10/31/2010

Halloween '10

3 posts in one day... I'm so impressed with myself! So here we go with Halloween...


By far my favorite Halloween so far. Lexi and Laney were Minnie Mouse. Do you see Laney's little Minnie Mouse clip? Isn't it adorable? Brandon's mom made it out of a bowtie. I thought it was genius. She wouldn't have kept the ears on anyway, so this was the perfect solution.
Here's Lexi. She was so excited for her costume and for her dad's...
Brandon was such a good sport to dress up as Mickey. Again, Brandon's mom sent puffy hands and the ears, and I made the shorts and shoes. The shorts were pretty easy, and there's a tail in the back too. And I just hot-glued yellow cloth to some slippers that Brandon never wears. Turned out pretty fun!
Lexi wanted me to be Daisy Duck. Brandon had to match Lexi, not me. :) I had some pretty sweet purple shoes too, which I made with cloth and hot glue again, and the bow is the same, hot glued to a headband. The poor beak looked awful, but I couldn't find one at the stores, so I had to make one.
The trunk or treat had to be held inside because it was freezing and raining, but the girls had a total blast. Scratch that. Lexi had a blast and Laney whined and cried the whole time. But it was still a total blast, and we just might have to have family-themed costumes from now on. :)
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Lexi's birthday cake

Here's Lexi blowing out her Barbie cake. I think we're going to have to make a Coldstone Ice Cream cake tradition for birthdays around here. It was delicious!

Lexi's Birthday!

I was supposed to post this on Monday, but I had costumes to finish, and you know...

So, Lexi had an awesome birthday on Monday! She started by going to preschool and celebrating there. After that we met up with Megan and Andrew at the dinosaur museum, and they brought lunch and cupcakes for everyone! It was so nice, and it's always so fun at the dino museum.

Here she is before preschool...
After the dino museum, we came home, Lexi took a nap, and then of course it was time for presents! Below is a collage. I told her to pose for the camera after every present, and she was a champ. She got lots of books, because she's kind of obsessed with books. Like mother like daughter... she also got a princess castle bed thingy for her barbie, a Dora bathtime castle, pinkalicious stuff from Nana, tons of Dora stuff from Nani, a game from Gramma... let's just say she had a good birthday.
Then we had a barbie cake. I will post the video after this... And of course the picture of Laney smiling for the camera, as always. :)
All in all, it was a super fun day. Lexi was so happy to be the special birthday girl all day long, and we had a blast together.
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10/14/2010

Cougs and Jacques

Because of Brandon's awesome old boss (not old as in old, old as in previous, huh Jim?) :) we got some great tickets to the BYU game on Saturday. And guess what? They actually won!! That was a bonus. You can't really see Laney's or Brandon's face, but I loved this pic because it shows what we were doing so well- eating and eating and eating. :) Laney's fave was popcorn, and Lexi's was pizza. I loved the pretzel with cheese and Brandon is weird and likes the peanuts in the shells.

Lexi was covering her ears because of the noise, and I told her that putting her hood on would help. She actually believed me and had her hood on the whole game. That's good parenting right there. :) And why do all kids do this smile?? And she has pizza face.
By the way, this is the first game we've gone to this year, and Lexi is at an age where she wants to know what's going on. Holy bagillion questions! So, I tried to explain to her in 4 year old terms so she could understand:

"Mom, why are you screaming?"
"Because we just got a touchdown."
"What's a touchdown?"
"It's when we get points."
"Oh. Mom, why do we want points?"
"Because we want to beat the guys in the red helmets."
"Oh. Mom, are the guys in the red helmets bad guys?" (She's thinking like the wicked stepmother)
"No, they're not bad, we just want to beat them."
"Mom, why are you cheering now?"
"Because we just got the ball up the field more."
"Mom, why are you screaming now?"
"Because we just got the ball from the red helmets, and they can't move up the field anymore."

And on and on and on. Geez. But I'm glad she's showing an interest in football. That will get her far in this family. :)

It was really hard getting a good picture. Oh well.
It was oh so fun, and Laney also did well. Til halftime. We left in the 3rd quarter. The girls were tired. But seriously, football games are the best!

And sadly, we said goodbye to Jacques this week. That's my car, if you didn't know. We haven't been driving it since we didn't want to spend the money to fix it and re-register it, but Brandon needed a car and I had the other car, so he drove it, and the timing belt snapped off on the I-15. Goo. We were gonna trade it in at the end of the year for a new car, but that wasn't possible now. If you don't speak guy, like me, a mechanic friend explained it to me. If you break the timing belt, you've basically killed your engine, or at least they have to take the engine apart to fix it, and our car's not worth the fix. We were going to sell it to a junkyard for about $250, but we put in on KSL first and sold it as a good 'parts' car. We put the price up at a hopeful $350, not thinking we could get that much, and we got like 20 emails in 3 hours. All these mechanics wanted it cuz it's a V-6. So, we sold it to a mechanic for $350 in like an hour and a half. Poor Jacques. We'll miss you! Be good to your new owners! If you want an incredibly long read on my car's and my history together, go here.
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10/07/2010

This and that, plus an easy dinner

So, my life must not be very exciting lately, cuz I can't think of much to blog about. So, let me try and make this as interesting as possible...

1. Lexi loves preschool. Her new favorite thing is tracing letters. I kept her totally occupied during General Conference by giving her words to trace. Laney on the other hand was a psychopath and went a little crazy during conference. We finally reverted to putting Special Agent Oso on the laptop for her to watch. Don't judge.

2. Laney is finally starting to show an interest in talking. But still not much. Only I ever know what she's saying, but it's a start. The funny thing is that even though she doesn't talk, she can pretty much tell you exactly what she wants. She's a good communicator, just in other ways.

3. I'm not pregnant. And I was kinda hoping I would be by now. I hate it when I can't control everything. :)

4. Laney is CRANKY lately. I don't know if it's because she was sick just a few days ago and she's still getting over it, or if it's just a phase. But dude. It's getting old. But she's still super cute, right? So I guess we'll forgive her. And she takes 3-hour naps. And she sleeps at least 13 hours at night. Okay, maybe I have no right to complain...

5. It's really hard to want to cook dinner when you went an entire week with every meal provided for you. So we're taking some baby steps and making easy stuff. This meal was introduced to me by Megan, who most of you know and love as well. DON'T knock it til you try it, that's all I have to say.
Grilled Cheese and Apple Sandwiches
(Seriously, so good!)

Ingredients:
Cinnamon raisin bread
Apples of your choice
Cheddar cheese

First off, I'm a huge fan of traditional grilled cheese sandwiches- white bread, cheap Kraft american cheese. With tomato soup. Yummy. So when Megan first made me try these, I wasn't extremely excited. But these are really yummy! And a good take on a traditional meal.

Put cheese and thinly sliced apples in the sandwich. Grill it up like you normally would. We usually use the George Foreman. It's super easy that way. AND because I'm lazy, I just spray the outsides with Pam instead of buttering them. Your choice. And they don't need any kind of dip. They're yummy as is.
Enjoy!
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