A little good news

Hopefully Brent doesn't mind me sharing this. At the beginning of the year Brent went to the doctor to have a physical, since it had been a long time since he had been in. His cholesterol was a little high, around 210. His doctor wanted him to have it checked again this year to see if he could bring it down. Since there is a family history of high cholesterol he was a little concerned. So recently we've been looking into life insurance policies, so as part of the procedure he had to have his cholesterol tested. We got the results back Friday and he had dropped his cholesterol count 30+ points. Yay Brent!! We were pretty excited.

Recipe book idea

I've been trying to come up with some different ways to use our vinyl. So yesterday I finally organized my favorite recipes. This is a job i've been needing to do for YEARS. So I organized everything and labeled the notebooks with the vinyl letters. I'm so glad I finally have it done!

Spring Break Update

Spring Break is not a huge change for us, having only one child in school. But Malia was able to do something really fun this year. My mom took her on a trip to San Diego to visit her cousins. This was her first airplane ride and she was really excited. She had so much fun, she came home happy and exhausted. She took a 3+ hour nap on Sunday. She was able to go to the beach, go to the San Diego wildlife park, and play with her cousins. I was amazed at how much I missed her. ( I know that sounds bad) I had to restrain myself from calling during the day to check up on her and I was so happy to have her come home. Thanks Dawn for letting her come, and a big thanks to my Mom for taking her!

While Malia was away enjoying the sunshine, we endured a week of rain, hail and snow. It was FREEZING! So we didn't get outside too much. To make the week a little special for the boys we did a few things. Friday I got a babysitter for Claire and took the boys to see "Horton hears a who." Jacob and I loved it! Cole was a little indifferent. I guess him saying, "i'm ready to go home now" halfway through the movie, is a sign he's not quite ready for the theater. After the movie we walking around downtown and got an ice cream cone. I'm sure this was the highlight of the trip for Cole.

Saturday we took the boys to Chuck-e-cheese. Ahhh...chuck-e-cheese. I can never leave that place without feeling dizzy from all of the chaos. And Chaos it was! But the boys had a great time. They have been playing together so well lately. They'll get up in the morning and start playing legos in their room. They'll stay in there for hours just playing. (With an occasional scream or shout). But for the most part they play really well. It makes me kind of glad that Jacob didn't go back to his "playschool" this semester. They really keep each other entertained.

Claire is doing great. She is eating like a crazy girl ever since she was sick. I'm sure she's gained back the weight she lost. She seems to have no interest in walking...she'll take a step or two but then just fall into my arms. She's pretty content crawling. And she no longer army crawls...she is now crawling like a normal baby. She has been so happy and fun.

Claire turns 1!....Easter fun.

We had a fun, busy day on Saturday. The weather was beautiful so we headed to the park to play around. After that the kids made their Easter baskets. Thanks Kendra for the idea. The kids made "big mouth bunnies" and had a great time doing it. Malia is covering her face in the picture because she had just gotten in trouble for snitching an easter cookie (that I had just told the kids NOT to eat) so she's pouting.

These are the Easter cookies that I make for our special Young Women's Easter lesson. (because we can't have a lesson without treats!) I had fun making them and they were pretty fabulous. (if I say so myself) My mom gave me the best recipe for cream cheese sugar cookies that are nice and soft...I add a little almond flavoring to the frosting and yum! They are scrumptious.

These are the bunny cupcakes that we made for Claire's birthday. We did a lot of cooking Saturday! I made raspberry cream cheese cupcakes....and gained about five pounds over the weekend. :)

Sunday, my parents came up and went to church with us. After church we went home and relaxed a bit before dinner. We had a great dinner and then the birthday fun began. Claire opened her gifts. Well, really I opened her gifts. Then we had cupcakes and ice cream.

Claire loves to make this face. She had no idea what was going on, but she had fun. I still have a hard time believing that she's one. I love this age, between 1 and 2...they learn so much and change so much.

I'm still mad that I didn't get a picture of the kids in their new Easter clothes. They looked so cute! We'll have to try another Sunday.

Recipe Contest...second attempt.:)

Okay, let's try this again! I deleted my last recipe post for a few different reasons, but after several requests it's back. Everyone in the house is getting over their illnesses so i'm ready to cook again.
My sis-in-law had a recipe contest on her blog and I was the winner. Yay! I thought it was such a fun idea that i'm going to copy her! So dig up your favorite recipes and post them in the comment section. The only catch is that I would like them to be healthy/somewhat healthy recipes. (Nothing that calls for 3 cups of cheese, or a pint of cream) and please no desserts. I have no self control!! I will make each recipe and decide on a winner by April 17th...one month from now. The winner will receive a gift that includes "Deena's favorite things" and if you know me, you know it will include some pretty darn good chocolate! So don't let me down go get that recipe! Can't wait to try them all.

We've got the bug...

I could almost say that we made it all winter without any sickness in the house. But...we didn't quite make it. That being said...it's been a horrible week! Claire was the first to get sick, and i'll spare you the details, but she had a pretty high fever and everything that goes along with that. This started Tuesday night, but Friday she seemed to be getting better. Crawling around and happy. Malia threw up Thursday night and stayed home from school Friday. she is better now. Brent came home from work Friday night with the chills and seems to be feeling better tonight. Claire's fever has come back and i'm starting to worry a bit. She is drinking bottles, but hasn't eaten anything all day...or for the past few days. Her fever is 101. I'm one of those parents who is reluctant to bring their kids into the dr. because it seems like every time I do i'm told to "keep and eye on it and come back if it gets worse." So I don't know at what point I should bring her in? Just keep her in your prayers because she is not doing well! We need our happy little girl back. Luckily i've avoided everything so far...after a week of nasty diapers and loads of nasty laundry it's pretty amazing. I feel like a housebound housewife...going a little stir crazy. So, sorry nothing fun to report. Claire's first birthday/Easter is next Sunday so hopefully we'll all be healthy for that fun day!

Adventures in Spokane

We took a quick trip to Spokane this weekend. We left Friday afternoon and arrived around 10:30pm. On the way there, about 30 miles outside of Spokane our gas light came on. And I have to mention that I was driving and keeping an eye on the gas gauge. Twice I asked Brent, "do you think we should fill up?" "No we'll be fine" was the reply. So anytime the gas light comes on i'm a nervous wreck. Can you imagine running out of gas 30 miles from the nearest town, at 10:00 at night with 4 sleeping kids in the car? So I turned off on the nearest exit..about 10 miles later. The only gas station in town was closed. So back onto the freeway we went. By now my hands are sweating and the gaslight is like a neon sign shining in my eyes. Brent keeps assuring me that we'll make it...but I jumped on the next chance to fill up (another 10 miles later) The van took 20.5 gallons of gas. The next day we looked in our car manual and found out that we had a 21 gallon tank. We were 1/2 gallon away from running out of gas. This is one instance when i'm glad I didn't listen to my hubby! (love you hon!)
The rest of the trip was great. The reason we went was for Brent's brother Andrew who was heading out on his mission on Monday. He will the serving our church (www.mormon.org) in the Mexico, Leon mission. So we were able to attend the temple with him and spend some time with him before he left. We had a fun time shooting off rockets and flying kites at a park, talking and laughing and eating The trip went by way too fast and here we are home again. Back to the usual routine. We always look forward to those times when we can get together with family...!

Reading...a lost art??

This week I was at Malia's school volunteering. As I walked down the hall, I stopped to read some of the sample writing on one of the classrooms bulletin boards. The kids were writing about how active they were, what their favorite activity was, etc. Every single paper that I read said, "I am not very active...my favorite activity is watching tv/playing video games." One even said "I am not very active because my mom won't let me go outside and play." (I bet the mom is loving the fact that this is posted for everyone to read!) I remember thinking how sad this was. Today I took the boys to the library. We try to go around noon, because the library is nice and quiet. On the second floor, the kids/young adult section was practically empty. I then realized that it wasn't empty, but that every single youth that was on the second floor was on a computer playing video games. There were five youth playing video games and three more youth lounging in chairs listening to their i-pods. I just thought it was so ironic that here they were in a huge building filled with thousands of books....yet they choose to play video games and listen to music. Growing up my afternoons were filled with sports practice...volleyball, basketball, and softball. If I wasn't at practice I was doing homework or reading a great book. (Okay, I never missed an episode of "little house on the prarie.") Don't get me wrong, I enjoy tv. I am addicted to American Idol and the biggest loser. But I also love to read. I just hope that our youth realize that there is so much more out there than tv and video games. And it makes me realize how important it is for me to instill my love of books and reading in my kids.