Card Exchange

When Rian and I lived in Iowa, I made a lot of friends who also loved to scrapbook and make cards. 12 of us started a group where we each make 12 cards and then we exchange them with everyone else in the group. We each end up with 12 different, beautiful handmade cards. It's been three and a half years since we started our group and now, only three members still live in Iowa while the rest of us are spread out all over the country. We still exchange cards about every other month and I LOVE getting my package of beautiful cards in the mail.

This is the card I made for our February exchange this year. Our theme this time was birthdays.

These are some of the beautiful cards I got in return. (You can click on the pictures to see them better.)

Unfortunately, my camera doesn't quite do them all justice. Maybe I should have Becky take pictures of them for me. :) I love our card exchange and all of my wonderful friends who are apart of it. I am always amazed at what everyone creates!

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Another thing we do with our card exchange is that we send a letter with our cards to help us keep in touch. In our letters we answer a few questions that are chosen by whoever is hosting the exchange that month. I haven't been able to send my letters because I don't have a printer. So, instead of emailing them this time, I thought I would post my answers here for all of your reading pleasure. (I'm sure all of you are just dying to know what my anwers would be, too.)

1. What is the most romantic thing that you have ever done for your spouse or your spouse has done for you? The most recent thing that comes to mind was when Rian surprised me and took me out on a date this last January. I was told that Rian had an open house to go to after work one Friday for one of his bosses who was retiring. I met Rian at his parent's house after work so they could watch the kids while we went to his 'office party'. To my surprise, Rian instead took me out to dinner and a movie. I think that was our first real date in months. The funny part was that I was actually a little annoyed that Rian only gave a couple days notice about this 'office party'. The reason for his short notice was that he is not good at keeping secrets from me and I found out that he did have this date planned for a couple of weeks.
2. What is your favorite romantic comedy? Some of my favorites are: Just Like Heaven, 13 Going on 30, The Prince and Me and How to Lose a Guy In 10 Days.
3. What book are you loving right now? I just finished reading Because of Winn Dixie with Isaac for school and I just started reading Twilight, again.

Party faces

One of Isaac'a really good friends from school invited him to her birthday party today. He was looking forward to it all week. When I came to pick Isaac up from the party, all of the kids had their faces painted. They were all so cute! However, Ian was feeling a little left out. The face painter was still there and was nice enough to let Ian come in and get his face painted, too. Ian, of course, wanted his done just like Isaac.

11 Months Old

Not only is it Rian's birthday, but Isabelle also turned 11 months old today. Only a month to go until her first birthday. How can that be? The time has just flown by. My BABY girl is becoming such a BIG girl. She's learning to walk, tries to do whatever her big brothers are doing, and likes to 'talk'. She has gotten pretty good at squealing to let us know when we have something that she wants.

Isabelle is so much fun to have around and I just love watching her everyday. She always brings a smile to our face.

Happy Birthday Rian

Today was Rian's big day and we had an enjoyable day celebrating with our little family.

Rian got to have the day off from work thanks to President's Day. The kids and I enjoyed having him around and celebrating with him. We took him to McDonald's for lunch (Isaac and Ian's choice), played in the play land, and had the missionaries over for his birthday dinner. For the first time since we've been married, and maybe even since he was little, Rian chose something other than his usual baked potatoes with toppings. This year, he opted for a roast with mashed potatoes so that's what I made him.

To finish off the evening, we had his favorite dessert, sour cream lemon pie. YUM!

(The 2 candles are for 32.) Happy Birthday, Rian!!

Valentine's dinner

We weren't home for Valentine's Day (we went to Wenatchee for the day) so we decided to have our yummy dinner today instead.

Isaac and Ian had a great time making dinner with me. Here is how you make our delicious meal:

1. Using scissors or a knife, cut ingredients of choice into bite size pieces and dump into a pot. (The ingredients in this dish are: hotdogs, carrots and noodles. ) Then add desired amount of water or other liquid. (Any left over liquid works great.)

*********************************************** 2. Add spices and season to taste. For this particular creation the boys chose to use salt, pepper, lemon pepper, cinnamon and a pixie stick. (The more creative you are the better. ) *****************************************

3. Stir mixture together with whatever you can find. As you do so, don't forget the most important step of crossing your fingers.

This helps to ensure that it will actually taste good. When you are done stirring you may heat it up on the stove and serve warm or enjoy it cold.

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Okay, so while the boys were busy with their 'creation' I was making something a bit more appetizing for our dinner: Italian Chicken.

Unfortunately the picture does not do this meal justice. It was SO GOOD!

I've had this recipe for years and have only made it 2 other times. The kids surprised me and ate it really well. So maybe I will make it more often now.

Isaac, who is usually my pickiest eater, even ate his entire plate.

First Steps

Isabelle has been standing like this, without holding on to anything, for a while now. We knew it was only a matter of time before she would start walking. Well, last night she finally did it!

Isabelle took a few steps all by herself and the whole family was there to witness it! I don't know who was more excited, us or Isabelle, but she was definitely pretty proud of herself. I forgot to get the camera last night in all of the excitement, but I made sure I had it ready for her to perform today. (She gets a little nervous in front of the camera.)So far Izzie only takes a few steps and then she goes down to crawl. But, pretty soon she will be walking everywhere (or even running) to keep up with her big brothers. Hopefully, she will have it mastered by the time it is finally warm enough to play outside again so I won't have to worry about dirty knees. Now, I just need to buy her some real shoes. I can't wait. Little girl shoes are soooo CUTE!

Locked in

I had just gotten the kids out of the bathtub tonight when I heard Rian knocking on the front door. (He had locked himself out when he ran over to the neighbors for something.) The boys were in their room getting their pajamas on and Isabelle was standing up outside the empty bathtub in her diaper, staring at the toys inside. Since it would only take a few seconds, I shut the bathroom door, making sure it wasn't locked, ran downstairs to let Rian in the house and then ran back upstairs to get Isabelle so I could put her pajamas on. (The purpose of shutting the door was so that Izzie wouldn't crawl outside and fall down the stairs.)

However, when I tried to open the bathroom door, it would only open a tiny crack.

The problem was that Isabelle had crawled over and opened the drawers that are right next to the bathroom door. Of course, Isabelle was having a great time pulling out all of the diapers that were inside of them while I was stressing over how I would get the door open again. Once Izzie realized that we were outside the door trying to figure out how to get in and get her out, she started to get worried. Isaac and Ian tried distracting her by playing with her hands under the door.Finally, Rian got a spatula from the kitchen that would fit inside the crack. He used it to shut the drawers and was then able to open the door. Hurray!! Isabelle crawled outside right away. Free at last!

Busy Izzie

Isabelle is keeping me on my toes these days as she is into pretty much everything. If she can reach it, open it, or empty it, she will do just that.

For some reason she really likes to dig in the kitchen garbage. The grossest part about this is when she tries to eat something that she has found.

It doesn't matter if the garbage overflowing or almost empty. She will still get into it. For this reason, I have often resorted to putting the garbage can on top of the kitchen counter.

She loves opening up drawers in the kitchen and bathroom, especially now that she knows there is stuff inside to take out.

On this particular occasion, she succeeded in emptying the entire box of ziploc bags. (I can't figure out why this picture is turned sideways.)

Even if my garbage can would fit under the kitchen sink (which it doesn't), it wouldn't be safe there either. Here, the pantry door was left open and Izzie went straight for it. I have to remember to keep the doors closed at all times.

The funniest part about Izzie getting into stuff, is the look she gives me when I call her name. It's either a look of 'uh-oh, I'm in trouble' or a big mischeivious grin to show off what she can do. (Refer to the picture of her getting into the cupboard).