Today started out dark, dreary, and rainy. But now that the sun has come out to shine, I'm hoping that will be a good omen for the rest of the day. I've been dealing with sick cranky kids around here and it's good to see those golden rays shining through my window. Cooper started being really fussy and tired last night during dinner and just wanted to get down out of his high chair and be rocked and held. That right there is always a dead giveaway that something is wrong because he is not a cuddler and does not ever sit still. After a few minutes of rocking he was passed out. He and Kale both have some big teeth coming through on both sides of their mouth right now and it's been quite the miserable week or so for them and me, as I have not been feeling too great myself. I think we are all restless and ready for some warm spring weather. We had a good stretch going there for a while though of nobody getting sick, so that was pleasant while it lasted.

Riley stopped at the Nike outlet on his way to Seattle last weekend and got me some new workout gear. He picked out some great stuff that is super comfortable. Good job on that Riley. He also discovered they now have an Under Armour outlet there as well. Now we are REALLY in big trouble. I don't think our family will ever have a shortage of athletic clothing if Riley has anything to say about it. Good thing a lot of Kendle's stuff can be passed down to Morgan and then to the twins. At least that's how we justify it. Sorry Kendle, no pink soccer cleats for you, have to get the black ones so your brothers can wear them too. HA! Riley was pretty bummed out that his club team had their first league loss in two years. Hopefully they can redeem themselves at their game this weekend. Southridge also has their first two games of the season on Friday and Saturday. Busy weekend for sure.

I think I am going to make some Local Boyz crock pot chicken for dinner with rice.

It always makes the house smell good like you are walking into a restaurant. I've been trying to think of lighter and healthier dinners to make that my family will still all enjoy. To be honest, they are not big veggie eaters so it can be a challenge. I've been trying to just lighten up a lot of our family favorites and make them lower-fat and lower-sugar. So far, not too many complaints but there are definitely some recipes that are better left how they are. I know I've mentioned this website before, but I love Gina's Skinny Recipes at http://www.skinnytaste.com/. Every recipe I've tried is really good and I like that there's lots of flavor and also yummy desserts. Got to have some sweets!

Well, I think that's enough rambling for the morning.

**Here is the recipe for Local Boyz chicken:

Recipe #1 - The easy version
3 or 4 chicken breasts
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup soy sauce
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
4 tsp. ground ginger or 1/2 tsp. fresh grated ginger

Place chicken in crockpot. Mix remaining ingredients all together and pour over the top of chicken. Cook in crockpot for 8 hours on low. To eat, shred or chunk up and serve with hot white sticky rice.

(I also found this other knock off recipe that is really good)
Recipe #2 - Slow Cooker Shoyu Chicken

Good news and bad news

Bad news:
I'm not going to Las Vegas with Riley after all for their college showcase tournament for their club team. It would have been a much (MUCH) needed break, but it just didn't seem like it was going to work out. I'm still bummed out about it, but not as much because..................................

Good news:
I decided I wanted to do something else with some of that money I set aside for the trip so I bought tickets for us to take Kendle to see Wicked in Spokane Memorial Day weekend. I scored us some really good seats and I'm thinking this will be a wonderful lifelong memory for her. We're just going to make a super fun day out of it. I can't wait!

I think Riley will actually end up enjoying it too. We listen to the soundtrack all of the time in the car because the kids love it, and Riley's favorite is "Popular". Sorry, Riley I just outed you on your guilty little secret. Ha!

I love Fridays

This has been another long but good week. Riley started high school boys soccer on Monday so now he has high school practice every night plus double duty with girls club practice Tuesdays and Thursdays. He and the other coaches think they have a really promising boys team team this year. We're hoping for a good and fun season. We just found out some of their boys who were facing appeals got approved to play this season, so that is great news. His girls club team were tournament champions last weekend and Riley was really proud of them. They really outscored their opponents and played hard. I wish I was able to go watch more of their games to be there to support him and all of his hard work. They travel to Seattle again this weekend. We also celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary this week. It was without much fan fare, but I guess that's how it goes sometimes when life is as busy as ours is. Riley asked me if there was anything I wanted him to buy me, but I had already ordered some things for our house so I called it good. Aren't we romantic? Ha.

The kids were super jazzed up to have my mom come up last night to watch them so I could go to our Relief Society dinner at the church. She brought them dinner, made paper airplanes with them, kept the twins out of trouble and had everyone in bed with the house clean when I got home. To say she is incredible is an understatement. I can't believe she can do all that she does, and that was after a full day of work at her full time job. She's pretty much my hero and I have buckets full of appreciation for her. If anyone deserves a long extended relaxing vacation it is her. The Relief Society dinner was really fun and it was good to get to visit with so many people I have not been able to get to know until now and put names to faces. We have a really great ward full of fun women.

Today has been a really nice Friday morning. The kids have been contentedly playing, I've stayed in my comfy clothes, nothing pressing is on the horizon and it's nice to relax a bit -- scratch that. One of the twins just spilled a full glass of water someone left on the counter all over the floor. (Have I mentioned how they are climbing up on everything now? Pretty sad I can't even keep things up on the kitchen counter safe anymore.) Ok, two towels later and it's cleaned up. Tonight Kendle has her end of season basketball pizza party at Round Table. It should be a good time, she played with some really fun girls this year and we really like her coach. He's thinking about doing a traveling team for some of the girls maybe in the summer, but not sure if we're ready to hitch a ride on that wagon yet. We'd love him to coach Kendle again though if she got the chance.

I have the biggest stack of books waiting to be read, but I have a confession. My bed time reading routine has been sabotaged by Netflix (cue the Beasty Boys).  I have been loving catching up on past seasons of some of my favorite shows and also watching movies. Friday Night Lights was hands down one of my favorite shows ever and it is now officially over (tear) so I've been going back and watching some of the older seasons where I missed a lot of episodes. I also love the Masterpiece Theater classics and loved their newer version of Wuthering Heights with Tom Hardy from Inception. I even got Riley into it which is really saying something. So maybe this weekend I can get some speed reading done so I don't have to keep renewing my books/and or racking up late fees. :)

*Random thought for the day -- I really, really love the song "And so it goes" by Billy Joel. Might be one of my all time faves. Just listened to it when I had my itunes library on random shuffle this morning and it always makes me stop and think what a beautiful song it is.

Well, nap time for the babes and running time for me. I'm out!

Growing Up

Today I had one of those mornings where I really stopped to take a minute to look at Kendle and how all of a sudden she just looks so much older to me. She is getting taller and more independent and has braces and all of these things which are just giving me a big punch in the gut that she is not such a little girl anymore. I swear I just blinked and she went from her adorable baby self to this girl with an attitude and big personality that is almost done with the third grade. Instead of quiet mornings and afternoons spent together reading books and playing, our days are now filled with sports, piano, school and church activities, driving to and fro from one thing to the next and birthday parties and sleepovers. She surfs the internet, paints her nails, turns up the stereo in her room, is a reading machine, is trying to be more helpful, occasionally plays the part of the class clown, and has a little bit more interest in clothes. She also talks back and has a very messy room, but we're working on that. :) She has muscly calves and a strong athletic body that help her play and enjoy sports and I really appreciate watching her play hard and give it everything she's got. I love her sweet little face, her deep brown eyes that always seem to twinkle with mischief, and her sprinkling of freckles across her nose. This girl is a fighter and she knows what she wants and how she's going to get there. I'm in awe of how she is the best of both her father and I. She is my only girl in a rowdy household of boys -- we have to be allies me and her.



















I just need her to stay a little girl for a little while longer.