Raindrops and Ravioli

I don't know about the rest of you, but our family sure enjoyed the rain we got on Sunday! We opened the windows so we could watch it rain during lunch. Mike insisted that he should get to take Amy outside for just a little bit. I forced him to let her get SOME clothes on first, as she was running around diaper-only at that point. She thought it was pretty cool and enjoyed splashing in the puddles.





Amy has also become the ravioli-monster. She eats at least half a can and gets it EVERYWHERE! As you can see from the pictures below, she tries to eat every bite. She has decided that she's tired of me feeding her (apparently I'm not fast enough) and so she insists on having the bowl of whatever she's eating on her tray, her spoon in her hand (right handed, much to Mike's pleasure), and eats with her other hand, occassionally tapping the spoon in the bowl and licking whatever might get stuck to it on accident. What a doll!

Happy Birthday Mike!

Mike turned 27 on Friday, January 25th. Happy Birthday to Mike! We had a pretty relaxed birthday for him, mostly just hanging around the house. He played video games a lot of the day, either by himself or with Richard. That night we did have some friends over, the Becker's and the Owen's, and had some yummy yummy dinner (Cafe Rio!) and then rocked out to guitar hero, the 80's edition in honor of Mike's love for 80's music. Lindsey Owen was the longest running champ of Guitar Hero, frustrating Mike who was sure he could beat her. Then Mike had his traditional birthday cake - Angel Food cake stuffed with strawberries, cream cheese, and whipped cream. Thanks everyone for coming over and celebrating Mike's birthday with us!

Yummy Cake! I even made the angel food cake (from a box) instead of buying one pre-made this year!

Make a wish! He said afterwards that he wished he could beat Lindsey Owen at guitar hero since she kept smoking him!

Rock it Mike!

Camping, Baby Showers, and Birthdays

This has been a pretty packed weekend. It really all started on Thursday when I went in to work at Heliocol. I've worked there on and off, full-time and part-time, for 4 1/2 years. I have been helping them get organized for quite some time and decided I need to go in more than once a month to finally get everything under control. So starting in a week or two I will probably be working every Friday. Mike has every-other Friday off, which makes taking care of Amy easier, and my mom has agreed to watch her the other Fridays.
So that was Thursday. Friday we decided to go camping with our friends, the Owen's. Yes, I know it's January and that even though we live in Arizona it is still cold. Nevertheless, we braved the cold and went camping overnight at Lake Pleasant. It was really quite nice. Amy did have a little bit of a hard time because she was either freezing or wanted to walk around without a coat on, which caused the freezing. Despite all of the cold, it really was fun. We cooked in our dutchovens, roasted marshmallows, played games, and just hung out. We are looking forward to doing a lot more camping this summer when it warms up.
We had to come home semi-early on Saturday from camping because I had a baby shower in Mesa for my friend Sonia in the afternoon. This is the third baby shower that I have been to in two weeks - one for Natalee Francom (in the ward), one for Kasie Inman (in the ward), and now one for Sonia (from high school). I'm so excited for all of them! I did decide that baby girl clothes are so much cuter than boy clothes though. Don't get me wrong, boy clothes are nice, but girl clothes are much more fun to buy. I think we'll stick to girls, although Mike doesn't necessarily agree with that.
On Saturday night, Mike and I went out to dinner to celebrate our two birthdays. Instead of going out for each of our birthdays, we decided to combine our birthdays into one nice dinner. Since my birthday was the 6th and Mike's is next week on the 25th, we decided we'd pick a weekend in the middle. THANK YOU SO MUCH RICHARD AND LINDSEY for watching Amy so that we could go out - and thanks for letting us stay out so late! We went up to Peoria to Firebirds. It's this great steakhouse we discovered last year when I somehow won a gift certificate to it on the radio. Boy is it good! Their loaded baked potatoes are to die for, as are their steaks! Then we went out to a movie - National Treasure. It was good, not quite as good as the first but still very entertaining. We had a lot of fun!

Online Cookbook

So I don't know about the rest of you, but I am CONSTANTLY losing recipes. I often write them down on some scrap of paper while on the phone with my mom or mother-in-law and then they just disappear. Because of these disappearing recipes, I wanted to find a way to keep them all in one place but also be able to share with everyone. Our ward had done a cookbook, but there was a technical issue and my recipes didn't end up in it, so here's another option: I found this site that allows you to post your recipes and everyone can log into it! They even organize it for you like a ward cookbook, and you can label them as low-fat or kids meals and stuff like that. So if you're interested in joining in on this, go to www.desktopcookbook.com. My username is lindseylaudie and the password is yummy. Feel free to add your recipes and use any of those in there. I think this is a fun way to make sure we all have the recipes we grew up eating!

Family Pictures

As many of you know, our family did a weight loss challenge over the past couple months, and here's why! We needed new family pictures because in the past two years we added two babies and a new husband to the family. So those of you wondering about the results of our weight-loss challenge, here they are!

This is my whole family (left to right, back to front): Calli (oldest sister), Arlon (Dad), Cindy (Mom), Amy (my baby), Me (2nd sister), Brendan (Calli's husband), Keaton (Calli's 2nd), Taylor (Calli's 1st), TJ (Lisa's husband), Lisa (3rd sister), Mike (my hubby), Jessica (youngest sister), Summer (4th sister)

These are my parent's grandchildren: Amy (14 months), Keaton (10 months), and Taylor (almost 4).

My parents just celebrated their 26th wedding anniversary! 26 years and still in love!

This is our super-cute family pictures. Aren't we sweet?

The sisters!

Amy's 1 Year Pictures

Our little Amy turned 1 on November 2nd, but we didn't have a blog then so we'll share her 1 year old pictures now! She's definitely her daddy's twin.

Such a big girl! She walks all over the place now (but not in those shoes - she can't wear them to stores because they are VERY slippery and she falls every two steps).

Our Little Princess!

We call this one her "Mike Face." She is constantly sticking out that tongue, which is a habit of her daddy's as well. And those are what we call her "Mike Eyes." My mom is convinced that Mike can see through Amy's eyes.

The photographer asked to have her carry around this wooden "1" because these were her one year pictures, which really just got in the way of most of the pictures, but this one turned out pretty good!

Thanks Taylor!

Ok, so it's not really my niece Taylor's fault that she caught some bug from someone else, but boy did it pass around the family fast! Amy has been throwing up the past couple days, as has my nephew Keaton and my two littlest sisters. My mom and I haven't felt so hot ourselves the past day or two. But, happily, Amy is a snuggler, not a crier, when she's not feeling well. She prefers just to lay in my arms or on top of me while I lay down. She lays so still that I have to keep checking to see if she's even awake. She's feeling much better now and is getting tired of being stuck at home with me all day long. After visiting the Laudie family in Utah last week she's forgotten how to be an only child and feels that someone must be playing with her constantly. We'll have to go to our ward's "Park Day" tomorrow (a lot of the moms go to the park once a week to let the kids play and get out of the house themselves).

Finally!

I've been meaning to create our family blog for months now, after seeing how cute everyone else's are and how nice it is to catch up on the little happenings of all our friends. Anyway, here it is!