Just in case you were wondering... it is quite possible to pull your tongue muscle while eating peanut butter off a spoon.

Oops...I sure tried.

Well... currently tanking in the area of resolutions, but I am getting back on track. I have been blogging like crazy for our office at: yourhealingdiet.wordpress.com. And as a result neglected this blog a bit. My other excuse is that my digital camera has been acting up. And I'm not allowed to bring the office digital camera home anymore. :) I might have broken it once. Thank goodness we still had a warranty on it.

I do have a snazzy little "faux" Flip camera that takes videos. Got one of the kids playing in the snow today. We had a few inches last night! And this afternoon, half of it was gone. But we got out to the side of the house where the sun doesn't shine and got a little playing done. Here's the video. Mainly for family who misses these cute kids. The rest of the world probably won't be too interested.

New Thru 30

We've been reading the New Testament in 30 days with our church. I experienced one of the coolest moments in parenthood this week. I was sitting on the floor Wednesday night before putting the kids to bed reading my Bible. Kaiya runs to get her Bible and sits down next to me. She sits just like me and opens her Bible. My dad asked her what she was doing and she said: I'm reading my Bible just like Mama.

She sat with me the whole time flipping through her Bible while I finished my reading for the day. It was a good reminder that these are the things I want her to see. I'm modeling for her every minute of the day. I hope she sees more good than bad.

Can't forget it!

Kaiya has been coming up with some cute ones lately. So bear with my record-keeping posting. This is my journal/scrapbook for the time being.

I was heading both kids upstairs for bed and when we got to the top of the stairs Kaiya says: Mama, can I have H.L.P.E?

Me: What?

Kaiya: You know, H.L.P.E. (change to whisper) That means popcorn!

She was trying to spell since Kaleb was listening.

Hmmm... She's figured out one of the biggest tools of parenting. She'll have it mastered once she can actually spell. :)

Kaiya-ism

Kaiya said something I don't want to forget. Went like this:

My mom: Kaiya, did mommy & daddy get a new patient at the office this morning?

Kaiya: I don't know, I'm just a child!

**********

She's also been calling me "Honey" a lot lately. In a really endearing, sweet way. She knows it is a term of endearment and is using it totally correctly, it is just so funny to hear her calling me that.

Groupon

We were given information on Groupon, as a marketing tool for our office. I checked it out and it's actually a really great concept. We're pursuing it for the office, but being the bargain shopper I am, I decided to subscribe to the deal e-mails as well.

The way it works is this: Each day they post a deal online for something in your city. If enough people are interested and take the deal, everyone gets it. So today, a spa was featured in my city. $25 gets you a $50 certificate at the spa. When you buy the deal, you do an online purchase with your credit card. The card is not run unless enough people sign up for the deal. Enough sign up, the card is run and you get a certificate e-mailed to you.

Kind of an interesting concept. I was impressed. And... thought you might be too. We all could use a deal! Here's the link: http://www.groupon.com/r/uu824688.

The link is unique to me -- they give Groupon bucks for referrals. So... go get your Groupon! :)

P.S. Just in case anyone is wondering... I have changed the litter box every other day since my resolution post. Not too bad, right?

Wordless Wednesday - Bringing Sexy Back

New Year's Resolutions

I NEVER do this. The idea of setting myself up for failure does not appeal to me in the slightest. But... I'm aware that a mindset like that is not going to get me anywhere either. So, for the first year in my life I am going to make a few resolutions. And document them for the blogosphere to see.

-Remember our patients' birthdays. I have a whiteboard that is going up and weekly I am going to put birthdays on it.

-Establish an end-of-day procedure list and do it. Almost every day. (Gotta give myself a little slack.)

-New Thru 30. Our church is reading the New Testament in 30 days. I'm gonna do it too. While this resolution is only for 30 days, I'm hoping the habit will stick and I'll establish daily routine of reading.

-I so badly want to make a resolution about cleaning but I'm scared to. Hmm... So I'm sort of going to make one. I want to clean out the litter box every other day. I know some people clean theirs daily. I really want to, but trust me, every other day will be an improvement. Once upon a time I was determined to potty train my cat cause I saw this book said it was possible. Wish I had been more successful at that. :)

-Last but not least -- get back into blogging! Not gonna let more than a week go in between posts.

Gotta be grateful

It dawned on Kaiya the other day that we do not have a chimney (gasp!). We told her that we would leave the door open for Santa. That seemed to be okay with her. Then a conversation with Kaiya in the car yesterday went something like this:

Kaiya: Mama, I see a lot of houses with chimneys!
Me: A lot of these houses do have chimneys.
Kaiya: Yeah, but you just have to be grateful for what you got on top.
Me: Giggle. That's right Kaiya.
Kaiya: Yep, just gotta be grateful.

Sounds like she is listening to us occasionally afterall. :) And I was glad I remembered Tony's mom has a fireplace and chimney. We had to call Nannie right away and make sure Santa would be able to use her chimney. Nannie assured Kaiya that she was going to clean the chimney out.

da Grinch

This is Kaiya, 3 years ago with the Grinch. Kaleb is terrified of this particular Grinch. We've had to keep it up in Kaiya's closet because it brings him to tears just seeing it. But the kids watched it on TV the other night and really liked it. So it has come down from the closet for a little while. Kaleb still starts backing up and saying, "no, no, no..." whenever he sees it. Kaiya's been sleeping with it this week.

Last night her bedtime prayer went like this: "Dear God, Help da Grinch not to do naughty things tonight. Like take our tree down and put it on the sleigh that he made. And keep me awake. In Jesus name, Amen."

Found a couple cute pictures of my kids on their Uncle Aaron's facebook page. The pictures are from earlier this summer and especially Kaleb has changed, but fun for a Monday post!

Mmmm... those eyes.

A Rarity

The Wednesday before Thanksgiving I was able to spend the afternoon and evening with one of my best friends! Her parents live in Raleigh (about 4 hrs away) and so we met halfway and spent 6 hours together. It had been a year since I'd seen her and one of the first times that I was kid-free doing what I wanted to be doing (i.e. not working). Ahhhh... it was wonderful. Catching up, shopping, eating. Here is our token picture in Old Navy. The cashier probably thought we were nuts, but I looked in my purse, saw my camera and had to take it before the day went by and I had forgotten.

Thanks B for a great day!

Haircuts!

It was time for haircuts in November! Both kids cooperated extremely well for me. I let them choose what show they would watch and I worked as quickly as I could.

Mmmm Candy...

After trick-or-treating we let the kids pick out two things to eat. Kaleb, having no idea what candy really is, picked out Swedish Fish for one of his choices. And I don't think he realized how long it takes to chew one of those fish. He just kept shoveling them in his mouth. It was almost as if he thought we might suddenly realize it was candy and take it away.

The drool was running down his arm.

Costumes

This kids were so cute. Of course... slightly biased, but seriously. Kaiya was kind of forced into being Pooh. A couple weeks ago she told me that she really wanted to be Ariel - The Little Mermaid, but I told her that it would have to wait until next year. I had gotten Kaleb's costume a year ago June at a yard sale and since he was the Honey Pot, I really wanted her to be Pooh. Dream crusher that I am. And actually... she looks quite sad in this picture below. But I promise -- she warmed up to the idea after I found her costume at a yard sale this summer.

I wanted to give her a black nose. Well, Kaleb saw that and just had to have one too. I gave him freckles instead. Of course Kaiya saw that and had to have freckles too. At which point he remembered that I never gave him a nose. So they are both freckled and nosed. :)

Tuckered out. It rained for about 20 minutes while we were out. The kid insisted on walking by himself, carrying his own bag without any help. It was pretty cute. But he was spent.

Pumpkins!

On Halloween morning we went to a fall festival in the neighborhood. The kids got their faces painted. Kaleb happened to get the 11 year old aspiring face painter... she tried. :) We came home, grabbed lunch and then started carving. The kids helped pull all of the seeds out. Kaiya wasn't a fan. Kaleb thought it was awesome.
After the pumpkins were scraped out I put the kids down for naps and got started. There were special requests this year -- Elmo & Ariel. Thankfully I managed to pull it off. For the record, I got a blister scraping the outsides of these... the best tool I had was a lemon zester. Yeah. It was awesome.

More wedding...

More pictures from the wedding!
She was a dancin' fool.
Kaiya & Uncle Brent

Awww...

Dear Aunt Ruthie & Uncle Chris: Thanks for having our favorite food at your reception. We LOVE breakfast food and our parents actually let us eat most breakfast foods. :) Eggs are the best! And we even got to eat fresh fruit instead of cake. A-mazing!

Wordless Wednesday

Kaiya at the beach

Kaiya had a blast at the beach too! Her favorite things were getting buried in the sand (and burying Papa),

building and decorating sand castles,

throwing seaweed at Uncle Brent,

and swimming next to 4-5 dolphins! Papa was holding her out in the deeper water (waist high on Papa) and a huge group of dolphins came within 3-4 feet of them. When we came down in June she saw dolphins from the shore. On our car ride down to Florida this time she said, "I really hope I see dolphins this time!" So cool that she really saw them this time!

Wish I could tell you that I took a whole month off of blogging on purpose. But nope. I didn't. It just sort of happened. :) Got my camera connected to the computer here, so I can share some pics from our trip to Florida for Ruthie's wedding. We had such a great time!

Here are the pictures of the beach time that we had. Ruthie was super organized so most of our time was spent relaxing before and after the wedding. There wasn't too many last minute things to take care of. Well... except for maybe the bouquet. But I couldn't really do that too far in advance. I'll have to post a link to the picture of it. Cause it turned out pretty good for only having half an idea of what I was doing. Oh the trust she had in Bekah & I. :)



A little sequence of Kaleb pictures. He was being a stinker and didn't want to smile for me.

























Eventually I got one out of him...


Kaleb had so much fun at the beach. Glad I had so many eyes watching him, because at one point I looked up and saw this (and I am at least a half zoom on my camera):

Kaiya will get her post tomorrow! I'm determined to get back on the blogging routine. I've gotta have something to document the kids' lives! I'm too busy otherwise and it's all gonna just slip by. :)