Time: Where has it gone?

Dear Time,

Where have you gone? I feel like everytime I turn around another month has passed us by. I feel like it was just yesterday we were moving into our house and were getting ready to have a baby. Now, my baby is 7 months old and we are preparing to move again. I feel like I am trying so hard to get everything I need to accomplished but somehow the days are passing by and my To Do list is growing. How am I ever to get everything done? Our moving date is officially only one week away and I must admit, I'm not even close to being ready. So I guess what I'm saying is, please... please slow down just enough that I can actually feel like my list is getting smaller and can actually sit back and enjoy watching my children grow. Thanks

Love, Me

Some things I've almost missed:

This little gal is officially crawling! (and has been for over a week or so now). I still can't believe it. It seems like she is crawling so early, and compared to Madison, she is. She started crawling a whole 2 months earlier than Maddie did- but it really doesn't surprise me, she has a very active big sister she is trying to keep up with.

It is fun though to watch her crawl because it's not really a normal crawl by any means. She does this army/worm/lunge kind of thing that is surprisingly very effective.

This little gal is becoming quite the artist. Madison has always put a lot of focus towards developing her fine motor skills (hence the reason she didn't crawl quite as early as some). She loves to draw and is often times found with a pen and paper or some sort of drawing device in hand. She has never been the type who loves to aimlessly scribble. I always have to laugh when I would pick her up from nursery and her papers have these very little, very defined drawings on them while all of her friends pictures have color and scribbles all over the page. Lately she loves to draw lots of little circles really close together. Usually they end up looking like little DNA strands or atoms. The other day she showed me this work of art. It looked just like a tree with lots of little leaves.

Click the picture to make it bigger so it's easier to see

(extra credit question: can you tell what I am baking in the oven???)

Some things we have been doing:

Memorial Day weekend. I forgot my camera so I didn't get any pictures. Thank goodness for my sister Michelle who actually took some pictures and was able to preserve a few moments in time for me.

Child-like Faith

One of my favorite things as of late, is to hear my sweet little Madison pray all on her own. Her prayers always make me smile. Without fail you can count on her praying for all of her favorite people, for anything that is happening in life she feels needs a special prayer (such as Daddy's internship, the healing of the sick and help for others to find a job). Without fail there is always a special blessing for "bubbles and treats." We never really know what she is going to pray for but I love listening to her and hearing what she picks up on (such as what things mommy is stressing over or people who are in need of a special blessing).

Sometimes she really surprises me by praying for someone she hasn't seen for a long time or who she doesn't really even know herself. Her prayers are always so selfless and full of love.

(because I am obsessed with sleeping pictures and because it looks like Brooklyn was saying her prayers- you get this picture too)

You know they always say that it is the parents job to teach their children. Well sometimes I wonder who is really teaching who...
I love you Madison and want to thank you for being such a wonderful example to me and your family.

(Maddie and Ivy sporting their new Princess shirts that Nanna and Pop pop brought them back from Disney World. As you can tell, they were both thrilled with their presents.)

Addition to previous post

I just added a picture to my previous post that shows you all what I meant by Madison is a girl after her Grandpa's heart. It's pretty funny, you should check it out.

Ok this is just too funny...

I know I just did a post about sleeping but this was just too funny to pass up.

Remember how Maddie doesn't take naps anymore?

(she's definitely a girl after her Grandpa's heart)

And this little gal is officially doing a half crawl... meaning she crawls enough she can get herself stuck in some pretty funny places.

Nummy nummy good!

My friend Marla shared the most wonderful bread recipe with me a few weeks ago and I must admit, I am 100% sold on this recipe. It takes 1 hour to make from start to finish! And by start to finish, I really mean start to finish. It takes about 10 minutes to mix, 25 minutes to raise and 25 minutes to bake. Oh how I love it. And it tastes great too.

We have officially stopped buying bread because we can make it for basically nothing and it almost takes less time to make than it would to go to the store to buy it.

This week I decided to try and make it more healthy by using half white flour and half white wheat (I don't usually like wheat bread so I didn't want it to be straight wheat. I don't have a wheat grinder myself so I borrowed one from my neighbor. It was a hand grinder which I've always heard take forever to use but it really wasn't that bad. It took me 8 minutes to grind 3 cups of flour (which kind of is a lot of time but not so bad if you only need a few cups). Anyway, here's the recipe. I hope you don't mind I am sharing Marla!

Pantry Secrets Bread Recipe

5 1/4 c. flour

1/4 c. sugar

1/2 Tbsp. salt

1 1/2 Tbsp. saf-instant yeast

Mix these dry ingredients together. Then add:

1 1/2 Tbsp. oil

2 c. HOT tap water

Mix for 1 minute and check consistency. If dough is too dry, add more water. If dough is too moist, add more flour. Mix for 5 minutes. (do not add water or flour to the dough after it has finished mixing) Spray counter and pans with cooking spray. Shape loaves and cover with a dish towel. Let rise 25 minutes. Bake at 350* for 25 minutes. Makes 2 loaves. Unraised loaves can be frozen for later use.

The consistency is supposed to be rather sticky but not too much.

The end.

I must be tired...

I just downloaded some pictures from my camera and I noticed a theme.

I must be tired.

Last night Madison fell asleep at 6:30 and didn't wake up until 7:30 this morning. (Her bedtime isn't usually until 9)

I'm taking that as a sign that we need to take a break and get more sleep!

On that note, Goodnight.

Am I really that mean of a mom?

Today we spent the day at my parents house and after dinner my mom and I ran to a couple of stores. I hadn't been gone very long when I got a phone call from my husband that went something like this...

Karl: So Maddie was trying to be helpful and clean up after dinner. She put her glass in the sink and then she ran away. A few minutes later Katie went over and saw a broken glass in the sink (and a step stool in front of the sink) and was wondering who had broken the glass. So she went to find Maddie and found that she had locked herself in our bedroom. When Katie asked her if she could come in, Maddie peaked her head out and told her "No, I'm in time out." {picture heart breaking sad face here}

Does it make me a good mother or a bad mother when my 2 year old puts herself in time out?

Yellow

Today was a wonderful day. We got to spend the ENTIRE day with the man we love most...

Daddy also known as: Karl/Honey buns/Tarl/nerd (a habit I have been trying to break since our daughter now calls him nerd which she thinks means he's sweet like the candy which is ok as long as she doesn't go around calling other people nerds- so if she happens to call you a nerd, I'm sorry) sweetie pie/whatever else we can think of calling him.

Needless to say, we had a fun day. We didn't even do anything too exciting. We did do a lot but nothing out of the ordinary. We...

-slept in

-went up to the school to buy books for Karl's classes that start next week (yes we're loosing him again--already)

-had lunch at Cafe Sabor that we didn't even have to pay for (we had a gift card)

-went grocery shopping where Brooklyn got to sit in the cart all by herself for the first time (It was obvious that she LOVED it)

-went shopping for a new printer and came home without a new printer (I just couldn't make up my mind)

-made bread from start to finish in just ONE HOUR- totally the best bread recipe I've ever tried. Thanks Marla!

-went to my SIL and BIL's house for dinner and a Chuck party

-came home and put the kids to bed and now I am sitting in my bed blogging

Now that I look at it, our day was pretty exciting. No wonder I'm so tired.

One more stress out of the way

We found an apartment! We went to IF this weekend to meet with the people Karl will be working with and while we were there, we decided to try to find an apartment. Do you know how hard it is to find a place that offers a short term lease??? We couldn't find anything with less than a 6 month lease but we only need it for about 5. So we are paying for an extra month but at least we have a place to live.

We really like the apartment we found- the only hard part will be adjusting from living in a 6 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apartment...

We can handle anything for 5 months right???

Thanks Joanna for going apartment hunting with me and Thank you aunt Julie for letting us stay at your house. We are excited to get to live close to you guys.

I just love it

(This is how Karl celebrated after his last day of work at Fireworks West.)

....That's all.