Little Miss Muffet

The other morning the girls and I were talking about nursery rhymes, so I decided to have a little fun with Little Miss Muffet. We read it over and over, made this little spider craft, and then acted it out over and over and over again. Definitely a fun morning for my little crew.

 

A Weekend with the Roomies

Somehow it's been 11 years since we graduated college. 11 years! A lot has happened in those 11 years. 4 weddings, 9 new little ones (and I'm sure more to come), moves in and out of the great state of Texas, and just life. It was definitely time for a reunion. We hadn't had a reunion since any of us have had kids, so 6 plus years. I made the trek to Dallas, and we all stayed at the Gaylord Texan. We slept in, floated the river (for about 7 hours!!!), enjoyed some margaritas, giggled A LOT, walked down memory lane, shared parenting drama, and just enjoyed every moment of our time together. We had two years in college that we all lived together, and we were just so blessed to have the relationship we all did. We had silly girl fights of course (which is so funny to think about now), but we were just close like sisters and when I think about college these girls are in just about every memory. Love them! I think we are going to make it an annual tradition from now on.

My Sweet Oldest

Aubrey Claire, my almost six year old beauty. This girl... what can I say. She is just precious. Honestly. She craves attention, and I'm not always good at recognizing that, or catering to that. I'm working on it! She LOVES her family, and honestly desires nothing more than to have family time ALL THE TIME! She is anxious every day for Daddy to get home, so we can be a complete family again. During her rest time for the past few weeks, she has been in her room creating a Family Book for her "whole family". She has been making it as a gift for us, and completely came up with that idea on her own. In fact, for her birthday the one thing that she asked me for is a family picture to hang in her room. Sweet isn't it. A couple of weekends ago, I went out of town for a girls weekend with my old college roomies (which is another post in itself), and Aubrey made me these papers to pack in my suitcase (she packed them for me) so that I wouldn't miss my family too much. She drew a picture of me with each of my kids, and one with Jeff and wrote "I love you Mommy".  She is just a sweet girl, and a huge loving heart, and goodness I am proud that she is mine. 

A Little Recipe to Share

We have kind of turned over a new leaf in our house when it comes to healthy eating. We are heading down the right direction and trying to make changes in how we all eat. We have been loosing weight (Jeff is down 35 pounds, and I'm down 20), and learning all sorts of new things about what's good for you and what's not. We also started with some AdvoCare products and started making a business out of it which has been exciting on it's own.

We started doing a local co-op here of organic fruits and veggies which has been really inspiring to me. I love having all of this in my house.

 We soon learned, though, that we were going to have to get creative to eat of all this before it went bad. So we bought a Vitamix and I am now  constantly making smoothies, ice creams, sorbets and soups. Love that thing! I've also been making new breakfast and snack items for the girls to snack on that aren't horrible for them. The other day we made these Applesauce Zuchinni muffins. They were a big hit and too delicious not to share!

 And little girl approved!

 Here is the recipe:
Batter:
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup old fashioned oats
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon (I used 1tsp because I love cinnamon!)
1 cup unsweetened apple sauce
1/2 cup zuchinni pureed
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 large egg

Topping:
2/3 cup old fashioned oats
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter melted

Directions:
Preheat over to 400. Coat a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray or baking cups.

To make topping, stir together oats, sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Stir in butter.

To make batter, combine oats, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. In a second bowl, mix the apple sauce with the milk, vegetable puree, sugar, oil and egg with a wooden spoon. Add the flour mixture slowly, stirring until just moistened.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups and sprinkle with the streusel topping. Bake until the topping is lightly browned, about 18-20 minutes.

Our Little Nine Month Old

 I'm getting a little panicky, the closer that one year birthday is getting. Since this little guy is probably our last baby, I'm clinging to everything baby. But it's going too fast! I've never approached a one year birthday without either being pregnant, or thinking it's time for another. Oh dear! But this boy brings so much joy to our home. His smiles are constant and he is just happy most of the day. He wakes up with a smile of his face, he goes to sleep with a smile on his face, and even most of the in between times he is smiling and laughing. I'm so thankful that number four is content and laid back. I needed that! Of course, he is a baby so he does fuss when he is hungry or when he wants to get down and play. He has his army crawl down pretty good. He was just rolling everywhere, but a couple of weeks ago he figured out how to pull his little body around, and now he is off and stressing me out a little more.  He loves to eat! Anything I give him, he gobbles it right up. He is an excellent and napper and night time sleeper. He of course has his two cute bottom teeth, but the two on the top are about to pop through any day now. He hasn't been too happy about that today! He is starting to sit independently now, finally, although he still falls over.  He has sort of started waving. Every now and then he will start waving at me, out of the blue, but if you try to get him to do it he won't. Stinker! He also just started shaking his head, not necessarily to say "no", but I just think he thinks it feels funny. Funny little guy! And every now and then, I actually catch him saying "mama". I like to pretend his really is saying my name. It melts my heart! He is a blessing to us, an answer to my prayers, and just a cute thing that I could gobble up. Really! His cheeks are so sweet and kissable, and he is a cuddle bug.

Here he is on his nine month birthday.


 

 This is his new little scrunchy face. He makes it all the time!

 

 Out to lunch with Daddy one day. This boy loves his Daddy to pieces. He is a daddy's boy for sure! He already knows they share some common ground.

 

 Playing drums with Daddy. He LOVED this and just kept giggling. It was too cute.

 Oh those cheeks!!

 His sisters love him dearly. As you can see in these pictures he is very intrigued by all that frill. We will try to keep him away from dressing up with his sisters stuff one day, Daddy, but no promises!

 He was SO intrigued by the tulle.

 

 Not the best picture of these two but they are always together. Avery loves to play by him, and gets really upset if she didn't get to give him a hug before he goes to sleep. I have a feeling one day these two are going to cause all sorts of trouble!

He is on the move! A whole new world for him, and lots of new stresses for me!

 This is while changing his diaper. He LOVES to play peek a boo when I'm changing him. He will put a burp cloth on his face and leave it there, he will be kicking and squealing in anticipation of moving it off of his face. Once I do he just giggles and giggles. Love him!

Finally a picture of his nursery. I guess its officially finished although I'm always thinking of new things I want to put up on his walls. But for now at least, this is it! A blue room in the house. We needed it!
 

 This picture hanging on his wall makes me sad. Look at how tiny he was just a few months ago! Sniff sniff...

My son... still fun to say that. He is precious and we all love him so!

Happy 4th!

We did have a happy 4th this year. Definitely a hot one, but fun all around. We started our morning with heading to the Kingwood parade. It's so fun and I really love what our little community does to celebrate on the 4th. Next year we will remember to sit on the opposite side of the street because it was blazingly hot at 10:00 in the morning. Poor Landon gets so hot and he does NOT like it at all. We didn't quite make it through the whole parade, but I know it's part of our season right now.

The afternoon we spent at home, letting the little ones nap before we headed out to townscenter for dinner, music and fireworks. Again, it was hot and super crowded, but fun overall!

So very hard getting good pictures of all four these days! Most of them look like this. Nobody even looking at the camera!

Alicia and Mike were able to come spend the day with us. It was so fun to get to see them. The girls love Alicia dearly and were so sad to see them leave, but had a blast playing with her all day!

Loving on my girlies!

Enjoying the fireworks show. Apparently they were a little loud.