Brownies for Breakfast?

This morning as Andrew happily watched his new favorite shows on PBS - SuperWhy! and Dragon Tales, I was quickly trying to get some things done upstairs, like paying bills and putting away laundry. As I headed down the stairs, I heard a strange plastic-rattling sound and quickened my pace to see what he was getting into. I wish I had had the camera in my hands to capture his guilty face as he saw me coming down the stairs. I couldn't do anything but laugh as I saw him with the pan of brownies and a fork. As you can see, he is quickly trying to shove as many bites in his mouth as he can before they are taken from him. Rest assured, I did take the brownies from him and fed him a nutritious breakfast of Tootie Fruities cereal!

Memorial Day Weekend

Here are a couple of pictures from our weekend...

Tummy Time

My parents went to the Holy Lands for almost two weeks and just got back on Friday. They had a great time and we've had fun looking at all of their pictures and hearing all the stories of the amazing things they saw. They brought back this T-shirt for Andrew and Jonathan. We had a very difficult time getting him to hold still long enough for us to take this photo.

Andrew has a froggy towel and some nights after his bath, he becomes a frog. It's so stinkin' cute, you forget all of his activities that were completely exhausting earlier in the day.


Our neighbor boy offered this big blue dog to Andrew and he was so sweet, we couldn't say no. Andrew named him Clifford, and we're not sure how long Clifford will survive around here. Andrew likes to pretend Clifford is a mountain to be climbed and jumped on. He has also found a small hole and has been removing Clifford's stuffing... Poor Clifford.

Chicken Ranch Pizza

Last night I made one of our favorite dinners thanks to Paul and Amy. I always think of you when I make this pizza. We miss you guys!

The original recipe is from Allrecipes.com and is called Gourmet Chicken Pizza. Amy made a few modifications, which I stick to and it is soooo yummy and easy!

Chicken Ranch Pizza
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
1 pizza crust (preferably Boboli)
1/2 cup Ranch dressing
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 can Italian-style diced tomatoes

Boil chicken for 15-20 minutes. (I season the water with some minced onion, salt, pepper and Italian seasoning.) Cook until no longer pink. Cool, shred or chop chicken into small pieces. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Spread ranch dressing over pizza crust. Sprinkle on mozzarella cheese. Place the tomatoes and then chicken on top of mozzarella, then top with cheddar cheese. Bake for 20-25 minutes until cheese is melted and bubbly.

I also made a strawberry pie a couple weeks ago for a family birthday party. It was a big hit, despite my fear of raw eggs. Oh, and it's from Paula Deen so of course it's delicious!

Strawberry and Cream Pie
8 T (1 stick) butter
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 eggs, beaten
one 8-inch graham cracker crust (I used a 9-inch and it fit perfectly)

Cream together butter and powdered sugar; add eggs. Beat ingredients until fluffy. Spread over crust. Add topping.

Topping:
1-1/2 cups sliced and sweetend strawberries, drained
1 cup whipped cream (I used 4-6 oz cool whip)

Fold strawberries into whipped cream. Spread over chilled pie. Chill for at least 8 hours. Garnish with whole berries and mint leaves.

Peterson's visit

Auntie Jill, Uncle Cory, Sydney and Brenna came for a quick weekend visit. Here are a couple of pictures of the kids playing together. We had a great time and can't wait to see you again!

Andrew giving Brenna a little "push."


Jill's grandma and parents came over for dinner Friday night. Jill's grandma brought these great flags for the kids and they had a great time running around the backyard with them.

Sydney and Brenna giving Jonathan some love. Brenna was especially smitten with him. We had to keep an eye on her as she really wanted to touch the "BAbee."

Brenna was so excited to hold Jonathan!

Notice her tight death grip. She was not interested in him being taken from her!

Brenna and Sydney played in the sprinkler on Saturday afternoon while Andrew took a LONG nap. He was very tired from all the fun.

Thanks for coming to visit! We loved playing with you!

Jonathan's 3-month pictures

I took Jonathan to Portrait Innovations on Friday and got lots of great pictures of him. Unfortunately it was very hard for me to choose just one pose! I guess you're only 3 months once! I did narrow it down to 8 from 47 poses. Not an easy task let me assure you!

Mother's Day photos

We went to lunch for Mother's Day with my parents and grandma and my aunt and uncle, Dave and Marilyn and cousins, Ashley and Josh. Sadly, there are no pictures of me with my children. But there are pictures of everyone else with them...

Four generations, minus me


Grandma is scraping all of the chocolate onto a spoon to spoil her great-grandson.

This was the very beginning of lunch, before we got our food. But as soon as we got food, Jonathan woke up. He has some sort of sixth sense about food and not sleeping.

Grandma with Jonathan and Andrew - note the strawberry on a stick. This was the beginning of the end of Andrew's lunch. He stabbed his mouth with the stick and then refused to eat anything else until dessert showed up. See photo below...

Ashley helping Andrew at the chocolate fountain.

Grandpa and Jonathan

Andrew didn't eat much lunch, but as soon as I got my cake, he suddenly appeared from no where demanding a fork.

Ahh, Mother's Day - not so relaxing with two small children and a loud restaurant. But at least we didn't have to cook or wash dishes! Happy Mother's Day to all my brave mommy friends. It's not an easy job, but I wouldn't trade it for anything, well at least most of the time. :)

random photos

Here are a couple new pictures of the boys. I've been trying to do better of taking more photos of Jonathan...

This is what I usually get when I try to take a picture of Jonathan if Andrew is in the room. It appears that Jonathan's neck is breaking as he strains to watch his brother's antics.

More watching and taking mental notes, I fear!

We had a Nisly family April/May birthday celebration last week. Jonathan didn't nap that whole day. It's his new thing. *sigh* And when the Nislys get together, it tends to get quite loud as we all fight to be heard and Jonathan added to the noise by screaming most of the night. But that didn't stop all the cousins and aunts from wanting to hold him anyway! Here's Natasha braving the screams.

Twins?

So I thought my babies looked a lot alike until I looked at these pictures. While in the same outfit and almost the same age (Andrew is 11 weeks and Jonathan is 13 weeks) They definitely don't look like twins. Can you tell which is which?

Bath Time

Jonathan loves his bath. Last night I realized he is a victim of the sad second-child syndrome of very few pictures. So I tried to remedy that. He was so happy and smiley, but when the camera comes out, he has trouble remembering to look at me and smile. *sigh* And look at those little fat rolls. He's not going to be in the 50th percentile for long!

Bumbo Chair

Auntie Jill bought this T-shirt for Andrew and truer words were never spoken!

As you can, Andrew also likes to sit in the Bumbo even though he gets stuck half the time. We are s-l-o-w-l-y trying to potty train. He's gone twice and so I think he's starting to get the concept. But in the mean time, we've had some poop-in-the-bedroom issues. He secretly poops when he goes to his room to nap and then doesn't like it and instead of yelling for help, he removes his diaper and distributes poop around the room. It is more gross than I can describe. We had to go out and buy a steam cleaner vacuum because the first episode was so bad. We are not praying for patience, because I'm afraid God will allow more poop incidences to teach us patience, so we are just praying for wisdom. :) Feel free to join us in this prayer!

We just got this Bumbo chair for Jonathan because he likes to sit up and he can hold his neck, most of the time. Anyway, it's especially great for dinnertime. He thinks he's old enough to be at the table with us and we can eat with both hands free!


"Sometimes my neck gets tired and then I have to scream at them to get me out!"