Lemon Meringue Pie with Amelia Bedelia

The favorite book at our house lately has been Amelia Bedelia. The kids love the crazy things Amelia Bedelia does as she is learning to be the new housekeeper for Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. Some favorites include changing the towels, dusting the furniture, and especially dressing the chicken. The most intriguing part of the entire book, however, is Amelia Bedelia's lemon meringue pie. For weeks we have read Amelia Bedelia every night before bed, and every night the kids tell us we need to make lemon meringue pie. Friday night I was watching the younger three while Mandy and Kylee went to the movies. When I read Amelia Bedelia to Addyson she looked at me and said, "Dad, will you pleeeaaaasssseee make me a lemon meringue pie tomorrow?" So Saturday I made my first ever lemon meringue pie from scratch so the kids could see what it was that kept Mrs. Rogers from firing Amelia Bedelia. It was a huge success! We were lucky enough to have Scott, Kristin, Brooklyn, Lukas, and Carlee here to share our experiment. Thanks Amelia Bedelia!

Paging Dr. Dad

One of the coolest things about being a parent is learning that you can do things that you previously thought you could never do. Case in point - surgery. Someone at our house has an obsession with fishing and fishing tackle. He found my tackle box, cut the lock out and dumped it all over our dark carpet. We thought we had gotten it all, but Kylee found a barbed hook that we missed.

Before performing surgery I spent a couple of quiet minutes in the bathroom. I wasn't using the facilities. I was looking for a quiet place to panic by myself for a minute. I couldn't let Kylee see how nervous I was. With a little help from my trusty Blackberry I was able to confirm the best way for removal. After some Tylenol and ice to take the edge off the pain Kylee was ready to brave the attempt. I wasn't quite as prepared.

It took some serious pulling to get the hook to pull through the skin. I know it must have hurt like crazy, but Kylee was a perfect patient. She was able to hold still and not panic and hardly cried. After several minutes of pulling (and commentary from the gallery ranging from "Cool" to "Oooh gross. Kylee's blooding.") the hook pulled through and I was able to clip it off. Now you would never know it was even there. Appendectomy anyone?

Play Date

Several weeks ago all of the kids had been sick. Just as they were getting better, Mandy caught the bug. She was tired from several sleepless nights. I was able to take a couple of hours off of work to watch Caleb and Addy while Kylee was at school so Mandy could sleep for awhile.

After running errands and shooting the animals at Sportsmans Warehouse we took a break to get some lunch. It's hard to believe that five seconds before this picture was taken they were at each others throats fighting over hot sauce packets. At the conclusion of our errands we stopped at Sub-Zero for some ice cream. Now that's a play date!

Welcome to Idaho Falls

Even though we've been living in Idaho Falls since the beginning of June we haven't officially been here until today. What made it official? Snow. We were told many things about the area when we announced that we were moving here, but by far the most common was that the winters were nasty compared to Caldwell. Six months later and we are getting our first taste.

The kids have all seen snow before of course, but never really enough snow that stuck around long enough to play in. Snow in the Boise/Caldwell area comes in small doses and very rarely lasts longer than 12 hours.

Today we finally got some of the dreaded white stuff. It was only about two inches and it was barely wet enough to hold together and make a snow man, some snowballs, and some snow angels, but the kids had a blast. None of them were ready to come in after two hours even with the promise of hot chocolate.

Since we can't fight it I figure we might as well embrace the inevitable. Snowmen, snow ball fights, snow forts, ice fishing, and sledding are just some of the activities we look forward to over the coming months! Oh if anyone has blue prints for a snow tank Caleb would like to talk to you.

Guy Time - Boise State vs. Utah State

This is exactly what I had in mind when Dr. Lowder leaned over to me and whispered "It's a boy!" Well, I guess I can't honestly say I expected a little flirt who made friends with everyone sitting within 20 rows of us. What a little networker! As one guy sitting behind us commented "The little dude gets more chicks than me and he's only three."

Even with visiting everyone around us, eating popcorn, and drinking a Sprite he had time to enjoy some of the game cheering and shouting first down with the crowd. He did get in trouble when he cheered for Boise State. I had to explain that his grandparents live in Boise and try to indoctrinate him whenever they see him. He was forgiven though when he told one of the guys "See you later Sasquatch."

The best though was when we were walking back to Kelby's apartment. Caleb was sitting on my shoulders as we were walking in a crowd. There was a young couple walking behind us playfully fighting like young couples do. She told her boyfriend that he was a jerk. Caleb turned to him and said "Yeah, you are a jerk." This got everyone around us going and earned Caleb tons of attention. Needless to say he ate it up. Thanks Kelby for a great time!

No Hair

This is a picture when Addy had hair. Several months ago Kylee had cut Addy's hair, it never did grow back right. So Geoff and I decided to shave it, why shave it? That is probably what most people are thinking, well since we have shaved it, it has come back twice as thick! Oh the joys of having children, I was upset that Kylee had cut her hair, but of course I forgave her. We have to remember that they are children and sometimes they do things that drive us nuts. Kylee learned her lesson, that is all that I can ask is that we learn from are mistakes. I can actually joke about it now! I love the look on Addy's face, she has this look on her face of ha ha, like she is planning something.

Ohhhhh!

Oh how sweet they are when they are asleep!