Every kid loves play dough...and every mom hates it!

Tom and I had some "thank you points" left over from some plane tickes we bought a while back. It wasn't much but we decided to see what we could get with them. We found something that looked like fun and because it was on "sale" we could afford it without paying anything extra. Playfoam! It has turned out to be a lot of fun and the perfect molding medium for toddlers. It kind of looks like rice crispy treats so at first Ellora, of course tried to eat it. But she its everything and it is non toxic. That's not all though, it never dries out. It only sticks to it self. Not the table, clothes or not even the carpet! It is a sinch to clean up. I even let the girls carry it around the house. They had a blast. We made play phones, jewelry, and dolls. We made some doll house accessories and even had a Playfoam picnic with sandwiches, cupcakes and juice boxes. The girls favorite part were the cup cakes and kept singing happy birthday while handing them to me and each other.

The one down side: if you touch two colors together they immediately bond and the only way to get them apart is to pick one color off of the other one tiny styrofoam bead at a time.

Today at the store Chalyse decided she was tired. She climbed onto the rack on the bottom of the cart and laid there on her back the rest of the time.

When Chalyse and I walked into the bathroom at the school Chalyse said "Ew! Smells like poop candy."

Tonight at dinner Tom told Ellora, "When we eat we should put you in a big plastic bubble." Ellora grinned and said "POP!" as she poked the air with her finger.

Ellora Who Would Not Sleep

Well, Ellora finally officially learned how to climb out of her bed. She has been sleeping in a playpen most of her life because we couldn't get a crib up here. Normally we would mover her to a big girl be at this point but there isn't enough room in the girls room to put another bed and I don't want to move Ellora to the other bed room for a few reasons: it gets too cold in their, we would have to retrain the girls on sharing a room at night and we only have 2 more months here. So...we are dealing. Yesterday, when Ellora was supposed to be taking a nap, I heard a lot of comotion coming from the bedroom. So I went to check on her. I opened the door to find her emptying the contents of the toy box, one toy at a time, into her bed. So I did the only sensible thing to do; I closed the door and walked away. A few minuted later, all was quiet and I thought maybe she had fallen asleep on the floor like she had the last couple of days. I couldn't help but laugh when I walked in to find her sitting quietly in the corner of her playpen up to her shoulders in toys and blankets. She just grinned up at me.

We cleaned up the toys and moved them into the other room. Then I put her back to bed.

Garlic Parmesan Chicken Pasta

Here is one more recipe that we love and it is quick and easy to make. It is one of our favorites.

You will need:
1 lb chicken breast
2 large bell peppers
1 medium onion
1 lb pasta
3 Tbs butter, vegetable oil or olive oil
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp garlic salt
salt and pepper 
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese

Cook pasta. Cut peppers and onion into strips or large bite size pieces and set aside. Cut Chicken in to strips or bite size pieces. Place 1 Tbs of the butter in a pan with chicken, minced garlic and a little salt and pepper.  Cook on med heat until chicken is most of the way cooked on the outside. Add bell pepper and onion and cook until chicken cooked thoroughly and bell peppers start to become tender. At this point I like to turn the heat up to high and cook it until it is browned a little.

Add remaining amount of oil or butter to hot pasta and toss with garlic salt, Parmesan cheese and chicken mixture.

You can add other vegetables to the chicken like broccoli, cauliflower or zucchini.

Alphabet Soup Recipe

I looked for a long time for alphabet pasta to make some alphabet soup but could never find any. Finally I came across a #10 can of ABC soup mix in the food storage section in the front of the Macey's (in Spanish Fork). It has alphabet pasta with green and yellow split peas, lentils, barley and rice. It was $10 so I was hesitant but it makes 42 LARGE servings. It took me a few tries but I think I have found a recipe we really like and the girls just gobble it up. I though I would share.

4 servings of soup mix (1 1/2 cups)
1 to 2 cups raw, caned or freeze dried vegetables
1 can of tomato soup + 1 can of water or milk
1 can of tomato juice
4 slices of American cheese
1 cup of cooked meat cut into bite size pieces *optional
salt and pepper to taste

Rinse soup mix and add 8 cups of water. Bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 90 min. If using raw or freeze dried vegetables boil them with soup mix.  Rinse soup mix well again and drain all excess water. Add tomato soup, milk or water, tomato juice, canned vegetables, cooked meat, and salt and pepper. Heat on med heat until hot. Do not boil. When soup is hot add cheese and heat until melted.

Rocked Their Socks

Tom and I were playing the Wi and did really well on a game. Without thinking much about it Tom said "We rocked their socks off!" A few minutes later Chalyse asked, "can I rock my socks off?" like it was a perfectly normal thing to ask. Then she went over to Tom who was sitting on the rocking chair and said, "Move. I want to rock my socks off."

Baby # 3

Three of my favorite people are expecting. My sister Daurie is due mid April with a girl, my good friend Andrea is also having a girl mid May and my sister-in-law Cathy is due mid July.

AND I am due to have our third baby May 31st.

We had an ultra sound before we left Utah even though I was only 13 weeks along. They told us that they wouldn't be able to tell us the gender but during the ultra sound the technician suddenly said "Oh, do you want me to tell you what I think you are having." She didn't have to say we both could tell right away. She said it was not 100% certain but we were pretty sure before we went in anyway. We even had a name picked out. I had never particular loved this name but as soon as I became pregnant I couldn't think of any other names. I even researched it and found out that it was on the top 100 names list for 2010 and since I don't want my baby to have a common name I tried to talk myself out of it or at least consider other names but to no avail. Then I told Chalyse ONCE what we were thinking of naming the baby and she has been calling "him" baby Owen ever since.

So far things seem to be going well with baby Owen. I have been really sick the past few months but am slowly feeling better and better and this is finally feeling like my other pregnancies second trimester. The baby seems to be growing on schedule and has been moving a lot. I am returning to Utah with the girls in a couple months to wait out the rest of the pregnancy where I can be close to family and the hospital. Tom finishes school May 18th so everything should work out just fine as long as this baby doesn't come early.  

Ellora's Alphabet

Here are a couple more things I thought of:

Ellora likes to sing the alphabet. Most of the letters are "ah's" and "oh's" but some of them she gets right and she knows the tune well enough that even other people can tell what she in singing. Every time she sees a letter (or something that resemble a letter) she likes to pretend to read what letters they are. Usually "I, I, I"

Ellora also likes to count to ten. We have a little hot wheels car that you have to charge for 10 seconds on its base and then it speeds around the room. We all count together as it charges and Ellora's counting goes like this: "5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,9,5"

A White Dress From Santa

I read on my friends blog about some cute things her little boy say's and it reminded me that I haven't talked much about what my girls say lately that I will want to remember.. It is too bad I often don't write them down and forget but here are some things I could think of.

Tom and I have a picture from our wedding day on our night stand and lately Chalyse has been really in to it. She talks a lot about getting married or her dolls being marries. The other day she said, "Maybe Santa will bring me a white dress like Mommy's in the picture so I can get married."
 
Chalyse is into adjetives a lot lately. It's fun to hear her use words like "lovely", "interesting" and "awesome." Even if she can't always pronounce it. One time I came out of the bathroom after doing my hair and she said excitedly "Oh, your hair looks horrible." She meant it as a compliment. I guess she had heard me say that same thing about my hair. Yesterday Tom was talking about going to change his shirt. Chalsye said "You should change your shirt. That is a teaching shirt." She was right. It was one of his button down shirts that he wears to school but no one had ever told her it was for teaching.

She loves asking questions. All the time! Her favorite word is "why." I think sometimes she doesn't even realize she is doing it. She asks, "what is that sound," "what do I smell." She'll look at the picuter in a book, "Why is she sad," "why is he going like that."

She also likes to give people a new name. Usually something silly like "buff, buff," but Ellora's permanent nick name is Noah. I think it is because Ellora will sometimes put an "uh" sound at the end of "no".

Her imagination has really taken off too. She has all kinds of pretend things to play with like a puppy, and a dragon that keeps her safe at night. Sometimes she is even attacked by pretend spiders. Scary!

The other day we were out in the hall with a couple of fiends. Chalyse had a pretend bow in her hair but it blew away. She chased it up and down the hall but it got a away and hid in a tree on the wall. (There is a mural of a forest scene on the wall.) She couldn't get it out so Tom suggested a saw to help her get it out. She used the saw and got it out but it got away again and this time a dear on the wall ate it. So it made sense to her to use the same method as last time. She ran to get her saw. Every one laugh and said, "You can't saw the dear." Poor Chalyse! She was so embarrassed. Of course no was meaning to be mean but you know how it is when you are little and it is so easy to get embarrassed. You don't understand that people don't really think "this" or "that" about you they mostly just think you are cute. And what a horrible feeling it is to be embarrassed! She cried and cried and I had to take her inside and explain to her why everyone laughed and that they didn't really think she was stupid but that everyone thought she was cute and very smart.  


Ellora is talking a lot more to. She has even started using some 4 and 5 word sentences but I think she may be processing them as whole ideas instead of constructing them her self. She says things like "I don't want milk," 

Some of her favorite things to say are:
"Hold you," She wants to be held

"I see," When she want's to see what you are doing or looking at.

If she want's something really badly she will say urgently, "peese, peese."
"Bet," or "but" means blanket. She loves her blankie.

"Mine," sometimes she will even claim something random when she is mad to get back at you.

"cccold" She will shrug her shoulders up by her face and shake like she is shivering violently. It is so cute.  

When you hand her something she always says something that resembles "thank you," but it is hard to say what. I think babies use some sounds we don't use in the English language.

Oh, and "potty." That's right. She thinks she is old enough to use the potty. About once or twice, or more, times a day she will ask to use the potty and she usually will go too. So far today she hasn't even gone in her diaper once since I changed it this morning. Of course now she is napping so I'm sure it won't stay dry.

Sometimes Ellora will find a doll blanket or bottle and climb into my lap and say "I baby." She will have me rock and shush her and sing her "Rock-a-by Baby."

Blessed Sunshine!

I was debating whether or not to go to the school today to eat lunch with Tom. It is our only place to go to get out of the house and we try to go at least once a week. It had been over a week sense the girls and I had left the apartment BUT there have been several polar bear sightings near the village. One in particular was last night by the lagoon which is not too far from the school.

You know how every thing seems worse at night. I started to worry. I had all the scenarios running through my mind. Pregnant and with a toddler on my back and one on a sled running for our lives...or I guess backing away slowly because that is what you are supposed to do and of course I had more polar bear nightmares after going to bed. I was feeling like I would never be able to leave the apartment again and could not handle the idea. Then the sun came up and I began to feel a lot better about the situation. The sun makes everything better. It had been a more than a month since we had seen last but a few days ago it started rising again and already it is staying up for a couple of hours.

I began to think more rationally about things. The sunshine makes it a lot easier to see your surroundings so you are able to detect early on if there is danger. Also, bears don't like to come around during the day when there is a lot of noise from ATV and snow machines. Another comforting thought is that the dogs will go crazy if a bear is around and there are several homes that have dogs between here and the school. In fact the Eskimo people first started keeping dogs around for that exact reason. (They didn't use them to pull sleds until after contact.) Anyway, we decided to head over and I am so glad we did. The weather was so nice today with basically no wind so the walk over was enjoyable and fairly easy. At the school the girls had a lot of fun playing with their friends Emily and Emily. I am feeling a lot better about things after getting away from the apartment for a little while and I think I can face my apartment again. At least for the time being.

Ellora's Rebellious Stage

 

Ellora has been feeling really spunky and rebellious today. She has been throwing all kinds of little tantrums to "punish us." She has been writing on her hands with pen, teasing Chalyse eating things like coloring books and envelopes and biting things when she gets upset like the couch, table or toes (this is something she has done for a while).

She wants to be a part of everything. Her favorite new phrase is "I see!" She insists on being held up to see what I am cooking, working on or even to see the dishes I am washing. No one can look out the window with out letting Ellora see too.

At breakfast her cereal was getting dangerously close to her head so i said don't put it on your head you'll get milk in your hair...I bet you can guess what happened next. Then later she asked for some puff pancakes. I gave her some but she proceeded to dip her finger in the syrup and lick it off. I asked her to eat her pancakes too. So she angrily shoved a piece in her mouth, then another and another until it was too much and it all came back out. At lunch none of her soup made it into her tummy before she turned it over and it ran all over the table. To complete the image she has been wearing her sunglasses around today; crooked or upside down usually. So with her new tattoos, sunglasses and this destructive behavior we are hoping she gets it all out of her system early.

Here are some more pictures of our spunky baby. 

Playing in the Snow Dunes.

We finally had a nice day. About 20 degrees with only about 10 or 15 mph wind! So Tom took the girls out to play in the snow.

Christmas near the North Pole

I have been putting off posting about Christmas because it can be so fusrtating and stressful uploading pictures with our slow internet but I didn't have anything else to do this morning so I will finally get going on it.

We had a very enjoyable and relaxing Christmas with power in heat and everything! Everyone was so good to us and the girls. We got several packages from family and many friends from the school sent Tom home with gifts for the girls. Santa came to visit our house too, despite the wind. I wouldn't think he would miss us as we are so close to the North Pole.

Here are the girls in there new jammies on Christmas eve.

 

Chalyse got a castle doll house from Santa. Her favorite part is the magical trap door that is operated with a magic (magnetic) wand. She also loves the baby and baby accessories that came with the castle.

Ellora got a playhouse (kind of). It is just a door and one wall but it has tons of activities and parts to explore and plays lots of fun songs. Ellora loves music and dancing. She will start a song, then she will climb on the step stool that is on one side of the house and bounce up and down to the beat.

We also talked with our families and made a yummy "traditional" Christmas dinner; ham and yummy potatoes.

The girls got bath tub finger paint soaps and bath tub markers in their stockings. They love them. I wouldn't recommend the finger paints, though. The are a little too messy. Even when I only give them a little I end up needing to drain the tub then turn on the shower to get of all the bubbles. It irritates Ellora's skin a little and she also tries to eat it. The markers are fun but Ellora has a little bit of a hard time getting them to write because you have to push a little hard. I was happy that they didn't get ruined even after being submerged.

We were sad to have not been closer to family but we enjoyed our time together. Tom got just over two weeks off. We spent a lot of time playing games and watching the girls new Disney movies that Santa brought. I got Tom ticket to ride (our new favorite game) and he got me battle of the sexes, a fun trivia game with questions that are stereotypical for the opposite gender. It has been nice to spend so much time just doing what we want to do. If you are ever looking for a relaxing vacation, just stay home. :)

Making Ginger Bread Men