Update

These are some of the things the boys have been happily busy with that I thought would be driving me crazy (give it a couple months and things will probably be DI-ed). But they've been completely entertained and hey, I love gumballs....thank goodness A doesn't have a sense of ownership yet.

about 1500 little extra parts have been added to our household




3 marshmallow shooters (courtesy of Uncle Bobby, of course..... a previous year it was 2 pairs of huge boxing gloves {bobbyandloyd}.......gotta love the Uncles....this is their way of making sure the boys are raised right....ooohh can't wait till they have kids.........payback time.jk)

notice "holds 25 marshmallows for non-stop fun!" should read something like "holds 25 marshmallows for non-stop aggravation for your mom!" For those with little boys who are interested in these.......Bobby said he purchased them online. Warning......It actually stings a little when you get pegged by a marshmallow. I think Bobby might think that's cool and worth every penny then.

Nice seeing a 2 year old in this position.......what kind of kids are these Americans raising?

A is often drawn to dolls. When we're at the toy store, the older boys look at legos and A turns his back to them to play with the dolls. He chose the one above and I was sort of happy it was neglected.



Breakfast

Lunch

and Dinner
I love to make/have turkey for Christmas or Thanksgiving. We also had stuffing, homemade bread, ham, green bean casserole, Quin's token mashed potatoes, and angel food cake. Dinner goes a long ways. I froze a bunch of meat for future tamales. We made turkey dumpling soup for dinner tonight. We boil the left over bones and meat on it to make the broth and I use to freeze a bunch of it for soups and gravy when K had all of his allergies.
Quin was noticing the boys being quiet at dinner. They were well behaved. It was nice. I'll have to remember to starve them again when we have guests (exaggeration, what happened was that I made the stuffing around lunch time which I always do and forget that they hate my stuffing. It's too complicated and has all the veggies they dislike the most, that I LOVE.....mushrooms, onions, celery, etc. Well, I thought it convenient to feed it to them for lunch but I forgot what happened when I did last year resulting with the same occurrence this year......whining, GAGGING, commotions, threats, well you get the idea and so the kids were pretty hungry by dinnertime).

After the boys went to bed we played Ticket to Ride. It's nice that Uncle Quin is competitive but the poor guy forgets who he's playing with. We ate him alive and then spit him out! It was a fun, relaxing day. We loved having Quin over and catching up. And not just for the surprise he brought us.....the gift from John and Setsuko (my in laws). Once again they were generous and very thoughtful. Our jaws dropped because it was such a great gift and because it was exactly what we wanted but didn't end up buying.....a keyboard!!!!!

This post is a bit materialistic....sorry. It'll be a sad day when the boys no longer play with toys. Just trying to note what it was like in 2008.

Waiting for the Kids to Fall Asleep

We've been eating a lot of treats lately. I did run 10 miles so far this week. 5 of which I did today. Ummm, it was windy and cold. But glad to have done it. Anyone up for a winter triathlon? http://www.bashwintertri.com/race_info.html

The kids are super excited for tomorrow. When asked what was the most exciting part of tomorrow and the next exciting part of tomorrow K replied "opening presents and then playing with them." Looks like we're on the right track for normal kids.

Latest Lego creation.

We picked a family and did the 12 days of Christmas. Every day we left them gifts according to the day. On the 12th we gave them 12 candy canes.....in gingerbread village style. We all got a kick out of this one. The best part was hearing the kids after opening the door and finding the village on the front step..."oh wow!!" It was sweet.


Snowflakes. So talented!

Oh yes, Merry Christmas everyone. Thanks for coming to visit us via our online journal, weblog, blog, whatever. It's a great way to keep up with a few of the things we are doing and share thoughts on topics. I am thankful for this beautiful season that reminds me of so much goodness and sparks so many fun and loving interactions between us all. I am Thankful for Christ and His life and example, for good health, a home, food, water, for my husband and precious boys, for the opportunities we have learn, grow, and serve.

My Tweezers

are very, very important to me. I am protective about my tweezers. A few times a month I use them to pluck my eyebrows and I'm sure I've used them for a dozen other things.

There is one thing that gets me worked up when it comes to my beloved tweezers and that's if someone uses them and doesn't return them to the right spot. When it's time to pluck my eyebrows and I can't find my tweezers where they are suppose to be I get irritated. Very irritated. uwww, how I hate to search for my tweezers, up and down the house, underneath couch seats, beds, insides drawers, cabinets, grrrrrr. Do not mess with my tweezers people.

Since I've been married I've always been o.k. with other members of this household using my tweezers whenever as long as they are returned to the right spot. They've been used for surgery on nasty, ingrown toe nails, pulling out those hard to get boogies in babies noses, and other various, disgusting things including today's eventful task of getting out a small toy part from L's nostril. When asked why he put it in his nose he replied "I wanted to show K that I could do it." Hmmm, I wonder if big brother had any part in this malicious trick.

So there you have it, a picture of my beloved tweezers and small toy part extracted from L's nostril today being disinfected in alcohol in a wine glass we got for our wedding and haven't used until now.

picture taken in A mode with flash, clarified, cropped, and contrast adjusted in paint shop pro.

Sick of Being Sick

We've caught some strange respiratory bug. It has some symptoms of croup but different. We all have sore throats that get worse in the night and a dry, swollen feeling in the back of the throat that makes us cough and gag. The boys have been congested and irritable. They are happy in the day usually so that's a nice break. I'm just ready for it to GO AWAY. Going on 2 weeks now, I am ready and sick of being sick! Little A wouldn't eat much for days I was so happy to find his sliced oranges as you see above.

Some Fun Outings

We went to the Jazz game as a family. I know the Jazz lost and that's about all I can tell you. The kids enjoyed being out, riding the tracks, and having hot dogs. Chris and I had the opportunity to see the Christmas concert at the conference center featuring the Mormon Tabernacle choir and Brian Stokes Mitchell. It was really nice.

Then and Now

Recent Cravings

I had some left over pork and green salsa from tamales and decided I didn't want to make more and I remembered.....Gorditas. So there you have it: my first Gordita making attempt with some "cafe rio" dressing.

To make the puffy tortilla I mixed 2 cups of masa and 2 cups of warm water, made them into balls and flattened them out but not tortilla thin. I cooked them on a greased pan for a long time and made a slit with a butter knife about an inch wide, making sure not to cut through the gordita. I used the knife to continue to make a pocket inside the gordita so that I could stuff them with pork and green salsa.

For the green salsa, I used 5 to 6 tomatillos. I boiled them along with a jalepeno for about 15 minutes. I blended the tomatillos and 1/3 of the jalepeno with cilantro and salt to the taste.

For the pork, I used my slow cooker and put a whole package of pork ribs covered with water. It cooked for a while and I seasoned it with salt. Pretty simple.

For the cafe rio dressing, I used 2 boiled tomatillos, 1/3 boiled jalepeno, a bunch of cilantro and blended it with hidden valley ranch dressing packet (powder) , 1/3 cup milk, 2/3 cup Mayonaise. I didn't have buttermilk yesterday so I used regular milk...it turned out different and I didn't know if I liked it so I added about 2/3 cup of our own canned red salsa and thought it was an improvement. I've made this recipe before using half tomatillos and half red tomatoes. It gives it an orangish instead of green color and tastes pretty good.

I must have been hungry when I had a dream about brownies with walnuts, ice cream and minty, hot fudge sauce. It was a pretty vivid dream with stomach noises and all. I was craving them until I finally made some. Yummy.

These are brownies out of a package. Making brownies from scratch isn't much harder but might as well use the box since I had one. I used a typical hot fudge sauce recipe but instead of adding 2 tsp. of vanilla at the end I added 2 tsp. of mint extract.