Thanksgiving photos

Feeding kitties with Grandma:

Sharing toys with Grandpa:

Windows are a pull at every house we go to:

More fun with Grandparents

Walking with Grandma:

"Helping" Grandpa with the chickens:

Getting Grandpa

"It's Pretty"

That's what Cora says when she looks at our "tree":
I'm sure you must agree. Or we could go with Ray's description, "It looks like an upside-down 2-dimensional Christmas tree." There isn't really a good top to this "tree", that's why we put the big star and bow at the bottom. :-) The girls love it. This morning I heard the girls talking about the tree before they left their bedroom, then again in the living room, and again when they came upstairs. If Cora just catches a glimpse of it she will smile and say, "Pretty Christmas tree."

If you want an explanation: we didn't have time to go up on the mountain to look for a tree, so we went Christmas tree hunting in our front yard. It is a branch off our spruce tree.

As for the rest of our decorations, they aren't very extensive. We do have two two-year-olds in the house so I really don't feel that decorations are very safe. I did decide to decorate our stair railing (it's just so perfect for it that I can't resist). However, I decided not to do the same thing I've done in years past, which is this:
As much as I like the holly, I had too many visions of the girls eating plastic holly berries (maybe because they tried that last year).


So I tried this, instead:

The girls enjoy the stair's "necklaces", as they put it. I think it turned out quite nice.

I have a lot of pictures from Thanksgiving to put up, sometime. But since I like my true, random, procrastinating self to come through in my blog, I thought I'd skip ahead to Christmas and return to Thanksgiving when I get around to it. Who wants things in chronological order, anyway?

Pretty Girls

I was taking pictures of the girls before church one day, when we were all dressed up. I loved how these turned out, especially the one of Ruby.



















Then I decided to play with them a little bit, just for fun:

Oops...

My mom was trying to bribe the kids to stay still for a picture but accidentally spilled M&Ms all over the floor. This was the result:They were pretty still for this picture.

All the grandkids

My parents with all their grandkids. I think a lot of personalities really come out in this photo.

Birthday celebration #1

The girls got to celebrate their second birthday three times. This was the first celebration when we were visiting my parents about a week before their actual birthday.

The Whole Family

This is the first time my whole family has been together since Ray and I got married. Derek was finally able to meet the twins.

Cousins and a dog

Changing diapers

My favorite hairstyle (so far)

I think this is my favorite style I've tried on the girls. I just love the way it turns out and how well it keeps their hair contained. So I thought I'd share.

Playing outside

We've been having an extremely mild November, following a record-cold October.
We've been taking advantage of the nice weather and been getting out as much as possible.

These are just some random, cute photos for you to enjoy.

Playing with Shalon

Ruby and Shalon were looking at the neighbor's cat through the fence. I'm not sure what Cora and Shalon were looking at, but I loved this photo:
They were both giggling away and pointing at something.

She's been watching Daddy

Four Generation Photo

Or would it be five if we count the bunnies?

Lil ran a 10k

Here she comes around the corner, almost done:

She tried to pose for the camera while running:

She made it in an hour, I was impressed.
If you notice the very black clouds in the background, minutes after Lil made it in, it started to pour. The rain was coming down hard AND it was blowing bad. We (Ray's mom and the girls were with me) took refuge under the canopy you can see behind Lil in the last picture. It was semi-effective, aside from the fact that the wind kept blowing it over. Just as the rain started, Ray and his grandma got to the park. They joined us under the canopy. Before the rain started the park was packed with people. It was kind-of entertaining to watch the crowds scatter. The rain only lasted about five minutes, then the sun came out and it was a fairly nice day. But all the people were gone so the line for food was much shorter.

Making the birthday cake

This was how the girls helped.

Gotta see what's going on

We had a tree cut down that was leaning badly over our house. The girls were entranced by the whole procedure. There was no way I was going to let them watch from outside and this was the only window they could see it from. They spent most of the morning standing there.

My children know what horses are for:

The girls have a stick horse. But I removed the stick because I had visions of it breaking many things in my house (you would, too, if you saw the way my girls played with it). But that doesn't stop the girls from riding it:
Since Cora was riding a horse, Ruby had to find one to ride, too:

Rant on the Medical System

My girls are sick. Why are they sick? Because I had to take them to the doctor's office for a WELL BABY checkup. That's right, they were perfectly healthy when we went to see the doctor. Now they are sick.

It's not even because my girls were born during flu season. This particular visit SHOULD have been unnecessary. That is, if the staff at the pediatrician's office had done their job properly.

For those of you who have no children, for the first eighteen months of a child's life they get about a zillion vaccines. Vaccines the day they are born and every couple of months after, at least it feels that way. Every appointment we went to our girls were getting poked. No wonder kids hate doctors.

So, when we scheduled the girls' 18 month appointment we were told they had one vaccine left until they were five. Great, we'd be done with it and not bother with all the well-baby checks that just expose the girls to all sorts of diseases at the doctor's office. Then we arrive at the 18 month appointment. Everything is going great until they say, "Oh, we can't do the vaccine today, it's four days too early." What? How can it be FOUR DAYS too early? Well, it turns out, this vaccine was a booster and it had to be EXACTLY six months or later after the original shot, which they got at their year appointment.

Now on to why I am angry. Did I know this stupid little rule? No. Did anyone bother to tell me this stupid little rule? No. Did the people who knew this bother to check if they were EXACTLY six months after the original shot when THEY set up my appointment? No. If I had known, I would have asked. They did know, they should have checked. So I was angry. Still am, in case you can't tell.

The doctor said not to bother setting up an extra appointment, they could get the booster at their two year appointment. That is why we had to have an appointment this month, when everyone and their dog is getting sick. I'm certain that is where the girls had to have picked this up, we didn't go anywhere else. I haven't even taken them to the grocery store for a while.

Everyone keeps asking if it is the swine flu. I have no idea. I haven't taken them back to the doctor. I figure at this point their immune system would be compromised and they would be more susceptible to something else. They seem to be feeling much better as I write this, I hope that means it's over.

I'm still alive...

I'm quite certain, anyway. I've been intending to update for a long time. I could give you my list of excuses, but I doubt you really want to hear them. Maybe someday soon (please note the utter and complete vagueness with which this sentence begins) I will actually get the pictures off my camera, onto my computer, and from there onto my blog. Maybe I will also do a lot of other things that need done around here.

Meanwhile, I thought I would share with you something I've been trying lately: menu planning. Random? Yes. But it's my blog so I can be as random as I want to.

Maybe I'm the only one out there who, around six o'clock when I should have dinner at least started, if not ready, thinks, "What should we have for dinner today?" Then, two hours later, after I've tried multiple ideas only to discover I don't have the needed ingredients, I throw together some Hamburger Helper and call it good. If so, you don't need to bother reading the rest of this because you are way ahead of me on the dinner thing.

Just this month Lil and I have been trying to create a menu. We work on it one week at a time. I hate creating a menu. It's hard to come with seven meals that I want to make. It seems to take a lot of time (probably because I put it off and moan about it before I finally sit down and do it). HOWEVER, having a menu far outweighs the difficulties of making one. It is so much easier to know what to put on my grocery list. It is wonderful not to have to think of something to make when it's already dinner time. I love knowing that I have all the ingredients on hand for each of the meals on my list. It's much easier to make meals that require some preparation time when I've actually prepared in advance. I have found that I tend to make much healthier meals when I plan ahead than I do when I'm trying to come up with something quick and easy at the last minute. I also make a much larger variety of meals instead of falling back on a few tried and true recipes. It is easier to try a new recipe when I have planned ahead and have all the ingredients I will need.

In other words, it really has been great.

A few tricks that work for me:

• Plan the menu when you are hungry, such as when you have dinner in the oven but haven't eaten yet. It is a lot easier to think of meals when you are hungry.
• Keep a list of meals you know your family will eat and add to it as you find new things you like. This way you can glance through and see what you haven't eaten for a while.
• When making your grocery list, go through your needed ingredients thoroughly. Always make sure you have the ingredients you think you already have. If I am trying a new recipe, I find it handy to list the ingredients on my menu so I don't have to pull the recipe book back out when I'm ready to make my shopping list. (It would probably be smarter to make my shopping list as I make my menu, I'll have to try that.)
  
• If you have room to store some of the canned or frozen goods you use regularly, buy them on sale. Then you only have to buy the fresh or perishable items you need for your menu each week. I usually try to plan at least one meal per week that only requires ingredients I already have on hand. That way, if I don't get to the grocery store immediately I'll still have a meal I can use.
• Don't feel like you have to cook a certain meal on a certain day. I plan seven meals at a time, I buy all the ingredients I need for all seven meals. Then I make whichever one fits into the time I have available or whichever one sounds the best on any given night that week. If something comes up and I don't use one of the meals it just means I only need to plan six meals for the next week.

That's pretty much it. I just thought I'd share since it has been working for me. I always thought it sounded crazy to plan a menu, but I'm really enjoying the effects of it now.

Funny kid stories

This morning when I woke up, Cora was standing next to my bed looking at the family calendar my mom put together. She was saying, "Michael. That's not Michael. Nina. Jon." Perhaps I have corrected her a few too many times.

After lunch Cora was being kind-of ornery. I asked what she needed and she said, "Nap." I was very obliging. After tucking in Cora I walked back into the living room. Ruby was crouched down behind a chair. She peeked over, saw me, and crouched down again. It took me a minute to realize she was hiding from me because she wasn't ready for a nap.

Neither of the girls recognize themselves in pictures. Ruby is absolutely certain when she sees a picture of herself she is looking at Cora. She will argue with me about it. Cora, when looking at a picture of herself, will always say "Ruby", but if I say, "That's Cora", she will change the subject by pointing out some other random object in the photo, such as "Shoes." The funniest part of all of this to me is that they aren't even remotely identical.

Snack Time

Thanks to Cora.

Exercising

I've been trying some stretches that are supposed to help relieve lower back pain. (Don't ask me if they work, I have not been consistent enough to find out.) Anyway, one day as I was stretching, the girls decided to join me. Lil felt the moment needed to be documented.
As you can tell, there wasn't much space, but that didn't bother Ruby:

I only left myself in the last picture so you could see that Cora was trying to stretch her arm up like mine. I also just noticed that we both had map shirts on.

Ray is another year older (although he won't admit it)

For Ray's birthday we went camping. He's been wanting to go camping all summer so it seemed like a pretty good birthday activity. Since it was Labor Day weekend there were a ton of other people who had the same idea, but we still managed to find a cool campsite. Per usual camping mishaps, at least for me, we managed to forget a few things we needed. But I guess that's the fun of camping, you have to make do. The girls had fun. We randomly ran into some friends of ours. It was a good trip.











Ruby's camo hat works pretty good, if she had the rest of the outfit to match, you probably couldn't see her:

Since we were camping I didn't get to Ray's cake until a day late, but I still made one:
Now, if you're looking at this and thinking, "What kind of a cake is that? It just looks like a pile of junk." Well, thank you, that's exactly the look I was going for. If you weren't thinking that, just what did you think I was going for?

And if junk on a cake doesn't make any sense to you at all, go here for a moment and see if you can figure it out.