AZ Fun!!

I have become such a slacker. I'm not a very good blogger anymore. We had a wonderful time in AZ in March! We went for Jordan and Marshall's wedding. It was beautiful and they look great together! Marshall is in great standing with the girls - he went swimming with them one night when no one else would and they will love him forever because of it. We are so happy for Jordan and Marshall! Being married is so fun!


My little sister, Kelyn had her 3rd baby on the 14th of March! Perfect timing! I was able to go hold him at the hospital and he is SO sweet and cute and tiny (at least he was! he's already gained almost 3 pounds! Go Logan!!). I love this picture of Kelyn and Logan. She is such a good mommy.

Brenan got sick while we were there! Go figure. His first time ever getting sick is while we are on vacation! We even had to take him to the hospital!
We celebrated Isaac's birthday at the park! He's such a cute, little dude! Here is a cousin shot! Left to right - Isaac, Baby Logan, Samuel, Brayton, Raylee, Anika, Brenan, Keslie.
We visited Grannie and Papa. The girls LOVE LOVE LOVE Coco the dog. I don't know if the feeling was mutual! The girls got to help make monkey bread with Grannie. They had so much fun and the monkey bread was so good! We gobbled it right up! It's always so nice to go over and visit with Grannie and Papa. I love their home - it's full of memories and they always make me feel so loved.

Look at how big Brenan looks! He is almost 1/3 the size of Gran!That bike is the coolest. We went and visited Grammy and Aunt Jolee a couple times too! Grammy is such a champ. She broke her foot and she still does EVERYTHING! When we got there she had just been cleaning the porch and moving the chairs around! WHAT?!! I just loved visiting with them. I'm so lucky to have such an amazing family.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this picture of Grammy with Brenan.

Grammy gave the girls a ride around on her wheelchair. They thought it was the coolest thing ever. They spent the rest of the time terrorizing their poor cat!

This cute little boy is Devvon! He is Chris and Stephanie's oldest. We had the traditional "cousin playgroup" while I was there. Mandi and I brought our kids over to Heidi's and spent the day. It was great to see those girls. I loved looking at all the beautiful things people have given in honor of Jersey and I was so happy to finally get to hug Heidi.

Here are the "best friends"!

Here are the girl cousins on the West side. Anika and Kes love Carolyne. They all became such great buddies the last couple days we were there. We had fun watching BOLT at Afton's parents house. They have a full on movie theater in their basement! Pretty cool! And I LOVED BOLT!
I am SO mad I didn't get a shot with all the West cousins! Next time! I stole a couple pictures of the kids off of Afton's blog! =)

They love playing in the sand at the park by Nana and Papa's house!Taylor, Carolyne, and Drew!

Nathan got to go to the zoo with everyone. The kids and I had to miss out on that fun activity but here is proof that Nathan was in AZ! Thanks again Afton!

Anika loves babies. Here she is with Logan.
BIG baby
LITTLE baby.Super Duper CUTE babies!

Logan really wanted to Wrestle!

Grandma Kivett was in town to help Kelyn so we got to see her a couple times!

Thanks Mom and Dad West for making the trip to AZ possible! We love you guys so much!

I like em' big. I like em' chunky!

My theme song for Brenan!

Brenan is SO dang cute. Today he started eating solids! I thought it would too early. I tried starting the girls on solids around 5 months and they weren't ready for it. Oh boy - he was READY! He was practically lapping it up like a puppy! He ate a whole thing of green beans mixed with a whole bunch of rice cereal. What a little piggy!!

Here is some video footage! Pictures from our trip are coming soon!!

Boys Like Balls.

I should have known!! Brenan has been on the verge of laughter for awhile now but I guess he wanted to wait for something to really hit his funny bone. Well, tonight we were throwing around this little ball and he thought it was hilarious!! What is it with boys and balls??!

Lotsa Shtuff!

VALENTINE'S DAY!!

We had a pretty fab V-day! We thought that we had left our camera at church last week so that is why I never got around to posting! We found it in our church bag today. I'm not sure why we never thought to check there! A little too obvious?? Anyway - now I've got our Valentine pictures so I can post. I was determined to make sugar cookies with the girls this year and then deliver them to friends. I'm proud to say that we made them! Not so proud of the fact that they never made it past our kitchen and most of them ended up in my belly. Oh well. The girls had SO much fun decorating and playing with the dough! Maybe next year we will actually make the deliveries

I really wanted to make the girls a special V-day present. I decided to make them cute, little tutus!I'll be honest, the result was a little disastrous! They were way too poofy and the static cling was INSANE! They stuck to the girls like velcro!
I don't think they are going to get used much so I'm a little bummed that I wasted the time to make them. Oh well! The girls also got a love note and chocolates from Daddy and a letter and some kisses from their fairy friends. Those little mailboxes were so fun to decorate and I didn't even get very fancy with mine. I've seen some REALLY cute ones on other blogs.

I know. They don't even look like tutus. Just big blobs of tulle!
Brenan got a chocolate too...

Here is one of all of us! Pretty fancy!!

We went and got some tasty Mexican food for dinner and then went to The Children's Place and bought the kids their Easter/wedding outfits. I'm in LOVE with the girls dresses!!

Nathan is so close to being done! He has his last big test this Friday and then he just needs to focus on wrapping up a few of the required dental procedures before he graduates. His graduation is on May 17th just in case you were interested in coming!
We are planning on hopping in the car the day after and heading toward San Antonio! Here are a couple cute ones of him and Kes:
Right before bed is their favorite time to be with him because he usually swings them around in crazy ways and does horsey rides and throws them all over the place. They can't get enough of it! Sometimes I have to look away because I'm worried they are going to break something but at least they are having fun with their daddy! Nathan has fun with Brenan too! He is usually the one to bathe him at night and tonight after his bath Nathan brought him to show me his new hairdo. Check it out:

Look how long he is! He's solid and squishy all at the same time! I can't wait to see how much he weighs on the 6th. He is already in 6-12 month clothes! He's been waking up in the night and talking and talking and talking - last night I finally got up to give him his pacifier just so that he'd be quiet. It was awfully cute.Here are the best friends!

The other night Nathan was looking over an implant textbook and Anika came over and sat next to him, saw the picture and said the cutest thing.
"OoOH!! That's a GOOEY, BLOODY project!!"

Bunny Sick

We found out that Anika is very allergic to bunnies! Yesterday at playgroup she was sneezing like crazy and then as we were leaving she stopped to feed the bunny. That's when her eyes started to get red and watery. By the time were in the car her eye had tons of little mosquito bite looking bumps all around it!! She was miserable!! In the car she told me that she still liked bunnies because they are really cute and soft. A few minutes later when we were upstairs in the kitches and she could barely keep her eye open she said "I don't like bunnies anymore!! I just like penguins. Penguins are my favorite cause they don't make me sick." I don't think a penguin would enjoy living in Texas though! =) I tried to get a picture of all her bumps and they just aren't showing up in the pictures!! Oh well. Here is my "bunny sick" little girl!!

The bumps are gone today but her eye is still super puffy!

Brenan is sleeping the entire night!! 7 pm - 7Am!! He's such a sweet little guy!

Look at this Giveaway!!

Go to makeitandloveit.blogspot.com to enter!!

Why Mr. Groundhog??? WHY?!!

He just had to see his shadow. Has he ever NOT seen his shadow?? I wish it could be spring RIGHT NOW. I want to enjoy these last 4 months of my time in CT! As it is, I am LONGING to leave. I'm so stir crazy and tired of being in my house. I actually started packing last week. I got through 6 boxes before I decided it would be better to wait awhile. We've all been sick so it's not even like I can take the kids to a museum or playgroup or the library. Oh well. At least I have awesome kids! I think I'm the only one that has cabin fever. The girls are happy as can be to putz around playing together all day! Alright - I'm done whining!

Anika decided to play photographer the other day. I think every one of her toys has been photographed! She did stop to take a couple pictures of Bren, Kes, and herself. Since I haven't taken ANY pictures lately, I'll use the ones that she took!


Brenan has a ton of nicknames - most of them given by Keslie. I wanted to get them all down before I forget them!

BrenaMan
Basher
Brennie boy
Brenner
Bren Bren
Nennie
Nennie boy
Nennieman
Nenners

Okay - now I'm blanking. I'll have to write them down as Keslie makes them up. She is queen of nicknames!

Happy February!!

Brenan's Blessing Outfit!!

Chip n' Dale

Just kidding - check out this little stud! He received a beautiful blessing. We love this sweet, pudgy little man!

DRUMROLL PLEASE!!!!!!

Nathan matched!! We are going to San Antonio, TX and are so excited for our next adventure!

ALRIGHT ALREADY!!!

I know all of you have been dying to have the recipe for my super yummy bean cookies. =) Actually they are oatmeal chocolate chip - secret ingredient being BEANS!!! So, without further ado:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Bake @ 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes

Ingredients:

* 1 1/2 C. Whole Wheat Flour ( regular flour will probably do the trick too...)
* 1/2 tsp. Salt
* 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
* 3 Cups Oats
* 1/2 C. Pureed White Beans (you can soak them yourself or use canned beans and just stick them in the blender)
* 1 1/4 C. Brown Sugar
* 3 Large Eggs
* 1 tsp. Vanilla
* 1 1/2 - 2 C. Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips (I like to do a chocolate chip/butterscotch mix!)
* Nuts - optional

Directions:
Mix first 4 ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Beat beans and sugar together. Add eggs (beating in between each addition) and vanilla. Add dry ingredients and chips. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or so. Bake! Don't forget to spray your pan with cooking spray because these cookies don't have butter so they'll stick!

I pretty much made this recipe up so it's not perfect but it satisfies my cravings for cookies while I eat WHOLE GRAINS and BEANS! HELLO - pretty sweet deal. =) AND you can't taste the beans at all - I promise! Feel free to mess around with the recipe - for instance - it might need baking soda - I don't know. They seem fine without it.

By the way. Please feel sorry for me - today I woke up with a stiff neck and then about an hour ago my back started to go out!! What the HECK?!! There is nothing worse than wanting to be productive and not being able to! Okay - whining over!

Have a great Saturday!

Time For Some Catching Up!

It's Saturday night and here I sit! Nathan is studying. The kids are in bed. I could be working on one of the many projects flittering around in my head but instead I think I'll keep on sitting. It's been awhile since my last post anyway!

Let's start with Brenan! He had his two month check up last Monday and weighed in at a whopping 16 lbs 4 oz!! HOLY COW!!! He's a chubby little thing! He's such a nice baby. At 8 weeks we put him in his own room and started putting him to bed at 7:00 with the girls. It's been dreamy! He sleeps until about 4AM and then will eat and go right back to sleep until about 8:00. It seems like he finally figured out how to cry these past two weeks and he lets it be known when he's mad. He usually gets pretty upset whenever we change his clothes or takes a bath. =)


The girls love each other so much. It's so cute to listen to them play because they will say "I love you" to each other just out of the blue. They stay busy making messes (I mean playing!) all day and saying super cute things. I can never bring myself to correct them when they say a word wrong. It's just too cute and I don't want them to stop!! Here are some examples:

Excited = ACTCITED (Anika)
Decided = BECIDED (Keslie)
Supposed to = BESPOSED TO (Anika)
Any past moment that they are talking about = LAST NIGHT OR LAST YEAR (Both)
Keslie can't figure out her Who's, whats, don'ts and doesnt's. For example - when asking what the green things are on her plate she says "Who are those green things?!" Yes - always with an exclamation point and always very loud and cheesy. That's our Keslie! She always pulls her little rocking chair up next to mine when I feed Brenan so that she can feed her baby. She tells me that she has "Strawberry water in one peckaroo and chocolate milk in the other and hot chocolate in her belly button". =) Anika sweetness is unsurpassed. She loves to bring me breakfast in bed a lot lately and tell me all the things she is going to give me for Christmas. =) Such nice little girls!

AND pumping. =)

We find out next Monday what is in store for us for the next two years! I can't wait!!

Here is my latest injury. It actually happened last Monday night so the bruise has actually faded! I was watching 24 and during the commercial I went running to change the laundry and totally slipped and fell in the kitchen. That's the second time in a month! What is the deal?!?!