B-O-Y

This is Kohen on two separate occasions when out of coincidence he was wearing the same shirt. The top picture is of Kohen after watching Toy Story for the first time in a while. He ran around the house acting like he was flying with his arms straight out and his head down. It was funny but I just watched him zooming all over without looking carefully where he was going and I was praying his forehead didn't find a wall before his zeal expired. Then he was running around a few days later with his sword and that provided me with some more proof that Kohen is in fact a boy.

Black Friday Steal

Nathan gets the best deal of the day award for this screaming deal which was so good I'm gonna have to say it was more of a steal. He got up Friday morning and was at Best Buy to try and get a monitor for our desk so we could use that rather than the laptop we have heretofore been using. So he rushes in the store and gets to the screen he saw in the add and it turns out it is not on sale after all. Mildly irritated he asks an employee about another monitor "What are the connection options for this monitor?" and the guy looks blankly at Nathan and says (in a real dopey voice) "It's $75 dollars." Uh, huh. Big help. Then some saintly customer tells Nathan that there is a monitor around the corner for a great deal. Nathan rushes over and there was 22inch monitor regularly $300 on sale for $75. Nathan grabs one and heads for the register. Of course the guy rings it up and it says it is $199. The kid calls over a superior and the lady says- "That sign was a misprint, we just fixed it so key it in for $75 for him but that is the last person who gets it for that." WHAT!?! We still can't believe it. We got a $300 monitor for $75. That is worth getting out of bed for, especially since I wasn't the one who had to.

AlyCat Shirt

All I wanted was a picture of Aly in her new shirt but as you can see she was having some technical difficulties coordinating smiling whilst keeping her eyes open, and what not. Thank goodness for digital cameras because otherwise we would go through a whole roll of film just trying to get one decent shot of this kid!

Sunday Dinner

Tonight Kennedy was commenting how on Sundays we often go to the Bell's for dinner. She said, "I love to go to the Bell's for Sunday dinner cuz we always have Roast Beast!" I chuckled at that for a while until I realized, she wasn't really wrong...Ughhh...

Like Peter Pan

Okay, I know this picture looks a little odd but go with me here. The other day I was struggling to get all three children ready to leave (always SO stressful!) and in the middle of it all Kennedy shuffles in behind me and says, "Mom, do I look like Peter Pan?"- totally irritated that she is messing around I turn around and this is what I see. It totally lightened the moment and I cracked up at her cleverness (*cough* no biasness here, no siree). For any of you who aren't completely versed in the Disney collections- in the movie Peter Pan, Peter loses his shadow and Wendy helps him to sew it back on (below) hence Kennedy's 'shadow'. I love this girl...

Food Glorious Food

Okay. Bare with me. A few weeks ago I caught the Oprah where Jessica Seinfeld (Yes, Jerry Seinfeld's wife) was on talking about how she got tired of fighting her kids about eating vegetables and so she started pureeing veggies and hiding them in their food. She had a new cookbook she has made and on Oprah.com they had several of the recipes. Now, I have always made an effort to feed my children healthy foods and I already have a few things I make that I sneak some veggies into but I was really excited to try these new recipes.

Having Nathan away from home has turned out to be a good time to try making some of these new recipes cuz I'm not gonna lie- some of them were NOT so tasty-but I think I found a few that will become staples in our diets. If I was to write all of the fiascoes and reactions to each of the foods I tried you'd be reading all day so I will try to keep it short; prediction- I will fail. First I tried the Chicken Nuggets with Spinach Puree. I thought they tasted really good but I learned a lot from making them. Make sure your chicken pieces are small, don't get the puree mixture too thick on the chicken or the breading comes off and this green mixture is revealed...Kennedy was not okay with this. The picture with nuggets is actually spinach filled 'chicken nuggets' they sell at our Costco out here and a friend recommended them and my kids will eat them and I actually really like them. Next I tried the Scrambled Eggs with Cauliflower Puree. I liked these okay. Kohen eats them and Aly ate them once and threw them once, and Kennedy picked at them. What I learned: don't add any or much water to the cauliflower puree when blending it, and I didn't add the oil that was in the recipe either because there was all of this liquid that I had to drain out the first time I made it. Better the second time with less liquids. Then I tried the Quesadilla with Squash Puree- people, please. I hadn't bought a squash (or cauliflower) in my life before I tried these. It was so fun to cut open that squash and realize oh yeah, this is in the same fam as pumpkins! And Kennedy enjoyed spooning out the seeds. I thought making the squash puree might be a little more involved than I was willing to be but you just throw it in the oven and forget about it for 45 min and then blend it up. I have since been just feeding 1/2 Cup or so of the squash puree to Aly at lunch because she loves it- who knew?! Anyway- the quesadillas are a hit for sure, even for Nathan and I. Kennedy is not a meat lover so I took the precooked grilled chicken strips from Costco, out of the freezer and blended them into the bean mixture and she was never the wiser :) Love that. Again, we really liked these. I made the Italian Meatloaf, would have liked it better without the spaghetti sauce on top but that is just a personal pref, reality is most of it ended up going down the sink. The Macaroni and Cheese- for the first time that I can remember since I have been making dinners for my fam did I make something that I felt was not worth eating. It looked all creamy and good- we all dug in and I even took a couple extra bites trying to make myself like it but I really just DID NOT. So even though my children often don't like what is for dinner, it would be rare that they all don't like it. So I did something I had never done before, took away the M.C. and broke out the cereal. Now, if you are someone who likes the Velveeta Shells and Cheese (Kristin :) you used to love that!) then this might be more up your alley. Let me know where I went wrong. And now, the finale. The Brownies with Spinach and Carrot puree. I was doubtful ya'll. And really if you eat a lot of refined sugars this would take a little getting used to. I didn't obey the directions and served it while still warm. I took one bite and there was a hint of spinach and I was like, 'blech! Why are my kids eating this?!' But then I tried it again after it had cooled completely and I was a much bigger fan. I proceeded to eat the rest of the pan for several breakfasts which I don't think was the intended purpose. Note: one bag of baby spinach makes one 1/2 Cup puree which is what the recipe calls for so keep that in mind. Anyway, thanks for reading, if by some miracle anyone still is- if you have any other questions let me know! And check out the link to the recipes up above!

Readers Tag

Now that I have been tagged by both Kristin and Kristy for my top 10 reads I suppose I better quit procrastinating trying to narrow it down and just get it done! As you all know I love to read so here are a few of my favorites in no particular order:

1- Sotah by: Naomi Ragen
2- These Is My Words by: Nancy Turner
3- Gone With The Wind by: Margaret Mitchell
4- Pride and Prejudice by: Jane Austen
5- The Poison Wood Bible by: Barbara Kingsolver
6- Roots by: Alex Haley
7-The Time Traveler's Wife by: Audrey Niffenegger (this has several racy scenes between the husband and wife- you've been warned. But I loved the story so much I had to put it on the list)
8- Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by: Lisa Lee
9- Les Miserables by: Victor Hugo
10- Battlefield Earth by: L. Ron Hubbard

Oh, this has been so fun reminiscing about these wonderful stories. I hope you read them if you haven't before! Enjoy!!!
I tag:
1- Halaulani
2- Shayna
3- Sheila

Uh Oh.

This can't be good. Look what I caught AlyCat doing the other night- showing off her mad climbing skills on my oven. I seem to remember this type of thing not ending well for some little children in Hansel and Gretel. Our friends the Furni have a daughter who was quite the little climber at a young age and I remember being amazed by it. Now that Aly is showing some interest in climbing I'm feeling a little less amazed and a little more stressed. Don't you love the look on Aly's face in that first picture? Like, 'that's right. take a picture- might as well cuz you can't stop me.' What do you think the chances are she will just forget she has acquired this new skill? I know, I know...not good.

The Dreaded Bindi

Today I'm thinking the Amish are on to something with their shunning of technology. Last night I put my cell phone in the front pouch of my sweat shirt as I gathered up my cup, pen, planner etc. and got ready to go up to bed. At one point I leaned over to pick something else up and spilled about 1/3 cup of my water out onto the floor. I didn't realize until about 5 minutes later that some of the water had fallen into my shirt pouch and was giving my cell phone a nice bath. Turns out cell phones don't like baths. *Quick Flash Back* Last time Nathan and I were looking at cell phones the cell phone guy opened the back of Nathan's phone, pointed to a red dot and asks me with an accusing tone, "Has this phone been dropped in water?" I told him I had no idea because it was my husbands phone and he said, "Well, this red dot right here tells me it has been. It is white until it gets wet." He went on to say this helps the phone companies know if water played a part in someones phone suddenly 'just not working'. For some reason I came away from that feeling quite chastised and became determined to keep my dot white. I got the impression that if my dot turned red they wouldn't believe me or help me with phone issues. So back to last night. I get up to my room and discover that every crevice of my phone is soaked. I slowly slid the back off of it and popped the battery out and to my horror, there it was; the Mark of the Beast. I steadied myself on my night stand as I fought the waves of guilt washing over me (I would make such a great Catholic- I can feel guilty about anything) how could I have let this happen!? But after the initial shock that my dot had turned red, I realized I had a bigger problem. Phone no workie. As of this moment I have not had a working phone for exactly 12 hours...and it has been awful!!! I feel totally handicapped and cut off from the world. I wanted to text Rosie and see if she could watch Aly while I go to the phone store but then had the sick realization that I had no numbers written down anywhere except in my phone. What was I thinking putting all of my trust in a stupid flimsy little SIM Card that is the size of my thumb nail- to be my link to family and friends? So I drug my entourage with me to the phone store and they were so good for exactly 4.8 seconds and then each went into slow meltdowns. I was there long enough to learn that the SIM Card reader is what is not working and though I will still have all of my contacts, I will have to buy a new phone. Arghhhhhh!!! I am so irritated! Of course they aren't still making my phone and I do not like any of the new ones. You know, for as convenient as technology is supposed to make our lives I am feeling pretty dang inconvenienced. I guess technology gets the last laugh...touche.

This Dance

Look at this genuine moment I caught today! I put on some music and as usual the children all come running so we can dance a bit. But this time Kennedy and Kohen are spinning to the music in a circle together just laughing- and I caught it! Woo Hoo! The picture below is about 2 seconds later and gives you a better idea of each of their unique 'get down' styles. I would like to draw particular attention to Kennedy's outfit: Witch hat, Tiara, snow beanie, Witch dress, tutu, Cinderella shoes and wrist decoration. It is also really rare that Kohen is not wearing dress ups. I love our family dances so much, I start to get depressed when I think of them ever not wanting to have them. Pretty soon it will just be down to their lame-o Mom and Dad who are dancing like dorks. I am appreciating it while it lasts.

Reason #275 I Suck at Being a Single Parent

The other night Kennedy and Kohen were playing on the floor when Kennedy picked up a stick and said some phrase about how it was smoking. I honed right in on that and after asking a couple of questions realized she was in fact talking about smoking. This was my first opportunity to teach her about smoking/drugs and as I realized this my heart started pounding and the pressure was mounting as the seconds ticked by and I wished her dad was home so he could explain it perfectly like he always does- but instead the spotlight was on me…say the wrong thing and she may become preoccupied with smoking and have a subconscious desire to do it…don’t say enough and she may naively want to do it. The time had come. I had to say something. I opened my mouth and all of my sage words of wisdom and concern scattered to the far reaches of the desert that was my brain. So in a panic I gathered up the only 4 words I could find, put them in order and shoved them out of my mouth, “CIGARETTES WILL KILL YOU!” In the ensuing silence Kenna’s eyes got real big and I realized the magnitude of what I had just said to my poor 5 year old and back pedaled as quickly as I could. I did a little better on my second try but my first statement resulted in several difficult follow up questions. I think I got the buggy a bit ahead of the horse on this one. I bet a simple, “Cigarettes are yucky” would have sufficed for now *sigh*. Kennedy must have gotten some serious cosmic kudos for being willing to come down here and let me be her mom…at least she has Nathan as her dad…that should help even things out some, right?

My Missionary

So as you know my baby brother is serving a mission in Taiwan. I thought maybe you guys might want to see a picture or two of him. The first is obviously one of Justin visiting some gold Buddha on his "P-day" (prep day) and the second is him holding some part of of a turbo for a car??? I think? Some guy asked him for help with it and he was just totally put out to take a look ;) Anyway, I thought that I would leave this post open for anyone who would like to leave a comment for Justin-I am going to print off the comments and send them to him for Thanksgiving. He is in a new country learning to speak a new language and working every day to teach people about Christ so I know that it means so much to him to get mail and hear from family and friends! So go ahead, leave a comment!

Matching dresses

I found this adorable dress for Aly (at Carters) and when I got it home I realized I probably loved it because it is a similar pattern as a favorite dress of mine. And Aly even looked at the camera for a split second!!!

Our little artist

I know that just because a child likes to color doesn't mean they are an 'artist'. However, Alyssa's interest in scribbling has started much earlier than Kennedy or Kohen's ever did. If she finds a writing utensil she is occupado for the next 15-20 min which is saying a lot for a 16 month old. This has proved very helpful at church or if I am trying desperately to get dinner done amid the wide spectrum of interruptions 3 children are so apt at providing. In these pictures I found Aly coloring all over my grocery list with the pen that I had so thoughtlessly left out. So I traded her a pencil (though she came unglued when I took the pen out of her hand till she saw the pencil) and she happily scribbled away. Halaulani, the short mechanical pencils the girls sent with Kennedy's b-day gift are the perfect size for kids but Aly especially- thanks!

Happy Halloween?

Happy Halloween!!! As you can see my group photo shoot didn't go very well, I had some less than cooperative participants. Kennedy is Cinderella, sporting the dress she got for her birthday and a new smile that looks like she has her finger stuck in a socket. Kohen is Cowboy Kohen and acting the part by strutting around and even taking off his hat and bowing- course he was too distracted to even look at the camera when I was taking pictures, bless his heart. And then we have our resident 'Aly Cat' who at this moment was acting more like a banshee...but I tried.

Favorite Closeups

As you could see from the previous post Alyssa was in no mood for our shenanigans. This picture is BY FAR the best I got of her all night and I got it by holding the camera out in front of us as she sat on my lap so please excuse the lack of center. Kennedy and Kohen did provide one of the highlights of my month though this evening. Last year I bought a package of mustaches for 50 cents and as a cowboy, Kohen was all about wearing one which was comic relief in and of itself. Of course for 50 cents I guess you can't expect the adhesive to stick and so the mustache wouldn't stay on :( When it fell off the first time Aly who had been (and after this brief respite continued to be) so crab cakes- she just completely started laughing. So then Kennedy got a mustache too and they would both put it on and then blow some air out of their mouths and the mustache would go flying. Aly was squealing and giggling so hard I had to get the video camera out so I didn't get any pictures but it was a hilarious few minutes- best 50 cents I've ever spent!!!

Just A Few More?

My favorite picture of the night: Kohen straining to lift his bag to show me how much loot he had.

Wickedly Cute

I just found these pj's on clearance and I love them. The top says 'wickedly cute' and I would have to agree. Some of the faces Aly was making made me laugh. She certainly wasn't going to stand still while I tried to get a picture! Watch out! She's coming through!

Genuine

I know this is naughty for me to think let alone memorialize in a public forum but I can't help it. Why do we as women think that offering our help to another woman in need, is enough? You know how we all say, "Well, let me know if there is anything I can do..." or "Seriously, if you need anything just give me a call...". I have said all of these phrases as much as the next woman so believe me when I say I know just how sincere they are being. I am being sincere, actually. I think we all are, the problem is that without realizing it by saying 'call me if you need anything' you are forcing some person already in a vulnerable position to further admit defeat by calling you to say they are so inadequate that they can't do it on their own so they are at your mercy. I never thought of it this way until recently when a lot of people have been saying these phrases to me. I don't want to seem ungrateful because I appreciate the gesture...but frankly I have come to think that 98% of the time, that is all it is. Service isn't just saying 'I'm here if you need me' it is more like showing up at your friends house and saying 'I'm here because you need me...now let me in you stubborn prideful person who isn't going to admit she could use help'. Why is it that I need someone to insist they are going to help me? Am I alone in that? I doubt it. My point is this: We all need help at some time or another. Contrary to the tone of this post I am actually doing well but I have just realized over the last month or so how I can improve my service towards others. Me saying the phrase, "Call me if you need anything..." translates into "blah blah blah, I am not going to help you unless you make me". The people who were the most helpful to me were those who were adamant (you know us completely capable housewives have to protest at least a few times) and specific. For example, "Which day can I come and get your kids this week?", that is a lot harder to brush off- especially when you need the help anyway! So my goal is to try and be more specific and genuine when I offer help to others...and maybe be better about accepting help once in a while as well.

Trunk or Treat

Kennedy: Why do they call it "Chunk or Treat"? (she meant trunk or treat)

I'm thinking that is what they call it when you do too much trunk or treating :) lol, I kill me.