Funny kids!

Powers and I went the Rhea's to visit and celebrate Charley's anti-braces smile Tuesday! All our readers were probably affected the same way we were, but the bottom fell out ALL DAY LONG Tuesday. It rained, and rained, and rained (and rained and rained and rained)....

The bright side to the torrential down pour was that Lizzy and Caden pulled out their raincoats!

Look at those little feet poking out!! :)

 The greatest thing... Elizabeth's rain coat had little beach balls printed on it and Lauren explained to us that earlier in the day the kids kept coming to her bedroom and 'throwing' her balls to catch. She had no idea what was going on and realized they were running back and forth picking the 'balls' off of Lizzy's jacket and would throw them to her! They did it for Powers and I while we were there! It was awesome! Watching their little imaginations in action is so fun! They would go pick a ball of the jacket, ball their little fists up, call the name of whoever they wanted to throw to, then chunk their imaginary ball to us! They were very into it and it was a great moment to watch! Reminds you of the fun and freedom of being a kid!

Of course, being the bad influence that I am... Elizabeth wanted my camera right when I walked in the door! Since they both were interested this time, we taught Caden how to take pictures! It is so funny to watch them pose and shoot their objects! Please find below a combination of pictures by Caden and Elizabeth... Caden making his blogger photographer debut!

 

(You know Elmo made the cut!!)

We're working on getting faces... Stay tuned! 

SHE'S JUST BEAUTIFUL!!!

My precious, smart, loving, gorgeous neice, Charley Bug Rhea, got her braces off this week and she looks GORGEOUS!!!

I can't believe how old and grown up she looks! We went to see her Tuesday night to celebrate and this beaut is what opened the door...

Oh my. We're all in for it. She is drop dead beautiful.

We are all so excited for her and her new grin! She has been a trooper the past few years but now can chew as much bubble gum as she wants... and trust me, she's off to a good start! :)

I LOVE YOU CHARLEY BARLEY!

26 weeks!

We're 26 weeks and the length of an English Hothouse Cucumber. That's funny! Baby can now hear conversation, so my email said it can likely hear Daddy talking now too! Between Daddy and Mommy blabbing all the time, Baby may have signed up for more than it's ready for!! We are feeling great and now have a for sure protrusion popping out of this belly :)

Spoons and elmo feeding time

Powers and I ate dinner with the Rhea's a few weekend's ago and got a few cute pictures of them while we were there...

We wanted to see if the kids could balance spoons on their noses again since we didn't get pictures of the original display. Lizzy could get it! She was SO FOCUSED. We all went crazy when she balanced her spoon and she just sat there. Didn't crack a smile. Still as a statue. And held it for while! It was great! Caden thought it was way too much fun and couldn't quit giggling long enough for his to stick!

So Serious...

Here are the kids feeding their elmo's. Lizzy obviously understands a picky eater. She just pried elmo's mouth open and shoved that 'food' right on in!

Welcome to the Soap Opera Chicken World

Here are a few updates from the chicken world...

Meet Leonidas:

We have reason to believe that Leonidas murdered Bully a few weeks ago, thus slashing our chicken count from 7 to 6.

Now, meet Crow. Crow is apparently terrified of Leonidas. After 'the incident' Crow stopped sleeping in the coop. All the chickens would go to bed and shortly after dark, Crow would mosey right on back up to the house and find a spot to nest in our carport! We found him a few nights in a row! The picture below was by far the funniest!  Powers walked outside, started dying laughing and called for me to come look. This is Powers's smoker. Crow was DEAD asleep on top of the smoke stack!

 

 A few nights later Powers saw Crow coming back towards the house to go to sleep so Powers went out to cut him off and send him back to the coop. Crow dodged and weaved and Powers said he was practically running football plays in the yard trying to keep Crow from coming to the house! Eventually Powers headed him off and sent him on his way to sleep with the other chicks. Poor thing has a spot way above where the other ones sleep so he can be alone and safe :(

Other news, here is our new chicken coop! It's ENORMOUS!!! It also was free, though, so I LOVE IT!
It is sitting in our yard trying to figure out how it is going to move it's heavy self to where it belongs! Good luck, hubbers!

Lastly, we officially have a rooster! (That apparently won't shut up!)  Powers and I were brushing our teeth yesterday and heard this LOUD 'cockadoodledooooooooo!' Then we heard it over, and over, and over, and over again! Yup. Dinner is served!

I don't have one single picture of our rooster (cheetah). I'll get a video so you can share our pain!

I think that's all in chicken world!  :)

A bright future in photography...

We have made major progress with the twins in the past two weeks! We have this great event called Kid's Clubhouse at our church on Sunday mornings. It is for the whole family, but it's geared towards younger children. It is loud and colorful and funny and there is a LOT of fun dancing! Caden and Liz have been more 'observers' until last week! Woo hoo!!! Caden hopped down during the last song and just danced his little heart out! Liz was not ready to jump in just yet... until this week! Yay!!! Here's a precious video of them doing the movements that our step team on stage is doing! They are really spot on, if you could see the actual dance!
Finally Dancing!! from Taylor Lane on Vimeo.


Somehow during the Kids Clubhouse skit, I introduced Elizabeth to my camera and taught her how to take pictures. She took at least one hundred pictures in 5 minutes! It was so funny! She would call your name, point the camera at you, say cheese, then shoot away! We were all dying laughing because she was taking pictures of everyone! Here are a few of the keepers from her newly developed portfolio!

 

 

She even figured out how to use the zoom function! Not bad for a 2.5 year old!!

Other big news....... CHARLEY BUG GOT HER BRACES OFF TODAY!!! I can't wait to see her gorgeous smile! She has been so excited to get them off and I can't wait to celebrate with her! Ill get some pictures tonight and try to post her new grill tomorrow!

Baby Bump at 25 wks

My mom, among others, have been anxious to see this growing belly so I had a friend take a few pics today... Here goes... this is rather humiliating, Ill have you all know!

 

Im claiming bad angle on this one. Or stripes. Whew. There, that's done. you are all just going to have to see me in person from here on out because this might be as big as it gets for the ole family blog! 

25 weeks!

I got a good idea for my links up top!  If I can figure out how to do it I'll start posting our recipes and videos and all that good stuff up there!Thanks Stephanie :) (Who Im dying to meet!!)

Before I give baby updates, I wanted to give a big shout out to everyone who has either sent pictures or posted pictures of their kid-o's lately! We LOVED the halloween costumes and i have loved getting to see all my friend's offspring's grow! We are in love with them all long distance! (How many times can I say 'love'?!)

I liked this weeks updates! We're 25 weeks and the WEIGHT of a rutabaga. Maybe that's where I've gotten confused by the sizing... some weeks were the LENGTH of an item but I noticed this week we are the WEIGHT of an item. It's all coming together now!

Rutabaga's are not pretty. I've never seen one before. Baby Lane is much prettier than this Ruta! Downer on my excitement!

Here was my update from this week:

How your baby's growing

Head to heels, your baby now measures about 13 1/2 inches. Her weight — a pound and a half — isn't much more than an average rutabaga, but she's beginning to exchange her long, lean look for some baby fat. As she does, her wrinkled skin will begin to smooth out and she'll start to look more and more like a newborn. She's also growing more hair — and if you could see it, you'd now be able to discern its color and texture.

Yay! Baby fat!! That makes my day! I wonder what color hair baby has?!?! Powers was a toehead so I bet its blond! Anybody recognize this guy?!?!? Sorry the pictures so bad... I had a time with this!

I love this picture! I love you, Pow Pow!

This goodie is for a friend who reads our blog!

Tuesday

Thanks to my beautiful friend Kristine, I've found a plethora of encouraging blogs to follow. One blog, Chatting at the Sky, (and great sister blog (in)Courage), posts Tuesday blogs that are only about stopping and being thankful. The idea was that life is so busy that we rarely stop to think about how much we have to be thankful for in the midst of the chaos. One of my favorites was that she posted a pile of dirty pink laundry and her 'stop to be thankful' was for 'the messy' because it meant two healthy girls lived there. I have just had an overwhelmingly thankful day and wanted to take part in stopping to recognize that God is so good and I far too seldom slow down to simply tell him 'thank you'.

To name just a few that have been running through my head this morning...

I am so thankful for a too early wake up call... from the man in my life that can't sleep. His precious apologies for waking me up so many times this morning fall on deaf ears. What could be better than your man getting to spend some much needed quiet time during a sleepless night, then hearing him whisper 'I love you' as he tip toes around the room? More than that, when he comes to my side of the bed to kiss my face before he leaves with such sweet words for his wife and his child?

Thankful for this lady...

And speechless on where I would even begin. To be pint-sized, she has the inner strength of a thousand saints. Her spirit is unshakable and she is so evidently full of joy and peace in her Father.... so much so that its visible from just looking at her!  I have learned SO MUCH from her. She radiates the Light inside of her and she is such an encouragement!

So thankful that my desk looks like this. (That's my bible beside my computer)

We have so much freedom to live free! I am so thankful for a work environment where people are more likely to carry their bibles around with them than their planners. I am encouraged to take long lunch breaks to be able to spend time in the word. We share what we are learning with each other. This is a great place.

Finally, and most importantly, I am thankful for God teaching me to be obedient. Through His teaching, he has proved Himself faithful over and over again. I am free to let go of fear. He is more than equipt to conquor all of my silly fears and He proves Himself daily. He is a fountain and I thirst for more of Him.

Cranberry Crumb Bars

Hey everybody! I made these Cranberry Crumb Bars this weekend and they were really good! Powers specifically said they were great with coffee, so that's his 2 cents! I LOVE cranberries, so these reminded me of good ole' winter desserts! I stole this recipe and pictures from this website... Katie makes great looking food... this is the first recipe I've tried and I'll def try more! I don't know how to give legal credit for stolen pictures, so Ill just give my own disclosure that I didn't take this picture and Katie takes awesome food pics!

Cranberry Crumb Bars

Cranberry Filling

• 2/3 cup white sugar
• 1 Tbs cornstarch
• 1 tsp vanilla
• juice of 1/2 of an orange
• 4 cups fresh cranberries** 

Crumb Mixture

• 1 cup white sugar
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup almond flour/meal*
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 cup cold butter (2 sticks)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter a 9×9 (or 8x8) inch pan.
In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch, vanilla, and orange juice. Mix in the cranberries. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix together 1 cup sugar, flour, almond flour, salt and baking powder. Use a fork or pastry cutter to blend in the butter and egg. The dough will be crumbly. Alternatively, you can pulse the dry ingredients in a food processor with the butter until pebbly, and then mix in the egg until it all comes together. Pat half of the dough into the buttered pan.

Sprinkle the cranberry mixture evenly over the dough in the pan.

Add 1/4 tsp cinnamon to the remaining dough, then crumble dough over the berries. Bake for 35-45 minutes, or until top is a light golden brown. (Watch while cooking, mine didn’t take quite this long) Cool completely and chill in the refrigerator before cutting into squares. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

* I used whole natural almonds. Just toss them in a food processor until finely ground to make almond meal.
**stock up while cranberries are abundant in stores. Just toss them in the freezer and use as you need. They'll be good for about a year. If you're using frozen fresh cranberries for this recipe there is no need to thaw them first.