The Poor Neighbors

Everly is refusing pacifiers lately, her pacifier lately is being outside.  Jimmy has been now walking her around the complex to get her to go to sleep before bed.  In the middle of the day, I have her out on the patio.  Well, we are on the 2nd story and it's just a wood balcony.  Being a baby, she spit up and no blanket underneath.  Our neighbors were gifted a baby present to their cement below and I'm at a loss.  Knocking on their door and offering to clean it up seems weird, but leaving it seems bad.  Sneaking into their porch area seems worse.  So, I looked later and it's at least a dried up pile...can we blame the birds?  I told my mom, she said, "at least there weren't people below for the incoming pile of spit up."  There's always a bright side...haha.

On an alternative note, Everly is out of our room.  Super ready for the switch when one of many bad sleeping nights of her in our bed I found her head under the pillow and realized..."I'm gonna kill this baby if she stays with us."  Closet doors removed and some furniture switching and she's out!  She's OUT!!  And we are sleeping so good!  Like she's up only once in the night for the past 2 nights.

We lasted 3 weeks!

Our sugar free goal...we last 3 weeks.  The talk of missing hot chocolate chip cookies was just too much to bear any longer, so that is exactly what we gave in with at the same time.  And let's just be clear, we don't regret one chocolatey second giving in when we did.  Pretty good for 3 weeks, but we're so over it!  Aside from chocolate chip cookies it was hot cereal we missed as it is impossible to eat hot cereal or even have a desire without some sugar.  Not worth it!

This girl!  She can't quite crawl, just drags her sorry good for nothing legs behind her to get where she wants and that's exactly how she got to this outlet.  Her mission, to remove the covers and eat them!  Child proofing fail.

Other than that, we also gave in with a date day with Cheesecake Factory for just some slices of cheesecake.  We ordered the tried and true Godiva cheesecake which WAS good, but tried a new to us one...Reese's and now we have a new favorite!  Yum!!

I've been busy prepping Logan last week for Star Student which he definitely basked in the joy of being the center of attention.  Had some ups and downs.  One of the downs was this baby and sleeping.  I threw in the towel.  She has once again become welcomed to our bed for sleep when there were a few nights of being up with her every 1-2 hours and some of those stretches being awake for the whole hour.  She always starts out in her crib and every night I fantasize that maybe tonight is the night she will stay asleep, hah!  Not even an hour later I realize I still have the whole night ahead of us.  Good thing she is too darling to be up in arms about it all and let's face it there is a good part of me that enjoys the middle of the night cuddles.

The Good Life

The good weather in Arizona has arrived and we are loving it.  Park day everyday!!

Happy New Year!!  We started our "goal" a week before...we never take New Year's seriously, but this year "why not?"  We were ready after my marathon of baking new cookie recipes to be free from sugar for a month, to be exact February 1st.  This sugar free experiment for us means no added sugar to cereals (including hot cereal such as oatmeal, steel cut oats, or cream of wheat, no syrup, etc), the obvious no desserts, no soda, and no juice.  It includes some consulting with each other, but after a week we weighed in.  I lost 4 pounds, Jimmy lost 10 pounds.  Yes, our sugar intake is out of control, it made the resisting temptations sweeter (pun, haha) when we saw the benefits.  It still needs to end with maybe a less constricting restriction.  The reward is a competition.  If Jimmy loses (meaning he gives in and eats sugar) I get $50 to spend on what I want, if I lose Jimmy gets $50.  Well, if we both last all the way through we get to go out to eat at Serrano's, a restaurant we've had on our bucket list after getting a small taste of it at the Christmas parade we recently went to.   So then the challenge became 2 fold, no going out to eat until Serrano's, it'll be one delightful day.  

To distract us...we took Dad away from work to the park for some lunch and playground time.

Everly loves green smoothies (big bonus is a sweet with no sugar, win!), she keeps stealing our cups away and slathering her face in it.  We struggle with other solid foods, but she finds this green goo irresistable, hah!

Sometimes she looks like a squirrel when she feeds herself...

He may not openly admit it, but he seems to love his Christmas present.  Found him during his quiet time/nap time like this.

She's just a ball of fun!  She was so funny last night as I was crawling into bed, I could hear her tossing and turning some and then heard her spitting and fell back asleep again without any help on my end (later in the night unfortunately was not the same story).  Once she discovered her tongue can spray spit and make a great noise it needs to be discovered over and over again apparently even half asleep.

The Naughty List

Presents were opened and there was some excitement in the air.  We thought we nailed it (sort of).  Well, after presents are opened Logan says, "I thought I was on the nice list."  Bah, child!  He GOT presents.  Did he have a tall order to fill?...YES!  He wanted a "robot dragon" and this is not just any robot dragon (which is hard to know what that would be anyways) he wanted a life size one and probably wanted it to fly too.  I guess if it could do all that, I'd want one too.  DOESN'T EXIST.  Oh, and then he wanted a "Golden Hatchimal".  Yup, DOESN'T EXIST... 

He did get what he calls an "Indominus Rex" you can see in the photo that is remote controlled.  He got a stocking stuffer baby hatchimal.  We go outside with the neighborhood kids to share in the excitement, he states, "I was on the naughty list!"  Another girl says that too and then shares, "but I got nothing, except this hat that says "bah humbug!""

To close out this post on my spoiled child whose dreams are too far reaching...I'm thinking coal next year.  Need to set this kid straight on what the "naughty list" is.  

Merry Christmas!!

Tis the Season

Arizona DOES get cold.  This is our usual scene in the mornings trekking it to drop Logan off at school.  The afternoon however is perfect 70's.  Love this time of year for multiple reasons!

Mmmm...cookies!  

I've been really on this cookie kick trying 1-2 new recipes a week.  We've really hit it off with a handful of "keeper" recipes.  This is a S'mores Blossom Cookie by Test Kitchen.  So good!

Kicking it at the park

Trialing our Christmas PJ's compliments of my mom.  The kids seemed to love matching the parents.  Now they have to save them for Christmas morning.  Which speaking of Christmas Logan informed me this wad of coins in what looked like trash is for Santa to help get Logan a Golden Hatchimal.  Ugh!  He's been telling his friends about this plan.  Pretty sure Santa is not on board with it though.

Fo-hawk!

F-baby is right...representing Facebook (hey Annabelle!).  On the other hand, she has been a terrible handful lately.  She is the most dramatic with shots...like crying uncontrollably long after the fact, not sleeping.  Seems she was possessed 24 hours after.  Then we saw the eye of the storm...it was great.  Then the very following day launched into a cough and cold compliments of Logan.  As for Logan, well his sickness led to an ear infection which NO symptoms showed up for this infection until 5pm Friday night...seriously.  Then it was quite the show of dramatics.  Tylenol did NOTHING!  Ultimately led to an urgent care visit, which meant we weren't home until 12:30am...Jimmy had work the next day getting up at 4:30 am.  This was just icing on the cake as we had done the Friday night urgent care with me a few weeks prior with strep throat.  Tis the season!  Just hope we're hitting the end of it!!

6 Months Old

This pumpkin head is 6 months old.  It is as everyone says crazy how fast that time goes.  I love her.  She is a big girl and pretty stinking proud of it sitting on her own.  She got her 1st tooth all within 1 week of each other.  She is a chunk...I mean, look at her, she's taking up a ton of the crib now.  She adores her brother, like crazy excited squeals when he just looks at her.  It works rather well for me prepping for dinner.  She is discovering that it's time to grab things and taste them.  Showering has gotten challenging as she can get anywhere rolling and gets upset getting stuck in a doorway.

I just love how she sleeps when I don't swaddle her...she gets swaddled most times, otherwise when she awakens it takes over an hour to get back asleep.  Swaddled it's almost immediately after she eats.

Logan got his homework done the first time being asked without complaint.  So, it earned a reward...we made a fort that took up the entire front of our apartment, hah!  He is such a giving little man.  Logan was so excited to share this fort with Everly.  In fact, if Logan gets anything like a rewarded pencil, vegetables on his recent field trip (like he was excited about them himself).  He'll say, "I got this one because it's your favorite color, do you want it?  You can have it."  With the vegetables he turned to his friend and said, "you can have my biggest one."  Let's return to these years when we hit teenage time! 

Granted, I say that and the other day we were walking home from school and Logan was saying, "can I have some chapstick to pretect my lips."  I said, "you mean to prOtect your lips."  Logan, "no mom it is prEtect."  Me, "no, it's protect."  Logan continues arguing.  Me, "fine, let's talk to the crossing guard."  Bottom line, he believes it now because the crossing guard said it is "protect."  I learned a new term recently as part of my education in my new job this stage is called the "ferocious fives."  I couldn't argue with that title, hah!

CSA

Well, I watched some crazy documentaries..."What the Health" and "Food, Inc".  It made me initially feel like...now what can I eat?  Where can I even buy food?  What now?

2 weeks later and I'm not making any drastic changes, but we are doing a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and trying new vegetables we wouldn't otherwise.  This is very similar to Bountiful Baskets (for those who have heard of that).  In turn, we're eating more veggies in our diet, which I didn't need any documentary to tell me that was a change that needed to happen.  This one delivers to the door, extra bonus!

Can you believe this was a half share?  Yum... It came with a recipe all I needed was some olive oil and noodles.  Dinner set for us and quick in one night.  Loving it.  Also, their green onions are insanely huge!