With a greatful heart

I can really say with a greatful heart that I love family and friends! We have had a VERY full Thanksgiving week, but it was great! My idea of a great Thanksgiving is having lots of family, friends, and food around. I can tell you that we had all 3 this week! We had 7 kids running around for about 3 days and I counted 18 people for Thanksgiving dinner! It was great!
Here was our official family picture. I am so glad to finally get a picture with everyone in it...it was a task, but a great memory too.

All 5 grandkids on the "grandkid" couch at Granny and Papaw's house.

By brother Joey and his sweet family (Kacy, Josiah, Halee, and Skyler). They drove 24 hours straight to be our here for a week from CA...I love them to pieces!
We had tons of fun outside too, so here were some of the girls on the mule.
Papaw showed Hannah how to drive the riding lawnmower.
We decided to make a new toy in the barn so Hannah rode on a creeper that goes under cars. Sometimes you have to improvise with kids....she LOVED it as you can see!

The tire swing provides lots of fun and Hannah is quite proficient at riding it by herself.

Our child has become quite the cleaner, so she decided to clean the leaves outside.

And, she even did it with a smile on her face.

Kelly was not able to go home for Thanksgiving this year, so she became apart of our family for a few days. It was great to have here there. She came up on Thursday and stayed until Friday afternoon. We had a blast driving the mule, hay jumping, and generally playing around.

Josiah also taught Hannah how to drive a car. Just a few years and this will be a scary thought!

Anyway, we had a great time and I am always reminded how thankful I am for my sweet family and friends.

Scary morning monster

This is the scary monster that we wake up to in the morning....Hannah's crazy hair!!! Since her hair is getting so long by the time we keep it up all day and let her sleep on it at night, it is crazy in the morning. Jason likes to call her "cousin it" when she wakes up. I just think it is flat hilarious.

Wishbone?

Hannah and I attempted to break the wishbone during lunch on Sun, but we were unsuccessful. Who knew that Turkey wishbones were so slippery? Hannah could not get a grip on it so Grandmother and I ended up breaking it. She actually kept trying to put it in her mouth. She thought I was giving it to her to eat...silly girl!

Hanging with Gramma

We had a great weekend with Gramma and family this past weekend. It was nice to have a early Thanksgiving dinner (I LOVE thanksgiving dinner) and it was great to see more family. We just sent Gramma off to the airport this morning and in about an hour I will be off to Granny and Papaw's house. This will be an entire week of family and I am loving it!
Jason will be back from Boston tomorrow night and will join us at Granny and Papaw's on Wed. I am looking forward to much more fun with family as we celebrate Thanksgiving this week!

Family time

We have enjoyed time with my mom (Gramma) and my grandmother this weekend while Jason is out of town. Gramma came into town yesterday for the weekend and we have been enjoying the company. Hannah was CRAZY this morning with grandmother and ran herself ragged while showing off for everyone...it was hilarious to say the least!
Tomorrow we are heading up to Fort Worth to have an early Thanksgiving dinner with the rest of the family, so that will be fun. I will make sure to take pictures of our time tomorrow.

My little chef cont.

I wanted to show you all how Hannah operates in the kitchen. This kid must be destined for greatness in cooking...trust me, she will be MUCH better than me, since I am not a great cook. They always say it skips a generation, so she must get it from her Gramma who is an excellent cook!

This little routine happens anytime I am in the kitchen now. Just as soon as I put the chair away she pulls it back out to get up to the counter and help. It doesn't matter if I am reading mail, cooking, or just pouring a glass of milk, she wants to be in on the action.

She's still a talker

I am not quite sure where she gets this from...I am sure I don't talk on the cell phone THAT much! Someone please tell me too, why is it that kids can talk all day long on a cell phone but the second you have someone else on the line who wants to talk to them they won't say a word?!?!

Friendship Bread

Hannah and I have found that we have a hobby to do together...cooking. She LOVES to cook (specifically to stir) and thinks that it is so fun to do. We received a bag of friendship bread the other day and so we baked the bread together after 10 days of squeezing the bag. That was another favorite of hers, she loved squeezing the bag. Anyway, we are actually going today to buy a step stool for Hannah so she has an official place to stand and help cook. Right now she uses my desk chair which is probably not the best idea. The only thing we have to work on is not putting our fingers in the bowl and licking them...by we, I mean Hannah. She is still fascinated by the pouring and measuring and so she wants to try all the ingredients. Thankfully the friendship bread was just for us, but when we start cooking for others we will have to make sure these little fingers stay out of the batter.

(Sorry this is sideways...I couldn't fix it.) Here is our bag of batter with the directions.

"Check out my friendship bread!"

Little fingers in the batter. She quickly figured out that I had poured sugar into the bowl...YUMMY!

Doesn't this bread look fabulous?!?! That is a cinnamon sugar mixture on top. I kept a bag for myself when I made more and next time I am going to try and make a bit of a variation. I will have 3 bags of batter next week if anyone wants some friendship bread!

18 months!!!

Can you believe that Hannah is 18 months old today! I can officially say that we now have a 1 1/2 year old...going on 13.
We went to the doctor this morning and all went well. Here are Hannah's stats:
Weight - 23 lbs 7 oz (35%)
Height - 33 in (80%)
Head - 19 1/4 in (90%)

She is doing great and talking up a storm. I hope to get a video soon of her talking. The problem is, when I pull the camera out she quits talking. Otherwise all is well with our little one. She is growing like crazy and says and does funny things all the time.

Presto Chango

We FINALLY painted our very blue kitchen this week. We have been working on getting the top and bottom trim painted for several days. Last night Jason began rolling the walls at about 8:30 and finally finished at 1:30 this morning. What a trooper! He woke up with swollen hands from having to roll so hard. If you have never seen our kitchen I have to tell you that it has crazy texture on the walls that makes it very hard to paint. The result - I LOVE IT!!!
Here is the blue before. It actually matches the blue in our wall hanging, but I am not a fan of it on the walls.
Here is a close up of the blue that used to be on the walls and the green that we were painting. It is a much subtler color and actually makes the room look considerably larger.

And here is the room with the green. The green is a lighter shade that what is on the wall hanging, but it compliments it nicely.

YAH for newly painted walls, you gotta love it!!!!

One of the cutest

This is quite possibly on of the cutest pictures I have ever taken of Hannah. You have to love her cheesy little smile as she wears my fleece jacket. This little one never ceases to amaze me with her faces and antics during the day. She is definitely a character!!!

I think it might be official that we have started the terrible 2's around here. She will only turn 18 months this Friday, but I am pretty sure it has started early. She wants to do everything on her own and LOVES to say no and anyone and everyone about anything and everything. Is this terrible 2's or just that she is VERY strong willed and independent?

A low key weekend

We had a low key weekend around here, which was nice. My sweet husband was so kind and took Hannah and I to my FAVORITE restaurant on Friday night (which happens to be On the Border!!!). He knew that I had a hard day and so he called to say we were going out for a special dinner....it was really sweet.
We played at Baylor on Sat. morning and just hung out for the afternoon and evening. After church today we hung around the house and played some more.
So, not much to post around here. I will hopefully have some pics to put up tomorrow.

3 steps forward, 1 step back

I have found that parenting is SOOOOO different from being a formal teacher. Sure, I am trained in teaching. Yes, I have my masters degree in education. Have I found that either help on difficult days like today....No! On days like today when my child says "no" to me 10,000 times, bites me when I discipline her (!!!), and is generally foul all I can do is pray for grace as I trust in God. These days are hard for me though. I am used to seeing results as a teacher and implementing "behavior plans" when kids don't initially respond to my correction. Well, let's just say that doesn't work with 18 month olds. So, I am learning. I am learning to be patient and pray before doing any discipline. I am learning that she is only 18 months old and doesn't understand everything. I am also learning that she understands a whole lot! I am learning that it is OK to cry when things are hard like this. I am learning that I cannot be a parent without the powerful grace of God. I am learning that I love my daughter more and more each day...even on days like today.

I am learning that this smile melts my heart and helps me to understand that this job (while difficult) is the best job in the world. I can tell you with all honesty that this will be the best training I ever received for being a teacher, and I pray that when I return to teaching the lessons I learned from being Hannah's Mama will make me even that much better as a teacher.

Portrait flop

I got a free portrait session from Sears so we went and had pics taken last night. It went horribly. The photographer was great and some pictures turned out OK, but Hannah was not going to have ANY part of taking pictures. She cried, clung to Jason and I, ran out of the room, threw things, and was generally a pickle! Oh well, at least it was free, right?!
We did get a few good pictures out of it and I might even be able to use a few for our Christmas card (I didn't include those on here, so you will have to be surprised). So, here were a few decent ones where she looks halfway happy.
Kissing the snowman.

Standing on a chair...which is not allowed at home, but hey, whatever works.

The typical Hannah pose...thumb in mouth and blanket in hand.

Thanks for the outfit Sherry, it was perfect for the pictures (even if Hannah wasn't).

Homecoming

Hannah, Kelly, and I went to the BU homecoming parade on Sat morning and had a really good time. The parade is always well put together and the turnout was good too. We saw other friends too, which is always fun. Hannah got to meet our friend Meredith and her son Will for the first time. Will is about 2 months younger than Hannah, so they kept each other relatively entertained (I am using that term very loosly!).
The inflatables were probably Hannah's favorite. She was fascinated by them and kept pointing and watching as they floated by.

Of course the bear is another favorite. She kept saying "bear, roar" as it went by. They house 2 bears on campus, so when we pick Jason up from work she likes to visit the bears. How cool is it to see black bears on a regular basis!?!

Bruiser the maskot rode a segway around the parade and he was fun to watch too. Riding in style!Here was a funky car with 2 fronts. There was steering wheels on both sides that controlled each of the wheels, so it was driving ALL over the place. Kind of fun and scary all at the same time.

I am just always impressed by guys that can hold a girl up with one hand. Jason said we should try it some time...um, no.

Anyway, we had a great time celebrating homecoming. And how about the Baylor Bears for almost beating #14 Missouri! Sic 'em Bears!

Still sick

We have had a long weekend here at our house. Hannah is still sick and we made trip #2 to the doctor today. Hopefully we will get this all under control soon.
We did, however, manage to attend the homecoming parade on Sat. morning so I will try and put those pictures up later today.