It's midnight...

It is midnight and I am heading to bed, but can I say just one thing? I really miss my peeps from Chicago. We have had the privledge of seeing many of our dearest friends this weekend and have them in our home, and I have always known I have missed them, but getting a glimpse of what I once had, makes me miss it so much more. I guess I still have the friendships and that is comforting that they will survive forever, but what I would give to see these people whenever I wanted...it would be awesome. I am making a resolution on the 25th day of this new year...visit Chicago more!
PS When we visit, could all of you who have moved away as well, please visit when we do:)?

The Nativity

I probably have enough traditions I do with our family around the holidays that drive Andy crazy. He doesn't seem to mind, but now looking at it all, maybe it is a bit much. Every year we act out the Nativity from Luke though, the night before Christmas to remind our children what we are really celebrating.

Is it any surprise Jadeyn is our Mary, and it looks like she will win the role every year. Just saying.

They have so much fun and are so reverent and sweet when we do it. They know.

They know how special of an occurrence the birth of our Savior truly was and still is.

After the Nativity we read the night before Christmas, set out our cookies and off to bed they go. Then I get our cinnamon rolls ready for the next morning. They are SO good. After we set everything out then off to bed we go ready for what the morning will bring us!

Day Two

Am I strong enough for this? Seriously, can I do this? Anyway, yesterday actually went pretty well. I had two accidents all day and they were both provided by sweet Maddox. Does that mean he is not ready? I don't know...we'll see.

They were so cute. All day they ran around just in their undies. It was so cute and they loved every minute of it. We kept track of it all on paper and they had fun with that too. Someone got a little excited as you can see and decided to give him or her extra marks.

All in all it was a pretty good day, but ask me if I am ready to start it all over again today? That would be a big fat NO! It is exhausting being in the bathroom potty training three kids. I felt like I was in there all day and NOTHING GOT DONE! Oh well I keep chanting to myself, "I will only have on babe in diapers, I will only have one babe in diapers." That seems to help.
Hmmm, what are the chances of potty training a four month old???

Pray for me!

I am potty training three kids! I need all the prayers I can get.

A few months ago around September, Jadeyn was ready and willing to potty train. I, however, wasn't. I know it sounds crazy, but I was VERY pregnant and I did not want her to revert back after the baby had come. So I put it off. I mean technically I guess she still did it herself. She did a very good job training herself by herself. I never once reminded her or asked her to go. Most mornings she woke up dry as well as after naps, although I did put diapers on her when she slept...I am not crazy! I have enough work to do around here other than clean up pee!

Anyway, now we are serious around here. I am ready to not change 4 diapers every second of my day. I am ready for a break, I am ready for a "raise"! Going from 4 kids into diapers to one kids in diapers, we could start a college fund!!!

I believe that the best way to train kids is let them decide when they are ready to be trained. That is what I did with Bennett and he did it all on his own and NEVER had an accident even at night. He was almost three, but as long as he trained that was all I cared about. So now with these kids I just waited till Cortland was ready since J has been ready for so long. So he is always wanting to be on the toilet now and Maddox has followed suit. We will have to see how serious he is about it, but every single time he gets on the toilet he squeezes it out! He is so cute! Anyway, we will see how it goes, and by the end of the night I will be sure to add some photos of our day!!!!

A photo a day challenge

I have decided to take the photo a day challenge. Heaven knows I take enough pictures. In the month of September alone I took 430 pictures. My hopes though for this section of my blog is to really show what is going on in our home on a daily basis. Like I mentioned on that blog, I am sure it will mainly be pictures of my children, however, I may surprise you sometime and throw something different in there for a change. Be sure to check it out. You can click on the link at the top right hand corner. Be on the look out, for a home improvement section and a cooking it up one too!

Delish

I made such a great dinner last night and I had to share! Enjoy!

First let's just say that crock pot meals are really my best friends, because since I am a girl who likes to plan ahead I love that by noon the dinner is already on it's way to being done and yum! This meal was SUPER easy and SO good!

In a crock pot set on low add:
4-5chicken breasts
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 fresh salsa
1 Tablespoon Cumin
6 ounces sprite
Add all and mix together. Bake for 5 hours. Shred chicken and keep warm till ready to use.

We made them into taco salads. I made taco salad bowls and added lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, the chicken and tortilla strips I just baked in the oven. SO good.

If you want it a little spicy use medium or hot salsa. We used mild. If you don't like sweet things don't use the whole 1/2 brown sugar. You can use whatever white soda and if you want to use diet that will work too. You could use the chicken and make it into tacos, or enchiladas, or nachos or burritos, which ever your little heart desires!

The best part of the meal to me was the recipe I found for Cafe Rios cilantro dressing! This stuff is SO UNBELIEVABLY good, but really really bad for you! But SO worth it. So we topped our salads with the dressing. We all loved it every single one of us devoured it! However, if you did not want to make this ranch would work perfectly.

The cilantro recipe
1 pkg. Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing (dry mix)
1 cup buttermilk
1/2- 1/3 bunch of cilantro, chopped
1/2 - 1 small jalapeno (remove seed)
1 cup mayo
1 tsp. lime juice
1-2 tomatillos (remove outer papery skin)
1 garlic clove
Blend all ingredients in blender!

See pretty easy, but pretty fattening. The only bad thing about this recipe is that is calls for items that I don't normally have in "stock". It is worth it to make an extra grocery trip though. You will not be sorry!

Stay tuned for more recipes to come. I have decided that I need to step up my menus and make things that are new to us!

My baby is four months

I remember when Paxton was two weeks old I read a blog of a friend whose baby was four months old. It had seemed like he was just born. Yet I was looking at this old big baby. I instantly thought to myself, when Paxton is four months old, I will be kind of sad. Now don't get me wrong he is a joy and I love the four month stage. He is so smiley and very talkative and doing new things everyday, but now that he is four months old he has gone from newborn to infant way too fast. I want my time with him to SLOW down...that is why it is sad, life moves on way too fast.

Today was a real treat. Bennett went to the Science Center with Grandma Joy and Grandpa Don and Cami. That was a REAL treat for him. My mom came over and she was going to help me clean, but after a pantry and fridge inventory and not going to the grocery store this week we soon realized that we needed a quick target/sams run. It was so fun being with her and getting out of the house with the kids. They love getting out of the house. When we got home we were so wore out that we moved slowly, but got a few things done. My mom is the queen of laundry. When she saw my pile up, she said why didn't you call and ask for my help, I said because I would be calling you everyday! Laundry is my weakest link hands down!

We made a delish dinner and she had to leave to go home to my dad. I begged her to stay, but I guess she needed to go. She is always so helpful when she is here. She loves being with my children and cannot get enough of the baby and I just love all those things about her.

Little Paxton was so smiley all day. Just such a pleasure like always. I got out my camera and went crazy with pictures! I just love all the shots I got! He is such a sweetie. I cannot get enough of him! So enjoy Paxton's four month pictures!

PS...could his dimple be any cuter? And don't even get me started on his curl!!

What did I do???!!!

Before

After

My little sweet girl has a problem. She needs to join an anonymous group. I wonder if they have a I twirl my hair to much? Last summer she had twirled her hair so much that she created a bald spot, but luckily you could not see it very well because other hair laid over it. Well she had stopped for a while and then it came back with a vengeance. I was so sad because I loved her long blond beautiful hair and I was not one to get my daughters hair cut. I mean I would not have let it get so long she could walk on it, but to me little girls are meant to have long hair.

About a month ago I realized though that her hair looked pretty bad. It was very stringy and was broke off on the whole right side due to twirling. I knew I had to break down and get her a hair cut. It was a sad realization.

Luckily a new little place opened up really close to our home. It is a new little children's boutique and salon. I was so happy when they opened. I have hated that they didn't have anything like that here. So I made the appointment.

It was sad watching it all come off. She was so content though. I wasn't sure what she would do. I told her what we were doing and she was so excited. Although I have to think she loved the fact that is was just her and her mom. When we got there they had her pick out a movie and sit up on a big truck. She did so well. She did everything they asked her to do. The boys have always been like that and have had so many cuts, but since she has never had her hair cut I was wondering how she would do. I was so impressed by her.

When it was all over she looked at her self and she said, "I like it!" She instantly grew like 3 years and all of a sudden looked SO much older! She got 11 inches cut off! I have to admit though I really like it. I have always thought those little bobs look so cute on little girls and wanted another girl so I could have a long haired little girl and a bob haircut little girl. Well now I have had both I guess. You could tell she felt so special too and just love it. And guess what? She doesn't twirl anymore. She will put her hand up there, but she can't really twirl so she doesn't do it. It is so nice. It looks so thick and full. She just loves it and you can tell she feels so cute. They gave her a big sucker and a frame with her picture and hair in it that says first hair cut. They also put a little pink butterfly clip in her hair and she hasn't let go of it since and it has been two weeks! My little baby girl is not looking quite so little anymore! But, man is she ever cute!!!!

You can see in all these pictures how her hair was just breaking off! SO sad!

PS...We are officially growing it out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hats off to Disney

If you don't know we are pretty much Disney fanatics around here. We pretty much love everything Disney. Truly there is something just magical about everything they do. I love that my kids are big fans too!

Andy came home one night after work and said he had heard that they had some really cheap Disney on Ice tickets so I checked it out. Sure enough they had 15 dollar seats. That is a of money to us, but when you consider a movie is not much less and this is for sure more entertaining we did it. I personally think 15 dollars was great for what we got!

We dropped baby Paxton off with my mom and my mom and dad were in Heaven the whole night. We quickly drove to the metro and jumped on the train headed downtown. The kids LOVED the train like nothing else. It was so fun for them.

We got there and asked about ticket prices. They had six tickets down on the floor for 480. No thanks so we opted for the 15 tickets and they were only 6 rows up from the ice. That was a no brainer. We had amazing seats which I was happy about because I knew that would keep their attention longer.

It was so much fun. They were entertained the entire time. They each got a treat and we had some cotton candy, popcorn and Bennett got a snow cone. It was all so good, the show was amazing. I wish they would have showed more cars. The kids loved that. Little Mermaid was good too.
On a side note, on the way over there we told the kids we were going to see Mickey Mouse and they thought we were going back to Disney World! I wish! Funny thing is, I STILL have not posted about our Disney trip! How can that be. It was like 7 months ago! I am ashamed!

Maddox Turns Two

Ok, this is getting ridiculous! How on earth are all my children growing up so fast! It does seem like he should be two because he seems just like he is an extension of the twins, and he does have a younger brother now, but still, he is my baby.Maddox celebrated his birthday twice this year. We had a little party with Andy's family while Cherise and Nicole were still home from college. That was fun. He got a cute Mr. Potato head that is a police officer and a huge sticker book he also got a darling little Dr. Kit and a fun monkey book. {thanks aunt Sarah!, she is one of Nicole's friends but we have adopted her into our family!}We had cupcakes and a good time. I had to throw one of this little baby too! He loved both parties. That many more arms for him to be in!
His second party was really fun too. This time I ventured out to make an Elmo cake along with Elmo invites. The invites looked pretty cute, the cake not a master piece, but he loved it and that is all that matters. I don't know why I even attempt to make cakes because I am NEVER satisfied and I am just embarrassed by the outcome, but as long as the child likes it then I am good. He got some great things at this party too. It is funny because in true Maddox fashion is was almost like he didn't like being the one in the spot light. Not like he was mad or not good, just indifferent and would not have minded if it were someone elses birthday. Everyone commented on how good he was at the twins party and didn't feel left out at all, but that is his personality. Just easy come easy go. Am I lucky or what!?!He got several outfits and an Elmo thing that you put together that he has loved, a bounce back racer which has been a hit around here, a little people garage, a scooter, rain boots and many more fun things. He had such a great time.

We also celebrated Maddox birthday with my grandpas birthday. He turned 81 just a day before Maddox turned two. It is weird because when I hear the age 81 I think that sounds old, yet on my grandparents it literally is like the new 60, because they do not seem olderish at all! I am so lucky to live near my grandparents. It is something I cherished growing up and I am so thankful we have the same opportunity to provide that to our children. It is fun to have a birthday so close to his. We enjoy celebrating them together. It was a long late night and so fun. It was so fun to celebrate the birth of such a sweet special little boy! We love you Maddox, dearly!