Our Annual Bluebonnet pictures

Jonathan wanted nothing to do with taking pictures. He was much more interested in exploring for himself and this definitely did not involve sitting down and getting a picture with his sister!



The one shot I managed to get of them together.


Fine, I'll take pictures of the pretty flowers instead.


It was windy and overcast and Kaylin was getting cold. So, we headed home. Maybe we'll try again before bluebonnet season ends.

Curly Kaylin

So, I heard about this book called Curly Girl by Lorraine Massey and it teaches you how to take care of curly hair. Since I'm tired of Kaylin's hair always looking a mess, I figured I needed to get a copy and read to see if there is anything I could do to make her hair look better.

I couldn't believe the difference it made in only two days. And the book says it can take 2-3 weeks to reach the peak of healthiness. Hopefully this will work for us!





Oh, and my little diva is wearing lipstick in this photo. While I was doing her hair that night, she was going through my lipsticks and asked me if she could have a few that I don't wear.

Jonathan pictures

This is Jonathan holding a light saber. Daddy is so proud of his little padawan.

Kaylin is so big!

So, I had heard a lot about these BOB books that help teach children to read. Everyone told me I could find them at Costco but I would either forget to look for them, or the Costco I was at wouldn't have them. Well, I remembered on my trip today. So, I picked up the first two sets. Kaylin and I worked on the first book for about 10 minutes. She knows which letters make which sounds so I figured it would go by quickly. She learned how to sound out the words, but had some problems with putting the sounds together to form a word. She got the hang of it eventually.

Here's a video of Kaylin reading the first book in the series.

Officially Spring!

It is officially spring at the Leuwerke house! It's the second time Jeremy has mowed the yard, but we are planting verbena, azalea and liriope a.k.a monkey grass. We kick off our spring gardening every year the weekend of the April races at Texas Motor Speedway. That way, we don't have to leave and deal with the traffic. I will post some pictures when it's complete and looks the way I want it to. We didn't get the soil conditioner yet for the azalea, so they won't be planted until tomorrow when we can pick some of that up.

Next weekend, Jeremy has a dodgeball tournament after work on Saturday and the kids and I will attend the Redbud Festival in Denton, with my parents. Then, on Sunday, Jonathan will go over to my parent's house and hang out with them while Kaylin, Jeremy and I head to Six Flags for Jeremy's company picnic. Kaylin is so excited to ride the rides. We'll see how many she actually gets on. She keeps calling Jeremy a chicken because he doesn't ride roller coasters. I plan on taking our new video camera with us and will hopefully get some video of her on a few rides. Maybe she can actually talk Jeremy into something more than the mine train!

Photo meme

If you read it you gotta do it!

1. Go to photobucket.com
2. Type in your answer for each question into the Photobucket search bar.
3. Only use the first two pages. Choose your favorite photo to represent your answer.
4. Copy the html and paste it here.
5. You can only answer in picture form.


what's your name?


when is your birthday?


What kind of car do you drive


Where did you go to school


What's your favorite season


What’s your favorite type of shoe


What's your status


What's your favorite movie- this is always changing

What's your favorite song - this is always constantly changing

What's your favorite Disney character


What's your favorite vacation destination


What's your favorite dessert


What's your favorite drink


What are you most afraid of


What's your favorite tv show

March pictures

I've updated the pictures in our album with pictures from March. Just click the link in the sidebar to the right. I got a new camera that has been a LOT of fun to play with!

Spring Break trip to the Fort Worth Zoo

This week was Spring Break and we started the week off with a trip to the zoo with some friends. We met up with Meg and her two kids; Shelby & Coleman, and Jess and her two boys; Ethan & Aiden. Ethan attends Mother's Day Out with Kaylin, but he is in the 2-year old class, though he just turned 3 in January.

We got to the zoo about 11 am and the kids all started to have a melt-down somewhere around 2 pm, which meant we weren't able to see all the animals and this upset Kaylin. For whatever reason, she had her heart set on seeing the bats, which she did not inform me of until we were in the car on our way home. I told her Jeremy and I will take her back in April, when they open their penguin exhibit. I love penguins! They are one of my favorite animals.

You can view our pictures here. You might also notice, in our album, we went to the zoo around the same time last year with Jess, Seth and Ethan.

Disney World or Bust!

We are planning a trip to Walt Disney World for July. Should be a lot of fun. Kaylin is very excited, Jonathan obviously has no idea but I imagine he'll have fun once we are there, and Jeremy and I are excited to see how Kaylin will take it all in. The 4 of us will be going, along with my parents and we will be meeting my sister Jill and her family there. Also, Jill's BiL and SiL are going with them. Yes, a fairly large group to deal with.

The four of us, plus my parents are renting a 3 bedroom condo for the week, so we shouldn't be too crowded. Kaylin is excited that we will get to dine with the Disney Princesses, she'll get a princess make over, and best of all, she will get to hang out with her cousins. I am fairly certain that is what she is most looking forward to.

Snow, in Texas?

Would you believe me if I told you we got 9 inches of snow on Thursday? Well, we did.



Now do you believe me? Crazy, isn't it? That is the most snow I have ever seen in Texas. We generally get one snow day a year. Most of the time it's actually sleet, but sometimes it is snow. We never get more than 1" of accumulation, IF there is any accumulation at all, so 9 inches just blew us away. Out by us (west of the metroplex) and up in Denton (where we used to live) are the areas that got most of the accumulation. Dallas proper didn't see any accumulation and other suburbs got about 1-2".

Kaylin had a blast playing in it. Jonathan was napping and then asleep when we played in it. I thought about taking him out in it, but then once I realized how deep it was, I scratched that idea. He doesn't have snow boots, or any boots really. And since he's just getting over an ear infection I didn't think he needed to be out there with soaking wet pants legs. I am such a mean mommy!

Here are some pictures of Kaylin making snow angels and having snowball fights.




And wait, where did the sidewalk, driveway and my bushes go?!




As of this morning, all of the snow is melted, with the exception of the shady areas. I guess the temps being 53° the next day will do that. Crazy Texas weather. Snow on Tuesday, but nothing stuck, 65° on Wednesday, 9" of snow on Thursday, and back up to 53° on Friday. How long until Spring is here? We Spring Forward tonight, so I hope the temperatures follow suit and start changing soon!

As always...you can see all of the snow pictures on our Picasa account, which you can access by clicking on the Photo Gallery link on right-hand side.

Kids update

I'll start with an update on Jonathan.
Words he's said so far:
Dada
Daddy
Kitty
Max (our dog)
Sissy
Mama
Uh oh
Hi
Bye Bye

I only hear Mama every once in awhile. It's not often :( Also, Bye bye is accompanied with waving. It's too darn cute! He also puts any and everything up to his ear like a phone, says something that sounds a little like hello, then starts the babbling.
He's walking, but not 100% of the time. He still prefers crawling, as he can get around faster that way.

Kaylin is doing great in Mother's Day Out. They recently did a mid-year assessment, to see what she has learned since the beginning of the year. She recognizes and writes most of her letters, though there are a few we need to work on. She can write her first and middle name, but we need to work on the last name. There were several others things that I can't remember right now, but only a couple that were highlighted as we need to work on them.

Kaylin is sick today with a stomach bug (we think), so hopefully she'll get better soon.

In other family news - We are planning a trip to Disney World this summer. We've yet to tell Kaylin that is our destination. So far, we've only told her we're going to see her cousins Eric & Nicole. I know she'll be thrilled with Disney World, as she's been asking us to take her there since she was 3.

Video of Jonathan's first year

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

I know, I know

I am horrible at keeping this thing up to date!

We had Jonathan's birthday party and everything went great. He dug into his cake like an old pro!
Our friend, Lynn, who is a photographer, and has done pretty much all of the formal shots we've had taken of the kids, was at the party and she got some wonderful shots for us. You can see some of them on her blog, along with commentary, or the full set in the album she uploaded.

BUSTED!

Kaylin came downstairs last night and busted me wrapping Christmas presents! She was thirsty and came down for a drink of water. Thankfully, I was wrapping one of Jonathan's gifts when she walked in!

Santa doesn't wrap gifts at our house, so those are still in hiding, so anything she might have seen is a gift from us at least.

Thanksgiving Feast

This is Kaylin at her Mother's Day Out Thanksgiving Feast! They made placemats to eat off of and Indian hats to wear. Everyone was just too cute. Kaylin kept going to the dessert table and would bring back a new treat after only taking a few bites off the last one. She had cookies, cake, cupcakes, pie, etc. I don't think she ate much more than carrots, celery & dessert. At least she ate her veggies? :)

Here she is with her friend Ethan

Jonathan also enjoyed the Thanksgiving feast. He indulged in turkey, sweet potatoes and croissants.

Visiting Grandma & Grandpa

Over Veteran's Day weekend we took a trip up to Hot Springs, Arkansas to spend a few days with Grandma & Grandpa. We rented a house and stayed Friday night - Monday. Kaylin really loved spending time with them and Jonathan had lots of fun as well, though I was tired because it threw his sleep schedule off. The scenery was beautiful! The leaves were changing colors and the drive to the house was along a twisty road lined with beautiful trees. So, each and every time we headed into town, we'd drive past the fall colored trees.

We'll see Grandma & Grandpa again in May, when Uncle Adam graduates.

No babies allowed!

Kaylin made that sign for her room and even drew a picture of a baby wrapped in a blanket. Then she proceded to put the number 10 next to the baby. When I asked her why she put the number 10 she said, "because, Jonathan is 10 months old today!" Well, ok then! So, no babies are allowed in her room, especially 10 month old babies.

I will update later with a picture of the sign, as it's hilarious. Every time I try to upload it now, Jonathan unplugs the camera.

Pumpkin Express

All 4 of us went to Pumpkin Express with Kaylin's school this morning. We saw a big yucky spider and Kaylin played and bounced with her friend Star from class.

To see the rest of the pictures, check out our photo gallery link on the right side of the page.

Jonathan's First Haircut!

On Saturday Jonathan had his first haircut! He was getting curls in the back on his collar and little wings out on the sides. Now, when he wakes up in the morning he has bed head and it's too cute! I'll have to get a picture of that!

If you want to see more pictures of the process, click the Photo Gallery link on the right side of this page.

Kaylin, you're so funny!

The following conversation just took place

Jeremy: I'm gonna pick up some beer to take over to my dad's house for the game, is that ok with you? (directed towards me)
Kaylin: No, none for me!
Kelly: BWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH

Speech therapy

Kaylin will be starting speech therapy on Wednesday. She was originally supposed to start on Monday, but we are going through the school district and she is missing 1 shot. So, we have an appointment on Tuesday afternoon to get that done. She is not looking forward to that.

She will go to therapy twice a week for 30 minutes. The school district offers it to children 3 and older who reside in the district. There will be 2 other little girls in there with her who are currently in kindergarten.

State Fair

So, they say the State Fair of Texas is the longest running and biggest state fair in the nation. We went yesterday and had a blast! If you missed Ross the Intern at the State Fair of Texas and the UT vs. OU game on Jay Leno then you should watch this clip on Youtube. It's pretty funny and you'll get to hear Big Tex talk! Kaylin absolutely loved hearing him talk and every time she'd say "that scared me!"

We got there a little before noon and since we entered near The Midway, where the rides and games are, all the carnies bombarded us trying to get Kaylin to play a game. She had told us the day before that she wanted to play the balloon dart game, so that's the one game she got to play. She popped 2 balloons, out of 3 and won a stuffed puppy! She decided she didn't want to ride any rides. Though Jeremy worked really hard at convincing her! Then it was off to get Fletcher's corny dogs. Kaylin wanted a hot dog and ate a whole entire foot long by herself!

We walked around a bit then headed for the animals. Kaylin fed every animal in there, except for the ostrich. Those are some mean birds! Some of the adult men found it amusing to feed them from the palm of their hand. I guess they enjoy having their hands pecked? They had plastic shovels to feed the animals from, so kids would not get their fingers bit. There were also signs all over stating not to feed fingers to the animals. Which cracked me up!

As we were leaving we saw this guy! Pretty good optical illusion with all the stripes. It looked like it was just the top half of his body on the stick. Obviously, he's behind the curtain, but because of the stripes it hid that really well.

Here's a picture of Kaylin and Jeremy as we were walking out and saying goodbye to Big Tex!



As we were walking out down The Midway again Kaylin wanted to play another game of balloon darts to win her puppy a friend. So, she played another game and hit a balloon each time with all 3 darts! She was also "too tired to walk anymore!" which is exactly why we brought the stroller with us. Jeremy didn't think he'd be able to carry her for that long. I guess walking all over for 4 hours is just overkill for little legs.

Menu Plan Monday

The days may get switched around. And this week the whole second half of the week may get pushed back to next week because I am going to The Dinner Station on Tuesday.

Here is what is on our menu:

Monday: WW Linguini with White Wine Clam Sauce and salad

Tuesday: WW Lasagna Stew

Wednesday: Apple Butter Pork Chops (if we aren't full from State Fair food)

Thursday: New Orleans Red Beans with rice & sausage and green beans

Friday: Chicken with a lemon-dill cream sauce, pasta and broccoli

Have a great week everyone!!

Pumpkin Express

Kaylin had a blast at Brendan's birthday party. She bounced in the bounce house, got to ride on a train, slide on a bouncy slide and play on a see-saw at the pumpkin patch. I actually forgot my camera, but my friend Jennifer got some pictures of Kaylin and her kids playing. Plus, we'll be going back on a field trip with Kaylin's school on the 23rd. I'll be sure to snap lots of pictures then.

Jonathan has been trying new foods lately. The other night we had beef tips with mushroom sauce & egg noodles and he yelled at me until I shared my noodles with him. He is gonna be a big eater. He's willing to try things that Kaylin isn't and hasn't ever been willing to try! Here's to hoping he won't be such a picky eater like his big sister!

Have you been Boo gramed?

Last night I picked up some Halloween goodies to make Boo bags to pass out to our neighbors! This morning, Kaylin and I put them together and later today, probably after dinner, I'll have her put them on the neighbors doorstep. Don't know what Boo'd means, or what a Boo bag consists of?

She's excited about it. She was also in the mood to put gifts together, because after that she asked if we could wrap up her friend Brendan's birthday present. So, we wrapped that up for his birthday party tomorrow, at the pumpkin patch. I know Kaylin can't wait, as she's asked me several times what day it is and if Saturday is tomorrow, so we can go to Brendan's party.

Jonathan's 9 month well visit

He is getting to be my big boy! He lost some weight, but the pedi. said that's normal since he's so active now.

Weight - 18 lbs 8oz (25%)
Length - 30 inches (95%)
Head - 19.3 inches/49 cm. (95%)

Our boy is going to be tall with a big head, to hold his big brain!

He also got a TB test and had his iron level checked. Both came back fine!

Two more recipes

I made two new things this weekend Best Big Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies and Sweet Potato Fries. Both were very yummy!

Best Big Fat Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (I only did 1 cup)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar, and white sugar until well blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy. Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended. Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon. Drop cookie dough 1/4 cup at a time onto the prepared cookie sheets. (I didn't make them that big!)
Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven or until the edges are lightly toasted. Cool on baking sheets for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Sweet Potato Fries

2 medium sweet potatoes
Olive Oil spray
4 Packets Splenda
1 Tbsp Cinnamon
1/2 Tbsp Seasoning Salt ( I used Penzeys 4/S)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Half potatoes, cut each half into 4-5 slices. Spray cookie sheet with olive oil. Spray slices with olive oil. Sprinkle seasoning salt, cinnamon & Splenda over potatoes. Place in oven and cook for 15-20 minutes. Flip fries over spray with more oil, sprinkle more salt, cinnamon and splenda and cook for another 15-20 minutes.

So, I found a new blog that I spent several hours reading last night. I plan to start using her tips to hopefully get this house in order. Every Monday she posts her menu for the week. Since I already plan ours I figure I can post it to share.

Here is our menu for the week. I will also share the recipes.

Monday - Salsa Chicken on corn tortillas with salad
Tuesday - Italian Style Fish with zucchini & mashed potatoes
Wednesday - Pulled Pork on hamburger buns with a salad
Thursday - Tuna Melt with broccoli
Friday - Honey Mustard Pork Chops with green beans and roasted potatoes
Saturday - Leftovers
Sunday - Grilled salmon with broccoli and pasta

Salsa Chicken
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
14 oz canned black beans
14 oz canned yellow corn
16 oz. salsa
Cumin
Chili Powder
1/2 shredded cheese

Place chicken in slow cooker. Pour salsa over chicken. Drain & rinse beans & corn; place in slow cooker. Add cumin & chili powder(I just sprinkle a thin layer over the top.) Cook 8 hours on low. Shred chicken with a fork (it normally breaks up enough when I stir it) and mix all together. Add shredded chicken and replace lid for 5-10 minutes, until melted. Serve!

Pulled Pork
1 (2 pound) pork tenderloin
1 (12 ounce) root beer
1 (18 ounce) bottle bbq sauce
8 hamburger buns

Place pork tenderloin in a slow cooker; pour the root beer over the meat. Cover and cook on low until well cooked and the pork shreds easily. Drain well. Stir in bbq sauce. Serve on hamburger buns.

Italian Style Fish
2 pounds white fish fillets
1/2 Tablespoon butter or margarine
salt & pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried basil
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 1/2 Tablespoons minced garlic
3 Tablespoons italian dressing
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Arrange fish in a medium baking dish. Dot with butter; season with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with lemon juice. Top with remaining ingredients, ending with cheese.
3. Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until fish is easily flaked with a fork.