— Here’s What I Have to Say —

A friend of mine came for lunch on MLK day. She brought me a belated Christmas/Birthday gift and brought lunch. Here is the sweet gift she got me from Patina. (I LOVE this store! I wish I went there more often!) I absolutely love the earrings! I put them on right away! Hillary told me...

Here are a few videos of Maddie playing with a blanket. She loves putting it on her head and walking around. This one is hilarious. At the very end she hits her head on the ground. What a silly little baby!

One of Chuck’s favorite snacks is “Chex Mix”. But it’s the best when you make it yourself and don’t buy it premade. So I picked up the ingredients and whipped some up for our Christmas celebration we had recently. HERE is the recipe. Mix the cereal, pretzels and peanuts (and bagel chips if you have...

Last Saturday, I decided to make some fruit leather. Fruit leather, also known as fruit roll-ups, are delicious! I had a bag of frozen strawberries and bananas and thought I would give it a try. I used this link as a guide to make them. First, I blended the frozen fruit with some strawberry banana...

During my morning reads on various blogs, I stumbled across a fun website. It’s called 280daily. The idea is that you write 280 characters a day about anything you want. It can sum up your day. It can be a place to journal for the day. It can just be something you want to remember....

My friend has this trilogy and has let a number of friends read it. When one friend was returning it to her, I became the happy recipient of the trilogy to read. First, I think I need to read more “teen” books because I read them much faster than other books. Ha! I think it...

The other night I tried out a new meal. Here is the recipe. I used half as many noodles and not quite as much chicken, but used the whole amount of sauce. Chuck likes it saucy! I cooked the chicken (and shredded it) and lasagna noodles. Then I mixed the pasta sauce and seasonings together....

Here is a video of Maddie from the other day. She was just playing in the kitchen. At the end I get her to “blow a kiss.” She’s still working on the part where she has to move her hand away from her mouth and not just lick it! Enjoy!

I made a pot roast the other day and it was so yummy! I always forget how easy these are to make. But I forget how much food they make! I really need to make it on a night I am having people over to dinner because I have so much leftover! It’s really simple,...

Just one more month and this little girl will be 1! How is that even possible? I’m deep into birthday planning and the invites will be in the mail soon! Maddie is learning things so quickly! It’s hard to keep up with everything that she is learning. Some of the things she has been doing...

Chuck’s mom is an amazing seamstress. She can sew anything! This Christmas, she out did herself. She made Maddie a “fun book” with all sorts of learning pages. You can remove all the shapes to match them! You can move the apples around! Yep, there’s a dog inside! And the bear comes out of its...

Last weekend we had Chuck’s mom, sister and brother-in-law over for our final Christmas celebration. We had a wonderful time opening gifts. Or watching Maddie open gifts. And here is a video of Maddie playing “swords” with Paige. We also had a birthday cake (DQ ice cream cake) for Chuck’s birthday. We had a great...

I thought it would be fun to make some thank-you cards from Maddie for people for her Christmas gifts. Here are some of the pictures from our craft project.

A little while back, I posted about Maddie going to daycare. I just came across a couple pictures I took of her the last day she was there. I picked her up during snack time. She was such a happy girl sitting there eating with a couple friends.   It was nice to see her...

I came across a picture of a project I did in the Fall that I never shared. I came across this adorable idea and knew I had to give it a try. So I went looking for some fabric and paper sacksoh, and toilet paper.and put some little pumpkins together! So you just lay down...

I have been trying to make more meals and plan ahead for them. I feel like if I write them on a calendar I am more apt to make them for dinner and not just try to wing it. So the other night, I wanted to make some baked potatoes and I wanted to try...

Whenever music comes on, Maddie dances. And by dances, I mean she bounces up and down. This can be sitting or standing. It’s adorable. The other night she was dancing like crazy to some music on tv. Of course she really went to town after the video turned off, but it’s still cute to watch!...

I just finished this book the other day. FINALLY. I have started this book a couple times before and couldn’t get into it. This time I thought I should just commit and read it. Holy cow. It took me forever to get through this book. It wasn’t very good so it wasn’t very motivating to...

I finished this book a while ago. Over the summer, actually. I had read the first two books in this series. I had borrowed those books from someone at work. When I was ready to read this one, Chuck had given me my iPad, so I rented it through the library. It was a really...

Here are a few more videos that I had on my camera. The first one is very typical of Maddie.walking around with veggie straws. She loves them. They are really like baby crack. If she sees them, she won’t eat anything but them. So really I use them to get her to sit in her...