hoppy easter

Since Jason seems to think our house and yard should be highly comparable to a petting zoo, we have lots of pets. (Very much Jason's idea.)

We have our dog, Maggie. Since last September we have our kitty, Cowboy. Since last May we have had bunnies, Berdi and Benji. Most recently we acquired a loppy named Louis. But before him we had a bunny named Chester for a while. The short time we had Chester, Jason let him have a sleepover with Berdi (the female) for a night. Well, about a month later (yes, rabbits are only pregnant for a month) we doubled our rabbit population.

We found 6 baby bunnies in with the mama... but sadly one died.

But the 5 that survived, well, they are just so stinkin' cute! We let them out to get a little exercise yesterday. Have a little look-see:


The mother is a lion-head, which means she has extra fur around her head and neck. 3 of them have the extra fur and 2 do not. (We actually can't tell two different pairs apart. :) Bunnies don't make it easy when they have the same coloring and length of hair.)

This is the only gray one, he's one of the lion heads:


This one is one of the twin lion heads:


And here is one of the twin non-lion-heads:


All nice and cozy in their travel-to-the-play-area-box:


Just chillin' in their hutch:



With 3 adult rabbits, and 5 baby bunnies, we decided to keep the male and female separate for a while.

But one day in March, we decided to let 2 of the adults get some much needed exercise after a winter of being stuck in a cage. I literally followed them around and kicked off the male any time he got near to the female, because he wasn't exactly behaving himself.....

I'm pretty sure all rabbits need is about 4 seconds to get the job done....

Because on Sunday, Jason found this in the female's cage:


Ha! More babies! (And the five bigger ones were still with her, so there were a lot of bunnies all hanging out together... so we decided it was time to separate them.)

The funny thing is.... I thought the first batch of 6 was big.

Now there are 9. Yes, I said 9! Who has 9 babies! Especially after a 4 second moment!! Only a rabbit. Only a rabbit.

So, yes, if you're doing the math: We now own 17 rabbits. I really hope that people think Easter time means you need to get your kid a rabbit... cuz we have about 6 or 7 that can leave at any time now.

Any takers?

the goings ons arounds here

With Spring coming on, I love to see the flowers coming back. I never seem to remember what I planted the previous year, so I was happy to see these pretty purples come back this year.


And even more happy that they survived this from last weekend:



I guess we jumped the gun on returning the patio furniture to the deck. And that's not where we put them... the wind was pretty strong and moved everything around. I guess we're just lucky the canopy is still intact...



And here are a few pictures from March.

We went to the duck pond one day to feed the ducks and fish and have a picnic. (That was the same weekend my parents had a blizzard at home in North Dakota... weather is a strange thing!)




And isn't it funny how natural it is for kids to put olives on all their fingers? I love it.

And I'm glad it makes them so happy too!

pay it forward

I just love things like this. As I am so excited to receive something from my awesome friend, Heidi, I also look forward to making a few handmade things of my own...

(I can't promise how quick I'll get to it... hopefully before baby comes along and takes up all my time....)

the little jelly bean

Last week I went in for my (hopefully) last ultrasound. My doctor was a little concerned since I was measuring small. So I was anxious to do the ultrasound to make sure she was growing and developing alright.

(At this point you should roughly measure the same amount of cm as you are weeks along. At 31 weeks, I measured 27 cm and at 32 weeks I measured 29 cm.)

The ultrasound definitely put me at ease. She's approximately 5 lbs 2 oz, which for her gestational age, puts her in the 80th percentile. Go figure... how can a kid that big on the charts make me measure small? She must really be packed in there! The amount of kicking and punching she does to me tells me she'd like more room.... sorry baby!

This is a picture of her profile. You can see her little nose towards the upper middle. And her hands are above her face to the top left.

Lady Cook Day

Every so often (maybe once a year or so) the Cook ladies (my mom-in-law and all her daughters and daughters-in-law) get together for a fun filled evening. This time we made it a fun filled day... which was exactly what I needed!

We started the day at JoAnn Fabric to pick out fabric to make a few baby quilts. There are three of us pregnant right now, so it seemed like a fun activity to do as sisters.


Then we went out to lunch, (on Mom's tab since she's awesome! Thanks Mom!)

Yeah, what better place for lunch than this beautiful little restaurant!!


Then we went to my in-laws' house to get to work on the blankets. And of course we talked and talked and talked the whole time!!

We had a delicious salad for dinner, then topped off the evening with some chocolate/white chocolate/caramel dipping.... YUMMM!

We dipped all sorts of yumminess: strawberries, bananas, apples, marshmallows, cinnamon bears, pretzels, Ritz crackers, Rice Krispy Treats and I'm sure there was more that I'm forgetting....

Then we went back to work on the quilts. And thanks to Jason's sister, Holly, (who apparently loves me so much!!) we finished the one we were making for my little one. (Holly was the only one confident enough to sew with the different types of fabric involved with mine!) So I'm glad she was willing to stay up until 12:30 AM with me to finish it!! (She flew in from CA so I knew if we didn't finish it that night... it might never get done!) She did an awesome job!!

Shelly, Jason's little sister who is due 2 weeks before me, got most of her blanket done, she just needs to put the front and back together... and it is super cute too!!

I feel so blessed to have such awesome sisters-in-law... and they are all so creative too! It was so fun to put all our ideas together and come up with some cute stuff. I would never have come up with the design or combination of fabrics on my own, that's for sure! (Thanks Jenny for the awesome design!)

So, since I know you're just dying to see what my baby's first quilt looks like, here it is!



The main part is a "beautiful little princess" that "lived in an enchanted castle."

And on the back is the soft and comfy raised dot minky fabric....


I totally love it and I had so much fun being together with all the girls to pick it out and make it.

It was worth not getting home until 1 am... and being completely exhausted the entire next day!

lil notebooks

Sometime ago for a Relief Society activity I learned how to make new notebooks with old stuff. I made a Lightning McQueen one for Sam and he loves it.... and so does Livia.... so that's why I decided it was time to make more.

They are great for having in church to keep the kids (mostly) quiet, so I thought I'd share the process in case you wanted to make some for your little angels.

Items needed:
A box
Scratch paper
Thread or string
Clamps
Electric drill

First find a box and cut off the front and the back. Some box ideas are fruit snacks, crackers, or cereal. (For a cereal box just cut to the correct size.)


Next find plenty of scratch paper and fold in half (with the used side inside) and put the folded edge on the right side of the new cover. (So the open edge will be in the binding.) And clamp it with clips.


Then mark where the holes need to be drilled and take the edge of a scissors to make a slight cut for the book to open without hurting the binding.

Using an electric drill, make the holes down the left side, making sure to get it all the way through all the pages and back cover.


Take some string or thick thread (I doubled mine) and start the first half of a criss-cross bind. Make sure to keep it tight so it doesn't get too loose when you're done.


Then start the other half of the criss-cross going back down.


And tie off the two loose ends.


And ta-da! You have a new little book with a happy little cover!


And a happy little girl who loves Ariel!


They also work great for stickers... since all kids think they need to pull off every sticker they find and stick it somewhere....

Little happenings at home

The time has come for Livia to move out of the crib and into a big girl bed. I have been looking for months for the perfect solution at a price I could handle.

And we finally decided to go with twin over full bunk beds. Sam and Liv will share a room until the baby is big enough to share a room with Livia.

So this:

+ 6 1/2 grueling hours

+ one 4 year old "assistant"

brings us to this:

(2 happy and excited children) Sam praised me for doing such an awesome job the whole time I was assembling the beds.


And a few random tidbits of our last couple of days:

With church at 1:00, sometimes Livi doesn't get a pre-church nap. Those days can be rough... for her and us. And possibly the nursery leaders as well....

Well, yesterday was one of those days. So after about 4 or 5 timeouts during Sacrament Meeting, I gave her the option of taking a nap in Mommy's Sunday School or going to Nursery. She perked right up and opted for Nursery.

But she truly was exhausted after church. Dinner time rolled around and after 2 timeouts she finally decided to 'be nice' and sit down and eat.... well, at least she sat down. With a nice little glazed over look in her eyes.

Hence this:

Yes, she really is sleeping. We were worried about her falling off the chair so I finished dinner and took her into the living room and she slept on me for 15-20 minutes before I tried to wake her up. She kept trying to go back to sleep so I asked her if she wanted to eat dinner or go get in bed. She wanted bed. I thought she would wake up enough as I changed her diaper and put her PJs on, but no, as soon as I got her close to her bed, she crawled right up to her pillow and blanket and went right to sleep... at 6:30. And slept til 7:30 am.

We like 13 hour naps.


Last week, Livia's little neighbor friend, Jameson, was over playing and they got a hold of the uno cards and two packs of flash cards. As you can see, they were ankle deep in their learning...



And then there's Cowboy.... this cat can sleep anywhere! This is where he took his Sunday evening nap. We even closed the lid to see what he would do... nada. Just kept dozin' away. We thought about turning on the water to see what he would do, but decided that's just plain mean.

At least he's not in the way.

And today.... guess who picked her own clothes....
Oh, well, she'll most likely get some sort of fashion sense before too long. At least she's dressed and having fun with something girlie.

Wait, never mind. She's now moved onto Chick Hicks and the King cars. She really needs a little sister....

little science guy

This morning Sam came down after watching some cartoons and the following conversation took place:

Sam: Do you know what inertia means?
Mom: What does inertia mean?
Sam: It's if you are buckled in, you don't keep moving forward!


At least he's learning something from watching PBS! I think I was about 20 before I understood the concept of inertia...

acknivities....

In my recent attempt to stop being a lame-o mommy, I've been trying to do some sort of activity every day with the kids.

Problem... I'm not that creative.

We did have a pretty good week last week, and we went to the park for 2 hours today, so I'm feeling ok about my latest success. But I am almost out of new ideas already.

So here's your assignment! Share some activities/crafts/treats you do with your kids that I can copy! (And keep in mind I am typically car-less during the day.... not much leaving-the-house-other-than-prego-walking-distance going on here.)

Here's a little summary of last week, in case you're interested:

On Sunday we baked some chocolate cupcakes for daddy.



Of course they only liked the batter and the frosting.

Then we made froot loop necklaces.

Oh wait, I mean I made them and the kids ate them. (Ok, Sam did about half of his.)

Here we did some outside playing since the sun was mostly shining.


One day we made chocolate worm cookies.



I didn't want to open the white frosting, hence the demon-eyed worms.


They can be so sweet when they get along. Here is Sam "reading" books to Liv.


And they love to color. The whole book sharing thing is quite new though...


I will say, I have seen a big improvement in their behavior and my attitude since focusing more on the quality time issue... which is why I want to continue.

So please help me with more ideas!!

looking back at 2010

Here's our summary of 2010 according to our 2010 family scrapbook pages that my family does every year.

macey's makes me happy

I love bargains, so every week I look through the grocery store sale ads hoping to find an awesome sale with very little effort on my part. (Couponing sounds awesome, but way too much work.)

For the last several weeks the Macey's ad has had a recipe for a crock pot meal for a family of 6 that costs only $14. All of the recipes look delicious, and I'm a super big fan of the whole crock pot idea, so I clip it out and pile it on the bakers rack. (Then Jason 'cleans up' and throws it away.)

This week the recipe is for Pork Barbacoa. Yeah... that sounds super yummy. So I thought I would put it on my menu and hope I remember to buy the pork before Sunday.


Today I needed to make a quick run to the store for dinner tonight and they had samples. (Also pathetically a super fan of samples!) I asked if it was the recipe from the ad... which it was, so I decided to get the pork that she pointed out to me.

It was then she told me that she had a bag prepared with almost all the stuff that I would need to make it. I then realized that the $14 wasn't just an estimate of about how much it would cost... they put the bags together with the majority of the supplies and you buy the bag for exactly $14.


So I bought all this for just $14:


Considering the pork was over $15 by itself.... I think I got myself a screaming deal! I figure it would have cost just under $30 to buy all of these items individually.

And since my family is small, this will provide 2-3 meals for us.

And yes, they do this every week with a new recipe. Next week is spare ribs. I think I found an easy way to plan our Sunday dinners for a while!

Here's the recipe if you want to make it... or better yet, go to Macey's and get it for $14!

the wonder of color wonder

May I just say that Color Wonder truly is a wonderful thing!

Santa brought a princess one for Liv and a Cars one for Sam. At first I was a little uptight about it since they are more expensive than regular markers and coloring books. But I recently decided that I have to keep in mind they are 2 and 4... so who cares!


They LOVE to color, both with crayons and their 'special' markers. It is one thing they actually do pretty well together... they realized pretty quick if they combine their markers they have twice as many colors to choose from!

And it now occupies about 25% of their free time... giving me that much more as well! Money well spent Santa!

And I don't even have to make them wear something over their clothes....