Happy Spring!

The night before the official 1st day of Spring, my dad texted me "Since tomorrow is the first day of spring I thought we should try a spring themed meal. By we I mean you. Spring rolls, spring salad, etc. Love you." And he texted me the link to a recipe for Spring Shells and Cheese. So we took this idea seriously and made the gourmet mac n' cheese, had spring egg rolls, a "spring" bagged salad, and fresh fruit, complete with springy colored dishes to usher in what hopefully will feel like Spring!! The meal may not have been the most cohesive, but it was delicious and fun to have yet another themed celebration!

Grandma and Grandpa gave Brooke a book called "My Very First Spring" and they dressed up in spring colors. (Us..not so much..but you can't win them all!)

 

St. Patricks Day

When I read this blog post I couldn't help but laugh the whole way through. This pretty much defines the way my family celebrates holidays! And like this holiday Grinch, some might say we go overboard. But we say, why not have an excuse to have fun?? I try not to get overwhelmed trying to do too much, but it isn't hard to put some Leprechaun foot prints on the toilet, dye some milk green, hide some gold coins and have corned beef and cabbage for dinner. In fact, having an idea for dinner without having to think of it myself is quite nice! We had a fun time celebrating St. Patty's day..even if the leprechaun footprints freaked Brooke out and she wouldn't use the bathroom the rest of the day, even after they were gone :) And even if she refused to drink the green milk...my oh my that girl needs to be a little less "stared" (she can't say her c's) of things! I had fun putting together a little treasure hunt for her and making our green themed dinner! And lucky charms for breakfast? Well, with 9 o'clock church we were lucky to eat breakfast at all! Already looking forward to next St. Patrick's Day!

3.14...Pi Day!!

We all know my family likes any excuse for a holiday, especially one that involves pies! And I love having our 'own' place to have people over. (A super nice couple from our ward is serving a mission for 18 months and they are letting us live in their gorgeous home while they are gone..we are counting our blessings every day!) Between my mom and I we had plenty of pies! It was a fun time celebrating this 'holiday!' 

Shepherd's Pie for dinner, complete with chocolate, lemon meringue, coconut cream, strawberry cheesecake and blueberry pies. (The blueberry pie was the most important...One night while reading a Snow White story with Brooke where she makes the dwarfs a blueberry pie, Brooke said, "We ought to make one," so we finally did!)

My Valentine's

Aside from my amazing hubs {who I haven't been taking pictures of all day as of late so none of him to post} my cute little babes are the best Valentine I could ever ask for. They make me laugh, smile, and melt my heart every day. I am one lucky momma to have them "Be Mine" forever!

Thanksgiving Trip 2012

Back track to Thanksgiving...My dad, mom, Brooke, Bryn and I road-tripped to Utah for Turkey day. We left late afternoon on Wednesday and got there sometime early morning (or super late..depends how you look at it.) Either way, it was a tiring start to the vacay. And where was Curt you ask? He stayed home so that instead of our trip lasting 3 days, we could stay down there for 5 days, which when each way is 12 hours, was much needed. He also had lots of studying to do so he was busy (albeit boring busy). We had fun staying at the James' beautiful new home!

 We celebrated Thanksgiving on Saturday, like we had planned on, but our actual Thanksgiving day dinner was kinda funny. We lounged around, then headed to Golden Corral for dinner in the early afternoon. Didn't want to wait over an hour so we went to check out Chuck-o-rama..same story. All fast food restaurants were closed so last resort, we went to the grocery store, bought a couple rotisserie chickens and went to Troy's apartment and had chicken and rice, green beans, orange rolls and pop..a Thanksgiving meal to remember for sure! We started our shopping on Thanksgiving and the boys continued it that night. This was my favorite Black Friday yet! The boys went out and did all the waiting in line and craziness, and came back with everything I wanted. Score! I did venture out at midnight with my sis to help her pick up some boots for a steal. A walk by Best Buy to get to Shoe Carnival reminded me why I avoid stores like that. It was insane.

So Black Friday behind us, we spent Saturday prepping dinner and enjoying a delicious dinner with the fam. Then we topped off the night with pie (of course) and a BYU basketball game. Made me miss my days at the Y. Those were good times! Sunday was church, a little "hike", and Christmas Lights at Temple Square. Santa was even on Temple Square and handed out candy canes. Kinda weird but fun! Monday..went to campus, hot dogs in Spencer's office, creamery ice cream and decorated gingerbread cookies for FHE (Brooke affectionately named hers "my old lady.") The kids had so much fun together and we wish we could have stayed longer! We had to head back Tuesday and other than the last torturous hour of the drive (2 screaming children) all was well! I'm sure we will be keeping the road hot now that the cousins are within a {somewhat} manageable drive. Thanks James' for such a fun trip and great place to stay. Can't wait until next time. Brooke is always begging me to go see CooperSadie in Utah!

Crazy bathtime, Moooovies and Naps!

Temple Square Lights and Bedtime Books

Thanksgiving and Hike up the Canyon

BYU and Gingerbread Decorating

Annual Pie Night

We had been debating whether or not to do Pie night since we are leaving town and we usually do it the night before Thanksgiving. But on Wednesday, we decided to go for it! So we planned it for Monday night and it was a hit! We had almost 40 people and nearly 20 pies..Needless to say, no one went home with an empty stomach! My mom and I may have gotten a little out of control..We made 10 pies between the 2 of us, but we were on a roll and just couldn't stop. We had fun visiting and celebrating the season of Thanksgiving with lots of friends and delicious pies!

Love doing fun things my mom! We're a good team. The only thing that would make us better would be Alyssa..and we are going to see her tomorrow!

Brynlee snoozed with our cute neighbor and Brooke had the time of her life with her friend Jessica. A good time was had by all!

"Princess on Disney Ice"

We had been hyping Brooke up for Disney Princesses on Ice for awhile and she didn't let us down! I got to tag along while Grandpa and Grandma took Brooke to the show and it was so fun! I think we spent more time watching her face than we did watching the show. She had so much fun at what she calls "Princess on Disney Ice" and was thrilled that Minnie and Mickey were there! That was like a dream come true for this girl who is slightly OBSESSED with them. She wasn't a fan of Tiana (the Frog Princess..she's never seen it), but she loved Cinderella and Rapunzel! Grandma and Brooke had movie night each night the week before to watch the princess movies. When a song came on that she remembered from the movies, she would get the biggest smile on her face and say, "I know this song! It's my favorite!"..she said this like every time :) It was a fun night, complete with milkshakes afterwards and a late bedtime (although that's pretty common around here!) We will definitely have to go again!

Fun with Grandma..Tea Party and Santa

The girls are lucky to have such a great babysitter when I work. My mom was watching the girls on Saturday and my mom made an impulse decision, after having a tea party with Brooke, to take the girls to the mall to see Santa fly in on a helicopter. She made a mad dash to get the girls ready and they got there in time! She went with my sis-in-law, Ashley, and her four kids. Although Brooklyn was afraid of Santa (despite our many efforts to prepare her for sitting on his lap but she got closer to him than she would have if her cousins weren't there with her. 

Tea Party with Grammy. Wish there was one of Grandma and her together but someone had to take the picture I suppose. They had hot chocolate and toast. Brooke is now obsessed with tea parties. So fun!

Santa came out of the helicopter and of course Brooke cried.  But overall she had fun and is lucky to have such a fun grandma! Brynlee enjoyed it by sleeping the entire time!

"I Voted"

In the {now} infamous state of Washington, we don't actually get an "I Voted" sticker. Everyone votes by absentee ballot, which is actually quite lame and a bit anti-climactic. Since the voting was in and of itself not super exciting (especially knowing nothing we wanted was going to go our way anyways in WA), we decided to have a fun Election themed dinner. Oh how we love our themed dinner parties around here!

So we wore our red, white and blue while we prepared our patriotic dinner and listened to Fox News reporting on the election results. The dinner was a success! Unfortunately, the more serious issues we were hoping for were not, which did put a bit of a damper on our dinner/dessert. Darn it. But we will move forward and hope and pray for the best.

Infants are so much easier to take pictures of!! Toddlers=Impossible! But we tried several times as you can see..At least you can tell we have American Pride!

 If you look closely at our Election Ballot you will see my most favorite detail of the dinner :)

 Brynlee joined us at the dinner table..She looks like she's longing for the days when she can actually eat with us

Don't let this picture fool you..Brooke is our little {almost} vegetarian. She pretty much only eats highly processed meats such as hot dogs and lunch meats..ya know, the kind that are really good for you..ha!)

This cake is so fun!! We are going to have to make it again with different colors for different holidays.

Our little strawberry lover just like her grandma! She downed this in no time!

Happy Halloween!

We had lots of fun Halloween festivities around here! Dinner in a pumpkin, carving pumpkins, Trunk or Treating, Trick or Treating at the high school, Jack-o-lantern pizza and Trick or treating Halloween night. Halloween is so much more fun with kids!!

 The most adorable sunflower and Minnie Mouse

 Grandma and the girlies

 Our traditional Halloween night jack-o-lantern pizza

 Nerdy grampy and Brooke