New words

My 20 month old blurted out her first sentence the other day and it was both a surprise and adorable.  I was  putting her to bed after a long day of playing and fun and she wasn't ready even though she was rubbing her little eyes.  I put her down she and looked at me and said 'I gonna cry' and then preceded to fake snore.  It was both the funniest thing and baby book worthy.  I just adore my children.  Everyday is such a delight with them.

Jessica

Homemade Cookies....

 

Today my girls and I went to my sister's house to relax and make homemade cookies.

 

We started out with washing our hands

We got all of our ingredients together

 

My sweet oldest daughter began putting the wet ingredients into the bowl 

Little one wanted to help too

My cute little nephew jumped into the creative process 

Little one helping mix the cookie dough 

Chocolate chip cookie dough! 

Ready for the oven 

COOKIES!!! 

And yes we enjoyed them and licked our fingers,



Jessica

Nectar of the gods . . .

I have this thing about coffee. I CANNOT go a day without it.  Just cant, or maybe wont. Either way, since having my little girl 4 months ago I have found that my coffee is more than cold before I actually get to enjoy it.  I was in search of a better way.  To my wonderful surprise 2 Boys + 1 Girl = One Crazy Mom had a post about iced coffee.  MOCHA ICED COFFEE! Okay I am a sucker for MOCHA ICED COFFEE, in case you haven't guessed that within the passed sentence.  My husband does the Sugar Free Vanilla and loves it.  I am now back into the swing of things and am purposely drinking cold coffee now.  I am also enjoying my time with my sweet Lily.

My life in a nutshell

Its amazing how my life has changed in the past 9 months.  I hurt my knee back in April and thought nothing of it until the pain wouldn't leave.  With an abundance of prayers set in motion a whirl wind.  I hobbled along for a few months convincing myself that any day the pain would go away.  Finally the last week of July I went to the doctor and was told all kinds of news, non I wanted to hear but all that I need to.  At the time I was working as an assistant at a preschool and knew at that moment there was no way I would be able to continue in that line of work.  I prayed for the next couple of days of what to do.  I ended up resigning from my job and taking a job that allowed me to sit and rest my knee and challenge my brain.  I am so happy at my new job and my knee is beginning to slowly heal.  I know that there is a long road ahead with it but am so thankful that God knows what He is doing and that I can rely so freely upon Him.  Finances have become easier for my family (huge prayer answered).  And now I am one a journey of learning more about something called The Daniel Fast.  I am currently reading about it and believe it would be very beneficial to my body and my relationship with the Lord.  So I am sure I will be blogging about that at a later date.  Life moves along in our home, my little girl is currently fighting her first illness of the year (school year) and I am completely engrossed in Sarah Palin's Alaska on TLC. So with that I am off to check on her and make a cup of hot tea and soak up the Alaskan wilderness.

A costume and the hopes of Halloween not getting cancelled.

September is here already, I cant believe it.  Its time to start looking for Halloween costumes for the little one soon.  She has been talking about what she might like to be, but each time it changes to something new.  She asked me the other day on the way to school.
 Mommy do you know what I'm going to be for Halloween?  I said, Coraline?  She said No, A princess?  No  A shark? No  A fairy?  No,  I said what do you want to be sweetie?  Oh I don't know I thought you might give me some ideas .  She is so funny.  So I guess we will be on the look out for a cute costume for her. 

Just as long as this year she doesn't get so excited about Halloween and then the day of she doesn't try to cancel it like last year. 
So I think I will be prepared this year, just in case, I am going to have the pizza delivery number on hand, candy and popcorn and a good kid friendly Halloween movie, just in case Halloween gets cancelled.  Wish me luck!

And BAM its in!

Last night I was on the phone with my mom and my daughter must have over heard our conversation about a wild cat that was terrorizing her dog and cat. Because in the car today she is telling me this story and like the wonderful mom I am, I was half listening, okay, look she is 6 with the utmost imagination of her age.  So sometimes I kinda tune her out.  But then as I was tuning her out, I realized I was beginning to miss a memorable story. So when I heard this line I was all ears to her:


So you take a cage and a tennis racket, (oh this was going to be good, I mean she has my blood and my husbands, and if you know me personally you are probably laughing at just this) and you need a band, not a hair band but what are those bands called Mommy?  A rubber band I reply thinking this is getting good.  Yeah a rubber band and you attach it to both the cage and the tennis racket, Auntie has a tennis racket we can go get it from her!  Okay I reply with all seriousness.  Then we need something dead.  DEAD!?  I ask.  Yeah not an animal they don't like those, but a fish will do, yeah a dead fish, cats love those, says this squeeky little voice.   So we will put the dead fish in the cage and when the cat goes in, BAM its in!  The tennis racket hits it on the butt just to make sure it's in!  Now you text Nana and you tell her what I said okay Mommy?  Okay baby I reply uncontrollable laughing that this little person is so creative and so amusing all at the same time. 

I have a 6 year old.

My little girl is 6 years old now.  I cannot believe this has snuck up on me the way it has.

We has a fun filled weekend.  Last Friday my BFF and her sweet little boy (my daughters age but born 50 days later) and her sweet little girl who will be two in a couple months, along with my daughter and myself, went to the beach and had a picnic out there.  We had such an amazing time.  Then we went to Rita's Italian ice and oh was it good. 

Then that Saturday we had a small birthday party at my parents house for her and the next day was Mother's day and we went to my littlest sister's pool and had fried chicken and all the sides! 

Then on Monday May 10th it was her real birthday and we had the most amazing time. 

Here are a few pictures of our fun filled days:

My Little Girl with two birthday cakes.

We were eating outside and she decided to stand up to dance :)

My daughter and myself at the beach.

I hope you enjoyed yourself,

Spicy

I thought I would share this because I thought it was so cute.

I was making dinner for my husband, daughter and myself this evening and we were having

pancakes and sausage (it was really yummy), and I asked my little girl would you like sausage with

your pancakes and she said 'No it gives me the spices.'

Hilarious!

The loss of the tv

A person in today's society might not realize this but, to not have the TV on is fastly becoming one of my favorite pastimes. And to think this all began as a punishment to my daughter for mouthing off to me Monday morning before school. I told her the TV was gone till Tuesday and she yelled NO, so with each no came another day.

We are now on day 3 and have 2 more to go. Yep my kid knows how to throw the 'no' word out pretty well.

Its so quiet, just the windows open, the sound of birds chirping, my daughter playing and the dog barking occasionally.

I am thinking the TV might become a thing of the past and become an occasional treat.

She had horrible withdraws the first 24 hours but after that she has done wonderful.

Where is that mouthy little girl, I think she is stuck in the TV somewhere hahaha.

And now I am left with my sweet, funny little girl that I absolutely adore!

A happy kid

Just wanted to share a couple of pictures of what me and my daughter did today.






A clean bedroom.





A happy kid.





A picture drawn by the happy kid, her mommy. :)


God is love

If you leave it they will eat it.

Okay so I know better than to do this but did it anyway.
I cleaned out my purse and put the gum with the red dye on my desk and wal-la my child ate it. I can not begin to tell you what a crazy evening my husband and I had with her. So now my full pack of gum is gone and finally at 9:30 at night my child sleeps.

For those of you who are not aware my child can not have artificial dyes especially red dye.
I thought for a long time she had ADHD, then I found out about red dye.
An answer to my prayers.
I had NO idea how much stuff has artificial dyes in it. I feel bad that she doesn't get to enjoy a lot of those types of foods anymore but there is no comparison when it comes to my child not having the "junk".

Tonite she was so uncontrollable I thought to myself how did I do this for so long with her acting like this.

So needless to say the gum is in the trash, well what was left of the second pack, oh yeah I didn't mention that did I ha ha.

Things like:
Macaroni and cheese
cake mix
cream cheese frosting
cheese its
yogurt
some chips
and SO many more have dye in them and I wasn't even aware.


If you want more information on red dye here is a great link. http://www.red40.com/pages/allergies.html
There are so many other websites you can look into. But this one is for red dye #40 and I have learned over the past months that anything that has an artificial dye doesn't get to come into our house and now no longer my purse.

There are so many great products out there that are organic and cost very little more if not the same as the other foods. I have found Target to be a great place to find so many organic foods.

I hope this has helped some of you if not all.~Jess

Wouldn't trade it

There are days when you want to pull your hair out being a parent and then there are days when you can't believe what a smooth day it is.

But most if not all would say what I am about to say: I wouldn't trade it for the world.

My daughter is such an amazing child.
She is so full of life.
She is stubborn like both her mommy and daddy.
She is bouncy like her Aunt Lindsey.
She is caring to her babies like her Auntie Erin.
She loves to learn.
She loves to laugh.
She loves to make people (especially her mommy) laugh.
She is the love of my life.

It always amazes me when people say they don't believe in love at first sight. I always come back with the reply: You obviously don't have children.
The moment you become a parent you cant help but KNOW there is love at first sight.

So whether it is the beginning of the day or the end of the day, I always thank God for giving me the most amazing gift ever: my daughter.

It's alive!

Okay so if you feel like you are getting a play by play on my blog today, you might be right!
I was supposed to be up at 6:30 this morning, but with all the crazy, and I mean CRAZY dreams I had, but that's a whole 'nother story, I didn't get out of bed until an hour later than my scheduled wake up call, AKA Josh. So I finally made it out of bed and called Heather (my bff) to find out if she was ready because she said she was going to the gym for 5 am, yeah well apparently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree cause she too had just gotten up.

We finally made it to the beach for 9:30am and can I just say I would not have missed this for the world. To see the look on my daughters face that we were at the beach and she got to see her little friend Timmy (Heather's son) was worth everything. She had so much fun, this was a morning not to be missed.

So Heather finds this clam in the water, we look at it throw it back and it shows up again. So we think its dead, try to open it with some sea shells and all our sea shells break. We give up and throw it back. It shows up again (do you see a pattern here). So we decide we ARE going to open this thing, hell or high water. SOOOO I go get my house key and stick it into the clam, uuuggghhh I stabbed it! Heather takes the key amidst all my demands of "don't break my house key" and her "oh stop I'm not going to break it" well it didn't break THANK YOU JESUS! I can just see it now I have to go to my apartment office asking for a new key because I opened a clam with mine. Okay so back to my story. She starts to open it and says it wont open so I take it back (at this point we are like two kids on the beach while our kids are ummm I'm not sure because I WAS going to get this thing open) It finally opens and IT'S ALIVE! I killed the poor thing (Forgive me God) and Heather says your bleeding. I keep saying nope its not me its the clam I KILLED! Well Heather was right I WAS bleeding. I guess that's what you get for killing something I should have just left alone. So now I write to you with a band aid on my finger.

So with that my daughter is in her jammies on the couch curled up the the pug, Milo. Watching Sponge Bob. And I am going to go find some lunch. Have a wonderful day and remember ITS FRIDAY! Have you done your Friday Dance Yet????!!!!

Why'd she do that?

I took Genevieve, my little girl to her 5 year physical today. She was so excited that NO shots were involved. We went in and she got to wear her very first paper gown and did great.


Well the time came for her finger to get pricked. You would have thought this child got 10 shots! She looked at me and said "Why'd they do that?" and gave me the most adult look I have ever seen on her. She cried all the way home, the only thing that calmed her down was talking to her daddy on the phone. Poor thing.

When in doubt

So I am in the class room today and there is this little boy that just would not go to sleep at nap time. I tried everything. Being sweet, being stern, telling him to just plain go to bed. Well finally the light bulb above my head went off and ding ding ding, I had a great idea. When in doubt join in. So I thought well I will just talk to him, I learned a lot from a 4 year old today. But he learned something from me too- to meditate. Yes that is right people I had a 4 year old sitting 'criss cross apple sauce" with his arms held out to is sides and making the all so normal pose for meditation with his hands and we "ummmmed" for 10 minutes. This kid would open one eye look at me and go back to it. It was great. Kids are awesome. No matter whose they are.

Oh and not to forget today is Friday Eve!!!!

Tomorrow I will do my Its Friday Dance and mean every move I make!

I hope all of you had a great day. I had a much better one. God is so good to me, he gives great family, great friends and unconditional love. ~Jess

True Story

So before I start my true story. I have to say ITS FRIDAY. Yes I did my happy dance. Even though I did it at 6pm today I still did it. My husband saw my dancing up the stairs and looked at me like I was a total dork but that is okay because he kept saying dont rub it in. Cause he has to work early, like 530 am early! But guess what?! ITS FRIDAY :)


Okay so my true story.
This involves me, and two 3 year old boys. Both of whom are now the proud big brothers of baby brothers. I will call them Ryan and Mark.
So it goes like this:

Me to Ryan: How do you like your new little bother?

Ryan: I like him but wait, Mark have you gotten yours yet?

Mark: Yeah I got him.

Ryan: Oh cool, I didnt know you got him.

Mark: Yeah I got him a couple weeks ago.

(It sounds like they sell baby brothers at the store now lol)

Ticker Tape

So last we talked I was going to go to work on my mauscript for my book. I got the house all clean, made dinner, Gena was ready for bed and when my husband came home, off I went to Panera to get my 800 words I had left to do for the day.

I got there and treated myself to a soda:Pepsi, cause they don't have coke products. Because if you didnt know, I am so a Coke a cola girl.

So like I said 800 words and 2 1/2 hours to get them done. 8:30 rolled around and it was time to leave to go back home. And how many words did I have done? 50! That is it!!!!! I think somewhere there must have been one of the tickers that goes arcoss the bottom of your tv screen that said "Jessica is writing her book, CALL HER NOW!" because I am telling you EVERYONE called me and texted me! There was only 1 person I called. Oh well next week I guess I will have 1800 words to complete instead of 1000. Argh, the pirate will come out again come monday.

Oh and dont forget Friday is tomorrow!!!!!! Its Friday eve people. :) YEAH!

On an end note :I have been working all week until 530 and I have not been able to spend quality time with my little one. I think this weekend will do us good. Gena has a birthday party Saturday and then its off to the zoo on Sunday. So I look forward to just being with her :)
~Jess

Another Monday.

So I started today with looking in my calander to see what my call was for the day.

I put a new calling on each day of my calander to try to be more Christ like.

Today's call was and still is To Be A Role Model.

This has been a rather rewarding one. My kids in my 5 year old class had an awesome day and I was more apt to being more aware of how I was acting. I was so proud of them and me. My work day ended at 3pm so now I am at home and getting ready to start dinner:Burgers and pasta salad.

Gena and I have been looking at the Weeki Wachee State Park here in FL because when my daughter was asked at her PreK graduation what she would like to be when she grows up she answered "A perfessional mermaid" that was the sweetest thing I had ever heard. So with that I decieded we need to make a trip to see the mermaids at the park. If you would like to see what I am talking about click on the above link.

Oh and how could I almost forget Gena and I did our piggys today. We used "toe polish" as my daughter calls it, not nail polish :)

Here is a picture of our toes.

Happy Monday. Remember being a role model is so awesome not only to children but to adults too! ~Jess

Do over Sunday

Okay so let me start with I had the worst of the worst migraine all day. You know the kind that you have to upchuck to get rid of it. Yeah I know you wanted to hear that.

Well now that that is over with I can go on to other things. Josh and I started a new chore chart for Gena today. The Princess Chore Chart. Okay so this kid only has a few things on it and do you know half of them are still not done. She was not happy when she found out the cash flow would dwindle down. Then we also did the Privilege Ladder that I read on It Feels Like Chaos blog. Thank you so much to the lady who wrote that on her blog. Do you know that this thing helped out so much.
If you want to see what I am talking about go to It Feels like Chaos Blog

Okay so as you have already read I had a stinking migraine and so when I put out the chicken breasts to thaw it was already 1 maybe 2 in the afternoon so needless to say we had pizza delivered. It did help the headache some but then I thought I might vomit again so I stopped eating. Oh but it was good.

Do you ever notice that you are drawn to shows that would normally not appeal to you but since you do have a kid and you are so used to watching them that the next thing you know you are watching the Disney channel and The Princess Protection Program is on and you Liked it.
My child wasnt even in the room, no, the dog, who by the way is 2 whole years old today, big feat for a dog that I didnt think would make it through 1, seeing that my child treats him like a sibling, anyway I am off the beaten path now. So yes the pug, Milo, watched this with me. He snored more than watched but he is a great snuggler.

Oh and did anyone see that not only in 1 weeks time did Ed McMahon, Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett pass but Billy Mays (infomercial king) passed too! God sure is busy bringing people home. At this point I am waiting to see who has passed on tomorrow. Morbid but true.

Well it is getting late and I have to get up early so I can teach a group of 5 year olds. Hip Hip Horray. No really they are great. Did I mention my kid is in that class too haha. This should be fun. ~Jess