Cooking with Abby

I've been doing a lot more cooking since we moved and I became a SAHM. It's been fun trying new recipes and seeing how much money I can try to save. I'm still new at it, but we can definitely tell a huge difference in the food bill by cooking rather than eating out or getting convenience foods. Abby has become a great little sous chef. She loves to "sit on counter, pwease!" and help add ingredients and mix things up.


She does a great job of spreading sauce on our homemade pizzas....



And when we made quesadillas, she did a great job of, uh, trimming the tortillas to size. Kidding - we didn't use this one. She just likes to eat "tiyos."



And yesterday we made cookies. I somehow managed to keep her fingers out of the bowl; she loves to eat whatever I'm making, at whatever stage she can get a hold of it. So I gave her the beater when we were done. (Yes, I know, it's got raw eggs in it.)



Love the smile of a happy kiddo! :) Makes a happy Mommy, too!

Feeding the ducks

Our apartment complex has a pond that is home to several ducks and geese. We've taken Abby down there several times to "feed bread to the gucks." She looooves to feed the ducks!




These ducks are insane - as soon as they see somebody walking toward the pond, they start swimming over. Abby thought it was awesome. After a few tries, we were able to get her to throw small pieces of bread instead of half a piece at a time! We even found a couple of ducks that could catch the bread mid-air! :)




A few nights later, we were making dinner and noticed some movement outside - our ducks found us! Abby started yelling, "I need bread for gucks!! I need bread for gucks!!" so we gave her some and she fed them over the railing. Now they come back a few times a week around dinner time - these same two ducks! They're getting brave and coming closer to the railing each time. Abby has so much fun with her new 'pets.' And since Zac and I have zero desire to have real pets, I'm glad she has this substitute! :)

Middle name...

Any suggestions for a middle name to go with Camille? We're thinking she'll be Camille Marie, our original option, but we're also open to other middle names. Any ideas?

ONE WEEK!!!!

Abby has gone an entire week in big girl panties with only ONE accident. WOOOOO HOOOO!!!!! I'm trying to take down one problem at a time. I'll give her a couple of more days to get this one down, then we'll tackle either bedtime or the pacifier....not sure which one to take on first.

More pregnant belly...

Monday afternoon I told Zac I needed him to take my picture and he jokingly told me I was being vain. I told him if I was, I would have fixed my hair and put on makeup first. Instead, you are getting me in all my crazy-haired, uneven skin-toned glory. WOOO HOOOO :)

I couldn't remember how I posed for my last belly post; I'll try to be a little more consistent. I'm 22 weeks today, so I guess this would be about 21.5 wks. Not too big yet, but I'm sure the best is yet to come. :) Anyway, here ya go....

Easter Sunday

If you read my Christmas decorating post, you know that I am a firm believer in Santa Claus co-existing with nativities at Christmas. (Obviously Jesus is more important - but that's another blog post) I feel the same way about the Easter bunny. He shouldn't be the main part, but he is a part of our Easter. Ok, I will now get off my soapbox and post pictures. :)

When Abby woke up, she came into the kitchen because I was already in there. She never fails to seek me out. And she found goodies from the "Easser bunny." The pink bag is from Mike the Bunny - our neighbor who is also our home teacher from church. Go Mike! The pre-packaged basket showed up after I sent Daddy the Bunny to grocery shop Saturday night while I moaned and groaned about my horrible backache. (I'm not a fan of pre-packaged baskets...but it worked. And he did get the extra few things I'd told him I wanted her to have. Good job, Daddy the Bunny.)

"CANNY!!!!"

Side note: When Zac got home from Wal-Mart Saturday night, he told me he saw at least ten people buying bikes. Bikes for Easter? Really?? No offense if the Easter Bunny brought bikes to your house - but it seems like a bit much to me....


After church, we drove up to the new Draper temple to take our family pictures. When you have such a beautiful building so close, I see no reason to pass it up! I suspected we would find other families up there taking pictures and we did. So we traded photography duties so we all got entire-family pictures. Yea!! :) Grams made my dress (my skirts are getting a bit tight) and sent us Abby's dress and shoes.

Our beautiful Draper Temple!!

"My new dress 'Rams got....for ME!!"

Draper's Easter Egg Hunt

I'd been keeping my fingers crossed that the rain in the forecast would hold off so that I could take Abby to hunt eggs - and it did! After the hunt, we went to eat breakfast at McDonald's and it started raining when we pulled up. Hooray for good timing! :)

Zac, of course, had to work. Gotta love Saturdays in the retail world! So we made sure to get a festive shot of Abby & Daddy before we left to "get EASSER EGGS" and to see the "EASSER BUNNY!"

The landscape for the 0-2 yr old hunt. Lots of eggs and lots of kiddos!

The firetruck blew its horn and the kids were off! Abby was soooo excited about getting the eggs and candy - it was so cute to watch!

After Abby had gotten several eggs from her little area (and the eggs went fast, let me tell you) she realized there was lots of loose candy to be picked up, too.

Showing off the loot!

It was amusing to me that so much time had gone into the preparations for this egg hunt. And it was over in less than 90 seconds! Abby had a blast and it made me feel a little bit better since she wasn't able to hunt eggs with her cousin. She saw the Easter bunny from about twenty yards away and freaked - she wasn't nearly as brave as she told everyone she was! :)

"Siwwy Abby...."

Me: "Are you going to play in your room?"

Abby: "No, I'm going to check my e-mail."


Oops. :) I guess homesick Mommy relies a little too much on her technology.

Ugh...

I had a fetal echocardiogram today. Good news = everything looked good. Bad news = I feel like somebody tried to drill a hole through my insides. Having somebody press all over your uterus when you're 21 wks pregnant is NOT something I recommend. Especially when it takes almost 2 hours to get all the pictures they need. Uuuugggghhhh.....

Abby & Mommy have craft night

A couple of days ago, I bought Abby a pair of safety scissors. She keeps wanting to use mine, so I let her pick out some of her own at Wal-Mart. She went for the purple ones and was so excited when I told her she could use them last night. And I, of course, had to take pictures - for blogging and scrapbooking, of course! :)

It was funny to watch her with the scissors. I handed them to her and she just sat there holding them. That's when I realized, "Duh! She doesn't know what to do!" So I showed her how to put her fingers in them and move up and down to cut. Here she is trying to figure out how to put her fingers in.

Our first try at cutting paper!

The fruits of Abby's labor. :)

She did a lot of upside down cutting like this. I figured this was a good shot to get Aunt Christine's professional evaluation. :)

Cutting a new piece of paper. I also let her use one of my glue sticks and gave her bits and pieces of stuff I was working on.

My friend's giveaway!

I have a more personal view on this giveaway - it's from my buddy Erin's site!! Erin does lots of fun, personalized party favors, potty charts, etc. And you can enter here to win one! Look around her blog at all the cool stuff she does!!

A Mom's Life....random thoughts from me...

Abby woke up at 4:00am today. And decided that she didn't want to go back to sleep. The minute she hits our bedroom, Zac is out and into her bed. He has to work, so he sleeps there and Abby comes in with me. (We've gotta stop this habit - we're just both kinda lazy at that time of the morning.) For two hours, I got punched, kicked, smacked and talked to. Around 6:00, I gave up and we came into the living room - Abby on the little couch and me, attempting to sleep on the big one. I turned on Sesame Street, thinking she would be totally enthralled with the TV like she usually is in the mornings. But not today! She decided to pet me, tell me she was, "Going to school to play with kids!" and tell me ALL about the Sesame Street episode she was watching. When I started getting angry with her, she came over and patted my arm, told me, "It's ok Mommy, I wuv you too," and kissed me. How could I stay mad at that??

Earlier this week, a lady from church posted this status on her Facebook: "You know you are a mom when your toddler hands you a booger and you take it from him!!! Yuck!" It's so true. When I talked to my friend Sarah about this, we also discussed when kids don't like something they're eating and spit it out in your hand. Or when they start to throw up and you try to catch it....Sorry if I grossed any of you out. But I know that most of my readers are mothers, too - so you understand. :)

Abby's gotten taller and it's time to raise the shoulder straps on her carseat. I just took the cover off her carseat so I can clean the whole thing and I'm amazed at what I found in all the nooks and crannies....some leaves, a green Lego (we don't even own any Legos - hmmm), M&Ms, Smarties, half a chicken nugget, a couple of french fries, a few fruit snacks and some USG - Unidentified Sticky Gunk.

And for some reason, most of choose to do the motherhood thing more than once. One of those times that the pros definitely outweigh the cons. :)

PS - All of you loyal readers of mine...leave me some comments. I need to feel the love. :)

Cute girly giveaway!

If you have a little girl, check out this giveaway at My Posh Baby Designs....they're giving away some cute hairclips! (And if you don't have a little girl - I'll soon have plenty, so I'll be more than happy to accept your winnings! LOL)

Abby's first haircut!!

I've been considering trimming Abby's hair for awhile now. It gets so tangled and trying to comb out the snarls is a daily battle with her. I, of course, was not going to cut it. Cutting hair is not something I do well and I certainly wasn't going to attempt it for her very first haircut. I didn't want anything 'big' - no bangs, no layers, just a trim. I found the Cookie Cutters Kids Salon online (and also after the recommendation of my friend, Sarah White) and decided to give it a shot. After joining their e-mail list, I got a coupon and we were good to go!

This place is AWESOME for kids. The $10 we spent seemed a little bit much for what little haircutting actually went on in Abby's case. But it was well worth it for the distractions and the overall ease of the experience. They have a little playground for the waiting kids. While getting their hair cut, the kids sit in little cars and can eat suckers and watch a movie. How cool is that?


The before shot - my baby's hair has NEVER been cut. Not even when she was a baby and had those random little 5-6 hairs that were about an inch longer than all the rest. Certain people threatened to cut it - luckily for them, other people talked them out of it. :)



Spraying her down with water. She wasn't fond of this at first, but the Dora movie and the sucker provided good distractions.



Not sure if it's a good idea to drive while getting your hair cut. :) I held back the tears, but it was very sad to see those baby hairs getting cut. :(



All straight across the bottom. Looking like a big girl!



I need to learn how to braid as fast as Melanie. Then Abby could have cute pigtails all the time.

And so we survived the first haircut. It will be interesting to see how her hair changes as she gets older. Mine used to look a lot like hers. Now it's -- well, the way it is. :) So we'll see how my Abby Punkin -- and her upcoming little sisters -- does with her hair in the future.

Pink, pink and more PINK!!!!

Or RED! My in-laws bought us some baby stuff at Carter's yesterday and I was super excited to get some red and a really pretty bright teal color. I love the cute pastels, but I also like to put my babies in brighter colors.

Well, Baby A is a little girl. And we're preeeetttty sure (about 98%) that Baby B is also a little girl. I have another ultrasound in a month and I'll get the tech to try and check again, just to be sure. Since my nephew, Garrett, was supposed to be a girl, I'd rather know for sure. :)

We were a little bummed at first. Like most guys, Zac wants someone to 'carry on the family name' and I want a little football player. So now my girls will just have to play sports. :) But, everything looks good health-wise and that's REALLY all that matters to us. Besides, this way we don't have to buy quite as much stuff. Although right now I am kinda regretting selling so much stuff in consignment sales. :/

So we are open to girl names. We have one picked out - Camille/Camilla, and she'll go by Cami. So we need something that goes with Abby and Cami. Nothing weird, please. :)

Giveaways

Mormon Mommy Blogs is sponsoring some awesome March Madness giveaways! Some are Utah based, some are good for anybody - but check it out and enter!

I'm an aunt!

Ha...yeah, my heart stopped for a second when I heard, too. But my new little niece is a bit furrier than most! Christine and Mitch got this cute little golden retriever - isn't she precious??? Her name is Bailey!

Take a guess!

Just for fun, I thought I'd put up a poll! Let us know what YOU think our babies' genders will be. Poll closes next Friday, March 27 at 9:30 am - when I'll be in getting my ultrasound!!

A couple of pics...

Thought I'd post a couple of pictures for everybody. Abby was hollering for her paci this morning (they need to permanently disappear - I just have to make them do it) and I told her she'd have to find it if she wanted it. This is what she came back to show me....

Tuesday I decided to get a haircut. I was in dire need of one and planned to cut a few inches off. The lady did a really good job shaping it, but it is a tad shorter than I'd wanted. But I really like it, especially with summer coming. It's sooooo easy to deal with now, it hardly tangles at all!

Another giveaway...

Ok, so I get bonus entries if I blog about certain giveaways, that's mainly why I do. But this one sounds yummy to me because I've been wanting to try this cereal. Stephanie at The Coupon Game is giving away three Honey Kix gift packages. I LOVE regular Kix and have been wanting to try this version. Check out her blog for giveaway details!

This is the question...

How do you fit four people onto one playground swing??

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Boy(s) or Girl(s)???

Well, we didn't find out this week....but we have an ultrasound date! Friday, March 27 we will (hopefully!) find out the genders of the babies. (Kendyl's birthday and the Elliotts will be here visiting!) I'm already pretty much no caffeine and much lower sugar. So that week I'm going to cut back more on the sugar and then drink a big Coke slurpee on the way to the appt. Get those babies moving! :)

Fingers crossed for at least one boy!!!! Of course, we'll be grateful and happy for what the Lord sends us...main thing is that theyr'e healthy. But I still want at least one boy....!! ;)

Elliott family recipes

Ok, so I guess Zac is feeling a little homesick, because he requested some of "Meemaw's food." This translates into roast beef, homemade mashed potatoes and beef gravy. So I e-mailed Meemaw for instruction. I added the cake with Granny Odle's icing because I wanted it. :)

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Here's the cake. Yellow cake, nothing special...yet!

Here is Granny Odle's icing in the works. I got the recipe from my mother-in-law last night. Thanks, Sheila!



The beef sirloin roast. Awaiting its oven time...



One step closer to the oven...



I peeled way more potatoes than I ever want to peel again!

Abby woke up just in time to help me make rolls. She LOVES to cook with me. Another post about that coming soon.

Don't get me started on how hard I worked on the corn and green beans. HA!

The yummy yeast rolls that Abby helped me make!

Finished product: Mashed potatoes and gravy!

This icing rocks. So good.

I didn't get a picture of the (YUMMY) finished roast. Zac and Chris (the warehouse guy at the store) were waiting for dinner, so I didn't get a chance to snap one. But there is some left so maybe I can get one tomorrow. If I remember....

But dinner went well. Zac said it made him feel at home and that my roast was "as good as Meemaw's." WOOOO HOOOOO!!!!! Thanks for the great instruction! :) The potatoes weren't as creamy as I wanted, but they were good. And we all got great sugar highs from the cake. :)

Let's go fly a kite...

Awhile back, we bought Abby a $1 Barbie kite at Wal-Mart. And put it in her closet....last week, we finally decided to do something with it. The tree-less Utah landscape comes in handy for kite flying. Arkansas doesn't have much open space for kite; but the park where we go here has a huge field that is awesome for kites.

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Some assembly required. :)

"Wet's go Daddy!! I wanna fwhy my kite!"



Trying to get the kite in the air...



Letting Abby try it on her own
Do you see how long her hair is? Oh geez...




It's trying to fly!!

YEA! We finally got it all straightened out and flying high!