"Say Brutha"

From the day she was born, Clarke and Brock have engaged in a friendly competition, with Camryn as their pawn and her first word as their prize. 

"Hi Camryn. It's daddy!" Clarke introduces himself every time he swoops in to pick her up, "Can you say da-da? Da-da, da-da." 

Brock, jealous that Camryn is giving daddy all her coveted attention, will jump up and down in front of her, giggling, "Say brutha! Say bro! Bro. Bro. Bro." 

Silly boys. In cool confidence, I stand back and try to stifle a contemptuous laugh because Camryn's first word will be "ma-ma." That's just how it will be. 

Here's Brock conspiring with Camryn while Clarke was at work one day... 

Truthfully, it doesn't matter what Cami's first word will be.

She may decide to say "Max" and reward the dog before any of us claim the 

"first word" prize, which won't be until much later this year anyway. 

Brock may hold the upper hand, however. 

He is smitten with her and she is enamored of him.

My kids are the absolute best! 

Crushed to Death

Last year we tried to refinance our house, after our meetings with realtors indicated that we'd never sell our house for what it was worth. The appraiser told the bank, up front, that a visit to our home would be a waste of his precious time. What a snob! Apparently, our house had lost too much value, in his estimation, to make it worthy of this guy's time. So, we decided to wait it out a year and see what happened.

A year passed.

Our excellent credit scores and history qualified us for a 3% mortgage rate when we refinanced. Compiling and submitting all the necessary paper work and information was a bit of a headache, but we completed all the assigned tasks set forth by our bank and waited for the big appraisal day. I spent the whole of the day cleaning madly--deep cleaning--because sparkliness could help boost our home value, right? 

Our plan

1.  First, we would refinance our house at a lower interest rate. 
2. Then we would rent it out (and we had someone already interested in renting our home!) until we had the house completely paid off. It was a retirement investment. 
3. And in the meantime, we would buy a bigger house closer to town.

The appraiser was scheduled to arrive at 5pm. And our realtor was scheduled to arrive at 6:30pm.

We were anxious and excited. 

And then, at 3pm, the appraiser called Clarke.

Can you guess what he said? 

More or less, he expressed to Clarke that his visit to our home would be a waste of time because our home had lost another 10-15 thousand in value over the past year and if we wanted to refinance we would have to pay $10,000.00 in closing costs! 

Um, no.

Thanks for nothing.

*insert sound of hopes being crushed to death*

It doesn't matter that we've never been late or missed a mortgage payment in the last NINE years and that we have very little debt and awesome credit scores.

Moral of the story: 

Our floors could have been paved in pure gold and our walls could have been solid marble and it would have made no difference.

Just plain bad luck. Again.

18 Weeks Old and Counting

The first thee months may have gone by slowly, but this fourth month was here and gone in a blink!

Camryn has grown to be quite a darling, chunky chickie and she is more fun than ever to have around! She is full of instant smiles for mommy, giggles for daddy and plenty of squeals and waving arms for big brother, Brock. 

On Monday, she rolled for the first time! With one swift movement, Cami had propelled herself from her back to her belly; a movement that caught her by such surprise that she promptly burst into tears! 

Tummy time...

Nom. Nom. Nom. Chubbilicious baby fingers.

Camryn may be a blue-eyed baby now, but she'll more than likely grow up to be a green eyed girl. There is a lot of green in her peepers if you look closely enough! 

She is now 17lbs, 13oz and 26" long.

That's a whopping 9.5lbs and 6" growth spurt since birth!!

She loves being tickled, putting her hands, blanket, toys and clothes in her mouth, eating, snuggling with mom, playing with daddy, and anything to do with Brock.

In the past month, Cami has really discovered her voice. In addition to giggles, she likes to work on her banshee screams and raspberries.

PLLLLLLLLLLPHHHBBBT!

What a doll-face! We ADORE our girl!!!

Sunny, Bunny Sunday

Wouldn't it be perfectly delightful to have just enough time in the day to do everything on your to-do list? For example, blogging about our Easter has been on my to-do list.....for a solid week now. Doh! 

So here it goes...

Easter consisted of three Easter egg hunts, two family dinners and the thorough spoiling of my children.

The sunny weekend also played host to one awesome, flag football touchdown (courtesy of Brock), a mini-shopping spree (for mom and Cami), four new (Pinterest) recipes and one gigantic surprise!

I also attempted to take Easter pics of my kids. Out of 160+ pictures taken in less than 5 minutes, I only had a few where one of my challenging children wasn't scowling, whining, crying or pouting. Or, in Camryn's case, munching on her dress. Nom. Nom. Nom.

"I hate pictures!"  *sulks*

"Wah!"

"This is so boooooooooring, mom." 

"I'm done, mom! Do you hear me? Done!"

What....Clarke. Not you too???

"boo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoooooo!"

Aren't my blessings just precious????

(mom sighs in exasperation)

Here are some keepers, though...

Didn't I marry a handsome man?

And we make such cute kids together...

Wait...where's our other kid? Oh yeah, he RAN away from the 

camera as soon as he could escape. Stinker!

Camryn is all ruffles and chunk!

Aren't those legs absolutely scrumptious???

Playing airplane with daddy on the kitchen floor! 

Kisses!

Flying baby!

Of the four Pinterest recipes I replicated, only two are worth sharing...

Let's start with a culinary home run...

They're called crack potatoes because they're presumably so addictive that it's akin to carbohydrate crack...and they're also amazingly delish! When everyone asks for the recipe, you know you've hit this one out of the park! 

Crack Potatoes

2 (16oz) containers sour cream

2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

2 (3oz) bags real bacon bits

2 packages Ranch Dip mix

1 large (28 - 30oz) bag frozen hash brown potatoes - shredded kind

Combine first 4 ingredients, mix in hash browns.  Spread into a 9x13 pan.  Bake at 400 for 45-60 minutes.  

(recipe source: Plain Chicken)

And what is more addictive than crack potatoes, you might ask? Well, I'll tell you.

It's CAKE BATTER rice krispy treats, that's what! Let's face it, anything with Cake Batter in it is guaranteed to be "died and gone to heaven" good. And these do not disappoint! I will never make boring old rice crispy treats ever again.

Cake Batter Rice Krispy Treats

• 3 Tbsp. butter
• 1 (10 oz.) bag of mini-marshmallows
• 1/3-2/3 cup yellow cake mix
• 6 cups rice krispy cereal
• 1 (1.75 oz.) container of sprinkles

Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat and add marshmallows. Stir until they begin to melt, adding in cake mix one spoonful at a time so its combined. Taste to get desirable cake mix flavor. Stir in cereal so it is completely coated with marshmallow mixture. Sprinkle in half of the sprinkles and mix. Press into a baking dish (any size will do) and top with remaining sprinkles. Let sit for about 30 minutes before cutting. 

(recipe source: Chef in Training)

As for the other two Pinterest recipes: crock pot ranch potatoes and Olive Garden salad dressing...

they were "meh" at best.

Now for the Easter Bunny and that big surprise!

I hate to say that my children, one in particular, was almost, very nearly undeserved of an Easter Bunny spoiling. "No Easter Bunny for you!" reverberated the walls of our home for the weeks leading up to Easter as we attempted to dole out punishments, oh, alright empty threats. "No, no, no!" our child would plead, " I promise to be good." 

We tried to go Easter Bunny Lite this year...

but I think we failed.

Flip flops, a Nerf gun (left over from Christmas shopping), a shirt and some M&Ms for Brock.

A Sophie giraffe and two summer outfits for Cami.

...and the Easter Bunny left us a very big surprise in our backyard...

A trampoline!!

Clarke attaches the net that the Easter Bunny didn't have time to do in the dark the night before...

Brock was in love with the latest addition to our backyard!

In fact, he did his homework on the trampoline that night.

Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!

This Easter

Of course, there will be Easter baskets and egg hunts to mark the holiday, but

let us not forget to whom our celebrations and rejoicing truly belong...

He is risen! He is risen!

Tell it out with joyful voice.

He has burst his three days’ prison;

Let the whole wide earth rejoice.

Death is conquered; man is free.

Christ has won the victory.

Come with high and holy hymning;

Chant our Lord’s triumphant lay.

Not one darksome cloud is dimming

Yonder glorious morning ray,

Breaking o’er the purple east,

Symbol of our Easter feast.

He is risen! He is risen!

He hath opened heaven’s gate.

We are free from sin’s dark prison,

Risen to a holier state.

And a brighter Easter beam

On our longing eyes shall stream.

LDS Hymn #199
Text: Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818–1895
Music: Joachim Neander, 1650–1680

Going Green

I suppose this post is better late than not at all. 

St. Patrick's Day came and went in a flurry of football and appointments and projects.

One project, in particular, was the subject of much excitement at our house in the weeks that preceded St. Patrick's Day. Brock came home from school one afternoon insisting that his teacher had assigned each student to imagine and create a leprechaun trap. You could just see the ideas working their way around Clarke's brain as Brock excitedly announced the project and then told us that is was due the next day! 
It wasn't.

Nevertheless, my guys disappeared into the garage where they conspired and built a clever leprechaun catching contraption! And all before the teacher had even sent home the sheet outlining the project, which, of course, wasn't due for two weeks!

After it was built, there was only one thing left to do: paint it!

And no one was more qualified, in Brock's estimation, to help him than his best buddy, Jamin.

Or "bug" as Brock calls him. 

Nothing says deep concentration like sticking out one's tongue....

The finished product looked like this:

Brock was so proud of his (and daddy's) trap!

Jamin thought it looked like a lamp. He had a point.

Ultimately, when a leprechaun reached for the pot of gold, it would trigger the trap to come crashing down, thus encapsulating the leprechaun.

And it worked!! Kind of.

Over St. Patrick's Day weekend, Brock and his classmates left their leprechaun traps at school to see if they might catch one of the elusive, green men. While the slippery leprechaun managed to escape the traps, he left plenty of goodies in his wake!

****
Sadly, I missed the opportunity to photograph my kiddos in green on March 17th!
But, I did manage to snap a pic of our holiday dessert: Leprechaun Floats!
Thank you, Pinterest!

Lime Sherbet + Sprite + Whipped Cream + Cherry = YUM!