Free dinner on our Friday date night!

That's right... you read it right. FREE

Since Couponsense, I have been recieving 3 newspapers every Sunday and in the last 3 there was this paper bag in each with this written on it. The burritos were huge and very tasty. We got a bag of chips and salsa and when the man rung us up... beautiful words flowed from his mouth. "That'll be $1.79." Love the deals!

Mike's Bright Idea

Jaidyn and Isaac were all ready for school and Isaac was all ready for Flash Friday (show n tell).

Mike: All ready to go?

Jaidyn and Isaac: Yep.

Mike: Hey Jaidyn, how 'bout you take Dagen to school with you today.

Jaidyn: Really?

Mike: Just make sure you change her diaper when she goes poo poo, ok?

Jaidyn: Daddy, you're just jokin' right?

...And that's when Mike stuffed Dagen in Jaidyn's backpack. Everyone thought it was hilarious... not Dagen.

Yummy Sweet 'n' Sour Chicken Recipe

(Thursday's dinner)

The kids beg to cook with me anytime I'm making anything. They are such good helpers. I've never let them work with raw chicken before, but they got their chance. This is a really good easy recipe we all love. The kids say it's one of their favorites. This was a recipe Mike learned on his mission in Tawaiin.

Here's the recipe:

3 chicken breasts (cut in 1" squares)

flour

egg

lots of oil for frying

Sauce:

1 c. ketchup

1 c. vinegar

1 c. sugar (maybe the reason my kids love it so much)

2T flour or cornstarch

1/3 c. water

canned pineapple (drained, reserve 3T juice)

Pour enough oil in a pot to submerge chicken. Have oil heating up while you defrost and cut up chicken. Dip all chicken pieces in egg then flour. Place chicken in the oil to fry. Set aside done pieces in a bowl lined with napkins. Mix the ketchup, vinegar, and sugar in a large pan. Stir and bring to boil for about 1 min. Take the 2 T flour and 1/3 water and mix together in separate bowl. Pour flour and water mix into the ketchup sauce mix and boil for another 30 sec. or so. Then quickly add desired amt. of pineapple chunks and reserved juice to mix and add the chicken to sauce and stir together.

This is sooooo good with white rice and potstickers.

FUNNY CLIPS

Here are two from yesterday

Jaidyn's School Concert

Jaidyn was so excited to dress in "her best" like her teacher said to, but as soon as we got to the multipurpose room where the concert was taking place, she looked around to find that everyone was dressed casually.

OH NO.. EVERYONE'S WORST NIGHTMARE!

She turned to me with a terrified look and said, "Mommy, what if I'm the only one dressed up?" Then she realized she was meeting in the wrong room and was supposed to meet in her classroom. When she got there, she felt relieved and right in place with all her other dressed up friends. PHEW! Jaidyn did a great job and never missed a word or action in all the songs. Good job, Jaidyn. I'm so proud of you. Enjoy the video below.

She brought a cowboy hat for the last number. YEE HAW!

Happy Birthday Daddy

From: Isaac

I love Papa Happy Birthday Papa I hope you have a good birthday

That's papa in the left picture and balloons by the fireplace in the right pic.

5 Reasons why I love my Dad and one extra reason

1. He has always been a hard worker.

2. He has taught me by example and BY GOLLY is he a great example in honesty, love, respect, dedication, kindness, and service.

3. He would do anything to help someone in need.

4. He has a loving smile that beams all day long.

5. He would always ask us growing up, "Did you learn anything?" after any mistakes. (never liked the comment when I was younger but has taught me to learn from all my mistakes.)

6. He is MY Dad and I will love him forever and ever.

I LOVE YOU DAD

Wish I could be there to spend this special day with you.

Love Notes

My babies are always so sweet and thoughtful. I love getting their little notes. These were from yesterday a little before dinner.

Jaidyn had a mint container with a note rolled up for Mike and I.

Isaac gave me one earlier before Jaidyn's. He is so cute when he shows me. He gets all shy and red in the face. (the last line says: we are having dinner) Gotta love his letter y's. After I read the letter he said: "I love writing y's mommy."

Keeping a journal

One thing that Mike and I have the kids do every Sunday is write in their journals. Yesterday we had them each write their testimony. Since Kallie can't write, I help her write all her thoughts. She had a lot to say. She was rambling on so quickly I could barely keep up. I kept telling her, "hold on, just a sec. " Thought I'd share with you what she said.

I love Jesus and him always takes care voh (of) us. Someone made our bodies and someone made our house. Someone maked our toys, someone maked our food. Someone made allvoh our friends who want to play with us soon. I always play with Isaac and with Dagen and Jaidyn, with you and Daddy. Mommy and Daddy always play with us. l love Mommy and Daddy and Jaidyn and Isaac and Dagen and me Kallie and I always love to read books and then I always go outside and I'm good riding my bike with no training wheels and I'm a big girl now and no one needs to hold my shirt with riding 'cause I'm good now. I always do something that's my favorite and always play on the computer and I always like to color with crayons. And den (then)... I always like to play with allvoh my friends but Daddy Mommy don't let me play with my friends sometimes and we always bees safe and not fight together. But Isaac always loves me and him a good brother and takes me to primary and I love Emma and Julia too. I love Opple (uncle) Dave and Lydi-La (Lydia), and Hedder (Heather) and Collin. I love baby Lucy too. I always love my cousins the whole time. Den... I always love eberybody else in the whole world. And den... I always plays with allvoh my friends in the whole world. I always play with Jaidyn and Isaac sometimes but not always do sometimes never. I'm done now. I want to be done. In the name voh Jesus Christ, Amen.

PRECIOUS! Wish I had kept some kind of journal of my own growing up. So glad we are doing this with our kids.

Some of her drawings in her journal from yesterday

I am now over the 8 year old acheivement day girls and it has been so much fun getting to know these girls and planning out fun lessons and activities. Last time we met I gave the girls each a spiral notebook and a journal jar. The journal jar had 50 strips of paper with an idea or question on each strip. Questions range from what does your room look like? to What do you love about each person in your family? I found a list of 50 printable questions here if you would like to do the same: http://www.ldsactivitydays.com/Journal_Jar_for_AD.doc Jaidyn pulled out her journal jar yesterday and read one of the ideas and wrote about it. Thought it was a cute idea to help kids get into writing in their journals.

My funny Kallie

I like to do my grocery shopping every Saturday morning and I've been making it a date with each of my babies. Last week was Jaidyn's turn to go out and 2 days ago it was Kallie's turn. I love being able to spend one on one time with my kids even if it has to be talking in the car about random things or at the store. They get to pick one treat while there and help me get all the things from my list. I wish I could record all the conversations we have had, but Kallie kept saying the funniest things. I can only remember two funny things though. Dangit!

I kept commenting to her about how my eyes were burning 'cause of my contacts and she said, "Well, Mommy, why don't you put chapstick in them... that will make dem feel better."

And then when we were driving out of the parking lot there is always this girl that is spinning a sign and usually it's annoying to me how the sign is turning every which way and you can't even see what it says because it is constantly in motion. Well, this girl is entertaining. Kallie and I love watching. She twirls this huge arrow tax sign like it's a baton and even throws it in the air and does a side flip and catches it. Yeah. Amazing. You get to watch while sitting at this long light getting out. Kallie says, "Mommy, hers (she's) a good signer." Here's the pic I attempted to take while the light just changed to green.
And here is Kallie laughing histerically in the car on the way home. She takes a purse with her she calls "her diaperbag" and her baby with her everywhere she goes.

Mel and Mike Plus Eight

Last night I felt like I was in a John and Kate Plus Eight episode. We LOVE that we can trade babysitting with Dave and Heather. Thanks guys! It's hard to feel comfortable leaving four kids behind for someone to watch but this way it is an even trade both ways. So tonight Mike and I will be going out and it'll be... "On this episode of Dave and Heather Plus Eight." We are so glad we live close to family. We had the kids spend the night here last night and the kids had a blast. It wasn't so bad until I had to pull off a dinner for 10 and watch the little ones at the same time since Mike wasn't home until 7pm. BTW, the scary pics of Dagen in the previous post was taken while I was making dinner last night. Sorry Dagen!

Dagen modeling for ya'll

Do not be fooled!

hahahaha

The Tim Tam Slam

This was something Mike had while on his mission in Tawaiin and brought back some cases that didn't last too long. But I was lucky enough to have a few... ok... A LOT! Since you can't find them here anywhere, we have done some testing and research of our own buying a variety of cookies here and there to see if there was anything like a Tim Tam. Well, we did eventually find something kind of like it. They are Girl Scout Mint Cookies. Love these sooooooo much. What is the Tim Tam Slam? Take a girl scout mint cookie and bite both ends of the cookie and then you dip one end into VERY HOT milk and suck the milk through til you taste a little milk in your mouth. Tip the cookie upside down and quickly throw it into your mouth and Wah lah... you've got the tastiest melted chocolate treat. Seriously addicting. I had a few last night. Try it, you'll like it. Oh, and you have to have a glass of cold milk to down it with.

Then when I went to post a picture of a Tim Tam I came upon an article that said they were trying out Tim Tams at the Target Stores for a limited time. Well that limited time ends March 2009. That's right... next month. You better believe I'm heading out to all the nearby Target Stores and stockin' up for the rest of my life. If I get them all, maybe I'll share some with close friends and fam.

This is Pheonix Police Emergency Dispatch... what's your emergency?

Usually Mike is up by 5:50am and walking out the door right when the kids leave for the bus, but today he was exhausted from a 6 mile run yesterday and was sleeping in. YEA! Kallie and Dagen and I were excited to wake him up with kisses and a back scratch. Well, while Mike and I were talking, Kallie and Dagen start playing with Mike's phone and since it was on keylock, we weren't worried about any calls going through. Somehow they both bypassed the lock and called Emergency Dispatch and hung up. And yes... a second later we got a call back from them and had to explain what negligent parents we were to let this happen. OOPS!

The Challenge

For some reason my settings on my blog were not right and were not allowing comments from anyone. So... I think I fixed it. I guess you've noticed this crazy bloggin' kick I've been in. Well, I've been reading blogs from the "Other Blogs I Read List" that I have, and saw that most of them posted on their blogs everyday. So I thought to take on the challenge of doing the same. I love reading all of your blogs and check in on them everyday, in fact. Gotta see who's written. I feel a connection to each of you through what you blog. Hopefully you can too through mine. Now you'll have a part of my day posted everyday. It may not be interesting but it'll be something. So tune in... Who will take on this same challenge?

Dagen strikes AGAIN!

I am downloading pictures to the computer and I notice how quiet it is.

"Dagen, what are you doing?"

"Mama? Mama?"

and that's when I find this. She had grabbed my makeup bag from the diaper bag and put on my mascara and lip gloss all over. She did a pretty good job, though. So of course I grab my camera as fast I can and she looks at me with the cutest smile and says, "Deez" (cheese).