Winnie the Pooh Cake

Check out the Pooh Hunny Pots too!! Just as cute!

Anway, now that it is the new year we’re ‘suppose’ to make resolutions to keep, etc. I’ve never one this nor am I about to start. I WILL however try to update the blog more often. My craziness at school seems to prevent my wanting to do anything like thinking.

We’ve been doing well here. Healthy mostly (give or take a cold or two). I can manage to

deal with a cold. It’s fevers and all the other mess I just don’t want around here. 

K-bug is now 21 months old and on her way to 22. It’s party planning time. Her FAVORITE thing seems to be her babies, lee lees (silky blankies) and BARNEY!! ARG! Not easy really for planning. I’ve tried to get her to watch Veggie Tales. They sing. They dance. They are crazy. Why not replace Barney with something like that? VEGETABLES!! I can come up with a party plan of that nature!

Anyway…I have come up with some ideas as far s a cake goes. I need PRACTICE! Whether or not the cake will be a Barney theme (her fave) or something I choose I guess will be decided at some point. I haven’t decided really if it’s going to be a party for inviting or just family again this year. It was a lot easier with family last year. K-bug took a nap, grown ups ate lunch and then we partied with the party girl woke up (and in a good mood). 

This is one I thought was cute and I could do something similar (maybe).

The top picture is what I’m looking at and making characters (whichever I decide on finally) out of modeling chocolate. The recipe I had read said it can be frozen for up to 3 months. If I figure out how to make my characters now then I can freeze them and put them on the cake at that time. It’s an idea. It will all depend on time and which way I go. Even something like Pooh might be a good idea. We shall see!

K is talking a lot more. She’s also bossing Spot and Maddie around. Sit down. Get down. Stop it. Goo gur. Etc etc. She’s a hoot though. She’s very much into clothes right now…or I should say taking them off. At this moment she has on her shirt, diaper and training pants on over the diaper. Since she really messed up her pants with cottage cheese, she has on leg warmers.

Christmas was busy. We traveled to both G-ma’s and Mimi’s house. This year it was Grandma’s for us to be at her house for Thanksgiving and Mimi’s for Christmas Day. It will be the reverse next year. We were at Grandma’s right before Christmas (just the 4 of us). We went to Mimi’s on the Wed prior to Christmas. We had an enjoyable Christmas. K opened most of her presents herself, although she was very sidetracked with the new toy. It took some prodding to get her to open the next.

Now Christmas is packed away for another year our schedules are getting back in order. Here are a few pics of things that have been going on around here.

Cupcake face!

Christmas Eve - checking out what Aunt Connie brought

Happy New Year! Maybe you’ll hear from me more!

We’ve been very busy this month. With our Sunday school class, we went to a ball game. It’s one we do every year. We lost, but hey they stink this year. While we were at the game, Grandma (or as Bug says “Ma maaa” [imagine this said french like]). I’ve been trying to say it for her but she says it much cuter and better than I do. It sounds weird coming from me. Oh well. We’ll see how much she keeps this.

A couple of weeks after our ballgame we went back to Grandma’s to go apple picking. The weather was beautiful. Kayla had a ball. She did have fun picking her pumpkin. The U Pick apples ended the weekend before by the way. While she was enjoying herself in the patch of pumpkins she just started running away from us. The three of us could not catch up to her. The ground helped us. Picture this…three grown ups chasing a soon to be 2 year old running in a pumpkin patch. Our advantage was she was running down the hill and her legs couldn’t stay caught up with the speed. She fell into the hay on the ground. She just cried for a minute. This is what she looked like after the fall.

Here are some other pictures from that day.

Post fall face

Saturday was also our fall festival at church. We were suppose to be a bumble bee but refused to wear the tutu. Guess she’s just not a girly girl! She doesn’t get that from her mommy AT ALL! I had to wake up early Saturday (Daddy was gone Friday night until late) to go to the local “suppose to have everything but doesn’t” store to find different costume. *sigh* Nothing. Sized either too little or too big…nothing in the toddler range. So back to my original plan….a cow or something. How did I pull it off so easily and quickly? (Oh…I had to be at churc for Fall Festival set up by 9am…I was at the store around 740). Well….we have Farm Day coming up next week at school. We’ve actually planned this whole “Farm Week” basically. Day 1 the classes have to have made a book related to a farm. It is a contest. Day 2 we have to create a food dish to be judged related to a book in some way. I’m thinking pig slop from Charlotte’s Webb (aka….spicy bean salsa). It’s yummy and  addicting! Wednesdy is dress as your favorite book character but our P asked the teachers to dress as a farm animal. Sooo….I’ve been looking up ideas for that which helped me pull together Ks so fast Saturday. I hot glued the pieces together while I was eating breakfast.  It really turned out cute and she as comfortable. We visited three houses (friends of mine) and Kayla had a ball!

It’s been kind of crazy and stressful here lately. School has been very stressful for not just myself but even others I work with. *sigh* I’m looking hopefully toward December……HALF WAY THROUGH THE SCHOOL YEAR! Haha…

Anyway….I won’t bore you with the details of the craziness. How about the cute stuff?

We were curiously wondering how many words Kayla can say so we began writing them down. This was started the first week of Sept. and we are now up and passing 30 words. She also has a few phrases too. Good Girl. Thank you. I love you. Peak a boo. Here you go. This is pretty good to me considering at her 15 month appt she was only saying meow and uh oh. Of course she still just says things when SHE wants to say them.

Today we enjoyed our Saturday. We planned on going to the local state park. Apparently they were having a save my park day or something. So we went to the state park and playing on the playground for a little while. Kayla LOVED it. I will have to say she fell out of the swing. It was one of those toddler swings with the holes in it. The only problem was it had a chain on one side (open sided). Kayla didn’t want to be in it so she was leaning forward and just flipped forward. We also put her on the slides. These were the ones that had the bumps going down for slowing down the kids. She loved the BIG one and even the straight slide. I see a slide in the future for this girl.

Afteward we went to the local strawberry patch. They are opened year round just not with strawberries of course. We walked around and looked at the animals. We played on their playground as well. Kayla thought it was funny when mommy went to catch her at the bottom and she knocked mommy down with her feet into the sand. We bought fresh squash, frozen blueberries, and ladyfinger peas. Yum! They were out of the apple bread we wanted. I hope we make it back during October for their fall festivities (corn maze and pumpkins, etc.). I am also hoping to go apple picking too!

I can’t think of anything else at the moment so I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures of recent activities and a video from today.

Ballet.....but really part of my costume for fall festival

Just being silly

Ready or not here I come!!

Don't my panties go on my head?

Watching the bubbles

Well…our Wally World recently remodeled. Along with this remodel there are a few things missing. The usual needed items go missing once the store finds out you LOVE that particular item. The fabric section is completely gone….the ‘craft’ area is not much to write about. Anyway…I do not like the new store. And the most important item we NEED seems to have been discontinued. I am searching high and low online for a REASONABLY priced addition…in fact I need two to be exact. K LOVES her silky. She actually has three. Two she uses all of the time and one stays in her diaper bag. The brand is Child of Mine by Carters. It is the pink silk tabbed lovey blankie. I am hoping MAYBE they might get it back. I searched another town today with no luck. I have decided if I can get two more of the same color (they also have it in orange or bllue or something) then I can take one of her pink ones and match it with the new one. When I wash those two I can give her the other pink and other new color. It’s an idea. I just need to find the precious item!

Here’s a picture.

Anyway…..we’ve been dealing with temper tantrums again. This time she’ll place herself ever so gently on the floor. Then start screaming. She also includes the occasional head butt to the hardwood floor (which of course makes her cry more).  how fun!

We have been invited to a birthday party for a little boy at church. It will be his first birthday and Kayla’s first birthday party invite. It should be fun. It’s next week.

You know I have to show you a picture.

Let's go shopping!

School is fully underway. I’m tired from it. Handfuls.

K is growing like a weed and turning into a regular monkey. Her most eventful monkey characteristics are climbing into her high chair and turning around in the seat along with climbing on the baby gate. Neither one we like.

I manage to make her a large hamburger bun before school began. I only have the bottom half. It was originally the top half but I didn’t like it so I made it the bottom half. Bug LOVES it! She’ll run up to it and just fall flat on her face into it. She at times will cover up with the cheese and lettuce too. The pickle pillows are usually just thrown on the floor somewhere. I just picked up burger fabric last week at JoAnn’s so now I can make an actual burger. Once i figure out how to do darts CORRECTLY then I’ll work on the top bun. Anyone know how to get a burger bun rounded with darts instead of a sudden stop making the bun look more like the Grand Canyon?

Anyway, K’s favorite words (Meow and Uh oh) are no longer used as often. She is opening up more with other words. These are just words she’ll repeat from us. Not necessarily clear but you can tell she’s trying. My favorite one is tiger….sounds like giger. I bought her a costumer for October’s fall festival. I believe she’ll go as a little bee. Hopefully between now and then she’ll enjoy having the tutu on.

Time for bed. Here are some pictures. As you can see the phone and her books are some things she enjoys using.

Text text text...

It's for you Spot.

Reading my favorite.

A VERY NEW thing……K did this when I was getting her dressed from her bath. Alan came in while she was saying e i e i e i e i over and over…..so he sang…E I E I Oooo……and Kayla followed suite…..it was VERY cute. This vid isn’t as cute as she said it the first time…..but still cute just the same….my sweet little farmer.

I hope it works.

She still loves music. You can actually watch her dance immediately to whatever may be playing. ABC is favorite song by far….but this could be due to the fact about 6 of her toys play the song. She looks at me shocked when she plays with her mailbox. It plays the song when the door to the mailbox is closed….as soon as she opens it…it stops. I sing the next few letters and she turns around like “MOMMY! YOU KNOW THAT!?”

Even though she is a girl of few words (uh oh, meow, hi, bye, Mama, dada, done (sort of) she gets her point across.. If she doesn’t want to do something she will 1) shake her head no or 2) through herself down on the floor and scream. Don’t you just love the actions of toddlers?

Here are some recent pictures to leave you with……

Playing in the yard......

Chair fun.....

Playing with the camera features.....might as well since it's not a fancy camera.

Going to school......with my new backpack.

Who are you and what did you do with my daughter?? Ok so I know K is really my daughter….but where’d her quiet personality go? What am I talking about? Well…she has discovered she can just throw herself on the floor on a whim…..and roll around screaming. Mommy just standing there scratching her head wondering what on earth is going on. For example…..I asked K where was her baby? She looks around, walks into the living room (I’m following), she finds baby and picks up. Takes two steps….looks at the baby….throws the poor thing on the floor and then herself and proceeds to scream. Oh the joys of temper tantrums…..but who turned on the on switch and where can I turn it off?

Anyway…we’re halfway (and sadly) through the summer. I haven’t really finished much of anything I have been wanting to finish. Such glorious plans to do so much…..I did caulk the living room so that is a major plus! I am wanting to paint our bedroom walls and furniture. It’s so boring in there to look at and I just think maybe some sprucing up of the place will make it look better. I am thinking a colonial type of blue. I can picture it in my brain anyway. Paint the ugly furniture a chocolate color (and hopefully it will work)….put on a nice bedskirt of some color (hadn’t really thought of that yet)….and a white matlesse of sorts. And when I get done with my BIG quilt….put it on the foot of the bed. It’s an idea anyway.

Today was K’s check up (15 months). She is now 32 1/2 inches long and in the 100% of her age. Not sure where she gets the tall genes from…haha. She’s beginning to turn into a toddler looking little girl (slimming and lengthing)….hardly babyish at all. Need to work on getting her to say more than meow and uh oh. She seems to be working on saying Thank you….at least when you give her something she says something that sounds like “Te” ….one syllable…she also seems to be saying done when eating. She picks up her plate as if handing it to you and says “da.” I ask her if she’s done all of the time. So overall….a really good check up…she was even able to play with the toys in the waiting room. Previously she was sick or still crawling.

Maddie has returned home. I know I say that as if she was missing. The crazy dog….while we were out traveling..stayed with G/ma Linda in M-ville. Upon her visit she at the leg of one of Annie’s . We didn’t know this at all. I picked her up from g/ma on Tuesday June 8th. She acting all mopey (as usual) and not really eating either (which is nothing new). The following Sunday we drove up to my mom’s b/c Alan had to be up that way for work. Maddie got sick that night (oh yea…on the nice cream colored carpet too). And she did it again the next day….except in the afternoon she threw up the toy part. Sheesh….I washed the nasty thing to see if it was a recognizable toy of Maddies, Kayla’s or Annie’s. The culprit…Annie’s. She seems okay the rest of the afternoon….then that night 4 more times. So…by the time we get home Tuesday night…it’s too late to take her to the vet….and she’s not throwing up. So she gets dropped of the next morning and stays until Friday. So…now we’re on more meds….but at least she’s feeling better.

Not much else going on in the way of excitement.

Today is mom’s birthday…so we created a message just for her….here it is…plus some other pics.

Hangin' out

                                                                                                                            I know! Maddie just looks thrilled to share her bed.

Happy Father’s Day, Daddy!!

Watching Daddy!

My summer has now ‘officially’ begun. I finished school the 21st of May…but had two more days to work on curriculum after that. Just after that we left for our vacation to VA and IN. It was a long drive at times…but overall the entire trip was enjoyable. We travelled 2,000 plus miles. K entertained herself in various ways…we even had a dvd player for her to watch Sesame Street on the way up. This didn’t always cut it. I even ate McDonald’s (something Ihadn’t done since high school) just to let her have some play time.

Once we arrived at out first destination…we enjoyed our time with our friends. It was beautiful part of the country and also nice to get out of HOT weather to a little bit cooler weather. The girls got along great. They interacted with each other as those at their age would do. CC is almost 11 months old and K is now 14 1/2 months. There is a little bit of an age difference…K is running and CC is crawling. Here are some pictures….

Building a block tower.....

We also went to a local meat farm…..saw some baby chicks and other animals (all of which K called “meooow”). This is our ride there.

Car ride to farm

We moved our carseat to our friends car. The girls both took a short nap…..

We also went to Sam’s club to buy somethings for Kayla to eat. They looked cute sitting in the buggy. At times…K would turn to CC and say something to her. It looked as if she was explaining the ins and outs of shopping (must think CC never goes shopping with her mommy).

Shopping!

 We grilled out for Memorial Day……the girls were dressed too!

Memorial Day

Not sure what K was doing….being silly. She never did look straight at the camera. Oh well.

When we left for IN….we didn’t now know how long of a trip it actually was going to end up being. It actually seemed longer when we went through OH….particularly when all we were listening to was Sesame Street videos (you know…the same ones we listened to on the way up….foh yea…you can just imagine how many times we listened to Elmo). SOOOOO once we finally got through the state line there was a Wal-mart and we stopped. The three of us were tired of being cooped up in the car (had been like 9 hours already)…..and the grown ups were tired of Sesame Street. So we went and picked out *cringe* Barney (K loves music) and Thomas the Train. We also let K walk around the toy section where she looked like she just couldn’t make up her mind what was her favorite thing to see!! Of course she decided this was the primer place to fill her pants…so mommy and K went to the car while Daddy checked out. So now stocked up with new videos…let’s go!! That part of the trip wasn’t so bad….and even though I’m not all for Barney (not really sure why….just because I guess)….but K enjoyed the music.

We also enjoyed our time in IN. We visited family..mainly to see my g/ma (now 91). Apparently she has alzheimers….which was pretty clear. She has a terrible short term memory – asking the same questions within a 5-10 minute time span. Mostly just short term but occasionally it was noticed a little bit of long term was there too. K really liked her though. She would start talking to g/ma (who couldn’t hear her)….and if g/ma didn’t respond K would point at her and talk louder – saying the same thing actually. K had fun playing with a VERY LARGE hamburger bun. My Aunt F made this for my cousin years ago. I vaguely remember it….K enjoyed it though. I am now making her one. I’ve started to cut out the pieces…just need to purchase the stuffing.

We also took K to the playground at the mall. She seemed to really enjoy herself. Mommy was nervous about the big kids that would jump from the top of things and land just in K’s pathway. Watch it you brat!! K on the other hand….wanted to play on the slide over and over. Some of the bigger kids didn’t want to let her take her turn….and would step on her fingers, etc. After a while…K proceeded to just push on past whoever was trying to go up the stairs to go down the slide. We ended this venture when K (who needed a nap by the way) decided the proper way to go down a slide is walking. That started the crying when Mommy didn’t let her. Time to go…here are some pics of her before the tantrums.

Kayla and her Great Grandma

Running past the pig...aka the thing a big kid jumped off of

The slide.....

Playing in a box....

So overall….a good trip. We stopped back at G/ma’s house on our way home for a couple of days. K loved it….she didn’t even act like it wasn’t home.

Now…Miss Bug is growing it seems. I haven’t measured her length. I know her feet have grown b/c all of a sudden both pairs of tennis shoes are too small. If she’d lay still long enough I would measure how tall she is now (30 1/2 at 12 months). I know she is somewhere between 22 and 23 pounds. G/ma’s scale indicated she was 23 lbs…the Wii said 22. The best I can tell is she is about 31 inches now…she was crying when I layed her on the floor.

Kayla’s interests now seem to be:

• Opening and closing doors
• whistling (I don’t know that she’s aware that she can do it)
• Rocking babies
• Putting said babies to bed
• Building with blocks
• Saying meow and uh oh (almost all of the time…need to work on these words!)
• Carrying her pink baby and silky around (probably need to get another pink baby)
• Talking on the cell phone
• Video chatting (in other words…playing and coming back to the screen when she wants to)
• Moving chairs around (I guess she doesn’t like the way I have the house set up)
• wearing shoes
• Running around the house

I am certain there are more things that interest her….but I can’t think of them when I want to type them. Oh….we are now on day 2 of no binky. Our morning nap was easy. Although I must say….I now ‘dance’ with her before bed time since she knows the rocking chair means bed….which then means tantrum in my arms. I’ve turned on her music and we’ve swayed and spun to the beats ….then put her to bed. What is funny is she sort of did this with her baby this afternoon.

I think that’s it….pretty good considering I hadn’t posted anything in a month’s time. Now that it is summer maybe I will.

Oh…FINALLY caulked the crown moulding in the living room. We put the moulding up 2 -3 years ago. I am also wanting to buy an old piece of furniture (like a buffet type) and repaint/repurpose it. I’d like it to store K’s toys since we seem to have created her playroom in there. Most of her toys are in baskets in one corner…but I think the buffet storage would look nicer. I’m also in the mood to paint our bedroom. I hate the furniture…..so I’m thinking of maybe a chocolate color on them…sand them in spots to make them look aged per say….then paint the walls a colonial blue….get a white matlesse spread and bam….it would look much better than it does  now. The room is so small so I’ve not been happy with the way it looks. Maybe it might make it more cheery….maybe. I’d rather add on to the back of the house but that’s just not going to happen.