Whew! What a Week!

I didn't help Sadie out of this mess, and guess what? She hasn't dumped out the laundry and climbed into the basket all week!

Morgan's dessert request last night: Peanut Butter Cookies. They were super easy and DELICIOUS!! (As if this cute smile and messy face doesn't give it away!) For the recipe, click here.

We LOVE springtime at our house! Costco had strawberries on sale, so we bought some. They're HUGE and delicious!

For dinner, we made navajo tacos. Brian said they were good, but I don't think I'll ever make them as good as my mother-in-law. Every time we visit Brian's family, I request her navajo tacos! They are the BEST!

Anyway, the bread recipe we used is enormous (I even halved it this time!), so after making fry bread and dinner rolls to freeze for later, we still had extra bread dough. So, we experimented by making "healthy" (healthier) doughnuts. (As if anything fried can be considered healthy, we did use a whole wheat dough recipe--doesn't that count?) For the bread recipe, click here. They were so yummy, after trying one, Brian and I "hid" them from the girls so we wouldn't have to share! (Plus, they had Peanut Butter Cookies for dessert! So did we...)

Friday night, for our date, we went to Red Robin. If you don't remember Morgan's obsession with this place, click here. So, we surprised the girls and brought home a balloon for each of them. Sadie loves "Noons!" (Sorry, the video is sideways!)

And, I know everyone else is ready for winter to be over, but we got another storm last week, (and, it's in the 70's this week, so it's already gone!) but here's a few pictures and a question for Dad: Even though you like to brag about your beautiful golfing weather, we have a question for you:

When's the last time you built a snowman???

Have a great week!

Snack Time

The other day, I realized I hadn't given the girls their afternoon snack. Here's how the conversation with Morgan went:

Me: I forgot to give you girls a snack!

Morgan: I already had my afternoon snack.

Me: Morgan, you had M & M's. They're not healthy.

Morgan: Yeah, but I ate them.

And, she wouldn't eat a real snack because in her mind, she had already had one! Oh well!

Telephone

The old-fashioned wrapping paper roll seemed to be just the thing this afternoon.

Farewell Winter...sort of

Yesterday, we had weather like this:



65 degrees. We went to the park, The girls were in their summer clothes (unfortunately for me, very fortunate for her, it meant Morgan could wear her Tinkerbell outfit. Will she ever outgrow it??? I hid it the last 6 months and she reminded me it's in the basement and I needed to get it out for the springtime weather)

And, today(the last official day of winter), we have weather like this:



So we've been doing alot of this:




This is from "Mater and the Ghostlight" on the Cars DVD. Morgan watches everytime before she watches Cars. Sadie likes it too, as you can see.




And this:




But my favorite part of the day so far has been this:

When this girl hears music, she dances! She "dances" in her car seat, the grocery cart, even Sacrament meeting! (Don't worry it's much more mellow at church)

Tomorrow's weather is supposed to be sunny and nice again! Welcome Spring! We've missed you!

Odds and Ends from Our Week

Morgan built a birdhouse at the Home Depot kids workshop last Saturday and wanted to paint it when we got home. I was very impressed at how focused and neat she was while we painted! She is very proud of her project and displays it proudly on her dresser.

Morgan did this all by herself:She uses EVERY PIECE of train track when she plays trains (I can't even do that!). She's even learned that in order to use the bilibos as tunnels, she has to make a curve instead of a straight line.

And Sadie did this all by herself: I now know that a quiet Sadie during naptime isn't always a good thing. I cracked open the door to see if she was asleep and saw this, so I grabbed the camera. When I opened the door to take the picture, she just looked up with her cute little grin and said, "Cheese!" And, then, she had to put every last item of clothing back into the dresser.

Sadie loves playing with the water doodle!

I had to include this picture because she just looks so precious! (Plus, when she falls asleep in the car, I know we won't have a problem like the one above during naptime!)

Sadie's Getting in the Cougar Spirit!

I just love Sadie's little dance she does! (And her delayed cheer at the end!)

When Brian started at the very beginning of the song, Morgan wouldn't sing. She said, "I'm not a Cougar, Daddy. I don't go to BYU yet." So, it looks like his brainwashing is having a positive influence on the girls...

Oregon

(We've been home for an entire week now, and I've had NO time to post pricures, but I guess the good thing is that I'm finally able to document our trip.)

Last weekend, we (the girls) went to Oregon to visit my brother and his family. They have two adorable little kids.

Mindy took us to a Children's Museum (the Gilbert House) which consisted of a musuem both inside and outside of 3 historical buildings in Salem. I have to say, I was a little skeptical at first (wondering how they would have room to put kid-friendly exhibits in), but it was AMAZING! Next time you visit, make sure you go!

Here, the girls are having "tea".

Sadie liked the giant chess board. Too bad I don't know how to play so she just got to hold the pieces,

Morgan and Elaena loved exploring in the ENORMOUS outdoor playground. Seriously, it's HUGE!

Here's the guys, stopping for a quick smile!

Sadie loved going down the long, long tube slides and I wasn't a big fan over and over and over. So, Brandon was kind enough to squeeze down with her a few times.

Of course, no trip ANYWHERE would be complete if our girls couldn't play with trains. They were in heaven when they found the train room!

Isn't this a cool slide? Sadie must have gone at least a dozen times!

Here's Sadie and Jacob peparing for their great dinosaur dig!

And, here they are again (with Mindy, too!) counting cookies on the wall. It's magnetic, so you put the cookies in and press a button and it punches them all out so you can start over! Pretty cool!

Here's proof that I didn't send my girls on an airplane by themselves! I went to Oregon, too!

Here we are making giant bubbles with the girls. This particular room was very wet and soapy! It seemed like I washed my hands for 5 minutes to get the soap off!

Sadie had so much fun in the bubble room, I could have washed an entire load of laundry using the soap in her shirt! So, Jakey let her borrow his sweatshirt. What a nice guy!

Sadie enjoying her blueberry pancakes. I put A LOT of blueberries in them and they were VERY MESSSY!

Elaena has quite the princess dress up collection and Morgan and Sadie were envious. They loved playing "princess"!

Morgan always offered to help feed Jacob a bottle.

We had lots of fun! Thanks for letting us come visit, Brandon, Mindy, Elaena, and Jacob!

My $3 Project

I first have to give almost all of the credit of my girls' cute room decorations to my mom. She's very talented in many things, especially crafts and decorating. Thanks, mom!

She first painted the flower border in my sister's room (click here to see it) and I stole the sponges to paint my girls' room. She also made these cool curtains for my other sister's room, and when she decided to redecorate, I asked if I could have them.


I've been wanting to put curtains like this in their room ever since we moved in 3 years ago!
So, for $3 (the cost of 2 window valance rods), and about 2 hours of time, I turned the one long curtain into two short valances to go over the 2 windows in their room. Super cute! (Now, if they only had cute furniture, their room would be complete!)

Her Dad Is So Proud!

How ironic that of all 26 letters of the alphabet, Morgan chose to cut out a "Y" at Preschool! Could it be her parents' (mostly her Dad's) influence??? She was so excited to show us when she borught it home!

More Snow!

The girls are in heaven each morning they wake up to a white wonderland. It means shoveling, sledding, and having lots of fun! Here are a few pics of our latest winter excursion to the front yard.

This looks like a nice spot to sit!


If any of you don't believe that Morgan takes her shoveling duties seriously, this should prove otehrwise! She won't stop until the job's done!

Here are the girls--at it again with their shovels and buckets! If all it takes is 2 buckets, 2 shovels, and snow to keep the girls happy, why do I bother with toys?

This is such a precious picture. Daddy and Sadie walking up the snow "hill" to go down on the sled again.

I only wish you could see her grin--ear to ear with giggles, too! She loves sledding!

Morgan loves sledding, too, only she thinks it's going to be scary, so she closes her eyes for the whole ride. Then, she looks surprised when she opens her eyes and she's at the bottom of the hill!

This video is really hard to hear because right when I started recording about a hundred geese flew right over us. Morgan spent a good ten minutes walking around the yard looking for untouched snow to make a snow angel. The best part was her talking to herself: "Is that a snow angel? Sure!" and then she was onto her next spot to make another angel.