I just called Nevada Power. I was on hold for 16 minutes and 28 seconds just to have the nice lady tell me that I am not on the account and they could not talk to me about anything.

Great.

16 minutes of my life down the drain for NOTHING!!

this is nate.
K, so we're not gonna make any excuses as to why neither of us have blogged in the past (nearly) 3 weeks. We've been busy, lazy, whatever. We just haven't posted. Sorry.
Not a whole lot has been happening over here lately. We've still got a handful of boxes sitting around from the move (coming up on 2 months now- WOW!) that we just continue to walk around or move from one not-good location to another. The house s great! We are loving it. So far the biggest downsides to the house are all the barking dogs in the neighborhood (it seems like every other house has at least 2 dogs) and the occasional really loud jet flying around from the air force base. But all in all it's great here. We're still adjusting to getting our way around on only a handful of main streets that we know and don't go exploring too far away from home quite yet. Our newest addition to the house are the new toilet seats we bought this afternoon. The ones that were here were cheap plastic ones that cave in when we sit on the lid ( giving the kids baths, etc.) and shift if you lean one way or another. I don't think I ever paid much attention to how much someone could spend on a toilet seat if you really wanted to. I'm pretty sure I noticed a couple seats that were selling for $40-$50. I was only a little surprised but then realized that that is an important piece of equipment you're investing in. A person will log many hours on the throne during its lifetime, why not make it a nicer experience for your tush?
Work is going great. I still really love my job...... even when I discovered a supply of pee-filled cups and potato chip bags in a holding cell that a crazy dude was being held in- here's the story. He's not just kinda strange, the guy is a frequent flier in our jail and we all know that he's seriously mentally ill; crazy. He's supposed to take medication for it, but he rarely is on it when he is brought in to us. And he has a history of getting really really violent while in custody. So he was taken to court the other morning and I was checking his cell (because he's a nut he can't be in general population) to make sure he wasn't trashing it or decoration with poo or anything like that. I really only expected to have to cell swept out and have the trash thrown away. Well, the trash I found was awfully organized and stacked in the corner behind the pony wall that prevents people from seeing them to their business on the toilet. Strange, who organizes their garbage??? Oh yeah, he's crazy, so no big deal. Being still a little odd, I put gloves on and picked up one of the cups which felt full. Again, a little strange, cause they don't get a whole lot to eat in booking, so why would anyone save their juice when they're so hungry? Oh well, he's crazy. I picked up the next cup, it's full too. Okay, this is the straw that broke the camel's back- what is in these; cause I know he's just saving his juices. I take the lid off and.... wait a second, that's no apple juice! Our juice is red, there's no apple juice in our whole jail I don't think. By this point it's pretty obvious that he's saving his pee for a reason. Next to these 6 pee filled cups is his paper bag that has chip bags tied closed at the top with the plastic wrap that the sandwich is wrapped in. This turd is making water balloons... It doesn't take a veteran officer to figure out that there's a good chance that all this ammo is planned for someone in a blue uniform and more than likely no one in particular since the crazies are so unpredictable. You learn pretty quick to have a certain amount of paranoia working in the jail. And that paranoia just paid off on tuesday morning. All that said, I still really enjoy my job.
We went this past saturday and got the kids' pictures taken. We found a guy on craigslist who is getting his photography business started and offered to take pictures for the first 10 people to contact him in order to help build up his portfolio. We (more Stac actually) jumped on the chance. Zoee has only had real picture taken 3 times ever and Gus never has. So we figured that for free, all we need is a couple decent shots and we'll have us a great deal. He said he'd mail us a disc of all the picture he took and we'll be able to do what we want with them. I usually wouldn't have taken a chance on the guy but by the pictures he had on his website, be was totally LDS (temple wedding pictures is usually a pretty good sign, right?) The link is here, which is some of the better ones, but there are more here. Zoee really wasn't cooperating much but Gus was all smiles most of the time he wasn't trying to eat rocks, sticks, or leaves. It was pretty cool and we got to spend a couple hours at the park in great weather.

oh yeah, since we never posted anything from Halloween, here's a couple pics from our Halloween breakfast. Halloween pancakes:

And here's the reaction to the spider pancake:

(sometimes being a parent has its sick perks)

So, I think that pretty much is it. Not a whole lot else.

Oven Fried Chicken Tenders

12 thawed chicken tenders

1/2 cup Buttermilk (I didn't have this so I just used milk with a little lemon)

1 1/2 cups reduced fat cheese crackers (I used Cheese its)

1/4 t. salt

1 t. creole seasoning

1 Tablespoon oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place crackers, salt and creole seasoning in zip lock bag and crush. Dip tenders in buttermilk and then in the crackers. Do it to all the tenders. Spray pan with cooking spray and put the oil on the pan. Put the pan in the oven for 3 minutes to heat oil. Take the pan out and quickly put the tenders on the pan. You should hear the chicken start to sizzle. Reduce the oven to 400 degrees and cook chicken for 10 minutes. Turn tenders over and bake for an additional 3 minutes

Serve with ranch, honey mustard or BBQ sauce.

I have been trying lots of different recipes lately and this is what we had for dinner last night. I found the recipe in the Weight Watchers cookbook. I was a little unsure of how they would turn out but they were delicious and they are kid friendly too! We will definitely make them again!

ADULT Boggle?

Tonight we played Boggle. It is our favorite game to play and we play it a lot. Here is a list of words we each got in one round.

Stacy got the words-
Cute
Sunny
and Toes

Nate got the words-
Tits
Balls
and Labia

It is interesting to see on paper what really goes on in someones mind. :)

Have you ever...

had days when you are just really tired of your kids? I think I have had a few of those lately? I have tried really hard to be patient but the last two days have been pretty rough. Don't know if it was me, them or something else but I am just really glad the day is over. Glad tomorrow is a new day and hopefully it will be a better one.

Night.

The finished room

We finished the laundry room and it looks awesome! I am really proud of what we accomplished and I think it looks great.

Step 1-Paint the white on the walls for the white stripes.



Step 2- Tape. This was the worst part of the job. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. We used a laser level to get the lines perfectly straight.
Caulk the edges of the tape with painters caulk. This stuff is amazing! It prevents any paint leaking into the texture of the wall and makes a perfectly straight like when you pull the tape off.

Step 3- Paint the blue.



Step 4- Paint the green and let dry. Go to Home Depot for more paint because you realize you will need another coat of green. Peel off tape when paint is still tacky.

and here it is all done...

I love it so much! I want to do something like this in the bathroom now. I wasn't sure how it would look but it turned out great. Can't wait for the next project!!