Bragging Rights

I have three wonderful reasons to brag this morning -

Estefan, Allie and Mark!

Estefan may have the hardest name in all of kindergarten to write and spell. His name is seven letters long! But he has been practicing and practicing! He can spell it without hesitation and write it without thinking TOO hard. In preschool he learned how to say his full name, he would say, "My name is Estefan Julian Monk Nelson Bud." Now that he's in kindergarten he is learning to write his full name! Hopefully he just sticks with Estefan Nelson!

Peek-a-boo! Thank heavens for this dry erase marker book. No wasted paper!

Now the next child to brag on - Allie!

She has mastered the art of yucky hands! Yes! She has yucky hands again!

Yesterday I was changing Mark and she was playing with water colors in the kitchen. When I came in to throw the diaper away I found her in the fridge. Immediately she says

"Hey Mom, I think this milk is yucky!"

I said, "No baby, its butter, not milk and the only thing yucky is your hands!"

She had opened all four of the sticks of butter that were in the fridge and poked her fingers into all of them! Silly, silly girl! At least it was just butter.

And my angel baby - Mark.

It is now past 8:00 this morning and he is still sleeping! I have been able to excersie, eat, clean, and blog all this morning! I feel like I already have half the things on my to do list for today done and its only 8:05! Yesterday wore him out. He had to get another round of shots. When we went to the doctor two weeks ago, they were out of one shot and so we had to wait for them to get it in and come back. Well two weeks ago he weighed 18 lbs 10 oz and was 27 inches long. He is sooooooo big. The nurse always comments on how long and strong he is when she's trying to hold him down to stick him. Yesterday when they weighed and measured him again he weighed 19 lbs 2 oz and was 28 inches long! He has gained 8 ounces and one inch in two weeks. Now the weight I can believe, but I think their measurements might be a little off on his height! A whole inch in two weeks? - I dunno! But he is a pretty big boy!!

That's it, I've done my bragging for the day - I love my three kids!

3rd Times the Charm!

So this is how bad a cook I am...

*1st Attempt*
My mother in law gave me a beautiful eggplant from her garden about a month ago and also gave me the recipe for eggplant Parmesan. I was so excited to try and make it! She makes it so yummy. I get home, cut up the eggplant, grease the pan, dip the eggplant into the beaten egg and then into the flour mixture and get to cooking. Well I had the grease too hot and burned the eggplant! It was just a little black... so I scrapped off what I could and put it in the pan, added my tomato soup and put er in the microwave. Dustin had just got home when it was done cooking. I gave him the first bite. It was so gross, you could taste the burn.. YUCK! So we fed it to Butch.

*2nd Attempt*
I kept the story of the burnt eggplant to myself and asked Gaye for another one. This time I remembered to keep the heat low and "brown" the eggplant, not blacken the eggplant. But alas having three children asking when dinner will be ready and anticipating Dustin's arrival from work... I mixed up the flour and salt measurements! I put 1/4 cup salt in instead of 1/2 tsp salt!!!! You may ask what was I thinking? Shouldn't I have noticed that was a whole lot of salt??!!! Well I guess I should've but I didn't... so that is how bad of a cook I am. Anyway, I didn't notice the little mix up until after the eggplant parmesan was cooked and we were eating it. Wow, was that a surprise. It was like taking a big drink of ocean water!!! YUCK! So again we fed it to Butch... but he didn't like it either.

*3rd Attempt*
I browned not burned the eggplant
added 1/2 tsp salt
poured over the tomato soup
added the parmesan
cooked it in the microwave for 8 minutes
AND
we sat down and ate a yummy eggplant parmesan!

I guess what they say is true.. the 3rd time is the charm.
Maybe it's because I didn't have anything left to screw up. But I did it and we had a delicious dinner last night and Butch only got dog food! Now I thought I'd share the recipe...

Eggplant Parmesan

1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 beaten egg with a little water added
1 medium eggplant - cut into 1/2 inch slices
1 can of homemade tomato soup
parmesan cheese
mozzerella cheese

*combine flour and salt
*dip eggplant into beaten egg then the flour mixture
*in a large skillet brown the egglant slices in hot oil - drain on paper towel
*place one layer of eggplant in 10x6 baking dish
*sprinkle with parmesan cheese and layer as needed
*pour boiled homemade tomato soup over
*sprinkle mozzerella and parmesan cheese on top
*microwave 8 minutes


Good luck!

Labor Day

Yesterday was such a good day. We went to Lake Mead to feed the fish, or as Dustin calls it "fish punching!" I hadn't been to the Lake for years, probably before we lived in Reno. It was so crazy to see how low the water had gotten. Overton Beach is completely gone. Where I remember driving our boat is now a cattle graze! I should've taken a picture of it. The drout has done some major changes to the Overton end of Lake Mead.

Dustin, Allie and Estefan feeding the fish popcorn!

Allie kept saying, "Nasty fish!" They were pretty nasty. They are huge because people always feed them junk food. There were lots of other families with little kids dumping the fish popcorn and bread. I remember doing it when I was little. Allie and Bud sure had fun watching the fish gobble up the food. Sometimes they jump on top of each other and fight to get the popcorn and then you get a nice splash of fishy slime. Its so fun ;)

Our family having fun!

Mark and I sat and ate a popsicle. He thought it was way better than a bottle.

After we ran out of popcorn we went to Rodger Springs to swim. Its a beautiful little oasis and picnic spot. Last year some dumb kids lit fireworks around the forth of July and burned it down. Its grown back really nice, but the palm trees are black.

Estefan in the waterfall

Mark and Mommy watching the kids play in the water

Beautiful Allie

The waterfall filled up a nice little pool just the right size for the kids to wade around in.

Estefan doing what he does best! Playing and having fun!

Labor day was so fun. I'm glad we went out instead of working around the house. Sometime you gotta just have a play day! And since the lake is so low there weren't as many people there as would've usually been on Labor day weekend. So we were lucky and didn't have to fight crowds. We just had a really great family fun day!

Deep Sea Fishing

Last Thursday Dustin had the opportunity to go deep sea fishing! He used to work for a construction company and his old boss goes fishing every year with some of his crew workers. Dustin has gone a couple times with them and always has a great time. He said this year was he favorite so far! He invited my dad and brother to go along with him this time. They left Thursday afternoon on a charter bus with twenty other people and drove to San Diego, California. When they arrived in San Diego they loaded up on an 85' fishing boat and headed out to sea.

Dustin said there were so many dolphins. This is one of my favorite pictures he took. I love that he caught a few of the dolphins jumping. And the ocean looks so blue and beautiful!

Here are some of the fish they caught. The fish are huge and to catch them you real them up to the boat but not out of the water. When the fish is close enough you yell to a "shipmate" and he comes and gaffs (stabs) the fish with a hook and pulls it up out of the water. Ocean fish are different from a bass or striper you would catch at a lake. They are bigger and they bleed a lot! In another picture I didn't post there is blood everywhere! I asked Dustin if someone got murdered with the fish hook. It was too gross - blood everywhere. He laughed at me and assured me that only the fish bled and that no one died. They have people on the boat who's job is to clean the deck after - yuck, talk about a "Dirty Job" -(love that show!)

Anyway the weather was beautiful but the fish weren't biting an awful lot. Total there were 14 fish caught. These fish are yellow fin and albacore tuna.

My dad, Stan and my brother, Justin with his huge fish.

The fishermen - Justin, Stan and Dus

The boat was called Ocean Odyssey

Dus had so much fun and was so happy that he was able to go. Maybe next year I'll be brave enough to try out my sea legs. But I'd probably be sick the whole time, so maybe not. But I'm glad he had a good time and I'm glad he survived driving through California and made it home safely.

After church today my dad grilled up some of the tuna steaks. I had some but it is hard for me to get passed the smell of fish. I plugged my nose and took a few bites but I prefered the chicken. Dustin thought is was good and Allie ate a bunch. So more for them!

Splash Pad

I went to the splash pad in Moapa this morning with Jill and Wendy. Their boys loved splashing and running through the sprinklers. But Allie was a little bit less excited about the whole idea. She's not a fan of getting water in her face. She loves swimming but not splashing. I held her and ran under a few sprinklers and she said, "Mom, this is like a shower! I don't like it!"

So instead she, Mark and I sat on the benches in the shade and watched everybody play. I had fun and turned it into an impromptu photo shoot.

It was a beautiful morning. Not too hot and a little breeze - couldn't have asked for nicer weather just to sit outside and enjoy the day..

For Jill and Wendy

Here are some pictures of your cute boys!

Isaac and Ty

1st Day of School

Today was Estefan's first day of kindergarten! We walked from his mom's house to the elementary school. Luckily for us it wasn't too hot!

Estefan and his teacher Mrs. (Aunt) Hardy as he called her.

Mommy Lauren and Bud playing play-dough

Estefan and Caleb. They get to sit at the same table and they're in the same work group. I think that Estefan was sick of having his picture taken at this point!

It was so fun to go with him on his first day. He looked so hansome and grown up!

I was so glad to see so many other moms that I knew. There were lots of kids from our ward there. So I'm sure that Estefan will have no trouble finding lots of friends. I'm excited to have my son grow up with such good kids.