February

We are all doing well this February. The kids and I seem to have head colds but they have been pretty mild. They seem to be hanging on but it is just snaughty noses, congestion, and a cough. No fever or throwing up. I am very thankful! We don't have anything huge to report so I will just ramble a little about the kiddos.
Our biggest news is that William and Allie are both going to be in their own room. Wills still wakes up and will come to be with us but he consistently goes to bed in his own room. He also slept the whole night in his own bed most of the week. WOW! I can hardly believe it but I love it! William doesn't always wake up happy and all week he has woken up with a smile. You don't understand how nice that is! One of the down sides to the kids sharing a room is that they wake each other up earlier. We have been consistently getting up before 7:30. You might not think that is all that early but Wills rarely goes to bed before 9:30. He doesn't like to take naps any more so we try to get him to take a "relax" time. He hates it! I need to get in a better routine with him on this one. If he wants to have a good attitude I don't mind him being awake I just need a break. At least 30 min, is that really to much to ask? We will be working on this this week hopefully. If I can get William to calm down for 10 minutes he will go to sleep. If I put on one of "my movies" on he will fall asleep or if we drive anywhere. It is just not easy to get William to slow down. Our schedule got readjusted because Nick started school three weeks ago so we have been trying to re-adjust life to that. He goes to class on MW so he is gone till 6:30 and Thursday nights from 5-9:30 so our days are long. We miss him when he is gone but we are so proud of him for working hard!

Our sweet little lady is doing well. I am really enjoying watching the boy girl differences between she and William. Her fine motor skills are much more developed. She loves to pinch things and she grabs everything, my hair is paying for that one. She knows that if she cry's she gets attention (she is such a girl!) when she is being honery she will just yell for no reason so she can get picked up. She yells sometimes when Wills comes over. We have started telling her to have a good attitude and stop whining (we know she doesn't really understand) but it is seriously ridiculous. She also started saying momma. She doesn't call me momma per say she just says it when she wants something so in a lot of ways she knows its for me :) It is super cute and of course it works like a charm on my soft heart! I am thankful that both my babies are doing great. Speaking of babies when William was sitting on my lap the other day I told him " I love my baby" he said Allie your baby. I laughed and said I know but your my baby too! He said NO my not I'm big! (Nick has taught him to say my instead of I) He tells us all the time he is grown up now. It is cute but it makes me sad. He is getting so big. He is a sweet little guy. The other day Nick had just come home and Wills was grabbing his leg saying I LOVE YOU DAD I LOVE YOU DAD I LOVE YOU DAD. It was adorable. That is one of my favorite moments as a mommy! Another William thing is that he loves to take all his clothes off and wrap himself in a blanket. It makes me laugh! Well that is all the disjointed information I have for now.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!


Here are some pictures...

Allie doesn't crawl yet but she rolls to get places. She gets stuck sometimes. Here she rolled herself under this stuff. (it was recovery Monday and things needed to be cleaned up) It is pretty funny to watch I will try to get some video soon. The other day I was on the computer and I looked over and William was lighting matches. Oh yeah he can light matches! Daddy taught him how! After telling him very strictly that he had to be with mom or dad to light matches I helped him light them and blow them out. Maybe I should move those higher?

Here he is a little embarrassed that I was taking a picture

Ok so I was serious about recovery Monday. We have busy weekends where the house gets well used so Monday I usually go through a full house clean. I spent several hours cleaning house and for what? It takes Wills 5 seconds after lunch to go from the table to the bathroom and make a disaster! I was discouraged so i took a picture.

Allie loves to eat real food. Nursing not as much unless at 2 am. here she is sucking on one of those pacifier bag things. It had cantaloupe in it.
we went to a Valentines party at Chuck E. Cheese with a bunch of Williams friends. I didn't bring the camera so here are the pictures got there.
they have this fun machine that does "sketches."

wills and Becca

:)

We had a fun time. it was our first Chuck experience. William spent most his tokens and time on one ride. the monster truck. He loved it!

whats for dinner tonight

I don't usually share recipes on my blog because I don't really cook anything that is extremely interesting and it is our little family blog not just my personal blog, however, this is the easiest tastiest recipe in the world and I just have to share! We have been making it for awhile and we love it. I enjoy the fact that is a slow cooker and also that the leftovers are DELICIOUS. You can do all kinds of stuff with the leftovers. Nick's previous coworker Stevie gave us this one last year and it is a keeper. so here it is

here is the link just in case you want to change the amount the recipe is for or read the reviews of how people altered the recipe. I make it straight up and love it.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-and-Corn-Chili/Detail.aspx#nutri-box


Chicken and Corn Chili
INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 (16 ounce) jar salsa
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
1 (11 ounce) can Mexican-style corn
1 (15 ounce) can pinto beans
DIRECTIONS
Place chicken and salsa in the slow cooker the night before you want to eat this chili. Season with garlic powder, cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper. Cook 6 to 8 hours on Low setting.
About 3 to 4 hours before you want to eat, shred the chicken with 2 forks. Return the meat to the pot, and continue cooking.
Stir the corn and the pinto beans into the slow cooker. Simmer until ready to serve.

Puppy?

You think I would let Nick and Wills get a puppy in our two bedroom apartment! Your crazy! Much to Nicks disappointment I did NOT let them get a puppy. The puppy in the picture is the Thornton's. She is a really cute little black lab. I think she is about 7 weeks old in these pictures. We thought Wills would be really into her but he wasn't. His heart belongs to Ramone. Occasionally when Nick works out William gets to go with him. I should write that sentence William occasionally gets to go work out with Nick because Nick does not work out "occasionally" he is very consistent. Anyway... back to the point of that story... Nick works out with Nate who brings Ramone. Evidently, since I am not there to observe them, Ramone and William go on little adventures together. Nick said that neither of them will go as far if they are alone but when they are together they have a lot more confidence. Nick said they will go a couple houses down and see what is doing. I was not thrilled to hear that my two year old and his fellow companion are taking excursions through an unfamiliar neighborhood (it is a really nice neighborhood and Ramone is a good dog who would take care of Wills and I am not really sure how far they get. A part of me would rather just not know) I think it is pretty cute that the two of them hang out.

Jubi or Jubilee

Nate hands the dog to Wills

Wills smiles Wills lets go of dog. It was very funny.

My brother Nate loves dogs.
Jubi is so dark you can't even see her eyes.

I looked over the other day to see William in Allie's bouncy seat. I took a picture because he couldn't get out because he buckled himself in. I thought it was pretty funny how silly he looked stuck in there in nothing but a diaper. One of his favorite things to do is strip down to his diaper and wrap himself in a blanket. What a goof!

William got a "big" bike for Christmas. Here he is headed out for a ride.

our rainy days have been kind of sparse but the other day it was dark and wet so we stayed inside and built William his first fort. It was fun! I have such fond memories of fort building as a kid. Now I can have them as an adult.Allie played in her walker while we built said fort. (does she look a tiny bit like Jenny in this picture? I think maybe her eyes?)

we were all looking at the new puppy and grandma Myers held Allie so she could have a close look.

As my kids develop and go through new stages I seem to fall in love with them all over again.

Allie scrunches up her nose sometimes when she smiles. It is just this funny adorable face she makes.

I love this girl! She is just so cute! She was belly laughing at her brother in the bath today and it just melts my heart and makes me smile from ear to ear.

January

here are some pictures of January. We haven't been up to much lately just trying to get outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. It is 65 degrees outside currently. I do enjoy winter (California winter that is) so I hope it gets rainy again but it is BEAUTIFUL outside. Funny that none of these pictures are of outside but they are cute.

Our babies are doing great. They both have a cold but no fevers, just sore throats and runny noises. William is every bit a 2 1/2 year old and is continuing to decide he doesn't need to listen to his mother. He is hard to stay on top of because it is much easier just to ignore his behavior. When he is in trouble he has started laughing and running away. He thinks it is great, I do not! I am working on having patience, loving him, praying before I deal with him, while I am dealing with him, and at every other time I loose my cool with him. When I am trying to get anything done it is hard to stop and take the time to really focus on him. There is a little glimpse of my heart :(. Scary huh... anyway. He tells me all day long he is hungry followed by I want a snack. I am trying to get him to not snack all day just to eat his meals and one or two snacks in between. If he is legitimately hungry i let him eat but this is just William and him complaining. I offer him a good snack like a cheese stick and some applesauce and he says no I want gum...

We are also trying to teach him that when he makes a decision it has consequences he has to live with. He will give Allie a toy and be really sweet but want it right back. He will choose a snack and then decide he wanted something else. The list goes on... Another thing we are trying to learn is being content with what we are given. He likes his cars dinnerware and when he doesn't get it he often complains. We are trying to teach him to ask nicely and if we say no then he just needs to have a good attitude. There are other examples of this behavior as well. For every difficulty with William I could share two things about him that are wonderful. We love our little guy so much and we pray that God would help us deal with the sin in his little heart. I also pray that God would help me deal with the sin in my heart. As all you parents know, children are a wonderful (really terrible) reflection of some of our sins. I know all to well where William gets so many these problems we have to deal with. My pray is that I wouldn't just deal with William but that I would see correct the behavior in my own life. Often times that is far harder and requires a lot more honest and work.


Allie has been wonderful. She doesn't like to sleep that well during the night so I finally broke down and fed her cereal. She likes to wake up and nurse every 2 1/2 to 3 hours. I wanted to wait till six months (which she is today) but I couldn't say no any longer to those pretty blue eyes and their entreaties for food. She does love to eat. At first she gave me kind of a dirty face, (funny Nick did the same face a few days later, made me laugh, the kids do a few faces that Nick does and it cracks me up like Williams I am proud of myself face, totally from his daddy!) but now that is been two weeks she eats like a champ.

Here are a few things I have recently noticed about our princess. She makes the cutest little girl noises. They are definitely different then the noises Wills made. She has complete control of her pacifier and knows exactly what it is! She has decided that rolling is a form of transportation and she rolls all over the floor to get the things she wants. She gets super excited when she thinks you are going to pick her up and she makes it clear that she is disappointed when you don't. Nick already can't refuse her anything and between her sweet smile and extreme disappointment if not picked up she often gets what he wants. She is a really good baby however and will sit in her seat for awhile. William repeats the things we say and the other day he told her give me a second Allie. Made me laugh. When he yelled crap I chuckled as well but much to my chagrin. LOL ut oh! Back to Allie though she has been responding to her name for awhile now, very cute! And she learned to say Dada this week. Just another way to twist Nick around her finger, even though she isn't referring to him it is so cute! Well if you haven't noticed I am totally in love with my two little babies. They are so sweet! I can't believe how fast time goes and I know as Trace Adkins says "your gonna miss this" (that song makes me choke up every time! give it a listen!) Well Nick is shaking his head that I am ending my post on that but oh well. Hope you are all doing well.

William and Allie

These next two are for Aunt Katie. My mom has these trucks and one had a horse trailer. Wills was so excited we borrowed it for a couple days. He put his tractor in the trailer and his horse in the truck.

not my favorite picture but he hates getting his picture taken. So he comes up to me instead of just staying doing what he was doing.

Those two sweet babies.

I was trying to get a picture of her and he wanted to be in the picture.

This morning I was feeding her and he was sitting next to us and she was leaning over trying to get his food. It was funny. She was giving him some funny looks.

eating cereal.

before Christmas and when William had a pacifier still I went to do a quick errand while Rach hung with the babies. Here they are. So sweet all snugged up.

Allie making silly faces.

the shadows are on her face. She was looking at Wills duing this picture

Hi mom!

That sweet girl.

in black and white.

sitting in her boppy.

pretty baby.

she loves to roll on the ground.

She sits up in her bouncy seat. Just plops right up. Pretty funny.

I'm gonna get that camera

William unimpressed with something he says all the time. he thinks its cool she says dada
I'm ready for a nap mom.

Well thats all I have for now and I know you are thankful :)