Forget the rice cereal

When we started feeding the girls for the first time, they both turned their noses up at rice cereal for the first few times. After that though, they loved it. It has been a few weeks since we started Jacob on cereal, and he still hates it. He loves corn though, as you can see below.


At first he just licked it, after a while, he really attacked it.


He even holds it himself.

We tried squash last night and he ate that well too. I guess he just doesn't like the cereal.

My big girl

Christine had her first day of kindergarten today. She also lost her first tooth! She has had such an exciting and busy day. Here are some pictures of what she did today.


Ok, so this wasn't today, it was last week, but this is her classroom. We had an open house last week where she got to meet her teacher and tour the school. After her tour she took us on a tour, her favorite room was the library. She was so excited to be there.


Getting Christine ready in the morning takes an act of Congress and a lot of patience. Not this morning, she was ready to go and helped the little kids get ready too. She even managed to put Jacob's socks on.


Our kindergartner.



The troops heading out. Jacob is with Michael. He went to work late this morning so he could be there for her first day. We'll see how tomorrow goes without his help.


Silly smile, silly girl.


Christine and Mrs. Bravo.
This scene was pretty chaotic. They have the parents say goodbye to their kids outside and then the kids walk with their teacher to the classroom. One little boy was hysterical, and a little girl wouldn't let her mom put her down. I was so glad that Christine has only been excited for school. She has never said anything about being nervous or not wanting to go. She loves to learn and will learn so much this year. She told me her favorite part of school was the three recesses. She made some new friends, but couldn't remember what their name tags said. Not surprising to me, she wasn't able to finish her lunch. Hopefully she'll get used to eating in thirty minutes and not want to spend hours at the table at home. One can dream....


Emma and Jacob left without someone to tell them what to do.
Emma loves to rule the roost, but wondered why she couldn't go to school with all of those kids. We'll start Joy School in less than three weeks. Wish me luck; it's my turn first!


The other big event of the day was Christine losing her first tooth! We discovered after the open house last week that her tooth was very loose. The tooth right by is loose as well. She asked me to pull it tonight, and it came out very easily.


Her very tiny tooth.


A new smile! She is growing so fast. I am so proud of her. I know she'll have a great year in school.

Wedding Pictures that have nothing to do with a wedding

Michael took pictures at a wedding last weekend in Red Lodge. There were eight gigs worth of photos (over 1400) for him to go through. I haven't asked him or the happy couple if I could post any of the pics, so these are some that were taken that had nothing to do with the actual wedding.

Jacob and I played assistant to the photographer. Really, Jacob slept, ate, and was a very happy baby throughout the whole day. It was nice to use his stroller to pack around all of the gear. I was so impressed with him. We got a lot of comments on how good he was (he always is). I played gopher for Michael.


A little down time between group photos and the start of the ceremony. We had to wait out the rain in the tent, luckily it stopped just in time for the ceremony.


I loved their centerpieces. I'll have to admit, when Michael told me that they were using orange as their main color, I was a little skeptical. It was beautiful, though.


Only Michael could find a classic car to take pictures of at a wedding. The sound of this beaut was music to his ears.

Congrats Dan and Briana, thanks for letting us share in your day!

A Picture is Worth $1400

Michael did photos for a wedding last weekend. He decided that he wanted another lens; the lens in question costs $1400. We don't have $14o0 laying around, so he rented one. These pictures are from him playing around with his new "baby"-his words. I actually caught him caressing the lens once. I'll admit, it was a very cool lens. He was very sad to send it back.

A grinning Jacob


Tired eyes


I love baby feet


The Billings Temple at sunset


The Ferris wheel at the Billings Fair

We tried rice cereal with Jacob last week.


Here's one of the first few bites.



And this is what he thought of it. Maybe we'll try again later. He wasn't thrilled with the idea of eating from a spoon. I think he thought we were trying to poison him, not that rice cereal tastes all that wonderful anyway.

Broccoli Bacon Quiche

My dad complained that I was slacking on the blog, so I thought I had better post something. We are a little bored here. The girls are at my parents house for the week, so no antics to tell you about. They are having a great time, and Emma even asked if they were going to stay there forever. We miss them, and kind of wish they missed us too. Oh well, I'd rather they have fun than cry about us.

We went to the fair here last night. I had never seen a hypnotist perform, so I was able to do that for the first time. It's amazing what he could get people to do. Some of the guys walked away with painted toenails. There were a lot of other funny antics which you had to be there to experience.

Anyway, my recipe today is something I made a couple of weeks ago but just got the pictures uploaded to the computer. A note before beginning to make this recipe - it takes about an hour and a half to make, so be sure to give yourself plenty of time.

Broccoli Bacon Quiche


Crust:
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
6 tbs chilled butter
1/4 tsp salt
3-4 tbs cold water

Filling:
16 oz chopped broccoli
1 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup scallions, diced
6 eggs
1 1/3 cup milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
8 slices bacon, crumbled

Preheat oven to 425. Combine the flours, salt, and butter in a bowl. Mix with pastry blender or fork until the consistency of cornmeal. Add just enough water to make the dough come together. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out into a 12 inch circle. Place in a 10 inch pie plate. Crimp edges with fingers and prick crust all over with a fork. Bake until light brown about 10 minutes.

Beat eggs, milk, and salt in a bowl. Add onion, broccoli, bacon, cheese, and pepper. Pour into crust. Bake 50-60 minutes until puffed, light brown, with the center set. Let cool 10 minutes before slicing.

Notes: Most pie plates are 9-inch, so be sure of your size. If you don't have a 10-inch plate, decrease the eggs to 4, the milk to 1 cup, the scallions to 1/3 cup, and the broccoli to 10 oz. This crust is very crumbly. If you have a mat to roll on, this works the best. You could also use parchment paper or wax paper, but these usually are too narrow. It can be done just on a floured counter top. Keep some water handy to patch any tears when it comes time to transfer to the plate.

Yea Emma!

Emma has been potty trained for a couple of weeks now, so last week we made a Build a Bear for her. The big prize she chose for being potty trained was to go to Build a Bear and get a bear that roars. She picked a dog instead of a bear, but the dog still roars like a bear/lion; it's really quite fierce. She picked a little bikini with flip flops for her dog to wear, the dog's name is Hannah, by the way. She wanted to name it H, but we convinced her to go with a name that started with H. We let Christine pick out an outfit for a bear she had gotten earlier. She chose a mermaid outfit for her bear to wear. Her bear's name has changed from Emma to Ariel.


Ariel, Christine, Emma, and Hannah


Hannah, Jacob, and Ariel


The girls thought this was hilarious. He would make a pretty cute girl too. A part of me feels bad for him. He will be their little doll until he's old enough to fight them off. We'll make sure every step of the way is documented. He may be sweet now, but you never know when you'll need some blackmail.

Late Night

Michael and I went to a movie last night with some of his co-workers. Wynn was gracious enough to watch the girls for us. When we got home, Wynn said, "You're going to be so mad." I'm thinking the girls (okay, just Emma) have done something disastrous. Then he told me that our closet had fallen off the wall. What?! How does a closet fall off of a wall, it's a hole the wall.

This is what he meant

This is actually the cleaned up version. The bracket bent, which sent the shelf tumbling, which sent the rod down. Nothing is actually broken, it's just all over the floor. We figured that since we are supposed to move in October that we would just box the gazillon sweaters and photos. What good fortune Michael had to take Friday off, so he already has a project lined up for him. What a lucky guy. This was not what I was looking forward to doing at 10:00 last night. So much for getting to bed at a decent hour.