Here she is!

at two days old . . .

and here she is five weeks later.

Looooving it!

oh yeah, we have a blog.

"Hey, whatcha lookin' at?"

Oh, her! Hey Taylor!

I don't think she heard us. That's a whole lotta people in the Staples Center.

At first I was afraid the concert was going to sound too much like a KidzBop cd with sooo many little girls singing along but it was a great show, and all the little (and big) girls singing their hearts out probably added to it. (Although I did make Sydney trade seats with me. I would rather hear my own crazy, excited kids than someone else.) So fun. I think Sydney was close to bursting with excitement (see picture above) and Brenna probably would have except she released it often with piercing screams. Taylor Swift is quite the performer. I imagine she spent countless hours in her young years performing in front of a mirror just for the fun of it. She is a master of facial expressions and I love that she writes her own music. So talented.

Thanks Daddy!

Happy, happy!

Happy Birthday Reagan! What a wonderful year of discoveries. . . roller coasters, underwear, High School Musical and Taylor Swift songs, dancing, Maddie's ipod, tricycles and so much more. She brings us so much joy with her sweet and excited ways.

Reagan had been planning on having a Minnie Mouse cake for months, but we decided to make these Minnie cupcakes too because, well, just look at 'em, so easy and so cute (just like Reagan).

Frost with chocolate, push in Oreo cookie ears and top with fruit-roll bow. Ta-Da!

All Dressed Up

. . . with lots of places to go!

Maddie doll- Grandma shared pieces of her costume from about 35 years ago.

Gotta love that trunk!

Sydney as Hermione from Harry Potter. She is almost done with the fifth book.

Brenna as a funky little Halloween Fairy

Obi Cameronobi

and Her Highness, Princess Reagan.

Our Spooky Saturday

We loved having Halloween on a Saturday. It left us plenty of time for all our Halloween fun.

We invited the missionaries over for dinner and this is what we fed them. Footloaf, Jack's guts, bugs and bones bread, fried batwings, and fishbowl water to wash it all down with. Yum, yum. I wonder if they'll ever come back.
Obviously we had all morning to work on our pumpkins. Above is Sydney's Spider-spooked specimen and Reagan's Minnie. (Isn't she talented?)
. . . and Roy's tribute to the Phillies next to Brenna's little spider
and Cameron's traditional Jack-o-lantern (which he actually did carve all by himself) and Maddie's puppy (hint, hint, Mom and Dad).
Of course the night ended with the big candy sort and trade. We have some very generous neighbors. Good stuff, a little fancier than the peppermints, butterscotch discs, tootsie rolls and DumDums of days long, long ago. Even Smarties were curiously underrepresented. I think the FDA is looking into that.

Being the only boy has its perks!

Roy took Cameron to the BYU-Oklahoma football game in the HUGE Dallas Cowboys stadium. Here's the lucky boy's account of the day in his own words (and his own spelling. He learned to "sound spell" in kindergarten and he had only just started first grade when he wrote this so it should be fun to decipher!)

We got to arizona reilly cwieck. It was reilly fast like 1o minitss! Wow that was reilly reilly cieck. At the airport will I soa a gumball mshein. Will I had fun on the airplane. Dad let me set by the woindo and we where reilly hi up, 6 miulls up. Will it was reilly fun!

Today I am goien home and on the airplane me and dad are getien sodu and appil juoos. It taste like appil sidre. Will airplanes are reilly fun.

At the football game cogrs wone over thair. Cogrs ceb on throwien it ovre thair and this gie gkipt on cechien it. But he omste got it and it's reilly fun on a airplane and the weigs on the airplan is reilly cool and when I was cameien home on the airplane I was rite by it the wieng.

And there you have it. Great game and airplanes are awesome.

Brenna's Baptism

Brenna was baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on August 29, 2009 by her Daddy. Watching a child sit, all dressed in white, eager to be baptized is such a good reminder that we are all children of a Heavenly Father who loves each one of us dearly.

And here she is all perfectly clean. We asked her throughout the day, "Are you still perfect?" and she would confidently respond, "yup," and I'm pretty sure she was right. By the next day the answer turned into "I think so." We love our Brenna. It is a joy to watch her grow up and learn to choose what's right.

Summertime-Time for some Home made Fresh-Mex!

Try these. They are so, so good!

Crispy Black Bean Tacos with Feta and Cabbage Slaw

 (From Bon Appetite magazine Feb09, to The Californian, to me, to you)

15oz can black beans, drained 1/2 tsp cumin 

1/2 tsp salt 

5 corn tortillas 

1 tbsp lime juice 

5 tsp olive oil, divided 

2 cups coleslaw mix, or shredded cabbage 

2 scallions chopped (I used green onions) 

1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro ground black pepper, to taste hot sauce, to taste 

1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese

 

Combine beans, cumin, and salt. Partly mash with fork. Divide mixture among tortillas, spreading evenly on one side of each. Set aside. 

Combine lime juice and 2 tsp olive oil. Add coleslaw mix, scallions and cilantro. Toss well. Season with pepper and hot sauce (if you want a kick). Set aside.

In large skillet, heat 3 tsp olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the tortillas in a single layer (in batches if you need to), bean side up, and cook for 1 minute. Fold the tacos in half, then cook for about another minute per side until golden brown. Fill each taco with a quarter of the coleslaw mixture and the feta cheese. 

Muy delicioso!

Snow from Awhile Ago

We had a hot day at the ballpark yesterday and it made me think of you all who just got snow this past week. So to show a little sister solidarity, (and because I never posted anything from my trip) I thought I'd share some pics of my winter snow experience. Reagan and I got our passports and went up north in January to the great frozen tundra of Edmonton, Canada to visit Aimee-lia and Justin and their little darlings. It was c-c-c-cold there, (somewhere in the minus twenties, I block it out after I hear the minus part) but perfectly cozy in the house and the mall and the aquarium and the yummy place we ate sandwiches, donuts and cocoa. 

We really weren't outside much, just to get into the car and back to the house mostly. (Most of the homes there don't have attached garages and some don't have garages at all. . . I don't get it.) Fortunately she and her cousin Zach had a great time playing together inside. Unfortunately, my picture of the two of them is blurry. I bundled Reagan up one afternoon to play in the snow for a little bit, a very little bit. We were maybe out there for ten minutes and then I took her little nose and cheeks back inside before they froze off; I've heard that can happen, though usually it's a different body part being referred to.  

Here's Reagan with all her babies. The cousins, Kara and Kate, arrived just before Christmas and the baby dolls came on Christmas. Reagan was very attentive to the babies, especially making sure they had their pacifiers. She knows the joy that comes from one of those. Isn't it funny how the babies and the dolls are each dressed in green and pink? We didn't stage that, really. 

Me and the adorable armful. Twice as much to hold and love and change and feed, and since I am the auntie I only got to do the holding and loving and a little bit of the changing. So fun! 

Reagan adding a bit of color to the winter white. In about fifteen steps Reagan will make it to the back door on which hangs a plastic bag of full of dirty diapers frozen solid. Who needs a Diaper Genie when you've got the Diaper Abominable Snowman right outside your door. I just got a kick out of that. So glad we went, hope to make it back again sometime . . . during the Summer. :)

Snacktime

I unpeeled a banana this afternoon.

I noticed it had a little bruise and recalled the long drop it had suffered from my careless hands to the bottom of the grocery cart yesterday. 

I felt guilty. . . and a little sad.

Then I ate it. 

Tis the Season. . .

. . .to be ball-y. Cameron has started his rookie season in the Wildomar Little League. He's on the Padres, (inspite of all his Phillies gear. That's just because he is Roy's son.) and couldn't be more excited. The practices have been entertaining so far. Everyone runs wherever the ball goes. It looks a little more like soccer or football, but I'm sure they'll get it by the end of the season! Maddie is playing softball. She's loving the game, and the uniform. Maybe I'll post a picture sometime in the next six months!

Brenna's Brain

Brenna often entertains us with her thoughtful wisdom. 

"If we got a dog, I wouldn't name it Broccoli because if it ran away and we missed it I would say, "Mom, I want Broccoli" and then you would just give us broccoli."

But wait, there's more. . .

The other night we were watching television and there was a commercial on for the new iphone and this is what I heard:

Maddie: It seems like everything that is cool has an i in front of it, iphone, ipod, itunes. . . 

Brenna: . . .ihop.

You may have been wondering. . . but probably not.

Yup, we celebrated Christmas at our house too. Yeah, I know that was way back in 2008; did you wanna see the pictures or not?

I love this mess. It's filled with so much excitement, thought, anticipation, love and joy. There was some stress too, but that was easily wiped away with their smiles.

Our little darlings woke up quite early and quite excited. I felt like I had only been asleep for two hours, roughly, of course. So we sent them back to bed. Actually I think Daddy was jolly enough to go with them to the living room to see that indeed Santa had come and then it was back to the dancing sugar plums for everyone. Apparently, Cameron couldn't get the image of that giant wrapped present with his name on it out of his head. He told us later that when he went back to sleep he dreamed that two elves jumped out of it. He didn't seem disappointed though that it was a new big bike instead of a pair of Santa's helpers. (Although the elves might have been a good gift for me, if they can clean as well as they build.)

All of us in one shot. . . practically a Christmas miracle. 

Time to Party with the Southpoles!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Begging for Bananas!

Cameron's philosophically scientific theory on gender formation:

When the mom eats lots of bananas she will have a boy because banana starts with B. If she eats lots of grapes she will have a girl because grapes and girl start with G.

He then followed this discovery with a little practical application:

Mom, next time you're pregnant, eat lots of bananas!

Reagan's Two!

Happy Birthday Reagan! Okay, so it was a month ago, but still a happy one none the less. This photo is not an optical illusion. We have a local pizza place that makes extra, extra large pizza, so we decided to celebrate big for our big girl, and the crowd of family that joined us! I think it is almost as wide as she is tall.
On to the presents. Check out the looks on Michael and Sydney's faces! We can hardly contain our excitement. Okay, I won't keep you in suspense. . . it was a puzzle.
By the looks of her surroundings, I'd say she had a pretty good day. By the looks of her smile, I'd say she wants to share some Three Musketeers with you. We love our Reagan and all the joy she brings. She is such a happy, entertaining girl and does such a good job keeping up, and sometimes putting up, with her big siblings. Here's to two!

Halloween!

Trick or Treat! Thank you! Here's our gang. We've got a fifties girl, a kitty, a cowgirl, a Musketeer (specifically Mickey Musketeer but I didn't want to add the ears, much to Cam's disappointment), and a bunny. And the Olsingch cousins, witch, kitty and Squirt, who usually remained headless because he just didn't like the hood, or maybe we should just call it "laid back!"


We started the evening with a Spooky dinner--Witches Brew Stew, Spider rolls, cat eyes (grapes), buggy ice cubes and such. Yum!


And my contribution, Footloaf!


My oldest and my youngest, which makes over a decade of celebrating Halloween with kids! Sure is fun!


And a knod to the 2008 World Series Champions! The Philadelphia Phillies have been Roy's favorite team since he was just a little guy. People always ask him why, seeing as he's not from Philly, or anywhere near there, and they had only been the Champs once before in 1980. I think it had to do with a favorite player, a little league team and a great season, if you really need an answer. Yeah Phillies!

My one-year-old's last words!

Reagan turned two today! Her vocabulary has been expanding rapidly lately. So what were her last words as a one year old you may be wondering? Just the other day she came in the kitchen and said, "I wanna quesadilla" (although with much less anunciation) Wow, my baby is bilingual!

Brenna's Question of the Day

Brenna wants to know. . . "What do tastebuds taste like?" Anyone know? I've showed them the cow tongues at the store but never really been up to cooking them such gourmet.

Beauty Shop!

Mom played beauty shop tonight and I got to be the customer. Here's the results!