Gettin' Stuff Done

Colton Update
He is such a little booger these days. He is definitely keeping his nickname "Flash" 'cause this child is everywhere within seconds. He absolutely wears me completely out.

It's amazing how much he catches on to what I'm saying, but won't talk. It's funny, you ask him a question and he shakes his head up and down for "yes" and side to side for "no." Tonight, I asked him if he was ready to go to bed. He looked up at me so serious (passy in mouth) and shook his head "no." He is a character. I'll have to make a video soon because it is so hard to put on paper (type) the funny things he does. He is showing more love than he has been. Of course, you had better watch out for the incoming (head butt).

I've never seen him react to other small children, his age, until today.  Allison and her baby girls came by to visit.  Oh my goodness.  I don't think Colton really knew what to do.  I think he wanted to hold "A" or hug her, but didn't know how to go about it.  He took up to Allison right off the bat.  Bless her heart, she was holding him and "A" at the same time.  Colton and A are about three months apart.  Me holding A, you could definitely tell the difference in the weight.  Colton is so much heavier than A.  She is such a petite little thing.  She reminded me a little of Katie.  Katie was such a little bitty thing until she turned 2 years old.  It seemed like over night, a light switch went on with her appetite.  We were so glad to see them again.

Cleaning Out The Storage Building
For the past couple of days, I've been one busy momma.  I'm in need of some plastic boxes to organize and store clothes and toys.  Well, I probably have more plastic boxes in stock inside my building than on Walmart's shelves.  LOL!  Unfortunately, they are all full of the clothes I tried to sell this past May.  I had hoped to get out there soon and take some of the clothes to our local charity organization.  The Summer's heat has kept me beat down to where I never got to do this job.  Recently, the humidity has been fairly decent, so I've taken the opportunity to get this task knocked out.  Shew!  For me to have sold quite a bit of girls and boys clothes this past Spring, I sure have got a whole lot of clothes still left to give away.  I was so glad to have found several coats and jackets to give to charity because I know they will need them this Winter.  I'll be so glad to get a lot of things out of the building.  There will be so much room left, it will be great. 

Fall Cookie Idea
I love Scarecrows!  I just think they are so cute and sweet.  I smile as soon as I see a sweet welcoming smiling faced scarecrow.  Katie has a life sized scarecrow named "Daisy."  She gets real sad when I have to pack her up after Thanksgiving is over.  The Celebration Shoppe has a cute scarecrow cookie pop idea for us scarecrow lovers to make this Autumn.  I think they are adorable.  Check them out.

The Celebration Shoppe got the idea from Skip To My Lou, which is another great blogger that I like to keep in touch from time to time.  Skip To My Lou got the idea from Disney's Family Fun Magazine, which is closely becoming my favorite websites ever. 

Above is the original ideal scarecrow cookie from Family Fun Magazine. 

Scarecrow Cookie Recipe

What You Need:

Cookies (ours were about 2 1/2 inches in diameter)

White frosting
Assorted sugar wafers (ours were about 2 1/2 inches long)
Candy corn
Mini chocolate chips
Bran cereal (we used Kellogg's All-Bran Extra Fiber)
Chocolate sprinkles

Instructions:
Frost the top of each cookie.


Cut a sugar wafer in half. Add a dollop of frosting to the top edge of the cookie and stick a wafer half to it for a hat top, as shown.

Place a whole sugar wafer just below the hat top for a brim. Use a little more frosting to decorate it with slices of candy corn or mini chocolate chips.


Press pieces of bran cereal hair into the frosting around the hat.

For the face, press on a candy corn nose, mini chocolate chip eyes, and a chocolate sprinkle stitched mouth.

I hope to have a chance to make a few of these this Autumn.  

Easter Egg Hunt

I was actually able to make time for these gems to pass out at the School Easter Party. I had so much fun marblizing the icing on the cookies and it was so simple. After I baked the cookies, I guess I spent about 3 hours more or less decorating a little over 2 dozen cookies the night before the party.

Well they are not professional looking by no means. But I thought they looked pretty good since that was the first time I've ever done something like this.

I think the kids had a great party. Of course, there was too much food because a lot of it got thrown away. A couple of the parents hid the eggs in the school playground.  The kids were so excited! 

Colton watching the kids

Class Picture

Egg hunting well on it's way

Best Friends hunting eggs together

Friends holding hands while swinging

Colton doing a little egg hunting on his own

Egg Dying Experience
Mom wanted Katie to come over and dye eggs with her.  Katie was getting aggravate with me because I wanted to stay on mom's back porch and visit.  The weather was so nice, warm.  Katie kept begging us to go inside the house.  She told us that it was too cold.  Ugh!  Mom figured she just wanted to get started on the eggs.  So, they got started while I visited with June and Nic.  I am so jealous of him because he is so tan.  His school isn't very far from the beach, so he pretty much gets to go whenever he wants.  He actually just got back last week and is planning on going back very soon.  As he is rubbing it in my face, I told him that's alright because I'm going this year.  Yay!

Katie and mom did an excellent job. 

Colton's New Toy
I want to personally thank Wayne & Laura for this Harley Davidson motorcycle. His Aunt Sandy and Uncle Wade will be proud because they are big Harley fans.  He seems to like it, when he gets to ride it. Katie really likes it and is so glad that Colton received it for a gift.

Colton Update
Colton had his 1 year check up today. He is doing great! He weighs 20 pounds, I think he lost a little weight since he came down with the virus a few weeks ago. He is 31 inches long and is 78 percentile on his overall growth. Poor baby had to have 4 shots, he is so grumpy this afternoon.  We won't have to go back until he's 15 months old. 

We tried making it to Jon's ballgame.  A lot of the family showed up for support.  After awhile, I kind of wished I had stayed home with Colton.  It was hot and he as tired, not feeling good.  Between all the women in our family, he stayed satisfied long enough to last all 7 innings. 

Birthday Weekend

I think Colton had a great birthday party and it was so much fun decorating. At first, I felt a little bad because I didn't feel like I was going all out for his birthday, like I would for Katie's. Then, I remembered that I was preparing for a little boy's birthday and not a girl's. This is just my opinion, but I think a girl's birthday preparation is much more involved than a little boy's.

The Cake
I got this idea from Betty Crocker's website. You can find it under the name Barn Cake with Farm Animals, not a very unique name, but it will do. It was so much fun to make this creation and not nerve racking at all. It's very simple and enjoyed getting Katie involved. She was biting at the bit for her turn to help. She got to put the yellow coconut on the chick cupcakes and marshmallows on the lamb cupcakes. She did such a great job!

The instructions suggest using fruit roll-ups for the pig ears, but they were not working for me.  Instead, I formed the pig ears out of red gumdrops. The eyes and snout are brown & red M & Ms. 

The chick's beak is actually a piece of gumdrop that I cut off

What do you think? I'm sure a professional could do a MUCH better job than I, but I had a lot fun and it didn't take a lot of time to put together.

The barn was formed from a regular square cake and then I cut out 4 angles. The leftover angles were given to Katie for a little fun and practice icing a cake. She had a blast making her creation.

The final table display * I used Colton's farm yard toy as part of the decoration

All the visitors signed Colton's ceramic plate with all their well wishes.

Little Man Of The Hour

It took him awhile, but he soon got the idea of digging into the cupcake

I think he liked his dump truck

Anthony took him on a ride

He liked sitting down and pushing himself better

Happy Birthday Colton!

Big Sister

June has her hands full

Early Saturday morning, I had to get Katie up, dressed in her recital costume and head to the studio for individual and group pictures.  It didn't take long, so I wasn't stressed.  Thank goodness Millard and Peggy could watch Colton for me, while I was gone.  I don't know why I didn't take a picture of Katie in her costume before we left.  She insisted on keeping her hair up in a bun for the remainder of the day.  The only thing is the bun turned into a braided mess by the end of the day. 

A photo with me and my babies

She had a blast, playing with her cousins Trey & Ty

I got so tickled at Katie having a conversation with her boy cousins.  She was trying to convince them that it is cool to play with Barbies.  LOL! Later, Will came over for a little bit.  She started on him about Barbies.  She told him that he needed to watch "Barbie in the Mermaid Tale" because it was such a good movie.  I tried telling her that boys aren't into girl things like Barbies.  She piped up and told me they should because Barbies are so bea-u-ti-ful.  She's my Katiebug!

Katie gets presents as well (Alice)

She's been wanting to add to her stuffed Disney Princess collection.  Alice in Wonderful is the newest line because of the Johnny Depp version.  She loves her dolls!

. . . and Tiana

Of course, Tiana is her newest favorite princess.  I have to say, I really like the movie.  Katie has put in a request to have a "Princess and the Frog" birthday party.  I told her that I would look into it and see what I can do.  I would love to try to make frog cupcakes, but she doesn't want a lot of frogs for the cake.  She told me today, she wants a HUGE box cake with Tiana and Prince Naveen on it.  Okay!

The Newly Engaged Couple

Look at that rock!

Chase & Leslie

This is my favorite photo of the happy couple

Kite Day
I wasn't aware there was such a day. That is until I received a note from school, stating the children will be celebrating "Kite Day" on Monday (today). In art class, Katie painted a pretty kite and daddy finished putting the kit together.

Millard met Colton and myself at the school around 10:30 today, so we could see Katie flying her kite. I had envisioned something totally different from what actually happened. I don't know, but for some reason I just knew Katie would really be interested in flying her kite. Nope!

Millard watched Colton for me, while I tried getting the thing up in the air. As soon as I got it up, it would spiral out of control and finally nose dive into the asphalt. After a few times of that, I stopped because I knew I would tear up the kite. Shoot! Katie's friend, Claire, had already tore up her kite. Her poor mom, tried and tried to get it going but eventually the kite piled off the frame. I felt so bad for her. I gave Katie's kite to Millard. I thought maybe he knew the magic way of flying a kite. He didn't have much luck either, so we graciously put the kite away and just watched Katie running around, playing with her friends. She could care less about flying her kite. Her only concern was playing with her friends.

It was very windy today, but it more or less whipped around and not in one direction for any length of time.

Katie didn't care for kite flying, she wanted to hang out with the girls

Millard tried his best to get that crazy kite up in the air

A beautiful Spring day for a little kite flying

Easter Plans
This is going to be a very BUSY Easter week for us.  Tomorrow, I've got to get ready for Katie's Easter party on Wednesday.  I'm going to try to make something similar to these sugar cookie Easter eggs.

I got the idea from one of my blogs that I follow Bake at 350. She has the neatest and most creative tips for desserts like cookies and cakes. I've really enjoyed reading her blog. There are all kinds of craft and baking ideas. The creativity is endless! Her instructions on marblizing sugar cookie Easter eggs sound so simple. I guess we'll see if they are really that simple tomorrow. Because I plan to make about a dozen or more of these jewels for Katie's Easter Egg Hunt party. I'm supposed to be there early enough on Wednesday to help hide eggs for the students. {FUN!} I've given Katie the speech on how she needs to be confident enough to find her own eggs and press forward. She is so bad about just walking around and saying that she can't find any. Of course, if someone finds more than she, she gets upset with herself. Ugh! {drama, drama, drama} I told her that I would practice with her tomorrow. I know she can do better, she just needs that nudge from mom.

She was aggravating me to death today about decorating the house up for Easter. I waited this year because of Colton's birthday this past weekend and really haven't found the time to get it all out. I don't have much Easter, but I have enough. She had more fun decorating her Easter basket for the Easter bunny. Too funny! I don't think there will be enough room tfor the Easter bunny to put all of Katie's goodies inside her basket. I got Colton a cute airplane basket with blue grass and decor. I think it's cute! I'll have to have a show and tell day.

Speaking of Easter bunny, can you believe Katie asked to have her picture made with the Easter bunny yesterday. Yes! Colton and she sat on the Easter bunny's lap and had their picture taken. Grant it, we couldn't get Colton to smile for anything. Hey, at least he wasn't crying. I was SOOO proud of Katie volunteering to do this. I had hoped that they would do it, but I wouldn't press the matter. I'll have to post the picture another day.

After the big Easter Egg Hunt party, I'm to take Katie and Colton by my parents house to dye Easter eggs.  Now, this should be interesting to see.  I gave Susan a lot of my plastic eggs for Tim to hide for the kids this Sunday.  I so believe in plastic eggs.  They are so much more nice and neat and not messy what so ever.  Mom said she just wanted to do it to build memories with the kids, which I thought was a great idea.  I'll take lots of pictures. 

Thursday is Colton's 1st year check up with Dr. Lunsford.  Boy, oh boy!  This should be a barrel of laughs.  Anybody wanting to go with me?  Any takers?  Later, June is supposed to picked us up, so we can head on over to Jon's baseball game.  I think we'll be a little later, but that's okay.  Do you know how tall that kid is now?  Jon, nephew, is 6'4" and is only 15 years old.  He's nickname around here is "Big Jon" and that's for daggum sure.  Some time during all this fun, Katie's supposed to have a play date with her little Jacy.  If we see her and her mommy tomorrow, I think I'm going to see if we could reschedule it for next week.  Us moms have been trying to schedule this playdate now for about a month, so I hate asking her to do this.  Maybe we could have a very early lunch. 

Friday, we go for our school assessment.  Whoo Hoo!  I have absolutely no idea what to expect or even know what a school assessment means for a Kindergartener.  Ha Ha!  I feel like I'm back at school and about to take a big exam.  Doug said he would try to be there for the meeting.  I hope so because I know I'll be nervous and when I'm nervous I have a hard time listening because my mind wanders.  Pray for me!