Wordless Wednesday...on a Thursday

11 months old

That's right...Jace is 11 months old today!  That kinda hurts a little.  It should be illegal for kids to grow this fast.  So after about 7 months of not teething, Jace cut his first top tooth.  I think his second top tooth is coming in, too, but he doesn't let me look for very long.  He is also walking everywhere.  He doesn't crawl much at all anymore.  If he starts to, he'll stop and get up to walk.  Something he just started today?  Climbing off the bed by himself.  I couldn't believe it!  But I suppose that's a good thing since he climbs on everything he can.  I'm going to have some real problems with him when he gets a little older...I can already tell.

So speaking of birthdays (sorta...lol), Ashlin turned 3 a couple of weeks ago.  She's such a sweet little girl...sometimes.  It's like she had a birthday and immediately turned into a little monster.  I hope that stops soon!

Some super awesome amazing news about Kelsie:  She got saved!!!  She'd asked several times, but I kept putting it off thinking she was too little, but then it kinda dawned on me that if she keeps bringing it up, who's to say the Holy Spirit isn't convicting her.  Shortly after that she got baptized.  I can't even put into words how proud I am of her!

I suppose that's all for now.  We're going to the fall festival tomorrow, so I might have some pictures to share in the next few days.  If not, there's always Wordless Wednesday!

Wordless Wednesday: Falling for Fall

As you may remember from my Dog Days of Summer posts, Wednesday's will have only a picture.  There will be nothing describing the picture, just something fall related.  I may have the action I used (maybe the settings on my camera if I can remember to put them).

 

I'm doing it again...

Falling behind, that is.  Why can't I keep up with a simple blog?!  Oh well...that's my life, I suppose.  So my newest update is that I finally decided to set up an Etsy shop and FB fan page for my headbands and tutus!  I'm glad I did, but I hope it does well.  I finished my first tutu for the shop, but since Jace, Ashlin, and I have a cold, I'm going to wait until we feel better before I get some nice pictures of it and list it.  Here is a link to my shop and my fan page :
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lil-Hearts-Boutique/186850308045181 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/LilHeartsBoutique?ref=pr_shop 

Tomorrow is Daniel's birthday

Daniel and I have never made a tradition out of celebrating each others birthdays very much.  He always says there's nothing he wants so I never buy him anything.  He says he's too old for parties so we never have one.  We're always totally broke on my birthday so I never get a chance to celebrate...lol.  Anyway, about a month ago, Kelsie saw something on TV where someone had a surprise party.  She said that she wants a surprise party for her birthday, so I had to explain that it wouldn't be a surprise if she knew about it.  It made me think about Daniel's upcoming birthday, though, and I decided we'd have a little surprise party for him.  I couldn't tell the kids until he left for work tonight, cause they would have let it slip, so after he left, we baked him a cake.  When I say party, I really use the term loosely.  It's just going to be yelling surprise while holding a cake when he walks in the door.  But the girls will love it...and I'm sure Daniel will, too :o).  I'll post a picture on my next post since the cake isn't totally frosted yet.  That's all for now!

Cookie success!

I will NEVER bake with margarine again!  I bought shortening while grocery shopping today and I decided to make chocolate chip cookies when I got home.  They were perfect!  SOOO good!  That may be a bad thing.  One batch made 4-5 dozen cookies and I sure would hate for Daniel to come home in the morning and all the cookies be gone...lol.  Wanna see the lovely little morsels of wonderfulness?  Ok, but only cause you asked :o).

 

Keyboards, Cookies, and Chocolate

I'm not sure how long our keyboard was broken (as in unusable)...2 weeks maybe?  Maybe it was a little longer.  It all started about a month ago when I had my coffee a little too close to Jace and he grabbed it and pulled it over onto the keyboard (luckily it didn't spill on him).  The keyboard was fine for a day or two, but then the keys got really sticky.  No problem, Daniel could just take it apart and clean it.  He'd done it before, he could do it again.  Well that worked for a little while, but then letters and numbers would randomly start appearing while I was typing and just kept coming as if I were holding a key down.  It made it nearly impossible to type a sentence so we just started using the on-screen keyboard.  I got so fed up with that that I started to missing my good-for-nothing keyboard!  On-screen is definitely way more trouble than it's worth.  It's great for if you're in a pinch, but not meant for long term use.  There was definitely no way I was typing out a blog post with that...lol.  Anyway, I said all that to say this- we got a new keyboard today!!!  YAY!!!  It's nothing fancy, but it does the trick and that all that matters to me!

Smooth transition sentence to introduce my next paragraph.  I have a really big sweet tooth.  I could seriously eat dessert after breakfast, lunch, dinner, and again before bed. I think...I've never tried it.  Anyway, the problem is, I don't buy sweets very often cause I tell myself that if I don't have them, I can't eat them.  Then I crave something sweet and dig around in my cabinets and fridge til I find the ingredients for cookies :o).  Unfortunately, I seem to suck at baking (cookies, anyway).  Imagine the suckiest a person can be at something.  That's how much I suck at making homemade cookies.  I may have found the problem, though, cause all my cookies have the same thing in common: I substitute shortening for margarine.  It's all I ever have.  My cookies tend to get too fluffy for my liking.  I like the flat chewy kind.  I'm going to buy shortening on my next shopping trip and if that doesn't work, then I'm never baking cookies again.

So speaking of sweets, while we were at walmart getting our keyboard, I got chocolate :o).  They are aerated Hershey's kisses.  I thought they would have more of a mousse type texture, but it was much harder.  Other than a few air bubbles inside, it tasted just like milk chocolate.  I was a little disappointed.  Oh well, it was still chocolate.  You can't go too wrong with that!

Time for a couple of pictures!

My Hershey's kiss!

Daniel, Kelsie, and Jace

Jace banging pans...his new favorite thing to do :o)  It's really blurry, but I love that it shows the motion of the pans moving through the air.

Kelsie on her scooter

Ashlin posing all silly like.  She just started sitting like that and I had to get a snap of it.  I love this kid!

 Jace in the middle of saying momma (with his gums), but it looks like he's saying "cheese" so this is currently one of my favorite pictures of him.  SOOOO cute!

Wordless Wednesday's: Dog Days of Summer (2)

Processed with PTM's wonder quickie and vanilla pop (tweaked)

Jace is crawling!

He's been army crawling for a little while now and he's been rocking on his knees lately, too (but not going anywhere), but starting today, he got on his knees and crawled!  I couldn't believe it!  He's so darn cute when he's crawling, too.  I'll need to get a video of it so I never forget it.  On another note, I saw a vintage rosette headband quite a while ago and fell in love with it, so I finally looked for a tutorial on how to make them.  I'm a pretty crafty person, but I tend to start things and not finish them.  It's a real problem...lol.  Anyway, it was surprisingly easy, but I did get a cramp in my hand with every flower.  Regardless, I'll definitely be making more.  The picture I'll post today is my sweet eldest daughter modeling the headband :o)

 

Wordless Wednesday's: Dog Days of Summer (1)

Since this is my first post on this, I should probably explain.  A friend of mine (Amy McMaster from http://amymcmasterphotography.com/ has started something called Wordless Wednesdays: Dog Days of Summer.  From now on, they won't have words to explain the picture, but it'll be a picture of what goes on around here during the summer (or something like that...lol).  All I'll post is what action/texture I use on it.

 Processed with Sands of Time (tweaked) and Sand Dollar Texture from Amy McMaster's Olive Juice Shoppe

My sister-in-law's b-day

Yesterday was my youngest sister-in-law's birthday.  She turned 5.  I can't believe she's 5 already!  And what's more is that means Kelsie will be 5 in a mere 4 months!!!  Good grief, these kids are growing up too fast (which means I'm getting old too fast...lol)!  Anyway, it was a fun little party at my mother-in-law's house.  My favorite thing about it was another of my sisters-in-law, Mary, made her clowning debut.  She made the sweetest clown ever and the kids absolutely LOVED her!!!  She painted all the kids faces, but I didn't get a picture of those.  (I'm hoping to have a little face painting gathering/photo shoot for her soon to really capture her work.)  Mary welcomed all the kids to the party with silly string, which was a big hit.  She plans on introducing juggling and balloon animals soon, so I can't wait for that!  Without farther ado, some pictures from the party :o).

Mary (official clown name TBA)-

Jace wasn't too thrilled, but part of the reason is cause mommy wasn't holding him...lol.

Kids left to right: Kelsie, Reagan, Abby, Jada (the birthday girl), and Ashlin

  Jada with her cake:

 Last, but not least, Jada's "I'm excited about my presents" look:

 

 

Tasty Tuesday

I decided to participate in Tasty Tuesday with a friend of mine.  Pretty self explanatory, but every Tuesday, we take a picture of what we made for dinner and post it.  I thought I'd put some effort into it and make a nice meal to show off, but that so didn't happen...lol.  Instead, I threw together a quick buffalo chicken salad (for me...the kids just had chicken tenders and fries).  The only thing that would have made my salad better would have been some carrots and maybe some celery :o).

 

Fourth of July

First of all, my blog might look funny, but I can't get my new background to work right, so I'm sorry about that and hope to have it fixed soon.  Ok, now into the details about the fourth.  Daniel and I spent all day getting ready and then at four, when everyone was supposed to be at our house, my mother-in-law texted and said, "it's still at 5, right?".  So there was a bit of confusion there, but everyone got here about 5 and it was so much fun.  My sister-in-law, Mary painted faces and we had hot dogs, chips, pasta salad, peach punch, and a cheesecake that looked like the flag.  We also swam and the kids loved that.  At dark, we shot off fireworks.  Kelsie stayed in the house cause she didn't like them, but as long as I was holding Jace, he loved them.  Ashlin liked them, too, but she staying inside with Kelsie and Abby getting face paint on the floors and walls...lol.  I got a few pictures of the fireworks, but I didn't want to go overboard and miss out on really seeing them.  I have a ton more pictures on my flickr of the rest of the party if you want to see them.  Here are a few pictures:

It's finally here!

Almost, anyway.  Our 4th of July celebration is tomorrow!  I can hear fireworks right now and it's getting me excited.  I've been preparing a lot of today by super cleaning the house.  Now that's something I can spend all day doing and never get done.  It seems like as I clean the girls go behind me messing things up.  It doesn't help that I have to constantly take breaks to stop Jace from crying (like the break I'm taking now to type this out).  My goal is to finish all the cleaning before bed tonight because I have grocery shopping, cooking, and decorating to do before 4 tomorrow, plus I'll have to straighten up the house again, no doubt.  I'll try to post about our party in the next few days and I'll include pictures.  On a totally different note, Jace pulled himself to standing on a pew at church today.  It was his first time doing it.  He tried it again this evening, but I had to help him by holding his hands on my shoulders...they kept slipping off...lol.  He says momma and dada a lot now, but not on command and to no one in particular.  I'm sure this means that it won't be long before he starts saying it to Daniel and me, though.  He's growing up way too fast...WAHHHH!!!!!!

Summertime, it's summertime!

          It's been almost a year since we went on our vacation to the beach, so I've been thinking about what we'd do for a vacation this year.  Daniel didn't want to make the 9+ hour trip again with 3 kids, so no beach for me :o(.  It ended up being ok, though, cause we decided to get Dollywood/Splash Country (local theme park/water park) passes.  We've been to Dollywood twice and Splash Country once in the 3 weeks since we bought them, but we'll for sure be going way more.  Kelsie is scared to go on any ride but the ducks that go in a circle (or other little baby ride like that), the bumper cars, and the motion ride (but she would only sit in a non motion seat...lol!  She's not tall enough for the roller coasters since she's only 46 1/2 inches, but that doesn't matter since she wouldn't even think about riding one anyway.  Ashlin will ride more of the rides and really seems to enjoy herself.  The only thing Kelsie likes at the water park is the lazy river.  She's not very adventurous...
          Jace will be 8 months old in 7 days.  I can't believe how big he is already!  He has 2 bottom teeth, rolls over all the time (esp in the middle of me changing his diaper.  He knows he's naked and tries to make a run for it!), loves baby food, and loves his momma.  He's such a mommas boy.  His newest development is army crawling across the floor...or something like that anyway.  He uses both arms and one foot to get from one place to another and it's absolutely adorable to watch him explore!  He keeps making a "ma ma" sound, but every time I tell him to say "momma" he laughs at me...what's up with that?!
          I wrote in my last post, I think, that I had a goal to lose weight.  Well for once in my life, I made that goal and stuck to it.  I haven't lost all that I want to, but I've lost 17lbs so far.  I'm so happy to have that gone and I hope I never gain it again.  Now to tackle the last 23 or so pounds...
          Since we have a place fit for entertaining, we'll be doing just that this fourth of July.  We live in the county, so we can legally shoot fireworks...yay!!!  We'll be having my in-laws, my hubby's aunt, uncle, and their daughter, and once of my friends and her hubby and 2 boys.  It's gonna be a lot of people (20, including Daniel, me, and the kids), but I've been looking forward to this since before we moved in here.  Kelsie's super excited for it and talks about it constantly.
          Picture time!  Enjoy!

 

Lots of new

So why is it that I always go so long without an update?!  There are quite a few new things in our life (some of you may know these things, so sorry for repeating myself if that's the case).  First of all, we moved to a new house and we're all settled in.  I'm loving living in a single family home instead of being in an apartment.  I also love how much closer to church and Daniel's work we are.  We have a big yard that the girls love to play in.  I can't wait until Daniel gets the fence up cause then I can let them do what they want without having to constantly have my eye on them.  Since this is the first time in my adult life I'm living in a house, I decided to plant some flowers.  It's really hard work trying to remove the grass from where I don't want it and trying to plan things out in my head since I'm new to gardening, but I'm hoping it'll be really pretty next year.  Another new thing going on is my commitment to myself to lose weight.  I don't know how well this will go, but so far I've been eating much healthier food.  I have to go pick up my workout video at the store tomorrow and I'll be back to doing 30 day shred in the mornings and my cardio video in the evenings.  Something else that's new in our lives is I'm potty training Ashlin.  She's still not night or nap trained yet, but she's done a great job with this right from the start.  I'm really impressed.  Kelsie was a lot tougher.  Last, but not least, Jace is 4 months old now.  He can roll from his belly to his back and he loves to laugh and I have a lot of fun trying to make him do so.  He babbles all the time (it's so sweet!).  He's still very much a hold me baby, but I get about an hour in the morning where he's really good and lets me get some housework done.  Well that's all for now.  I promised the girls we'd watch a movie, so off I go to spend some time with them :o).  I'll post pics next time, I promise!

Joy of Love: Day 2

The theme for day 2 is "How they look".  Ashlin gets the spotlight for this post.  There's not a whole lot to say about this.  Ashlin does one of two things when I get my camera out.  She gives me silly faces or moves so much that the pictures are blurry (I can't have my shutter speed high enough in my apartment because the light isn't great).  I can take 65 pictures and only get 2 usable ones and they usually look like this:

Or this (she won't smile unless I beg and happen to capture it lightning quick) :

But it's ok cause that's true lifestyle, right?!  She's super sweet and totally adorable even without smiles (and I'm not just saying that cause I'm her mom),

Joy of Love: Day 1

I'm participating in a 28 day online "class" called the Joy of Love.  I forgot about it til yesterday so I played catch up and took day one's pictures yesterday...shhhh, don't tell anyone ;o).  (I'll put day two in another post.)  Ok, so the theme for day one is "What they do", meaning what does your loved one do (any of your loved ones...you don't have to photograph the same loved one each day).  I picked Jace for this.  I picked him for a very specific reason.  He has a pattern down pat.  And I mean he does this every. single. time.  Every time!  What does he do, you ask?  Well, it's simple really.  If I put him down, he cries.  I didn't take just one picture because I wanted you to see what it looks like as it happens.  Think of it as a storyboard, but not combined into one picture like they normally are.

1.  I lay him down and he looks at me:

 2.  He smiles:

3.  Oh wait!  He realizes I'm not holding him! :

4.  So he cries:

5.  And cries...:

6.  And cries...oh my word, isn't he pitiful...do you see that little tear that breaks my heart into a million pieces?! :

Don't worry.  I stopped being mean to this poor little thing and picked him up after this picture when he promptly stopped crying.  I'm serious...I literally only have to pick him up and he stops like he was never crying in the first place.  *Sigh*  I wonder how I ever get anything done around here?

busy busy bee

That's what I've been since the 1st.  I decided on the 1st that since we were turning in our 60 day notice to move that I wanted to start packing the things we wouldn't need in the next couple of months.  Along with that, I decided to get rid of everything that we haven't used in a year (and some things that it hasn't even been a year, but I deemed weren't necessary to have cluttering up the place).  So far I've gotten rid of like 10 trash bags full of stuff (some of that to goodwill, some to a friend, and some was just garbage).  It feels SO good to have that stuff out of here.  I finished packing the bedroom as much as can be packed for now.  I need a few more boxes before I can pack anything else, though.  So even though we turned in our notice, we don't actually have anywhere to move to yet.  We started our house hunt today.  I found 12 places so far that could be in the running, but hopefully I can find more.  We'd like to compromise as little as possible :o).  Along with the house hunting and packing, I've also been doing more laundry than I thought was humanly possible.  I really slacked on that over the holidays plus the kids all got clothes for Christmas that got added to the pile.  Ok, enough about my boring ol' life for now.  Laters!