Hollywood Willow

Check out Willow's outfit for church this morning. She helped pick it out and refused to take her sunglasses off. :)

(and is it just me or does her smile slightly resemble Grandma Leona in this picture???)

Patriotic Dinos

Where have I been??? I know you have all been wondering and are also probably sick of looking at that crazy picture of Jayden, that I think is absolutely hilarious. Well, let me tell you. But first, I just want to show you what is lined up around our house all. the. time.

Dinos…..


…and more dinos…


…the meat eaters all grouped together, the leaf eaters all grouped together, who are always grouped around a plant, alive or fake, it doesn’t matter. The leaf eaters are always hungry. And for that matter so are the meat eaters. The meat eaters are always hunting the leaf eaters and they say to each other, “The leaf eaters are always eating, we will find them by the plants”


Anyway, the obsession with dinosaurs is still crazy around here. Even Willow runs around the house roaring. Willow often gets to be Jayden’s baby T-rex and he goes and hunts meat for them to eat. It’s pretty fun to see them actually playing together, even if most of the time Jayden is bossing her around, telling his baby T-rex to sit in one spot while he hunts and the baby T-rex never listens and follows him running around the house roaring and attacking things.

Well as for why there have been no new posts lately….Jayden found this pattern for dinosaurs that his Grandma had sent in one of her packages and he asked if I could make them for him. I said sure, I mean how hard could they be right? I can follow directions, cut things out, sew them together. They are just little dinos, it shouldn’t be so hard. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not a good sewer, seamstress, whatever you want to call it. I’m just not very good. I’ve only had my sewing machine for about a year now and I have to keep reminding myself about the drawers full of knitted stuff that just wasn’t that good when I was first starting to knit. It takes practice to get better and I don’t have a ton of time to practice, but really, practicing on things for a 4-year old is perfect, he doesn’t care what the details look like. :) I had no idea these darn dinos were going to take me like a week to finish. All my spare time was spent at the sewing machine, not on the computer coming up with anything to entertain my 5 blog followers with. So, as for the dinos, Jayden decided he wanted them four colors - red, blue, yellow, and green. We went to the fabric store last Saturday and Jayden picked out material for each color. I tried to influence him, but no, anything I suggested he said absolutely not too, so I just went with what he wanted, I figured he’d like ‘em better this way.

So, here are Jayden’s finished products. They totally turned out patriotic looking with the red stripes and blue with stars material. Perfect for this time of year! And he even picked out the googly eye colors. Blue for the flyer - “so he can see in the dark like me” - Jayden has this strange idea that only people with blue eyes can see in the dark, I’ve tried explaining otherwise, but he’s set in his ways and it’s just not a battle I’m willing to argue over. The T-Rex has one red and one green. And the stegosaurus has one blue and one green.


I had no idea they were going to be so big. I thought they’d be like a normal sized stuff animal. Oh no, they are practically life-sized. I didn’t even look at the pattern before we went and got material and I’m such a novice when it comes to sewing that I didn’t even figure it out when I added up the yards of material we were going to need. Oh well, at least Jayden likes them. :)

Level II - Check!

Last night Jayden finished up a swim session and passed Level 2 with flying colors!  Onto Level 3!  He’s real excited to get past level 3, because then he will be in the same level as how old he is - who cares about the swimming, lets just get the numbers to match up!



By passing Level 2, Jayden has proven he’s excellent at streamline, breath control - bubbles, he keeps his face in the water while swimming, he can kick by himself with a floating barbell, he can do the back float independently, he can roll from front to back and back to front unassisted, he can jump in and roll over and float unassisted, he can jump to his instructor - turn around - and swim back to the wall and climb out of the pool, and finally he can retrieve objects from the bottom of the pool!

Good job Jaydo!!!

Rachel Repeat :: 2

#1 : “Jayden, stop sticking your trains up your nose”

I can’t believe how many times a day I have to tell someone to take a toy out of different body parts.

Then, I said something today that I’m going to have to provide some context behind, but I still couldn’t believe that it came out of my mouth.

#2 : “Jayden, would it be alright with you if I used the dead man’s banana for your lunches?”

Jayden had been helping Royal pack his lunch this morning and came out of the pantry holding a banana and this story about a man who was going to eat the banana, but before he could eat it a T-Rex ran up on him and ate the man instead. So then the banana was all alone in the hot sun and that’s why it had brown spots on it.

Father's Day and Sno-cones

Royal’s father’s day started out a little rough. Jayden woke up at 6:30 with a wet bed. I got up, changed Jayden and his bed. Willow woke up at 7:15, also with a wet bed. Royal got up, grabbed Willow and Jayden and put them in the bath, then went out to the kitchen to finish doing the dishes from the night before. About 5 minutes later he hears me yell from the bathroom, “Um, Royal, I need your help!” Willow had pooped in the bathtub and I was frantically pulling kids and toys out of the tub before someone grabbed “something” and was like, ‘what is this? a new bath toy???’ Luckily things went a better from there, but nothing like being reminded first thing in the morning what being a dad is really like!

We spent the morning at El Dorado where the kids played at a playground, Sam chased some birds, we went for a little hike, and then the kids went swimming. Royal wouldn’t even put his foot in the water because the lake looks so dirty, so I waded in the water with the kids. So far, no one has grown an extra limb or anything :)

The kids got Royal a sno-cone machine for Father’s day. While in Arizona, Royal was making sno-cones with my parents margarita machine about every hour, so I thought since it is approaching triple digits here in Wichita that he (and the kids) might like some ice treats here too. I never seem to get to eat mine, because the kids finish theirs off so quick they move right over to mine and help themselves.

Bread Bowl

I got a package in the mail today! I knew it was from my mom and I knew it was for my birthday. I told Kaylee, who I was on the phone with at the time, that I was just going to wait until my birthday to open it. Then she oh-so-wisely reminded me that I had declared the entire month of June my birthday month. So, without any further hesitation I opened it!

And this is what was in it :



The truth is, I have been coveting this bread bowl that my mom has had since I started making bread for my family. I figured that maybe I might get it if my parents ever sold their house, and if not then, then when we were going through their will. So, basically, not anytime in the near future. Wichita is not the most health conscious city and when we moved here I was having a lot of trouble finding bread that I liked all of the ingredients in. Enriched flour this, bleached flour that, high fructose this, sugar is the 2nd ingredient, blah, blah, blah. So, I decided that I would just try making bread and see how it went. Turns out it was pretty darn easy! I usually make 2 loaves at a time, stick one in the pantry and freeze the other, and that’s enough for a week! And wouldn’t you know it, but I needed to make bread today and I was totally procrastinating. I was, that is, until my present arrived and then I had an excuse to make a bunch of dough so it could rise in my new bowl!

Here’s the recipe in case anybody wants it

Buttermilk Bread

3/4C water
1/2C buttermilk
1T lemon juice
2 1/4t active dry yeast
3C bread flour
1T brown sugar
1T butter, room temp
3T flax seed (I used golden flaxseed meal, then the kids can’t see it in the bread)
1t salt
Warm water and buttermilk up to about 110 degrees. Dissolve yeast in liquid and let stand about 5 minutes until foamy.

Put remaining ingredients in mixing bowl with dough hook attachment. Pour in yeast mixture. Knead in mixer about 5 minutes until dough is pliable, but a little tacky. Feel free to do the kneading by hand, but I’m about convenience. :)

Put dough in oiled bowl, cover with a towel and let stand in a warm place for 1 hour



It should then look something like this:



Punch dough down and put in bread pan (or pans in my case)



Cover with towel again and let rise until 1-2″ over edge of pan (a couple hours or so)



Then bake at 350 for 30mins. I take my bread out of bread pans as soon as they come out of the oven and put them on a cooling rack, which isn’t as easy when you use glass pans, but is a piece of cake with silicone ones! :)

Voila! Fresh bread! Tastes good and your house smells even better!

Painting Party

Jayden was begging to do some painting yesterday, so I decided to set the kids up outside so Willow could participate in her first painting party!