a little of this and that.

I made these last weekend.  They were for my Dad's birthday.  It's always hard to decided what to do for the person who could get whatever he wants,  so I made homemade old-fashioned doughnuts,  one of his favorites.  I had to make extras of course and they were fantastic!  I found the recipe on Pinterest - gotta love it. I also made a turkey dinner and that was fantastic also.  My favorite part has been making leftover turkey sandwiches all all week. 

 There is something eerily familiar about these two photos,  and it's not the date they were taken.  Sadly we have been having a lot of jammie days.  We had weeks of sickness before Christmas and now seems to be round two.  Officer had it a couple weeks ago and is on the end of it, but last night was a long night for the kids.  All of them had fevers, yucky!  I hate when they are sick like that and there isn't much you can do.  So we snuggled, most of the night and all morning today. I'm so tired.

 This little princess has had a rough week.  She got her front top teeth last week and just like the bottom chompers she started biting again when I nurse her, I tried offering a bottle and she took to it pretty well, and has only nursed like once a day. Last night she was so yucky sick,  she had a fever of 102, forever it felt like, even after medicine and getting her out of her jammies.  You know how they get big and snuggling just doesn't happen as much.  She was so tired and so sick and she just wanted to lay in my arms so sleepy and finally wanted to nurse again and not bite me, so maybe we'll hang in there a little longer.  I'm realizing I will miss it.  She is doing a little better today, but still has that I feel yucky look in her eyes and she is so tired.   This was a funny thing about nursing,  just fyi - I think she is hilarious.

 This little boy has been just as snuggly with being sick too. Some days there really should be more of me.  How cute is he!?  And as I write this I realize that this is the last time I've seen that toothbrush...we have others but in the meantime I've been looking for this because it is Lightning McQueen.  Speaking of racing. Usually we watch "the letter show" (wheel of fortune) while I'm getting them out of the tub, but on Saturday - no letter show - what is a mother to do?!  I switched the channel and he saw race cars - NASCAR,  I could be wrong, I don't really know the lingo and I think I will have to know the lingo cause this little guy loves it.  He was glued to the screen, wrecks and everything, and the he cried when I turned it off. 

We have been to the library lots this year,  they have a little preschool storytime and activities, so every week we bring home new books to read.  Miss Peanut loves to read them to Handsome and Cupcake.  I'm amazed at how much they can memorize the stories.  It's been fun to read each night before bed. She is getting ready to start a little Preschool next week. I know I'm a little behind, but with her birthday and having to wait one more year till kindergarten I have put it off.  I know she is bright and will do well in school,  I'm just a little nervous about being her teacher every so often.  We'll see how it goes and we may keep it up in the fall. 

I'm hoping for a little sleep tonight.  I hope writing this doesn't jinx it.  Officer bought me this fun little toy kind of for Valentines,  kind of cause I hinted at it for the last month or so.  My sister got one last fall and now most of my family has purchased them.  Anywho - it tracks all sort of things, but one is sleep.  I know I have been sleep deprived, but once I started using this to track it I realized how bad it has been, especially this week with sick kids. It kind of makes me want to cry or discover some way to freeze time so I can catch somehow.  Anywho.  Officer and I are rarely on the same schedule. It's kind of stinky, but we are looking forward to celebrating his Birthday tomorrow. He'll be the big 32. 

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVE!    

Wishing we could go someplace like here to celebrate, but I'll have to keep wishing.

Kid Comedy.

Today while driving home from the park Officer asked Peanut if she wanted to drive,  she said "no."  He asked "ever?" She still said "no." He asked Handsome the same question.  His reply,  yes,  and when Officer asked what he wanted to drive he said "a motorcycle."  He is SO his father's son; we are in for an adventure with him.


The other day I was getting dinner ready and I often put a show on for the kids to watch so that they aren't at my feet while I'm cooking.  When dinner was ready I told Miss Peanut that is was time to turn off the show and she said "Okay mom,  I will freeze it with the stripes."  Say What??  She learned that the button with two stripes (pause button) will "freeze" the show until later.  Okay,  that works for me.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We started our day with pink pancakes,  they started off as hearts but turned into who can make the biggest pancake and flip it.  Officers family makes ginormous pancakes and I just don't ever get them flipped without half the batter slopping over my kitchen.  We ran out of batter quickly,  this was the biggest pancake I've ever flipped - its so perty and it was yummy too.    The rest of the morning we delievered "balentimes" to our friends and in the afternoon when Officer took peanut to her dance class I set to work on dinner. 

Really dinner had been cooking for a few hours already,  but I was able to keep it all a surprise from Officer.  I decided to celebrate with dinner at home this year rather than getting a babysitter and going out.  It ended up being a really fun night and Officer was really surprised.  I didn't get a picture of the table all set, but you get the idea.  I made BBQ ribs, cornbread with cinnamon-honey butter,  garlic mashed potatoes,  etc.  and cobbler for dessert. It was the first time I'd ever attempted ribs and everything was from scratch, except for the bubbly. It was scrumptious and delicious. I can't imagine trying to make it all fancy like that every day and serve courses but it was fun to surprise my Valentines.    

Family Night

We get a little cabin fever this time of year and we've bee trying to get out and go on walk more and Monday we went and played at the park and then went to dinner at this little dinner called Big Judds.  We shared this Burger - the kids were in awe - really can't you tell?  It was the biggest burger they had ever seen;  really they were too busy eating fries.

Here are some of the videos,  from his phone,  Officer took at the park, gotta love technology!

 

Once there was a snowman.

It snowed this morning.  It wasn't much, but the kids loved being able to play in it for a little while,  we have not had enough of the white stuff this year.  It is getting closer to spring though and they are itching to get outside.  It was a blistering 48 degrees the other day and we bundled everyone up and headed to the park.  The kids were in heaven!
We haven't be doing a lot of exciting things lately,  just hanging at home.  I think Officers schedule really is going to be great for now and we're finally getting adjusted.  It's been nice to be able to have friends over or go to family dinners now that Officer is home on Sundays.  We are going to  try out a little Popcorn Preschool with a few kids from the ward.  Miss Peanut will have to wait one more year before she can start kindergarten so if this goes well we might do this again in the fall for preschool.  Handsome will be the same way, so we may be doing this a lot.  The kids have loved going to the library story times and each week we bring home several books for bedtime.  I love having all my kids snuggle and read with me before bed.    I'll post some video hopefully soon,  I have lots of them to share.

More Cupcake!

Can you blame me? And she is my first baby to keep her blue eyes!  She has this funny way of getting into things.  Miss Peanut and Handsome were climbers,  Cupcake does this over/under thing.  She is often found high centered over the rungs under our kitchen chairs or barstools. The craziest is when I start hearing her squak and I go to find her and she has crawled under a bed on several ocassions.  She love to eat table foods now and loves to read books.  She loves chasing big brother and sister all over the house and looks like a little bug when she tries to crawl fast.  She is standing  too and I'm sure she will be walking by her birthday.  She is just so fun, with the exception still wanting to nurse in middle of the night,  which I thinking mostly because she is teething - she got her two front top teeth last week and more are not far behind.  I've tried crying it out a few times when I know she has been fed,  medicine for teeth etc, but it's hard when I am the only adult in an otherwise quiet house in the middle of the night.  Now that she is just about 10 months I'm thinking about starting to wean her?  My goal has been a year and we're almost there; I kind of have mixed feelings about it.  I really do love nursing my babies and I'm glad that I have been able to.  At the same time I feel selfish because I want to drop the last of this baby weight, which has never happened for me while nursing and her brand new chompers aren't exactly nursing friendly.      

Super Bowl Party

This is the first time in years that Officer didn't have to work on Sunday,  and more specifically Superbowl Sunday, so you can better believe that we had to throw ourselves a little party.  That afternoon we threw together some snacks.  Miss Peanut made little smokies in a blanket with pretty minimal supervision - it was fun to see her in the kitchen. As we were watching the game Handsome kept saying "they fall down."  We tried to explain that was called a tackle, so then he would say "they tackle fall down."  Because it was a last minute plan, we thought it was just going to be us,  but some friends and my dad dropped by and it turned out to be a pretty fun night. 

Cupcake: 9 Months

How that happened already - I can't believe.  She is weighing in at a whopping 17 lbs 8 oz.  And as far as percentiles, 25th across the board.  She is happy and healthy and so much fun.  I love watching her figure things out,  those little gears working away in there, so cute!  I could do without the teething - I didn't miss that since Handsome.  Here's a cute video of her!