Day 60

At Kingwood hospital after Joanna's ENT appointment today.

Day 59

My forward-facing boy!!

Day 58

Of course the only pics I took today were of a diaper-clad James wearing his sister's skirt around his neck. :)

Day 57

Somebody tell me who he looks like here! He cracks me up. :)

Today, with a lot of words

This morning I rolled out of bed way to early for a Sunday to go register James and Natalie for pre-school in the fall. I must have some kind of Kindergarten withdrawal because I actually had filled out a form for Joanna too. I stopped myself from turning it in, though. :)
I had a nice time sitting in the hallway, chatting with some friends who had all also rolled out of bed too early for a Sunday. It was actually kind of a nice alternative to fixing breakfast for the masses.
Then I went back home to help get everybody ready and eat a proper breakfast for myself. I actually scrambled myself some eggs, which I almost never actually eat for breakfast, since I was going to try and donate blood this morning. I'm pretty sure the last time I donated blood was 2006! I've been pregnant or nursing since then, and I'm not sure that either of those really mix with losing a pint of blood. Since I'm actually taking vitamins regularly for the first time pretty much ever, my iron levels weren't even close to borderline -- wahoo!
I did totally crash after I fixed lunch back at home though. I had a small coma on the couch for a little while. Glad Matt was here. :)
Then Matt took the van to get some work done.
$500 dollars later we still have some more work to do... in stages. And hopefully cheaper than what was quoted. I'm super thankful we had the money saved though, and that the van still runs, even though it needs some work.
I went to the grocery store this evening and stocked up on meat for the freezer, among other things. I've been in a cooking rut lately so hopefully I'll be able to produce some good dinners this week.
And I bought ice cream.
Don't know how that happened. I blame Gulf Coast Reginal Blood Center.
:)
And now I think I will eat some and sit on the couch with the hubs for some Netflix.
Are you sure tomorrow has to be Monday?

Day 56

Natalie fell off a chair and her lip bled a bit. I'm thankful that's all it was. It wasn't a pretty fall.

Day 55

My poor bruiser... fat lip. :(

Day 54

Diapers drying in the laundry room... waiting to be worn tomorrow.

Day 53

James and me with our ashes tonight.

Joanna is FIVE!!

This is the last picture I took of my four year old:

They crack me up.  :)

Joanna almost always sleeps until at least 7 but often close to or past 8 in the mornings.  She was up before 6:30 today!

We snuggled, and I told her about the day she was born.  She LOVED hearing it this year!

We managed to wait until after breakfast, but Joanna was just sooooo excited to open her presents from us!

I took this picture just to make sure the settings on the camera were okay, but I love of James!

Opening her card from Nana and Popo that came in the mail.  She opened the present from them another time and it didn’t make it onto film.  :)

The first birthday call of the day!  Hi Gran!

FIVE?!!!  How can this be?????

Five just seems so monumental – such a milestone.  Partly because she will start Kindergarten this year I guess.  I remember being five; it just seems so crazy!  I guess I have a few spotty memories before five years old, but I have lots of memories from when I was five.  Now my BABY is FIVE!!

Matt and I got her some Melissa and Doug play food for the kitchen.  Yay!

Even though it’s been a busy day, they’ve enjoyed playing a lot with the new “food.”

That’s how I like to eat butter too James!

As aside: I think this is the best picture I’ve gotten of his “help” sign.  Hand motion plus the look on the face.  :)

James practiced cutting the food too:

LOVE this face!!

We had a pretty lazy day around the house today.  Matt took the day off from work to spend more time with his birthday girl.

Mamma and Pop came over after lunch to give Joanna a birthday present.  She got a gift card to Toys R Us and and trip with Mamma and Pop to shop there!  She looooooved it so much!

Does she look older?

So pretty!

Had to fit in a little 5 year old photo shoot outside!

So big!!

Me and my five year old:

We headed to The Table tonight for spaghetti dinner and then the Ash Wednesday service.  Gary stopped by our table and started singing “Happy Birthday” to Joanna.  She stick her fingers in her  ears (the toot!) so he came right behind her to finish it.  I couldn’t get the iPod camera on fast enough to get a picture of it, but this is how she looked right after he walked away.  Don’t let the fingers in the ear fool you – she LOVED it!

The kiddos were pretty wired at bedtime, but, as far as I can tell, they also crashed pretty good!

I am so thankful God allowed me to be Joanna’s momma.  She’s the most incredibly wonderful five year old a girl could have in her life!

Happy Birthday my sweet love!

Day 52

Even More Family Fun!

I am soooo spoiled from this weekend of almost no cooking at all.

Oh, and spending time with family was really good too.  :)

Sunday evening we headed over to Mamma and Pop’s house to celebrate Pop’s birthday!

I’m pretty sure one of the girls did this to James and (poor kid) he just loved it so much!

Matt said he needs a brother.  :)

I just love this picture of James chillin’ with Uncle Steve – so cute!

We had lots of fun with family – Happy birthday Pop!!

Little Things that Make You Happy

Just a little while ago I was cleaning up my very messy kitchen from dinner and thinking about how I still needed to make lunches for school tomorrow when it hit me:

It’s pizza week!!! 

I know I heard the angels singing.  It was glorious.  I only had to make little James’ lunch.  Ahhhhhh…

Here a a few iPod pics from today.  James LOVES it when his sisters take the cushions off the couch in the playroom because then he can climb up!

I found him in there this morning so happily looking through a little photo book. 

You can kind of see how his head is cocked way to one side in the next picture – he was just having so much fun!

Oh, that boy is soooooo cute!

On our way in to Kroger tonight, we got to sample the lemonade Girl Scout cookies – yay!

He was so sad when it was all gone though.  :(  Fortunately it was a quick grocery run!

Day 51

Eating a cookie at Kroger.

Family is Fabulous

Today I got to go to a baby shower for Ashley, who is Matt’s nephew’s girlfriend, and mother to my future great niece!

I only took a couple of pictures, since Mindy had her camera going and I expect to see those pictures soon.  I had to snap a pic of the cake though!  Can you tell from the picture what it is? 

It’s a belly – I love it.  :)

This afternoon we went over to my grandma’s house for some family time.  Aunt Gail and Uncle Steve are in town, and Anne and Jade drove up.  Andy and Christiana were there too – what fun!

Joanna and Jade:

We stayed for a taco dinner – yum!  The girls had ice cream for dessert.  Aren’t they cute?!

James did some dressing up.

Ha!

Some Grandma love!

Christiana is working on crocheting a blanket, and she learned how to make these flowers today.  She made the girls each one, and Aunt Gail pinned Natalie’s in her hair – love it!

We had such a nice evening!

Day 49

Day 48

James doing some drawing yesterday.

The Girls Playday Birthday Party

We planned a park party for the girls last Friday to celebrate their 3rd and 5th birthdays.  A day or so before, I noticed the 70% chance of rain and was prompted to clean my house.

Good thing too.

Lots of friends came over to enjoy some playing and talking and cookies and juice – fun!

I snapped a lot of candid pics; y’all love me anyway.  :)

Kimberly and Theresa, talking about something:

Mom and David were supposed to go to Hawaii that morning, but the flight filled up.  I don’t think she minded her alternate morning though.  Gran and baby Lily:

Joanna and Natalie with their lunch:

Candice got to hold Kendra’s baby Jaxon – sooo cute!

I don’t remember why now James didn’t have a shirt on.  Some days are just like that though.

The friends were singing “Happy Birthday” to the girls here:

They sure loved opening presents!

James was getting antsy or something; I can’t remember.

He enjoyed sitting with sweet Lily.

I love their expressions when opening gifts!

I must have been explaining how something worked here:

Joanna was excited about it.  :)

Help from her friend Kaitlyn:

James was ready to tackle the room after a little snuggle:

I could just eat him up!

A big mess means lots of fun!

I love this one of Natalie standing in the middle of all the chaos:

Joanna is “reading” about her new craft kit:

We had such a simple fun party – thank you friends!

Later that day, James got to eat a cookie:

He was a fan… I think.  :)

I made these cake batter cookies that I found via Pinterest.  I thought they were quite tasty!  They didn’t look like the picture on the recipe though.  When you use whole wheat flour and sucanat, which are both rather brown, you can’t have white-ish cookies at all.  But they can still be delicious!

The girls also requested pink cookies from the strawberry cake mix.  Those are soooo easy and were a big hit.  I can’t stand them myself, but it’s probably good to have the occasional dessert I don’t like.  :)

My recipe for cake mix cookies:
1 box cake mix
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil

Mix, plop onto cookie sheet by the spoonful, bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

Notes: This is the recipe I used this time and have used before, but the cookies sure do ooze a lot of oil while they’re baking.  In my hunting for cake mix cookie recipes for the party, I stumbled on a recipe that just used 1/3 cup of oil so I’ll probably try that next time.  I also wasn’t brave enough to sub the vegetable oil in the recipe with coconut oil (there’s a variety that doesn’t have the coconut flavor) because I didn’t have time for a back up plan if it didn’t work.  So I actually went out and bought a little container of canola oil, which I haven’t had in my pantry for a year or so.  I use coconut oil for everything! 

Cake mix cookies have nooooo redeeming nutritional value, but they are very easy and quite tasty for a  treat!