Fun in the bath

I wanted to capture a couple pictures of Kaiya's bottom teeth before the top ones take over. She has cut one top tooth so far and from the way last night went, I'd say she is working on the other one. :) These pictures were taken in a bath a few weeks ago. You may notice the scum on the side of the tub. I'm not the best housekeeper in the world -- not by a mile -- but that scum has a good story with it. And after her bath we got rid of it. :)

A couple of weeks ago I was babysitting AJ and trying to get Kaiya a bath before bed too. I thought I could manage the two of them in the bathroom, however AJ went straight for the toilet (nevermind the toys on the floor) and lifted the lid up. And I quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to do it. So after washing AJ's hands I passed him off to Tony who was studying and rushed to get Kaiya sudsed up and out of the tub. We pulled the drain and then carried on with our night. The next few mornings Tony complained that the tub was draining really slow. By Friday it was really having trouble. So while in the shower I grabbed the plunger and plunged away on the thing. :) No luck. I mentioned to Tony that the tub is really clogged and he suggested that maybe one of K's toys went down the drain. I'm doing a mental inventory on all her bath toys and none of them are small enough to fit down the drain. Except for her washcloth!!! We sprint to the bathroom and start looking for the washcloth. Oops... It's gone. And I've plunged it even farther down the drain! I rigged a coat hanger and tried my best to get it out. Finally we called the landlord. He came over on Saturday morning with all his fancy plumbing tools. Within 2 minutes he located and retrieved the nasty washcloth. In the process of yanking it back up, drain scum sprayed on the tub. I rinsed the tub out before putting K in it, but missed the side. Note to self: ALWAYS take washcloth out of the tub before pulling drain. Bet we won't make that mistake twice!

But really --I love these cheesy grins she gave me.

Best Christmas Present

This present has provided us lots of entertainment since December. The wonderful activity table. Not only does it provide us with entertainment, but it also serves as part of our barricade to keep Kaiya trapped in a smaller space, without worries of her wandering places she shouldn't in the house. In the pictures I think you can see drool running down her chin. That is the precursor (right use of word?) to her top tooth that broke through 2 weeks ago. These pictures were taken awhile ago and I'm still catching up.

Just a naked baby picture. Getting PJ's on after her bath.

New Bag from LL Bean

New Pool Bag! Both squirts had to test it out. :) I was cracking up and so thankful I had the camera ready.

Love to Drive

Just some cute pictures of Miss Kaiya behind the wheel. This one is at the train station leaving Indiana to catch our plane home to St. Louis.

After we got home from Christmas, we created a blockade for Kaiya so we wouldn't have to chase her all over the house. She is a girl on the move! Tony lined up the stroller and play table at the end of the futon and she is trapped. After learning to drive with Grandpa, she decided to drive the stroller. Behind her is a huge pile of toys that she isn't the least bit interested in. She is having more fun with the stroller wheel. :) Gotta love it.
The pile of toys.

Fun with friends

These are pictures from our visit with the Ashenfelters during Christmas. Kaiya and I spent the afternoon with them on Thursday. It was fun to catch up and let the kids play together. The day was fairly warm (for northern Indiana in December) and so we were able to go on a walk.

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.