Another Guessing Game!

Okay - here are two 3 month pics. Can you guess which one is which? To be fair, I know some of you have seen these pics in my house or on message boards, so if you know for sure don't ruin it for everyone else!!!

a)Bethany first, Landry second
b)Landry first, Bethany second
c)Both Bethany
d)Both Landry
e)Neither - must be someone else's kids!!!

Monday Meme

My friend Becky put this on her blog and tagged me to do the same. I thought it was kinda fun! Enjoy!

ABC’s

A. Attached or Single? Attached

B. Best Friend? Male - Raymond, Female - my mom

C. Cake or Pie? cake - only the cake part, though, not the icing! Oh, I forgot about my mother-in-law's chocolate pie - that's the best!

D. Day of choice? any day my hubby happens to be off work

E. Essential item? dvd player

F. Favorite color? teal

G. Gummy bears or worms? bears - only the Haribo brand, though. I don't like any others.

H. Home town? Allen, TX - it's very different now, than when I grew up there. Back then it was just a few houses, some fields and a Brookshire's!

I. Favorite indulgence? Ben & Jerry's Creme Brulee Ice Cream. I think it literally has a whole day's worth of fat and calories, but it is SO worth it.

J. January or July? July - I hate being cold!

K. Kids? 2 sweet girls - one of which is squirming in my lap as I type

L. Life isn’t complete without? everyone else said Jesus, but my first thought was FOOD!!! Is that bad?

M. Marriage date? March 23, 2002
N. Number of brothers and sisters? 1 sister

O. Oranges or Apples? Fuji Apples

P. Phobias? Tornadoes and throwing up!

Q. Quotes? "A person who has more than one true friend has more than their share." I love that quote because I'm so lucky to have quite a few "true" friends. I'm so blessed!

R. Reasons to smile? Sleeping more than 3 hours in a row at night, my beautiful children, God's grace!

S. Season of choice? Spring

T. Tag 4 people: Jennifer J., Rebecca T., Larissa R., Amanda C.

U. Unknown fact about me? I hardly EVER cry!

V. Vegetable? sweet corn on the cob - yum! Or homegrown squash - mmmmmmmmmmmmm...

W. Worst habit? being messy/not picking up after myself

X. Xray or ultrasound? Ultrasound - there's nothing like seeing that baby's heartbeat!

Y. Your favorite food? Real food - pizza, Dessert - ice cream

Z. Zodiac sign - Aries, but I don't really believe "in" them.

Catch-Up!!!

It's been awhile since I've posted, I know. This may be a long catch-up post! Let me start out by saying that we have still not gotten a new camera. However, I just got the green light to get the Canon Rebel that I have been wanting. Woohoo!!! Until I get it and figure out how to use it, all of my loyal readers will just have to live with the poor quality of my pics - sorry. We should get the new one soon. In fact, I will probably order it after I finish this post!

Last Saturday we had a fun day! My grandparents, who live in Tennessee, came to visit us. They were actually staying with my parents in the Dallas area, but they all made the trip to see us for the day. We had a lovely time chatting, eating lunch, and of course, playing with the kiddos! Here are some pics of Granny, Grandy, Bethany and Landry. (By the way, you can see Bethany's new haircut in these pics!!!)




I just love how Landry is looking at Bethany in this pic. Bethany is definitely Landry's favorite entertainment!



I thought this was a sweet pic my mom took of Landry's hand and Granny's hand.



On another note, the girls have been busy, busy, busy to say the least! Bethany has been riding her tricycle the "right" way for awhile now, but I've never caught it on camera. I just think she's so cute when she's riding it! Of course, our driveway isn't the best place to ride a trike - it's a pretty steep incline and she always wipes out in the grass. I have to stand at the bottom and make sure she doesn't roll out into the street!




Landry is getting much more mobile lately. I'm SOOOOO not ready for this! She's 4 months old for crying out loud! The house isn't even close to babyproof anymore. Bethany didn't crawl until about 8 months, so this is really catching me off guard! She's not really crawling, don't get me wrong. She IS very mobile, though. She'll scoot all around the living room (everywhere EXCEPT her playmat) on her belly, pushing herself with her feet/knees/hands. I think she'll be crawling for real before too long. She was actually up on all fours yesterday. Yikes!!! Here are some pics I caught of her making her way around her playmat. Please ignore the fact that she looks green. Remember, I'm getting a new camera tonight!

Ok, It's Official!

I'm getting a new camera. Not someday in the near future. NOW! Like today or tomorrow. Our camera has been malfunctioning a lot recently. Sometimes is takes bad pics, sometimes is won't turn on and sometimes it'll turn on, but there's no picture. Anyway, today was the last straw for me. Bethany had her first haircut today! Sniff, sniff. Just a tiny trim so it would be out of her eyes, but nonetheless, a haircut. Here are the pics to commemorate the ocassion.

Before:


Sitting in the chair with the cute "cape" on:


The very first cut:


After:


So that's what we have to remember the first haircut! I'll make a great scrapbook page with those pics for sure.

Stupid camera aside, it was all in all a great success! Bethany did GREAT! She didn't even need bribery. She just sat in the chair and did exactly what Jayci told her to do. The cut looks good, too. Probably not many people would actually even notice it got cut. I'm just happy that it's not hanging in her face anymore. Maybe when I get my new camera I can post a pic of what it looks like!

In other news, Landry has started attending the Cradle Roll class at church. Here are some pics of her and her friend Kelsey, who is one month and one day younger than her.







And just because she was so darn cute today:





Oh, Bethany did say something else pretty funny the other day. We've been working on learning the lowercase letters because I realized that she pretty much only recognized uppercase. Anyway, I was telling her about uppercase and lowercase and then asking her to identify certain letters. I showed her a lowercase "a" and asked her what it was. She said, "A downercase 'a'!"

Out of the Mouth of Bethany #5

The other day I called Bethany's babysitter to see if she could watch her one day this week, but she was in Colorado. I told Bethany that Katelin was in Colorado and couldn't come play with her. Later, I heard Bethany talking on her play phone. She told me that she was talking to Katewin in Avocado!

Last night when I was giving Bethany a bath I was dripping water on her head. She started singing "Raindrops keep falling on my head, for the Father up above is looking down on my head."

I love my children!

How can you not love this?



And this?



I am so blessed and thankful for my wonderful family - even with days like my last post (which by the way, are pretty common around here)!!!

Adventures in Mommy-ing

Well, today was pretty ho-hum. Not much going on. Ran some errands, Bethany had a swimming lesson (pics soon to come), afternoon naps, ran to the grocery store. Not very exciting. Ha!

So we go on a mission to CVS this morning to find some "safe" sunscreen. For more on that check out these links.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/01/sunscreen.study/index.html
http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/special/sunscreens2008/
(Since I'm relatively new to this blogging stuff I don't have everything figured out. I've tried making these links work, but I can't get them to. Any advice???)

I'm wearing Landry in the sling and Bethany is walking with me. We've just recently progressed to being able to walk with Mommy instead of be in the basket. Of course, only in small places for short periods of time. I digress. The first thing we come to as soon as we walk in the store is a large display of homemade-like cookies. "Mommy, are these cookies for me?" I assure her that they are for someone else, NOT for her. Tantrum ensues. I patiently look around at the people in the store, extend my hand and plead with her to get up and come with me. Someone must have been watching over me at that moment because a miracle happened. She said, "Okay," got up and came with me. WHAT??? Who are you and what have you done with my child? I thank her (possibly a little excessively, but hey, I'm in shock) and we go about finding sunscreen. We decide on Blue Lizard, well actually, Baby Lizard. That's all we need, so we go to the checkout. I'm thinking it should be illeagal to place ALL of the candy in the entire store at the eye level of a 2 year old at the checkout counter. Seriously, I understand it's "marketing," but do these people really want tantrums thrown in their stores? While I'm purchasing the sunscreen, Bethany is picking up (and thankfully replacing) every box of Tic-Tacs and saying, "Mommy, are these for me? Can I have some candy?" After saying, "No, they aren't for you, we have snacks for us at home," about 100 times, my transaction was complete and we were on our merry way.

Let me preface this by saying that never, not ONCE, has Bethany EVER sucked her thumb. I don't even think she got it in her mouth accidentally as a baby. Landry, however, does suck her thumb. Usually it's only when she's sleepy, but I'm so grateful that she has a self-soothing tool! Anyway, about halfway home from CVS it gets really quiet in the backseat. I check out the rear view mirror and see Landry craning her neck to watch Bethany. So I decide I should see what Bethany is doing. I look back and she's resting her head on the side of her carseat, eyes squeezed closed very tightly, sucking her thumb. What in the world? She opened her eyes and removed her thumb in about 5 seconds, but still! I'm still not sure what that was all about. I guess she was trying to be a baby.

So we get home, have a relatively non-eventful lunch while Landry naps and then it's off to swimming lessons. Of course, since the baby takes forever to fall asleep, I have to WAKE HER UP to go. The baby sleep training book that I'm reading, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, specifically states, "Never wake a sleeping baby. Ever." Well, whaddya gonna do when you have a 2 year old who desperately wants to go to her swimming lesson? You wake up the baby. Thankfully, she's such a sweet, happy baby that not one tear was shed.

I'm not so sure that Bethany will actually obey her swimming instructor. I mean, she doesn't obey me, so why should she obey someone else? So, I resort to bribery. She had a sucker from the day before (bribery again) that I'd wrapped up and hidden on the kitchen counter. I told her she could have it when we got home if she obeyed the teacher and did what she was supposed to in class. Besides getting out of the pool a few times, she really does well. She even tells me when she has to potty and gets out of the pool to do so. Well, when we get home she remembers about the sucker. I retrieve it from it's special hiding place, unwrap it, and notice some black specks on it. Dirt? Upon further inspection, I realize that there are about 15 dead ants on the sucker. Uh-oh. It's the end of the world. Literally. Bethany is beside herself sobbing. She cries, "I want my daddy to come home so I can show him!" Poor thing. She puts herself in time-out. I go offer a popsicle instead. Tears are dried up and she's happy again. Crisis partially averted.

While both girls are napping (very rare occasion) I decide to clean my oven. I made a large brisket on the 4th of July and the juice overflowed. A lot. It makes the kitchen really stink and makes it difficult to cook anything in the oven. So, I decide to use the self-clean feature that I've never used before. Remember, I'm not a good housekeeper by any means. I've never cleaned my oven. As soon as the oven gets hot, smoke starts coming out of the vents. I know this is just everything that was caked in the oven burning off. I turn on the fan that's on the microwave right above the oven. Doesn't do much. The house is starting to fill with smoke and I just KNOW that the smoke detectors are going to go off any second, waking up both children. And I can't have that. So I open all doors and windows, turn on all ceiling fans, and bring a large oscillating fan into the kitchen. I aim it to where all the smoke points out the front door. All the while, my eyes are burning so badly I'm crying and can hardly see. About an hour later, the oven stops smoking and the house is about 400 degrees. Whew, glad that's over with.

So the kids both wake up and I decide we have to go to Wal-mart to get groceries. I didn't think this through very well, because I had stuff I could have made for dinner, but the oven was locked and cleaning itself. Oops. So we load up the car to get something that doesn't have to be cooked in the oven. I notice dark clouds and very strong wind. A storm is blowing in. Maybe we can make it to walmart and back before rain. Sure we can. Once we get to walmart I can barely walk without getting blown away. I was looking around for funnel clouds thinking seriously I'd be hearing tornado sirens. But no. So I unload the kids into the grocery basket and sling. Meanwhile the contents of my car are being blown across the walmart parking lot. Hope I didn't have anything valuable in there. Likely, it was just a couple Shipley's cups and some straw wrappers.

Maybe if we really hurry we'll make it before it rains! We speed shop, stopping quickly to pick up a bag of Dum-Dums to replace the ant-eaten sucker and of course, for future bribery. We get everything except for strawberries. Nary a strawberry to be seen in walmart. Figures. So we checkout, I make sure my keys are at the top of the diaper bag and rush to the door only to see rain pouring almost horizontally across the parking lot. The lady walking in says it JUST started. Darnit! Almost made it. If only we hadn't had to search produce 14 times for strawberries. Or gone all the way to the back of the store for Dum-Dums. Whatever the case, we had missed our chance and now it was raining. Luckily, I had thought ahead and made sure the umbrella was in the diaper bag. I get it out, raise it and we leave the store. It doesn't protect all 3 of us very well, so I cover Landry with the tail of my sling and cover Bethany with the umbrella, while I'm trying to push the cart. I ask Bethany if she will please hold the umbrella. No. She thinks she needs to help cover Landry with the sling. She's grabbing the fabric and holding it against Landry's face. We go back and forth, "Please, Bethany, I need you to hold the umbrella." "No, I need to hold Landry's *swing*." Before long, who is holding the umbrella becomes a moot point. An umbrella doesn't do much good if it is inverted. Yes, the wind blew it the opposite direction and it inverted. Okay, so at least I have 2 hands to push the cart now. We get to the car, I open the bag and reach for my keys. Not there. I dig around. Nowhere to be found. I seriously can't remember a time it has taken me longer to find my keys. Maybe that's because I'm getting drenched and my 2 year old is having a MELTDOWN because she and her bag of Dum-Dums are getting wet. Finally, after half of the contents of the bag have been removed (and drenched) I find the keys! I get the wet kids and groceries in the car and go home. Through all of that, I have to say that my precious little infant never made a peep. She's so good-natured. Thank you Lord for a happy baby!!!

Pretty much from then on, the evening was pleasant. We'll see how tomorrow goes!

Butterfinger Cake

This yummy recipe actually comes from a Bible Study I'm currently doing. It is called No Other Gods by Kelly Minter. At the end of each chapter are 2 recipes. This is the first one I've made and it was great!

1 box Devil's food cake mix
10 oz. cola or diet cola
1 egg white
7 oz. sweetened condensed milk
2 T. peanut butter
8 oz. frozen whipped topping (such as Cool Whip), thawed
8 fun-size Butterfinger bars, chopped/crushed

Combine cake mix, cola and egg white. Bake according to cake mix instructions in a greased 9x13 pan.

A few minutes before the cake is to be done, combine sweetened condensed mile and peanut butter in a saucepan. Cook and stir on low to make creamy and warm.

When cake is done and still hot, poke holes in top of cake with a knife and pour peanut butter mixture over top of cake. You may have to spread the mixture a little to help it go down into the holes. Sprinkle top with half an the chopped Butterfingers. Cool cake completely.

Cover with Cool Whip and sprinkle remaining Butterfingers over the top. Keep in refrigerator until ready to serve.

ENJOY!!!

Happy Birthday to Landry and Pappy!

Today was Landry's 4 month birthday (I can hardly believe it!!!) and my dad's 58th birthday. My family came here to celebrate with us. They were so sweet to travel on a holiday Sunday just so I wouldn't have to make the trip by myself with both girls. That's not really too fun! Anyway, Bethany and I made Pappy a Butterfinger cake yesterday and we had it today. It was so yummy! I'll post the recipe when I have a bit more time.

I was so thankful to have the family join us at church this morning. Since Raymond had to work, I was at church with both girls by myself, which is pretty challenging to say the least. They were a great help to me! We had lunch a Chili's (my dad's favorite) and then came home for birthday cake and ice cream.





After naps (Pappy, Raymond, Bethany and Landry all got to nap) we played outside with Bethany in her pool and had a great time watching all of her tricks. Landry even "sunbathed" a little! Don't worry - she was in the shade!



After a healthy dinner of pizza, and yes, some more birthday cake, the family headed home. I hope they made it - I know they were in some pretty heavy holiday traffic. Sorry! We are really glad that you all came and we had a great time!!!

Pappy with his girls


Aunt Sara with Landry


Just a few photos to commemorate what Landry is doing at 4 months. These were actually taken a couple weeks ago, but close enough, right?

Trying to sit herself up! She's pretty good at the "tripod" sit, but eventually ends up folded in half!


Holds toys for short periods of time and tries to chew on them. That is, until she drops them.


This is how she spends most of her time. Pretty much every time I put her down on her back she immediately flips to her tummy and stays there. She's pretty darn happy there, too!


Thanks for being such a joy in our lives Landry Gayle - we love you!!!

Out of the Mouth of Bethany #4

Yes, I know, I know. Some of you are wondering if I've forgotten I even have a blog. Haven't forgotten - just been very busy. You know - just one of those weeks. Anyway, I have a couple cute/interesting things Bethany has said lately.

Last Sunday Bethany came home singing that song "Be careful little ears what you hear..." She was singing it really well until she got to the part that says "For the Father up above is looking down in love." She sang "For the Father up above is looking down the street." Huh? Where did she get that??? I got a good laugh out of that one!

Tonight:

Me - Bethany, tomorrow we get to make Pappy a birthday cake!

Bethany - NO! I want GRAM to make my birthday cake for November!!!

Me - Ok, she can make your birthday cake, but November is far away. Pappy's birthday is on Sunday.

Bethany - Gram will make me my birthday cake at her home. She will put rice and beans in it. And seeds. I like to eat seeds.

Me - Ok then! (Seriously, what do you say to that???)