K&A

Krissy and Austin surprised me this school year.  I was afraid they wouldn't get along with Hayden and Allie at school, but they get along so well!  Usually, Krissy is telling Austin exactly what to do, and he happily plays along with anything she says.  I snapped a few pictures of them during one of our regular days at home.  Krissy had the dress-up clothes out, and I think she had on 5 different outfits throughout the day.

They like to eat lunch on their knees

 Another outfit change... Krissy asked Austin if he wanted a make-over, and she put lip gloss on him.  All these were unposed.  Austin is such a character!

Toothless Photos

Earlier this month, I was talking to a mom with grown children.  I was telling her Allie had just lost her front teeth and she encouraged me to take some pictures of her toothless smile.  She said her grown kids love looking back at their toothless pictures more than any others.  I felt inspired and took some the next day!

In other teeth news, Allie's next two top teeth are wiggly.  When we went to the dentist last month and she had x-rays taken, they told me there's a chance she might lose all 4 top teeth before her front teeth drop down.  

Allie loves having no front teeth and has mentioned several times she wished new ones wouldn't grow in :)

Baby Bunny

Kevin mowed our grass this weekend, and I was inside with the kids.  I was in the playroom, and I heard Kevin bust through the front door and run through the house.  Immediately my heart started racing because I just knew something happened.  Well, this little bunny is what happened!  Kevin's mower scared it and was running on the outside of the fence, and then went under the fence.  Kevin saw CeCe chasing it, so that's why he was running in - to save it.

I immediately snatched it out of his hands and wanted to love on it.  By this time all the kids were in the family room and wanting a turn holding it too.  I made them sit down.  They all had two turns holding the baby bunny before we took it back out and let it go in a clover patch.  We hope it found it's way back to it's nest!

Hayden tried to feed it clovers and cherry tomatoes, but it was scared to death and wouldn't eat anything.

Photo by Hayden :)

Another photo by Hayden

And  one pic in color - you can see it's cute little tail in this one :)

January & February Video Highlights

There was so many highlights in February!  At the end of January I put together a little flip-a-gram of pictures on my phoneI had taken that month, and decided I needed to do the same for February!  And since I got behind on blogging here's January and February's video! :)

January.....

February....

Eye-ronic

Last month was an exciting month for our little kindergartner!  Allie lost a front tooth, and picked out a new pair of pink glasses.  I was really excited about her new glasses.  Our optometrist doesn't carry many durable options for kids frames.  We tried metal frames and plastic frames this past year, and the plastic held up the longest, but they didn't even make it 9 months.

I called around town to see if any place carried any brands that were more durable, and ironically, the place I said I'd never ever go back to was the only places in town that had something worth buying.  If you're wondering what happened that was so bad, I'll tell you.... they use to be our family eye doctor.  At the time, we didn't have good eye insurance.  They covered like $15 on frames or $30 on contacts yearly.  That year I purchased glasses instead of contacts.  It was also the year Kevin got new glasses.  By the time it was said and done, we ended up spending close to $500 on eye exams and new glasses for the both of us.  Several months after that eye appointment, I ran our of contacts and instead of ordering through the vision place, I ordered from 1800Contacts.  They have to confirm my prescription with the the optometrist, which is all really seamless and easy on my end.  They always have great deals, quick and sometimes free shipping, and at the time, I liked they'd be delivered to my door.

Fast forward a year or so, and I was due for an eye exam and I was completely out of contacts.  I called and they couldn't get me in for an appointment for a week, but I needed contacts that day.  The bad thing about disposable lenses is they break down over the a couple weeks you wear them, and when you don't switch them as often as you should, (*ahem* that's me) you can get bad headaches.  So, I called the vision place, pleading with them to let me buy one pair of contacts so I could get by until my appointment, but they were snippy and told me since I hadn't purchased contacts from them, they wouldn't be selling me any to get me by.  I was furious.  It wasn't like they didn't make any money off of us!  They took us to the cleaner on glasses.... so that's why I swore I'd never go back.  Terrible customer service, in my opinion.

But don't you hate when you have to eat your words?  Getting Allie a good, durable pair of glasses was my priority, so I sucked up all my bad feelings, and went in and ordered her darling pink frames.  The staff was still the same people, and I'm sure they didn't remember me, but boy I remembered them!  And to be totally honest, they were very nice and helpful this time.  The optometrist fitted Allie's glasses when they came in and she was so super sweet to Allie.  I wanted to tell her to ditch her office staff and hire nicer people, but I kept my thoughts to myself.  :) 

Her pink glasses came in on Valentine's Day :)

One front too out, one very wiggly one left to fall out!

Yummy Tenderloin Recipe

I made this tenderloin recipe twice last month and it got rave reviews!  A friend from bible study shared the recipe with me and I'm so glad she did :)

The crunchy bacon was so yummy!

Recipe Source: Jill's Pork Tenderloin from Tasty Kitchen

Ingredients

• 3 pounds Pork Tenderloin (1 Pkg. Of 2 Tenderloins)
• 1 pound Bacon
• ¾ cups Soy Sauce (I used low sodium)
• 1 Tablespoon Dried Minced Onions
• ½ teaspoons Garlic Salt
• 1 Tablespoon Wine Vinegar Or White Vinegar
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• 1 dash Pepper
•  ¾ cups Brown Sugar
  

  Directions

  Wrap the tenderloin pieces in bacon. Place in an 8 1/2″ x 11″ pan. Poke holes in meat with a fork.
  Combine rest of ingredients in a small bowl; stir well. Pour marinade over meat. Refrigerate, uncovered, 2 to 3 hours or overnight.
  Bake in a 300 degree oven for three hours. If the bacon burns, you can place foil over top the last hour of baking, but we like crunchy bacon, so I never covered mine. Remove from oven, cut meat into small pieces and allow the meat to soak up the excess juices in the pan.
  
  Once change I made from the original, I took the meat out to slice it, and then thickened the juices in the pan.  There was a lot of bacon grease that cooked out, so I added a few tablespoons of flour and some milk.  I didn't measure anything, and you don't even need to do this step, but I just wanted a little gravy since I made mashed potatoes to go with the tenderloin!
  

Funny/Cute/Sweet Kid Sayings

It's been awhile since I've done a post like this, but I keep an on going note in my phone and record funny, cute, or sweet things the kids say! 

11-10-16

Krissy asked after breakfast, "Can we go to New York today?"

12-8-16

Krissy and I were talking about how she fell asleep the night before and I put her to bed in her clothes with out brushing her teeth.  She got a big smile on her face and said, "I may get cavities.... then my teeth will fall out... then the tooth fairy will come!"

1-3-17

Austin asked me to help him go potty and when I walked in he was singing his "shake you booty" song and I laughed and he said, "Dats me, little funny Austin"

1-8-17

Hayden was watching "Kentucky Collectibles" and told me the show really expires him... (expires = inspires)

1-11-17

Krissy, "Are these mazakings?"

 (Magazines)

1-12-17

Austin, "I don't have any milk"

Me, "Bring your sippy over" (to the kitchen)

Austin, "I can't"

Krissy, "Don't you have hands?"

1-13-17

Austin sings, "Why be has so rude" to the song lyrics "why ya gotta be so rude" {I don't even know this song but Kevin's got all the kids singing it!}

1-13-17

Austin says "ooze" = use

1-17-17

Krissy to me, "My name is Glitter Sparkles!"

Austin, "Hey Krissy!"

Krissy in her annoyed voice, "It's Glitter!"

1-18-17

I'm tucking Austin into bed and he grabs my hand and says, "Mommy I so proud of you." And I said, "Oh thank you honey.  Why are you proud of me?"  And he says, "ummm for cleaning da house!" 

(And the house is currently a disaster! Ha!)

1-22-17

Austin calls Chick Fil A "chick a lake"

1-23-17

Austin, "I like Spider-Man!"

Krissy in her yelling ugly voice says, "He's not your dad!"

Austin, "Yeah, my Daddy is so pecial"

2-14-17

We were having Valentines dinner and my mom's phone made a ding when she got a text. Without missing a beat, Allie says, "Hug Time!" (You have to watch the movie Trolls to understand why that is cute!)

2-17-17

I made chocolate lava cakes and Allie ate one when she got home and said, "It taste like destiny!" (I assume that's good?)

Valentines 2017

Valentines Day 2017!

I don't know about you, but we had a great Valentine's Day!  The kids woke up excited for the day, and happy kids makes for a happy mom!

I kept breakfast simple and sorta healthy.  Toast, eggs, and bacon!

This was the lunch I packed for Hayden & Allie

Kevin bought me some new sandals from Kohls.  I'd been wanting this style for awhile!

Kevin also got me some chocolate covered pineapple from Libs :)

And some red roses

This year we opted to get the kids one big gift instead of a bunch of little things.  We found this used lego table for sale and it came stocked with legos!  It's been the best gift and gets played with daily!

Even Charlie approves... and the table has been moved to the play room!

I was excited to cook and prepare our Valentines Dinner.  All the kids were excited for it too!  I tried several new recipes, and it definitely felt like a special/fun dinner because I served it all in courses.

I set the table with a Valentine's table cloth I found at Kohls.

I used pink, red, and purple fiestaware.

I found the cute chalkboard easels at Target's dollar spot :)

This picture makes me laugh because I was squatting and Kevin was trying to stand up extra tall.  I had decided to wear a dress and heals for our dinner, but I don't like being taller than him in pictures!

We had a pink lemonade/raspberry sherbert/sprite punch to drink.

The appetizer was a cheesy stuffed bread. 

Lemon sorbet was served after the bread.  I always love that Cavanaughs does this and it makes the whole dining experience feel more fancy!

Dinner was easy chicken cordon bleu.

Chicken cordon bleu served with steamed broccoli

I made strawberry pretzel salad for dessert.  It's Kevin's favorite.  Looks like Austin was liking it too!

My dad had to work, and I didn't want my mom eating alone on Valentine's Day, so we invited her to our dinner!  I also wrote everyone a little Valentine telling them what I loved about them.

Austin loved the punch :)

My wheels are already spinning on what I can do for next years dinner!  I'm thinking candlelit... :)

Father Daughter Dance 2017

I haven't had a functioning computer for the last several weeks :(  It's behaving today so I spent time taking all my treasured pictures off of it, and I'm preparing for the inevitable loss of power that is coming.  The computer guy said the problem was the charging port and they are impossible to replace, and we will just have to replace our computer.  But, as I said, it's working today and I'm going to get caught up on the great month we just wrapped up while I can!

Kevin took the girls to the annual father daughter dance at our church.  They were both so excited and it's something they talk about and look forward to all year.  And I get equally as excited for them.  I love helping them dress up and plan the little details and surprises.  It was an unseasonably warm day (almost 70*) and it made for the perfect opportunity to take outside pictures!

Allie's dress was bought from a consignment sale last year and Krissy's dress was purchased at Sam's Club this past December.  I found Kevin's shirt and pants thrifting, and bought his tie new from Kohls.  I made the corsages, and helped Kevin shop for a special pair of earrings for both of the girls.  Their hairbows were purchased from a craft show in Santa Claus this past December! :)

Kevin giving Allie her corsage and earrings

Krissy getting her corsage and earrings.

I love how Krissy is looking at Kevin

Allie seemed embarrassed to kiss Kevin on the cheek.  It made me laugh.

The girls were glued to Kevin and they posed themselves!  This is probably my favorite pic :)

Some individual pictures..

I wanted a picture of their flowers and I loved how Krissy grabbed Allie's arm.

Some Daddy pictures...

Our neighbor's grandson came over with his new puppy just as we were wrapping up pictures.  The girls went nuts over it, so we had to take pictures with it too.

Off they went...

They had dinner at O'Charleys.  The planned to eat with my brother and his girls, then go to the dance together.  My niece got sick as soon as they got to the restaurant and they left immediately and had to miss the dance.  The girls were bummed.  They left the dance around 8 and went to Lics for ice cream, and waited at home for me and the boys to get home!

I took the boys to Chick Fil A, Barnes and Noble (Hayden had been wanting a new book), and then to see the new Lego movie.  We all had a great night!