Lovin' the homemade

Baby food! Last Friday I went to get Mabel some dinner and noticed we were out of baby food! I then realized that I had fruits, vegetables and chicken in the house and that it was time to make baby food again. I loved it so much and decided I'm done with store bought! It'll all be homemade from now on! It was so easy too! I boiled vegetables and chicken and then stuck them in the food processor (not together although I might do that from now on with a little bit of rice) with a little water until they were the right consistency. I did the same with peaches and pears (except I didn't boil them). I put them in these ice cube containers from the dollar store. They're the kind that make ice for water bottles. I think that they have a bigger capacity and they give more a portion size that Mabel is eating right now. Once they were frozen I put it all in baggies and stuck it back in the freezer. When she's ready for a meal I pull out whatever and stick it in the microwave for about 25-30 seconds. It's great and she loves it! I love that I know what's going into her food and that it's natural. She's pretty much tried everything now and loves it all. Her favorites are egg yolks (taken straight out of a hard boiled egg. I get the white part and she gets the yellow. It's a win win!), avocado, carrots, and applesauce. She'll pretty much eat anything as long as it's mixed with applesauce. Even chicken! (Gross. I know). I think I'm even going to hydrate prunes and do my own prunes! I'm more excited than I should be about it. Anyway, the food processor works great (especially for large portions) but I love this thing too. I mainly use it for bananas in the morning but will probably use it for everything once she has no more food restrictions. That way I can put whatever we're having for dinner in it and it makes the perfect portion size. After I went to all that trouble and stocked the freezer with food Sophia was just dying for me to see this ad Saturday morning. She came running into my room saying "Mom! You've got to see this commercial! It's just what you need to help feed Mabel". I'd never seen it before but it was an ad for this. I'm pretty sure I have one of those and it's called a food processor and it doesn't have a freaky smile looking back at you. The infomercial is the best. It plays on the website so be sure not to miss it! From what I've heard magic bullets work great too for baby food but we're not cool enough to have one.

Anyway, enough of what my baby eats. Let's get to what she looks like. Isn't she cute?

She's recently discovered her tongue and it's her new favorite toy. It cracks her (and us) up!

Now back to what she eats. My kids ate those tiny frozen pancakes for dinner tonight (love those! They had some eggs and yogurt too - don't judge) and so I decided to let Mabel try one too. She shoved the entire thing in her mouth.

She seriously loved it and had seconds!

This has nothing to do with Mabel's eating or baby food but it's still fun so it's being included in this post. Sophia celebtrated 100 days at school today and came home with this fun hat!

It has all the numbers from 1 to 100 written on it. Around the bottom it says "I'm 100 days smarter!" Pretty cute.

Mabel had fun trying it on too.

Fun in January

Oh how I love my silly kids. Here's how they came up one night when we asked them to get their jammies. Mabel had to get in on the action too.

The other day the girls were playing in Mabel's room. Apparently they came upon some winter wear and had fun playing dress ups.

Silly Lilly with her Santa bib.

They just had to put this hat on Mabes too. She didn't seem to mind. Apparently it was pretty chilly in the house.

Doug's parents gave us a gingerbread house kit a few weeks ago. The girls loved it! Who cares that it's not Christmas anymore? You should be able to decorate gingerbread houses year round.

I love Lilly's man with the giant gumball eyes. She was trying to copy the picture on the box and I think she did a pretty good job (sort of).

It was a fun January but we're ready for February! Bring on tax season! (just so we can get it over with sooner!)

Sophia's Storee Book

Warning: This post contains some Sophia overload and is here so that it can be in one of those Blurb or Blog2print books one day if I ever get around to it.

Sophia has really been into writing "storees" lately and I love it. I wish these pictures were darker but here's one of her latest. It's called "I wat this flowr to gro." Page 1: "I wat this plant to gro"

Page 2: "Mom was her flowr to gro."

Page 3: "Dad wans his flowr to gro."

Page 4: "Lilly wans her flowr to gro."

Page 5: "MABEL wans her flowr to gro." ( I love that Mabel is as big as her flower - I mean flowr).

Page 6: "Olavar famlee wans theea flowr to gro."

Thee end.

The next story in her book is called "I like snow flaxx".

This is a page from another favorite "I leve sawkr". This is at the end when she scored the winning goal. I mean skcrd the game. I love the number 5 on her shirt.

What a funny kid. To continue in making this post all about her, here's a card she made for Doug the other day. Starting from the bottom it says "I leve you Dad. This is wut a dinsor loox lik win he smiales." I love it. My favorite part is the dinosaur's smile. She made this one for me when I was sick. My favorite on this one is sweet Mabel down in the bottom left corner.

Finally, yesterday she convinced Lilly to play restaurant with her. I promise that we really don't go out to eat that much. I love her detail though. At least she picked our favorite place. It cracked me up that she included the ponytail/braid things.

The menu: Habgr 4 cents, Chignagis (that look a little bit like cookies) 3 cents, lemnade (no price listed - must have been free) and smoothee either 13 or 31 cents (the 3 is backward - I can't tell). She's such a hoot. I love the gigantic hamburger.

Last but not least, here's a quick 6 mo shot of this cutie before she quickly turns 7 months!

The Very Hungry Mabelpillar

This little baby has recently taken up eating and she loves it! She seriously can't get enough. I think it's the novelty factor right now but I'm hoping that it lasts! My kids are known for their poor eating skills (and habits) and I'm hoping this one will be different! Yesterday she ate an entire banana and bowl of rice cereal in the morning. At night she ate some sweet potatoes and an entire pear. Way to go girl! I've pulled out my baby food grinder and I'm so happy to be using it again!

Her favorites so far are bananas, sweet potatoes and squash. She's not a huge fan of peas and she doesn't really like the rice cereal anymore. "That stuff's for babies" she tells me.

Here she is after a yummy lunch of sweet potatoes and peas! I can't get over how big she's getting! Maybe I shouldn't encourage her to eat so much...

And More Messes

It's time for everyone's favorite party game! Spot the Mabel! Oh there she is! Doesn't she look so comfy in the awesome bed Sophia built her?

Sophia also built this bed for Lilly on the chaise in Mabel's room. It was sort of a bed slide. Lilly loved it!

Random pics of Mabes devouring the piggie she got from Grandma for Christmas.

The rest of these pictures are from my phone. I took most of them over Christmas and just cleaned them off and wanted to include them here. A few weeks before Christmas Sophia told me she really wanted to work on staying dry through the night. I made her a deal that if she did it for 7 days straight then she could have the reindeer from Build a Bear. She had a few set backs but finally did it. This girl can accomplish anything! Here she is giving her brand new Clarise a bath.

Random Mabes in Sophia's vest. Doesn't she look comfy again?

Here's my sister's little boy Lucas. Wouldn't he make such a cute girl!

Here's the girls acting out the Nativity with Grandma Wilkins stuffed set on Christmas Eve.

We had Christmas breakfast at Doug's parents house and his mom set the table up so cute! She did a little "Follow the Star" theme and it turned out really cute.

Here's a really blurry one of Sophia in Doug's jammy pants from Pajama Clause.

Finally, a few weeks before Christmas we got to go see my beautiful neice in her ballet performance of "Marushka and the Twelve Months". She was December and she was beautiful. Afterward we went to Kyoto and had a fun Japanese meal. Sophia broke down when she heard there was no cheesy pasta but ended up loving edamame and the panko crusted pork (chicken nuggets).

It was such a fun and yummy place! Thanks again Dylan and Tonya!

Messes

I can't believe I'm even posting this picture. Oh well. I have no shame (and apparently no pride either). Sophia spilled yogurt down the heater vent so we took it off to clean it off. Apparently yogurt is not the only thing to have fallen down there the past four and a half years. Yikes! Don't worry. It, as well as all the other vents, have been removed and vacuumed out. Now onto a cute mess. This little cutie started Preschool today! She's going to Sunshine Peaks preschool and the best part is that it's 3 doors down! Her teacher is in our ward (and so are most the kids!) and she's the cutest ever! Lilly had a fun first day and is looking forward to lots more!

Here's our latest coloring mess. I got Sophia this cool coloring book for Christmas full of paisley designs. I've since ordered more geometric coloring books from here. I'm way excited for this alternative to conventional coloring books!

Tim Hawkins

So my cousin recently posted one of this guy's videos on facebook and I think he's a little bit hillarious. I've never heard of him but that's not too surprising. He appears to be kind of a Bible belt comedian which means most of his stuff is pretty clean. Here's two of my favorites.

Christmas and New Years

Since Mabel and I have taken a sick day from church (I can't remember the last time my throat hurt this bad) I decided to do a quick update.

We had a great New Years in Wales. It was fun to be with family and everyone had a great time. Grandma Wilkins brought stuff for the kids to make luminarios. They had a blast. Here's Sophia and Bridger admiring theirs. These two are seriously two peas in a pod. I love them. Sophia showing hers off.

Cute (sick) Mabes relaxing.

Sophia and Bridger playing in the snow. Peas in a pod I tell you.

Doug, his brother and the kids spent a long time creating this snow hill they had a blast doing it. The kids enjoyed sledding down it later.

Sophia and Bridger again.

They were pretty much inseparable the whole weekend.

Like I said, peas in a pod.

Cousins sledding down the hill. They did a great job helping Lilly out. The poor thing kept getting stuck in the snow.

Here's a random shot of the girls in Daddy's pajamas for Daddy pajama night! And a cute one of Mabes enjoying her snuggly blanket from Uncle Jason and co!

Now onto Christmas. It was a great one this year. We had fun and our kids did great.

To recap:

Stockings were filled.

Presents were under (and on top of) the tree.

Happy pictures in bed were taken.

As well as happier pictures on the stairs.

Stockings were emptied.

Cookies were eaten and notes from Santa were left.

Pictures of cute girls in matching jammies from Pajama Clause were taken.

Wrapping paper was enjoyed.

Hugs were given for gifts from sisters.

And guns were sported. Doug also received his first real rifle (aside from this awesome Red Ryder BB Gun). Much to my mom's dismay I purchased a 30-06 (pronounced 30 ought six -which I learned later thanks to a little help from his brother) for him to open on Christmas morning. I think he enjoyed it. I can't believe I didn't get a picture of him with it though!

After we opened presents we went to Grandma Wilkins for breakfast and more gifts. Grandpa and Grandma gave each of the kids a Pillow Pet. They loved them!

Mabel really enoyed her hippo.

After that we went to my parents for more gift opening and dinner. Mabel enoyed eating her presents there as well.

We had such a great break and are ready for school to start again tomorrow! It was so fun to be with so much family this break. My sister and her cute family were here from Texas and we had so much fun with them! This cute guy was a lot of fun to be around. We're going to miss him a lot!