Making two people VERY VERY happy

Happy kid #1

Rachel got her ears pierced on Saturday! And it was definitely one of her favorite days ever! It was so cute to hear her talking about it for the past few weeks.  Ever since we said she could get it done the next time we were in Phoenix she has been bringing it up a couple times a day.  Sometimes, excited and sometimes revealing that she was a little bit nervous.  She was practically bouncing with excitement when we were driving to the mall. (PS--I got my way on this one, Sam did not convince me to let him pierce them himself --despite his many attempts--and yes--he was serious).  She picked out the earings she wanted (the hello kitty ones were sold out  (thank you!) and these were her second choice--little blue flowers.  I could tell she was nervous (later on she told us that she was shaking) but she wanted it so bad that she held very still and the girl actually did it one at a time so she even held still for the second one.  Not a peep--and then a perma grin for the rest of the day! :)

Happy Kid #2

Never seen a grown man so excited to see the Star Wars crew fully outfitted in front of the Lego store at the mall--it was awesome!

First day of second grade

Rachel was so excited about school this year.  She was very in to school shopping and I let her splurge on two special outfits and this is her favorite.  She specifically wanted a bag that you hold on the side and we looked all over for one that would fit--for some annoying reason all of the side bags in the kids section are GIANT (not to mention covered with Hannah Montana and iCarly.)  We found this one in the purse section and she was soooo excited!  I love that it is smaller, and plain, and she loves that it is blue!   PS--I also love that she chose to wear her converse with this outfit--they are adorable! :)

Last night she spent forever filling it up with pencils and folders and all kids of other school supplies.  I love that she shares that excitement - that was one of my favorite parts about school. 

 

YAY Second Grade!  Can't wait to hear all about her first day when she gets home :)

Mysteriously missing...

Not the girl...just the swimsuit  :)

Last seen in 2009
I hate it when clothes go missing.  Where do they go??

And I am extra bummed because it was so cute, and it fit perfectly. 

Maybe we left it at someone's house-because I have searched everywhere.  So--if you happened to have seen it--let us know you will make our week!  :)

Recipes --freezer meals

A friend asked me to share some freezer recipes, and since i had them typed up I decided to share them for all.  These were from a friend who had a book full of freezer meal recipes...sorry don't know what it was called.  Here are the recipes I have that are good. We would sometimes get together and make a bunch in one night.  It can be crazy to make a lot on the same day, but easier in some ways. For example we would put a lot of chicken in the oven to bake then it would be available to either shred or cut into cubes as each dish requires. So you could try to make all the recipes with chicken on the same day). It might take a few hours--but then you have meals for almost 6 days (3 meals --two of each). The crock pot stuff we didn't make that night, since they have to cook all day, but it works to make those one day and then eat half and then freeze the other half, the same you could do with the lasagna and manicotti--just make 2 9x9 pans instead of a large pan so you can eat one and freeze the other so you don't have to eat lasagna or stew the whole week, or have the leftovers go bad in the fridge. (maybe since you have more mouths to feed this doesn't happen to you anymore--but you could use the same idea--just make twice as much as you need and freeze half).

Tomato Swiss Steak (crockpot)
2 lbs beef road steak/cube steak (to make it easy I just buy steak already chopped into cubes for stew)
2 onions, sliced
1 2lb bag baby carrots
1 can beefy mushroom soup (I usually can't find this--and just use mushroom)
1 T sugar
1/2 t salt
1/8 t pepper
serve with rice, noodles or potatoes (I like it over noodles for a change, if I want to serve with potatoes I just toss them in the crock pot and add a little more liquid)

directions: cut steak into serving size pieces, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Place steak in crock pot and cover with onions, then carrots on top. Mix soup with tomato sauce, stir in sugar. Pour mix over carrots. Cover and cook on high 4 hours or low 6-8 hours. Cool and place in freezer bag.

To cook: thaw, heat till steaks are hot through out and gravy is hot and bubbly.

honey BBQ ribs (crock pot)
3 lbs country style pork ribs
1/2 t garlic salt
1/2 t pepper
1 C ketchup
1/2 C brown sugar
1/2 C Honey
1/4 C Spicy brown mustard
2 T Worchestershire
1 1/2 t liquid smoke (never found this so I never inclued it)
directions: Place ribs in crock pot, cover, cook on high 3 hours. Drain. Reduce heat to low. Combine remaining ingredients in bowl, then pour over ribs in pot. Cover and book 3 hours on low. remove from pot to cool. Freeze in gallon bag.  Thaw--heat throughout.


Mexican casserole (cook chicken and assemble)
3 C cooked chicken
1 15oz can refried beans
1/4 C water
2 C chicken broth
1/3 C flour
1/2 C butter
1 4oz can chopped green chiles
1 10oz can diced tomatoes (you can also use diced tomatoes w/chiles)
1 package flour tortillas
2 C Shredded Cheddar cheese
makes 1 9x13 or 2 9x9 (perfect to make 2 pans and eat one fresh and freeze the 2nd pan.)
directions: Shred chicken, heat beans and mix with the water. In saucepan combine chicken broth and flour. Add butter, green chiles, and tomates. heat until butter is melted and sauceis thick and bubbly. In greased foil pan layer tortillas, beans, cheese, chicken and sauce. Layer twice. To eat that day, bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.    Freeze: place foil pan in a freezer bag. To eat, thaw and bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Broccoli, chicken & rice (cook chicken & assemble)
3 cups cooked chicken
2 C cooked rice
1 10oz bag frozen chopped broccoli
1 onion chopped
1 can cr of chicken soup
1/2 C sour cream
1/2 C chicken broth
1/2 C mayonaise
1.5 C shredded Jack cheese
bread crumbs or french fried onions (if desired)
directions: Combine all ingredients and place in gallon bags to freeze. Thaw, place in greased baking dish and bake 1 hour at 350. Top with french fried onions if desired, then bake 10 additional minutes.


Chicken cordon bleu (oven)
6 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Dijon mustard
6 slices of ham (thin sliced, so sandwhich meat is fine)
6 slices swiss cheese
salt, pepper
1/2 c evaporated milk
1 C fine bread crumbs
toothpics
Gravy
I can cr of Chicken & 1/2 C Sour cream (you could also substitute any sort of chicken gravy)
Directions: Place chicken between plastic wrap and pound until thin (or you can buy thinly sliced check breasts). Spread on mustard, wrap cheese in ham and place on chicken. Roll chicken around cheese and hamm. Secure with toothpic. Dip first in milk then in bread crumbs. Sprinkle with salt and pepepr. Bake on ungreased sheet 10 minutes at 400. Reduce heat to 325 for 25 minutes. Cool. Cover chicken on the sheet with plastic wrap and freeze at least 3 hours or overnight. Place in freezer bags. To thaw heat in microwave or in oven. Serve with chicken gravy.

Lasagna (assemble)
12 lasagna noodles (uncooked)
1 lb ground beef
1 onion chopped
1/3 C shopped bell pepper
1 26oz jar spaghetti sauce
2 C shredded mozarella cheese
ricotta cheese (use as desired--I buy the small container--8oz?)
directions: brown ground beef with onion and bell pepper. Spray foil pan with non stick spray. Add some sauce to the bottom of the pan, then layer: noodles, ricotta cheese, meat, sauce, Mozarella cheese, noodles...when finished top with a nice layer of spaghetti sauce. freeze--then thaw and bake at 250 for at least 1 hour. (if cooked right away it will only need 45 minutes)

Manicotti (assemble)
1 lb spaghetti sauce
14 count manicotti noodles (uncooked)
1 lb ricotta cheese
1 c mozarella cheese
1 egg
directions: Greese pan. Combine cheeses and egg. Stuff uncooked noodles with cheese mixture. Pour sauce all over. To eat, thaw, bake covered for 45 minutes at 350, uncover and top with more mozarella cheese and bake till cheese melts. To eat the same day and not freeze, cook the noodles. (instead of stuffing cooked noodles it is easier to cut noodles with scissors down one side, fill with mixture then roll it back up and place in the pan.)

puppies!

So I heard puppy barking the other day, and I found these 3 adorable puppies at my neighbor's house. Someone had found them and dropped them off at her house.  She was taking them to Flagstaff to drop them off at the shelter in a few days, and though I wanted to say we wanted to keep one, I decided against it.  Even my neighbor, nicknamed "Dog lady"  said puppies are a pain :-)   So I did the next best thing, I invited the puppies over to play and Rachel invited her friends over--and they had a blast!!  

 Then we got to hand them all back to their owner :)

First Dance Recital

Dance... in Chinle? you say?  YES!  There is this really nice woman who lives here and works at the hospital and started teaching a dance class every other saturday --and it's free!  (Well, she doesn't charge, but we all happily give her donations because we are so happy for our girly girls to have this opportunity).  :)

This is the whole group.  The 3 year olds in their little tutus were adorable!

Rachel's class did a tap routine, and they were 'sort of" synchronized, 'some' of the time ha ha.  But they were smiling the whole time and loved being the center of attention. 

This last picture just makes me laugh.  So I bought this little pool, it was a small size, but last time I was in phoenix I only had our little car so I was happy this one would fit in the trunk.  I thought it would be fun for Rachel to splash around in, and maybe Cali would use it to cool off sometimes too. 

Leave it to Rachel to invite everyone she sees to come over and "swim" ha ha.  So I couldn't help but laugh at how ghetto it looks, to have 6 kids, and a dog splashing around in this little pool on our patchy little "lawn" (if you can even call it that).   But they all loved it!

Here's to the rez! and low expectations WOOOOO!

Gross!

Don't buy us anything white as a gift.  I will return it--and here is why.  How can you keep white clothes white when your water looks like this???!!

For the record:

 it isn't always like this,

No, we don't drink the tap water

it wasn't even like this in any other faucet--just the washer.

Lame! 

On the up side - only 356 more days!

WOOO!

Class of 2000 - Ten year reunion

So for those of you who couldn't make it to the reunion here is the recap.

It was at Dave and Busters--so it had the potential to be super fun...but wasn't. 

It was supposed to go from 7-midnight, however by about 9:30 after we ate our meal everyone was done.

The people were fun, but the location was not. 

The DJ was playing the top hits from 2000 at max volume so it was impossible to actually hear anyone talk. (I have to say I was embarassed at some of the songs we liked back in the day lol!)   

So all the fun people suggested a change of location to a bar-

We bolted and went to the Blue Margarita at City North (very cool shopping area if you haven't been there before, it is just down the street from Desert Ridge).

Katie and I were planning to be out till midnight--so we weren't about to go home at 9:30. So we joined them at the bar and tried to fit in.  We were dancing and having a blast and I was just hoping that the two married Mormon girls didn't look about as obvious as a where's Waldo picture.

I was so excited when someone found out I was mormon and said "I would have never guessed you were Mormon!"  WAHOO! mission complete!

Mainly I didn't want to look like the boring, old married, mom.  So it looks like I pulled it off :) 

It was fun to see the people that were there, I only wish more people had come.  Mainly I wish they had organized it a little differently so that it wasn't $100 a person so that more people could afford to go.  Has anyone else had a decent reunion?  Everyone just wants to see each other why do they always try to make it so complicated?

Oh well, Se la vi! 

Memorial Day weekend

We are now the proud owners of a one year old lab named Cali.
Thankfully our niece and nephew like her too since we always crash at our/their place when we visit.

Cali and Rach are a lot alike. High energy, love to swim, and jump.

We spent the day swimming at my parent's house and playing games outside.

Then we went out to our house in Chandler.  They recently got a trampoline so Sam was the fun uncle and bounced them REALLY high.

A doggy decision

For those of you hanging on the edge of your seat, waiting to see if we follow through on our doggy daydreams, (and if so--what we will end up with.)  We have made our decision, and have decided on a yellow lab.  My sister has a yellow lab that is just over a year old, and just after they got the puppy a few of their circumstances changed and it has been harder than they thought to be the dog loving family they had dreamed of.  While Rachel and I are obsessed with the puppy stages, Sam and I had discussed recently how much easier it might be to start with an older dog that is already house trained for one.  So when I was chatting with my sister and she admitted that they were very close to deciding that it was best to try and find a new home for their dog, I voluntarily mentioned that we could take their dog, Cali. (named after their family vacation spot-California).  Suddenly things fell into place for both of us.  They were relieved, not only do they get the much needed break from being dog owners, but they get to give Cali to a family that they know will treat it well, and will also get to have visiting rights.  And we get a dog, and a chance to test all of our knowledge gained from watching daily episodes of Dog Whisperer. 

We are both happy.  And my family thinks we are crazy.  My brother (the only other person in the family with a dog) can't believe she is giving her dog away). And everyone wonders why I am up for taking a rambunctious, large, hard to control dog, voluntarily.  For the record, Lacie and I both think Cali is a great dog: comes when called, house trained, sleeps in her crate, will play fetch for hours, not aggressive towards people or other dogs.  Most of her "annoying" behaviors comes from the fact that she is still a young dog with lots of energy to burn, and just needs more opportunities to burn it, in addition to just a little bit more time spent on obedience training.   To prove myself (and to stand up for Cali) I have taken a challenge from my little brother Trevor, to have a well behaved dog by the time we go camping in July.

• Cali will sit calmly by our side when other dogs walk by
• Cali will walk obediently at our side on walks around the campground. 
• Cali will not jump on anyone

Wish me Luck!

(for the record he had two other challenges that I did veto--his other two complaints just seemed a bit unfair--one was knocking anything over (with her tail) and rolling in every mud puddle that she sees.  Hey she is a lab with a long wagging tail, and Lacie has already warned me that she loves splashing in any amount of water she sees, including her water bowl.  Who am I to rain on her parade? :-)


Okay, so while Rachel is on board with us finally getting a dog, honestly, she is devastated that we aren't getting a puppy.  She heard us talking about having Cali spayed before we get her so she wouldn't have puppies and ever since then Rachel's brain (and heart) is hard at work to find a compromise.  I love that she isn't just stuck on the same whiny complaint "but I want a puppy", she is whole heartedly trying to find something that could work for all of us.  I think she figured out early on that at least Cali was a girl dog, so maybe she would have puppies someday--but the talk of a surgery to end that was going to slash that dream.   Here are a few of the other ideas she has come up with.  She mentions them at random times, just proof that it is always on the back of her mind. 

• "Don't make her get the surgery, she's too nice of a dog not to let her have puppies"
• (we explained that when dogs have puppies they don't have just one, they have many, and we aren't ready to take care of a bunch of dogs)
• Do you not like puppies, mom?
• Is there a surgery that the Vet can do that will make it so Cali will only have just one puppy?"
• Told her no, and also explained that problems can happen when having puppies, where the mom, or the puppies can die, and since we don't have experience, it isn't a good  idea.
• "I know, how about we take Cali to the Vet to deliver her puppies and then we can bring them home and put them in a box in our front yard that says "Free puppies, just leave 1"  (she wants to keep one puppy of course, but knows we we have to find a home for the rest.)

One thing is for sure, this little girl does deserve a puppy, so if all goes well with Cali then we will get Rachel her own puppy in the next year as well.

more birthday

Rachel's birthday fell on the end of the year class party so she had an extra special day at school.

Here is the "cake" she requested--tower of hostess donuts topped with whipped cream and sprinkles.

Another special thing was that her grandparents were able to come and see her.  Here she is sporting some new clothes that they gave her, along with the roller blades that she wears all day long.  (the weather tis weekend has been super crappy (so far it has been about 36 hours straight of 35 mph Dust storms) so she hasn't gotten to wear them outside yet, but since I am a super fun mom, and things are pretty casual here on the rez, I let her wear them inside.  (Right now she is still in her pajamas but she has them on again.)

For the family birthday cake she requested a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I wrote the words and then let her decorate it. (In this pic you can see the cute little navajo hair clip I bought for her from a man selling stuff in front of the grocery store. People are always selling stuff in front of the store, and usually I try to walk past without making eye contact and just say, "No thanks, not today" if they ask me anything. However, once I actually tried to find some navajo jewelry to take to a friend, and suddenly all these jewelry makers were no where in sight. So now I usually glance at the items, and when I saw these little hairclips made with leather and beaded were so cute, and it was only $7. Rachel loved it, loved that it was blue (she is starting to get to the stage where she wants things other than pink, even though she still likes it) and loved that she had another thing that was Navajo. She said excitedly, "My skin is starting to be more Navajo too." (as in tan).

This is Rach with an old friend that came by for a visit.  They were in the same kindergarten class, and she moved about 2 hours away about a year ago.  The rest of the kids, in her class would say they looked like Twins  (the only similarity being that they were both white with light colored hair--they may have actually been the only two white kids at school that year.  It didn't bother either of them, and I just thought it was funny.  Mainly as I looked at the rest of the class, I wondered how they didn't realize that with their criteria, the rest of the 20 kids in the class were "twins" as well.   And it is not an optical illusion, Rachel only was as tall as her friend's shoulder.  Out cute little shorty :)

 

Happy Birthday to Rachel

 

she is

SEVEN!!

I can't believe it :)

She is very into music these days, she loves listening to all the songs on the icarly website.  Another fun activity we did this week was made music videos of her singing along to all her favorite songs.  Grandpa Lennie and Grandma Karla sent her the pink mp3 player for her birthday--and she said it was one of the best presents ever! (Including of course the awesome roller blades that her mom and dad got her).

We love watching her play Tball, she is one of the older kids this year who actually has the hang of it, so she gets to play pitcher or first base. Love this picture of her running. I love how she can be sooo girly sometimes, but how she can fit in just as easily with the boys (playing sports, watching building shows with her dad, and enjoys (and eggs on) all kinds of "boyish" silliness with her dad).  Begs to wear a dress almost every day of school, has been sporting my high heels lately with her dress up clothes, but also isn't afraid to get dirty, loves playing in the dirt, or mud.  And I also love when she has a nice mix of both, like this girly trot to first base with her braids flying and her tongue sticking out. LOVE IT!

Sporting the "ready" position playing first base. 

Here are a few pics for the grandparents, complete with "morning" hair- ha ha ;)

(opening her mp3 player)

(opening her Roller blades)

(A big thank you to my friend and neighbor for coming to my rescue with the 'correct festivity' wrapping paper, so I was not limited to either snowmen, santa claus, or penguins).  

Do I get Brownie points for getting these posted on her actual birthday???

I think so  :)