Hi~ It's me again...

Well, I just wanted to do a Food For Thought, but saw all of these pictures that I've been waiting to share. So, this is a little bit of a catch-up. We've had an ice/snow storm yesterday and today, so we're all together again at home. I love these days. I am glad it happened now because I'm taking the girls with me to go visit my sister Haley and her new baby Sadie. We're leaving on Monday, so a nice long weekend with Randy is a great way to stock up on time with him.

It's been a weird winter for us. Warm, nice weeks, with a snow storm in-between. I don't mind though. I've loved the warmer weather because it has made it easier to get myself out the door to go running. I'm training for a half marathon-hopefully the one in Dallas in Feb. I don't know, I might just do my own though. I feel a little guilty spending all that money to run in Dallas when I could run here. Anyways, last Saturday I ran around the lake. I haven't done that since my twinkie left-over 2 years ago. That's 9 1/2 miles, by the way. I was pretty happy with that accomplishment. I was going to do it again tomorrow, but with all of the ice on the ground I don't think I'll make it alive.

So, I decided to start potty training Emma one day. She was so good and never messed on the floor or anything all day. It was difficult, cause I was constantly watching her, but she did really good. She went potty and poopy (sorry guys) in the toilet and was pretty successful. Until... 5 pm when she had a little of her sickness left over I guess and she went on my carpet! So, I decided that I needed to wait until she was better to really train her. I just loved seeing her in the cute little underwear though. So cute. She still tells me "poo poo" when she has to go, and I take her. Some times we have success, and others we don't, but I haven't worked on her since the incident. I will after I get back from Haley's.

We did a fingerpainting session lateley. I think this was Emmas first time doing it all by herself. She went crazy.

I don't know why they were still in their PJ's and finger painting. Must have been a busy morning or something. Anyways, I don't know if you can see it, but Kenadi is getting more freckles on her nose. I love it. Cute little thing. She's telling me that she's Cinderella now, or Ariel, or Tinkerbell. She's been dressing up everyday to look like a princess. I enjoy her imagination.

Isn't this a funny picture? Look at Emma's hair. That was after I washed the paint out of it.

I've been enjoying this face lately. She has so many expressions.

Kissable cheeks.

We saw these lights after Christmas. I loved them.

THE MOST DIVINE WAFFLES EVER~ (and I'm not much of a waffle fan)

When I had Emma, my mom bought me this cookbook in the Denver airport. I love it, especially since I'm a huge breakfast fan. It's called, "Eating Inn Style! Colorado Cook Book". It is a cookbook from all of these bed and breakfasts in Colorado. Their breakfasts-brunch-afternoon tea-picnic-snacks-and Romantic Dinner foods. Can I say YUM?
Here you go. I've even tried similar recipes in other cookbooks, and I can say that this one is the best so far.

Overnight Yeast Waffles
Serves about 8-10

1/2 C warm water
1 pkg dry yeast
2 C warm milk
1 stick of butter, melted
1 t salt
1 t sugar
2 C flour
2 eggs, well beaten
1/4 t baking soda

Mix water with yeast in a large bowl. Let stand for 5 minutes or until dissolved. Add milk, butter, salt, sugar, and flour to yeast mixture. Beat until smooth an dwell blended. Cover and leave overnight, until doubled in volume. Just before baking, add eggs and baking soda. Stir until well mixed. The batter will be very thin. Pour 1/2 to 3/4 cup into a very hot waffle iron. Bake until golden. Remove and serve at once with a dollop of yogurt and berries. The batter will keep for several days in the refrigerator. Stir well before baking.

I loved it with the yogurt and berries on top. I didn't think it needed more sugar, but the syrup was great too. These melt in your mouth. Have I said that yet?

Oh, one more thing. Since I'm failing at producing a food for thought on FRIDAY, I'm now naming it, "Food for Thought". Forget the Friday thing. Now it's random, when I want it, or should I say, when the computer works? Don't worry, we'll get a new one soon.

Coconut Tres Leches Hot Chocolate Recipe

THIS is a recipe that I want to try! If anyone does, let me know what you think. Hot chocolate is my passion...

• 3 cups fat-free milk
• 1 14-oz. can unsweetened coconut milk
• 1/2 of a 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk (2/3-cup)
• 2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• Sweetened whipped cream (optional)
• 1/4 cup chocolate shavings (optional)

directions

1. In medium saucepan combine fat-free milk, coconut milk, and sweetened condensed milk. Bring to a simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. Whisk in cocoa powder until well-combined.

2. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla. Serve in mugs topped with whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Makes 5 (1-cup) servings.

Lost and Found

Found: Baby Jesus and Mary~ in the block bin, on January 3rd. They were missing for almost a whole month.

Lost: 1 garbage can. Last seen by Randy-Emma was carrying it around about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I hope it didn't have diapers in it. It would probably stink really bad right now. How does a garbage can just disappear? We have looked EVERYWHERE and don't even have a clue where it could be.

The culprit in both of these cases? EMMA

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

Well, this post has taken me DAYS to put together because I've been having problems lately with the whole computer thing. I'm thinking of giving up blogging until we get a new computer. I just can't take it any more. Anyways, here are some much delayed Christmas pictures for you. We were blessed with 14+ inches of snow on Christmas Eve and were so excited! It was a record for Oklahoma, and it made my Christmas so exciting. It felt like I was a kid again. We played outside a lot. The girls liked it. Well, I should say Kenadi liked it. Emma wasn't so sure about it and stood in one spot the whole time.

Emma saw Kenadi try the stockings on once and after that she made me put them on her every day to walk around in. They only stayed on for a minute and then I'd have to put them on her again. It was cute.

I loved this picture because they were smiling at each other. Happy sisters. Today Kenadi said, "When Emma gets older I'm going to call her Regan". Randy said, "Why?" Kendai answered, "So I can have a friend!" He told her that Emma can be her friend... but she still wants her name to not be Emma.

A few "opening presents" pictures.

It was kinda funny because 2 sets of grandparents gave the girls these beautiful, soft puppets that they love. We didn't even get duplicates!

Santa put sunglasses in their stockings.Randy liked playing with the girls' toys. You'll have to ask him what I got him for Christmas. I don't know if he'd want me to tell. Here's a hint: they sure look good on him!


Kenadi got lots of fingernail polish. She puts about 5-ten layers on at a time. She thinks she's a princess now. I have to call her Cinderella most days.After opening presents we went outside!

We went sledding with the girls and some friends. It reminded me of Rexburg. I love sledding.

Kenadi loved it too. She even went down by herself quite a bit.

One day during Randy's break, we went to the cowboy museum. It is an awesome museum. Anyways, we forgot the stroller for some reason, and they let us borrow one of theirs. Kenadi thought it was for her to push because it was her size. So she pushed Emma, and it was almost like Randy and I were on a date cause we got to hold hands.

In the museum they have a life size cowboy town. There is an old church in it and when we got in, Kenadi went up to the podium and said her prayers. It was cute. She's in primary now at church. Can you believe that she's that old? I guess she's ready to give some talks or something.
I have more to post, and I WILL do it. I guess you'll see it when I get enough patience with our computer to finish one.

Handy Randy... Again

OK, I KNOW that I am procrastinating and have a TON of Christmas and new Years stuff to post. I haven't even wished you all a Merry Christmas or Happy New Year! Well, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to y'all!!!! (Y'all is what they say here in OK, and I secretly wish that I was a southern girl with a southern drawl and long curly blonde hair.) We had a wonderful vacation, and I LOVED all of the time we had together as a family.

Let me tell y'all why I haven't been posting lately. It's because of this old computer, that's why! It is so stinking slow sometimes, and MOST of the time the screen is this big gray haze and I can't see anything. You can fix it by banging your hand on the top of the monitor until the picture comes back, but that makes a lot of noise and I don't want to do more damage than there already is. Right now it is working fine, so I am going to do a little blogging. Sorry Y'all! (No, I don't really talk like that in real life. Just tonight)

Well, before Christmas or around then, all of the bulbs burnt out in our old kitchen light. We didn't want to get new bulbs because they are extremely expensive specialized bulbs and we didn't like that light anyways. We shopped for lights, but none seemed to work for our kitchen or us. SO, Randy and I started talking about this light that I LOVE in the Pottery Barn magazine. I've been dreaming about one like it for a couple of years. The only problem is that it is about $400. We want to do this in our dining room, just scaled down a bit to fit our size of room.

Then Handy Randy said, "I can make that! It's easy!", and you know what? I believed him. So, what did he do in a day? He did a modified version for the kitchen, and will do one for the dining room to match. The kitchen one cost us $30. Pretty good, huh? I was so impressed. I never knew that he could do electrical stuff.

Doesn't that look so good? It's WAAAY better than our old light.

Well, I'm late for my date. Gotta go. Handy Randy asked me if I wanted to watch the BCS bowl, or BBC bowl or something. I guess it's college football. I was surprised that he asked me to watch it with him and had suspicions when he did. Now I think it was so that I didn't do my exercise video during the game. Oh well. I'll pretend that isn't why. It might not be.