visitors

Over the past month and a half we have had the pleasure of welcoming family to our warm and sunny home (it was snowing at their respective homes when they came.)

Here are some pictures from the fun we had:

Our first visitors were Grandma and Grandpa Utah.

We loved hiking up Sabino Canyon. Take that snowy SLC!


Pushing two kids on the swing is so much easier when grandparents are here to do it for me.

Here we are at the Desert museum. Another bonus of having grandparents around is that they can take family pictures for you. Also I want to point out that the kids and I are drawn towards Chris. Is he magnetic?

Nothing will win my kids hearts faster than reading to them.

Our next visitor was Parry!

Ella thought dressing in Parry's clothes was the funniest thing ever.

Parry hiked around Sombrero peak with us.

Hiking in Tucson in March. Heaven.

Our final visitors were Grandma and Grandpa Oregon.
The kids LoVeD riding on the train at the zoo.

Our visitors took us on vacation. No complaints here.

At the beach in Mexico.

A rocky beach means tide pools!

See how much fun it is to visit us? Do you want to come too?

The Renaissance festival

Every year in February and March there is a Renaissance festival two hours north of our home. We had fun at the festival and were glad that Chris had the day off and could join us. As always the petting zoo was our favorite, but the shows were entertaining too...not to mention the people in the crowd. [I discovered that what "Renaissance" means to me (and in any history book) is not what it means to others. To most females it means an excuse to show as much cleavage as possible. To others it means to dress Gothic, dress like a pirate, or dress like a wizard in Harry Potter. Pretty much everyone who dressed up would have been hung if they had actually lived in Renaissance times.]

Here are some pictures from our adventure:

Ella LOVED that she met a real live fairy!

An older couple walked by and thought our kids were the cutest ever. They gave us a crown for them to share. All hail king Eli.

Ella was happy to dance with the fairies.

Yes, I paid money to ride this pirate ship with my children. Weeeeeee.

This ride was free. Hooray!

The key to a happy marriage

I cannot handle anything fattier than skim milk. I was raised on fat free and I love it. When forced to drink 1%, or -heaven forbid- 2% I choose to go without. I can't even handle it in my cereal.

Phew. Now that that is off my chest I would like to mention that my husband doesn't particularly like skim milk. But he does like me. So for the past seven years we have had a happy marriage with fat free milk in our fridge. His only respite from what he refers to as white water was a couple of months in Saint Louis when we discovered 1/2% milk--then that disappeared from the shelves and we were back to skim.

Now to my current sacrifice for love...

Chris recently discovered a milk called Skim Supreme. I had sent him on a milk run and he claimed that they were all out of skim milk (totally believable, right?) so he bought Skim Supreme instead. This milk is fat free with additives that make it thicker for those who miss the thickness of fatty milks without making it any fattier. Tada! Just what my husband needs: a fat free milk that doesn't taste like white water.

Do I like this new Skim Supreme? Well, I don't not like it. I can tell a difference in the texture that weirds me out since I know that the additive is a seaweed. It's just not normal. I liked the thinness of my old skim milk.

And now we arrive at the part of my post where I answer the question, What is the key to a happy marriage? It is me choosing to buy this weird Skim Supreme milk because I don't hate it and my husband loves it. After seven years it is my turn to compromise for the one I love.

I love you Chris.

(Skim Supreme is also called Super Skim or
Skim Plus depending on the brand you buy.)

my dream...or nightmare

I spent the afternoon watching another woman show me how dirty my house is. It was quite humbling. Apparently I should never even bother vacuuming again until I buy a Kirby Vacuum. This is an AMAZING machine. And I really really want one. Unfortunately my finances won't let me buy a vacuum that costs more than my car did.

Now I get to live with the nightmares that will come from knowing how dirty my floors still are after I vacuum. Really, I don't think I'll bother vacuuming at all. Maybe if I go on strike Chris will let me sell an organ and buy a Kirby.

Christmas 2009

I know it's late and Christmas was forever ago, but here are some pictures from our celebration of our Savior's birth:

Ella was the angel in the sunbeam nativity production.

Chris read the Christmas story from the illustrated New Testament.

Ella and Eli pose by our Christmas tree.

Discovering the gifts Santa left.

Eli's big present was a basketball hoop.

Ella's big present was her bike.

And here are some fun videos:

Eli sings Jingle bells.

Chris and Eli play basketball.

my big idea

I just had the most brilliant idea ever...

I've never been a big fan of Jam or Jelly. In fact I can only handle raspberry preserves and still I try to put on the least amount possible (you know, just enough to add a little moisture to my sandwich.) Jams and other preserves are laden with sugar. And they ruin the bread if you don't eat it right a way. (Who wants a soggy sandwich?)

Recently I had this epiphany: jams and jellies and preserves are not normal. Nope. They are called preserves for a reason. Their purpose is to keep fruit preserved in the jar for the winter months when fruit is not available. But now-a-days fruit is always available. So why are we still eating jams and jellies? WHY?

Really my question is: Why not use actual fruit instead of the jams I obviously loath?

Now, I know that some people do use bananas in lieu of jam. (I've always thought that was weird. Bananas add no moisture to a peanut butter sandwich. ) I've never known anyone to use strawberries instead of strawberry jam, or grapes instead of grape jelly. But you can not claim the same naivety now because I am the person you know who uses actual fruit on her sandwich instead of jam. And guess what?! It's really good that way.

Today I used grapes in my sandwich. I cut them in half and put them cut sides down on top of the peanut butter then covered them with the second piece of bread. It was fantastic.

Why did it take me so long to come up with this?

And now I won't feel guilty when I claim the fruit on my sandwich as one of my fruit servings for the day. Bonus!

A white Christmas!

Yes, you read the title of this post correctly. We had a white Christmas in Tucson!

Well, we had a white Christmas in our living room anyway. I spent all of my spare time in the weeks before Christmas (which doesn't add up to very much time actually) cutting out paper snowflakes and making snowflake window clings. I kept my plans a secret then started setting up the indoor blizzard after Chris left for work on Christmas Eve.

I had a lot of fun and stayed up way too late. And now I need to convince myself that it is time to take down the snow storm. It is 70 degrees outside.