Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Olivia the artist





Olivia is very artistic.  She loves music.  She loves to dance.  She has zero athletic ability, like her mother and unlike her father.  But she draws the coolest things.  Laney is good a drawing and Savanna is a very good colorer.  For two years old, she tries to stay in the lines, which I think is so amazing.  Anyways.  Olivia has these people and faces she draws that are her signature style.  I thought I would show you.  

I also started taking pictures of my kids artwork and am going to make a disk for each child and there artwork through the years.  I thought that was a good idea, because kids like to know that their artwork is cherished.  And Lord knows I don't have any more room on the walls for artwork.


Monday, March 30, 2009

Pouty faces.

 Faces is a new fun blog I found.  They have a weekly picture contest.  Go check out there blog.  This weeks catagories are pouty kids and pets anything goes.


These are not their real pouty faces, but cute none the less.


My Tulla, we have had her for seven years.

Friday, March 27, 2009

Sleeping babes

I have three kiddos napping, so I thought I would share some sleeping pictures.  I don't usually give my two older kids a nap, so we can put them to bed between 7:30 and 8:00.  I know that sounds crazy because nap time is like heaven to Mommies.  It is to me, too.  But I'd rather them be in bed at 8:00 then 10:00.  We just moved Savanna into the older girls bed at night.  And they have been staying up laughing and playing when they were supposed to be sleeping.  Anyways, yesterday I didn't give Savanna a nap so she would be so tired at night, she wouldn't stay up and play.  She was coloring on the couch next to me, I looked over and found her like this.

This is a real time photo.  The red heads are asleep like this, this very moment.  Aren't they so sweet when their sleeping.  So sweet that it almost erases all the crazy things they have already done this morning.  These two are know for their knock down, drag out fights.  One major fight this morning and several little ones through the afternoon.  But not now, it's all peacefulness.  My lovely sleeping red heads.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Imagination

There are times in our house when everyone gets along.  When the girls decide it's much more fun to play than to fight and argue.  These times make me a very happy Mom.  Now that Savanna is approaching 3, she is starting to get along better with her older sisters.  Addison plays sometimes, but she mostly likes to hang out with me all day.  I love the kinds of things they come up with.  They have amazing imaginations. 


Here they are playing school.  This was a few days ago.  Laney was the teacher and the other two were the students.  They were saying adorable things like, "Quite please, I'm taking names." And, "Is it music time, No music time is tomorrow."  They also took turns being the teacher.  I was surprised that even Savanna played along.
 
Here they were playing restaurant.  It took me an hour to curl her hair with a curling iron.  She's always asking for curly hair like Olivia.  The curls have already fallen out.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Dancing Queens

My girls have some serious mad dancing skills, that they got from their Mama.   We love Mama Mia and dance and sing to the soundtrack all the time.  The music they are dancing to is coming from our bedroom window and is hard to hear on the video.  Please ignore the neighbor noise in the background.   

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Citrus, Cranberry, yogurt muffins


A couple of weeks ago I made this super yummy yogurt cake from Pioneer woman.  You have to make it, it was so yummy.  It was very moist because of the yogurt.  So I tried using yogurt in some of my recipes.  I was going to make banana muffins, but my bananas were a little too over ripened.  Here's the recipe I ended up with.  Please make these muffins, they are so yummy.

Ingredients:
1 Cup of plain yogurt
1 tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 tablespoon orange zest
1/4 cup of vegetable oil
1 large egg
2 cups of flour
1/2 cup of sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of halved cranberries or craisins (I highly recommend the fresh cranberries)

Ingredients for the icing:
1/2 cup powered sugar
4 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice


1. Heat the oven to 400 degrees.  Spray 12 cup muffin pan.

2. Mix yogurt, orange zest, and lemon juice.  

3. Beat yogurt mix, oil and egg with a wire whisk.

4. Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. (I don't have a sifter, so I just mix those ingredients with a wire whisk.)

5. Mix the flour mixture into the yogurt mixture.  Just stir until the flour is moistened. 

6. Divide batter among muffin cups.  (I use a ice cream scoop for even muffins.)  Bake for 20-22 minutes.

7. While the muffins are cooling.  Add the lemon juice to the powdered sugar.  This makes a thin icing to drizzle over the top of the muffins.  So if yours turns out too thin, add more sugar.  And if it's too thick, add more lemon juice.  (This icing is very lemony. so if you don't like a lot of lemon, add two tablespoons of lemon juice and 2 tablespoons of water or milk.)

8. While the muffins are still warm, drizzle icing over the top and serve warm or let them cool.


Now, I used orange zest from a cutie orange and I highly suggest using a fresh regular orange.  That was all I had on hand that day.  Make sure you mix the yogurt, orange zest and lemon juice together, before you add the oil and eggs.

This is what the yogurt mixture looks like after you add the oil and egg.
 
This is what the flour mixture looks like after being whisked with the wire whisk!

Mix the flour mixture into the yogurt mixture.

These cranberries were frozen and I took them out to thaw, while I was mixing the other ingredients.  I got a big bag of cranberries at Costco around Thanksgiving and put them in the freezer.  You can buy frozen cranberries at the store and let them thaw.

If you don't like big chunks you could cut these into fourths.





This is how you make the icing.

The finished product.  

Monday, March 23, 2009

You would think it's summer around here!

The ice cream truck stopped by, and I couldn't say no.

Strawberry

Chocolate

Chocolate

Strawberry




Her Daddy,...

told her, she...

runs like a girl!

Can you believe we already turned on the sprinklers in March?



All of these next pictures, Josh took!  Maybe we will be starting a family photography business.





Is it summer or spring?


Saturday, March 21, 2009

Mini photo shoot











I got some backgrounds at a fabric store and was testing them on the willing children in my house.  Olivia wasn't willing so she isn't in any of these.  I was trying to get a good one of the brunettes, because I have a cute one of the red heads.  Don't Addy Mae's eyes just melt your heart?  They do mine.  I can't get enough of those big brown eyes.  She gets away with a lot.  I'm so blessed to have two blue eyed girls and two brown eyed girls.  Savanna is always, always messy.