Easter 2012

There was a lot about Easter this year that was special for me. The girls were finally old enough to enjoy this holiday to some capacity, and so Matt and I took full advantage of that. It is so much fun to see how excited they get when they are able to do new things! We didn't color eggs--we'll save that for next year! But, the Easter Bunny definitely made a stop at the Sewell house and the girls woke up to lots of colorful excitement.


I have tried to upload the video that Matt shot of that morning's adventure here several times, but it is refusing to allow me, so here's the link to the video on Facebook (and if this doesn't work, you can just find it on my page or Matt's page...I promise it's worth the dig!) 


https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=2902731727416

Naturally, I took a bunch of photos of the eggs in their hiding places and of the girls running around loading them into their baskets. (I apologize for the graininess of these photos, somehow the ISO setting on my camera got thrown out of whack. It has since been adjusted though, I just wish I had realized it before the opportunity had passed. Oh well! Grainy pictures are better than nothing!)

The Easter Bunny laid out their baskets by their bedroom door, but instead of placing all of their candy-filled eggs inside, he scattered them all over the living room! Each of the girls got a book in their basket and a chocolate bunny, but had to go around and hunt for their eggs!

The hiding places...

On the bar stools underneath the counter top

On top of the drawer handles in the kitchen...

On the sofa cushions...

On the window sills and the coffee table...

Amongst the DVD's...

On the entertainment unit...

 On top of the end table...

On the bookshelf....one of the girl's favorite hiding spots for their own toys!

On the dining room chairs...

They did a great job of putting the eggs into the baskets!

 Sophie was so eager to grab them all!

She found quite a bit!

This photo makes me laugh because this egg was right near eye-level for her and she kept walking right on by! Once she figured out it was there, she had quite the go of getting all of them down at once!

We were invited to Joni's and Laura's for Easter lunch and I made deviled eggs. So, yes, I found these on Pinterest. What can I say? I love love love Pinterest! 

Those were the only photos that I managed to nab pertaining to our lunch that day. Joni organized an egg hunt in their back yard, and the 5 kids who were there just went nuts! The girls did very well for themselves, and the kids ended up pooling their eggs and candy (the girls went home with some bunny ears and their cute baskets that Aunt Joni got for them--mommy and daddy said they had enough candy from the Easter Bunny at home!)

Once we were home, the girls, who napped briefly in the car on the way to and from Aunt Joni's, were in a great mood. We found these Easter hats at Target for $1 and we couldn't resist! The girls actually love wearing them, and it made for some super cute photos!

That's M & M dye on her face, although she did have marker stains all over her hands from church that morning too! Luckily, none of either got on their dresses.

Mommy decided to try on the Easter hat...it didn't quite fit :)

The girls love giving "sissy kisses" now! It just melts me each time!

Sophie is such a daddy's girl...

Matt says that the girls won't remember this Easter, even though they enjoyed themselves, and even though I know that's true, I do think they'll enjoy looking back on this post and seeing what they were like at this age. I know I will!

It was definitely a fun and exciting day, and all of us were absolutely exhausted by the evening!


Easter has a special significance for me (not that the resurrection of Jesus isn't significant enough on its own...). I was baptized on Easter Sunday when I was 9 years old, so I had my 15th "birthday", if you will, this past Sunday. It's funny, I often feel like a teenager when it comes to my relationship with Christ. Without getting into gruesome details, I often feel rebellious, detached and uncommunicative toward God, and most days are still a great struggle to find myself in Him again. But, with Sean's passing, I have been comforted by the assurance I have from Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection that I will one day see Sean again. I'd like to go on more about this, but I'm having trouble expressing myself in words today. 


For now, I'll leave you all with these pictures and I hope that your Easters were as special and memory-filled as mine was!

Chewy Gingerbread Cookies

Growing up in Utah, you grow up around a lot of stereotypes pertaining to Mormons. One of these stereotypes is that Mormons are fantastic cooks. Now, I don't know about all of the other's, but my mother-in-law, Kathy, is definitely a fantastic cook. Whether the recipe has been handed down in her family (think: orange rolls at Thanksgiving) or something that she found on the Internet (Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana) it always tastes incredible when she serves it up (yes, Kathy, even when you burn the garlic bread!)


I've always thought that there was an important difference between cooking and baking, and I still believe this. I am a great cook. I can throw recipes together like it's nothing, and I enjoy doing it! Baking, on the other hand, is something that is a lot of work for me. You'd think that my type-A personality would lend itself well to the meticulous process of baking as it calls for precision, attention to detail, and I'm sure some of my CDO (aka OCD) tendencies should come in handy for this kind of thing. I don't know what the reason for it is, but I generally do not enjoy baking. I do, however, enjoy eating baked goods! :)


Luckily for me, I was given an awesome recipe for chewy gingerbread cookies this past winter by Kathy. She had made a batch for Sunday dinner once and they were, of course, amazing. I had to have the recipe! Matt has a bit of a sweet tooth and craves cookies quite often and after having exhausted my family's chocolate chip cookie recipe, we've been branching out to brownies, his childhood recipe for oatmeal cookies, and now, to these chewy gingerbread bites of heaven.


I wanted to share the recipe here on my blog. They are super easy to make, and it hardly feels like I'm baking when I make them. 


If anyone tries them out, let me know how you liked them! I can't imagine anyone wouldn't!


Chewy Gingerbread Cookies


Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
1/2 cup molasses (Grandma's tastes best)
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
4 cups flour
4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or 1 tsp ground cloves + 1 tsp ground ginger)


Directions: Combine oil, molasses, and sugar. Beat in eggs. Mix flour with spices. Add flour mixture and beat to form a stiff dough (I used my hands to mix it all together). Chill well. Roll into walnut shaped balls of dough and roll in sugar. Bake on un-greased cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Do not overbake. Let cool on cooling rack for several minutes. Enjoy!


Yield: approx. 55 cookies (I know, right?!)


Here are some photos from my endeavor...

It's just not baking without using something from my pampered chef collection

I loved these photos of the cookies baking in the oven...they look dreamy!

The girls were napping while I did all of this. They are still a bit young, I think, to help me bake, but maybe soon they'll be able to pour the sugar or stir the dough for me. I really do look forward to teaching them how to cook and bake--I loved watching my dad do it when I was growing up, and I think that the girls will really like being a part of what is going on in the kitchen. 

18 Month Check Up

The girls turned 18 months last Thursday (March 29th) and they saw their new pediatrician for their check up on Monday this week. Their new doctor was referred to us by Joni as she was Linus' doctor while they lived in Somerville. This is the first time that we had met her. I was a bit nervous about meeting a new doctor since my entire family has a deeply rooted history with our previous pediatrician, and I  knew that that relationship would be absent with this new provider. 

I've always known that having David Hurley as my girls' pediatrician was a very special thing. He was, in fact, my pediatrician as well. My mom always told me, "He saw you when you were born before I did, you know", referring to David being present at my delivery. I can say the same thing to both Sophie and Olivia--"You know, Dr. Hurley saw you when you were born before mommy did". There are lots of things about their birth that are blurry to me now, and lots of things that are still crystal clear, and one of those crystal clear memories is how many people were actually in the delivery room when my girls were born. Since they were premature, there were teams from the NICU for each baby, nurses, aids, my mother, a resident and a medical student even. David was among the masses that day and checked each baby out just moments after they were born. Of course, our history goes deeper than just being a 2-generation pediatrician. Our families have worshiped together for decades, first at Southside (even pre-Southside, I'm told) and then at Murray Park. It was wonderful to be at church with David because I always felt like my girls were being checked on on a regular basis, and that they were receiving a much more personal degree of attention, as opposed to the occasional office visit from a near-stranger. I remember being babysat by Jerri at times in my childhood and have memories of babysitting her children during my adolescence. David officiated at my wedding with Sean, and was there with me when he died. Both are two of the most powerful memories I have in my life. We've had countless family get-togethers, Wednesday night small groups, and 4th of July parades with the Hurley family. Somehow, even if we stay with the new pediatrician for 18+ years, I doubt that the relationship I'll have with her will scratch the surface of what I have with the Hurley family. 

The meeting with the new pediatrician went just fine. She was very nice and friendly. She wasn't terribly warm, but was very clinical, which is what I expected. I suppose I appreciate the fact that she was professional, as I was absolutely looking for a medical provider for my children and not a friend in this woman. She warmed to the girls easily (who doesn't?), and they seemed to be comfortable around her, which helped the fact that I had them there on my own. 

Here's the part where I get all sentimental about how I can't believe that my little babies are so grown up already! 18 months! How has that time gone by so quickly? Auuuuuugh!

Okay, that's out of my system, for now at least. 

My sweet little Sophie, who was born a mere 9 minutes before her sissy and weighed 3 lbs 15 oz at birth has grown to a powerful 22lbs 14 oz! I think that this number is actually lower than her 15 month weight, but she hadn't started fully walking at that point, and this kid is all over the place now! She's a tall one too--she's 33" now, which is 3 whole inches taller than Olivia, who measures 30" tall and 19 lbs 6.5 oz. This little bug used to be about 5" shorter and about 5 lbs lighter than her sissy, but she's been eating like crazy (and walking like crazy too), so she seems to have closed the gap slightly. I fear though, that she's destined to follow in her mommy's shrimpy footsteps whereas Sophie is displaying indicators of treading along the path of her 6'3" father. Twins indeed.

The girls are great at throwing tantrums now--we're talking full-on flops to the ground, kicking and screaming and rolling around, and all that good stuff. Luckily that happens at home usually, and doesn't in public. Thankfully these tantrums seem manageable (I can usually ward them off if I know that it's around nap time or lunch time or if they're becoming interested in a toy we only have one of, etc), and overall, they are still little sweethearts. Even when they are little monsters, I can't help but love on them...maybe I'll outgrow that by the time they are teenagers? I warn Matt that he may be the only one of us to survive their teenage years.  ;)

They are doing things like drinking from a straw, drinking from an open-rimmed cup on their own (with mommy's supervision), pretending to cook in their little ikea kitchen, feeding themselves with utensils, making the correct animal noises when asked about them or when they see pictures in books, walking everywhere, talking with each other in their "secret twin language", and singing along to songs that they know (VeggieTales, the ABC's, Itsy-Bitsy Spider). They're a lot of fun right now, and I'm glad that they are happy and healthy little kiddos.

My little monsters watching Monsters, Inc. 

This was yesterday after the doctors appointment. It was right during nap time, and I knew that by the time we got home they'd either be asleep or incredibly fussy. 

 They both got ice cream stickers at the doctors office and that's what's on their hands

They're getting better at stabbing food with a fork

She would stab her noodles then pull them off with her hands instead of putting them in her mouth. Silly girl.

These silly ones love having pillows dropped on them. Matt was playing with them on the bed last night and they just couldn't stop giggling! It wore them out quite nicely for bed!