2014 - An exciting year ahead

We have a lot to look forward to for 2014 in our house.  Mainly a new baby girl to come in May, but I'm sure that Katelyn and Brooklyn will grow and change a ton during the year too.

We celebrated the new year at home.  As I mentioned last year, it has always been a family tradition for me to make breakfast on New Year's day and watch the parade.

We did this again this year with another fun new breakfast recipe.  I made Stawberry Almond Stuffed French Toast. And wow, was it good.  The recipe (and prettier pictures) can be found here.  Of course, the idea again came from Pinterest.  Here is a picture of how ours turned out.

Here are the girls watching the parade in the living room while eating breakfast.

What a goof ball.

It's a New Year!

Making breakfast each morning is not something that I can say we do in our home.  We are pretty much a cereal (or other convenient breakfast) family in our house.  Mainly, I'm probably just not enough of a morning person to get up early enough to have breakfast ready for our early riser (Katelyn is up and ready for breakfast by 6:30 every morning).  However, I do think that it is fun to switch it up every so often.  I decided that it sounded like fun to make breakfast on New Year's morning and eat it while watching the Rose Parade.  This is a tradition that we always had while I was growing up.

I decided to make a recipe that I got from Pinterest.  It is a Cinnamon Roll French Toast Casserole, made from canned cinnamon rolls.  It turned out pretty well and I think everyone had seconds.  Here is a link to the recipe - http://ohmysugarhigh.com/cinnamon-french-toast-bake-from-pillsbury-recipe/ .

My finished dish - looked delicious.

Eating breakfast in the living room while watching the parade!

Later that day we went to my parent's house and then to my aunt & uncle's house to celebrate Christmas with my Mom's side of the family as we had been out of town for the week of Christmas.  The girls got new Crocs that they wear everywhere.  Evidently I didn't take any other pics that day.

Christmas in California

Our annual festivities started the first weekend in December when we trecked on down to Home Depot as a family and bought our Christmas tree.  The girls had fun at the tree lot looking at the different types of trees and then helping to decorate the tree.  Katelyn 'helped' with the lights and they both managed to get there hands on a bunch of ornaments.  Thankfully, nothing was broken.

Here is a picture of the girls in front of our tree.  So cute they are in their Christmas outfits.

I'm thinking that I need a star or angel for the top of the tree.  It is year #6 and we still don't have a tree topper.  It looks so sad. We opted for a short tree this year as Kyle insisted it would be so much easier to deal with and we were not going to be home on Christmas anyways.  When we got it up & in the house, he said something to the effect of 'We should have gotten a bigger tree. . . .'  Haha, oh well - live & learn.

 This picture was taken the morning that Katelyn 'sang' with the Sunday School in front of church.  I used quotes because in spite of the fact that she new almost every word to all the songs, she didn't sing a single word in church that morning.  She did however lift her dress up so that we could see her belly button and sit down on the steps.  This was a sharp contrast to the first time the Sunday School sang this year when she sang as loud as she could and tried to do all the motions, even when there were no motions for certain parts of the songs.  We never know what to expect for our Missy Katelyn.

Because we were going out of town for Christmas, we opened our presents the Friday evening before Christmas.  I made cinnamon caramel popcorn with pecans & white chocolate - the first time I have ever attempted anything like this.  And let me just say - IT WAS SOOOOO GOOD!  It was a great treat while we were opening presents.

Here is a link to the recipe - http://www.ourbestbites.com/2009/09/cinnamon-caramel-corn-with-pecans-white-chocolate-aka-cinnamon-bun-popcorn/ (it's a lot easier than it seems to make this)

 

 

 

 

The girls got a bunch of smaller presents.  Their main gift was that Kyle made each of them a tent/fort.  We usually make a large fort every time we get new books from the library, so I thought it would be great to have something we can just pop-up whenever we want.  I think they will work great.  They are, however, HUGE.  I wasn't really thinking about where we would store them when we made two of them.

Opening gifts was a lot of fun this year as both of the girls were really excited about it.  Katelyn kept making huge gasps every time a piece of wrapping paper was ripped off of a present and they were both helping each other open every present.  Here are a bunch of pics from present opening night.

About to open the first gifts (after we had to restuff one for a little girl who jumped the gun - Katelyn, I think).

Two big Minnie Mouse Fans

A train set!

A goof ball opening her stocking.

Playing with their presents inside the forts (not fully opened).

Sorry this post is a little long, I want to catch up to present time and we had a lot going on.  I hope you all had a great Christmas season!

What a Weekend

Busy season is finally over!   I hope.  Even though he worked a lot the first four days of this week, he didn't have to work last weekend, and he had yesterday off.  We have gotten more done around the house in the last two weekends than in the last 4 months.  It has been awesome!!

Last weekend we finally got around to doing some of our spring planting.  We planted a couple of vegetable bushes, a cutting garden, and a mixed pot of flowers.   I am looking forward to how it all turns out if we can keep the snails away.  Kyle also filled in the dirt around our new patio and seeded the dirt for grass. Once the grass comes in and the patio looks complete, I will have to post a picture.  This weekend, I finally painted the front door.  It has only taken 3 1/2 years to get it done.  However it looks great.

I try to make one new main dish recipe each week.  I have been doing this ever since Katelyn was born and I started staying home.  Last night we had both a new main dish and a new side dish - and Kyle & I like them both!  Brooklyn liked them to, but Katelyn still isn't eating much that doesn't come out of the freezer, a can, or a box.  We grilled some Marinated Chicken Drumsticks.  (Not my picture.)

The recipe is from my favorite deals/couponing website.  We also made some Sweet Potatoes.  (I found this recipe on Pinterest.)  It was the first time I have ever made sweet potatoes, other than in a casserole for Thanksgiving, and they were great.

Definitely making both of these recipes again.

This evening we joined my family for dinner.  All-in-all a very great weekend.  Until we got home and realized that Katelyn had a temp of 102.0 . . . . .