Reason To Celebrate...

Girl Scout Cookies are here!

After one cookie. One.

The Fly

Little Girls,
You make me laugh.



...even when you climb into my bed with a bowl of cereal and wake me up.
Love, Mommy

A Home Study

Ever wonder what a psychoanalyst/therapist type person might say if they observed your children playing for a day? After the last time I found the "daddy" in a slightly compromising position, I decided to take a random sampling of Reese's dollhouse people.

Now I'm no professional, but here are my observations anyway...

Daddy taking a nap on the sofa.

Mommy doing dishes.

On a separate occasion, I find her playing...

Mommy making dinner for the little girl.

...And where is Daddy?

Watching TV.

Eventually, the girls go to bed (I wasn't around to photograph/document who was in charge of THAT operation, but judging by what we see in the above photos, I'm guessing it was Mommy)

Who joins Daddy to watch more TV.

Meg: Reese, who is that on the sofa?

Reese: It's you and Daddy, watching a Mommy show. (what we use to refer to anything we don't let them watch...pretty much anything that isn't a cartoon or sports)
Meg: Well if that's Me, and that's Daddy, then who's that other lady on the chair?
Reese: That's Kasey! Jimmie's in Panama.
so there you go, Kasey...not only do you get to see our world through the eyes of a 4 yr old, but you get to see yours, too!

Another day, Reese gives us a preview of coming attractions. A look into the future, after Brother has arrived...
Reese: Waah! Waaah! Waaa! (crying)
Meg: What's going on in here? Are you ok? What's the matter?
Reese: Oh, it's not me, it's Brother. He just won't stop crying because he is hungry.

And then I see this:
Other play scenes from the future after Brother arrives:

Grandma comes to visit, and sleeps on a chair in the living room.

Mommy changes Baby's diaper.

Mommy changes Baby's diaper, while Daddy kicks it in the rocking chair with a book.
I showed this picture to Aaron and he claimed that she posed him as "reading scriptures to the family".
Is that a tv in the background?

"El queso está viejo y pútrido. ¿Dónde está el sanitario?"

Hola Gringos!
We are really sick of winter.
The fix?

We are makin' a run for the border and are on an 8 day Mexican Food Marathon.

That's right.
Our good friends 'Hot' and 'Spicy' will be there to escort us through the remainder of February.

We held a Gringo Fiesta last night to kick off our celebration. I pulled out the place mats and napkins that my parents picked up for us when they went to Mexico last year, we had Latin-American music, a virgin Mexican Cantina, a Sombrero, and for extra spice: name tags-so we could tell the difference between Juan and Juanita...or Consuela, Chonchita, Alfonzo, and Pepito-who also joined in on our Gringo fun.

On the menu: I recreated a Cafe Rio Feast!

Before I post the recipes, I feel like I have bragging rights to state first and foremost, that the food last night was just plain awesome and totally kicked Winter's trash. In fact, some of the phrases used to describe the meal by those who tasted it were:

"The food is DIVINE."
"This is even better than her's" ("her" being another mock-up Cafe Rio dinner chef...she's quite the cook, so coming from Aaron, this was a huge compliment to me)
"Five Stars."
"It's so limey."
"Perfection."
"Aw this makes my day, I feel like I'm home."
"Mmmm...it smells GOOD up in here!"
and my favorite line from the evening:
"This is SO good, it makes me want to punch a baby."
Yeah. It was that good.
Have you ever tried these? Two thumbs up and recommended to all:
Ready-to-cook tortillas. 30 secconds on the griddle for each side and BAM. Fresh tortillas. Less than $2 for a package of 20 at Walmart (near the refrigerated bagels and cream cheese). That's slightly less expensive than a package Great Value ready made tortillas, and almost half the cost of Mission or Rosarita...and WAY better! They're my new non-kept secret. No need for tortillas from scratch with these bad boys around.

What DID I make from scratch? Mmm...Mmmm let me show you:
Barbacoa Sweet Pork
Cilantro Lime Rice
Black Beans
Creamy Tomatillo Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
Lime Punch
Recipe time...here we go:

Barbacoa Sweet Pork:

1 Pork Loin Roast (I made a friggin HUGE roast last night, so reduce cooking time significantly if you choose to make a little 2-3 pounder)
1 10 oz can red enchilada sauce - I used HOT, but if you are a wimp use Med or Mild
1 tiny can diced green chilies

Put all ingredients in the crockpot on LOW for 9 hours.
After 6 or 7 hours (or basically 2 hours before dinner) shred the pork and add:
1 cup brown sugar
1 can of Dr. Pepper (not diet)
stir and let cook 2 hours until dinner time.

Cilantro Lime Rice:

2 cups uncooked white long grain rice
4 cups water
3 tsp Caldo De Pollo (made by Knorr-it basically chicken bullion...but from the Mexican section-totally worth it)
juice from 1/2 fresh lime
2 tbs butter
1/2 tsp minced garlic
put all ingredients into a covered pot and bring to a boil.
reduce heat to low and let simmer 15 minutes
about 1/2 way through simmering, stir in 1/2 bunch cilantro diced w/o stems and recover the pot.

remove from heat (rice is cooked when all liquid is absorbed and rice is tender)
whisk together:
juice from 1 1/2 fresh limes
2 tsp white sugar
pour over rice and fluff with fork
season with a 1/2 tsp of celery seed and maybe a little garlic salt if you're like me and can't leave it out of anything you love.

Black Beans:

1 lb dry black beans
6 cups water
1-2 TBS Caldo De Pollo
1/2 c salsa
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp minced garlic
juice of 1/2 fresh lime
2-3 TBS diced cilantro
dash garlic salt

Put first 6 ingredients into crockpot and cook on low for about 4-5 hours (black beans take longer to cook than pinto beans, but if you soak them overnight first, they will cook MUCH faster)
I made the beans the night before our Cafe Rio feast, because I only own one crockpot and I knew the pork would monoplize it for the majority of Gringo Feasting Day...After the beans are cooked, transfer to and oven safe covered casserole dish and store in the frig until 1 hour before dinner.
Add remaining 3 ingredients 1 hour before dinner, and heat beans in oven at 350*

Creamy Tomatillo Buttermilk Ranch Dressing:
THIS is a must have. Even if you're NOT making all the other stuff...just make this dressing to serve over a salad and you will have a rockin' dinner. I made it on feasting day, and it was SO much better today with the leftovers, so I recommend preparing this ahead of time, so the dressing can have ample time to soak up all that FLAVAH. I could drink this stuff.

1 packet Hidden Valley Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
1 cup mayo (I used light-couldn't tell the diff)
1 cup buttermilk (the real deal-not the homemade 'just add vinegar' kind)
1 bunch cilantro (with stems)
2 fresh tomatillos (crazy mexican tomato/pepper thing from the gooseberry family...looks like a large brussel sprout on the outside, but when you unwrap it, it's more like a very solid, sticky, greeen tomato) peel and quarter (remove any stems).
1 jalepeno. I didn't know how spicy this would be, so I halved the jalepeno, and took out about 60% of the seeds. (remove stem)

Dump all ingredients into a blender and blend the heck out of it. It should be smooth and creamy (no lumps-that's nasty) when it's done. Place in frig for at least 30 min (I recommend overnight) before serving. This dressing should keep fresh for 2-3 weeks in the refrigerator if stored in a sealed container. Oh also, it will be BRIGHT green.

Lime Punch:
(shown in the cute little karafe on the left, in the pic with the cheese, lettuce, and other toppings)
1 can frozen limeaid concentrate
3 cans water
1 can Ginger Ale
1 tsp vanilla extract (or almond extract is yummy too)
crushed ice
fresh lime slices

Ok so if you want to go REAL Cafe Rio Style and have a salad then you need some tortilla strips (use a pizza cutter and slice up corn tortillas then fry em up in a little veg oil)...or if you're lazy like me, you can use fritos chips..not quite the same, but they give the necessary crunch. Use metal pie tins and put a tortilla, beans, rice, pork, and cheese in the tin, then broil on HI for 4 ish minutes. Remove from oven and add a fat load of lettuce, salsa, guac, tortilla strips and of course the spicy Tomatillo Ranch Dressing. SOOOO YUMMY.
Even Swiper the Fox disguised himself as cactus and tried to sneak into our fiesta. We laughed at the irony that the kids were watching Dora while we ate, bit by the end of the night I think we all were ALL saying, "Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum...Delicioso!"
especially after our turtle fuege brownie sundae desserts:

A few of the other items on the menu this week...
Pinto Bean Soup
Beef Taco Salad
Grilled Lime Chicken Fajitas
Southwestern Breakfast Burritos
Carne Con Chile (and as Elena says, "we're gonna get real Mexican and have them over eggs" instead of rice)
Carnitas with Spanish Rice
Chicken and Black Bean Empanadas

Yesterday as I was cooking, I was singing Depeche Mode "I just can't get enough, I just can't get enough" to my food...I wonder if I'll be singing the same love for spicy food at the end of the week!

Look out Paul and Elena...by March I might be more Mexican than y'all.
Maybe this baby will come out with a tan.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Happy Birthday, Mom-O. You are the greatest! Really. Best ever.
We love you and miss you so much!

Enjoy the day!
The Favorites.

For ME?!

The girls like to make "trains" with the dominoes, where they make a long line across the floor, matching the colors/# of dots end to end. The other night Reese made a letter E and got so excited she decided to do her name. We made a B for Baby Brother, an A for Aaron, and an M for Meg, but they were quickly destroyed by little miss Q for Quincy.

Also, a big THANK YOU for the Valentine packages we received last week! Grandma Lynda sent the girls really cute Valentine bowls with PINK heart shaped rice krispy treats, and handmade chocolate pretzels in them. YUM! They've been eating cereal from the bowls all week, and of course, the krispy treats were devoured instantly, along with the candies you sent for Aaron and I. I THOUGHT the girls were in Reese's room playing dollhouse, but it turns out they were snickering and stuffing their pink little cheeks with chocolates and jellybeans....except the one chocolate that Quincy decided she didn't like, spit back out and left half-chewed in the dollhouse attic. I guess they figured the whole package was meant for them. I knew something must be up, because they were playing a little too quietly.

On the SAME DAY, the girls also got another package! Lucky ducks! This one was from Grandma Lynn and Grandpa Punkin'. I saved the letters you wrote them, so I can put them in their scrapbooks (if I ever find time or energy to scrapbook again).
The heart suckers were finally finished off last week. I tried to convince Reese to give them away to her friends with her valentine cards, and she replied, "OR...I have an idea! I could eat two of them today, and Quincy can eat two of hers, and then we can give one to daddy, and eat the rest on another day! Isn't that a great idea? Oh. Do you and brother want one? Quincy has lots to share".

Quincy unwrapped ALL of the suckers the same day and sucked on each of them about 5 minutes, then got mad at them for making her hands sticky. She'd throw away the half-eaten sucker, wash off with a baby wipe then move on to opening the next one.
And thank you for the Dora Old Maid and Go Fish Games! Quincy fell in LOVE the second she saw "My Dowah" on them, and they have been playing Memory Match with the cards for days...and I've been finding sticky Dora and Boots cards everywhere for days. Seriously. Everywhere. The tub. The laundry. Every drawer in the kitchen. And my personal favorite...Tico the Squirrel wrapped tenderly in a pair of my underwear and stuffed back in the top drawer of my dresser. Anyway, the kids are lucky to have such fantastic grandparents! Thank you for all the valentine treats!

Sorry there are no pics of Quin in this post...she was probably off in another room climbing on something or taking everything out of everything everywhere!

"Come What May, and Love It."

I am still sick.

I've been on an antibiotic for two days, yet I feel worse and sound worse each hour that passes!
I've been trying to rest as much as is possible with a 2 year old, and am hanging onto hopes that tomorrow I will wake up feeling 100 times better than I did today.

A friend of mine nearly died while giving birth to her baby this week. She and baby are doing better now, but witnessing her family go through this traumatic nightmare has been a humbling experience for me. This event, combined with all the recent company layoffs, the unexpected death of one of my mom's friends, the crumbling self worth/sanity of another friend who only 5 years ago, in my eyes, seemed to "have it all", and the blessing of peace that came from spending Saturday in the OKC Temple, has brought me some new perspective. More than anything, a simple reminder of the truths that our lives here on Earth are relatively short, trials are followed by blessings and tender mercies of the Lord, and that there is always joy and happiness to be seen in difficult situations-if we look hard enough to see it.

I felt like crap today. I mean total CRAP. So sick that I actually had to take a minute this morning to convince myself that I would be able to find the strength somewhere in my body to get up and do the things that needed to be done today...and that somehow, I could experience the joy that was hiding behind my fevered, aching body. I just had to be willing to try.

I've been pondering the uncertainty of what lies ahead in our lives. If a simple illness can knock me out of commission for 4 days... how drastic might the effect on my family be should a more significant trial come our way? A talk recently given by Joseph Wirthlin has crept back into my thoughts a lot lately. He gives the advice to face trials "Come what may" and "love it", and talks about choosing to see a positive outlook in adverse situations.

He points out that finding humor in life is critical. Well thank goodness for that. Aren't we ALL laughing at some of the things that happen to me? The next time I find poop on the carpet and look to the heavens and ask, "Are you kidding me?! Is this a JOKE?" I'll remember that, yes. It IS a joke...so why not just laugh about it?

This morning, as always, the strength came, and with the help of a God who heard my simple prayers, I was able to enjoy these things today, fever or no fever:

The relief of modern medicine that temporarily took away the flamey (is that a word) burning, tingly, feeling that for the past 2 weeks has taken up residence in all of my joints.

A two hour nap. In my bed. Uninterrupted. Thanks to Hillary, for watching this little lovely for a few hrs and giving me a break to get much needed rest and a much needed shower while Reese was in preschool.
Overhearing a conversation between my children, where Reese explains to Quincy that other kids won't want to play with her if they know that she bites.

A clean kitchen.

Finished (well, almost finished...but something had to go) laundry.
Not caring that the laundry is only partially done, and probably will be that way all week.

Fun at the park with good friends on a cold, but very sun-shiny day.


Watching Quincy attempt to walk in the sand. It took her awhile to realize that she could move her legs. Reese went through a similar phase at this age, but she downright refused to walk in the sand and would stand there screaming until someone (usually a slightly older kid) would come carry her or help her around.

Quincy found one of those too. Bryn is 5 and more than willing to let Quin tag along every where she goes.

Eventually, it just got too cold and we headed home, where I enjoyed:

Scooping up an entire bottle of "Barbie Princess Genevieve" Bubble bath solution (dumped out by Quincy) off the bathroom floor and into the tub with my hands as quickly as I could, before it could ooze off the tile and onto the carpet.

Scrubbing the park sand out of sudsy, blonde hair, 20 fingers and 20 little toes, and watching my girls giggle as they take the sudsiest, foamiest, bubbliest bath they have ever had (thanks to the syrupy contents from decapitated Princess Genevieve that didn't get rinsed out of the tub before bath time. Oopsie.)

Clipping and polishing wrinkly fingers and toes. PINK, of course!

She loves this Dora nightgown. It was Reese's. Well, it was Reese's until 3 days ago, when Q discovered it, and now she bites when we take it away from her. Reese finally gave up and sighed, "You can just keep it, Quincy."

Putting a half-completed dinner back in the frig, and having frozen pizza instead.

Eating half a family size bag of crunchy Cheetos and snuggling with A on the sofa after the girls went to bed.

Tomorrow will be another day of crossing my legs in a feeble attempt not to pee my pants while I cough up my congested lungs, pulling Quincy down off the kitchen counter, telling Reese "sweet dreams" 100 times and fixing her blankets "just right" so she will take her nap, running errands, babysitting for a friend, cooking dinner, making necessary phone calls from my master bathroom-because sometimes it's the only quiet room in the house--because it's the only room in the house with a lock on the door, ignoring the unfinished laundry, starting reading lessons, giving "share with your sister-she's your best friend" lessons, and attempts to make myself and the house look presentable so my hard working husband doesn't have to come home to a chaotic mess.
Hopefully, it will be sunny and warm(ish) again.
Hopefully, I will feel better.
Hopefully, I'll make it out of Walmart with only one cart full of groceries, and without running into any freaks that want to tell me their life story and give advice on how to raise my "unruly" children.
But no matter what we do tomorrow,

'Come what may, we'll love it.'