missing daddy, and a recipe to share

Yesterday I took Ben to the airport to fly out to St. Louis. He's there for good, and the girls and I will be joining him on March 17th. My mom flew in from utah to help me out with the girls and a few things I have to do while we're still here. He got there yesterday afternoon, and got settled in at the temporary place we'll be living through June. Today is his first day at work in his new branch. Yesterday went fine, and I think having my mom here really will help the time go by faster. I wanted to post a few recent pictures of the girls for Ben to see in St. Louis. This is the most recent one I could find of Kiersten.
This one of Kara is actually from my etsy shop, but I thought it was a cute pose.

Evie has been a happy girl the past few weeks, unless I've had to take her with me down to our old house in spanaway to clean or paint. She doesn't really like going down there any more. She has seemed to understand that Ben was leaving when we talked about it the past few days. She got a little upset when she saw him packing his suitcases, so I think she may remember that from the last couple times he has travelled. On monday she even got her little rolling suitcase and chased him around the house with it. Luckily she really likes my mom, so I've actually been able to get a few things done while my mom hangs out with her.

The girls were watching a movie in the car, and marshmallow lasagna kept getting mentioned. So Ben thought out a way it would be good, and asked me to make it. I used brownie mix for the sauce, graham crackers for the pasta, strawberries for the meat, and marshmallows for the cheese.

I layered it as you would a lasagna. brownie on bottom, then crackers topped with marshmallows and strawberries, then repeat.

here's how it looked when finished. It was super tasty. Things I will tweak for next time: equal parts marshmallow to strawberry. we really missed the strawberry when we got a bite without it. add marshmallows on top at the end of cooking to make a marshmallow crust on top. possibly substitute pie shell for the crackers. They were really good the first night, but the next day they were a little soggy and didn't add much texture any more. I might also make a strawberry mash or syrup to pour over the top. Anyway, if you try it out, let me know if you come up with any tweaks that make it better. :)

Ben called this morning and talked to Evie. She accidentally hung up on him and got very upset while I was trying to call him back for her. She was crying hysterically and begging for "dada" until I got him back for her.

Then she started up crying and begging for him again when he really had to hang up with her the second time. She cried for at least 10 minutes, and had a hard time calming down. I think she'll be really excited to see him in a few weeks.

I love snow days

Well, I may not exactly love snow days, but my kids sure do. Yesterday we had our first snow of this winter. The girls were up early and watching it fall out their windows. As soon as breakfast was over, they both got dressed and ready to go out. I thought they looked super adorable. I've been making scarves for the girls lately, and trying to decide whether to include scarves in my etsy shop.I did have some fun throwing snowballs at them. Kiersten built a little snowman on the top of these steps. She found twigs for the arms, and I had to help her dig into the snow to find little rocks for a face. She asked if I was going to take a picture, so I went inside to get the camera. When I got back out 2 seconds later, Kiersten was crying, and Kara was proudly standing over the trampled snowman carcass. I don't know why she thought that was okay. Kiersten ended up going inside after that.Evie didn't do a whole lot in the snow, but she was determined to stay outside as long as possible. This was her first time touching or being in snow. Later, Kara got to open a few early birthday gifts from my parents, and from my sisters in Utah. She got some pretty fun gifts! Thanks guys!She has really been wanting one of these bounce balls. She had fun on it all evening, going up and down the hall and around the house on it.Evie really likes it as well. She is certain that it is hers. She can't stay on by herself, so she keeps dragging it up to us, and whining, "need help".

Mom and Dad are here

My parents flew in on Wednesday night. It has been so fun having them here so far. Yesterday after Ben got off work, we took a drive up to Seattle. Here they are near the space needle. (Well, abaout as near as you can be and still get the whole thing in a picture). We also got food from some of Ben's favorite restaurants.

We realized after living here for 5 years, we had no pictures of the space needle ourselves, so we posed for a picture too. The girls were all asleep, so they didn't get a picture. But it's nice to have a few pictures of just Ben and me without the kids occasionally.

The girls absolutely LOVE having visitors. Kara really wanted to play games on wednesday night, but she had to go to bed, as it was a school night. So she was quick to break out chutes and ladders as soon as we got back from Seattle last night.

Christmas morning

Christmas morning is sure fun with 3 excited little girls. Ben was woken by Evie at 3:30, and never went back to bed. It was nice to have the dishes all put away out of the dishwasher, and everything else perfect when I woke in the morning. Kiersten was up at 7. she was able to wake Evie and me successfully, but Kara didn't want to get up. So I went down and got Ben, Kerry and Lana, who were watching a movie, and we let Kiersten and Evie come find their stockings and gifts from Santa. I was worried about that shopping cart Evie got. She loved her last one, but it just kept falling apart, so Santa brought her a new one. She wanted nothing to do with it when she saw it. But today she has loved it, and pushed all her things around in it, so I guess she likes it afterall. She only cared about those tubes of mini m&m's. once she saw those, she wanted them opened, and didn't care about the rest of her goodies. She carried them around til after breakfast, I think Ben distracted her long enough to make them disappear.

Kara woke 45 minutes to an hour after the other girls. She was really cute and excited about everything. Kiersten had her stocking emptied, and tried to show her everything in there in about 15 seconds.

Evie kind of loves/fears this bunny from Grandma Howard.

I knew Kara would love this doll, but I am surprised how much. It hasn't left her side since she opened it.

The girls were opening everything so fast. Kerry and Ben had a hard time keeping up with getting things out of the packaging.

Evie's new baby doll is probably her favorite gift. It is constantly being fed and put to bed all day long.

Kara's big gift from us, was her own camera. I was looking through it this morning and she has some pretty cute pictures. I got her a memory card today, so now she'll be able to take as many pictures as she wants.

We gave Kiersten this story telling Belle. She is pretty fascinated with everything it can do. She's also worried about her perfect curls getting smashed.

We gave Evie this fun discovery table. She was getting sleepy, and laid on the box, so I couldn't get it open for her. She wouldn't get off for quite a while.

Being a little tired, she was not cooperative for her picture with gifts. This was the best we could get.

Kiersten with all of her fun things. I know a few things got left out of the picture, in the chaos of our livingroom, or Kara playing with her stuff. you can kind of see her santa gift in her lap. It's a set of little disney princesses in wedding gowns marrying their princes. She is in love with those things.

Kara is pretty pleased with her spread as well. Her santa was that my little pony next to her on the couch.

the girls made all of us play twister.

This morning Evie kept wanting to wear the little glasses that came with one of her baby dolls.

Her new favorite toy. Kara has the cutest picture on her camera of Evie kissing her baby this morning. I guess she was carrying it around and stopping every few steps to give a kiss.

Hope you all had a merry Christmas this year!

the week before Christmas

The girls have been having so much fun this week, being out of school. Here they are jumping on some bubble wrap that came in a package from my parents. Notice they each put on one shoe to help them pop it.Ben got these littel masks for them to color. Kara is a reindeer.Kiersten is a snowman. Evie had an elf one, but I didn't get a picture.We also made little tiny gingerbread houses. That was a huge hit.Ben also got them these ornaments. They colored in the area meant to put a picture, but I'll probably add pictures in later. This is the one Kiersten made.There's usually quite a difference in Kara's coloring, and Kiersten's. Kiersten is getting better lately, though. This is obviously Kara's.On another day we decorated stockings for Papa and Grams. The girls have just been thrilled about them coming to spend Christmas with us this year.Kiersten tried so hard, but her decorations all turned into blobs. Papa and Grams loved the stockings when they arrived yesterday morning. The girls were very eager to show them.Here is some of the candy the girls helped me make. I didn't remember to take a picture til it was already mostly gone.making chocolate suckers. Kara did a very good job on some of hers. Good enough that I put some of them on the plate I sent to work with Ben.Here are some cute foam ornaments the girls made. Kiersten actually wrote "Anna" on her snowman, because that was what the picture on the packaging said. Kara kept making fun of her for it. I just had her write her own name on the back, and we decided her snowman is named Anna.Kara's santa and snowman.Yesterday they got to help me bake a giant snowman cookie. We did chocolate chip. They haven't decorated it yet, so I don't have a picture of the finished product. They were great at helping me clean off the spatula and beater. Who needs a dishwasher?Since Kerry and Lana are here, we decided to go to zoo lights last night. It wasn't nearly as cold as the last 2 years. It was crazy busy though. Here's our little group, sans Ben.Notice Papa is smiling while being smacked in the face by a light wand. He's a great sport!Evie really enjoyed the lights. She was so cute running around and pointing and jabbering excitedly.Our annual picture in front of the purple and green tree.The girls are so excited for Santa to come tonight. Kara keeps pestering me about the gifts under the tree that say, "Christmas Eve". You really can't sneak anything past her. We have 3-4 more projects to do today, and I also need to get the girls running around a lot so they'll be extra tired tonight. Kara is on a kick of trying to stay up all night. She tries it at least once a week, and resists going to bed almost every night. I think she'll be willing to go to bed tonight, but I do suspect she may try to stay awake in her room. So I especially want to get her super tired.