GULP.....

Yup....I am moving up there.

Molten Chocolate surprise

I made the YUMMIEST dessert tonight, and I am SO sad because I can't find where I got the recipe. I thought it was from "Picky Palate", but I can't find it there. SO SORRY to the person who came up with this recipe, but you ROCK. It tasted SO good, they are small so perfect portion control...but I won't tell you how many I ate. Oh yeah, my "no-baked-goods" diet is no more. All I did was binge on ice cream, and I don't even really like ice cream. I do better when I can eat a cookie when I want it. :) ENJOY!!

4 squares BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

2 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

1 cup powdered sugar

1/3 cup flour

12 CHIPS AHOY! Cookies

1/2 cup thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping OR, Real Heavy Whipping Cream, whipped OR small scoop of vanilla ice cream

1. HEAT oven to 425°F. Microwave chocolate and butter in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir with whisk until chocolate is completely melted.

2. Beat whole eggs, yolks, sugar and flour with whisk until blended. Gradually beat into chocolate mixture.

3.LINE 12 (2-1/2-inch) muffin cups with paper liners; spray with cooking spray. Place 1 cookie, upside-down, on bottom of each cup; cover with batter.BAKE 8-10 min. or until cakes are firm around edges but still soft in centers. **(Watch them, because if the center firms you won't have the lava effect from the chocolate) Let stand 1 min. Carefully remove cakes from pan. Invert into dessert dishes; remove paper liners. Serve with whipped topping.

BEST IF SERVED WARM!!!

Enjoying the weather

We fertilized our yard today, but that didn't stop Kelsi from running around on the pavement and playing with some of her favorite toys...river rocks! (We also learned that she likes to bang them against our french doors...yup, no more rocks in the house)

Curly-Q

Kelsi has SO much hair. Seriously, SO much hair. She gets it from me, there wasn't any real question that she would be bald. Her hair is wavy/semi-curly and very unruly. She has as much hair as most 3-4 year olds do. However, she HATES it when I do her hair. I tried to sponge roll it the other day and was able to get them in while I kept her busy eating, but she found them and started pulling them out 20 minutes later, so the after picture wasn't so great. Anyway, I think she is going to be the first 2 year old to have layered or thinned hair because it is just ridiculous.

Day at the Park

The weather has been SO nice, so I decided to take Kelsi to the park. She was VERY timid and took about 10 minutes to move around instead of just watching all the other kids play. In fact, here she is just watching other kids play....

We live in a one-level home so Kelsi has not learned the art of climbing stairs yet. So, this is her climbing into a tunnel, but confused on how to get out. She wouldn't let me help her figure it out, she made me take her out. Sigh.

Kelsi's favorite thing was the slide. She went down all by herself, over and OVER again.She loved it!!

15 months

Kelsi had her 15 month check-up today and here are her stats.

Height: 31.5 in. (82%)

Weight: 24 lbs 13 oz. (79%)

Head: 48cm (95%)

She is off of her bottle now since she finally learned how to tip her head back when drinking out of her sippy. She says "ball", "uh-oh", & "deegs" - when referring to our dogs, and "do" when referring to her stuffed animal dogs. She also says "no" ALL the time. She is so funny. She walks up to things that she knows she isn't supposed to touch and shakes her finger at it while saying "no!" A couple of her molars broke through recently and she is just getting more and more fun. She understands a lot of things and she signs "more" and "light".

I snapped this picture of Kelsi the other day when I went looking to see what she was doing in her room. It was quiet in there and I didn't see her when I poked my head in at first...then I found her hiding in the corner.

One of her funny things that she likes to do is wear her bib around the house. She gets mad when I take it off of her. After I put her jammies on, she wanted me to put it back on her. She has some personality.

Random pics for the fam

Kelsi reading her book to her bear and her "deegs" (how she says dog).

Kelsi looking adorable


Our friends the Brownes came back to town for a few days and I got to snap a pic of Kelsi and Wyatt together (born 6 weeks apart)

Just to let you know that we are in fact still around...John and I relaxing on the couch.

Fun times

I know I have posted similar pictures before but nothing has been going on around here. Except for the endless amount of paperwork that is consuming our lives. I don't know why everything has to be faxed or mailed these days. I mean C'MON insurance companies, get with it. If you can electonically sign your tax returns, etc, why can't you electonically sign contracts, W-9's, provider info sheets, claim forms, etc!? We are probably personally responsible for the loss of a tree or two in the rainforest.

Ok, back to our little joy...Kelsi plays with Daddy every night before she goes to bed and before John heads to the gym. She looks forward every night to play time with Daddy. When he is home, she follows him all over the house.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

Letter from Kelsi:

Dear Grandma and Grandpa "M":

Thanks for the Valentine's day card and pretty pink cardigan. I carried your card around the house all night and mommy and daddy said that I looked super cute in the sweater. Thanks for being so cool.

Love,
Kelsi

PS A special happy valentine's day to my Grandma and Grandpa "C". I miss you and can't wait to see you this fall. We are going to have a lot of fun.

A girl can dream right....?

With Valentines Day coming up I was thinking about all the fun/romantic places that John and I could do/go. We actually won't be doing anything since all of our babysitters are going to a regional church dance. Who organized that??? I would like to have a word with them. But, I digress...

If I could snap my fingers and John and I could go anywhere for Valentine's Day, we would go to Venice, Italy. We would walk around the city and admire it's culture, then go to dinner and have the best authentic Italian dinner we could have ever imagined and then we would take a gondola ride. Oh, and did I mention that I would be wearing this. Perfect vacation, perfect dress.

I will settle for renting a movie, some chinese food and cuddling with my honey. But then again, I am not ever settling when I am with John. Love you babe!

WHAT??????!!!!!!??????

HA! I almost deleted this picture but then thought that it would be perfect for this post. Kelsi is as shocked as we all are. After 4 years with Eye Care Specialists, John found a practice in Coeur d'Alene that he couldn't pass up. That's right! We are moving to the Coeur d'Alene area in just a couple months. We hope to close on financing by April 1st. SBA loans can be tricky we have heard, so we have applied elsewhere to cover our bases. Everything seems to be going well and in just about 2 months we will be business owners. Scary, but exciting. We are both very sad to leave our WONDERFUL friends that we have made here in Clarkston. It was almost 4 years ago that I cried and cried realizing that I had to live here...but here I am crying and crying that I have to leave! I wish I could take everyone with me, wouldn't that be awesome??? Good news, we are less than 3 hours away. I am very excited for John and very proud of him and his ambition and hard work. Even though I am sad, I know that this is a good move for our family, I have felt peace from Heavenly Father as I have asked him for confirmation that this is right and to have a good attitude. Can you all remind me of this next year when I am cursing the winters? (Kelsi and I may head down to CA for Jan and Feb - HAHA!!!) Wish us luck please!

Now, for a few cute pics. I tried to do Kelsi's hair after her bath this morning, but she loves her comb so much that I had to comb it with my fingers while she played with it.

This is Kelsi teasing me with the comb...."you want this mama???"

"Come and get it, I dare you".

Shabby Baby Girl!

Kelsi is our "picture princess". She gets very excited when she sees the camera and loves to ham it up. I found the cutest online boutique for little girl dresses and have been drooling over a few for Kelsi. However, I didn't want to buy her an adorable dress that she was going to crawl all over, so I sat her down and explained to her that as soon as she learned how to walk, I was going to buy her a dress from shabby baby. I don't think it was coincidence at ALL that Kelsi started walking less than a week that I made the deal with her. (heehee) Your dress will be here shortly, Kelsi!

There are so many adorable dresses that it is hard to decide, but if any of you want to check out one of my favs click on the link below. While you are there, shop around for your little one!

http://www.shabbyapple.com/p-185-canary.aspx - Little girls and girls dresses from Shabby Baby

Kelsi's walking

Kelsi still prefers to crawl, but everyday she walks a little more and more. Today, walking was the preferred way to get around. Here is one that I caught....she is still a little unsure but so adorable.

IRON CHEF BIRTHDAY PARTY

For those of you not familiar with the Food Network show "Iron Chef", the contestants (two dueling chefs) compete by making a ton of different food with a secret ingredient that is only revealed right before they need to start cooking and they only have an hour to make their masterpieces. My friend Trisha threw me a similar bday party. The secret ingredient was PEANUT BUTTER (one of my fav foods). She gave the ingredient to those that were cooking the night before to research and make something for the party that night (I didn't have to cook - just enjoy!)

Appetizer was meatballs with a peanut butter sauce! Very good, not overpowering at all.

A Peanut Butter Soup. This was really good! The PB and the chicken broth really complimented each other!

Oriental chicken salad with peanut butter sauce. This was was the winner! Taste and presentation!

PB rolls!!!

Another friend also brought a Chicken and rice dish with a Peanut sauce that was really good too, but I didn't get a picture! Thanks to all my friends for showing me so much love. I had a great time with all of you. I would like to especially thank Trish for putting all of this together!

Speaking of getting older, Kelsi finally held still long enough (with John's help) so that I could put big girl pigtails in her hair. Look how old my baby looks!

Back shot....

FACELIFT

We have lived in our home for almost 4 years and have been pretty lazy about decorating. We thought we would only be in this house for 2 years or so, so we thought, why put so much work into it? Well, 2 years came and went and so did 3 years and 4 is right on our heels...so we went to work! I want to thank the fabulous Lindsay Crebs for her decorating ideas (I think you have great taste), real deals for having cute home decor and Jenny Brume for having great taste in paint....oh and my husband John for finally agreeing to let me decorate. (I knew you would love it, babe!) Ladies and Gentleman....behold the before and afters.....

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

View from the kitchen. These pictures are not doing my paint any justice. I tried it with flash/no flash/lights on/lights off. It is actually a bit darker. It is a pretty dark brown with a green hue to it. Looks fab in person, trust me.

and now for the real reason we all know you check this blog: our Kelsi

This last one is classic Kelsi. She LOVES soft things. We catch her laying on pillows, any blankets she can find, and the occasional head on the couch or one of the dining room table chairs...anything that feels soft to her. She lays down and hums for a few seconds and then she is off again! We love our little Kelsi.

A new blog background in honor of...moi! A couple of days and counting....let the celebrations begin! :)

Daddy time

Kelsi loves to play with her Daddy once he gets home from work and tonight was no different. They chased each other around the living room and I just enjoyed listening to Kelsi's infectious laugh. In other news...Kelsi also took 4 1/2 steps tonight while playing with Daddy. He was laying on the floor facing the TV and she was holding on to the ottoman. I watched her as she let go and took the cutest tiniest 4 steps in a row and then as she went to take her 5th step she just lunged forward and fell on top of John. It is only a matter of time.

Daddy's little helper

John was working on the TV speakers and Kelsi wanted to be right there with him "working" on the TV as well. Everytime I would take her away to play with me, she would push away and when I would put her down she crawled as fast as she could to her side of the "work station" and fiddled away while looking over at her Dad from time to time to see what he was doing. It was adorable.

Happy 2009!

We hope everyone enjoyed their new years celebration. We spent a nice night at a friends house with a few other couples playing games. Always battle of the sexes and for some reason we ladies can never seem to win (it has been a couple years). WHAT GIVES? Heres to making 2009 a year full of love, laughter, learning & luck! Cheers!

I just had to post this video of Kelsi playing with Grandpa. She had so much fun with her Grandma and Grandpa Manderino and two of her aunts....but I think she especially bonded with her Grandpa Manderino.