Triton..again 5 weeks

Someone suggested I show Triton with someone to get an idea of how big he is. Here he is with the breeder's daughter.. I think she is 6 or 7? Not sure..

Triton -- 5 weeks

Here is our boy.. we go to pick him up May 10th!! I am sooo excited!! :) :) :) :)

Guess that recipe...

Hey this could be a new game show!! Hehe.. NO CHEATING and scrolling to the end!! How long does it take you to figure out what Alissa made yesterday ;) Here goes... we'll start with the ingredients..

First we add 1 cup of flour..
Then add 1/2 cup of salt..
Next comes 2 teaspoons cream of tartar..
The oh so fun addition of food coloring into 1 cup of water.
Pour the water with food coloring into the mix...Stir all ingredients together.. You should have guessed it by now ;) Add 1 tablespoon oil, I should say vegetable oil would work just great but we ran out so good old olive oil does the trick. :) Now you stir continuously over medium heat until...
A nice blue (or whatever color you might have chosen) ball forms in the pan.
Take it out and knead it a few times and we have.. you guessed it!! Home made PLAY DOH! :)

Store in an air tight plastic container for lots and lots of fun. By the way.. if this stuff gets on your carpet it is no fun at all. I still have pink spots here and there from our last batch. Oh well, I hate me carpet anyway -- pergo here we come!! :) :)

Last night was also "Movie Night" at our house. About once a month everyone (including the cat, excluding the big stinky dog) climbs into bed in our room, eats popcorn, watches a movie and we have a sleep over. Here is a quick shot of the kids ready for the movie!! :)

Alissa really looks forward to her movie night!! Fun times.

Mmmm chocolate cake..

Alissa insisted that we make a chocolate cake today.. so I thought what the heck. Here is the recipe we used:

Chocolate Oil Cake
2 1/4 Cups flour

1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 C cocoa
3/4 t. salt

1 1/2 t. baking soda

1 1/2 t. vanilla

1/2 C oil

1 1/2 t. vinegar

1 1/2 C. water

Combine all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. In separate bowl combine wet. Mix wet into dry until well blended. Pour into greased and floured 9x13 pan, or 2-8" round pans, and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. (til toothpick comes out clean) Cool and frost as desired.

And for the frosting we tripled this recipe (we like lots of frosting hehe):

Chocolate Butter Frosting

2 tablespoons butter
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 square unsweetened chocolate melted over boiling water, or 1/4 cup cocoa

Cream butter and sugar well, add the flavoring and liquid until mixture is smooth.

Here is the end result.. of course, I don't know what it tastes like yet because Alissa won't let me try it until Daddy gets home because it is HIS cake. (She doesn't need to know he doesn't like cake..haha..I'm sure he will eat some for her sake).

Putting frosting on the first layer...

. Both layers are frosted!! Wow.. :)
Alissa put gingerbread man sprinkles and insisted it needed marshmallows!
The finished product!
When I threatened to try a piece before Daddy gets home..
My kitchen is a disaster.. I contemplated taking a picture of the aftermath but it just looks like a cocoa explosion.. we had a bit of a problem with the first frosting recipe we tried and inhaled a bit of cocoa. A-hem.. anyhow.. the second turned out nicely!! Electric mixers and 4 year old don't always agree. We had fun and I can't wait to try it! Mmmmmmmmm

Updates..

It has been much too long since I have done an actual update. Here goes nothing.. Alissa is still my sweet sensitive lovely little girl. She is doing ok in school although we have been battling bully issues. There is a girl named Sarah in class with a very strong personality and for some reason Alissa has been trying real hard to be friends with her.. problem is this little girl is mean. Alissa had been coming home crying saying Sarah was mean and no one would play with her so I decided to go to school with her the next day and observe. My oh my what a surprise I got there. I witnessed Alissa walk up to Sarah to play and Sarah turn her back.. what does my sweet girl say? "I love you Sarah".. the response? "I DON'T LIKE YOU". Umm.. wow. The interesting thing is I told the teacher why I was in class that day and obviously my presence made a difference because she immediately took the little girl aside and reprimanded her and explained that saying mean things was not ok. I'm pretty sure this wasn't happening before because she also had Sarah apologize to Alissa. Sigh.. you should not have to deal with people like this at 4 years old but I suppose thus is life. I was tempted to pull her out of school right then, but I didn't.. instead we talked about it and I coached Alissa that people like Sarah are just trying to get control and it is important for her not to let her "win". I told her next time Sarah says I don't like you or is mean to her she is to say "I am not going to play with you until you can be nice to me" and walk away. We rehearsed this over and over and over.. Alissa would have this huge grin and say, "that gives ME the power mommy." Yes it does my love. She was so excited to go to school and try this out!! LOL.. I had to remind her ONLY if Sarah was mean!! Sure enough.. two school days later I popped into class unannounced and saw Alissa and Sarah sitting together PLAYING!! And now after school Alissa always tells me first thing "Sarah was so nice to me today mommy!!" YOU GO GIRL!! What a lesson to learn at this young age. I am so proud of her. This week in school she is bringing Zena to class Tuesday and then Thursday is show and tell day so she is bringing in a VERY special show and tell -- DADDY! :) Daddy in uniform with goodie bags no less. How priceless is that? She is so proud of her daddy.
Now.. on to Jonathan. I'm not sure when it happened.. these things seem to sneak up on you when they are so young.. but Jonathan is signing and talking in sentences now. Two or three word sentences, nothing too fancy yet but he is sure stringing words together nicely. And one more thing.. it took Alissa FOREVER to get the coordination to catch a ball.. Jonathan can already catch balls consistently when thrown to him. The smallest he can catch are softball size. It's amazing the coordination he has. He will definitely be a sports player. His favorite thing to see when we go on walks is a basketball hoop.. and I kid you not he can say basketball hoop -- the whole thing. That's a mouthful for a little guy! :) His other favorite thing is to empty the dishwasher with mommy. He is such a good little helper. I think I may have mentioned this before, but whenever we give him something (be it drink food or toy) he always says, "Ali too" this has expanded into trips -- Let's go to Wal-Mart!! "Ali too!" "Ali too!". He love love loves his sister!! They are always hugging and playing together now. I am so glad to have two kiddos and watch the love they share.. I know I know when they get older the love will be harder to see, but right now I am just enjoying this. Kissy kissy!! Hahaha
Matt is kicking butt and taking names at work. He is speeding through Phase 1 and is already driving the car every day and handling calls on his own. I am just so proud of him. He is going to be the best cop on the streets and many lives are going to be positively impacted because of him.

As for myself.. I just got off the phone with a wonderful law office that offered me a part time job that I would have really enjoyed. I turned it down. After much soul searching I know that as much as we need the money right now while Matt is unable to work o/t my kids need their mommy. I did not have kids so I could leave them in others care. But I will tell you it was a very difficult thing to turn down. There will be lots of opportunities when they are in school for me to work.. I just have to be patient. And we just have to live on a budget that would terrify most people ;) Ahh but it's only temporary.. and ramen noodles really aren't THAT bad when you add an egg. Hehe.. I am still looking to babysit or find a job on the weekends. We will see what comes along.

Triton -- 4 weeks

Can you believe how fast this little man is growing? How about the size of those feet?! :) This was the puppies first time outside. Can't wait to get him home!

More tulip pictures..

I was going through my pictures and just had to add a few more :) Papa came with us.. this is an old fashioned steam tractor. They had them powered up and were driving them around. Jon thought they were great! :)
There were 40 acres of tulips and daffodils.. this multi-colored field was one of my favorites.
It was hard to leave.. this is one of my favorite events of the year.. we might just have to go again because they extended it until April 27th.. Laura - you are going to miss it by just a couple weeks! :( Darn.. maybe next year? Hint hint..
We also visited the Baskett Slough wildlife preserve this weekend and I will share pics of that later. I only took about 50 there, I was slacking.

Tip-toe through the tulips...

So we went to the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival today in Woodburn. It was so much fun!! The kids LOVED all the flowers!! :)

Here is Alissa being a ham:
Jonathan saying, "Do the flowers never end?!" Ok, not really... but sure looks like it ;)

One of Alissa's favorite things there.. she got to hold a bird!! Even with his sharp claws she thought it was awesome and didn't want to give him back! :)
Just random cuteness...

Alissa wanted pictures with her doggie. Zena enjoyed all of the attention she got from people.
Smells pretty good..
By the time we left the pony rides were closed, but a nice young lady let me take the kids in to pet the horses. Saved me $5 and Alissa was happy as can be just to pet him! :)

All in all it was a fabulous day. Alissa fell asleep in the car on the way home (at 7:00) which she NEVER does.. and she is sleeping still! Wore her out good. It was hard picking just a few pictures from the 172 I took, but we all must make sacrifices sometimes.

3 weeks old..

Who couldn't love that wrinkly little face?? :)

Hello out there!!

Yes I'm still around.. busy busy. Alissa continues to do excellent in swimming class, in fact the instructor pulled me aside Monday to tell me Alissa is so far advanced of the other kids that she used her to demonstrate new techniques. I'm so proud of her and how far she has come in the water! She can now do a back float by herself forever, the only thing holding her back is the front float and she has almost mastered that. Here is the checklist of things she accomplished last class: Enter and exit water independently and safely, 5 bobs, fully submerged with nose or mouth bubbles, back float more than 5 seconds, front glide 5 seconds, back glide 5 seconds, front float 5 seconds. I can't wait for pre-2 class!! :)

Jonathan is adding to his vocabulary every day.. the word of the day Sunday was "Tadpole". I love how he is so attached to his sister. When she is in school he is always so worried about her until she gets home, and when we give him a snack.. say a banana.. he says "Ali too Ali too" until we give her a piece :) So sweet.

Back to Alissa.. lately she has been obsessed with pancakes.. but they simply can NOT be round.. here is one of her creations (with a little help on the shaping)..

One day she wanted triangle pancakes with the letter "L".. pretty random I know, not to mention it is NOT easy to make triangle pancakes! :) Lets see.. she also wanted her name spelled in pancakes.. we ended up with ALI and a heart. The funny thing is after allll that work to get her pretty pancakes, the first thing she does is cut them up in to tiny pieces so she can eat them.. hehe.. oh well. Who knew making pancakes could be so fun? Oh and how could I forget.. Alissa drew this lovely picture of Grandma Adam's back porch.. but of course you knew that by looking at it ;) Did you also notice Grandma Adams and Grandpa George in the picture?
I love my kids.. I don't know what more I can say.. just.. wow.

Awwww..

So look who decided to finally open his eyes:
Yep.. it's Triton.. as in King Triton, ruler of the Mer-People. Alissa named her first dog. :)
So today we planned on going to the Woodburn Tulip festival but got rained out :( Instead we went to the indoor park and played for awhile. My mom and her friend Linda came and took pictures of the kids. We will probably go to the tulips sometime next week, they are all late to blossom anyhow due to our wacky weather.
So Matt went in yesterday for treatment #5 to remove his tattoo, I will post that on the tattoo sight tomorrow. I'm going to sign off for now..

Tis the season..

for COLDS! Sigh.. This time Jonathan started it..passed it to Matt.. not far behind was Alissa. So far *KNOCK ON WOOD* I have been ok.. but we will see. Poor Alissa has been hit the hardest, she has had a nasty cough and now her eyes got the virus. I'm pretty sure her ears are plugged too, either that or she is quickly becoming deaf. Alissa missed her first day of swimming yesterday and her first day back to school from spring break today! YIKES.. hopefully she is well enough tomorrow to swim. We shall see. Jonathan and Matt are fully recovered.

Nothing much else new around here.. Matt zipped through his orientation phase at work and has hit the road officially for PHASE I. PHASE I = Riding with another deputy and asking questions PHASE II = Riding with another Deputy but doing all the work PHASE III = SOLO. This is a simplified version but I think pretty accurate? He will be working day shift for awhile 6-6 and it is so nice having him for dinner every night!! It motivates me to cook fancy meals :)

Oh yes, how could I forget.. out of the blue on the 28th IT SNOWED!! What the?? Here is Ali watching the snow (I swear it is coming down you just can't see it in that picture)

Oh why not..how about a quick video?? :) SNOW! On spring break? In Oregon? Hmm..