Mom's Birthday Present/ Wall Vinyl

Happy belated birthday Mom! She said she had all she needed and didn't want anything for her birthday, so I was trying to think of a sentimental gift that wouldn't result in more tchotchkes piling up around the house. I decided to get her some wall vinyl to decorate her photo wall. Here are some pictures of the final product. Bennett is in Brown and "families are forever" is in black. You might be able to read families are forever better if if you went for a dark and light contrast, but those were the colors that would really match the decor. I LOVE it personally. I can't wait to do something similar when I get a photo wall or something cool for Morgan's nursery. You can get something like this for your own house for about $25, more or less depending on size. We can do all sorts of quotes and fun things for any room.

From the mouth of babes III

So Joshua is continuing to grow his vocabulary which is super awesome. He is even putting two words together which is great. I'm not a big fan of "No, mine!" but at least it is a sentence. He is cut down to about 1 show a day so he gets his choice between Pablo(Backyardigans), Dora, or Go Diego Go. He can say Pablo and Dora but he is having some trouble with Diego. It sounds like something different every time. Today it was Do Do Do, (like the bird.)

Here's another awesome Samantha story, which I am sad I did not witness myself. Last week my Mom blew her nose and Samantha asked to see her boogies. My Mom said, "that's not proper etiquette." Samantha replied, "it's not appropriate either?" Well that's all well and good but the best part is that my Mom went ahead and showed her the boogies. Samantha's reply to that was, "Grandma that's gross." Oh how awesome is that!

Oven Roasted Broccoli/I ♥ Alton Brown

While I don't seem to actually cook a whole lot, I love cooking shows. My favorite is Good Eats, on the Food Network. On our Tivo upstairs, I have about 160 episodes. Wowee! I watched an episode yesterday about broccoli and he made this awesome recipe that I can't wait to try. The in-laws have broccoli at almost every family dinner so this would be a fun recipe for me to bring to a get together. Also, I learned that 75-90% of the antioxidants in broccoli are lost when you steam in the microwave. SHOCKING!

So here is the recipe for Oven Roasted Broccoli, courtesy Food Network and Alton Brown

Ingredients:
1 pound broccoli, rinsed and trimmed
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup panko bread crumbs
1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan or sharp Cheddar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Cut the broccoli florets into bite size pieces. Cut the stalk into 1/8-inch thick, round slices. Place the broccoli into a mixing bowl and toss with the olive oil, garlic, kosher salt and pepper and set aside.

Spread the panko into a 13 by 9-inch metal cake pan and place into the oven for 2 minutes or until lightly toasted. Remove the panko from the oven and add to the bowl with the broccoli mixture. Toss to combine. Return the mixture to the cake pan, place in the oven and roast just until the broccoli is tender, 8 to 10 more minutes. Remove from the oven, toss in the cheese and serve immediately.

Busy month of March

We have lots of pictures from the past few weeks. I've already discussed some of the events, but here is a mega post about them all.


3-15-08: Autumn invited Joshua to her 10th birthday party at Pump It up in Tempe. Samantha was allowed to come too. They had a great time and so did we!


3-17-08 Joshua does yard work. I decided to pull some weeds with Joshua and oh what fun ensued. He really loved using the hula hoe. He was also very good at pulling the leaves off of the weeds and trying to eat them. Ryan came home from work while we were mid weed pulling, so he chipped in and the two boys bagged the weeds. Joshua actually really excelled at putting weeds in the bag.


03-23-2008 Family photo shoot on Easter Sunday at church. What a cute family.

Toddler Ninja Warrior

You may remember this post, where I first mention Ninja Warrior. Well we thought we'd put Joshua through our own qualifying round to see if he has the stuff to be a future Ninja Warrior. We found a nice replica of the Dancing Stones at the park. Here is a picture of the real thing.


We are joining the action right after a near fall on the dancing stones.

Can he recover?? OH NO!! His foot has touch the sand. He is disqualified.


Here he is contemplating his future fate as a Ninja Warrior. Next time perhaps, next time.

How Morgan got her name

I started this post last week, but had a difficult time finishing it so it took awhile. I will apologize in advance because I get a little rambly.
I just want to start out by saying that last week my Grandfather, Eugene Fox Bennett passed away at the age of 82. He was dearly loved and will be missed, but I'm so excited that he gets to be with the two beautiful women that he has waiting for him.

With my Grandpa in my thoughts the last few days I thought I should record why we chose Morgan Fox for our daughter's name. It isn't too hard to figure out really. Morgan is my mother's maiden name and Fox is my middle name, but it isn't really quite so plain in my mind.

The Morgan name in my Mother's line will die out when my Uncle is gone because he doesn't have any children and obviously my Mother and Aunt are using their married last names. I actually had wanted to name Joshua, William, for my Uncle and Grandfather, but that didn't quite work out. All of my Morgan family relatives mean a great deal to me and I really wanted to carry that name forward in my own family. I also want Morgan to feel close to my Mother's family even though they all live very far away.

On to Fox. When I was younger I hated having an unusual middle name. I would get teased and I was always scared of what people might say when they found out my middle name was Fox. However as I have gotten older I have felt very privileged to be named after my Grandfather and Great Grandmother(Grandma Great.) Fox was her maiden name and so of course there are many other people in my family history with the name Fox, but I only personally knew Grandpa Bennett and Grandma Great. Growing up I had the opportunity to see often and grow pretty close to my namesakes. I doubt it was just the name, but I always felt very close to both of them and even now that they are both gone I still feel very close to them. Especially so to my great grandmother, which even though she died when I was 13, I have felt her presence in my life frequently. In conclusion, Morgan was given the middle name Fox in the hopes that she can feel that same connection with her namesakes as I have with mine.

I'm sad that my children will not get to know their Grandpa Bennett in this life, but I am grateful that I have memories I can share with them.

Wow, that was kind of heavy for me to express. When we first told people what we were going to name our daughter we got lots of weird reactions and perhaps even a little flack. Even if those people don't see this, I still feel like I have set the record straight and that feels nice.

Morgan and Samantha

Last night I went looking through our old pictures of Samantha and came across some very similar pictures of Samantha and Morgan at about the same age. Samantha was closer to four months and Morgan was just over three. Funny how they are both on my couch and both in cherry outfits. I don't remember if I gave Samantha that outfit, but I wouldn't be surprised because I LOVE cherries. (Not to eat, just for decoration.)

Pop off!

So I have a bone to pick with a few individuals and I think this may be the appropriate place. Consider it an open letter of sorts.
My baby girl is chubby. I can't deny it, because it is true. It also doesn't bother me. She's chubby, cute, and a super happy baby. What I do have issue with is some of the things people say about her. There is a certain five year old boy that I have clashed with before for calling me chunky. That's another story for another time. His mother was sufficiently horrified, so I have moved on. However about two weeks ago he called my precious baby girl a chunk head. It took every ounce of maturity I could muster to not say, "Oh yeah poo poo face, what of it?"
He's five, so really how mad can you be. This next woman though is just beyond anything I could have ever imagined.

Here is how it all went down. I went to my local Walmart to pick up some essentials and like usual they had an older woman working the door. As I'm loading the kiddies into the cart, she is acting like she is trying to see in the car seat carrier. So when I walk past her, I pause for her to look at my precious bundle of joy. She says, and I kid you not, "What a fatty." You could have knocked me over with a feather. I'm not really into conflict with total strangers, but I totally would have given her the what-for. The only reason I didn't was because I was so flabbergasted I couldn't do anything but keep walking. Seriously speechless. So old hag Walmart greeter- you are on notice.

Here's a picture of what Morgan thinks of being called all these names. It was taken the day she was called a chunk head.

Howler Monkey sees a howler monkey

My parents and I took the kids to the zoo and we got to see and hear the Howler monkeys. I wish I had taken a video because it is pretty crazy to hear them going. I thought it was a recording. It's funny because we call Joshua a howler monkey from time to time. I took a picture of Joshua pointing at their enclosure. I have also put a link to a youtube video so you can hear a real howler monkey.

Morgan & Mommy

This is from March 5, which was the day Morgan turned 3 months old. My, my, how time flies. If I recall, Morgan was helping me program at the time. More pictures of recent events to come. I've never been particularly good at holding the camera out in front of me and snapping a good pic, so I'm pretty pleased with the results.

From the mouth of babes Part 2

My niece Samantha is a source of never ending amusement. Three year olds say the funniest things. Here are two examples.

1. Samantha was going to come to Autumn's birthday party at Pump-it-up but she insisted on my Mom coming too. We hadn't really anticipated this, but it all worked out. Anyways I was trying to think of reason with Samantha and eventually just told her that Grandma should go home because she is a wet blanket. I even got her to repeat it a few times. It didn't do us any good though. According to Samantha, she and Grandma were going to have their own party at pump-it-up since Grandma wasn't invited to Autumn's.

2. This one is even better. Samantha wanted Uncle Ryan to take her to the potty, which Ryan informed her was "inappropriate." Her response was, "it's not proper etiquette." Hilarious!
Turns out that Cedar tells Samantha that things are inappropriate and follows up with saying it isn't proper etiquette. So when she heard Ryan say it was inappropriate, she knew the next line.

In other news, Joshua is starting to say more and has even put some words together. We have been working with him a lot and it seems to be paying off. Todays "sentences" included, "Thank you Momma," "No cheese," and "yeah, nap." He can tell I was pleased with the No cheese, so he likes to start repeating it every time I tell someone about his accomplishment.

Computer Graveyard & Busy busy busy

It's been awhile for two reasons. 1. Our computers are dying off right and left. Our laptop's hard drive bit the dust and the power supply in Ryan's computer crapped out this morning too!

The other reason is that I've been putting all of my computer time into finishing the Instant Imprints of Tempe website. It is now done and running!! The web address is http://instantimprintsaz.com (May I recommend using Firefox, it's just prettier. Oh and I don't have an Apple to test it on, so if you do and it looks horrible, please let me know. )
Woohoo, I'm so excited and I need to thank a few people. Well just my children for taking long naps at the same time. I couldn't have done it without you kids. Oh and my husband for letting me spend our evening "together time" on the computer and for figuring out the blasted FTP situation. (yes I realize it sounds like I'm accepting an award, but I am exceptionally pleased with myself.)

Drowsy Joshua

We went on a walk tonight to CVS and Joshua must have been really tired. When we got home we discovered he was asleep. I took this awesome video of him snoozing away. Don't worry it gets more interesting than just staring at him asleep. The sneeze in the video is Morgan sneezing in the back half of the stroller. Joshua fell asleep but she stayed awake!

It's a little dark at the beginning but it does get better.