I heart Leap Day Gnomes!

Did you know about these guys? I sure didn't. But let me tell ya, Leap Day Gnomes are just about the cutest little workers I've ever seen. Ty came home to this note on the door:
Here is what they did at our house:
-They cleaned the bathroom. They organized the shelves and even got all the hair from the shower drain!
-They cleaned our bedroom, which was was quite the task. They organized the desk, straightened the closet and picked up every single article of clothing that I had on the floor. Wow! It must have take them a good chunk of the morning to get that done.
-They took out all the trashes. Ty was so happy about that one, since I never take out the trash. Bless their little gnome hearts for giving him a trash break!
-They made us pre-dinner appetizers.
-They made us Spaghetti Carbonara, which only Ty likes.
-And they splurged and bought macadamia nuts so they could make us sin pie!

But the funniest past of it all this is that our little gnome friends kinda jumped the gun. They must have gotten confused on the date or something because they showed up at our house yesterday, instead of today. Oopsie! But maybe they did that on purpose so they would have more time to visit all of your houses.

Happy Leap Day everyone!

Gimme a "best friends" box!

Nothing but love for this song and video.

I find myself wishing I had a box labeled "best friends" out of which all my girls would magically appear and then we could all float down the river (the Provo, of course) together. Wouldn't that be a perfect day?

To my lovley ladies, "how I love ya!" And here's hoping this will be us one day soon.

I love yous, ipods and identical twins

I know it's a little late, but here is a glimpse into our valentines celebration.
After a delicious dinner made by your's truly (and a little help from Whole Foods) I totally scored big in the Valentine's gift department. Ty totally outdid himself. An ipod and a portable video player! Ty has been telling me for ages that he really thinks I should have an ipod, so my sweet man spent his birthday money on me. What a guy! Sorta makes the 80's CD I bought him look lame, but he did make me promise to not buy him a thing, so he was pleasantly surprised.
And Valentine's wouldn't be complete without a homemade cuppycake dress for my li'l cuppycake now would it? She had a matching hair clip, but as you can see in this picture, clips don't last too long in her hair these days.
On another note, we made a discovery this weekend...
Archie and Kenneth are totally twins! Who knew? From the plaid shoes, to the cords and striped shirt. It's a good thing Kenneth has eyes or else there is no way we would have been able to tell them apart! There was the embarrassing moment when Emily high-fived Archie instead of Kenneth after she rolled that five though. It's OK Em, it could have happened to anyone.

Sacco's Bowl Haven

I can't believe we have lived in Massachusetts for two and a half years and we haven't been Candlepin Bowling before last night. Especially at a place called Sacco's Bowl Haven where the decor hasn't changed since the 50's. We were totally missing out! For those of you not familiar with the sport, it is like bowling, as you know it, but different. Here is a better description of the ins and outs, but basically, it's10 skinny pins (about and inch and a half wide), you get 3 balls (four and a half inches in diameter), and you have at it. It seems like with 3 balls you would be able to get all the pins down every time, but not so (and not just because I lost and came in "penultimate place" the second game.). You can roll the ball right down the middle, a shot that would definately be a strike in regular bowling, and only knock down one pin because of the way the pins are placed and because they are so skinny. Kinda frusterating, but so super fun! I think we may have found a new favorite date night activity!

What do you say guys, don't you think this photo belongs right next the the photos of the ol' dolls bowling league?
Thanks "Tiki" and "Randall" for giving us a run for our money! Speaking of money....

"Daddy!!"

"Little China Girl"

Gong Xi Fa Cai!
And you thought I was going to forget about "First FHE of the Month" again didn't you? I totally spaced it in November and December with all the was going on and we were still in Utah for January's first Monday. So the long wait is over. You can now rest easy.

Every Chinese New Year since Ty and I have been married we have had a party of sorts. The first year was a MAJOR production, complete with "Chinese Dice Game", lantern making contest, killer decoration and costumes to boot. It was pretty fabulous.But every year since, the parties have been less and less elaborate. I think last year we may have just ordered Chinese and called it good. So naturally this month's theme had to be New Year related. Partly because it is always fun, and mainly because Mckinlay had the prefect outfit for the occasion.
This little gem was mine as a babe. I might just put it back on her today so I can get a better picture. There are little matching pants, but somehow she managed to spill my cup of water all over them...

We kept it pretty simple this year. We danced to a little Bowie while I decorated and she un-decorated.
Had some good eats. Thank you "Trader Mings".
And, of course, we enjoyed festive cookies. Some of them are a little more yin than yang (or vice versa), but I'm overall pleased with my yin-yang making skills.
It was fun to get both our Chinese New Year and our FHE traditions back on track. And thanks, as always, for the vinyl Mom. It always make our celebration that much more festive!
Happy New Year everyone! The year of the rat is going to be a good one. I can just feel it.

"I got a new way to walk..."

This is by far my favorite Sesame Street Video. I remember singing this as a kid all the time.

Looks like someone else decided it was time to get a new way to walk.

Isn't that just the cutest thing you've ever seen? Now all we need to do is work on the walking "with confidence" thing. I'll keep replaying the song. I bet that'll do the trick.

Birthday Festivities

This year, I vetoed the traditional birthday cake. Since Ty is kinda picky when it comes to desserts, I figured it was safe to make, what he called "the best treat he's ever eaten." Melanie made these peanut butter chocolate chip ball thingies the other day and Ty fell in love (with the thingies, not Melanie). They are basically peanut butter rice krispie treats on steroids.

We spent Ty's birthday night watching the long awaited LOST premiere. Needless to say we were disappointed when we discovered that the first hour of the 2 hour premiere was a recap. LAME. But otherwise, a good start to the season.

Friday Ty didn't have school so we devoted the entire day to celebrating! We went to the Children's Museum in the morning. I'm not sure if Ty or Mckinlay had more fun. It was equally as thrilling for me to see how excited they both were to be there! OK, so maybe this isn't the best "excited Mckinlay" picture. But trust me, she was excited. This little contraption took some serious muscle power! I know Ty makes it look like it is easy-peesy-lemon-squeezy, but I'll admit I darn near broke a sweat on my turn. Yeah, yeah I know the words "pathetic" and "weakling" are probably coming to mind. Go try it for yourself and then call me names. Or maybe don't try it for yourself...
We had some quality dress up opportunities......then our camera mysteriously stopped working. Mckinlay and I climbed into a canoe and then I handed Ty the camera to take a picture of us so that "I could prove that I came too" and nothin'. The camera would turn on, but that's about all. Then magically it started working again this morning. I guess I wasn't meant to have my picture taken. But believe it or not, I was there.

Last night, thanks to the Fillmore's excellent baby monitor listening skills, Ty and I went out to the Texas Roadhouse. It was our first time there, and we were quite pleased. But maybe not as pleased as the table next to us. They were very obviously not from the US and were so pumped when the waitresses started line dancing in the isles. They pulled out their video camera and everything. Pretty funny.

We decided it would be fun to have a camp out in our living room (sleep on the air mattress so we could watch a movie). We got all of 5 mins into the movie and then decided it was bed time. What a bunch of old fogies we are turning into. All the partying lately did us in, I guess. It's kinda sad to think my birthday isn't until September! I guess were gonna have to find some other things to celebrate in the months between now and then.

Here is the treat recipe if you want to give it a try:

Chocolate Chip Ball Surprise
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups creamy peanut butter
3 cups confectioners' sugar
3 cups crispy rice cereal, crushed (recommended: Rice Krispies)
1 cup semisweet mini chocolate morsels
2 (12-ounce) packages semisweet chocolate morsels

In a large mixing bowl, combine butter, peanut butter, sugar, rice cereal and mini chocolate morsels. (I first creamed my butter, sugar and peanut butter, then added the rice krispies...) Roll mixture into 1-inch balls and place onto a parchment lined sheet pan in the freezer. In a double boiler, (or you can use the microwave like I did), melt semisweet morsels. Stir constantly until melted and smooth. With fingers, dip half the frozen balls in melted chocolate. Place on a cool cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Place in freezer for 5 to10 minutes until the chocolate has set. Store the balls in an airtight container at room temperature.