Diets + Pasta = Banana Splits!

Yes, that equation is true. So all this talk lately of diets made me crave cooking and I saw these cute little individual pasta bowls on the Food Network and I decided I wanted some. So Holli and I went out looking and found some cute ones. Now on the box it showed a picture of what you can use these bowls for, it had a pic of pasta and banana splits, so guess which one we went with, no brainer, I know!

So we had ourselves a banana split party! Those little pasta dishes sure hold a lot of ice cream - oh well I'll start my diet (again) on Monday :-)

You decide, who had the best looking split??

Gotcha Day!

So what's gotcha day you ask, it's the day we "got" Kaleb, 5 years ago exactly. Where has the time gone?

We first met Kaleb 2 months earlier, we walked into the orphanage where they were feeding about 3 kids in high chairs. Our coordinators stopped and just started talking to the workers, we weren't sure which kid was ours. We had been given a video when Kaleb was about 5 months old an none of the children eating looked like him, we were looking at this cute little dirty blond hair boy thinking it was Kaleb but the boy in the video was chunky and dark haired. Pretty soon they looked at me and asked if I wanted to feed him and they pointed to the cute little dirty blond boy, we were right. Silly story I know but we really weren't sure at first. After I tried to feed him we went into a little play room area where they had a bunch of cribs close together and a great big play pen area. We got to hold him for a little bit, then he played in his little walker for a while then it was time for his nap. They let me put in his crib. He never made a sound the hour and a half we got to be with him, but when I laid him down he started to whimper, it broke my heart. We didn't know how long it would take in between visits so it was hard to walk away. We were in Russia 10 days that first trip and got to spend less than 2 hours with Kaleb, but in no time we were on our way back to get him.

We officially adopted him on May 17th but since the orphanage was a 3 hour drive from where the courts were they made us wait a day to go pick him up. That was a sad day, they were like, "Congratulations on your new baby boy" but then we didn't get him, that was just a little cruel.
Anyway, the next morning arrived and we drove to the orphanage and our coordinator told us to wait in the car pretty soon the guy comes out holding a baby and David said "I think that's him" and I said, "No, he's too little" but sure enough it was our little Kaleb. We took him and got his passport pictures and then drove back to the orphanage where they dressed him in his new little clothes and handed him to us and they literally said, "Thank you, come back again." and with that we were gone.
After we got him we were anxious to get back home. Kellie threw us a welcome home party the same night we got home. After all that excitement we took him home for the first time and he slept through the night, from day one. He even took 2 hour naps twice a day for a while till we ruined his schedule.

The amazing thing is he has been very healthy and we haven't had any problems that some adoptive parents go through, we have been truly blessed having Kaleb in our home. He still is a handful at times but what kid isn't?

It's hard to imagine he came into our home at 11 months old and now he is a month away (and counting) till he is 6 years old. He really has brought a whole new personality into our home!

Ashley & Courtney

My little girls are not so little anymore, on March 30th they turned 14. Talk about little they have been taller than me for over a year now and still our growing, they think they are slowing down though. So in honor of their birthday I thought I would share one of their talents with you, it's more of an obsession with them, but I'll take it. They love art, every year for birthday's and Christmas all they really ask for is sketchbooks and art supplies ( what parent would complain about that?).

So here is some of their work.


Ashley's Art





This was Ashley's first attempt at painting. As you can tell she's a Star Wars fan (I wonder where that came from?)

Courtney's Work:

This is Courtney's second painting that she has ever done.

This is Courtney's first painting, she painted this picture of me for Christmas. I told her I love that she made me youger and thinner :-)

Our Possessed Car

This happened last Sunday, but I still thought it was funny enough to share. So Sunday afternoon we were just sitting around reading, napping, you know the usual Sunday activities, when all of a sudden the alarm on our van started going off (you know the annoying horn). I scrambled and found my keys and turned it off. We all looked at each other, asked where Kaleb was (our first thought of why it went off). Found everyone to be innocent and sat back down. A minute later it started going off again. I turned it off and it immediately happened again. I started the car up thinking that would help (David thought it was a silly idea but at least it wouldn't go off while it was on). Then the sliding door opened and shut on its own (it's electrical) so then we started really wondering what was going on. Then the alarm went off again and the door opened again.

David went and found the other set of keys, it was sitting in a pool of water on the counter. Amazingly enough when we dried it up no more weird electrical problems, imagine that. Well we had a good laugh, it was the most excitement we had all day.

Happy Campers?

So it's spring break, the girls birthday is coming up and they say they want to go camping for their birthday. We thought sure, that would be nice get out of the city for a couple of days. Courtney wanted to stay the week, but since I'm not a camper agreed to 3 days 2 nights. The closer it came to leaving we were all getting a little excited to go, even me, believe it or not. So we buy a camp stove, a little tent to make into a bathroom (my biggest complaint in camping) and plenty of food. So Tuesday we left, found a nice little place at a site called Mormon Grove by Sycamore Creek, just an hour from home. We set-up camp close to the stream and put up a couple of hammocks that Micah lent us (Thanks Micah, we loved them). Anyway, we had a nice evening, we were hoping Lyndzi and Micah were going to join us, but the dang insurance company prevented them from coming (long story, if you really want to know ask Lyndzi, on second thought she might be a little sore still about it, maybe you should wait :-) )

Anyway, we went to bed early, when the sun goes down you might as well go to bed early. It didn't get too cold, we brought plenty of blankets, however you just can't really get a good night sleep camping can you?

Wednesday morning, wake up, make breakfast, get to relax all day. After lunch still relaxing,,,getting kind of boring relaxing, can only skip so many rocks in the creek. Tried to go on a little hike, couldn't make out any good trails. About 4:00pm the girls say, can we go home. Sure, camping is nice for little while but we found out we like camping with other people better.

I still think I like my mother's motto about camping best, she always says, "My idea of camping is opening the window in my motel room!"

Kaleb's Bad Day :-(

Mom: Kaleb, how was your day at school?
Kaleb: Good, but not the bus ride home.
Mom: How come?
Kaleb: Because me and Sara (name has been changed to protect the innocent)are mad at each other.
Mom: What happened?
Kaleb: Do you remember when I told you I kissed her?
Mom: Yes, but we don't do that anymore remember?
Kaleb: It was a while ago and I found out she was cheating on me.
Mom: Cheating on you? (I'm not sure if he knows what that means)
Kaleb: Yea, when she kissed me I found out she was kissing another boy too, so she was cheating on me. So I broke up with her.
Mom: (hiding the smile) Well that's good because you're not suppose to have a girlfriend until you're 21.
Kaleb: I know, so me and Sara aren't talking to each other any more. That's why I had a bad bus ride.

I guess it's hard being 5.

February Hike

Our goal for a hike a month is on track, okay so it's only 2 down 10 to go, but hey, by February most of my other resolutions are out the window so we are doing good. We hiked Cholla Trail on Camelback Mountain. We didn't quite make it to the top, Kaleb was getting pretty tired but we didn't have to carry him at all, course we had to walk at least half a mile just to get to the trailhead so we did wear the little guy out. It was fun though. It was a bit rocky so we got our exercise, the first hike we did was easy this was a little harder and it was pretty popular, but we couldn't have asked for nicer weather. All in all it was a good day.