Campout!

The girls had the most adorable campout tonight. We got home kinda late, 5:30 ish, because Miss D had a "playdate" (yes, that is a totally modern parenting thing... we just played; today's kids have playdates).

The house was chilly this afternoon because of a grey sky (passive solar heating -- miss it when it's gone!), so I suggested we light a fire and eat dinner in front of the fireplace. That lead to the girls wanting their sleeping bags in front of the fire, so of course we went and got those. After dinner they asked for a movie, so I let them watch Tinkerbell.

Daddy came home early to his three girls on the living room floor in their sleeping bags watching Tinkerbell in front of the fire. Cute?!

Now they are supposedly going to sleep in their sleeping bags down in the playroom (Daddy is enforcing sleep time while I write this post).

I don't have any pictures, but I wanted to remember how much fun we all had eating dinner (and popcorn) in front of the fire with the girls in their sleeping bags.

Oh, and Miss D is wearing her brand new swimsuit that came in the mail today, just to put the cute factor completely over the top!

Cook it in a Cup!

One of the girls (Miss D, I think) received a recipe book called Cook it in a Cup, for Christmas. G'ma Libby and the girls made brownies over the holidays, and they were yummy! We haven't looked at the book since, but the other day when I was meal planning, I pulled it out to see if there were any dinner recipes that I thought my kids would like.

So tonight we made Butternut Squash with Butter and Brown Sugar, and then we made Roasted Broccoli with Garlic and Olive Oil.

Oh. My. Goodness. The butternut squash was just unbelievably good. (I'm going to tweak the recipe to use less butter, and I already halved the brown sugar). K-Wiggles loved the squash. Miss D and M-Moo both tried it, but it may take a few more tries before they like it. Oh, and Costco today had a box of pre-cut butternut squash cubes to make the whole thing even that much easier!

Then everyone loved the broccoli. Such a fun way to make it, and it tasted spectacular. All my girls like broccoli already, but this was just sooooo good.

Highly recommend the cookbook. Pretty cute recipe ideas in there and we will definitely be trying out some more of them. My kids (every kid?) love cooking, even if they don't love the end results every time. It is so fun to put everything together in the kitchen, and Miss D loves that she can now read the recipes, and she's starting to figure out how the fractions work in all the measuring too!

Another this'n'that post.

Things have been quiet at Casa Llamedos since we got back from Florida. The girls have been enjoying school. M-Moo is "this close" to something called getting-her-workbook. It's kind of a big deal for them, marking the transition from 2nd to 3rd year work. Once they can read, and write all their letters, they get a workbook from Educators' Publishing Service. It involves reading and writing and the kids all think it's a big deal, though it's really a small part of the curriculum. M-Moo has been reading for quite a while, but it has taken a bit of work for her to get her writing up to speed for the workbook. (Oddly, her sister Miss D did exactly the same thing at almost precisely the same age).

Miss D has "passed off" on all the language arts work in her classroom. Thankfully, her teacher is on the ball and is meeting with the Elementary teacher today to borrow some Elementary-level language arts works for Miss D so she can continue to be challenged. And K-Wiggles continues to grow, especially in her social skills and math skills, in her happy classroom with Jamy, her great teacher!

All three girls are enjoying ski school on Sundays. Miss D is a solid "black" level skier, able to tackle just about anything on the mountain. Most days, she gets a private lesson because there aren't any other kids her level in the program. We are looking into the possibility of putting her with the Summit Ski Team next year. That is a 16-week program, though, which is a big commitment, as we did 12 last year (too much) and 8 this year (seems to be just about right). We'll see.

M-Moo is a "green" about to advance to a "blue" in her ski school. She is skiing green terrain in control, learning to control speed through turn shape, and doing well getting on the lift independently (poor thing has such short legs it may be a while before she can ride all the lifts by herself!). And K-Wiggles has got herself sorted out and graduated to "green" after a rocky start without the edgie-wedgies.

Mama and Daddy are happy to have their Sundays to ski together. Two weeks ago we had an epic powder day, catching the 1:30 p.m. opening of the 9990 lift and skiing 3-4 runs of untracked waist-deep powder before calling it a day!

On the home front, Mama has been busy purging and organizing. We are making a big effort to get rid of "stuff" this year. It is hard to keep up with the trash going out of here, not to mention the donation bags and boxes. I caved and hired a professional organizer to help me do my mega-pantry. It was money well well spent, I tell ya! My pantry is absolutely dreamy now... just how I always envisioned it. I have done most of our master closet now too, and that is just lovely to be able to see and find all my clothes and to know that everything in my closet is something I like and actually wear! Oh, and I did the master bathroom as well... amazing how many years of accumulated bathroom "stuff" I got rid of!

Daddy has been busy reorganizing things at the business. Good news on that front is that this will be the year that Daddy finally gets to pull back from being down in Salt Lake full time every week. By the end of this year, Daddy should be working from home at least 2 days each week.

I have pictures and videos of random things we've been doing to upload and blog, but, as always, time is the problem. I will get there, eventually!