Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Christmas gift from the kids to Grandma

This year (as with every other year) I was stumped on what to get for my mother-in-law. As hard as I try to find something that she would like, I am 95% sure she is going to return. But THIS year, I found something that she can't return (even if she doesn't like it... haha).
We bought an apron from Bed Bath and Beyond (I have since found cheaper ones,b ut not as nice at Joann) and some fabric paint. We had the girls put their hand and foot prints on the apron and I *intent* to embroider "Grandma's Kitchen" on it. At the time I did not have enough time to set up the embroidery machine, but it will come soon!

Cheap, easy, and from the heart :)



Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Homemade Christmas Gifts - 2010

Ever since I became a stay at home mom I have become more and more crafty. So this year when Christmas rolled around i decided to make some homemade gifts for my ever growing family and friends. After perusing many crafty websites I settled on Hot Cocoa Cones and Peppermint Bath Salts. The Hot Cocoa Cones were the more popular of the two but both were extraordinarily easy.


Hot Coco Cones

I made them simple this year, next year I may decorate them to look like Rudolph.
You will need:
Hot cocoa power
Mini chocolate chips
mini marshmellows
crushed up candy canes
Plastic cone bags (wilton has their cake decorating bags, but this year they started putting their logo on them, bleh... so search online for some)
1. Put cocoa (2 servings worth of cocoa) mix in one of the plastic cones and either tie up and trim or trim and tape to seal.

2. Mini chocolate chips - 1/3 c or so mixed with some crushed up candy canes.
3. Lastly is the mini marshmellows - 1/2c or so
4. Tie off the bag and add a cute note.
Peppermint Bath Salts
I found a few different recipes on Better Budgeting, eHow, and a few others that I just perused and then I came up with my own recipe.
I used a combination of glycerine (found in baking aisle at Joann), Epsom salts (walmart or publix), Peppermint essential oil (local store), and baking soda. Some recipes called for 3-4 drops of oil, and others called for 15.... so I sort of split the difference. Also, some called for baking soda and others didn't. I decided to use it.
Next year I think I'm going to try bath bombs! :) I hope everyone enjoyed their gifts.




Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Welcome Jillian Ann


Jillian Ann, Jillie for short, was born today at 1:24pm after just 3 hours at the hospital. She measured in at 7lbs 8oz and was 19 3/4 inches long.

I woke up early in the morning thinking that maybe my water had broken (it had). I got showered and ready for my day. Woke Charlotte up, fed her breakfast, and got her ready for school. I then informed my husband that we were both going to drop Charlotte off at school and then head to the hospital.We said goodbye to Charlotte at 9am (our last time with her being an only child... yeah, I was emotional at the time... I teared up), then we headed over to the doctors office which was right across from the hospital. When the doctor saw us he immediately said that 'yes, my water had broken' and that I was indeed in labor and moving along quickly. In fact, he told us that he'd probably 'swing on over and deliver me on his lunch break'. I asked him if we needed to head over to the hospital then and he told me, 'well, not if you don't want to have the baby there'. Ok... so it may have sounded like a stupid question, but what i was really asking was if we could drive 5 minutes home to our house and pick up the CAMERA which had been left there.
... so we went straight to the hospital, much to my dismay, and got there at about 10:20am to check in. We got situated in the room and Hubby called his mom to ask her to pick Charlotte up from school because we were slightly busy (oh and we asked her to swing by the house to get my camera).
A few hours later, and a little worse for ware without any pain meds (.... turns out my doc isn't a huge fan of the epidural because it takes away the 'push'), I hear "mommy.... mommy...... mommy" coming down the hall; I put on a happy face and my mother-in-law and Charlotte get to the room to say hi and bring my camera (woo hoo!). At this point, I'm in pain... it's about 1230pm and I delivered at 1:24pm... you do the math... anyway, so Charlotte comes in and sees mommy visibly in pain on a strange bed and she no doubt is freaked out! Poor child! After a few minutes my mother-in-law takes the confused and scared Charlotte out of the room.
At this point I tell the nurse to beg my doc to get me the epidural... and long story short (ok... so only slightly shorter) I get the epidural, am rolled to my side for monitoring purposes, the epidural goes down the outside of my one leg only!! And about 10 minutes later I tell everyone that I have to push. They check and indeed, it's time... 3 contractions later Jillie is born!



Friday, July 23, 2010

Her new wheels!

Yesterday, Charlotte got the Little Tykes Princess Coupe so I spent about 4 hours today putting it together. I must say that it was REALLY hard! It shouldn't be that difficult to put a childs toy together.
Here is what happened when Charlotte woke up half way through the process:

Here is the end result:

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Say "AH"

So like most kids, Charlotte tries to shove food in her mouth and then go for another handful. Tonight we were eating cantaloupe and Charlotte was putting one in her mouth and then immediately grabbing for another piece. So I told her, no, not until you are done with that piece. Then I said are you done? Say AH, let me see. So she opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue. So I gave her another piece. She did this a few more times until all the cantaloupe was done.

I do hope this doesn't become a habit... opening her mouth and sticking out her tongue while eating EVERYTHING. hmmm....

Friday, May 14, 2010

Boo.... booo...

So Charlotte now knows the word BLUE. I had the laundry on the floor in piles to be washed and started picking up the blue stuff, so I said "Blue".... so now she is wandering around with a few blue items saying "booo..... boooo..... boooo".

Baby # 2 News:
IT'S A GIRL!!
Charlotte will have a baby sister at the end of September... now we have to come up with ANOTHER girl name.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Charlotte Playing with Weebles

We inherited a Weebles tree house from one of my junior league friends - she loves it!
Here is a video of her playing:

In baby news -- we go to the doctor tomorrow morning for our geneder determination ultrasound! Well... as long as the little squirt isn't being uncooperative again.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Farm Trip

Charlotte got to hang out with a bunch of her 2nd cousins this past Sunday at the farm. She played with Morgan, Leah, Ethan, Ashton, Eli, Eyon, Zachary, & Olivia... here are some videos:

Peek a boo in the utlitity room:

Knocking over Zachary's Cup tower:

Knock over MORE cup towers

Friday, April 30, 2010

Charlotte climbs stairs (and other news)

I was cleaning the out the closet in the green room trying to figure out what to do with all of our junk before baby #2 comes so I had the 3 step ladder out.

Guess who figured out how to climb up AND down:

In other news... I felt the little squirt kicking a few days ago :) I guess something really IS growing in my belly!

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Charlotte dances when she eats yummy food

Here is Charlotte just after swimming having lunch outside. She now dances when she eats something she likes:

Thursday, February 4, 2010

The crabwalk

Like daddy like daughter. Apparently this is how Hubby used to crawl.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

SHE WALKS!

Charlotte took her first steps a few days ago... well now we got it on camera!
Charlotte walking... with some encouragement from popcorn :)


Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Friday, January 15, 2010

The makeshift ball pit

For Charlotte's birthday we are going to do a ball-pit... but since I got the balls today I had to test them out.


Thursday, January 14, 2010

Gymboree - Fun with the mirror

We had our monthly gymboree class today and Charlotte was enthralled with the mirror.

... until Reece pulled her down...

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Lemons!!

So after the deployment ceremony we went to Grill Smith for dinner and decided it was finally time to introduce Charlotte to lemons (...on camera).

The first time was not quite what we expected...

... however the second taste was exactly what we imagined...


Friday, January 8, 2010

Our 10 seconds of fame

At yesterdays deployment ceremony we were interviewed by BayNews 9 (the local news station).

Link within

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