Twin's Birthday

The twins turned the big O-ne on August 27th. We were GOING to throw them a big bash a la Hawaiian Luau like we had for Maddi. But, because our life is just like that, we couldn't. We had a minor catastrophe in our basement and spent the whole weekend tearing down walls, pulling up carpet, painting, and pretty much anything else you can think of with home improvement. Our renters LOVED us. We had to cancel the shindig and we had an impromptu little party. Here are the pictures!The presents!
Emmy in a birthday outfit my sweet friend April gave them.Ellie in her outfit.
We were trying to get some picture of them by their presents, but they were all over the place. This picture is a good summary of my current life.

Why not just let them chew on their presents?


I made them each a quilt and Emmy just LOVED hers (uh...I decided....based on this picture...)

Ellie coulda cared less.

Maddi and Andrew really got a kick out of the ball popper. Emmy and Ellie were content just to watch.

The fire scared them.

Digging in!

Ellie seemed to understand that it was food. Emmy sort of finger painted for awhile.

Ellie decided the best way to attack was to smash it.

Emmy: "Hey! What are you doing?"

Emmy pulled off "The Pedro".

Pedro also found the chocolate frosting DELICIOUS!

Ellie was just trying to get it off of her hands.

This works....

ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz......

I'm tired and I'm going to bed.

( I know, this is such a cop out!)

On a side note, Lord of the Rings extended version is REALLLYYY LOOONNNNGGG. And Return of the King has about 5,000 endings....
That's all I wanted to add. Good Night.

Andrewism

Traveling home one night in the car and the kids are getting restless. Mom sees the moon go behind a mountain and knows that it'll soon pop out again. With the intent to distract, she says:

"Hey, where is the moon?"

Andrew: "Mmmmmooooooooommmm! It's in SPACE!"

This is Andrew. And he always has his thinking cap ready to go.... AND his smarty pant answers.
Where did he learn this sarcasm?

Thai Delight

To curb my craving for Indian/Thai food. I have delved into the world of curry in my very own kitchen. Surprisingly it was not difficult at all. Having said that, I have realized I have not made this dinner since we had it this one time. I know what I'm making tomorrow!

Let's dive right in shall we?

Here we are:
Thai Coconut Chicken that simmered in the crock pot all day. Coconut Rice, Naan bread, cilantro, and chopped peanuts.
The drooling may now commence ( if you haven't had coconut chicken, or any of these dishes really, you don't have to drool, but you CAN hang your head and be just a bit sad, because I hate to break it to you, but your life is not complete............)
It's ok, you may be able to complete your life in other ways...say.... getting Gandolfos and go up a canyon and play in the leaves.

Chicken, peanuts, coconut milk, a bit of onion, too many spices to list and cilantro.

cilantro and chopped peanuts to sprinkle on top.

Coconut infused Basmati Rice.

Naan
What is naan you ask? The traditional bread they use to eat the chicken with. It's made from yogurt and flour and salt. It's delicious. And NOT hard to make at all.
See below:

(ignore my pasty crazy hand, the watch and ring please...ok just the whole hand......wow my fingers are pudgy)
Naan is made with your hands (pudgy hands). You mix the dough pull apart a piece flatten it and cook it. No oil, no nothin. You just slap it in, reach in and slap it over. And then slap it onto a plate and cover it to keep warm. There IS a lot of slapping involved. If you don't feel you can slap anything around that much, you could also just buy flat bread. But it just ain't the same. Besides, it's slightly blasphemous.

Hello in there? Are you keeping warm? Are you ready to be eaten? (Bow-hahahaha)

And here's some pears. Not because they are Thai, but because I had them and I thought they would feel left out if I didn't include them. I mean, everything ELSE on the table was getting their picture taken.

The Verdict:
yum.

(reaching for more)

"This pancake is GREAT!"

"But he looked at me!!!! (hiccup, sniff)..... And then he breathed my air!!!!!!"

"Seriously...this pancake is really good. And when I dip it in this sauce? forgetta bout it!"

"Wait....wha???????"

sobbing commenced on the floor

Well anyway, Andrew just LOVED it!!!

Andrew's First Day of Preschool

Wow this is a bit out of order, I know... but here are the pictures of Andrew's first day of preschool. He has been DYING to go for YEARS. He would get so sad when I would drop off Maddi and he couldn't go too. I signed him up for a local preschool that Maddi attended, and he LOVES it. He loves going to the same school Maddi did.
His Teacher is Misti Ridge and he loves her!

Classic front door shot

This is Andrew when I dropped him off. He wouldn't let me walk him to the door. And when I asked him to turn around and look at me for a picture he yelled " MOM! I'm trying to LEARN!"
Who knew I was so distracting? And who knew he would be learning before he even entered the house? it's just amazing...amazing I tell you!

That's my boy!

Since it's Election Day...

So I voted today. I waiting in line to vote and to get a sticker that said "I voted". And I waited for that opportunity and that sticker for an hour and a half. Luckily, ahead of me was a friend of mine, Cristy. I waved to her a few times but she didn't see me. So I sent her a text saying she looked HAWT and she finally turned around and saw me. It was kind of awkward to yell to each other so we kept texting for awhile and then she asked the lady in front of her to save her place and she came by me and we chatted the rest of the wait. After getting my sticker I left to go to Walmart for a few things, not realizing she was going to the same place! So we hit the Halloween Clearance and I snagged a few other Christmas gifts (Toy Story 3 coupon!!!) We ended up chatting for hours in the parking lot. Yeah, we're talkers. Thanks Cristy!!! Tell Chad I wasn't trying to hold you hostage!

Anyhoo. Going along the whole election/ political theme for today. Here are a few pictures that ya'll might enjoy. Cherilyn invited us up to the capitol to trick or treat. We had fun! Maddi was in school so I just had the twins and Andrew. Andrew was being extremely shy and just hanging on me most of the time. The picture with the Guv says it all. They were still nice about it and I know they have grandchildren, so hopefully it wasn't too annoying. Andrew was like that until we rode the elevator. Man was he impressed with that elevator. We did trick or treat a bunch of offices. But as we were leaving the Lt Gov's office (after Lt Gov and I were discussing my fertility issues. Don't ask, he started it) Andrew said LOUDLY "Can we go now? I want to ride the elevator" He said it more than once until we made it back to the elevator to walk out to the car.

Oh the joys of a four year old.

Here's the pictures!Thing 1 and Thing 2. Behold, the blue hair.

Do I look like I'm standing 10 feet away? Cause' I feel like I am. They gave us some books instead of Candy, great move!

Tired kids at the end and Buzz TOTALLY psyched to ride the elevator back down.

Halloween!

It seemed this year that we dressed up no less than 25 times. It's NO exaggeration...... ok maybe a little. But we went to LOTS of parties, it was really fun.

Here are some of the pictures:

We BARELY made it to the Halloween Parade on time! It was at nine in the morning and I got there right at nine. (Look it takes a long time to load both babies, unload and set up the double stroller, and then strap babies in) When I walked in, it was PACKED.
Mental note for next year, yet there early.

Here's my little lady bug in the parade!
Here's the babies and Andrew hangin out.
On Saturday Morning we had our pictures taken by one Julie Taggart. You can see them here. Afterwards we came back to my house to have some sloppy joes. And yes, those are skulls as our centerpiece. The kids then went to the Parkers for a Halloween party (thanks!) and then we went on over to the Ward Party. It was AWESOME! Tons of games, good food, the bishop dressed like Fred Flintstone. It was great. It was POURING rain outside!

When we got home we took some pictures of the kids in their costumes. The girls were Thing 1 and Thing 2. I tried to talk Jesse into being the Cat in the Hat but I was shot down. I sprayed their hair blue but it was fading by the times we got pictures.
The babies were wiggling so much Maddi tried to get them to sit still and they were just laughing. Andrew was being a stinker and didn't want his pictures taken. He was Buzz Lightyear. I'll work on getting a picture.