Happy Birthday!

Dear Aunt Alyson,
We hope your day is great, filled with love and tranquility. We Love you! Have the happiest of birthdays...try to forget how OLD you are!!!;)

You're Invited!

I don't expect that anyone other than Grandpa and Grandma will be able to make it on Thursday, but we wanted to at least invite everyone. Reid looks forward to celebrating some more this weekend with the Little Weavers. We wish you could be here too, Richards'!

R WE BACK?

We've kind of disappeared as of late. Life is busy for everyone and we've made it crazy for ourselves in many ways. I am just now downloading our pictures from Christmas! Whatever! So, you can see some of our favorites from the holidays.

"...or else I'll break your arms and legs."

From the looks of this photo, Derek actually carried through on the threat his dad used to make. But really, he was just practicing putting on casts after a "casting lab" at work that day. Good thing he didn't put one on Luke-- when Derek got out the vibrating saw to take the casts off Ethan and Reid, Luke went ballistic and ran screaming to defend his brothers from their saw-wielding Dad. I had to hold Luke and reassure him that Daddy wouldn't hurt them. It was quite funny. Ethan and Reid got a kick out of wearing their removable casts to school the next day and tricking their friends.

Although we thought Luke was potty trained at Christmas time, he seems to have regressed a little, and so we've had to modify potty candy to stickers on his Scooby Dooby Doo potty chart. So far, so good. I do not want to be changing 2 kids come April!

Happy Birthday, Grandma Nori!

Now that we live so close, we get the privilege of celebrating birthdays with Grandma and Grandpa-- not to mention being spoiled by them. Thanks for all you do, Nori! We love you!

Happy Birthday, Grandma!

We hope your day is fantastic and that you know how much we love you!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

To the Mother's...

For those of you who are interested in my findings...I have tried several recipes from the cookbook "Deceptively Delicious" on my children and we have some real hits. First of all I tried the brownies. My kids loved them. The recipe took an entire bag of baby spinach for an 8x8 pan of brownies and 2.5 medium size carrots. I laughed to myself every time I offered the kids a brownie as a snack...especially, Alec who has not eaten a vegetable since baby food. Jason and I both did not think they were as good as the "real" thing, but we ate them anyway (133 calories each...Derek). I think next time I will use milk chocolate instead of semi-sweet to lesson the richness and NOT pack the flour so they are a little lighter.
I have also pureed butternut squash and sweet potatoes...easy to do in the little chopper mom gave us for Christmas a few years back, but the carrots and spinach need a blender (or food processor if YOU have one...I don't...yet). We have had the french toast, using carrot and pumpkin (separate, of course...page 49). I made several batches and froze them for quick, before school breakfasts. No-one complained and everyone ate...hmmmm! This morning we had pancakes with sweet potatoes...Alec is just finishing his second helping (pg 57). My favorite, so far has been the tortilla "cigars" on page 144. YUMMY!!! Even Paige loved them and did not complain or negotiate bites, imagine that!!!! I did alter the recipe some, I used the carrots, but not the squash, only because my kids will eat shredded zucchini. So I shredded an entire zucchini into 6 rolled tortillas. I also did not use burrito size tortillas...too many calories. Any way, as you can tell I am very excited about this and look forward to trying the scrambled eggs on Saturday morning, the grilled cheese, and tacos in the coming week. I'll let you know. If you have tried anything that you like, let me know. Thanks!