Book Recommendation

At Last! One that isn't YA Sci fi. It was even made for adults. I know you were waiting for it.-Lol I laughed and I cried. It stirred a lot of emotions and I hugged my husband a little tighter. Definitely a good read!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Bridger went to preschool today and his mom forgot all about him wearing green. Not to worry though cuz he came home like this.

I think he makes a cute Leprechaun. (Thanks Miss Kori)

Hope your day is fun and festive!

What I have been working on.

We have been in our house for 4 years now. From the minute we moved in (literally) we started painting. We painted this huge wall in our living room a dark olive green. I have always liked it and we have always got compliments on it and the fact that it is our only wall with green on it in the living room. It compliments the wall paper nicely. But lately I have been feeling that it was so depressing. It as too dark and dreary. So I told my husband we were gonna paint it. The "we" quickly turned into "me" and I set ot to find the right color. I bought 4 sample cans of paint at Lowes. Finally I decided I wanted pretty much what we already had on the walls- only tons lighter. So I chose a light olive green.
No one else can tell it was even painted, but I can. It is creamier and screams of Spring now. I made some other changes too. I painted one of my windows a light blue in

stead of the dreary red that it used to be.

My B-ball Girl!

Carli had her last game of the season on Sat. I think she will miss it quite a lot. The weather has been nice and warm (for March) so the kids have been playing a lot outside. And summer is around the corner! Hope she makes it til next yr!!!

And We're Off!

Tomorrow Carli is going to Spokane (with just her 2 parents, as a friend of our family will watch all 3 boys) She is competing (in a team) in a DI competition. DI stands for Destination Imagination. It is a problem solving group. They will give the team a problem to solve and they will solve it with absolutely no help from adults. Other groups are builders, that design or build objects that have to do a certain thing and give them like, only 5 materials to use. Carli's group decided that they liked more of the impromptu problem solving. Acting, talking, verbally getting your idea across. Her group will perform 3 times tomorrow. I am excited for her. They have had practices for months just to prepare for this day. We get to leave super early, but it will be a lovely day spent with our daughter!

Update:We had a great time last weekend with our daughter. She was amazing! They only had 2 challenges (not 3 like I thought). She spent the last 3 months researching all kinds of endangered things for the main challenge. Like I said before, it was improv, so they pulled one of their researched endangered things out of a hat. It was Glaciers. They had to decide if they wanted to save the glaciers or not and then work it into their skit with super hero powers. It was really cute. (Of course I forgot my camera and can kick myself. )

The other challenge was not open to parents and the kids are not allowed to discuss it with anyone (yeah- I think it is weird too) but I guess, there are more competitions for the winners of this one, so they may want to use that one again.


Carli's team got one of the lowest scores. They are pretty hard on their scoring. I would have given her a million points just for being cute. But I guess they don't score on account of cuteness. They got 133 points out of 300 for their first challenge. They had 100 possible points on their 2nd challenge, but I haven't heard the results of that yet. I think her team was awesome!

An Eye For Detail.

At Bridger's preschool, his teacher, Miss Kori, was having the kids draw pictures of people and making sure that they were getting kindergarten ready by adding details to their pictures (more than your basic stick- figure. Bridger's drawn head in this picture just cracked me up. It was adorable. This is Miss Kori with a Lot of eyelashes. Bridger even got a kick out of this photo that he drew.

Miss Kori said that he was having trouble drawing 'boy hair,' so she gave him some pointers.

That is Exactly how I would do it!

A Birthday Blog!

I know someone that may or may not be 39 today.

He may or may not be admitting to that.

If he is....then Happy Birthday Honey! We love you!

If he isn't then I guess that after a few years on this earth (39 to be exact) you should know that life is tough!-lol

Dang Good Book Remmendation!

Ohmygoshthisbookissogoooooooood!

Why oh why this author wasn't cornered into a movie deal...I will never know.

Here is the book trailer.

If you like the movie, TheVillage, then you will love this book.

(Spoiler Alert: Except the book actually has something to be afraid of in it.)

Loved it!

And as it turned out, I read it at just the right time. Book 2 comes out in a couple of weeks.

I am now ready for the Zombie Apocolypse.

Bring it on!

Really?????.....Um......REALLY????

So last Fri the kids were all celebrating Valentine's day at school. I looked and looked online and in magazines to find cute Valentine's to make. And I finally set my eye on this one that someone had made from bath bombs...but I thought I could achieve the same look with tootsie pops. So we did all the work and they looked cute.

But half way into the making of these, I realized that I was making miniature bombs for my kids to take to school. Oh! Crap. I thought that they looked sorta "mission impossible-ish," not "I- wanna- send- notice- with- my- child- that- I- may- bomb- the- school-ish." I did nothing for awhile even though we had some finished. I was trying to convince myself that they would get the humour in it that I did. I talked to Nolan's teacher about it because he is in a special ed classroom for his Asperger's and the teacher said that it was up to me, but sense they have kids with violent issues-(Nolan is not one of them) then it was not the best idea. I gave the ones he made to Bridger to take and made bug ones for him out of the leftover tootsie pops.

But I still thought it was okay to send Carli's bomb- themed Valentine's with her. 2 nights before the party, I was talking to a friend of mine and told her about the Valentine's. She said........" oh.....you are sooooooo gonna be on the news." I thought it was funny until I thought about it. She also told me of an instance where there was a small boy who brought a lego gun to school (A teeny weeny lego gun) He was almost expelled and his parents were on the news. They are now suing the school.

I didn't want Carli to get expelled and I really didn't want to be on the news, so Carli and I started talking about what else they could be. I thought maybe a microphone when turned upside down and we could do a "Valentine...you are such a rockstar" -thing. But she didn't like that. In the end, This Girl suggested that maybe they could be wands. Since Carli is so into Wizards of Waverly Place and Harry Potter we changed their tag and I don't hafta be on the news. Bomb Diffused...Crisis Adverted!

I guess my creativeness is explosive-LOL

Too Cute....Can't Resist.

I'm not sure who started out on this chair first.

But when I came in

Carli was doing her homework and Jack was in heaven with a cuddle buddy, working on draining his bottle (bob, as we call 'em)

I couldn't take the cuteness any longer so I grabbed my camera. Boy am I glad I did.

What would we do without big sisters???

Carli's Room Preview

Carli wanted a room that reflected who she was. Her pink and black girly room was never what she wanted, even at age 4. So we re-did it. We went shopping together and she had a say in what she wanted in her room from the very start.

Are Ya Ready???

Make sure you have your sunglasses handy!

(You may need them due to brightness in colors)

before AfterBefore AfterBeforeAfterAnd here are some more pics......

And that concludes our tour of Carli's room....Hope you enjoyed yourself!!!!

Goin' to District!

The Pinewood Derby this year was fun........................Okay...it wasn't that much fun with Jack screaming the first 20 mins into it. But it is one of my fav. part of cubscouts. All the boys got an award just for participating. Nolan's car was striped orange and white. He got the award for the "yummiest cream cycle"

He hated it. (wasn't going for the creamcicle look, I guess)

I thought it was a clever play on words

But the best part is when he won 3rd place.

Everyone was asking us our secret. I told them that Jon gave it to me right before and said, "I just hope he doesn't come in last"

Female Macgiver...I so wanna be!

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled upon Project Runway.

I am addicted...........So is Carli.

We liked last weeks episode where the designers transformed potato sacks for the models to wear.

I sooooo want people to say..."Really? She can take a sewing machine, a potato sack and some buttons and trim and turn it into next season's rage?"

Now if only I could sew.

(I also get to talk about modesty with my 8yo...and don't worry, we dvr'd it so that she only saw the parts I wanted her to see after I watched it.)

She likes projects and I like fashion. Every Thurs. is now a GNI (girls night in!).

The best part is that this is Season 7. (apparently we don't watch that much tv if I am just now coming across this). But now I get to watch seasons 1-6 without interruptions. (like waiting weeks in between)

I guess I do have plans for the weekend...now where is my popcorn???

Boyz and their Toyz!

I never understood

the connection between boys
and army men figurines But it sure starts early!

Recipe Share

(Note: I got this pic from a recipe like this one online- I forgot to take one, but it looks similar to ours.)

My Mom-in Law gave me a cookbook that was put together with recipes submitted from people in her county down in Utah. I decided to try the cookbook and just about every meal we had last week came from the cookbook. Sunday night we had bacon and yummy ..............

Caramel French Toast
10 servings

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 tablespoons corn syrup

10 (1 1/2-inch-thick) slices French bread

5 eggs, beaten

1 cup evaporated milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

a dash of cinannmon

Combine brown sugar, margarine and corn syrup in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and boil for 1 minute. Pour syrup evenly into a greased 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Arrange bread slices over syrup.

Beat eggs, milk, vanilla and salt and cinnamon; stir well. Slowly pour over bread slices. Cover and chill overnight.
Bake the french toast, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes, or until brown and bubbly. Turn upside down to serve.

The taste of this recipe is very much like sticky buns, but with a fluffier, more custardy interior.