my amazing hubby

today matt and i celebrated four wonderful years of marriage. it's hard to believe it's already been four years, yet in some sense, it's easy to see. we've gone from renting to home ownership to now, selling our home. we've been blessed with a wonderful, beautiful daughter who constantly brings us joy and keeps us on our toes. we've traveled a few places and had a lot of fun together.

when i set out looking for a husband, i knew i wanted to find one that would love me for who i was and am and most importantly, love God. i found him. who else, but my dear matt would want me to be as comfortable as possible and wear basketball shorts and t-shirt anytime i pleased. my dad always told me i might have to put on a dress and get a little more girly to find the right guy...nope, i wasn't going to do it. somehow i knew God would provide the man for me that would accept me basketball shorts and all!

matt is an amazing husband. he's willing to do anything for me shows he cares in the little things. for example, while i cook dinner he takes molly outside to play so i'm not interrupted. this is a huge relief since she likes to be a "big helper". matt keeps things fun and interesting with a weird dance or imitation. he's always making me laugh! :) when we had molly we were in a position where we didn't want to send her to a sitter and his job was in limbo so he quit and was a stay-at-home dad for almost 9 months. this was a great eye opener for him and now he understands that being a stay-at-home parent is a full time job and appreciates me even more! i loved that he stayed home with molly. they have a great bond and it saved both of us the stress of a babysitter. now, he's back at work, making an hour and fifteen minute drive both ways, so i can stay at home and take care of molly. his sacrifice to make the drive so we can survive on only one income means so much to me as i only desired to be at home.

there's so much more i could say but i'll save it for later. so with four years behind us, who knows what the future holds but one thing i know, there's many more to come!! i love you honey! ;)

making of a great reader

being a teacher, it's ingrained in me to constantly teach. reading was my favorite subject to teach and so i read to molly all the time. she loves to listen to books and she's already doing things that good readers do at 15 months! one of my favorite things to teach my students about reading was making connections. i loved helping them relate what they were reading to themselves, the world around them and other books they had read. molly does an excellent job of making connections. while we read she will connect things in the book to things in her immediate surroundings and even beyond. for example, if there is a broom in the picture, she points over to the kitchen where i keep the broom. tonight she pointed outside when we talked about the birds. she points to the cats when there is a cat. we talked about watering a garden with a watering can and she pointed outside where matt's garden is. molly also recognizes that other people aren't at our house and points outside. if we talk about grandpa and grandma she shrugs her shoulders and like she doesn't know where they are then points outside because she knows they're not at our house. while i may miss the classroom at times, i know i've got the most important student to teach right in my living room and i wouldn't change it for the world! :)

summer happenings

PLAY DOUGH FUN!

summer is a great time to try new things and have all sorts of fun. molly's at a great age to do this also. i'm a big fan of experimenting with things that may not be age appropriate according to package directions such as play dough. molly was going through a box with some of my school things and found play dough. i was curious to see how she would respond to the texture and such and well, she loved it! we play with it daily (all four colors at once) and make bracelets and blocks, dinosaurs and pigs. she loves to put it in and out of the containers and squish her hands in it. occasionally she goes for a small taste and rediscovers that she does not like it!

SPLISH SPLASH POOL FUN!

in one of my latter posts i wrote about molly's need for a swimming pool and my desire to get her the one with the whale slide. she got it! daddy gave in with a little prodding from me of course. but molly does love her pool. she swims a lot, well, i should say she squats a lot. this girl's going to have incredible leg muscles because she doesn't really like to sit in the pool. she has 2 ducks, a whale and a cup to play with along with the slide. it's great fun to watch the ducks and whale slide down the slide too! at first she was a little hesitant of the slide, but now, she's an old pro and loves splashing in the water. we also take molly to the public pool in our town. it's free at 7:30 which is a huge perk for us and 30 minutes is a great amount of time for molly. the pool is fantastic with zero depth entry 2 large water fountains plus two smaller ones and a frog slide. we bought her some sinking squids to play with and she loves them. they slide down the frog's tongue first and then she follows after. i'm going to miss the pool when it closes.

(frog slide at public pool)

OTHER FUN THINGS!
among swimming and play dough, molly loves going to the library. story time for toddlers has ended but i still take her weekly to check out books. she finished the summer reading program by reading 746 pages. we turned in her log on saturday and she received a number of prizes. she picked out a book dinosaur train, a toy train, and got a certificate, free personal pan pizza, free drink at the cider mill and gets to attend the pool party on july 31st. we went and used her free pizza coupon today and she thoroughly enjoyed it.

the moms club is something else i've been getting involved in because i think it's important for molly to have social interaction with kids her own age. she's been to the park to play with kids, in fact, we're going tomorrow, and starting in august there's a weekly play date for babies 18 months and under that she will attend.

painting, coloring with markers, and stickers are another favorite. molly's very artsy and loves to paint with water. she's a regular picasso! stickers are a newly discovered fun thing. fortunately i saved all my stickers from teaching because i knew they'd come in handy. i'm thinking i'm going to run out sooner than expected. this girl loves stickers and will use at least 10 a day.

cookin' up a tantrum

cooking dinner is never usually a pleasant experience because molly hates me being in the kitchen without her. i'd let her in (and i do sometimes) but she plays in the cats food. that's expensive stuff so we can't afford 20 pieces being dropped in the water or crushed by feet each day. lately, it's been much easier because i've been preparing meals before matt leaves for work. today, however, i needed to cook before we ate.

i was cooking bacon and left molly in the living room so i could go and flip it. this is where the screaming began. molly proceeded to get off the couch and lay on the floor and scream. we i came back into the living room she refused to get up and come over to me. since i knew she wasn't hurt, just mad, i let her have her fit thinking it would stop shortly because i was in the room. it finally did, and then i had to go back to the kitchen. i took molly with me this time and set her down on the kitchen floor. she threw herself on the floor and cried, cried, and cried; screaming every-now-and-again. i was at my wits-end. what are you to do? i punished, it didn't work, punished again and she continued to cry. so i left her. here's what it looked like....

i'm really not a mean mom. i never yelled during this fit but just let her cry it out. once dinner was done, she got up and the crying stopped. what am i to do during this time? do i just have to wait it out and hope it's a phase? molly is a huge mama's girl and when i'm around she expects to have 100% of my attention. i feel like we've entered the terrible twos at 14 months! any advice from any of you who've dealt with an issue similar to this? it breaks my heart to see my baby cry like this.

i've yet to try my grandma's trick but am thinking i'll have to soon if it keeps up. my uncle used to have temper tantrums and so she asked the pediatrician what to do. he said take a glass of tap water and throw it in their face. it won't hurt them. she did it to my uncle and he never threw a tantrum again! will it work on molly? not sure...i think it will make it worse but i just may have to try granny's advice. she tells every new mom to do it.

quesadillas anyone?

i made a wonderful new quesadilla recipe tonight for dinner. it was by far the best i've ever had. chicken and bacon quesadillas with mozzarella cheese! yummy, yummy in my tummy!!! :) here's the recipe....enjoy

chicken & bacon quesadillas

2 chicken breasts cut into small pieces
2 slices of bacon
4 tortillas
1/4-1/2 c. onion (depending on your like)
1 can rotel, drained
mozzarella cheese
butter

cook bacon until crispy, lay on paper towel to degrease! cook chicken in bacon grease (that's for that yummy flavor!). remove chicken from pan then wash the pan. butter one side of each of the tortillas. place 1 tortilla butter-side down in pan and then top with 1/2 chicken, bacon, onion, cheese, and rotel. place other tortilla on top, butter-side up. cook until brown, then flip. ***watch out - the flip can be very tricky because the tortillas don't seal up. i used two spatulas and make my flip very quick. if you do it right you'll only loose a few pieces of filling!*** repeat cooking on other side, then make another. serve with sour cream, salsa, and/or guacamole.

at least we're in the cool!

all in a day....so much happened. for starters, i cut 5 inches off my hair. crazy? no, i was hot. this d0 is much cooler. my hair rests just above my shoulders. i'm excited to shampoo it tonight - oh the ease, i can feel it now! i then proceeded to make matt's dinner, a new chicken pot pie recipe. i love chicken pot pie and was really excited about this one. you make it in the skillet so there's no heating the house up with the oven. turns out it was a disaster. i should have doubled the cream of chicken soup and went a little easy on the biscuits. it was just a bit dry, okay, it was really dry. basically, i made biscuits with some pieces of chicken and some veggies. poor matt, he was a good sport about it and took it to work for dinner. i'm a little embarrassed though. my meals have been wonderful the past few weeks and now, well, i send him with this. oh well, lesson learned - not a good recipe choice , or if it is, i need to do a lot of tweaking. i cleaned the kitchen after matt left for work and then got busy playing on fb and checking email. molly woke up from her nap early and that's when i knew i was in for a long afternoon.

she did get her whale pool i wrote about yesterday - i'll write about that later. we went out to swim and as she was swimming the a/c kicked on and made this horrid noise. i listened for a while and it never quit. so, i went over to investigate and saw that there was a wire hanging down, hitting the fan blade and shooting sparks. panic!!!! not to bad though. i called the a/c guy and he told me how to disconnect all the power to the unit outside and how to fix it. so i tried...it was way to hard with molly. i called my dear friend, renee, and she came to my aid to play with molly. after sweating profusely, i thought i had it working. i taped the wires up and plugged the power in (aarrrggg, ahhhrrrgg - tim taylor grunts). it was quiet and sounded like it was running properly so i sent renee home. a while later i went out to see how it was looking, feeling pretty proud of my work, and discovered that it was running but the fan was not. i guess i won't be going into the HVAC service anytime soon.

next phone call to my dear daddy. i knew he'd know how to help. he graciously drove out to our house and worked away. fixed an hour later! turns out i didn't tape the wires correctly. he rigged it up better too so they won't fall down again. now, i'm sitting in the cool!

"in the cool" makes me laugh. i'm reminded of a pastor at my grandparents church who, after a funeral, during the family meal said several times, "at least we're in the cool."

okay back to the day. sorry for the brief walk down memory lane. after dad left molly and i played and then enjoyed a dinner of macaroni and cheese (remember, mine was horrible!). i finished the grocery list and went to the store (this was supposed to be done this afternoon -threw the evening out of whack). going to the store near bedtime and with an already tired baby is not fun. molly proceeded to cry several times throughout the store. i gave in and picked her up and carried her. i hate doing that because she wins and gets her way but what else am i to do in the grocery store? let her scream and cause a scene? we finished the shopping and molly got to the highlight of the shopping experience - getting her sucker. well, tonight she thought it would be funny to drop it on the floor several times. it broke and we threw it away. she reached for another but didn't get it. i'm sure the checker and sacker thought i was cruel but she must learn.

home sweet home and i'm putting away the groceries when i hear a spill. molly's taken the almost empty, mostly crumbs, cheerios bag out of the trash and spills the dust all over the floor. it was at that time i finished up and gave her a dose of tylenol, put her pjs on and gave her a bottle. she went right to sleep. poor girl was exhausted.

i was able to clean up very quickly and for that i'm thankful! now i'm relaxing and enjoying the quiet. good night dear readers!

splish, splash molly needs a pool

hot summer days in kansas are just not the same without a pool. molly is at a stage where she loves water (not so much to drink - that's another story). baths are a hit full of splashing and playing with ducks and her squirter whale so i know a swimming pool would also gain molly's approval. yesterday we took a little trip to walmart to price inflatable pools - there's all sorts ranging from $5 to $500 (not sure they're that high). after looking at the pools, i've set my mind on getting molly a pool with a whale slide. for you see, she loves to slide as well. what great fun, sliding into the water and splashing! there's a glitch -it's thirty big ones and i'm not so sure the hubby's going to let me spend quite that much on a backyard pool. fingers crossed though and hopefully after he sees tonight's water adventures he'll give in and buy his little girl the pool with the whale slide. :)
this is kind of what i want however it's one large pool.

here's the story. molly's getting bored in the house and it was still much too sunny to swing, slide, or play in her house so we put on the swimsuit and filled a large mixing bowl with water. i took her outside to play in the water. she had a grand time splashing around and then put her feet in the water and kicked them. it was quite hilarious watching her maneuver her feet into the bowl without falling off her picnic table that she was sitting on. she dumped her water and thought that was tons of fun too. then she needed more so we went into the grass to get the hose and i proceeded to spray her - this was not as much fun. she likes to splash but is not a fan of getting sprayed. we refilled her bowl and away she went again. so cute!!!! :) hopefully my next water post will be one in the swimming pool with the whale slide!