Random Friday

-Toe infection still raging. Time to go to the doc and get it cut off.

-Mockingjay is just annoying me so I'm not in a rush to finish it.

-Potty training is going really well. He pooped for the first time on the toilet yesterday. I almost cried in happiness. We've had 3 accidents today but that's expected in this stage.

-Looks like no family photos tomorrow. The dumb photographer hasn't gotten back with me. It's really disappointing too because I won the gift certificate at a breast cancer fundraiser so I think that's why she doesn't want to do it? I don't know. I told her I would purchase the CD of images and we scheduled it and now nothing. No call backs or email backs. I know she's alive cause she blogged yesterday. ***UPDATE*** She just called and we're doing them! I'm leaving this rant though.

-Chris got a B+ in his psych class and we're waiting on the dumb constitution class grade. I'm so glad that class is over. I'm getting a chocolate crepe today in celebration. It'll be totally worth it since I'm not getting the family photos tomorrow anyway and I did some of Chris's homework for that class.

-I got my haircut on Wednesday and the lady who cut it had the most gorgeous hair. Seriously, I have a girl crush on her hair. My plan was to cut my hair short once I lost all the baby weight but now I know it must be grown out so I can have amazing hair like this lady. I catch myself thinking about it, that's how awesome it was.

There really hasn't been much going on this week. Not even random happenings. I mean, I haven't even taken any silly photos! So for my random photos this week I'm posting some family photos. Most flops but they are fun to look back on.

One of those days...

Asher is potty training himself today. He's basically proved himself and awesome kid right there. He's doing great! Only one accident and that was my fault.

This is what I feel like this week. Cross off the career part and put school, church calling, hobbies. This is me.

Chris is amazing and knows how to take care of me so everything always gets better when I get a phone call or email from him. And then when he gets home at 6pm I am one happy lady. (ps. today I'm getting my haircut. Not a lot just layered so I don't have "pyramid head" anymore.)

So no meal planning again this week. My meals have consisted of breakfast for dinner and leftovers. I will tell you this though, Buttermilk is gold in the kitchen. I have never tried it cause I've never bought it and I never bought it cause I thought it was pointless. I would make my biscuits, waffles, fried chicken... all with regular milk. Nope, not anymore. I will always have a carton of buttermilk in my fridge. I VOW TO THE BUTTERMILK GODS. I made the world's best biscuits with THIS recipe. Seriously, they are to DIE for. And if I had some homemade jelly left from Amy then I would be eating one right now. (She seriously makes the yummiest variety of jellies).

epic

So yesterday I was cleaning the kitchen while listening to pandora and enjoying the music. Next thing I know I'm lost in a thick forest, wearing some sort of medieval garb trying to find Chris. Then a big sumo wrestler comes up behind me I'm doing crazy yoga-karate moves and kill him. I find a castle to sleep in and Braveheart (aka Chris) comes and I join his army. That same night I birth 10 babies and I'm riding away with them on a fluffy unicorn to keep them safe from the baby-napping witch hunting me down. After years of living with gypsies to raise my babies I am at last brought back in the forest from the beginning, looking for the moon and stars, and running towards my lover, reunited at last.

Doesn't make sense? Listen to this song...

Random Friday

- I hate when there are any flashing lights when I am trying to go to sleep. I will get out of bed throw a dirty shirt or towel over it so I can sleep but I also hate a messy room so I would end up picking up whatever we used to cover it up the night before the next day. Then the cycle would repeat. We turn the light off and the dang light is flashing again! So I made a permanent fix. Hole in sock and put it over the light. Genius I know!

-Monday Cecily played outside and rubbed some sort of plant on her face. It ended up looking like a sunburn. So before I put her to bed I gave her some benadryl and when she woke up in the morning she went in the bathroom and burst into tears. I asked her what was wrong and she cried "my face!" I called her into my room and you could not even recognize her cause her face was so swollen. I kept her home from school cause it looked like someone beat her up. This is a couple hours after she woke up and it's not even as bad as it was. The swelling went down but then she got bruises under her eyes from her face being so swollen and then today her face is so dry and gross looking. I have no idea what's going on.

-Fiona is now playing with toys. I can't believe she's old enough to do that, as much as it makes me sad it's so freakin' cute! Then last night she rolled from her back to her stomach. And she' s wiggling around a ton of ground that she's basically crawling. I may have another early crawler on my hands like Jocelyn.

-We are getting family pictures done next weekend and I ordered all of the kids clothes online and I'm SOOOO excited. It's going to be good. Is it possible to loose 5 pounds in a week?

-The masterpiece 2009 version of Wuthering Heights is pretty dang good. That Heathcliff is one psycho dude.

-While Darcy was here we talked about our favorite albums. She said if she were stuck on a desert island she would bring Weezer's Pinkerton album and I argued that their blue album was by far the best. After much thought and consideration I've decided what 5 albums I would bring with me.
1. Weezer Blue Album
2. Dashboard Confessional A Mark A Mission A Brand A Scar
3. All American Rejects Move Along
4. Adele 19
5. 500 Days of Summer Soundtrack
I think this is a good summary of my taste in music. Of course I would rather bring my ipod with me and have a mix of music but that's not the point of the game.

Well, that's all I've got... for this weeks random photos in memory of September 11... My senior trip in 2000 And Chris took a trip there to see SNL in 2008.

Daaar the Visitor

Darcy came Saturday afternoon to come stay with us for a few days. We had a total blast with her here. Asher fell in love with her and the girls loved playing and talking with her. As soon as she got here we loaded everyone up and headed down to downtown to help celebrate "tour de fat". Everyone dresses up like it's Halloween and rides around on their bikes in celebration of the beer that's brewed here in Ft. Collins called Fat Tire. It's really big especially with CSU here. It was pretty crazy but fun to see what people were dressed up as. We ate dinner at a pizza place and my head moon-landed with the gorilla man's mohawk sitting behind me. We then got cookies and played in the water at the oak street plaza.

I think this is when Asher fell in love with "Daaar" cause she played swords with him while we waited FOREVER for our pizza.

Cecily was starving and I showed her the honey. Big mistake. She ended up eating it with everything, even her chicken nuggets, and just started using her licked finger to put honey on.

Sunday we spent at Rocky Mountain National Park. To get there you have to go through Estes Park and it was CR-A-ZY! The line for Subway was out the door so we went to a little deli and it took us an hour to get lunch. The Stanley Mansion from the Shining is in Estes Park. We found it by accident and it was pretty cool.

Once we got in we had a picnic then went and found a little stream to play in. Yep, that means Asher got naked.

We took a one way drive up to the top of one of the mountains. It was a gorgeous drive. We stopped and played in another stream. The water tasted SOOOOO fresh and wonderful.

Then we met this big guy...

The open part way down in the valley is where we picnicked.

Up on the top.

On our way down the mountain we were stuck in traffic. It took 30 minutes to move a mile. We were joking that there better be a heard of buffalo holding us up cause we figured someone had stopped to take a picture and was holding everyone up. Well, it wasn't a heard of buffalo but I counted 22 Elk. Totally worth the wait and holding up the line a little longer so we could get our picture. (This is only a section of the group)

Then back in Estes Park we ran into another heard of 12 Elk.

And then we met the big daddy elk. I totally thought his antlers were going to scratch our car as he walked by.

Monday Darcy treated me to lunch at the bluebird cafe and then we went and hit up all the thrift stores and flea markets. Darcy went and got dinner from Whole Foods and we made little pizzas. Sooooo yummy! It was a nice relaxed day while we worked on school and napped and ate. My favorite kind of vacation.

Darcy's flight was at 6:30am this morning so we left the house at 4:30am to get her there an hour early. She BARELY made her flight cause security took so long. Sorry Darcy! Thanks for coming it was such a blast to have some one-on-one time with you like the good ol' days. And thanks for sharing her with us Nathan!

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

Random Friday

-Chris's first week at the internship went really well. With his long days this week went fast for him and S L O W for me. He has already learned so much, like he can't be their friend he has to follow the rules and it keeps his evenings exciting.

-While Chris was gone till midnight two nights I discovered a cool mini-series on Netflix called The Pillars of the Earth. It's pretty entertaining for me and it's based off a book.

-I have a crazy infected big toe. Gross I know but I was going for random information.

-Since Chris and I were going to read Mockingjay together I started a book called People of the Book. I'm about 5 chapters in and waiting for it to get exciting. It's interesting though. I also started the book club back up if anyone is interested. There's no way between school and sleep for us to read together so I'm going to download the audio book and listen to it. I can't wait!

-Asher growing up.

-Jocelyn went to a birthday party last weekend and came home with this crown. I like to put it on Fiona at least once a day because it makes me smile. Princess Fiona.

-There really hasn't been too much going on this week. Not even random stuff. So I present to you Cecily's photo booth videos and pictures. While looking through a lot of these movies I was busting up. I think every home should have a video set up that kids could record themselves whenever they want to. It's good stuff!

(MOVIE)

halfway done

Sunday, while sitting together as a family on a blanket in the yard, we discussed what our names would be if we were a different gender.

Chris = Christina

Jocelyn = Joe

Cecily = Cecil

Asher = Ashley

Fiona = Finn

All very obvious counterparts. Oh, what's my boy name you ask? Karl. Yep, Karl with a K. That means I would be extra crazy, cause we all know someone named Karl and we all know he's one crazy guy! Is there any other boy name that could be Katie-ish?

Anyway, on my walk today Fiona was extra fussy. I asked Asher to give her her pacifair. Look at what a good big brother she has.

ps: Cecily's computer twin Scarlett is back so I'm going to be editing another Cecily video montage.

You want to know what this past week's menu was? Here we go...

Monday - Black Bean and Chicken Burritos I added corn and this was very tasty and made A LOT.
Ingredients:
1 taco/fajita seasoning packet
2 cans black beans, drained
2-3 chicken breasts
1 can green enchilada sauce

Place chicken breasts in bottom of the crockpot and then add remaining ingredients. Cook on low 6-8 hours. Shred chicken before serving and serve in tortillas. We add cheese, sour cream, etc. to the tortillas. We sometimes add rice (cooked rice to the mixture once we're ready to serve, not in the crockpot!). This is also really good if you use beef instead of the chicken!
Tuesday - Leftovers
Wednesday - Plain ol' french toast and eggs
Thursday -Meatloaf on a bed of Potatoes
2 T olive oil
3 large russets, cut into 1 to 1-1/2” chunks
2 lb ground sirloin (I use ground turkey all of the time when I make this)
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup crushed saltine crackers
3/4 cup ketchup
2 T dehydrated onions (optional)
1 tsp salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Topping
3/4 cup ketchup
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp Dijon mustard

Combine oil and potatoes in crock pot, toss to coat. Spread in an even layer on the bottom of the crock.

In a large bowl, combine beef, eggs, crumbs, ketchup, onion, salt and pepper. Mix gently, do not compact. Shape into oval or round, place on top of potatoes. Spread with topping.

Cover and cook on High for 1 hour. Reduce heat to Low and continue to cook for 6-7 hours, or until a meat thermometer reads 160º to 165ºF.
Sandy’s notes: I used plain ketchup for the topping since that is my family’s preference. To make the meatloaf easier to remove: Take two long pieces of foil and fold them into two strips. Place them across each other over the potatoes and set the meatloaf on top. Use as handles to remove when the meatloaf is done.
Friday - Wings
Saturday - Ward Picnic
Sunday - Chicken Cordon Bleu (sooooooo yummy! I keep forgetting to get the ingrediaents for the sauce so we just make country gravy- I know we're real classy - and it tastes awesome. We also use theighs instead of breast.)

AND for dessert Blueberry Snack Cake. It's like a giant blueberry muffin and I scarfed it up all by myself cause everyone wanted the chocolate cupcakes Chris made instead.