Happy Thanksgiving!

This morning Wyatt came into our room before everyone was awake. He must have said he loved me 5 times, it was so sweet. Eventually he woke Allegra up and went to get her a bunch of cars to share. Then, climbed into her crib and played with her. She was delighted, she loves him so much. I just couldn't stop thinking about how thankful I am for these sweet babies that God has given me. I am so thankful for my husband, who just cleaned the kitchen (and usually always does). I am thankful that he loves us and is a leader. That he works hard to provide for us, even though he would love to be doing something else. I am thankful that we are his priority. I know that's not earth shattering news, but I'm so thankful to God for my family and the love we have for eachother.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Roasted Vegetable Minestrone

About a month ago my niece Melissa (who was born on my 6th birthday) asked if I wanted to be a part of blogging about cooking Pioneer Woman recipes. She was asked by her friend Alexis, who I have met through another friend, Savannah. Small world, right?
The idea is that there is a group of ladies and each week one of us gets to pick what we make. My week was last week (I swear I did make this last week) and I picked Roasted Vegetable Minestrone.
I took pictures of my journey, but just look at her link, I really can't outdo her lovely photos!!
Instead of buying the cans of beans, I bought the dried ones in bulk. I would recommend just buying the dang cans. Sometimes I'm just too cheap.

Anyway, I pretty much followed the recipe to a "T" after that. Usually, I like to follow a recipe how it's supposed to be made and then when I'm eating it, I decide what I would change.
For instance, I would definitely use about 4-5 cloves of garlic when I'm sauteing the carrots, onion and celery.

And I really am not a fan of the low sodium chicken broth. For heaven's sake, you just have to end up adding more salt to make it taste good.

And when I'm roasting the vegetables, I might throw in an eggplant if I'm feeling really crazy.



Lookin good!!

When I was done with the soup, I shredded up some spinach into confetti for garnish and grated some Parmesan cheese onto the top off it.

I made up some french bread and spinach salad w/ blue cheese dressing for side dishes.

It was a winner, I'm definitely going to try this again with my tweaks!!


This also got rave reviews last week. Click on the picture for a link to the recipe!

Subway Art T-Shirts

This project was inspired by a blog post by Destri from The Mother Huddle.
She is doing a series of blog posts called Boutique Style for Less.
In this particular project you take a T-shirt and paint/write adjectives that best describe your kids and their personalities. It was fun and insightful to come up with positive adjectives that describe both of my kids. Ryan asked me if we get to do a negative one too...
Anyway, so I went to Wal-Mart and picked up 2 white long sleeved shirts. Wyatt's was $4 and Allegra's was $3.50. Then I swung by JoAnns for some black and white fabric paint (1.79 ea) and paint brushes($1.99). (I didn't end up using the paint brushes I bought, my MAC makeup brushes worked much better).
I had the 2 different sizes of permanent markers already.

The white paint turned out to be much needed. I accidentally dropped the paintbrush with black paint on Wyatt's shirt, AND I misspelled intelligent on Allegra's...why did it have to be that word? The white acted as whiteout. You can't tell from far away, or if you don't know to look. The white was a lifesaver.
I wanted to incorporate big brother/little sister into these shirts. Wyatt had a big brother shirt when Allegra was born, but Allegra has never had a little sister shirt.
So, here is my version of the Subway Art T-Shirts:










Thanks to Destri for such a fun project!!

"I Wanna Go To A Carnival"

We literally planned our camping trip around the fact that the Josephine County Fair was in Grants Pass last week. We had planned on going the week before and then canceled and rescheduled so we could go to the fair.
Two years ago, Wyatt got a Boz video where they had a carnival, and ever since he's been talking about going to one. We really wanted to take him to the State fair last year, but didn't make it.
It was so much fun to watch him have fun, to watch the magic in his eyes. After smearing on a thick layer of sunblock and a couple other little stops we made our way to the rides. On our way into the fairgrounds, Wyatt had set his sights on a ride that he called the Skeeter. And that's all we heard about...so that's where we went. You know the roller coaster that goes in a circle and goes up and down all herky jerky like? Ya, that one. That was the first one we went on. I'm not sure I can even explain his excitement. We climbed into that ride, just him and I, and he laughed and giggled at the beginning. Towards the middle of the ride I think we were both feeling a little dizzy, and he said mama make it stop, I wanna get off. But, as soon as I started screaming and laughing he was laughing and screaming again too. Then, we rode the Ferris Wheel...which was a little unnerving because they don't strap you into anything. Has anyone met Wyatt? He did really good though, well, I did have my hand on him at all times, but he had so much fun. The rest of the rides were fun for him too, but the first two were the ones that I got to do with him. I had so much fun sharing that special time with my son. The rest of the day was fun too...the food, the Carnie drama, the animals, the bull riding rodeo, but for the rest of the day Wyatt kept saying that he wanted to go back to "the fair". We tried to explain to him that it wasn't just the rides that made up the fair, that it was all of it. But he just looked longingly from the stands of the rodeo at all the spinning rides and said he wanted to go back to "the fair". So we bought enough tickets for one more ride and told him that he could pick one. Without even thinking, he said that he wanted to go down the big slide. I tried to talk him into doing something else, because there was something about paying $3 to slide down a slide that just seemed wrong. But he wouldn't be swayed. So he gave the man his ticket, grabbed the gunnysack blanket, and headed up the steep stairs. And this part of the night is my favorite memory. He was slowly headed up those stairs clutching the blanket in one hand and the railing in the other. Midway he turned around and watched as some kids went whizzing past him, his eyes were as big as saucers and fearful. Slowly he turned around and bravely continued up that long, steep, narrow stairway. When he finally reached the top, he had no idea what that blanket was for, so he just dropped it and proceeded to sit down and start to shove off. But there was someone up there helping that got him set straight. He shot down that slide his eyes big and scared and excited all at once, and when he reached the bottom he sprung up and said, "I wanna do it again". For $3 you only get to do that once, but it was so worth it.
For Wyatt, he will be talking about that for months and months, "tell me bout the fair, tell me bout it". For me, I will remember that time for the rest of my life. I know that it probably sounds pretty normal, but for me, it was extraordinary.

Dear Daddy,

I think it's time for you to lower my crib mattress.

Love,
Allegra



Today I was in our room sorting through some clothes. I had put Sis in her crib sitting up...and this is what happened seconds later. It's only a matter of time that she will be able to do this from laying down...that is why, that mattress is going down tonight!
I love how proud she is of her accomplishment. She is getting busier and busier as she get's older. Lord have mercy! She's so close to crawling.

Mamarazzi Monday: He Woke Her Up To Play

I have recently found a couple of new blogs that I like to look at. I added them to my side bar, but they are:

The Mother Huddle: they have cute ideas for things to do with kids, fun craft tutorials, cooking posts = right up my alley

&

Household 6 Diva: Army Wife, Busy Mom, Balance Seeker. & originator of


Today I decided to join in the fun. I probably wont do this every Monday, but I'd like to join in every once-in-a-blue-moon...maybe even more often than that! :)

Last Wednesday, Wyatt woke up from his nap before Allegra. He had to go potty so I told him to go through his bedroom. Our bathroom is in the far corner of our 2 bedroom house so we both have doors connecting to the bathroom.
Next thing I know, I hear a door opening. Since he's not big on shutting the bathroom door to begin with, I had a feeling he had went into our bedroom from the bathroom. I braced myself. Then came the giggles. From both of them. I let them play for a few minutes and then went in to check on things....

This is what I found...well this isn't exactly what I found. I ran out of the room and grabbed my camera and THIS is what I got the picture of. What I actually found was Wyatt sitting at the foot of her crib, Indian style, with Allegra's feet in his lap. He was tickling her and she was giggling...that's what I actually found.

Wyatt had hauled Ryan's pillow into the crib and "shared" it with Sis.

Awe...what a sweet moment, and can I just say that in this picture, she looks "thrilled" to have been woken up, LOL.

Sweet smiles from a sweet big brother.

Kisses from Sisserlou

I don't think he was a fan of those kisses so he tried to give her her bink instead.

More giggles

Can you see the love? I can.







































Let's try this bink again!

These are the moments that absolutely melt my ♥

He Loves Her

When we first brought Allegra home from the hospital, Wyatt was smitten. He kissed her and shared all kinds of his special treasures with her. But somewhere in the newness of it all, that wore off. We would try to get him to say hi to her or kiss her or hold her, but he would just ignore her and flat out pretend that she wasn't there.
Now, six months later, Allegra has been smiling and laughing and connecting with us all more and more every day. Wyatt has discovered that he can make her smile and laugh. She loves him. She has always stared at him, has always loved him. But now, they are making that connection.
I have been sitting and quietly relishing sweet moments between them. Wishing that I could grab the video camera and preserve it forever, but knowing that it would ruin the moment. So I just sit and enjoy it.
Tonight, we were at Ryan's parents house. Everyone was somewhere else. It was just the kids and I and Auntie Lisa. Wyatt wanted to play in the "pack n' play" with Allegra, so I put both of them in there and sat and watched him make her smile and look at her with adoration and love in his eyes and say, "I love you sissalou" over and over again. Then, he asked me to take their picture. (he rarely ever asks me to take his picture) AND THEN, he actually smiled.
This was a precious moment that I hope to always hold in my heart...

It's all Going Too FAST!

Yesterday, we officially arrived at my absolute favorite baby stage. It's nice to hit this point because I have really been missing the newborn stage lately.
I plopped Allegra up on her bottom, and low and behold, she stayed up. Our house isn't too conducive to playing on the floor, so we haven't really been trying this with her. But, we were playing on our bed yesterday and I just happened to try it.
I absolutely love this time, she has a little bit of independence but, can't move around yet. We are going to go buy an area rug in the next couple of weeks, so she can have somewhere safe to play.
Today, we were all playing trains together, I sat her on Wyatt's rug and surrounded her with some padding. It's so much fun to get to watch this all over again.



This happened a month before her brother sat up for the first time.
Slow down baby girl...slow down.

Resurrection Rolls

I put out a request for help the week before Easter for a fun craft to do with Wyatt. I got many great suggestions, but in the end, it was Auntie Geno's recipe for Resurrection Rolls that won out. I had never heard of doing this, but since Wyatt loves to bake this was a natural for us.
The bonus? They are absolutely delicious!!
What you need: And now I'm quoting Geno...
Get some Crescent rolls, cinnamon and sugar, butter and marshmallows.

Roll out the Crescent Rolls. (represents the tomb)
Roll the marshmallow in melted butter and the C&S mixture. (marshmallow represents Jesus)

Now wrap the marshmallow in the crescent roll and bake in the oven at 325.


When they come out the marshmallow is gone (representing the empty tomb)

I usually make a simple homemade drizzle icing to have on the top. The cinnamon and sugar and marshmallow melt away into the crescent roll and it is delish!


So, we didn't do the drizzle...it was just one extra step and I really didn't feel like doing it.
But I did try to explain what and why we were doing everything, and then after we put the rolls in the oven, we read about Jesus' death in the Bible.
Then after we took them out and cut into them, the marshmallow was gone, we ate the yummy-ness and then read about Jesus rising from the dead.
It was a great exercise for Wyatt, because the "why" phase is officially in full swing. He has been asking questions here and there ever since.

We didn't have time to actually do this before Easter, but right after. It worked out good for Wyatt to do this after Easter, because then he had something to link it to.
And don't forget...they are very tasty little morsels!
Thanks Geeennnoooo!!

Eating Like A Champ

Allegra has taken very well to eating solid foods, and with absolutely no learning curve. She has been observing us for quite some time now, and when I introduced rice cereal last week, she knew exactly what to do. She has taken it and ran, in addition to rice cereal she has eaten peas, sweet potatoes and bananas. I used a gift card from Target and bought her a new high chair that straps to our dining room chair. I cant believe she's gonna be 5 months next week. I really miss my sweet little newborn, but we are really enjoying this next phase too. Sweet giggles...rolling over...always wanting to stand...exploring her voice...grabbing her feet...playing with her toys... the list goes on.
I just wanted to share this milestone with my friends & family...thanks for letting me brag!
Not that you had much choice.

Drool Catchers

Sissy is a drooler. B.I.G. TIME.
She gets these raw and painful rashes if we don't stay on top of it.
So, I have conceded to the fact that she pretty much needs to be wearing a bib at all times.
I started to peruse etsy for some cutsie little bibs to suit "her" style, (*wink*) and found everything to be fairly expensive.


So, I bought a pattern and made some myself.
I'm very happy with the way these turned out, and wanted to share some pictures!