The Jewels of January

Hello All! We hope your new year has started out with a happy bang! January usually brings the normal resolutions of losing weight and/or eating healthy. P'shaw we say! We've joyously been having a Homemade Pancake Fest! The Mommy has tried a few recipes for pancakes made from scratch, but we came back to, and settled on, a recipe that we received as a Christmas gift! (thanks, Amanda!) Let's just say buttermilk is becoming a household staple. Ohh! Sooo Yummy :) And speaking of food, my homemade organic bread actually didn't turn out so bad, but it wasn't as tasty as I thought it should be...what's up with that? Organic 'anything' is usually delicious beyond compare. But, I do more than baking. I do laundry, too. Well, sort of. If you hear muffled cries for help from the benches of Draper, Utah it's just me swallowed up in mounds and mounds of clothes and towels. I can't keep up with a family of 4!!! I'm pathetic, I know... but, I have a new plan, now, that I'm finally 'caught up'. We shall see how it goes. It's a lot of work being here all day! Where's my lunch hour?! Where's my benefit package?!

WHY...HERE'S A COUPLE OF 'BENEFITS' NOW ;)


Cali's first word was car, her first major motion picture viewed in a theater was Pixar's Cars, so her first daddy-daughter date was going to the car show! She is also working on her 'collection' of Matchbox cars like her daddy. She's quite the versitle child; from tea sets and doll houses, to cars and Tony Hawk's ProSkater 4 on the Game Cube (who needs a son??) Yes, she learned to 'grind' the skateboard and she and Daddy opened up a new city, Chicago, to skate around on the video game. She is amazing. She learns so fast. We also have been so fortunate and blessed to find a new eye doctor this month that will help her with her intermittent exotropia as well as her vision therapy. We have been doing therapy mostly at home with her for a couple of years now and we are so estatic to find out her vision is 20/20. She has worked very hard and it is paying off. We look forward to the day this disorder is a distant memory. Great job, Cal...we love you! :)

And can you believe Carice is already 6 months old! She is sitting up pretty much independantly now, started eating rice cereal and is for sure, sleeping through the night. Her physical therapy appointment went well. Her diagnosis of Right Torticollis/Plagiocephaly was on the mild/moderate cusp. We decided to make adjustment to her sleeping and playing habits and forgo the helmet for now. She will have another check up in February to see if her head measurements improve. She is a happy baby, but gets frustrated easily when she wants something she can't have...ie: paper and other stuff that she isn't allowed to put in that cute little mouth of hers! She likes to chew on everything! She's also found her 'comfort item'-her left thumb. (which is also the challenge with her Plagiocephaly!) She loves to suck that adorable little, stubby, digit when she's going to sleep. We just love our chubby little baby ;)

And finally, my 'companion benefit' has been working hard at takin' care of all of us. He has more side business to design for Detour Design. Also, he and Juna (his business partner) were contacted by Cafe Press, who was contacted by Univeral Studios, about their T-shirt designs for the TV show, "Heroes". We aren't sure what this all means, exactly, but it sounds exciting! And at his job at Dex, he did receive the position of designing spec ads all day. So, that is a happy report, too! He and I are also working together in our ward calling, now. We got called to teach the Marriage and Family Relationship class for the Sunday School hour on Sundays. It's been really fun and we are getting to know some great people in our new ward/class. And it's nice to serve and spend time with my hubby at church for awhile.

Everybody take care! And if you are interested in the 'specs' for the pancake recipe...let me know...it will make Saturday mornings even more rewarding :)

Happy New Year!

Wow! Another month gone and another year! How come in the good ol' "school days" time seemed to poke along so slowly (will I ever graduate?) and now it seems to warp by?
Just life, I guess.

After getting seven Christmas boxes mailed to family this year (I always tell myself I will get them out the first week of December...best laid plans) and getting the tree and doing all to get ready for the big day, we had a nice Christmas here at home this year. The Mommy had a great idea of eating out at Olive Garden for dinner since she did the cooking for Thanksgiving, but that proved stupid. Yep, it was closed—as so many others. But what luck! Our fav Chinese restaurant was open until 10pm! We even got 10% off our tab. We gave a nice tip, as the smiley waiter said "our gain was his pain". We all enjoyed a delicious plate of Mu Shu Chicken and Fried Rice.

And Christmas, of course, is much more than food, family and the requested doll house to Cali from Santa (he delivered!), it's about our Saviour. I read Luke 2 on Christmas Eve, but I couldn't help thinking of Mary, the mother of Jesus, this year with a sweet young baby of my own. How strong she must have been to try and understand His mission and ultimate sacrifice. She truly is a woman of courage and strength. And how fortunate and lucky are we that He finished all that was asked of Him for our sakes.

We decided to take pictures of the girls this year ourselves(see pic above.) They didn't turn out too bad considering one was floppy and the other has a short attention span! They truly bring many gray hairs, but a lot of joy, too.



Carice has to have a couple of sessions of physical therapy. She is favoring one side to lay on giving her a flat spot on her head. It's mild, but her ped thought it would help and keep her from having to wear a helmet to correct the shape. So, we will be getting that scheduled this month. She is just growing like a beautiful flower and is the yummiest to kiss and snuggle. And she actually sleeps! Unlike someone small and blonde that also lives in this house!


Cali is full of energy and full of funny/interesting words. We think Dr. Seuss is channelling her! She will be a great story teller/ writer someday with all the twists and turns she puts on the English language. :) And it is exciting for us to see her learning to read and write already. She is signed up for My Gym... (Gymboree on steroids!) so Saturdays will be class and Thursdays will be *free play* where she can go just to burn off that energy.

Rick is knee deep in website design... he and his business partner are getting ready to launch another CafePress store, TV Teez. They had a great month for Nov/Dec at Detour Designables selling 760 t-shirts! And he's waiting to hear from his 'day job' at DexMedia if he was selected to do spec ads solely, meaning he will get to be creative everyday by designing ads from scratch. It's fun having an artist in the house!

And as for the Mommy...she is in the cooking/baking mood. I found a recipe for Alfredo Sauce off the Olive Garden Website. Tried it out for New Year's Eve dinner. Darn my French Canadian blood! Oh well, it was better than the jar-stuff. I think I will give it another whirl; tweaking the recipe a little bit and seeing what happens. And since organics is my *passion* I am going to bake my own organic bread. YYyyyeeah. Wish me luck as I am NOT using a bread maker. However, I do have a lovely, curvy dough hook for my Kitchen Aid mixer that will be assisting me...can't you just smell it baking? MMmmm....:)