It's great to be 8!

Welp, it's true, this sweet little thing turned eight! How in the world did that happen so fast?

 When she was a wee little thing all she did was cry. I truly mean that, she cried all of the time. That means that I cried all of the time. I was totally pooped and had no clue what to do with this tiny person that cried around the clock. I felt like her tears were never going to stop. That there was no way that she was going to get bigger. I was going to have a baby that screamed her whole life and that was never going to get big enough to understand me as I walked in circles around the island in our kitchen, crying and asking her what was wrong and why she wouldn't stop crying. Well, as we all know, she stopped crying one night and actually learned to sleep through the night as the ripe old age of almost five months! She now loves to put on Pandora and dance around the living room. She loves all things that smell good. For her birthday she wanted the smelly things you plug into the wall so that her room can smell good. She also wanted lotions and smelly hand sanitizer from Bath and Body. Thankfully her birthday is so close after Christmas that all those things were on sale, so we scored some pretty sweet deals! She loves to do her own hair. She loves to paint her toenails and to my dismay, her fingernails. That's a battle I chose not to fight. I really don't like fingernails when they're painted. My parents had a really good friend that was a smoker. Her fingernails were always painted. So when I see painted fingernails I think of Rita's paint coverd smokers nails and I just don't like it. I digress, so sorry! Anyway she is all girl and sometimes I don't know what I am going to do with her because I don't feel like I'm girly enough to know what to do with a girly girl. Anyway, she's eight and beautiful and we love her! As we all know, when one turns eight, baptism follows close behind in our family! She said that she wasn't nervous, but we knew that that was a big fat lie! For some reason the poor thing was truly terrified. When we had the family home evening to talk about what being baptized means and to practice the big dunking moment, she wouldn't do it unless K did it first. Once she did do it, she felt like once was for sure enough and that she was a professional. 

As you can tell by the smile, she was feeling more nervous than excited. What's not to love about this picture? I got the defective gene from my mom that I seem to cry when I feel the spirit. It truly is awful and for me totally embarrassing. I feel stupid crying in front of B and we've been together for almost 15 years. So to cry in public is excruciating for me. Anyway, I was real nervous that I was going to turn into a big ball of blubberingness, thankfully I was able to hold it together for the most part. Grandma B, Grandma and Grandpa K, my younger brother, B and two of his kids, N and M and our A-mazing sister-in-law S and her little D were all here for this special day. We felt so loved that so many people were able to come. Wouldn't it have been so awesome if I had remembered to take a picture of all of those that were there? I think so too and I get so irritated with myself every time I think about how I totally suck that I forgot.I did remember to get a family picture of just us. That's something right?!

Anyway, Grandma B made me cry when she told M that she felt really prompted to tell M that she has a grandpa that was there and was really proud of her. Grandpa B passed away when M was 6 months old. So that was really neat to hear and to feel. The actual dunking went off without a hitch! No toes floated to the top or anything. I could tell that I had a cheesy mom smile on my face. You know the ones I'm talking about. The ones that cover your face when you are so proud of your kids and can't help but smile a big cheesy smile. When I was helping her change back into her clothes once she was done she told me that the water was really cold. That made me feel bad, but I still couldn't wipe the cheesy smile off my face. She probably thought I was so mean as I was saying I was sorry through this goofy smile. I really was sorry, it just didn't look like it. 
We took her picture in her baptism dress... yesterday. Talk about putting things off! Her baptism was almost a month ago. We went to the park by our house after church and snapped a couple pictures.

This one is her favorite. I honestly didn't think that we would get her a white dress. I thought it was so funny that people would get a white dress for their little girls when they got baptized. I remember that I wore a maroon velvet dress the day I was baptized and I still have a testimony. But as her baptism was getting closer I kept looking at white dresses and thinking about the poem, My Three White Dresses. Or whatever it's called. I got sucked in and got her a white dress! I just couldn't seem to help myself. Especially when we found this one on sale. I'm a sucker for a good clearance rack. She loves it, I love it, we all love it!

 K was feeling a little left out because we weren't taking his picture. 

We didn't want that to happen, so he found a nice log and with his trusty stick in his hand he sat down and said he was ready to have his picture taken. Let me explain the outfit. We took him to Lowe's on Saturday morning so that he could do their free little workshop thing. They gave him this apron and he has gone few places without wearing it. He loves being able to put a few cars in the front pockets and he really hopes that people will think that he is in fact an employee at Lowe's. The rain boots came from a friend in the ward. They are at least two sizes too big. He likes to tuck his pants into them. They remind me of my dad's milking boots and if K had a chance to milk a cow, I am sure that he would wear these boots! After we finished the photo shoot, M found a stick to drag behind her. When I say stick I mean a branch really. K didn't want to be shown up by her, so he found a trunk to drag along.

At least it makes for a pretty funny picture. I was a little worried that her dress would get totally ruined, but we had the pictures we needed so I just left it alone. We are all so happy that M is part of our family and that she made the decision to get baptized. Happy birthday baby girl! 

   

Here comes trouble!

I totally love when little ones become mobile. I love to watch as their little bums move side to side as they crawl around. Living in this here house has introduced new challenges. Stairs. With our other two kids we lived in either an apartment with no stairs or our condo that didn't have stairs either. So, this is a whole new ball game! Of course little B loves the stairs. Thankfully, he mostly just hangs out in our sunken living room where he has totally mastered the going up of the two steps. It's the coming down that gets him every time. I wish I could say that he's never taken a head dive to the bottom of the stairs, but folks, that just wouldn't be true. Just know that it has happened enough that when he did it yesterday, there were little to no tears shed. He loves to make it up the two stairs and crawl as fast as he can to the shoe cubby and pull out the shoes so that he can suck on them. The other day he made it over there while I was making dinner. I usually hear him pulling the shoes out, but this time I didn't hear anything. If he's not pulling the shoes out and inserting them into his mouth, nasty I know, then he is playing with the door stop things. I didn't hear those either, so I went to investigate.

No wonder I didn't hear him pulling shoes out or playing with the door stop thing. He has realized there are bigger and better stairs!

He was so pleased with himself! He has only tried the big stairs this one time, but let's fast forward a little bit and what do we find?

That we fit so nicely in the cupboard, especially if we pull the cans out first. He was so happy to pull out whatever was blocking his way and then climb on in. There's a shelf in there and he loved beating on it. I love when babies climb in things, it truly does make my heart so happy!

Martha Stewart I am not!

The other day I was thinking that I wish chicken would go on sale. I didn't realize we were almost out. Usually I get our chicken at Costco. I love Costco for so many reason's but to my chagrin, Costco is 45 minutes away from our house. So, there's no such thing as a quick Costco run. I went to Aldi, the grocery store that I love almost as much as Target and mini cadbury eggs, (which is a lot,) and what to my wondering eyes should appear?! A miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer!  Boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale for $1.59 a pound! I truly almost hugged the lady standing next to me. I was so happy! I promptly put some in the bottom of the cart and went home. I usually put the chicken in a Ziploc and then put it in the freezer. Well, unbeknownst to me, we only had about five Ziploc's left. I got this brilliant idea to freeze the chicken breasts individually and then just add them to the Costco bag of chicken that was already in the freezer. I got out our oldest cookie sheet and placed a cooling rack on it. I thought that the chicken would freeze to the cookie sheet, so laying it on a cooling rack would prevent that. I put some chicken on said cooling rack, put another cooling rack on top of the chicken and then put more chicken on that cooling rack. I had two chicken breasts that wouldn't fit on the cooling racks. I didn't want the chicken too close together or they would become a frozen mass. I got out a plate, put waxed paper on top of the chicken that was on the cooling rack, put the two chicken breasts on the plate and then put the plate on the waxed paper. The reason for the waxed paper was so the plate wouldn't freeze to the chicken below it. I put it in the freezer and was so pleased with myself for thinking of this brilliant idea. I honestly couldn't wait to take the individually frozen chicken breasts off the plate and cooling racks, put them in the chicken bag and report to family and friends how awesome I am and that they can celebrate that they know someone as smart and frozen chicken savvy as I! Most of you are already shaking your head and thinking,"bless her heart!" I was right that the chicken would have frozen to the cookie sheet. It was a stroke of genius to put a cooling rack down first, but in case you don't know, cooling racks don't have magical non freezing powers. Chicken freezes to cooling racks and waxed paper and the bottom of plates. When I pulled the chicken out of the freezer I was whistling a little tune and in my head thinking I was so bright! Then I tried to take the first chicken breast off the plate. It didn't move. I was able to lift up the chicken, still frozen to the plate, attached to the waxed paper, frozen to more chicken, frozen to a cooling rack, frozen to more chicken, attached to yet another cooling rack, in one big lump of frozen chicken chaos. Oh dear! It was terrible! I had already worked out for the day, but it would be a lie to say that I didn't work up another sweat trying to chisel the chicken off of whatever it was frozen to. I was huffing and puffing and the chicken was content to stay stuck in place. I thought that maybe I could pick up the cookie sheet and drop it on the counter. Surely that would rattle the chicken loose. Nope. the only thing that rattled was the actual counter top as it was assaulted over and over by a frozen cookie sheet. I did manage to pry the plate off and pick off the waxed paper. Then I got out a butter knife to try and pry the chicken apart.

I wish that I would have taken a picture from the side so that you could see that the chicken was frozen together through the little slats in the cooling racks. I was pulling so hard on the stupid frozen chicken that I broke one of the cooling racks and bent the other one so now it won't sit flat. After much trial and tribulation, I was able to get all of the frozen poultry off of the cooling racks and into the Costco bag. Said bag was then thrown into the freezer and the door was slammed shut. Stupid frozen chicken!