Lego Land

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Let me shout from the mountain tops!

IT'S A GIRL!!!




A cute, healthy little girl.

I couldn't hold back my tears of joy upon finding out that we are getting another sister! I feel like we've won the lottery today!

A healthy girl.

What a beautiful blessing!

Some Days

Some friends and family have been accusing me of covering my belly in every picture by pulling my kids infront of me. And they want to see my progress. So to them I say, you want a picture of my belly - you got it. A shameless, from below, in my swimsuit, picture of my body at 16 weeks.

In other news, WHY DO THE PICTURES ON THE BOX OF THE EASY BAKE OVEN LOOK SO BLASTED FANTASTIC WHEN REALLY WHAT COMES OUT OF THE OVEN IS A HARD, HALF-BURNED, GROSS TASTING, TINY, REMNANT OF A COOKIE THAT TAKES 10 MINUTES TO BAKE - A SINGLE ONE?!

All I have been hearing from Ashley this week is how much she wants an easy bake oven. Rather than buy one I sent a request out to our neighborhood email group and was offered proabably ten of them to borrow (smartest thing I've done all day). So we ventured to Target this morning to buy a couple food packages and I've honestly never seen Luke and Ashley so into something. They were planning their new bakery game, who was going to make the signs for their shop, who got to cook the food on which days of the weeks.... I just listened.

When we got home all three kids started talking to me at once about how it was supposed to go and what we were supposed to do and what each other was and wasn't supposed to be touching... it was intense.

I put three bowls out and let each one mix something and then explained that we could only bake one thing at a time and each thing takes 10 minutes. That's a really long time if you ask them.

Upon getting the first cookie out Luke went to hold the pan with his fingers and burned them. He was so embarrassed he went to the bathroom to get cold water, but came out in tears. Typical Ashley took one tiny bite of her cookie brick and said she was finished - but then Jake came along and seemed to really enjoy it.

Our third cookie is now baking and we've only been at this for over an hour. Luke's probably done with easy bake cooking for life (now sitting on the couch holding ice on his hand), Ashley's lost interest in the process, and Jake is begging for cookies at a faster rate....

It's been exhausting.

And did I mention that EACH cookie packet is 6.99 at target? So I dropped 14 bucks on the stuff this morning. And now I have the kitchen to clean up.

Summer fun. You really ought to try easy bake.

Baby oh Baby

We find out what we are having on Friday! We are all excited about it as you can imagine. For memory's sake I thought it'd be fun to record the babies so far in our families - and see how our little one adds to the picture.

Hillstead Side - in order of appearance
Carter
Blake
Luke
Ashley
Brooklyn
Jake
Andrew
Samantha
Julia
Paige
Abby
Todd and Nat soon-to-be baby girl
Our soon-to-be baby - Claire?
Ali and Blake's soon-to-be baby ?

Mugleston side
Luke
Ashley
Jake
Paige
Our soon-to-be baby - Claire?
Ali and Blake's soon-to-be baby ? (have to admit, it's a pretty tight cousin family tree we've got going so far...)

The Hillstead babies have been on a girl streak - five in a row over the last 18 months! I wonder, will we catch that wave or bring it down with a big blue exclamation point!? Do you have a guess?

The boys in Blue

Swimteam has begun again. It's Luke's third year and he has moved up from the 5/6 class to the 7/8 year olds. It is always exciting to watch him race and he looked great today in the freestyle. He won another blue ribbon!


Jacob got a black and blue eye Thursday at the mall when he ran smack into another kid at the play place. Ouch! It sounded like football helmets colliding - only without the helmets. Poor kid. He seems to be okay though!

Surprisingly good Tortilla Soup

I've never posted recipies on my blog but I want to make a call out to my friends and family for us to start doing this more. It makes gathering and sharing recipes quick and simple - Ali in particular, start sharing the goods!

Tonight I made a surprisingly good (and very easy) chicken tortilla soup.

Here's the recipe:

1 can refried beans
1 can black beans
1 can chicken broth
1 can corn
3/4 c salsa
1/2 c water
1 can chicken chunks (I used costco's - you could probably put a raw breast in the crock pot and shred it before serving)

Put all ingredients in the crock-pot and heat. Stir well before serving. Serve with crushed tortilla chips, shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream. Enjoy!

Astro Boy!

We rented the cartoon version of Astro Boy at the library last week. After watching several of the episodes of Astro Boy flying all over space doing lots of cool things, Jacob came to us and asked how we could help him to fly too, like Astro Boy. It was so sweet how he really wanted to be able to do it. Tyler took him by the armpits and I got his legs and we raced him through the livingroom in the air - he loved it. The next day he asked me to help him fly like Astro Boy again and I said I couldn't withtout daddy so we came up with this - a little lift from the hamper. It is cute how he tries to hold his feet and arms just like Astro Boy. Let that imagination roll!

Trip to Pinetop

This weekend we got away to Pinetop - a cool town in the White Mountains about 180 miles from here. Last Fall Tyler and I bought a timeshare from some friends - the same one that Tyler's parents have had for years and years. Vacationing to a timeshare is wonderful because it is like staying in a furnished condo and the amenities are a lot of fun. We loved the pools and hot tub, tennis and basketball courts, game room, hiking trails, scavenger hunt, playground and just being surrounded by the beautiful forest - a rarity for us! We stumbled upon a rinky dinky carnival that had stopped in town and took the kids there one night. We found a pretty lake to walk around, a family fun center for go-carting (notice Jake as Tyler's wingman in the bottom pic) and a good little breakfast cafe called "Darbi's".
We have been looking forward to taking this trip as a family and count on taking many, many more like it as the kids grow up. It was great.

Last day of school 2010

Ashley's kindergarten graduation -




Kicking off summer at the bowling alley with lots of friends -