Fearing the Beard.

Poor kid.  As much as he loves "sant", he was not diggin this pic!

Calling all non Pinterest Moms!!!

I'm so not crafty.  I feel like I used to be but maybe corporate America has drained me of all creativity?  Who knows!  But I read this blog and loved the idea!  SO.... anyone interested in taking part in this?  We could make it a virutal swap and mail the grab bags?  If you're interested, leave a comment or shoot me a message. 
I'm shamelessly copy and pasting from The Poop Whisperer so I want to be sure Corey gets all the credit.  Again, I'm telling ya-- I lack the creativity to come up with these things.  But I could certainly think up one activity and make however many different sets and mail it out!
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Busy Bag Swap... do it! by Corey

So as I've mentioned before, I'm not a crafter.  Before I decided to stay home/ start a photography business, I was a reporter.  Not a teacher.  My degree is in communications.  So kids learning activities in our house are books, and puzzles, and toys.  Until now.

Last night my IRL friend Megan (who has an amazing blog with TONS of phenomenal ideas of awesome stuff to do with your kids) hosted a Busy Bag Swap.  It's like a cookie exchange only with kids activities and fewer calories.  I went because I like her, she assigned me a 'busy bag' to make (because I'm not good at coming up with these things on my own), and there was a wine tasting (the guy, kind of a downer, but he brought wine and poured it into glasses. I'm not picky).  Not necessarily in that order.

And I came home with 9 activities to do with my kids, all ready go to.  The paper is cut. The pieces are together.  They're ready to go and I'm in love.

So, here's my loot.

Christmas tree decorating game, complete with dice and decorations. First one to 15 wins!

Fiddle sticks with 200 (yes 200) sight words for your kids to learn!

Cut up pool noodles for building and creating!

Homemade play-doh with decorations to build a snowman!

Clothes pin number match! 

Colander man with pipe cleaners and fruit loops!

Balloon tennis!

Popsicle stick shape creating!

And not pictured my contribution of 'clean mud'.  Toilet paper, grated Ivory soap.  Just add water and voila!

For like 10 bucks (spent on supplies for my clean mud) I came home with 9 things that are going to make me a rockstar mom!  And they're things that can be used for both of my kids!  

So what's my point?  You should have a 'busy bag swap'.  Do it.  You know you want to.  Oh and don't forget the wine. :) 

15 month update (a few weeks late!)

Well, hello again!  Long time no blog.  My bad!  Been super busy.  See, this whole "walking thing" has become a "running, screaming, playing, on the go, tantrum throwing, , non-stop action thing" and well, something had to give.

That being said, a couple things I want to recap, although I don't have the best pictures this go round. 

A couple of weeks ago, we went to watch my niece cheer at the Frisco Football League Superbowl.  For first graders playing flag football, this is an incredibily big deal!  There was tailgating - including RVs!  Nuts, right!?!?! -- announcers, half time shows, you name it.  Luke and his cousin Jack loved checking out the older girls!

That's Luke there on the left.  Don't he and Jack look like trouble?  Just wait till they're in high school!

Oh, and let's not even talk about the fact that I last blogged about Halloween and now I'm already doing a recap of Thanksgiving.  But I digress...So, it's almost tradition now that we spend Thanksgiving Day with my in-laws and extended family on that side In OKC.  Then, Saturday we do another Thanksgiving meal with my family back at home.  Just to make sure we get a jump start on our holiday weight gain.  So we headed to OKC on Tuesday, having lots of snacks along the way to keep our little guy busy:

He may have had a crumb or two fall along the way.  But he learned to smash crackers while making his hulk, kung fu sound which is Hilarious.  Here's a re-enactment of him showing his muscles and growling.  Not a super loud growl but hopefully you can hear it.  Please excuse mommy talk.

We had a relaxing time at my in-laws with Luke's grammy, pop, aunt, unlce, cousins, and great-uncles etc (ha, bet that makes them feel old since they are like, my age!!!!)  hahahaha.


Anyways, lots of Thanksgiving fun was had...TWICE!



SO, 15 months... my sweet lil cave man!  He really is.  He points and says "Uh?" at everything  and is so curious and wants me to tell him what everything is.  He's also quite an opinionated little fella and is learning what "no" means.  He's got four teeth on top, two all the way in on the bottom and two more on bottom peeking through.  The doctor today told us he thinks molars will be next --- ouch!

Stats:

weight:        22lbs 4.5 oz   ... not so preemie anymore, in the 20th percentile of normal growth charts!

length:         30.5 inches   the nurse measured 31 the first time and 30 the second, so I'm taking the average....  that puts him in the 15th%

head:           18 inch circumference, putting him in the 10% percentile.  Small noggin or not, he's pretty smart!

Speaking of smart, he's using words in context:  here's a list ---- mom ("mmmum"), dad ("dah"), dog ("daag"), fish (fsssh), bottle ("baba"), bye ("buh" and he waves and blows kisses with this one). 

As much as I love my "baby" and I'm so proud of how far he's already come, he's quite the challenge these days.  We've had some serious battles with reflux lately and can't seem to get a bedtime routine down.  We tend to take a bath, get ready for bed, take a bath, get ready for bed...and so on.  The good news is, once he's asleep, he gets a good 10-12 hours.  But forget a nap during the day! 

As one friend and I have decided, kids are incredible and it's like watching your heart walk around outside your body...but I will say that this isn't all puppies and rainbows! 

Luke, you keep us on our toes but we love you with all we've got!  I can't wait to see what the next few months hold in store for us!!!  MUAH!
Love,
Mommy

Will Werk for Kandy

How could you resist panhandling from this lil bum?

Trying not to be mad that mom made him stop running around...

Now this is fun!



take note of the Pepsi cans...shameless product plug!  Support my 401k (and my job) and go get some!

Wait, so you mean to tell me I might really get candy?  Well, sign me up!

"Please sir.....can you spare a Snickers?"

And because I can't stand the cuteness, here is the happy hobo once again...

And the sad little shopping cart....it's owner is tucked snuggly in bed.  We decided to bring him home with us instead of sending him on the streets tonight....lucky lil fella!

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!!!!

Mr. Run Around

For about a week or so, Luke's been really close to walking.  Pushing carts and getting brave enough to take a step or two before he sat down.  Well, well, well....guess we caught on video Friday?

Introducing, Mr. Run Around:

Kelsey actually took a video of the original video (on mute) so we could share without piercing any ear drums...let's just say we got "a little excited"! 

After that, it was like a marathon this weekend!  We went non-stop ... I guess that's the way it's going to be now but it's still so strange!  Luke is go, go, go!  We play in the cabinets.  Walk to his room.  Walk back in the living room (eat a dust ball or hair ball from the dog, whichever is readily available and he thinks he can get to before I can stop him).  Walk to the front door (lick the window), watch the kids playing outside, walk back to the living room (search for another hairball, etc), walk to the office, push out his truck, walk back to the living room (go straight to the source and pull the hair off directly off the dog) and on and on and on. 

I guess I need to keep the camera handy instead of always using my phone.  I hate how blurry these are!

Anyways, with all this walking around, my little hippie barefoot baby was going to need some shoes.  He has fat wide feet so we haven't had much luck so far finding shoes that he'd leave on.  We went with his NICU girlfriend and her mama to go shopping and grab lunch while the daddies watched the Texas/OU game.  Well, leave it to a new pair of Nike's to make Luke happy.  We are now investing in three more pairs :)



Ew.  Gross!  Who's wrinkled old lady finger is that?  Oh wait, Nevermind.  that's mine! 

I'm guessing videos are about to get way more fun but pictures are going to be infinitely harder.  We'll do our best!  I'm already thinking about Christmas cards so here's to hoping!

Have a great week!



Self Proclaimed ADD

I am well aware that I don't have a medical degree.  And like I've said before, I gave up googling symptoms when Luke was born to save my sanity.  But, I'm 99.99999% sure I have adult on-set ADD/ADHD.

Here goes:

Lunch break. 

I don't typically leave the building but decide to take advantage of the nice weather and head out of the building.  Extra perk that I won't have to eat from the crapateria.

Walking to my car I remember it's due for an oil change. 

Head towards Shop #1.

Realize I have a coupone for $20 off at Store #2-- SCORE! Change my route accordingly.

Digging for the coupon, I find a gift card.  Decide I should go get the hubby a new black belt with the gift card.  Re-route accordingly (thank God turn by turn navigation isn't on...."Recalculating" much???)

Accidentally park at the women's entrance.  Decide to just take a peek around to see if there's anything cute for my upcoming vacation.

Spot an advertisement with cute shoes.  They'd be great for work!

Head to the shoe department.

Find a pair of brown ankle boots I'm pretty sure must somewhat resemble the black peep toe pumps I set out for.  Hmmm...no????

Head to the register anyways--- shoot!  I'm running out of time left in my lunch hour and thirty minutes.

Pay the nice lady.  Walk to the car.

Realize I haven't used my gift card.  Get back out of the car, go inside and sort that mess out. Realize between the sale price and the gift card, I just got boots for $10!  YEA ME!

Head back to the office thinking about what I can wear with my new shoes.  And now, here I sit at my desk...


HUNGRY.

Fake It "Home Made" Meals

Let me just go ahead and admit it.  My name is Carrie.  I'm a working mama and don't cook dinner.

Ahhhh.  Now I feel better.

In all fairness I really do enjoy cooking.  But I enjoy cooking for the social experience of eating together... the good food is just a by-product in my opinion.  Which is probably the root of my bad eating habits since I clearly don't eat to "fuel my body" necessarily, but that's an entirely different post all together. 

Despite enjoying cooking, it doesn't always happen.  In fact, more often than not we're scrambling to pull something together quickly because we either didn't make it to the store or I didn't thaw something in the morning or we're just out of time to fix something before we start knawing on empty spoons.  So, I thought I'd share two of my favorite tricks.  The caveat -- I need MORE of these tricks so comment at the bottom and share your last minute "home made" fake outs.

Oh, and my definition of a fake out is that it could pass for home made....But isn't necessarily.

FIRST:  Jack Daniel's ready to eat meat.  Sounds a little gross, granted.  BUT I SWEAR.  It's.  Freaking.  Awesome.

 

This stuff is so good that I may or may not have put it in a crock pot and taken it to a party for sliders.  And accidentally forgot to mention that it was STRAIGHT from the package.  I've made my own pulled pork too and it's a definite toss up which one people liked more. 

In a pinch for dinner at home?  No prob.  This comes out of the fridge, a quick poke of a hole in the package to vent, and thirty seconds in the microwave and DING!!!  Dinner is served.  When it can be this good out of the package, I tend to wonder why I would bother to do a pulled pork in the slow cooker.  It's honestly THAT good.

But don't take my word for it.  Go get some.  Run, don't walk.  (I get mine at Target for like $7.99 and we always have enough leftover for a lunch the next day.)

AND NUMBER TWO: 

Papa Murphy's.  But here's the key:  if you want home made taste, skip pizza.  It's still going to sit in your tummy like junk food (duh, it is).  BUT, switch gears and for $10 you can take home one of these beauties:

Their lasagna is AWESOME.  Again, I'm not going to cite specific times, but I will confess I may have passed it off as my own a time or five two.   Promise, it was just twice but I've considered on many other occasions.  For you other sneaks, it comes in a disposable alumninum pan wrapped in saran wrap...totally even looks homemade but more importantly it TASTES homemade.

So those are two meals that I go to in a pinch.  They're cheap, super fast and don't have the taste of restaurant food that I get tired of after a while. 

Now, since we all know there are seven days in the week, I need AT LEAST five more ideas!  Share some of your tricks with me!  Pretty please???  This could ensure that I don't cook anymore during the week and save my family from eating Eggos for dinner.

BTW -- I'm of course not receiving any compensation for these reviews.  These are totally my independent opinion and any and all tricks I shared are yours for the taking.  I'm not a big time blogger, ya'll.  Just a mom without any time.

Who me?

Looking more and more like a little boy and less of a baby.  Somebody tap the breaks around here!!!

Updates from "Camp Turner"

I think it's pretty funny that I read some blogs almost daily and am disappointed when there's nothing new...yet I go two or three weeks without writing anything.  Oops.

We've pretty much just put our heads down and plowed through the past couple weeks.   There's been lots of changes and I feel like things will FINALLY calm down.  That's always asking for trouble though, right?  I mean, as soon as you think you have things under control -- BAM!--- that's usually when chaos strikes in our house. 

So...what have we been up to since Luke's party?  Well, our nanny quit.  And gave us four days notice.  Then our A/C broke and it took five days to get it fixed. Kelsey's mom came to visit to help out with Luke until we could find a replacement to watch Luke, our cable went out, we had a huuuuge lizard in the guest room (while my mother-in-law was in bed, of course, and there was a massive Godzilla gecko on the guest room ceiling!) my mom had surgery, we hired a new nanny (and it's working out great!), and we've been working like dogs.  Whew!  I got tired all over again just typing all that.  Ok, so maybe it doesn't sound like all that much but holy moly.  It was a little like summer camp between the no A/C, no TV and the outside coming inside...Camp Turner!  Hopefully, things are status quo now and we can just cruise into fall (oh please, please please bring on the fall weather...I'm so excited to pull out boots and sweaters!)

I feel like I haven't been documenting Luke's accomplishments like I should and since that's the true purpose of this 'ol blog, here goes:

From his first full day with Dawn, his new babysitter.  Seems happy to me!

He's really "talking" more:  Mama, Dadda, Bye-Bye, Baby ("BayBuh"), Meow.  It's incredible how excited we get when he even tries to mimic our pitch but doesn't get quite get the sounds out.  We think he's genius even when he fails.  I suppose that's pretty close to the definition of a parent, huh?

Luke's definitely standing on his own.  And now that he's figured out how to sit down on his own...he can even catch himself when he starts to fall!  With the darn hardwood floors throughout our house, it's a huge relief.  I just know he's going to be walking around soon though and we'll have another learning curve.  I'm ready for it.  But I'm so not.

He's a wild man in the bath tub.  Flipping onto his tummy and kicking and splashing, standing up, trying to rip the soap tray off the wall.  We usually have to tag team the tub time.  On our list this weekend is to buy one of the no-skid pads for the tub.  I told him the other day, "You and Grandma Alberta [my grandma] are going to be twins!" and I don't know what it was but he got a huge grin and laughed and laughed.  So, we'll be getting a tub mat.

But, putting his lotion and his diaper on after bathtime...FORGET IT! By the time he's clean, in jammies all cozy and ready for bed, I usually need a shower from my work out.  But overall, he loves the water and I think he just gets upset to get out of the tub.  He loves the pool too.  I hope that next summer he still loves the water this much because it's been so fun to take him to the pool all summer. 

With fall coming, we are excited to take him to a high school football game.  We're still trying to figure out how to accomplish this since most games start at 7:30 and he can barely make it to his 7:00 bedtime.  But we're determined to find a way!

We've also entered the cabinet phase.  You know, where the only thing he wants to do is pull everything out of the cabinet?  Yep, our house is constantly a wreck.  He takes everything out, puts it back in, takes it back out...over and over.  But always ends with it out.  Funny thing is that Kelsey asked me the other day if I'd ever heard of any other babies getting in the cabinets like this.  I said, "yep, I think it's kind of a phase most kids go through".  Then as if he didn't believe me, he's all "then why do they make cabinet locks?"  Oh, sweet daddy.  Because we only let him in CERTAIN cabinets...the Luke-safe ones.  Sweet, sweet, daddy...always thinking, that one!

Have a great weekend!  We are taking Luke out to dinner tonight and then he has a little friend's birthday party tomorrow.  Other than that, we'll just be maxin' and relaxin'...and sleeping sprawled out like a teenager!

PAR-TEE! PAR-TEE! PAR-TEE!

So, that title is our family chanting "party" before the big event.  And yes, I'm one of those mom's that (once again I vowed I'd never be) and had to invite a billion 26 people for Luke's party.  And 14 kids. 

YES.  It was a tiny bit insane.  But I "kinda" love to throw a party.  And since we never had a baby shower with our friends we used this opportunity to celebrate our little dude.

I actually took pictures.  LOTS AND LOTS of pictures (over 150!) so the good news is, some day Luke will know his mom threw him a killer party.  Until then, I'm glad birthdays only come around once a year!

The invitations:

And some decorations hanging the night before the party:


Comic book birthday banner

  

A picture from each month over the last year

 



A comparison of the first diaper size to now

 

Superhero cape for each friend



And of course there had to be a phone book for the transformation to superhero!





Setting up the dessert spread...

Which got a little out of control.  What can I say?  We like sweets!  There was cake.  And cake pops (like 80...oops).  And oreo truffles.  And candy.  So when I say setting up.  Seriously.  This is a small fraction of what we ended up with!  I could NOT have had all this yummy deliciousness (or the tummy ache that ensued from eating one of everything....again, oops) without my MIL's help.  She's a baking queen!



Luke's own smash cake


WHICH HE LOVED!!!!!

And the cake for everyone else was delicious too!

Disclaimer:  this isn't a picture of our cake, but it's what we sent to our cake lady.  Who managed to do EXACTLY what we wanted!  PRECIOUS!

Here's some of the cute guests:



















The Guest of Honor, aka mini Bat Boy









Yay!  Got a cute one by our photo booth (otherwise that would have been a complete bomb since the kids didn't want to stand still for a silly pic!)




Case in Point:

The older boys and some of the daddies  relocated to the game room for some fuseball...

The baking Queen (my MIL) loving on the guest of honor.

Luke had a batman cape since I had a hunch there might be a REAL superhero showing up!

 And there was lots and Lots of catching up with friends and eating good food!  I feel like as everyone was leaving I found myself saying "We miss ya'll!  Can we get together soon please?!?!?"  The thing is...I meant it with each and every one of these great friends.  Now that we live in the burbs...and we have a baby toddler...it's been so long since we've been able to have a big group over and we loved seeing every one of their sweet faces.

AND, you won't believe it, but look who showed up to surprise the Bday boy!!!

(Daddy, you're such a good sport.  I KNOW that was hot but you rocked it!)

Happy Birthday, Luke James.  You show us your super hero strength EVERY day (for good or bad)!  You're the coolest and we love you so much...MUAH!