Thank you Magaw!

For our new matching dresses!

What'd You Have For Lunch Today?

'Cuz I had this!

Ok, I have it most days for lunch.  I keep bagged spinach in the fridge and Foster Farms pre-cooked, pre-sliced chicken strips in the fridge/freezer.  I heat up a handful in a pan on the stove, throw them on a bed of greens, toss on some feta cheese, candied walnuts, craisins, and white balsamic vinaigrette.  Super yum.  I actually put more chicken than usual on here today, because Megan has discovered my salad and comes over and sneakily swipes half my chicken while I'm eating.  So, I outsmarted her and made more.  She thinks she's being funny/sneaky, I think I'm pretty clever for tricking her into eating more protein.  Muaw-ha-ha....

Kendra's do!

Megan's do

It's A Good Thing She's Cute!

Miss Kendra tries my patience everyday.  I am so thankful for moments of cuteness like these that help me stay sane!  For instance, when she's in a 'mood,' I sometimes try to distract her with singing a song.  Well, these days every song is 'her song.'  Meaning, I can't sing "Popcon Popping" or "Wheels On The Bus," because she says, "No Mommy, that's MY song."  I try to sing "I Love You So Much" or "It's Time To Go Night-Night," at bedtime and am sternly told, "You no sing it, that MY song!" 

She pretty much HAS to have her "elfant gigi" which translates to elephant blanket at nap and bedtimes.  For some reason, a blanket has been called a gigi since she started talking and she's not giving up that word anytime soon.

She is very much in the "that's mine" stage now and the other day I picked a little booger out of her tiny nostril. She got mad and furrowed her eyebrows at me and said, "No, that mine. You div it back righ now!" So, what was I to do.... (sigh)

Aside from being a stinker, she can count to 13 unassisted, make awesome animal noises, leads the music each week for Family Home Evening, which means we end up singing Popcorn Popping and Sunbeam EVERY week, pretends to be a dinosaur-monkey, loves watching Dora and yelling at Swiper, as if she's really going to alert Dora and Boots to his mischief!  I mean, hasn't Swiper been stealing stuff for years, Dora still doesn't get it, sorry Kendra, thanks for trying to help the girl out though.

 
She loves giving hugs and kisses, especially when I'm trying to get upset with her, because somehow she has learned that smothering mommy with kisses keeps you from getting any sort of punishment.

I just love my little girl!

Peanut Butter Cup Trifle

So, I etched this beautiful trifle bowl at a Relief Society activity and finally found a dessert to use it for!

My dad's birthday was last week and Trent and I went out to dinner with my parents to Applebee's and then came home to this beauty.  I will DEFINITELY make this again!  I melded a few recipes together and came up with my own.  I've had something similar with Heath bar toffee pieces, but know my dad's love for Peanut Butter, thus, this beauty was born.

Peanut Butter Cup Trifle

1 tub Cool Whip
1 small box vanilla pudding
1 9x13 size batch of brownies, baked, cooled, broken into 1" pieces
1/2-1 Cup peanut butter, crunchy or creamy (I used crunchy!)
20 Peanut Butter Cups, give or take!  Cut up in small pieces

Bake brownies, cut up into bite size pieces.  Mix pudding with milk and whisk together, add peanut butter(I added close to 1 full cup, I really wanted that peanut buttery taste!) and whisk it into the pudding and chill in the fridge. 

Layer the brownie pieces, chopped p.b. cups, p.b. pudding mixture, Cool Whip, then layer again and end with Cool Whip on top and garnish with more cut up p.b. cups.  So easy, sooo delicious!  Trust me on this one, try it!!

How could something not be good that looks like this on top?!  Warning: not diet friendly.  Don't blame me when the number on the scale bounces up in the morning.

Our St. Patrick's Day Fun!

Family all dressed in green!

Our little favors for our friends that came over to party.  Each kid got a bag of Lucky Charms that said, "We are so lucky to have you for a friend!" 

I made these shirts and was pretty darn proud of myself for coming up with this idea I must say.  I traced a shamrock onto muslin with a disappearing ink pen that all came out in the wash.  I pinned it on the shirt where I wanted and simply sewed along the line I had drawn.  I cut around the shamrock leaving about a 1/4"-1/2" of fabric on either side of the line I sewed and then threw the shirt in the wash.

When it came out, it had exactly the frayed look I was going for, I loved it!

The shirt was only $3 from Wal-Mart and all the fabric for the 3 shirts was like 50 cents, so these turned out cute and cheap!  And I was just happy to come up with an idea on my own.

My model just wanted to jump around, then she ran to the kitchen and did this...

She told me she was a dinosaur monkey as she was swinging from the counter.  If you were wondering, a dinosaur monkey makes a noise kind of like, "Rawwrrr--ooh--ooh-aah-ahh!"  Pretty darn funny.

We invited friends over for a totally green dinner.  We had pesto pasta, green salad, green fluff jell-o salad, kiwis, and I died the butter green before brushing it on the bread and baking it.  In the glasses, we had Sprite and a scoop of lime sherbet making the green concoction a very tasty treat.  The kids loved it! 

After dinner came the entertainment!  I sooo wish we'd have gotten this on video!!  The kids practiced their Irish dancing moves and then performed for the parents.  I turned on some Riverdance type music and the big kids did their Irish jig first while the younger kids clapped for them in the back row.  It was soo cute!  Mikayla and Bryant stole the show with their partner dance, it looked quite rehearsed and they really hammed it up for us.

The younger girls went next and their wasn't much jigging, but a whole lot of booty shaking and jumping up and down.  Definitley a fun tradition to do each year!

After playing some Hot Potato and Top 'O The Mornin' To You, we calmed things down with coloring pages.  It was amazingly nice and quiet and calm and... why didn't I pull out the coloring pages sooner?!?!  haha  Bought us some time to clean up dinner and get dessert ready though!

We of course had rainbow cake for dessert-a family tradition for St. Patrick's Day.  The girls love watching me make it and mixing all the pretty colors to dye the batter.  It always looks so cool after it's cut too.  We had a very fun night with our friends, the Lesihmans and the Waltons and look forward to more fun next year!

Tay my pisher!

Before church the other day: "Mama, tay my pisher, I 'mile!"  Of course!!!

Valentine's Day

 The girls all decked out for the holiday.  Kendra actually had cute pink sparkly ballet flats on earlier that day and for some reason wanted clunky Pooh shoes on later, oh well.  She went with me to help with Mikayla's class party and the kids loved her and she LOVED the attention and hammed it for them, saying at one point, "I funny!  I coot!" and then shook her booty for them to make them laugh even harder. 

 Ummm, the start of some really weird faces...

 A little sister love!

 I made a sign and hung it in the shower attached to a bag of Hershey's hugs and kisses that said, "Now that I've 'showered' you with 'hugs and kisses' will you..."  and then I wrote "Be Mine!" on the wall with the girls' bath crayons.  Their may or may not have been other messages written that I choose not to repeat here.  So, when I got home from teaching my BodyPump class at the gym that night, I found this...

 a hot bath with rose petals everywhere, sparkling strawberry lemonade, a card, and roses!  What a surprise!  The girls actually saw Trent bringing up the flowers and drink before they went to bed, so he told them his Valentine's gift to me was a nice hot bath after teaching at the gym.  They said they really wanted a picture of how surprised I was to be able to take a bath all by myself, so here's me looking surprised to show them the next morning!

Sweaty and everything--Happy Valentine's Day!  Since I knew I'd be teaching that night, we actually celebrated with the girls the night before and I made Macaroni Grill's Penne Rustica with a marsala wine sauce and chicken and shrimp and Applebee's white blondie brownie with maple butter sauce for dessert--this is the reason I have to go to the gym so much people!!