The cuteness of my kiddos right now

After the circus last night i was just thinking about the cute things my children are doing right now.  I really do not want to forget so I want to make a list of the things i currently love about each of them!

Abigail

• She gives the best kisses all the time! She loves to give loves and will give anyone kisses
• she is in love with her dolls.  She has one that is her favorite, which she loves to sleep with but she loves all dolls and wants to carry them around and rock them
• Shoes.  She LOVES shoes.  She always wants to put shoes on (other peoples and hers) and walk around.  Mostly she loves the dress up high-heels we have its adorable to watch her walk around in them
• She is know "praying" with us.  she will fold her arms but a second or 2 later unfolds them and yells "MEN!"
•  She wants to be with Jackie and doing what she is doing.  They are already little buddies and I love it!
• She LOVES to be on beds, and play on beds
• she will actually take time to cuddle 
• she can say please "plea" and I love hearing her cute little voice! 
•  when i get home from work she just wants hugs from mama! 
• she loves to talk on the phone
• as much as her new found curiosity is annoying, I love how much she wants to get into things, places she wants to go, and how she reacts
• Her face during the Circus, she LOVED LOVED LOVED the circus.  She just stared and the performers, laughed, clapped, and danced to the music.  It was adorable and she was as perfect as i could have asked there.  

I love my little Abby! She is a wonderful little baby and I could not have asked for a better baby.  She is so easy going and independent.  I love her laugh, smile, hugs, voice, and her developing personality. i cant wait to watch her grow and learn.   

 Jacquelyn

•  she is one of the sweetest little girls I know.  She always wants to give hugs and loves to me and all her friends
• She wants to always hold her little friends that are boys hands
• she wants to be the "reverentest" in Primary  
• She comes up with hair styles that i have to try and figure out
•  she really cares about Abby and always is looking out for her
• She never stops talking (its adorable and annoying all at the same time)
•  She is her own person with her own ideas, opinions, and feelings
•  she "talks" for our stuffed animals and does their voices (wait you don't have stuffed animals that you claim as yours, and have them talk to your kids? psh your the weird one!) 
• She cares so much about her friends and asks about them all the time
• she loves dance party's
• At night when its clean up time, she picks up with out complaining.  Last night she told me "i just like to help you mom since you work hard" 
• She loves to help me cook.  I love having a little helper in the kitchen 
• Jackie loves her grandpa so much! every time we go somewhere fun she tells me, "mom i need to take grandpa on a date here"  I love how much she loves my dad! 

My little Jackie has been the best first kid I could have asked for! while she did not sleep well as a baby and still does not sleep longer than 9 hours, she is wonderful.  She loves to be my helper, she has rarely thrown a tantrum.  She always wants to make sure others are happy and really tries to make people happy.  She loves to go to Sunbeams and is learning to sit through Sacrament Meeting.  

So there ya go things I do not want to forget about my little ones right now they are adorable
and a cell phone picture to leave ya with....

 Jackie and her Circus hair :)
 

Alice Springs Chicken

We had some friends over for dinner they requested the recipe so here it is! Its mighty tasty!

This is an out back copy i got the recipe from here....but changed it up very slightly and made it easier to understand :)

Its super easy first marinade the 4 chicken breasts over night make sure they are not too thick! I just mine in half width wise to make them thinner

To make the marinade mix
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup dijon mustard
1 tes oil
1 tes lemon juice

Pour 2./3 marinade over chicken save the rest and chill in the fridge ( use for dipping when you eat :))


4 Chicken Breasts
Salt
Pepper
Paprika
2 cups sliced mushrooms
8 slices cooked bacon
1/2 cup sliced onion
1 tbs garlic
1 tbs butter
1 tbs oil
1 cup montery Jack Cheese
1 cup Sharp Cheaper Cheese


After chicken is done marinating season with salt pepper and paprika heat oil in a large skillet (if it can go in the oven even better!)
Preheat oven to 375
Sear chicken on all sides.  Be careful not to cook for too long about 2-4 minutes per side.  Once chicken has a good sear take off heat.
While chicken is cooking melt butter and saute onions mushrooms and garlic
when everything is done layer chicken with bacon mushroom mix and top with 1/4 cup of each cheese.  cook 20-25min. 

Serve with sauce on side to dip!

**note i hate mustard but love this! ( i do not use the sauce to dip at the end) There is not a strong mustard flavor after it cooks, its just SO tasty! :

We also served Loaded Mashed Potatos
no real recipe here, but make some mashed potatos and milk, butter, sour cream, green onions, cheese and bacon :) oh so yummy with this meal!I love to put the sauce from the chicken on the potatos. 

Now i want it to be lunch time so i can go eat these leftovers!

PS (yes this meal has cheese um yeah dont know how that works into my resolution)

2 darling divas in the making

 Abby loves to walk around in Jackie's Dress up shoes.  Although I have only ever seen her in one :) I think its pretty cute! Already learning to walk in high heals!

Jackie got on eye cover for Christmas last year but it broke.  She has been asking for one ever since.  So i got her one.  She loves to sleep in it.  I think its SO funny to look at her when she has it on.  Plus since she cant see the light i can take pictures of it :)

My Name Is Jessica

and I am a cheesaholic

Its bad guys, I love Cheese.  Any kind really but Sharp cheddar is my favorite.  I love to put cheese on anything. We go through a lot of cheese in our house I would say around 10-12lbs a month maybe more (we buy a lot of cheese! good thing its always on sale somewhere!) My husband loves it as do my kids, but I think i am the biggest cheese lover in my house. 

In thinking what I want to change about my self in this next year, one thing i kept coming back to was cheese.  I KNOW I use cheese WAY to much and put a heck of a lot more cheese then is needed on food, but really how do you go about cutting back?  This question has been running around in my head.  I want to teach my girls good eating habits and not eating as much cheese would be one of them.  (i will discus the others at the end)

After a lot of thinking and talking with people about different ideas I figured out what i wanted to do.  I talked about it in my last post but wanted to really talk about it here.  My idea was to limit the amount of crap i ate.  I knew i could not cut it out completely (minus sugar, i really have no issues giving that up) With the help of my husband i decided i would give up the foods 6 days a week.  Once a week have a day I could eat those foods I tend to overeat on.(this is to go until my birthday 6/28 for those of ya who forgot!)   This is all in hopes of teaching my, mind, tummy, and self that I do not really need these foods and to use them more sparingly.  So i decided I would not eat cheese, fried food, fast food, or sugar 6 days a week.  This has been the first week. 

I am not going to lie it has been hard.  Well the cheese part the other parts have been SUPER easy.  (although i do really want a spicy chicken sandwich from carls jr.  best $1 spent EVER!).  But I can say i am learning I do not really need it on the foods I love it on.  Such as scrambled eggs.  While SO yummy with cheese are very good with out.  Fajitas are still super yummy with out cheese.  Sloppy Joes, even messier with out cheese! Pasta salad, eh still alright without cheese.

Tonight we are having taco soup.  Another item i would so love to cover in cheese, but I wont.  I will put some pico and fat free sour cream.  :) I am excited to see what becomes of the next 6 months.  I will say snacking is where i tend to turn to cheese, a quick cheese roll up, some late night nachos all stuff i DO not need but i love.

So I am still a cheeseaholic, i still think about it every time I look in the fridge and see it there. I hope these 6 months will teach me not to eat near as much to teach me that foods do not really need cheese.  That way in 6 months i am hoping I can go back to having cheese in better moderation.  As for the other foods lets face it those should really only be eaten once a week at the most. 

So wish me luck, I know you probably do not eat as much cheese as me, I have cheese issues.  I have accepted it

new years goals

Yep thats right its time to post my goals so i can try to follow up on them :) This time around I want to post my plans for my goals so i can make them happen.

• Goal #1 Eat Healthier 
• This goal will be accomplished by 6 days a week not eating sugar, fried foods, fast food, and one that might kill me cheese.  One day of a week I will have a cheat day when i can eat above foods.  I hope this will help me learn to not eat as much of foods i tend to over eat on......no cheese really might kill  me! 
• Goal #2 Home evening weekly
• keep track on our calender.  Not just have an activity but I want to do a lesson.  We have a lot of kids lessons already so its just a matter of doing it every week instead of every few weeks
• Goal #3 Temple once a month
• even If Derek and I can not go together get up and go on a Saturday morning

That's all i am going to work on right now.  I want to make sure I can accomplish my goals and really focus on them.   Derek and I have set some physical goals as well but those just go until my birthday so we will see how that goes.

merry christmas to Jess

So we were giving some christmas money and could not decide what to do with it.  We wanted to go against our normal use it to pay bills and actually buy something useful and fun.  After many trips to malls and IKEA i could not figure out what i wanted to do with my money and Derek could not decide what to do with his.

Today i was reading a friends craft blog and it hit me i want a sewing machine.  I told Derek he told me to make sure not to get a crappy one and gave me his money too.  (i know ladies i have the best husband ever!)

so after talking to my friend Adrienne and advice from facebook blog world i decided i wanted a brother sewing machine.  Adrienne helped me find a great deal on one too! :) 

This is the one i got lets hope its good and lets hope i can figure it out.  If any of  you want to come show me how to use it come on down! I got cute kids who would love to play with yours :) and tons of toys

Also thanks to my sweet hubby who let me get this instead of getting hockey gear :) love ya babe!

Tumbling Tots

I have been wanting to put Jackie in some sort of gymnastics class.  Due to the price of said classes i never have given in.  Then i looked into what Provo City has.  10 classes for 30 bucks.  That was a bit more up my alley! :) So we signed her up and she LOVES IT! She did the class once and is begging to do it again.  So Monday she will go again. Once she is 4 she can do another class but look what she did all by her self the day i got to come watch :)

now she tried to do flips all the time at home.  its kinda funny. 

our christmas story

I figured a week late to post about Christmas is not too bad right? This year it was going to be a bit different.  Normally after Derek's on Christmas eve we spend the  night at my families and do Christmas morning there but they were in Argentina

We started out our Christmas fun on Christmas Eve by going to Dereks sister Nikki's house for dinner and fun.  I forgot my camera to this event, but know there was lots of food.  And a ton of gifts for the little ones!  Jackie got her pillow pet she has been dying to have.  Life was good. 
After that we  came home for the girls to open the jammies.  Abby was a bit tired 

 Jackie was just excited they were PJ's my kiddo loves clothes

 An attempt at a picture........

 and another

 Poor Abby just wanted to go to sleep

 Jackie on the other hand was excited

 she decided a somersault was in order
 I love this picture haha it makes me laugh

Then we put Abby to sleep showed Jackie the Nativity had our talk on why we were having christmas, left the cookies and milk for Santa and celery for reindeer.

Then it was time for us to play santa.  Luckily i had got all the wrapping done so it was just a matter of setting out the rest of the gifts and putting the santa stuff together.

Here's what Santa left for the girls! Jackie got on Art Easel and some new steps and lots of chap stick in her stocking! And most important the Wild Things Book (where the wild things are) But he hid it on the other side wrapped just to be mean :)

Abby got a rocking plane (a great score from KSL!) and a shopping cart.  She got a book to the very hungry catepaillar

 When the Jackie woke up she was so good and came and got us first just like i had asked her too! :) We got abby up and went out to see what Santa had left.  All she cared about was finding her dang book :) Derek had to show her where to look and she was SO happy!

she loved all the candy :)











Then i decided to do the same mean thing my dads family did to me on Christmas after Santa gifts we had a nice breakfast before we moved on to the other gifts.

 Here they are eating

so silly












We then moved on to the normal gifts.  At my dads house we always opened gifts in a very organized fashion which I LOVE! i hate the free for all! So we separate the gifts by the giver.  So you make a pile of all the gifts you are giving then take turns giving gifts.  This way the focus is more on giving and you get to see everyone open all their gifts.  So this is one tradition i wanted to do in our family.  Luckily for me Derek really likes it too!

So its what we did.  Jackie did great with it and was pretty good at the wait to open her gifts.  I figure since its all they have known as they grow older it will work out great!

 Since it was just us this Christmas I decided to cook up a bunch of dips and snacks to eat during the day and then we had Chili for dinner.  Derek had to go into work for a bit.  So after that me and the girls just played around and had fun with all the new toys.

This year i did a ton of research on toys.  I did not want to get my kiddos gifts they were just going to discard after a week.  So hopefully the the advise from many mommy blogs and baby cheapskates (you should look them up on FB they have list of toys that get played with for a year or more.  Its pretty sweet) so we will see if they do in fact still play with their toys down the road.

It was a pretty great Christmas.  I bit weird not seeing any fam on Christmas day but kinda nice to do our own thing :)