OH.... Mamma Mia!

The boys have expressed a little interest in wanting to watch the movie Mamma Mia lately. They are plenty familiar with the songs, thanks to a mommy that likes to blast the soundtrack while cleaning the house. Plus, their cousins Kyle and Kole mentioned while visiting a few weeks ago that they've seen the movie and liked it so that piqued their interest a little more. They are off track right now so we thought it would be a fun activity to do yesterday. They laid out blankets and popped a bowl of popcorn while I laid the squeaky Will down to nap.

There were 4 parts I knew I didn't want them to see so I was ready for them. I diverted their attention during the "part" in the beginning of "Dancing Queen", made them close their eyes so as not to see Bill's bum (but Sam peeked, I know because he couldn't supress his giggle quietly enough), skipped completely over the "does your mother know" song, and made them study a speck of dust on the ceiling fan during the man-to-man "embrace" at the end. I'm positive that the other innuendo's (and there are plenty) went completely over their head. We had a wonderful discussion about "traditional" vs. Temple marriages, and a touching discussion over why I don't like the song "Slipping through my fingers" because though they are still small I can't help but feel like they are growing up too fast. They thought this was funny because apparently they don't think they are growing up fast enough. Groan.

Later on they tried to remember the words to "Super Trouper" while putting on their pajamas. They came out to the kitchen and practiced outloud to see who could remember the most words using me as their helper and judge. It wasn't until Gabe started to orbit the kitchen table showing off his newly acquired dance moves and singing "Mamma ee-yuh, here we doe uh-den, my my...." that I began to wonder if maybe they should be spending a little more time with Daddy.

the Squeaky "Will"

There is something to that theory, isn't there!? You know, the one about how the squeaky wheel gets the grease?

It sure seems to work that way around here.

While making waffles this morning my little Will was screaming, crying, weeping, wailing and thrashing about. tugging at my toes, getting in between the table and my legs and pushing with all his one-year-old might in hopes of pushing me backward and getting my attention away from the beating of eggs and toward his current predicament....which the cause of such is still unknown...except that I think he was just hungry and we've learned that when this kid is hungry you better feed him like two minutes ago.

SO, let's all take a guess at who got the first waffle.





Oh, don't let that charming little face fool you, look closely at the red cheeks and the watery eyes! He is deceiving you and you are all falling for it!



Don't let his attempt to make it all better by happily signing "thank you" fool you either! ....okay, nevermind..go ahead and let it fool you. Even I have to admit that that is pretty irresistible.

Seriously though, this kid is lucky he's so cute. I'm talking really really lucky. My mom thinks it's pretty funny. You know, being as I was her youngest and so "irresistible" too. :)

But hey, do you guys want the YUMMIEST Belgian Waffle recipe ever? It's from my sis-in-law Charlotte and it's AWESOME. I think the beaten egg whites is what makes this so fluffy and YUM. It's not hard either. The first time I made them it took me forever, but we've had them 4 times in 2 weeks (yeah, I'm kind of getting sick of 'em now) and I can whip them up in just a few minutes now.

Here goes:

2 eggs seperated in 2 bowls - white/yolks

beat egg yolks until they are yellow in color (I know.... they're ALREADY yellow...I just beat them for a minute or so until they are a little lighter yellow)

add:

3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup half&half (I substituted Evap. milk and it worked great)
1/3 cup veg. oil

mix well.

in another bowl add:

1 3/4 cup flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 tsp. salt

pour into egg yolk mixture.

Beat egg whites until they are white and stiff

Fold into yellow mixture. Poor into Belgian Waffle maker and enjoy!!

A Serenade

We were honored to be the recipients of Gabe's first official solo last night. These were the words to the song he sang so beautifully to us:

I am a chi-deld of Dod. (Should I capitalize the D as I would if it was pronounced the correct way with a G? - I think so)

and He has sent me hewe.

Has diiven me and er-free home

wif pear-wents tind of dear (our favorite part - I guess we're just "kind-of dear") :)

weed me, died me, walkt (always the "t" at the end) besides me, help me find duh way.

Teach me all dat I must do, to wiive wif him someday.

Pretty good, don't you think? We were so impressed! For the proper words to the song (if you need them)go here.

Oh, what's that you say about Christmas? Well...it's not February yet, right Trish?! :) hee,hee.

Soon...I promise.

What's this you ask?

Oh, nothing much. Just my totally awesome husband bringin' down the house at the University of Utah game!

A few weeks ago Mark told me that he had entered his and my name into a drawing at the University of Utah credit union for a chance to "shoot for loot". If they draw your name they give you tickets to the game and during one of the time-outs you get the chance to go down and shoot for loot. Well they drew MY name and called me and I said "can we pretend you drew my husbands name instead and he could make the shots for me?" and the guy said YES! I couldn't believe that he let us do that, but I was SO SO grateful that it could be him and not me! So we got to go to the game and about 12 minutes into the first quarter we started to make our way down to the court. He had 30 seconds to make 3 baskets. A lay up, a free throw and a three-pointer. If you shoot the lay up you get $50 and a chance to shoot a free throw, if you make the free throw you get $100 and a chance to shoot a 3 pointer and if you make the 3 pointer then you get $150 so there is a chance to win $300. He was really hoping that he could make the lay up and the free throw really fast so he could have a chance to shoot more times for the 3 pointer if he needed it. Did he need the time? See for yourself! (sorry for the screaming lunatic in the background....wait a minute, that's ME!)



Seriously, is he INCREDIBLE or what? There is absolutely nothing this guy can't do. I was so proud of him and it was so much fun! He seemed nervous until he got the ball in his hands, then he just looked like he was taking care of business, and that's just what he did! The guys that were helping us with where to go and rebounding the balls said that's the first time anyone has made them all in a row like that and asked him if he played college ball, they were so impressed. We figured out he made all 3 shots in 12 seconds, wouldn't it be nice if we could make $300 in 12 seconds every day?!! The very next morning oddly enough is when the laptop went from broken spacebar to dead keyboard and when I called him in tears he said we could use his winnings to buy a new computer, which is sitting under the tree until Christmas day. Husband, I love you and you totally ROCK!!! You want to watch it again, don't you? I know, me too! Here I'll save us some trouble and put it right here again. :)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!!

I know I'm a little late posting this, with Halloween being last Friday and all, but I thought better late than never...right?! So, Ladies and Gentlemen...I present to you:

The Swamp Creature:



Ben 10:



Don't know who that is? He's a cartoon character that looks like this:


Now go back to the picture of Sam...pretty good, don't ya think? Yes, he's wearing the watch on the wrong wrist. He's cool like that. The problem is, MOST people didn't know who he was! Oh well, he did and that's all that matters, right?


AND...here is a picture of the crew. The Bee and the Monkey didn't get individual shots, unless maybe they're still stuck on my camera card from 2 months ago er last week. But they looked pretty cute too.


We had a really fun halloween! I was able to go and help at Sam's party, which was SO fun for him. He kept looking at me and grinning from ear to ear. It was awesome and so fun to see all the cute kids dressed up!


After school we went to our 5th halloween party of the season and then came home to get ready for trick-or-treating.
All six of us set out to see how far we'd get before the littles decided it was time to go home. They lasted about 2 circles, so Mark took them back to put Will to bed and put the pizza in the oven while the bigs and I set out for more. There was a little spook alley advertised in the neighborhood so we decided we'd go try to find it. It was fun! They had gone all out and the boys were a little scared to go in. The lady asked if they wanted "scary or non-scary" and they chose scary, but I think they were nervous about what they'd gotten themselves into. There was a guy at the end that started up a chainsaw and all the boys looked at him like: So...it's a big loud power tool, what's the big deal about that? clearly, they've yet to see a real halloween movie. :) We hit tons of houses by the time we were done. They all wanted to go to "so-and-so's house" over here and "so-and-so's house" over there until I think we'd covered the neighborhood twice! We had so much fun and we are still eating halloween candy...uh, which is not surprising at all since it was just last week, right?...silly me!

So, anyway...that is our halloween. Now it's your turn to get all of your halloween pictures up - I don't mind being the first one to do it. Being a leader comes quite naturally to me. Just get crackin!

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*cricket...cricket...cricket*

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WHAT?! What are all of you looking at me like that for???? You act like it's almost Christmas for crying out loud! Why on earth would I post Halloween pictures in December? YOU guys are weird!

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Alright, alright, ALRIGHT, stop it already!! ....Fine. I admit that I'm a little behind. I'm SOOOOOO sorry! Please forgive me. It all started with a broken spacebar. Turns out, spacebars don't like coke. WHO KNEW!! Do ANY OF YOU REALIZE how INCREDIBLY common the spacebar is? Just try to go without it while you type the simplest of sentences. I dare ya! TRY IT! ....That's what I thought. NOW, do you understand where I've been the last two months? Putting a period in between.each.word.worked.for.awhile.but.I.think.it.was.pretty.annoying to people for the most part. Then I tried copying and pasting a space in between each word. I got so good at it that now when I try to use a computer with a working spacebar my thumbs don't know what to do! I also found all of the lovely hot keys available by using the "ctrl" button. Since I'd press "Ctrl V" to paste in my space, if I was ever on a roll and going too fast I'd accidentally type another letter instead of "V". Let me know if you'd like a list of what happens when you type "ctrl z,x,c or b" in the middle of a sentence, I'm a master at it now. ANYWAY, my laptop went from a broken spacebar to a completely dead keyboard. Grr. I'm blogging right now from my boys' computer (which is ancient, but working) and will be getting a new computer (thank you husband!) in a few days. Sigh. Add to that the holiday rush-to-make-everything-perfect and the normal day-to-day mom of four boys stuff and you've got an absent blogger. I've also got a house to clean, a pantry to organize and so much laundry to do that I bet if I started now I wouldn't get done until October 12th of 2011. It's a good think I don't exaggerate or then I'd have yet anOTHER problem, whew!

So anyway that (in a nutshell - a really really big nutshell) is where I've been. Thank you for missing me, and I promise to be better now and to catch up on commenting on yours and adding my new friends onto my blogger list. I've got lots to post so be ready with your listening eyes!! OR, just skip over all my really long ones. It's okay, I don't mind. I get bored reading them myself. :)

Love ya!

A boy and his....er...I mean his AUNT'S dog:

Last night for FHE we had a lesson on voting and politics. Daddy explained the voting process and what he liked and disliked about the candidates. Then we went around and talked about who we were going to vote for and why. When it was Gabe's turn and we said "who are you going to vote for Gabe?" he jumped up and shouted NIKKI!!!!! (or Nitt-ee in gabespeak) Then Sam said, GABE, you can't vote for a DOG for the PRESIDENT, so he thought about it for a few seconds and shouted OKAY THEN! AUNT SHAWWAAHH!!(Sharla) So funny! It is so nice of Aunt Sharla to have a dog for us that we can play with when we want to and then let her go back to her own house when we're done. :) She is SUCH a good dog, so good natured and sweet! Gabe just LOVES Nikki and includes her in almost ALL of his bedtime (and lately mealtime) prayers!

We love you Nikki!!

what's for dinner?

SOOOOoooooo..... I have nothing to cook for dinner tonight. I could make my friends' AWESOME Chicken Alfredo except that the chicken needs to bake in the crockpot for 3 hours and it is already 5pm. Upon checking the contents of my pantry I have come up with the following ingredients:

Halloween Candy
Halloween Candy
Halloween Candy
Can of Cream of Chicken Soup
Box of Cap'n Crunch

SO....I'm thinking about a "Cream of Snickers, Milky Way, 100 Grand, and twizzler casserole" with a side of steamed Cap'n Crunch. Should be awesome! OH, and did I mention we also have Halloween Candy? Maybe I should throw that in for dessert!

Hope you all have a wonderfully nutritious dinner, like ours. Go ahead and use my recipe, I don't mind sharing!