Thursday, December 27, 2007

baaaaack

Finally back. Without further procrastination - the photos...

Christmas Eve - making Jello with Daddy :-)






Ready for Christmas Eve presents! ;-)


Liv and Duncan got mamamade VeggieTales pillows for their room.



CHRISTMAS MORNING!
















Christmas at the Wagners'


Family Shot :-)


Merry Christmas! We'll see all you Oregonians in a couple of weeks! :-)

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Daddy's Little Cougar

Cam took these last night. :-)

(Excuse the not-so-clean inside of my closet...)



Go Cougars! :-)

Our Thanksgiving :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Since we have a big family dinner this Thursday, we decided to have our family Thanksgiving on Friday, November 16th, 2007. It was a lot of fun and my first real Thanksgiving prep. [With a working oven.]

Our menu was as follows [a little less than traditional, we made it to fit us!]:

Turkey
Mashed Pototes
Sweet Potatoes
Fried Green Beans & Onions
Rolls
Vegetable Appetizers
Caesar Salad
Hot Gravy
Whole-Berry Cranberry Sauce

Pumpkin Pie & Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies were served following dinner,
along with the traditional showing of "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving".

Notice only the veggie appetizers on Liv's plate...? *rolls eyes*

The famous olive-finger trick.
No Cole/Victor/[and now] Wagner Thanksgiving
would be right without it. ;-)

Behind Liv is her "placemat" from Nursery at church. Without contact paper though, we decided we would just give her chair a placemat.

Duncan popping a few olives during a game with Daddy.
:-O

Realizing you have another olive on your finger...?
Priceless. :-D



How cute is THAT?


We used my China, first time!, which was given to me by my Grandma Victor and belonged to both Grandma and Grandmother Belva [her mother], our Disney DVD Club free placecards [the kids were ECSTATIC!], and a nice musical woven cotton fabric for our table linen. [I knew having a fabric stash would come in handy one day... ;-)]

Duncan wasn't feeling well but other than that, all were fed and full of fun from our little Thanksgiving night. And you MUST write down this recipe, these cookies are to die for!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened [oops, I used regular, didn't even notice, so it works with reg and tastes GREAT!]
1 cup white sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup canned pumpkin puree [if you buy the big cans of pumpkin, one can will make one batch of these and one pumpkin pie.]
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground cloves [I didn't have ginger or cloves, I used allspice in replace of these two.]
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 cups (12-ounce bag) milk chocolate chips, not semisweet [we used what I had on hand, semisweet...]
cooking spray or shortening, if you're not using a non-stick pan, just grease however you normally would

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease cookie sheets [unless non-stick].

Using a mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Beat in the white and brown sugars, a little at a time, until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time, then mix in the vanilla and pumpkin puree.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves. Slowly beat the flour mixture into the batter in thirds. Stir in the chips.

Scoop the cookie dough by heaping tablespoons onto the prepared or non-stick cookie sheets and back for 15-20 minutes, or until the cookies are browned around the edges. Remove the cookie sheets from the oven and let them rest for 2 minutes. Take cookies of of the pan and let cool on wire racks.

Cam added the chips, scooped them onto the sheets, and monitored the cooking while I was at work. Our oven is a gas oven and it only took ours 9-10 minutes to cook. So keep an eye on the first batch to find out your true cooking time. Makes 3 or more batches depending on your cookie size.

Enjoy! We love you all!

Thursday, November 15, 2007

CARS!

Can you tell he really LIKES this movie? We don't even have it and the kid is already glued. He watches the previews so intently, can't help but laugh.

[and can you tell someone is trying to get the attention of the camera in the background?]


Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Happy Halloween! "Rrrrr!"

Happy Halloween. :-) Enjoy!

Love, the Pirates ahem-- Wagners ;-)





Thursday, October 18, 2007

a hair-raising dilemma...

I was walking through my hallway, phone rang, answered it... it was Cam (who was driving from school to work). We began to chat, the norm. Until I looked down at my needing-to-be-vacuumed carpet... was that hair?

When was the last time I trimmed my bangs?
Didn't I take the bathroom garbage out just yesterday?
Wait... that's too light to be my-- OH no...

That's when I looked up to the table, at my three-year-old eating her macaroni and cheese. Cameron kept asking what was wrong, because I was silent except for the "OH no..."

Yup.

She did it.

The inevitable thing that happens to every little girl at some point in her life... had happened to mine. I had been so careful and always taught her not to do it... apparently I wasn't clear enough.

Two inches across on the front of Liv's head had been cut to eye level.

It was time for a haircut. :-(

Here are our sad (but CUTE) before and afters...


(Notice the chipper happiness...
this is before she discovered how much I had to cut off.
She's turned to look at her "funny" side in the medicine cabinet mirror.)

That's some loooong hair. :-(


And here she is... looks like she's 5-years-old now!


She was watching Cinderella... not paying much attention.
When she started bawling in the bathroom,
because "I was just making it longer, momma..." and
"But I like it longer, I want it longer, don't cut it,"
it absolutely broke my heart...

(After reminding her, she'd look like Snow White when we were done,
and of course - that she could have fruit snacks... well, things brightened up.) :-)


And minus the not paying attention she was suddenly happy again, lol. :-)


So there you have it folks...

My 3-year-old who talks like a 16-year-old
officially looks like a 5-year-old.

(and oddly enough, EXACTLY like my sister Sidney
when her hair was bobbed, lol.)

At least she's cute - man, that phrase saves her every day... :-P

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

wednesday wednesday... such a busy busy day. :-)

Had a nasty storm last night. Liv was terrified that the power would go out but we were okay. Regardless, because of all the lightning and storminess, I had to sign off from work and email HR to let them know. Made up my hours this morning and now I'm off to work on the kids' costumes... more later and maybe - even pictures! :-)

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

the view

Looking out from my office window, where I've been spending increasingly more time, I am blessed by the view of my neighbor's yard... aka construction zone. Half finished shed, old and most likely rusting swing set, a dog run semi-covered by plywood, and a glimpse at what looks like a Gma & Grandson window sticky afternoon project. Not the prettiest.

Looking up it's instant homesickness... a flat, dry horizon with -count them- 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 trees in my field of vision.

To the left are Box Elder trees. Just hundreds. Not like home but it does give me some green, and I'm so thankful for that.

The mountains out here are absolutely gorgeous. I catch a lot of shots while Cam's driving, of these beauties. They're more than I've ever seen and I'm even slowing beginning to tell my navigational directions by them. [The Wasatch (the big ones) are in the East, and the Oquirrh in the West.] I've re-battery-d my camera to stay in my purse so I can actually use the photos somewhere other than just my cell phone.

I've finally begun work and have been improving each day at my line count, that's always encouraging. :-) We've purchased our tickets for a trip to Portland in January and I'm excited for that.

Today, I have a little cleaning a lot of organizing ahead of me. With limited storage, it's hard to organize anything, but I'm tired of the photo boxes blocking our wedding things on the dresser. So I'm going to have to get creative and find a way to make the office work a little better. I have a few ideas but it will certainly be interesting...

I'm also going to be looking at houses, townhomes, and condos in the Magna/West Valley area. We'd like to stay around here but I don't know how that'll work out. We'll see.

More soon, I suppose... :-)

Monday, October 15, 2007

surely...

these babies must be god-sent to get me through the tough days.






okay. i'll admit.
a little bit of baby-converse never hurt anyone. ;-)
(thanks, mom.)

Friday, September 28, 2007

could she be any cuter? [the results]






[and no, Mom, I did not cut her hair]
:-P