Batcat

I made this. It's a Batman reference...if you didn't know. :)

Lilly & Daddy Laughing at Each Other

7 Grain Pumpkin Pancakes

I've been making a few things for lilly from my cookbook that helps you sneak fruits and veggies into your foods. Today I was going to make her some pancakes with bets that I've made before but, I realized I was out of an essential ingredient. So, I searched for another recipe. I ended up modifying a sweet potato pancake recipe by using pumpkin puree instead. They are super yummy and healthy. All that is in them is pumpkin puree, organic whole grain pancake mix, water and cinnamon! Lilly approves!

A day at the Park

It was warn enough outside today that I decided to take Lilly and Ernie to the park after school. They both had a pretty good time, especially the part with the ducks.

Lilly Loves Her Small Furries

Social Lilly

While shopping at Walmart Lilly made some new friends. She enjoyed their company until we arrived at the yogurt and they must have offended her in some way because she abruptly threw them into the floor.

Lilly Really Likes Yogurt...A lot

I thought I would give yogurt a try again with Lillian. Last time she was not impressed. However, she LOVES Greek yogurt. I'm letting her try to use utensils now and she managed to eat the entire container all by herself with her cute little baby spoon. It was very intense and she was very focused the entire time.

Training Ernie

I've been trying to train Ernie. I have been successful in training him to respond correctly to the word "sit" and "stay". Sometimes he responds to "down" and "roll-over". I've also taught him to fetch. I'm still working on the house breaking and have done a bunch of research. So, hopefully he will will not be having accidents in the house anymore after a few more days. We just have to be vigilant. But, I'm pretty proud of my progress so far.

Lobster Baby

Lilly's New Kicks

I bought Lilly these super cute baby keds over the summer because they were on sale. Now she fits in them and they look adorable. The sweater doesn't hurt either. You can't tell but it's a Kitty with a pink bow.

Derek's 28th Birthday

We went to our favorite restaurant with Joe, Peter, Allison, Robyn and Todd. It was super delicious and fun hanging out. Now we are back home watching our favorite shows and drinking jot chocolate. Happy birthday Derek! I love you!

A Night Out

Derek and I went to Memphis last night for a concert. My Step-dad, Tim, bought all of us tickets to see a band that he loves because he's super awesome. 

So, we were out past midnight on a school night. The horror! But, it was a really good concert and we had a nice time seeing the Al's, my brother and his wife, and my parents. Plus, we got the added bonus of receiving extra Christmas gifts that hadn't arrived in the mail in-time for Christmas morning. I am a little tired today but it's not too bad and I feel like it was worth it. I was introduced to two new bands, The Staves and The Civil Wars. The Civil Wars was the group Tim bought the tickets for. They were o.k. but, I really enjoyed The Staves. They were very mellow and calming. I even bought their CD after the concert. As an added bonus they are British so we got to hear their cute accents in between their songs. The were also rather funny. I've posted links to videos of The Staves and The Civil Wars.

The Pinterest Effect

I have begun playing around with pinterest. It is very addictive. But, It has been beneficial because instead of just "pinning" and "liking" things I have actually been productive as evidenced by the previous few posts. I also got busy organizing my kitchen a little bit. I hung my measuring cups on the inside of the cabinet just like a picture I saw on pinterest. However, I modified it a bit and used command hooks so my cabinets wouldn't be damaged and I used collapsible measuring cups instead of regular ones. I also bought a new spice organizer. It is pretty fantastic and saved quite a bit of space.

Changing it Up

After putting our shoe stuff in the garage, I moved what used to be our shoe cubbies into the living room. I love it!

Garage Shoe Station

We cleaned out the garage yesterday and moved our shoe removal station out there. Now shoes will not even enter our home and, all of the bags and coats will stay out there instead of clutterring up our kitchen. We even hung some art to make it look fancy. I hope I like it's functionality as much as it's appearance.

Old Craft Project: Napkin Wreath

So, I have made a lot of crafts over the past 2 years and now that I am on pinterest I've become even more proud of my achievements. I think I have put a nice spin on lots of existing ideas and want to give people the opportunity to create lovely things. I will be posting more old crafts soon.
This is an easy and cheap project that I made for my daughter's first birthday.
All you need is:
- a straw wreath form ($5 at hobby lobby)
- 3 different napkin colors
- lots of hot glue
- ribbon
- picture frame

To make it I just cut the napkins into 4 squares by opening them and cutting along the folds. Then grab each piece at it's center and twist. After that you just glue them onto the wreath form next to each other all over the front entire wreath. After I covered the whole wreath with purple napkins I decided it needed something else and I added a couple of twisted napkin fourths in a contrasting color (pink) surrounding an orange twist of napkin. Then it was basically done I just added the frame hanging on ribbon by pinning the ribbon to the top back of the wreath with a straight pin. I think it came out pretty good. What about you?

In the doghouse...Literally

Lillian thinks it's great fun to crawl into Ernie's cage. I actually have a funny story about this.
So, last week Lilly was having some constipation issues and was having a very difficult time getting her business done, if you know what I mean. Nothing I did seemed to help her and it actually made her more angry. It was not a good morning so far. After at leather an hour of fussy-mcfusspants she crawled into Ernie's cage, squatted down, gripped the metal bars and got down to business. Now, mind you, she was also creating a terrifying and heartbreakingly hilarious cacophony of screams and grunts...while squatting in a small dog kennel. Plus, every time I tried to soothe her by rubbing her back or evicting her from the kennel I received an adamant "mo" and a very vigorous wave of her arm. It was both upsetting and comedic. When she was done after a few minutes she calmly crawled out of the cage, looked at me and signed diaper. Children are interesting.

Mini Spinach Pizza's

I made Lillian some pizza today using my handy dandy cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld.  The cookbook is all about hiding healthy things in kids favorite foods.
The pizza is supposed to be on pita bread but I didn't have any so I made it with a tortilla. Then, I put spinach pureé, which I made myself, underneath spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese. After the whopping 10 seconds of construction time I just popped it in the oven at 400 degrees for 8 minutes. I'm so lazy and impacient I didn't even wait for the oven to preheat.
It is really tasty. In fact, Lilly wasn't all that hungry yet and therefore didn't eat much, but it's almost gone because I've eaten so much. I think I will bake it without a cookie sheet next time so the crust will be crunchier. In fact, I could probably make a bunch and then freeze them. That way I would have zero prep work. Hmmmm...I think I'll go do that right now!

Lillian and the Kitties

Visiting in the New Year

We spent the night in little rock so we were able to eat lunch and visit with Alex, Alecia, Aunt Fran, Eric, Justin and Dad. It was really nice to visit. Lilly loves her Grandpa.