It was Joey's idea...

This past December, our friends the Spears came for a weekend-long visit, so this weekend was our turn to go see them up in L.A. We drove up Friday night, and Saturday morning we headed over to Griffith Park to see some trains. There were some old trains that you could go in and explore...




and then there was a cute little train ride. The kids loved it! So did that creepy guy in the background.

Oh wait...that's just Grant Spear with a mustache! The Air Force has this tradition where the guys grow mustaches in March. Thankfully, he participated this year, which gave us a chance to tease him about it all weekend!

After the train ride, we headed over to the Griffith Observatory.

It was a cloudy day, but we still got an amazing view of the city, including the Hollywood sign.

We ate lunch at the top of the observatory and had a few minutes to walk around and look at all the awesome exhibits inside. I wish we had more time to look around, but we had four kids who needed a nap and one more very important stop at Diddy Riese.

Diddy Riese is this amazing ice cream sandwich shop practically on the campus of UCLA. The first time Kelly told me about this, she almost passed out from the excitement. It's hard to understand unless you go, but just imagine a huge ice cream sandwich made with homemade cookies for $1.50. Pretty amazing!

My brother Timmy, who we visited up at UCLA a few weeks ago, lives only a short walk away from Diddy Riese. Unfortunately, since parking near Diddy Riese is at a premium, we were only planning on running in, grabbing some ice cream sandwiches, and eating them in the car as we drove back to the Spears. That didn't leave much time for a visit with Timmy, so I told him not to worry about trying to meet us.

As planned, when we got to Diddy Riese, Grant and I got out to order the ice cream sandwiches. While I was in the middle of ordering, I heard someone call my name and it was Timmy! He decided to take a chance and try to catch us there. I'm so glad he did because miraculously Andy and Kelly were both able to find parking spots next to Diddy Riese, so we all got to hang out and eat our ice cream sandwiches for 15 minutes. It was great!


On Sunday, we went to the Spear's church, Branch of Hope OPC. We loved it. Our dear friends from Albuquerque, the Guesses, attended that church when they lived in L.A., so I got to see some of the girls who were at Edie's surprise birthday party in November.

As usual, some of my favorite parts of the weekend involved food. Kelly made us some amazing meals while we were there! I requested that she make her dad's famous Spanish Rice so she made it along with this yummy Zesty Chicken Meatloaf sprinkled with some shredded cheese and topped with our favorite salsa. Very delicious! In fact, Andy said it was the first Spanish rice he's ever eaten and actually liked. I would have to agree. Usually we don't care for Spanish rice at all, but this was excellent. It's made me feel like I might be brave enough to try making it on my own.

My favorite meal that Kelly made for us was these Red Wine Braised Short Ribs. Oh my goodness...to die for! I'm going to have to go out and buy a braising pan, just so I can make them!

Thank you Spears for the wonderful weekend! Your hospitality was amazing, your girls are adorable and sweet, and we gained about 10 pounds!

*See Kelly's blog for more pictures of our trip!

The kitchen we got Hannah for her birthday is a huge hit with both kids!
As you can see, Hannah's kitchen is well stocked with lots of fun accessories. I thought we were all set, but then I saw this post about making toy spice jars. I loved the idea and was all ready to go to Michael's and buy the supplies. Then I read the comments and one person said that they just used old spice containers from their kitchen. Spice jars for free? I'm in!

I just happened to have some duplicate spices because a friend was moving and gave me hers. I combined the duplicate spices together and ended up with 5 empty containers. I washed and dried them, filled them with a little rice, and glued the tops.

These spice container shakers are so fun, and best of all they were free!

For more Works for Me ideas visit We are THAT Family!

My friend, Kelly, and I have gotten together several times over the past few years at a park in Laguna Beach. Unfortunately, we've both been so busy lately, that we haven't gotten together in a while.

Then, our mutual friend Cheryl from Albuquerque emailed saying that she was going to be in southern California and wanted to join our play group. Sweet! Other than the fact that it was quite cool and cloudy, we had such a fun time. The kids played well together, so the three of us girls got to chat pretty much nonstop.

Of course we all forgot our cameras, but Kelly was able to click this with her phone. Too bad she's not in the picture too, but she did manage to get Kendall playing in the background!

We left the park after lunch. Cheryl came with us in our car, and after I got the kids down for a nap we hung out some more and made Butterfinger cookies for the rest of the afternoon.

What a great day!!!

As evidenced by my lack of blog posts from the past week or so, not much new is going on around here.

To fill the void, and before I get an exasperated email from my sister wondering why I'm not posting anything, I thought I would post my daily schedule.

I know. So exciting.

You want to know the nerdy thing? I'm actually really excited that for once, I finally have a routine, and for the most part I'm sticking to it. I've been much more efficient and disciplined. I've always heard that routines are helpful for being productive, but I've resisted because I like being flexible with my time. Well, flexibility was turning into laziness and disorder, so following this routine makes things run much more smoothly around here, and I feel much more productive.

So, for the two of you who are still reading this, here's what's working for us right now:

6:00-7:00 a.m. Wake up, Bible study/prayer time
7:00-8:30 Kids wake up
Breakfast
Make Andy's lunch
Clean up kitchen
Computer time
8:30-9:00 Play with kids
9:00-9:30 Take shower, get dressed
Kids dressed
Brush teeth
9:30-11:00 Cleaning, chores, laundry, etc.
11:00-12:30 Run errands
12:30-1:00 Lunch
Clean up kitchen
1:00-1:30 Read books to kids
1:30-3:30 Nap time

After nap time, things get a little more flexible depending on how long Hannah sleeps and whether I need to make dinner, or if we are just having leftovers. Usually at some point, we straighten up the house and then go outside to play until dinner time.

You'll notice that my play time with the kids is only a half an hour a morning. I'm actually a big proponent of kids learning to play by themselves or with each other. I feel like if I'm the major entertainment director, that stifles their creativity and initiative. However, I do want to balance that with 30 minutes of giving them my undivided attention each morning. We can play a game, do a puzzle, play make-believe, whatever they want. So far, I feel like this is a good balance especially, since I'm with them all day long. This way we have quality time and quantity time, both of which I think are important.

Lastly, the other reason this routine has worked so well, is that I have a set time of when I can be on the computer. I had gotten into the bad habit of checking my email and reading random blogs on the internet on and off many times throughout the day. What a waste of time! It was also surprisingly addictive. With this schedule, I am much better about having the computer off from 8:30 am until after nap time. Joey also knows this "rule," and he helps keep me accountable. To make it fun, he gets an M&M if he catches me.

We've been doing this for a few weeks now, and while I thought I would get off track quickly, I'm still pretty gung-ho about it. It's nice having the schedule in place, knowing what I need to get done, and following through!

Hannah turns two tomorrow so we had her birthday party on Saturday. As I was thinking back to her first birthday last year, I was remembering how she was so shy and didn't really smile much that day. She was a little better this year because she was super amped about the presents and cupcakes, but having a lot of people there giving her attention made her a little clingy. How different she is from her brother! Being the center of attention was always his favorite part of his birthdays!

We have been talking about Hannah's birthday for a couple of weeks now, and Hannah always talks about three things: the presents, cake and ice cream. She was very anxious to get to these three parts of her party.

Here's part one.We had a "kitchen theme" with her presents this year. My mom went through our old toys and gave Hannah a huge bag of our old pots, pans, dishes and food from when we were growing up. They are still in really good condition.

Andy's mom made her this apron (from the material I bought as a tablecloth for her first birthday). I think it's just adorable!
There's a real smile! She loves Dora and backpacks, so this present from my parents was a real win-win!
Joey was just as excited about Hannah's presents as she was. He couldn't wait to get all of the toys out of the packaging and play with them.
And here's the big moment when we brought out the kitchen. I found it on Craig's List about a month ago, and it's been hiding in our garage ever since. I have to say that I was probably even more excited about it than Hannah was...
but maybe not as much as Joey. His favorite parts were the coffee maker, toaster, and blender that Hannah got from my uncle and aunt. Thankfully Hannah took a long nap later that day, and he was able to play with it all by himself for hours.
Then it was on to part two: cupcakes. I used the same cupcake stand that I made last year, but I just covered it with new paper and ribbon. This time for the cupcake toppers, Andy made one for each character that she loves: Hello Kitty, Pooh, Tinkerbell, Ariel, Snow White, Belle, Cinderella, Dora, Boots, Scooby Doo, Mickey Mouse, and Elmo.
Hannah picked the "Binkernell" cupcake and gobbled it down.
Her third favorite part of the day was going down for a nap. No kidding. After cupcakes she came over to me and put her head on my shoulder, meaning she was tired. I asked her if she wanted to go down for a nap and she nodded. As we said goodbye to everyone and I carried her up the stairs, she had her most enthusiastic smile of the day. What a funny girl she is!

Thanks to everyone who came and made her day extra special!

Times like these melt my heart...



Thankfully I don't take pictures of the bickering.

Good thing they are cute!