Family Pics!!

I know, I am so behind here, but we had some family pictures taken earlier this fall. Holly Austin took these for us in Oklahoma City, and I am so happy with the outcome! It is definitely NOT easy to get both of our kids to look at the camera at the same time, much less actually smiling, but she managed to do it. I'm telling you, she's good! Check her out of facebook at Portraits by Holly Austin if you are in the OKC area!













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Christmas lights on the Square!

Tonight we went to the Square in Fayetteville, to check out the lights! It was so cold, but so fun!! Here are a few pics.

Entryway Revamp!

We have only lived in our house for a matter of weeks, but I am already busting out the paint brushes and making changes. My poor husband gets teased all the time because his friends think that I have him doing projects all the time, but I must say I did this one all by myself....well, most of it anyway :)

There was only one small, well actually HUGE, crisis along the way. I was very frustrated when I got home from the paint store and realized that all of our painting supplies had somehow vanished in our recent move. Aaron was gone to help a friend move, so I decided that even though it was almost 8:00 at night, I would pack the kids in the car and go to Lowe's to get all the supplies I needed, because by-golly I was getting this entryway painted TONIGHT!!!

Well, in my haste, I kind of forgot about the water faucet I left running in the laundry room, and when we got home from Lowe's the ENTIRE back half of our house was flooded with water!! I knew it was bad, when I pulled in the driveway and saw a river of water running to the street. I would have taken pictures to post on my blog for all the world to see, but as you can imagine, I was in panic mode, and pulling out the camera was the last thing on my mind:)

Fortunately, we got all the water cleaned up. Our sweet neighbors/friends were there on the double with the wet vac and lots of moral support and luckily there was really no damage at all.

After all of that drama, you may think I gave up on my mission to get my project done that night, but oh no! I decided to press on and get the job done! Here are some before and after pics.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

I wanted to share a delicious cookie recipe with you guys. It is perfect for the holiday season. I must give credit where credit is due, I have 2 friends, Mindy and Lee, that made these cookies and shared the recipe with me. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup pumpkin
1 egg beaten
1 tsp. Vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp pumpkin spice or allspice
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup choc. chips

Preheat oven to 375.
Cream together butter and sugar. Then add pumpkin, vanilla, and egg. Mix.
Sift flour, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, pumpkin spice and salt.
Add to mixture and stir well to form batter.
Add choc. chips.
Drop onto un-greased cookie sheet.
Bake 10-15 min.

Potty Training Update

It has been almost 2 weeks since we began potty training Blake, and I am glad to report that things are going wonderfully! He finally got over his "poop-a-phobia" and was able to open all of his surprises. We are definitely not without accidents, but I couldn't be prouder of our little guy. Here are some pics of him opening one of his presents.

Potty Training Diaries

The day I have dreaded for 2 and a half years has finally come. Potty training day!! After years of hearing horror stories from friends/relatives about the trials and tribulations associated with this dreaded, but necessary milestone, I was ready to put this off as long as possible. But, somehow or another I seemed to have mustered up the courage to give it a go. To be honest, I don't know much about potty training. I did read a book about potty training awhile back, so that is where I picked up some of the "fundamentals" if you will. Which leads me to ....
:EXHIBIT A"-The stash of M&Ms

I have been giving 2 M&Ms each time Blake pees in the potty.

"EXHIBIT B"-The stash of "surprises" for the first couple of poops in the potty. As you can see, we have resorted to 100% bribery.

Unfortunately, we have not been able to give Blake any of his surprises, because we have had zero success in the poop department :(
Overall, day one was pretty crazy. He went through 7 pairs of underwear and I felt like I spent most of my day cleaning puddles up off of the floor. The day wasn't all bad though, it was brightened by these two little quotes of the day, "Mommy, no pee is coming out of that thing," and "The pee is sleeping." I was cracking up. The mind of a two year old is just hilarious sometimes!

Day two was definitely better. Aside from a poop accident, there were hardly any pee accidents. Berkley even got in on the action. Everytime Blake would yell, "Come on! Come on!" We would all three run to the bathroom and cheer for Blake! Berkley was especially excited because she figured out that she would get an M&M too if Blake peed in the potty!




Day 3 has been great so far, with the exception of one poop-in-the-pants :) (It's funny how the poop always seems to "wake up" when we are nowhere near the potty.) Blake has had no pee accidents and we even ventured out of the house today for some fresh air. We made a quick trip to the playground so the kiddos could burn some energy. Later, Blake did inform me that he could not use any toilet in the house other than the one with his football seat because those toilets weren't "potty trained". Haha! But I must say, I think the highlight of Blake's day was figuring out that his new big boy underwear have a special "pocket" that is perfect for storing his tape measure.....Lovely.

Scared ShrekLESS!!

We, or I guess I should say "I", had quite a scare on Halloween night. I was literally scared Shrek-LESS. Our friends across the street had everyone over for dinner and trick or treating. When it began to get dark, all of the parents and kids were ready to start trick or treating. Our friends had a great idea to use a 4 wheeler and a trailer filled with hay to drive all the kids around the neighborhood to trick or treat. I thought this was a pretty original idea until we started making our way through the neighborhood. I quickly realized our idea wasn't as original as I had thought. We counted at least 3 other trailers filled with kids driving through the neighborhood!

Between the trailers filled with kids, and the trick or treaters on foot, our neighborhood seemed to be complete mayhem! There were kids darting across the street everywhere! I have to say, I've never seen anything quite like it! Well, after about an hour of trick or treating, our little strawberry and Shrek were done. They had had enough. So we decided to take them back to our friends house and let them just relax and play.

The last thing I remember Aaron saying to me was, "Katey, I am leaving the camera and Blake here with you. I am going to go back out with the big kids on the trailer." I said, "OK" and went about my business. Well, a few minutes later, one of the girls that was with us came in and said that her little girl (who is also 2 years old like Blake) had gone missing, and when they found her she had climbed up on a trailer with another group of people! About that time, I looked around and realized that Blake was nowhere to be found. I didn't panic at first, I just assumed he was in the backyard playing or something, but as we started searching the house with no success, I started to freak!

I ran outside to see if I could see my little Shrek anywhere, but it was dark and there were SO many kids everywhere, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack! I ran down our street, and our friend Jeff ran down the next street looking, but neither one of us found him. That is about the time I really began to panic. All I could think was that he had crawled on someone else's trailer and was driving around the neighborhood with complete strangers. I think only about 5 minutes had passed, but it felt like 5 hours!! About that time, my friend Jamie,said, "Call Aaron and see if Blake is on the trailer with him." Long story short, we finally got through to someone riding on our trailer and they said Blake had gotten on with Aaron at the last minute before the trailer pulled out from the house."

Talk about a scare!!! I have never "lost" one of my kids until last night, and let me tell you, it is the SCARIEST feeling in the world. I was so relieved to find out he was OK. In the end, Aaron said that he thought I saw Blake get on the trailer with him, so that is why he didn't think to come tell me that he was taking Blake with him after all. Um, NO!! I didn't see that and they just about gave me a heart attack!!

Thankfully, after we found Blake, I was able to pull myself together and enjoy the rest of my night, but seriously, that was by far the scariest thing ever!

De-Lish Vanilla Muffins

Since Berkley has pretty much abandoned baby food at this point, I have been on the lookout for yummy, soft foods that she might enjoy. I found this recipe for vanilla muffins online and I had to share. They are so good, I make them all the time for Berkley....ok, so I make them for myself, and maybe share a couple with the kids :)

Vanilla Muffins:
2 cups flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/3 cup melted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup milk
1 Tbs. vanilla

Mix dry ingredients. Blend egg, milk, butter, and vanilla. Stir together. Pour into muffin pan and bake 18-20 min @ 400 degrees

Enjoy!!

Summer Randoms

Here are a bunch of random pics from the summer so far. Once I get these posted I will be officially "caught up"!



This one just cracks me up!







I love how Blake has his arm around Sissy in this picture. So Sweet!

No more Pacis

I knew this day would come, and it is here. Time for Blake to retire the pacifier. I knew this was going to be hard because he loves his paci, and let me tell you, it has been every bit as hard as I imagined it would be. Blake has always been a great sleeper. He slept through the night at 9 weeks old, he has never fought naptime/ bedtime. Heck, he even ASKS to go to bed sometimes! What kid does that??? We moved him into his "big boy bed" with no trouble at all. THEN, we took away the paci.

My friend gave me the idea of cutting off the tops of the paci's instead of just not giving it to him at bedtime anymore. It definitely took the fun out of sucking on it, because he immediately said, "Mommy, paci broken." The first night he cried for and hour and a half before falling asleep. The next day at nap time, Aaron put him down at 12:30 and he didn't fall asleep till 2:00. The second night he cried again for an hour or so. And now, to top it all off, he has started getting out of his bed and coming out of his room at bedtime. We are sticking to our guns and NOT giving in, but it is so hard! Going through this makes me want to stop giving Berkley a paci now!! I don't want to go through this again!!! I know it will get better, it is just a matter of when. I'll keep you posted with our progress.