Big Bows For Baby Maddie

One of the blogs I follow is Another Day Stronger. Kellie and James lost their princess Maddie in February at only 4 months to SIDS. Her blog is very hard for me to read sometimes especially since my princess is almost 4 months. We've had a very long road with Annaleigh and I can't imagine losing her now. Today is Spring for SIDS, and Kellie has asked everyone to wear pink and bows in memory of her princess. I had the cutest new fabric so I made Annaleigh a HUGE bow. Matt thinks it is too big. I think it's just right. So here is Annaleigh in her pink (and yellow) and her big new flower. (It's the biggest one she has!)

You can't help smiling, can you?

I just love those pretty eyes!

Enough with the pictures mom!

Wait, what happened to SPRING break!?!

Matt had this week off work for Spring Break. I assume since this is Wyoming it is seriously covered in snow over half the year (You probably think I'm exaggerating. Trust me I'm NOT!) they push spring break back an entire MONTH from everyone else in the country. This week off also coincided with Matt's last week of school. With the exception of a math final he took today, he had everything else turned in on Monday. I thought we were going to have so much fun. Mid-April, no work and no school. We are going to get out. Phillip is going to be able to play outside and get out some of this excess energy. SO wrong! Friday Phillip woke up with a runny nose. It progressively got worse over the weekend. Having a sick baby is the worst, but if they are going to be sick why can't they just be cuddly and sleepy? Phillip has only been that way a couple of times he's sick. His normal sick is full of crankiness, sleep fighting and he still has to be constantly busy. It's the worst! I was still determined we could have a decent spring break. Kids can still play while they are sick. We would of course avoid other kids, but that shouldn't be hard.

Tuesday morning I get up to this....

It actually melted fairly quickly later that day. It wasn't a huge deal. Today Matt was leaving to take his test. I told him the weather was looking nasty and to be careful. He said it was probably just going to rain. It didn't seem cold enough to snow. About  2:30, I look out the window and see this....

Totally snowing! This is where I start laughing like the people in psychiatric hospitals in movies. AHHHHHH! It's days or weeks like this that make me miserable living in this place. I know I should just be happy with wherever I am in my life. I should be grateful I'm here with my little family. There is just only so much snow a Texan can take. My son needs to get out and play so he can stop driving me insane. I need some warmth and sun! Spring break in Wyoming SUCKS!!

Positively Splendid: Epic Letterpress Giveaway!!

Positively Splendid: Epic Letterpress Giveaway!! I am loving this Letterpress. If you haven't checked out Positively Splendid's blog you should....NOW! She has such great ideas. I absolutely love her kid's room. Check it out here: http://www.positivelysplendid.com/2011/03/make-your-own-custom-bedding-part-1.html

Dessert Dilemna and Moral Decisions

My wonderful husband having enormous faith in my ability to create desserts volunteered me to make dessert for his mom's birthday celebration. He said "it's kind of your thing." "It" meaning dessert. Anyway, so I've been looking around to come up with some new ideas. Nothing spoke to me. So this morning at 9:45 I frantically called my mom for some fresh ideas. She was no help, but her friend at work had one that sounded promising. Banana Split Pie! Only not really made as a traditional pie since the original pie recipe needs to be doubled for the masses. Now I have a grocery list for the store, but my kids aren't ready. I quickly get the kiddos ready and head off for the store. I knew I would have to make it quick since Annaleigh would need to eat within the hour. Apparently, I didn't shop fast enough! As I'm grabbing the last thin on my list she starts her Pterodactyl scream she's so famous for. So I race to the front of the store and find the shortest line possible. I check out and quickly head out to the car. I'm too short to see over the car seat if it's sitting in the front of the cart so today I got one of the "fun kids" carts let Phillip sit in the big kid part and put her in the big part of the cart with the groceries in the front. I put a few things in the back around Annaleigh's car seat. As I got her out of the cart to put her into the van I noticed I had missed a bag of powdered sugar in my frenzy to check out. Drats! I already had Phillip in his car seat. Annaleigh was screaming her head off. Really?! I must admit it ran through my head to just get in the car and go home. It's not like this Wal-Mart doesn't rip me off every time I walk through the door. Every single thing is way overpriced. Who would know anyway? I couldn't do it. So I put the rest of the groceries into the van, pulled Phillip back out of his car seat and headed back into the store carrying Annaleigh in her car seat, Phillip and the darn bag of powdered sugar. I head to the closest line, which seemed promising. The only guy in line was almost finished checking out. Did I mention the guy was a little old guy? A sweet, but oh so terribly slow little old guy. He took forever getting his cash out. By this time Phillip has realized the bag of powdered sugar I am holding has cookies on it so he's screaming "cookie, cookie." You try explaining to a 20 mth old that a package with a picture of a cookie does not, in fact, contain cookies. Not so easy. Anyway the nice cashier who realizes how I'm struggling holding a toddler screaming for cookies and a baby crying gives the man his change and promptly rings up my lone bag of powdered sugar. Oh if only life could be rushed so! Little, sweet old man is still putting his money away standing in front of the card swipey machine! Oh good gravy! What a Wal-Mart trip! On a happy note, Annaleigh fell asleep as I was paying AND stayed asleep until I had a bottle ready for her! What luck! So I went home and made my dessert (stopping to feed Annaleigh when she was ready) and had it in the refrigerator to chill all before 1. Yeah, I know, I have no idea where my day went. The dessert looked way cute and everyone seemed to enjoy it so I guess it was all worth it!

What A Day!

What a GREAT day, that is! The past few days have been rather trying. We are breaking Phillip of his very much love bink. We've known we needed to do this for a while, but have come up with excuse after excuse. The most prominent excuse that he only has it when he sleeps. Lately he's been waking up a lot at night because he loses the bink and can't go back to sleep without it. So, we decided it was time. The firt night was a little rough so we cut the tip off a bink and let him have that. Nap the next day went fairly well, and every night since has been wonderful. He plays around, jumps, and maybe cries for a minute thens he's fast asleep. The even better part is that he's stopped waking up in the middle of the night. Nap time has been a TOTALLY different story. He's screams and cries the entire time he's in bed. I go in to comfort him, but nothing helps. Because of this he didn't nap Tuesday or Wednesday! A stay at home mom's worst nightmare! On top of this, I'm fairly certain Annaleigh has been going through a growth spurt. She's been extra cranky and waking at night to eat. Yes, this is unusual for my 3 mth old! She usually eats between 7 & 9 then doesn't wake to eat again until 4 or 5. I have a special talent for getting my babies to sleep through the night! So, for the past 2 days I have been dealing with 2 very cranky kids while extremely exhausted.

Today was a much better day! Today I took both kids to the grocery store by myself. By 10:30 I had a cake baked from scratch (icing included)! I loaded the kids into the car again and took the cake to Matt's work. (I didn't get any cake, so sad!) I straightened up the house. I use the term "straightened" instead of
"cleaned" because, honestly, who would I be kidding. My house is rarely clean and anyone who has 2 kids under 2 and a husband knows exactly what I mean! My wonderful sister-in-law came over to visit. We were troughly entertained by Phillip. He LOVES to show off all his new tricks. Like his Blue's Clues "think, think, think,".....

The best part of today? Phillip actually nappeed! Yay! Today there were minimal breakdowns and fits. And there was a ton of this...

Aren't they just adorable? How lucky am I that I get to spend my days with these little people. See that rattle in Annaleigh's hands. You can't tell in this picture, but she was totally holding that rattle AND putting it in her mouth!

A Baseball Game Changed My Life Forever!

 Some days I look at my little family and am just in awe of the path my life has taken; how far Matt and I have come in the 3 short years since the day we vowed to spend our forever together. As weird as I know this sounds it all started at an Astros game!

A few weeks before this fateful game my friends began telling me they had this guy I "HAD to meet." They had met him and become friends with him while he was serving a mission for our Church in their area and he was coming back down to start school. I have to be honest I was NOT thrilled. At the time I was content being single and just focusing on myself, and well, I can't say I'm a fan of being set up with anyone. SO, I wasn't really looking forward to meeting this mystery guy and was probably dreading it to be honest.

I can't say it was necessarily love at first sight. Like I said, I wasn't looking for a relationship and I'm not a big believer of the whole "love at first sight" theory. Actually as the game began we were sitting on opposite ends of the row from one another. He looked rather bored sitting down there. When I mentioned this to our friend he switchd places with him. We talked a little. I am not so great horrible at small talk. I have the hardest time finding something to talk about and mentally shot down all ideas that come to mind because they just seem lame. Matt remembers much more about that night than I do. All I remember was him telling me he wanted to be a doctor. Why wouldn't I remember this little tidbit? Doesn't every girl dream of marrying a man how is insanely successful and can support a lavish lifestyle? LOL, I assure you I am seriously NOT that shallow. I am incredibly self driven and do find motivation incredibly attractive.

Anyway, so we did some things with friends a few more times. Neither of us thought the other was very interested. Like I said, I'm not big on small talk, and more times than I like to admit it comes across as dislike for the person I am speaking with. All of this aside one short month after that Astros game we were engaged and planning a wedding.

 And spending every possible moment together.

Three months later, on December 20, 2007, we were married.

Honestly, who could have resisted this?

Plus, it's so much fun to see people's reactions when Matt tells them I picked him up at an Astros game!

My World - Made By Hand: 400 Followers { YIPPEE } GIVEAWAY...

My World - Made By Hand: 400 Followers { YIPPEE } GIVEAWAY...: "WOWSAS! I can't believe it...400 followers in less than 4 months I feel SO special... Should we celebrate?Ya...I think so... Want..." If you haven't checked out her blog, you so should! She has some absolutely adorable ideas! I may make the lego cakes for Phillip's birthday. Ok, so he doesn't really play with legos quite yet, but they just scream "BOY" and can you imagine how super cheap cute it would be to decorate in lego theme!