Emily is 7 months old!

Yesterday Emily turned 7 months old. Crazy how time flies. It's all a blur when I think back to those days when they were born and in intensive care for almost 4 months...wow. But Emily has made such progress. She is such a happy baby for the most part. She smiles and coos and "talks" back and forth with me. Madi sometimes says, "Mom, why are you talking like that to Emily. Emily can't talk!"

I can't get enough of her, and sometimes squeeze her a little too much. :) The last four nights she has slept through the night. Two nights ago I put her to bed at 8:30 and she slept till 8am!!! Almost 12 hours! Of course I woke up in the middle of the night a couple of times freaked out and made sure she was ok. It's always scary the first few times they do that.

The girls just adore Emily. And are always putting their faces right up to her. (These pictures were taken Oct. 28th.)
We feel so blessed that her eyes are now out of danger. Her ROP disease is completely gone. The doctor was pretty dumbfounded and just very surprised by the growth of her vessels, because at one point he was on the verge of sending her down to Salt Lake for eye surgery and then the next week, a miracle! Her bloodvessels started growing in the right direction, which is so rare. Only a very small percentage of babies born that early come out of ROP without treatment for it. We are so grateful for this blessing and for the opportunities that it will give her in the future. I am also grateful that I don't have to take her in every week to get "tortured" with the eye exams. They were awful, but obviously necessary. And many of the doctors that Ryan has worked with over the last few months in his rotations, have also said the same thing, that that is amazing. We feel very blessed and I can't thank my Heavenly Father enough!

9 out of 10

There are a few reasons I usually don't share my food concoctions with others...

1.The dish almost always tastes weird and my husband will try sneaking to the garbage to throw it away, but not before I catch him in the act. haha!

2. I burn food all the time, even with a timer. Don't know how that is even possible, but I seem to make it happen again and again. (I bet I have a faulty timer! That's got to be it! ;) My husband and I even have this joke, that whenever I am making cookies that he cooks the last batch, because I ALWAYS end up burning them. Always.

3. I am not too fond of cooking. Why? Well, that's reason #3.

4. It takes 30-60 minutes or LONGER to make something and 5-10 minutes to eat it. Ugh.

5. The most important reason of them all: By dinner time, I am usually exhausted. So settling for Mac and Cheese or pancakes is fine with me. No big mess, and No, "I don't like that!" or "I want ______ instead."

I think my mom is an amazing cook. Growing up my mom made sure we had a good meal to eat 5-6 times a week. We always ate as a family and I think that is so important. It was so fun being together as a family talking around the dinner table. Those were some of my favorite memories. Looking back I think, Wow! How did my mom do that? I appreciate her now and what she did for our family even more as I have my own family and I am grateful that she made that happen.

Anyway, I made a goal a while ago that I would cook up something NEW, whether that be by experimenting like I did here in this recipe or making a recipe from a book or friend. Well, last week I had some ideas floating around in my head about the food in my fridge that I needed to use up and how I could put it all together. I am sure there is a dish similar to this somewhere but I just did it on my own. That may not be a big deal to all you cooks out there, but for me it WAS! And it was a success. Which is even a BIGGER deal for me...and my husband. Ryan gave it a 9 out of 10!


Ingredients:

1lb. lean hamburger (or turkey)
1 package of Butoni noodles
1 medium onion chopped up
1 red bell pepper chopped up (or green)
1-2 cup mushrooms (optional)
2 cup cheese (any kind I guess)
1 jar of spaghetti sauce (or for you amazing cooks, you can make your own! I prefer the easy route.)

I cooked the meat some and then added onions, mushrooms and red bell pepper together. Drain.

While doing the meat, I had a another pan boiling the noodles.

Add a thin layer of spaghetti sauce to the bottom of a glass dish. Layering it like lasagna, I added the noodles, hamburger and vegetable mixture, cheese, and sauce again. I did about 3-4 layers till it was all gone and then topped with cheese.



Put in the oven for 15-20 minutes on 350 just until the cheese is melted. And Wallah! You have a delicious dinner for the family!

A Whole Lot of Silly...

These pictures of the girls making silly faces brought back memories of my high school days with my friends. You might be wondering how these pictures can remind me of my high school days?..... I will tell you how, because I am sure you are just DYING to know.

Like everyone else, I hung out with a few different groups of friends through out high school. There were always friends in different classes, social settings, clubs, sports, and so forth. Just to list a few; there were my Church/LDS friends (Allyson, Leanne, Michelle, Kelly, Rory, Krista, Holly, Angela, Aimee, Stephanie, Nadine, Jennifer B., Amanda, Mandy, Laura, Jennifer, Andrea, Hayley, Ashlie, Shantay...the list goes on). My childhood/neighbor best friends, (Emily and Rachel), another close group of school friends, (Kaitlyn, Annette, Kelly, Jasmine, Shannon, Lidia, Brittany...), and my best friends (Kimberly, Mom C :), Cami, Emily, Krista, MacKay, Kevin, Evan...). I am sure I missed a few, but the reason I wanted to list some of my high school friends is because I have pictures with all of them at one time or another, making silly faces in one of these...

A Photo Booth.


We would all squeeze in, sometimes there were 6 to 8 of us cramped in, seeing who could make the goofiest face!

There was a photo booth a couple of miles from my house at a K-Mart. And I am positive that my friends and I were the ones that kept the owner of it rich. Very rich.

I would put these photo strips all over my room to the point where one of my walls was covered with friends and I making silly faces. I loved it and it became one of my favorite things to do. One, because it only cost a dollar for 4 pictures and two, it was a whole lot of fun!

That Darn Scale!

This weight loss/life style change has been for the most part, difficult. Yet, exciting in a weird sort of way too. I had 25 pounds or so to lose, and have only lost about 17-18. I set a goal to lose 24-25 pounds in four months. Well as you can see, I didn't make my goal. I still have about 7 to go...(more like 9, now that Halloween is over and Thanksgiving and Christmas is coming up.) Fluctuating a few pounds here and there is normal to do...right?

During the week I do pretty good. But when the weekends come I am starving! I eat everything in site. So all that hard work I put in during the week vanishes just like that, and I am back again on Monday trying to lose the weight I have already lost a few times before! So frustrating.

I have had moments of weakness as the temptations were just too great and my will power not so great, and I reluctantly gave in. Yet, after giving in to a dozen chocolate chip cookies (not kidding) or some sort of mouth-watering chocolate dessert with triple chocolate filling coated in chocolate then dipped in more chocolate, (ok, I have no idea if that made sense...just think deep) I immediately regretted it...mostly. :)


After giving in, I would immediately vow to push myself even harder the next day as a punishment for my bad behavior. (haha!) One of my moments of weakness was when Ryan brought home my favorite candy bar, a Caramello Bar, and I said (more like shouted), "Why did you do that?!"
His response: "I thought you loved these!"
Me: "I do! That's the problem!"

You can probably imagine what happened, but I will give you a glimpse anyway:

Me sitting on the floor, doing exercises (we are imagining here) as Ryan walks through the door surprising me with THE bar. My eyes grow large and immediately the candy bar and I have a stare off. As I am staring down the Caramello bar, trying to muster up the worst glare I possibly can, instinctively the amount of saliva in my mouth has doubled, then tripled the longer I stare and before I know it- I am at war.

Mind: "Don't do it."

Mouth: "ChOcoLAtE...cARaMel...Ooooo."

Mind: "Don't do it."

Mouth: "ChOcoLAtE...cARaMel...Ooooo."



Who do you think won?

Yep.

I did partake. And it was exceeding fine. :)


On the other hand, I have had moments of pure victory! Like when I turned down a juicy double cheeseburger, extra large fries and large chocolate milk shake from McDonald's for grilled chicken, steamed vegetables and water instead. Surprised? I was.

Or when on another occasion Ryan hid a candy bar under my pillow, trying to tempt me once again to partake of the goodness. (You are probably thinking, "what a mean husband for trying to tempt you so much!" ...Yes, but really all he was trying to do was strengthen my WILL POWER. Really.) I gathered up strength from somewhere deep and refused that time. Other moments of victory I have had are when exercising at the gym and staying on the cycling bike till I burned so many calories even though my body burned all over. But it felt good. Real good.

My friend, Emily, who I have been working out with almost every morning, has made many goals with me. She is amazing and pushes me to work harder. I seriously couldn't have done it without her. (Now I sound like an emotional contestant on the Biggest Loser!) But it's true. With all kidding aside, I am grateful to her for going and working out with me at 6am. It's so nice to have a workout buddy so you can push each other farther and give each other encouragement. We have this rule that whenever we are tempted to eat something "bad" (or rather "good") we have to call each other so the other one can chew us out for even thinking of doing such a thing. It's been quite hilarious really.

Even though I didn't make my goal in the time I wanted to, I am going to keep working towards it. I have learned a lot more about exercising and eating healthier. I have learned many new recipes that are low in calories and very nutritional. And I have also learned a whole lot more about weight lifting. I feel so much better just losing 15-17 pounds. It's amazing the difference a few pounds can make. Thanks for letting me share my personal weight-loss journey with all of you!
Here's some hilarious cartoons now...

"Is it done yet?"

I guess dinner took too long to cook.

HaLLoWeEn

For Halloween we were a little late on buying pumpkins to carve this year but we still couldn't believe that every store would be out! We are such slackers. All they had left were little pumpkins. So we painted pumpkins this year instead. The girls had a great time anyway so that's all that matters.

And if you are wondering why they are shirt-less well, it's because I didn't want their shirts turned in a towel like their booster seats were...

Of course Avery always finds other ways to wipe off...
My cute little painted monster...

She thought she was pretty funny. And she would tell me, "Avery's funny. Ha Ha Ha Ha!" (all the while using this fake high pitch laugh).

Madi thought the more paint she coated on, the better the pumpkin would look...lol.

Emily's pumpkin

Then finally the most anticipated night was here and our kids transformed into something else for the night.

Madi became a ferocious Triceratops...

And Avery transformed into a cute bumble bee.
And cousin Colton turned into a good looking Cowboy.
(Those were some sweet wrangler jeans!)
Off they go!
Avery loved going (running) door to door and wanted to eat the candy right when it was handed to her...typical two year old! :)

Avery was too excited to pose for a picture...
It sure was a fun Halloween this year!
Happy Halloween!!

Family Pictures 2009

I have been wanting to get professional family pictures taken ever since Emily got off the oxygen but I kept putting it off, or something would come up. And by the time I realized it, fall weather was here! Which is fine, because I love pictures with fall colors and the different shades of the changing leaves. I actually scheduled pictures with a photographer from Blackfoot last week, and I was so excited.-! But when I glanced outside that morning, lo and behold snow was gently falling and the wind was blowing making it the coldest day yet. Great, I thought... Snowing, below freezing temperatures, 20-30 mile per hour winds, outside for an hour or longer taking pictures with little (tired) kids, and with no coats (cuz like, big colorful coats would look really cool in family pictures...). Defeated, I canceled our pictures and decided to wait to do them in May or June next year. It's hard enough to get my girls to smile, let alone add all those miserable things* to the mix!

Yet, I really wanted some pictures of all of us together. Emily has been home for almost 3 months and we have yet to get a picture of all of us together! The weather was beautiful on Halloween day so I asked my sister, April and my sister-in-law Genn to take pictures of us before we went trick or treating.


However, right from the start Avery was not too thrilled with the idea like I was...
Just minutes after arriving at the park, I was feeling VERY frustrated. Why is it so hard for kids to sit nicely, look at a camera and smile for 2 seconds?? Is that really too much to ask?!

Guess so.

We were finally able to calm Avery down enough to take pictures, but don't expect a smile from her, that would be asking too much remember.

In the end, the pictures actually turned out pretty good, I think. Except we all tend to be looking at different cameras. Ha ha!

Thank you so much April and Genn for doing that for us!

So here are the ones I liked the most...

As you can see...Avery was still not happy and Emily decided to barf on herself right when this picture was taken. Lovely. Avery would not smile no matter what crazy, goofy faces my sisters and brothers were making behind the camera. (Thanks for trying April, Josh, Adam and Genn!)

Trying to have fun or at least trying to show Avery how much fun pictures can be.
I don't think she cared.

These were some of the last family pictures and by then we were bribing Avery that if she smiled she could have candy! Why didn't we try that in the first 30 pictures taken! (We're slow learners, ok?) This one is probably my favorite because we are ALL looking somewhat in the same direction and mostly smiling. One out of thirty or so... not bad. :)

Madi was a natural poser. I just love these pictures of her! Thanks Genn for taking these!

Avery's half smile as she was thinking about the candy she was going to get.

We even got a little smile out of Emily.

For some reason we didn't get any of Ryan and Madi alone. :( Or any with just Ryan and I. I just didn't even think about it! Sad.

Love all these of Avery and Ryan!

Madi's face cracks me up in this one! So funny!

*Avery not shown due to a melt down...most likely.

THE END