Ruined?

This is one of Riya's shirts. It is one of my favorite of her shirts. I think it's ruined. When we went to the hot springs in Idaho, I packed the wet towels in with the rest of the dirty clothes just to get back to the Birds' house. Apparently, the water from the springs has something red in it. It showed up on a few of our white clothes. I  have washed them several times and it is stained. Today, I tried again with Riya's shirt - stain remover and bleach in the wash. Nothing. Boo.
Any suggestions?  John suggested soaking it in bleach... which I haven't tried yet.

Walking Tacos

We had Walking Tacos for dinner tonight and they were pretty delish! Why are they called "Walking Tacos"? Because if you didn't have a "no food in the house except the kitchen" rule, you could walk around eating your tacos from the bag. Basically, you open a Frito bag, put chili in it and top with sour cream, green onions, olives, and cheese (really, anything you like) and then you eat it right out of the bag. We put our bags in bowls because the chili made the bags really hot to hold.
Here is the recipe for them if you'd like to try them yourself:
http://picky-palate.com/2010/01/31/how-to-make-and-eat-walking-tacos/

FYI - You can even dump them into the bowl if you want to eat it like that. It makes it easier to mix up the contents.

Enjoy!

Curls!

Last night, I decided to try a hair curling technique I saw online. It involves sleeping in an elastic headband and waking up to curls. I was wondering if it would work on my hair and I think it did great! This picture was taken several hours after I removed the headband and I didn't put any hairspray in it to hold the curls. If I had, they would have been even more curly!
I really think the curls turned out cute!
What do you think?

60,000 miles!

On our final day of our trip, we hit 60,000 on the van. This van has had a lot of miles put on it since we've had it! We got it in July of 2009 while I was pregnant with Emma and we couldn't imagine trying to squeeze three carseats into John's little Mazda. It had around 21,000 miles on it when we got it.
What's that math there? 60,000 - 21,000 = 39,000 miles in a little over 2 years. That is just under 20,000 miles a year! Yikes!
I guess that is this van's average. It was a year old when we got it with 21K on it.
Poor van. We'll try to go easy on you.... just keep working well. :)

We made it home around 11:30pm tonight and by the time the van was unpacked and kids were in bed, it was well after midnight.

It was a great vacation but it is also so nice to be home!

Goodbye Birds - Hello Castle!

Today was the day we'd been dreading since we left Indiana. Our vacation with family is over. We left Wyoming today around 1pm after we finally made ourselves leave. We never like these days each year.
We drove to Omaha and after trying to figure out the crazy streets around there, we arrived at our castle hotel. Seriously - it was a castle! This was the corner of it - the front looked like it as well!
We didn't pay very much for this room but we couldn't tell - it was such a fun hotel! It had a castle theme throughout and our room was super nice! It felt clean and that's what I think matters the most! The breakfast was great and I was a little bummed we couldn't stay another night...
We are home bound!

Native American Baby?

This picture just makes me laugh. Stacee and Riya would put Emma in this snow sled with a pillow and blanket and pull her around the house. Aimee said it looked like an Indian baby being pulled across the river.
Emma would just lay down and enjoy it like it was her favorite thing to do!
When do I get a turn?

Exhausted!

After partying all morning with her Wyoming cousins, Emma just needed a nap so I put her on Aimee's couch and put one of Aimee's adorable rag quilts on top of her and she was out. She is such a good sleeper and she slept through any and all noise in the house. I just can't help but take pictures of my kids when they are asleep - they are complete angels.
Always.
Of course. :)