Making More Heart-Warming Memories...

Day 9- Lani's idea: grown ups plan a time to attend the temple this month.  Kids, draw a nativity.

Day 10- Amara's idea: Have spaghetti and have fun with it.  Eat with huge utensils!  Take pictures!

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Day 11- Lily's idea: make up a joke!  Although we each contributed a few of our own made-up jokes that night, none of them made it into my memory, sorry.

Day 12- Steve's idea: Record a song and share it.  This was fun and totally last minute.  The girls sang their version of the popular Spanish/English tune, Feliz Navidad.  Their version says something like, "Alise mommynod!  Espello Pacino Manana..."  And, my brother and his wife did this and they wrote their own song.  It's really good!  Watch it at jacobandkellilauret.blogspot.com

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Day 13- Lani's idea: Read a favorite Christmas story together or share some of your favorite Christmas memories.

Day 14- Amara's idea: Grab some blankets and cuddle while watching something.

Making Memories- A Family Recipe

Day 7- Amara's idea: Play a game.
Our game was going to be Apples to Apples, but last second we were invited to a Christmas dinner.  By the time the dinner ended, it was past bedtime, but at least we didn't go to bed without doing something fun.  I love a dinner I don't when I don't have to cook.

Day 8- Steve's idea: Create a recipe together.
Oh boy, are we ready for this?  Here it is folks, a concoction never been done before (I'm pretty sure, or at least not done like this).  Drumroll please...

Peanut Butter and Jelly Salad

PB Croutons:
1/2 Tbsp Peanut butter, melted
1/2 Tbsp Butter, melted
4 slices of Bread, crusts removed
Salt
~~~Combine peanut butter and butter and brush onto both sides of the bread.  Sprinkle with salt then cut into cubes.  Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.  Let cool.

Strawberry Jam Dressing:
some Strawberry yogurt
some Strawberry jam
a little Vinegar
Salt and pepper
~~~Whisk all ingredients together.

Salad:
Lettuce, chopped
Sliced Strawberries
~~~Toss lettuce with dressing.  Add strawberries and PB croutons on top.

So, we haven't tried it yet, but I'm quite curious if it turns out to be tasty or awful.  What do you think???

Perhaps you're curious about how this recipe idea came about.  Well, Steve started by contributing his idea for an ingredient- yogurt.  Amara then added her's- lettuce.  Then Lily- butter and peanut butter.  Phew!  I was stumped on what to make that incorporates all those random ingredients.  So, it took some brain power, and Lily and I came up with a concept and I have no clue what the end result tastes like.  No matter what it tastes like, it was fun to put our minds together to create a recipe.

Making Memories and Movies

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In an effort to better document our attempts at making memories, on Dec 3 (day 3) we made cookies as a family and I broke out the digital camera and let Lily and Amara host their own cooking show.  They're sweeter than the cookies, and those cookies were stellar-good! 

Day 4- Steve's idea: make a Christmas movie.  We couldn't let the girls go to bed without showing off some more of their natural talent, so we decided on a story we had just read to the girls called, "The Worst Person's Christmas." 

It was a rather cute story, but we didn't have much time to do the book justice.  We threw together a few scenes in 20 minutes and called it good.  Then we posted it to facebook, and in case you missed it there, it's here too.

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And Steve just couldn't get enough of the movie making, so he put the girls to work for 5 more minutes and made this spectacular feature...

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Day 5- Lily's idea: Tell the Christmas story or sing some Christmas hymns.  Our family sang some nice songs.

Day 6- Lani's idea: Write a letter.  We all sat down with cute stationary for Family Night and wrote/ illustrated  letters to my cousin who is serving a mission in California.  Merry Christmas to the missionaries! 

Making Memories: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3

Day 1: Lani's idea- Christmas Movie Night.

Between picking Steve up from work and running to the store to buy a few salad makings for the ward Christmas party later that night, our family took a short side trip to the library (one good part about living in a small town is that everything is close together).  I wanted to show the girls an old-time movie from my childhood~ Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, an 8 minute vintage classic from 1948.

I found the video I was looking for and another short Christmas kid's cartoon, The Nutcracker. 

When we got home, the girls wanted to watch The Nutcracker movie, so that's what we put on.  While I made the salad, Steve diappeared to the office and the girls watched the movie, which turned out to be a 1/2 hour cartoon that resembled Japanese anime and according to Lily, the story was a little scary.  Not exactly the memory-making family time I was picturing.  Oh, well.  There's always another day.

Day 2: Amara's idea- Dance to Christmas tunes.

This was going to be easy.  At the end of the day, we'd tune in to the Christmas station and let our fancy feet take over.  Well, the end of the day came, we put the girls to sleep and then it dawned on me... we never danced.  Aw, boo.  Oh, well... again. 

Our feet may have not been fancy that night, but earlier that evening we made warm memories.  As a family, we sat together in our crowded living room (I'd been folding laundry for 2 days in there, and not one textile made it back into it's designated drawer), I snuggled in a fleece blanket and the girls nestled under their daddy's arms, and together we watched the treasured Rudolph I remembered.  There were also 2 bonus features- Jack Frost and some springtime-themed cartoon.  We made memories.  Prancing or no prancing, that night was a success! 

Day 3: Lily's idea: Make cookies!

We all put forth a little more effort on Day 3 and after dinner we made my 5 ingredient Double-Fudge-Mallow cookies. 

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 stick butter, softened

2 eggs

1 box devils food cake mix
16-18 marshmallows, halved

1/2 a bag of chocolate chips, melted

Mix butter, eggs, and cake mix until it comes together.  Form tablespoon-sized balls and bake at 350 for 7-8 minutes (the tops will start to look cracked).  Add a marshmallow half to the top of each cookie and bake another 2-3 minutes.  Let cool on cookie sheet a few minutes, then transfer to cooling rack.  Spoon a little melted chocolate over the top of the cookies, covering the marshmallow completely.  TIP: To prevent the melted chocolate from stiffening, add a teaspoon of vegetable oil and stir in completely. 

Amara, The Singing Sensation

Just released in time for Christmas... Amara and her ultimate picks for the season!  You'll enjoy original, one of a kind hits such as Triangle, Square, Oval! interspersed with Primary songs and a take on Feliz Navidad (I believe she says Alise Mommydad).  Hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

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Kindergarten- Yay!

 Here's a close up picture of Lily's first homework assignment (due her first day of school).  She was to cut out the cardstock gingerbread-shaped person and then decorate it to look like herself (with the help of a parent) using things around the house.  She loves the color purple, if you can't tell.  She made the clothes out of foam sheets and cut it out herself.  I helped her staple the purple raffia hair to the paper.  Then she decorated with stickers I had.

Lily loves her teacher.  She really is a very sought-after teacher, requested by almost everyone who has a kindergartener.  We're so happy Lily got her!

We had Lily's first parent-teacher-student conference a while back and she tells me Lily is far ahead of any of her students (It's not surprising to me.  She was the one that was initiating her reading lesson everyday so she could learn to read when she was 4.).  Lily is enjoying all the fun things she's been able to do in Kindergarten like field trips, art time, library time, P.E., and playing on the playground.  I've started volunteering in her classroom once a week for an hour, and it's fun to see her at school and meet her classmates as well.

So, I know I'm two and a half months late with this post, but better late than never.

Our Autumn Adventures and Halloween

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Halloween  has recently past, and this year we went to spend the creepy day with some of our favorite spooks.  We stayed with Steve's parents and enjoyed seeing them as well as his brother, Matt and his sisters Bev and Laurel and their families.  Lily and Amara had some good times with their cousins, grandparents, and Aunts and Uncles.  On Halloween, Steve and I got to go to the Desert Star Theater with my family to watch "Welcome Back Potter," a comical play about Harry Potter's 10 year high school reunion.  We all had a great time!  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home, so I don't have pictures of Halloween.


Later that night, Lily, Amara, and I got dressed up to go trick-or-treating.  Lily was a bumble bee, Amara was a ladybug, and I was a snow princess.  We brought Tamsin with us to Aunty April's neighborhood to trick-or-treat.  It was lightly drizzling rain the entire time, but it didn't get the girls spirits down.  In fact, Amara had the greatest endurance of the 3 trick-or-treaters, staying out a half hour longer than the rest (thanks April for taking her around).  The girls came away with plenty of sweets.  As the night got later, our little girls decided they wanted to see if the Candy Fairy would come, so they put their bags of candy on the dining table and sure enough, the next morning their candy was gone and there were 2 toys for each of them.  Candy fairy was a huge success, and the girls don't miss their candy, and they love their new toys.

Steve and I went to Micah's house after the girls went to sleep (thanks to Steve's parents for babysitting our sleeping children), and we had tasty homemade doughnuts shaped like ghosts, and played a rousing game of Cranium with Dad, Debby, Micah, Mandy, April, Spencer, Missy, and Mandy's mom, dad, and brother.  Our dream team (Steve, me and my dad) led the game the entire time up until the end, then the slow and steady "Oldies but Goodies" (Mandy's parents and Debby) pulled through the finish line first.  Wish I had more pictures.  Boo hoo hoo!