Family Time

My sister and her family were in town this past weekend. Saturday night we went over to Gabby & Paw's house for pizza & fun. In the picture above Emma was being so bossy and making everybody sit on the "magic red carpet"... nobody objected since she is so cute :)

After teaching Emma & Eli some dance moves (roger rabbit, grocery cart, robot, etc.) they all piled on top of Gabby (below) and watched an old movie. It was nice hanging out with everybody and we had a lot of fun!

Saturday morning

Adam is so sweet.

He wakes up early with the kids on Saturday mornings and lets me sleep in.

He is an amazing Daddy.

This is what I woke up to on Saturday morning.

Look at those adorable faces... I am so blessed and lucky to call them my family.

Little Gym

Eli started his Beasts class at The Little Gym this past Friday.

He was in a grumpy mood in the beginning, but seemed to cheer up towards the middle of his class. I think he will enjoy it... he loved running everywhere and having Daddy chase him!

We let Emma join us, but kept explaining that this was Eli's class (her dance class at The Little Gym is Thursdays). She did a good job letting all the smaller kids go in front of her.

We are proud of you Eli!

Maury Randall Shipper

I spent Friday afternoon in Florence. My best friend, Leigh Anne, lives in Savannah and was in town visiting her brother who just welcomed a new baby boy- Maury Randall!

Having two of my own I tried to make my visit as helpful as possible. I made them a couple of meals to keep in their freezer that they could have after the family left town and a couple more goodies for baby Maury. CAUTION: The pictures below are adorable and the side effects of viewing them include baby fever!

I am also proud to say that I made the red & grey blanket that he is cuddled up in below in the pictures. He is so precious.

When I got home I got tackled at the front door by my own munchkins!

Very Thankful for my babies!

Emma Lingo

On our way home from picking the kids up from Mother's Morning Out this afternoon I was asking Emma questions...
(ME) Em, what did you do today at school?
(EM) I played with bay dolls a lot... their names are, Sunshine, Lylie, Sulie, & Klytie. I saw my friend Faith. I read books, colored, and sing songs.
(ME) Wow. It sounds like you had a great day. What was your favorite part of school today?
(EM) When I ate lunch.


(EM)Today was a rainy day so tomorrow is going to be a sunny day so I can catch butterflies outside.
(ME) Really... are you going to catch butterflies at home or at school?
(EM) At home and you and Eli can help me!


She makes me laugh EVERY day! I love you Emma Marie!

Eli's first dentist visit

Very curious. Very cautious.

After watching sissy, he really could have cared less about anybody looking at his teeth.... until he saw that sissy got an awesome toy afterwards!

If you know my little boy, you know he really doesn't like a whole lot of people- especially if you are a new person. So this is the only way the tech could get close to him...

He is playing a game on our iPhone!

She counted his teeth and checked for cavities- no cavities!

Both kids got good reports from the dentist!

Emma's 2nd dentist visit

Yesterday we took the kids to the dentist.

Thank goodness Adam was off or MLK! I could use the extra pair of hands!

Emma did awesome, just like last time.

We have been reading about the dentist before be and talking about it. It was no big deal to her, she jumped up in the chair like a pro :)

New Foods

I am still cooking my way through the Deceptively Delicious Cookbook! We tried a lot of good stuff this week!

Rice Balls

You will need: 1 cup cooked brown rice, Nonstick cooking spray, Olive oil, 1/4 pound cooked chicken (I used the "Smart Chicken" that is not really chicken, it is soy and vegetable protein that looks like chicken), 1/2 cup sweet potato puree, 1/4 cup shredded cheese, 1/4 cup buttermilk, 1 large egg lightly beaten (I used egg beaters), 1/2 cup spinach puree, whole wheat cracker crumbs (I took whole wheat crackers and beat them to death until they were crumbs)

Put the chicken, cheese, sweet potato puree, & buttermilk into a blender and blend til smooth. Mix the blended mixture with the cooked rice

Beat the spinach puree with the egg and place in a bowl.

Put the cracker crumbs in a bowl next to the egg mixture.

With your hands take a little bit of te rice mixture and shape a "ball". Place the ball in the egg mixture, cover it with cracker crumbs, then set aside on a cookie sheet. Repeat until rice mixture is all gone.

In a heated skillet with olive oil add the rice balls and cook for 5-7 minutes, turning occasionally until browned and crisp all over.

Final report: Eli LOVED them, he ate 4. Emma liked them, she ate 2.

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BUTTERFLY Pasta

My little girl calls bow tie pasta "butterfly pasta"
Whatever makes eating it more fun works for me!
I took that pasta and a can of Ragu Cheesy Alfredo sauce and added 1 cup of cauliflower puree to it and they both ate it up!!! Loved it and it was so easy!
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For dessert that night I made a batch of oatmeal cookies from a box and added carrot puree to the batter. They loved those too!
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We made Penne pasta and used a can of the traditional Prego sauce and I added 1 cup of bell pepper puree to the sauce and it was pretty good.
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Every meal I have started laying out on the table raw veggies (bell peppers, carrots, cucumbers, celery, broccoli, grape tomatoes) with Ranch dip and they have been eating them up like crazy! Some nights that is all Emma wants to eat. But can I really be too upset about her eating vegetables instead of pasta? No.
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CHICKEN CASSEROLE
(what we are eating tonight for dinner)
1 deboned Rotisserie chicken
16 oz. Light sour cream
2 cans cream of chicken
1/2 cup carrot puree
1 cup squash puree
1 cup cauliflower puree
1 sleeve Ritz crackers
1 stick butter

Mix the first 6 ingredients together and put in a 13X9 casserole dish
crush the Ritz up into crumbs, sprinkle on top
Melt butter, pour on top
Bake at 350 degrees 35-45 minutes

I am serving this with Edamame, raw veggies, & dip
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I hope these posts are inspiring and helping others!
I know since I have started doing this that meal time at our house is not stressful anymore and that is my ultimate goal!
Happy Cooking!

So Sweet.

I asked the kids if they would sit next to each other so that I could take a picture of them with their matching shirts and this is what they did... Stinkers :)

That is more like it ;)

Allergy Testing

Today was a hard day for our little guy. He had to get allergy tested.

Since August he has been on 7-8 rounds of antibiotics and just can't stay well.

We had his blood drawn the week before Christmas and it came back normal, thank goodness.

We found out today that Eli is highly allergic to dust. When you hear that you might blow it off and say everyone is highly allergic to dust. The doctor thinks Eli's allergy is very severe. He may be showing signs of asthma associated to the dust allergy. There are a few things on our to do list before our next allergist appointment in March: buy a air purifier for Eli's room and maybe the living room, start using Nasonex, vaccum A LOT, dust A LOT with a damp cloth so that the dust does not fly around, and use a lot of saline in his nose (use it everytime we change his diaper). We will go back in March and see how our changes have helped. I will also be journaling and monitoring his coughing spells that he has since the doctor says that the coughing can be a big sign of asthma. Any parent hates to see their children suffer so I hope these tips help him nd he starts feeling better soon!

Snow Days

Sunday night it snowed & snowed & snowed & snowed... 6-8inches!

We live in Alabama. It is unheard of.

We have been "snowed in" now for 3, going on 4, days. Cabin fever does not even begin to describe our anxiety to get out of our house!

This is the fun stuff when you have kids. Watching them react to waking up to snow outside and how excited they get! But I have to be honest... the best part has been watching Hopper, our dog. He is so small and when he walks in the snow you can only see his head. You can throw a snowball and say "Go get it!" and he will start hopping through the snow as fast as he can and then when he gets where the snowball fell, he eats the snow! We had so much fun playing with the dog in the snow! When he had to go to the bathroom he would walk side to side over and over until he found the grass. He was so much fun to watch!

The kids are a lot of work to take out to play in the snow... this is Emma's 1st layer.
TADA! Ready to play in the snow!

6-8 inches: Look at that snow!

Snow angel!

We experienced a White Christmas a few weeks ago and when we took Eli out to play in it he liked it for maybe 2.5 seconds and then he whined the whole time. So we decided to wait to go outside until Eli went down for his nap. It was fun having some special time with just Emma.

This is our house "snowed in"

Notice there are 2 cars in the driveway! After being a one car family since Adam's bad wreck in September we finally got a second car this past Thursday to get Adam to and from work.

Mommy & Emma

She made a snowman with her Daddy and she was very proud!

Happy Snow Days!

Emma's 1st Dance class

My little girl had her first dance class experience last Thursday and she was awesome!

She was so excited and eager to learn. The teacher came up to me afterwards and told me she was very impressed at how well Emma did and told me that I might want to move her to the 4s class since the other little girls in the 3s class were not as interested and very distracting. My sweet pea got upset at the other girls that were distracting her from learning.

They start out in their tap shoes....

Then on to ballet... I think she loves ballet!

I am so proud of Emma and I think we have a future in dance!

By the end of the class she will learn 2 dances to show off!

We are so excited for her!