Getting into the season of Christmas

1. Hey we got elfed, check us out at the link below.
   How cool are we! I know your all jealous.

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1347178715

Ava's Christmas Dress Part 1

Well, my friend Dani was right, she and her husband are afraid to have a girl because they know they will go broke. Ava has not one, not two, but three Christmas dresses this year. Granted we only bought her two of them, and her Grandma bought her one. I'm pretty picky when it comes to Christmas dresses, I found the one below at Target and fell in love with it. There was actually a forth dress involved but I returned it to Costco, it was very cute, but these other ones were too cute. My favorite one is the one she will be wearing the Sunday before Christmas, I will post a picture when she wears it. The jacket in the picture above was mine when I was Ava's age. My stepmom Diane put new lining in it and now Ava gets to wear it. We are going to keep passing it down to all the little girls. This was the best picture I could get of Ava in her dress, she kept running away from me. She's discovered screaming, I remember when Quinn went through this stage, driving in the car was so fun! Other then that though, she's a pretty quiet girl. She is very sensitive, I have to be careful what and how I say things to her because her feelings get hurt easily. I know she's a girl! She's extremely sweet, but watch out for that attitude, she definitely knows what she wants and is not afraid to let you know.

Snow

Well needless to say it snowed here, it's obviously nothing like the snow we use to get in Utah, but Quinn sure had fun. Here are a couple pics of him playing in the snow with his Dad. After he came inside he said to me "Mom let's go outside so I can throw a snowball at you". He sure is a funny little Quinny.

We haven't been up to much else, we set up the Christmas tree, Grandma had to put all her nice ornaments up really high so they would be safe from the little monkey (also known as Ava).

Bragging

So Quinn and Ava were in the family room picking up their toys, when I overheard Quinn telling Ava "good girl" and "big girl Ava picking up your toys". It was such a proud mommy moment for me, I guess they really are listening to you, even when you think their not. He was even holding the bag open for her so she could put them in, he's such a good big brother.
Ava's cheesy grin, she's so funny, and cute.
Here is Quinn at the science center seeing how fast he can through a wiffle ball, he averaged about 14mph, the highest he got was 16mph. I thought that was pretty good since he is only 3, and grown men were throwing it and getting about 35mph. I think he's going to follow in his Daddy's and Papa's footsteps and be a baseball pitcher.
Quinn, Ava, and cousin Lucia riding on the back of a centipede. Aren't they cute!

Creamy Tomato Chicken Pasta

So I was at the Cheese Cake Factory last week and I had this really yummy creamy marinara sauce and I have been craving it ever since so I decided to see if I could recreate something close to it and this is the result:

Creamy Tomato Chicken Pasta

1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 Tbls. olive oil
1 14.5oz. can diced tomatoes
1 15oz. can tomato sauce
1 tsp. italian seasoning
1 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. black pepper
4 small chicken breast, cubed
1 cup heavy cream
1 pound pasta (I used penne, but would also be good with spaghetti or linguine)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, shredded

Saute onion and garlic in 2 Tbls. olive oil, add can diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, basil, italian seasoning, red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper. Simmer for 30 minutes. While the sauce simmers, saute the cubed chicken breast in 2 Tbls. olive oil. Cook the pasta according to the package directions. When the sauce is done simmering add the heavy cream and heat for 1 minute. Add the cooked chicken and serve over pasta. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top.

This was a big hit with the family, let me know if you liked it too. Oh, and if any one wants to think of a better name for it, that would be great.

Halloween

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!

The kids are still too young to carve up their own pumpkin so we had them use paint and decorate theirs. As you can tell they had fun with the paint. luckily this year more paint ended up on the pumpkin than them. As you can tell in the pictures Quinn was spiderman and Ava was the cutest peacock. We got complements from everyone on her costume. We had a blast taking them trick or treating. This is the first year that Quinn understood Halloween, at least the part about wearing costumes, knocking on doors, saying trick or treat and getting CANDY. They got a ton of candy. Last Saturday was our ward harvest party and trunk or treat, which completely filled up their buckets of course Quinn's bucket was a spiderman head. Then on Halloween they got it over half full before they were wiped out and ready to go home.

Christina did the pirate skull

Matt did the Explorer finding the diamond and on the other side the Scream

Christinas Dads Passing

On Sunday September 16 we found out that Christina's dad died in car accident. It appears that he fell asleep while driving home. Luckily no one else was involved in the accident. The funeral services were on Saturday. The service was very good and uplifting. The church was filled beyond capacity leaving people standing in the back. It has been a hard long week for all of us, but we are grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives and the comfort that it brings letting us know that we will see him again. We want to thank everyone who has prayed for us and shown their love and support.

Yoga Babies

So yesterday I finally did it, I started going to a Yoga/Pilates class. I loved it, but needless to say I am a little sore today, so this morning I decided to do some stretches to hopefully help my sore muscles, and Quinn and Ava decided to join in. It was so funny they were even taking the same deep breaths as me.

Here is Quinn, I mean Spiderman in the cobra pose.

Here is Ava in the downward dog pose.Here is Quinn a sleep with his Spiderman, notice Spiderman has to have his own pillow. The other morning Quinn came and got in bed with me, Quinn took one pillow and when I went to lay on my pillow he said,"No mom that's Spiderman's pillow!" Oh, the things that come out of that kids mouth. My mom once told me that age 3 is her favorite because you never know what's going to come out of their mouths. I think I'm starting to agree.

Too TOUGH for Christina

As most of you know Christina loves to cook and some might consider her a chef, but today she met her match in the kitchen. discouraged by a few big hits Christina figured a way to fight back and win the war with the Onion.

Christina's kitchen comes equipped with everything. Even Onion fight goggles.

On another note Christina and I went out last night ALONE!!!! we went to this new restaurant called Spazzos. Its an Italian restaurant owned by the Swartzs brothers, for any of you from the Seattle area they also own Daniels broiler and Chandlers crab house. All excellent restaurants. Spazzos lived up to the other restaurants and was fabulous. When we sat down a table next to us had ordered a cheese appetizer that they pour brandy over and lit on fire. Christina saw the awesome fire and said yum. that looks good and ordered some for us. The funny thing was that she never really saw the plate of food, just the fire. While we were waiting for our appetizer i asked Christina if it was going to come with crackers or anything or just a slab of cheese. "Oh it'll come with something I'm sure" she said. It came and this is what it was. Christina made sure I got a picture of it for our blog.

A big blob of cheese. $10 worth. The cheese was excellent and very flavorful. we just thought it was funny that we got a big blob of cheese with nothing else. Another favorite moment last night was when i asked the server to tell me about the Orechetti, which in the description was pasta with shrimp, and broccoli in a broth. His responds was, "its noodles (pause) and shrimp (pause) in a bowl." to save him I told him he sold me on the dish. He then said," did you know today is only my third day" which my responds was " No, I didn't know that" then he realized that was a stupid question and responded by " of course you wouldn't". You might have had to been there to find this funny, but it was hilarious just how things played out. After dinner Christina and I went and saw the harry potter movie.

Woodland Park Zoo

Quinn had been asking us to go to the zoo for the past week to see the animals, so we took him. Today was an awesome day to be outside. This whole week has been clear skies and sunny. Today was about 85-90 degrees. All the animals were out and very entertaining to watch. They were all active moving around and making sounds.

our little butterfly.

Quinn got to go feed the giraffes.




We got some good shots of the animals today being active.

This is a sloth bear. can you tell?

QUINN'S 3RD BIRTHDAY!

Yesterday we celebrated Quinn's birthday Spiderman style. The party turned out really good with friends and family present. It would have been nice if Matthew, Jack and Quinn's other friends from Provo could have been able to be here to celebrate. Here are some pictures from the party. Christina made the cake and of course we had a pinata. We also played pin the mask on spiderman. Quinn scored a ton of spiderman stuff from posters, costumes, balls, playing cards, baseball bat, stuffed spidy, sunglasses, lunchbox and there might be more that I'm forgetting, but Quinn absolutely loves spiderman. Quinns costume is reversible so we know what mood hes in by which colors he is wearing out.

This is when we know quinn is going to make bad choices.



This is Quinns tough man look. Be afraid! Be very afraid!

Spidy spun his web for Quinns birthday.

Christina made this cake all by herself. Way to go Christina. I think she'll start taking cake orders in the fall.

Ava and Quinn

Sunday was a bitter sweet day. Ava started nursery. Yes she is only 17 months but I talked the nursery leaders into letting her come in early. She is so ready, every Sunday when we drop Quinn off it's hard to get her out of there. Thankfully they have the nursery split for the younger and older kids so Quinn and Ava aren't together until the very end when it's almost time for us to go pick them up. She did a great job for her first time, they only had to bring her to me for the last 20 minutes of church because she was getting tired and wanted her mommy. So I actually got to listen in class which I haven't been able to do in a long time, I only had one month off between Quinn going into nursery and having Ava. I can't believe my baby is getting so big, it makes me so sad, but also happy because she just gets funnier the older she gets, like for example the above picture is the face Ava makes when she sees you point a camera at her, oh the girls hilarious.
And speaking of getting older I can't believe my little Quinny is going to be 3 on Sunday. He is getting so big. This morning I told him that his birthday is on Sunday and that he is going to be turning 3. He is very excited, we haven't told him yet that he is having a Spiderman birthday party, I know once we tell him he won't talk about anything else until his party. We were even able to find a Spiderman pinata because as most of you know it's not a Stevulak party without a pinata, and I am also going to try my hand at a Spiderman cake, we will see how it turns out. Quinn is also one of funniest people that we know, the above picture is of Quinn showing off his big muscles in his cute blue camo underoos. Oh, and Matt told me I forgot to mention Quinn's potty training, it is going very well. He is only wearing a diaper now when he goes to bed at night or if we are going on a long car ride. I got some great pointers from Sarah, we did a pee pee chart that he got to put stickers on every time he went to the bathroom, and he also got a treat which was usually one jelly belly, and then every time he filled up a row on his pee pee chart he got a bigger surprise (like new Spiderman sandals). It helped keep it exciting for him, because it seems to get old real quick especially when he's playing and doesn't want to take the time to go. Yeah Quinny!!

New niece

My newest niece was born this morning at 3:33am. Her name is Xochitl (pronounced Sochill) and she is so cute. We are so excited to add her to our family.

Christinas First Salmon

Christina and Matt went fishing Monday and Tuesday. Matt's sister lives right on the Puget Sound right infront of a salmon hot spot. There were two ways we fished, one was wearing waders and fishing from shore and the other was fishing off a pier. Our preferred method was fishing from shore. We hooked a lot of salmon, but were unfortunate to only land a small percentage of those. The cool thing is that you can fish for four different types of salmon in that one spot, which are pinks, silvers, humpies, and even Kings. Christina wanted to make sure that everyone knew that she caught the biggest fish. GO CHRISTINA! Christinas is the first one and the bottom of the picture.

We had a great time and will heading back to do some more when Matt gets back in town. Christina will probably sneak back down next week to catch some more while Matts gone.

The next day we took the salmon over to Christinas parents house and BBQ the salmon. Yummy. Heres a picture of Quinn and Ava swinging with their Papa at the salmon BBQ.