Breakfast this morning

I've been making pancakes for me and the girls for breakfast lately.  I say "me and the girls" because Q leaves too early (okay, only 7:30) but honestly he would rather have the whole shebang with eggs, biscuits, gravy, sausage, and you get the point.  Who can blame him? And maybe just one day I'll be a really good housewife and wake up early every morning and make these things for him... Oh, I KNOW, maybe in the next year when I'm up early with our newborn baby! ha!  Who am I kidding?

  So, this morning I decided to mix things  up a little and add chocolate chips to the pancake mix.  Journey was still asleep.  Q was about to walk out the door for work.  I was mixing the pancake mix and Deci was sitting on the counter reading me bible stories.  Here is how our conversation goes.

Deci:  "Moma, do you know how to make doughnuts?"

Me:  "Nope."

Deci: "Well, maybe when me and Journey grow up you can get a grown-up job and learn how to make doughnuts for me and Journey."

Me: "Why do you want me to make doughnuts?"

Deci:  "Because they are good and if me and Journey are grownups then you can leave us here and go to work to make doughnuts and then bring us back some after work."

And I thought I was being the cool Mom by adding chocolate chips to the pancake mix!  That settles it then, when I go back to work, I'll work at a doughnut shop and everyone will be happy! :)

Gak

Deci's last day of her speech preschool was last week.  She will start again in the Fall but one of her favorite things about her class is that they get to play with this play-doh(ish) stuff they call Gak.  So we asked for the recipe and I thought I would share it with you guys.  Super easy.

What you will need:

1. 2 cups water

2. 1 Tbs Borax

3. food coloring

4. 1 cup Elmer's White Glue

First Mix: 1 cup water, 1 tbs Borax and food coloring together in a bowl.

Then in another bowl mix: 1 cup water and 1 cup Elmer's glue.

Then, slowly pour the first bowls contents into the 2nd bowl while mixing together.

It will look something like this:

At this point, I thought I had messed something up because it wasn't mixing together.  I then put my hands in the bowl and started kneading it together.  It took a little bit and I still wasn't quite sure I got it right when I passed it to Deci to play with but after a few minutes it turned out perfect!

This was a full hour of entertainment a few nights ago!

AND I'm pretty sure if you store it in an airtight container it will last a while!

Sisters...and makeup

 

December

and I don't mean the month... If you don't know this already, our oldest daughters name is December.  We just call her Deci sometimes.  She's 4 and in case you haven't been around her, or any other 4-year-old for that matter, I will just tell you that she says the most random things.  For instance, a few days ago she asked, "Does God have superpowers?" and I asked her why she asked that and she said, "Because he can hold the whole world in his hand and see us all." :)  I love the way her little heart see's God.

This girl seriously picks out her own clothes...almost everyday.

Then one day I told her she needed to clean up her dress-up toys and she said, "But God wants YOU to."   Hummm....really??

this is one of her favorite dresses...it's a summer dress but as you can see she finds a way to wear it in the winter.

        

This is her Pippi Longstocking dress. She wants to be just like Pippi and I LOVE it! 

When we went to Mount Pisgah she wanted to run way ahead of Q on the way down.  I told her we needed to wait on him simple because I wanted us to stay together.  I asked her what we would do if we saw a bear and she said, "It's ok mommy.  I'll hold your hand."

I should add that I think all of these pictures where taken within the past month. :)

Just a few days ago Q was getting ready for work and he heard the girls wake up.  He went to get them and fixed them breakfast. (yeah, I know, I was in shock too! ha!) Before Q had to leave Deci came in to wake me up and said, "Mommy, wake up! You've been sleeping for a whole minute! Mommy, get up! You've been sleeping ALL day!" It was 7:20. yep.  No concept of time. :)

I think I picked this outfit...but it fits her well...and she picked the headband (below). Always got to accessorize.

All of these pictures were taken from my cell phone and it takes HORRIBLE pictures so excuse the blur...but I like it in this pic. :)

Pinterest Rings!

 

 My mom brought a craft to do with Deci. She found this cute ring craft on Pinterest. They were so fun to make and very easy. Just start saving the top/closure pieces (not sure what these are called) from orange juice cartons.  Then find cute things to put on top. Then glue away! We used a hot glue gun.

I thought they turned out really cute.

Pigtails

I LOVE Pigtails on little girls! And I love that I randomly have pictures of both of my girls when they wore pigtails for the first time. Below is Breanna and Deci. Yes, that blond hair teenager fixing Deci's hair is the same dark hair Breanna that lives with us. :) We spent the afternoon with some friends at Cherokee Rock Village and Breanna wanted to fix Deci's hair. I'm not sure why I had never thought to put Deci's hair up in pigtails before but this started a trend. I still love Deci's hair in pigtails but she rarely lets me put her hair up these days.

 Yesterday I was holding Journey and playing with her afro hair and realized it could go up in pigtails!! It took me and my mom to accomplish getting her hair up and entertaining her with my phone to actually get these pictures.  Her hair was up no more than 2 minutes before she figured out she could pull them out and I doubt she will let me put them in again but look how cute!

Notice it took both of these girls playing with cell phones, which I rarely let them play with, to hold their attention long enough to get their hair up!

"I will NEVER let my kids..."

         Have you ever said those words? "I will never let my kids"...and fill in the blank.  I will never let my kids eat fast food, especially before they turn 1 (or 2 or 8 ha!).  I will never let my kid fuss in a restaurant and disrupt other people while eating. I will never let my kids make me so mad that I scream. I will never let my kid sleep on their tummy because back to sleep, right? I will NEVER let my kids sleep with me! NEVER! Hahaha! I laugh at myself now at all the times I said things like these above.  I took this picture below a few days ago.

   These girls are in mine and Quinton's bed. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do and when it comes to sleep I'm all about making that happen.  When Deci was younger we were really strict with not letting her sleep with us.  When she woke up in the middle of the night and climbed in bed with us we always took her back.  We figured if we let her once that she would keep coming back.  It's funny how when child number 2 comes along sleep becomes more important and you bend the rules a little more. These girls wake up often in the middle of the night and most of the time we encourage that they stay in their beds but sometimes it's easier to tuck them tight in the bed with us and go back to sleep. If you want to read a funny story about us switching Deci over to her "big girl" bed read HERE.

Baking Cookies with Dee

Saturday Deci and my mom "Dee" made Cookies! 

Side story: My mom wanted to be called Gram but when Deci was little she said a D sound instead of the Gr sound... put it together and you get Dam... not quite a lovely name for a grandmother huh? So  her name got shortened to Dee. :)

 This is her "secret" recipe so I can't share it with you but here's a hint of what goes in them...

 Ha! Have you figured it out yet?? Yeah, me neither. I watched them make the cookies and I still don't know how to make them.

 Deci loved making these and I loved eating them! :)

A Year Update. Part 2

June: We started off June with another visit from Q's dad, Rick and his wife Hilde. She is originally from Washington so it works out that they get to come out for a visit more often than most. It just so happens that we found a house about 5 minutes outside Eugene so we moved while they were here. Convenient huh? We loved having the extra help moving! Pictured above is Deci playing on our sidewalk! We've always lived in the country so Deci has never had sidewalk to draw on and she is loving it!

Also in June, Q's best friend from High school, Jason and his wife Brittany came out for Q's birthday. We loved having these guys here. If you can't tell we LOVE having visitors! It makes us less homesick.

July: We took the girls camping for their first time and they loved it, especially Deci. She is such a tomboy for the most part...

Towards the end of July we flew home to sweet home Alabama! One of my best friends from high school was getting married and asked me to be in her wedding. I was so excited and jumped at the opportunity to get to fly home. Q got a new Job at the Eugene Mission this month so he could only stay for one week, but the girls and I stayed two weeks. There were so many pictures I wanted to post for our trip home. We crammed in so much in those two weeks. Deci loved getting to hold her chicken Sarah.

We also played in the water a lot!

It was such a fun trip back for so many reason. We got to see family. We got to celebrate with our friend getting married and saw our high school friends. We had grandparents to babysit so we got to go out on dates with friends to Huntsville and stay up way too late. We visited our home church, Lifepoint and saw our friends who's support and prayers for us are unbelievable. Life would be so much harder here without their support.

August: We flew back home to Oregon August 2nd and Breanna flew back with me and the girls to stay with us! We are so blessed to have her with us. She came out to be a part of our Crash team here but she also is the best babysitter in the world and we are so thankful that she is here to help us. The girls love her so much. Journey calls her "Nana." :)

Journey's had her first birthday August 31st. Here is a picture when she was about a week old. Look at all that DARK hair!! I thought she was going to be the child who would look like me but over the year it has lightened up so much. She is so much fun! Who knew having two kids could be this fun? She is so spunky and dances with her shoulders, which I love. She takes life slow. She LOVES her sister. I can't believe it's been a year!

Q's Mom and her husband Alan got to come out a week for Journey's birthday. We loved having them here to celebrate with us and also for the great Southern food she cooked for us all week! One night she cooked enough for a Thanksgiving meal and we invited the Crash team and our neighbors over.

September: Q's Dad and Hilde got to come back for another visit! Yes again and we LOVE it! (Have I said that we LOVE having visitors!!) They took us to Florence to ride the dune buggies on the sand dunes. This was SO much fun!

We went camping again. This time it was a little bit colder, but most of our Crash team got to come out. We celebrated Derrick's birthday.

October: Deci turned 4 this month! I honestly can't believe I have a 4-year-old. This girl keeps me going...honestly she never slows down. I love her so much and she has taught me so much about being a mom. She is little miss independent. She is so much like her dad it's not even funny. God has truly blessed us with her!

Halloween!

November: I think November passed without me realizing it...I'm not sure much happened in this month. I guess we rested most of this month. Of course we spent many Saturday's watching football.

We had a few pretty days and we took a walk to the park.

And we spent Thanksgiving with some friends here. My wonderful husband made the chicken and dressing which neither one of us realized how much his mom did to make....seriously, homemade biscuits, corn bread, toast and all sorts of goodness.... we are slowly learning to appreciate how much our family (mostly moms) did to make the holidays happen!

Whew, that was long...That pretty much gets you caught up to December.

What to do with a toddler on a cold or Rainy day?

Last week was the longest week of my life. I was stuck inside with this sick child of mine. She had a cold, a really bad cold. She had a fever and for the first few days all she wanted to do was lay on the couch and watch T.V. After that we got VERY bored and I struggled to find things to do inside.

We did manage to get out one day because I promised my child (the day before) that we would play in the snow.... well, as you can see in the next picture we didn't get much snow. We walked out to Pop's and Hilde's house and 1/2 way across the yard Deci started yelling for me to pick her up because it was soooo cold. We were very bundled up but my face was freezing! It was below freezing here in Alabama for over a week. I was miserable.


This picture is sideways but I got out a baking Sheet and let Deci play with her letters on it instead of the fridge.

One day we made a craft. It's a snowflake!

This is her sticking the blue paper onto contact paper. She used her new scissors the Gram, my mom (Dee as Deci calls her) got her for Christmas. A few days later we made a Sun hoping the sun would come out. :)

Dress up and a fort! Can you see the fort in the background over the table?

I let her make a mess and I didn't care!

I discovered Nutella this week. Which I can't look at without getting nauseous now!

We both Painted! (Which makes a big mess) She was still very snotty at this point and had paint all over her face from wiping snot. :/

She was so proud of her picture.

That's all I took pictures of but we also pumped up her baby pool from a few years ago and let her play in it. She pretends it's her home and gets ALL 10 of her babies and puts them into her pool and reads them books.

Also we played with the classic play-dough.

Not this week but in the past I have got dried noodles and let her play with them in a bowl with a spoon like she is cooking. She started throwing these all over the floor though and I kept sweeping them up and throwing them away until they were all gone.

Please share with me ways I can keep sane these next few winter months with a Toddler! :)