Little Problem Solver

This is a series of pictures I took of Kaiya playing at Grandpa & Grammi's house over Christmas. A bottle of water had rolled under the chair and she was determined to retrieve it. We found her inside the bottom rails of the chair and then squirming around to get the bottle. She got it and then it rolled outside of the chair again and she had to figure out how to get out from underneath the chair. Too cute. She finally did it and as you can tell in the last picture, she's awfully proud of herself. :)

My Sweet Baby

Still playing catch up with photos from Christmas. As soon as I get current, I can share the exciting things that Kaiya is doing this week. How is that for suspense? :)

Okay, okay --- enough kisses mom!!

Christmas night at Grandpa & Grammi's

There were two recurring themes at Christmas this year for Kaiya.

1) The "oooo" sound

2) Can I eat it?

Christmas morning at Nanna's

Here a couple of cute pics of Kaiya at Tony's moms. She was in heaven w/ all the bright colors. You can see her mouth is saying "Ooooooo" (prounounced more like "ew" - I don't know how to write it)-- her favorite expression during Christmas.

This is Kaiya with Tony's Uncle Dan.

Christmas Eve

We spent Christmas Eve over at Tony's Grandparents. Pictures below are of Kaiya w/ Tony's Dad & Connie, Grandma Cook, Grandpa Cook.

Checking out Grandma Cook's Christmas display

All worn out

Woof! Woof!

This is what happens when we let Kaiya crawl around in the dog's cage. This is Luna's cage, Aaron (Tony's brother) & Trudi's dog. Don't worry, we washed her hands really good when she was done exploring. She seemed to have fun -- and I thought it would make a good scrapbook page. :)

This is a family picture taken at Christmas.

December 23rd

We spent some time with our friends Austin & Kristina. The first picture is of Kaiya in the middle of Tony & Austin getting lots of attention.

This is one of my new favorite pictures of Kaiya.

Here is Kaiya w/ Uncle Andy

And they thought Money Bags would be the problem...

I'm beginning the first of many posts to get caught up on pictures from the holidays. For the record, I just want to state that our cat, Money Bags, was not the instigator during our stay in Indiana. As you can see from the pictures below, Lu Lu and Squeaky have scared him off with their intimidating presence. :)

I'm Cool...

It's quite obvious in this picture that Kaiya thinks she is hot stuff. :) This picture was taken by my friend Maurine on Friday night. We spent the evening with them and this was when we first let Kaiya and Hannah interact. Hannah would giggle at Kaiya and Kaiya definitely tried to show off for Hannah. Can't wait until they are a bit older -- they will have fun playing together.

In other news... We are taking a fun trip to Charlotte, North Carolina next month. We'll take a long weekend to see the area and see what everyone is talking about. Haven't met a person yet who didn't like North Carolina! :) I've booked everything for the trip -- Flight, Hotel & Rental Car -- used priceline for the hotel & rental car and saved a bunch of money (which always makes me happy!). Please keep praying for us as we make this trip. We are really seeking God's direction in where we go! And so much to see -- so little time to see it in.

My absence

I couldn't log in to Blogger for the longest time... I'm up and running again. Still waiting to post pictures... I managed to lose the cord that goes from the camera to the computer. So once I find that -- or buy a new one, I won't have pictures to put up. I'm going to tackle that this weekend.

Tonight I start a new class. It's supposed to go until 10 p.m. I'm getting tired just thinking about it. :) But I'm glad to be able to see friends from school that I haven't seen in awhile.

I've been on a scrapbooking spree lately. My sweet neighbor let me borrow her new books that she got for Christmas and I have been having fun getting updated. I can't even think about the $$ that is wrapped up in scrapbooking. This kid better appreciate it! :) ha ha.... So for now, everything is spread all over the dining room table. It is a mess, but I've been having a blast. Nice now that Kaiya is going to bed by 9 p.m. every night.

Speaking of Miss K, new things Kaiya is doing:

• Dancing -- she bee-bops all the time! So our new favorite phrase is "Shake, shake your booty." It can be any type of music. She got a Dora scooter for Christmas and she dances to all the noises it makes.
• Singing -- favorite song for the moment is: Ooo Eee Ooo Ahh Ahh, Ting Tang Walla Walla Bing Bang. Singing this song to her just gives her the giggles -- and then she'll try to sing it back.
• Spitty-Lips & Fart Noises -- I don't know what to say about this except for this is her favorite thing to do. She keeps her lips together and blows air out her mouth -- with spit flying everywhere. She especially likes to do it, have you do it back, then she'll do it -- this goes on until one of you tires.
• Sleeping all night -- need I say more...
• Growing -- Is she supposed to be growing so fast? :)

Pictures coming soon, I promise. And for you faithful blog readers -- maybe Captain Dirk will be in my class. Now wouldn't that be something to look forward to. :)

I'm pretty proud of this falling snow! :0) Very winter-ish. It took me forever to figure out...

New Recipe for the New Year

Well, I'm gradually getting back into the swing of things here at home. We had a great break/vacation from work and school and now the busy-ness is going to begin. I'm doing my best not to get overwhelmed with all that has to happen over the next 6 months. More on that later, in another post...

Tony's mom got me a great new cookbook for Christmas and I tried out one of the recipes last night. It was a winner for both Tony & I. So I thought I would post it here.

Baked Lemon Chicken

2 large chicken breasts, cut in 1/2
3 T. butter, melted
2 T. lemon juice
1/4 t. pepper
1/2 t. salt
1 garlic clove minced
1/2 c. seasoned bread crumbs (I used 3 Cheese)

1) Combine butter, lemon juice, pepper, salt, & garlic. Dip chicken in butter mixture and then coat in bread crumbs. Pour remaining butter over chicken.

2) Bake at 350 for 25 minutes (or until chicken is cooked.)


**My special notes about the recipe -- because of course I couldn't follow it exactly! :0) The recipe called for 4 chicken breasts. I only had 2 thawed out, but they were good size. So I cut them in half. So you could go either way.

Also -- I didn't have any fresh garlic -- a few shakes of garlic powder worked just fine -- although fresh would have tasted much better, I'm sure.

Before pouring remaining butter over the chicken, I sprinkled the left over breadcrumbs on top of the chicken too.

And finally -- I cooked it at 350 for 20 minutes but the chicken wasn't done. So being impatient and hungry I increased the temp to 400 for about 10 more minutes. It helped to crisp up the coating I think.

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So there you have it. :) Our yummy dinner from last night. Which tasted pretty good for lunch today as well.... not quite as crispy, but still moist.

I'll blog more tomorrow. And hopefully have some Christmas pictures for you too.