Happy Halloween

Kylie had her first official Halloween this year. Last year she was only 5 weeks old so we did not dress her up. She did great and had a blast. We went to a church fall festival Saturday with some friends. It was a huge festival with things to do for all age groups. Then Sunday we had trick or treaters....I must say trick or treating seems to be going away...at least in our neighborhood. She loved when the doorbell rang (all fives times). She would run to the door and say hello and then once the kids got their candy she would wave goodbye and try to go with them. I am not a huge Halloween fan but after seeing her light up I am ready for Halloween to come around again. BTW, the bow you see on her head lasted about 40 minutes until she realized she was wearing it. Enjoy the pics!

Pumpkin Patch

This Saturday we went to the Tate Farms Pumpkin Patch. Kyle and I had never been to a pumpkin patch so I thought it would be a fun and new experience for the whole family. It did not disappoint. There was so much to do...unfortunately we could not do everything since Kylie was a little young for a lot of the activities but it is definitely going to become a family tradition. The pictures above are from our day! What a gorgeous fall day!

1st Birthday

Our little girl is 1! I cannot believe how quickly time is passing. Each day is more and more fun. I just love watching her learn and grow. So what did we do to celebrate the occasion...well we had 2 parties of course. We really wanted her first birthday to include as much family and friends as possible so we decided to have a party at our house and then another party at my parents house. She had so much fun at both. Prior to her party Kylie had never had any sweets. Let me say that she knew exactly what to do when we put a cupcake on her tray. She was too cute....and too messy diving in. A few things to help me remember what she was doing at age 1: 1. Kylie started walking at the beginning of August. At that time she had also gone to only drinking out of sippy cups. 2. She had 6 teeth and 2 on the way. She got her first ear infection after her second party. 3. She weighed 19.12 lbs and was 29.5 inches long. 4. She can say momma, dada, nigh nigh(night night), more (verbally and through sign lang), hello, goodbye, shoes, a rough version of thank you, nummy nummy (yummy yummy), and nana.

10 months old today!

My little lady is 10 months old today! She is all of the place. She is trying to walk but not quite there yet. It is so neat to just watch her explore and try to figure things out. I love to play with her when I get home but mostly I love to watch her and see what all she has learned that day. Everyday it seems like she is doing something new. As of late, she is learning to chew food. This summer I have slowly been integrating table food into her diet. She is finally starting to seem really interested. Before it was something new but too much of a hastle for her to eat a whole meal of table food (so much like her father!). But now she is really showing an interest in eating on her own. Yesterday morning my mom tried to feed her eggs...which she loves, however, she wanted to feed them to herself. When mom went to put the fork in her mouth she closed her lips together. It was so funny watching that strong opinion come out (so much like her mother...and her nana). I recently switched her to "big girl" oatmeal aka quaker oats and we are gradually adding sippy cups into the mix. She loves water out of her sippy cup but she is picky about milk from her sippy cup. If she is feeling well she will drink milk from the cup but otherwise forget it. She now has 4 teeth and the last two nights tell me more are on the way! All in all she is a happy baby. She is so sweet but wants things her way. She still clings to me but a lot of that has to do with not feeling well. Quick recap of her stats at 9 months: 18.4 lbs 27 inches takes 4 6 oz bottles a day eats 3 times a day-still "baby" food moved to a big girl car seat-still rear facing but our trips are greatly improving started crawling and pulling up I am truly thankful for her. What a blessing she is to me...I am reminded of that daily.

4th of July

I thought this picture pretty accurately describes Kylie's first 4th of July. Unfortunately, this is how most of the day went but she did have some good moments. She was just completely out of her element. But we had a great time seeing family so all of the screaming was worth it. Hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

Happy Mother's Day!

This post is obviously late but our busy lives have not allowed for much blog posting. However, I had a great first Mother's day. Of course any day spent with my husband and daughter are great but to top it off my mom came into town and we went out to lunch with Kyle's family. So we all celebrated Mother's day together. Really all we did that day was go to lunch but that was fine by me because I love being at home! I hope everyone had a great Mother's day! What a blessing mother's are to us.

Swim Class

Kylie started her first swim class two weeks ago. I was so excited about it but not sure how she would handle it. Well, she did great. We got in the pool and she started splashing. Her swim class is more to get babies in the water and get them comfortable. It is meant to be fun and really a bonding experience with your child. Unfortunately, Kyle could not make the first class but he did get to go to the second. Here are a few pics from the day.

4 to 6 months

So obviously we have been very busy. In the last 3 months Kylie has had a cold and a stomach virus...which she also gave to her momma, she has learned to sit up, pull up when holding your fingers, bounce in the jumper, say dada and momma, gotten her first tooth, started eating, learned to laugh,and I am sure there are more little things but these are the big things. So here's a quick recap so I don't forget what happened each month. 4th month: -Kylie began baby talking mostly just coos -we started her out on cereal which she hated! so we backed off of the cereal and just gave her plain foods until about 2 weeks ago. She started by eating sweet potatoes, bananas,carrots, pears, and apples. -The 4 month and into the beginning of the 5th month was the hardest time with Kylie. She fussed a lot. The only thing that would make her happy was for you to hold her and walk around. But every stage is temporary and once we got into the 5th month things started getting better. 5th month: -Began to sit up. -By the end she started saying dada -able to play with more and more toys -she rolled over -started playing in the exersaucer 6th month: -Perfected sitting up -started eating cereal again; we advanced her foods a little more and she did pretty well; the basic rule of thumb is she will eat anything with a banana in it -foods included: carrots, avocado, pears, apples, plums, bananas, chicken, peas, squash, green beans, rutabagas, & eggplant- unless you feed her these items individually off your plate she will not eat any of them by themself (except for the fruit) -started saying momma -started bouncing in the bouncy seat -beginning to show an interest in crawling -got her first tooth! teething started in January so we are thrilled! -of course she wants everything in her mouth...in particular paper. She is just wonderful! Being a parent has changed our lives. We just love her! Here are some pics of the last few months. I cannot wait to see her in the coming months it is so amazing how much she is growing and learning.

Kylie Videos

Hello all. This is Kyle. Just posting a couple videos of Kylie. Kylie probably telling me she doesn't want to be in her jumper. Kylie dancing with mommy. BTW, while I was posting this, I have now realized an unforeseen annoyance in naming my kid after myself. Everywhere I have typed Kylie, I typed my name by mistake. Oh well, vanity has a price.

Kitchen Backsplash

This weekend we finally put in a backsplash in our kitchen. When I say we it was really Daniel (a guy that works with Kyle) and Kyle. They did a great job. It took all weekend but it turned out really well. The backsplash was actually my Christmas present from Kyle. I have to say that I really wanted to get this project done but it got off to such a rocky start. I drove all over the place trying to find the tiles I wanted and the right design. So when it started off so rocky I was nervous about how actually putting it in would go but luckily Daniel has done this several times so it went extremely smoothly. Here are the before and after pictures. Thank you Kyle and Daniel!

One small accomplishment

I have been try to coupon for almost a year now and to say I have not been good is an under statement. I feel like I have spent more than I have saved by just trying to coupon. But yesterday I finally had a small break through. Let me start by telling you how I used to coupon. I would purchase the paper and then each week go to southernsavers.com to see what Publix had on sell for the week. Well, for several months I did this and I would save at the most $12 and I would waste a good 30-45 minutes trying to clip the coupons. So after a few months I just gave up. Then this week a friend of mine/family member on Kyle's side told me about these 2 ladies in Athens, AL called "two thrifty sisters". They are a lot like southern savers but a little bit better in my opinion. They lay out all of the sales that Publix is having for the week and which newspaper to get the coupons from (southern savers does this as well but they are not always as accurate with the dates). So yesterday, I went to the two thrify sisters web page to get the coupon deals, I printed out the online coupons, and then I went home and Kyle helped me cut on the newspaper coupons. Unfortunately, in my couponing frustration I got rid of several papers from the month of November which were actually necessary for this week's sale but I still did okay. I say I did okay because so many people I know that coupon will spend $20 on $200 worth of groceries. I am no LB (Laura Beth), she is the one who started we on couponing. She blogs frequently about her couponing success and every time I am just amazed at the success she has since I have not had much. Okay so I cannot give you the whole grocery list to give you an idea of what all I bought but I can tell you that I spent $116 dollars and saved $79 this week at Publix. I blame the $116 on the sale items being more expensive (like the B1G1 olive oil and things like that). I needed to stock up on them but in general they are more expensive plus me not having kept all the papers did not help either. So there you have it a small accomplishment after almost a year. Does anyone else coupon? If you are a good couponer and have tips please pass them along. I love stretching a buck! BTW, these ladies will be holding a seminar next Saturday from 9-12 in Madison if you want to attend just check on their blog.

Mexican Casserole

Here is a recipe I made up a couple of months ago. I absolutely love mexican food but most of the carbs do not come in wheat so I decided to figure out a recipe that would allow me to eat more mexican. It actually turned out really well and it is pretty healthy for you depending on how much cheese you use. 1 lb ground beef, browned and drained 1 package of taco seasoning 3/4 cup of water 1 bag of boil in a bag brown rice (family size), cooked 1 can of refried beans cheddar cheese, shredded Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pour the rice into a greased 9x9 pan. Then combine the ground beef, water, and taco seasoning in the hot pan you used to cook the ground beef. Pour the ground beef over the rice. Then spread the refried beans over the ground beef and then sprinkle the top with cheese. Bake for 45 min to an hour. Let me know what you think. BTW, this is a great casserole to freeze.

3 Month Pictures

Here are a couple of pictures that my friend, Ashley Turnbull, took of Kylie as her 3month pictures.

More pics

3 months and Christmas

This was our biggest month of all. Kylie has started doing so many things. It is just incredible to watch her. Every week we have something new to look forward to. So this month I started back to work...it was extremely difficult for me of course not for her. However, she has a fabulous sitter whom I thank God for everyday. She loves Kylie and takes really good care of her. It took a few days to get used to the new routine but we finally got it down pat and then Christmas came. We went to Guntersville for Christmas Eve and then headed to Auburn for Christmas day. Unfortunately, Kylie and I were both sick but we still had such a great time seeing all of our family. Kylie got so many clothes and toys. This Christmas was exciting for us but not so much for Kylie since she was completely oblivous to what was going on. I cannot wait until next Christmas when she is a lot more mobile and will at least enjoy playing with the wrapping paper! I am posting some pictures of Kylie with my uncle Jimmy and Kyle's dad aka Grandpa. There are also some pictures of Kylie and Hadley...you will notice that some heads are chopped off. My cousin Chris took the pictures and was being all photographer like telling us to work the camera and then I go and look at the pictures and he cut several of the heads off of people (good try Chris but dont quit your day job!). After Christmas was over we came back to Huntsville. My mom came back with us to hang out since she was off from work that week and then my dad came up for New Year's. During the week we went over to Decatur so my dad's side of the family could meet Kylie. We dont get to see them very often but I have the best time when we get together. My cousin Phyllis loves to cook and be a hostess she always makes you feel special by making special treats like cappucinos or spiced tea. Kylie actually did really well with meeting so many people in one day. She is really not a baby that likes to be passed around a lot. Once she is comfortable she prefers to stay in that position and she is not afraid to make that known to us all....two words to describe my child: high maintenance! Unfortunately, going back to work this week was hard for both of us. We got used to being in our routine together again and then we had to change it back up. Our poor sitter had a long week but by Friday things got a lot better. BTW, it was freezing cold and snowing here Thursday and Friday. The snow is gone now but the cold remains. It is supposed to warm up to the fifties this week so hopefully we can stop having to run water at night so the pipes wont freeze. Milestones for month 3: almost rolling over playing with toys-she no longer wants to just stare at herself in the mirror she prefers to play with the toys on her mat coos and squeals frequently no longer prefers to be rocked to sleep for her nap...just lay her straight down takes a 5 ounce bottle like it is nothing! holds her head up well prefers to sit up and look out when in your lap sits in her bouncy seat and swing more she had her 3 month pictures made by a friend of ours, Ashley Turnbull. she has discovered daddy this month. when he talks she looks to find him. when he makes face at her she laughs. she loves her daddy and I love watching it. This month has been my favorite so far. She is learning to do so much and becoming so much more interactive. I know the months ahead are going to be even more fun!