The Children's Museum

On Christmas Eve, Melissa took us all to this really cool Children's Museum that was in an old elementary school building. This place was amazing! The kids had a blast. We could have stayed there all day.


Tanner had fun sitting in the dinosaur nest and throwing the eggs around.

Riley's cousins put these headphones on Riley unbeknownst to him. He resisted at first, but I would say that this ended up being his favorite thing in the whole place. He would talk into the microphone and then be able to hear his own voice in the headphones. It was pretty neat.
By far and away Tanner's favorite thing was this ball ramp. We couldn't get him away from it! He just laughed and laughed, and then would get all serious when he went to put the ball back at the top. It was pretty funny.
This was a pretty cool activity. You could build whatever you wanted out of pvc pipe. Riley and Todd both had a lot of fun. And, if you look hard enough, you can see Tanner playing with the bead maze in the background. He loves those things.
Tanner loves anything that has to do with a ball. He especially loved this ball that floated in mid-air.

Visiting Family

This Christmas we were invited to Andy and Melissa's house in Loveland, CO. The 9 1/2 hour drive was worth it for this fun visit. Riley really enjoyed playing with his cousins, Aaron and Ethan...and Aaron and Ethan were extremely kind to Riley and all his 4-year old eccentricities. Riley also fell in love with the Lundmark's cats...much to our surprise. We did a lot of fun things with our cousins and can't wait for our next visit. And, side note, not a day goes by where Riley says he doesn't like Kansas and that he would rather live in Colorado or Utah.

 

 

 

Ward Christmas Program Gone Wrong

Sara left me all by my lonesome to go to the ward Christmas program with Riley and Tanner this year as she was singing up in KC. I was sitting at the table when I hear someone say "let's have all the primary kids come up". I had no clue what they were doing but I sent Riley out with all the rest of the kids. They came back 20 minutes later filing into the cultural hall with their little angel costumes and halos. Everyone except Riley. That was my first clue things weren't going to go well. I had my hands full with Tanner running around so I wasn't very mobile. As they all started singing I had one of our friends come back chuckling to tell me that instead of singing the words to the song he was singing "blah, blah, Blah!" How embarrasing. Things ended up with him making a small scene and having to get pulled off the front row. This child keeps us humble!

Ummm...?

Nana got Tanner a Leap Frog magnetic letter toy for Christmas. He LOVES it...and so does Riley. For the past 45-minutes or so, Riley has been making words out of the letters. He just turned to me and said, very proudly,

"Look mom! I spelled FAG!"

Oh...that's great spelling honey!

"Mom, what does FAG mean?"

Ummm...I'm not sure...(do I tell my child it means a cigarette...or do I tell him it is a derogatory word referring to someone who is gay?)

"Does it mean a train?"

Maybe.

"Oh, I think it means chocolate."

That sounds about right. :)

Picture Time

We are so excited that these pictures turned out as well as they did. In the past getting the boys' picture taken has been a total nightmare. This time though, Riley was hammin it up. It was a piece of cake to get a good picture of him. Tanner was a little bit trickier. There were several good shots of Tanner that were missed by the Target photographer...darn it! I just want to shout at these people to have your finger on the camera at all times and be ready to click at any given moment. I wonder how many great shots have been missed due to a lack of understanding of this idea. My guess is a lot.

 

 

 

My Preppy Boys

They just looked so nice before church that I knew I had to get a picture before they didn't look so nice anymore...and believe me, "nice" goes quickly in this house!

 

 

The BEST Candy!

Growing up on Woodchuck Way in Sandy, UT we lived by the Smarts. Jenny was friends, and still is friends, with Stephanie Smart. Well, Steph's mom makes the absolute best candy around. We always got a big plateful every Christmas season. We loved it!!! Now Steph's mom, Kimberly, owns her own candy store in Sandy (The Chocolate Cottage on 7th East and 10600 South). Every time I visit, I get spoiled with some seriously good treats (the white chocolate covered raspberries are seriously sinful!). She now has a website selling her amazing toffee. So, because they were always so nice to us growing up...and Steph is my sister's best friend...and the toffee is some of the best I've ever had...I am doing a little advertising. :)

Her website is called English Toffee Anytime. They are giving away free toffee, so go check them out.

Merry Christmas!!!

Our Funny Sleeper

Riley is such a great little sleeper! He has this uncanny knack of being able to fall asleep in very strange ways. We found him once asleep in his closet after making a terrible mess first. Another time we found him propped up in his little chair just kickin' back. And talk about uncomfortable, once we found him dead to the world laying on his train table with his blankets wrapped all around his head! This kid can sleep through anything too! He has completely slept through lightning hitting our house...producing the loudest sound I have ever heard! He also slept through Tanner poking him in the ear.

Well, here is his newest sleeping caper. We walked in last night to check on him and just laughed and laughed. This kid!?!?! :)

The Lighting of the Mayor's Christmas Tree

Each year, the day after Thanksgiving, Kansas City has the Lighting of the Mayor's Christmas Tree event down at Crown Center Plaza in downtown Kansas City. The Symphony Chorus is always invited to come and sing. This year however was the first year that we had to wear choir robes...aren't they festive?!?! :) Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am ALWAYS cold! So, beneath this beautiful robe, I have on a big sweater and my "puffy coat". It keeps me so nice and toasty, but doesn't do much for the old figure. Even though I was on the front row and appeared on television and in the newspaper...yikes...I didn't even care that I looked like I was 9-months pregnant because I was warm.

 

 

The kids had a lot of fun playing at "Santa's Village" right there on the plaza. They were mezmerized by all the lights and the music, but when the fireworks started, they just wanted out! Poor little Tanner started crying every time the loud "boom" from the fireworks sounded. Don't feel too bad for him though...he got over it pretty quickly and was back to his old mischief making.

 

It was a fun night!

 

Thanksgiving Day

Thanksgiving day was so beautiful here in Kansas! We started out the day by raking up our leaves into a big pile and then jumping/sliding into it. It was so warm that the kids weren't even wearing shoes! It was so much fun.

 

 

We had our friends, Kwan and Seong and their kids over for the big dinner. It was really, really good! I have now found my favorite turkey recipe. If anyone wants to try it out, here is the link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/brined-herb-roasted-turkey-recipe/index.html

 

Riley had a lot of fun playing with little 4-year old Joelle. She may not look it, but this girl can EAT! Seriously, she eats more than I do. :)

 

PJ Fun

We love our Thomas jammies!

 

Really Good Stroganoff

I just wanted to share my favorite way to make hamburger stroganoff...it is really tasty!

Cook your hamburger (1 pound) with a small diced onion. Season with a bit of garlic salt, onion powder, a little bit of salt, and pepper.

When your hamburger is done add 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, 1/2+ cup sour cream, 3 ounces cream cheese, 2 slices of provolone cheese, and enough milk to get the consistency that you want. Let it simmer for a bit and then add your noodles, or spoon the sauce over rice. We always top ours with freshly ground salt and pepper.

We are not huge leftover eaters at our house. There are only 2 things I can think of that I make a ton of because I know we are going to eat all the leftovers. One is ham and cheese potatoes and the other is hamburger stroganoff.

The Terrible Night

So, I have this friend who is ALWAYS harping on me about how my kids are picky eaters and I shouldn't let them get away with eating what they choose instead of what I choose. Her kids of course eat like perfect little angels...they even eat fish! (yuck!) I have to admit that I would love it if we could just sit down as a family and ALL enjoy whatever it is I have prepared for the night. So Todd and I decided that last night was going to be the first night of "eating the same thing as a family".

I made one of my favorite dishes thinking that if I could just get Riley and Tanner to taste it they would love it and gobble it down. I put their food in front of them and tell them that this is it for dinner and that they could choose to eat it or not, but they wouldn't get anything else. Riley promptly pushes his food away and says that he is not hungry and leaves the table. This is happening while Tanner is trying to push his bowl off of his high chair. Okay, I knew that was going to happen so I wasn't panicking...yet. I tried again a few minutes later and they would still have none of it. By this time however Tanner is starting to wig because the poor kid is hungry and his mean mom is trying to force him to eat something he just doesn't want.

Then Todd comes home...and here is the best part...I LEAVE to go to my rehearsal. Have fun Todd! :) I think about him all throughout my rehearsal and call him the moment I am done to see how his night went...not well! Riley ended up in tears begging...BEGGING Todd for food. Finally Todd gave him 2 pieces of toast because we had soup for dinner and toast goes with soup right? Tanner however has already gone on that downward spiral and could not be consoled. So, Riley goes to bed starving and crying and Tanner goes to bed with a bottle and starving and crying. By the time I got home around 11pm, Tanner was awake again, for the third time, and crying his guts out. So I pull him out of bed and bring him to his high chair for a LATE dinner. I got him some goldfish crackers and applesauce. But, when I brought out the applesauce, it looked too much like the soup that I made and Tanner totally lost it! I thought he was going to throw up a lung he was crying and screaming so hard.

Needless to say, I want to throw my friend and her precious Dr. Sears out the window (her children can stay but the fish is going out with their mom!) :) I felt like such a horrible mother and will NOT be trying that again any time in the near future. When people say that children won't let themselves starve, they haven't met MY children.

Going Private

We are going to go private on our blog. I will send out invites to all those whose email addresses I have. If I don't have your email address then leave it in the comments section and I will send you an invite. I have moderated the comments so that they have to be approved by me before they are posted. I did this just for now so that you can send me your email but not have it seen by everyone. I won't publish "email" comments. We will give it a week or so to get everyone's address and then we'll go private. Thanks!!

Nana's Visit

Nana came to visit us this past week. We had so much fun!!! We went to Monkey Bizness where Nana climbed the BIG slide with Tanner because his poor mommy just can't do it...thanks Nana! We did some serious girl shopping...thanks Todd for watching the kids! We went out to eat at Applebees, which, FYI, was founded in Kansas City. We made several trips to Costco and took some freezing cold walks. We watched a lot of movies and played a lot of games. Riley and Tanner loved having their Nana here. We were sad to see her go and can't wait to see her again.

 

 

 

(Side note: Tanner now says "Gordon" and "Nana", but I have yet to hear him say "Mamma")

Riley is FOUR!

Riley celebrated his fourth birthday this weekend. We had a pirate party which was a lot of fun. We had a pinata, a "pin the flag on the pirate ship" game, Todd dressed up as a pirate and we played "pirate says" and "red-light, green-light", and the highlight of the games, we went on a treasure hunt. The kids all had a lot of fun.

 

 

 

A Saturday Project

It was so gorgeous today that we decided we better get some work done on the house while we still can...plus my mom is coming on Wednesday to visit and we want our house to look presentable. So, it was off to the Home Depot. We bought some white paint for our garage doors (which were gray) and some paint for our front porch. The wood was in such bad shape that staining it was out of the question. So we painted it. Red. Brick Red. I took these pictures while the paint was still wet, so it is a bit magenta-ee. When it dried though it was definitely brick color. We love it, but it definitely makes a statement. (What that statement is I'm not sure?!?!) :) Now we just need to save our pennies to get black shutters for the windows and we're set.

Before Picture: