Chloë's 2nd birthday dinner

Tonight we had the Miners over for a birthday dinner for Spencer and Chloë.

Olivia helped me make their cake. Sorry Spencer for the My Little Pony theme!

Chloë loved all her gifts. Thank you everyone!

She will be the perfect little housewife.

Oakland Zoo

We had a great time at the Zoo today. We have been meaning to go with Casey and his family, but things kept coming up.
Daniel took this picture. He thinks National Geographic is going to call him for his proofs! I thought the fence in the foreground would be a give-away that he is a novice, but we will be waiting on pins and needles to see!!

Our first stop was the giraffes and ducks. It turns out, the ducks were Sam's favorite animal at the Zoo.

Sam was so proud that he was taller than dad.

This is a small Zoo, but we did not get around to all the animals. The kids got some great views of the animals. I liked the elephants. We saw them snacking on old Christmas trees. They broke them like they were toothpicks. Very impressive.

Chloë always makes this face when she is being silly or excited.

After the Zoo we let the kids go on a few rides. The train ride was a favorite for everyone!

Joy School

Sam is doing Joy School for preschool, which is a wonderful program in my opinion. He has 7 kids in his class. The curriculum is very good at teaching values and life skills to the kids at such a young age.

This week was my turn to teach the kids. Our lessons were about curiosity. We spent the entire time doing little science experiments,
i.e., magnets, floating objects, friction, tasting things, balloon flying around when air is let out, food coloring in water, and lemon (yellow) jello with blue ice cubes to make green.

cut cornea

While Olivia was at school today, she cut the cornea of her eye with a piece of paper. She was very strong all day, not crying. At one point (2 different times) the doctors put a florescent yellow drop in her eye then held a blue light up to it to see the scratch. Then her nose was running yellow fluid! Finally, we ended up with an antibiotic ointment to use in case of an infection.

This was the amazing part. At night Olivia would remind me to put the ointment in her eye. So she would voluntarily lay down and hold her own eye open while I squeezed the medicine tube. She would let me know if her vision was blurry, which meant I put enough medicine in her eye. Then she would say, "Thanks mom" as she sat up!! This just blew me away! I love her.

Chloë's 2 years old

Dory gave Chloë her first birthday gift. A family of my little ponys.

She loves them!

Here she is at 2 years old!

Quick Fish

24 crushed Ritz crackers
2 teasp dill or parsley
1/4 cup mayo
1 Tabl Dijon mustard
1 Tabl lemon juice
fish


or

24 crushed Ritz crackers
2 teasp parsley
1/4 cup mayo
2 Tabl horseradish
2 Tabl rinsed capers
1 minced garlic clove
fish

why I love california

Some say it is Global Warming, (Don't get Daniel started, or you will have a lecture that will last until the ice age comes again!) but I say it is just wonderful California Weather!

We decided to take advantage of this beautiful weather and go to the park and read. Daniel and I just started, and are almost finished with the Twilight series (over 2000 pages read in 20 days). We are a few years behind the real bandwagon, but we are on it! They are fun books to read, we can hardly put them down. Yes, we are neglecting our children. But what better way to neglect them than at the park. The first park we went to was so crowded we could not leave our kids to play b/c they would get lost among all the other kids. So we went to a smaller park close to home. There we sat in the sun and Daniel read to me. Olivia came over for a rest then went back to play.



Chloë loves her zebra. Sam was playing with the tricycle.

Silly Sam

Tonight Sam wanted me to take a few pictures of him.

This is his neato space craft that can fly frontwards and backwards.
Very quickly he is getting good at making Lego space/air crafts.

And this was him after a yummy cookie. That's a chocolate chip mustache. Remind you of anyone. . . ??

One Chrismas gift

I did get the kids one gift. I have been very good about not letting Sam and Liv play with toys that could end up choking Chloë or Loula. But I really felt it was time for the older kids to have Legos. They are good for their brains and imagination. So I did it; I bought a box of Legos.

Sam and Livvie loved them. It was a great gift, until. . . .

After playing with the Legos for a few hours, Daniel decided to take the kids to the park. On the way there Chloë fell. Daniel picked her up and noticed something. A Lego was stuck up her nose!! Yes- she stole (I thought the pirate shirt was appropriate for this posting) a Lego and, well, the rest is history. Daniel brought them home right away. He held Chloë down and I got the Lego out.
That was a few days ago. I guess she learned her lesson. Plus we don't let her in the kitchen when the kids are playing with the Legos. That was the rule anyway when Sam and Liv got the Legos, but now they obey the rule!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1,1/2 cups flour
1/2 teasp baking powder
1/2 teasp salt
16 TBl unsalted butter soften
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs- room temp
3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1,1/2 cups chocolate chips

Preheat oven 325. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in bowl.
Beat butter and sugars in large bowl 3-6 minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, scraping down sides. Slowly stir in flour mixture until combines, 30 seconds. Mix in oats and chips.

1/4 cup of dough spaced 2,1/2 inches apart makes the best cookies. Bake till center is soft and puffy. 22-25 minutes. error on the side of under cooked!

Side Trip

Tony and his family just moved to Grants Pass, OR last month. We decided to take a detour and visit them. We met them for dinner and had a tour of his new office. He bought a Chiropractic practice therr last month. We had a great visit.

Christmas Day

Christmas morning was lovely. Santa did a good job hiding the kids' stockings. It took the kids awhile to find all the stockings.

Barbie and Mike opened their gift (a Meyer lemon tree-they have to pick it up in Phoenix).

The kids arm-wrestled and played a stick game while the grown-ups relaxed.


Then we all got ready to play. We decided not to go skiing because the weather was horrible. The older kids went tubing with Grandpa Mike, Mike W., Todd, and Andrea. The younger kids went ice skating. We had a wonderful time. Despite the blizzard on Mount Bachelor, it was sunny and crisp as we ice skated. I even took Chloë in her shoes on the ice.

Since the bad weather from Monday's ski day did not bother Olivia, I did give Olivia the choice between skiing with Dad and I or ice skating. She chose ice skating. Olivia was very determined from the minute she got on the ice that she was going to do this. She was all smiles, even when she fell. She quickly jumped up like nothing had happened! Grandpa Mike said her determination was very obvious, and a great quality to have!

Sam also loved ice skating. But he soon learned how much MORE fun it was when I pushed him around the ice rink. He laughed and smiled. It was fun for both of us. I am grateful my sisters and mom were there to help with the kids so I could have time with all of them.

Daniel has hardly ever worked overtime. I can only think of about 2 or 3 nights he has stayed passed 6pm. But this month he has been working on a case which is very different than his normal patent prosecution work. Unfortunately, he had to work while we went ice skating and played in the snow.

Silly girls!


It looked like everyone had fun tubing. We will go when the kids get older!

I don't think Chase gets much happier than this!!

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, we had our traditional Nativity dramatization from Luke 2 and 3 Nephi.

Here is Chase as Samuel the Lamanite on the wall. See the arrows NOT hit him.

Sam and Seth are throwing arrows (tin foil balls at 'Samuel the Lamanite')

Loula was baby Jesus.

Chloë was an angel along with Kira and Olivia.

Here are the actors.

I can ice skate

Here goes Olivia!

my ski day

By Sunday I was totally sick with a sinus infection. I could hardly breath. It was no fun. At least the rest of me did not feel bad. Monday (yesterday) I started taking medicine and rested in the lodge with Todd and my mom while the others went skiing.

I went snowboarding for a half a day during the winter Olympics in 2002. But other than that it has been over 10 years since I skied/snowboarded. So I was so determined to go skiing today even if I was sick. I went skiing with my dad, while Daniel stayed home to work. I had a great time. I bought all the right gear, so I was not cold at all despite the blizzard.

The visibility was only 3 chairs in front of us on the lift. The mountain was covered with think new powder. Evey time my dad and I tried to make a smart decision, we got into more trouble.

At one point we were tree skiing-- meaning we were lost in the trees with no people in sight making our own ski tracks. I was sure we were not too lost. It was only really bad when my dad ran into a tree and lost his ski. We found it and continued.
Twice a young skier came whizzing by to let us know we were still near the ski runs! Anyway, we eventually side stepped up a mountain and back onto a run!!
We were exhausted, so we went back to the lodge to share our adventure and get some food.

After two long days of skiing, Sam opted for playing with his race cars (which went with him to ski school) in the lodge instead of going down the slopes one more time.

SKI SCHOOL!

Sam and Liv were very excited to go skiing.
Olivia just loves her cousin, Kira. She would not do anything unless Kira was doing it. (There were only a few exceptions). I will admit, it was a little frustrating at first, but I adapted. Plus, Leslie was good about helping me get Kira and Olivia on the same page most of the time.
Kira was getting fitted for her skis, so Olivia would not take a picture with us.

You can see it on Sam's face!
He says, "I love you skis!"

Before the kids started their afternoon class, Sam took one run with Daniel and then everyone came in for lunch. It was a BIG morning!

Everyone had a nice day, even though it was snowing like crazy!