Bliss

Today was a dreadfully cold day.  Working outside on a dreadfully cold day pretty much leads to a dreadful day.  Yesterday it was 70 degrees and we had 2 tornado's in our area, one not too far from here, and today it was 30 degrees, it spit snow and sleet all day, and the winds were brutally cold.  I came home to a little surprise from the husband, which made my dreadful day seem not quite so dreadful.  We have a great little cupcake shop in our town called Bliss Cupcake.  And when their logo says 'a mouthful of happy,' they mean it!!

I have only been there a handful of times, the most recent was back in the summer when I took Sara Kate, but it's delicious.  I follow them on Twitter and Instagram so I see yummy cupcake pictures constantly.  Tonight I got some of my own.  Yay!  In this box there were 2 vanilla, 2 chocolate milkshake, and 2 Razorback red velvet.  I've had the red velvet before but never the other 2 flavors, although I've always wanted to try the chocolate milkshake.

During dinner, Chris told Sara Kate she had a special prize waiting for her after she ate.  The phrase 'special prize' is the key phrase to get her really really excited and it gets her to eat her dinner (and no we don't use the phrase often but she knows what it means).  When she finished eating, she excitedly looked in the box and said, 'I want red.'  I took chocolate, and Chris took vanilla.  Sara Kate took one bite of her cream cheese frosting on her 'red cupcake' and said 'I don't want it.'  And she wanted Chris' 'white one.'  'I want the white one.'  So being a good daddy, he traded with her.  And she was in heaven.

She ate not quite half of it before she said 'I don't want it, it's shooey.'  (We use shooey to mean gross, like don't touch that, it's shooey.)  Nooooo, it's not shooey, we told her!!  But she was done.

So Chris and I had to take one for the team and finish the half eaten vanilla cupcake.  And it was to die for!!!!  Shockingly, I would say it was better than the chocolate (I'm a chocoholic for those who don't know!!).  And after dinner I was soooo full but thankfully I was no longer in quite in such a dreadful mood.  Now if I could just warm up! :-)

If you live in Northwest Arkansas and have never been there, go to Bliss Cupcake!!  Or if you are traveling to our area, plan a trip to Bliss!  You won't be sorry!

Catch Up

Hey, friends!  Sorry for the inadvertent blog break.  The past 2 weeks have flown by and I almost can't even remember what's been going on.  My work is super busy right now and I'm swamped so I'm pretty exhausted in the evenings, which leads to the desire to lay around and do nothing.   Despite the busyness, last weekend was a long weekend and we decided to head south to visit my mom and dad.  They were thrilled to see Sara Kate and have her visit and Sara Kate was thrilled to 'go to Ghee's house and play with the ponies.'  She still remembers going down there last time (which was back in October) and playing with my old My Little Ponies.  I was a little less thrilled because a weekend away from home means bad sleeping.  Sara Kate and I slept in my brothers room and Chris slept in my room, but we made it work and it's worth it for special grandparent time.

 

 For those who don't know, I'm from a small town (El Dorado) and there is actually NOTHING to do there.  Our trips away from the house included the grocery store, church, and the park...super exciting right?!?  Haha!  We spent alot of time playing and visiting with some family that came by for dinner one night.

One thing I was excited to do was to visit with one of my oldest and sweetest friends, Sheila.  We went to 'competing' middle schools but became very good friends in high school.  We met her and her daughter at the park for some play time since the weather was beautiful.  Sara Kate had been wanting to go outside so it worked out perfectly.

 After our weekend away, we got back into the grove of a normal busy work week and school. 

The one unfortunate thing that happened this week was I got hit Tuesday evening after I picked up Sara Kate.  It was a 4 car accident because someone ran a red light, slammed into a mini van, pushed the mini van into the truck in front of me, and then into me.  Since I was the last car hit, I received the least amount of damage, but it still sucks because I found out this week that the person who caused the accident didn't have insurance.  Lovely.  But our car is still drivable and no one was injured.  So thank goodness for that.

Friday night I went out with some friends for a little fun.  I stayed out way too late and had to get up way too early Saturday morning but it was fun hanging with the girls.  These girls have actually been or currently are interns in our office but they've turned into good friends and I'm thankful for that!

This weekend also brought celebrating some birthday's!  Sara Kate had a birthday party to go to for one of her friends from school, Wave.  It was at Chick-Fil-A and she had a blast playing.  It's cute seeing her interact with her friends from school.  And I decided that's a great place for a birthday party!  The one not so great thing about the party was the Chick-Fil-A cow.  Sara Kate FREAKED OUT!!!!  I mean seriously freaked out!!  She doesn't like big costumed animals (like the Razorback mascot and obviously the cow) but I thought she might be ok with it seeing her friends going up to say hi.  Nope, she didn't even want to go to the table to get a cupcake because the cow was taking pictures with kids nearby.  I finally coerced her to sit at the very end of the corner of a table.  Haha.  But she had a great time at the party. And thank goodness this child finally got a cupcake because for some reason she has been talking about cupcakes for 2 weeks!!

  

Chris' mom's birthday was this past week and his grandpa's birthday is this coming week so more birthday celebration took place yesterday.  We had lunch and the cousins had lots of time to play, which is always a fun time.

 

 

So there's a little bit of what's been going on with us. This week will bring more of the same I'm sure...more weird weather (cold, warm, cold warm...Arkansas weather is SO annoying!), maybe some rain (fingers crossed but I have a ton of field work to do so it could suck for me), more busy work days, and lots more play time with Sara Kate.  Hope ya'll had a good weekend!

Happy Monday & a Recipe

I know that the words 'Happy Monday' are an oxymoron.  But for a Monday, outside of being extremely cold, today was actually alright.  We had a nice relaxing weekend, spent doing nothing but alot of playing.  Therefore, we had lots of down time to rest, which is part of make today ok!  I'll share a couple pictures from Friday, when it was a lovely 60 degrees, and before a cold front blasted through and brought some sleet and freezing rain and dropped our temperatures way down.  We spent some time at the park, which Sara Kate loves outside, so she was a happy camper.

Then like I said, our weather tanked and we spent the rest of the weekend indoors, doing lots of playing.  Sara Kate found her new Play-Doh back pack that was supposed to be for her birthday (maybe) and she LOVED it.  We played lots of Play-Doh!

 But to make this Monday happier, I thought I'd share a recipe which I haven't done in a while.  I saw a recipe for some peanut butter balls that kind of made me want to experiment, which I don't do!!  I am a recipe follower, but I decided to go out on a limb and I ended up with a yummy little concoction.  So here's my take on some super easy peanut butter balls!

Easy Peanut Butter Balls

Ingredients:

1 pkg Nutter Butters

1 8 oz pkg of cream cheese

a splash of milk

a spoon full (or more or less) of peanut butter

1 bag of milk chocolate chips for dipping balls

Crush the Nutter Butter cookies.

Add in a block of softened cream cheese and mix together.

This mixture is kind of gritty and dry so add a splash of milk and a spoon full or 2 of peanut butter to make it creamy and add a little more of a peanut butter flavor.  I didn't have much peanut butter so I just kind of scrapped my container.  So I have no idea exactly how much I added.

Roll dough into balls and refrigerate.

Melt the milk chocolate chips and dip balls into the chocolate.

Refrigerate and you have little bite size balls of yummy-ness!  Enjoy!

Hope everyone's week is off to a good start!

Big Girl Bed

I have put off writing this post for 2 weeks mainly because I didn't want to jinx anything.  But exactly 2 weeks ago we switched Sara Kate's bed from a crib into a big girl bed!  When I was pregnant, I searched for the perfect crib.  I wanted a convertible crib, I wanted white, and I found the perfect 4-in-1 crib.  Then I searched high and low for the perfect bedding that Chris and I could both agree on.  Once I found a set that wasn't pink (his stipulation), we were set.  

  

My tiny baby started sleeping in her crib when she was 6 weeks old, and now at 2 and 1/2, she was ready for the first conversion.  

5 months old, just woken up in her crib

The reasons we decided it was time were she's 2 and 1/2 (like I already stated), she could climb in on her own, and she could climb out with assistance (but she wouldn't try it without help).  Plus we had a few extra days at home since it was the holidays, just in case it didn't go well, so we could laze around during the days to rest.  So Friday evening 2 weeks ago, Chris changed it while I made dinner.

Before...

And after...

On some advice from a friend, we did leave the bumper in (yes I was a bad mom and let her sleep in her crib with the bumper on from the time we moved her to her crib at 6 weeks old!  But it worked for us!).  We have since folded the bumper at the opening back, but it adds extra cushion and makes me feel better because she is always leaned up against it when I go check on her.  So what did Sara Kate think of her new bed??  Well, she started going CRAZY and bouncing off the walls!!!  I was convinced we were in for a long night.

 

But she surprised me!!  I made it easy on her the first night and rocked her to sleep, like she asked.  Although when we went in her room to rock, in her sleepy little voice she said, 'Mommy, my bed is broken!  Fix it!'  It broke my heart!  But once she had dozed off, I laid her down and she slept all night.

First night in her big girl bed

Nap time the next day was a different story.  As soon as we said 'night night' and walked out and shut the door, we could hear her get up and she started playing.  But then it went quiet so I peeked in and she was asleep in her bed with her toys cleaned up, but pulled out in her room.

Since then, she has been doing great.  The thing that works great with her is setting a timer.  She likes to lay on me on the couch before bed, so we lay down and I set the timer on my phone.  She knows that when the timer goes off, it's time to go to bed.  So we walk to her room, give hugs and kisses, she lays down and I cover her up.  She's very proud of her big girl bed, too, which I think helps because with each transition we have always stressed being a big girl (tonight I was sitting on her bed while we played and she wanted me to move and she said so clearly 'mommy, get out of my big girl bed!').  There have been just a time or two when she has fussed about going to bed but it hasn't lasted long.  The other thing is that she can't open her door (some door knobs in our house she can open and some she can't).  So in the mornings (on weekends) we hear a little knocking and a little voice saying 'mommy daddy!'  Sweet girl.  So I was dreading the transition and she has surprised me and done so great.  Maybe another reason I was dreading it was because it was one of the last 'baby' things I could still hold on to.  But my sweet baby definitely isn't a baby anymore.  She's now my big girl, and while I've tried to hold onto the baby things, I look forward to the big girls things to come.

Welcome 2013!

Welcome 2013!!  Our first week of 2013 has been uneventful, busy, and kind of crappy all at the same time!  I'll attempt to explain that.  :-)  We didn't do anything grand for New Years but we did go hang with some friends at a kid friendly party.  Sara Kate got to play with her dear friend Remy and a few other kids and the adults got a little game time in.  I love game nights.  It's a shame we don't do them anymore.  I think we'll try to do more of that in 2013.  Anyway, Sara Kate and Remy are big buddies and he even gave her New Years smooches!

New Years day I woke up feeling crappy!  Let me back up and say I've been fighting the crud since before Christmas.  Christmas Eve I started taking Mucinex and Ny-quil and by December 31, that combination was no longer working.  I made it through the day and dreaded having to go back to work the next day after a long break.  At 7 am on Wednesday I called the doctor, got an appointment at 8, and was at work at 10.  With a diagnosis of 'probably a bad sinus infection but no pneumonia or bronchitis,' I got a prescription for antibiotics and some cough pills.  After taking my last antibiotic today, I still have some sinus pressure, still have some drainage, and still have a blasted cough that will NOT let up, and therefore am exhausted from coughing my head off 24/7.  The cough pills from the doctor don't do a single thing to help out so I've been doubling up on Robitussin (yes, probably not the thing to do) and trying not to get kicked out of my bed at night.  Here's hoping the 2nd week of 2013 will bring me a little relief and keep the rest of my family well.  So that's the crappy part of the first week.

The busy part involves just getting back into the swing of things after being off work since December 22.  My work is hectic this time of year plus I'm playing catch up also from being off.  Sara Kate went back to school last Wednesday after being gone since before Christmas also.  Her first day back wasn't good; her teacher said she (along with all the kids) had a terrible day with listening and following directions plus she wouldn't take a nap.  Thursday was much better, although our day started very rough.  Sara Kate has become quite opinionated on her wardrobe and if it's not JUST RIGHT, she might throw a little fit.  That combined with just being woken up when she wasn't ready to wake up isn't a good combination.  It's a miracle I made it to work on time. 

But we made it through the first 3 days back so hopefully this week will help us get a solid routine back in place.

And when I said uneventful, I meant that we had nothing planned.  Just alot of hanging out at home and playing, which of course is always fun!  We have played lots of Play-Doh, done lots of coloring, worked lots of puzzles (the sweetest thing is when Sara Kate excitedly looks at her daddy and says 'wanna play princess puzzle?'), and of course played with the new kitchen (which she calls 'chicken' because she mixes up the 'c' and 'k.'  It's precious and cracks me up!!).

 

 

One other 'first week of 2013 note' to mention occurred Friday night when Sara Kate fell out of her chair at dinner trying to reach her seat belt and got a major knot on her head (see picture above for bruise 2 days later).  She landed on her hands but her head hit the floor.  We put an ice pack on it off and on, combined that with some Tylenol, and she was fine.  Dinner of pizza and yogurt and a sucker for dessert definitely helped make things all better!!

An Angry Birds band-aid with Poppa also helped make things better.

So after a great 2012, we welcome 2013.  

2013, we welcome you and look forward to what you have to offer!  We ask that you be kind to us and our families and friends and bring us lots of fun times and good memories!  We don't greet you with resolutions or changes to be made, but we embrace the potential for change in the new year according to what God has planned for us.    

Hope everyone's new year has started off on the right foot!