Kaylee's airport

Kaylee's class has been studying building and transportation. I guess Kaylee has been to a few airports. She decided to build an airport and her teacher labeled what Kaylee told her everything is. I am glad that Kaylee has a teacher that lets her express her creative side.



Kaylee and her creation

Notice the Starbucks lid: Kaylee informed me that this where you go to get coffee. How sad is it that my child recognizes the Starbucks logo!

The red cup is the control tower.

I knew I had to take pictures because the creation won't last for long! Some of the pieces have already disappeared. Hmmm . . .

Ladies Retreat

My church ladies retreat was this weekend at Sky Ranch.  We stayed up way too late each night, but we had a blast.  I conquered a fear of heights and did the zip line this year.  We decided not to go to shopping this year, but to stay and do activities at the camp.  My group of gals did the zip lines and went on a cattle drive.  Stepping off the platform was extremely hard for me.  I was shaking and REALLY wanted to back out.  I was having a very hard time breathing and began to get light headed.  But, I decided it would be much harder to turn around than just continue, so I did it!  You will see the fear in my face!  

Yes, blogger is still giving me fits when I try to rotate pictures the right way.  So, once again, turn your head to the left as you view the non-rotated pics!  Once I get pics of the cattle drive, I will post those and share my thoughts from it!

The tower was really shaking, which made it even harder to stand up there in anticipation!

I am second from the left.  That is Rachel on the far left, then me, Laurie, and Shannon.

I'm in the far left in this pic right after we stepped off.

Yep, that is an embarrassing pic.  I feel like Gayle from the Oprah show where they did a similar thing.  Oprah loves to make fun of her for that.  

Here we are hanging and waiting for them to help us down.  I was still shaking.  I could barely walk afterwards because I was shaking so much!

It was a great trip of renewal.  I loved hanging with my girls and giggling until after 2:00 each morning.  What a wonderful way to spend a weekend!!  Love you girls!!

WARNING! Extreme Makeover: Kaylee Edition

So, when your 4 year-old daughter comes to you while you are busy taking down Christmas decorations and says, "Mommy, Daddy wants to know where the scissors are."  DO NOT trust her!  Come to your senses!  Know that Daddy knows where the scissors are.  DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT reply, "Tell him they are on the top shelf in the kitchen cabinet,"  and then go back to wrapping ornaments.  

Here is some of the damage.

Yep, that is a Target bag full of hair.  Good thing she has a lot of hair and it is curly.  They were able to fix it by only cutting off about 6 inches.  And the parts that were shorter really blended in the curly hair.

I will post pics of her new haircut soon.  I am having a hard time figuring out how to rotate the pics on blogger with my new camera.  I never had a problem with the old camera, but I can't seem to rotate anymore.  So, I will work on that and post more pics later.  

Christmas in Cali

My little man

The fam

Temper tantrum in response to, "K, it's time to go."

Nolan and Grandpa

Kaylee picking an avocado with Grandpa

My sweet boy

Isn't he precious?

"OH, Mom, I am so tired of pictures!"

Little elf

Christmas cuties

K and I have matching p.j.'s (Uncle B and aunt Kellie got K hers for Christmas and I went and bought the Mommy version!)

Checking out what Santa brought

K loves her Nikki American Girl doll!

More pics to come! You can tell I was having fun learning to use my new camera!

Merry Christmas and Monster Cookies

Merry Christmas to your family!!

Thursday night Nathan and I got to go to our faculty Christmas party. It was nice to have a babysitter and a night out.

Blogger really dislikes me right now. I have been trying for quite some time to rotate the above picture. It just doesn't want to rotate. Even though it is showing up on my photo software vertically. So, just turn your head to the left and pretend this photo is showing up in a vertical way!!



Kaylee and I baking some delicious Paula Deen Monster Christmas cookies!


Putting the Monster Cookies in the oven.


Cookies galore! The recipe says that it makes about 6 dozen, but they would have to be huge cookies to make that many. It made more like 10 dozen. We had cookies coming out of our ears, but they were really yummy!!

Paula Deen Monster Cookies

6 eggs
One 1 pound package light brown sugar (2 1/2 cups, packed)
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
One 24-ounce jar of creamy peanut butter
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
8 ounces of M&M's (we like the red and green Christmas ones for this time of year!)
8 ounces chocolate chips
4 teaspoons baking soda
9 cups quick-cooking oatmeal (not instant!)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a very large mixing bowl (I had to half the recipe and do it in two bowls!), combine the eggs and sugars. Mix well. Add the salt, vanilla, peanut butter, and butter. Mix well. Stir in the M&M's, chocolate chips, baking soda, and oatmeal.
3. Drop by tablespoonfuls, 2 inches apart, onto cookie sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Do not overbake. Let stand for about 3 minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool.

ENJOY!!

12 Christmas Things

Okay, I am finally getting around to doing this!

Stacey has tagged me for this fun idea wherein I have to share 12 random things about myself that are Christmas related. Here are the rules:

1. List 12 random things about yourself that have to do with Christmas
2. Please refer to it as a 'hoopla' and not the dreaded 'm'-word
3. You have to specifically tag people when you're done. None of this "if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged" stuff is allowed...then nobody ends up actually doing it. The number of people who you tag is really up to you -- but the more, the merrier to get this 'hoopla' circulating through the blogosphere.
4. Please try and do it as quickly as possible. The Christmas season will be over before we know it and I'd like to get as many people involved as possible.

12 Random Christmas Things About Jennifer:

1. I went through a phase in high school and college where I just despised Christmas. I was quite the Scrooge. The music and hustle and bustle just annoyed me. But, that's changed now!

2. I pretended to believe in S a lot longer than I really did. I knew the truth (because I was smart that way ;-) ), but I didn't want to disappoint my Mom. She lives for Christmas. Sorry, Mom!

3. I used to love to help my Grandma make Christmas cookies. They were always the same sugar cookies with icing and multi-colored balls on them. I try to keep up the tradition whenever I can.

4. Stockings are my favorite part of Christmas! We always had the best stockings!

5. I would spend a lot more money on people for Christmas if I could. I love to buy gifts for people. I would probably spend the most on Mom. I always find lots of things she would like, so I really have to limit myself with her gifts.

6. I loved leaving cookies out for Santa and wearing Christmas pajamas. We have lots of pics with my brother and I in front of the tree in cute pjs.

7. I used to love to look at Christmas lights. Every year we would get bundled up and drive around town looking at lights. I think my Mom loved it and my Dad just drove. I am sure he would have much rather been at home!

8. I think my favorite gift was when I was 15 and I got contacts for Christmas. I was excited because I knew I was about to get my license and I did not want to wear glasses to drive. My mom took a piece of posterboard and drew a face on it. Then she took two clear bowls and glued them over the eyeballs. It was so funny!

9. We alternate every Christmas between my family and Nathan's. We already did Christmas with my family last weekend. I got some great gifts last weekend. New digital camera, Seiko clock that plays music every hour (Christmas music during season!), Electric pressure-cooker, stockpot (from B and Kellie), money . . .


10. I will really miss my Mom's Christmas dinner this year. I am so glad I got to have her dressing at Thanksgiving. And I got to share some Borden's eggnog out of a can with Dad this weekend (it's the only good eggnog!)

11. Nathan's family has done a Turducken for Christmas dinner the last few years. Hmmm . . . that's a whole different story!

12. Nathan's grandpa owned a Christmas tree farm that Nathan worked at for years, so he has a love/hate relationship with real trees. He is really sad we don't have a real tree, but he sometimes cringes when he sees them because he remembers all of the hardwork!

I tag Mom, Laura, Kellie, and Mandy!

Christmas Card pics

Just in case anybody missed Mom's blog. Here is one of the pics we used on our Christmas card. Mom took pics for us over the Thanksgiving holidays. She did a great job!! Thanks, Mom!!

What we've been up to . . .

Here are some things that have been going on in our life!


Nolan is now standing, and he does not want to sit down . . . at all!


He is into everything.


Who me?


N loves eating Zweiback toast.


The co-op kids eating pizza.


Yummy!


Popcorn and a movie.


Here comes Santa Claus, Here comes Santa Claus . . .

Every year our little volunteer fire department drives Santa around the neighborhood so the kids can come out and talk to him. He brings candy canes for the kids and we get to take pictures. Kaylee has started looking forward to Santa's visit to our street every year.


The kids telling Santa what they want for Christmas.


Merry Christmas!!

Just for fun!

We are currently doing a "cutest baby" contest among the teachers at school. So, I had Mom email me some pics of me as a baby. Please ignore all ugly shoes! Mom assures me that they were told during this time period that these shoes were so important in the development of feet, but now I wonder if these ugly shoes are the reason for my bad feet! I was inspired to post these after my friend, Stacey, posted pics of her hubby as a little boy. Enjoy! And notice how much my 9 month picture looks like Nolan, who turned 9 months on Sunday!



18 months


1 year


9 months


6 months

AND . . .HE'S OFF!

Nolan is now crawling and he is into everything. I have discovered that we have way too many entrances into our family room. I feel like everytime I turn around I am dragging him back into the room. But, he is so much fun. He has quite the charming personality!





Here is Kaylee in the cheerleading uniform I had made for her for the football and baseball games. She wore it to the playoff game Thursday night so that she could look like the big cheerleaders. She can't wait to rub it in to her Granna that she got to stand on the big blue star in the middle of "Texas Stan-dee-um." In fact, she is sitting on the floor with her Daddy right now, eating popcorn and just saw the "big blue star" and said, "I stood on that!"



A rare picture of Kaylee being sweet to her brother. Aren't they sweet?

What I love right now . . .

I decided I should share some of my favorite things right now . . .

Fuze

I drink one of these everyday. My favorite flavor is Cran Raspberry. And they only have 10-20 calories! Check out this website for more info.

Curly Girl

This is a great book if you have naturally curly hair. I learned about it if from another blog and ordered it. I have had so much fun learning to love my curly hair and learning to fix Kaylee's hair.

Lavender Oil

I found this wonderful lavendar company at Christmas Carousel when I was in Abilene. It is located near Abilene. I needed some lavender after reading the Curly Girl book and I have learned so many great things to do with lavender. It is now our "Night Night" juice and we put some on Kaylee's wrist each night to calm her down. It is one of the only essential oils you can apply directly to the skin. And it supposedly takes the sting out of mosquito bites with one drop on the bite!

Organic Disney Winnie the Pooh Animal Crackers

These are found at Costco in a huge container. We really love them. I first had them this summer when we were in Alaska at Mandy and Darren's house. Kaylee loves them. I couldn't find a pic of them, though.

These are a few of my favorite things . . .
(Make sure you sing the song when you read the above line!)
What do you love right now?