Cafe Rio Pork Burritos

(sorry about the picture, the green plate doesn't make it look all too appetizing does it? But I promise, it tastes great!)

For those of you who live outside of Utah, or those that live there and just don't want to head to the delicious Cafe Rio, here's a recipe I found. I believe this rivals Cafe Rio, and will definitely satisfy those cravings, so enjoy! (this is just the pork Burrito, I don't have a recipe for the salad dressing, but should I find a good one, I'll be sure to post it!)

Pork Burritos

2 1/2lbs pork
1/3 C water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp powdered allspice
1 tsp powdered cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground coriander
6 cloves garlic, minced
juice from one lime

put all together in the crock pot, cover and cook on high for 4 hours
Once it's done, drain and shred pork, stir in 1/2 C green chili sauce and 1/2 C brown sugar.

Cilantro-Lime Rice

1 C uncooked rice
1 tsp butter or margarine
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp lime zest
1 can (15 oz)chicken broth
1 1/4 C water
2 Tbsp freshly sqeezed lime juice
2 tsp granulated sugar
3 Tbsp fresh chopped cilantro

In a saucepan combine rice, butter, garlic, lime peel, chicken broth and water. Bring to a boil Cover and cook 15-20 minutes, until rice is tender. Remove from heat. In a small bowl combine lime juice, sugar and cilatro. Pour over hot cooked rice.

Black Beans

1 can black beans rinsed and drained
1 1/3 C tomato juice (I just used a can of diced tomatoes and it was fine)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp fresh chopped cilantro

In a nonstick skillet, cook garlic and cumin in olive oil over medium heat until you can smell it. Add beans, tomato juice, and salt. Continually stir until heated through. Just before serving stir in the cilantro.

Pico De Gallo

1 large onion
1 large bell pepper
2-3 large tomatoes
1/4 C fresh chopped cilantro
sea salt

Dice the onion,bell pepper, and tomato (I like it finely diced). combine with cilantro and a dash of sea salt. try to do this at least 1 hour before serving to let the flavors combine.

Make your burritos and top with heated green chili sauce and cheese, with some Pico on the side. Enjoy!

Lexie's Four month

(photo courtesy of Kate!)

Lexie just had her four month check up, so I thought I'd let y'all know how it went. She was 15lbs, which put her in the 75th percentile, and she was 25 1/2 inches long, also the 75th percentile. She got two shots, no fun, but I think she did great, and only cried after the second one, and really not for that long at all. The funniest thing was Peyton was having anxiety that we were there, she kept asking to go home and once we got into the room she started crying, poor thing! Back to Lexie, she's a little trooper and she's getting bigger and more fun every day. She laughs at the oddest things and smiles the second she gets some attention. She's starting to sleep better, Yeah, now we just need her to sleep through the night, I'm exhausted.

The best thing is, she's doing great in her carseat now, she used to hate it! That's a major plus cause with three kiddos, she kinda spends alot of time in that thing. We're just loving cuddling with her and kissing her.

Who's that girl?

Halli can seriously be the sweetest little girls ever! Her school teacher absolutely loves her and she lets me know that Halli is the best behaved and sweetest child. She is always doing what she's asked to do, and hates to get in trouble. Her teacher is pregnant and said that she LOVES having Halli in her class and hopes her little boy can be just as sweet as her. Then at church on sunday, I heard from her primary teacher that, as cookies were being handed out, the teacher wondered if they were getting any. Hearing this, Halli offered to give her half of her cookie if the teachers didn't get one. What a sweet girl, sharing her one cookie! Her primary teacher is also pregnant and said she hopes her baby girl is as sweet as Halli as well.

I love this little girl and I know how absolutely sweet and loving she can be, and I'm not saying all this to brag about her (although, who could blame me if I was) I'm just saying this so you can understand that there is another girl I know, that many don't.

I know I just used this photo, but it illustrates my point fairly well. Halli is a different child at home than she is with others. She does a wonderful job of making me look like a great mom, but when it comes down to it, she's a different girl at home. Don't get me wrong she has her sweet moments where she can make me smile and laugh and be the happiest mom on earth that she's my daughter. But she can also make me scream...at her alot of the time. She doesn't like to listen to me, she'll flat out disobey what I say, she never takes no for an answer, you know typical kid stuff. I know every kid does this, it's just that she's SO different with me than she is with her teachers. Wanna know why? Every time I ask her why she can be so great for others and not for me she says, "cause you're family", and every time we have a talk about family, maybe someday it'll sink in.

Halloween 2008

I just love my girls, and I love seeing them all dressed up! They had tons of fun wearing their costumes and getting ready to go. We started the evening by having dinner with some cousins as well as some good friends, brent and Tish and their kiddos, then we headed out to get some candy and meet up with TONS of friends. We're not quite Utah, but close with the amount of members living in our neighborhood. The group started out fairly normal, with four kiddos, but we just kept merging with other groups and ended up with quite the party! It was so fun to see them all running around together and loading up on the sweets, my favorite part! Here are all the girls and their dad, looking like quite the cute bunch.

I jumped in and we thought it would be fun to pretend we had boys, these are our adopted kids, Blake and Braden of course.

Pee-wee looking cute as ever as a kitten

Okay, Halli is a tough one, I got one fairly cute picture of her, but a few more looking like the next one, she is not making it easy to get good shots!

And while I can't always get the cutest pictures of my girls, I got some really cute ones of my niece, Katelyn, who was the most adorable little ballerina I ever did see.

I am in love with this next picture! She looks SO sweet!

We had fun and enjoyed a long night, you'd think my girls would have slept in...okay, maybe you wouldn't, but I can always dream can't I?

Halloweens past and present

Tonight we had our ward party, so I spent all day today trying to finalize the girls costumes, as well as mine and Kevins. I have to say I'm pretty excited about them this year! But when I started to post, I thought it would be fun to go back and look at all our previous years of halloweens together.

This was our second halloween, and Halli's first. she was a cute little chicken. It was all just for show since she was our first kid, we didn't go to the ward party or trick or treating of course, so we just dressed her up at home for the fun of it.

I don't have Halli's second halloween. I know we have video of it, but I don't think I took any pictures. But she was a cute 50's girl and I was as well! Kevin and I only dress up for the ward parties, so obviously we went that year, and the trunk or treat was her first experience at collecting candy! But here is her Third Hallowee, she was a cute Kittie, and starting to get the hang of trick or treating. We didn't go to a ward party this year, so no costumes for me and the hubby.

This was 2006, and Halli was dorothy, and Peyton, at almost 2 months was a tiger.

Sticking to the theme, we were the wizard of Oz group for halloween! Kevin is such a good sport, and gladly wears whatever I give him, what a great guy! (Halli just pretended that Peyton was a lion to stick to our theme)

Last year, I was recovering from surgery, so since I was bandaged up, me and Kevin were Jack and Jill, if you look close you can see my pretty boot.

Here is our pirate princess and Ariel

This year, was kinda fun, and we put Lexie in the Bjorn as a bumblebee, so Kevin and I were a flower and a bee keeper. I didn't get a picture with him wearing the hat, but he looked handsome as ever behing that black veil! Here is Lexie and her bee keeper.

Me and the other girls. Peyton was the Kittie, same as Halli before, and Halli went as Daphne from scooby doo (She LOVES that show for some reason!). I had fun making her costume though and think it turnedout pretty well. For anyone that wants to copy Lexies costume, its just a towel and electrical tape, SO easy and I got SO many compliments on it tonight!

The Girls had tons of fun tonight and Halli is REALLY looking forward to Halloween so we can get dressed up and do it all over again! Yeah! I'll post better pictures of the girls then too.

The Oil Ranch

Saturday we loaded up the minivan and headed out to the pumpkin patch. But, instead of an actual pumpkin patch, we opted for the oil ranch, a fun little place to visit with some different and fun things to do for the kiddos. The pumpkins are right at the entrance, and they aren't too big, but it'sfun for the kids to go through. Halli had quite the time deciding which one to pick.

Peyton on the other hand, picked one up and was ready to be done, she didn't like going through them for too long.

and of course, we (meaning Kevin) had to pick Lexies out for her.

The first thing they wanted to do was ride a pony! (this is the reason for Halli's boots, not cause she's so fashion forward, although I'll admit, that I thought they looked pretty cute! She picked them out herself.)

Peyton was ecstatic when she finally got to ride!

We got a yummy treat of snow cones, the girls really enjoyed that one!

They had a small maze out of hay bales, and Peyton was having a hard time getting through, so Halli to the rescue! We love big sisters!

Halli and the scarecrow at the beginning. We tried to get a picture with Peyton too, but she was a little weary of it.

Our sweet Lexie on the train!

This is the fun train that goes around the ranch. The girls had tons of fun on here.

The girls on the engine

The whole family

We had alot of fun and it was great to go with dad, since he didn't come last year. Halli was his buddy the whole time and wanted nothing to do with me. I love when the weather cools and we can enjoy being outside more, and this time with the girls was so fun. I love fall and all the holidays, now we just need to carve those pumpkins and get ready for halloween!

Are you for real?

Lexie woke up this morning, and I went to nurse her, while nursing, Kevin left for the day. As I was with Lexie, I could hear Halli walking around, and knew she should still be asleep, so as soon as I was done with Lexie I went up to Halli's room to make sure she was alright and going back to bed. When I got back to my room Lexie was awake again, So I went back to try to get her to sleep again. I laid her down and went to go get back in bed, but when I got out of Lexies "room" I heard Peyton screaming. So, I ran up there and she said she went poopy, althought it was actually pee (it's been hurting her lately to pee, guess I need to look into that, but there is no fever so I don't think it's a UTI, but I could be wrong). Anywhoo....she wouldn't go back into her crib, so I brought her to bed with me, and I couldn't wait to lay down! except, when we got there Lexie was awake, AGAIN! So I laid peyton in the bed and put Lexie to sleep for the third time in twenty minutes. I finally got to lay down for 15 more minutes before it was time to get up for the day. All this happened before 6:30 this morning! So in honor of this great wake up call of mine, I will officially say goodbye to sleep for the next 15 years or so.

ODE TO SLEEP

Goodbye sleep, I will relish those long forgotten days of sleeping till noon, and relaxing in your comfort. I will miss the hours lost in pleasant dreams and incoherent talk. I will long for the day when we will meet again. I know it may be long, but I will perservere until I get there. I will not let you down! and I promise to take any and every opportunity I can to visit, no matter how short it may be. Goodbye my dear friend, and may those who have you in their lives realize how blessed they truly are!