All About Gnomes...

My friend Carly took some pictures of Naomi to practice her camera skills! It was quite fun watching our little model in action!

Naomi's Sunday was not a good one. As we left church, Brian was swinging her by one arm. As I began reminding him not to do that because of a little girl in our ward in Texas that had her shoulder pulled out of its socket, Naomi suddenly yelled out and pulled her arm in real tight to her body. She refused to move it! We didn't really know if she might be overacting because we were just talking about stuff like that or not. I was pretty sure she was actually hurt though. Brian didn't want to take her to the hospital until we got her home to "really" look at it. I thought this was ridiculous - she couldn't move it at all! We took her home - about two minutes later we headed out (again into her carseat) to the hospital. Poor little girl! She did not want to go to the doctor. I think she cried even more about that than the pain - even though I'm sure that was pretty bad. 

We only sat at the hospital at most 30 minutes. Naomi watched the fish the entire time. They had Nemo and Marlin and Dorie. It was quite exciting! It did worry me when we first sat down Naomi suddenly said, "Mommy, I see Dorie!" I had yet to notice the fish tank! So they set us in a little hall and had a doctor come see us there so we didn't have to wait in a room forever. He was really quick, just maneuvered her elbow and said to wait 10 minutes. He was nice and brought her two chocolate milks. One minute into the milk, she was holding it herself. Apparently its called Nurse Maid's Elbow. It happens alot. He even showed me how to fix it if it ever happens again. I hated how he jumped to the conclusion that I had done it! I resisted the urge of being really mean and pointing out that Brian had done it! 

Naomi then had to get up and hug everyone and tell them how the doctor had made her all better. She hugged Gwen like she hadn't seen her in weeks! When we got home Naomi told me how much she liked her little round doctor with the small hips. (He was very apple shaped) She also liked how he was bald, but had hair on his ears! She is a crack up! I'm just glad she didn't say that to him! But who would have thought that this little girl in pain was scoping her doctor out so well...the way kids see things is all too honest!

Another sad, but funny Naomi story - we had put her in her bed for a timeout. Suddenly she starts screaming, "I'm broken, I'm broken!" I hurry in to see what is wrong. She had picked a scab and apparently it hurt. Quite the ridiculous over-reaction!  

I finally met Naomi's Sunday School teachers. They said she is the most well-behaved! I was shocked! In our last ward they always talked to us about how she needed to settle down. So either they were incorrect or Naomi has figured it all out. Perhaps the teachers here are just more understanding and actually want to be teaching primary. That could truly be it!

New Calling

So for any of those LDS friends out there. I was just called to be the Visiting Teaching Leader in my ward. There is a brand new Relief Society president so she is still working out everything. Anyone have any great suggestions for how to get organized in this calling? Anything would be helpful. It seems so overwhelming!

I miss them!

So its 11pm. Both of my girls are in bed for about 3 hours now. Guess what I'm doing? Looking at pictures of my girls! haha

All about Penguin

This one is for Gwen...

While Brian was reading to Naomi for bedtime, Gwen and I found this fun game. I thought if I put the puffs on top of the container she would just pick them up and eat them, but instead...

So genius!

She has recently learned to do Peek-a-Boo! She makes everyone do it with her! Here is what it looks like:

Unfortunately for us she does it even during messy dinner.

She is on the verge of learning to blow kisses too. We'll try to get pics of that soon. 

Yellow cake with chocolate frosting

Practice!

I made this cake today to practice for the cake I want to make for Gwen's birthday party. I actually made the frosting from scratch! This is the closest I have ever gotten to a decent looking cake. Some of them look ok, and a little appetizing, but this one is a whole step closer!

 

Now that we have tasted it, I just need to find some nice people to give it away to! I don't want to eat it, I just want to practice and get better at decorating them. I don' know that I really even like cake that much!

Finally....Pictures!

These are from a week or so ago...

The day I cleaned the couch was quite an adventure!

Gwen loved crawling everywhere!

She did actually learn how to go backwards within a few minutes.

They do this all of the time! They both laugh hysterically! 

Gwen is ALWAYS the attacker!

This was right before we had our living room slumber party.

So you think you can dance

Wow! Katee and Joshua!!

I actually cried!

Girls' Birthdays

I know its still way off - Gwen in August, Naomi in October!! - but I am already planning their birthday parties! This is fun for me so you don't HAVE to read this!! There is nothing I enjoy more than planning a party! It would be thousands of times better if I had the money to pull off ALL of my plans - they are grandiose! Always! 

So Gwen's party will be first, obviously! At the moment I am planning on using bright Gerbera daisies as the decor in bright pink, orange and yellow. I want to learn how to make some out of fondant to decorate a two tier round cake that will have two layers in each tier, probably chocolate cake with a white icing. If anyone has a good homemade icing, by the way, I would love the recipe - I cant' ever get them quite good enough. For Halloween last year I bought a ton of various sized vases so i will fill them with either fake or real gerbera daisies. I want to make daisy headbands for both girls to wear and also have them dressed in matching bright colors. I recently found some paper plates with the beautifully colored daisies on them. The house will have some bright pink and orange and yellow streamers hanging and a few clusters of bright helium balloons. I want to get a nice pastel pink real tablecloth because I am sure that is something I will reuse (Naomi's party in October). We'll do some simply fingerfoods: pigs in a blanket, veggies and dip, etc. As favors I want to find some simple white favor boxes and wrap a ribbon with a daisy glued to it around the box. I'll fill it with some candies and chocolates. This will mostly be an adult party with our friends, maybe one or two kids for Naomi to play with. I'm going to try to keep it small this time as last year for Naomi's party I think got up to 30 people in our small apartment! Too big!!

Naomi has requested a Princess party (big surprise!!) So I have decided to succumb to her will for the first time ever (party-wise). I'm not going to invite adults! I can't believe it! Of course parents can come, but I want just 4-5 little girl friends to come dressed like princesses! Of course Gwen and I will also be dressed, Brian will get a king crown. Invitation will be a scroll with a proper decree announcing the party. As each girl enters she will receive her new crown and scepter. I think we'll also just do cake! If we need food I'll do pizza, ordered!! Pink and silver streamers will hang everywhere with balloons perhaps with a crown on each. The cake, Naomi has already picked out a castle. That will be a fun experiment! So the girls will enjoy playing pin the crown on the princess, and maybe a few other simply games like that. Then somehow I will have them search for jewels that they will collect and then we will sit down and decorate a jewelry box for each girl. As favors, they get their jewelry boxes, and a princess bag that will contain a bracelet and a ring and of course some lip gloss...oo and maybe some gold chocolate coins. The girls will also each get to drink from their very own goblet. This will be fun!

That is what my brain does...

Crock Pot Cooking

So I am suddenly addicted to the idea of using the crock pot for everything. I am working on converting some dishes to the crock pot. Hopefully it will work! Anyway, I found some easy crock pot websites that I have now listed in my Fave Stuff links. Check them out! 

So the Hawaiian chicken was really good. Brian thought it was too ketchup-y so I am going to try to halve the ketchup next time and add some teriyaki sauce. I liked it as is. The coconut macaroon brownies were good, but not as pictured so I was disappointed. I changed out the brownies for a mix though so that may be part of it - ? I will try them again though because I enjoyed the taste. The coconut instead of being a nice layer in the middle sunk to the bottom of the brownie layer. I personally think I needed like twice as much coconut! 

Tonight we are doing Roasted Red Pepper Chicken also by my sister-in-law Chanda. No dessert tonight - we are trying to cut down! But the chicken I am going to attempt in the crock pot. Hopefully all will go well tonight for dinner!

What's for Dinner...

Tonight I am making my sister-in-law Chanda's recipe for Hawaiian Chicken served over Rice. Our side is Broccoli with Edamame. For dessert these beautiful Coconut Macaroon Brownies! I'm sooo excited!

My Idea

I have an idea for a menu planner/meal tracker program. I have it all drawn up so it could be translated into a computer program by anyone who might know how to do it. Mostly I want it for myself, but I think it could actually be pretty useful to other families. Does anyone know what I should do next? 

Its pretty cool, I think. You can input your own recipes, then print them for use, or add it to a shopping list which will total all of the items you need for a given week - then print it.  You can also add the items to a weekly menu to plan out each meal for an entire week. Optionally, you can input the nutritional information so you can total that up at the end of each day or week. I'm still working on how to input more than one person's meal options to make it work for an entire family. Brian and I rarely eat the same meals until dinner time. Gwen has baby food options - which I don't eat. Naomi is off on another eating planet all together. So somehow I have to coordinate all of those things into a shopping list option and track individuals nutritional values. I'm thinking of somehow assigning each person a color and then linking it to individual menus. 

So yeah any ideas how to get a software program developed and out there?

The "HaHa!"

I just wrote a "haha" comment. I realize often how difficult the "haha" is to understand. Where exactly is the "haha" coming from? What is it oriented to? The reader of my comment doesn't know for sure. Am I laughing at them? Am I laughing at something I said? It could be a full on belly laugh or just a simple "teehee". I often laugh at the wordage I used in a sentence, but the reader could think I'm laughing at the entire comment I just made which could easily make me seem like a simpleton. oh well... Haha!

My weekend

On Friday, my sister-in-law Jennifer posted on her blog that she was ordering pizza for dinner. The rest of my day was spent thinking about ordering pizza - we haven't had it in forever! Beautifully, when Brian came home he states that he wishes we could order pizza. Overly excited I squeal that I would LOVE to order pizza and how it was Jennifer's fault! haha. So we ordered pizza...

I spent the rest of that night and ALL of Saturday on the couch with nausea and stomach cramps. I think it will be a long time before I want pizza again - so sad. It was such a wasted weekend! I hate that! I did push myself that evening to at least get Naomi bathed and myself showered so we could hopefully try to make it to 8am church on Sunday. I felt fine Sunday morning (and thank goodness I had showered the night before) so we made it to church! 

Naomi said the opening prayer in primary. She spent the entire rest of the day praying randomly. Even more funny is our lesson the week before in Family Home Evening had been about prayer. We taught her the steps and why we do it. That did not provoke an entire day of praying however. 

Being in a new home once again - we are forced, I mean, attempting to find some new couple friends to hang out with. We are hoping for at least one couple who has a kid or two. We tend to find couples without kids to hang out with. It would be nice to have someone around for Naomi to play with. All of our friends have kids after we aren't living close anymore. I always get into these slumps when we are trying to make friends. I assume that none of them actually want to be friends with us. I find all of our flaws as a couple and why they don't want us around, besides the easy answer that everyone is already full  up of friends. The little boy the on old TV show Freaks and Geeks pointed it out perfectly, "I don't need anymore friends, I already have 2. Who needs more than 2 friends?". I feel that everyone around us feels that they already have 2 friends, why get more! 

I even find myself stopping conversations short (without fully realizing it) when someone mentions that their husband will be done school this summer or they are moving next month. Honestly, what is the point in carrying the conversation any further? The friendship is not possible! Its a lost cause! I read an article in my Real Simple that captured my feelings about this perfectly - I would post it here if I could. The author stated that its like dating all over again, only this time we have to find two people who fit both of our personalities. Brian and I are constantly giving each other "dating" tips - what to say, how to act. Its ridiculous! But such a necessary evil.

Brian is great and has made cream puffs every weekend thus far to take over to people's houses to win friends. Nothing has come of it yet. Brian is also a little naive and always thinks we have found the perfect couple. He doesn't see little signs like when people want to leave or when he talks for an hour about the evils of Utah and both in the couple are from here! He is also always forgetting that we want a couple with kids - its on the order form!  With people who have kids though, the order gets harder to fill. We have to have similar parenting styles. The kids have to be able to play with each other. 

*sigh* The requirements go on and on. Will we ever again have couple friends? We can only hope! The search continues...