Things lately...

We had our first real snow on Tuesday.  The kids were off of the babysitters house, but they still got to go outside and play for awhile!





Trying to sled together, however they are still a little to young to 'enjoy' the snow. 

How funny is this picture?  That's Asher on the far left, next is Amalia and Micah (the babysitters kids) and Amelia is on the far right.  This was BEFORE they headed outside to play.  It took a lot of work to get all bundled up they were already wore out.  :)

I did a little Target coupon shopping Wednesday.

These two were my helpers.

 I seriously considered buying this hat.  How cute does he look??

My hall, all for $59.23!

We played a 'game' I found on pinterest.

Amelia enjoyed it and did really well.

Asher was trying to play as well.

However he ended up eating all the fruit loops, game over.  :)

Menu Monday

This is my first ever menu Monday post! I'm pretty excited, hopefully it will inspire someone out there!

Monday - It's zumba night, I usually go with something quick and easy on these nights.  My original plan was BBQ Pork in the crockpot, but I made dinner for my dad and stepsisters and their families last night, and ended up with plenty of leftovers.  So tonight is left over Cheesy Chicken Chowder and Chili.

Tuesday- I'm going to fry up some cube steak, nothing special here.  Just chicken fried steak basically.  I'm going to pair it with baked potato and some sort of veggie.

Wednesday- Wednesday are Momma Day so I always cook something kid friendly.  We'll be having Lasagna.

Thursday - It's zumba night again, so I'm going to go with my Monday night original plan and do the BBQ Pork in the crockpot.  I use this recipe from pinterest and we love it!  And it's very reasonable calorie wise.  Who would have thought to use their stand mixer to make pulled pork????

Friday- I'm doing another pinterest recipe, Chicken Ranch Strips.  I've made these before and they are super yummy.  We'll have a great big salad as a side.

Saturday- OLIVE GARDEN!!  Woot woot, we're meeting friends and having a double family date.  Should be lots of fun!

Sunday- Chicken Terriyaki, which is another crockpot, pinterest recipe. You can find it here.

Snow Day and Rescheduled

-Today is a snow day (er, ice day) here in Southwest Missouri.  Miss Amelia was ticked.  She's still too young to enjoy snow days, with school being closed that means no dance either.  However it did brighten her day when I told her that meant she got a WHOLE day at mema's house.  The weather outside is nasty, raining, sleeting, all with thunder and lightening.  Very odd combinations going on out there.  I'm praying for NO power outages. 

Painting at Mema's.

-We had to reschedule A's frenectomy yesterday due to a snotty/sneezy/runny nose.  They told me at the dentist office they would like her to be at 100% the day of the procedure.  She was NOT at 100% yesterday.
-Yesterday morning Asher was walking around the house trying to stick his toy cell phone in his back pocket, even though he didn't have a back pocket.  Nathan picked him up once and the phone was in the bottom of his pant leg.  :)
-I'm convinced Amelia is going to be a Broadway star.  She puts on shows for us daily.  Lately she's been calling herself; Amelia Paige Beaver, The Amazing Alphabet Girl.  Asher is often roped into being her 'assistant'.  One of her favorite things to play is freeze dance.  This involves me playing music, all of us dancing until I shut it off, then we freeze. 

Blurry, but this is 'freeze dance' in action.

-This morning while I was getting ready Asher was being ever so helpful and turned the water on in the bath tub, where the clothes hamper was also sitting.  :-/  A few minutes later, after taking the hamper, which was now wet, out of the tub, I go to put my boot on and can't seem to get it on because there is a hot wheels car in it.  Got to love that kid.

He was smashing his face up against the glass on the door.  I thought it was funny.

-Zumba is also cancelled tonight, which makes me sad.  I'm going to attempt the 30 Day Shred.  I might die.  Wish me luck.

 

- How can it only be Tuesday?  I had an unexpected day at home yesterday with the kids, and it was a rough day.  You know one of those days where we ALL woke up on the wrong side of the bed? 

- I was super thankful that I did get to get out of the house and go to Zumba last night.  Nathan has been great about putting the kids to bed on Zumba nights. 

- Amelia's frenectomy is scheduled for tomorrow at 8:00 am.  I'm a bit nervous.  We've told her that they are going to put her lip to sleep.  She's was worried that it wouldn't wake back up.  Please keep us in your prayers. 

- The deal sites are killing me this morning, SO MANY cute things.  AHHHH

- I need a girls day.  Target and Pedicures sounds amazing!

- How did I ever meal plan without pinterest?  I mean seriously?  I'm trying a new pinterest recipe tonight that I'm pretty excited about. 

- I've thought about doing a menu Monday post.  I've been planning on my whole week of meals in advance lately.  We shall see...

- Oh funny story.  This morning while I was getting ready I said, "Oh good news, I get coffee today!"  We had been out of creamer, and I don't drink coffee without it, so after Zumba I went to the grocery store and got some.  I thought nothing else of my statement and went on with our morning.  I took the kids to Lois and Amelia says, "Mema good news." Mema says, "what's the good news."  Amelia says, "my mommy got coffee this morning!" 

- Had a pretty great low key weekend.  We did our fair share of running, but that's a normal weekend for us.  :)  However I didn't take a single picture, not one. 

- Asher is talking SO much!  He repeats nearly everything we say.  Nathan's started calling him and Amelia Peat and Repeat.  He's at such a fun age!

Have a great day!

  

Random Ramblings

- Amelia woke up sneezing and with a runny nose yesterday, oh why oh why can't we get passed all this yuckiness.

- We made our (well Amelia's) first Valentine's Day box for school. Thank you pinterest. Amelia's party is today, I know she's going to have a blast.

- The kids got homemade heart shaped pizza for dinner last night!

- I. Am. So. Excited. The Amazing Race starts again Sunday! It is by FAR my favorite show on TV.

- Hobby Lobby is so fun. I could stay in there for hours.

- Amelia is still into checking out every restroom there is when we are out. When does this stop? I hate public restrooms.

- I already ordered both kids Easter outfits. I 'might' be that crazy mom.

- Do you celebrate big for Valentine's Day? We don't. I bought valentines for the kids and we'll have fun with those, but Nathan and I aren't big Valentine's Day people. We do have plans on Saturday to attend the 'Sweetheart Banquet' at church. But that's about it.

- I love afternoon nap time. Both kids asleep means I get some free time! Free time usually translates into folding laundry time, but I'll take it.

- So I've started counting calories. I'm using an app called my fitness pal. I really like it and it's very helpful. I recently discovered some GREAT NEWS, a large McAlister's half sweet half unsweetened tea is only 40 calories!! That's amazing!  

This kid is a mess.

Weekend Recap

-The 'bug' hit Asher late Thursday afternoon. Poor little guy ran a low grade fever and had snot snot and more snot. Saturday was his worse day, but Sunday was signficantly better.

This is all he wanted to do.
 

-Saturday morning I let Asher do something he's never done before, play with play doh.  He did really well, I was scared he would eat it so I've never let even attempted until this point.  He woke up from this nap (early) and Amelia was playing with it and he really wanted too, so I put him is his chair, made sure he had his paci and let him go at it.  He loved it, and I did too because I was able to put together some oatmeal packs!

 

 

- Saturday was a first for Amelia, well actually two first now that I think about it. 1) Saturday was the first day EVER that she went without a nap. This wasn't because she refused it was because we were simply to busy to fit it in. 2) She attended her first 'friend' birthday party (with me, of course).

 

 

- We will NOT be trying the no nap thing again for a long while. She wasn't cranky, she was hyper. Past the point of no return.

- Asher recently cut another tooth. This makes nine altogether.

- We went to Springfield to run a few errands Sunday afternoon. The kids ended up taking their naps in the car. They take TWO hour naps. However I did enjoy the time just driving around chatting with Nathan.

- Nathan has his quarterly meeting this week, I'll be playing mom and dad for a few days.

- I've been leery to blog this, but I believe it's safe to say now that Asher is sleeping through the night!!!!! He goes to bed at 7 and sleep until 6-6:30ish. That's right it only took 16ish months...

Momma Day

My kids are better, but now the babysitter has sick kids, so I get some extra Momma Days this week.  I really do love being home with my kids, although I'm pretty sure I'm not cut out to be a full time stay at home Mom.  It's HARD work folks.  These are just some of the questions that go through my head as Momma Day approaches...
What will we do all day?  Will they watch too much TV?  Am I engaging them enough?  What will we eat?  Do I have enough healthy snacks?  Are they bored?  How many fights will I have to break up?  How can I convince Amelia to share with Asher?  Will Asher take good naps?  Are they having fun?  Should we go to the library? Will they pick up more germs if we do?  How will I get all our laundry done?  Will my house ever get clean?  How many times will I have to pick up toys and put them back where they go?  How many spills will I have to clean up?  How many tears will I have to wipe away?  Will I have to give Amelia a time out? 
But at the end of the day we'll all still alive and happy.  The house will be a mess, laundry is probably not done, but it is worth it.  I pray I'm being a good momma to my two precious kids that God has blessed us with for a short while.  And I don't think I'm the only momma that has these thoughts.

Here are some pictures of what we did today.

We'll take the good and the bad...

The title of this post sums up our weekend.  Saturday was good, Saturday night was bad, Sunday was average, but hey we'll take it all. 
Saturday morning Nathan had to work for bit and the kids and I just hung out, had breakfast, played and Asher took his morning nap.  Both kids got their hair cut Saturday morning.  This was Asher's second hair cut and Amelia's fifth (I think).  Just trims nothing major, in fact I don't think we'll be getting major hair cuts for a long time.  I won't cut Amelia's hair off, I just don't have it in me.  :)  Saturday afternoon we had plans to meet my brother, Mandy and Aden in Springfield at Build-A-Bear so Amelia could build a girl bear.  Amelia inherited a bunch of the girls' Build-A-Bear clothes for Christmas from Nick and Mandy, however all the clothes were girl clothes, and Amelia had one bear that she had made previously and he was a boy bear, blue bear.  I was fine with this and Amelia was fine with these clothes, she would dress up blue bear and say he was wearing his girl clothes.  My brother however was not fine with this, he wanted her to have a girl bear to dress up with girl clothes, therefore we had to make a trip to Build-A-Bear trip Saturday.  :)  I'm not complaining though, because after a quick trip to get a girl bear (which turned out to be a girl bunny) we got to have yummy food at Texas Roadhouse and Andy's. 

At Build-A-Bear

Naming her bunny with Aunt Mandy

Aden got to build a camo bear

Saturday evening came the bad.  At about bedtime Amelia got sick and continued to get sick until about 11 pm.  Poor girl, I felt so bad for her, there's nothing worse than sick kiddos that you can do absolutely nothing for.  On top of all this Nathan was sick as well.  I'm praying Asher and I say in the clear.
We had already decided not to go to church and Nathan had arranged for someone to teach Sunday school before Amelia got sick, because he was feeling bad.  So we stayed home and in our pajama's all morning.  Amelia didn't get sick anymore after 11 pm Saturday night, but even today her appetite still isn't 100 %.  Asher's still sick-free, as am I.  Nathan sleep most the day Sunday and he's getting back to normal, but dang it was a rough 24 hours or so. 
I'm reminded that God doesn't always promise us sunshine and flowers, however He's there in the rain and troubled times as well.  I'm so thankful for a God that I can thank daily for the blessings of life and for a God who I can pray to when my children are sick and He hears me and comforts us. Thank you Father for watching over us and protecting us.   

The following pictures are just some funny ones I snapped yesterday while at home with the kids.  

Asher was kissing this baby doll of Amelia's

Word to the wise.  DO NOT buy Cheetos when you have a 17 month old who had a short nap who also loves Cheetos.  Epic fail.  I so wish you could see his face in this picture.  He was SO mad at me.

I love this sweet picture of my babies playing together.