Look who's sitting up!!!

Chocolate-chip cookie dough cupcakes

My friend Jenny made these for Master Club. now you have to understand. I don't like cake. I don't like cupcakes. Shoot! I almost gagged on my own wedding cake, and it wasn't because Eric shoved it down my throat. I'm simply not a big fan of cake. There has been only one exception to my hatred of cake and that is Costco's chocolate cake with chocolate icing. That was it....until now!!! These, chocolate-chip cookie dough cupcakes, are to DIE FOR, like a little piece of heaven in your mouth. Just thinking about them make my mouth water. YUM!!!! You gotta try them. The only thing different that my friend Jenny and I would recommend is letting the cookie dough freeze overnight instead of only a couple of hours.

Stratego

This was one of my favorite games growing up. Luke came home from co-op last week,and was telling me about this great game called Stratego. You should have seen his face light up when I pulled this out of the adult game cabinet! We've been playing it all week. Even Jakeb loves it.

(Luke loved the fact that Klaire fell asleep while he was holding her.)

ICICLES

We had to go back to the dentist yesterday for various reasons, and these are what we found! We actually go there early, and the boys were so psyched to be able to play with the icicles. Check out those monsters! I felt a little bad when we went inside to find out that one of the dental hygenist was not too impressed that we took down her icicles. She had been enjoying watching them get bigger and bigger each day. Whoops!

Igloos

Check out this fun food. Jakeb discovered this in our tiny little kid's cookbook (which we've never really used). He begged to make it last night, but I told him we would have it for lunch today. They loved it. Even Eric tried a bite, and thought it was good.
Cute the apples in half. Take out the cores.
Put Peanut butter over the skin of the apple.
Put Marshmallows on top of the apples.
Sprinkle Cinnamon sugar all over the apples.

Then later in the day we made some Magic cookies (from the same cookbook). Jakeb actually helped make these. I think these might be the easiest cookies ever to make. They were simply an 1 egg, sugar, and 1 cup peanut butter. (The picture is them in the oven.)

And last but most definitely not least...one of my favorite types of cookies....NO BAKES. We called them Boiled Cookies when I was little. YUM!!!!!

CHOCOLATE OATMEAL NO-BAKE COOKIES

2 cups suga

r1/2 cup cocoa1 stick butter

1/2 cup milk1 tsp. vanilla

3 cups quick-cooking oatmeal

1/2 cup peanut butter
Combine sugar, cocoa, butter and milk in a saucepan. On medium heat, bring to a boil for3-5 minute.
Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter (optional), vanilla and oatmeal.
Drop by spoonful onto wax paper. Let cool for at least 30 minutes.

ENJOY!

Family of Eight

Crayons

Here's what you can do with left-over, broken crayons. We took all the paper off of them, broke them all up, and melted them in the oven for about 15 minutes. Talk about an easy craft project for the kids to all enjoy!

Not me Monday

This was not the conversation that I heard the other day between Blake and his father while building a ferris wheel with K'nex.

Dad, I think we're doing this wrong. We need to put this here.

No, Blake, that can't be right. That wouldn't make sense.

But Dad, that's what the instructions say.

No Blake, it's not the right way.

But Dad...I'll bet you a hundred dollars that that we need to build another one.

Blake, Fine, Whatever. If I hear another word about it, you're gonna get in trouble. It's not the right way.

Okay, Dad.

I also did not hear this conversation about 10 minutes later.

Blake, how in the world could you have known that?

What?? I'm right? I'm right? I get a HUNDRED bucks!! Yeah!!!!!!


I also did not spend about 2 hours building this Lego Eiffel Tower because Jakeb wanted to build it. Jakeb did not quit after about 10 minutes because he didn't realize how long it would take. I did not LOVE every minute of building it because Legos were not my favorite toys growing up.


I have not been trying to potty train Makenna. I also haven't been getting frustrated doing it. Makenna does not get upset when I try to put a diaper back on her after she's been wearing a pull-up for awhile. On one certain night, she did not start to throw a fit when I was putting a diaper on her for bedtime. She did not keep saying that she wanted a pull-up over and over. She also did not get in trouble for throwing a fit. She did not continue to cry for quite sometime only to fall asleep in her bed. Later that night she did not come into my room in the middle of the night saying...poo-poo. I did not try to shoo her back to bed. I immediately jumped up to help her. She did not keep saying..Poo-poo and pulling at her little nightgown. I did not finally realize that she did not have a diaper on any longer only to find myself jumping up out of bed and running to her room expecting to find "poo-poo" somewhere. Upon arriving in her room, I did not check her entire room looking for "poo-poo." Makenna finally made her way back to her room, but she did NOT point to the floor where she had taken off her DIAPER and said once again poo-poo! That little girl did NOT trick me just so she could get her way to put on her pull-up in the middle of the night!





We are also very good parents. We are not unsafe in any way. My husband did NOT pull out the two mattresses and stack them on top of each other. The plan was NOT to have a contest to see who could have the best dive off the dining room table! We would never let our kids stand on our table, and absolutely NEVER run across the table.


I also did not wait an entire week to take Klaire's "doll" pictures. I always do it on the exact day my daughters turn the next month.

I do not have this lingering thing for chewing ice. I have not been chewing ice since about 3 months before Klaire was born. And because of this new thing, I did not dislocate two fillings causing me to have to go to the dreaded dentist where he gave me a shot of Novocaine, drilled and sanded my poor little teeth. He also did not actually say the words, "I need one a little more coarse," while referring to a sanding tool. That would of course not freak me out at all because everyone LOVES to hear that someone is sanding down their teeth, their front teeth at that.

I also did not proceed to break my glasses while I was at the dentist. What's really funny is that I have been to the eye doctor every year of course. I would never go almost 5 years without going to the eye doctor. I love going to the eye doctor almost as much as I love going to the dentist. My poor little glasses were not held together with superglue for the past 5 months, and like I said, they did not finally come apart at the dentist. I did not call my babysitter and ask her to stay a little longer with the girls. I also did not take FOUR boys with me to the eye doctor to get a exam and 2 new pairs of glasses. (They truly had a great deal going on.)

I also did not go get my hair cut this week resulting in a haircut that a tad bit on the short side for me. Oh well..... (oh, yeah, and in the above pictures...my hair is not sticking straight up!)

Oh, and this is not two 1/2 weeks, possibly even three weeks worth of Not me's put together in one post because I'm always on top of my blogging!

All I want for Christmas....

I took this a little late, but he did lose them before Christmas.

TONGUE

Someone discovered her tongue!! (Pictures were taken by the famous Luke Alma in the backseat of our SUV.)
Someone discovered her tongue!! (Pictures were taken by the famous Luke Alma in the backseat of our SUV.)

Favorite Bible Character Night

It was favorite Bible Character night at church tonight. The kids had a great time dressing up! Blake was obviously Moses. I was Queen Esther. Jakeb was King David. And Luke was Joshua.

Cup, pint, quart, and Gallon

Yesterday as I was cooking dinner, Jakeb came into the kitchen and asked me if one of these cups looked like exactly 1 pint. I said that I didn't know but we could figure out if it was if he knew how many cups were in a pint. He responded with the number two, so we experimented, and we found out that the cup was indeed exactly one pint. He then went in search of more tiny cups to see if he could find the cup, quart, and even the gallon size. (He learned these a month or so ago in school.) Next thing I know he has them all figured out, and he wanted his picture taken. (I made him take it in the tub fully dressed because one of them had a crack in it.)He played with these all that night and all the next day when he was done with school. all of them

1 cup

2 cups = 1 pint

2 pints = 1 quart

4 quarts = 1 gallon

Oh, and for dinner that night we were trying to figure out how many cups were in a gallon. Eric said 32. I couldn't think to even come up with a number. The boys said 16.

I hate it when the boys are right! When did they get smarter than us? Hey, at least they're learning.

Little mommy

Makenna has this little baby doll. She's been treating like a real baby lately. It's so stinkin' cute. It all began when she got a pair of pajamas that came with a pair of PJs for a baby doll. She thought that was the coolest thing. This morning she decided that her baby needed to go potty. Makenna went in to the bathroom, put her potty seat on the toilet, sat her baby on the potty seat, and then sat herself on the edge of the bathtub to read her baby doll a potty story.
Later on today she put her baby doll in the swing.She also put my Grandma's teddy bear in Klaire's carrier, and then she was very upset when I put Klaire back into it because she wanted to keep her teddy in it. Anyone want to guess what she's doing in these last pictures?

Grouchy girl

Makenna has had some grouchy days in the past couple of months.The other day she came up to me with her Magna Doodle and asked me to draw a picture of different people like Kaire(Klaire), Bake (Blake), Ooke (Luke), Ake (Jakeb), and Kabe (Kaleb). Eventually she asked me to draw her, and this is what I drew. She was soooo mad when I told her it was "grumpy Makenna." She wanted me to erase it. Instead I put it up on a shelf so she could look at. You know? Now that I think of it...she hasn't been quite as grumpy the past couple of days. Maybe she decided she didn't like how she looked.

Klaire bear

Check out this kid! Isn't she just about one of the cutest babies ever??? Man, I just want to squeeze her cheeks all the time. She's such a happy little kid!



And below is my personal favorite for now!