Surprise, part II

This is the shirt I was wearing when my mom picked me up.

I was wrong

My daffodils did bloom right before we left and we got to see them.

Surprise!

I had a surprise for my mom when she went to go pick me up at the airport. Can you tell what it is by her reaction? More details to come later.....

Shhhh, don't tell!

We are in Anaheim right now. We flew in this morning. Colin is sleeping in the bed next to Chad, and he doesn't know that we are going to Disneyland in the morning. I am so excited!

We told Gabe the secret weeks ago, thinking that he couldn't communicate enough to spill the beans, but he has been talking about it so much to Colin. The good thing is that Colin just thinks that Gabe is confused. Gabe will says something like, "Go to Mickey Mouse house!" (in his broken language) and Colin will just say, "No Gabey, we aren't going to Disneyland!" Just today they got into a argument about it when we passed Disneyland on our way to the hotel. I am sure Gabe is just thinking, "You just wait Colin. You think you are so smart, but you'll see."

Throwdown with Bobby Flay

Have you seen this show? Chad and I watch it together faithfully (which isn't hard with DVR!), and have a million little jokes that we share about it now. The basic premise is this - Bobby Flay travels all over the US, visiting chefs who are known for making the "best" of a certain dish. Bobby challenges them to a "throwdown" making the dish, and then judges come in and decide who wins. It is a fun show because they showcase a new local chef every week and you get to see two interpretations of classic dishes. All of this in only a half hour - which means no drawn-out time fillers.

We didn't start watching this show when it first aired (it is in it's fourth season now), so we have had a lot of re-runs to watch. For some reason, we happened to catch them in just the right order and did not see Bobby Flay win a single episode out of probably the first 10 or 12 episodes that we watched. We were like, "C'mon judges, stop favoring the locals! Who cares about tradition when you can have Bobby Flay's habanero infused pudding!" (Okay, he didn't really make that, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did!) I mean seriously, Bobby Flay can't ever win? Rigged!Anyway, when we finally caught the episode where Bobby Flay bested the lady who cooks the macaroni and cheese that Oprah judged as being the best in the world, part of me was cheering for Bobby, but part of me was just sad for the local lady who was known for this one thing! I mean, Bobby Flay has Iron Chef and everyone knows who he is, couldn't he leave the macaroni title to the nice lady?

Bobby's record has gotten better with each season, so we are catching more and more episodes where he wins, and I still always feel a little sad for the chefs who lose. Especially since they don't have their own Food Network test kitchen assistants coming up with all their recipes for them and reigning them in with their "heat"!

Oh, and I must mention that out of all the Food Network chefs, Bobby Flay is the one whose food I most want to sample, even if I am a wuss with spicy food. I mean, I am a total cheapo (the entertainment book is my best friend), but I might be willing someday to spend an extraordinary amount of money to eat, no, experience his food.

On a side note, the new season of "Top Chef" began last night on Bravo. Hooray!

Yum

On Tuesday I decided to make a nice dinner because Chad was leaving to Richmond the next day. I made a roast chicken using a recipe I found on allrecipes.com. Skidilie-dumptious-scrumptious. I whole-heartedly endorse this recipe.

He's in!

Colin checked the mail on Tuesday and came running into the house yelling, "I got my letter!" He recognized the logo in the corner and knew it was the letter telling us whether or not he got into a magnet school.

He did! He got into our first choice - the Chinese Immersion program. We are so excited!

Finished reading Eclipse

I made a long comment about it under my earlier post. If you want to talk about it, check it out.

Where Have I Been?

Seriously, why did I have NO idea it was the end of Daylight Savings this morning?

At what I thought was 8:10, I was printing something out and getting ready to head out the door with the family for church (we live about 35 minutes away and it starts at 9 am. Woohoo, we were actually going to be on time!) and when I looked at the time on the computer, it said 9:10. WHA?! I had to go turn on the TV to verify that all of the clocks in my house where wrong and then it finally hit me why! I still had to google it though to make sure that it was actually the end of Daylight Savings today, on MARCH 9th. So early!

We knew at that point that we had completely missed sacrament meeting and just focused on getting there in time for classes.

When I got there, one of the other nursery leaders was just setting up some stuff and it turns out that she had no idea either. We only had 11 kids in nursery when we normally have around 18, so I am guessing that there were a lot of confused people this morning.

I swear they did not announce it in church last Sunday. What is up with that?

New Moon

Thursday 10:30 am: My friend Shannon, who is helping me with preschool, tells me that I can borrow her copy of "New Moon."

3:00 pm: I pick it up at her house

7:00-11 pm: I read the book, with a few breaks to deal with kids and watch Throwdown with Bobby Flay (crepes) with Chad.

Friday 8:30 am: pick it back up

12 noon : finish it

I think it is safe to say that I am officially hooked. This book was a lot more satisying to me than "Twilight" and I can't tell you how many tears were shed over it. Yeah, I am a dork, but that's okay :o) I am used to it.

I also have Shannon's copy of "Eclipse" in my posession. I am not allowing myself to touch it today.

Crowns

We did Preschool at my house on Tuesday and made crowns. The kids really loved it. I thought this was cute picture of Colin. Not the greatest picture of Gabe, but I wanted to show the train he drew on his crown(you can kinda tell what it is on the right there towards the top).

Mud Pies!

Why is Gabe standing in the middle of the backyard, soaking and screaming?

Well, these are the "before" pictures......

Mean mommy had to hose them off after they made mud pies!

FHE

Last night's FHE....well, the lesson just turned into a wrestling match.

Then we had Candyland, where Colin fell apart because he got sent back to Mr. Mint when he was almost about to win. Here he is after pulling it together again, but you can see that his cheeks are still wet.

Gabe's way of playing Candyland is putting his man into the train and pulling him around. After Candyland we got to make Jiffy Pop (warning: the package specifically says not to use it on a flat-top stove but we chose to risk it) By the way, is Jiffy Pop always pretty chewy, or did we just get a stale pack?

Didn't spiritually get much out of the evening, but it is always good to try anyway, and to spend time having fun together!

How well do you know your candy bars?

Take this quiz and see if you are a candy bar expert! Chad and I tied with a score of 13 correct. I really want a candy bar now.

Adventures in Babysitting

Oh. My. Goodness.

I babysat three brothers all day on Thursday (for free for once). Their mom had some really important things to get done and I didn't mind. I knew they were handfuls because of previous experiences in preschool and nursery, but I have never watched them before. I kept a close eye on them for the first hour or so, but I saw that all the boys were playing surprisingly well together so I went downstairs and went about my usual business while they played upstairs. Well, quite awhile later, the youngest boy, who recently turned two, came downstairs with no pants or a diaper on and he was completely soaked. His older brother informed me that he had been playing in my bathroom. I ran up there to see what had happened, and found this......

Wet balls of toilet paper stuck to the wall, along with the dismantled roll itself.

The rest of the roll in my toilet. I dug it all out with a plastic hanger and at the very bottom was another roll of toilet paper. Thank goodness he didn't try to flush it. The toilet wads were also all over the floor and even on the mirror.

The toilet roll holder torn out of the wall.

I felt very mixed emotions about all of this. I mean, on one hand, it is just plain frustrating and angering. That was not an easy thing to clean up while watching 5 kids. On the other hand, I felt bad that I hadn't kept an eye on him better. I honestly did not realize he was capable of causing so much mischief. If he were my own kid I probably have known him well enough to know to keep an eye on him. And trust me, after that incident, he did not leave my sight. I made all the kids stay in the playroom and I planted myself right outside the open door with a book.

I felt guilty telling the mom why he was wearing different clothes when she came to get him, but she was just really relieved he hadn't flooded the house. His oldest brother informed me that he has done stuff like this before.

Does this fall into the"lot in life" category?