meet Miss Ella Rose

A freak snow storm last night blew her in, and the girls had fun with her this afternoon. Too bad it's 50 degrees outside now, and Macie took her nap hollering, "I love the snowman, but she's melting too fast!" I guess I shouldn't have sang "Once there was a Snowman" to explain what was happening right before naptime.

(Note her bottle cap buttons. Remember how I used them on our homemade Christmas tree as decorations? Well, yessum, I've been saving them again and today was the perfect time to use them! I love crafty recycling!)

stuffed cubes

Here you go Karil

Verde Chicken Mexican Lasagna

We just tried a new dish today that was the casserole winner in the LDS Living magazine casserole contest. It was very good; five stars in our book. Here is the the recipe in case you might want to try it.

Verde Chicken Mexican Lasagna

1 pound chicken, cooked and shredded
1 (16-ounce) container sour cream (Dad: I used the fully loaded sour cream but you could probably use low fat and it wouldn't make a lot of difference.)
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 ½ cups green salsa (Dad: I could only find green (verde) salsa in a Medium version; it was slightly spicy but I didn't think it was too bad.)
1 ½ cups frozen corn, thawed and drained
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup chopped cilantro (plus additional for garnishing) (Dad: I thought I had added too much cilantro but you really couldn't taste it. You might not even need it because it is so hard to chop/cut up.)
12 soft taco size flour tortillas
1 (8-ounce) package shredded Mexican blend cheese (Dad: I ended up using a whole 16 oz (four cup) package of Mexican blend cheese; I doubt 8 oz would cover what the recipe calls for.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
 
Mix chicken, sour cream, black beans, salsa, corn, cilantro and spices in a large bowl. Taste and adjust

seasonings to your preference. Cut tortillas in half with kitchen shears.
 
In a 9×13 dish, scoop 1/3 of the chicken mixture into bottom of pan. Spread evenly. Place one layer of cut tortillas (about 4 tortillas) on chicken mixture to cover. Top with 1/3 of the amount of shredded cheese. Repeat with chicken mixture, tortillas, shredded cheese two more times. There should be three layers total.
 
Bake in oven for 20 – 25 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and casserole is warmed through. Serve with sour cream and additional chopped cilantro.

At any rate, Bon Appetite!!

hello

Lucy just wanted to say hi.

1st Trimester Ultrasound

Here is our baby's first picture!

in case you're curious

6 months!  Only 4 more to go...

Christmas

So I thought I should finally post pictures of Christmas for Mom. Sorry it has taken so long. To be honest, I just put away our Christmas decorations on Wednesday so I guess I'm just late about all things Christmas this year.

We had a great Christmas this year!

Ward Family Movie Night

Last weekend, our ward had a family movie night. We asked the kids to bring boxes decorated like cars so they could watch the movie like they were at a drive-in. Then half way through the movie there was a car parade so the kids could show off their cars. Here are what our kids (and Charlie) came up with:

house pictures, for Hillary :)

http://www.redfin.com/VA/Fredericksburg/3906-Lancaster-Ring-Rd-22408/home/15583585

I wish there were more pictures for you to see, because these don't show you how amazing the backyard is, or just how spectacular are the Greek columns pasted on the master bedroom wall.

But here it is, the house we love!

Reunion Plans

Kurt and I are planning on looking at and maybe buying plane tickets this weekend for the reunion.  I wanted to see what everybody else's plans were before we bought the tickets in case it would somehow influence our decision.  I think the dates of the re-union are June 27th through 30th, right?  And we have a block of rooms in an apartment complex?  For some reason I can't find the info on facebook.  Is anyone planning on going earlier, staying longer? who else is flying? we plan on renting a small car, would anyone rather rent something bigger and share the costs?  Any other details I'm not thinking of? 

house update

After waiting on pins and needles all day, trying to get some packing done while obsessively checking our emails and voicemail, we found out some frustrating, yet not altogether terrible, news.

This house had been on the market over 80 days. In all that time the realtor never checked the state of the loans on the house (which apparently is supposed to be one of the first things done when a realtor lists a house). Well, when we submitted our offer, he finally found out from the seller that he is WAY upside down on the house, and it should have been listed as a short sale!

SHORT SALE! UGH!

We're meeting with our realtor today to discuss our options. We're thinking of starting over with this as a short sale, which as you know, can take a LOOOOONG time. But we really really love the house. In the meantime we can keep looking at other houses, and will most likely live in the basement of one of our ward members in the interim. We're going to go look at it, and most certainly it will be tight quarters for a while, but we'll save a lot of money staying there (half of our current rent and almost no utilities!). We're sure this is a blessing in disguise, and we trust in the Lord's timing, though it IS frustrating!