Haircuts...

Since it is Spring Break for the kids, I took them to my friend, Stephana, for hair cuts. I tried to get Sierra to cut hers shorter, but she resisted. Evan's looks great and Sierra's looks good, even though I would have liked it a little shorter.

Creative playing

Evan has his friend Jacob over and Sierra has Anna over. They came over about 5:30 last night and spent the night. Yesterday they played on the trampoline a lot and stayed outside until 7:30pm. Then they came in and watched tv and played upstairs. The girls went to bed around 9:30, but the boys played race track until 12:30. Then they all got up at 6:00am!!! Crazy kids!! These pictures show what they have been doing all morning. The girls are playing "Little Pets", while the boys are building bridges and tunnels with Legos so the cars have something fun to do while going around the track. They are having a great time. I know when it is time for them to go home we will have some sad kids.

The new fire engine

After an awesome church service, we went to Red Robin to celebrate our good friend, Greg's, birthday. When we were stuffed silly, we went to visit Gordon at work and take pictures with his new fire engine. The city got 6 new engines and a new ladder truck. We decided to take some pictures to share with you. Gordon is really happy with this new engine. It is like a new toy. He said it was probably the best birthday present ever.

A new toy!!

The kids got a trampoline for Christmas from Grammy and Papa, but obviously the weather hasn't allowed for us to put it up. Today is a gorgeous day and we decided to have some fun. We plan on putting it in our back yard so it is on the grass, but right now our back yard is a swamp, so we put it in the driveway where we can see the kids when they are jumping. It took Gordon and Papa about an hour and a half to put it together. The kids waited patiently and now the fun has begun. We don't have steps for it yet, but we are storing a set of steps that our friend Dan built for the Harvest Festival for wagon rides. It works perfectly for now until we get some other ones. Thanks, Dan!!

After the kids took a turn, I convinced Grammy to get on it. Of course, Papa stood by saying, "She's gonna go to the hospital!"

Nice support system, right? Anyways, she didn't do much more than stand there for a picture. She was too scared to move and afraid if she jumped, she would pee her pants. After taking her picture, I got on to show her how it is done. I jumped a few times, but then I had to pee. It sucks getting old!!!

Hopefully we can get a few pics of Papa and Gordon also, but right now they are busy scooping cow poop! Enjoy the pictures!!!

I know...another recipe; but it's a good one!!

I did say that I didn't want to post too many recipes from the "Eating for Life" book, but this is another great one. And it is a breakfast item that is easy and fast. So enjoy...

Golden Pancakes

Servings: 2 Prep time: 15 minutes

Ingredients
1 cup uncooked whole-grain oats (non-instant)
6 egg whites
1 cup fat-free cottage cheese
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
2 packets sugar substitute
1/2 cup sugar-free maple syrup
1/4 cup mixed berries

Directions

*Lightly coat a nonstick skillet or griddle with cooking spray; place over medium heat.
*In a blender, combine oats, egg whites, cottage cheese, vanilla, cinnamon and sugar substitute. Blend on medium speed until smooth, about 1 minute.
*Pour batter, about 1/4 cup at a time, onto hot skillet. Cook pancake until bubbly on top and dry around edges, about 3 minutes. Turn and cook other side until golden brown, about 2 more minutes.
*While pancakes are cooking, microwave maple syrup until warm, about 20 seconds.
*Place a portion of pancakes on 2 separate plates. Top with warm maple syrup and mixed berries.

Serve and enjoy!!

April Fools!!!

Grammy and I schemed all morning on what we could do to fool the guys today. Evan had an assembly at school this morning that he had a speaking part in. We all went to that and then Grammy and I needed to go grocery shopping.
We decided to call the guys on our way home, tell them that the reason we were so late getting back was because we had been hit by a truck in the parking lot. This is the conversation Grammy had with Gordon on my cell phone while we were driving home:

Grammy-Hi Gord, sorry we have taken so long at the grocery store. We are finally on our way home. We were rear-ended in the Safeway parking lot.
Yes, we are ok, just stiff and sore. It was a big truck; a 4x4 250. ( I am cracking up in the background)
Yes, we called the cops and got a report filed. There is quite a bit of damage to the back end. The groceries are ok. We will be home in a few minutes.

She hung up, we cracked up and went on a scenic drive to waste a little time so it seemed like we just left the parking lot. We just giggled and looked at the fields of cows and calfs, biding our time. Finally, we drove in the driveway and saw Gordon waiting outside for us. I told Grammy, let's get out quick and say April Fools! before we started cracking up again.
We did and the guys cracked up. They were yelling and laughing, "you got us good!!!"

(Picture us bowing) Thank you, Thank you! Hold your applause!!

Puppies!!!

It has been a long, hard road with these puppies, but now I have the time and energy to update everyone.

Faith started laboring about 10am Sunday morning. Around 6pm she started passing a little fluid. She labored hard until 1:20am, when the first puppy was born. It was a girl, coming out backwards (which is normal in dogs), and weighed in at 15 1/2 oz. Normal size is around 8-9 oz. BIG puppy! She continued having puppies until 8am Monday morning. By that time she had 5 girls and 1 boy, all of them 12 oz or bigger. By 4pm that day we called the vet to let them know how many she had and that we know there was more in there by the X-ray from Friday. She wasn't laboring or showing any signs of distress, but we were concerned. The vet told us to give her some time and to come in the morning for another X-ray.

The next morning, we took Faith out to go to the bathroom and she dropped another puppy. Of course, it was dead. We took her to the vet and they ended up finding out that she still had one puppy left inside, so she had to have a C-section. That puppy was dead too. It is a total bummer that she ended up with losing a couple, but we thank God that she has 6 healthy babies that are doing great, and that she is fine after her surgery.

She is a GREAT mother and really loves her puppies.

My friend, Tiffani, has a deal on her blog where she does "Thursday's with Tiffani". I am going to do "Friday's with Faith" and I will post new pics of the puppies. Since today is Wednesday, next week you will have to wait a few extra days for Friday. Enjoy the pics today! I am finally starting to catch up on the exhaustion of staying up during all of this. Maybe life will get back to normal now! (What is normal, anyways?)