Resemblance?

This picture of Lexi cracks me up. I saw it and suddenly thought about this little girl....

Talking-less Thursday

I am ready to SLEEP, so since I forgot Wordless Wednesday, I am going with Eric's suggestion of Talking-less Thursday...goodnight!

Lasagna Rolls

I love lasagna...well any kind of pasta for that matter! Eric also LOVES lasagna. If there is some in the fridge, he will eat it for every single meal until it is gone. Seriously! He has done this since he was a kid too. I love that about him. :)

I also HATE to make lasagna. For some reason, it is too labor intensive and gets on my nerves. All the layering and stuff, combined with the noodles never working with me...it's just not my favorite thing to make.

Until now....

I had to use up some ground beef the other day and was in the mood for pasta, so I concocted my own little recipe that turned out to be really easy and tasty. We called it Lasagna Rolls and Eric has given me his blessing to cook it again. :)

All I did was break lasagna noodles in half, boil them, and set them aside to cool. Then I spread a thin layer of pasta sauce on the bottom of a 9X13 pan.

I cooked a pound of ground beef with minced onions, italian seasoning, and some garlic powder. Then I poured pasta sauce into the meat (after the meat was fully cooked). I added a small tub of cottage cheese, and almost 1 cup of parmesan cheese to the meat mixture and stirred it up.

Then I took one lasagna noodle (the half piece) and put a HUGE tablespoon full of the meat mixture in the noodle, rolled it up, and set it into the pan. I continued this until the pan was full. This only took about 20 minutes even with 3 kids running under my feet. :)

I poured the rest of the pasta sauce over the top of the noodles, added some mozzarella cheese over the whole thing and popped it into the oven for 30 minutes at 350℉.

It truly tasted like my regular lasagna recipe. I also made a new recipe for stuffed breadsticks that I will have to post later. Goodnight!!

Brushing Our Teeth

Clearly I love my girls! This video may bore every single one of you that is not related to the girls, and even then, some of you relatives may get bored. BUT, I think it is adorable and this blog is a family blog for us to stay in touch with far away family and friends. It is also our way of forever cherishing moments from our lives.

So I just couldn't get enough of them brushing their teeth. They got the singing toothbrushes from their grandparents for Christmas.

Days

What else are we up to these days? Well, teething seems to be a constant thing around here. The twins like to play all day. Last night they ran around in their diapers playing ball with each other and collapsing on the floor with laughter. I grabbed myself a front row seat and enjoyed the show. Lexi has been practicing her accessorizing and her hilarious parrot-copying skills. She continually surprises and amazes us. Isn't she looking like a big kid these days?

Lilly loves to snuggle, even with her doggies. Toby walked by her the other day and they just checked each other out for a while.
Lexi can still be mischievous and adventurous, but it is all part of her charm.
Lilly likes to bring us the mail...after taking it off of the table we placed it on.
And I just love the occasional fountain of hair that I get when putting their hair up. I hate to think about trimming it, but unless it is pulled up, it hangs in their faces. And yes, they still hate to have their hair up.
Happy Tuesday everyone!

The Zoo!! Yes Again....

I know, the girls have been to the zoo a lot in their, soon to be, 19 months! What can I say! I love God's creation, nature, animals, etc... It's the biologist in me and I hope I can instill the same love in my children. Come to think of it, my mother loved nature, birds in particular. Maybe I got it from her!! :) That makes me really happy!

This zoo trip was especially fun because we met up with a long-time friend of mine who lives in Waco with her family. I haven't seen her since my wedding and it was so nice to catch up a little bit. Her kids are super sweet, good kids too. So it was a fun day! Lilly had a few short-lived meltdowns from being tired and from her pesky molar, but overall, she was fine.

Here they are waiting for our friends. Lilly is in the pink and Lexi is in the brown...

My favorite picture of the day...isn't he amazing!?!!

Also, apparently this was the day of the HUGE University of Kentucky vs. University of Louisville basketball game. I'm sorry, but I just had no idea that it was that big of a deal. I do like UK, but didn't know this particular game was so big. He agreed to go to the zoo and then couldn't believe I was going to make him miss the game. Thankfully, being the good daddy that he is, he checked the scores all day on his iPhone and still had a great day with us. And of course, UK won!! Yea!

See Lilly's face? The first meltdown was *we think* because she wanted to pet the bald eagles.

I was holding Lilly at this point and this seagull adored her. I am so glad I got a shot of him looking up at her.
Me (making a face) and Lilly bug...
"Mommy, where is the alligator?"
Is the beaver real? Lilly finally gave him a hug, just in case.
There is the alligator. Gotta love the teeth. The green spots were algae on the glass.
An action shot of Lexi...I liked it!
The girls bumped into another set of identical twin girls while playing at the tee-pees. The other girls were about 4 and were so sweet to my girls. They held their hands and showed them the inside of the tee-pee. It was really sweet to watch. I thought their mom and I were gonna cry at how sweet the 4 were together.
Here is Lexi and Karis playing around by the otters. They are exactly 1 year and 1 week apart. :)
A sunning stork...It was a beautiful brisk 50 degree day. I'm telling you, the best time to go to the zoo is when it is cool or slightly cold out. The animals are usually out playing and pretty active. It is really neat to see what they will do.
Lexi watching the rhinos.
We had a sleepy girl after a while...
Justin is such a great kid! We adored both kiddos. Justin is really good with his sister and even played with the twins a few times. He is super smart too!

The orangutans were a new exhibit. This guy was trying to be sly and hide from all the people under this sack.

Time to go home. We stopped at Fazoli's and got the girls their fill of lasagna and breadsticks. Those were some happy, messy cheeks!

Happy New Year

So far, we are having a great 2010! The last few days have had rough moments. At our house right now, 4 molars are coming in and there are lots of tears and fits of pain associated with that. Otherwise, things are good. The girls had so much fun at church this morning. Lilly giggled all the way to the car and I so wish I knew what was funny. Lexi kept yelling, "Goodbye, Mike!" as we left the building. Hmmmmmm? :)

Now everyone in the house is napping and I am getting caught up on some things....this video is from the other day. I love sitting back and watching these 2 play with each other. They are such good sisters and truly love each other!