I am a "Big Mac" girl and proud of it!

So, where to begin? Last night my rocking Bro in law Jer had his 30th birthday, and to celebrate we went to his favorite restaurant, Takara (sp?) One of Katie and Jer's favorite thing is Sushi. Sounds pretty scary to me. I had an open mind and was excited to give it a try. They actually made sushi several months ago and I really liked it, so I had high hopes. (of course the sushi I had previously tried, was fully cooked and had steak in it. Pretty sure that is illegal in both Japan and China) Any how, I had ordered the "Sunny" roll which had rice, cucumber, mango, shrimp, avocado and cream cheese. Yummy! I had tempura veggies and shrimp, also delicious! The Ramen was nice and spicy, tasty
.............................and then....................
there was the "french kiss"

Sorry the pic is blurry, I used my phone and I was still hyperventilating at the thought of eating it. It was a pretty standard roll with crab, cucumber, and I don't even remember what else was inside.... but on top..................there in lies the problem... or my problem. This roll came topped with raw salmon, a thin lemon slice, some sort of fish eggs and scallions. I shutter just thinking about it all over again. To make a long story short, after totally psyching myself out, and much encouragement from my family at the table, most of which claimed to have "loved it," I finally popped it in my mouth. Wow.... and not a good wow. My face went every shade of red in the book and my eyes were watering. It took absolutely every power within my being to swallow that baby down. I guess it must be an acquired taste. So, I guess in the end, I do not have a sophisticated pallet, because truth be told, I would much rather have me a big mac from Old McDonalds any day!
On a side note, I at least learned proper chopstick etiquette and that is important:)

The Butt Crack Era.....

I had to laugh last night as I was folding the laundry and looked down and I had 3 piles of undies. Weird. We are in day 3 of potty training with Morgan and things are going really good. I was fighting doing this, but she is so ready and wanted to do it, so here we are.
I just have one question.
What is it with the butt crack and little girls?
Do manufacturers not understand what they are doing when they are making pants? It is sorta cute, but I think it is going to drive me crazy! I never had this issue with my boys, but I have noticed that girls are plagued by the butt crack. Regardless, I am happy to be getting Mo out of diapers before this new little man gets here.

Getting a mind of his own.....

If I were to describe Will in 2 words it would be "good kid." He is doing fantastic in school and always nice to his friends and usually listens to his Mom with little persuasion. I have noticed lately that he is getting a mind of his own. He wants to pour his cereal and milk by himself, he makes his bed immaculately with no wrinkles (just how Mom likes it!) He wants to help with dinner and set the table and comb his hair without my help. He LOVES to ride his bike and wants to do it every chance he can get and assures me that he can do so, without constant supervision. I am not sure how I am so lucky to have such a nice boy. And since he is such a good kid, when he asked if he could wear a Mohawk to school, I quickly whipped his hair up in do fashion. I love watching him make decisions for himself (never mind that at times I am in the corner hyperventilating!)

What is making us so happy?

For one, SUNSHINE!!!!!! is making us soooooooooooo happy! But this post not about this long delayed arrival of warm spring weather.
Here is Grey, he looks pretty happy......
Will has been at this for the past 3 days now. I was shocked when he smashed the first pitch right back at me. He looks pretty happy......
And what of Mo? Well, let's just face it, she is happy most of the time, but there is one particular reason that she is a little more happy than usual............ One reason that we have been waiting for.......... for a long time.....
What is that reason? Well here it is...
New neighbors you ask? Nope, it's that long vinyl white thing obstructing the view of our potential neighbors.................... a FULLY FENCED yard! Happy dance, happy dance...... I love the fact that I can now send my kids and dog out in the back yard to play. And even only being somewhat unsupervised, for the time being, there will be no escapees!
I just had to add this picture of Teenie. She is quite possibly, the HAPPIEST of all about our fenced yard. I was thinking about her and the fact that she has lived in apartments for 7 years with barely a small patch of grass to relieve herself on and now she has not only a yard, but an empty garden plot where she has literally been living for the past 3 days. Digging, digging and digging some more, for who knows what exactly. But she literally has a smile on her face. (not in these photos of course, because she is worse than my kids and seems to avoid me at all costs if I have the camera. I guess we have photographed on or two, too many embarrassing dog outfits in her day) But she is definitely one happy pup and I am so happy for her to be able to finally have a little freedom.

April Fools! I just couldn't help myself...

I have never really done any April Fools jokes before, but for some reason this year, I couldn't resist. The scene was set for dinner. I had made glasses of juice with Jello, and barbecued ribs with mashed potato frosting.


Adorable right? I told the kids that they were so good today that they got to have dessert for dinner. They cheered and got so excited. I am a terrible liar and was snickering under my breath the whole time I was serving them their "cupcakes."


This was the result. I loved Grey's initial reaction. He LOVES frosting so he took a huge bite off the top. As you can see, I thought I was hilarious! I was in tears I was laughing so hard..
Will took a bite and figured it out pretty fast.
Grey was more confused.

Morgan didn't really care.

Me and my Peeps....

For FHE tonight we decided to make homemade Peeps. I have seen these before, but when I saw them on "The Idea Room" I Loved how kid friendly she made them. The only change I would make next time would be to add more flavoring. Either more vanilla, maybe some peppermint or something. They were really good, but a little flat flavored. I made the marshmallows earlier today and then tonight we punched out the easter shapes with cookie cutters. Then you wipe either side with a damp paper towel and dip in colored sugar. So easy, so fun. We even made our own colored sugar! Who knew it was so easy?
I had to borrow my neighbors cutters and they were a wee bit complex for the Marshmallows. I will be on the look out for a very simple bunny and chick shapes for next year.
Grey is my sugar addict (wait...... what kid isn't?) He was mesmerized by the 3 bowls of colored sugar. I think they would have had just as much fun licking their fingers and just dipping them into the sugar. (which they did anyway:)
Bunny, Chick, Egg. They still turned out cute.
Mo mainly licked the sugar off her marshmallow and re-dipped to re-coat several times.

Will downed several marshmallows and then we decided that we also had to try the marshmallows in Cocoa. It was so sticky good! We promptly gave Dad a big kiss on the cheek. He didn't even see it coming, it was too good.

Tripple D #2

After reviewing all of the diners, last night we decided to try
"Rick's Press Room" in Meridian, ID. The main reason I wanted to try this place was these beauties....
Garlic Chicken Wings
B and I LOVE anything WINGS. So of course, we were so excited to try these babies.
They were ridiculous!!!!! I could have eaten the whole plate myself, but B made me share.
This was the other reason I wanted to go to this place....
Potato Encrusted Salmon
Also AMAZING!
B went for the rib-eye
Crazy Good!
I was SO FULL when we were done, but so happy. And then just as they are giving us our check, they give us this....

On the house!!! It was a chocolate bread pudding.....I wish I wasn't so full because it was so good. I have never had bread pudding before and loved it! We cannot wait to come back, we will definitely be returning to Rick's.