Andrea

My sister-in-law's birthday is on Monday. It is also her first day at work as a non-surgical sport's medicine practicioner. Andrea, M.D. Andy is one of the nicest people I know. She is also fun, beautiful, funny, intelligent, and has a perfect body. Andy is a wonderful sister-in-law and an awesome aunt. She is a conciencious and loving dog-owner. I adore her.
Last night we celebrated Andy with a big family dinner. Her dad, Linda, me, B, her hubby, his parents, her brother-in-law and his wife were all there. We are proud of you Andy. You are an amazing woman, a hard-worker, a great sister, daughter, wife, and doctor. Bravo!


As I walk away from the car I look up ahead and see my handsome hubby and just had to snap a photo.


Brandon and I at Prime steakhouse. Great food!


I forgot to take a picture of the birthday girl in her cute red ($5 at Ann Taylor this week) dress but I did get this one on accident.


Brandon and Torri with their fancy jeans;)

Current Favorites

This is currently my favorite breakfast:

I was introduced to German Pancakes by my brother Adam when we were in high school. He would make himself one and usually would eat the whole thing without sharing any! They are incredibly easy to make, full of protein, no sugar, and delicious.

Em's German Pancakes

6 eggs
1 c. milk
1 c. flour
6 T. butter

Melt the butter in a 9x13 (glass) casserole dish. Beat all the other ingredients together and pour over the butter. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes.

I like to top it with lemon yogurt but it is good with almost anything and even plain.

This is Jonah's favorite book right now:

His current favorite food is yogurt. He likes jumping on the trampoline and riding his tricycle and watching Robin Hood. He likes getting dressed by himself now and randomly changing his clothes or putting on an extra shirt, etc. He has had a rash on a different place on his body everyday for the past three days. I think he has developed an allergy to something (grass? or tomatoes??).


Elora's favorite shows are Baby DaVinci (Jonah calls it HeadaToe) and Elora does the actions to Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes when she sees the case. She also likes Thomas the Train.
She also loves jumping and being bounced on the trampoline. She is getting into playing blocks. They both still love cooking in their pretend kitchen too. She likes playing with blankets, mostly peek-a-boo. She likes to read quietly to herself and likes to play with her musical instrument toys. She learned to say "hat", "pee pee", "yes", and "please" this week. Her favorite food is probably tomatoes.

I watched the first two episodes of a BBC North Ireland production this week called Lillies and I am loving it. I have not been into reading anything other than travel books lately (I am planning an October roadtrip with Jen to either Ouray, Colorado or Capitol Reef. We just narrowed it down to those two from about 12 original options).
My favorite friend this week is Raquel, who not only watched our kids for us last night, but also tidied up the house, did the dishes, and stayed more than an hour later than what we told her.

Brandon hasn't been playing his online computer game (World of Warcraft) much for the past two weeks and we are loving it! His drink of choice lately has been White Russians. He watched 3:10 to Yuma this weekend and loved it.

Locker Room Pep Talk

Last night I went to a high school football game. It made me think of one of my favorite Saturday Night Live skits:
http://www.marktastic.com/2009/02/will-forte-peyton-manning-dancing-on-snl/

"Good Day, Sunshine"

So, yesterday I am pushing the double stroller after a stop at the neighborhood park with the kids and talking on the phone to my friend in New York. Brandon calls from work on the other line so I answer cause he doesn't call from work a lot. He asks if I can get a babysitter in the evening so we can go out for sushi. Thank goodness for cravings that turn into date nights!

The babysitter comes over at 5:30 and we head up to Park City for dinner. Main Street is a ghost town on a Wednesday night. Oishi is having a 50% off on all rolls special (!), probably to drum up weekday business. We enjoy delicious food and nice conversation. We walk all the way up Main Street, stepping into a few shops, and Brandon keeps his arm around me and I feel like a newlywed. We enjoy gorgeous weather. We walk down a side street marveling at ridiculous prices on multiple homes for sale as we head back to our car.

We get to Heber and look at two homes for sale and stop at The Hub to pick up two slices of Bonnie's homemade peach pie. Yum! We eat them while watching Wall-E for the first time.


PS- We have a mortgage broker working on getting us a home loan as we speak. We are going to make an offer on the house across the street from us.

Elora said, "Jonah", "Jo Jo" and "hat" for the first time this week.

Jonah's sentences are getting better and better and he's really into putting on his own clothes and changing his clothes when he is supposed to be sleeping.

Family Night

While Brandon is off horsepacking with his uncle, his cousin, and his dad, I got myself a babysitter this evening and went to a "Casting Clinic" with his sister.

Spinach Dip

Let's just say I'm not the only one who likes it.




You can find the recipe on the Knorr's Vegetable Soup Mix package.

Nickname Quiz Winner

Here is a picture of my friend Summer with her daughter Annalise. I stole it off of facebook. She won the nickname quiz and received a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies with nuts in the mail from me last week:)
I know Summer from Oklahoma. She and I were in the same ward there and we met right when we moved there. Her husband, Doug, was a year ahead of Brandon in dental school and was his "big brother" on campus. Summer and I had a lot of fun serving in the Young Women's organization in our ward. She is the mom to four darling children and while in OK had a salon in her home and always cut my hair so nicely. We share a love for makeup and desserts. Brandon and I miss having their family around.
Strangely, when Summer moved to Nevada in 2006 our mutual friend Megan bought Summer's house and still lives there.

I call everyone in my family lots of things but I mostly call Brandon, "B, Honey, or Sugar."
I call Jonah "Jo" or "Sweetheart" most often.
Elora has the most nicknames. Sugar Lips is very common, as are Little Woman and Baby Girl.
Thanks for playing.

Just Another Day

Yesterday Jonah woke up and I sat him down in front of a show and layed back in bed for 30 minutes. When I came back out I found him in a pile of gum wrappers. He had gotten into my purse and consumed six pieces of gum. I am rather disturbed by this. I didn't know he could open that purse or that it was out. He also had a blackish brown smear on his hand. When I asked him what it was he said, "lash". Fortunately my mascara was still closed.
We started getting ready to go to Thanksgiving Point with Raquel, Ellie, and Ethan and realized that Dad had taken the car to work instead of his motorcycle like he was supposed to. (One of our cars is having the brakes fixed and the other one is totally unsafe to drive so we just have a Honda Fit we are borrowing from my FIL.) So we got off to a late start because B had to bring the car home.
We spent an hour and a half at the T.P. gardens with our friends and had a blast. They brought their double wagon and we brought our stroller and we each had food and there was a lot of trading, sharing, moving, running, etc. going on.


Watching the fish.



Apparently, frogs actually sit on lilypads.

It was Two Dollar Tuesday at Thanksgiving Point. It is their August special. It was VERY crowded but still a lot of fun. I had never been to their gardens before. I bought myself a season pass since Elora is free and Jonah will be free til his birthday the last day in January. The gardens are normally $10 for an adult! I got a $55 season pass and plan to spend a lot of time at the dinosaur museum this winter and for the rest of this month I can go on uncrowded days if I want. The pass is also good for the farm animals area.
I saw a frog in the creek but then he hid. I stepped on a very wobbly rock to scare him out so everyone else could see him and ended up with one foot in the creek. It was right when we got there so it was over two hours later when I got to take my wet sock and shoe off (we live an hour from T.P.).
The kids were incapable of staying awake on the car ride home and we had to get the car home to Brandon by 1:00 so he could go to work in SLC. Jonah napped for about 30 mins. and that was his whole nap for the day (ugh!). Elora napped about 45 mins. in the car and again for 1.5 hours late in the afternoon.


Later that afternoon my friend Rena brought me these beautiful flowers and a card. She was thanking me for organizing the party I hosted on Friday up at the cabin (4 couples, dinner, and a tastiest salsa competition). She totally didn't need to do that but I love her for it.


See Jonah's beautiful lashes? They are enhanced here by mascara he put on in the morning and then reclosed so I didn't know. I didn't notice til about 4pm. He applied it perfectly to his right eye only.

Last night was our church ladies' Summer Salad Social and a short lecture on getting your spaces organized and a What's in Your Purse? game. Lots of fun.
After that, Brandon and I made cookies together and watched Knowing (we give it 4 out of 5 stars).
Good day.

Today has proved interesting already. What are your days like?

Incessant

Every morning and several times throughout the day, Jonah asks for "Robin Head." He has never watched one show over and over before but now Jonah only wants to watch Disney's Robin Hood.

Walking

Check out the HUGE thistles growing in this "empty" lot we passed by awhile back on one of our walks:


A street later Jonah is saying "quare, quare" really loud. I look at him and he has his weed bent like this:


And a minute later it's a "trie-nggle":


I do have a winner on our last post but I will not be announcing it yet. Please feel free to keep your votes coming.

A Quiz for You

Which of my household members do I call the following nicknames?
Honey
Sweetheart
Sugar Lips

First winner will receive a homemade treat in the mail.