March 2012

On March 2nd we had Ann and her kids come over for a get-together. It was Dr.Seuss's birthday, so we snacked on green (deviled) eggs and ham,

 and made Cat in the Hat hats out of marshmallows and fruit roll-ups.

I had the idea for another craft/treat that the kids could make lamb or lion decorated cookies because it was the beginning of March. Here is my pitiful lamb example cookie:

 Christian wanted a lamb, too,

 but the other kids had their own ideas, which were really fun!

On the 3rd we took a trip down south and visited Ikea for the first time. We didn't buy much, but had fun looking around and ate some delicious meatballs, chicken fingers and shared a slice of THE MOST AWESOME CAKE EVER.

We ate overlooking the kids' play area. Unfortunately, we didn't know that there was a waiting list and we missed out on getting a spot for Buddy. Faith was too tall, anyway. Maybe next time, Bud!

 We also visited our favorite sporting goods store, Cabellas.

 Here is some artwork. Faith made this cute pouch for her Mountain Man activity day,

 and wrote this great story.

 Christian drew this Darth Maul pen that he got in a cereal box with that same pen.

 Faith was designing a fashion dress one day,

 and she continues her obsession with pandas.

 I loved this Starry Night inspired artwork of hers from school.

 And her name drawn with animals.

The craziest thing that happened in March was that I started back to work! I had been trying to get hired on at Jet Blue Airline for about a year because several ladies in my neighborhood work for them, including my friend Brandi. I did a phone interview and then an interview in person and had to send in a recommendation letter in December. Shortly after Christmas, I found out I was hired! I was to start with two days of orientation on March 7th & 8th during the day, and then four weeks of training Monday through Friday from 4 pm to midnight starting March 9th. After that, I had to work in the center for two weeks, and then could start working from home.

I'm doing phone reservations and assistance and I have to say that the training was fairly difficult. The computer program that the airlines use is not user friendly at all! I did really enjoy spending time with other adults at a job and didn't realize how much I've missed that. I had to have sooooo much help with my kids and owe a huge debt of gratitude to my mom, Joy, Lana and Tammy, and even my dad took a morning. It made it so much easier to leave knowing my children were in excellent hands; but kind of hurt that they didn't miss me because they were too busy having fun :)

My regular schedule (until the end of August when we re-bid) is Wednesday and Friday from 2:45 pm to 8:45 pm and Saturday and Sunday from 8:45 am to 2:45 pm. I'm sad to be missing church, but I love having  weekend afternoons and evenings with my family. I'll post more about my job on my April blog.

Christian's preschool teacher, Kelly Beck, gifted me two tickets to a film production of  "Love Never Dies" which is the sequel to "Phantom of the Opera." She is so crazy to give me such a huge gift (these tickets were $16 each)! She gave Buddy a scholarship to her preschool and I owe her sooooo much. She said that she just wanted to thank me for my help because I volunteer every Friday and she loved the show so much that she knew she wouldn't find anything nearly as good if she waited until the end of the school year.

So, on March 7th, after my first day of orientation at Jet Blue, Tammy picked me up and we went over to the new theater in Farmington. I've seen filmed Broadway shows before, but this spectacle was made with new movie technology and felt just like a film except that the music was all recorded live and not dubbed afterword. The story and music were creepier and more haunting than Phantom, and I think Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber outdid himself on this sequel! I truly love it even more than the first. It was an amazing night and I am so grateful for the gift!!!

(For the two or three people who actually read my blog (two of which don't even live in Utah, so, bummer)--there will be a final big screen showing on May 23rd! Here is the link. I'm sure they'll have to someday bring it out on video, too.)

St. Patrick's Day fell on a Saturday this year, so my kids did it up big on the 16th instead.

 Faith even got shamrock hair!

Christian finger painted a "magic shamrock" at preschool. Miss Kelly just put blue and yellow paint on them, but it quickly mixed to make green.

Saturday night we had our traditional meal of corned beef and cabbage. I was too exhausted from my new work schedule to celebrate as crazily as I wanted!

On the 24th we went to the park to fly kites.

 There was also some tackle football going on!

 That night, while we were watching Tin Tin, Christian lost his top tooth. Sorry about the gory photo:

 The 31st was the Braegger Easter hunt! Faith and Buddy donned their bunny ears and searched for their twelve plastic eggs in the yard.

Tina's stepdaughter was there with her boyfriend, Brian, and their adorable baby, Liam.

 Jason was a good sport and posed for pictures with the kids :)

 They got lots of Easter candy, bubbles, and darling outfits.

They each immediately changed into some of their new clothes to play with their stuffed bunnies.

We ate their traditional ham and potato salad dinner and had fun just hanging out. It was an awesome Easter party!

Second half of February

On the 18th the kids tried on crazy St. Patty's hats at WalMart.

That night, I tried a new Pioneer Woman recipe: Corn & Cheese Chowder. It was sooooo yummy!

The 20th was President's Day and Faith didn't have school. The kids had a sleepover in the family room with a tent made of blankets over chairs. Here, they took a picture with the timer feature on my camera while they ate oatmeal.

That afternoon, we made berry hand pies (which we hoped would taste a lot more like the tarts at Utah Shakespearean Festival than they actually did) and pretzel log cabins.

The next morning we started off Mardi Gras with a Pancake Tuesday breakfast--purple, green and gold mini pancakes!

Faith had to dress up for her oral book report on Betsy Ross and I had sewn her an old-timey bonnet for the occasion. Her "shawl" was the baby blanket I crocheted for her blessing over ten years ago!

I found this cute printable paper Storm Trooper and Christian had fun making him a gun out of sparkly paper and playing with him that day.

I made jambalaya in the crock pot for our crazy small-holiday celebration,

and decorated mini King cakes (which were actually brownies baked in a muffin tin).

On the 22nd Faith lost her last baby tooth. That girl is growing up way too fast!

The 29th was Leap Day. We wanted to celebrate in style, but I had my personal trainer appointment in Ogden that threatened to put a kink into our plans. Luckily, we worked it out for me to pull Faith out of school about an hour early, then drop off the kids with Joy and her kids at Kangaroo Zoo in Ogden. I met up with them after my appointment and the kids "leapt" around all afternoon! We left just as a big snowstorm moved in, but we made it home safely. For dinner we had Cornish hen (just because we couldn't think of a special "leap" dinner, but it sure looks leggy on their plates!) but I made a new twist on Frog's Eye salad for dessert. I used Lana's "Orange Dream Salad" recipe (similar here) which already has tapioca, but I made it with blue jello and blueberries. It was okay, but it's best with raspberry jello and raspberries, I think!

I had them fill out an "every four year time capsule" paper of questions, do a frog maze and gave them rainbow gummy frogs.

They even made origami frogs! Lots of leaping for us on Leap Day :)

Here is some artwork that has been up on the wall. This is a Valentine card that Christian made for Faith at preschool. I love that the dinosaur is a pocket which holds the heart!

Here's the inside, he sure loves his sister!

This is a panda climbing some bamboo. Again, he made this for Faith because she loves pandas.

And a beautiful design he drew with a rose for me ❤ 

This is a thank-you card drawn for me from my niece Alaura. She had gotten a "assemble it yourself" crocheted panda kit for Christmas, but it came missing one arm. I tried to replicate the included one and she was glad to have it completed.

We sure had a fun month of holidays!

first half of February

On February 2nd, I went all out for an obscure holiday (imagine that?) and we had a GROUNDHOG EXTRAVAGANZA. I had the kids color groundhog headbands as party hats, and we watched Groundhog Day while we ate dinner on the ground.

Dinner was meatloaf (made with Pioneer Woman's recipe minus the bacon & sauce) and made with half ground beef and half ground pork (because it's ground hog--get it?) shaped into the guest of honor and decorated with string cheese slices and black beans.

After dinner we attached shadows to groundhogs and made groundhog finger puppets.

We had already done our cuter groundhog treats with friends, but we had to have dessert for such a special day, so I baked up some store bought choco chip cookie dough and let the kids decorate. Faith's cookie in the inset is the "normal" one and the one on the counter is a vampire groundhog.

It was a super fun night! It's one of my goals this year to do more celebrating!

On the 5th we had a Super Bowl party at our house. Faith was sad that the Steelers lost out in the first round of the playoffs, so to appease her (and of course, the downtrodden Tony) we celebrated with family and food.

Here is a crab cheese ball that I made and tried to shape into a football. I gave Faith the assignment of packing it with sliced almonds to finish it off. Fifteen minutes later she tells me that it's done and I realize that she's painstakingly arranged and pressed in each almond slice individually so it would be "perfect." Is this kid even related to me at all??? :)

They changed the recipe on our favorite frozen hot wings (TGIFriday's), and after "not really watching" the Pioneer Woman episode on football food with me, Tony decided to give hers a try. Best hot wings ever!!! Tony's the deep fry master at our house. He also fried some jalapeno poppers and some breaded mushrooms that Jordan brought.

Homemade salsa.

Faith took this picture of bread cubes and Knorr spinach dip before the dip was added :)

There was also a Chick-fil-A nugget platter, pretzel bites, and dad later brought over sweet and sour meatballs and his guacamole. For dessert, there were turtle brownies in the shape of little footballs that, very unfortunately, were enjoyed only by our driveway (poor Joy), and we had the chocolate fountain going with strawberries, cuties, pretzel rods, gummy bears, marshmallows and banana slices. It was enjoyed by all, but my little Buddy was seen twenty minutes after everyone had eaten themselves sick, sitting on the island, still dipping, and with a very chocolaty face.

Didn't get many pictures of our guests, but Joy brought her family, Eric stopped by for food and part of the game, and mom & dad came late after feeding grandma and grandpa Quinn. After the game, Faith played some music videos from her iPod and I caught Christian and Lily enjoying a snuggle under the upturned rocking chair.

Such a fun night! Oh, and I don't remember which team won. Or even who was playing for sure. Super Bowl is NEVER about football for me :D

On the 7th Christian wanted a "getting close to Valentine's Day" breakfast. I used a heart cookie cutter on a piece of bread and then fried an egg in it. We call it "egg in a nest" but when I was a kid, my mom called it a "one eyed Egyptian." Why? I have no idea. Buddy then used a special bread cutter we have on his cinnamon toast which cuts it into two dolphins and a small heart. Special breakfast, indeed.

That night I made some cornflake treats in the shape of little hearts.

The morning of the 11th we went all out. I made red velvet heart pancakes. Some even had a little message ❤

I also did some heart bacon. I saw on Pinterest how you can bake it in this shape, but my kids love the precooked kind (bleach) so I just nuked it like this.

We even made heart eggs!

At Lowe's the kids made Valentine Card Making Kits.

That night we had a special dinner of snow crab legs at home.

On the morning of the 14th, I got up early and made heart shaped cinnamon rolls (from a can).

Then I worked on some amazing Valentine's hair.

Faith loaded up her Valentine's card holder box (which looks like an embarrassed Pascal the chameleon from the "Tangled" movie) and I drove her to ballroom dance practice at school.

My mom did special Valentine activities and gifts the Sunday before, and Valentine's night Lana & Tammy ding-dong-ditched us with this awesomeness!

That night we ate the kids' favorite "Fancy Dinner"--spaghetti with marinara and homemade alfredo sauce eaten on our china dishes.

We even had appetizers of these heart shaped Lil Smokies (just cut on the diagonal and rotated with a toothpick "arrow" through the middle).

For dessert I made Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes.

I got the kids a little treat and stuffed animal at the store,

 and Tony came home with more chocolate and some beautiful roses. We had a wonderful Valentine's Day!