She's crawling

I think Grace has officially decided to crawl. The real crawl; not the "drag your body" crawling that she has been doing for a few months. And of course Mark is out of town when she does it. So here she is.

Timmmbbbbberrrrrr!!!!

Back in September we had a tree at the side of our house taken down. It was very interesting to watch them because the tree was between our house and our neighbors house and they had to avoid hitting both houses and all the other trees. Here are some pictures of it coming down. Luckily they had pretty good aim and did not squash our house. They told us that the tree was between 80 and 100 feet tall and 4 feet in diameter.

Recipe of the Week #7

Hallie and Carter are at shcool, Jackson is at preschool and I laid Grace down for a nap. I have grand thoughts of all the things that I am going to get done; but what do I do? I bake. That is what you are suppose to do on a cold day. The east coast is under a winter weather advisory. Tonight is is suppose to be -5. That is unheard of in Georgia. So I better take advantage of it while I can. I put some Chicken and Cheese Enchilada Chowder in the crockpot and start thinking about what I can make with some zucchini that needs to be used. It has to be well hidden or the kids wont eat it. So I will make Zucchini-Chocolate Chip Muffins.

3/4 cup whole wheat pasty flour (or all-purpose)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1/4 cup oil

1/4 cup milk

1 Tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup shredded zucchini

1 shredded apple

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

1/4 cup pecans or walnuts

Mix all dry ingredients together. In a bowl whisk egg, oil, milk, lemon juice, and vanilla. Stir into dry ingredients. Fold in the zucchini, apple, chocolate chips, and nuts. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes.

Grace woke up while I was making these. So I put her in her high chair and let her have some multi grain Cheerios. They are her new favorite. When I gave them to her so grabbed fistfulls and put them in her mouth as best she could.

Later she started scooting all over and come in the kitchen to wait paitently for the muffins to be done.

After the muffins were done I made Three Great Tastes Blond Brownies and Cornbread. (I am not going to eat all of this stuff. I am taking it to a girl in my ward that just had a baby.)

So I did not great any of the things I needed to do checked off my list, but I did have fun baking. Maybe tomorrow I will get those things done. Or maybe I will find another recipe that is calling my name and begging to be made!

Boys will be boys

Carter and Jackson sometimes amaze me. I think it is because as a girl I would never think to do the things that they do. A few examples of these are the kleenex and oatmeal episodes. I think they must have been missing the snow of Utah when they did these things because they said that they were "jumping" into snow and they were making snow "fall" after they made these messes. They decided to do both of these things within a week of each other.

This past week the boys decided do to get into things and make messes again. It started exactly one week ago tonight. Mark and the kids were upstairs in our room and I was downstairs in the kitchen. I heard Jackson cough and then cry out "I swallowed it". It was a steel ball that goes to Magnetix. The ball is about the size of a marble and there are little magnetic rods that they stick to and you can make cool things with them. We have told him not to put them in his mouth but he does anyway, because what do we know! Well I called the pediatrician and they said to take him down to the ER and have them take an xray to make sure it was not stuck in his throat; because his throat was hurting. Apparantly things like marbles and money can get stuck in your throat and you can still breath and everything. So I get ready to take him to the ER and Mark asks him "how many times have we told you not to put the balls in your mouth?" He replies "about 100". Exactly. About 100.

Here is a picture of his marble.

It finally made its grand re-entrance tonight! Thank goodness because I am sick of checking poop for a marble. I will spare you the details. But one funny thing that he said when we were sitting in the ER until midnight was "I'm glad I swallowed this marble because now I get to stay up and watch cartoons." I am thinking about contacting the ER and telling them to get rid of the tv's because Jackson thinks if he goes to the ER that it is fun because they let him stay up and watch tv and eat popsicles while he is there.

Then next thing the boys did is destroy their room last nightwhile they are suppose to be going to sleep. That is nothing new but this is how Mark found them.

Now would a girl ever say to herself "Oh, I think I want to take all my books off the bookshelf and sleep in it!" No, they would not. At least I wouldnt. But to Carter and Jackson it must have seemed like an interesting thing to do.

Like I said

Boys will be boys!

Happy New Year

Just wanted to wish everyone out there a Happy New Year! I hope you all have a wonderful 2009. We're planning on it. This year we'll have a child that is in double digits this year as Hallie turns 10, Carter 7, Jackson 5 and Grace 1. We'll also have 3 children in school in August. We're looking forward to that!

Also just wanted to post that we're recanting our post saying we're going private. We've decided to not make our blog private as of yet. So keeping following us anonymously or not for now. We just decided that it's kind of a pain to have to log in to view the bloggs of friends of ours who have gone private and we've enjoyed it in the format it is now. If we run into some problems with it being a public blog, then maybe we'll change it, but we're leaving as is for now.

Recipe of the Week #6

Here is an easy breakfast recipe that is in the crockpot. This is what we are having on Christmas morning. We eat these in tortillas with salsa like a breakfast burrito.

Crockpot Western Omelet Casserole
serves 12

32 ounces frozen hash browns
1 pound bacon, ham or sausage, cooked
1 medium onion
1 bell pepper
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 dozen eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper


1. Place a layer of frozen hash browns in bottom of slow cooker, followed by a layer of bacon then onion, bell pepper and cheese. Repeat layering process two or three more times, ending with a layer of cheese.
2. Beat the eggs, milk and salt and pepper together. Pour over the mixture in the crockpot, cover and turn on low. Cook for about 8 hours.

Hallie's rantings

The other day when I took Hallie and Grace shoe shopping; Hallie got a pair of boots. I did not really want to get them but she just went on and on about how she had always wanted boots and how cute they were. So finally I told her that she could get them but they would be a Christmas present. She was ok with that until we left the store and she wanted to wear them. Then when we got home she was showing them to Mark and wearing them all around the house. Finally I told her that she didn't have to wait till Christmas to have them. (Mostly because it was just another present that I would have to wrap, and I was tired of wrapping.)

So ever since I have bought her these boots she has changed. On Sunday on the way to church she told me that she wants to move to Texas. And when she gets there she wants to be a tour guide and take people all over the state and show them Texas. (Which I thought was really funny because she has never even been through most parts of Texas.) She ask me how much she should charge for this. While I am thinking, she says "maybe I will charge the adults $5 and the kids $3". I said "that is not very much money for a tour of the whole state, you could probably charge more than that." We discussed this a little more and she finally decided that she would charge $30 for adults and $22 for kids 11 to 3 and under 3 were free and she would give the babies free milk. She then told me that she wanted to get a horse and ride it to the store. So this boot thing has knocked cowgirl land. She also wanted to wear the boots in her pictures that we had taken today. And I have even seen her wearing them with her pyjamas. I am surprised that she hasn't tried sleeping in them. Here is a picture of her in her "cowgirl" boots.

"Somebody" in Texas needs to send her some REAL cowgirl boots.