Soapbox Time

I'm going to post this video at the risk of starting a political debate because I think it hits the nail RIGHT on the head.  It's great, check it out.
GPA Petition

Family Portrait

One of my girls' favorite games is make-believe.  Especially pretending to be Mommies; usually with Banana Girl calling Princess M "Mother" and Princess M calling Banana Girl "Dear".  This time they included a baby doll to be Banana Girl's daughter, and wanted me to take their 3 generation family photo.

Don't they make a lovely family?

Food Storage

Princess M and Banana Girl decided to rotate some food storage for breakfast.  This concoction consists of spaghetti, flour, and potato pearls (they were eating these by the handful.)

 That's what I get for sleeping in...

Fun Week

Alex Baked!

Alex decided to try to bake a cake from scratch.  He found this recipe for a homemade strawberry cake that was so moist coming out of the oven that it fell apart when he tried to remove it from the pans. 

Here's how it looked after he fixed it up a little with frosting.  Despite its horrid appearance, it was actually a VERY tasty cake.  Everyone loved it.  I'll post the recipe on the other blog.

We took Little Mouse to the pool for her first swim. 

 Poor, unsuspecting, warm little girl.

 We had a lot of fun.  How my girls love to swim.  We actually got to go swimming again with some friends later on in the week during the afternoon.  Silly me, I didn't think to put sunscreen on, and got a mild sunburn on my shoulders. 

I love how babies completely float in the water as long as you hold their head up.  It's so cute.


I had a little fun with dinner for the girls on April Fool's Day.  We had cupcakes for dinner, and spaghetti and meatballs for dessert.  Princess M and Banana Girl were so excited when they saw these coming out for dinner.  They were a little thrown back when they took a bite though, and realized it was meatloaf with colored mashed potatoes on top rather than a sweet treat.  Even so, they tasted great and the girls ate them despite the initial disappointment.  I'll post the recipe.

 Girls who ate their "cupcakes" were allowed to have some spaghetti for dessert.  Although these hostess cupcakes, covered in piped frosting, strawberry syrup, and malt balls looked really cool, they were NOT tasty in the least.  Waaaaaaaaayyyy too much concentrated sugar.  I will not be posting this recipe on the other blog.  Now if you could soften ice cream and pipe it onto a freshly baked cupcake instead of so much heavy frosting, this might taste better.  Maybe I'll try that next year. 

We also had a picnic down by the San Pedro river yesterday with some friends, and had a BBQ dinner with some other friends today after conference (which by the way was very uplifting.  What great talks we were blessed with this weekend!)  Yes, it's been a really fun week for us all.

You know, we've been very blessed to meet some really awesome people here so quickly with whom we've really clicked with as a family, as well as been able to renew some of our old friends from when we lived here before, nearly 5 years ago.  I never would have guessed that we would feel so well established and surrounded by friends so soon after moving back here.  It's really been quite the blessing; and I'm very grateful for it!