Ballers, Bottles, Bathtubs and Brownies

Evangeline was playing in the little bit of snow we got one night last week.  She came in for a carrot while I was nursing Jed.  A little later she came in to warm up.  The night went along and I forgot to ask her what the carrot was for.  I found her little snowman mound the next day and got a chuckle out of it.  It was even funnier a few days later when the snow had melted and all that was left were the eyes and carrot nose.  

 

Another Disney On Ice with Papa, Karen and the cousins= one pooped out little girl. 

Well, I was checking out a setting on my camera one day and snapped this picture.  I decided to include it because it captures such a part of my life right now.  I spend what seems like (and is) a very large part of my day washing and boiling pump and bottle parts, preparing the parts each morning before school, making it to school only to discover I've forgotten something, left school only to discover I've forgotten parts or milk, finding various places all over the school to pump depending on indoor or outdoor recess....wow, to say this is a chore is an understatement.  The things we do for our children. 

 

This girl really got into the game last Friday!!!  We were all so shocked.  Usually Evangeline does nothing but look cute, just a'skipping around on the court piggy tails flapping in the breeze, but Friday...who was that girl??!!  She was playing some serious defense!  We were SO proud of her!!  She was stealing the ball like crazy and guarding all over the place...offense, defense...she didn't care...guarding, guarding, guarding!  In the car on the way home she said that she really liked stealing the ball, that it was fun. 

 

Here's the official basketball pictures.  What a fun season!

 

Oh my goodness!!!  Can't get enough of this chub in the tub!!!

 

We made some delish, from scratch brownies last week.  Well worth the effort.  Good thing I gave most of them away or I would have been in some serious trouble! 

 

Evangeline is always cracking me up with her vocabulary.  The other day we discovered at bath time that we were out of shampoo.  We had to borrow Kyle's.  Evangeline wanted to see what it smelled like.  She took a whiff and said, "yuck!  I'm into things that smell delightful".  



A Big Girl and a Baby

I love how Jed stretches after I'm done feeding him in the middle of the night.  I lift him up to put him on my shoulder and he sticks his little bottom out, raises his knees up, arches his back, sticks his arms up over his head and makes an adorable little old man face, then he plops him self against me and cozies up in my neck.  Oh, how I love this.  He is already starting to do it less and less, but last night he did it and I already caught myself saying, "oh yeah, I forgot about this and how much I love it".  I thought I better write it down before it flits out of my memory as fast as babies grow out of the newborn phase....

Evangeline was Star Student at school this past week.  She thoroughly enjoyed her special week.  She talked about it a lot.  Here's the graphic organizer I found in her backpack she had written about herself. 

After several weeks of anticipation her rocks came out of the Rock Tumbler last weekend.  She received this gift from Papa and Karen the week before Christmas and the gemstone blend she started with have been tumbling ever since.  After 4 different grits, they were done, finally.  It was exciting.  She made piles of her favorites.  She made piles according to color and type.  She looked in her rock book and identified what she had.  The girl loves rocks. 

 

The rock on the right is a Tiger's Eye rock before taking many turns in the tumbler.  The rock on the left is one of the finished products.  

 

Brrr...it's been cold outisde.  

 

But we've been staying cozy....



We've been doing a little cleaning.  I can't believe how many outfits Jed has already outgrown.    Here are a few pictures of little Jed's room.  

 

And then there's E.B.'s room...I love the wall above Evangeline's bed.  She's always decorating it according to the season.  

 

Evangeline's always loved Beatrix Potter and insists on keeping this book opened to this page on her hat boxes at all times.  It's been here in this very spot for probably a year now.  

Don't you dare set this baby down.  He. Will. Get.  Grumpy.  We can't take a sad Jed though.  We scoop him up right away.  It's just too much.

 

Danielle Burress has been watching Jed on Wednesday's.  She sends me pictures and videos on my lunch break.  I love it!  Here are two that she sent me last week.  She mentioned how she loves his look of concentration and how he was hiccupping, but it didn't interfere with all of his babbling.  

 

Me and my friend, Molly Richardson, took our girls to see a Russian ballet company perform Swan Lake at EIU over Martin Luther King weekend.  It was an awesome production.  The girls had a great time.  Evangeline wants to start dance classes again.  Her face during the show was priceless.  She was FULL of questions about what was going on.  Each time I take her to a show or production of some kind I enjoy watching her face more than the actual show.  It's a gift to watch a child experience the world. 

 

This was in her backpack the next day.  

 

Evangeline was disappointed that we were out of her cereal the other day.  I told her that her options were either Grape Nuts or oatmeal.  She was not too thrilled.  Then I told her that we could make some Swedish pancakes.  She said, in a relived voice, "the clouds have lifted!".  She has a real flare for the dramatics.  

The Toothless Wonder

Evangeline started her first day back to school in 2016 with a bang.  She lost her first tooth!  On Christmas Eve she had mentioned that her tooth hurt.  She went to look at it in the mirror and came running in telling me that she was growing a new tooth.  I looked inside her mouth and about fell over in shock when I saw that her bottom left front tooth was, indeed, growing in behind the baby tooth. 

 

It really started getting wiggly before school last Monday after taking a few bites of her Cheerios.  She was obsessing over it.  She wouldn't eat her cereal and barely ate any yogurt.  She was too distracted and excited to do anything.  I finally had to tell her that she couldn't look at her tooth in the mirror anymore until she was all ready for school.  Around 8:30 she came into my classroom with a little treasure box in her hand with her tooth inside.  We were both so excited.  She told me that she was sitting there during calendar time and that "it was hanging by one little thing".  She said that she went up to Mrs. Crumrin and showed her.  Mrs. Crumrin wiggled it a little and then told her to twist it.  Out it popped!  She got to pick out a little box to keep it in from the nurses office.  She loved recounting the events of her lost tooth all day and I loved hearing about it.  That night she kept asking if it was time for bed.  She absolutely couldn't wait for the Tooth Fairy to come.  She decorated a little envelope to put the tooth in and wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy that said, "Can you please bring me something sweet?  Love, Evangeline".  (She thought she may have lost her sweet tooth and insisted that all things sweet tasted weird.  She was hoping the Tooth Fairy would bring her something sweet to make sweet things taste good again...all this was thanks to Pinkalicious.)  She was so excited to discover that the Tooth Fairy left her a dollar and a pack of sugar-free gum..... Oh, and in case you were worried, sweet things taste good to her again. 

 

The next day she said she was ready for more teeth to come out because yesterday had been so exciting.  She said, "it was like a party in my head". 

 

Another thing that happened over Christmas break was Jed learning that he can put his arms up in the air.  I had him laying next to me while folding laundry yesterday and I let him hold a sock.  He kept lifting it over his head, which was so stinking cute because his arms are so short.  

 

I felt very productive today.  Sunday School, laundry, grocery shopping, trying out my new cast-iron Dutch oven, cleaning, organizing, repotting my new clearance plants...It was a good day.

 

All of these clearance plants from WallyWorld: $3.50

Beautiful flower pots costume made for me by my amazing father: Priceless. 

Welcome 2016

Christmas break was magnificent.  It was everything I wanted...so much family time, so much baby time, so much big girl time.  It's the best life gets.  Jed rolled over from back to front for the first time on Christmas Eve and then from front to back (not technically for the first time since he had that crazy roll over the day before he turned 1 month old) Sunday, January 3rd.  Now he's just a'rollin' all over the place!

 

We spent a day and night with my mom one day last week.  On the way over I noticed that both of the kids had fallen asleep holding hands.  I called mom to come out to the car when I pulled into her drive and we both were so touched by this precious sight.  Evangeline is seriously the best big sister.  She holds his little hand a lot, but seeing them asleep like this was almost too much for my heart to handle. 

 

Evangeline made these lovely New Year gingerbread cookies.  She cut them out an decorated them herself.  Her rule: each cookie must have a Red Hot.  She's becoming quite the little baker.  

 

It is no longer the year of the baby, as I affectionately called 2015.  Last year brought about the biggest change in our household with Jed.  I can already say that this new year will bring many more big changes, not quite as grand as a new addition to the family, but big in a different kind of way. 

 

My resolution this year...I plan to work on my patience.  Not only with people (which I need work on too), but patience in seeing what God's plan is for my life.  I tend to have a need for immediate answers.  I don't like to wait for things to unravel slowly.  I am going to work on living for each day and to let tomorrow take care of itself when it gets here. 

 

I am so grateful for my family, the good health of my children/family/friends/myself, the amazing people I walk this life with.  I am entering this new year with such a feeling of gratitude.  Thank you, thank you, thank you, God.