Monday, January 31, 2011

a brown crayon

sometimes when you go to the store and leave your kids with daddy, this is what happens...


and if you're a really mean mom like i am...


you'll give them a box of baby wipes and make them clean it up themselves ;D

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Saturday, January 22, 2011

christmas pictures

christmas pictures are finally here!

gingerbread muffins with whipped cream and christmas pears for breakfast on christmas eve. yummy!

every year my dad makes crepes for dinner on christmas eve. i'm not sure why we started doing this (it started when i was really little), but i'm glad we do it, they're delicious!

christmas eve cookies, christmas morning stockings, and henry's tush ;D

just a snippet from christmas morning. the girls had so much fun opening their presents and playing with their toys. i can't wait for next year!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

little artist


abbey drew this cute little self portrait for the sacrament meeting program today :D i was home with sick kids today, but danny grabbed about 10 of 'em for me! i'm so proud of my big primary girl!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

christmas card


i ordered our christmas cards the second week in december. i still have not mailed them. yep, i'm that person. so i'm throwing a copy of it up on the blog, enjoy.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

i see you!


henry found his sweet, chubby fingers tonight!

Friday, January 7, 2011

i'm blind!

the girls have been really sick this week. coughs, runny noses, fevers and pink eye. abbey has pink eye in both of her eyes. we went to the doctor last night and got a prescription for an eye ointment to clear it up. (the appointment in and of itself was an adventure. she wouldn't open her eyes or talk to the nurse because she thought that she would get a shot if she did.)

i was supposed to wait until bed time to put the ointment in her eyes, but they looks so awful (so "pink" and swollen, poor little girl, i wish i'd taken a picture.) that i put the stuff in her eyes right after lunch. abbey was super brave and held her little eyes open while i put the ointment under her lid. as soon as she blinked, however, she lost it.

imagine putting neosporin in your eyes, because that's pretty much what i was doing to her. doesn't sound awesome, right? now, imagine trying to see with neosporin in your eyes. you can't, because that stuff is greasy and gunky. that makes sense to us, but not to a four year old.

abbey started blinking and freaking out because she couldn't see. "everything's blurry, get it out of my eyes!" i told her i couldn't get it out and just to blink, it would go away and things wouldn't be blurry anymore. "no it won't!" she cried, "i'm...i'm BLIND!", she screamed. this is when she started bawling and nearly hyperventilating.

my poor little girl really thought that she was blind. it was the saddest thing i'd ever seen. i told her that mommy would never do anything to make her go blind. i'm pretty sure she believed me, she seemed to calm down a little. i told her to close her eyes and i rocked her while she cried. luckily, all those tears cleared things up pretty quickly. when she could see again, she decided that she had been pretty silly for thinking that she'd gone blind.

now i see why the doctor told me to put these in at bed time. in the dark. just before she falls asleep. that's what we're doing tomorrow. and next time someone gets pink eye, i'm getting the eye drops, this ointment stuff is more drama than it's worth!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

happy 1.1.11!

happy new year, everyone! it's going to be great!

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

chef abbey

santa brough abbey an easy bake oven for christmas! she loves to help people in the kitchen, and now she can make her own little confections (with adult supervision ;D).

she was so excited to start cooking!

she decided that she wanted to make a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. i measured the water for her and she got to dump everything in the bowl and mix it all up. (i helped mix a little, that stuff was pretty thick!)

here it is going into the oven and coming back out after the recommended 12 minutes, plus an extra 5 (i find that 100 watt bulbs aren't very efficient at cooking cake...). after it cooled, abbey loaded that sucker down with as much just-add-H2O "frosting" as she could. she was SO proud of herself! it tasted exactly like i expected it to taste, abbey thought it was the most delicious cake anyone every made. she's probably right ;D

i don't know where the pictures of the finished product went, i'll have to track them down. i'll post them as soon as i do...

Saturday, December 25, 2010

happy christmas 2010!

we had a wonderful (and super busy) morning opening presents and playing with all of our new toys. the girls had a blast and henry was unbelievably patient for a 2 month old. i always love watching the kids open their presents and seeing how excited they are! christmas is awesome.

and that's all you're getting out of me today ;D pictures to come soon(ish)!

merry christmas!

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

a quick trip...

we have been trying to get down to california to see dan's family for YEARS. i am not exaggerating, we haven't been since abbey was a year old. every time we've planned a trip, something has happened (broken car, sick children, pregnant wife, work emergency) and we haven't been able to go.

while we were eating lunch on saturday, danny asked me if we should make a quick trip down to california and surprise his mom for christmas, since he had 3 days off work. of course, i said yes. sunday morning we were running through the aiport with 3 "sunday best" clad children in tow. i think that this is the best way for our family to travel. spur of the moment. nothing can come up if we don't leave any time for anything to happen. unfortunately, that's not very realistic. oh, well.

we stayed with dan's parents (and sister's family and brother's family- that's 15 people in one house!) for 2 and nearly a half days. it was an absolute blast! we ate (mom is an AMAZING cook, and sis makes the cutest pancakes i've ever seen.), had a pre-christmas, stayed up late, took family pictures, laughed, played and hugged. i wish that we could have stayed longer, we didn't have nearly enough time to do everything we wanted to, but it was SO much fun and SO good to see everyone! we're planning on getting back in april (hopefully we can stay longer) and i can't wait to see everyone again!

Sunday, December 12, 2010

festival of nativities

after church today, danny took us to see the festival of nativities. it was a very neat set up. there were different themed rooms: little bethlehem, joseph's workshop, living rooms, and the cultural hall had over 600 different nativities displayed. they've been doing this for 10 years up here and this is the first time i've gone. it was pretty amazing, i'm really glad that we went!


this is little bethlehem, it's an activity center for the primary kids. they get to dress up like characters from the christmas story and there are a ton of activities for them to do. there is a little manger, a story tent with a sweet little grandma reading christmas books, puzzles, puppets, toy nativities. it was so much fun!

ellie dressed up like a little angel, so sweet, she was adorable! i tried to get abbey to wear an angel costume, too, but she was dead set on being the camel!

this is the little manger they had set up. i was pretty impressed with the decorating going on in here. you can't tell from the pictures, but they went all out. all the walls were covered with fabric painted like stone walls or night scenes from a village and the ceiling was covered with dark blue fabric with stars painted on it and twinkle lights stuck underneath it so the sky glowed. it was really, very cool.

the girls playing in joseph's workshop, which was a little wood working and craft area. there were blocks to build with, a table to make ornaments out of popsicle sticks and buttons, and a cute old grandpa sat in the corner and did wood carvings.

i wish i'd gotten pictures of the "living rooms" and the nativities in the cultural hall, but there was a lot of glass and i needed my hands to keep the kids away from it. it was absolutely beautiful, though. if you're anywhere near vancouver next christmas, you should definitely check this out!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

pancakes and belly buttons

today was my six week postpartum checkup (and my LAST visit to he mfms!). everything's normal, everything's good, and i am done with doctors!

now, on to the important things: pancakes. things have been understandably busy around our house the past six weeks and we haven't had a lot of opportunities to spend time all together in more than 10 or 15 minute chunks. usually danny and i juggle the kids and trade back and forth, everyone's schedules just aren't synced up yet. so, since we were all in the car (for my appointment), danny took us out to brunch at ihop! it was so much fun to go out as a family and relax and have fun without feeling rushed because we're late for something (which we usually are). thanks, danny! you're the best daddy!

side note: i am seriously in love with ihop pancakes. seriously. i've actually had a copy of the ihop pancake recipe for months, but i've been afraid to try it. what if i make them and they taste just like ihop's pancakes? then i would make them twice a day, every day, and we would all turn into pancakes.

also, henry is six weeks old today. but he doesn't look six weeks, this kid looks like he's pushing three months (i might be exaggerating a little). he's growing so fast! where did my baby go? i feel like abbey was a baby forever, but not henry. maybe it's because there's three kids now and my days are only about six hours long (and the nights are even shorter).


and now, a short ode to my son's belly button:

my baby has the cutest belly button i have ever seen. i love his belly button.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

baking with my big girl

while danny, ellie and henry took a nap after church, abbey and i made cookies!

since we never know how long henry will sleep, i thought we'd make cake mix cookies. there's only three ingredients so they go together fast. and you don't really have to measure anything, so there's only a bowl and a spoon to wash. perfect.

i pre-broke the eegs and beat them in a disposable cup so that abbey would be able to dump all the ingredients in without any help. she mixed a lot on her own, but i helped her a little toward the end (the crisco makes the dough pretty stiff).

she loved rolling the dough into balls, she said it was like chocolate play dough. she got extra excited when she found out we were rolling her balls in powdered sugar. abbey's a big fan of sugar.

being the mean mom that i am, i made her help me clean up the kitchen while the cookies baked. i told her it was part of the fun of baking, and since she's only 4, she believed me. abbey washed off the counter while i washed the dishes.

the cookies turned out great, nice and chewy, and abigail was so proud of herself! we both ate 3 (!) with a big glass of milk. i miss having abbey be a baby, and it makes me sad that she's growing up so fast, but i really enjoy all the new activities that we're able to do together now that she's a "big girl".