Friday, April 30, 2010

New Blog Header

I thought it was time for a new title to my blog. What do you think?

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Trust

The video says it all!!!

Monday, April 26, 2010

Cardboard houses

While Kaylee and I took a long overdue nap on sunday, daddy was busy building Kaylee a house for her and her babies.

Room for two?


This house came equipped with doors:


Windows:

and even doggy doors:

We did feed her in her house too:
Kaylee has had so much fun with it. It only cost us about $300:) We will see how long it lasts. We fit all three of us in there last night but it did get a little damaged in the process.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Best Husband EVER!!!

My hubby worked hard yesterday, but still came home and got all of our appliances hooked up!!!
I am so excited!!!

Not the best pictures, but oh well. Kaylee was amazed too. I told Kaylee we had a surprise for her in the kitchen. She replied "prize?" Well, yes Kaylee, a prize too:)

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Control your dog, please...

On tuesday, while I had Kaylee and the girl I watch at the park, we had a little encounter with a dog. It started out as such a great day.

Kaylee has started to find it facinating to play in the sand, so for the past few days, that is all we have done. While playing in the sand, I take her shoes off. Well, tuesday was no different. I had both the girls shoes off and laying next to the stroller. We have met another mom over at the park that the girls love t play with her 14 month old daughter too. We were all playing in the sand when another lady walking her dog came past us. The dog immediately went after our shoes. It first sniffed mine and then picked up one of Kaylee's but immediately dropped it. Then it picked up Grace's shoe and would not drop it for anything. We tried for over 5 mintues to get the dog to drop it. We were throwing sticks, trying to pry it out of her mouth, or anything else we could think of. I finally told the owner that she could just keep the shoe:)

In one last attempt, the owner took the dog over to the bathroom to let her get a drink out of the toilet. It worked!! We had the shoe (if that is what you could call it anymore) back. At this point, I thought everything was good. Instead, the owner insisted that she give us money for the shoe. I was not worried about it but she insisted. I tried to call Grace's mom to find out how much the shoes were but could nto get ahold of her at the time. The other mom that was there said $15 dollars. Well, then we had to figure out how she was going to get it to us. Again, I was just standing there, not worried about the money at all. They finally insisted I text my address to her so she can drop off the money. I did. Here is where it gets so frustrating.

When she dropped off the money in an envelope, she left a note. It read " sorry Joey (her dog) and I made a mistake. Sorry it was such a big deal." WHAT!!! I was the one wanting to drop it. I felt so bad. I decided to text her to let her know that I was not upset at all. I text her "It was really no big deal at all. I know dogs can do that sometimes. I was not worried about it. I hope to see you and Joey at the park again sometime." Thought it was nice and to make sure she knew there were no hard feelings and that I was REALLY not worried about it at all. She text back "after the fact." Meaning, that I was not worried about it now that she had given me some money for the shoes. This is when I knew to just drop it. I was trying to be nice, but you can only go so far. It was her dog that ate the shoe, she should be responsible for that dog and the things that it eats. The dog was literally half her size and it was walking her instead of her walking it:) I do hope to see her again at the park. I don't want to mention this incident at all, but hopefully show her some kindness (and God's love) that it seems she needs.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Randoms

Last week, it was pretty hot so I filled up a couple of tubs with water and let Kaylee go at it.
I am not sure what it is about this pictures, but she looks so grown up.


Kaylee has also started more "pretend" play. It is fun seeing her. Last week, I caught her pushing her baby in the stroller while talking on her play phone. She sounded like she was holding a real conversation. Not sure who she was referring to on the other end, but she was answering lots of questions they must have been asking.
Here she is changing the diaper on one of her babies.

We also made it through the nursery on Sunday with no instances!!! We were so proud of her. During the week, we had been talking A LOT about sharing and how Jesus wants us to be nice to others. The nursery workers said they could tell we had been talking to her. She mentioned every time Kaylee was thinking of doing something she would stop and say "share" and then she would be nice to the other kids.
She has also learned to count from 2-6 on her own. She skips one for some reason and then will repeat what you say for 7-10 but will not do it on her own.
On other news, we are almost ready to get the kitchen appliances back in the kitchen. We grouted the tile floor under where the appliances go so that we can move them back in tomorrow night. I am so excited!! I can only go so long with out an oven and dishwasher, and having your refrigerator in the living room. Now, we just have to finish the rest of the floor and then the counter tops. Do it yourself projects are just a pain in the booty:( It has been fun working side by side with Brian on it though, but I am definitely ready for it to be done.
ok, well I have not blogged in a while and thought I better atleast update a little on what is going on around here.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Botanical Garden

Missouri has a beautiful botanical garden and we love to go there when we can. So when the weather was as beautiful as it could get, we decided to go to first service at Church and skip out of sunday school class. We spent the rest of the afternoon at the garden, having fun enjoying God's creation.
Kaylee found a new friend - "Baaaa" as she calls them.



I fell in love with the deep purple tulips.







Nothing says a hot, spring day like a drink from a public water fountain...






I wanted Brian to get a few pictures of Kaylee and I. I feel like I am always behind the camera and I miss out on pictures of us. He got some great shots....



Parenting is ......HARD

So far I have had it so easy with this parenting stuff.

Kaylee, you are about the easiest child to take care of and your daddy and mommy love you so much. We love you even in this hard time we are in right now. You see, you have decided to start biting other children. It started out small (just a little bite on someone's finger) but now it has gotten bad. You have received your first timeouts over this issue and now you even got kicked out of the nursery for it(for one week). My heart hurts so bad seeing you hurt other children in this way. We still love you so much and I know you are not doing this on purpose, but I am trying to figure out how to tell you that this is not appropriate. We have talked about how Jesus wants us to love others and be nice to others and biting is not being nice and Jesus is sad when we hurt others too. I just keep praying that soon (very soon) this will end and we can look back on this and see how you have grown through this.

If anyone has had this issue and has any other suggestions, I would be open to hearing them. I know biting is normal in kids, but I can't have her hurting other kids like this.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Cooking 101

Brian and I have talked about starting a tradition of homemade pizza and a movie night. We have done it just the two of us, but this time I thought about letting Kaylee help with the pizza. Kaylee and I decided we would surprise Brian this time with the pizza. Kaylee loved making it (and eating it).
We usually make our own pizza crust, but for the sake of time this time, I had bought a crust from Aldi's (I will not do that again). I have used Walmarts pizza crust and it is good, this one did not work very well.
Kaylee enjoyed trying to roll it out.
Time for sauce. We used barbecue sauce since we are making a hawaiin barbecue chicken pizza for daddy.
Now add the green peppers:

and onion. If you don't like touching the onions, just dump them on using the cutting board.

Enjoy eating the green peppers off of the pizza when you think mom is not looking: Sometime in there, add some pineapple and eat that too. Not sure how much actually made it on the pizza, I eventually had to move the pizza away if we wanted anything to be on the pizza in the end.
Time for the chicken:

Don't forget the cheese. She is banging it on the counter to break it up since I forgot to thaw it out during the day.


Now this point you would have preheated your oven and would be ready to bake it. WELL, when I started this, I had every intention of doing that. While she was putting on the cheese, I went into the kitchen to turn the oven on, only to discover, I forgot we don't have an oven right now. OOOPS. So, I tried to call a neighbor to see if I could borrow theirs, to no success. So, I baked it on the grill. Worked pretty well to just bake it on the pizza stone right on the grill:) Another note: this may have been something to start when we our dining room table is not in the living room. We have quite a mess under the table - on the carpet.
And the finished product. Not the prettiest product, but Kaylee had so much fun with it. Brian really enjoyed it but Kaylee filled up on the making of the pizza that she didn't eat much of the finished product.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Teach your kids while they are young

Who wouldn't want their fridge and table in the living room? It is so convenient!!! Ok, being honest, it is so chaotic!!!!

Here is the kitchen in its current state. We got the backerboard down on saturday. (It is what goes under the tile) Wevwere exhausted by the end of the day. It is progress though. Now I am without a stove though:( Here comes grilling and crockpot dinners!!!Kaylee even got in on the action. Handy girl in the making. Some people teach their kids different languages when their little, we teach Kaylee how to redo a kitchen!!

Easter

Yesterday, after church, we headed to my parents house. It is a little over an hour away and so we were hoping if we packed a lunch in the car that Kaylee would take a nap on the way there. No deal!! I am starting to feel that she is giving up her naps and I am not really sure I am ready for this. She is fine without a nap until about 5p.m. After that, she loses it. I have to figure out a way to get her to take her naps again. She used to be so good with it.

Anyways, back to Easter. My sister and her family came also. I love getting together with her family. Their kids are so good and so much fun. Here Kaylee is with their oldest, Elizabeth. Elizabeth has not been feeling well for a while and has gone through scads of tests. All to find out, she is now lactose intolerant like her daddy. Bummer.


Now, let the Easter egg hunt begin. Kaylee is a pro at this. I didn't even have to tell her what to do, she filled up her basket a couple of times.


She sees one under the couch and tried with all her might to get it out of there. It was pretty cute.



There was one special egg just for her. It had a little people bunny with an easter basket in it. As you can see, she has her mouth full of candy. My sister kept feeding her candy as she was picking up eggs. She had a few pieces of candy yesterday, but then before my sister left with her kids, I snuck the rest of Kaylee's candy into their baskets so it would not be in the house.


After the egg hunt, all the kids emptied there eggs and dumped them back in the bucket. Kaylee had more fun playing with all the eggs. She was trying to get in the bucket for awhile.


One way to get rid of all the sugar--play band hero!!!


It was a great day. We were all exhausted by the end.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

A Day at the Park

We took advantage of the nice weather yesterday and scheduled a playdate.


This is not a great picture of Logan but the only one I got. He is fast and on the move A LOT!!!

Kaylee found some girls to play with.
My little astronaut:)

Open Drawer

Kaylee has sure been finding new ways to enjoy the kitchen being under construction. I am kind of liking the "open drawer" concept myself - easy to reach things - but will enjoy getting countertops in soon too:)