Nevermind

I was wrong. We have the stomach flu. At least me and Lil so far. Thank goodness it waited to get bad until the weekend :) Just hope it works its way through us soon.

I Dream of Vinyl

I have decided that I need an all vinyl house...and car for that matter. Just everything vinyl...heck, even my clothes! Why, you ask! Well, I have these two small children who have been just exploding form both ends! I will not go into gruesome detail but, there has just been ick everywhere this week! Thankfully, Lily only exploded the one time yesterday (I don't think we have the stomach flu, praise God!)...however, Ava just exploded all over my couch from the other end (I suppose this could be some sort of tummy bug on her part)! I should really buy stock in Resolve as we are going through it like crazy!!! So, vinyl...yes, vinyl, would be great. No scrubbing, just hose it down. Sounds perfect!

Oh, and ponder this...how does one pooh and manage to get 3/4 of it out of one's diaper and only 1/4 of it in one's diaper??? What is the point of the stinking diaper if the baby can just aim better and squirt right out of it??? Alright, I'm done.

Today I Learned...

...that the crap washing machines that I have to pay $1.25/ load to use do not get throw up out of car seat covers and you have to hand wash them in your bath tub anyways. They do, however, get it out of Vera Bradley bags and don't make the color bleed (small favors...small favors). Everything is cleaned, but I don't think Lily will be able to use her car seat for a week because it is sooo full of water from the bathtub. But, thank God, there has been no more puking as of now!

Just Wow

This post was originally going to be titled, "The Worst Mothering Experience Ever." Lily had a monster throw-up issue in the car this morning. It got on everything...her car seat, my new Vera Bradley backpack, the car, her clothes, the super cute headband she had on, etc...Anyhow, you get the idea. Well, just as I was sitting down to write my big long oh my gosh how am I going to handle a kid with a stomach bug (there is one going around), my sweet, sweet, and just utterly amazing and wonderful friend, Kim, called me and said she was downstairs and had a care package for us. I had called her no more than 45 minutes before this to ask how she handled things with her daughter, Madison (Lily's BFF), who had had the bug last week. I just want to give a huge thanks to Kim! You are a lifesaver (not to mention a sanity and possibly the upholstery in my house saver)! Also, a huge thank you to God for putting such amazing people in my life and knowing just when to send them to me for a little pick me up and a lot of grace :)

I would just ask that if you all think of us at all today, just please pray that it was a one time deal with Lily and that she does not have the bug that is going around...or at least, if she does have it that it runs it course quickly and doesn't get spread to the rest of us!

Oh, and sorry for the kinda lame WW, it was a hectic morning!

Wordless Wednesday: Yay for Hubby's Green Thumb

Under the Weather

Well, it's been a while since I posted any pics of the kids. We have been sick and it was cold...and yadda, yadda, yadda. Runny noses do not equal pretty pictures. Anyhow, here are some from last week. We went to a park near by to catch some goldfish for Lily's tank. She named them Connor and Lucy after some of her friends from the gym. The girls had so much fun!





Okay, so they're pretty much all of Ava, but I was trying to wrangle her away from the creek while Lily was with Daddy catching the fish. Anyhow, I really am not feeling great, so I will try to get more stuff up soon :) I do have an updated profile picture I need to put up (seeing as the one that is up if from a year ago!), so be on the look out for that!

Giveaways

KozyPal is giving away 2 gift certificates for cart covers!

Just Talk is giving away 3 Yummir Tummie tank tops!

Frugal Mommy is giving away a blanket from BubbleCakes, some yummy tea, a cute tote, and a Flair high chair!

Grab Bag Reviews is giving away some pretty earrings!

Funky Monkey is giving away some nifty fishing gear!

Reviewin' It Up is giving away an adorable little girl outfit!

My Kids Really Love Peanut Butter Sandwiches

** You couldn't hear it in the video, but she was breathing so hard while she was eating this! It was too funny! She sounded like she was smothering herself with the sandwich.

** Yes, we are still in our pajamas at lunch time, it's cold and everyone is sick :)

Giveaways

Little Window Shoppe is giving away 2 super hero capes!

An Ordinary Life is giving away a Bumbleride Stroller!

Frugal Mommy is giving away a Pocket Album~Digital Photo Viewer, Photobook Creator,

The Funky Monkey always has loads of great giveaways going on, including a cute bag from Jillie Willie, a nifty silver guitar pick, bath set from So Cozy, a weeks worth of socks from Little MissMatched, a Twilight Sea Turtle from Cloud B, a KozyPal cover, cupcake soap from Serah's, and lots more!

Wordless Wednesday

Kaboost Giveaway!

The Funky Monkey is a giving away a Kaboost! I so want one of these for the Ava Bug!

Oh, My Goodness...Deliciousness

Well, this morning in my gym class, our instructor person was talking about how good soup would be today. So, I got it in my head that I wanted soup for dinner. Of course, we didn't have anything I needed to make any type of soup...I was not about to attempt another trip to Publix with the monkies (we did that Tuesday). Anyhow, we had some chicken and frozen veggies, so I decided to make a Chicken Pot Pie, and boy, oh, boy, am I glad I did. It was so super yummy. I wanted to share the recipe with you all in case you are looking for some yummy warm confort food on these chilly nights!



I got basic recipe for the crust from Smitten Kitchen.

Chicken Pot Pie
Crust:
1 c water
2 1/2 cups flour
1 T sugar
1 tsp salt
a little bit of pepper
2 sticks (or 8 ounces or 1 cup) of very cold unsalted butter, cubed into 1/2-inch pieces

Filling:
2 chicken quarters, boiled, chopped (you can also use a whole chicken or left over roast chicken)
3 c (ish) frozen veggies
1 c chicken broth
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
salt and pepper to taste

First, boil your chicken. I usually put a little salt in the water just because it makes for a more flavorful broth. While the chicken is boiling, you can prepare the pie crust.

Fill a one cup liquid measuring cup with water, and drop in a few ice cubes; set it aside. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt, and pepper. Now, here is where I varied from Smitten Kitchen. I don't have a pastry blender, which looks like a really neat kitchen tool, but anyhow, I threw all the above ingredients and my butter into my kitchen aid with the dough hook attachment. Then, I let all them mix around a bit and added a little water. You want to keep slowly adding water until your dough starts to stick together, like...well, dough. You will probably have to take it out of the mixer and use your hands mix it for a bit. It will be a little stickey. Once that's done, wrap it up and put it in the fridge for a least and hour. I think if you follow Smitten Kitchen's directions, your dough will probably come out more flakey than mine did.

After your dough has chilled and you chicken has been boiled, de-boned, and chopped up, make a quick egg wash (an egg and a but of milk mixed up) and brush that on to your pie pan. Separate your dough into two equal pieces. Roll out one and lay it into your pie pan. In a separate bowl, mix all the filling ingredients and then pour them into the prepared crust. Now, roll out your other half and put it on top. Slice a couple holes in top. Brush egg wash across the top (makes it nice and brown and yummy). Then, sprinkle some pepper and salt (I like to use kosher salt just cause it is coarser, but you can use whatever) on top and pop it into the oven at 400 degrees for about 30 minutes or until both top and bottom are a nice brown color.

Enjoy!

** Here is a substitute I found for the Cream of Chicken Soup. Tastes just as good and could save you a trip the grocery :)

1 T butter
3 T all-purpose flour
1/2 c chicken broth (can use stock from boiling the chicken)
1/2 c milk
salt and pepper to taste

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir in flour keep stirring until smoother and bubbly. Remove from heat and add the chicken broth and milk, a little at a time, stirring to keep smooth. Return to heat. Bring sauce to a gentle boil; cook, stirring constantly, until it thinkens. Taste and add salt and pepper, as needed to taste.

CPSIA

Well, I don't know how many of you have heard about the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act or CPSIA. If you haven't, it's basically a law that is going to be requiring all manufactures and retailers of children's products to have third party lead testing done. Now, this seems like a great idea, right? There were all those lead scares form China last year, so yeah, we want our kids protected from lead. The problem with law is that third party lead testing is super expensive and the requirement to test all children's products will effectively put all small handmade businesses out of commission. It doesn't matter is the materials were tested before the business bought them and created something with them. They have to test thetm theirsleves. I don't know if many of you are familiar with Etsy or any other small handmade business out there, but many of these are places run by stay at home moms. Now, I am all for keeping lead away from my kids, don't get me wrong. But, really, do I need to be concerned about the hair bow I bought from the mom who bought the ribbon to make the bow from Michael's? Not thinking I do. I'm not sure this post is making a ton of sense, but this is a really bad piece of legislation that was passed. So, check out this post on MomDot to get a better idea of what I am rambling about, or click on the Save Homemade button on the top right of my page.

I understand the need to keep lead out of our kids' stuff, but most of the scares we have had have come from China. Basically, this law would make it impossible to sell any handmade children's products. There are some truly amazing and beautiful products made by very talented people out there that will not be available after February 10th because of this law. I, personally, enjoy making stuff for my kids and to give as gifts and have thought about trying to sell some of the stuff I make (I decided not to just because I don't have the time), but this law would make that impossible. So, just check it out.

Fun in the Rain and the Little One...

Well, like most of the state, it has been nasty and rainy here all day. Of course, today would be the day the I have to go out and run some errands. Anyhow, on our way out, I let the kids hang out in the rain for a bit. Lily loves to wear rain coats and use her umbrella.

O

Everyone was having a great time...until, the little one, the one who will be the death of me yet, fell and forgot she had arms. Rather than catch herself with her hands, she caught herself on the sidewalk with her forehead and nose. So, now, she has a busted lip (from the bed jumping), sidewalk burn on her forehead and a skinned nose...she looks like she's been brawling! The picture below does not give her injuries justice. Her nose looks like Rudolf the red nose reindeer and there is about a 3 in circle of scrapped up skin on her forehead. Please, pray that my little one will find her balance and stop injuring her pretty little face!

,

No More Monkies...

I think you can probably guess where this is going...Lily got the brilliant idea to jump on her bed tonight, and Ava (being Ava) had to try it, too. Nate and I, being the wonderful parents that we are, were not in their room supervising this. They were jumping on Lily's toddler bed, so we weren't exactly worried about them like falling off and breaking an arm or anything. Well, little Ava did fall and hit her mouth on the rail of the bed. She split her lip really good. Lots of blood...and I think she loosened up her top teeth (Nate has assured me that this should not be an issue). Anyhow, the best part of all of this...we get her cleaned up and she calms down within a few minutes and starts squirming to get off my lap. So, I put her down...and where do you think she immediately goes? Back to Lily's bed to jump some more! She's definitely a get-back-on-the-horse kinda girl :)

Oh, and by the way, I did not stop in the middle of comforting Ava to take this picture. She was all better and donned this adorable pathetic face seconds after giving me a great big smile.

MomDot Giveaway

The awesome girls at MomDot are giving away a Keurig’s Platinum Brewer. Yummy!

Why Didn't Anyone Warn Me...

that when Lily turned three she would never stop talking? I think she has been rattling on about one thing or another now for almost a solid month. It's truly amazing. I have never been one to "tune out" my kids. I always try to respond to questions or address whining or whatever rather than to just ignore it...but, I can't answer another question. I can't respond to another remark about something we are doing...she is making me crazy...I think Ava needs to learn to say more than "cat" and "dog" and "duck" so that Lily will have some one else to talk to (or at)! Mmmmm...or maybe some duct tape will do the trick (just kidding...kinda).

Random Stuff About the Kids I Want to Remember

Lily:

• She says "lasterday" instead of yesterday and "laster-time" instead of last time.
• When Ava is bugging her she tells me, "Momma, put A-ba to bed!" (she always drags Ava's name out really long when she says it).
  
• She is watching the Gator game with her Daddy and yelling everything he yells at the TV, even though she has no idea what he is talking about.
• She likes to show her boy friends her clothes...especially her friend Connor.
• She loves to shop. For anything.
• How much she love fishing. Nate got her a pink fishing pole for her birthday and she loves it. She makes him show her pictures of fish on the computer and she can identify a few of the more common ones just by seeing their picture. She is especially fond of red fish.
• The way she talks to Ava. She acts like she understands Ava's babbling (maybe she does) and will tell me what Ava is "saying." She also takes on this special voice to talk to Ava.
  

Ava:

• I wish I had gotten it on tape...but I want to remember her little bootie-scoot crawl. She would be sitting up, usually with something in one hand and scoot herself across the floor on her bum with one leg. You won't know what I am talking about unless you saw it, but I want to remember it.
• She thinks she is so cool when she sits down in a chair by herself.
• She gives hugs...barely a year old and she gives hugs and kisses. I love it.
• She leans...on everything. She'll just be standing there and decide to lean back on the couch. She falls a lot because of it, but it's too funny.
• She wants to be just like her big sister. She tries to do everything Lily does. I think (hope) she will potty train early because she always wants to watch Lily go potty. She tries to put her clothes and shoes on because she sees Lily do it.
  
• She loves Lily so much. Lily will get sent to her room for being mean to Ava or whatever and even if whatever Lily has gotten in trouble for makes Ava cry, she will stop crying and just toddle along behind her big sister (which usually makes Lily even more upset, but Ava just can;t stand to be away from her).
  

Dress-Up Fun!

Here are some pics of all the fun the girls have been having playing dress-up the past couple of days!

The Christmas Post (A Little Late)

Well, things are finally calming down and I can finally devote a bit of time to the blog! Yay! I figured I should go ahead and get our Christmas stuff up...ya know...before like Valentine's Day :) Well, the Christmas break was quite busy for us. We had our little family Christmas at our house on the 19th before we headed in to St. Augustine to do all our family stuff. It was fun doing somethign here at home with kids. We spend most of our holiday at our parents' houses, so we don't do much as our own family.

Here's Ava opening one of her presents. It took a little, but she eventually figured out how fun it is to rip paper :)

The house was a disaster, but everyone had fun. Lily is wearing her super hero cape in this picture. I'll have to get a picture of that up later. It' s super cute.

Well, after our family Christmas, we started packing up to head to to St. Augustine. We spent a few days down there helping with last minute Christmas stuff and just hanging out with family. One evening, we went downtown with my Mom, brother, and some of my Mom's friends to rid eon of the tour trains and listen to Christmas music. It was a lot of fun. They gave up these 3D glasses and it made all the lights (I think there were supposed to be like 2,500,000 or something of them) look like stars.

I wish this one had turned out better, but it was still so cute. It's Lily and my Mom.

Elijah (my little brother), Ava, Lily and my Mom.

Lily with her 3D glasses. Love the scrunchy face!

Ava looking very sleepy. She was so chilled while we were on the train!

We also went to the Winter Wonderland they set up at the Amphitheatre. It was neat. They had outdoor ice skating (which is impressive in Florida, even in December. They also had an Elf Village that the kids loved and several other fun little things. The girls really love the little houses in the Village, though. It was super cute.

Here's Lily in one of the Elves' beds.

Lily loved the Peppermint Forest...lots of enormous candy and Christmas lights, what's not to love?

Awwwllll...my little cuties :)

I could not for the life of me get the two of them to sit in front of the darn Christmas tree!

Ava loved the tree, though!

Well, including our Christmas at home, we had 7 total Christmas celebrations to attend. We started Christmas Eve at my Nana's house to celebrate with her, my Dad, my Dad's girlfriend, my aunt, and my cousin. It was a lot of fun except that we forgot to pack the port-a-crib for Ava. Bad move...she turned into a little monster around 3:00. Nate finally took her out for a spin in the car so she could get in a little cat nap. She was much happier after that!

Check out the awesome egg on Ava's head...learning to walk + Mimi's tiled floor = beautiful bruises on Ava's forehead (she had a matching one on the other side).

Somehow, I ended up with all these smiley pictures of Ava, even though she was truly a monster!

Ava loved the Amazing Animals Zoo my dad got her.

She love it so much, that she promptly had to climb on top of it and try to sit in it...

Christmas morning...time for Christmas #3. We stayed at my Mom's on Christmas Eve so we could celeberate with them first thing Christmas morning. It was a really nice and relaxing morning. Mom made a super yummy breakfast and we all just relaxed, listened to Christmas music, and opened presents. It was a great way to start our crazy day!

See the super adorable giraffe slippers my Mom got Ava (there are more pics of her in them below). They are so stinking cute.

Next stop was Nathan's Grandfather and his wife's house. Then, to Nathan's Granmother's. Then, to Nathan's other Grandparents...The day went relatively smoothly and it was fun to see everyone...though, I didn't take a ton of pictures...I was really tired and the chaos is hard to photograph. Nathan's immediate family (like mom, dad, brothers, sisters, and all their wives and kids) is like 21 people, so when we all travel around to visit his grandparents (who also have 5 and 6 kids who are married and have kids) it is a huge gathering...I don't handle this super well, so the holidays are a bit stressful for me :) But, the kids love it.

Check out the slippers! So awesome!

Ava and Uncle JoJo (Nathan's brother)

Not to worry, only one more...We ended the day at Nathan's parents house...I don't think I got any pictures here, but I did get a video of Ava with JoJo (she adores Nate's brother and he is awesome with her).

And, to finish things off, a sweet picture of Lily on the day after Christmas. I am so gong to start doing her hair this way more. What a cutie, if I do say so myself :)