Christmas 2010

This year was such a blast for us for Christmas, with Morgan understanding the concept of Santa and bringing presents it was really rewarding to us to see how excited she got when she was able to open her presents! I also had the funnest time shopping for her because she is now at the age where she can appreciate the toys and that they are on a whole new "learning" level!

Morgan with her Christmas eve present, Curious George, she was happy!

We did the ring countdown and she new the night before that if she went to bed Santa would come. We told her she had to stay in her bed all night otherwise Santa won't come and she actually did (big feat since she has been making appearances in our bed at night) That morning she was so excited but we convinced her to wait a little bit so Mom and Dad could have a cup of coffee and Jaidyn was still sleeping at 8 am. After she started getting antsy I woke Jaidyn up so she could be part of it. She was really sweet and opened her little sisters presents for them and then showed them what they got.

Showing Cameryn her new pajamas that Santa brought her

She really did enjoy all the presents we got her (or should I say Santa) and has been busy playing with them ever since. I would say her favorite is a VTech digital camera we got her, she is always trying to take pictures with our cameras so I figured this would be a great present for her!

That night her cousin, aunt and uncle came over and we cooked up a feast, deep fried turkey, ham, cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing and rolls....it was delicious, I even make a Lemon Meringue pie and a Turtle Cheesecake. The lemon meringue was okay, it just needed more time to firm up as it was a little runny and the turtle cheesecake was delicious!

My pie!

I can't wait for next year as Cameryn and Jaidyn should be able to open some presents, even though they still wont get the concept, but Morgan will help!

Cameryn and Jaidyn in their Christmas pajamas!

Now we have her birthday to concentrate on, it is less than a month away and I can't even believe she is turning 3! We have a special present picked out for her that I can't wait to see when she get its, she has been asking for it for a few months now. I also did a countdown ring for her birthday so she is pretty excited about being able to pull a ring off everyday and then count to how many days till what she says "my Happy Birthday"

Weekly Menu

It's that time again, here is my menu for the week!

Sunday: Leftovers (Ham, cheesy potatoes, stuffing and green bean casserole)
Monday: Beef w/ Pea pods, rice and egg rolls
Tuesday: Pork Chops, rice and corn
Wednesday: Spaghetti and Sausage w/ Garlic Toast
Thursday: Chicken Stew w/ rolls
Friday: Appetizers
Saturday: Pizza

I am trying a few new things this week as you can see, I have not made the beef with pea pods before, I am hoping it is like Beef w/ Broccoli but since Tyson won't eat broccoli I am substituting pea pods, also the Chicken stew is new, that is in my crock pot cookbook so I am excited to try that as well! Have a great week!

Morgan's 3rd Christmas

I am so excited for this Christmas with Morgan, she understands the concept of Santa and is getting really excited for him to come and visit. About a month ago we made a Santa countdown chain and every morning she gets to tear one ring off and then we count how many days till Santa comes. This is the first thing she asks for now in the morning to be able to tear her ring off. I am thinking of making one for her birthday since that is 1 month away.

We have presents under the tree and she has been really good about not touching them, she did pick out some presents for Cameryn and Jaidyn and has helped me wrap them. She is really into the ornaments and pointing out the ones we have for everyone, (the dogs and cat also have an ornament). She even picked out one for daddy this year, his is a BBQ Grill that says GrillMaster on it!!

Needless to say it is also the hardest for me to get the presents in the house, hidden and wrapped w/o her seeing. I got some wrapped during a nap once but I was paranoid she was going to come down the whole time, now I am going to finish tonight after she goes to bed.

We are also going to be making cookies tomorrow for Santa to eat as I told her that he needs cookies in order to be able to deliver presents to all the kids. I can't wait till next year, it will be even more exciting for her and then the babies will be able to open some presents as well!.



Here is Morgan on her first Christmas!


Here she is on her 2nd Christmas

I will post after this Christmas the next set of pictures...Have a great Christmas everyone!!!

Weekly Menu

It's that time again to post my weekly menu, I have been trying to post some video's of the girls but am having a problem with the upload, so I am going to keep trying and will hopefully get that posted this week sometime!

Sunday: Spaghetti Batch and Garlic Toast (made a huge batch in the crock pot and then we freeze it in bowls for the perfect serving for us)
Monday: Keilbasa w/ caramelized onions, noodles and corn
Tuesday: Lasagna and Salad
Wednesday: Chicken, rice and green beans (not sure what kind of chicken yet.)
Thursday: Taco Thursday, and tator tots
Friday: Christmas Eve Dinner w/ the Canale Clan
Saturday: Turkey, Ham, Cheesy Potatoes, etc...all the good stuff for Christmas!

I am going to even attempt to make a Lemon Meringue Pie for Tyson as it is his favorite, It seems like a lot of work, but I won't know if I can do it unless I try!

Jaidyn has found her voice!

Jaidyn has always been the talker out of the two babies, but over the last few days she has really started to become vocal, and she is LOUD! Who knew such a small thing could be so loud, we are going to be in trouble when she gets older if she keeps up this level of volume. Here is a brief video of her talking to me!

DONT JUDGE!

So I was upset when I posted the previous blog, and I think I have every right to be but I feel like I should say it a bit differently.

What we choose to do with our money is our business, not yours.....if your that concerned your welcome to ask and MAYBE I will have a conversation with you about it, however it is not your business which is why I think you choose to talk about behind our backs. We are great, hardworking parents and do deserve time out...it is what makes a marriage work. We don't appreciate you assuming our situation and we don't appreciate you talking behind our backs about it. Please stop causing drama where it is not needed, we have enough going on in our lives right now and are not going to start playing this game with you. Either you can be in our lives as an understanding, non judgemental person or not, it is your choice but I think you know what choice you have already made...

That is all I have to say and I am open to discuss this further with you if you would like, you know my number to call me.

Weekly Menu

I know I am behind on my menu but we really don't have that much food in the house with the exception of chicken and hamburger and I am waiting to go grocery shopping tomorrow on payday. Lindsay a friend of ours is coming over the babysit Cameryn and Jaidyn so I can take Morgan for some one on one time and to a BIG shopping trip. So I have been kinda making my meals up in the morning with what food we do have in the house.

Sunday: Chicken with Rotel and bow tie pasta, just made it up and it tasted pretty good
Monday: Taco Soup and quesadilla's
Tuesday: Fried Chicken, Noodles and Green Beans
Wednesday: Tyson and I have a date night so I don't have to cook :)
Thursday: French Dips and fries
Friday: BBQ Ribs
Saturday: Steak and Potatoes

I know it is weird to have a date night during the week, but my sister in law and brother in law are watching our kids and they work weekends, (they will be going over to Aunt Dodo's and Uncle Bobby's as well, that wasn't the original plan but it is now, which I don't mind as long as I get out of the house!) so if we want a date night I will take a Wednesday, I am just excited to be going out and be able to order off of a menu, it has been so long since I have done that when it isn't fast food.

Goodbye Cable

We decided to go ahead and cancel our cable for a couple of reasons, the first being that we don't really have a lot of time to watch TV right now and to pay an extra $90 a month for something we don't get to enjoy didn't make sense. Also we need to save that extra money for things like diapers, clothes, baby food etc, also right now we only have 1 working TV, our big TV that was downstairs broke a while back, we purchased a $120.00 light bulb thinking that was it and it didn't fix it, it will cost us another $150.00 for the other parts that we think MIGHT fix it. So we moved our bedroom TV downstairs and I cancelled cable!

I thought I was going to be really sad about it since I do watch TV when I am feeding the babies and after everyone is in bed. I have to say that I haven't missed it. We have our PS3 hooked up to stream netflix as well as we signed up for Hulu which you can watch TV shows through there. I have been very pleased with this since the Hulu cost us $20 for the YEAR. It is a little slow from time to time but it is worth the patience to be saving over $90 a month!!! Now I do miss my DVR but that is exactly what Hulu is. It has been great because they have a ton of kids stuff as well and so if Morgan wants to watch something we can search for it.

Now I just wish Netflix had more newer movies to watch but then we do get on DVD at a time so if only I was better about watching those movies and returning them then I could watch more updated movies.

Now I only wish we would of done this sooner!

Cameryn VS. Jaidyn

I can't even believe almost 5 months have gone by since we had the girls, it went by so fast! At first I thought I was never going to get any sleep since we had Morgan during the day and couldn't really nap when the girls napped. But I have to say that we are blessed with babies that like their sleep and they have been sleeping 11-12 hours through the night for about a month in a half, it makes it so much easier to get through the day when they do that!

As far as the girls go, they couldn't be any different. It is amazing to see their personality's starting to show and really how different they are.

Cameryn--she is our happy baby. If she is hungry or needs a new diaper all she does is smile and giggle at you when your getting ready to help her. It makes me smile every time. She giggles already especially when you kiss her cheeks, she loves it! She is also our eater, she eats 8 ozs at a time and up to 5 bottles a day, along with rice cereal. She is also our chunky baby and holds herself like a sack of potatoes when you hold her. She can hold her head up and is really strong and is really close to rolling over to her belly already. She is so easy that I would take 10 of her any day!

Jaidyn--oh Jaidyn she is our fussy baby. LOVES to be held all the time and has been known to have random crying fits. Our baby swing has come in handy with her, Morgan never liked the swing and Cameryn is happy with her bouncy seat. Although she is happy about 90% of the time and does smile at you a lot when you are giving her attention. Half the time her grin is a mischievous smile that makes me wonder what she is thinking. She does not giggle yet but she is a "talker" she is constantly cooing and making bubbles which Cameryn doesn't do. She is our picky eater as well, only eating 6 ozs at a time and spits up almost every time. She has eaten rice cereal but tends to gag on it so I have been taking that slow with her. She is getting better with her neck muscles but not as good as Cameryn however she has really strong leg muscles and when she is on the floor she "scoots" around in circles. We were told from our Dr. that there is a chance she has cerebral palsy and that is why her upper leg muscles are so strong. I want the best for her so if we have to go into physical therapy then that is what we are going to do!!!

They both LOVE bath time and riding in the car. They also love to stare at each other when I put them together. It actually looks like they are "communicating" in a way w/o words, it is so neat to see!

I am looking forward to what's to come, crawling and all, and I can't wait till this next summer for camping, that will be interesting, dirt and crawling....

Weekly Menu

It is that time again and we are running out of options as we are overdue to go grocery shopping, however we still have food in the fridge and freezer but it is not going to be anything spectacular this week!

Sunday: Carne Azada
Monday:Spaghetti and Garlic Toast
Tuesday: Tilapia, noodles and corn
Wednesday: Pork Chops, rice and green beans
Thursday: Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and mixed veggies
Friday: Chicken (a recipe from my friend Jo who is in New Zealand, very yummy), baked potatoes and corn
Saturday: free for all day, I think we might pick up a papa murphys pizza...we will see.

as you noticed we don't get a variety of vegetables because Tyson likes corn and green beans only, I sneak in the mixed veggies because it has both of those options and occasionally he will eat asparagus, however that is it. I on the other hand LOVE all veggies (yes Brussell sprouts are my fav) EXCEPT squash so I eat those during the week for my lunches!