Farm Party

We had Kylee's birthday party on Saturday. For her first birthday we just had the family come to the house so we decided to go all out for this one. We had it at our church and it turned out great! We had a farm theme which proved to be more difficult than I thought. I assumed that the party stores would have farm stuff, but boy was I wrong. I looked at our small store here and all they had was zoo stuff. So I ran down to Round Rock and they said they only sold it online. So I had to be creative. I went to the teacher store and bought a bulletin board set to decorate and found some pictures online to make the cupcake toppers. I think it turned out pretty cute!











Kylee loved the bounce house. Thanks to my friend Brooke for letting me borrow it. Now every time we drive by the church Kylee says, "Bouncy House!" I was so proud of sweet Kylee. She blew out the candle all by herself. My how she has grown in a year. Kylee was blessed with a lot of gifts, thank you to everyone for being so generous. She had lots of helpers with opening them so we finished in record time! One our friends had her birthday that night and Kylee thought that she should open all of her gifts too. I guess she was on a role.

Blue Hat, Green Hat

As I mentioned in my previous post, Kylee got a new book for her birthday and she was super excited about it. Here is a video of her reading it!

My baby girl turned two yesterday! I can't believe it. She is really turning into a little girl even though I still call her my baby. She is talking up a storm, learning how to walk with Mommy instead of being carried, interact with her friends and naming almost anything. She can count to three, but likes to stop on two. She is still working on her colors, right now she can repeat the colors, but when you ask her what color something is, she replies, "Red," almost every time :)

She still likes to snuggle when she is sleepy, gets hurt or gets in trouble. She makes messes all the time, but is learning to help clean them up. Thank you to all of my friends for giving me pointers and encouragement as we encounter new challenges everyday. I absolutely love being your Mommy, Kylee, and I can't wait for birthday number 3! Daddy and I love you very much. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

The day started out with a family birthday breakfast of oatmeal. When I got Kylee up I told her "Happy Birthday!" She walked around the kitchen looking for her birthday (I think she was looking for a cake). We gave her the two candle and she decided that was her birthday. She even blew out the candle after we sang to her at breakfast.

She is trying to hold up two fingers

After breakfast I picked her up and we were about to head out the door to go to school. Then I noticed that she had a whole bunch of blood in her ear. We found some on the pillow too. I thought for sure that she had burst her eardrum. I called the doctor and got her an appointment. We ran Bubba to school and then headed to the doctor's office. She was such a big girl at the doctor's office. She pulled out the step at the bottom of the table and decided to read her magazine.

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The doctor said that her eardrum had not burst, but she did have an ear infection. He said she probably stuck her finger in there because it was hurting and scratched herself and made it bleed. Poor baby, I guess I need to trim her fingernails twice a week!

My mom dropped Kylee and I off at school and she headed to Walgreens to pick up Kylee's medicine. Kylee had only been at school for about an hour when she fell and busted her lip. Her teacher brought her to me with blood on her shirt. My mom was still there so i asked her take take Kylee home with her. I thought she had enough excitement for one day and we should let her rest at home.

We planned to take the kids to Chick-fil-A and let them play for her birthday dinner, but I came down with a bad cold and did not feel like going anywhere. So Daddy picked up food on his way home and we had Chick-fil-a at home. My mom got her a giant muffin to use as her cake and she very much enjoyed being the center of attention. She asked us to sing to her a second time and also had to repeat the blowing out of her candles.

After cake/muffin we opened presents. Bubba got her a book that she been asking for since Christmas. It is a Sandra Boynton book that her teacher has a school called, "Blue Hat, Green Hat." She was so excited when she got it. Mommy and Daddy got her a little table with folding chairs. Her and Bubba enjoyed reading together at it. That table is really cool b/c you can use dry erase markers on it and they erase! We did not show Kylee this cool trick. We were afraid she would think that everything was erasable, the walls, the table, etc.

Yummy Soup!

We had some friends over last night and I tried a new recipe for Mexican Bean Soup. It was so good so I thought I would share it. Our class at church gets together once a year and we all share our favorite recipes and put them in a book. This recipe was entered by my good friend, Becky!

1 lb Hamburger Meat
1 pkg. Pork Breakfast Sausage
2 Cans Pinto Beans
1 Can Mex-Corn
1 pkg. Taco Seasoning
2 Cans Rotel Tomatoes (I only used one)
2-3 Cups of Water
1 pkg. Dry Ranch Dressing Mix

Brown and drain beef and pork in large tew pot. Ad remaining ingredients an cook on med/low heat for 25 minutes. Garnish soup with chopped green onions, sour cream, shredded cheddar, and Tortilla Chips.

It was so yummy and perfect for these cold days. I hope you enjoy it with your family!

Christmas 2009!

So I know this is a little late, but oh well.

Jonathan's Mom, Dad and Sister came up to our house for Christmas Eve. Shara and the boys went to see Avatar while Pam, Kylee and I wrapped some last minute gifts. We then had snacks and opened presents. We tried to take turns opening presents. We started at 6:45 and at 7:15 Kylee was done and ready for bed. So we tried to hurry up and have her open all of her presents and then we put her in bed. We had a great night!!

Kylee feeding her new baby from Nonny and Mawmaw. (I haven't showed her that it poops and pees yet).

Bryan got new shoes from Papo!

Bryan got a really cool laso rope from Uncle Herschel and Aunt Pattie

Jonathan got new work gloves.

I got a new gps!! Thank you Chris and Pam. Chris set it up for me and he named it "Saving Becca." I think that is a very appropriate title.

Christmas morning we stayed at home and opened presents with just the four of us. We always enjoy spending Christmas morning at our house. We let the kids open their stockings and see their presents from Santa when they get up, then we eat a big breakfast and open the rest of the presents. Kylee woke us up at 6:30 and when we went into the living room Bryan had already sorted all of the presents and was waiting for us to get up!

Kylee got a new rocking chair from "Santa"
Bryan got a new tractor from John Deere.

This is one of my favorite pictures! Kylee is giving Bryan a hug and thanking him for the set of tools that he gave her.


Here's Bryan with all of the presents. We tried really hard to get Kylee to sit still for this picture, but we did not succeed.

We headed up to my sister's house in Allen (north of Dallas) about 1:00 on Christmas day. I got to use my new gps and I didn't get lost. We had 16 people at Karen and Scott's house, thanks for putting up with us!! We had a great time just being together, cooking and looking at Christmas lights. Karen and Scott took us to the Galleria Mall and we got to see the huge Christmas tree. That is a huge mall. I must say that is my first time to be there. Maybe the next time I go back I can actually do some shopping :)

This is a video of Kylee doing the Cha Cha Slide!

Kylee hanging out with Aunt Karen and Wallace!

Kylee helping Mommy make scrambled eggs.

Mom making breakfast!

I hope that all of you and yours had a very Merry Christmas.

Christmas Cookies

We just got finished making sugar cookies. Dad even got in on the action. Here are some pictures.

Bryan with his huge Ginger bread man!

Daddy helped add the final touches to an even bigger Gingerbread man/Angel.

My mother-in-law (Nonny) took the kids for two whole days! I got all my errands run yesterday. It was so nice to run into a store and run out. I headed out to the doctor about 8:00 yesterday morning and I didn't get back from running errands until 2!! Everything went well with the doctor. He said that he was fine with me doing a v-bac (delivery after a c-section). He didn't mention my weight, but I know that I have gained too much. I will have to be more careful in this last trimester. He said that Bailey was measuring right at 28 weeks and my tighters are still measuring zero!

Jonathan and I decided to open one gift from each other last night. I got him the new/old Super Mario Brothers for the wii and he got me a new camera. My camera was still one of those 4 mexapixel kinds. The new one takes much better pictures! We played Mario Brothers for a while. It brought back lots of memories and it is actually a game that I will play.

This morning I worked on Kylee's room. I have been putting the clothes that don't fit her in her closet since she was born. There are lots of clothes in there! I have needed to go through them to get ready for Bailey, but I knew that was next to impossible with a little helper named Kylee around. It took me almost 2 hours, but I finally got it done. I put 4 huge crates of clothes in the garage to be put in the attic until they fit Bailey. I went ahead and hung up clothes for Bailey while I was sorting them. Now they are ready for her arrival even though I have three more months.

Please keep my mom in your prayers. She was put in the hospital Monday night with pneumonia. She got to go home today and seems to be doing well, but I am worried that she will over do it. She needs to rest!

I hope that all of you have a very Merry Christmas!!

Nine Years

Yesterday was our 9th Anniversary!! I can't believe that we have been married that long. Our sweet friends kept Kylee and Bryan for us so that we could have a night out. We went to the Olive Garden to eat and then headed over to the mall to a watch a movie. We saw "The Blind Side." I highly recommend it!! It's one of those stories that really makes you thankful for what you have. I only had to go to the bathroom twice, so I saw most of the movie. It was so nice to have a night out without the kids, thank you Locklins!!!! I love you Jonathan and I look forward to many more years to come.

The directionally gifted

For those of you who know me well, know that I am very directionally challenged. My father-in-law is getting me a garmon for my birthday to help me with this challenge. Bryan is very good at directions. Sometimes he tells me how to get places in Belton that I have been to before, I just don't remember how I got there.

Kylee apparently has his gift. For those of you who are locals, you will know where I am talking about. Kylee knows that after we drop off Bubba at school we turn right to go to "class" on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If I turn left to go home, she cries for class. I figured this was probably normal for a kid her age since we do it so often, but little did I know how gifted she was.

We had to run to Hobby Lobby yesterday to get some things for work. After we finished our shopping, we had to go to the teacher store to get some things that Hobby Lobby did not have. I pulled off of Scott street and took a left onto 31st street. Kylee cried in the backseat, "No Mommy, home!" She knew that in order to get home we were supposed to turn right! After we finished at the teacher store we headed back toward the loop at which time she said, "Daddy, Daddy." I was trying to figure out what she was talking about. Then we turned right onto the loop and she was very upset and started screaming for Daddy. She knew that John Deere was to the left and we were going the wrong way. If only I could have inherited some of her sense of direction!

Birthday fun!

Last weekend we celebrated Bryan's 11th birthday. His actual birthday was in November, but we couldn't get the gym at church reserved until this month. I think it was a great success. I was definitely exhausted at the end of the night, but that means I did my job, right?

My camera died in the middle of the party so I don't have very many pictures. Here are the ladies making pizza! Thank you to all of my family for the help!


I am feeling very pregnant lately. My scholiosis has been bothering me so I started wearing my inserts again. I am hoping that will help. I am also trying to not carry Kylee as much so that means that we will have a lot more spankings around here. She really like to run from Mommy! Please pray that I will do what I need to do, spankings are hard for me. Here I am at 23 weeks.


Jonathan and I got to do all of our Christmas shopping on Sunday. My mom was in town and kept the kiddos for us. We actually only had to go to two stores and ordered one thing on line. We still have to get some other little presents, but we are done with the kids!! One thing that made shopping so easy this year was that I took Bryan to Target with a clipboard. I told him to make his Christmas list while we were there. So he wrote down everything he wanted and I came home and looked at all of it online before we went shopping. So we knew how much everything cost and what we could get.

Kylee loves to cook. I got her some pots and pans for Christmas and she woke up from her nap right as I finished wrapping them. I had gone in the other room to put something away and I came back to find that she had unwrapped them and was saying, "Oooh!" Luckily she quickly got distracted by something else and I re-wrapped them and put them away. I guess I can't put the presents under the tree as a I wrap them this year!



And yes I know that I am up at crazy hours, yea for being pregnant!

Stomach bug (again)

Well the bug is back. This time it has invaded tiny Kylee's little body :( She has been battling a bad cold for over a week so when I found her in her bed yesterday afternoon covered in yuck, I just thought that she had coughed too hard. We took her to the doctor after that b/c I wanted to make sure the cold hadn't turned into anything else. The doctor said that it was still just a cold (sigh). Don't you always feel dumb when they say that? Kylee had been extra fussy and pulling on her ear so I thought for sure that she had another infection.

Kylee got up and ate breakfast this morning and was ready to go grocery shopping. So we left and headed to HEB. I started out by the produce, we got strawberries, blueberries, lettuce, onions, bananas and as I was looking at the yummy lemon cakes, it happened. She threw up all over HEB. This is one of those situations where you think, "Okay now what?" She was covered in yuck and wanted it off. I motioned to a nice HEB worker and told him what had happened. He looked less than thrilled and called a code 55 over the intercom. He brought me some paper towels and I tried to clean up a little. I stripped Kylee and then a nice man came with his mop and said that he would take care of it. I offered to pay for the few groceries I had gotten and said not to worry about it. So we left with a sick little girl and no groceries.

Jonathan headed down to Houston this afternoon so I had the challenge of getting some essentials without a Daddy. This grocery trip was going to do some major restocking, I mean we didn't even have bread! So after we got home and I gave her a bath and put some clean clothes on I grabbed Bryan and we headed to Walgreens to pick up a few groceries for the weekend. Bryan stayed in the car with her while she watched an episode of Imagination Movers. Thank goodness for my 10 year old!

So has anyone else ever had a public bout with the yuckies?

Happy Halloween

We had a great Halloween!! Wednesday night I took Kylee to the Funival at our church. Bryan lost his privilege to go so Jonathan had to stay home with him. We said hello to all of our friends and ate a little candy, it was a lot of fun.

Getting ready to party :)

Kylee with her friends Hannah and Ava

Kylee with her friends Benjamin and Jonathan.

You can tell how excited Kylee was about this event.

Kylee found this spot as we were leaving. She thought it would be a great photo opportunity. She sat down and said, "Cheese."

Thursday we went trick-or-treating at preschool. Kylee was very possessive and would not let me play with any of the other kids or let go of her hand.


Friday night we went to a party at our church with our friends from class. There were 21 kids in all there plus we were missing some!!

Kylee jumping in the bounce house. Thanks to Holly for sharing it with us!

Kylee playing Ring Around the Rosies with Gracyn's Nonny!


Thanks to our friend Becky for such a fun party!!!

Saturday night Bubba (Batman) and Kylee (Batgirl) were finally reunited.

Grandma got to come down to join the fun!

Just for fun here is a picture of Kylee last year. My how she has grown.

We hope that all of you enjoyed your Halloween!!