Wordless Wednesday

Payton's first Christmas!

Payton and I were both born in April. My birthday is the 2nd and her birthday is the 11th. So... I was very excited to find a picture of me with my dad on my first Christmas. I thought it would be fun to reenact the photo with my dad and Payton. We are both 8 months old in these photos. The only bummer is that Payton was in a red dress just before the pictures but I didn't think about that until after I taken it and I was not about to change her back!

Enjoy! (I took a picture of the picture so it is not the greatest quality!)

More Christmas posts to come... stay tuned!

Christmas Eve 2010

We had a great Christmas Eve... here it is, just for you, in pictures!
My dad, Austin and Frank set out the luminaries.

Then we made reindeer food (oatmeal and sprinkles).

This year my cousin's daughter helped out. She thought it was super tasty. 

Then we went out to spread the reindeer food on the lawn.

When we came back in we wrote Santa a letter. This was the first year that Austin actually wrote his letter himself! LOVE IT! I wrote Santa a translation down below!

Once the letter was done we read a story about Bethlehem. 

There was lots of dancing, laughing and playing! Christmas is so much more fun when there are little kids around! I can not wait until tomorrow! Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones!  

Cookies, Cookies and more Cookies!

Mom and I decided to give cookies to our co-workers this year for Christmas. It was a nice idea and the cookies were yummy but it is not something I will do again anytime soon! We went to one of those places where you can put your dinners together and then take them home to cook later. While we were there we made the cookie dough. We made 10 different types (4 of them are not pictured here) and then brought them home to freeze and bake later. I spent a whole day baking and made over 250 cookies! (And that was only my half... mom made the other half!) My favorite recipe was for no bake cookies! They are orange flavored and rolled in coconut! The great thing about them is they are super easy to make then you stick them in the freezer and pull them out to thaw and serve... so they would be easy to keep on hand! I found the recipe on cooks.com after we made them.

Orange Coconut Cookie Balls
1 box vanilla wafers, crushed

1 stick butter, melted
1 (1 lb.) box powdered sugar
1 (6 oz.) can frozen orange juice
1 c. pecans, chopped (I did not put pecans in the ones I made)
1 pkg. coconut (This was not mixed in the balls I made. We mixed all the other ingredients together and then rolled the ball in the coconut but I think I will mix it in next time to make it faster!)

Mix all ingredients together and roll into bite size balls. No cooking. Refrigerate.

I am thinking that I will make these again New Years Eve! Let me know if you try them!

Worst Christmas Gift EVER

Austin took this picture!

Wow! This is by far the worst gift idea I have ever seen! It is an automatic pet petter! It uses batteries and pets your pet for you! The box actually says "Never touch your pet again"! How sad is that?! Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like pet neglect!

What?!

Who's a National Board Certified Teacher?!

A whole year... and this is one of the only pictures I have of myself! Ha!

Christmas Show

 Christmas is here! I cannot believe how quickly it came! This time last year I was pregnant! I had just found out that I was going to have the little girl that I always dreamed of having! This time last year I found out that my perfect view of my future that I had since I was a little girl was truly going to be my future! Since as far back as I could remember I knew I would get married, become a teacher and have one little boy and one little girl. I can not tell you the contentment I feel now that it is no longer a dream! I am always amazed at the life I lead but it is during special occasions that I really see how blessed I am! We had the privilege of seeing our sweet boy in his second Christmas show and he was none other than an angle of God! We had great fun! My parents, grandparents and John got to be there with us. He did a great job and here are some pictures of him.

I had to include a picture of him yawning because he did that a lot during the show! Hey… at least he didn’t announce to the church that he had to go to the bathroom like the first year! Even though those are the memories I cherish!

Happy Birthday!

I did Wordless Wednesday on Tuesday because this Wednesday I want to say Happy Birthday to my nephew Jonas! Hope your birthday is amazing! We love you and miss you!

Wordless Wednesday on a Tuesday!

Thanksgiving: Take two

     Well, Thanksgiving was a total success! We floated the turkey in a brine mixture. It had lemon, bay leaves, cinnamon and cloves in with it. The brine was made of lots of water, salt and sugar. Then I pulled the turkey out of the soak and put all the solid stuff (lemon halves, bay leaves etc.) inside the turkey for cooking. The turkey was delish but I don’t think I will try that method again! All the salt in the mix made it impossible to make gravy from the drippings and mom’s traditional Thanksgiving soup afterwards. We also had green bean casserole, maple glazed carrots, potatoes gratin, cranberry stuffing and cranberry bread. Since I was in charge we had the musts for my Thanksgiving table: black olives, artichoke hearts and cranberry sauce from a can! LOVE THANKSGIVING!!



Here is the turkey floating over night!

     My brother, his wife Kelly (Aunt Lelly), and my mom and dad all came. I wanted to do something special for my first Thanksgiving so I wrote each person in attendance a letter about them; what I am thankful for and special memories I have of them. This was fun to do; it took me about 4 hours so I am glad I picked a small gathering to do this for. I highly recommend you try it next year! I think it is so important to express your thoughts and feelings to those you love and what better time to express thanks then Thanksgiving! Here are some of the pictures I took… (Again, not many pictures were taken! I was so busy enjoying the family and cooking that I hardly thought of my camera!)



I finally got to use my china after nearly 8 years!




One of the many yummy appetizers




Aunt Lelly and Sprink



Uncle Sean and Austin (I am inches away from taking down that tower... I am tired of fixing it!)



Cooking! (I need a bigger kitchen... or a pantry... I just don't understand
how houses can be made with no pantry and no garage this day and age!)



8 Months

I didn't make her wear this bow cuz it is the size of her head! But she is so cute!

I just can't get over how big she is getting! I know I skipped the 7 month update so I wanted to make sure I did one this month! At her last appointment (last week) she weighed 13lbs and 14oz and she is doing a lot more now! She is officially no longer a vegetarian. She had turkey for Thanksgiving this year. She also has learned to sit up! I love when babies start to sit; they have such perfect posture. She started this the second week of November and within a week was a pro! When Austin was little he loved being in his jumper and Payton does too but not as much as he did. She would MUCH rather sit on the floor and play. She doesn’t like to be confined to a swing or a jumper. She LOVES to talk! Right now it is just lots of sounds at lots of volumes! She says “Dada” a lot… that is the great thing about the kids calling Frank Papa! Heehee Just like her brother, Payton loves lights! In fact she keeps trying to attack my laptop because it is dark outside and the keyboard is lighting up orange. The most amazing thing about a second child is seeing how much or your family is born into your kids! Frank and his dad are both flickers. They like to flick things with their fingers. Frank’s favorite thing to flick is his collar on his shirt. If you look carefully you will see that the collar on many of his polo shirts have been damaged from flicking. It makes me smile and drives me nuts all at the same time! Austin is also a flicker. He places his blanket between his first and middle finger and then rubs the blanket with his pointer finger. He does this without a blanket as well and has rubbed a callous into his middle finger! I have started to notice Sprink doing this as well. She doesn’t have the hold down yet but she does rub with her pointer just like Austin! She has a new winter coat that looks like a puppy and it has little ribbons on it; Payton loves to flick those ribbons! She also is getting to be very interactive! She makes a little squeal sounds and than waits for you to repeat it! She is such a sweet little angle and we love her to pieces!

Big Girl

Baby Sprinkles has been practicing all month! She is finally able to sit with confidence!  Isn’t she cute?! Sorry for the picture quality… this photo was taken with my camera and for some reason Blackberry decided they don’t need a flash anymore!

Ride on!

Austin is a remarkable little man! When he decides he is ready to do something that is when he will do it, not a minute sooner and not a minute later! This tradition continued on when he learned to ride his bike! We had all been asking him for a long time (the last 6 months or so) if he wanted to take the training wheels off of his bike! He always said no. Even on Monday the week he learned! But November 11^th (Veteran’s Day) we were home from school and he walked by one of the bikes that we have… this one has no training wheels and like a cowboy looking at a bucking bronco in an old western he pointed to the bike and said “I want to ride that today.” It was not like all those father/son run behind and let go type images you always get when you think of a kid riding a bike. He got on it and taught himself within the span of an hour! I was impressed! When he puts his mind to something he doesn’t let anything stop him!

Payton's First Thanksgiving

This is the only picture I took! Shame on me! We went to my Uncle Mike and Aunt Virginia's house and had a blast! I am cooking my first Thanksgiving tonight so I will have to do better and take more pictures of Sprink and her holiday! My mom, dad, Uncle Sean and Aunt Lelly will all be here. There will be another post soon about that experience!

Wordless Wednesday

                                                                       Photo Blooper

Halloween Day

 

Halloween day was nice. It started at church. I had nursery duty so I was able to spend the whole time with Payton! She wore this cute little cat outfit to church and for most of the day.

That evening we went over to mom and dad’s house to trick or treat. Dad stays home and passes out the candy while mom walks with us. This year we did fewer houses! There is no need to have that much candy in the house and it was a school night. We walked around mom’s street and then mom and I headed back to the house to get Payton in the car while Frank and Austin visited a few more houses on the main street. We picked them up and went to visit my grandparents. They even had a special treat for Payton. It was her first treat! She got this jar of sweet potatoes.

After a short visit we went to see Aunt Lelly’s parents and then we went to a family friend’s house for dinner. They have a Halloween/birthday party every year! It was a great night and we all had tons of fun! Austin dressed up as a skeleton. Payton had a skeleton outfit too for pictures with her brother. We put Austin’s first costume on her for the trick or treating part since it was a little chilly out there so she was a chicken! Here are some photos of the kids in their costumes.

Corn Maze Take Two

Austin, Payton and I revisited the corn maze during the day use some of the day tickets we got in exchange for the scary tickets we bought and didn’t get to use! It was so much fun during the day and we will surly go back next year! They had a large black tube slide, a large black tube swing, a corn shooting gun and pumpkin cannon! They also had a hay mountain, a corn box (like a sand box but it is full of dried corn), a giant tic tac toe board (with toilet seats as the O), tractors, rubber duck racing and hay rides. Austin did not want to go back into the corn maze even when I tried to explain that the creepy guy was not in there anymore! Here are some of the pictures I took while we were there!

Halloween Corn Maze

Halloween was a great deal of fun this year! Holidays are even more incredible when you have kids and this year was no exception! Of course it was Payton’s first Halloween as well which added to the excitement. Halloween started a week or so early around here because Frank’s mom and our nephew came for a visit and wanted to partake in as much as they could. We took them to a haunted corn maze the last night they were in town; needless to say this did not go well. We were standing in line next to the corn maze in the dark and you could hear gun shots, screams and chain saws from inside. Austin quickly covered his ears and stated that he had no desire to go in. We tried to talk to him about how everyone that was in there way just a normal person in a costume and that it is fun when people jump out to scare you. (It did not work so well) We walked in and right away we saw a little black blob on the floor ahead of us. I pointed to it and warned Austin that this was the first person that was going to come at us in an effort to prepare him. (I was holding him at the time) The little creature or “little creepy guy” as he has since come to be known came at us. It was really creepy! He was really short (had to have been a kid) but that made it even weirder and he came at us in the weird hopping hobble sort of way. But the most disturbing thing about him was how close he got to our personal space. The boys immediately started screaming! I took off with Austin; I figured if I got between that guy and the next monster we would be safe for a little while…  Meanwhile, Jonas took off running for the entrance and Moma and Frank were trying to drag him back in! I turned around to see if they were coming and here comes the creepy guy! So Austin started crying. It was about this time that I decided that losing the money spent on the corn maze was a more economical decision that the amount we would spend on counseling if I forced Austin to keep going… so I walked out!  For about a week Austin was scared of “the creepy guy”. He was sure that he was going to come to the house… this is because Frank told him he was coming… wasn’t that nice!? Anyway, at one point Austin was actually scared to go in his room at 10:00 in the MORNING because of it!  I am glad to announce; however, that he has moved past this now and is doing just fine… only took 2-3 weeks!

Visit from Germany

Frank’s mom and our nephew came for a visit! They were only able to stay for a week but we had lots of fun while they were here. The best part of their visit was that they got to meet Payton. Moma (Frank’s mom) watched Payton for the week that she was here. That made it much easier to get up in the morning and get to work when it was just me and Austin. A little aside: we call her Moma because that was Austin’s way of saying Oma when he was little and as in most families the first born is the one that names everyone! Jonas is 8 (going on 9 in December). He was on a fall break from school and was able to join her as well. It reminded me of the trip the two of them made when Austin was born! We spent a lot of time doing typical America things... like daily trips to Walmart and McDonalds! We also went to the fair, the arcades and Tailgating service at church! Austin even got to skip school one day to stay home and play with them one last time before they flew home! It worked out well because it was a ½ day anyway so he really didn’t miss anything! We had a ton of fun but as always… their visit when by way too quickly!

Wordless Wednesday

 

Happy 30^th Birthday to My Brother!!

Game Day!

       The day of the game was AMAZINGLY hot!!! I was very worried about Payton since she was so young and I had never had her outside for that amount of time in that heat (except at the beach… but that was a bit cooler and there was water there to help her out!) We sat in the stands in the full sun waiting for the fly over. I had her in a little “tent” I made out of a blanket and my arm. Several people commented on her being there and how tiny she was…I get a lot of that because she looks a lot younger than she really is! Anyway, the fly over was the coolest thing I have seen in a long time and well worth the heat! I was/am so proud of my brother! Here are several photos! (I would have a video to show you but my hubby had a little technical difficulty and thought he was on “Video” when he was actually still on the photo setting on the camera. So… all we got from that was a picture of the girl that sung the anthem just before the fly over and a picture of the man’s rear end just in front of us as Frank put the camera down. Oh well!)




My brother is the one on the far left in this picture!

 He is on the far right in this picture!

Austin, is so proud of his uncle! You can see Payton in her little "tent" in the back!

After the fly over I took Payton under the stadium seating to the shaded benches near where all the food is sold. It was much cooler there! I happened to be sitting right near the first aide room and saw SEVERAL people that were brought in for heat related illnesses! There were at least 7 and they were all women! I wonder why that is… We went back to the stadium at half time to watch my brother be introduced on the field…

Here he is on the field waiting for the introduction. He is in the middle towards the right standing next to the guy in the green shirt.

Here he is on the Jumbotron (sp?) he is the second one from the left.


We had a wonderful time but the weekend just flew by (no pun intended!) Here is a picture of us in a rickshaw heading back to the parking deck! A perfect end to a perfect weekend!

My Brother's Big Toys

My dad and my brother are two of my local heroes! They both are/were F-15 pilots. The F-15 just happens to be the most amazing jet there is, but I am bias! So… many weeks ago we had the amazing opportunity to see my brother do a fly over at the Panther’s first home game. It was the most amazing family trip! We got to spend a lot of time with my brother, which I love! We have actually gotten to see him a lot more this year than we have the last several years and that is very important for me because of the kids! When he got into town he took us over to the airport to show us his planes and let Austin sit inside! Austin was a little scared getting up and down because they did not have the easy ladder that they would if the jet was on display at an air show and it too both Frank and Sean to hoist him up there and he is a little uncomfortable with things like that! Once he was up there he was in heaven!  Here are some of the pictures we got of that.

 I think Payton likes the F-15 as much as I do!

Frank and his top gun-ness!

 Ignore the back side of my brother... but I had to put this one in here cuz Austin is cracking me up!!

He was much happier IN the plane!

Our little fighter jet pilot!

Come back tomorrow!! I will continue this post with a new post about the game and the fly over!