7 things I LOVE about Texas

A friend recently asked me how we are doing, and how we like Texas. With that sweet question I realized that I have been quite complainy on her and haven't really expressed too many good things about Texas. To bring a more positive attitude, and to let you know a little about where we live, I give you my list of 7 Things I LOVE About Texas

1. GREEN,GREEN, and MORE GREEN!!! I know Texas is a desert, but since we live near the coast (10 - 20 mins) we get a lot of moisture when storms blow in off the ocean. Therefore we have a lot of vegetation that grows. There is a particular strip of highway between Lake Jackson and Angelton that I really enjoy driving down because the trees over hang the highway. It is beautiful! Around town there are also tons of trees! I've never lived anywhere with so many trees.
   
2. HEAT!!! I grew up in Utah and loved the snow, and I know once December hits I'll really miss it a little. However, I am a STEAMING HOT GAL at heart. I would so much rather be hot than cold. I love the fact that this winter the coldest it will probably get is the 20s - 30s. Maybe. Apparently that is REALLY cold for the area. It brings joy to my heart to know that Lily and Allie will be able to go outside and play during all those months that we used to be cooped up indoors.
   
3. YES MA'M. Where ever I go I am greeted with that phrase. Sometimes it makes me feel old, because MA'M should be referring to my mom not a young whipper snapper like me. But the politeness of the people down here really override my feelings of getting old. In general people are so polite. Random strangers will carry on a conversation with you about laundry detergent and which one is better. (Yes, I had that conversation on Saturday) It is just the slow conversation too, where the people act like they have all day to stand around with you and make sure you get the bottle that will do you best!
4. PARKS. Right now I can think of over ten parks to choose from that are in a 10 mile radius of my house. All of them are excellent in their own little way. Each week I get together with ladies from either my ward or my stake and go to one of these parks for playgroup. Which brings me too...
5. FRIENDS. I have met some of the most amazing people down here. I've always heard about how wards function outside of Utah/Idaho. Where you really depend on each other because that is who you have to. Many ladies in my ward have helped me out when Russ has been gone. Many of them probably don't even know how much they have helped me. Others now how much help I need, and have given it so willingly. Lily as well has made some great lasting friendships. (PS We still love and miss all of our friends in Utah/Idaho that have helped us as well! Don't think we've forgotten you!)
6. FOOD. I love me some good Mexican food. We've found a couple little fun/cheap restaurants that we go to get it. I miss the variety we had in Idaho Falls, but honestly it is probably better that we only have a few favorites so we don't go out and eat more! LOL!
7. FAMILY. For the first time we are lucky enough to be living 1 hr 30 min away from family. Russ's sister and family live in Houston. We have been able to see them once a month since they moved here in July. We hope to keep that up.

Hopefully that gives everyone a small taste of some of the HAPPIER things we have going on down her in the South!

Muffin Tin Mondays

Remember a few months ago I asked for lunch ideas? So many of those idea I have used and had great success with them. Now I am excited to be returning the favor, and hopefully giving you a FUN idea for lunch.

On scrapping blog that I frequent a lady posted about a thing called Muffin Tin Mondays. I was intrigued by what I saw, so I clicked on some of the links she had listed. By going back a few more blogs I found the original source of MTM. As soon as I saw THIS SITE I knew I had to try out this idea!

Essentially muffin tin Monday is making your child's lunch in such a way that it can be served in a muffin tin. How simple is that? But for some reason, kids think it is a GREAT idea. I decided to give it a try. I gathered some ideas from the above site, and went to work on Lily's lunch. This is what I made on Tuesday....This lunch consisted of peanut butter pinwheels, string cheese sticks, pretzels, and yogurt, all served in my mini muffin tin. In case you are wondering this is how you make the pinwheels: Remove crusts from a slice of bread.
Roll it flat with rolling pin.
Spread with peanut butter.
Roll like a taco.
Slice into pinwheels.

Lily thought the pinwheels were the "Bees Knees"! She gobbled up her lunch with very little coaxing.

Since things went well with Round 1. I decided to try out the MTM thing again. This was today's try...
Lunch consisted of chicken nuggets, ranch, string cheese wheels, colored animal crackers with sprinkles, and a ladybug apple. Lily flipped over the lady bug. She loved making it with me, and that enjoyed eating it.

This is something I definitely am going to continue doing with Lily. It probably won't ever happen on Monday but oh well!

Traumatic Wasp Attack

Russ is back! Yippee! He has been gone 2 weeks again for work. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for him to be home. We had a few funny/tramatic things occur while he was gone. Most of them I have either blocked out of mind so I never have to relive them again, and the rest have just conviently slipped out of my mind while I've been sleeping at night. I hope to be better the next go around about journaling them, because it is inevitable that more funny/tramatic things will happen, and I would like to remember them!

One that I do remember, and this is a traumatic event for me, was the incident with the 2" wasp. Two days into Russ being gone I was feeling pretty good about myself. I hadn't had any crying fits (there were many the first time he left), I had cooked something to eat for each meal instead of going out to eat, and the house was still in a somewhat presentable state.

At this time I was sitting at the computer enjoying some time to myself, while I reflected on the fact that I could do this "single mom" stint. Then I heard the buzzing. It was faint, but persistent. I thought something on the computer was rattling but I couldn't find it. Then I glanced to the left of me where my light box sets. Horrified I saw the source of the noise, a injured two inch long wasp was sitting there flapping its wings trying to fly. Very slowly I backed out of my chair, and then the room. I RAN to my bedroom to get a shoe and came back, but the thing was gone.

All reason flew out of my head at this moment, and I thought to myself, "Oh good it flew back outside" Umm...what?! We've NEVER cracked open our windows (which have screens on them), so he couldn't have gotten out that way. Oh, and don't forget the ONLY door to the outside was 20 feet away. As I look back on this thought now, I realize that I must have been stressed out already with Russ being gone. No other way to explain it.

Since it was "outside" in my mind, I sat and started to finish my computer work. Then I heard the familiar bzzzzzzzz....This time I freaked out ran out of the room and called Russ at work. He slowly coaxed me to go back in the room and find where the wasp was hiding. By this time I was panicking. Memories of my cousin Casey telling a four year old me to touch the bee and see if it was dead, were circulating in my mind. (In case you are wondering the bee in fact WAS NOT dead!!!)

I walked back into the room with a yardstick in one hand the phone in the other. I was having a hard time breathing normally. I poked the curtains to see if the wasp had flown into them. Bzzzzzz....there the monstrosity was climbing up the side of my desk. Russ kept telling me to hit it with the shoe, which was sitting near by. But I couldn't. Now my fears had taken over me and I was worried beyond belief that I would miss the stupid thing as I tried to hit it, it would get riled up, and some how seek out Lily in the house and sting her, she would have an allergic reaction, and I would have to take her to the hospital AFTER administering her EpiPen.

No way was I going to let that happen, so I went to see if the neighbor was home :D He wasn't....who isn't home at 10:00 in the morning? Oh yeah, noone is. DANG!!! So, Russ coaxed me some more. By this time I was bawling my guts out. Total full on panick attack. EXACTLY what I needed at this time. Russ coaxed me even more. I watched the wasp from the doorway as it climbed around, until it made the fatal mistake of climbing right up on top of the computer desk. With a solid swing I got the thing. Still bawling I scooped him up and "disposed" of him.

After it was all over, I was so embarrased that I had let a wasp put me into a full on panick attack. Ugh! But honestly, if you had found a TWO INCH WASP in your house wouldn't you have freaked out a little too?

15 months....

*I've been horrible about taking pictures lately, so no updated picture with this! Booooo!"

Allie turned 15 months a few days ago. Since she needed her ears checked after finishing her medicine the doctor encouraged us to schedule her well-check for the same visit. I'm good with getting a 2-for the price of-1!

Since we've had to wait so long at the doctors office I came prepared for the long haul. I had books, snacks, toys, stuffed animals, etc. I signed in at the desk and went to pull something out of the bag for Allie when her name was called. What?! We NEVER get in that fast! Not going to complain about that though ;)

The nurse took Allie's measurements with a little difficulty. Allie still hates the doctors, so she started crying as soon as the nurse asked me to undress her. I know the height measurement for Allie is a little off because I was holding Allie when the nurse marked the spot for her head. Then Allie proceeded to buck about herself half and inch or so above the line before the nurse got the line ticked off where her foot landed. So, the measurements are a little off....

Weight: 22 lbs 8 oz = 20%
Height: 30 1/2" = 60%
Head Circumference: 44 1/2 cm

The doctor walked in and said she was tall and skinny, but in good health. She checked Allie's ears and there was no sign of infection, which is a good thing. It means that she is at least getting over the ear infections even though she is getting so many of them. The doctor also said that we will try her on amoxicillan again just because they weren't able to see the reaction, and they can't rule that she was allergic without seeing it. I was little perturbed about this because she told me it most likely WAS an allergic reaction, but she still wants to feed my baby something that could harm her?

She quickly went over some more milestones that Allie should have been doing. She of course was doing well with all of them. I was even surprised that she was doing okay verbally. Primarily she can only say about three words that I KNOW she is saying. She can say about 10- 15 that I can't decided if she is saying the word or just can do the correct rise and fall with her voice. The doctor seemed impressed though, so I guess it is okay.

Lastly, Allie got two shots. By this time she was climbing the walls trying to get away from the doctor, so trying to hold her down was a challenge. The nurse was so slow getting them in! At least we are done with doctor appointments for three months. Well, as long as Allie doesn't get an ear infection! LOL!

Showing Stress with Strange Markings

Lily doesn't deal with stressful situations well. Russ being gone has been quite stressful for her. But she doesn't display her stress in good ways. Usually I know she is stressed because she wets her pants. Although that hasn't been happening as much lately. This last time Russ was gone, Lily found a new way to show her stress.

I was doing dishes in the kitchen and the girls were playing in their room on Lily's bed. They were getting along, and giggling a lot. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I heard Allie start screaming like she was in pain. I went in the bedroom to find Allie laying on the floor and Lily above her. It was quite easy to assume that Lily had pushed Allie off the bed. After questioning Lily and getting a, "I didn't want her on my bed anymore, but I didn't push her off" I took the answer as a yes she did push Allie off the bed. She looked horribly guilty which usually means she lying or hiding something. Lily got a timeout and Allie got some lovin's.

An hour or so later I was cleaning Allie up from lunch when I saw some funny shaped marks on her arm. They looked like this...except the weren't blurry :D

Upon closer examination two and two clicked. I whirled around to face Lily and asked if she had bit Allie when she didn't want her on the bed. Sheepishly Lily nodded yes! I knew she had been hiding something!!! The weird thing about this, is that Lily isn't a biter. She never bit as a child. NEVER!!! All I can come up with is this is her new way to show she is stressed with daddy being gone. Hopefully, this won't be a recurrent way to alleviate her stress!

Yogurt and Utensils

I've always heard the saying that the learning curve of being a mommy isn't quite as steep after your first child. I think somehow I missed that lesson in Mommy 101. I swear that I am repeating some of the same stupid mistakes I made with Lily. After I make the mistake with Allie I think to myself, "Didn't I do this with Lily? Oh yeah....it was a disaster with her too!"

Mommy lesson #451
Don't give a child yogurt to eat on their first attempt at using a spoon!

Allie had been asking for her spoon again, so I figured it would be good to expose her to feeding herself with utensils again. (When she was younger she fed herself with accuracy for about two weeks, then lost interest) Being a little stressed I somehow thought it would be a good idea to give her yogurt while she tried to master the utensil skill. She almost made it in the bowl and back to her mouth a few times, but primarily she used her fingers as you can see.

What mommy?! I'm supposed to be using this purple thing? Hmph...fingers are better!

See mom! Fingers=happy baby!

Maybe one day I'll remember some of these "lessons"!

Capturing the Moment

As far as Allie's naps go, I am fairly structured. By doing so I tend to have a happy baby. Today I had noticed that it was 10:00, and that it was time for Allie's nap. I went and found her coming out of her bedroom closet with the small MagnaDoodle. She fussed when I took it away, but layed down for her nap without much problem.

Later on I heard Allie rustling around. I usually wait until she lets me know she is good and ready to get out. Today, was different than normal. Right away Allie started yelling, "MA....MA....MA!" She was insistent that she wanted me right NOW! I went and opened the door. Instead of jumping up and down like normal, she poked out her little index finger and grunted. I turned to see what she wanted. There on the dresser was the MagnaDoodle. She still wanted it! I gave it to her and she happily plopped down in her crib and started to "draw"

I snuck out, grabbed the camera, and captured the moment of one of her drawings.

Try-It-Tuesday

I am not a big fan of butterscotch chips, so I was a little wary going in to this recipe. But I was soooooo wrong. These things were great! They also were super easy to make. About the same difficulty as a regular chocholate chip cookie. Have fun making them, and let me know if you like them!

Oatmeal Butterscotch Toffee Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

2 sticks softened butter
¾ Cup sugar
¾ Cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ½ Cups flour
½ Cup quick oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 ½ Cups butterscotch chips
1 Cup toffee chip pieces

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a stand or electric mixer cream butter and sugars. Beat in egg and vanilla until well combined. In a large bowl combine flour, oats, baking soda and salt. Slowly add to wet ingredients along with the butterscotch chips and toffee bits just until combined.
2. With a medium cookie scoop, scoop onto a silpat or parchment lined cookie sheet. Bake for 9 minutes or until cooked to your liking. Let cool for 5 minutes before removing.

Notes:
1. This is a LOT of butterscotch chips. I used one bag which was less than what it called for and it was plenty. If I had used the whole amount I know I would have regretted it. I like to have some "cookie" with my "chip"
2. In case you are looking for a traditional oatmeal cookie, let me warn you this is not one! The oats are more like an additive than a main ingredient.
3. I had to cook these cookies longer than called for. At 9 min. they were still wiggling!

Project 1

I got my prints in the mail today! Actually Saturday, but our apartment office wasn't open so I couldn't retrieve them. I am in love with my prints. They turned out really good. Only the tiniest bit got cut off the sides. We are talking less than 1/8 of inch her! The color was good. It was a tiny bit darker than what it showed up on my screen as, but honestly that might just be my screen not the printers fault.

There was one problem though, when I was getting my layout ready to upload it was late at night. I thought I did everything correctly but I didn't. On one of my layouts that I had to crop in order for it to be a 12 x12, I cut it 12x13. DANG! But that was the only mess up on my part! Well, I noticed a few spelling errors on some of the pages, but those are on all my traditional pages as well, so I figure they fit right in! LOL!

One thing I learned from printing my digital layouts is that not all products are created equal. I thought I had been fairly careful in selecting products that were top quality. However, once I got the layout printed a few of my layouts didn't like quite as good as I would like them to because of what products I used. There were jagged edges on some of the templates and some papers were grainy at full size. I wish I would have been able to see that before hand, but you just can't on the computer screen. :(

Overall I was super impressed with the company, Scrapping Simply, and would highly recommend it to everyone! The pricing is great {Lowest I've seen for single sheets}, and you can't beat the shipping. They do a flat rate of $5.00. My order, which was fairly small, cost $7.82 to ship. This company is LOSING money in order to satisfy their customers!

This is a picture of what one of my printed layouts looked like. The lighting in my house sucks so the flash on my camera made it look brighter than the digital one below. But really it is DARKER than the digital copy.

Digital Copy

The rest of these are the ones I got printed. They are all in books and look beautiful!

Allie's Pictures

We went and picked up Allie's pictures yesterday. I am SOOOOO pleased with them! At least everything worked out the second time around! LOL!

Labor Day

Labor Day was nice and relaxing for us. Originally we had planned on going camping, but that fell through. :( After our plans fell through we decided to do what we do ever holiday, play and BBQ! Russ had heard me talking about the fun park we had just went to for playgroup. He wanted to see Allie's excitement when riding the bouncy toys.

After lunch we headed over to Fireman's park. We got out Russ put Allie down and she started walking as fast as her little legs would carry her. She was squealing with delight. Obviously she remembered the place. I headed to put our stuff down when I noticed that the whole ground seemed to be moving. I looked closer and realized there were SWARMS upon SWARMS of bees/wasps flying around. I yelled at Russ to grab Allie who hadn't quite made it as far as me. Meanwhile I yanked Lily by the arm and scooted her towards the car as fast as possible. With the amount of bees/wasps buzzing around, we were lucky we didn't find out if Lily is allergic to them.

In the car I decided that we would go to Richwood park. This was a park that our ward had a party at. It had the cutest child swing shaped like a car, a great playground, and a digger for kids to dig with. Russ had missed the party so he agreed it would be fun for him to see it. We got there and had the whole thing to ourselves! SWEET! Allie immediately headed for the car swing, she has such a good memory :) She again loved it! She was all giggles while in it!

While I pushed Allie, Russ took Lily over to the tire swing. He got that thing whipping around pretty fast! Lily loved it!

You can tell by Lily's hair that they were going FAST!!!

After we TORE the girls away from the swing we went over to a few of the bouncy things. Russ had to try them out of course!

Allie wasn't sure what to do at first. She can remember the parks but can't remember what to do at them! lol

So I gave her a little help by bouncing her. She remembered what to do and bounced....bounced...bounced away.
About this time Lily had an accident so we headed home. Russ got the joy of cleaning her up, because I already get to do it on a regular basis! With that taken care of we went to McDonald's and got some icecream. We had been promising the girls a picnic for some time now, but it kept falling through. Today was one of those days were it fell through again. So Russ thought we should compensate by getting ice cream and letting the girls play on the icky playground. Did I say icky? I meant fun playground ;) I shouldn't judge, I let them play on it all the time, but I've gotten the heebie jeebies the last two times because we saw a kid lose his lunch on the rubber matting the time before. YUCK!!!!

The girls played, and when it was time to go they made a gracious exit. HALLELUJAH they are growing up!!! We came home and I got to scrap while Russ entertained the girls with the Wii. After a bit I came out and started my half of dinner while Russ went outside with Lily and BBQ'd our steaks & hotdogs. Boy was that food good!

As the day came to a close I was sad because it had been such a fun day, but it also left the lingering thought that Russ would be leaving at the end of the week. We wouldn't have any more of these fun family times for two whole weeks! But then I remembered that one must not dwell on the bad but live for the good. Today was definitely one of the "good" days!

Little Ballerina

I wanted Lily to be in some form of an activity this year. We were really gunning for soccer. With all the running evolved it should wear off some of her energy. But I kept forgetting to find out where/when to sign her up. By the time I got around to it, it was too late to sign up. I was really disappointed. I then decided to see if I could get her into a dance class of some sort. I found one at the local gym and got her signed up. She had already missed one class, but the teacher didn't seem to concerned about it.

Last night we went out and bought her some dance clothes. Today we got her dressed, and I took her to class. She was excited but nervous. After meeting her class she walked right in, waved goodbye, and plopped herself down on her "spot". I asked Lily after class if she had fun, and she of course declared "YES!"

I'm happy that she is enjoying it. Twice a week we'll be having her go. Check out that excited (but nervous) grin she has on her face!

Birthday Princess

Dear Grandma Lala and Papa Joe,

Mommy FINALLY got around to taking my picture of me in the beautiful sash you sent me. I put my princess dress on, and my heals. I love you! Mwah!
Love,
Lily Bean String Bean Cutie Pie Princess Rose Jones

Lily Singing

Lily's short term memory is less than ideal. It is difficult for her to remember the words to a song even if she has sung it with me a million times. But that doesn't deter her from singing. Listen to what I get to listen to every day!

Twirling

I was teaching the Allie how to play Ring Around the Rosie's this week. When I was done spinning in circles with her and Lily she decided to start spinning in circles herself! I quickly donned her in her tutu and got a cute video of her twirling. It might have taken a little coaxing, and she might have rebelled a little with a war cry, but she complied in the end!

Try-It-Tuesday: Lemon Sour Cream Pasta

Finally! I remembered to post one of the recipes I've been trying. I REALLY liked this one. Russ was pretty impressed with it as well. He isn't a pasta man, so for him to say it is good was somewhat of a miracle. I got this off of Prudence Pennywise's blog. Have I mentioned that I LOVE her blog. Hmmm...maybe I have! Give this one a try, I promise it is good!

Lemon Sour Cream Pasta

1/2 lb. flat pasta noodles, such as fettuccine (I'm thinking about trying angel hair next time!)
1 cup frozen peas, if desired
1 tablespoon butter
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup sour cream, (light works well), or whole milk plain yogurt
juice and zest of one lemon
1/2 cup chopped green onions
1/2 teaspoon each salt and pepper
freshly grated Parmesan cheese, for the top
sliced juicy red tomatoes

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Cook pasta according to package directions, adding peas during last minute of cooking time. Drain pasta in colander. To the same pot, add butter and garlic and cook over low heat for one minute, or until garlic is very fragrant and softened. Add pasta and peas back to pot. Stir in sour cream, lemon juice and zest, green onions, and salt and pepper. Warm through. Serve with sliced tomatoes.