Coco Key Water Resort

For Christmas, our friends, Laurie and Brian, took our family to Coco key water resort (and indoor water park). We went on Valentine's day and it was sooooo much fun! Yes - it was a month ago, and I'm just now posting the pictures, but better late than never, right?? :-) Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure....

Joey is ready to play!!

Kris and Joey getting read to go down a fun slide

And down they go!!! Joey LOVED the smaller water slides like this, but he would always cover his face - I don't think he liked his face getting splashed!

More Joey - he played and played and played!

This slide was his favorite - it went into the 'kiddie pool' part. He was nervous about the slides at first, but he got over it pretty quickly and would even do this one all by himself.

Joey 'flapping' in the water - he would walk like a duck and flap in the water constantly. Odd child...

Kris enjoyed it, but this is what he did most of the time... he he

And this is what Savanna did most of the time - thankfully!!! She seriously slept for like 2 hours!! And the place was so loud, I don't know how she did it, but I was sure happy she did!

This is Laurie with sleepy Maggie - I think she was soooooo pleased I was taking her picture, can't you tell??

This is Joey and Ethan, his best friend. Ethan and Maggie are Laurie and Brian's kids - I babysit them during the week and it is great! Joey and Ethan are such good buddies and I'm sure Savanna and Maggie will be too!!

Laurie, thank you so much for taking us to Coco Key for that day of fun. It was priceless! Joey LOVED it - he still talks about it all the time! You guys are AWESOME! Love you!!

Super yummy, super easy, somewhat healthy sneaky desserts

These are 2 recipes that I LOVE and have hidden food you would never guess and are actually extremely easy. Joey enjoys both of these, as well, which is awesome because he is difficult to get to eat anything remotely healthy....

Black Bean Brownies

1 normal size can of Black Beans
1 normal size box of brownie mix

1) open can of black beans into colander - drain and rinse beans
2) return beans to can, fill with water until just barely over beans
3) put beans and water in food processor and puree
4) mix bean puree and brownie mix together
5) bake according to package directions

Using the beans in place of the oil and eggs saves boocoo calories. This makes 20 brownies at 2 WW points a piece. They are a little more dense than 'regular' brownies, but are still really yummy and you can't taste the beans at all! And very high fiber and protein, and low fat!

Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins

1 normal size (15 oz?) can of Pumpkin
1 normal size box of devils food cake mix

1) mix entire can of Pumpkin with entire box of cake mix
2) fill cupcake tin and bake according to package directions

Again, using the pumpkin instead of oil and so on saves lots of calories, and again makes these high in fiber and low in fat. This also makes dense muffins but are really yummy. The batter is very thick. Makes 12 large muffins at 4 WW points a piece. A yummy addition that of course adds a few calories, but not too bad is to throw in a couple handfuls of semi-sweet chocolate chips in the mix.

YUMMY! Happy eating! :-) Let me know if you try these and how they turn out for you!

Joey Chatter

Joey Chatter - idea stolen from Autumn's Blog and her cute daughter, Ellie. :-)

Joey and I were going to Maya's baby shower a few months ago and I had to stop and get him dinner before hand. We stopped at McDonald's because I knew he'd eat quickly there without much of a fuss. Well, of course he decided he would eat slowly again - which normally wouldn't matter, but we were already late for the party - and I started to lose my patience with him. I would have left, but he fully WANTED to eat - he was just doing so at the speed of turtle. So this is how it went...

S (me): Joey - you need to hurry we are late for the party
J: (picking at food - taking tiny bites - climbing on booth)
S: Joey - can you hurry? We are late.
J: (continues to take forever...)
S: Joey - EAT - WE HAVE GOT TO GO!
J: (in all seriousness looks at me, sits up real tall and says loudly) AYE, AYE MOMMY!

I just lost it... it was so funny! See? He does learn good manners from spongebob after all... ha ha ha

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Another time we were driving somewhere and the GPS was telling me where we were going. I was concentrating on what the GPS was saying, but every instruction it would give, Joey would ask what they said (as if he couldn't hear it.) I was on my way to getting lost so I was concentrating and began ignoring Joey - which made him all the more determined to get my attention.

J: "Mommy, what'd she say? What what'd she say? MOMMY What'd she say? MOMMY" (this went on about 1000 times and I began wondering how long he would keep it up without me acknowledging him....) Then, in a flat, monotone voice - much the way I talk to him when he's not listening to me he said "MOMMY - LISTEN TO ME! WHAT........ DID.......... SHE......... SAY!!??" Whereas he had no care about what the GPS was actually telling us - he just wanted my attention. Silly boy

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The other day this one came out of no where....

J: Mommy - who built me?
S: (after a long hesitation....) Um - God and Mommy and Daddy all worked together to build you
J: Oh. How did you build me?
S: (again after a long hesitation) Just like we built Savanna... God and Mommy and Daddy worked together and made you real small and put you in my belly and you grew big and came out just like your sister - then you kept growing bigger and bigger!
J: Oh. So God and you and Daddy put on my fingers?
S: Yes.
J: and my arms?
S: Yes
J: and my legs?
S: Yes
J: and my toes?
S: Yes.
J: Oh - OK

I am very happy he was content with that answer - I'm not ready to give a 3 year old the 'birds and the bees' talk! He's brought it up a few more times, but more in a matter of fact way "God and Mommy and Daddy built me!"

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After waking up one morning still in the morning stupor telling me about his dream

J: And I ate it all gone.
S: Ate what all gone?
J: The M&M - but I didn't go in it.
S: What?
J: I ate it all gone but I didn't go in it.
S: Didn't go in what?
J: The M&M
S: Was it a big M&M?
J: Yes - it was this big (holding hands out about 2 feet)
S: Oh -and what color was it?
J: Red and Blue and it was this big (holding hands out again)
S: And you could go inside it?
J: Yes - but I ate it all gone and didn't go in it.

He's such a sugar monster - cracks me up he was dreaming about eating a giant M&M.

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I'm sure there will be much more of these to come.... kids say the darndest things!

The Move

My best friend in the world, Amy, moved today. It is quite bittersweet for me. We met a couple years ago when I got my horse and our horses were neighbors at the barn we were boarding them at. Our friendship grew around the horses and we found we have SO much in common. We have had lots of fun times together, and THANKFULLY she didn't move too horribly far away - only about 30 or 40 minutes tops.

We really saw each other alot at the barn, but since her new place has a barn for her to keep her horses there, we won't be seeing each other quite so much, which saddens me. But I am hoping we can get together often, and I know my horse has a standing invitation to move there when I am ready to retire her. I would board her at Amy's now, except where I board Olivia is only 2 minutes from my house. Quite convenient and I can see and play with her every day. If I moved her to Amy's, I would probably really only be able to get out to see her once a week.

I am so excited for Amy and this new chapter of her life. I know she'll have a blast having her own farm. Her new house is SO amazing. It is old and I mean OLD. One of those beautiful charming old farm houses that was built over 100 years ago. In the basement you can see the joists for the floors are tree trunks - yes - trunks - with the bark still on it! And they have a summer kitchen off to the side of their house. SO CUTE! and they have one of those really old rustic looking barns and a HUGE pasture. Her horses aren't going to know what to do with themselves!! Train tracks cut right behind the pasture - I told her I would LOVE to be there the first time a train comes through after she moves the horses. They are going to freak! ha ha. She was worried I wouldn't like her new house because it's old and needs some work, but it was the exact oposite. I LOVE her new house! It has so much charm and sitting in it, you can almost see all of the families that lived there and all of the history it must have.

I will take my camera next time I go so I can take some pictures to post. It really is a WAY CUTE house and I am so jealous!!

Joey had a blast today playing with Alyssa, Amy's daughter at their old and new house while we were moving. Savanna was with Meemaw and was just a model baby. I was sad to be away from Savanna all day, but she obviously didn't miss me at all! I'm glad she's such a happy and easy-going baby. Makes it much easier to leave her!

Good luck, Amy!! I will definatly miss you at the barn, but I can't wait for all the fun that is to come!! You better get used to seeing me at your place cause I'm going to be there LOTS! :-) I'll help clean stalls - promise!!

What's a mom to do? Advice please!!

I need some advice from other moms about my son, Joey. This may sound stupid to some of you, but this is an honest concern I have, and maybe some of you have some solutions I'm not seeing. My biggest problem with Joey is getting him to eat. I swear the kid is NEVER hungry. It surprises me sometimes how long he can go without eating at all, or eating so little. Obviously he's growing and developing fine, so I'm not concerned with his growth - I know he's eating enough to grow, but it's more of a disipline thing.

Take this morning for example: He got up and I asked him what he wanted for breakfast - he said he didn't know. So I asked if he wanted some eggs with cheese like his Grammy made him the other day (he ate them for her....) and he said yes. I asked if he wanted sausage, too, and he said no. So I made the eggs with cheese. I babysit and the little guy I babysit who is Joey's age was here too, so I made him eggs and cheese too. I sit them down at their little table and Ethan wolfs down his eggs. Joey sits there looking at them. I coax him into taking one bite - which he did. So in the time it took Ethan to eat all of his eggs, Joey had only taken one bite. Then I got him to take another bite, which he ended up holding in his mouth forever until I let him spit it out. Ugh. So, he only had one bite of eggs for breakfast, and when it came time for lunch today, he started balking at that, too.

In August he will be going to pre-school - in the morning. Many times when I sit him down to eat, if he eats all his food, it takes an hour! Don't get me wrong - I don't expect him to be a part of the 'clean plate club' at every meal, but I do expect him to at least take a few bites. I worry when he starts going to preschool, he will rarely actually eat anything before he goes, because there's nothing he really likes, and even if he does eat it takes him FOREVER. I do give him carnation instant breakfasts sometimes, but even that takes him like 3 hours to actually finish drinking it - by the time he's done with it, it's time for lunch. He will eat his food and stuff faster if I hover over him saying 'Joey eat, Joey eat, Joey EAT' but that REALLY gets old for me and Joey. And then I think he feels so much pressure to eat that it makes him not want to eat.

So this is the solution I've come up with for now... Let me know what you think, if you think it will work, or if you have any other suggestions. I'm trying it with lunch as we speak. Joey LOVES his cars - they are all he plays with. He also loves anything chocolate. I put his favorite two cars on the counter, along with a piece of chocolate. I set the kitchen timer we have for 40 minutes (ample time I think...) and told him he needs to eat, and if he eats enough by the time the beeper goes off, then he will get his cars and the chocolate, but if not, then the cars and chocolate will stay there until dinner tonight.

So far it's working - he's eating his food. But I know he has no concept of time and he's actually really stressed about it. He keeps wanting me to sit with him because he thinks the timer will scare him when it goes off. But it is accomplishing the goal - he is eating. I don't think he's tasting, but he's eating quickly because I told him I'll turn it off if he eats enough...

What do you think? Do you think it would be good for me to continue setting the timer when he's eating to encourage him to stay on task and eat with a prize at the end? Do you have any ideas of what else I can do? Did you ever deal with anything like this with your kids? I know it's totally normal for kids to not want to eat and to take forever, but when it's every day, every meal it really gets old! Help!! :-)

Quilt

My mom made that quilt that is in the photos with Savanna in the previous blog post. I love it! Just thought I'd give credit where credit is due. My mom is so good at that stuff!!

Look who is 6 months old!

Me, me! I am 6 months old! Can you believe it?? I love being 6 months! I get to lay around and eat 'real' food and play and squeal and make noise. It's so fun. I even discovered my feet recently - they are awesome!

Sunday was Savanna's 6 month birthday. I can't believe it's been 6 months already!! It seems like only yesterday she was a newborn. The time is flying! I know that's how it goes tho. It's the same way with Joey - I just cannot believe he is 3 already!! Where did my chubby baby boy go?? Now he's a little boy! No longer a baby. Savanna won't be a baby much longer, either. I just can't believe it.
Yesterday (monday) was her 6 month check up. Of course she is healthy as can be! She was 17lbs and 15 oz (90%) and 27 1/2 inches long (90%) and her head was 17 inches (50%). So she is cosistently growing. She really is a happy baby too - really easy going. Although recently she's gotten in the habit of being held alot - kinda annoying.... but she calms down really quickly, which is nice. No long screaming fits. She's really quick to smile and she's so pleasant. Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure: (I am a really bad photographer...)

This was Joey's favorite toy when he was Savanna's age. Now Savanna really likes it, too. So cute.


Also, Friday night I started Savanna on rice cereal. I was determined to wait until she was 6 months old - I just about made it! Just 2 days early! She really took to it well! Hopefully she's always this easy to feed - she hasn't fought it at all and is aways excited to eat from a spoon (unless she's too hungry of course!!)

She has the worlds most sensitive skin - that's why her face all looks broken out. But she's fine - it's not as bad as it looks. I just have to aquaphor her face every day.

The following 2 pictures are totally unrelated but I thought I would include them because they're cute. Last week when everything was still snow covered but it was warming up, I sent Joey and Ethan out to play in the snow. I thought this was hilarious (which is why I took the pics) because Joey was doing 'ice angels'. He was trying to do snow angels, but since all the snow was just a big sheet of ice, his motions were not making any impression on the ice at all. I just thought it was funny. Although I am SICK of the soggy muddy stuff, I am happy to see all that snow gone. I don't like it that much! I like fluffy nice snow, but all that ice and stuff is just blah. Don't like it! And winter with 2 kids is difficult. Summers are much easier with kids! Only 5 more weeks till spring.......... Can't wait!!!!