You remind me of the babe. . .

the girls and i are in portland, oregon for the next few weeks and one of the first things we did was go to a theater, for free--thank you uncle dannon--and watch labyrinth! i have waited 25 years for this and it was well worth the wait! it was awesome! riley thought it was fun, but scary in some parts. valen liked it, but i think she got a little bored--she was crawling around on the floor at one point. for all of you out there that have the opportunity to, i highly recommend the experience!

Magic Number

Valen is learning multiplication in math, and this week are the three factors. Need I say more?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxmKRyLdBho

Multi-Mushroom Stroganoff

So we had this for dinner last night and I was greatly impressed. I love stroganoff, but without using meat we haven't a recipe that tastes good, until this one! It is definitely worth a try!

~3 T olive oil
~1 pound mushrooms (such as porcini, shiitakes or oysters) sliced
~3 scallions, sliced
~2 garlic cloves, crushed
~2 T dry sherry or vermouth
~salt and ground pepper
~1 1/4 C sour cream or creme fraiche
~1 T fresh marjoram or thyme leaves chopped
~fresh parsley, chopped

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the mushrooms gently, stirring them occasionally until they are softened and just cooked.
2. Add the scallions, garlic and sherry or vermouth and cook for a minute more. Season well.
3. Stir in the sour cream or creme fraiche and heat to just below boiling. Stir in the marjoram or thyme, then scatter the parsley on top. Serve with rice, pasta or boiled new potatoes.

I highly recommend using the mushrooms it suggests. I couldn't find any porcini, but found the others. They are meaty mushrooms and help add a lot of flavor to the dish. ENJOY!

Birthday Surprise

for some crazy reason i got it in my head that it would be fun to celebrate the "milestone" birthday's for my siblings and their spouses. we've done fun little things like sending 35 of something each month for a year; or begging people to donate money for 30 DVDs; and other such things. well, it's my turn to turn 30. since i am the organizer of all of these events, i didn't expect much from my siblings this year. . .but oh how wrong i've been. for the past ten months they have been taking turns sending me 3 or 4 letters--as in from the alphabet--that i am supposed to put together and figure out what it is they are getting me for my birthday. some of them have been fairly straight forward like letters cut from a magazine or construction paper, or stickers. some were sent to me on postcards. others in plain or creative emails. one was even sent on a university of wyoming student government hand towel--i'll tell the story behind that one later. but the one today is the one that prompted me to post this. i got a box of tea:


the scarlet letter--which i've been wanting to read:


this coloring book:

and a note saying i should be able to figure out the letters based on the objects! when i showed them to justin he just laughed--he's in on the surprise. i'm having a fun time with it all, but am really frustrated at the same time! how am i supposed to figure this out?! justin told me he would help, but not until i get all of the clues. i love my siblings, but they are driving me crazy! i can't wait until april so i can get this figured out--and it better be good!

on the bright side, i can now take a hot bath, have tea and read a good book!

Niagara Aquarium

All of us had the day off so we thought we would go somewhere fun, but close to home. We have never been to the Niagara Aquarium, and we had a coupon and wanted to do some other fun things in that area, so we went.


More than the sharks themselves--which we saw during feeding time--Riley enjoyed playing in the shark cage. She kept getting "caught" between the bars and asking one of us to "save" her.


Justin hates these kind of pictures, but the girls love them, so he obliges. We spent quite a bit of time in this part of the museum looking around, eating and waiting for the sea lion show--which rocked! This is also where Riley found her new friend. Her and this little girl spent quite a bit of time running around, chasing each other, screaming and yelling. Riley was really sad when we had to leave her friend to have lunch.



I'm not sure how this one happened!

This is us attempting a picture, but SQUIRREL!

We had a great time at the aquarium. Our favorite part was the sea lion show. The girls also enjoyed the stuffed animals they got--thank goodness for left over Christmas money. Justin was a little taken aback at how much they cost, and was a little shocked that I was letting the girls spend so much money on them, until he found out that it was their money, he felt better after that. Valen got a penguin and Riley ended up with a seal--she named it squirt after the sea lion we saw at the show.

After leaving the aquarium we headed over to the outlet malls for some fun and shopping, but not fun shopping. I am of the opinion that if you don't have to pay full price for something, you shouldn't. So our entire trip today was based on coupons. We had a buy one get one free coupon for the aquarium and whenever we use those they always take the child's price off, which upsets me. So, I had Justin purchase the adult tickets, to ensure that we got the second adult ticket free, then I purchased the children's tickets--Riley was free and we got a dollar off Valen's ticket using our AAA card!

We had a great time at the mall with our coupons. We had coupons for a free scoop of Ben and Jerry's ice cream, a free Auntie Anne's pretzel and a free cookie from Subway. What a great snack and what a great way to load our kids up on sugar! Then we did a little shopping--all great bargains of coarse--and came home. It was a great--and inexpensive--day!

oh, so funny!

Justin has a couple of websites that he spends--or as i call it wastes--a lot of time. Every once in a while he comes across one that is particularly funny:



sorry if you can't see it, but squint, it's worth it!




this one is just too good!

Rileyisms

Some of the cute things that Riley has said or done in the past few days:

~Riley has been super obsessed with princesses lately. She has to wear a princess dress every day. There is one inparticular that she is fond of--pink with white polka dots. This dress was dirty yesterday and to help console her--for it was a great tragedy--I picked out an everyday red dress. At first, this seemed to please her. But once she got it on she twirled around a few times she suddenly dropped into a crying heap on the floor. When I asked her what was wrong she looked up at me and said, "Mom it's not a princess dress, I not a princess." Apparently the dress didn't have enough material to make a large twirl, and therefore did not qualify as a princess dress.

~As many of you know, I collect Pez dispensers. Riley and I were looking through them the other day, when she picked up the Death Star--for those that are not Star Wars fans it is a little planet shaped ball--and said, "Look Mom, a Bakugan!" and threw it across the room. For those of you that don't know what Bakugan are--they are small balls that pop up into little robots that you fight with during a card battle. One of the ways to get them open is to throw them. Bakugan is Valen's new obsession.

~Riley was watching James and the Giant Peach. During one of the songs, James sings about himself in New York City, and calls himself by name several times. Riley was singing along with the song as best she could. The best part was when James would say his name, Riley substituted her name instead. It was hilarious listening to her call out, "Riley, Riley, Riley isn't it a lovely day!"