When Mom Gets Sick...

...life tends to come to a halt.

So yesterday I woke up not feeling all that great (sore throat and feeling like a lot of my energy had just been zapped) and gradually got worse as the day went on (fever, chills, etc.). Both Hannah & Courtney have been sick recently (similar symptoms), so we have had a lot of laying around on the couch!

I did manage to get a little cleaning done yesterday morning, but by the time the kids got home from school, I was huddled up on the couch with a big blanket. I must say that McKay really stepped up to the plate and was a great helper, doing everything I asked him to (and even his homework without complaining!).

We ended up just ordering pizza for dinner that Brian picked up on his way home from work. The kids were thrilled, of course, although Brian and I didn't think the pizza was all that great. I went to bed before 9:00 (while Hayley and McKay were still awake, even). I am feeling better today, but not 100% yet. Hopefully the worst is past - life is no fun when Mom is sick!

Happy 40th!

Today was the BIG birthday for Brian -- number 40! (I really can't believe we're getting that old -- I'm not that far behind him!) I had thoughts once of doing a big party for him on this birthday, but we had a nice simple celebration instead. (And Brian's not a real big "party" guy anyway, so simple is okay!)

He requested a sweet-and-sour chicken recipe for dinner (we call it Mandarin Chicken). Of course, the kids won't eat it, so I always make extra plain chicken pieces to save out for them to eat. And he also requested a pineapple upside-down cake this year. I found a recipe on-line and thought it turned out okay.




I think all of the kids asked me where the frosting was. :-) And McKay and Hayley wouldn't even taste it, but everyone else liked it!

We had a couple of presents for him to open -- the kids also asked me several times why he didn't have more presents. As it was, he got a hanger for his ties and a basic bathroom scale (his request on that one).


Pretty exciting stuff! :-) Happy Birthday Brian - I love you!

Weekend Update

Well, I keep thinking I will be taking some pictures to post, but I haven't had the camera out for several days now (is that a record for me?). So I thought I'd just post a quick update of what everyone's been up to the last couple of days. (It's either that or go wash the sinkful of dishes...)

HAYLEY
Hayley learned to drive today! :-) All the neighbor kids were outside this afternoon and Hannah was driving around one of the Barbie PowerWheels jeeps with Hayley as a passenger. Then Hayley got a turn driving (the dad who owned it was supervising). She wasn't steering at first, but got the hang of it pretty quick and was SO proud of herself driving down the street. (I would have taken a picture if the camera had been more accessible.)

COURTNEY
Courtney had her second gymnastics class today, which Brian and the other kids got to go to. (I was at a Stake RS Meeting all morning.) I've noticed that Courtney has also been throwing lots of little tantrums lately -- like the screaming, kicking, stomping, arm-flailing kind. Just tonight, Hayley beat her to sitting on my lap for family prayer and she threw a tantrum about it. I wonder if there's some underlying reason for all these tantrums...

HANNAH
Hannah does still not seem to be feeling quite 100%. I found her in bed at 7pm tonight (still in her clothes), so I had her put her jammies on and just go to sleep for the night. At least she did finally eat a decent amount for lunch and dinner today. She got her 7-year-old pictures taken at JC Penney on Friday after school. I was a little worried that she would have red puffy eyes in the pictures because she was having a rough time right before (on the verge of crying over almost every little thing), but she ended up doing great.

MCKAY
McKay was excited to come home Friday with the software game he ordered from his class book order. He paid for it with his own money -- it is a Civil War Gettysburg battle strategy game. I admit I was a little hesitant to let him order it (it's rated E 10+ -- meaning recommended for over age 10 due to violence of the battles), but let him because it's historical and he is really into history and non-fiction reading these days. I figured it would be a good strategy game for him as well as some history as well. It came with a book about the Civil War which he promptly started reading (and even took with him to the mall while Hannah had her pictures). He is definitely a non-fiction kid. We got him some used children's history books for Christmas and he has just devoured them (it is a whole series with a book about a specific historical event or time period or landmark -- we only have a handful of them). I'm really glad that he enjoys learning so much, but it's difficult when he has to read fiction for a school assignment. We have to find a chapter book for him to read that fits his specific reading level (narrowing the choices some), and it's really hard to find fiction that he will read!

GAYLE
Like I mentioned, I spent all morning at a Stake RS meeting. I was asked to play the piano for a friend who was singing a musical number ("What Heaven Sees in You"). It was good for me to have to practice! I was a little worried about the music sheets falling down on me, as they were just copied pages (not in a book) and all spread out across the piano, but it was fine. The meeting was good and the luncheon afterward was also great -- I'm wishing I could get the recipe for the chicken salad they served!
I have also been busy still selling stuff like crazy on our on-line classifieds. It's great to get rid of stuff we dont' use anymore and get a little something back for it. Just today we sold our old scanner that we haven't used in quite awhile (for a whopping $25). We got a new one with a document feeder and then realized there weren't drivers for Windows Vista for our old one so we couldn't use it if we wanted to. The lady who bought it had a Mac so that wasn't an issue for her. Brian laughs at me that I'm always going around the house looking for stuff to sell!

BRIAN
Brian's trying to catch up on some paperwork tonight after having to watch kids all morning. He has a big birthday coming up next week (shh, don't tell, but he's turning 40!). Gosh, we are getting old. I'm not that far behind him. A week or so ago McKay was with me at the grocery store and happened to see one of those black "Over the Hill" candles and he really wanted to buy it for Brian's birthday. Brian requested a pineapple upside-down cake for his birthday, which I don't think I've ever made before. So I found a recipe on-line and hope it will turn out!

So that's the weekend in a nutshell. Sorry there are no pictures to make this post a little more interesting! Now I suppose I had best be getting to that sinkful of dishes...

Can You Say "Arabesque"?

(It's another Hayley post -- I need to start taking some pictures of the other kids!)

Hayley is our little princess ballerina. Her absolute favorite show these days is "Angelina Ballerina," which she asks to watch every single morning the minute she walks down the stairs (and several other times throughout the day). Fortunately, most of the episodes are quite short (around 10 minutes each) and we have acquired quite a few to select from.

She also loves to put on her princess dress and dance around the house. The other day I heard her dancing and instructing either herself or an imaginary friend named "Isabella" and using words like "arabesque" -- I know she picked that word up from Angelina. :-)


She was running and twirling and spinning and being a beautiful princess ballerina!

Books, Books and More Books

I know I've posted before about Hayley and her books, but looking around my house yesterday afternoon, I just had to take some more pictures.

I stopped at the library yesterday while Hayley was at preschool for our weekly visit. Usually we go on Mondays for story time, but the library was closed this past Monday. I always have several grocery bags full of books to drop off and walk out with the same grocery bags full of new books. We choose some books from the shelves, and pick-up the stacks that we've requested on-line and are waiting for us on the hold shelves (LOVE that service!).

If Hayley is with me at the library, she immediately wants a pile of books on her lap to start reading the car. Yesterday when she realized I had been to the library earlier, she had me carry all the new books to the dining room so she could read them. As she reads the books, she moves them from one pile to the other.

Hayley also carries books all over the house. I try to keep them picked up, but it's a losing battle. She brings them downstairs in the morning, takes some back upstairs later, etc. Here is our dining room/library/music room yesterday (before clean-up):

And the family room:

And Hayley's bedroom:

And the bookshelf in Hannah & Courtney's room (this area usually looks much worse as the girls sort through books for bedtime stories and leave them scattered all over the floor, but I think Hayley had already taken most of them to other parts of the house!)

Books, books, everywhere! :-)

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

We bid a fond farewell today to Brian's 2006 Infiniti G35...

He's only had this car for just about 2 years and has really enjoyed it, but with our current financial obligations and the looming need for a truck, he decided to sell it. And we were able to sell it on none other than our trusty on-line classifieds. Brian found out about what price he could get from a dealer as a trade-in and listed it for a little higher than that. It's been a frustrating experience at times, with various issues with a couple of potential buyers, and then several financing delays with the final buyers, but this afternoon I met Brian at work and we dropped off the car nearby and all the kids said "goodbye" as we drove past one last time.

For the time being, Brian will be driving a Nissan Xterra that his sister Julie brought down to us (her son who usually drives it is on a mission and we are actually trying to sell it for her as well). At some point in the future, we are planning to get a truck, we're just not exactly sure when that will be.

The Red-Eyed Girl

Hannah is home sick from school today. She came home last Friday with red eyes and acting a little lethargic. Saturday got worse -- she slept a lot and complained of being cold and had a slight fever (plus the very red eyes). Sunday she stayed home from church, even though she seemed to be perking up a little. I thought for sure with the long weekend she'd be back to herself by Tuesday.

Yesterday, when her eyes didn't look any better (plus she's been coughing, sneezing, etc.) I decided to take her in to the doctor. It was a very busy day at the doctor -- we had to wait much longer than usual. (And I was glad Brian was able to stay home with the other kids so they didn't have to come with me.) We had to see the nurse practitioner since our doctor didn't have any appointments available. The diagnoses was that she had a slight ear infection in one ear and the red eyes was probably something viral that would just have to run its course.

After we got home from the doctor, Hannah's fever shot up and she seemed to be feeling even worse. We picked up a prescription for her ear (which she doesn't like taking -- that's going to be fun twice a day for 10 days!). Here she is on the couch last night (although it's hard to really see the red in her eyes):

Today, she seems a little better, but not 100% yet. She is a little bored right now being the only one home (while the other two are in preschool). Hopefully she can go back to school tomorrow!

Ant Update

Just a quick update on how McKay's ants are doing...

They started out going diagonally down until they hit the wall, then they've just been following the wall (up, down, across) ever since pretty much!

A Really Big Bed

Hayley got her very own really big bed tonight! Brian and I were talking last night about how she’s said several times she wants a bigger bed and wondered if we should try to sell her toddler bed (I've still been selling all kinds of stuff through our local online classifieds!). We had an extra twin bed frame in the attic (with headboard and footboard – used to be mine as a teenager), plus a box springs, but no mattress.

Brian went ahead and got it all down from the attic today and set it up. We checked on the online classifieds and found a listing from someone selling a twin mattress. So we went to look at it. It turned out to be an Indian couple in a small apartment who were getting ready to move back to India and selling all their furniture. They were using the mattress and box springs as a couch in their family room, right next to the kitchen. They also had an extra mattress as the “back” of the sofa. We ended up buying just one of their mattresses and when we got it home we realized that it definitely had the smell of curry! I sprayed it with Febreeze a couple of times and hope that gets out some of the smell.

I also found a cute bedding set today (on the online classifieds, of course!) for Hayley that hopefully will work out. It is a cute quilt with lots of pink and flowers that looks almost homemade, plus a pillow sham and matching sheets. There are a few marks and stains on it that might or might not wash out, so it is definitely "used," but I hope it works okay. (It's not like it's going to stay in pristine condition around here anyway.)

Hayley was really excited about it -- when I was taking a picture she wanted me to take this one of her pretending to sleep in her new bed!

Gymnastics Day (Finally!)

Courtney finally got to go to her first gymnastics class at the YMCA today. I signed her up several weeks ago for the class and she has been anxiously waiting ever since. (Three weeks is a really long time when you're 5 years old!)

The 50-minute class is considered a "tumbling" class and is on Saturdays for eight weeks. There were 10 kids in the class, boys and girls, most about her age (with a couple a little older). They started with some stretching, then did different rolls (forward, “pizza wedge” (straddle), forwarding diving and backward).

The class area was inside a bigger gym and was surrounded by some netting, so it was hard to take many pictures. I did try to snap a couple when they did the balance beam (a low beam). They did forward and backward walking on the beam. (In this picture the instructor is trying to get her to look straight ahead at her finger inside of looking down at the beam.)

Courtney did pretty good for her first class. I did notice that she is indeed very flexible! When they were stretching, she seemed to be able to stretch farther and more easily than a lot of the other kids. For example, they had the kids sit with their legs out straight and reach down to touch their toes. Most kids could reach their toes okay (the instructors had a harder time!) but Courtney easily had her hands around the balls of her feet. She said she had a fun time!

Teeny Tiny Queen

We checked out a book from the library recently about a girl who loved teeny tiny toys (it was called "Ruthie and the (Not So) Teeny Tiny Lie"). Now, we have a LOT of teeny tiny toys in our house that all three girls like to play with, but I have decided that Hayley is the queen of all things teeny tiny.

Just an example of a few of our teeny tiny toys -- I left the penny and the Littlest Pet Shop animals in the picture for size reference:

Hayley LOVES these little toys. (I'm so glad we don't have babies in the house who would love to go around putting them all in a little baby mouth!) She carries them around in all kinds of containers -- and needless to say, I am constantly finding them all over the house. I'm amazed we haven't lost more of them.

Yesterday I was up in the game room with Hayley trying to sort and put away the toys (that the girls had dumped out all together in a huge pile). Whenever I would come to one of these little teeny tiny toys, I would ask Hayley which toy/bin it went with - Littlest Pet Shop? My Little Pony? Barbie? After all, when you have little tiny crowns from three different playsets, it's hard to keep them all straight!

Hayley knows her teeny tiny toys! Whenever I would ask her, she knew instantly which playset it belonged to. "That ones goes with the ponies, Mom" or "That's the one for Courtney's little tooth fairy Barbie". Wow. Maybe she's destined to be a geneticist or something and keep track of teeny tiny chromosomes. :-)

Plugged In

It tooks us a long time to join the world of cell phones and now we've finally entered the realm of MP3 players...

I mentioned how Hannah got a simple MP3 player for her birthday... and how McKay was quite jealous of this gift. Well, wouldn't you know it, the very next day I happened to have the kids at Wal-Mart and McKay wanted to just "look" and see what they had. On the back of a shelf, we found the blue version of the exact same MP3 player that Hannah got. McKay's a bit of an impulse spender, so sure enough, we came home with his very own MP3 player (paid for with his money).

We've loaded up their players with some of their favorite songs from our collection -- Hannah has Barbie and Care Bears and McKay has Mary Poppins and songs like "Y.M.C.A." They've both already complained about the ear buds. McKay usually plugs his in to some computer speakers when he's upstairs. Hannah's taken hers to listen to on the bus (with strict instructions to not take it out of her backpack at school).

They seem to be enjoying them! Now Courtney is asking when she can get her own MP3 player. :-)

The Ants Go Marching

You should have seen the commotion around our house about 3:30pm today after McKay picked up the mail. I noticed a little brown padded envelope with a return address of Hurricane, UT and I said, "McKay, your ants are here!" He went nuts and got the rest of the family as quick as he could to come and watch.

The ants arrived to go in the ant "habitat" McKay got as a Christmas present. It's called AntWorks and it contains some kind of gel used in space experiments that is good for the ants to dig and live in. (You can read more about it here.) The habitat came with a coupon to mail in for 20-25 harvester ants if you didn't want to find your own ants. (I suppose we could have tried fire ants, but nobody was game for catching them.) So we quickly sent off our coupon and $3.50 fee to Hurricane, UT (of all places) and have been patiently waiting for the ants.

This is how they came in the envelope:

(the vial was inside some styrofoam)

First, McKay had to poke a few holes in the gel to help the ants get started tunneling. (You can see he was so excited to do this he didn't even take the time to take off his jacket.)

Brian (who happened to be home from work early today because the power went out all over HP's campus) put in the ants, McKay hurried and clamped the lid down and everyone watched in fascination.

McKay moved the ants up to his room so he could plug in the base lights. They are blue lights that give the habitat a neat look and light up the gel area. Here they are with the camera flash:

...and without the flash...

Just before bedtime, we checked in on the ants again and the kids were jumping in excitement to see that they had already started digging. The ants bring up the little pieces of gel they dig out and leave them scattered along the top edge.

It was hard to pull them away for bedtime and I'm sure they will be checking it out first thing in the morning. I will post some updated tunnel pictures as they get to work!

Three's a Crowd

Last night I did something I don't normally do -- I let a kid climb in bed with us. In this case it happened to be this kid:

I know some parents have no problem with their kids sleeping in bed with them. However, we have tried to avoid this as much as possible over the years. First of all, it seems that once you let them in your bed they come to expect it every time they wake up and it gets harder and harder to get them back in their own bed. Plus, I don't think anybody sleeps that great -- well, maybe the kid can konk back out, but I know Mom and Dad sure don't sleep soundly worried about rolling over on top of a little person or getting the covers over their head or just having little feet kicking your back all night.

So back to last night... Hayley woke up around 4:00am or so and came in our room. She looked to be kind of dancing around a little, so I hurried and took her potty and then took her back to her bed. She started crying that she was scared of how dark it was. I noticed that she was literally shaking -- I don't know if it was from being scared or not, but she was definitely shaking. I put extra blankets on and tried to tuck her in, but every time I'd try to leave the room she'd just start crying again.

She started with crying about how her room was too dark, then it went to her room wasn't pink and she wanted it pink, and then it went to she wanted a bigger bed. (She has told me the part about the bigger bed before, so maybe it is time to start thinking about moving her out of the toddler bed.) Anyway, I finally was able to leave the room after about a half hour and get back in bed. I thought she had gone back to sleep, but 10 minutes or so later, she came back in our room again and said she wanted to get in our bed. (The morning before, she came in right as I was getting up so I let her lay in my spot while I showered.)

I'll admit that at this point I was just too tired to protest and try to get her back in her bed, so I just let her climb up over me and lay down in the middle of our bed. I think if it had been earlier, I would have tried to get her back in her room -- but I knew my alarm was going off much sooner than I wanted (6:00 in my case) and it could well be another half hour to an hour before she would settle down in her room and then it would be about time to get up!

I kept thinking that I would regret this decision -- that she would start wanting to sleep with us more and make it even that much harder to get her back to sleep -- but I was still too tired for that argument to win. So in she climbed and after a while she slept (right up against my back pretty much) and there she stayed until after I was up and showered for the day.

We'll see how tonight goes -- she didn't take a nap today (again -- no naps this week so far!) -- so I'm hoping she's tired enough to just stay out all night long! I know that's what I'd sure like to do!

Make it a Match (or Pink!)

"The Battle of the Cups" is becoming a daily occurence around our house. It started a while ago when Hayley would always request the pink cup for breakfast. (We have a set of kid's plastic cups -- 6 different colors.) Courtney took notice of this and also started requesting the pink cup every day. This would usually result in grabbing, crying, etc. as these two fought and argued over who got the pink cup. Then Mom has to take away the pink cup so nobody gets it -- you get the idea. Every day.

We tried taking turns, but inevitably we couldn't remember whose turn it was and so we continued to have daily struggles over the pink cup. Finally, somebody (I can't remember who) had the idea that it was just as good -- if not better -- to have a "match" between your plate and your cup. If you have the purple plate, you need the purple cup, etc. Believe me, the girls do not let Mom forget and get away with not matching!

Here's today's lunch, for example (sorry the picture is kind of dark):

(You can tell the girls were playing dance dress-up just before lunch!)

I've even noticed that if the girls fight about the pink cup initially and then the other decides instead to go for a "match" that the first one gives up the pink cup and takes a match instead.

Hayley has been my big helper setting the table recently and she always makes sure that the girl's cups and plates match. If a matching cup happens to be dirty, we have to wash it!

I'm really trying to work on "It doesn't matter WHAT color your cup is," but that lesson seems to be a little slow in coming. I guess the color of your cup does matter sometimes when you're a little kid.

Fairy Magic

One of the presents that Hannah got for her birthday was a bunch of books in a series called "Rainbow Magic." We got one from the library a while ago and she seemed to really like it, so I ordered a bunch for her birthday. They are easy chapter books about fairies (obviously written with little girls in mind!). There is a set about the "rainbow color fairies" and a set about "weather fairies" and one about "pet keeper fairies," and so on.


From what I could gather about the series, they are all written by Daisy Meadows, which sounded too cute and coincidental to me to be a real name and sure enough, one Web site reports that it is actually a pseudonym used by four different authors for the series. Also, the series seems to have originated in the UK, so many of the books are not available in the US yet.

As I was looking at what books to order for Hannah, I found a complete set of all seven of the "rainbow color fairies" (pictured above) and I decided to get a few of the "weather fairies" books too (the one she got from the library was a weather fairy). All of the books have a title like "Goldie the Sunshine Fairy" or "Ruby the Red Fairy."


It turns out that one of the weather books is "Hayley the Rain Fairy." I thought it was fun that they spelled Hayley the same as our Hayley, so of course I had to get that book too.


Then as I was looking at a list I found of all the other titles, I saw a "Hannah the Happy Ever After Fairy" book. The search was on! After much searching, I deduced that this book was only released in the UK and not available in the US. Bummer! However, I did find an eBay listing originating from the UK for this book.


This lady had also listed several of the other Rainbow Magic books that she had bought for her daughter (but then her daughter wasn't interested in fairies and such). So, I stepped a little out of my "frugal" nature and bid on four of her books, knowing that the international shipping wouldn't be cheap. I did end up winning all four auctions, getting the Hannah book, plus three of the pet keeper fairy books that also aren't available in the US right now. I think I spent as much on the shipping as I did on the books, but hopefully she will enjoy them. And, I figure, with two more girls who will be readers someday, it can't hurt to have a lot of fairy books in the house!


So that brings me to this afternoon. Hannah decided to read one of her new books after dinner ("Katie the Kitten Fairy") and Hayley, our book-lover, decided to join her. Hayley has been carrying Hannah's fairy books all over the house. Hannah was in the dining room and I peeked in to see Hayley sitting right next to her, "reading" another of the fairy books out loud while Hannah read to herself. The books do have several pictures in them and she was telling quite a story. Such an imagination! I tried to do a quick video clip, but I know the sound didn't come through very well. So turn up your volume and maybe you can hear some of her fairy story!



I love listening to Hayley read her stories! It is especially interesting to hear her "read" a story we get from the library before we have read it together. It is purely what she gets from the pictures. Sometimes she will ask me what the name of the book is, and then she might use the character's name in her story. After we read a book together, she always wants to take it with her to read again by herself and usually, the story seems to change to be more in line with what we actually read. I hope she continues her love of books as she gets older.

Seven!

Happy 7th Birthday to Hannah today!!

She was so excited about her birthday. She said to me several times, "I wasn't 7 yesterday, but now I am!" I dropped cookies off at school this morning for her class and we had presents and cake after dinner tonight.

Hannah requested a cat cake and I tried to follow an example I found on-line (she wanted the colors changed) -- this is how it turned out (not quite like the picture...)

She was a little upset when she saw I made the eyes green instead of blue (I forgot that part of her request) and she didn't seem to mind that the ears were about ready to fall off (actually, one did fall over but we propped it back up as best we could with lots of toothpicks).

She seemed excited about all of her presents.

This is an MP3 player she got from Grandma & Grandpa -- I was kind of surprised she actually knew what an MP3 player was. McKay seemed quite jealous of this gift. He got it all out and wanted to set it up, but Hannah was too distracted by all her other new stuff. When he went to bed, he asked me to check into how much an MP3 player costs (for him).

We had to pull her away from presents for cake and ice cream.

I think it took her 3 tries to blow out her candles (I don't think she got any the first blow!).

Then it was the big struggle to pull everyone away from the new toys (especially Hayley, who of course immediately "claimed" the Littlest Pet Shop toys) and get them all to bed. Fortunately, there is no school tomorrow (teacher work day for the end of semester) so we don't have to get up real early!

Garden Girl

One of Courtney's Christmas presents was a little "Garden Girlz" playset. It included a small rose-shaped playhouse with some teeny-tiny accessory pieces (little girl, bed, ladder, etc.) and also some seeds and "magic flower beds" to plant them in.

She was very excited to try it out and plant the seeds. We had to soak everything separately overnight and the next day we tried to follow the directions in "sprinkling" the seeds onto the "flower beds" (looks like quilt batting to me!). This proved to be quite difficult because the tiny seeds were soaking in a bowl of water. We ended up trying to just pick up the seeds out of the water and transfer them, but they would stick to our fingers. Somehow we finally managed to transfer what seemed like most of the seeds to their new home.

There are two types of seeds -- clover and grass. We keep the garden in the kitchen window and Courtney is faithfully watering it once a day (using the tiny watering can that came with it). The clover sprouted first, followed a few days later by the grass.

She hasn't really played with this as a toy, but she is so excited to see how much her garden house has grown each day. I don't know how long it will last because it certainly isn't getting many nutrients from those flower beds. But it's been a fun project for her!

A Sunbeam!

Just wanted to share a picture of Hayley after church last Sunday on her first day as a Sunbeam in Primary. She was SO excited and did great! They had been taking the Nursery kids into singing time for a few minutes the last few weeks so they would be familiar with the Primary room. I saw several Sunbeams crying, clinging, running around, or climbing on/under chairs, but not Hayley. She was a perfect little Sunbeam! When I picked her up from class, she went singing down the hall, "I'm a Sunbeam!"

Yummy

Just had to share the link for the recipe we tried for dinner tonight -- Garlic Chicken Farfalle from the blog of Becky Higgins (one of those scrapbooking experts). I have tried several of her recipes (including the Andes Mint Cookies!) and enjoyed them.

This dish tonight was definitly not low in calories, but it was sure yummy. We even convinced all the kids to taste it and all said they liked it, although Hannah wouldn't eat the bowtie pasta and McKay really only had a couple of bites. (Courtney ate at least 3 helpings, however!)

Be warned -- it makes a bunch! I want to fix it again the next time we have company for dinner. I don't know how well the leftovers will keep because of the cream and butter in the sauce.

I also tried Becky's technique for baking the bacon in the oven and it worked great -- so easy and so crispy (my favorite!). Next time we have bacon (which isn't very often), this is how I'm fixing it!

So, here's the link to her recipe section: http://www.beckyhiggins.com/recipes/

... and Found

(whew!) Happy to report that the certain boy's glasses were found this evening hiding in a storage compartment in Daddy's car (where he had ridden with him on an errand on Saturday).

Lost...

...one pair of glasses belonging to a certain 9-year-old boy. Could not find them before school this morning (much to the boy's dismay). Have been looking ever since and no sign of them. No one remembers for sure the last time they were seen, but we're pretty sure they made it home from school on Friday. We do have an empty case sitting on the counter.

If you've seen them, please let us know. :-) We will keep looking...

Sunny Breakfast

Today we switch from early morning church (8:30am) to afternoon church (1:30pm), so the kids were able to enjoy a leisurely breakfast in their pj's. I noticed as they were eating that the sun starting shining in the windows, so I tried snapping a few shots without the flash. Here's how they turned out (in sepia mode)!

And speaking of sun, today is Hayley's first Sunday as a SUNBEAM!

Adding Color!

Our painters were back in town over New Year's, so we put them to work painting our dining room. (Our WONDERFUL painters would be Brian's sister Julie & her daughter Ashley -- I don't think we would ever get any painting done without their help!)

We decided to paint the dining room the same beige color as McKay's bedroom. (I'm sure Julie will love me for posting this picture, but it's the only one I took during the process.)

We love the way it turned out! The room is so much warmer and more inviting. Makes me wish we had painted it a long time ago. Here's a picture with our big chair put back in place (the other furniture wasn't back in yet).

Now we need to get a nice floor lamp and some curtains!