Baby Einstein

This evening Jade and I went to Harvest Fest at our church. Before we left I decided to dress Jade up like a baby Einstein. She wasn't really as sad as these pictures seem to show. In the first pic she was asking to go outside and the second we are on our way to the party.

These pics don't really do her look justice, but you get the idea. I think her fake mustache was a big hit and of course her crazy hair. Hee, hee I dressed up in a white lab coat and tie (with pants and a shirt of course) to play her "assistant".

Cheesecake lollipops anyone?

Last night I was hosting a Discovery Toy party at my house. I wanted it to be a dessert party too and so I asked my mom for some cool dessert ideas to share with everyone who came. She showed me this link from Neiman Marcus for cheesecake lollipops. She had recently gone to an event that had made these cheesecake pops to look like candy apples.

So I googled around till I found this recipe on AllRecipe.com I modified the recipe a little bit, by deciding to dip the pops in white chocolate instead of their recommendation of confectioners coating. And I dipped them in mini chocolate chips instead of coconut. But I am sure these little treats would taste yummy dipped in whatever you wish.

These aren't the best pictures, but I thought it was a fun dessert to do during the holiday season and thought I'd pass on the idea to anyone who would be interested. Thanks Mom, these were yummy!

Crazy Hair

I decided to tease some of Jade's hair today to see if I could do a "mad scientist" kind of a look for her, so she can have a cool costume for our church harvest fest on Friday. She didn't want to put her toothbrush down for the pics, she is really into hygiene.

Pretty Day

It is such a pretty day out today!

Jade and I had a short bike ride to the gym this morning. It was so nice to bike in good weather. I know it will be short lived, but that's okay.

We have a busy day ahead of us with lots of little kids coming to play all day long. I think Jade is looking forward to it. I asked her if she wanted her friends to come over to play and she said "fun!" lol.

She is learning many new words

Gone missing

Jade's hair clip has gone missing. It is a very odd thing, since it seems to have vanished in thin air. Let me go over my morning with you real quick so you all may play a part as Sherlock Holmes in this story. Ahem...

Jade woke up this morning at approximately 6:27a.m. Daddy got her out of bed and made her oatmeal.
I got out of bed at approximately 6:32a.m. and found Daddy and Jade with their oatmeal and a banana. I poured myself a bowl of cereal and kept Jade company while she shoveled her oatmeal into her mouth (by her self no less.)
At, or around 6:49a.m. I brought Jade upstairs, changed her diaper, dressed her. Took her into the bathroom and brushed her hair.
At 6:58 (I'm just guessing here)Put two hair clips in her hair. Kissed her adorable face.

Around 7:22a.m. I picked Jade up (with her hair clips still in her hair) and put her in her car seat. We drove Daddy to work.
Returned home a little before 8am. Brought Jade upstairs, sat her in the rocking chair and began working.
8:10a.m. turned around to talk to Jade and ...Da Da! One of her hair clips was gone!!!

Spent 11.5 minutes searching the chair, her clothes, her blankie, her bear, the stairs, the entry way, the car, the garage, the car seat, back upstairs, back around the chair, back looking all over her blankie and clothes. Nothing! Where can her clippy be!!!!!

Thus ends the tale of the missing hair clip.

Jade's hair

I just liked the fact I was able to do Jade's hair today in a mini coil. She thought she was pretty cute too:)

Friday

Friday Jade and I spent the entire day at the mall. And when I say the whole day I mean from around 8:30am-2:30pm. Jade was a trooper though, we took breaks from shopping and played in the kids area. We also found some yummy foods to eat and had lunch at Johnny Rockets. Yum!
After our mall shopping we decided to spend some much needed time at the bookstore. Jade needed to catch up on her reading. She found the section she wanted to be in, plopped down on the floor and started reading her books. Like Father, like daughter.
After our busy day out, we met daddy at a nice hotel and stayed the night, well...first we did go out to dinner at the Rain forest Cafe, then we went to sleep. Saturday morning, bright and early, we got up and headed back home. Once at home we unpacked some of our many bags and Jade showed Daddy her great finds.
Note the new sunglasses, bracelet and necklace. Her jeans are new as well, but you can't see those.

Because my daughter is a ham...

...she will do funny poses for me.
Her favorite word or phrase right now is "ta da". In this picture she is saying "ta da" as if it's so amazing that she can sit on a pumpkin.
And since my daughter is a ham, singing with a microphone is a must! Here we are doing some karaoke action on Sunday afternoon.
This morning when I came in to get her up, she jumped up and threw her arms out and said "Ta da!!" I couldn't help but crack up at her.

Pumpkin Patch Day

From Jade: Today Dad and Mom took me to the pumpkin patch. When we first got there we had to wait around to catch a ride to the actual pumpkin patch, so I killed time by checking out the animals. Dad lifted me high so I could tough a Llama, Mom wasn't to excited about that and she said she had to stand far away. I'm not sure why.
I spent a lot of time trying to touch and feed the goats. Mom and Dad are cheap so they didn't buy me any actual feed to give the goats, so I tried to give them sawdust instead. Apparently goats are smart, because they didn't eat it.
Finally we got our tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch. At first I wasn't to sure about the whole thing. We were out in a muddy field full of orange balls.
But then Daddy got down and showed me that you could pick up the balls...er...pumpkins and carry them around.
I found a good one. I said, "ma ma!" and Mommy turned around with her camera to take a picture.
Then I tried to pick up the pumpkin and...ya, it was to heavy.
But then I found another pumpkin, it was just the right size. I could carry it every where. Eventually I got bored with it and threw it on the ground.
Mom picked me up and we walked around for awhile until we found a better pumpkin.
Then, we got back on the tractor ride to go pay for our pumpkins. I am bummed here because Dad's pumpkin is bigger then mine.
I wonder if I could steal it away from him when he isn't looking?
After we paid for our pumpkin (or I should say, Dad paid for them) We got a cart to pull the heavy pumpkins to our car. I'm a pretty big girl so I offered to help Dad pull them the long way to the car.
But then I got this brillant idea, why walk when you can ride? And so I told Dad he was super strong (beef up his pride, ya know) and he let me ride in the cart.
All in all, it wasn't a bad day. I got a pretty cool pumpkin and so did Dad. Poor mom, she was so busy taking my pictures she never found one for herself. Maybe next year.

For Grandma B

Jade got a few new outfits from her Grandma B this week. Jade was so excited to get the box and was happy to pull out all of the shirts and sweaters and pants that were there. This morning she helped pick out what she would wear. She wanted the red shirt with the scotty dog on it. In this pic she is pointing to the dog saying "daww" for her Grandma B
In this pouty pic she is upset because she wanted me to the take the pic of her sitting in my lap
so we also took a pic of her sitting in my lap. Oh, the socks she is wearing in the first pic are also from Grandma B they have dogs on them too. Jade loves doggies:)
Thanks Grandma for Jade's new clothes!

Good Morning Friends

A just because picture with my little cutie.

A few pictures from our photo shoot last month

One happy family

One laughing dad and a daughter who likes her toes

One little daughter who loves her mommy

One little baby who is sad

One smart father teaching his daughter to throw rocks.

One big girl swinging on a big kid swing

One little girl, as cute as can be:)

We were hoping to go to the pumpkin patch

So we put on our rainboots figuring there may be some mud. However, it started raining kind of hard after these pics. So I guess we'll have to wait for another day to go pumpkin picking.

Jade is trying to copy me here:)

Going green!

Well, I'm not really going "Green" for green sake, more for my sanity sake. The amount I spend on disposable diapers every month and the amount of trash we accumulate every week...is starting to make me go insane.

Jade is so smart, and so big and so ready to be potty training any...month now! (lol) That I figured we can just stop buying her diapers and maybe go another route. The answer...Cloth diapers!!

I stopped by Simple Cloth that just opened up in downtown Olympia and had the gal tell me all about the many options of cloth diapers that are now available for us.
I was most attracted to the Knicker Nappies both for the simplicity of use but also because you can pull them up and down like a pair of panties (or pull-ups) for potty training your toddler (or baby). They are super cool, with this special pocket at the top that you insert the cool "Loopy-Do" inserts. When the baby goes potty you just pull the insert out and put the diapers in a diaper pail to wash later or stick in the wash right away. I've been using these for almost a week now and so far I'm thrilled!
They are very absorbent and the special outside liner holds in moisture very well. Jade can notice the difference a little bit though and is able to tell me right away when she's gone potty. We are still trying to teach her to to tell mommy before she needs to go potty, but that will come soon enough. For now we'll save some money on diapers and maybe help the environment while we are at it:)