Almost Official!

The adoption with my Sister's little boys is almost official! We received a conference call the 3rd week of February and after many days of court hearings they finally ruled for the re-unification with their mom to stop! What a roller coaster this has been.

Just last summer my sister was told that the boys would be going back to their mom. They started visits more frequent with their mom and started overnights with her even. Things that we don't know of happened and the overnights stopped completely!

Now since re-unification has stopped their visits have been decreased and will eventually stop completely. The judge wants the good-bye visit to happen ASAP! The mom's parental rights are going to be taken away in May hopefully and then they can start the adoption process. Hopefully by the end of the year it will be final! This was a HUGE milestone for them! They have had the boys since December of 2007 so we all are ready for this to be over.

One of the things just recently that they were finally able to do was cut their hair. Although the curls were cute and Bryan got lots of compliments of how cute of a girl he is, it was time. Bryan is almost 3 and Anthony is almost 2. Here are the new and improved nephews of ours! They are so cute!

Bryan & Anthony before their haircuts. They like to wear chip clips in their hair!

Here they are after their haircuts! They look so grown up all of a sudden! The mom has already complained about what they've done. But my sister was nice enough to give her a lock of their hair (wish she would have put a pink bow around it!).

St. Patty's Day!

We aren't much of St. Patty's Day people in fact when I cooked this dinner Kyle said, "This is a lame holiday why did you do this?" I said, "I know it is but I was just trying to do something fun in color!" I don't know why he said that because he enjoyed pinching a girl he has grown up with for 9 years TONS of times even though she was wearing TONS of green that day. Poor girl! He must like ya! lol!

I made fettuccine noodles colored green, Alfredo sauce colored green, chicken (not colored), green salad, and Rhodes rolls rolled out like a bread stick rubbed with butter on top and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese before I baked them. It was a yummy dinner!

Kayla enjoying her yummy green noodles!

Kyle picking up his big pile of yummy noodles getting ready to eat them! PIG!

Karianne also enjoying her yummy green noodles!

Kameron and Daddy didn't want their picture taken! Poor sports!

TAGGED!

I've been tagged! Here are the rules: Go to your fourth folder, and open the fourth picture and blog about it! Then tag four of your friends. I tag Mom, Stacie, Christine, and Kelly!

This picture is of my mom, dad, sister Stacie, her husband Mark, brother Scott, his wife Christine, and their two girls Maia and Carissa. We were at my parents house in California for a 4th of July in 2006 (someone will have to correct me on this if I'm wrong) maybe. Actually we weren't there I don't think. Everyone will have to correct me if I'm wrong. This computer used to be my parents computer and they just recently gave it to us along with all their pictures that I love to see because a lot of these things I wasn't able to be at so it's fun for me to see the special occasions they had. My parents lived in a culdesac and they would have block parties for the 4th. We were able to make it to a few but not all. They would have a BBQ and then do their fireworks together and then watch the city's fireworks from their house. It was always fun to do.

Poor Angel!

Our poor little angel has to have her tonsils taken out at the first of May. We went to see my cousin's wife's sister Heidi Heras on Friday and received the news that she needs to have them out. She talked to me for a while and then finally looked at them. Immediately she told her assistant to come and look. As you can see in this picture (I took it myself so it's not the best but it was as good as I could get) she barely has an opening to swallow. She said that if she were to choke on something, she would be afraid that she wouldn't be able to get it back up. So it's the best that we're doing it but it's going to be a BIG deal! She's definitely going to want her daddy there with her!

Crista's SOFTEST sugar cookies EVER!

Ok so here's the recipe for those cookies I've made a ton of recently. A good friend in our ward Crista gave me permission to share it!

Sugar Cookies

2 c. sugar

4 c. flour (I use an additional 1/2 c.)

1 c. shortening

1 tsp. baking powder

1 c. sour cream

1/2 tsp. baking soda

3 eggs

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. vanilla

Cream sugar, shortening, sour cream, eggs, and vanilla.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in separate bowl. Sift 1 c. at a time into creamed mixture. Mix well. Dough will be very sticky. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Cover counter, rolling pin, and hands well with flour (as dough is a little hard to work with).

Roll dough to desired thickness. You may need to keep adding flour to work with it.

Cut into shapes and place on cookie sheet.

Bake @ 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes.

Cool and frost with cream cheese frosting or butter cream frosting!

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/3 c. butter or margarine, softened

2-3 tbsp. evaporated canned milk

1/3 c. cream cheese, softened

3-4 c. powdered sugar

Combine all ingredients. Add more evap. milk or powdered sugar to spreadable consistency.

Buttercream Frosting

4 c. powdered sugar

1/2 c. butter (not margarine), softened

1/2 c. shortening

1/2 tsp. vanilla (for white frosting use clear vanilla)

1/2 tsp. lemon extract

1/2 tsp. almond extract

4 tbsp. milk

Combine all ingredients. Add more milk or powdered sugar to spreadable consistency.