playing Wii

Jumping to serve the ball in table tennis

Beating Daddy at sword fighting

With all my packing I will admit that the children have been left to entertain themselves more lately.  My son likes to play the Wii.  The last couple of weeks he has really improved at his Wii skills and it is fun to watch how excited he gets especially when he wins. 

Look at the concentration

My daughter tries to play with him but she does not get quite as excited about it.  She pulls some pretty funny faces when she is watching her bowling ball trying to hit some pins.

Tonight my son was especially excited about Daddy coming home to play with him.  He was ready to show off his skills.  Daddy was very impressed with his improvement.  Especially when he did win a couple of games.

Bowling

He likes to jump when he plays tennis

His best sport is the sword fighting.  It's a little scary how quickly he knocks his opponent off the podium.  He definitely does not show any mercy to his sister either.  I told him to try to go easy on her but he wouldn't.  I also told him to not be a sore winner and he said "But Mom, I didn't say NaNaNa".  I guess that is all I can ask for. 









I love watching the family.  Everyone has fun playing together.

Beef Stroganoff

Growing up I was definitely a picky eater.  As I have gotten older and wiser I might add I am more willing to try new things and quite enjoy cooking and experimenting.  One thing I remember my mother making that I didn't really care for much but I love now is Beef Stroganoff.  I've combined a couple of different recipes to come up with my stroganoff that I enjoy the most so I thought I would share it.

(and I was making it for dinner tonight) 

 

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs of steak, (round, beef stew, sirloin) cut into strips

salt and pepper and garlic powder

flour

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 large sweet onion, sliced (walla walla are my favorite)

1 cup of beef broth

1 can 10 3/4 oz. of cream of mushroom soup

1 cup of sour cream

egg noodles

 

Take your meat cut up into strips and add salt, pepper and about 1 tsp. of garlic powder - basically season it as much as you prefer.   I used sirloin steak since I had some in the freezer that needed to be used and my grill is covered in snow so I didn't feel like grilling it. 

 

Then sprinkle it with enough flour to lightly coat it.   Then heat up the butter and olive oil in a pan and add the meat.  Cook just enough to brown the meat on both sides.  

Remove meat and put into a crockpot or on another plate if you are in a hurry and not planning on cooking it all day.  Then add the onions right to the pan with the drippings.  If my husband at all like mushrooms I would also be adding some sliced up mushrooms but since he despises them I leave them out.  I have at times cooked some up and then added them only to my dish at the end but I didn't have any in the refrigerator since he cringes at even the thought of them by his other food.  

When the onions are just starting to get softened and cooked a little sprinkle about 1 Tbsp. of flour in the pan with them and then either add them to the crockpot or add the meat back to the pan with them.  Next add the beef broth and cream of mushroom soup to the meat mixture in either the pan or crockpot.  

In the crockpot I cook it on low for 6 hours.  On the stove in the pan cook on low for about 30 minutes.  Add the sour cream and cook on low for another hour in the crockpot or just long enough for it to heat up on the stove top.   

 Serve over the egg noodles, already cooked according to the package.  I usually make homemade pasta noodles for this but since I am moving and have dried pasta I need to use up I ended up using it with some macaroni.  

YUMMY!

We're so glad when Daddy comes home

With Craig's new position at work he has the opportunity to travel more.  He's been to some exciting places and I try to explain and show the kids where exactly he is at.  My daughter now thinks whenever he leaves he is always in Texas since that was the first place he went.  My favorite part is how excited the kids are when he is finally coming home.  They ask all day when Daddy is going to be home and wonder in excitement what treat he will be bringing them.  The days following his arrival they are so cute and cuddly with him asking about his trip and telling them all that's been going on.  (Including how Mommy put them in the corner) 

 

 

Working

Besides not living so close to my family and friends the hardest part for me about moving is leaving my job.  I am a dental hygienist and have worked for the same dentist for the past 10 years and I love it.  The people I work with made my experience so exciting that it hardly even felt like work.  My patients have become friends and I know so much about them, their family and lives.  Then today I met a new patient with such an incredible life story and as I visited with him I realized that I will be able to meet a whole new group of people with rich and diverse lives.  So even though I haven't been job hunting in 10 years, I am looking forward to finding a new job.

Moving

I have lived within 200 miles from the house I was born in the entire 35 years I've been alive. Now with new opportunity I find myself getting ready to move across the country over 2100 miles away. I grew up in a very small country town in rural Utah and am now moving to the big city of Washington D.C.. It is exciting, scary, thrilling and nerve wracking all at the same time. Needless to say growing up that close to home I am close with my family and especially my mother. She was not at all happy about the news of the move, mostly because I am taking my children, her grandchildren though she does have 37 and I am only taking 2.


So I thought I would jump on board and start a blog of our adventures so she can still have some idea about what is going on with us, even though she mentioned she never reads blogs maybe mine will be the exception. Either way I thought with this amazing adventure ahead of me I would like to keep some type of record about all the exciting happenings coming our way. Also a record of the crazy things my kids do each day to keep me on my toes and laughing. They are growing up so quickly. Now I better get back to packing up my house seeing as I have boxes everywhere and even more stuff that my two little munchkins are messing up as quickly as I am organizing it.