Bows

Yesterday I decided Marie's 4 months and I really need to get some bows in her hair. So I broke down and bought some. They are expensive like $3-$5. This one still looks BIG to me, but I'm trying to branch out. I requested some smaller ones be made..so there may be more coming-but I thought I'd share my new adventure.

Beef Stew

The original plan was to make a pot roast or stew-and with left over meat make shredded beef enchiladas. It didn't work out so well-this stew was really really good and really easy that we gobbled almost all of it up! I'm still sad about me enchiladas-but I'll get over it.

So this is a crock pot recipe and let me say I'll NEVER make beef stew on the stove again-this tasted great! I had some red potatoes a neighbor gave us out of their garden-I didn't even peel them and it was great.

2 pounds stew meat cut in 1 inch chunks
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bay leaf-I didn't have-I added 1 T. white vinegar instead
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 onion, chopped (I just put some dried minced onion in)
1 1/2 cups beef broth
3 potatoes, diced
4 carrots, sliced
1 stalk celery, chopped

Place meat in slow cooker. In small bowl mix together flour, salt and pepper; pour over meat and stir to coat meat with flour mixture. Stir together the broth, garlic, bay leaf or vinegar, paprika Worcestershire sauce, and onion. Pour over meat-add the veggies.

Cover and cook on low-10-12 hours or high-4-6 hours.
I had to thicken with corn starch-but it was yummy!

I hope you guys can enjoy it too. I liked that you didnt' have to baby the meat and seer it first and all that-just drop it in and enjoy later!

Stuff

Yesterday Eric didn't hear anything-but I guess the OK guys are done, so that's not so great. At this point we don't see moving with the current company-but we're still applying for any positions within the company that are available. We're just looking everywhere-but he's got until Jan plus severance so there's still some time.

Daniel is visiting us, and it's been really fun to catch up. When we are together we're like siblings and it's just a lot of fun-we really need to see each other more often. Thankfully he was able to find some of our kitchen tile and bring it up--we cracked one of our tiles thought we had extra-but didn't and couldn't find the tile anywhere..Eric even drove to Pocatello to find it-but it wasn't there. So that was fabulous-the boys were working on getting the grout out and clearing the rain gutters.

During spare time Daniel jumped on our neighbors trampoline with Brandon and Tyler. They had a blast and he can do flips and they LOVED watching that. So today was a pretty fabulous day-plus I got to go to the broadcast without kids--YEAH!

Children's Festival

Wednesday night was the local colleges' Children's Festival. We were only there an hour but we were able to make and fly kites, stand in line to hit a pinata but of course there were too many kids-but we got to eat the candy; paint a mask and race in the 3 legged race. The boys had so much fun!

Here's the boys learning how to make a kite.




The kites were nice because I can't say it was really that windy and yet they really got them in the air-so they were perfect! Too bad Brandon broke his today at our house..but it was probably 1 whole hour of fun, and it was FREE.


Here's just a beautiful picture of how I look holding Marie.


Here's the boys ready to run the race-I didn't think Brandon and Tyler as a pair would be good. So it was Tyler and myself and Brandon and Eric. However I was wearing Marie-so what were we doing the 5 legged race?? It was okay because I knew Tyler wouldn't be able to go very fast. I told Tyler which leg to step with and he did a great job, we just weren't as fast as the others. Eric said that Brandon just hopped the whole time-kept the leg tied to Eric in the air!


Here's the boys this morning checking out their masks. They painted them last night-but they weren't dry. They had fun for a little while wearing them and pretending they were skeletons. For once Tyler was scaring Brandon-usually it's the other way around!


This is just a picture of Marie-it was a bit chilly in the morning when we took Brandon to preschool and she just looked so cute..and she's getting so big! And she was actually smiling while the camera was out.

Over Due

Last Friday when Brandon came home from preschool, he got a sucker for doing his homework. Somehow he had 2 suckers, he gave 1 to Tyler-it was a dum-dum and Brandon's was one of those suckers that you're not suppose to choke on-you'll see in the movie. Anyway-Tyler opened his sucker and said he didn't like it. Tyler was crying-but I didn't have any suckers..and he threw his in the trash.

Then Brandon says "I know." I say "What?" He says "We can share!!." So this is what they did-it was really, really cute-such a wonderful brother! Brandon didn't let him hold it..but they did share licks-it was just wonderful. Way to go Brandon!

I was going to do a blog about what we've all learned and have done this year, but I can't really think of much-so I thought I'd just share a couple of things.

Marie has found her toes, she just loves to hang out on her back and play with those toes. With the boys I'd try to put them in their hands-then quickly take a picture-I always thought it was cute when babies did this, and now mine finally does!

She's no longer a finger or thumb girl-we've got her on the binky really good..may be a bad sign because she wakes up 2 times a night and thinks it's morning at 5:45 when it's black outside--I don't get my children..oh well.

However about a month ago Marie did sleep in until 9:30am..neither of the boys has EVER done that before-so that was a milestone, but it was just one day!

Tyler knows how to give thumbs up, this was hard for Brandon-so even Brandon's really proud Tyler can do it. Tyler can say a blessing on the food all by himself, always the same prayer-but it's still nice to not have to help. He tells us when he's poopy sometimes-so maybe potty training is coming along.

Brandon-is still in LOVE with dinosaurs. Whenever we go to the dollar store he still almost always wants a dinosaur..it's just crazy! He loves preschool-doesn't really care for homework, but it's just 1 page once a week. Brandon is starting to wipe his own bum-his desire not mine and it's working out wonderfully!

As for me I can think of 1 thing-I haven't bought anything from door-to-door salesmen this year! Go Kerry, Go Kerry! So that's exciting-it's a goal of mine.

I'm not sure what to put for Eric, he's done lots of things around the house..been losing lots of weight-so he's enjoyed that.

Update

I thought I'd better update..My blog isn't private yet-so I'm not going to go into detail. However Thursday we found out that in roughly 3 months Eric will no longer have a job. There may be opportunity to move with the company to Oklahoma, we'll find out about that this week I guess.

Whether we move there or try and find another job in Utah-or near there, we will be selling our house--and that's stressful in this market. And something I'm not really looking forward to but already taking the steps to get it up a soon as possible.

Our friend Daniel is coming to visit in a couple of weeks and I'm already looking forward to putting him to work! I'm also just excited for his visit.

That's all-just wanted to let you know the not so great part of life right now..but who knows maybe Heavenly Father has some great plan for us, but we have to start here..

So many things

Okay-so I haven't posted for a while. Last Monday we went to the fair, it was really fun-the boys got to ride rides for about 5 hours..it's a money sucker but we had fun..of course I didn't bring my camera-I'm going to have to store my camera where my driver's license is or something--Eric had his phone but I haven't even looked to see what the pics look like..I'll just let you know it was really tiring but fun!

I put Marie in the jumperoo for the first time a few weeks ago, the boys have WAY more fun with it than she does-but I think she'll really start liking it. The bouncy chair she totally LOVES, she puts her legs up all funny and then kicks the toys it's just so cute to watch.

The boys have been DYING to spend their chore money so we took a trip to the dollar store and Brandon found a magic trick--3 cups and the balls that appear. Eric taught him pretty good-I keep asking him if I can take a video of his show-to post on here but he says not now, or tomorrow and just never does it. But when he first learned how to do it he just gleamed-it was really fun to see.

Last week the children were SUPER cute! Marie's wearing the dress that Nana got for her..but she doesn't know it-I saw it at Pennies..so I swapped a couple things. THANK YOU. She just looks SUPER SUPER cute, oh I just can't get enough. Then we got a pic of all three-sorry I'm too lame I didn't get the red eyes out.

This week Brandon started Preschool he LOVES it. I don't care for the fact that I have to put everybody in the car, get everybody out-just to take Brandon to the door-and pick him up the same way-but I know it's all worth it. And I'm going to start carpooling soon so that will be awesome. He didn't really have much to talk about, except they sing some different ABCs with clapping and was very excited to show me what was in his backpack..but here he is with a HUGE grin!-showing us his name tag.

Okay just a couple more pics because this is how I share my life..this one Brandon put a bag over his head--Tyler said that he looked like Iron Man-I thought that was creative!

Marie has slept through the night for the pat 5 nights! Holy cow that's awesome-sort of sad in a way because she used to sleep in until about 8-9 but now she just wakes up around 7 with the boys..but I can't have EVERYTHING I want can I..she sleeps through the night and I can't complain! Here's Marie--look how strong she's getting! No movement but can really hold her self up and look at toys and what not on her belly!

This is a cute movie of Marie-too bad I'm talking when she's trying to talk. But she's wearing this cute outfit that my Aunt's got for her-she's almost too big for it now..but it's just cuter than I thought it was going to be-and she just looks cute..so I had to share.

Okay-so here's the video I wanted to share before..Tyler ALWAYS says Marie like this..sometimes it's annoying-but it's his own thing I guess.

I realized today that I never posted a picture of our new couch-so without further postponing-here it is!

So each end pops out as a recliner..see how big it is-


This is how tall it is compared to our other couch-the one that I needed a push to help me up when I was pregnant..now I totally LOVE the couch it's so cushy you don't even need throw pillows!

Today we picked peaches and plums. It was fun-only $0.59/lb. We thought that was a good deal-there were plenty the boys could reach but they'd just pick whatever and they weren't all ripe-so it wasn't really as exciting as I thought it would be and of course I didn't remember the camera..so oh well-but you can imagine us doing it. Too bad we just washed the van since we had to drive down about 3 miles of gravel and dirt roads, but we'll survive!

Life

Well I can't say that I've really adjusted to regular life. Eric worked 1 week-and this week he closes. It's worked out so that he works about 6.5 hours each day for 6 days. It's nice because he's around more but the day just drags on for me. We have some fun things we wanted to do this week-but our last 2 days have been stuff around the house that we want to get done and we haven't done anything fun...well out of the ordinary fun. For instance this week there's the county fair, we hope to pick peaches, maybe bowl-we'll just have to see.

So here's some pictures of our fun times this past week.

Today was car wash day! The boys basically washed the van by themselves-I haven't looked to see how good it really is-but I know it's better than before..anything's better. And they had a blast!

Today Eric actually got to one of his projects he's been wanting to do since the beginning of the summer. Put boards under the fence so when you mow you don't lose the mower under the fence. Here's a pic-maybe you can understand better--it looks really nice.

So the one at the top by the wheel barrow is already done-and at the bottom you can see the whole at the bottom of the fence.

The other day Tyler got some toys out and insisted that I take a picture of him-I thought it was cute!



Marie is 3 months old-I just can't believe it! Here's her nothin' but diaper pic--I take one every month of my children's life until 1 year old..just to see how chunky they really are.



This is showing how strong she is-she's hanging over the arm of the couch-but she's totally holding herself up by herself..you go girl!

Okay there was going to be a video of how Tyler says Marie's name-but I guess that's a post or another time-Marie's crying and everybody's dying to spend their chore money at the dollar store!