Ben's Birthday

Ben is 4 years old!! Wow, the time has flown by. Here's what we did to celebrate in photo-essay form.
Lunch at Ci Ci's Pizza - a favorite of Ben's.

Birthday trip to Build a Bear Workshop at the mall. This is what Ben wanted to do for his birthday and was lots of fun for us all. Ben choose this cute black bear out of all the options and dressed him up as Buzz Lightyear, of course also naming him "Buzz".

The girls also got to make bears in order to encourage friendly sibling relations.


Dinner and cake at home.


Opening all the presents. He got many from our extended family and from us including: a Frodo dress-up set, Pirates action figures, race track cars, cool follow-the-line cars (neat-O Lori!), money and a book (with the money he plans on buying a light-saber), and more! Thanks so much everyone, he loved all the gifts!!


As you can see the Frodo dress up set was mostly bought for photo-ops!!:)


Then after presents we got everyone into their jammies and drove over to a community Christmas lights display which was really fun. Ben has been wanting to see the "lights" which we pass by frequently every year during the holidays, but this was our first time of actually paying and go through. The kids loved it. As soon as we went out Ben wanted to go through again, but being that it's 20 bucks every go-through we said maybe next year. :)

It was a full day of wonderful family time. Happy birthday to my beautiful boy!!

Our Christmas

We had a lovely Christmas! The kids woke up around 7am but took pity on us (we must have looked tired) and let us snooze for 15 minutes before they really got serious about waking us up to go open presents. I loved the initial ooh and awes as Sophie and Ben saw all the presents under the tree, but soon after they were in a present opening frenzy. We pretty much just let them go for it and I think Sophie actually took it upon herself to make sure everyone was opening the right presents - she definitely has the oldest child mentality now which is very helpful. Nina was very cute wandering around looking at all the presents, but once she saw the ball popper toy we got her she wasn't at all interested in anything else, well except the various chocolate candies in everyones' stockings - I think she tried to steal all the Kit Kat bars lying around. I have to say our family out West was so generous and gave us so many fun and neat presents - thanks to you all!! Here's the short list of what Santa brought the kids:

Sophie - a Kaya American Girl doll and book
Ben - a Darda race track and cars, which he collectively refers to as "cars zoom zoom"
Nina - a doll stroller and ball popper toy


After the opening presents phase ended Sophie and Ben got in some play-time with their presents and Adrian, Nina and I took a nap before going to the early afternoon showing of The Water Horse. It was a cute movie, but a lot more intense than the book which I recently read to the kids. They put in a lot of WWII action and Sophie and Ben were very concerned about their favorite sea serpent "Crusoe" when British soldiers started firing anti-submarine guns at him (none of that was in the book). Crazy. But it all ended okay and everyone had a fun time. Nina was occupied almost the whole time munching on treats so we all got the watch the movie - yay!

(Nina checking out Ben's "Cars Zoom Zoom".)

(Three of the kids :) playing computer games before dinner.)

After the movie we had a relaxed dinner of crockpot pot roast and mashed potatoes and carrots and then played another long game of Monopoly. Sophie seriously loves Monopoly and is so funny about it saying, "I hope you have a nice stay!" whenever you land on any of her properties. We let Sophie and Ben stay up as late as they wanted, which is a first I think, but it made them happy. I think Ben went to bed around 9 and Sophie around 10. I'm usually a sleep Nazi, but I figure once a year it's okay. So that was our Christmas. It was very merry and I hope yours was too!

Our Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas Eve this year. The Turpin's invited us over for a fun fondue dinner (thanks so much Cami and Jake!!) and it was delicious. We even had a super yummy chocolate fondue course for dessert. Mmmm mmm!! The kids loved playing with the other kids and all the parents got to play a fun round of a very intense card game called Whackee 6. Adrian and I are not stellar players at this game and we've decided we need to get some serious practice time in before we try to take on the Turpins again!:) After dessert we stayed for the Turpin's annual nativity play and it was hilarious. Cami quite appropriately played the pregnant Mary traveling to Bethlehem on a donkey played by Jake. After the journey to Bethlehem Sophie played Mary and Adrian played Joseph with the other kids playing shepherds, an angel, and a star. We tried to get Nina to be a sheep by having the shepherds herd her, but that didn't work out so well. There were many very funny moments and it was such a great way to tell the Christmas story and have the kids understand it on their level. I really think we just might have to add a nativity play to our permanent Christmas traditions. The whole night was just lovely and it was so nice to spend it with our friends. I must admit that it is hard to live so far from family especially during the holidays, but we have been so blessed with good friends to help us not be so lonely.

After we got home we got the kids into their Christmas jim jams (a nod to Dawn there:) and got their picture in front of the tree. They all went to bed without argument or whining (yay!) and Adrian and I watched a few Christmas episodes of The Vicar of Dibley while we did all the Christmas preps. "The Christmas Lunch Incident" is my very favorite Vicar of Dibley episode and it seems like we've watched it every Christmas for a few years now. Funny stuff.

11 Years O' Luv

Today is the 11 year anniversary of our first kiss and I guess also the anniversary of when we started "going steady".:) We met at BYU in the fall of '96. We were in the same Heritage Halls ward and he was my home-teacher. I know shocking, right?!:) In case you are wondering - yes we did have the quintessential BYU romance. Adrian even proposed on the grounds of the Provo temple.:) But I'm getting ahead of myself... We started dating during finals and then over Christmas break we fell in love and saw each other every day. I actually think that after our first kiss on the 21st of Dec. we saw each other every day until we were married the next July. I totally ripped off Corinne's idea of doing a slide show to mark the occasion, but here's a bunch of photos that hold lots of loving memories for us. Happy smoochy anniversary Babe!!:)

Our Girly Christmas Tradition

Last Saturday Sophie and I had a mommy/daughter date to see a performance of the Nutcracker. It was fun to get out and have a one-on-one date with Sophie. She was so cute and wanted me to do her hair like a ballerina for the show - last year she had longer hair and I put it in a bun, but this year she settled for part of her hair pulled up and a bow. I should have called Mendy for tips on doing a cool ballerina 'do!:) We went with a group of friends to the ballet and which made it lots of fun. We sat next to Cami and Jeffy and it was a hoot to listen to Jeffy's reaction to the mice and toy soldier part. Sophie's favorite part was the different candy dances and she especially loved the Chinese candies dance. She asked me which part was my favorite and I said the mice, I just love the costumed little mice shuffling around. Oh and I loved the little angels - the little dancers that played them were so tiny and adorable. The performance we went to was a non-professional abbreviated version of the ballet which is just great, cause it's low-key and doesn't bore the kids; Sophie was great during the whole thing and watched very intently.

After the ballet Sophie and I went out for a late lunch. It was fun to sit and chat with Sophie and hear all her thoughts on the ballet. I really am lucky to be the mommy of this sweet girl. Someday Nina will be able to go with us too and we'll make it an "all of the girls" tradition. This year Adrian and Ben played computer games (Lego Star Wars) together while we were gone (and Nina was napping) so maybe that will be the boys' tradition.

Cedric Diggory is going to be Edward Cullen!!! (and added misc Twilight movie info)

They just cast Edward for the movie version of Twilight (thanks Mendy for the info!) and it's going to be Robert Pattinson, aka Cedric Diggory!! I never would have thought of him, but I think he's a GREAT choice! Yay, it's like my favorite literary and movie worlds are going to collide in this movie - Cedric as Edward, that's just cool!!

And here's a pic of Kristin Stewart, the actress slated to play Bella. There seems to be a sort of online uproar about her casting (I guess lots of fans were hoping for the girl from A Series of Unfortunate Events), but I'm fine with Kristin Stewart. She seems to be an accomplished actress at such a young age and she's close enough to how I pictured Bella.

Oh, and here's another little tid-bit (this will be my last addition to this post :)the release date for Twilight the movie is set for Dec. 12, 2008 even though the movie is still in pre-production, I guess they are actually filming in Feb. So Dec. 12th seems a little ambitious, but I hope it works out - less than a year from now Tracy and I will be in line with our Edward T-shirts on!!

Alright, so even though I said that last bit was my last addition to this post, well I spoke too soon... I just had to include this fun pic of my Edward-loving friend Tracy and me in our T-shirts (I wasn't kidding when I said I'll be standing in line for the movie with an Edward T-shirt on!:) Hee hee.

My Verdict

So our experimental month of Deceptively Delicious meals has come to an end and I thought I'd give my final report on how it all went over.

As a whole I think the idea is fantastic, the whole hidden veggie puree thing worked like a charm on all of our tasters under the age of 9. Sophie and Ben both did not pick up on the fact that veggies were in everything. Sophie once said, "So Mom, when are you going to cook some of these recipes?" when she was looking at the open cookbook on the counter. I told her that I had been, frequently, and she said, "You have?". So I took that as a hugely positive sign.

I will admit that I did not love every recipe (and neither did Adrian though he was a good sport). For me, I have a really hard time spending a lot of time preparing something and then it not tasting as good as I hoped. I will spend lots of time on a recipe that I think is stellar - like a good chicken tetrazzini takes some time to prepare, but it's so yummy that you think "hey this was worth it". Well some of these recipes took so much time without a whole lot of greatness at the end. I'll give ya a "for instance": Rice Balls. The process of making these was long and involved and of course Nina is at her very fussiest in the evenings so I had her clinging to my legs and crying almost the whole time I was making them... 1 1/2 hours into making this dinner I was ready to quit, but I didn't... The kids liked the rice balls and I thought they were a bit mushy. That recipe is definitely not going into our regular dinner rotation. Anyways, that's just one example, but what I basically found out was that some of the recipes were great and tasted yummy and others sounded great, but took much more time and effort than it said in the cookbook and then weren't so yummy.

These are the recipes that tasted great and I enjoyed cooking:

Tacos (the pic at the top is from our happy taco-night)

Sloppy Joes

Mashed Potatoes

Buttered Noodles

Sweet Potato Pancakes

Macaroni and Cheese

Chocolate Chip Cookies (These are the ones with chickpeas, but they did not store well. They tasted great warm from the oven and the day of, but after that they got very moist and spongy.)

Banana Bread

Brownies (for a healthy treat/dessert, not for when you really want a brownie brownie if you know what I mean)

Spaghetti and Meatballs


I've written up my menu for the next 5 weeks with a modified version of Deceptively Delicious in mind. I am using all the recipes that we enjoyed (and I enjoyed cooking) from Deceptively Delicious and then I am improving the nutrition profile of our other meals by replacing white flours and pastas with whole wheat and adding veggie purees where I can. I think this modified version will be something that we can stick with long term and still eat all the food we enjoy in a healthier way.

Bottom line, (ha ha, because it is:) my verdict is: the Deceptively Delicious plan is great with a little tweaking.