My husband rocks!!

Not only did he watch the kids while I went to a movie this afternoon (by myself!!!) but he is cooking dinner with the kids too. This afternoon he watched the kids while I went to watch The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants II. I have wanted to see that movie since it came out. A year and a half ago Laura got me the set of books that the movie is based on for my birthday. Later, I watched the first movie and then when I saw the preview for the second one, I immediately called Laura to tell her that they were coming out with the second movie. It was really cute. I wish I still lived by Laura so that we could go and watch it together! Anyway, it was awesome to be able to get away to take a break. It was the first time I had been away from Leo for any length of time. He did really well. They also both did really well in nursery at church today. Since we moved they didn't want to stay in the nursery without us there. We both got to see a complete, uninterrupted sermon for the first time since we moved. Now, Dave is cooking up bacon to make grilled turkey and bacon sandwiches for dinner. We should only have 1 or 2 meals left from the turkey we made on Friday. We have been eating left-overs all weekend. (Everything turned out great by the way! I didn't mess up any part of the meal! WooHoo!) Have I mentioned lately that I have the greatest husband in the world!

Here is Dave showing Alaina how to use the tongs:
Leo was watching on.
Yesterday Alaina asked me to take pictures of her. For the first picture she fell over in the chair right as I was taking the picture. She wasn't hurt by the way.
This is how she smiles for the camera. She closes her eyes because she doesn't like the flash.
I have to take her by surprise to get her eyes open.
Making funny faces. (Guess who taught her that.....Grammy...)

And Alaina about ready to take the camera away from me.Hope you are all enjoying your extended weekend. 2 weekends from now we are going to an airshow. The Blue Angels and some other groups are coming to our area. Hopefully Grandpa and Grammy Johnston are able to come and see them with us! We have already told Alaina about the show and she is really excited!

Sleeping Baby

Because some days the bed is just too far away.......and I love to watch my babies sleep.

By the way, please ignore my messy well played in living room.

Our Anniversary

So, yesterday was Dave and my 4th anniversary. We didn't do too much because we had Jasmine and Trevor spending the night. We are however going out to eat together (ALONE!!!) on Monday to celebrate. Yesterday I also had 2 other neighbor kids over at my house. I was brave enough to let 5 kids finger paint at my kitchen table. It was a remarkable success. We had no tears and no huge messes. No paint fights and no paint on my ceiling. And I had 5 content kids for over an hour. Well worth the messy table. Here they all are finger-painting.


Alaina tried to pick up the paint by pinching it.
Trevor brought over one of his old firetrucks for Leo. It was a huge hit with both kids and the dog.
Bandit was just as fascinated as Leo was!
Tonight I have been ambitious and I'm making a full turkey dinner. Somehow it is 4:30 and I have nothing to do. The potatoes are pealed and sitting in water. The rolls are rising. Green bean casserole is on the stove waiting to be put in. Olives ('cause it isn't a turkey dinner without olives) and cranberry sauce is in the fridge chillin'. Turkey is in the oven and freshly basted (with my new baster---how fun is that!! Dave used mine to squirt transmition oil into the moped and I told him he could use it if he bought me a new one). Now all I have to do is wait to take out the turkey, make gravy, put things in the stove and make the potatoes. Should be easy. Let's just hope my rolls turn out better this time than they did last time (I forgot to take off the cling wrap when I put it in the oven...) and the green bean casserole cooks all the way through (I didn't know that you had to cook the beans before you made the cassarole or use canned...)

I'll let you know how my dinner turned out next time I have pictures to post!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Happy 29th birthday Daddy! I think he had a good day. He picked out a new hybrid golf club and a new net thing to hit his golf balls into (I have a picture of it on the July 23rd post) a while ago for his birthday present. I wanted him to have most of the summer to enjoy it. This evening he wanted to go to Dairy Queen for dinner and bring home an ice cream cake. He made things pretty easy for me seeing as I didn't have to cook or get him a present for today. All I really had to do was to give him his card. Somehow I managed to mess that up. I gave him his anniversary card instead of his birthday card. My excuse was that I bought and wrote them out at the same time (seeing as our anniversary is tomorrow) and I got them mixed up. He was a good sport about it. I took back the anniversary card and he'll get it again tomorrow.

Here he is with his birthday cake:

Alaina helped him blow out his candles. This is the first year that the number if candles didn't match his age. 29 is just too many candles to light. The first one I lit would have burned out before we got done singing. Oh, and yes, it's like 80 degrees and yes, Alaina is wearing a winter hat. She found it, put it on, and didn't want to take it off. I didn't feel like fighting, so she wore the hat tonight.
I think Alaina enjoyed the cake!
Earlier today Alaina was reading to Leo. It was so cute!
Happy birthday Dave!!

Alaina's Picture

Here are my newest pictures of Alaina. I posted a new one for Leo yesterday and realized I should really have an updated picture of Alaina. I put the black and white version of one of these pictures on the sidebar. I'm trying to figure out which one I like better. Any input would be great!!



Carolynn had asked to see a picture of some of my pottery. Most of it is at my parent's house because the stuff I had was stolen when our storage unit got broken into. Here is one of the sets I have left.

We're Home!

We had a great weekend with Haley and Zach and now we are home again! I wish we could have stayed longer but Dave needed to work and I need to babysit. Now that we are back I'm also on the lookout for a pottery wheel. I think Dave might make me a kick wheel, but in the meantime I'm on the lookout for a used one. He hasn't been able to find any plans for one on the internet but we have hopes that he can find plans at the library.

Anyhow, this is the one and only picture I took at Haley's reception. She was able to get Leo to sleep by rocking him.

Leo climbed on my lap.
Here is a picture of Alaina playing with the firetruck set that me and my sisters as well as my Dad (I think!) played with as kids.
Alaina and Leo played with this horse that used to be at my Great-Grandma Patefield's house.
This is one of Leo's favorite ways to lay.
Haley with Leo sleeping (again!) right before we left to come back home.

We had such a great time seeing everyone! It is so nice to be around family!

Fun with Grammy and Grandpa

We went out for breakfast with Grammy and Grandpa Johnston and then went over to their house. I got a phenomenal picture of Leo and Bandit:








Monkey pile on Mommy!


I know there are so many more pictures of Leo here than Alaina, but I figure that is only fair. In most posts Alaina outnumbers Leo by a long shot.

Oh, guess what?? Dave bought me a kiln tonight!!!! I'm so excited! Now I can start to make pottery again. Hopefully I'll be able to get enough by Christmas time to have a big sale. We'll see. I can't wait to try it out now!!

I'll have pictures soon of Haley and Zach's wedding reception. I just have to get them from my camera onto the computer and I don't have the energy to do that tonight. It was a very fun time though!

A Week's Worth Of Pictures

It is amazing how fast pictures pile up when you keep a camera handy 24 hours a day! For example, it has only been a week since I have last posted and I already have 14 post-worthy pictures.

Early this week Alaina fell asleep on the couch while I was trying to keep her up to wait for Daddy to get home from drill weekend. She asked me to make her hair pretty and sat very nicely for me while I put two french braids in her hair.


We finally got Leo to take a bottle! Too bad he would only take a bottle with Kool-Aid in it....
Bandit tucked himself into bed.
I made chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookies and Alaina was both happy and surprised to get to lick the bowl.
Alaina was asleep so Leo got to sit in her booster chair instead of his high chair. Check out the evil grin!
These pictures are from after we got to Grandma and Grandpa's house. We brought Alaina's 4-wheeler with us. Leo pushed it like a walker toy.
Aunt Haley and Uncle Zach brought her a princess dress, crown, play jewelry, and several really cute shirts. Here is Alaina in the princess dress and the crown.
Queen Bee Haley (Alaina crowned her) and Bandit.
Haley playing with Alaina and all of her new toys.

Ok, here is the picture I took today to post. I only posted the other pictures as an afterthought. Here is a picture of Leo and his first 2 teeth!!

Uncle Zach reading to Alaina.
Alaina with the flower that is as tall as her. She picked it herself.
Haley and Alaina picking flowers.
Redneck princess.....Alaina in a princess dress driving a 4-wheeler.
Tomorrow we are going to hang out with Grammy and Grandpa Johnston and then we are going to Haley and Zach's second wedding reception. I'm sure I'll have pictures to share again soon!

Leo is now getting around very well. He has started to crawl fairly proficiently and he pulls himself up onto furniture and cruises around. Now I get to babyproof another level of my house. His favorite place to get stuck right now is underneath the television on the lower shelf. He climbs onto it and can't get out. Here he is playing on the piano that used to be Alaina's. I moved it down from her room a couple of days ago and it is a huge hit. I found him like this a few days ago.

Alaina, Leo, Dave, and I have been going on walks lately. We get to walk over an overpass where cars are going 65 miles per hour underneath us. For Alaina this is the highlight of the walk. She loves to watch and wave at the cars. A week or two ago we were on a walk on a sunny day and we walked beneath a tree into the shade. Alaina looked up at me worried and said, "Mommy, the sun is broken!" The next day we were on a walk in the evening and it was one of the nights where the moon was out pretty early. She saw the moon and said to me, "Mommy, the moon is turned on!" She is almost always in bed early so she doesn't get to see the moon that often. Anyway, here is a picture of Alaina and Daddy waving at the cars.
Even though this is a picture from a week or two later, yes Alaina still is wearing the same dress. She is on a dress kick and wants to wear nothing other than dresses. Bonnie and Mark brought her this one and it is a hit! A few days ago I got an MP3 player with some of my remaining birthday and Christmas money. On Thursday Alaina wanted to listen to it and danced around while holding the earphones to her ears. She put on this sweatshirt on top of her dress so that she would have a pocket to hold the MP3 player in. Today I think we are going to Wal-Mart and I'm going to try to find a cheap pair of earphones that go on top of your head. I just have the ear buds and her ears are too small for them to stay in.
Later on Thursday night Daddy changed Leo's diaper and Alaina saw it and got out a diaper to change her bear.
This morning after I let the dog out I found Leo and Bandit playing together through the window. I love this picture!

I hope you all have a great weekend!