some of our favorite things

Just thought it would be fun to let you all in on some of the kids favorite things right now:

Books:

My Lucky Day by Keiko Kasza

Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss

Gallop by Rufus Butler Seder

Movies:

Kung Fu Panda

Horton Hears a Who

Veggie Tales Classics -- God Wants to forgive them

Toys:

Playskool lullaby Glow Worm

Soothe and Glow Sea Horse

Plan City Cars Transporter made by Plan Toys (these little cars are awesome!!)

Kidztoyz Kawasaki 37-Key Musical Keyboard

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. We sure did. We had a good time on Christmas eve with Todd's family and then had our own little celebration on Christmas morning. Later on we went to my family's house and had even more fun. We even managed to sneak in some time visiting two of Todds old friends from high school. I'll post pictures later of some of our fun but I'll leave you with these two pictures of my adorable kiddos.

Twinkie

I just discoverd TopSecretRecipes.com. Very cool stuff. Check out this fun video below about Twinkies.

How to clone a Twinkie - with Todd Wilbur @ Yahoo! Video

Update on the family member we don't mention much

Thought it was time to update you all on the family member that doesn't get mentioned much.

George is doing well though he's seen better days. Just to prove it to you here are some pictures:

This was George a couple about a year ago I guess. He's looking pretty happy. You can read his shirt and all.

Now here is George today. He has had a bath and is looking pretty tired. Poor George needs a break don't you think?

Sophia trys rice cereal

Sophia finally got to try some rice cereal today. We got the go ahead awhile ago to give it to her, but then she got sick and wasn't feeling well and then we got shots after that so we didn't want to make her more upset by giving her something new. This morning though she was feeling good and we decided to go ahead and let her have her first taste of cereal. She did great and ate a good portion of it. She was even insistent that she do it herself and wouldn't realease the spoon so we had to pull out another one just so Todd could finish feeding her. She enjoyed her cereal but more than anything I think she enjoyed blowing bubbles with it.

Twilight Christmas

I've mentioned in the past that I'm involved with Twilight online. With one site I'm one of several moderators and on the other one I chat with other moms and particpate in their boards (parenting tips, cooking, etc.) anyways I signed up to be in the gift exchanges with both of them.

Well today I recieved one of my gifts. This is my awesome loot. These are all made by someone and were not purchased. We set a limit of $10 and encouraged everyone to make something. I made a charm braclet for my person (I was dumb and didn't get a picture of it before I mailed it, but if she posts one then I'll snag it so you all can see the first charm braclet I've ever made.) Anyways here's the goodies that I got...Christmas card with the Cullen crest, a tin with the Cullen crest, a necklace with the Cullen crest, an Edward and Bella pin, and on the black ribbon that held my little box together was two tiny little forks. :)


This is what I got from the other site that I'm involved in. These too were handmade. :) I got these a couple of weeks ago and wanted to wait to post a picture until I had more than one thing to post about. (For this gift exchange I gave a Cullen crest scrabble necklace.)

I love all my Twilight stuff and am so glad I decided to be a part of the gift exchanges.

Sweet Potato Soup

Found this yummy recipe and decided to make it. Since I didn't want to make it on the stove, but instead let it cook all day in the crock pot I modified it. I put about 2lbs of sweet potatoes in, didn't use a leak because I didn't have one, and used molasses syrup instead of maple since I didn't have that either. Turned out pretty well...I'll be doing this again. Oh and we ate it with some cinnamon toast and it was all very yummy. :)

Here's the recipe (meant to be done on the stove)

Creamy Sweet Potato Soup Recipe

Ingredients
2 Tbsp (1/4 stick) butter
1 cup chopped onion
2 small celery stalks, chopped
1 medium leek, sliced (white and pale green parts only)
1 large garlic clove, chopped
1 1/2 pounds red-skinned sweet potatoes (yams), peeled, cut into 1-inch pieces (about 5 cups)
4 cups chicken stock or canned low-salt chicken broth (use vegetable broth for vegetarian option)
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups half and half
2 Tbsp maple syrup
The leafy tops of the celery stalks, chopped

Method
1 Melt the butter in a large, heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Add the chopped onion and sauté for about 5 minutes. Add chopped celery stalks and leek, sauté about 5 minutes. Add garlic and sauté 2 minutes.
2 Add sweet potatoes, chicken stock, cinnamon stick, and nutmeg; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered until potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes.
3 Remove cinnamon stick and discard. Working in batches, puree soup in blender until smooth. Return to pot.
4 Add half and half and maple syrup and stir over medium-low heat to heat through. Season soup to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cool soup slightly. Cover and refrigerate soup and celery leaves separately. Bring soup to simmer before continuing.) Ladle into bowls. Sprinkle with celery leaves.

Serves 6 to 8.

Christmas Crafting

Today I made my neighbors some yummy treats...rocky road fudge and chocolate chip cookies. I was at a loss as to what to put them in as I didn't have any fancy bags or cute little boxes to put them in so I came up with an idea.

I re-purposed some baby formula canisters. I hate throwing away the canisters since it's so much waste since you can't recycle any part of it at all. Anyways I cleaned them out really well and washed the lids. After that I took wrapping paper and wrapped it around the canisters. For the lids to cover up the writing on it I cut out construction circles in coordinating colors and taped them to the top.

I wrapped the goodies in tissue paper and then wrote Merry Christmas on the top of it. All in all I was pretty pleased with how well they turned out. I decided that if do this again I will get a higher quality wrapping paper with a bit of plastic in it so it's easier to cut without shredding it and give it a little bit more of a polished look and maybe even tie ribbons on them.

Overall very easy to and highly recommended. I'm thinking I might do something similar and use them to store different things in...crayons, loose change, and whatever else I can think of.

Southern Lights 2008 Edition

Last night we went out to Southern Lights to see the lights, pet animals at the petting zoo, see Santa and some other fun stuff too. We met up with my family and it was a decent time.

Highlights of the night included:
-Sam going from pure elation to anger and back in .5 seconds about a million different times
-Aunt Siobhan feeding the animals with Sam at the petting zoo
-One of the goats at the petting zoo deciding to take a nibble on my hair
-Sam loving the Scottish cows and walking right up to it and grabbing its nose
-Seeing Santa...full of screaming and laughter. See the picture below for proof.
-Sam telling us all about the lights as we passed them
-Sophia smiling at Santa and everyone else because she was having a good time
-Playing with the huge leggo blocks.

I took like 85 pictures so I tried to pick like 12 to really capture all our fun. For some reason blogger loaded them in reverse order so that's how you will see them today. :)

Heading home.

Todd attempts a self portrait with Sophia

Playing with the blocks. We built a huge tower and I'm knocking it over. To really appreciate this picture you need to see it larger because Sam's expression is priceless (okay and so is mine since I was exgatterating it falling and making noises)

3/4 of the family in a self portrait

Todd feeding Sophia while Sam and I play

Run Sam Run

Classic holiday picture with screaming kid

Nikki and Sophia waiting to see Santa

Another holiday moment with screaming kid :)

Uncle Sean, Aut Siobhan, and Sam petting the camel

Aunt Siobhan and Sam feeding the goats

As we were going through the light displays I looked back to see Sam holding Sophia's hand and telling her all about the lights. I just thought it was too sweet that I had to take a picture.

How can you not smile when you see these pictures?

(Jen she's wearing the hat you knitted!! I can't believe it fits her already.)

What we've been up to

It's been awhile since I've posted about our activities so I figured today was as good as any to update you all.

Today we headed out for Sophia's shots and to get both kids their flu shots. It was a long and tedious morning but we all survied and the kids are vacinated up so hopefully they wont be getting sick. :)

I know that I forgot to mention Sophia's 6 month appointment a couple of weeks ago. I forgot. Anyways she was weighed today and is 17.3 lbs and is 27.5 inches long. I can't believe how big she is. She's so big in fact that we actually need to get a new car seat for her since she only has .5 inches left in the height of the carseat! I'll be posting some super cute pictures of her soon so be on the look out for them.

Sam is doing good. He's now 2 years 6 months and 3 days old. He's very much acting his age and its an interesting time with the temper tantrums and the weird eating habits. He's a sweet kiddo though and LOVES his sister very much and is pretty great with her.

Todd is busy with work and figuring out our car situation. His van died and we have been with only one vehicle for probably a month or so. It's frustrating for both of us, but we are making due with it and hopefully will be able to replace it sometime afer the new year.

I've been busy with the kids like always. :) I've also taken up being a moderator on a Twilight Chat Site. It's been fun and I'm enjoying getting to know a lot of people and reading their thoughts. Todd thinks it's crazy that I'm doing it for free, but honestly I enjoy it.

Hmmm...that's about it I guess. I'm sure there are some other things going on but I can't think of what they are at the moment. I've been up way to long already today and am in desperate need of a nap that I'm not going to be able to get.

Progression into a meltdown

This is a progression into a meltdown and no it wasn't my meltdown. lol. What's a good mother to do...take pictures of it of course. lol. Believe it or not he actually recovered when he realized that I was taking pictures. Guess it's no fun if anyone else besides Mom and Dad see you throwing a fit. :)

Montgomery Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

Montgomery Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Family trees - Genealogy - Celebs - Collage - Morph

Celebrity Collage by MyHeritage

MyHeritage: Celebrity Collage - Free genealogy - Free family history

Too funny not to share

I'm so vain

That I had to get some pictures of myself. I don't ever take pictures of myself. Why would I? I know what I look like. Anyways decided to try and get a few pictures to show everyone just how long my hair is getting (and yes those are natural curls) and so you could all see my smiling face. :) Now don't expect anymore for a long time.