Pictures of our week

We've all been a little under the weather, so please excuse the snotty noses and bleary eyes. Also excuse Emilia's outfit...she picked it out herself.

Little mommy

Emilia loves Ella's American Girl. Here she is reading Chrissa a book about pets.

Sisterly Love

Emilia loves Ella's Nintendo DS. And sometimes, Ella is generous enough to let her "play."

Ella's future plans

Ella has announced that she will attend FHSU. She will go to college twice, first to be an astronaut, and then to be a fashion designer. This will allow her to design zebra striped and pink space suits and open a clothing store on Mars.

Ava has glasses

Big boots

I think Emilia must be using shoes to explore concepts of size. She likes to wear Ella's shoes, as you can see in this picture. She also tries to wear doll shoes, which doesn't work quite so well. She tries to put Ella's shoes on me, which also doesn't work too well either.

Or maybe she's just obsessed with shoes. That could be, especially in this family.

Chocolate Love

Like mother, like daughter

At the circus

My mom and I took Ella, Emilia, Alex, and Ava to the Shrine Circus in Dodge City on Saturday while Ryan was at state scholars' bowl (where his team placed fourth). My dad is a Shriner, and we usually go to the Shrine Circus in Salina. The girls got free tickets to this one from Centera Bank, so we decided to give it a try.

The facility in Dodge is smaller than the one in Salina, so I was worried the circus wouldn't be as nice, but I was wrong. The performers were just as good. The girls liked the elephants and the Dobermans who rode the motorcycle the best. We got a good parking place and got to sit a lot closer to the action than we could in Salina. There also wasn't nearly as much junk for sale, so it was a lot less expensive. The best part was the Emilia slept through most of the circus, so I didn't have to chase her around!

Snow!

I took these pictures on Super Bowl Sunday...we were supposed to get a snowpocalypse, but this was about all it amounted to.

Crazy Delicious and Healthy Ice Cream

Kristen from Cheap Healthy Good (one of my favorite blogs) has posted over at Serious Eats a recipe for Three-Ingredient Banana, Peanut Butter, and Honey Ice Cream. I just tried it, and it is unbelievable. Healthy yet creamy. Simple yet delicious. Ever so easy. Does it get any better? Pop some bananas in the freezer right now so you can make yourself some ice cream in just a few hours.

Little Miss

Emilia has added to her coat and hat obsessions...she is now obsessed with her snowsuit and boots. We bought her some new boots yesterday because she outgrew her first pair. I put them on her in the store to make sure they fit and that she could walk in them, and she refused to take them off. Good thing they were on sale because we had no choice but to buy them.

We got home and she refused to take them off. At bedtime she refused to take them off. She slept in her nightgown and boots. We had to iron a different dress for her to wear to church this morning so she could still wear her boots.

Once she had boots, she also wanted her snowsuit. She wore her snowsuit all afternoon yesterday and wanted to wear it to church this morning.

Here's a picture of her double-fisting it this morning. Milk in one cup, smoothie in the other.

Reading with Grandma

A couple of yummy, healthy recipes

I made this recipe for black bean soup with toasted cumin crema from Smitten Kitchen a few weeks ago, and I'm making it again tonight for a Super Bowl party. (Not that I'll actually watch the Super Bowl or anything.) The soup is delicious, and it smells wonderful as it cooks. And it's incredibly easy...chop a little, saute a little, and toss it in the crock pot. Since I don't have a spice grinder or mortal and pestle, my toasted cumin crema probably isn't as good as it should be, but it's still pretty good.

Yesterday I tried a healthy recipe for chocolate chunk, walnut and oatmeal cookies that I found over at Me and My Pink Mixer. The dough is really try. Incredibly dry. In fact, after I made the first pan full, I added some extra melted butter because I didn't think the cookies would stay together as they baked. But they did, and Ryan thought the cookies without the extra butter were even better than the ones I added the butter to. The cookies are very crisp. While I usually prefer soft cookies, these are still pretty good. Ryan thought they would even be good without the chocolate chips. I think they would be good with raisins, but since I'm the only one in the family who likes raisins, I probably won't try it.

Little Baby Naughty Pants

Once upon a time, there was a child named Little Baby Naughty Pants. Some of the time, Little Baby Naughty Pants was a sweet little snuggly cuddly bundle of love. But sometimes, she was just, well, naughty.

She threw books down the stairs.
She broke her mommy’s necklaces.
She stole her sister’s American Girl doll.
She hid her mommy’s moisturizer in the hamper.
She unloaded cabinets and hid measuring cups and ate crayons.


“I don’t want to wear the red pants; I want pink pants instead,” she would say. (Except she couldn’t really talk, so she would scream “Eh eh eh” and take off the red pants every time her mommy put them on her and point at the dresser drawer until her mommy found the pants she wanted.)

Her mommy said, “I don’t know what to do with this baby.”
Her daddy said, “I don’t know what to do with this baby.”
Her sister said, “I don’t know what to do with this baby.”

One night Little Baby Naughty Pants was especially naughty.



While her mommy was cleaning the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator and threw the sesame garlic sauce across the room. So Mommy said, “Go see what Daddy is doing.”

Daddy was hanging new mini-blinds. “Mommy!” called Daddy. “Little Baby Naughty Pants keeps sticking her nose in my butt crack. Get her out of here.”

So Mommy said, “Let’s go see what your sister is doing.”
“Mommy!” called Sister. “Little Baby Naughty Pants keeps trying to steal my Nintendo DS. Get her out of here.” So Little Baby Naughty Pants stole two purses from her sister, and Mommy took her up to the family room.

Little Baby Naughty Pants grabbed Daddy’s papers and grading pen off the table and started coloring. Mommy stopped her and took her back up to the kitchen. Daddy gave Little Baby Naughty Pants a washable marker to keep her busy, so she colored all over the kitchen floor.

She screamed in her sister’s ears. She threw books across the room.


Her mommy said, “This baby is driving me nuts.”
Her daddy said, “This baby is driving me nuts.”
Her sister said, “This baby is driving me nuts.”

Finally, Mommy said, “I think this baby is tired.”

So Mommy put Little Baby Naughty Pants to bed, where she slept all night.

And all was well with the world…

Until the next morning, when Little Baby Naughty Pants woke up bright and early, and it started all over again.