I am going to be an aunt!

Great news! I am going to be an aunt...and I am going to have a nephew! I am so excited; you'd think I was having the baby! (Actually, maybe that I don't have to go through the being pregnant part but can still love the cute little guy, is why I am so excited. See, I already know he's cute and I haven't even seen him -not even an ultrasound!) A big congratulations to Adam's brother Danny and wife Heather who are expecting their baby in early October. Can't wait to spoil him rotten! Best of luck in the months (and years) to come!

compliments of Lexi

I knew with three girls in my house, that this was bound to happen some day...but oh how I wish it hadn't! To my horror, this past Friday, Aubrey and Alexis came to me to show off Aubrey's new "do," compliments of Lexi. I was in a state of shock, wishing that somehow when she turned around that I would see all Aubrey's beautiful hair tucked away in a pigtail somehow, but no, it was gone, all gone. Lucky for Lexi, I was on the phone with my dad so didn't completely flip out. Really though, all I could do was cry. A lot. I wanted so desperately to cut Lexi's hair short too (they both loved their long "princess" hair) but I kept seeing in my mind the saying that my mom had hung on my bathroom wall when I was growing up. It read: "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind;" or in this case, with bad hair cuts! I cried and cried, and cried even harder when I saw the pile of long beautiful auburn locks of hair in the trash can. I picked out one bunch of it (as if that gave me some comfort to have some to hold on to!) and it measured around 8 inches in length! Oh, wow! What to say! What to do! I sat Aubrey down and evened the ends a bit and now we go on. Many people have complimented Aubrey on her hair cut and Lexi just loves it; since it was her doing! (The nerve!) While I recognize that it could have been FAR worse than it was, it was still a bit tragically devastating to me at the time and will likely be for a while. (Possibly for the two YEARS it will take to grow it back!) Aubrey hasn't been overly upset with it until this morning when she asked for a "long braid." I sadly informed her that she didn't have enough hair for that anymore. She said it was okay and asked for a "back pony". Not enough for that either sweetheart. She said, "could we get some tape?" Oh, Aubs! She knows it will grow back so it will be okay. She just has NO idea how long it will take. When this happens to you at your house, just hope whomever is doing the cutting is also the recipient of the trim so they can face the consequences of their choices. Alexis was reprimanded but it's poor Aubs that lost her hair! Good news for her is that she is still so beautiful and wears a smile anyway!



This is what Aubrey looked like when she first came to me.


This is one to the locks of hair I recovered from the trash can.



And this is the new "do".

Easter Celebrations

It is quite possible that we have landed ourselves smack dab in the middle of the three sweetest neighbors a family with three little girls could have. One helps us with our garden, one brings us all sorts of treats and fresh fruit, and the other just spoils us rotten. The latter is a kindergarten teacher and brings lots of books and worksheets over for Alexis and is just sweet as pie. She loves books and we have benefited from that on many occasions. :) This Easter weekend, she invited us to her home to decorate cookies and eggs with her granddaughters. We had SO much fun! She treated us all with matching Easter aprons, more books and See's chocolates! What a treat! When all the decorating was done, she fed us lunch and let the kids play hide and seek in her house for hours! Thank you to our wonderful neighbor for spoiling us and giving us a place to go for the holidays. This was just like what me Grandma B. used to do for us when my cousins and I were little. I have such great memories of Easter parties when I was little and was glad my kids will have them too.


This is Allie receiving a "Happy Birthday" song while we were at our party. She loved it and was all giggles and smiles!

Easter Sunday

A Birthday with Bronchitis

Allie celebrated her first birthday this week! This past year with her has flown by. She is such a sweet little girl! Allie's favorite foods include: chicken, spaghetti, and oatmeal with applesauce. Allie has learned to point to her nose(and everyone else's), give "Fives" and gives great kisses. She calls "mamama" whenever she's in trouble or needs help and will drop whatever she is doing to run to the door to greet her daddy when he comes home with an enthusiatic "Hi, Da!" She has recently been learning how to slide down the stairs backwards. She loves playing with phones and gets SO excited whenever she sees or hears dogs. Taking our lead from her interest in dogs, we had a canine theme for her birthday and since she loves phones so much, we decided to give her one of her own for her birthday. Her Aunt Lauren and Uncle Nate were right on track with that and sent her a toy phone as well. She loved it so much we had a hard time getting her to open anything else! Allie was thought of by many people this week and we thank you all for your cards, calls, and packages! Her birthday was a really fun day for us. It was nice to have a "pick me up" as Allie had been running a fever for five days prior to her birthday. She ended up coming down with infections in both ears and bronchitis! Poor baby! After a couple days of medication, she is doing much better and is nearly running at full speed again.

Fair

On Saturday, we went to a fair that was representative of things in the era of "Tom Sawyer" in conjunction with the efforts of the city to inspire the community to read the classic tale. We had a great time. The girls learned to play "marbles," raced in three legged races, gunny sacks, balanced eggs on a spoon and did a cake walk, to name a few things. It was so fun to watch the girls get excited about everything. While we were walking back to the car, little Aubs took my hand and said, "Thanks mom, for taking us to this fun fair!" One of those little moments... :)

*P.S. Grandma Quick - did you see the fun old fashioned sewing machine? It looks like the one on display in your sewing room. The girls each got a book mark stitched with the machine at the fair.

More visitors!

We were lucky enough in the past weeks to not only have Adam's sister and spouse stop by, but to have his brother and spouse pay a quick visit as well as they ventured through California. We met Danny and Heather and their friends at the "Elephant Bar" on St. Patrick's Day. It was great to see them. Thanks for stopping by!

more fun with Missy and Rhen !!!

We had so much fun with Aunt Missy and Uncle Rhen last weekend, that we couldn't help but accept their invitation to join them for another fun-filled visit; this time down in San Diego. We had a fantastic time at the beach! The girls played in the ocean until their little lips literally turned blue. We, of course, dined at "Miguels" on Coronado Island and did a little shopping. My many, many thanks again to them for watching our girls while Adam and I snuck away for a trip to the temple. It was beautiful! We miss you guys and can't wait until next time!

Spring has brought us such a nice surprise...

Adam's sister, Missy, and her husband, Rhen, were headed down to So.Cal this week and decided to make a detour and stop by for a surprise visit to our house. What a great surprise! Adam arrived home from his business trip Saturday afternoon and we headed out to get some lunch together; he and the girls were shocked to see Aunt Missy and Uncle Rhen waiting for us at the restaurant! We had a wonderful visit and always enjoy their company...and all the fun things they brought with them from Grandma "Quick" -thanks a bunch! We took them with us on our annual drive of the "Blossom Trail." It was beautiful! (Although not quite as fragrant as we remember from last year.) We, of course, sang the "popcorn popping" song quite a few times as we looked at all the blossoms on the trees. :) The girls were also sure to pack their little pink camera so they could take pictures of their own. Such a crack up!

Vancouver, Canada and Mexican Lasagna

So Adam headed off to work yesterday on just a normal, average day and then called home around lunch time to say he was coming home to grab a suitcase and flying off to Canada for a couple of days on a work assignment. Let's be spontaneous, shall we! I am admittedly jealous of his thrilling adventure but the girls and I are having a good party back home too. (We might as well have something to be excited about instead of sad, right!) We've been eating pink ice cream with sprinkles and playing at the park and will be doing pedicures tomorrow and making chocolate covered pretzels (green of course, since it is March!). Best of all, we got to make chicken enchiladas tonight for dinner, which Adam greatly dislikes and I happen to LOVE (so I've reserved them for just such and occasion). I rummaged though several of my cook books to find the perfect recipe and ended up melding a few ideas together into what became a fantastic dinner. It felt a lot like I was making more of a lasagna than an enchilada but the end result was just what I was dreaming of...and I even have left overs for lunch tomorrow -wahoo! Here's what we came up with in case you ever need a special excuse to be excited to be alone some night:

Mexican Lasagna (aka Chicken Enchiladas)

*2 chicken breasts (cooked and cubed or shredded)
*1 can cream of chicken soup
*1/3 cup plain yogurt (We used this instead of sour cream since we already had it on hand for the baby and it was a fantastic -mind you, much healthier -substitution)
*4 oz can of diced green chilies (We didn't use the whole can, but quite a bit of it. The cans don't come any smaller so use more or less depending on your taste.)
*chopped onion (just a small handful)
*grated cheddar cheese (sorry, I didn't measure it. We just used what covered it.)
*Tortillas, torn into bite size pieces (I'm addicted to the ones you buy at Costco and "cook" at home!) I was curious about how the broken up tortillas would turn out as opposed to "rolling up" the tortillas. In the end, I loved it. They were very easy to serve and to eat. I think I will always make them "lasagna style".

---Mix together soup, yogurt and chilies, then add chicken to the mix.
---Using half the torn tortillas, cover the bottom of baking dish. Next add the chicken mixture followed by a layer of cheese. Repeat beginning with the remaining tortillas. Bake at 350 degrees for approx. 45 minutes and you have a mighty tasty dinner. (One that can easily be "healthified" using low fat ingredients.) Hope you like as much as we did!
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An awesome $5 dinner!

I just had to post this... ever since I started "couponing" last summer, we've been experimenting with many new budgeting and money savings ideas. One idea we came up with was to see how many meals we could come up with for $5 and I must say I am pleasantly surprised with what you can feed a family of five for five dollars. I'm here to tell you too that you can eat more than just spaghetti when you are on a budget. We try and plan our "meal deals" based off the sales at the grocery stores each week (thus my heightened level of excitement for the arrival of the mail every Wednesday! I can hardly wait to see what exciting things will be on sale!). We felt like we hit the jack pot with this last one. Sunday night, we had thick, juicy sirloin steaks (which Adam grilled to perfection out on his BBQ) served with fresh green beans, canned corn, baked potatoes and sour dough bread...for the grand total of $5.50 for the whole family! That's what I call an awesome $5 dinner!

Kindergarten check-up

Today, Alexis had her kindergarten check-up in preparation for registration next month. She did a great job at her appointment and was in the 90 % for both height and weight (not a big surprise). She is SO excited to start school! It's crazy to me that I have a daughter this age; I remember having my kindergarten check-up! I also remember that kindergarten was the year I got my ears pierced ... so I shouldn't be surprised I guess that Lexi is already asking to have hers done. (I will certainly not be telling her I was her age when I got mine pierced.) She's been using the "everyone else does" guilt trip on me. I keep pawning the question off on her dad. That's what my mom did and I guess it worked out well in my favor. (So maybe I should put my foot down instead; dad's are too "soft"!)