For Heather

Heather requested more pictures of Kylie. Here's a few of her at her favorite post on the back of the couch. She can see out all the important windows, and has the best view of everything going on inside the house. We watched the movie "Marly and Me" a few days ago. I haven't cried that hard at a movie in a long time. It definitely made me appreciate my naughty puppy a little more.

Big Girl Bed

Finally! Kaia has a big girl bed! She's almost three years old, it's about time. I've been putting it off and putting it off, but it's time. The bed was given to us from Aunt Jess (Thank you!), and transported from Oshkosh by Art and Roni (Thank you!). The quilt was made by my mom, isn't it cute? Nightime sleeping has been going well. Naps, not so much. We left the crib set up, and we give her a choice to sleep in the bed or the crib. I was hoping to get a picture of her laying in her new bed, but for the first time since Saturday, she chose to sleep in the crib tonight.

Turkey and Black Bean Chili

As I was making chili for dinner tonight, I was reminded that I had promised to post the recipe on the blog. We served it for lunch on moving day in February and it seemed to be a hit. So here you go:

Turkey and Black Bean Chili
1 lb ground turkey
1 can (28oz) petite diced tomatoes, undrained
1 jar (16 oz) salsa (I usually use Taco Bell Thick and Chunky)
2 cans (15 oz each) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 poblano chile or green pepper, chopped
1 T. chili powder

In a large saucepan, brown turkey. Add remaining ingredients, mix, bring to boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer at least 20 minutes.

It's that easy! And it freezes well.

Matching Mohawks

Daddy always gives Kaia a cool "do" when he washes her hair. The conversation usually goes something like this:

"Kaia how should we do your hair tonight?"

Kaia responds with some made up word because she can't think of the word "mohawk".

"Do you want a mohawk or horns?"

And in these pics you see her modeling both. Halle joins in the fun sometimes too! I love the look on Halle's face in the second picture. All this crazy hair brings me back...remember when Kaia had a real mohawk?

Messy Halle

Halle is so squirmy that even when we spoon-feed her, she still gets food everywhere!

I found a pretty cool blog, A Year of Crockpotting. The author made a New Year's Resolution to use her crockpot everyday in 2008. And she's still posting recipes in 2009. She makes dinners, appetizers, breakfasts, desserts, and even crafts. She takes lots of pictures and reviews her recipes. I tried two of them, one was good, the other was not so good, it ended up going down the garbage disposal. But haven't given up, I still plan to try more. Check it out.

Two Girls

Today Kaia asked to hold Halle...she's never even thought to ask that before. So here she is "holding Halle". Aren't they sweet?

On another note, Kylie got into the garbage yesterday (so what else is new?). All day today we've been finding food hidden around the house. Pieces of tortilla in the couches, muffins buried in blankets, she's a wise one, that dog...

Flight of the Conchords

On Sunday evening, we left the kiddos with Grandma and Grandpa and went out on the town with Marty and Jess. We had tickets to Flight of the Conchords in Minneapolis. (Flight of the Conchords is a couple of guys who play guitar and sing funny songs, YouTube them if you'd like to know more. Just a warning, it's not a family show.) We started off our night with a high class dinner at Sonic. (I don't recommend the place, bland food, and they messed up our entire order.) I didn't realize that Sonic is a drive in type place, I guess that's why all their commercials take place in a car...

Anyway, we got to the theater in plenty of time and found our seats. They just happened to be in the last row of the balcony...ha, ha. The stage looked miles away, it looked like I could jump and touch the ceiling, and our performing duo was so far away, they could have been complete imposters and we'd have no idea. We were actually so high I couldn't look around without my stomach doing flip flops, but my panic attack subsided as more people sat down in front of us, somehow tricking my mind into believing that I was less likely to fall.

As the show was about to start, the fire alarm started going off. At first we thought it was part of the show, so we didn't bother getting out of our seats. No one else seemed in a hurry to get out and no ushers were activating any emergency evacuation plans. We sat for a few minutes and, as more people got up to leave, we decided we better follow the advice of our elementary school teachers and exit the building in a single file fashion. We got halfway down the stairs and we were told to turn around. The alarm is still going. The alarm continued for maybe 20 minutes straight, then turned on and off over and over for another 30 minutes. The show started an hour late.

The show itself was good. Funny of course. My throat hurt from laughing. Even though I've heard some of those songs 100 times, they're still hilarious. And when the crowd cheered for the encore, everyone started imitating the fire alarm noise...how fitting. I tried to get some pictures. I only had my little camera and flash photography wasn't allowed, so I did my best. Overall, good show, good night, we had some good laughs. Good times!