Sneak Peek

I had my lights set up to take some dance portraits of The Princess. Daddy came home from work, and Miss Sparky woke up right about the time I finished photographing The Princess. She was giggling and happy, and I decided to try capturing a few images of her before she knew what was happening. We got some great captures (both of her AND The Princess), and I'll share more of them soon, but I just wanted to post a couple of them tonight. Don't worry - she actually gave me some smiles and some eye contact, but I figured I'd save those for the real showcase. :)

This is her typical "just chillin'" expression.



And a modified version of the same expression.



And here we have the Amazing Levitating Baby...

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Best Fajitas EVER!!

I love fajitas. I don't like paying for them at restaurants. :) Since I made the mistake of leaving out the entire Costco-sized bag of chicken (after intending to only take out 3 pieces for dinner), I've had to get through a LOT of chicken this week. I decided to marinate a bunch of it in a chili lime sauce, and then pan seared it and we had fajitas tonight. They were so good I wanted to cry. Seriously - better than any restaurant fajitas I've ever eaten.

Here's the recipe for the Chili Lime Chicken - it's great by itself, but it's also good in fajitas, and I think it would be wonderful in a salad, as well. I have 3 more chicken breasts marinate that I have to cook up tonight, and I'll be freezing it to eat later.

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons green onions, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon fresh cilantro, chopped
2 teaspoons cumin
salt and pepper, to taste

Combine all the ingredients except the chicken in a plastic bag. Seal the bag, and mush everything together to combine. Add chicken to the bag and toss to coat. Allow to marinate at least 3 hours.

The recipe says the chicken should be grilled, but we pan seared it, and it was really moist and yummy.

For the fajitas, I just cooked up some onions, mushrooms, and red peppers. We heated up the tortillas, added a little cheese, and had a really easy, delicious dinner.

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Updated Pictures of the Girls

Here are some recent pictures of the girls. I struggle to take their pictures these days. My camera doesn't handle indoor natural light very well, and I'm not always in the mood to bounce the flash. I seem to have misplaced the battery AND the memory card for my point and shoot camera.

Not to mention, neither of the girls is willing to give me a decent facial expression these days. The Princess is stuck in the five-year-old cheeser grin phase (or she resorts to the other extreme where she looks way too moody and depressed), and Miss Sparky insists on staring at me like I'm torturing her in the worst possible way - seriously, she refuses to smile when I have a camera in front of my face. I thought she was too young for that, but apparently she was born with it.

So here are the pictures - weird facial expressions and all...

Here's the typical cheeser grin.



And various other facial expressions. I was excited to finally use the pink chair I got from a yard sale a couple years ago.



Playing with textures... Not sure what I think of it.



And a couple of Miss Sparky. This is really the only expression she'll give me. And no, I don't pinch her to make her scowl like that.





At least she gave me some eye contact.



And I love this image of the two of them together. The Princess gets annoyed with her little sister at times (especially when she's screaming at the top of her lungs in the backseat of the car - which happens any time we go out), but she's seriously in love with her at the same time.

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More Princess-isms...

I'm sorry it's been so long since I've blogged. I've been having a rough time of it lately, and blogging just hasn't been a top priority. I'm trying to stay faithful and cheerful, though, and I'm going to attempt to blog more regularly.

I don't have any recent pictures - I apologize for that, as well. I've been working hard at re-establishing my portrait business, which means I've been doing lots of complimentary sessions to hopefully start generating good word of mouth. But I've been photographing so many sessions that it's been difficult to pick up my camera and photograph my own kiddos - and when I do take pictures, the last thing I want to do right now is spend any more time on the computer editing.

Okay, enough of the pity party. Onto the cuteness of The Princess. Regardless of how down I'm feeling, she always manages to say something sweet to brighten my day. I love my children and my husband so very much, and they mean more to me every day - I'm trying VERY hard to remember right now that no matter what else happens, I have a beautiful family who loves me, and that's really all that matters in the end.

We're still dealing with The Princess' very strong personality. She got in trouble the other day and before she went downstairs for her timeout, she said:

"I don't want to be a growing up. I changed my mind."

Of course, today she was asking me if she looked like a teenager. Apparently if she had looked like a teenager, she would have been allowed to get a bigger drink at Costco. She didn't believe me when I told her that they only have one drink size.

This is what she said the other day when she wanted to be allowed to take a bath:

"I noticed something in my mind. My mind typed www.hiccups.com and noticed that it might work that when I take a nice long warm bath it may cool down my hiccups."

She was playing with her friend outside a few weeks ago (she has a sand and water table out on the back deck) and the following conversation ensued:

The Princess: "I am making my own tower of doom."

Ginger: "What's doom?"

The Princess: "Doom like a tornado! Like I'm making."

When she was praying:

"Dear Heavenly Father, please send your angels so I can be protective and happy all my days."

To her daddy:

"Daddy, I know you're not a superhero, but you act like one for me."

I think this one means the most to me right now. She was confusing the words "imagineering" and "believing." I was having a pretty rough day. She came up to me and said,

"Have you started believing? You should start believing today."

I'm trying with all my heart to keep believing. I promise. :)

That's about it for now. I'll probably post something similar in a month or so when I've collected more sayings. As always, I miss everyone back home, and I love you all so very much.

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Grandma RosiePepper's Conversation with the Princess Last Night

**Kleenex Alert** (Don't say I didn't warn you)

The Princess had a really neat conversation with her grandma last night. The conversation was subsequently emailed to me. I can't say it any better than grandma did in her email to me, so I'm just going to copy and paste her email here.

"G-- asked me to talk to the Princess to help her believe two things - that her grandmas pray for angels to be with her, and that the angels keep the monsters away.

So, when she got on the phone, he had her ask me if there are angels in her room. I assured her that there are, because I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers, and every night I pray that her angels will be with her so that she has nice dreams. She asked more questions - can the angels see the monsters (because some monsters are hard to see) - yes, because angels are Heavenly Father's best friends, and Heavenly Father can see everything so he makes sure His angels can see everything. She was still skeptical, so, remembering something she once (or more times) said about wanting a big sister, I said that maybe one of the angels is her big sister angel. She said something like "My big sister angel? Is she my age?" Yes, or maybe even older. "Like 10 or 17 ... or 18?" Yes, she could be that old, and she watches over you. The angels make sure there aren't any monsters, so that you will have nice dreams. Oh, and she did ask if there really are girl angels. YES!

I think that's about it - if I remember any more gems I will let you know. She was so genuine, so convinced that the monsters are real and needed so much reassurance that there is protection. Yes, I do believe that she, and all of us, have angels watching over us, keeping the "monsters" away. Every day, all day, when I pray for all of you, all of my family, to be safe and feel His and my love, that's praying for His and your angels, and the Holy Ghost, to deliver that message. I didn't lie to her, I didn't make anything up. I don't know exactly who her angels are - she has plenty of ancestors, and others who love her, who are watching over her - and you!"

Thanks, Grandma RosiePepper - I know you helped her sleep better last night.

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Snow Day!

Snow is a pretty rare thing here. The last "big" storm was in 2004. Meteorologists were only predicting 2-4 inches, but it's apparently a pretty big deal to have ANY snow here. I ran to the grocery store to pick up bread on Monday night, and the lines were INSANE.

I think we ended up receiving about 3 inches in our neighborhood, but all of the schools were closed (DH informs me that this wasn't due to the amount of snow on the ground in the morning, but due to the fact that if it had kept snowing all day, students would have been forced to stay at school overnight like they were in 2004 - we're not well-equipped to deal with snow around here), and DH was allowed to work from home.

We didn't tell The Princess about the possibility of snow the night before, because we didn't want her to get her hopes up and then be disappointed. She's still feeling pretty homesick, and she's been sad at the lack of snow here. So when she woke up in the morning and DH told her to look out the window, she was thrilled. We were hard pressed to convince her to allow everyone to dress warmly before going outside to play.



Catching snowflakes on her tongue...



It was REALLY cold, so DH convinced her to zip up her jacket.



Posing with daddy - isn't he handsome?





Sparky managed to last outside for a few minutes, but she wasn't really a fan of the hat, and my jacket wasn't warm enough for her, so we went back inside and made hot chocolate for The Princess to enjoy after playing outside as long as possible.



A couple pictures of the backyard after the flurries finally stopped.

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Easy Chicken Recipe

This is the easiest dinner I've ever made. You could probably make it in your sleep (I think I was half asleep when I put it in the crockpot this morning). Even though it's simple, it's really good.

Frozen Chicken Breasts (I used 3)
1 Bottle Italian Dressing
1 Cup grated Parmesan Cheese

Plop frozen chicken breasts in the crockpot. Cover with Italian Dressing. Cook on low for about 4 hours, then flip chicken breasts over and smother with Parmesan cheese. Cook for another 3-4 hours on low.

That's it! You can actually put everything in the crockpot and cook on low all day without turning everything over, but my chicken breasts were kind of big, and I wanted to flip them over halfway through to make sure everything was covered in Italian dressing. I wouldn't have needed to worry about it if I'd marinated them in the dressing overnight.

We really enjoyed this chicken. I served it with pan seared broccoli and Parmesan mashed potatoes. Even The Princess cleaned her plate.

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