The 2nd happiest place on earth- Lagoon 2016

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Leprechaun Traps for St. Patrick's Day

Recipes for Sisters

Howdy blogger people. I need to share a few of my favorite recipes with the lovely Haws sisters and friends and  I  figured this would be the easiest way to share. Don't get your hopes up for posts in the near future because I am not really great at getting much done these done that require me to sit at the computer, or clean:) 

White Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients

10 soft taco shells

2 cups cooked, shredded chicken

2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese

3 Tbsp. butter

3 Tbsp. flour

2 cups chicken broth

1 cup sour cream

1 (4 oz) can diced green chilies

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 pan

Mix chicken and 1 cup cheese. Roll up in tortillas and place in pan.

In a sauce pan, melt butter, stir in flour and cook 1 minute. Add broth and whisk until smooth. Heat over medium heat until thick and bubbly.

Stir in sour cream and chilies. Do not bring to boil, you don't want curdled sour cream.

Pour over enchiladas and top with remaining cheese.

Bake 22 min and then under high broil for 3 min to brown the cheese

Beef and Broccoli

First, marinate the meat:

 1/2 tsp baking soda

 1 tsp sugar

 1 tbsp cornstarch

 1 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce

 1 tbsp water § 2 tbsp vegetable oil

 1 1/2 lbs flank steak, sliced into thin strips

Whisk together the baking soda, sugar, cornstarch, soy sauce, water, and vegetable oil in a large bowl. Toss the steak with the marinade to coat. Cover and refrigerate at least 1 hour, then proceed below.

 1/2 c low-sodium soy sauce (Do NOT use regular. The final product will be way too salty)

 2 tbsp brown sugar

 4 cloves garlic, minced

 2 tbsp flour

 1 tbsp sherry

 3 tbsp vegetable oil

 2 heads broccoli, crowns only

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1. In a small bowl, stir together the soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, flour and sherry until smooth. Set aside.

2. In a large wok or saute pan, heat 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil over high heat until shimmering. Add broccoli and saute 3 minutes, stirring often. Transfer broccoli to a plate.

 3. Reduce heat to medium-high. Carefully add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the hot pan. Add the marinated meat and half of the sauce mixture and saute for 3- 4 minutes, stirring often, until the meat is cooked through and no longer pink. Stir in the broccoli and remaining sauce. Saute 1 minute more. Serve

ROASTED NEW POTATOES AND ASPARAGUS

INGREDIENTS:

1 bunch fresh asparagus, with thick stalks, ends trimmed, cut in 1 1/2 – 2 inch pieces

1-2 pounds new potatoes, cut in half or thirds (the larger ones)

olive oil

3 cloves garlic, sliced

1 tablespoon dried Italian seasoning, crushed between fingertips

sea or kosher salt and fresh black pepper

1-2 tablespoons fresh basil or parsley, chopped

fresh grated Parmesan cheese, for serving

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In an extra large mixing bowl toss the asparagus, potatoes, 2-3 tablespoons olive oil, garlic, Italian seasoning and plenty of salt and pepper together. Alternately you can use your hands to massage the oil and seasonings into the vegetables.

Grease a roasting pan, casserole dish or sheet pan. Roast vegetables about 35-45 minutes until potatoes are tender. Garnish with fresh herbs. Serve with Parmesan cheese.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie

Ingredients

¹⁄₂   cup milk

1¹⁄₂   tbsp peanut butter

1   tbsp honey

¹⁄₂   tbsp cocoa powder

1   banana

1   cup ice cubes

Throw the ingredients  in and blend for 45 seconds

Guacamole

INGREDIENTS:

3 avocados - peeled, pitted, and mashed 1 lime, juiced 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup diced onion

3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro 2 roma (plum) tomatoes, diced 1 teaspoon minced garlic 1 pinch ground cayenne pepper (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

1.	In a medium bowl, mash together the avocados, lime juice, and salt. Mix in onion, cilantro, tomatoes, and garlic. Stir in cayenne pepper. Refrigerate 1 hour for best flavor, or serve immediately.

Here is my little vampire baby! His front tooth is just about to break through, and I had to get a picture

before it did. I tried once before to get a picture of his fangs, but Chandler was fighting hard not to have my fingers in his month. The picture I did get of his teeth the first round  look awful. It looked like I was ripping off his lip! I couldn't post a picture where it looked like I was ripping lips off. This time around I pulled out the big guns to get Chandler to be a little happier with me prying he mouth open. When I say big guns I mean chocolate. And Yes, Chandler loved it! 

New Years Resolutions

Typically I never think much about making New Years Resolutions because I am to cool for that, just kidding! I just haven't ever really been attracted to the idea, but at the end of 2013 I saw so many ways I needed to improve. So my New Years resolution is to improve. I made a few little signs that I put up on the magnet board in my room, and my goal each day is to get as many of them accomplished as possible. My little signs say: Pray, Read the Scriptures, Give Service, Make a Record, Stay Calm, Make Dinner, Eat Healthy, Do a load of Laundry, Workout, Clean something, and Do the Dishes After Every Meal. :) Eating Healthy is totally my hang up. I just love to EAT A LOT! Even when I make healthy food I eat way to much thus not making as healthy. I also Haven't been great at keeping my sink clean.(Jake has been ding the dishes for me lately and I LOVE him for it.) I will improve in those two things!

Here are my littles today! Tori and Macy are holding little chocolate mint sticks that I bought at a discount at fresh market. I really like them because that are so yummy and small enough they are only 15 calories each. 

2013

Wow 2013 is over and I didn't post once. I bet y'all thought this blog was abandoned. Ha! I did think about posting quite a few times :) But it is taking a New Years resolutions for me to get my fingers a moving.

This year to save a few pennies I skipped on sending on Christmas cards :(  so let me share with you a few things from last year...


Jake started the year off right by nearly cutting his finger off. No, his finger was not dangling by the skin or anything, but he cut through the tendon and nerve. Thus he needed surgery. How did he do this? By attempting to cut off the little 'feet' off of a power strip with a super sharp chisel. Jake went to physical therapy for 12 weeks for that! The best news of 2013 for Jake  GOT INTO BYU!!! Woot Woot! In July Jake started his MBA. He is still working at General Atomics while he goes to school in the evening. He also  fills his time working on a starting business. At the moment he is working on www.MFGlink.com. check it out!

I had a wonderful year adjusting  to life with three children. On occasion I feel over whelmed, but I LOVE having 3 children. I was expecting the worst, but three children has been such a wonderful blessing. My pregnancy felt never ending, and the end of it was very emotional for me. I was pregnant for 42 weeks! I never thought I would be pregnant that long! I even planned the blessing for the baby at a week and half after my due date but my baby didn't come for it! Oh I want to cry just thinking about  how big  of a mess I was. My family came and left and I was still pregnant! My labor and delivery was good. I had a home birth and really loved being able to give birth where I felt most comfortable.
 
Tori started Kindergarten! She is in a Spanish immersion program, so half of her school work is taught in Spanish. She really likes her teacher and the new friends she has made. Tori is still in ballet and really enjoys  being able to go every week! Tori love being a big sister! She is always willing to help her brother feel better if he cries and play with him. She loves crafting everything from necklaces to painting. She also really enjoys making books.

Miss Macy Leona  is my strait talking little firecracker with the most sweet and tender little heart. Every day that girl pipes up with the most outrageous things to say. Whatever she has to say it is always true and it makes to laugh. One thing she did that wasn't so funny was to cut her own bangs. Thankfully she did a okay job, and only cut her bangs, but we are still waiting for them to grow in. Macy started taking Ballet lessons this year, and she is now leaping gracefully wherever she goes.  Macy also loves being a big sister and is way to eager to smother her Brother with kisses!

Chandler Jacob Green is the newest member of our family and he has stolen all of our hearts. He was born on April 30, and gave us a big smile the very first day he was born! He has been a wonderful baby. He is happy and sweet and just a lovely ray of happiness and light in my our families' life. He is growing to fast. He is now eight months and walking along the couch. He loves to cuddle and play with balls. Oh and he has little vampire teeth right now because his two front teeth have not come in but the teeth to sides of them have.

Our family enjoyed a few awesome trips this year. We were able to go to Moab, UT, Disney Land, and of course Paris, ID! We enjoyed visits form family and fiends from Michigan, Texas, Louisiana,and Colorado!

So there you have 2013 in a nutshell!

Family Reunion Calendar

Fancy Smany

Okay I shouldn't have been quite so dramatic about the lack of pictures I have taken a few posts ago because Jake has been taking pictures. Have I mentioned Jake received a extra fancy camera for Christmas? Well he did, thus he has been been more of the photographer for the family than I. So here are a few more pictures we have from earlier this year I would like to catch you up on. Oh I guess I should find Christmas and Tori Birthday pictures, maybe in a couple days.

 We celebrated Mardi Gras with Angela's family and the Ellsworth's with a yummy king cake form a local bakery and enchiladas(not pictured)

Tori helped me make my mask.

Tori was going wild to the Zydeco music.

moving on....

Our children nap every where but their beds.

We also celebrated St. Patricks Day at Angela and Loyd's. We had a tasty brunch, and all the food was made festive some way.

And Macy got her feelings hurt. Angela touched her Lucky Charms, or something completely awful.
Shame on Angela ;)

And just one more cute picture I found.

Celestail Happening

So as mnay of you know there was a total solar eclipse on Sunday and we had a little solar eclipse party to celebrate the rare celestial event. The view on our front porch with welding mask was just peachy.

Cruising

WOOT WOOT, Jake and I went on a cruise together. Jake's mom watched the girls and we sailed away to Mexico for a week with no responsibilities. It was blissful and just want was needed.

cabo rocks

 

A picture of a picture the cruise photographers took I was to cheap to buy. But I really like it be

 cause I look so in love with Jake. AWE...



HAHAHA this is my absolute favorite of the entire trip!



This guy made Jake and I laugh, he was every where we went, and he would walk around and around drinking wine picking up on different ladies ever night. I had to take a picture of him, but I didn't want to make it noticeable. But I think it was. After we took this picture he was dancing right by Jake and I till he saw a lady to hit on.

Walmart in Mexico

The decor of the boat

Another picture of a picture I really liked. I was my first time to have a parrot on my sholder.

Yeah Edis, He was our waiter most night at dinner.

We were so happy on that boat

This is a band that played every night and they rocked. It was so much fun to dance and listen to their music.

I posted these pictures and more on a very popular social media website.

A few things

Here is a sample of the pictures I have taken earlier this year, not including pictures from the fairy tea. Err yeah I have really taken many.

I was so impressed by Tori's lunch request I had to take a picture

I was in an unfortunate place in my life for a month or so. To make my self feel better we visited a bakery quite often. And every time the girls wanted thier picture taken with this baker. Silly girls

And then in April we had our traditional girls night while Jake went to the general conference priedthood meeting. This girls night was a bit more short lived than others being that we were visiting Jake's family that weekend.The girls didn't want to leave grandma's house and grandma and the other in-laws didn't want to leave the house. None the less we had fun enough and the tradition was fulfilled. We had ice cream, went shopping real quick, and ran around it the gusty wind, pretending to fly.

And saddly this is the end to the pictues I took.

Fairy Tea Party

A few months ago the local library put on their annual Fairy Tea Party. This year Tori brought along her best friend Eleanor. They has a grand fairy time. 

Mix tapes, Burned CD's, and Playlists

The idea of compiling various songs to express one's love and friendship is not new. The medium has change over the years. However, the desire to express our feeling to the ones we care about has not. That is exactly why I am writing this cheesy post. To let the one I care for know how much I love her this Valentines day. So if your gag reflex is suppressed and you have a box of tissues at hand, please read on.

The thing that was so great about mix tapes was the amount of effort it took to create them. You knew that the person really liked you because it was such a pain in the butt to create a mix tape. I personally never made one for a girl, but I remember trying to make my own mix tapes. I would sit by the radio waiting for a certain song to play just so I could hit record button just in time only to have some annoy DJ talk over the intro.

Then came along the CD mixes. It was a lot easier to drag and drop some mp3's that I downloaded off Napster and burn a CD.  I will admit that I have made a few CD mixes for different girls over the years and handed to them with my hands behind my back looking towards the ground slowly kicking at something that wasn't there shyly saying, "Hey I burnt you CD, I hope you like it."

Now we have iPods and playlists to express our infatuation for the opposite sex. To be honest I don't even know how this works or if people even do this. Do you give them a jump drive with the songs on it?  Or do you email Facebook them the list of songs? Maybe you take their iPod and add the playlist to it. I don't know.

So I am at a loss. I don't have the time for a mix tape nor do I have the equipment to produce one. Not that my beautiful wife doesn't deserve something that takes the same amount of time and effort as it does to crank out a mix tape. I don't think a burnt CD will do my love for her justice either. I'm not even sure that the CD player is even hooked up in our car. A burnt CD just won't do Sylvia much good. I am confused as to how the playlist thing even works, so guess I will create my own thingy.

Following the progression of radio to MTV and music videos. I thought I would try out the whole song compilation to express my love thingy with music videos from YouTube in a blog post (well some aren't actually music videos but its the thought that counts right?). I just hope next year the music videos in my post don't turn into pointless TV shows that have nothing to do with music and make people dumber if they watch them.

Here it is:

I still remember exactly where I was when this song was playing in my truck. It was at the roundabout by the Branbury Appartments in Provo.  I was singing along with Sylvia in the passenger side. We had only been dating for a few short weeks. When it came to the chorus of the song that says, "Hey little girl oh I love you" I remember thinking to myself, "Hey I think I really do love this little girl sitting next to me."

Unwritten Law- Cailin


We were driving home from my parents property in Paris, Idaho. I leaned over to change my iPod to this song and took my eyes off the road.  While doing so I drifted off the road and took out a mail box on the side of the road. The mail box smashed the rear view mirror into the passenger side window where my little girl friend (Sylvia) was sitting. Pieces of glass flew all over her which cut her up a little bit and scared the crap out of her. I felt so bad. She was so good about the whole thing. She hardly complained at all and almost immediately forgave me for being so stupid. Being so quick to forgive is one of my favorite qualities she possesses.

The Cure - Just Like Heaven

We had been dating for couple months or so when Sylvia told me that she had lost a Mason Jennings CD that she really like. So I decided to surprise her one morning at work. I bought the before mentioned CD and put in my bumpin' stereo system in my black and red 65 mustang fastback. I pulled around back of the dry cleaner where she worked and turn her favorite song up as loud as it would go and waited until she came out.

Mason Jennings - Keepin It Real



It was Sylvia 21st birthday and I really wanted to impress her with an over the top day that was perfect and memorable. Among the activities were watching a movie in the mountains on my laptop, serenading her with my guitar and vocals, long boarding down the canyon, dinner and shopping at Walmart. Like most of the other activities that day, my rendition didn't go that well. I forgot the lyrics and mess up the chords.

Rise Against - Swing Life Away


I almost forgot but I actually did make a mix CD for Sylvia. I made one to play as background music while I proposed to her. The setting was the most romantic place on earth... Joe Morley's BBQ. My brother-in-law Nate set us up in the banquet room. I had a full spread of flowers and ribs. This is the song that was playing after I popped the question. Luckily Sylvia said yes and we slow dance to Tim McGraw. I don't think that I have ever told Sylvia this, but still to this day get a little teary eyed (just a little because I'm a manly man) when I hear this song and think of her.

Tim McGraw- She's My Kind of Rain


Happy Valentine's Day Baby Cakes! I love you.
Xox0xX

Green Christmas Party

 Look at the fun our family had at the Green family party on Christmas Eve.

Yeah I awasn't really sure what was going on in this chasos, but the kiddos had a lot of fun opening gifts and and trashing Grandma Sherrie's house.

 

PURE SEXYNESS

 Work it Tori!

Macy loves her Baby. For the first couple of weeks she would carry that baby all over the place, and wouldn't forget diaper bag it came with.

 The Two cute babies