Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Here are some photos from Sailee's birthday party last month. It was Connor's first time being let loose in a Peter Piper kinda place. We had to pry him off the basketball game (just like dad) and skeeball (just like mom). He had a great time.

watching daddy play basketball wasn't enough. He wanted to play so we put him in the game so he could throw the balls himself.

creepy tinkerbell balloon

damn train. getting him out of this is how i threw my back out and ended up in urgent care for most of Easter.

not really understanding the concept of "rolling" the ball

Crockpot Tuesday

So the salsa chicken I made a couple months ago is easily one of my favorite recipes I’ve done during this whole crockpot adventure. Last night we made it again, but this time I added an extra can of beans (kidney this time) and about ½ a packet of taco seasoning. I didn’t check the original posting before I did it though and it was too soupy. I forgot to cut the liquid ingredients in half so I would do that next time. Oh, and I ended up dumping a box of chicken rice a roni in during the last 90 minutes of the cooking to bulk up the recipe. It was yummy and I would def recommend that. I didn’t use the spice packet that comes along and thought that with all the other seasonings going on that may be a bit much. That just means that I have the little seasoning packet for another recipe. Win-win.

The flavor was just as good, but had a bit more spice to it which I like. we shredded up the chicken and had tacos again. yum.

Too soon?

New Moon Movie and Twilight News

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Here are some pics from last weekend. Most are from Aidan's 2nd bday party and a couple are from the company picnic we went to right after the party. it was pretty warm and i am hoping that since it's nearly May, the outdoor birthday circuit has closed it's doors!

doing something gross like licking the fence

he thought his goody bag was a drink and immediately tried to drink from the straw

peaceful...

egg race! if you look really close at the first pic you can see connor pouting in the back against the fence.

full on, up close pouting.

Landon getting his tee ball on-i think this was one of Connor's fav gifts this year

being caught after they repeatedly tried to make a break for it

Aidan's cake was super cute

Oink

so, i never get concerned with these pandemic things...bird flu, mad cow, SARS...or even Y2K but now that it's been confirmed that someone in AZ has swine flu i have to admit that i'm starting to worry a bit. damn. given our proximity to mexico it's not too shocking that it's arrived in AZ and i'm positive there are way more cases out there. i think we're up to more than 90 confirmed cases in the US and earlier this week a toddler in texas died from swine flu. Granted, the child was Mexican and visiting family in the states but still...starting to get scary.

We got an email from the Kyrene School Distric yesterday notifying parents that the school is in "watch mode" and telling us symptoms to look out for. Our pediatrician office sent out a similar email. It's all i see on the news and seeing pics of the crazies in masks is just too much.

is anyone else worried about this? i'd write more but i have to go sanitize my entire body.

Crockpot Tuesday

We've had some frozen pork chops sitting in our freezer for quite some time so I decided to seek out a use for them this week. I've always kinda avoided pork chops because growing up they were always so boring and blah. I decided to take plain bbq pork chops up a notch.


Honey BBQ Pork Chops

4 chops
1 cup bbq sauce
1/4 cup honey

Spray crock wtih cooking spray to minimize scorching. I find bbq sauce tends to scorch and it's just a pain in my A to get it off. Or a pain in Jeffrey's A since he tends to do dishes... Anyway, i digress. Lay the pork chops in the bottom of the slow cooker. Mix bbq sauce and honey together and pour mix over top of chops. Be sure they are covered in the liquid-not submerged, but covered. Cook on low for 6-8 hours.

Ugh. this didn't turn out great. The pork was too dry and no bueno. It wasn't horrible, but Jeffrey didn't even have seconds so I consider that a fail! :) Next time, I'll seriously cut the cooking time in half. I can check the pork to see if it's done, but there is nothing I can do once it's too done. Also, I couldn't taste the honey at all, so next time I'd double the amount of honey in the recipe. This recipe has potential...it just needs a bit of tweaking.

I forgot to download the pics from my camera, but wanted to get this posted today...so i'll add a pic or two tonight. We had carrots with the pork chops, but next time I'd probably just dump some frozen veggies and rice into the crock in the last hour or so of cooking and be done with it!

**does anyone have a good stuffed pork chop recipe for the crockpot?**

I won't be happy 'till I'm as famous as God

(quote is crazy madonna)

So I think this makes me famous.

Yes, that’s right…attention all 5 or 6 of you who read this!! I’ve been chosen as Katy’s very first Monday Spotlight. Wooooo :)

Thanks Kate.

Friday's Dose of Brilliance

Hey It's Free - Today’s site is pretty great. I've already linked to it before here. It has multiple postings each day of free giveaways on various sites. The guys who hosts the site is pretty funny as well. Today I submitted forms for free shampoo, a notepad and a razor. I am aware that my list did not read like: free car, free house, free trip to Jamaica but like the website says, “hey, it’s free”. Enjoy :)

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

Connor turned two this past weekend and it's taken everything in me to narrow the 300+ photos (sadly no, i am not exaggerating) down to just a few to post here. i failed miserably and thought that if I posted them in little collages it may look like there aren't quite as many. raise your hand if i fooled you...no? typical.

Anyway, the party was a blast and I think he had a good time. There were 50 friends and family there and probably about 20 or so kids. The party was Mickey theme and I tend to go overboard on themes-not this year though. I think i managed to control myself for the most part.

Here are just a few of our photos from the party...

Connor's cousin Kaden and cousin Jacob, Sailee, and Jack

"little" connor, gabi, claire and cadence

steph & aidan - carly, sienna & patricia - lauren & jack - adam (godfather) & connor

sally & jocelyn - jill & cadence - ashley & claire - alyssa & jaden

andrea & adam - aunt megan & uncle ryan - chris & dawn - robert & angela (amazing ped if you're looking)

The fam

the birthday boy trying out his new tricycle from grandpa van hook!

we got a bounce house and the kids dug it. mickey of course - cece, oli & connor - connor & claire

the cake and connor sneaking some leftovers after the party

We've been to kids parties in the past where the gifts aren't opened at the actual party, but instead done later with the family. This always bummed me out because I love to watch the kids open their gifts-mostly because I like to try for "best gift" and you can always tell by the reaction if you win or not. This year we conceded. Last year was a total cluster-- during gift time, it got crazy with all the kids helping connor open, so cards and gifts were separated nearly 100% of the time...which makes it tough come thank you note writing. So this year, we opened gifts later with the family. Here are a few pics of the gift opening...

Thanks to all the friends and family who were able to be at the party. We really appreciate you loving our little man as much as we do!

Crockpot Tuesday - but not really

I'm running out of steam for my crockpot tuesday stuff...there are still plenty of recipes out there...I just need to get motivated to do it again:) I promise I'll have one next week...i'm thinking pork chops because I have some in the freezer.

since i slacked on the crockpot recipe today, here's a funny video for you:

Payson Pics...part two

Here is part 2 of the Payson pics from our girls weekend a couple weeks ago. :)

here's sienna driving...mascara in one hand, eyes closed--yikes!

Sienna hearts hearts

dancing machine

not sure what's going on here...

oh patricia...but my favorite part of this pic is sienna doing her mascara while driving the four of us on mountain roads. awesome. at least we talked her out of eating her panda express while driving :)

this old guy hung out with us all night (thanks andrea!)

lo and patricia

lo dancing with some other old guy...

Dawn: "just a little taste please"

Letter to My 2 Year Old

I started this a couple days before Connor's actual bday but just haven't been able to get through re-reading it without wanting to curl up and cry...so i'm just posting now, a couple days later. I'll be posting much more bday stuff in the next couple of days (hey, it takes that long to sort through hundreds of photos)

Dear Connor,

You crazy little monkey boy. I cannot believe that you are turning two today. It always drove me absolutely crazy when people told me that you’d grow up so fast but you did, you really did.
I remember when your daddy and I first found out that you were coming and we didn’t believe it. I was really sick when I was pregnant, so we worried that you’d arrive safely…but you were tough and you still are. When you did make your appearance you arrived with a bang-especially for such a little guy. You were just over 6 pounds and even smaller when we took you home. Somewhere in your first few months you went from being this cute little blob that didn’t really do a heck of a lot to being an adorable little boy with talents, personality and a love for everyone around you.

You amaze me daily with your love, your humor, and your abilities. You drive me crazy daily with your temper, your non stop energy and your ability to spot a ball from 50 yards away. I love that even after watching the same Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode 143 times you still squeel in utter joy when you see that mouse's head coming around the path. I hate not being with you during the day, but your huge smile when I come to get you makes it all worthwhile. You are my entire world and I never would have believed how much I could love you if it hadn’t happened to me. I hope you always know how much we love you and I will do my absolute best to be sure I tell you each and every day how amazing and important you are.

Happy 2nd birthday.

I love you monkey,
Mom

Birthday Favors are Delish

I wanted to make Connor's bday favors again. Since there are all different ages coming to his bday party tomorrow it's hard to do toys that will work for everyone...but like Jill said, food always works!

Last year we had a baseball themed par-tay and i made baseball sugar cookies. This year, it's all about the mouse so I was hoping to do something dealing with Mickey (or M-I-C as we call him around the house so connor doesn't know what we're talking about). I decided on chocolate covered oreos when I found some super cute Mickey shaped sprinkles.

Wednesday night we made the cookies. I decided to cover both sides in the sprinkles so I just spread the wax paper across our kitchen island and dumped a bunch of sprinkles all over. Then i heated the chocolate in my little dipper thingy (erin-i finally found a use for that thing!) and dipped the oreos in the liquid goodness. I laid the covered oreo on top of the sprinkles and dropped a few more sprinkles on the upward facing oreo. done and done. Actually, it kinda took forever to do them and after 75 cookies I decided that only the kids got favors this year and that we were doing 3 to a bag. (Last year we ended up with so many f'n baseball cookies i almost threw up.)

Well, later that night we found Connor like this when we walked into the kitchen.

He'd climbed up on one of those water bottle pallates and was going to town on the sprinkles. hilarious, this kid. Of course, we laughed because we are horrible parents in regards to discipline so he did it all night. (why didn't we just move the water? no idea)

Today when we got home I had to do some weed-pullin' in the front yard and connor was inside watching MIC. I was literally on the phone with Patricia telling her how crazy he was to eat the sprinkles and completely leave the cookies alone. I went inside to find this.

(no joke...that 3rd photo frightens me)