double the fun

I've been gone for far too long, but I've been busy. My days are now filled with watching two babies. That's right. Two. Not one, but two! Madelaine has joined Ella Claire and me during the day every Monday- Thursday. And we're having lots of fun. These babies are as sweet as they come and I am honored to have them in my care. M is still just a tiny mite at 4 months old but she is learning new things everyday and will soon be sitting up and playing with Ella Claire. And EC, well she is into EVERYTHING!!! She is taking steps by herself now and climbing on everything. I caught her red handed standing in her baby stroller push toy a few weeks ago. I quickly took a picture (how could I not capture it!?!) and then put her sweet little feet safely back on the floor. The picture is not uploaded to my computer yet, so I'll have to post it later. It's way late now and I'll have an early wake up call in the AM, but I'll leave you with one picture of the cutest cousins in town.

water baby

This is how we have been dealing with this insane southern HEAT and HUMIDITY that I'm not wishing away! Because just as soon as the heat is gone, my baby will be ONE!! I can't believe it, I really can't believe it!

It's great for both of us! Ella Claire loves splashing and playing in the water and I enjoy soaking up every ray of sunshine that I can. This is my first summer ever to not spend lounging in a pool....so I am in desperate need of a little Vitamin D from none other than Mr. Sunshine. So, my legs and everyone that can see them are thanking me. :) As you can see from one of the pictures, Ella Claire even enjoyed lunch in the pool one day. Her favorite...Avocado. Where in the world she puts all this food that she eats I have no idea?!? Everyday for lunch she either eats an entire banana or an entire avocado. That is a lot of food!

Ella Claire and I have also been busy having play dates at The Watermelon Patch. Daphne, a friend from high school and nursing school invited us to join her and her little boy Titus to a Mommy and Me class once a week. Erin, another friend from nursing school and her little girl Anna Claire take the class too. Titus is 7 weeks younger than Ella Claire, and Anna Claire is 6 weeks older than Ella Claire. Another friend Sara Jane has been bringing her daughter Laura Katherine to the class also. Babies babies everywhere!! Fun Fun!!

The class is only about 45 minutes long and the babies play with musical instruments, and bubbles while we sing silly songs. Ella Claire loves it all except the parachute. All of the adults grab a handle and the babies play underneath the parachute. I don't know what it is, but EC crawls to me and tries to climb up my leg everytime. Silly girl! For the last 10 or 15 minutes the babies have open play. That's where they get to crawl wherever they want and play with whatever they want. The floor is covered in huge thick play mats and the rooms are filled with fun learning toys. It's a great place for little ones to go to get out of the house a bit, and a great place for mommies to get out too! ;)

Here is one last picture of my water baby enoying her bath time!

lemon cream cheese puffs

In my last post I posted the picture above. I promised the recipe, so here it is. This is a super easy dessert that is guaranteed to please! It really is so easy and can be whipped up in no time. I first tried them at my friend Windy's house and knew I had to give them a try myself. I'm not sure where the original recipe is from, but Windy is a wonderful cook and changed the recipe to her liking. I have to say, I liked it (LOVED it) and I think you will too!

Lemon cream cheese puffs

Ingredients:

1 box frozen puff pastry sheets

1 8oz box cream cheese

1 lemon

1 lemon zest

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 Tbsp water

Glaze Ingredients:

confectioners sugar

milk

vanilla extract

Set the puff pastry sheets and cream cheese out to thaw. Zest the lemon and cut lemon in 1/2. In a medium mixing bowl, mix 1/2 of the lemon juice, the lemon zest, 1/2 cup sugar and cream cheese. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Roll out the box of puff pastry sheets with a rolling pin (1/2 of the box at a time) and cut into 4 squares **This is where I used cookie cutters and made stars for the 4th of July. But, it was very time consuming and unless you want to make certain shapes it's easiest to just cut squares.** Put a small amount of the lemon cream cheese filling in the middle of each puff pastry until the filling is gone and evenly divided between all 8 pastries. Fold each pastry over to form triangles and pinch the seams together.

In a small bowl mix together 1 egg and 1 Tbsp of water. Lightly brush the tops of each pastry with the egg mixture. This step is important in helping give the pastries that irresistible golden crispy look. :) Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes or until golden on top.

For the glaze there are no exact measurements. I did use about 1 tsp of vanilla, but just add sugar and milk until you get the consistency you prefer. Add more sugar to make it thicker, or milk to thin it out. When the pastries come out of the oven drizzle the glaze on top and serve warm.

If you decide to make this, let me know what you think. If you like lemon, I don't think you'll be disappointed. ENJOY!!

the fourth, food, fun and fireworks!

So, this post is WAY late! But, since the 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays, I had to do a post on it! I love patriotism and I am so proud to be an American! This year it was so much fun having a little one to dress in red, white and blue! Here is a picture of little miss, in her stars and stripes, with my two beautiful sisters! :)

Celebrating the 4th this year was a little different than years past. My parents were in Houston, TX spending some quality time with my mom's brother and sister. So, they weren't around for all of our fun and festivities, but they had tons of fun in the Lone Star State.

Each year our church puts on a huge outreach

called Celebrate Freedom. It is held at MGM High school, the weekend of July 4th. We have a car show, arts and crafts, silent auction, blow ups for the kids to jump, a petting zoo and of course FOOD! Right before dark all of the activities close down and everyone moves into the stands on the football field. We usually honor local veterans and the coast guard does a fly over. This year we had a skydiver that landed right in front of the stage! His parachute was red, white and blue and had USA in huge letters that everyone could see as he floated down. He also had an American flag waving behind him along with red smoke! It was so neat!

We couldn't believe that he could navigate well enough to land directly in front of us! The last event is a concert and then a fabulous fireworks show. Jimmy Needham and Dorothy Savage where in concert this year and both did a great job. The fireworks are always a hit and so impressive. They are shot off right on the other side of the field, so during the show you literally feel like they are going to fall on you! So fun!! :)

This year Jeremy and I didn't volunteer like we have the last few years, because of my parents being out of town. Jeremy didn't need to leave work since my dad wasn't there and I wouldn't be much help volunteering with a 9 month old attached to my hip. So, we just enjoyed the event and look forward to helping out again next year! Ella Claire fell asleep during the concert and woke up right before the fireworks. She wasn't so sure what to think about them, but wasn't scared of the loud noise.

Saturday was nice and relaxing and I enjoyed every second of Jeremy's off time! (maybe more than he did!!) We had breakfast at Cracker Barrel and later picked out a grill for Jeremy. The grill was part of his father's day gift, but we hadn't had a chance to go pick it up until then. Saturday night we had Kim, Justin, Madelaine, Steph, Brian and Jess over and we grilled out. For the last few years, I have tried to make some sort of patriotic dessert. Last year I made star shaped cakes with a white glaze topped with strawberries and blueberries.

This year I made lemon cream cheese puff pastries and I cut the pastries in the shape of stars. They were so good! But, how could anything with cream cheese and a puff pastry not be good?!?

Stay tuned, I'm planning on doing a post on this recipe soon!

VOTE!!

Make your vote count! Ella Claire and I did!

summer 2010 favorites

Since summer is flying by and we are busy enjoying these long days, I thought I would do a post on a few of our favorite summer things! It seems we are always so busy, I wish we could just slow down. I don't think things will get any slower, but we can still enjoy and appreciate even the small things in life!

Any day spent cooling off in the pool is a favorite day of ours!! This day we just happen to be visiting our family, the Campbell's, Guynn's and Schapal's, at Phoenix on the bay. Ella Claire wore sunscreen for the first time and we floated down the lazy river. It was fabulous! I love this picture of her. She looks like a little muffin to me when she wears this sun hat. :)

One of our favorite things to do as a family is run or walk in our neighborhood together. It has been SOOOO hot this summer, that we haven't been doing much running, but we still love taking late afternoon walks! We get to see a beautiful sunset and catch up on each others day. These sunglasses are NOT one of EC's favorites. Actually I took this picture about 1 second after we put them on her because they don't stay on much longer than that.

This summer favorite is called "lucky lucky lavender" by OPI! My sister, Kim, told me about it. She got a pedicure with it around Easter, and we can't get enough of it. It's such a fun color, that we have been using it all spring and summer!

Ella Claire has even joined in on the fun!

Do you play words with friends? I do and LOVE it! It's so fun and addictive! It's basically just scrabble. I don't always have time to play during the day, but I always play right before I go to bed at night. You play a turn and then wait for your opponent to play. There is no time limit, so if you get busy, you just stop and can later pick back up where you left off. You should definitely give it a try!

I can't believe my baby is eating Cheerios! But, she is and she can't get enough! This is her new favorite snack. They are my new favorite snack too because they will satisfy and entertain her at any time....it's great! This is a picture of her chowing down while Jeremy and I enjoy our dinner! Everyone's happy!

Well, I hope you are enjoying your favorite things this summer too! Here is one last picture of two of my favorite people!! :)

a few things worth celebrating!

Is it really July??? Where is the time going? I haven't blogged in a while because our internet has been down. :( How did we ever make it without the internet?!??!! Since my last post Jeremy had his first Father's Day. It was such a special day! Ella Claire and I worked on a little homemade card for him and it was lot's of fun! After Jeremy went to bed saturday night, I put his gifts out by the coffee pot. (his first stop in the morning!) I took a picture of them, but can you believe I did not take any pictures of Jeremy and Ella Claire together on fathers day??!?! Here is a picture of them the day we brought Ella Claire home from the hospital.

and one of the three of us the day after Father's Day:

Jeremy is such a good daddy! He loves playing with EC and would do anything for her. He works really hard to provide for us. I am extremely thankful for him and I know Ella Claire will be too one day when she is older!

While we're talking about Jeremy, he also had another first this week. He tried his first raw oyster! We went to dinner with our friends, Daniel and Adriane to Wintzell's Oyster House one night last week. They specialize in fried, stewed and nude oysters. Since Jeremy had never had one "nude", Daniel asked our waitress for two oysters on a half shell, one for himself and the other for Jeremy. Our sweet waitress showed them how to fix the oysters just right and they devoured them! Jeremy really liked it and said he might even try it again. I didn't have my phone or camera so Adriane snapped some pictures with her phone and texted them to me. Here they are!

Hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July! Have a great weekend and do something special to celebrate our Independence!!