family bonding time

Julia has asked to sing to sam whenever we put him to bed, whether night or nap, and we love it as much as she does.   It has always been our tradition to sing a bit of "Jesus loves me" or some hymn as he gets put in bed, and now Julia creates whatever song she likes as we put him to bed. The above picture is Julia writing out the song she would like to play on her Uke and sing. :)  So cute. dave actually wrote the words for me to remember, so here they are:

"He is watching over you, 

God is watching over you,

and He will be in your dreams,

and in your heart,

GOd is watching over you."

-Julia's song.
I LOVE JULIA'S NEW PJ'S!! i want some for myself!! 10$ at Target, pretty awesomely cozy.
and the cuteness.......

need i say more???  man, i love my kids.

Riding the Horse

Julia finds this the most delightful activity, because she can hold sam all by herself when he is on the horse! yep, big sis likes to help and play and take care of business! there are difficulties with this at times, like when she forgets to pay enough attention, but this is not a problem since i am right next to her to help! :)

aren't they sweet???

Normal Lunchtime conversation at the Naus House:

Julia: "Our teeth are sharp like little blades"

Mommy: "Our teeth are part of our skeleton, so they are hard as bone."

Julia: "Our teeth are sharp like the blades on a miter saw."

i couldn't have told you what a miter saw was; apparently my three year old can though.

finally it worked!

silly pictures.... finally they uploaded! guess things aren't perfect even with a mac!! haha.
julia dancing her little heart out!

sam with Oma Joanne at our dinner on sunday.  we saw the Great Opa's and Joanne, ate, enjoyed a game of catan with karli , mark, and adam.... DAVE WON by the way! :) then we had an awesome game of soccer at the nearby school field, and Julia ran and ran for an hour. it was tons of fun!!! we all played terribly compared to Javier who is here from Peru, and REALLY knows how to play!! haha
and we drove off into the sunset. what a great weekend!!!

taught

a redheaded canadian girl once taught me that 'imitation is the fondest form of flattery', and thus i laugh and feel flattered at the sight of our neighbors home....

if you look across to the neighbors house, through our window and theirs, you can see the newly painted living and dining rooms. (new neighbors, so they are painting everything)  the two rooms ARE EXACTLY OUR COLORS of light tan and dark chocolate!! only used in the opposite rooms as we did.... ha. they EVEN did dave's fancy little archway paint trick (using the light color in the dark room, and vice versa, on the arch way.) 

flattered. 

exactly the same.

i'm curious to see the REST of their home....perhaps tomorrow i will deliver their basket of cookies.... hahaha.

(the reason this is so funny is that they walked through OUR home before they bought the neighbors house, we didn't have enough yard for them, understandably so. they knew exactly what it looked like inside though, too funny. hahaha.)

Even when we are faithless, the Lord is faithful

Hi all, Dave here with a little update about the house.  

So, I decided to go in early on friday morning and get a good start on a day of working.... I got to the house at around 5:45 AM, and started to prepare for the workday, when I noticed that the back door was flapping in the wind. This is never a good sign and upon further inspection I realized that there was about $1000 of power-tools missing. obviously a crappy thing. especially since several of them were not actually mine, but were from my work so I could not just accept the loss, but rather I would have to replace them at my expense with nothing to show for it as they would not actually be mine. Also there was not really any point in going after the insurance as there was a $1000 deductible.  

so, I just bit the bullet on this one.

That was until Saturday around supper when a Great Family of friends in the Lord showed up with a set of replacement tools to bless us. (Praise the Lord) they were definitely acting out the scriptures for us. (I think they like the Black and Decker Outlet store)

more of recipes and fellowship

these were very fun to create and eat, but they DO NOT go into the 'family friendly' list of recipes because they are time consuming. but for guests..... we will make these! hahaha.

super fun whole wheat calzones. (home made pizza pockets!)  

just make pizza dough.

get whatever filling you like. and spread egg over the top before you bake! 

lovely!

we filled ours with:

diced tomatoes

cottage cheese

mozz cheese

fresh basil

pizza seasoning

mushrooms, garlic and onion fried together 

yup. that is the famous dave fraser. ha!!  julia snapped this photo. i think it should be his next album cover, personally.

anyway. this recipe is good for any time you are having a group of people over, because it is fun to have a personal pizza..... fresh from the oven!!

love to all.

recipe

my wise sister has suggested that i start a new weekly addition to this blog.  a RECIPE of the week!!

so here goes:

Slow Cooker Orange Chicken

prep. 10 minutes

total: 8 hours, 10 minutes

8 small boneless skinless chicken thighs

3 tablespoons flour

1/3 cup orange Marmalae

1/3 cup barBQ sauce

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon fresh grated gingerroot (or dry ginger powder)

Toss chicken with flour in slow cooker

stir in all remaining ingredients. cover with lid.

cook on low for 6-8 hours (or on high for 3-4)

makes 4 servings.

i usually toss in as much chicken as needed for the number of people i am feeding. and adjust the recipe. :)  i always use more soy sauce than it asks for. mmmmm. so good.

excellent bases: spagetti or linguini noodles, or couscous (rice would be good too!).  (the sauce from the chicken covers these nicely- for those who require tastiness with plain starchy bases!!!)

great side dishes: asparagus (OUR FAMILY FAV!!!), or green beans, and squash!!

ENJOY!compliments of kraft kitchens!!

this is great.

check it out.

take the time to read it! :)

a horse and his boy. again.

this is sam's horse. 

and his NEW work pants (thanks to oma - they fit mom! we finally had weather in which he could wear warm pants! yippee!)

isn't he cute??

have a great day folks!!!!!!

from su

i am sam

My latest favorite things to do:

-say "Ging ging ging ging ging"

-clap my hands

-give attack hugs (only when i'm excited)

-flap my arms like a bird

-WAVE!! (mommy just taught me this when oma was leaving, and i have been practicing all night)

-i love to rock back and forth on anyones' knee ... actually i like rocking anywhere. which is why i cannot be trusted sitting on my own just yet... as soon as i am on my bum i propel myself back and then forward! it is so so fun, i giggle and flap and chirp the whole time!!

-say "da da da" "na na na" "bu bu bu"

-smile and reach out for your face!

-cuddle and eat my Horsey stuffed animal (and screech while i do this!)

-eat squash

-watch my big sister and smile whenever she talks

-walk with ma and sis.

-cuddle with daddy.

i pretty much love everything about life, so this list could be REALLY long....

life is so good. i'm sleeping right now, and you don't get much happier than that! :)

from Sam

OUR NEW HOME!!

this is our house BEFORE the reno started.... with all the other folks' stuff....

this was fun...

To celebrate two birthday's in one we planned a fun evening of adventure....

karli and mark thought they were coming over for dinner, but MUHAHAHAHA they were sent all over town on a treasure hunt... following clues and visiting friends' homes in order to get a final prize at the end...

Of course, they would be NO PRIZE without a surprize... MUAHAHA. we made one of the stops at the mall, where upon a chair (or table if you don't feel tall enough...) heehee... they had to sing "you are my sunshine" for everyone. (lucky for them the mall was not very busy)

then they were given the great finalle...  a dinner out.  ah, that was so fun. 
Julia wanted to take our picture, since one of her chosen occupations for the future is a photographer.  here it is. picture by Julia the Photographer. :)

brigden fair!!

that's Julia and I up there!!! we had soooooooooo much fun flying!! imean, being on the ferris wheel!! eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

tid bits

who is this sweet child that is growing so fast?? i just can't believe how quickly we have come to new and exciting things.......

sam is such a fun kid. 

his favorite game to play by himself is to pull his blanket up and down in front of his face in a rendition of 'peek a boo'!! He makes himself laugh. it is great. what a kid.

And Julia lately has been even more of a sponge....  we did a drama of the pilgrims traveling on the mayflower (cardboard box decorated with pen and a flower) and suffering a hard winter,  and then a great harvest for which Thanksgiving was celebrated for the first time....  it was great fun!! the next day at school i guess she told the story all over again ! haha. She has been asking about all the election signs on the road, so we have told her little bits about the different 'color' parties (not that i know a lot, i'm not much of a political whiz.. i really need to brush up on it!)  but she is asking people who they are voting for, and telling everyone who we are voting for (by name, not just color.... and i don't know how she found out their names....)

i guess i'm going to have to keep learning and keep on my toes to allow Julia to really blossom in knowledge the way she naturally does.... which is exciting. because i LOVE TO LEARN . :)

dave has started his parental leave from work, and the last two days have been a frenzy of activity at our new home.  Dave fraser came to stay the night and help dave work- THANK YOU!! we were able to stop by a little irish pub to hear his band play last night, THANK YOU KARLI AND MARK for babysitting!!  (okay, this is looking like a mass thank you card, but really it isn't ..) and many others have offered their help for minimum wage... thank you too! :)  so  we will be having people in and out for dinner regularly as the work continues.  I have been baking and preparing lunches for the working force as well, so julia and i are in the kitchen a lot as the troops fix our home!! the adventure begins......

and one more thing....HOW DID A DRIED LEAF GET INTO MY LAUNDRY????? IT IS CRUMBLED ALL OVER MY BED NOW!!! hahaha. mysterious happenings...  a side effect of having children i suppose... :)

anyway. those are todays tidbits. enjoy!!

transitions

Here is our little Samwise sitting (for a few seconds anyway.)  and looking so fine in his dressy clothes!! heehee. isn't he cute? 

....... new on the menu...... bland cereals!! wonderful!  And today i will be making carrots and squash to add to his (soon to be) growing menu!
Here is Julia Sweet, playing games on the computer...and i love this... what you see is all there is to the computer.... that's it!!!!! a screen, key board, and mouse. wow. talk about an organizational dream! Minimizing to the extreme! wow. i love it.

Above: Julia and i often take large sections of paper from this monsterous role mama naus bought for her, and lay it out on the floor for a long day of drawing and such. i love it because seeing tons of paper on the floor gives the imagination so much room to  explore and explode on. :)  Julia sat down and began writing out all the letters she could remember off the top of her head, which i thought was really cute and deserved a picture to remember the day she did school-ish work without any direction to do so...   these are days to remember when we get further along in life and no longer want to sit and learn something. although, my scientist of a daughter will probably always enjoy learning. I do love this aspect of her personality.

aaaaawwwww. isn't he cute. he just loves laying in the bath, and doesn't it look comfy?