Today was...

Paying the neighbor girl next door to kill a spider for me. 

Abigail showing me how she can take off and put on her shirt.

Matching pink strawberry shortcake scented toenails. 

Abigail raising the fruit basket and choosing a plum and a tomato for breakfast. 

Puzzles. And lots of me doing puzzles while Abigail documented with pictures. 

A red robe, Mickey hat, and finger puppets all found while I was cleaning out our guest room. 

Making crock pot Santa Fe chicken, creme brûlée, squash casserole, and the biggest egg white omelette ever... Using ten whole egg whites. 

A trip to the mailbox. Of course. 

A super sleepy (and consequently, fussy) Brady boy. 

Watching America's got talent. 

Tag teaming bath time and bed time with honey. 

A killer headache. 

*pictures to be added later... hopefully.

** look!  i actually added pictures!!!

  

 

 

 

she's getting really good at trimming her nails.  better each time.

matching strawberry shortcake toenails.

plum and a tomato.  it's what's for breakfast.

 

going green.

and now she's taking pictures of her toes.

and her puzzle.

finger puppets for brady.

in nate's old bath robe.

i think she looks like elmo.

see the ears on the mickey hat?  i love them.

 

 

i think boiled egg whites are her favorite food.  or at least at the top of the list.  i hate ending up with all the yolks of her boiled eggs so she really doesn't get to eat the egg whites as much as she'd like.  but i had 10 egg whites left over from creme brulee so i made her the biggest egg white omelet and she was in heaven.  although she kept calling it pizza...

paula deen's squash casserole.

picture for mom of the homemade powdered laundry detergent.  i used 1 bar of fels naptha (grated), 2 cups washing soda, and 2 cups borax.  and a little bit of the pink zote.  just for kicks because it's pink.

klaudette's birthday dinner

dinner happened on sunday... post is happening friday... who cares?!  not me.  a post is a post dangit!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

we had a lot of fun.  let's do it again.  next year, maybe?

I hate balloons

let's have a short celebration right now because... i'm going to have a husband in 12 (or so) hours!  yeay!!!

tomorrow we're having an actual celebration though.  we're hosting a birthday dinner for my awesome mother in law.  i really love her... but hosting and feeding people?  this is so out of my comfort zone.  cross your fingers for me.

sibling love.  this is the extent of their play together.  thankfully they both think it's awesome.

like really super awesome.  baby girl asks me about ten times a day, "is brady bigger now?" followed by something like "he can push my shopping cart!"  someday... when he can walk.

within the last few days, baby girl has taken her love of purple and pink to a hugely obsessive extreme (like equal to or surpassing thomas!) which meant that our whole shopping trip at walmart today was her begging me for anything packaged in those two colors.  i said no a whole lot but she won with these plates.  

"i want mommy take a picture of me with the pink balloon!"

just a picture of brady and me and the cake we were baking.

balloons are great because they take about four seconds to blow up.  i hate them though because once they're blown up, they have a mind of their own and are IMPOSSIBLE to deal with.  take note that this picture was taken during broad daylight.

this is her third or fourth outfit of the day.  all pink.  she had me wear purple.  any time i ask her to pick out what i should wear, it's something pink or purple.  i don't mind.

not daylight anymore.

the chocolate glaze frosting whatever didn't look how i wanted it to and i was really annoyed by it.  so i made another batch of it and waited til it cooled completely so i could drizzle it over what was already on the cake and have the pretty drizzle marks.  this triple chocolate cake now has a whole huge ton of frosting.

but the drizzles are so pretty it was worth the trouble, right?

check it out... way too much of my life was spent trying to achieve this careless "i just happened to toss these balloons up here" look.  it's like my china cabinet is wearing a headband.  made of bubbles.

i had full intentions of using regular, nice plates and silverware until baby girl convinced me at walmart that pink cupcakes were better.  now i'm just looking forward to not having to do all those dishes tomorrow night.  even though we know it would be honey doing the dishes, not me.  i'll cherish the extra spooning time though.

more balloons... but these took all of two minutes so i don't hate them so much.

and now it's just another night of getting to bed at 1:30.  because that's what happens when your baby fights sleep until midnight and your other kid wakes up at one because of the crazy wind/rain banging on her window.  and now i get to set my alarm for way too soon so i can shower and get myself and two kids fed and ready for church and make sure to have dinner in the crock pot before we go.  the plus side of having no husband?  i'm sending my counselor to ward council in my place tomorrow morning.  i've only ever missed one other time in the last 15 months and that was right after i had brady.  as much as i'm not crazy about ward council, i'm experiencing just a bit of fomo.  don't worry, i'm sure i'll get over it.

i feel nauseous

story of my life.

also, the phrase most likely to come out of my mouth during/after a meal.

we had the missionaries over for dinner tonight.  it was tons of fun.  i made french dip sandwiches with provolone cheese, and the salad mandarin from easy weeknight favorites... with modifications.  i used spinach, chilled mandarin oranges, thinly sliced avocado (this MADE the salad), and toasted pecans.  i ate mine with creamy poppy seed dressing but put out italian dressing as well (as suggested by the recipe) which was appreciated by one of the missionaries in particular who apparently has an obsession with italian dressing.  fabulous.  glad to help you out there!  also served carrots that i'd thrown in the crock pot with the roast.  for dessert, i made a snickers apple salad.  i used 3 apples, a half cup of powdered sugar, full block of cream cheese (which i whipped myself because i was afraid it would be too hard to fold in the cool whip), and a full tub of cool whip.  i eye balled the snickers because i was using the tiny mini ones and i just put them in the freezer and whacked them with a hammer a few times before opening up the wrapping and pouring them on top.  i saved some of the tiniest crumbs and pieces to sprinkle on top for decoration.  it wasn't really honey's style but the missionaries each had seconds and one of them asked me where i found the recipe (i'd told them they were my guinea pigs when i admitted i'd actually never made it or eaten it before) which led to a discussion about pinterest which one elder (been out 19 months) had never even heard of.  sometimes talking to a missionary is like talking to someone in a time warp.

anyways... here are pictures...

set your shirtless child up with a clifford or baby E dvd...

sear your roast

and take pictures for emmy

be a good mom and take your kid to the pool...

but upon hearing thunder explain that the pool broke

and head back to the car

this is a dainty child if i've ever seen one

apple snickers salad dessert

i used a light hammer

the aftermath... thanks again honey for cleaning up!

and now it's time to sleep.

ps- how'd you like the olympics?!