I am so excited!

First of all I am excited that Thanksgiving is tomorrow. Second of all I am excited that my brother's team (Newport Greyhounds) is playing in the playoffs still, and he is playing Heber Springs on Friday night. Third of all I am excited that I have finished Makayla's scrapbook. The pages are currently being printed, and when I put them in the book it will be officially finished. This means that it is family scrapbook time, so I am going to be busy snapping pics of the family during all major holidays and special occasions.

and the winner is...

#4

Nathan has spoken. I told him to choose a number between 1 and 6. He chose 4, so my good friend Jennifer A. won the prize winning pickled carrots which is really funny he was reluctant to even enter the contest at the thought of actually winning the carrots. I practically had to beg her to even enter. Ha! Ha! I think that she was worried that she might hurt my feelings if she didn't like them because she is just like that. She cares about people's feelings and stuff. I can ease her mind.

Jennifer, If you don't like the carrots that's okay. You can just give them back. That makes one more jar for me! LOL!

now I am for real

Okay. I am for real now. The new scrapbook pages really are up over on my digital scrapbooking blog. Makayla has kept me running this weekend, so I haven't had time to post them until now. Check them out.

Here's a preview.

Exciting stuff to come...

for those digiscrap lovers out there. I have been hard at work these past few days finishing up Makayla's digital scrapbook. I plan to have them uploaded to my digital scrapbooking blog before I go to bed tonight.

Since her first year is over, I will be starting a family scrapbook for all of our holidays and events. This has become such an enjoyable hobby for me! It is just so easy, too.

I just thought that I would give you guys a heads up, so that you can head over there later and see all of her scrapbook pages. I have them all printed and placed in a regualar scrapbook.

remember the lasts

Don't they always make a liar out of you. Tonight while the three of us were playing Makayla took 5 steps to Nathan. I say sob, sob because I have really been enjoying my baby girl. I don't consider 5 steps walking, but she is much closer. When she starts walking that means that she is no longer a baby because then she becomes a toddler. I get weekly updates from babycenter on average baby development, and the 1st one that I got after her birthday said your toddler this week instead of your baby this week. I was thinking "no way". She is a baby not a toddler. I still secretly miss the 8 week old that would just hang out and nurse on demand. I sometimes miss that, but then I am snapped back into the reality of what having an 8 week old really means.

I am so excited that she is moving forward, but I am going to miss the crawler. I know one thing for sure....that we get really caught up in the "firsts". You know first bottle, first solid food, first tooth, and first step. We get so caught up with the "firsts" that we don't realize the lasts when we see them. How many of you remember the lasts? Some of the lasts I am talking about are the last bottle, last jar of baby food, and last time they crawled to you before they walked for good. There was a thread on babycenter about this that really got me thinking about it. I am so glad that I read through those posts because it helped me realize that I did not want to miss her lasts because of her firsts that will follow. I am savoring these last few weeks of crawling and plan to video so much of it because I don't want to forget these last few weeks for this stage of our family. Our family of 3 will never again see the days of a crawling baby after she becomes a walker. I guess that what I am trying to say is that it is so important to remember the lasts because they are just as momentous as firsts just less recognized. If you think that your little one is out of lasts there are plenty more. Make sure that you remember the last diaper that you change, last time to use their sippy, last time to use their high chair, last night in their crib, the last time that you rock them to sleep , and their last time to lose a baby tooth. I feel like all of these occasions are so memorable, but we often forget to remember them but wish that we had.

Walking with mommy

Makayla likes to walk with her push toys, but she will not walk with them very long before she completely loses interest. She loves to walk with mommy though. She even like to hold onto just one finger and walk, but she is not close at all to walking on her own. Beth has told me for months that Makayla will be that girl walks around the room with 1 finger on the wall. I can totally see that being what she would do because she is just such a funny girl!

This is what we see every morning when we go into Makayla's room when she wakes up. Enjoy this bouncey video.

Extended Rear Facing

I am a huge supporter of extended rear facing in car seats. Safety is just not something that we mess around with at our house. I am not saying that someone's choice to turn their little one around is unsafe or anything, but here is a link to a video showing the difference between an older child that is rear facing vs. the same child that is forward facing. It uses crash test dummies, but I just wanted everyone to be aware of the advantages of extended rear facing because I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't. Please note the difference in neck and spine movement. Just remember that it is much easier to fix a broken leg than an neck or spine injury.

Here's the Link

Makayla loves to eat!

"I thought that this Jelly sandwich would be better seperated." "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Hands off the Spaghetti or you're gonna get it!" (She means it, too!)

"No Meat! No Meat!"

Makayla also loves spaghetti, but she wouldn't even eat the meat in it. As you can tell she seperated the ground beef from the rest and ate the spaghetti noodles. The only way that we can disguise meat is in her raviolli.

What's your favortite holiday tradition?

HOLIDAY CONTEST!

I'm sorry in advance because blogger will not let me space between paragraphs.

My Aunt Wanda (Great aunt actually) always made pickled carrots every year for the holidays. I always looked forward to them at Christmas, and other people did too. Aunt Wanda was a petite woman with a very kind and gentle nature. I think that may be one of the reasons why I loved them so much because she was just so delightful and kind. Aunt Wanda died when I was still in High School. I don't think that a sweeter person has ever walked this earth. Anyway back to the carrots. They are as wonderful and delightful as Aunt Wanda was, and now I can make them. Well, I sort of make them and have had success in the recreating of her carrots. I have it all figured out after trial and error. I had no idea how challenging canning could be. I have her recipe, but I never could get them to turn out exactly the way hers did. Probably because I am not her, so they will never the same. They have passed the test because my Dad has always loved Aunt Wanda's pickled carrots, and he told me that they tasted just like them when I made them last year.

I did some research on Alum which was used for pickling in this recipe. I was not able to find it in the stores, so I just had to find out why it was so hard to find. It turns out that Alum is banned because it is actually toxic to humans. I now use pickling salt instead of Alum which was one adjustment that I had to make. Other than that they are exactly the same. They do taste pretty much the way that hers did. I also made another adjustment this year. Makayla's mommy has moved beyond peeling and slicing bags and bags of carrots because it took hours to make these last time and only about 30 minutes this time. We will see how it goes. I know there will be lots of disappointed folks because they loved the long, skinny nature of Aunt Wanda's Crunchy, beautiful carrots. Guess what! She was a retired lady with nothing but time. I on the other hand am limited on time, so this year folks you are getting measly baby carrots because I am not willing to peel and slice for hours.

Okay, Now it is contest time! I have made 1 extra jar of these pickled beauties for 1 of you. I have told you all about 1 of my favorite family traditions, and I would absolutely love to hear about yours. In just 1 week I will have Nathan pick a number at random based upon the number of comments that I receive for the contest. The number that he chooses will match the number for your post. For example the first person to comment will be #1 and so on. I am so excited to be able to share this family tradition with one of you. Don't hold it against me if they are not good because I am not Aunt Wanda, so I will not make the perfect pickled carrots every time. Even if you don't want to be considered for the prize I would love to hear about everyone's family traditions. If you don't live here I would love to ship them to you if you win. If you do live here I will just swing by and drop them off while I am out and about sometime.

Don't be scared of you don't like carrots. These are no ordinary carrots. I promise that they are the most delightful holiday treat that you will ever have the priveledge of eating. They are the perfect blend of spicy and tart. My mouth is watering just thinking about them.

She always regrets this

Makayla insists on trying to climb up on things. I don't have a picture of her trying to climb on her walker stroller, but I was able to get pics of her trying to climb her crib and the coffee table. The coffee table is the worst thing for her to climb on because the top section of the table sticks out a few inches more than the lower level that she puts her feet on. Not pretty. She falls and hits her chin everytime. We try to stop this, but it is inevitable. She just wants to climb.

I hope that you know...

that Makayla does wear clothes! She really does, but it does not look like it from viewing this blog. LOL! We strip her down to just her diaper when she eats because she will not wear her bib anymore. She takes it off everytime, so we just gave up on that. Makayla wears clothes until then when she will typically go straight to the bathtub for her evening bath. Anyway, I just thought that I would point out that she wears clothes most of the time, but she just never seems to be wearing them in these pics.

Makayla loves to stand

Holding on to things and on her own. She's not walking yet, but I think that her balance will greatly improve now that she has tubes because inner ear problems can cause a lot of people to have balance problems.

Won't she be suprised

Makayla got a ball popper from her Granna and Grandaddy for her birthday. She plays with it all the time. It is actually really fun for us too. It is really fun because it has 2 holes. One hole is there for the balls to be dropped into, and the other hole is where the balls pop out. She always drops the balls in the wrong hole, but she just can't seem to understand the concept of the 2 holes. Anyway she always looks in the hole where the balls pop out when the machine is not turned on because she can't figure out why the balls aren't popping out. Wouldn't she be suprised if the balls started popping out while she has her eyeball stuck in the hole? Luckily that hasn't happened, but I am sure that it will. LOL!

Today was a big day

Makayla had her tubes put in this morning. It went well. It took her a while to fully wake up after the surgery, but she did great. Everything went exactly like it was supposed to. We are just glad that this is over. She is eating her pancakes and drinking her milk in her high chair right now. I think that she was ready for her breakfast since she could not eat before we took her this morning.

COUNTDOWN TO MAKAYLA'S TUBES

3 dAYS TO GO!

PLEASE REMEMBER US ON FRIDAY!

Feeding the dogs

Makayla likes to feed the dogs. Actually she likes to throw her food off her tray and watch them go after it. She waits for the dogs to be right under her high chair, so she can drop her food right on them in order to watch them eat off each other. It is really funny.

throwing food Look where she threw her carrot!
"What's on my back?!"

"Yummy!"

Happy Birthday,Makayla!

Makayla is One! Here are some pics from her party today. I didn't label the pics because there were so many! Do take note of the picture of her putting lipstick on herself. It is too cute!

Happy Birthday, Makayla! We love you so much!