a little 'hung up'.

This just happened a few minutes ago and I thought it was too funny not to share!!

I was busy inside while the boys were outside when I heard "Mom!! Help!! We're under here!!"

I go outside, look under the camper to find this....



Caedmon's pants are stuck on a screw.

And being the cruel mom that I am, I laughed and then went back inside to get the camera and took a couple pictures before helping him down.



I think that'll teach 'em not to play under the camper....but then again, maybe not.

tub or tote.

Who needs a bathtub when you have a tote that you can stick in the shower?!

Well, to be honest, I would choose the tub over the tote but in our current living situation that just isn't an option, so we just make do!


On to another subject...

Nathan and I went on a 6 HOUR DATE....CHILDLESS!!!! WHOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
How exactly did we pull that off?? Well, a HUGE thanks to Nathan's sister Sarah and family who willingly watched ALL 4 KIDS on Saturday (Nathan was off work bc of the rain). We enjoyed lunch at Olive Garden and time to just stroll the mall and different stores without getting the kids in and out of carseats 36 times! It was SO great and SO greatly needed!! It has been since before Ariella was born that we've gone out without the kids, and she's 13 months old....so it was time!!

On to another subject...

I haven't been posting as much as I've been thinking about it because in any "spare" time that I might get, I've been working fervurously to perfect some recipes! So far in the past few days I have mastered my own chocolate graham crackers, tortillas (& tortilla chips!), bbq sauce, butter, and I've been testing/adding/testing/adding to my ketchup! Once I figure it out, I'll be sure to share!

Gma & Gpa

Here are a few more pics of our time with my parents...

At the park...


Showing Gpa the horses...




Shoppin' with Gma...


Waitin' in the car for Gma and Gpa to board their plane...


Waving to Gma and Gpa as they walk to their plane...


**It was 92 degrees out at the airport when I dropped them off. They said it was 45 in MN when they arrived back home...quite the change in temps for them!!**

all in a day's work wash.

Have I ever said that I cannot wait for the day that I have at least one child that is not in a car seat?!

Fun (or not so fun) Fact: When I go to church on Sunday and have to make a quick stop at Target to pick up some diapers and the grocery store to grab a thing or two, I have to load and unload children from carseats a whoppin' 32 times! Whew!

warning.

I just had to share this information with everyone. Please take a few mins and read this article! You will be amazed at the damaging effects of this extremely common ingredient! This is one reason why my husband and I have chose to try as hard as we can to virtually eliminate all packaged, processed, & bottled food from our diet. Yes its a lot of work and takes some planning making everything from whole foods and from unprocessed ingredients but i think our health & the health of our children are worth it!!!

You dont even need to watch the video, just pause it if it starts automatically & just read the article- you might not be the same again!

Click here or copy and paste link into your browser

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/04/20/sugar-dangers.aspx

ranch dressing.

(two posts in one day...you've got to be kidding me?!? :)....But I just HAD to share this recipe!!!!)

So since I was making this for supper....

(which, by the way, was loaded with baby romaine, cucumbers, tomatoes, green peppers, carrots, cheese, turkey, and hard boiled eggs!...SO yummy!)

...I needed to have dressing for it, right?! Well, I didn't have any since I can't seem to find the exact flavor that I like in the store. Through our journey to healthier eating, I've come to realize that the typical salad dressing is loaded with junk...high fructose corn syrup, MSG, sugar, and tons of other additives and preservatives...so if I needed to get dressing in the past I usually opted for the organic kind, knowing at least it wouldn't any of that stuff in it....but I still was never truly happy with one, especially ranch.

That's when I found this....a recipe for homemade ranch dressing! I didn't need the amount that it made so I made a little less, and it turned out perfect!

It is SO simple and SO easy and SO fast....and OH SO GOOD! You HAVE to try it! It tastes so FRESH and PURE!

To be honest, I didn't think that it would really taste like ranch since there isn't that much to it, but to my wonderful surprise, it did! We topped our salads tonight with it and we couldn't believe how awesome it was!

So here's what I did!!.....

2 Tablespoons dried minced onions
3 teaspoons parskey flakes
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix together and store in am air tight container. Label and keep by your spices. (You can use this some of this mix for anything that calls for a package of dry ranch mix!...no more buying those and getting all the added 'icky' ingredients! Plus, it's pennies compared to store bought packages!

When you are ready to make the dressing: Mix 1 Tablespoon of the dry mix with 1/2 cup mayo (I use Hain Safflower mayo) and 1/2 buttermilk. (I actually had real buttermilk on hand since I made butter yesterday, but you could take a 1/2 cup milk and add 1/2 T lemon juice and let it sit for 5 mins. Or you could just use milk, even easier :)

I mixed mine in a bowl and the poured it into a small glass jar. Once I was ready to use it, I gave it a good stir and added it to my salad....DELICIOUS!



You might want to mix it up a couple hours before you plan on using it, just to the ingredients have a chance to blend nicely. ENJOY!

easter sunday.

Easter Sunday was a nice relaxing day spent with family.

After church in the morning, we made it out to Nathan's sister's house for a wonderful dinner and some relaxing in the awesome weather! Some of us jumped on the trampoline, swung on the swings, played with soccer balls, took naps, watched a movie, ate yummy food, and some of us even went geo-caching (with no luck!). Here are some pictures of the day.

My family before church...


Can you fit any more 'big' people on the trampoline?!


Little kids loved the balls...


Ariella and Gma naped on the deck...


Me and Nathan after a great day...

the rest of dc.

Once we got back to the parking garage, we decided to walk with Naomi back to her apartment since it was only a couple blocks away.

She has a cute little (about 300 sq ft) studio apartment on the 5th floor of a big complex with a great view of the pool. We rested a few mins and decided to try to walk back to the garage without Naomi. We did it and didn't even get lost!!

Naomi gave us directions on how to get out of DC and back onto the major hwy we needed to take to get back home. My dad obviously paid more attention to the directions and even looked at the map before we left (cheater! :)

Once we left the garage, we waited for dad to follow so we could stay together. We made it through the next light. He didn't. We got seperated. Thank God!! We missed our turn and ended up going over the bridge and back into the heart of DC. I quickly called Naomi and asked how to get out of here! She just said we needed to figure out how to turn around. Yeah. Easier said than done! Tons of traffic. Tons of one-ways. But we managed to turn around in a pretty short time period. But then Nathan exited off on a road we thought was going back over the bridge...nope...it wasn't. Ok, so now we are on a different road.

But it turned out okay since my GPS said we were on the road that we were trying to get onto in the first place. But then the GPS said to exit off. We did. Now we are back by Naomi's apartment, knowing NOTHING about where we are. We pulled over, called Naomi and she came to rescue us! She drove ahead of us and we followed her out of where we were and got us on the hwy.

I called my mom and told her that we just got onto the hwy and she couldn't believe it. I was just SO thankful that they missed that light and didn't follow us. That would have been horrible!

So anyway, we made it out of DC and back home. We just aren't in that big of hurry to make it back there anytime soon :)

walkin' thru dc.

So after checking out the insanely busy cherry blossoms, we walked around checking out the monuments and memorials. With all the people and having the kids with, along with not wanting to spend all day in DC, we did not go into any museums. It was enough for us to walk by, take a picture, and keep walking...although Nathan and I would like to see some of the Smithsonian's inside, but maybe we'll save that for another day...or seeing how often we got lost...maybe not!

First up....the Washington monument. You can see this pretty much anywhere you are in DC, seeing how it stands an incredible 555ft tall!



Just look at ALL THOSE PEOPLE!!!!!!....yuck! :)


After that we just followed where Naomi lead us :) Next up was the WWII memorial...


Then it was over to the Reflection pond and the Lincoln momument. Nathan, Dad, and Tiernan ran up all the stairs and fought all the people to get a upclose shot of Lincoln. Us ladies and the little kids waited on a bench...to me, that was better than seeing Lincoln :)






Then through the sea of people, we were able to walk along the Vietnam wall memorial that has remembered all the people who died during the war by engraving their name on the wall.



Brayan had enough site-seeing...



We continued walking over to see the White House. Nathan really couldn't have cared less to see the White House but I told him to think of it as if we were going to see Ronald Reagan's old house, and then he was okay with it :) As we walked down the sidewalk in front of the White House, the police were clearing everybody off the sidewalk and road in a hurry "Keep moving! Keep moving!" they were yelling at everyone. So we had to back-track across the road in order to get a good view. There were so many people though that it was kinda difficult to enjoy any view because you needed to keep moving or you'd hold up all the traffic. They were setting up the annual Easter Egg hunt on the lawn of the White House though so that was neat.

Who said that this is only a DOUBLE stroller anyway?!?



After the White House we found a quick bite to eat at a vendor, found a spot on some grass, and scarfed down lunch! It was about 2:00 by this time and we were starving! The weather was still gorgeous! I don't think you could have asked for better weather. Not too hot, not too cold...sunny and just perfect!!



That was all of our DC tour. We found our way back to the metro and rode it back to the one by Naomi's apartment.

This escalator was SOOOOO scary! It is the longest one on the metro system and it's SO steep! I didn't even think they made them this steep! The picture doesn't show exactly how steep it was but I couldn't even look UP it was that scary! Why was it so long? Well prob b/c that metro that we just rode on took us under the river...kinda creepy, I know!



Oh, but more 'fun' was about to continue...

cherry blossoms.

Well Saturday brought a trip to DC. I'll have to break the day up into a few posts I think bc we did a lot and a lot happened....ie) got lost going into DC, got lost coming out of DC....ahem....

So we left about 9am bound for a parking garage in DC where Nathan's sister Naomi was going to meet us. She lives just a couple blocks from the garage and knows her way around so we needed her for the day to be our guide!! Well, the fun started when I looked at my directions and told nathan to turn right...only to find out that the road we needed to turn on was a one way and all I saw was a bunch of cars facing us....AHHH....not good! I called Naomi in a hurry and she said turn left but the prob was we were in the right lane in 3 lanes of traffic! So we did an illegal turn, all while trying to explain to my dad who's behind us what he needs to do to follow us. We got seperated and had no idea where we were going so we pulled over where we were and Dad pulled over where he was and we just waited for Naomi to come save us!

She found us, jumped in our car, and lead us to the garage. Once we were parked, she ran off to find my dad and lead him there as well. Yay! We were all together again!!..and parked, even better! From there we walked to the metro and took the subway to the heart of the DC mall. Taking the metro was an adventure itself. Naomi said to walk to the front bc there's not as many people on the ends. Well the first train pulled up and it was PACKED, and I mean PACKED. There was hardly enough room for one person to squeeze on, much less 5 adults and 4 kids with a double stroller! So we decided to wait for the next one and hope it was a little more cleared out. Thankfully it was! But when it was time to get off, the doors didn't open for a few minutes and it wasn't until we got off that we realized why. One of the main escalators was broken! Crowds and crowds of people all funnel through one set of escalators to get up to ground level. I was super glad to come to the surface....tons of people + underground + crammed spaces = enough to make me clausterphobic!

We talked about what we wanted to see during the day and decided to start off with the cherry blossoms. It was a beautiful sight but the chaos of the crowds, limited walking space with a double stroller plus keeping track of a 3 and 5 yr old were about enough to keep us away. Nathan and I are not ones who like big cities...at all. We hate crowds. So going to see the cherry blossoms in bloom in the capitol of the United States probably wasn't the best idea we've ever had.

Gorgeous view.....


People everywhere!



But now we can say we've 'been there, done that' and from now on we'll just enjoy the cherry trees we see in peoples' yards around here :)

picture perfect day.

Wow! What a busy, fun-filled weekend!!! I can't believe it's been a week since I posted on here (sorry!) but with activities going on everyday, we hardly had time to sleep!

My parents arrived in Virginia right on time and I picked them up at the airport at about 11:15pm last Thursday. Their flights went well and they were ready for bed!

The day started on Friday with the boys begging Grandma to play baseball with them outside. After that, Nathan, Tiernan and my dad went hiking in a park while the little kids, my mom and I went walking down by the horses.


Gma walking with Caemdon back from the farm.



The guys hiking...




Once they got back, it was relaxing outside time....well, until my dad had to save Brayan from drowning in the pond.... Imagine my surprise when Tiernan comes running up to me just a few mins after the men took the boys to go look at the pond here in the campground and says "You're not going to believe it!...Brayan just fell into the water!" uh...what?!?

That's when we looked over and saw my dad ::wet:: walking next to Nathan ::half wet:: holding Brayan ::soaked::. Apparently the boys were on the dock and somehow Brayan fell off (Tiernan said he was trying to reach a lily pad) and since my dad was the closest, he went into reach him, but not without getting wet and scraping up his knee. But after all was said and done, everyone made it out safe, although dad was still complaining a little yesterday about his battle wounds :) Thanks Dad for saving my child...even though you scraped your knee!


We ended the evening with a picnic outside, complete with roasting hot dogs over the fire and smores for dessert!! Perfect day!!