Em's first play

Emily has been going for the past two weeks to our city's Arts festival in their youth theater program. They practiced everyday for two hours for two weeks and yesterday they performed their show two times. It was called Aesop Aesop and was (obviously) a compilation of Aesop's fables. It was cute and funny and Em did a FABULOUS job! She remembered all her lines and had a lot of expression in her face. It was so much fun to watch. She was pretty much a natural at the whole thing and her teacher was pretty impressed with her. :) The top picture is her after the first show with her flower we gave her. The second picture you can find her second from teh left (she's a "boy" in this boy who cried wolf scene). The bottom picture is of the bows at the end. Dh missed the actual bow, but she's in the middle of the bunch. So, Emily may well take after her Dad, Grandma, Great Grandma, and aunts and uncles and be involved in the theater. She's already asking me when she can do another play.

Easy no cook treats

I love treats as much as the next person but in the summer no one wants to turn on the oven or even the stove when it's really hot. We have a couple recipes that we like to make and they are great to get the kids involved too since they always want to help.

The first one is home made Tootsie Rolls.

2 Tbs butter
1/2 cup light corn syrup
2 squares unsweetened chocolate OR 6 Tbs cocoa + 2 Tbs butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 cups powdered sugar
3/4 cup powdered milk


Mix all ingredients together. (warning it will be VERY thick so if your mixer isn't up to it you may want to knead in the last of the dry ingredients) Mold with hands making long thin rolls and cut int 2 inch pieces. Can add more powdered sugar if dough is too sticky. (note: these never last long enough in our house to actually make them into rolls. Mostly we just pull off a gob of it to eat.)

Healthy Peanut Butter Balls

1 cup nonfat dry milk powder
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup finely crushed graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup topping of choice (nuts, sprinkles, coconut, mini chocolate chips)

Mix first four ingredients until well blended. (it's always still pretty dry when we do it, but when you shape the balls you just mush it together and it'll stick) Roll into balls, roll in your topping of choice and chill.

These are still really good if you don't have any toppings to roll them in.

What are your favorite summer treat recipes?? Please share!!

10 months

Liam is officially 10 months old. I can't believe how time is just flying by with him. The first picture is him telling me he's hungry by trying to eat from an empty bottle that he found on the floor. Is that a guilty face or what? ;)
I bought this Lion and one just like it for his birth mom so I could take a picture with him and it and she could see how he's grown. The only problem now is that he doesn't understand how to sit still and hold it for a picture so for the last few months I've done the best I can and usually just gotten him playing with it or somewhere nearby it. :)

Party time

My adorable little niece turned one last week. Her party was last night and the kids all had fun. The first picture is of Brooklyn and Liam checking out our stroller. Brooklyn loves Liam and gets really excited to see him. It will be so much fun when they are a little bit older and can play more together. I didn't get any cake pictures, but Brooklyn didn't eat her cake really, she just played in it, but it was so fun to watch.


Liam clapping and entertaining himself.







Liam taking his turn hitting the pinata. It was so funny because I would hit the pinata and he would crack up laughing.





My cute nephew Easton taking a swing.

Easton giving Liam loves. Easton is about a year older than Liam. He is always so cute to try to help Liam out. He'll put his pacifier in his mouth or give him his cup of drink back at dinner. It's so cute to see how helpful he is. I hope once Liam gets a little older that these two can be great friends.

Ho Hum

I've been trying to think of something interesting to blog about for several days now. We've had a pretty ho hum week. Nothing out of the ordinary. We were supposed to go to a playgroup for Transracial adoptive families on Friday, but Jason jr wasn't feeling well so we stayed home. That was what I was going to write about with pictures of all the cute kids. I was bummed.

The biggest news is that Jason's gps that we got him for Father's day came on Friday. He was so excited. It's been awhile since I've gotten him anything that wasn't a book (because that's all he usually wants). I loved seeing him so excited to use it. He promptly downloaded a bunch of geocache locations and took the kids out looking for cache's after dinner. I missed out on the fun because I went with my good friend Tami out to dinner and a little shopping. I did get to go out with them on Saturday though. Now everywhere Jason goes he wants to find a cache close by that he can find. It'll be a good hobby for him and for the whole family too. :)

Thursday we had the last game of the season before tournament for Jason's ball team. They played a really good team so they didn't win, but Jason got to pitch for a short time and even though he didn't strike anyone out he did get the first out by throwing the hitter out at second and then when he was in the outfield he caught a pop fly and then threw the next runner out at second so all three outs of the inning were by him. He was really proud.

So, there you go, our ho hum week. Hopefully we'll have more interesting news to share this week. :)

Have a great day!

Mother Daughter

Last night Emily had a mother daughter activity for Activity day girls at church. It was Hawaiian themed in one of her leader's back yard. We got a lei when we arrived and then the girls got to color these cute wooden hula dolls. The leaders had made a small photo book for each of the girls with some pictures of the activities they've been doing. It was really cute. They served Hawaiian haystacks, veggies and fruit. The fruit tasted SOOO good especially in the heat. :) One of the cute ladies in our ward taught the girls a hula dance. It was funny watching how concentrated the girls were on learning the dance especially after having to gather them all up from playing in the fun yard to do it. After they learned it they were happy to go back to hanging on the monkey bars and doing gymnastics and chatting with each other. That's the funny thing about mother daughter activities. It usually ends up that the daughters all gather, socialze, and play and the mothers do the same since they've been abandonded...The best part is that we have another one next week for the Relief Society so we get to do it all again!! :) OH! I can't forget that after the hula dancing they brought out dessert--it was some kind of great moist cake with this really good topping/frosting stuff on it...it was delicious! I am getting the recipe from my friend and will post it here as soon as I get it. ---Here is the cake recipe as promised. This is a great light summery dessert and it's fast and easy too!

Ambrosia Cake

1 pkg. yellow cake mix

2 eggs

½ cup oil

½ cup water

1 can mandarin oranges

Combine the first 4 ingredients, plus the juice from the oranges. Beat 2 minutes and then fold in the oranges. Put in a greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Topping

1- 8 oz. cool whip

1- small pkg. instant vanilla pudding mix

1- 20 oz. can crushed pineapple

Mix pineapple and pudding together, then add cool whip. Put on cool cake and refrigerate.

Weekend update

We had a good weekend. Friday night Jason had a make-up game from when he got rained out a couple weeks ago. They started out not doing too great, but came back and ended up winning 14 to 6. I wish it was just as much fun to play and watch when your team is losing, but it just isn't. It's been so much more fun this year because our team has won a lot more than they did last year. This week we have the last two games of the season before the city tournament. I hope they do well in the tournament. Then we'll be done with baseball again until next year.

Saturday we spent the day doing our normal errands and chores, except I didn't feel well so dh did a lot of the stuff I normally do like the laundry. I took a nap and thought I felt better so we went to the wedding reception for dh's cousin. It was at this house with an AWESOME back yard. The kids were really impressed. It had a pool, sand volleyball court, a playground, a trampoline in the ground, and putting green. I told dh if it were our backyard we'd never have to leave our house to have fun. Unfortunately I came home not feeling well again. I think I must have what Emily had the beginning of the week. I went to bed at 9 pm and didn't wake up Sunday until 11 am. Church starts at 9 am for us right now so Jason had to get all the kids ready and take them to church on his own for Father's day. I felt like such a bad wife! But what could I do when I felt like I was going to be sick all over every time I moved. I spent pretty much the whole day in bed. They all went to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner and I stayed home.

This morning I woke up feeling better, ate half a banana and now I feel worse again...Emily was sick for about 3 days so hopefully today is the last day. I'll be posting a nice Father's day post late once I feel better and can think clearly. Have a great day!

June dinner

It has been unseasonably cold here for June. I was so chilly all day yesterday I made rolls and homemade soup for dinner. That is unheard of for me this time of year because I can't eat this kind of thing when it's hot. So, I'm trying to enjoy it before it gets really hot. BTW it was DELISH!!

Playing together

The kids were playing so well together the other day that I thought I'd take some pictures.
Jason has been really into yo-yo lately and Liam is getting interested too--just for different reasons. :) So, as promised here are some pictures of ALL the kids. ;)

Pictures

This is just an impromptu picture of Liam and me. Why is it that you can never like pictures of yourself?? I have promised my husband that I'm gonna try to get more pictures of ALL our kids. He was transferring all our pictures to our new computer over the weekend and told me that if you just look at the pictures for the last 9 months you might think that Liam is an only child. :) What can I say?? The kids were in school all day! lol So, if I don't start posting pics of the twins soon I'm gonna be in trouble. Have a great day!

Color accent

I was messing around with my cameras settings and trying out the color accent one with red. For some reason it still shows the browns though and not just the reds. Oh well...it's still fun. I was being the mean Mom when Liam was sad in the last picture because I took his picture before helping him out. :)

Garden help anyone??

The kids and I were so excited to plant our garden this year! We got everything planted and were very proud of it. Unfortunately we have some kind of pests that are eating/ruining our plants. The first batch of tomato plants and cucumber plants had their leaves all eaten off so nothing was left but the stem. So, we replanted and covered them with some cages that we jimmy rigged out of some wire fencing stuff we had. It has square openings that are about 1" by 2". It is not stopping these pests! Last time all the leaves disappeared so I figured they were eaten by some animal. This time I am seeing a few leaves that have been taken off still mostly in tact lying near the plants. The kids and I are REALLY frustrated because we all love garden tomatoes and cucumbers! If you have any idea what this is or what we can do to protect what's left of our plants PLEASE share! We are willing to try almost anything. This has never happened to us in our garden before so I'm stumped. Of course this has to happen this year too since we told the kids that they were in charge of most of the work in the garden this year...I hope someone can help us before it's too late for our lovely tomatoes and cucumbers.

Good Food

I am always looking for recipes for good food. Especially good dinners since we tend to eat the same/similar kinds of things all the time. I have recently found some awesome recipes so I thought I'd share a few here.

The first one I got from my friend and neighbor Natalie and it's a good summer recipe since it's cooked on the BBQ

Teriyaki Lime chicken

1/2 bottle Teriyaki marinade (use whatever kind you like)
4 limes, juiced (I cheat and use bottled lime juice)
zest of one lime (I leave it out if I'm not using fresh limes)
1 6 oz piece of chicken per person (I use boneless skinless chicken breast)
2 slices thick bacon per chicken piece

Combine Teriyaki marinade, lime juice and chicken. Refrigerate and let marinade 4-6 hrs. (put some toothpicks in water when you put the chicken in so they can soak) Wrap bacon around each piece of chicken securing with soaked toothpicks. Cook on BBQ and brush with marinade as it cooks. About 10 min on each side or until juices run clear.

The bacon will get nice and crisp (maybe even burn a little) but the chicken inside will stay moist and delicious!

This next recipe is from the cookbook Saving Dinner By Elaine Ely you have to try it. I LOVE this chicken!

Garlic Lime Chicken
1 tsp Salt
3/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp thyme
6 chicken breast
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp olive oil

Mix all the seasonings together, sprinkle on the chicken. Heat oils in a pan over Med-high heat and saute the chicken about 5 minutes on each side or until cooked through. Remove chicken and add 4 Tbsp lime juice and 1/2 cup chicken broth to pan and scrape up the brown bits on the pan. Let it reduce a bit then add the chicken back to the pan so it can get the flavor of the sauce. I serve this with rice or cous cous or potatoes.


The last one isn't really a recipe -- well I think I got the idea from a recipe but I pretty much just dump stuff in. It's a kind of dip for apples. I just take some cream cheese and mix in some brown sugar until it's just a little bit tan, you could use more sugar if you want to. It tastes kinda caramel flavored so is great with apples.

I hope you try some of these and tell me how you like them. If you have recipes that you love PLEASE share them since I can always use more!

Have a great day!

Walking is closer than I thought

Yesterday we went to see Nim's Island at the dollar movie theater in Provo. It's right by Kid to Kid so I thought we'd stop by to see if they had any good finds. I got the cutest Hawaiian shirt for Liam. It's red and light blue and is gonna look so cute on him! I also found this Fisher Price Steady Walker toy. I figured it looked like fun because it has all these little toys on the front and it can be used for balance to walk with, and it was only 5 bucks so why not? Unfortunately I forgot about my ultimate goal of keeping Liam from walking too much before he turned one. The very first time he stood up with it he did almost exactly what is in the video above. He doesn't have a whole lot of conrol yet, but I'm sure it'll come faster than I want it to. The kids think its funny when her runs into things. :) Then when Daddy got home from work Liam decided to stand on his own for about 30 seconds. So, I'm beginning to see that he's much closer to walking than I originally thought he was!

Baseball, park, and the view from up top

Jason is doing great on his baseball team this year. His last game he hit a triple with the bases loaded. Not bad for his first hit of the season. :) The picture left is from the game before that hit, but he has a pretty good swing.







This is a picture of Jason as the catcher. He does a good job. I can't believe how much more confident and just plain good he is this year compared to last year. And he has so much fun--that's the important thing anyway right??








After the kids' half day last Thursday we went to the park for lunch. This is Liam swinging. He can't quite decide if he likes the swing or not yet.








I held him going down the slide--he wanted to crawl up it instead. :)












This is an action shot of Liam clapping at the park. He loves to get in my face especially when I have the camera.








This is the view I get frequently during the day. Especially when I'm in the kitchen because he just has to be part of it. So, I had to document it of course.