Eve's First Birthday!!

On December 16th, 2012 at 7:38am a tiny beautiful little girl joined our family.

I cannot believe it has already been a year.

My friend, Mackenzie, helped me with Eve's cake smash pictures and her birthday party. I would not have survived all the stress of it with out her! 

 The faces this girl pull seriously kill me! I love her so much!

She kept dancing in her cake... it was the dang cutest thing I have ever seen!!!!

 All of the activities at the party were "sensory play"... the thing I didn't foresee happening was a full blow shaving cream fight... between my hubby, his friend (Lee), and my little brother (Jayce). 

 Just a few pictures of the our guests.

Singing happy birthday and opening presents... She look honestly thrilled with each and every gift. It was adorable!

A few things about Evelynne:

1. She LOVES her big sister, follows Chloie everywhere and is more then happy to do whatever Chloie tells her too. (which at times is something she shouldn't be doing...)
2. She loves to eat! She will eat pretty much anything I give her!
3. She is a touch dramatic... and screams more then Chloie ever has. 
4. She says "mom" "dad" "allie" "hi" "hey" and "that" and rarely ever stops jabbering!
5. She loves to sing and dance! 
6. she is a total Mommies Girl. I kinda love it!

Thanks to all who celebrated Eve's day with us!

My little loves.

My kids are my whole world.

 They are the reason I get out of bed every morning, literally. 

The reason it takes 2 hours for me to get ready every morning... and the reason I'm CONSTANTLY cleaning.

 They are my frustration and my happy place.

They drive me nuts and melt my heart. 

They wear me out and keep me going.

They are my everything.

These two little girls stole my heart.

 Rocking our "lazy day outfits... 

 And of course one of our first "child", our gorgeous pup Allie.

She is the sweetest, mild tempered, protective dog I have ever met. She goes where ever the kids go. At night she goes from room to room sleeping either at the foot of Chloie bed or under Eve's crib.Occasionally popping into my room when Ben's gone.

While she is afraid of poodles and cowers around men, I know she would never let anyone hurt us.

She makes me feel safe when it's just us girls.

:)

The Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point.

Our sweet Chloie is OBSESSED with Dinosaurs lately.
So Ben and I decided to take a trip to the Museum of Ancient life, with 3 kids in tow (we had our nephew Oliver with us as well). She was in HEAVEN!
One of her favorite shows is 'Dinosaur Train' and I never realized just how much she was learning from it until she started spouting off dinosaur names (like "Eoraptor")  and pointing at the skeletons... much to my surprise she was correct on most of them. It's amazing how much information they retain at such a young age.

Oliver would point, jabber, and look at me like "ya know what I'm sayin'?" It was ADORABLE. 

Evelynne was excited about everything. She kept saying "wow, mamamama!" 

 This was easily one of their favorite activities, My kids LOVE to be messy.

Oliver did not like it quite as much... but he tried. :) He just preferred to sit in the stroller and watch the girls.

 "mom, I ride a dinosaur!!!"

 Guess who loves having their picture taken.... 

 Chloie did not love this giant shark... and neither did mom... 

 Oliver opted out of this activity as well... While my mess makers dove right in.

I wish I had taken more pictures. They had so many fun activities like build your own dino. It was so much fun and I'm sure we will be going back again soon! :)

enjoying this phase

This phase of my life is passing by too quickly.

The toddler copying everything I do and say, the baby babbling and smiling as she follows me around the house, The little messes I find through out the day, the temper-tantrums in the middle of grocery shopping, the screaming 'cause baby sis took the toy, the giggling in mommy's closet while they pull out all of my clothes and play with my shoes.

I will miss this.

I get made fun of a lot for taking pictures of everything. BUT I don't want to miss a thing. I don't want to FORGET anything.
I've also been writing "letters" to my kids in a journal for a while now, I have always been horrible about keeping journals but writing letters to my kids for some reason is easier to remember. I write down our day to day happening, the little things, and the BIG things.

 My book of letters for my kids^

 Evelynne LOVES her daddy.

 These two spend half of their time together screaming and the other half playing...^

 ^^Ben has been at the fire station more then normal the last few weeks, so we went for a quick visit. More for my own sanity then anything. I miss him when he's gone.

 Chloie loves helping Eve walk. She holds her had and says "c'mon baby, dis way!"

 I had to got the church with two kids all on my own last week, but I survived. With the help of a smurf coloring book and some wonderful ward members. :)

Today we had to run a few errands EARLY this morning and take a new shirt out to firestation for daddy so to keep Chloie calm in the car I let her play games on the Ipod. Unfortunately that only lasted for about half of our errands....

 My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE to paint. So I make sure to cover my kitchen floor in craft paper and make finger paints at least once a week. They will stay on the paper and make a huge mess for HOURS. It's great! Plus the craft paper makes it an easy clean up... ;)

I am very luck to be a momma to these two dolls.

:)

New York Style Cheese Cake by Kelcey

My friend, Mackenzie, and I decided to try to make our FAVORITE desert... CHEESE CAKE.
So over the past week I spent HOURS researching different recipes and reading about what makes a great cheese cake.
Baking is one of my passions. And one of the few things I do well. So I get really excited about new recipes.
BUT I didn't want to just bake any old cheese cake I wanted to take what other people put into their recipes and create something of my own. I took bits and pieces from about 15 different recipes and combined them in to my very own recipe. WHICH turned out rather amazingly, especially for it being mine and Kenzie's first attempt.

Now this recipe is not for the "faint of heart" (or those who are on diets!)... It is LOADED with all the good stuff; Sugar, butter, and cream cheese. AND takes about 2hrs and 35mins to bake.
It is a LOT of work but my personal opinion... IT IS TOTALLY WORTH IT! :)

So here goes nothing...

Crust:

2 cups crushed graham crackers (about 15 crackers)

4 Table spoons butter

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

Filling:

5 whole eggs PLUS one egg yolk -room temp.

1 3/4 cups sour cream -room temp.

5 8oz packages of cream cheese -room temp.

1 stick  UNSALTED butter -room temp.

2 Tablespoons Heavy whipping cream -room temp.

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 Tablespoons cornstarch

1 Tablespoon flour

2 teaspoons Almond Extract (or vanilla if you prefer)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. 

Crust:

Butter and flour either 2 9inch rounds or a cheese cake pan if you have one.

Mix crushed graham crackers, butter, and cinnamon. Press into bottom and sides of pan(s). Bake for 7 minutes.

After Crust has baked raise oven temp to 475 degrees F.

Filling:

Combine cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, cornstarch, flour, and eggs. Mix until creamy, add in almond (or vanilla) extract. Then hand mix in heavy whipping cream just until blended. Pour filling over crust.

Bake for 10 minutes at 475 degrees. REDUCE oven temp to 200 degrees F. continue baking for 1 hour, then turn off oven and let cake sit in oven for 1 additional hour.

Remove from oven and let cool on counter or in refrigerator for 1 hour (over night in refrigerator is best).

(sorry my pictures aren't the best)

Add your choice of topping (or no topping is just as good! :) ) and ENJOY!

Happenings

I realize it has been some time since my last blog post.
There has been so much going on, my life feels like a whirl-wind of events. So blogging has been the LAST thing on my mind.

First off, after a fairly short battle with leukemia, my grandpa Fowlks passed away in the neurological ICU at IMC, surrounded by family. I miss him. Terribly. But I know that he is healthy, happy, watching over, and waiting for us. The funeral service was beautiful filled with talks and musical numbers by my very talented family members. We were missing a few members of the family (they were in Africa hunting and weren't able to be here unfortunately. But they had a good trip and made it home safely :) )

 (Me and My Beautiful Cousin Leslie at Grandpa's funeral

  

(Me, My cousin's wife Chantelle, and my cousin Sharise at the luncheon after the funeral)

(Ben and I at the luncheon) 

On that note:
Shortly after moving into our new home I had left the dog food out on the porch and had a whole flock of Magpies surrounding it (grandpa's favorite target to shoot with his pellet gun:)). So I figured the surest way to get rid of them was to bring the food into the house.... One of the Magpies decided that he was just going to invite himself in as well... So here I am (terrified) with a Magpie standing in my dining room. WISHING grandpa was there to shoot the darn thing I tried to shoo it out and instead it made a horrific noise and flew around my kitchen, knocking stuff off my counters and table before it finally flew out the door. I'm sure my grandpa planned the whole thing and sat back and laughed. (He knows more then anyone just how much I HATE birds. They are my biggest fear!) Needless to say the dog food stays in the house and that back door remains shut when I see magpies in the yard. :)

And now about the house... 

We listed our Town home for sell and were under contract with a buyer after 2 weeks, we officially sold our town home and moved out on our 4 year anniversary.
Busy day.


We lived with Ben's family for the next month. I never realized how much I truly enjoyed having my own space until we (a family of 4 and a dog) were living in one room. Talk about CRAMPED! ha.


It really was a good experience for me, though. I learned a lot about my in laws and their family dynamics (which, in turn, helped me learn a little bit more about my own husband. His habits and such.) I ADORE my in laws, they are one hilarious bunch of people. I had a lot of fun just hanging out and talking to them, getting to know them better. I've been a part of their family for going on 5 years and I have never gone out of my way and taken the time to really get to know them individually. I wish I would have sooner. 

We LOVED being able to play with cousin Gwenny everyday, and Chloie LOVED waking aunt Aubree everymorning... I had to barricade her in the room to get her to stop. :)


We found our new home the day it was listed (it already had 3 other offers on it by the time we saw it in person) we fell in love with this little brick rambler the moment we stepped foot inside. 
It didn't feel like just another house, it felt like our home.
While the house needs some love and a few things need updating (the home was built in 1978) It has everything on out check list. 
So we submitted an offer and it was accepted (after a counter offer or two).
We were finally able to start moving in on August 2nd and are pretty much settled in. I'm still working on decorating and painting and rearranging (if you know me at all you know that this will be never-ending). We are LOVING our backyard! We have spent more time out playing, picking apples, pulling weeds, mowing the lawn, trimming the trees, and of course shooting paint-balls. Chloie LOVES to tell me every morning as she opens the back door (usually just wearing her shoes and unders) "I go out side, Ma, Ok?!".It has been so fun going from a small house with NO yard to a house perfectly sized for us (its not big by any means but it fits us! Comfortably) with a rather large yard. Its been a dream come true for us. 

Over the last two weeks since we moved in I have been able to get my kids back on their regular schedule (my in laws probably think I just let my kids do whatever, as far as bed time and nap time, only while living at grandma's house. I assure you. :)) and I have been able to get Chloie more focused on potty training, which has been a success! FINALLY! I started mild attempts to potty train her at 18 months and have been trying different tactics ever since.
She has proven to me that no matter what I do, it has to be her decision to go on the potty. No amount of bribing, singing, dancing, cheering her on was gonna cut it. She was going to do it when she was ready and not a moment sooner. 

This kid is teaching me what it means to be a parent every day. I do NOT control this child. I guide her, I teach her, and I love her. I do not control her. She is her own person, she is already making her own decisions daily and rarely doing what I tell her to do, when I tell her to do it.
I have started asking her to do things and she normally says "ok, ma!" or she says some thing like "not now. I busy". 
I have been put in my place. Humbled I guess, I am not her "master", I am her MOTHER. AND I AM LOVING IT! Her personality, her independence, and her unlimited amount of attitude amazes me everyday!

 (got into mommies makeup, blamed the baby)

 She loves riding in the shopping cart with baby

 Sometimes we both could use a nap...

 first outing with out a diaper!

 Being a goof

 Playing on the front porch

Evelynne (AKA baby) has brought on a whole new set of experiences(challenges) for me as a mom. She is determined! Into EVERYTHING, constantly falling and getting right back up, desperately trying to keep up with her older sister. We have bumps, bruises, scrapes, and cuts constantly. I'm always explaining her various "battle wounds", from scrapes on her face from the garbage can she pulled over on her self, to the goose egg on her forehead from a temper-tantrum she threw on the hard wood floor... This girl is going to give me a run for my money! She is wild.
But rarely isn't smiling or giggling. Which I love more then anything. She has fun crawling after a screaming Chloie making monster noises. They are already the best of friends!

 Playing at Grandma Greats

 pulling to stand at Grandma Andrus'

 (Eve is allergic to peaches... this is what happens when mommy doesn't read the ingredient closely enough... poor baby!)

 Eating Chocolate Cake at Grandma Greats (yes yes I know... she isn't supposed to have chocolate...)

 Eating ice cream (Yeah I know... She isn't supposed to have that either...)

 Climbing on mommy

 Loving bath time

Standing on her own :(

I also have been able to spend time with my cute nephew Oliver, I get to watch him Tuesdays and Thursdays while Mackenzie teaches preschool. He is a BLAST to have around! My girls adore him. He punches and pokes Evelynne and she retaliates by climbing up his back and holding onto his head for balance. It's pretty entertaining. Chloie LOVES to go pick up Oliver and sings and "shh"'s him the whole car ride back to our house. She loves to crawl around with Eve and Oliver pretending to be a baby too, or she pretends she is their mommy. Never a dull moment with these 3! 
I LOVE being able to have him so often. He really is just the cutest CHUNKY little boy I've ever met! 

Every time I tried to take his picture the other day this was the face I got!

Shopping with their Mommies! Don't they look so excited?!

Onto Family Pictures!

(Photo's by Mike Bohling)

 (this is about as good as it gets with 5 kids under 4 and Jayce... hahaha)

 The boys

 The girls.

Our last minute attempt and family pictures with Baylie's camera.

And just a side note, Ben and I were able to go on a date on Monday (the first date we've been on in months!) It was SO nice to be able to get away just the two of us. :)
He was excited about the date but not so excited that I made him take a picture with me.... He HATES having his picture taken...