My Future Chef

This morning I decided to make myself some split pea soup for lunch. It is one of my favorite meals and the only reason I don't have it more often is that I don't usually plan my lunches far enough in advance to start the peas simmering. But this morning I did. I checked on the peas about 30 minutes ago and decided to check my email & let them soften a tiny bit longer before eating them, but when I came upstairs I discovered an odd smell.
I opened the lid to the soup and saw flecks in it and asked Sarah if she had put something in the soup.
"Yep. I added marshmallows and a bunch of stuff from the cupboards."
Sadly, it wasn't salvageable, but I am happy to see that another generation of creative cooking has already begun.

A little Catching Up

I mentioned earlier that I had some pictures of Easter and the "Met-i-tay-shun" Sarah and her friend did, and so here are the pictures. the meditation pictures crack me up because we were all riding bikes when the neighbors' granddaughter came to play. I was watching everyone ride bikes and the next thing I knew she had climbed up on our mailbox and was saying "ah-omm." Sarah thought it was pretty cool and joined suit, and I had to take some pictures.

Happy Birthday Rachel

Rachel turned three yesterday. It is hard to believe how quickly she is growing up. She is such a sweet girl; she continually melts our hearts.
Rachel started her morning with the statement "I'm the Birthday Girl!" and happily told everyone we met during the day that she was "Three...Not two anymore!"
Sarah had dance yesterday morning, so Rachel and I went shopping along Main Street & ended up at one of my favorite shops, "All Tucked In." The front of their store is very cute, so we took some pictures before going in to shop.She was very excited to go inside (she loves playing with their alphabet blocks and kitchen).

After dance class, I told Rachel she could choose whatever she wanted for lunch. Her excited reply? "YOGURT STOP!" Yep, of all the things she could choose for lunch she wanted frozen yogurt.
I told her that we could get yogurt after lunch, so she settled on a trip to Arctic Circle where she had a great time playing on the toys, and even managed to eat a few bites of lunch.

After lunch, we went home and were able to blow bubbles outside. Rachel wanted a bubble party & it was snowing in the morning, so I was grateful for the warmer weather preventing bubbles from being all over my kitchen floor.
Rachel requested Ramen for dinner originally, but changed her mind to quesadillas around dinner time (both options were perfectly awesome to me), and then we had "gumball machine" cake and ice cream with the family.


Rachel had so much fun...I think 3 is my favorite birthday. Everything was so magical for her. She loved her water-paints, bike, cookies, candies, balloons, and water-bottle almost as much as she loved getting a gumball from the cake :)
We are so grateful to have Rachel in our family. She is such a sweetheart. I now need to close because Rachel has been riding her bike all morning and I just can't stand to miss watching her!

Some People's Children

Today during Sacrament meeting (during the Sacrament, no less) I saw something fly through the air and land with a thunk on the bench in front of us. I must confess to less than charitable thoughts toward the parents of whatever youth let something that large fly through the air.
Imagine my surprise when the woman in front of us turned around to give back a pink popper (the half of a rubber ball things that you flip inside out, set them on a smooth surface and they "pop" and fly through the air) that Becca got from school this week.
I turned to her and asked if she brought it to church and she said, "Not on purpose." Nice.

Then, as the meeting was coming to a close, Greg saw Ellie building something out of hymn books and Sarah's sandals (which she cannot seem to keep on her feet to save her life). He didn't think much of it until he saw her drop another hymn book on the stack and launch Sarah's shoes. Fortunately she didn't apply much force to her catapult and the shoes stayed within the pew (Ha-shoes in a "pew").

So, if anyone would like to come see our three ring circus, just sit close to us during Sacrament meeting. I have stopped packing a lot of distractions for my kids thinking that they were old enough to sit and pay attention, but perhaps I need to rethink my stance.

Cream Cheese Penguins

I have so many updates to stick on here...Easter Dress pictures, pictures of Sarah and a friend "Met-i-tating" I just need to get the camera. But for now, I had to show this picture of cream cheese penguins. Seriously, how fun would they be at Christmas or for a kids' party.

And All that Jazz

We took the girls to their first Jazz game last night. As you can see from the picture, we were up in the rafters, but the girls had a really good time & the game was very exciting (the Jazz won by one point in overtime). Rachel's favorite part of the game was seeing the Jazz Bear and the "Bumble Bee!" who was there reminding us to get our baseball tickets for this season. Sarah's favorite thing was the popcorn, Ellie enjoyed seeing Ronald McDonald and cleaning out her coat pockets (she found three feathers, two rocks, a piece of bark, and a valentine among other treasures that I couldn't identify), and Becca actually liked watching the game.
We left during the fourth quarter because Rachel and Sarah were getting tired, we parked three blocks away and Rachel was starting to complain about the noise & I knew it was only going to get louder the longer we stayed.
I have to consider the night a success because when I posted the picture Rachel said, "Hey, it's the football game at the Planetarium! Where's the Bee? Can we go see him again?"