Morning Park Visit

This morning when K got up it was very overcast. I had already made plans to go to the grocery store, but I told myself that if they weather would hold out I would take K to the park right before lunch. Lately it's just been too hot to do it during the day and by the time it cools off it's just about her bedtime. So around 10:00 we headed out to the park that is literally a minute from our house and it was perfect. There were only three other kids there so it made it so very nice. We went to check out the ducks first. Kaitlyn was waving and saying hi to them, but of course not while I was trying to film her. :P And for some reason I can't get that video not to crash when I try to upload it (I'm still learning this new iphone 4 thing) but hopefully I can get that one put up later!Well, it's halfway there - just no sound, but I'm not going to mess with it now. I'll try later.


Then we headed to the playground area. Kaitlyn has just recently found her love of sliding independently and probably climbed up the stairs and went down the slide at least 20 times by herself before I asked her if she was ready to go. And to my surprise she actually said, "Yes" and came right to me. I was worried she wouldn't want to leave, but poor baby must have worn herself out! She got her water and headed to the car.

Here's a video of her doing the slide all by herself. She scared me a few times, but she was just fine.


I know mornings like this morning are few in the Texas summers, but I'm so glad we squeezed one in there before school starts back up!

Cake Balls

One of the things I told myself I was going to do this summer was try a bunch of new recipes. I feel that since I'm a mom now I owe it to my family to cook more meals, so we've had some new dinners this summer - some that I will make over and over again because they are just that good...and some that I will forever block out of my memory. But part of my new recipe trying has to include dessert of course! So I decided to try out cake balls. I've heard a lot about them lately, but frankly the time that goes into them made me not want to try them. But I finally bit the bullet and made them. I must say they were pretty darn tasty - they weren't much to look at, but my mom always said the best desserts are the ones that are ugly and fall apart. :) I used cream cheese icing, so they were pretty rich - I could barely finish two and Cody couldn't finish three which is not normal for two people who have a sweet tooth like we do. But next time I think I won't make them as rich..or maybe a strawberry and chocolate combo...oh so many choices!!! But here is my first ever batch of cake balls in all their glory! :)

Paging Rebecca Bloomwood!

So yeah - summertime. Time for organizing, time for cleaning, and of course time for shopping. During the school year I hate shopping on the weekend. It seems like everyone is always out so I try to squeeze it in on a random weeknight. But in the summer I can go out several times in the middle of day and am met with less crowded stores - ahhh...perfection.

In my quest to find the perfect birthday present for my precious little almost two year old (wow...typing that makes me sad) I ended up at the Mattel factory store in Fort Worth. This week was their "Girl Stuff Sale." I knew exactly what I wanted to get and that's all I was going to get. But shortly after I arrived and looked around, I realized they didn't have what I wanted. But then my mind starting working....

- But I drove all the way out here....
- Kaitlyn is at the sitter today and any other day I'd have her with me so I might as well look while she's not here....
- Christmas is not that far off...
-Oh! Disney dolls are on sale too!

Yeah, I totally had a major Rebecca Bloomwood moment. I justified buying things that I told myself I wouldn't. When Cody called later, he asked me if I got the dollhouse I told him I was driving out there for and I told him no. He didn't ask if I got anything else. :)

Then he got home and went into the back room. He saw my two bags of stuff and just smiled and kissed my forehead. I love that he can be my Luke Brandon to my inner Rebecca Bloomwood. :)

Date Night

One of the things Cody and I decided to do when Kaitlyn got here was to schedule a weekly date night. It would be a time where we could get out and be "grown-ups" and we would alternate the grandparents getting to have their Kaitlyn fix. I've always heard one of the best ways to be a good parent is to work on your marriage. After the first few months of Kaitlyn's life we were really good about date nights. I think we were at the point of going crazy from not getting out! :)

Then after a while things changed....the school year got busier....Cody changed jobs....we both had church things several nights a week....we just got tired.

So date nights got fewer and fewer. Then they turned into well - it's a birthday so we need to get out. But shortly Cody and I fell back into the old routine of either going out with Kaitlyn when we did go out, or not going out at all.

But tonight we decided to forgo a Sunday School social and have date night instead. We just both knew it needed to happen. So after Kaitlyn's tumbling class we dropped her off at Cody's parents' house and headed out. We already ate together while Kaitlyn was at tumbling - which was nice, but we were on a time schedule so we weren't truly relaxed. After we dropped K off we really didn't have a plan of where to go. So we ended up shopping at various places, which doesn't sound so great, but I had so much fun. Cody would hold my hand or come up from behind and hug me which doesn't happen when one of us is chasing K around! We got to talk and just be together. I loved every single second of it. We talked about anything and everything - but the important thing we talked about was that we needed to do date night more.

So here you go - I'm writing it in blog world - that totally makes it official right? Date night once a week is a rule now huh? :)

Word Explosion!

I was getting really worried about Kaitlyn's lack of words a few months ago. She was always gabbering and making up her own words. She had lots of inflection and could copy our's, but the real words weren't coming as much as I thought they should be. I even asked our school's speech teacher if I should be worried. She said at that point her receptive language was more important - did she understand me and do simple tasks that I asked her to and could she point to pictures when I asked her what they were. Kaitlyn was fine in that department so I was a little less worried, but I still thought she needed more words. Our speech teacher told me not to worry about it until she was two. She told me that's when there is supposed to be a "word explosion." Well, a few weeks into the summer I noticed a small boom of sorts. :) Now it seems as if every day Kaitlyn picks up several new words and I am no longer a nervous mama! Now, she still has her fair share of "Kaitlynese" words as we call it, but as I said, I'm not worried anymore. I thought it might be a good idea to try and make a list of some of the words that she is using right now. I'm sure I'll forget some, but it will be nice to look back at this a few months from now and see how far she's come. :)

Kaitlyn's current words: Mama, Daddy, Darcy, Nonnie, Papaw, Memaw (which should be Grandma...we're working on that one!), Granddaddy, yum-yum, cheese, milk, pizza, pancake, fruit, nana (for banana), apple, fish, turtle, puppy, elephant, monkey, cow, pig, horse, sheep, cat, octopus, crab, zebra, up, down, off, no, yes, poop, pee-pee, bye-bye, Casey, baby, book, bug-a-bug, purple, green, pink, Foofa, Toodie, Brobie, Plex, Muno, Elmo, Minnie Mouse, frog, clock, outside, shoes, cracker, phone, potty, hi, you okay, what's that, funny, oh no, bird, where "daddy" go (insert ANYTHING she wants to know where is for "daddy"), let's go, nose, eyes, tummy, feet, ears, head, teeth, mouth, hat, ball, tree, bus, spoon, fork, cup, this, please, bite, thank you, pretty, church, shake, stop

I'm sure I've left off some and I might add more later as it comes to me or I hear it! :) I just know that the list will be more than doubled in a few months!

My Faults

Yep - you read that right - My Faults. I have no idea what has possessed me to write this blog, but I actually got the idea yesterday while reading something and thought I'd better not write that, but it's still on my mind and I thought what the heck. I might regret this but here goes nothing....

I'm not trusting of people. I've been hurt too many times and in too many ways.

I don't let people get very close to me. That kind of goes with the first one, but it's actually been such a downfall for me lately. All my friends who know me inside out don't live close - as in not even in the same state. I have friends here, but not that know me like my best friends do. I long for the days when I could call up one of best friends and they just knew I was having a bad day and we would go out to dinner or even just to walk around Target for hours.

I'm terrible at returning phone calls. And library books that I check out at the public library for my classroom library.

I am OCD about the weirdest things - especially food.

I am horrible at starting up conversations with people - especially if I barely know them. Put me in a room with people my age and I secretly cringe inside (I also believe I have a slight social anxiety problem) Sometimes I get so nervous that my mind starts working faster than my mouth and I mix up all my words. Put me in a room with five and six year olds and I'll do just fine - and teach those goobers to read while I'm at it! :)

I set my expectations too high. I always plan out the way I want things to go in my head, which usually takes the liking of a romantic comedy, but as I have found out life is not like the movies.

I can act like a jealous junior high girl when it comes to my husband.

Geez - I have issues. I still have no idea why I'm writing this, but for some strange reason I feel I tiny bit better after doing so. Go figure. And I'm sure if I sat here long enough I could add plenty more. But I think I'll cut myself a break for now. Please don't take this as I'm a depressed person in any way. I'm not. I just felt like getting that off my chest for some reason. I'm also pretty darn random most of the time. :)