Cooking and Creating

Tis the season for making strawberry jam! Friends of mine who are much more on top of things than me inspired me to get going on this before all the great strawberry sales come to an end. There's nothing better than sugary strawberry goodness slathered all over bread. :)








After we cleaned up our jam making mess, it was time to get dinner started (I seriously am in my kitchen for way too many hours in a day!). As mentioned in the previous post, we picked up some produce from the farmers market over the weekend - so we made chicken stir fry wraps in order to use some of the fresh ginger we bought (I always use ground ginger in this recipe, but using fresh grated ginger really made it taste even better!). Although it may not pair completely well with it, we then shelled all the English peas we had bought and cooked them up for a veggie side. The kids really enjoyed getting to help in the kitchen a lot today. I'm just thankful I was feeling patient enough to let them. :)




While the ladies were busy cooking away in the kitchen, I later found that Jake was busy eating peanut butter unsupervised in the living room. (Confession: I had left the peanut butter jar out because I just might have been eating it while watching the latest episode of 24... I do embarrassing things while the children are in quiet time).


Also... a couple weeks ago we painted Becca's little tea set - she got it for her birthday. The girls were really serious about it and took their time and quite enjoyed being artsy. They were nice and let me paint the little tea pot. After painting, we let it dry overnight and then baked it in the oven for 20 minutes to finish it.







Our very eclectic tea set creation

Lots of produce... and even more soda

We enjoyed a fun mix of activities on Saturday! Once again, Ben had his weekend off of work, so we tried to get out for some family time. :) We wanted to try out a farmer's market, so we headed to Old Town Scottsdale and wandered the booths. We ended up getting some peas, carrots, poblano peppers (Ben wants to grill them and put them on hamburgers this week), and ginger. Afterwards we walked up and down some of the streets nearby and looked into some shops... definitely a unique area and a fun place to visit!




Down the road there is a soda pop shop that I had a couple friends tell me about. Ben loves root beer, in particular, and likes trying out new brands when he finds them, so I thought this would be a fun place to stop in. Well, they really did have everything in regards to soda! It was really cool. We each picked out a different drink and we had them with our dinner that night. Becca picked out a banana soda, Emma got some type of orange soda, I got a watermelon cream soda (mmmm), and Ben got himself two different kinds of rootbeer. :)




Our last stop was the train park, since it was also nearby. The kids sure love riding that train! The kids then played on the playground and then we had a little picnic. Jake hung onto his little orange for quite a while while we were eating and kept trying to eat it with the peel on... I probably should have peeled it for the poor kid. He really will just eat anything though and not even care... he very happily chewed on orange rind for a while before I realized. I love him.

Ben is 30!

This month Ben has had his weekends off of work... and it's the best! We've been trying to make every weekend count while Ben gets to spend them with us. And my cute Ben turned 30 yesterday! wooeee! 30. That's pretty awesome. So, over the weekend and yesterday we were busy with birthday celebrating and family time. Love it, love it...

Saturday was a full one - we spent most of our morning working in our backyard. We thoroughly weeded, and then we mowed our lawn! This is the first time we've mowed it... honestly it hasn't really needed a mow that badly because the poor grass has been half-dead since we moved in. But we cut what little grass was there with our push mower we bought recently... the girls helped too. :) Then we fertilized and reseeded it... we're hoping that within a few weeks our grass will start to look better and in the meantime we're trying to keep it well watered while our little seedlings try to grow. Bottom line: we don't know what the heck we are doing, but we are trying, and that's how you learn right?


In the late-afternoon I picked up our babysitter and Ben and I headed out for a good long date - in honor of Ben's birthday! To start off our fun, we went golfing together! Ben loves golfing, but the poor guy hasn't been since starting residency, so I thought he might appreciate being able to get out to golf and to have me show a little interest in the sport he adores. We just went to a very inexpensive 9-hole walking course nearby and I did alright! At least, I never lost a ball and most of the time I hit it straight. And I liked being able to hit from the women's tees because they were WAY closer. It made me feel like I was already making progress even before hitting the ball. :)

Hmmm... I swear I looked a lot cooler hitting my driver than I do in this pic
Ben 'cursing' 'cause his ball was veering left.. in his defense, he hadn't golfed in almost a year :)
After golfing we finished up our date with dinner at P.F. Changs (oh how I wish I could make those delicious lettuce wraps at home) and then to see the movie Date Night (with Ben's free movie tickets that he won at work! awesome!). So, it was a fun night! Wouldn't it be great to go out like that every weekend?!

On Sunday we went on a morning walk/bike ride through the neighborhood... we've really been liking this lately because we don't have church till 1. So, it gets us up and partially ready earlier and it's a nice way to spend the morning, as opposed to bumming around at home (although, that can also be nice). We end up having pretty amusing adventures on our walks together...



Becca's turned into a real pro on her little trike... she's definitely ready for a bigger bike
We noticed that one of the neighbors had this little cactus with button eyes... it made Emma laugh so hard!
We stopped at a little park on our outing... I love Becca's face in this pic as her daddy uses her as a pillow
And Emma enjoyed climbing the trees



Monday was Ben's official birthday, so we celebrated with the traditional dinner (chosen by the birthday boy), presents, and cake and ice cream. Ben chose to have steak, baked sweet potatoes, and salad for dinner... this choice came as absolutely no surprise to me. I had the steak ready and marinated, so when Ben got home he grilled it up for us. During birthday dinners we go around the table and share things we love about the birthday person... with Ben this was easy... there is so much to love about him. Here's some of his many admirable qualities:

Very smart and a fantastic doctor
The BEST daddy
The BEST husband
Thinks of others before himself
An amazing cook
Loves a clean house and OFTEN helps to keep it that way
A great decorator... anything nice in our home has Ben behind it
Fun and spontaneous!
Loves reading and teaches the kids to love it too
After dinner, he opened his presents - the girls each picked out a treat for him and Becca drew a picture of him... her people drawings are really funny.


He also got a Memory Jar. I did this for my dad at Christmas, and thought Ben would like it too. Thank you to the many family and friends who contributed their Ben memories! Right now the jar has about 6 months worth (one per day), so I'll supplement it more this week so that he has a year's worth.


His big birthday gift this year was an ice cream maker (we got the kind that attaches to our KitchenAid mixer). Ben (and I) have been wanting one for a while. He opened this gift earlier so that I could have ice cream made for his birthday. We made cinnamon ice cream... it was to die for!! really. And since this was the 30th birthday, I thought I should commit a little more and really make a cake (instead of just using a box mix... which I often do). So, I made a Coconut Layer Cake - it's been years since I made this recipe because it takes some time... but, oh, it is worth the effort! It has a lemon filling too... coconut and lemon... mmmm. And with cinnamon ice cream. Pretty darn good.

3 candles... one per decade :)

Happy Birthday sweetie!

My cute THREE year old!

My baby Becca is 3!! I love to still call her baby Becca from time to time, because it wasn't long ago that she was a baby... and she's still so little and cute... and she'll always be my baby, no matter how old she gets, right? Becca is a lovely little girl - she is caring and nurturing and very lovey... she gives hugs and kisses all day long (her new thing is to say to me that she'd like 4 kisses or any other random number and then I give her 4 kisses; she then asks me how many kisses I would like and she gives them according to my request). She is also very creative and imaginative and loves to play with her dolls and babies, carrying on quiet conversations with all of them and pretending they are mommies, daddies, and babies. Becca is clever, humorous, and quick-witted and her speech has been making big improvements over the past few months. And she's very excited to be starting preschool in the fall. She's definitely growing up and I can't believe she's THREE! We love her so much and couldn't imagine our family without her.

Rebecca had two parties this year - one with Ben's family on Sunday and one with just us on her actual birthday (Monday). Her Aunt Emily made her a cake - this month is also Ben's and Ben Lee's birthday, which we also celebrated on Sunday... so the cake has 3 B's on it, for Becca, Ben, and Ben. :) It was a fun little celebration.










On Becca's big birthday day her daddy woke her up before leaving for work singing Happy Birthday to her (and a side note - Becca's been singing Happy Birthday to herself for the past week or so... like I'll be driving in the car and I can hear her in the back singing "Happy Birthday to Becca...") and he gave her a present to open (The Princess and the Frog movie) since I was planning on watching it with the girls that afternoon. After Emma was done with school, I took the girls on a surprise birthday outing to the cutest little candy shop I've ever seen! I had read about it on nienie's blog and it's been on the backburner for a while as a place I need to visit. Smeeks is near the downtown Phoenix area and it has the cutest little toys (and darling retro lunchboxes, which I want to buy for Emma for school!), sodas, and of course candy. The kids explored and I let them pick out one treat each. On the drive home I ate almost an entire huge pink taffy bar, and I don't feel guilty about it ;). (If you go visit Smeeks, they also have another cute vintage boutique, Frances, just a couple stores down, and it's also worth a stop in.)








After Ben got home from work we had Becca's birthday dinner, chosen by her - mac and cheese, green beans, and milk. :) Then we opened the rest of her presents, and ate cake...

Becca with her birthday flowers, brought home by her daddy









Happy Birthday to my sweet Becca!

Vacation!!

Ben took his very first vacation week (since starting Residency last June) here at the beginning of April and it was super awesome! We went to my very very favorite place in the whole wide world... DiSnEyLaNd!! Oh Disneyland... how I love thee. We realized that this was our first family vacation just us and the kids (excluding camping and trips to UT to see my lovely family). Considering this was our first big family trip, it was fitting that it was Disneyland, 'cause it really is so fun for me. :) We spent 3 days there and I thought it might end up being too long and exhausting to handle with all the kids and no other family or friends to help out, but even as we drove away at the end of the week, we both agreed we could have even done another day. We just took our time and enjoyed it, even amidst the large Spring Break crowds. The weather was perfect and the kids were good and we just had a great time being together as a family. Jake even really enjoyed the rides... he definitely didn't like waiting in lines, but by the third day we had really started to figure out tricks to keep him happy while waiting... maybe that's why we felt we could have handled a 4th day at Disneyland - because we had finally figured out how to do it with the kids. Emma talked up Space Mountain for weeks beforehand, saying she was going to be brave and ride it, but she chickened out when the time finally came to give it a try... she did ride Splash Mountain with me, but started crying half-way through... but I had fun! I like that ride. :) But she did really enjoy the ThunderMountain Railroad coaster and rode it twice - once with Ben and once with me. Ben and I ended up being able to ride all the larger rides, like Indiana Jones and Space Mountain by using the Single Rider and Fast Passes and just switching off watching the kids and taking them on other kid friendly rides. So, it all worked out and it was another successful Disneyland trip. I'm sad the vacation is over. And now for an overload of pictures...

Day One





Dumbo! Definitely a favorite
Trying to enter the White Rabbit's house
Waiting to ride the Teacups... another favorite






Emma and Becca really loved Gadget's Go-Coaster in ToonTown and rode it once with me and once with Ben... looking at this pic afterwards made me laugh because of the guy sitting behind Ben - he looks to have really enjoyed his ride on the kid coaster, don't you think?
Outside the Tiki Room
Aboard our boat on the Jungle Cruise




At the Shooting Gallery in Frontierland
Ice Cream on Main Street
Swimming in the hotel pool... they had a little kid pool that was only 1 1/2 feet deep which the kids really loved

Day Two



Waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion... we did a lot of this... waiting in lines
Minnie's wishing well
Hanging out on Mickey's Front Porch
The whole first day Becca kept asking if she could hug Mickey Mouse... and when she finally saw him, she give was quick to get her hug. She really loves Mickey


Jake spent a lot of his Disneyland trip in his stroller, either sleeping or eating snacks... he was mad in his baby carrier, so most of the rest of the time I was toting him around... definitely lots of mommy-son bonding time ;)
On Donald's Boat
While Becca's favorite is Mickey, Emma definitely prefers Minnie Mouse






While Ben was riding Big ThunderMountain with Emma, the rest of us explored the petting zoo nearby... Becca liked petting the goats :)

The Bugs Life area in CA Adventure...











Waiting for the tram to take us back to our hotel... we were tired... after some naps at the hotel we came back in the early evening for a couple more hours
One of our evening rides was the new 3D Toy Story ride in California Adventure. It was one of the coolest things I've ever been on and the kids really liked to wear their 3D glasses
Day Three

More ToonTown... and exploring Goofy's play area




On the Nemo Submarine Ride
Can you tell that we're on Day 3 of Disneyland?
Pluto was so cute with Becca... he danced with her and gave her a hug and then Becca gave him a big kiss on the nose :)


In the California Adventure park they have a great obstacle course and play area... Emma did the traverse wall and loved it!










Emma also did the zip line... it was cool!... I wish I could have done it, but it was just for kids...
Ben and Emma on the jellyfish ride


Our last hurrah before leaving Disneyland on our last day... ice cream!


After checking out of our hotel, instead of driving straight home, we took a detour to The Getty Center art museum in Los Angeles. Ben's parents introduced us to this museum years ago and we were so impressed, we just had to go again. This place is breathtaking! The views, and the architecture, and the gardens are amazing. They also have a great family area for the kids to explore...