Spring Sing 2011

Last Wednesday, Addi had her "Spring Sing." She is growning up so fast. The last 5 months she has been going to school at Moffett Elementary School in their Preppy K program and she has done so great. She has far exceeded our expectations and has learned so much.
She looks forward to school everyday. The last month or so, she has also been attending the YMCA program after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I am at work. She wants everyday to be a "daycare" day now. She comes home everyday absolutely filthy from all of the art projects and playing.
After she sang, Von had to go join her class.
They love each other so much (most of the time)

Memorial Day

Our ward had it's annual Memorial Day picnic last Monday. And of course it wouldn't be complete without ponies...

Jaoquin's Birthday

Joaquin turned one last week and Brooke and Armando had a big party to celebrate! It was a Yo Gabba Gabba theme. The kids had such a great time! Von kept sneaking away to the presents, trying to unwrap them without getting caught. Here are some pictures of the festivities...

Night out on the town

We have had a busy couple of weekends! Last weekend, on Friday, we pawned the kids off on Ian's parents for the night and went out with Jason and Kelly. I met Kelly more than eight years ago going to school in Hawaii. Little did I know then, I would marry Ian, who had grown up with Kelly since they were little kids. If you look really close, you can see the famous HOLLYWOOD sign on the right.
We took advantage of not having to be back at a certain time and hit up the Griffeth Observatory in LA first. We were able to see out of their giant telescope, Saturn, even it's rings and moons. It was really amazing.
After that, we went to sushi, which again was amazing. And you would think we would end our night there...oh no, after that we saw an 11:15 (that's right, 11:15 at night) viewing of The Tree of Life at the Arc Light theater. Which was probably one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen, I didn't get it. It was such a struggle to keep my eyes open, being that my bed time is usually 10pm. And it was two and a half hours long. I'm glad I saw it, I actually would like to see it again, just to try to figure it out. I felt like I was back in college trying to figure out the hidden meaning of the whole thing with the anticipation of having to write a paper of take a test on it.
When we finally got home at 3 am, we crashed. I haven't been out that late in years. I felt like I had been hit by a truck the next day, because of course my body was wide awake at 7:30 am, which by the way is actually sleeping in for us.
It was a great night! I'm glad we were more adventurous than usual. It is rare we have such an opportunity!

Delish

Lately I've been a bit obsessed with pinterest.com, it's a way to catalogue all the things online that I like. Recipes being one of them. I found this recipe for S'mores cookies and they are delish.

They are from lovintheoven.com
Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 king-sized milk chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey’s)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined.
Divide dough in half and press half of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan. Place chocolate bars over dough. 2 king-sized Hershey’s bars should fit perfectly side by side, but break the chocolate (if necessary) to get it to fit in a single layer no more than 1/4 inch thick. Spread chocolate with marshmallow creme or fluff. Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the fluff (most easily achieved by flattening the dough into small shingles and laying them together).
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

*I doubled the batch, and made them on a cookie sheet. I also only cooked them for 25 minutes. I'm not sure if because I doubled it and used a bigger pan it cooked faster, or what. But they were GOOD! For doubling the batch, I bought 2 jars of marshmallow creme, and use 9 regular size candy bars.

Granola Bars

I work in an autism class and we do cooking every week. A few weeks ago we made homemade granola bars and they were so good! I add a few things to mine, some flax seed in the mix and then I drizzled melting chocolate, because I know my kids would not think it was a granola bar without chocolate. The dried fruit I added was currants. As a kid, my grandma would put on tea parties for myself and my cousins and we would always have currants. They bring back so many memories.

Ingredients

• 8 ounces old-fashioned rolled oats, about 2 cups
• 1 1/2 ounces raw sunflower seeds, about 1/2 cup
• 3 ounces sliced almonds, about 1 cup
• 1 1/2 ounces wheat germ, about 1/2 cup
• 6 ounces honey, about 1/2 cup
• 1 3/4 ounces dark brown sugar, about 1/4 cup packed
• 1-ounce unsalted butter, plus extra for pan
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 6 1/2 ounces chopped dried fruit, any combination of apricots, cherries or blueberries

Directions

Butter a 9 by 9-inch glass baking dish and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread the oats, sunflower seeds, almonds, and wheat germ onto a half-sheet pan. Place in the oven and toast for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

In the meantime, combine the honey, brown sugar, butter, extract and salt in a medium saucepan and place over medium heat. Cook until the brown sugar has completely dissolved.

Once the oat mixture is done, remove it from the oven and reduce the heat to 300 degrees F. Immediately add the oat mixture to the liquid mixture, add the dried fruit, and stir to combine. Turn mixture out into the prepared baking dish and press down, evenly distributing the mixture in the dish and place in the oven to bake for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. Cut into squares and store in an airtight container for up to a week.

*The next time I make them, I think I would toast the oat mix for a less amount of time and cook them less in the end. They came out pretty firm.

Bring Your Pirate to Work Day

Ian's work has been celebrating their nursing staff all week with different theme days and activities. Today was "pirate day," so we thought we'd make an appearance. Addi's best "arghh!"
Bubbs. They kids have been looking forward to this for the past week as I have been putting together their costumes. I made two pirate costumes for $7. Not bad! I found the pattern for the vest on dana-made-it.com. I simplified the vest, it's just made out of felt, I didn't even finish the edges. And the hats and eye patch are made out of craft foam.
The kids love the gardens, probably because we don't have a yard. It's one of their favorite parts of going to daddy's work.