2nd "ick" day & redneck sled

I was so happy this morning when I got the text from Nixle saying we were out of school today! I was supposed to have morning duty...ahh so nice.  I was able to disable our alarms and go back to sleep until 8:30.  This morning it just sleeted and rained but around 10:30 it turned over to snow and has snowed all day. Essie had a blast destroying the house (serious path of destruction) and running around like crazy!

 Finally Essie took a nice nap and once we got her up we took her out to play in the "ick".  Last time it snowed she had nothing to do with it so we thought we would get a sled.  Well everywhere was pretty much sold out of sleds and we didn't want to really spend any money so we made our own redneck sled.  And she loved it...

bathtub art

Just some fun in the tub...

and Essie picked out her own jammies....the "maggie Mae" top as she calls it..yes that's a monkey and her minnie bottoms!

Happy Birthday Peepaw!

Happy (early) Birthday Peepaw!

p.s.  The pompoms were totally her idea!

6 year old valentine pjs...

We've been savng this lil pajama set for over 6 years now.  I bought this for my niece Haley a looooong time ago when she was Essie's age.  I remember buying them at the Gap outlet and thinking they were the cutest thing I've ever seen! They are faded and the buttons are worn but tonight we had to put them on E.Claire! They are a little big but I think they are precious!

our sunday

This morning I tried a new recipe "Peanut Butter Banana Stuffed French Toast" for breakfast.  It's a Paula Deen recipe and was rediculous! I am posting the recipe over on the blog! After that we headed upstairs and I started going through all Essie's old summer/spring clothes so I could start getting them ready for our Popsicles Consignment sale in a few weeks.  I worked for over 2 hours and am nowhere near done! I'm planning on going back up there to finish tonight! I LOVE (no am obsessed) with consigning.  Not only do I make some great money but that is where I get 95% of Essie's clothes! Oh I love it...I even take a half a personal day from work so I can shop early (I volunteer to get to do this too!).  It's my drug...seriously..my drug. Essie came up there and played and managed to get "stuck"..

Anyway...Essie's hair is out of control.  I don't want to cut it againg but we don't know what to do with it! It's crazy long in the front and hangs right in her face.  I can't stand it! And the back is stringy.  I ended up putting it into TWO ponytails today! Ha!

This afternoon we needed to get out of the house.  My mom had recieved a coupon for Essie's half birthday for 20 free tokens from Chuck E. Cheese.  So we went and let her spend it.  The only thing we paid for was a drink..we got out of there having only spent $2.04!!! Essie loved the sights and sounds but didn't want to stay in one place very long.

Then we came home so I could cook yet another new recipe and get her bathed and into bed.  She loves these Elmo books because they have a lineup of the characters in the cover.  She will sit and name them for hours.  She also loves for us to ask her "Where's Snuff?", etc and she will point them out.  While I was cooking she laid on the floor and did just that! :)

dirt cake and bubbles.

This morning we had to set our alarms and get up extra early so we could all be dressed and out the door before 8.  We had to pick up 18 dozen donuts and head over to my school for a parent reading comprehension workshop.  One of my students' family owns a local donut shop "Shipleys" and we do alot of business with them! They really do make the BEST donuts! Apparently we go a lil too much because when we pulled up Essie started screaming "BITE!" and getting really excited.  And as soon as we walk in they have a bag of donut holes for her! Such good people!

Anyway I was so pumped because we are really trying to improve our parent involvement at school.  We have such an amazing school full of excited teachers, smart kiddos, and supportive parents however we just cannot get them up there after hours.  So we thought we would try something different and do a Saturday morning workshop instead of school nights. We had an amazing rsvp amount...around 100 parents rsvpd that they would be there.  We never expected to have so many! So we ordered a ton of donuts, coffee, and were ready to go! I had around 32 parents rsvp from first grade however only 6 showed up.  I was really disappointed in the actual turnout.  I was thrilled to death about the ones who did come, however! In fact they were all parents from my room (except one).  We had a great session and they got to take home a ton of goodies! Essie came up there and she and Trav hung out with the kiddos.  She had such a blast running around and playing.  She wore herself out and fell asleep on the way home.  We decided to take advantage of that and we all took a nap then!

Then we got up and ran a few errands and came home so I could cook! I have been double/triple cooking lately.  While I'm cooking one meal I go ahead and make part of another! For example on Monday I made veggie soup for Monday and meatballs for Tuesday.  Wednesday I made Ranch Chicken and boiled the chicken/made the filling for Chicken Enchilada Ring.  And  then today I made Corn Chowder & Dirt Cake for today, the meat for Meatzza Pizza (we will have on Monday), and chili for a new recipe I'm trying out tomorrow.  That means I only really cooked three nights this week but had dinners for over a week! The nights in between I just had to finish each meal which took very little time! And I really didn't feel like I was in the kitchen a whole lot longer than usual! But I am a good multi-tasker..if you aren't dont' even try it.  Having three different dinners going at once isn't easy!

Essie loves to stack and organzie right now.  She gets all her cups out from her drawer and lines them up on the floor. And she loves these stacking/nesting blocks she got from Julie for Christmas!

This evening she got to try her first bites of dirtcake and she loved it but wanted to paint in it so we took a crazy bubble filled bath and made one heck of a water mess!

Maggie Mae ate it...

I mentioned a little bit ago that we had broken Essie of the bottle right as she got so sick and so we gave it back to her in hopes of keeping her from dehydrating.  Well.......now that she's well......

Maggie Mae ate it. 

At least that's what we told Essie when she asked for her bottle on Monday night.  Maggie Mae ate it.  How did Essie react? Well...she cried and pointed to Maggie and screamed in the highest pitched voice ever "Maggie Mae????" "Maggie Mae????" "BaBa???BaBaaaaaaaa!" over and over and over. We couldn't help but laugh.  She completely believed it (given Maggie's history of eating everything in sight).

Well that was 5 nights ago and she's not asked for her "baba" since! So I'm proud to say my 18 month old is bottle free! They have been packed away in the attic! It was not bad at all to do break her....just a little bit of crying! ;)

And just for fun...a few pics of Essie on our way out of the house this morning...she was just precious in her bathrobe!!!

Faker.

Essie has really gotten into "faking" these days.  She fake laughs, fake cries, even fake poops.  This afternoon she was sitting on the countertop enjoying her drinkable yogurt when she lightly bumped the back of her head against the cabinet.  She proceeded to grab the front of her head and say "ow" "owwww" "oooooh!".  This picture was taken minutes later when her daddy walked into the room and she wanted to let him know of her injury...

No worries she went right on drinking her yogurt seconds later!

It's been soooo  nice since Christmas in our house! We are in a lull and I LOOOOOVE it! We don't have a whole lot of "extra" stuff going on and it's soooo nice.  I have cooked dinner every single night and have meals planned for the rest of the week...Oh I LOOOVE it! My house is "almost" clean. It's never going to be "really" clean with an 18 monther running around! Ha! I love having extra time to spend with my family and not feel so rushed.  The only things on the books for the rest of January are a Parent Workshop I'm doing Saturday morning at school and a Pampered Chef party in a few weeks! Ahhh...I will enjoy it until February rolls around and I have Valentine's orders rolling in!

18 Months...

Essie Claire you are 18 Months old! (a few days ago)

Here's what's going on with you:

• You weigh 22 pounds 13 ounces (25th percentile)  and are 33 inches long (85th percentile)! You have grown 2 inches in just 3 months! The Dr says you are tall and slim! You wear 18-24 months or 2Ts and size 4-5 shoes.  You are in size 4 diapers.
• You are a WILD, SPUNKY, SWEET lil one!
• You are all about conversations now.  You talk in short sentences such as "Hi Mama Hi Daddy!". You said your first 4 word sentence this weekend "Dats a BIG bite"! You can name every single Sesame Street Character...every last one of them.
• You are still obsessed with Elmo but also love the other Sesame characters as well.
• You are all about making choices: you choose your pjs everynight, pick out your sippie cup, and even choose whether you want milk or juice.
• You LOVE bathtime right now and want to stay in it as long as you can.  You love to pour water from cups and play with measuring cups in the tub!
• You love to eat eggs, dried cranberries, clementine oranges, and apples.  You are becoming more picky and know whether or not you like some foods.  You do NOT like chocolate milk or hot chocolate.
• You are obsessed with stickers...I keep some in my purse at all times to ward off those spur of the moment tantrums!
• We discovered that you do NOT like snow or the cold.
• Your newest favorite word is "ICK" and you use it all the time.  You point out freckles and moles on people and say "ick".  You point to trash and say "ick"! Even snow was "ick".