Pretty Pretty Princess

I was in a children's exchange store when I found one of my favorite games there, Pretty Pretty Princess. I LOVED this game when I was little!! Of course, I had to buy it. Of course, my girls loved it. We must've played it 5 times in a row before I pleaded off to start cooking dinner. I took some pictures of Cady, she was just sitting at the table decking herself out in all of the jewelry, so sweet. :) I then took some pictures of Claire in the next room. Claire was wearing her new dress and just looked so pretty in pink.I love my little girls.

Claire's trip to the Dentist!

Claire went to the dentist for the first time! She was so excited. The little vaccum thing scared her everytime, but she was very sweet and cooperated with it. Claire got a little sleeping beauty toothbrush and picked out a ring when she was done. She's already looking forward to going back next year!


Cady sat in the corner with me, eating it all up. Cady kept saying, "Is it my turn now?" I told Cady next year it will be her turn, but as a consolation she did get to sit in the dental chair and take a ride up and down on it before we left.

Frantic Food storage!!!

Okay, so I'm not really frantic about this, but it's definitely my number one focus right now. I've had an increasing feeling that I need to stock up and get organized with food storage. I'm sure you've been hearing things about this too, it seems to be every where now. In fact, so many people are buying food storage that bishop storehouses are out of wheat (mine is getting more in two weeks, hopefully it'll stick around long enough for me to get some), and Sams club is limiting the amount of rice people can buy (4 bags a trip). The interesting thing is that my entire family (on both sides) is pushing to do the same thing: get food storage.

I have talked to several different people about food storage and their approaches to it, and I've selected a plan that I think will be best for us. In fact, I think my plan is so brilliant that I'm going to share it with you. What? I'm humble. :D

I have planned out 20 different meals that I can make out of food storage items. I am going to have a box for each month of the year, and in the box will be all of the ingredients necessary to make 15 of the meals. Then, when each new month starts, I will go down to the basement and select the box labeled for that month. I will unpack that box into my cabinets, and go shopping for 15 new meals worth of ingredients. I will then re-stock the box and put it down in the basement until I need it the following year.

Bryce and I decided on 15 meals a month because that gives us a few days for leftovers, eating out, and variety in our menu for the month. We are also going to store the recommended amount of wheat, rice, legumes, honey, etc. so we'll have long term storage as well.

I love this plan because I will know exactly what to do with my boxes of food and everything will be rationed out so I'm organized and fully prepared. Also, I'll be using my food regularly and we will be getting our money's worth out of our food storage. I think it'll be healthier for our family as well, eating more wheat and beans and such. I'm hoping this will save us more money in the long run, I seem to go to Walmart at least once every two days it seems!

I've got an excel file with all of my food storage recipes written on it, I can email the full recipes to you if you want them. Let me know and I'll email them directly to you. Let me know if any of you have any special tips, recipes, or approaches you'd like to share...I'm open for suggestions!

Claire's new pajamas!

So, after having it sit in the top of my closet for 3 years, I finally whipped out my sewing machine and tried to make something for Claire. I took sewing lessons when I was younger and again my senior year of high school, but it has never come naturally to me. I don't think I have ever even sewn for 5 minutes straight without having to get out my trusty old seam ripper and make some corrections. :) I chose a simplicity pattern for pajamas and Claire chose out some Strawberry shortcake fabric. After two straight days of sewing and the sewing machine needle going through my nail only once, it was finished! The needle did actually go through my nail, it hurt like crazy! (I had some help on that mishap, Claire decided to hand turn the needle on the side while I was attempting to fix the bobbin thread.) At any rate, here's the finished product. :) I feel a burst of pride everytime I see her wearing it...which so far, is 4 nights in a row! I think I may give this sewing thing another try in a few weeks for Cady---but I'll do it when the girls aren't around to "help!"

Spring Break!

We had a really great spring break! We decided to avoid flying and do a road trip down to VA to spend the week with my family. Flying has always been very stressful for our family, and really hard with Claire and Cady. Historically, one or both of them have cried from the time we get buckled up until the time we get off of the plane. Bryce and I both feel that we have lost years off of our lives from the stress of flying with these girls!! At any rate, we packed up our portable DVD players and stocked up on some books on tape from the library and proceeded to drive 19 hours to VA. The drive was very enjoyable, the girls were happy and we got to stop at a hotel and go swimming with them--which they absolutely loved. The only hitch in our drive was when we discovered 6 hours into the trip that our car power jack for the DVD player was not working. Other than that, things were great. :) We listened to Ella Enchanted and Little house in the Big woods. Our favorite pit stop was at a rest station in Kentucky. There were two workers sitting on a bench when we went inside and they showed us the gleaming brass pipes in the hallway that they had just finished polishing. Of course, we just had to get a picture of that! Then, one of the workers lowered the Kentucky flag for us so we could take a picture next to it. :) We were very impressed with Kentucky and their squeaky clean rest stops!

We arrived in VA in time to meet Buffy and Tim's new baby Eleanor George. (Isn't that such a cute name?). She is a beautiful little girl, she slept the whole time we were there. Tim & Buffy had invited the whole Bunton family up to be with them. It was nice a cozy with 19 people in their house, but we loved every minute of it. I think my favorite thing we did was visit the Historic Monticello house and see my cousin Nancy who is a tour guide up there. This was Thomas Jefferson's house and a really neat place, I loved learning about him and seeing what he had surrounded himself with in his house. We also got to go and stand in the dome that is pictured on the back of the nickle. :) Other than that, we spent a lot of time hanging out and playing Settlers of Katan, monopoly, accompanying my dad to go grocery shopping (we went through an insane amount of food!) and playing with the kids outside. Sadly, my camera ran out of batteries about 2 days into our trip...and of course the one thing I forgot to pack was a battery charger!! I've posted the few pictures I was able to take. Just know that I didn't do the trip justice. It was a great break, and really nice to see Bryce again too. :)

Bear Hunt Play group!

One of our favorite days is Thursday, because it's play group day. There are two other moms who do this with me, 6 kids total. It's a blast, because Claire's best friends up here, Safi and Caleb, and Cady's friend Paige, do this with us. I took some pictures of them the other day because they were just so cute. We read the book called "going on a bear hunt," a really great book by the way. After reading it, we made a bear cave out of our couch cushions and a blanket. The kids had so much fun hiding in it pretending to be bears. Pretty frightening, aren't they?

After the fun of being bears, they decided they liked being in the cave so much that they just started carrying books inside and reading them there. Yes, it was a very easy and enjoyable play group day for me!