22.365 - Taco night leftovers

It was taco night at our house! These were the leftovers, so yeah, they don't look as tasty as they would have if I'd remembered to take the picture when they were first ready.

21.365 - Yummy in a jar

Mmmmmmmm! I have a jar of Trader Joe's Spicy Black Bean Dip!!! We don't have a Trader Joe's here, so this is a special occassion. My dad drove to VA to visit family and he stopped in Nashville as the half-way point and stayed over night. There was a TJ's 10 minutes from his hotel, so I had to make him bring some home for me! I cannot wait until we head to Nashville this summer, to visit the in-laws, because that means I'll get to stop at Trader Joe's and stock up before heading back home!

20.365

Like every other American, this is what I did today. Watched the Inauguration. Apparently, they even watched it or talked about it at school, because Kaylin came home, saw the parade on TV and asked, "Oh, is that Obama?" And apparently, I cannot take a straight on picture of the TV, sorry for cutting off the right side.

19.365

This is a picture Kaylin drew and we now have hanging on the fridge. That's an apple tree, with a a heckuva lotta apples!

18.365 - Playmates

I just took this picture of the dogs wrestling on the couch next to me. Not even 1 minute later they are just laying here, lounging with their eyes closed, which they open if I look at them. I guess it wore them out!

17.365

This is how I found Kaylin watching TV last night. I guess she's not superstitious!

Sweet Niblets!

Sweet niblets, I think Kaylin may watch Hannah Montana a little too much. When I tucked her in tonight, I told her Jeremy was off tomorrow (it's a rare occassion when he gets a Saturday off) AND Sunday and she said, "crazy mommy say what?!" Which, you should only understand if you've ever seen Hannah Montana, or at the very least, a promo for it. Anyway, it gave me a chuckle since it's the first time I've heard her say it and I totally wasn't expecting it, but it was very fitting.

16.365 - baths for everyone!

Okay, Jonathan may be the in 15% for weight, but he is not so skinny that his ribs show. He stuck his hands in the water before it got warm and it shocked him, so he took a quick breath which made his ribs show.

And the extras -

Jonathan wasn't the only one who got a bath tonight! Awwww look at those puppy dog eyes! "Please get me outta here!"

I had to include a pic of this. This was my deal of the day. Shoes for the kids. Both of Jonathan's were $3.74 each and Kaylin's were $4.48. Select shoes are 75% off at Target - along with clothes, toys, baby items...lots, go check out your local Target!

15.365 - almost forgot!

Bella nice and comfy between my leg & a blanket on the couch.

Got breakfast going in the crockpot and it'll be ready for us to eat in the morning. It's supposed to be 22 degrees in the morning when we're headed out to work & school! I figured a nice bowl of stick-to-your-ribs steel cut oats should help keep us warm & fill us up!

And last, but not least, finishing up the "chores" of the night. The crockpot was in the empty spot in the bottom left. It gets lots of use in our house, since I have a little boy who likes to attach himself to my leg and demand, "hold, mommy. mommy hold!" while I'm trying to cook or wash dishes.

14.365 - Mount Laundry

Jonathan laying his laundry flat in a pile for me. It's a team effort in this house!

And Mount Laundry has been conquered!! Now, who is putting all this away?

Loki keeping an eye and cracking the whip when I need it.

13.365 - CEO of the Leuwerke Household

I had to snap this shot of Jonathan taking care of important business with daddy's bluetooth. He's so silly!

12.365 - how I spend my nights

This is what I do each night before bed. Catch up on blogs. Or at least try. I probably shouldn't read so many blogs...I'm never caught up!

11.365 - Sassypants Kaylin

Kaylin browsing the James Avery catalog and letting me know the things she wants. I'm in trouble!

10.395 - Birthday Parties

We had 2 birthday parties today. This was at the first one. Kaylin and Jonathan are in the middle - Kaylin is in green and Jonathan is in red and not looking at my phone, "the camera."

9.365 - lazy pup

Just a lazy Friday night lounging on the couch.

8.365 - visiting Daddy at work

Playing in the car while Daddy rotates our tires.

7.365 - Kindergarten kicks booty!

This is Kaylin after school on days she has speech. Going to speech with Miss Gracie means she misses "read/write/rest" and even though it's only for 30 minutes, I guess her little body really needs that resting time each day. It's hard work being in Kindergarten!

Oh, and notice her short sleeve shirt? That's right, it was 70 today, after having ice on Monday!

6.365 - birthday crown

Jonathan wearing his birthday crown that he got at school (MDO) today! He only goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so they celebrated today.

5.365 - reading on your birthday

Jonathan reading a book on his birthday. I probably should have taken a picture of our weather - icy!

4.365 - Cake!

Jonathan blowing out the candle on his cake today. We celebrated on Sunday, because Jeremy has to work tomorrow, and Jonathan will likely go to bed right after Jeremy gets home. So, we had a small family party.

3.365 - Kaylin

2.365 - bye bye directv

On January 5th we're having Verizon FiOs tv installed, so we're on a mission to watch all our shows that are on Tivo before we disconnect DirecTV.

1.365 - Happy New Year

We played Rockband 2, with Matt & Chera, in the garage, to ring in the new year.

Project 365

So, my friend Jenna tried to do this last year and only missed 1 day. I've seen several other people attempt to do this project at the start of a new year. I figure I'll give it a shot myself this year because I'm bad about actually pulling the pics off the camera. Hopefully this will help me with that, as well as getting more pictures of Jonathan. I know we have at least three times as many pics of Kaylin when she was younger than we do of Jonathan. Of course, she also wasn't as rambunctious as he is either!

Here's the info I pulled from the Project 365 website:

WHY DO IT?
Taking a photo a day is a big undertaking with big payoffs. Here are just a few reasons why you should consider doing it:

Imagine being able to look back at any day of your year and recall what you did, who you met, what you learned… (Often we find it hard to remember what we did just yesterday or even last night, let alone a whole year ago!)


Your year-long photo album will be an amazing way to document your travels and accomplishments, your haircuts and relationships. Time moves surprisingly fast.

Taking a photo a day will make you a better photographer. Using your camera every day will help you learn its limits. You will get better at composing your shots, you’ll start to care about lighting, and you’ll become more creative with your photography when you’re forced to come up with something new every single day.

TIPS ON HOW TO DO IT

6 Tips on How to Do It....

1. Bring Your Camera Everywhere
Yes, everywhere. Get in the habit. Grocery stores, restaurants, parties, work, and school. Going to a movie theatre? Snap a pic of the flick with your phone–there are photo-ops everywhere. If you have one of those tiny tiny cameras, you have no excuse not to have it in your pocket all the time. And if you don’t? Camera phones are a great substitute.


2. Make Posting Easy
You can install blog software like Movable Type or Wordpress on your own site and create an entry for each photo, but for true ease of use, try a photo sharing site. Flickr will let you post a week’s worth of photos in 2 minutes flat, and fotolog and Photoblog are geared toward a photo-a-day workflow. Making it fast and easy means you’re much more likely to do it.

3. Vary Your Themes
Try to capture the day’s events in a single photo. Perform photographic experiments. Take a photo of someone new you meet, something you ate for the first time, or something you just learned how to do. Take a photo of something that made you smile. And don’t forget to take a photo of yourself at least once a month so you can remember how you’ve changed, too.

4. Tell a Story
Use your blog entry, or your photo description, to explain what’s going on in each day’s photograph. How good did that dinner taste? What made you want to take a photo of that stranger? It’ll help you remember down the road, and it gives friends following along a better appreciation of why you took the photo you did. You don’t need to write a lot, just enough to add some color.

5. Don’t Stop, No Matter What
This is perhaps the most important tip of all. You will get tired of taking a photo every single day. Some days, you will consider giving up. Don’t. The end result is worth the effort. Remind yourself why you wanted to do it in first place.

There will be times you’ll think there’s nothing interesting left to take a photo of, and times you’ll think you didn’t do anything exciting enough to take a photo of. There’s always a great photo to be made.

Get out of the house and take a walk. Or stay inside and look around. Take a photo of something important to you. Take a photo of the inside of your house so you can see how your taste has changed over the years. Take a photo of anything, just don’t stop.

N.b. It helps if you’ve told your friends about the project and asked them to follow along. Their encouragement will keep you going!

6. Post early, post often
Plan on going through and posting your photos at least once a week so you don’t get backlogged and feel overwhelmed. Ideally, post every day or two. Again, spend the time up front to make sure it’s quick and easy to post. It’ll make all the difference.

Oh Kaylin, you're so funny!

So Kaylin is scheduled to have surgery on Feb. 6th to correct her nostrils. Her nostrils are not symmetrical and her surgeon likes to fix this before 1st grade, because that is when teasing tends to start. At any rate, we were looking through photo albums of when she was a baby so she could see her before and after pictures from her other surgeries. We also have pictures of her laying in the bed in her recovery room. So as we're looking through the pictures she turns to me and says, "How old were you mommy? You look so young!" Thanks, kid, thanks! I was only 21, which is young, but man, I don't feel like I look that much older. I mean, I do look very young in these pics, but dang kid!

1 week until Jonathan is 2...

and he is growing by leaps and bounds!



Here is Jonathan's cutest new development - Every time we say, "I love you" he tells us, "I love you more!" So cute! Oh, except the one time we were out looking at Christmas lights and I tried to show Matt & Chera - his response that time was, "Oh brudder!" Of course, every time you try to show off a new "talent" my kids have a knack for making me look like a liar! We are at the age where he is just exploding with development. New words every time we turn around, he'll repeat any thing that is said, so we have to watch it!



We decided to just have a family birthday party this year. With all of us passing around a stomach bug, and then the flu and sinus infections I don't have the energy to host a birthday party. So, this year it'll just be family at the house. Plus, I'm fairly certain we are at our max capacity for toys. Plus, we'll get our birthday party fix the following weekend when we have 2 birthday parties for 3 different boys!

How was your Christmas?

We had a wonderful Christmas! Jonathan had the flu and felt horrible on Christmas morning, so he mostly laid on my lap while I opened his presents for him. Because of that, we don't have very many pictures, but that's ok.

We had everyone over for dinner at our house on Christmas Eve. My parents, Jeremy's dad & step-mom, Uncle Justin, his girlfriend Laura, Aunt Kayla, and her boyfriend David - who I think Kaylin has a crush on! There were 12 of us and it was lots of fun. We had lots of yummy food and swapped presents. Later that night Matt & Chera came over and we did our gifts with them as well. Then it was time to put the kids to bed and wrap gifts. We made sure to put out gingerbread cookies for Santa that Kaylin and Mimi made, carrots for the reindeer, as well as Reindeer food that we mixed up real quick from oats, colored sugar & cinnamon. Kaylin mixed up a batch at school, but she had left it at Mimi & Papa's house accidently. The kids were in bed and asleep before 9. While that is normal for Jonathan, his bedtime is 7:30, it showed us how tired Kaylin was. Jeremy and I quickly wrapped the gifts from us, then set out the gifts from Santa (those aren't wrapped!) and then Jeremy went over to Matt's house to play some rockband and I climbed in bed for sleep, as I felt horrible.

Before I climbed in bed on Christmas Eve I mixed up some dough for cinnamon rolls for breakfast Christmas morning. It was really easy! I just put all the ingredients in my bread machine, turned it on and it did all the kneading and rising work for me. When it finished I rolled it out and put the butter, cinnamon and sugar on it, sliced it into rolls and then stuck it in the fridge to wait until morning. I think we are going to make this our traditional breakfast. When I was growing up my mom always did a breakfast casserole but for some reason Jeremy is not a fan. Not just of the family recipe, but of breakfast casseroles in general, so I was on a mission to find something else. The cinnamon rolls seemed to work!

The kids slept until a little past 8 am! Can you believe it?! Kaylin must have been tired, as she slept almost 12 hours. I stuck the cinnamon rolls in the oven to bake while we opened presents. By the time we were done they were as well and we all enjoyed them while watching the Disney Christmas parade. Then we napped on and off all morning/afternoon - we were all feeling under the weather, except for Jeremy who brought it home in the first place, he was already healthy again.

Kaylin has asked me to take her ice skating over the school break, so we'll be doing that one day this week. I haven't been ice skating in many many years and Kaylin has never been. I hope I can keep us in an upright position! We were going to leave Jonathan with Mimi & Papa and have Jeremy come with us, but he says he's never been ice skating and I really don't think I can teach/hold up two people when I haven't been in so long, so we're just going to go with the two of us on a day Jeremy is at work.

Kaylin cracks me up!!!

She is playing with a calculator pretending it's her cell phone. She just got 3 text messages in a row - her friend Star asking when she was coming to her house, her friend Evy telling her she can come over to her house and her friend Rebecca asking if she was feeling ok - and then she was talking on the phone to her friend Rebecca and her friend Jenna beeped in. When she "hung up" she said, "oh man, two calls at the same time! That's crazy!"

I was going to get up and get the video camera but I knew she would stop if I got it out. Maybe she'll do it again soon and I can sneek some video.

Now, we're going to go make some fudge and some chocolate gooey butter cookies for the neighbors.

Things I have done.

Things I have done are in bold 

1. Started your own blog.
2. Slept under the stars.
3. Played in a band.
4. Visited Hawaii.
5. Watched a meteor shower.
6. Given more than you can afford to charity.
7. Been to Disneyland/world.
8. Climbed a mountain.
9. Held a praying mantis.
10. Sang a solo.
11. Bungee jumped.
12. Visited Paris.
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea.
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch.
15. Adopted a child.
16. Had food poisoning.
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty.
18. Grown your own vegetables.
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France.
20. Slept on an overnight train.
21. Had a pillow fight.
22. Hitch hiked.
23. Taken a sick day when you're not ill.
24. Built a snow fort.
25. Held a lamb.
26. Gone skinny dipping.
27. Run a Marathon.
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice.
29. Seen a total eclipse.
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset.
31. Hit a home run.
32. Been on a cruise.
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person.
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors.
35. Seen an Amish community.
36. Taught yourself a new language.
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied.
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person.
39. Gone rock climbing.
40. Seen Michelangelo's David.
41. Sung karaoke.
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant.
44. Visited Africa.
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight.
46. Been transported in an ambulance.
47. Had your portrait painted.
48. Gone deep sea fishing.
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person.
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling.
52. Kissed in the rain.
53. Played in the mud.
54. Gone to a drive-in theater.
55. Been in a movie.
56. Visited the Great Wall of China.
57. Started a business.
58. Taken a martial arts class.
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies.
62. Gone whale watching.
63. Got flowers for no reason.
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving.
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check.
68. Flown in a helicopter.
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy.
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial.
71. Eaten Caviar.
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square.
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone.
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle.
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car.
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper.
85. Read the entire Bible.
86. Visited the White House.
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating.
88. Had chickenpox.
89. Saved someone's life.
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous.
92. Joined a book club.
93. Lost a loved one.
94. Had a baby.
95. Seen the Alamo in person.
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit.
98. Owned a cell phone.
99. Been stung by a bee.

Family pictures

We got our family pictures back, I picked out my favorites and our Christmas cards are done! I won't leave you in the dark any longer, here they are...I hope you all enjoy them as much as we do.

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Crazy Eights

This looked fun -

8 TV Shows I Love to Watch:

1. One Tree Hill
   
2. Private Practice
3. Lipstick Jungle
   
4. Army Wives
   
5. CSI Vegas & NY
   
6. Desperate Housewives
   
7. Without A Trace
   
8. 90210/Grey's Anatomy (tie)
   

8 Favorite Restaraunts:

1. The Melting Pot
   
2. Panera
3. McAllister's
   
4. Jinbeh/East Ocean/Oishi (really, any sushi restaurant will do)
   
5. Cheesecake Factory
6. Pei Wei/PF Chang’s
7. JR's
8. In-N-Out (OMG it's been too long!)
   

8 Things that Happened Today:

1. Took Kaylin to school
   
2. Took Jonathan to school
   
3. Called around to several vets
   
4. Made Bella's spay appointment (Monday!)
   
5. Finished 2 candle orders
   
6. Made dinner
   
7. Put the kids to bed
   
8. Painted my toenails
   

8 Things I Look Forward To:

1. Seeing our family pictures that were taken last weekend!
   
2. Jeremy's company party (Saturday!)
3. The holidays
4. Watching the kids on Christmas morning
   
5. Disney on Ice (Saturday after Thanksgiving)
6. Dinner with HS girlfriends
7. Christmas parties
   
8. My Birthday!
   

8 Things on My Wishlist:

1. Dutch Oven
   
2. Gift cards
   
3. Lenses for my Rebel
   
4. Canon SD880 IS
   
5. New floors/Carpet cleaned
   
6. New kitchen countertops
   
7. A date night with my husband
   
8. Clean and organized house
   

Tag, you’re it!

Menu Plan Monday

Sunday: Salisbury steak from Dinner Station
Monday: Creamy Almond Chicken over rice (DS)
Tuesday: Chicken Fried Rice (DS)
Wednesday: Taco Soup
Thursday: Pancakes with Scrambled Eggs & Orange Juice
Friday: Homemade Pizza
Saturday: Jeremy's company party - so whatever the Hyatt Regency @ Reunion Tower decides to serve us.

Taco Soup
1 lb. Ground beef, browned
1 can rotel
1 can regular diced tomatoes
1 can black beans or pinto beans
1 can chili beans
1 pkg ranch dressing mix
1 pkg taco seasoning
1 bag frozen corn
1 bag frozen green beans
2 cans of water

1. Brown ground beef. Add taco seasoning to ground beef following directions on seasoning packet.
2. Combine all ingredients in a large soup pot or crockpot. Also add roughly 2 cans of water to the pot, until it's of the consistency you want your soup to be.
3. Cook in crock pot on low for 6-8 hours or on stove until warm throughout.
You could also use canned veggies with this, I just prefer using frozen veggies.

Family picture time!

Today we had family pictures taken by my friend ReJana, and also a few shots with Edward both of Bludoor Studios. Santa Claus was there, which made Kaylin go all shy at first, but once she warmed up she was cuddling up to him, winking at him and being her normal self and just hamming it up! Jonathan on the other hand, took things very seriously. I think we only got 2 or 3 smiles out of him the entire time. I will be sure to post some as soon as possible. Until then, here is a sneak peek from a session they had last year, with cute little Macie, ReJana & Mike's daughter. Isn't that a great Santa?!

Pumpkin carving and Pumpkin Express field trip

We went over to our friend's house and had a pumpkin carving party the weekend before Halloween, this is what we ended up with.

From October 2008

I carved the SMILE pumpkin, Matt carved Jack from The Nightmare Before Christmas, Chera carved Elvis, and Jeremy carved the one on the end, I don't remember what it was titled. We had fun and were shocked by how good they turned out.

Every year the Mother's Day Out program takes the kids on a field trip to a local pumpkin patch. You can see last year's pictures here. Well, since Kaylin is in Kindergarten now we tried to find time to make the trip as a family on our own and with Jeremy's work schedule and our regular lives, we were just too busy. So, Kaylin and Jeremy didn't get to enjoy the pumpkin patch this year. Jonathan and I did though. Though I think Jonathan could really have not cared less. He stayed by my side most of the time and then froze the other half of the time.
Jonathan with his class.

From October 2008

Jonathan and mommy on the train. You can see the start of my stye in my left eye in this picture. Fun!

From October 2008

Trying to get another class picture.

From October 2008

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween...

We had a very low key one over here. We started the night out with passing out candy - Kaylin, Jonathan and I - until Jeremy got home from work to take them out trick-or-treating. Or, that was the plan. Jonathan fell asleep before Jeremy got home. Not a big surprise seeing as he goes to bed at 7:30 and Jeremy normally gets home between 7 and 7:30, but we thought we could keep him up an extra half hour or so to hit 3-4 houses, neighbors we're friends with. Nope, he couldn't last. So, we put him to bed and Jeremy and "Uncle Matt" (Jeremy's best friend that lives one street over) took Kaylin trick-or-treating while I passed out candy. They were gone not much more than an hour, so she didn't end up with a whole lot of candy, thankfully. I didn't even get any pictures snapped of her in her Hannah Montana costume. I did, however, take a picture earlier on Friday at her school costume parade. She wanted to wear one of her dress up costumes for that, for whatever reason. They weren't allowed to actually wear the costume to school and come to find out, they all had to put the costume on over their clothes, so it looks a little goofy. Also, the Kindergarten classes and first graders are the only ones that participate.

From October 2008

From October 2008

Oh well, they enjoyed themselves, and that's what matters!

Newest addition to our family

On Monday night Jeremy brought home a surprise. I was sitting there watching TV and he came in and said something to me to make me turn around. And he was holding this precious little thing.

From October 2008

We named her Bella. Technically, Jeremy named her Bella, and the rest of us have just kinda gone with it. She is definitely a daddy's girl. Up until last night she has slept with Jeremy every night. I had to put a stop to that last night because Jonathan wasn't feeling well and kept waking up every few hours. I was entirely too tired to continue to deal with the up and down, so I just let him lay in our bed for about an hour. He's feeling much better this morning, thank goodness!

Anyway, the kids just love her to pieces. Kaylin has asked me to bring her to school when I pick her up every day. Jonathan wants to hold her on the ride there and back, plus carry her when we actually get Kaylin (I don't wait in the carpool line, I park and walk to pick her up. It's faster.) Jeremy is obviously smitten with her, since he normally isn't a big fan of dogs and is always loving on her and letting her sleep with him! And I love her, and will love her that much more when we get her potty trained

Win a Goodmama!

This post is for my friends Dianthe, Jess, Lily & Kristi - because, well, they are the only ones I know (besides Jenna) who cloth diaper.

Jenna won the weekly Goodmama photo contest and is giving away a Fire Crew print one-size diaper, in honor of October being National Fire Prevention month. Go to her blog to enter, entries will be accepted until October 30, 2008 at 12:00pm.

School pictures & updates

We are now in the second six weeks of Kindergarten. That means that we had a parent teacher conference with Kaylin's teacher this week. She said Kaylin is doing awesome. She excels in writing, letter/sound recognition, and sight word recognition/writing (I, a, me, the, etc. - words used a lot in first readers). Her teacher described her as very motherly and caring, which I obviously already knew. She told us several stories as examples - as a class they were asked to clean up and put away the things they were working on, a little boy at her table/on her team put everything but his scissors up and had them out and playing with them. Kaylin gently took the scissors from him and put them in the bin and told him, "Ms. G__ said we need to put our things away." Her teacher said the little boy let her do this and didn't resist at all or cause a scene, which she thought would have been the case if she'd have done the same thing. The other story was during an assembly they had with a puppeteer. Everyone was clapping but the little boy sitting kitty-corner to her. Again, she gently touched his arm and told him, "Clap, ___, clap...like this," and demonstrated and he started clapping. Yep, sounds just like my little mama. She's been saying for the last 2 years that she wants to be a music teacher when she grows up and her teacher said, before I said anything about Kaylin wanting to be a teacher, "she'd make a great teacher." So, I guess we'll see if that pans out in about 12 years.

We also got her school picture back. The picture was taken the day she was sent home with an ear infection. Her teacher told me she started crying as soon as pictures were done. That night, her ear drum ruptured, so it had to have been a pretty nasty ear infection considering she's had so many in her short little life and this one came on so fast and ended with the rupture. At any rate, her smile says she doesn't want to be smiling, but other than that, given the circumstances, I think it's a darn good picture.

From September 2008

Jonathan also had school pictures taken at Mother's Day Out.

From September 2008

His vocabulary is just exploding every day. We have full on phrases now. Things like, "I got it!" My favorite word he says is shoes, because the O is drawn out, so it sounds like shooooues, a lot like you. He must think putting your shoes on is a game, because every time he says shoes, Jeremy and I just repeat it over and over just to hear him say it again. And we all end up laughing. He also loves to bring everyone their shoes if he thinks it's time to go somewhere. He'll plop your shoes down in front of you and demand, "shoooues on!"

Things have been busy, but we're still having lots of fun around here!

Yummy pizza!

Kaylin has been asking for pizza for dinner the last few nights. I've told her no, because I've had certain things defrosted in mind for dinner. You know me and my menu plans. Well today, I forgot to take something out (that reminds me, need to take out tomorrow's dinner!) and of course, she once again asked for pizza. A few weeks ago, I found a wonderful pizza dough recipe on Amy's blog. I checked the pantry and when I saw we had all the ingredients I decided to make it for dinner. It turned out really yummy, so I knew it was a keeper. Since we still have all the ingredients on hand, and I'm a dope that forgot to take out dinner, I decided I'd be the nice mommy tonight and make pizza for dinner. Once again, this recipe did not fail us. Kaylin got her pizza fix, I replaced 1/2 cup with whole wheat flour and the kids and Jeremy were none the wiser, and we had a yummy, semi-healthy (as far as pizza is concerned) dinner! And for a lot cheaper than if we had ordered out. This pizza actually was on our menu plan this week, but not until Friday, so I'll just move tonight's planned dinner to Friday night and everyone is happy.

Jonathan the rockstar!

Jonathan and Kaylin love putting on shows for us by dancing, singing, "playing guitar," etc. I'm not sharing the video that includes Kaylin because she's in just her panties, but you can hear her in the background.

My Quirks

I have been TAGGED!
Here are the rules:
1. Link back to the person who tagged you: Jess and Heather
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. Tell 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking to them
5. Leave a comment for each tagged blogger to let them know that they have been tagged

6 Quirks about me..

1. I have to arrange the dishwasher in a certain order. If Jeremy loads it and doesn't do it in that order, I will pull things out and replace them the way I want.

2. I don't like tomatoes, but I will eat ketchup, tomato sauce, salsa, etc.

3. If I'm having pancakes or waffles with my eggs, I'll put syrup on my eggs. (come to think of it, I have a LOT of food quirks)

4. I don't like plain water unless I am just dying of thirst. I need lemon, lime or something with it. I prefer my water in the form of iced tea if you want to get technical.

5. I cannot stand my toe nails having any length to them. I have to cut or file them down right away if they go beyond my "safe" point.

6. I am OCD about clean hands. To the point where if Jonathan gets something on his hands he immediately comes to me with his hands up for me to wipe them clean. He about lost his mind when we hand to paint his hands for handprints on a plate we made last week!

I am tagging:
Robyn
Jenna
Kristi
Heather M.
Kristin
Carrie

Kaylin's first day of Kindergarten

For a treat after her first day, I will pick her up with a diet blackberry sprite from Sonic (I got her hooked, too!) and the new Little Mermaid movie.

Menu Plan Monday

This Menu Plan Monday is special. This week, Kaylin starts kindergarten, so it is important that I get back on track with menu planning, to make school nights easier on me and, in turn, everyone else.

Monday : Lemon pepper chicken sandwiches & grilled corn on the cob

Tuesday : Cheeseburgers on the grill and baked beans

Wednesday : Farfalle with zucchini *will sub mushrooms for tomatoes and add summer squash that we need to use up

Thursday : Sandwiches or McDonald's *it's Jonathan's Mother's Day Out Meet the Teacher night

Friday : Simple Shrimp Stir-fry with rice

Saturday : Jalapeño tilapia & broccoli

Sunday : Chicken Marsala with pasta

Back to School shopping and Mommy and Kaylin time

This weekend was tax-free weekend in Texas. Some of the stores I normally shop at for the kids were running additional sales on top of that, so we took advantage and got some new clothes for Kaylin. I got some new clothes, too, as I will start substitute teaching this year.

We ended up with a lot from Old Navy, in addition to no tax they were having a sale of 40% off some of their kids stuff, plus 20% off if you used your Old Navy account. So, we both got several outfits from there.

At first, Kaylin didn't want to go shopping with me. Later on, she ended up really enjoying it and picked out the majority of what we bought for her. When the consignment sales start up here in the next few weeks, I will buy both kids all new jeans and several basics for winter and then they won't need anything until the stores start marking things down to bring the spring things in. She was very particular about wanting a yellow shirt and we never were able to find one in her size after checking 3 different stores.

Saturday evening we went to the Highland Village Balloon Festival with our friends Matt & Chera. Kaylin had a ball. Jonathan loved the glow necklaces and the bounce house. Kaylin rode down a big blow up slide, bounced high on a trampoline, and rode in a small ferris wheel type ride. There was also a booth in the arts & crafts tent where they were making fabric flip flops for $10 and she wanted to do that, but I told her we could do that at home. So, we'll need to go buy some fabric and make those soon.

Sunday was our special day. Since Jeremy works so much and doesn't get to spend a lot of time with the kids, Kaylin calls special Jeremy and Kaylin days "Daddy time," but Sunday was "Mommy time." The plan was to take her to see Kit Kittredge: An American Girl movie, but we found out that morning that the closest theater was in Frisco, which is almost an hour away from us. I figured we could still do it, since she was looking forward to it. Well, that ended up getting "taken away" because she had problems listening that morning. So, we had lunch at McDonald's (her choice) and walked around an outdoor mall, which was really nice as the weather here this weekend was gorgeous. Bought her some more clothes at The Children's Place, my absolute favorite place to shop for the kids!

This morning was my substitute orientation. I am now officially a sub in the same district we live in and Kaylin's school is in. Eventually, I will get my teacher certification - am just not sure when I will start that process.

Back to School

Well, only 12 days until Kaylin starts Kindergarten! Today she got a haircut to get her ready and tomorrow we'll go clothes shopping, as this weekend is tax free weekend in Texas.

Here are some pictures of her hair cut. She only had about 2 inches cut from it, but since she has curly hair, it always looks like more than that! They aren't the best quality photos either, as they were taken on a cell phone, but they show the cut well enough which was the whole point of the picture.


As one of my friends pointed out, all her swimming this summer has made her so tan and blonde! Just look at those natural highlights! Lucky girl. My friend Chris also said that Kaylin would probably have 5 boyfriends by the end of the first week. All I have to say about that is - not if they know what's good for them .

Home from Disney World

Well, we survived! We made it home from Disney World in one piece. We've already talked about a return visit and I'm gunning for a visit to Disneyland next time. I'd love to be able to share with the kids where I grew up.

The trip was everything Kaylin imagined and more. Her highlights were meeting Ariel, breakfast with Mickey, Pluto, Lilo & Stitch, the fireworks & parade at Magic Kingdom and of course, hanging out with her cousins. Though, I think she'd have been perfectly content if we'd simply flown to Florida just to meet Ariel. She absolutely loved that! And to top it off, Kaylin was wearing a purple shirt that day, naturally, as it's her favorite color, but then Ariel offered up that it is also HER favorite color. Whew, Kaylin was just over the moon! Her reaction when she saw that the princesses were REAL PEOPLE was absolutely priceless. She knew that the other characters weren't "real" and were in costume, but when she saw her first princess and that it was a real live girl, not in costume, her jaw hit the floor. It was just too cute and I only wish I'd have been able to capture the look on her face with the camera.

Clicking on the album below will take you to the photo album with our pictures, including a few short videos of the Spectromagic parade and fireworks show at Magic Kingdom. This link will take you to our photopass pictures, taken by cast members of Disney World.

WDW 2008

Well, I need to get to bed. We just got home from seeing Dark Knight, I just wanted to make sure I updated this, as we've been home for almost a week now!

Ready for potty training already?

I think Jonathan may be gearing up to start potty training. It started with him "holding himself" while or after he had just pee'd, I'm not sure which. I just know he would alert me that way. Now, he'll just go ahead and remove the diaper and start crying/whining for me to change it. I am so not ready for this, but I know I'll need to follow his cues.

Kaylin was so easily potty trained that I've worried from day one about potty training Jonathan. For starters, I know that boys are harder. I've taught in potty training classrooms before, I've seen the differences first hand. I also know that Kaylin was abnormally easy in that she never really even had any accidents. Once she started taking her diaper off we started at home and soon after she moved up into the next room at school, where it was then scheduled into her day. If I remember correctly, she was also around this age.

So, I'll just have to follow Jonathan's cues and hope for the best!