night time creeper

Boo has been doing pretty good about sleeping in here toddler bed. But when she wakes up in the middle of the night (usually closer to when GG wakes up) she thinks she can sleep in our bed (we have let her because it's hard to explain to her to go to back to her bed when her dad is awake, so I hope by letting her lay in bed with me she'll sleep longer..because 5:00 is much too early for her or myself to be awake.).

Anyway, so when she wakes up in the middle of the night I coax her back into her bed and while I leave her in her room to hopefully fall asleep, I lay awake in my bed afraid that a little child will creep up on me and scare me half to death. It's seriously freaks me out-I noticed my heart pounding last night in anticipation of being crept up upon. It's feels like when you hear a sound in the middle of the night, and you hold your breath to see if you can hear footsteps approaching you. ahhhh. I know my child shouldn't freak me out like that but it does. And the thing I'm more scared of is scaring her by my reaction to her sudden appearance staring at me.  I have no idea how my mom made it through. I know I stood by her bedside more than I can count whispering, "mom", "Mom", MOm", "MOM".  Now, times that by 12 kids doing to that to her over the years. No wonder she never could get a restful night. 

Is anyone else like this? Or am I totally pathetic for curling up to my sleeping husband for protection from my daughter?

We're alive-no worries!

So I guess it's been awhile. And for those of you wondering we are all still alive. :) January was not one of our favorite months and we are glad that is behind us and that we only have a few months left before it's spring. Just thinking about spring makes my heart smile a bit. 

Part of the reason I haven't blogged in awhile was that I just wasn't sure that we had anything blog worthy. Boo got tubes in her ears-I don't think I really notice a difference but maybe that is because she is getting her two year old molars in (just noticed them tonight-that could explain some of the crankiness.)

Boo has been a bit of a handful lately. She is becoming very independent and everything is "boo's turn" and she says this as she takes both of her hands and points to herself-over and over again. It's a bit exhausting. She was in a bit of a biting phase but she hasn't done it since Christmas. Bedtime and naptime is a gamble whether she is going to fight or just go with  it. And when she fights, she fights. She climbs out of crib screaming and crying and then bangs on the door (I'm sure our neighbors love us). 

Since the crib is not "containing" her anymore and I'm worried that she'll hurt herself diving into the crib and/or tumbling out, we're transitioning to the toddler bed tonight.....I'm crossing my fingers for a smooth transition.

GG is busy, busy, busy. It's been busy at school, church and he's doing a practicum for his masters. After this practicum he has one more class and he's done!

Valentine's was wonderful. Last weekend, GG (love) and I went out (love) with my family (love) for dinner at Olive Garden (love) and then went to our church dance (love). The next morning we had a family "I Love You" party (a family tradtion that I love).  If you couldn't tell, I LOVED it! It was perfect. 

(This is not an actual picture from the valentine's date but just us from one of our other dates since I didn't think to take a picture of us looking good for the dance). ;)
On Valentine's day Boo woke up early -usually this means that it would be a rough day- but she came and laid in the bed with me. I stroked her cheek and every once in awhile she would lean over and give me a kiss (unsolicited) and stroke my cheek back. So wonderful. I LOVE this girl so much.

We had a really nice week weather-wise in the middle of January. Here she is soaking up the sun on the deck like an old person on a rocking chair watching the cars go

This is my crazy beautiful girl! This is the outfit she insisted on- TWO skirts, a dress, a sweater and SKATES! :) 

Sorry this was long-but I'll try and not be a stranger again.

2012

Doesn't this cake look fabulous for celebrating the New Year? 

 Ok, well, maybe not "look" fabulous but it tasted fabulous. (I'm still working on the "pretty" part of cake making). This is an Andes Mint Cake  from Bird on A Cake. I found the link from Pinterest.

With the New Year we have 1:00 church. By 4:30 Boo zonked out on the couch. She has never fallen asleep like that. Poor thing. I had to wake her up by 6:00 so she would be able to go to bed at a decent hour.

 Here are a a couple other pictures:

Before Christmas, I watched a girl from church- I decided to make sugar cookies with them.  They did remarkably well. There was potential for flour everywhere but they kept it to the table and chairs. They even decorated them...well Boo didn't do much decorating-just eating. :)

Aren't they cuties? She's the sweetest little girl. She's always trying to make Boo smile or help her out.


Boo lined up her cars in a row. I wasn't paying attention, and then she came up to me and said "choo Choo". Grandpa would be proud. :)

Happy New Year Friends!

Our Christmas Celebration

We made it through Christmas! I don't know what it was this year but I just wanted to get through it. My body was telling me I was overly anxious and stressed. I wasn't sure why but apparently it was Christmas because by dinner time on Christmas all the tension in my body finally went away.  It didn't help that on Christmas eve Boo thought she should be awake from 1ish to 4 ish in the morning. That made me super stressed about making it through Christmas day...when I knew a nap wasn't going to really fit in the picture that day. Anyway, it turned out to be a lovely day. 

Here's how we celebrated:

Christmas Eve we had fondue for dinner. And then afterwards we did a Christmas Minute to Win It game.

Jingle Box..they had to shake all the jingle bells out of the box.

 Holiday Kiss- Had to hang the ornament on a string

 Reindeer Nose Dive- had to get the red pom pom to stick to your nose with vaseline.

 Nutstacker..Boo trying to do it after GG and I did it. I won. :)

For Christmas my sister got a crazy idea to do a 12 days of Christmas dinner. That means 12 items that some how correlated with the 12 days. That is A LOT of FOOD. Thankfully, we started around 2:00 with 12 chicken wings drumsticks (?) (12 drummers drumming) and worked our way through the day and ended with a Pear Tart (partridge in a pear tree) around 8:00.  It turned out more lovely than I anticipated. Somethings really didn't relate...some how we ended up with Shirley Temples for 10 Lords a Leaping (????).   But it was a lovely 5 course dinner with some yummy foods- Butternut squash soup, who knew it would be so good? In love.

We are looking forward to another week and a half of just relaxing...and hopefully getting some exercising in after all that eating we've been doing! We hope you all had a lovely Christmas. Ours was wonderful but I'm thankful it's over too.  ahh sigh.

Passing time

I feel like its been awhile since I've posted.  Just haven't been sure if I've had anything worth blogging about. Thanksgiving was wonderful. It is one of my favorite holidays. I think Christmas will become one of my favorites now that Boo is barely learning that there is such a thing as Christmas. I think next year she'll understand it and maybe remember what's coming and get excited about it.

We have a wooden advent calender we bought from Target a few years back. It has little doors for the 25 days and on top is a wooden nativity scene. We have it up on top of our entertainment center. We get it down so that she can find the candy. After I put it back up one day she said, "Baby Jesus! Baby Jesus!!" I love that she was asking for Baby Jesus for something she wanted...granted it was candy.

I think I should share some recipes that I've made recently.

Taco Salad-My mother in law introduced it to me when we visited this last summer. One of my friends shared  her recipe for Taco salad but it called for Thousand Island dressings and it reminded me of the salad my mother in law made with Catalina dressing. Its soo good and easy. Well, really its just throwing stuff together, I really don't remember what the actual recipe said.

Lettuce
Ground meat browned and seasoned with Taco Seasoning (I did a little less than a packet for a approximately 1 pound of hamburger)
Can of Kidney Beans
Tomatoes, cut.
Fritos
almost 1/2 a bottle of catalina dressing
probably could throw in some cheese too, maybe even top it with sour cream. maybe.

Mix it all together in a bowl.


Another Recipe I received from a friend from our recipe group was for Chicken Milan. We made this Sunday night and we really enjoyed it. The chicken was fantastic. I was a little weary since there wasn't a sauce for the noodles but they had spices. I was delighted with the results. If you like Olive Garden like foods, I think you'll like this one.

Chicken Milan

Prep/total time: 20 mins

8 ounces uncooked linguine

1 tablespoon minced garlic

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1/2 teaspoon dried parsley flakes

1/2 teaspoon pepper, divided

1/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon dried basil

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1-1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into strips

Cook linguine according to package directions. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, sauté garlic in 1 tablespoon oil for 1 minute or until tender; stir in parsley and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Remove to a small bowl and set aside.

In a shallow bowl, combine the flour, basil, salt and remaining pepper. In another shallow bowl, whisk the eggs. Dredge chicken strips in flour mixture, then dip in eggs.

In the same skillet, cook chicken in remaining oil over medium-high heat for 8-10 minutes or until no longer pink. Drain linguine and place on a serving platter. Pour reserved garlic mixture over linguine and toss to coat; top with chicken. Yield: 6 servings.

Enjoy friends.

"Save Thanksgiving" and family pictures

Don't you hate it when life is so busy that you can hardly keep up and then it goes to a slow "I'm not sure what I need to do today, tomorrow or even in a week?" I've been trying to find things to do but I find that I just don't really want to. I'm sure the Thanksgiving festivities will keep next week exciting, it is one of my favorite holidays, afterall.

WARNING: this next part is a rant, so skip down to our family pictures if you'd like. ( i know the two probably shouldn't have been combined...oh well it's how it came out.)

Speaking of Thanksgiving, Younkers is opening at midnight for black friday. Seriously?! STUPID. I hate what is happening to the day of THANKS. Its turning into a day of greed and need. I can't completely blame the stores because there are consumers asking for it to be open earlier!!! I hope those same people who are asking for it to be open at midnight or earlier have to work retail at some point in their lives and realize how much it seriously stinks for the employees. Anyway, sorry for the rant. I signed a petition someone put up on Change.org for "Target to Save Thanksgiving". ...heck someone has to.  (if you feel the same way I do, go ahead and sign it. If not, I'm sorry if I offend but think about what you are asking of your cashiers when you ring out at 1:00 am...ask them if they enjoyed their Thanksgiving or if they had to sleep the whole day so they could be there to ring you up.) opps.....sorry. 

ahhmmmm, anyway, here are some of our family pictures. I think our photographer did very well especially since Boo would not sit still or let us hold her for a single picture and once again we picked a windy day. Ahh well. Still love them.

 This is Boo's favorite mode of transportation, Running at high speeds...it is the cutest little run especially from the back.

 Haha...I secretly love this one because of our faces. we got caught with our mouths open.

 So sweet...maybe a little awkward seeing how GG is squished in the slide but so sweet at the same time.

The Christmas card picture... you'd think she was teething with how much she had her hand in her mouth but she probably had an ear infection there so maybe that was her self soothing efforts.

Once again, LOVE Their faces in this one!

 I really, really wish she was looking up, that little turkey. Otherwise, I love everything about this picture.

SO much fun I love my family. I can never say how thankful I really am for them. My heart just swells with happiness.

well, that post turned out much happier than it started. :)

Some peace and quiet...I hope

Seriously, the day after Boo turned 2 it has been Ca-RAZY! No joke. She has woken up almost everynight at 2 freaking out. I don't know what it is she wants but she just jumps up and down, slams her head against her crib and screams at the top of her lungs...well, she actually has a unique scream-its very throaty and it really sounds like it hurts. I've just stopped going in there unless she is "saying" something specific that she needs...not screaming.  HELP.  Sunday was a rough day during sacrament meeting. I was already exhausted from all her outbursts the last few days that trying to keep her occupied and staying in our bench area was just too much. Thankfully, a wonderful lady behind me pulled out her own toy and got Boo's attention for the last five minutes of church.  It was at the right moment because a second before that I gave up. And unless Boo was screaming or jumping on the bench I was going to let her be. ANYWAY, the reason I say all of that was because its providing me an extra incentive to find new things to keep her interest.  Here is what I hope to work on this week:

I'm TOTALLY making this for Boo's Quiet book. I found it on Pinterest but the link didn't work so I don't know where it really came from. This will be so much more fun that her "make a silly face" page...which really was just a "make a happy or sad face".

I think these are a great idea too from Flip Chick Designs. I might need to use simpler pictures for Boo.