a late night treat

Tonight Matt and I got to go with my sister Jenni as she went through the temple for the first time. It was really great to have her there with the rest of us, I am so excited for her and her soon to be hubby Braeden. I can't wait for him to officially be a part of the family! Well going to the temple is always a GREAT date, but when you have a brand new baby it doesn't leave anytime to have a treat on the way home before you have to get back and feed the baby again. So tonight I was craving a hot fudge sundae and I knew if I didn't have one before bed I would crave it for breakfast in the morning. So I found a recipe for hot fudge sauce and caramel sauce (this craving came later) and got to work. I don't have any pictures, cause both sauces are best served warm... thus fast melting ice cream, but I did want to post the recipes, cause they turned out great!

Hot Fudge Sauce
2 cups sugar
5 T. flour
5 T. cocoa
1 12oz can evaporated milk
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 t vanilla

Combine sugar, flour and cocoa in medium saucepan. Stir in evaporated milk and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 5-10 min, stirring constantly to desired thickness. Remove from heat and add butter and vanilla. Serve warm over ice cream or cake.
Yield 16 servings
(this sauce thickened when standing. Add additional milk or cream to thin when reheating)

Caramel
1/2 Cup margarine or butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup

Combine margarine, brown sugar and light corn syrup in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir well. Boil until sugar dissolves. (don't boil longer than needed, it will harden too much on ice cream if you do)


We put pecans in with the two sauces for our own version of a "Pecan Mud slide" Matt said it was the best ice cream he had had in a long time, which means a lot, cause if you know us... you know we LOVE dessert!
Have fun... we did, it was a great end to a great night! (now I have to drag my husband who is snoring on the floor to bed... that can be a task somtimes :) )

Our little blessing

Today we had an amazing day with our family. We blessed our beautiful daughter and then enjoyed the company of most of our immediate family (we missed you Yrungarays and Mangums!) The blessing was beautiful, just like our baby girl. I can't wait to see all that she becomes in this life, it is so exciting to know a little bit of what a special spirit we have in our home. I wanted to post a few pictures of the day and it turned out to be more than usual but I hope you can see how beautiful she is and some of the people that share our love for her.



Baby S was blessed with two wonderful Grandmothers that she is named after. She was also born with ivory skin that they share as well, which is a change from the dark skin our boys got from their dad. It was so nice to have both grandmas here together to share this day

My mom made an amazing blessing gown for Baby S. In this picture you can see a little of the detail on the top.


Here is a great picture of Baby S and her Grammy. It was so great for them to finally meet this weekend.

We both feel so blessed to have our baby girl in our family. She is SOOO beautiful, if I do say so myself!

I love this picture because it shows you how much my boys love her. They fight over who gets to hold her and see her all day, EVERY DAY!!!!

I can't wait to see what else she will bring to our family as time goes on! It was really a great day!

I'm sure I will laugh...some day.

So the last couple of days have been really challenging. My boys still have nap/quiet time everyday. They need it but I think I need it even more, exept for days like these. A couple of days ago they were having quiet time because they refussed to take a nap. I heard a snapping noise that sounded a lot like scissors, but they don't have any in their room. So I sent Matt in to see what they were up to. Turns out I was right they has scissors. I ask Matt what they were cutting, thinking the worst could be books or one of their blankets which I suppose could have been worse in some ways but better in other ways. Instead what he showed me was a whole handful of A's Hair. Yes his brother gave him a lovely hair cut. According to E they were cutting up string and A got a piece in his hair so he cut it out for him... then his hair looked a little long in the front...according to him it was getting into his eyes...so he clipped it a little there and went from there. I'm glad we went in when we did, cause it was sort of fixable, (except for the bold spot in the back) we didn't have to completely buzz the whole thing all the way to the scalp. Even though it is the shortest his hair has EVER been (seriously he was born with WAY more) here is a little before and after getting the Mom fix for you. PS I swear I usually wipe my kids' nose when it runs, at that moment I was a little distracted by the situation :)

But that wasn't the worst thing that has happened during quiet time in the last few days. Yesterday the boys were being really crazy (I swear some days they wake up and take crazy pills) They went down for their nap and I was hopeful that they would actually sleep, but I couldn't monitor them as closely as I would have liked because I needed to nurse baby S right after putting them down... Anyway they took all the books off of their shelves and made a huge mess, so quiet time turned into clean up time and they weren't suppose to come out until they had cleaned up their mess. I was once again feeding the baby when I heard a big thump... not a good sign with them. I put the baby down so I would have both hands free to save anyone that needed it, and of course she started to scream. So in a rush I went into their room and found a very different scene than I had ever before. E was sitting on his top bunk with his legs hanging over the edge, under the safety rail, and A was on the floor in his sleeping bag. I asked what was going on and E said "my claws just couldn't hold on anymore" I was confused for only a second. After asking a few questions this is what had happened... and may I add they are not even supposed to be playing on the top bunk AT ALL.
They were both on the top bunk playing and A had brought his sleeping bag full of toys with him. They had put the sleeping bag over the safety rail hanging down and E was holding it and A climbed into the sleeping bag, yes he climbed over the edge into the sleeping bag. E could only hold on with his hands for so long and he dropped his brother. I don't know how high up he was but I'm sure E couldn't hold on for very long so I'm guessing from at least half way up and he had a bunch of hard toys in the bag with him, AND he dropped onto a pile of books. He was ok, in fact it was maybe a little scary that he didn't get hurt at least a little bit because this is the conversation that happened as I escorted them out of their room E,"Mom it didn't heard him. Did it A?" A,"No, IT WAS FUN!" Needless to say I took the sleeping bag away and it will be awhile before they are allowed to be alone in their room while they are awake!

Oh Boys!

It is so fun and crazy to be the mom of boys. I really don't get them sometimes, but I think their dad gets them a little more (since he is a boy too.) I enjoy watching them play together, three boys just wanting to have fun (especially when they leave me out of it :) )
Baby S got an immunization on Friday and is feeling a little sick from it so she just wants to be held and sleep yesterday and today. I don't mind do this for the most part, but it is hard when the boys need entertaining.
This morning they decided make up a new game. They went and got all the pillows they could find (they amazed me they found 5 just in their bed room) They then buried their dad in several "force fields" (blankets) and then piled his "bombs" (pillows) in front of him and then let him take shots at them. They thought it was so so so funny. I wish I had a picture of how buried Matt was under all the "force fields."
They are so simply entertained... sometimes.

2 things I learned today

Everyday E wakes up ready for the day to begin. He is usually happy, hungry but most of all LOUD! AND he needs company. So he comes to get me, or Matt (on the weekends) He knows all the most annoying things to do (our biggest pet peeves) For me he will touch my face and repeat "can we get up now, can we get up now, can we get up now" over and over. For Matt he will tickle his feet and poke him in the ribs. He has even turned on the light a time or two (he doesn't do that very often the consequences are harsh.) Needless to say I have a hard time getting up some mornings. When I was pregnant it was painful to lay down for very long, but hard to sleep sitting up and now I am up several times a night with Baby S. PLUS I am a night owl, so I stay up way later than I should because I finally get to do something in the quiet and I don't want to stop.

So the first thing that I learned (or finally realized) today is that the most annoying thing for a parent that is a night owl is a child that is a morning person... no matter how much you love and appreciate them once you are awake.

The second thing I learned today was that my favorite Digital Scrapbooking site, Digital Scrapbook Memories, is having a really cool contest to win a free stay and classes for their retreat in May. I am way excited about the retreat and already have plans to go, but to go for free would be even cooler. I went last year and had a blast, and learned so so much, PLUS I won some cool software and a very expensive photo printer... so I encourage anyone who has been wanting to learn to digital scrapbook, or has been doing it forever to come check things out and come play with us in a couple of months.