thoughts on a sunday

• On Friday McKay was allowed to wear a costume to school because it was clown day and he was the snacker.  Friday was such a good day for this boy.  On the way to school we stopped to get a snack to bring.  After browsing almost every aisle he settled on fruit snacks.  I decided to grab a bag of baby carrots to go along with them.  When McKay saw the carrots he was completely mortified at the thought of bringing them to school.  He begged me to not buy them.  I could tell this was serious, so I let the carrots go.  I guess carrots are totally embarrassing.  I didn't know.

• How come whenever I go visiting teaching Ellery poops?  Every single time.  

• For awhile now I've been wanting to buy a bunch of chicken, shred it, and freeze it.  With the help of my friend Mailee, I did it.  She provided rubber gloves and just enough conversational distraction for me to trim about twelve pounds of chicken.  And now it's sitting all pretty in my freezer.  I am proud of myself and also so happy that I don't have to eat it.

• Speaking of meat, I'm afraid McKay is a lot like me when it comes to food.  This is not a good thing.  I  am very careful about not saying anything bad about meat in front of my kids, and I don't bring any attention to the fact that I'm not eating it.  Even still, McKay is proving to be quite picky with meat.  Not all the time, but enough that Brian and I are wondering if eventually we'll have another little vegetarian on our hands.  Oh I sure hope not.  

• On Tuesday we all went to the cub scout Blue and Gold banquet.  I have never been before.  McKay almost died because he was so excited to be there.  Seeing a room full of cub scouts and adults laying on their backs acting like a dead cockroach?  Thrilling.

• We checked out two Snow White books from the library last week.  Brian and I have each read them to Elle at least twenty times.  Each!  They cannot be returned fast enough.

• The other night when I checked on McKay as he was trying to go to sleep, he proudly announced, "Mom!  I'm growing hair on both of my feet!"  I found out the next morning that this hair was actually rough spots callous skin on his heel, but I didn't tell him.

• Brian had a busy week.  He has been swamped with school, homework and clinicals.  He did have a big success at the hospital this week though- his first intubation!  Way to go Bri!  

• If Friday was a good day for McKay then Saturday was off the charts.  McKay went to a friend's birthday party.  Let me paint a picture for you:  400 pastel non-helium balloons filling an entire living room (think ball pit of balloons), one balloon guy (McKay chose a black horse), one princess-clad makeup artist (batman for Mack), pizza, cupcakes and 25 five year old kids.  25 kids!  

Happy Sunday!

lunch break

While Brian was home studying, we were busy in the kitchen making him lunch.  Really, really busy.

And then we delivered it right to him.

 Note as dictated by McKay:
"Dear Dad,
We gave this to you.  We madfe it out of play dough and we hope you enjoy it.  We love you.  A hug from me and a kiss from you.  We love you so much.  Elle made the rotten cookie and we made some stuff that's a surprise."

Dad's meal included pizza, donuts, watermelon, blueberry pancakes, strawberries, raisins, chips and a valentine's cookie.

Elle did have a cookie of her own that she worked on the whole time while McKay and I made the rest.  But you can bet she wasn't giving her precious rotten cookie up to dad.  She kept it for herself!

I may or may not have had more fun making food out of play-doh than my kids.

a certain grandma reads this blog

And the reason I know that is because these two lucky grandkids now have homemade snuggies of their very own.

These things are plush. . .my pink pepto doesn't stand a chance against them.  

Thanks Grandma, we love them!

her rules

How Elle plays Candyland:

Working hard.

All done!

thoughts on a sunday

• I cannot even explain how nice the weather has been here the past couple weeks.  I love it.  I really do.  It's messing with my mind though, because I keep thinking that summer is just around the corner, with weather like this.  I am told that it won't last.  In fact, I think the rain might start tomorrow.  But we have been outside a lot enjoying the 60 degree, sunshiney days.

• On Saturday our family had a huge milestone.  The first babysitter!  Ever.  Up to this point we've lived by family who has graciously always been there to watch our little ones.  Brian and I went to a matinee movie (Avatar) and the kids did great with Sammy.  We knew McKay would be fine, but Elle we worried about.  But she was happy the whole time.  I'm glad we finally did it and now we can do it again.  

• So Avatar.  I remember seeing the preview for the first time when we were at another movie and Bri and I looked at each other in disbelief because we thought it looked so stupid.  That was before we had heard any of the hype.  So we gave it a chance.  I am not picky with movies.  I really liked it, although I got frustrated with all the fighting.  Just somebody win already.

• Today McKay said the scripture and prayer in primary.  He said he was nervous, but he did great.  Didn't talk too loud this time, or talk like a baby.  He was sure proud of himself, and I was too.  He's a very cute boy.

• Another significant happening in primary today, that McKay shared with us on the way home from church, was that he and "a girl were making silly faces to each other during sharing time and just falling in love."  We also were told this girl was a teacher.  Do you think she knows she was falling in love?    

• Ellery didn't have as intense of a day in church.  When we asked her what she learned about she said, "Phones.  And balls.  Phones and balls."

• Today we had a first for dinner.  Korean barbeque short ribs.  It is the most we have ever paid for meat.  Brian made them and he was disappointed.  For all the work the flavor was very mild.  The kids liked it though, and I liked the sauce on top of my rice.  But then when we discovered a layer of waxy stuff on every dish and coating the sink we decided that either we don't know how to make them right, or they are really fatty and gross.  Well, I decided that.  I don't know what conclusions Brian drew.  

• This week I have been feeling like I've been contradicting myself quite frequently.  During family prayers you just don't even want to know what my kids are doing.  Ellery refuses to kneel and is usually flopping around the middle of the room doing anything but folding her arms.  McKay has good nights and bad nights, but lately there have been more bad.  He also gets quite distracted by floppy Ellery and then he's gone.  So here's my contradiction:  Through gritted teeth and a with squeeze of a tiny arm I say, "Sit up and kneel!" or, "Be reverent!" or "Fold your arms and stop moving right now or you'll lose your song!"  How can praying and growling those things go together?  They can't.  I'm at a loss.  

• On a more pleasant note, tonight as I was putting Elle to bed I asked her what song she wanted.  She replied, "the ahhh-ahhh-ahhh song"  So that's what we sang.  Two little mermaids just singing to each other.  

Happy Sunday!

elle white

I think it's time to talk about this little miss.  

If you've been away from Elle

 for more than thirty minutes at a time

 she will automatically ask you,

"How was your day, mom?"

She is also still extremely complimentary.

I had some cream on my face.

You know, like (blemish) cream.

Elle looked at me and said,

"You got cream, mom?"

Yep, I do.

"I like your cream, mom."

Ellery is so girly already, and loves anything

frilly, pink, pretty or feminine.

She has even come up with a girly animal name

when her and brother are pretending to be animals.

Pink spot.

McKay has a hard time 

when she wants to be a pink horse.

Because horses are never pink.  

While we were in Utah, after being with cute baby Carson

the kids were pretending that they were babies.

McKay said, "I'm baby Carson."

Ellery quickly followed,

"I'm pink Carson."

There are so many cute things that she says

right now, that I know I'm going to miss.

"bludder" for brother

"I lub you," which she tells us often.

and "kaykay" for McKay.

Even though she can say McKay now, too.

I wouldn't mind if she called him kaykay forever.

This little girl doesn't like movies.  

Only baby einstein really catches her interest.

Until we got Snow White for Christmas.

She can sit through the whole thing.

She doesn't do that for any other movie.

She loves Snow White.

Thus, we have Elle White visit quite often around here. 

Her very favorite part of the day.

Is when we get to "go pick up the boys"

from preschool.

She totally flirts with Jaxon.

But he doesn't even notice.

Brian is really worried.

Seriously concerned.

About his daughter's hoarding activities at age two.

She is a bag lady.  She drapes them all on her stroller.

Each bag has a few little treasures inside.

Everything is better in a bag.

Today, her babies and pink bear are in a ziplock bag.

And she could not have been more proud of that idea.

Oh how I love this little girl.

So much.

She brings so much joy to our family.

She is so full of life and love and sweetness.

And just enough spice

to keep things interesting.

thoughts on a sunday

• The Olympics have started.  That means that Brian wants to do one thing and one thing only: watch them. It's going to be a lonely two weeks for me.  Or is it three?  Oh please say it's only two.  Actually, I have already gotten into it more than I usually do.  If you watch for a little while there is so much drama that unfolds.  Like the luge (very sad) and Apollo's silver medal which he only got because the two skaters in front of him fell at the last second.  It's exciting stuff.

• I like Valentine's day.  Not because we go all out for it.  Brian and I usually don't do much, and especially this year because one we don't have money to spare on things like Valentines day, and two, it's a Sunday.  Oh, and three, we have yet to get a babysitter here in Oregon.  I like it because it's just an easy holiday.  You can make it big or make it not exist and it is just totally up to you, and your valentine I guess.  Instead of going out and being all romantic we had fondue.  Pizza fondue is McKay's favorite meal and it's a quick fix when we get home from church at five.  So I decided to throw in a special Valentine's day dessert and we had chocolate fondue with plenty of treats to dip.  Yum!  

• If you have picky eaters, try fondue.  Something about a new way to eat something.  I have a fondue pot, which we love, but you could just use a regular pot.  The pizza fondue we make is super easy.  Cut up a loaf of french bread into cubes.  Heat pizza sauce (from a jar) on the stove and throw in some shredded mozzerella.  Sometimes we season with pizza seasoning and occasionally minced garlic, but sometimes it's just the sauce and cheese.  We skewer little pepperonis (some of us) with our bread and dip away.  
• I'm done talking about fondue.

• But now I can't think about what to talk about.

• I guess it might be noteworthy to say that Brian finished his midterms.  Kinda boring.

• McKay had his first Valentine's day party at preschool.  He chose dog and cat valentines with 3-D stickers.  Moms were invited to school to open all the valentines with the kids.  McKay and I sat and opened each one and it was just the most precious thing seeing how special he thought it was.  He would look at me with these eyes like he was completely in love with his little bag of valentines and could not believe his good fortune in receiving so many.

• Speaking of love, McKay is in love with Taylor Swift.  I kinda don't blame him.

• I'm sitting here at my desk staring at a huge pile of papers.  What are all those papers?  I really hate papers.  Brian does a lot of things, but he never deals with the paper pile-up around here.  Looks like I've been slacking on my job.

• We've been going to the library story time every week with some other moms and kids from our ward. Why haven't I been doing this all along?  The kids love it and I just get to enjoy it with them, plus I love having a stack of new books to read to them.    

• When we were in Utah my kids played with Nonnie a lot.  One day I went downstairs to find Nonnie filling their tea party cups up with diet coke and they would all raise a glass and say "Salue" while toasting each other.  Then, right before they took a sip they would say, "Down the hatch."  Caught in the act of drinking Nonnie's soda that I don't let them drink.  But it was hard for me to get mad because how can you get mad at a two year old girl saying "down the hatch" and then guzzling diet coke.  You just can't.  

• Tonight for dinner I bought sparkling cider and little valentine glasses to drink it from.  You can bet there was a lot of salues being offered.  

• I have no idea how to spell salue or what it means, really.  

Happy Valentine's Sunday!

i came home to. . .

a clean house
a stocked fridge
fresh towels
clean sheets
a pruned bush in the front yard
and a really cute husband.

oh i like him.

and spidey really likes him too.