James, Magan, Giselle, and Lily

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Monday Night

Since Monday night is James' only night off during the week we try to make them special. This Monday we went to a fabulous Mexican restaurant with our friends Forrest and Sarah. We hadn't seen them since moving here so it was good to finally meet up.After dinner we all went back to our house and had Banana Pudding (my new favorite) and played Nazi Zombies (also a favorite). So here's the secret I've found with Banana Pudding: cheesecake pudding! This is my recipe-

1 box sugar free fat free reduced calorie vanilla pudding
1 box sugar free fat free reduced calorie cheesecake pudding
32 vanilla wafers
3 bananas, sliced
container of light cool whip
3 1/2 cups of fat free milk

Whisk the pudding and milk for 2 minutes and then let sit. Dip each wafer in milk and line the bottom and sides of the dish with the wafers. The top with 1/2 of the banana slices and 1/2 the pudding. Repeat wafers, bananas, and pudding layers. Then top with cool whip and let chill for at least three hours. It is AmAzInG!

Monday, July 19, 2010

Family Weekend

On Friday Brodie, Jennika, and the boys came up to my house and we all went to Austin for the weekend. That night Sally and Tag came over to Jessica's and we all had dinner and then the boys went to see Inception. I really wanted to see it too, but I knew James would die if I saw it without him, so I stayed home with the girls like a good little wife :)
Cute Story: Lily and I slept with Brooklyn in her bed Friday night and she was so excited! Jessica said that when Brooklyn said her prayers (at 8 pm) she prayed "that Magan will come to bed soon"-SO CUTE! Love that little girl!

Saturday we all went to the pool for a few hours. Oh how my eyes are being opened by spending so much time with these little children! I love Brooklyn's belly in this little bikini! Lily and I drove home on Saturday night, but on their way back from Austin Sunday evening Brodie and Jennika stopped by to hang out for a bit. We went on a walk so the boys could get their energy out.
We saw a rainbow and a huge water moccasin while on our walk. And the sunset was gorgeous. Love our family and am so happy to be able to spend so much time with them!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Brayden's Birthday Party

Today I went to my nephew Brayden's birthday party for his 3rd birthday! He got a lot of presents. We gave him a water gun and bubble blower. Grandpa Mark and Deborah gave him a Toy Story Slip 'n Slide, which the boys absolutely loved. They orginally had on diapers, but they got really full of water and were falling off, so the boys decided to just take them off completely. So here is a picture of them sliding around naked! Jennika's mom Paula was in town and it was really nice to see her- it had been a couple of years. (Rilan, me, Brodie, Brayden, Jason, Mark, Paula, and Jennika)
Brodie grilled hamburgers and we had a fabulous Oreo ice cream cake for dessert. Wish James could have been there :( Still had lots of fun though!

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Visit to Austin

Yesterday and today I was in Austin visiting my sister-in-law Jessica and her family. I hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving and now that we're only 2 1/2 hours away it was no big deal for me to drive up and hang out. Right when I got there I headed to church with Jessica-she's a Young Women's advisor. It was fun! I hadn't been to a Wednesday night activity in about 6 years. Then this morning we went to a fabric store to look for curtains for her living room and then to lunch at Pluckers. I had the best salad there! I can't remember what it was called though. I love love love Austin and can't wait for us to live there one day. Loved my visit and am excited to be able to see these guys more often!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

4th of July Weekend

When James got off on Saturday we headed straight to Brodie and Jennika's for the weekend. We spent most of Saturday evening hanging out outside with all of the dogs (there were 5 there at one point: our two, their two, and a friend's dog they were watching). We also played lots of Tetris on the wii, went swimming, went to church, cooked some burgers on the grill, and I made a fabulous Banana Pudding. We had all planned on going to watch the fireworks in Sugar Land Sunday night, but the boys were getting tired. So James and I stopped at the church parking lot on our way back home and watched them.
I didn't get any good pics. But it was a good show. Thanks for having us Brodie and Jennika! We had fun!

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Rain Rain Go Away

I totally forgot about the South's torrential downpours. Hate them. The picture doesn't really do it justice, but this is what we woke up to yesterday:I did NOT want to take the girls out to potty in this. I knew Giselle could hold it for another couple of hours, but Lily HAS to go out first thing. When we adopted her, her information chart said that she was pad trained. I've left them out for her before when we've been gone just in case she wanted to use it, but she never has. So yesterday I thought I would try to work with her to use it so she wouldn't get wet outside. I put it outside on our balcony and tried and tried to get her to use it. But this is all she would do with it. Obviously she is not pad trained. Since the weather was so bad I stayed home and cleaned and watched the Nadal/Murray match. I love love love Wimbledon! It's a personal goal of mine to be there in 5 years.

And because of the rain, James got off early! So we met at some tex-mex place for dinner. This is what I ordered :) It was good, but we won't be going back. I woke up a little sick in the middle of the night.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

The Month of June

This is just getting sad-MONTHLY posts?! In my defense, they have been two crazy months. With school taking up so much time and James being gone, I'm just happy to be functioning at this point. It's all much calmer now that WE'VE MOVED TO TEXAS! I'm still having issues believing it. I think it's because we've moved every summer, so it feels like we'll just be going back to Utah at the end of August. Maybe my freak out will be in September when we haven't left yet. But let's re-cap what all has happened since my last post.

*James visited for a week at the end of May and then left for Houston for another 3 weeks. The day he left, Sally and Tag showed up to visit for a week! I was really happy to have them since it distracted me from being sad that James was gone.
*Liz, Cecile, Mandy, and I had our last Girls Night Out-so sad! We went to dinner at Carraba's and then we went to Spark for "drinks" and more food-loved it! I'm so happy that Liz was able to move back to Utah just in time to see me before I left. *The next day Cecile and Justin blessed their third child, Hudson, at church. There were 5 baby blessings in their ward that day! After they had a brunch at Justin's mom's house. The food was so good! I got this great recipe for a Chile Cheese Puff that I'll share later when I make it. *I had my last hair appointment with Elise :( I don't know what I'm going to do without her! She told me that she's coming to Houston in August though, so I don't have to worry about finding someone else 'til after then. *So I took my last final on Thursday morning, June 17. James was supposed to fly in at 12:53 pm, and then we were going to pick up the truck, load it, and leave Friday morning. Well James' flight from Houston got cancelled and he wasn't going to get in until 7:15! So Mandy, Eric, and I had to pick up the truck. I was frantic about who was going to load it, and I'm so grateful that our friend Ben volunteered to come help! He and Eric (and a couple of wonderful missionaries passing by) did a fabulous job-we could not have moved without them! And none of our stuff was broken! After the boys loaded everything (in only 3 hours!), Mandy and I picked up James from the airport and headed to Sean and Alexa's house for a Going Away BBQ. It was good to see them before we left and so nice of them to feed us all! *So the next morning we headed out at about 8:30. The drive was uneventful. Oh, except for the biker convention that was going on in the city we spent the night in! Don't worry, there were only like 100 bikers outside of our hotel all night revving their bikes and partying. I was terrified and so worried about someone stealing the Penske with all of our stuff! I woke up probably 3 different times to look outside and check on it. We got to Austin Saturday evening and went to dinner with Sally and Tag. Then Sunday morning we drove to Houston and met up with James' Dad and his clan for brunch for Father's Day. After the brunch we headed to our new home and Brodie (James' brother) helped us unload everything. Thanks for spending your Father's Day helping us Brodie! I LOVE LOVE LOVE our apartment-James did such a fabulous job picking it! We have a garage and a little front yard for the girls to go out-I really couldn't be happier with it. *Since we've been here I've been getting the house set up (which I love doing) and looking for a job (which I hate). On Monday I spent the day with Brodie and Jennika. We went to the mall closest to me since I hadn't been there yet. It's a really good mall, fyi. And then for dinner we met up with James at On the Border. I'm excited to be close to them again. This weekend we're going down to their house to celebrate the 4th. More about that on Monday!