4 years ago today, my water broke.  I remember it vividly.  I was sitting on the couch, watching TV and blowing drying my hair. I finished drying my hair when all of sudden I felt something a little unusual... like, did I just pee in my pants.  Oh my God, I just peed in my pants.  Wait, maybe not, maybe this is my water breaking.  I tell Travis, he calls the nurse line and I call Julie.   She tells me to lay down on my left side and wait to see what happens.  Immediately I heard a loud pop and hung up the phone. Seconds later I'm yelling for Travis (who was probably on hold with the nurse) to walk me to the bathroom because I didn't want anything to get on the bed. As we are walking Travis jokingly tells me to try not to get any of it on the rugs either. I made it to the restroom and then called the nurse line again. They said to come on in.  (If I ever go through this again, I will wait awhile before I go to the hospital). 

26 hours later I delivered this little guy! 

  

Tomorrow morning I will wake up and he will be 4 years old. 

There's nothing wrong with lovin on Ruby Robin and wearing new rainboots on a perfectly sunny day!

 We took Cade to Academy to test ride a new bike! 

 Mama and Cade went on a date last week to Brother's Pizza.  Pizza by the slice and super yummy! 

LadyBird, 8.5 months!  She is potty trained (knocking on wood) and has learned to play "baby" or what other people refer to as "fetch." 

The Valentine Elephant came and visited Cade today. 

Travis made up the Valentine Elephant when we were dating... (I know... and I still married him).

Here's what the Valentine Elephant left for Cade... just a little treat. 

 Ruby Robin is back for the next few days...

And in 2 sleeps I'll have a 4 year year old. 

So sad!

winter BLAST

So the BIG winter BLAST hit Houston.  What that really meant was:  Parents be prepared for one of the LONGEST days of the year.


Today we baked, cooked breakfast, lunch and dinner. We played playdough, pin the tail on the donkey, cleaned out the toy box, cleaned out our cubbies, broke off some icicles, watched Ladybird SPRING and run around crazy, we danced, colored, cut out hearts, played in the tent, played 3 games of Toy Story dominoes, put the crib in the attic (FINALLY) and sat and watched BUBBLE GUPPIES. We also ventured out to HEB, which was actually refreshing.  Ahhh, to get out in the freezing cold to roam around a semi-crowded store was just what I needed to calm my nerves!

We are really looking forward to the SUNSHINE tomorrow.








Reporting from the frozen tundra of Houston, Texas.  I love that line.

Crafty

My new favorite blog is:  littlemissmomma.com.  I also love her favorite blogs... I just keep clicking from one blog to next and get so inspired! 

While I was on LMM, I stole her idea on how to make a pom-pom necklace. She has tutorials on how to make all kinds of super cute, girly stuff, which I love!   I used gingham fabric, felt, ribbon and a glue gun to make my necklace.  It was really simple to make.  I plan on making more of the individual "pom-poms" and attaching them to elastic headbands and ponytail holders.  I think they would be so sweet on a little girl!  

My Sunday

I had the whole afternoon and evening to myself yesterday. It was great! I able to spend the afternoon with Sam and her new baby, Charlie. She invited me to a Grape Oil Tasting party in her neighborhood. I bought a few things for our pantry and birthday gift for my Dad. After that I headed over to Mary's for a glass of wine and dinner.

I spent the evening cleaning up a bit and then I crawled into bed and piled the pillows up. I pulled the heavy quilts on top of me and got all comfy cozy in the middle of the bed.  I slept the entire night without a certain little guy climbing over me and whacking me in the face with a foot or a hand.  This morning I woke up after 7 and thought about how unfair it was that I was so comfortable and had to get out of bed!  I managed but I could have stayed there for another few hours.

It's always a so quiet when Cade's not around. Almost like something is missing.

I did miss him (and Travis) but distance makes the heart grow fonder, right?

Right.

Today, Cade came home from the farm and gave me the biggest hug and kiss.  I think he actually missed me- for once!  He told me about his trip to the farm and how he saw 3 armadillas (not armadillos) and that he named the new cows Conner and Dasher (I think).

We spent the afternoon baking banana muffins.  He loves to help me in the kitchen. As soon as I open up the cabinet he is pushing the chair or his table up against the counter top and asks me, "what are you doing mama?"  So today, I gave him the job of peeling and mashing 4 super ripe bananas.  That kept him busy while I was measuring out all the other ingredients. 

We mixed, poured, and watched the muffins bake.  He ate 2 of them.  

Now my little guy is in bed. He lined my bed with half a dozen animals that I'm supposed to sleep with.  Guess I'll do what every good mom would do and put them under the covers with me.

Night. Night.

Happy EARLY Birthday to Travis

I'm 4 months early but I bought Travis tickets to the World Speedway in College Station.
Two of his friends, Charlie and Jeff are joining him on the race track.  They will be able to drive a new 2011 Mustang around the track 3 times solo- then 5 times with a professional.  To a guy this sounds AWESOME.

happy WAY early birthday Travis

By the way, I purchase my tickets on Groupon.com.  If your aren't a member you should join. It's FREE.  Groupon sends daily emails with a deal of the day.  I subscribe to Austin and Houston.  This is my second groupon to purchase. The first was to Build A Bear Workshop where I spent $10 for $20 worth of stuff.

If you join make sure you mention my name: taraleann or it might be my email or just my name... but I get Groupon money for referring out. Thank in advance!

Mission Organization

My pantry is organized! I now have my sprinkles, cupcake liners, decorating pens and all that mess in these really cute plastic bins.  They are flat and came with a lid that locks in place. 

I also went through all of my spices.  I read once that you should only keep spices for one year. I had some in my pantry from 2007- ick! 

I also went through my tupperware containers. Anything that wasn't a match got pitched out.  This is what I have my eye on:

I actually want 2 sets but that would be $100.... I'll settle for what I have and just hope for a SALE.

Next on the list:  The Scrapbook Cabinet. It's filled to the max with papers, stationary and everything pretty but there has to be a better way to store these things. 

Once I get my camera charged  up I will post pictures of all MY hard work.

Countdown to 4

This little guy will be 4 years old in less than a month. 

Mission organization

Ok, so I couldn't start my house organization until my Christmas things were taken down and put away.  I just took pictures of our junk drawer, pantry, and under the sink messes.  Today I will attmept to tackle two of them.  I'm starting with the junk drawer.

I couldn't even open it all the way.

I cleaned it out and put stuff back in... then I realized it still looked junky.

So I eliminated the holiday knick knacks and now I have a a cleaned out drawer.

Getting Organized

January is National Get Organized month. 

I'm a few days behind other bloggers out there but I'm going to accept the challenge of getting my house, room by room organized!




Here's to organizing!

Christmas 2010

We started our Christmas Eve evening by attending the Christmas Eve service at church.  The evening was filled with story telling and caroling by candlelight. The night concluded with this awesome performance by the band at Northside.

It was definitely a WOW moment.

We headed home and got our Santa snack ready- milk and one cake ball- because from what I hear Santa is watching his waistline these days.  We wrote our letter about how "good" we have been and reminded Santa of the things we really wanted.  Then it was jammies and of course the classic bedtime story, The Night Before Christmas.

Here is our beautiful tree.  I love our tree. I love that when I pick up an ornament I can remember when and where I got it, and who gave it to me. Each year I get Cade a few ornaments that represent things that happened this year. This year we added a "C" cookie ornament because Cade is always helping me bake.  A circus elephant because we went to the circus for the first time and a felt gingerbread man since we had our first ever Gingerbread party at our house. I'm saving all of these "special" ornaments for Cade in a box so that one day when he has his own tree he can open up the box and reminisce.

Santa gave Cade a red guitar....

A tri-level parking garage, Bert and Ernie blocks, aqua doodle mat, Home Depot 18 wheeler tool kit, play dough, and a stocking full of stuff!

Lucy got a new doggie bed and a box of bones!

Travis got Campfire (HUGE) marshmallows, crackers a Hershey bar and stakes to use on our new fire pit!

A camping set with truck. 

One of my favorite pictures of the day!

After we celebrated here we headed over to my parent's house and opened even more gifts! It was a long day of opening presents and eating delicious food. Merry Christmas friends and family! 

For New Years we are planning on firing up our new gas grill and grill up some fajitas. Should be fun! Especially if I can whip up some margarita punch!

Happy New Year!!

CakeBalls

I did it!

I finally did it!

I took my time, I followed the instructions and I'm still surprised at how nice they turned out!  Usually when I make cakeballs I just roll them, freeze them, dip them, serve them.  This time I went all out!

I only made 3 reindeer.  I forgot to add the pretzels while the chocolate was drying... and they are supposed be the "pretzel" shaped pretzels (broken-up) to resemble antlers. I only had the pretzel sticks but I think these turned out pretty cute! One thing I'll need to look into is getting a different edible pen.  This one was a doozie.

I decided to add white candy coating on top of the chocolate and then added some festive sprinkles. 



I thought I'd share the pictures that didn't make the Christmas card this year.  Why is it this hard to get an almost 4 year old to smile...

uhh, where's cade?

cute, but what's with the red dots??

cute, but where did that stain come from?

Oh well! Enjoy your Christmas card from us!

A great shot

Here is what happens when Cade gets ahold of the camera.  

so cute!

Christmas in Grapevine, Texas

 This past weekend we spent in the fabulous city of Grapevine, Texas.  I absolutely love Grapevine! I could move there- TODAY.  It's just this small town with in a semi-BIG city.  It's perfect.  

Our drive up was about 4 hours.  It really went by faster than we expected and we only stopped 2 times.  One out of necessity since we were dropping Lucy off with Travis' dad in Buffalo and the other was to Bucee's since they claim to have the world's cleaniest bathrooms. 

Our visit was packed with FUN things to do.

After we checked in an freshened up a bit we headed over to the Gaylord.  Talk about an impressive hotel.   We parked and went exploring.  You could spend days there and still not see everything!  The first thing we did was find the Charlie Brown ICE exhibit. Before entering the exhibit we watch a short film about how the artisans created the exhibit.  We learned that it took nearly 2 million pounds of ice and over a month to do it.  Once the film was over we headed to the parka counter and then we braced ourselves for the next part...a room set at 17 degrees to be exact.  We literally froze..and I lost feeling in my chin towards the end which was a weird sensation.

It was really neat.  They had a slide made of ICE for kids and adults.  YES, we all went down it.  We ended the tour with a family photo in front of Charlie Brown's tree.  I think you can see just how cold Cade is in this picture.  Next we warmed up a bit with some hot coco and then made our way into the Gaylord's atrium. Let's just say everything is bigger in TEXAS.  We spotted the 52 foot rotating Christmas tree... honestly not a very hard thing to do.  We found the life sized gingerbread house which is also a sweet shope with old fashion candy!  Then we just spent a little time wondering around finding out where everything was.  Around 5 o'clock we headed over to the Rain Forest Cafe.  I thought that would be a fun place to take Cade since we never go out to the one in Houston. It was OK.  We probably won't ever go back but it was fun for Cade to see rain fall from the ceiling and all the animals come to life.  After dinner we headed to Main Street and found our seats on the street to watch the 2nd Largest Parade in the state.  We also had the chance to meet some locals who told us the best places to eat! After the parade we headed back to the room and got some rest!  The next morning we had an amazing breakfast which included Texas shaped waffles... Cade asked if California had California shaped waffles... one can only hope, right?!  That morning we did a stroll down main street and enjoyed all the little holiday displays.  We made it to our 10 o'clock appointment to Vetro Glass Blowers.  We saw them do a quick demo and then we made our own glass ornament.  It was very cool... or should I say hot.  Those furnaces were 1/8 the temperature of the sun.  Afterwards we went on a mission to find a snack at the bakery on Main and then off to Talberts for lunch.  They are known for their chili and their burgers.  It was very tasty!  We headed over to the Bass Pro shop.  We got Cade one of those mini fold up chairs.  He seems to like toting it around better than actually sitting in it.   That evening we dressed our holiday PJs and went on the North Pole Express.  It was such a fun train ride!  Then we jetted over to the Gaylord, grabbed dinner at the "river walk" and then had Milk & Cookies with Mrs Claus.  Cade was loving that!  Although at one point he asked, "why does Santa need a wife?!"  Haha.  Afterwards we headed back to our hotel and called it a day!  Saturday we woke up had breakfast and went to pick up our ornament.  It was very pretty!  Blues and reds and few speckles of yellow!  Then on our way out of town we stopped at the Breadhaus and bought a loaf of honey wheat and sweet treat for the road!  Then it was bye, bye Grapevine!  I definitely want to go back and spend more time on Main Street.   It reminded me a lot of Fredericksburg (althougth not so German) but what I really loved was that just a few blocks past Main Street you run into Target, Marshalls, Starbucks, etc.... all the conveniences of a big town. 

Sorry for the out of order photos...blogger is a pain about that.