Request...

I'm looking for a really good sugar cookie recipe. I love going to the Safeway bakery - they have the lightest thick sugar cookies with frosting and sprinkles in the plastic container....you know what I'm talking about?

Mmm...and speaking of Safeway's bakery...when I have to go to the grocery store and I'm tired and grumpy my special treat is Safeway's sugar cookies with large M&M's baked in. You know which ones I'm talking about? The large cookies you can buy individually or in a plastic box with a mixed variety. Yum. Anyone know how to make those?

Thanks!!!

Jump Rope Assembly

Both girls are in the jump rope club at school and are doing so well!! They both participated in the assembly and I was SO proud of them!!!! E was nervous at first about doing it but on the day of the assembly she decided she wasn't nervous and went out and did a GREAT job with her friends!!! (She's jumping in the middle and got in without any problems! Yea!)

M jumped with two of her friends and they had some neat tricks - here all three are jumping together with one rope (M and the other girl were turning it for themselves and then the third girl jumped in) Way to go girls!!! I'm so proud of both of you!!!!!

Daddy's birthday!

Daddy's birthday was last week! He's really excited about the airplanes the girls gave him (Daddy had pointed out to me the models he flies in his computer games). Of course after dinner Daddy had to get his computer game out and SHOW the girls the planes he flies...

I think the girls were impressed and Daddy was happy :)

Everyone lined up on the couch to sing the birthday song and have a cupcake! Isn't he cute with all his girls!

I'm so glad I caught this at the right moment! A thought the candle was pretty cool!! We had to apologize for the pink candles and frosting - the girls had had a tea party that afternoon with some friends and we had used pink frosting and all we had were pink candles! Daddy said it tasted good anyways!

I tried to make up for it with transformers plates!

We love you so much Daddy!!!!! Happy Birthday!!!!

Little Bro's bday!

My little bro and his beautiful wife and adorable baby boy came to visit us a few weekends ago to take some family pictures for us and to celebrate his birthday!
WE love Uncle Scott!!!

Littlest Pet Shop Monopoly! My bro loves Monopoly and he was willing to play the littlest pet shop version...I'm told M beat Uncle Scott (but my brother tells me it's only because he was helping his nieces along the way!)

Special time with Aunt Sara

What cute cousins!!!

Thanks for a great visit and amazing pictures!!! We love you!!
(I'll get the family pictures up soon!)

Random

A few random pictures...

Halloween!

I've got a bit of catching up to do and I wasn't going to bother but I am really excited about getting my blog printed to keep as a journal so I figured it would be worth uploading these pictures...so here you go!

Our princess fairy

Poodle girl! (thanks Grandma!)

Mg with her buddy - We had a fun Halloween party with friends (the kids didn't have school that Friday for a teacher work-day) and then some friends came over to watch a Halloween video and Mg wore this leotard. She was SO tired when it was time to go trick-or-treating she didn't want to get her tinkerbell costume on so she added her crown and went as a ballerina!

Thanks Grandma for the fun trick-or-treat bags - they were GREAT!

What a lot of candy! We weren't even out very long!!! We went out with some friends of ours - their daughter was in kindergarten last year with E and she has a younger sister the same age as Mg and they are best of buddies so we do a lot with this family. We got lucky - we told the kids we were going to two more houses and at the last house it started to DUMP the rain so we ran to the car and headed home!

On a side note - I came up with a BRILLIANT plan - we still have lots of Halloween candy left over so I am now saving it to make an advent calendar for the kids for Christmas! :) Happy Halloween!

Pumpkins

Seeds! E was very excited to find the seeds and save them for next year

Yuk!!

Isn't Daddy great! Mommy gets credit for cleaning out the pumpkin and drawing faces and Daddy uses his muscles to carve the faces...Happy Halloween!

She wanted a happy pumpkin

She wanted one losing teeth (she's just about to lose her first one!)

She wanted one that was missing two front teeth

News!!

FINALLY!!! We have some news on our plans for the future. I haven't said much because there were SO many options and we've just been waiting for some definitive answers instead of putting plans A-T up (and yes, there have been about that many plans!).

Daddy is hopefully a week or two away from graduating! Yea! And why are we SO excited - we're getting a Wii!!!! We decided almost a year ago that would be an appropriate gift for Daddy and for the family. I actually bought it a few weeks ago (I didn't want to have to track one down during the holidays!) and it's sitting in our closet until the final papers are signed :)

While we're excited about his graduation we don't want to go anywhere until his big project is published. He hopes to submit the paper within in the next two weeks. If the journal is interested they will peer review it (could take 3 weeks or more) and then usually request a few changes or an additional experiment. This was creating a huge amount of uncertainty in our life! We're looking forward to knowing what the journal says.

If they are not interested in it or they want a LOT of work done before they'll accept it then we'll send it on to another journal. The other jourhal he could send it to published a paper very similar to his a few weeks ago (but Jon's data is much better!) so we expect they will take it without much of a problem. But if they don't want it then he met someone at a conference who said they would take it (and be happy to have it!). We're REALLY hoping to do better than that though :)

The other big question (are you bored yet! Remember - this is my journal, too!) was whether or not he had a job. He had two interviews in the summer at the University of Utah and had verbal offers from both. He was REALLY excited about one of them and the other would be doing exactly what he is doing now, which is not what he wants to do the rest of his life. When Daddy graduates he was supposed to contact the one he really wanted to work for so they could make an official offer, assuming all the funding was in place. He contacted that professor a week ago and today we finally heard news that the professor's clinical trials are going well and the first phase is almost completed (checking for safety) and so they are submitting grants for the second phase and he will include Daddy's name as a co-investigator and as soon as they hear about those grants Daddy will officially join the lab! Yea!! Daddy is unbelievably excited! :) He really liked this lab and their research. So for us it means we will NOT be moving over Christmas break but rather January or more probably February or even March. Of course there are still LOTS of unanswered questions but at least we know we are not moving over Christmas break and that the lab he wants is still willing to take him on. Life is good and we are grateful!! For us it means staying in a place where we are happy and still close to some family and we will also have an increase in pay which will help us with moving expenses and we are grateful for that. We'll keep people updated whenever we hear concrete information - hopefully SOON you'll be seeing some Wii pictures!!!

Tagged

So I don't do the tagging thing very well...I've been so busy and I'm not very creative and I spend so much time thinking about what to write that several weeks go by and I've been tagged for something else and I have a large stack of tags to go through. I'm rambling. However, recently there's been a tag going around for 7 quirks and one of my friends said she asked her husband for help. That sounded highly entertaining and promised to be a great conversation so I asked my dear husband if he could list seven of my quirks. That's almost as bad as asking if I look fat in something but not quite and he got a good laugh and we had a fun evening...so after all that rambling here are 7 of my quirks....

1) I love warm laundry. Straight out of the dryer. When we started this list I was laying under our warm laundry and I was ever so happy! When I had early morning seminary in high school I loved to wash my clothes at night and wake up in the morning, turn on the dryer, eat my breakfast and then put my warm clothes on.

2) I love chocolate. When he mentioned this I told him that that wasn't unusual. He pointed out that not every woman pops out a baby and then eats chocolate - not just any chocolate but a box of See's candy (the doctors love it!). Now why am I gaining weight? It's so worth it!!!!

3) I am the most talented female senior class klutz. I actually won female senior class klutz and tied for most talented. Since I had two they let the person I tied with have the most talented award and gave me the klutz one. My mom is so proud. How many of you have been blown off of a drum major stand or jumped off a stage and fallen into the first row of chairs and cracked your sternum (yes, it hurt).

4) I hate getting wet. REALLY hate it. I take showers only because I have to. My Grandpa would warm his pool up to near 100 degrees and I still didn't love getting in it. My favorite sound is rushing water in a river or especially a waterfall, but don't expect me to get in. AND I REALLY HATE WET KISSES!!!!! My husband still thinks this is hilarious and loves to plant a wet one on me just to watch me wipe it away. I told him a long time ago that if I am in a coma and he kisses me HE HAD BETTER WIPE IT OFF!!!!!

5) My favorite way to wake up in the morning is to tickle someone. The girls love to climb in my bed for snuggles to wake me up and then I start in on the tickles and I am awake and in a good mood. Strange.

6) I have to write things down. Yes, even this list was written down or I can't go to sleep. They tell you that when you're pregnant the placenta drains your brain and you can't remember anything. What they DON'T tell you is that your brain power never comes back and it gets WORSE with each kid!!! The worst is when I write it all down and then leave my list upstairs or at home :)

7) "I'm talking and I can't shut up" I think that was on a button I was given in Junior high. It went along with the "Stay Tuned - I may say something brilliant at any moment" button I was given. I'm assuming that since you all know me that there is no reason to explain this one.

And while I was typing this list up a HUGE gross spider came running at me from under the computer and I was trapped in my chair with my feet up YELLING for my man to come save me. Thankfully my knight in shining armor made it in time and rescued the trapped damsel in distress and peace reigns in our home. Thanks Daddy!

Some New Favorites

I think this is one of the very few things I have ever bought the kids just for fun and when it first came out (I'm cheap!). Given E's past history and her passionate love of all Barbie movies I wasn't too worried. It wasn't my favorite but it was good, and guess what E (and Mg) want for Christmas!!
The girls had great reports from the parent teacher conferences (M needs to work on quick math facts, E needs to neaten up her handwriting) so we took the family to the school book fair. They had seen this book when they went with their class to see the books at the book fair and the girls were laughing about it at dinner and guess what Daddy convinced Mg to pick out :) I wish you could hear Daddy reading it!! (Aargh!)
This was the first book fair book I heard about and sure enough E picked it out and I can't tell you the number of times it's been read by anyone in the house that can read in the last 24 hours!

We've discovered two new series from the Scholastic Book club...and Hooray!! they're only $2 a book! This series is about several butterfly friends and their little adventures. Cute little chapter book, simple, basic and wonderful. E's starting to read it with a little help from me and M devours it in less than an hour. We just ordered the third book in the series and there are several little girls waiting anxiously for it to arrive!This is the other series we've discovered. The books are harder to read than the Butterfly Meadows book but M has REALLY been enjoying them (I'm not sure if E started any yet). M even has her background on the computer set to a picture similar to the book cover...pink, sparkles, unicorns - what more could you want! A little more involved plot dealing with friendship issues and such but cute and wonderful.

A is still totally infatuated with kitties right now and is SO busy!!! Constantly walking, climbing and getting into trouble. She's learned that she can climb on our small step ladder and reach things on the counter (I forget and then all of a sudden here she comes walking with a bag of blueberry muffins to me waiting for me to open it!!!). If you leave the fridge open at all she's right there getting out cheese! She knows what she wants and she's out to get it!! She's JUST starting to be an imp (great) and developing quite the sense of humor.

Mg loves being read to - we're having lots of fun! Both M and E are enjoying reading to her. After the big girls are at school and A is down for a nap I tickle her and sit on her and give her as many kisses and hugs as she can stand inbetween tickles and then she snuggles up in my lap and is SO content to just sit with me. No TV, no books, just her and mommy. Eventually she'll get some books and we'll read and life is good. I love my snuggler! She also LOVES her gymnastics class and preschool. Never a dull moment at our house!!! :) We love it that way!