Funday Sunday

I really have no business blogging right this minute. But I find it therapeutic. Like, maybe I'll look back on these days later and go, "Aww that was a sweet time." It doesn't feel all that sweet today! Sawyer is teething ... Oh my! He is SO discontent, cries and cries and needs to be held all day.




I just gave him another round of meds and his bottle and so he's momentarily happy and it's nothing short of luxurious.



Don't let this face fool you, he's miserable.
Praying this little bit of contentment lasts for a little while ... My house is a wreck, my nerves are frazzled and my ensemble leaves much to be desired. It is so hard to watch your wee one hurting and upset and not be able to really do anything!! Sniff, sniff!

Switching gears ...The last few weeks we have started going to Saturday night service and it is wonderful. I love having all Sunday to lay low, rest, and just be with my family. Which was good because we probably wouldn't have made it this morning- We didn't even get a chance to go to the store today because of Mr. S having such a terrible day. Looks like McCallister's Bread Bowls ... It's raining now and that sounds yummy. But, this morning the weather was actually nice and the kids got to play outside, which is always great!
Here are A and D playing outside today. Counting down to Spring! :)








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Sweets

Aaron got up early, dressed Avery and Dalton to take them to their cousin Maci's basketball game this morning. I love that every time he has the kids without me he sends lots of pics and videos. For anyone reading this that is a Facebook friend of mine and thinks I put too many pics/updates on there, just be glad you aren't a blood relative. I seriously text pics several times a day ... and Aaron takes over the role when he takes them places- even Target or the grocery store. Love him. :)
Anyway, for some reason I busted out laughing when I saw this picture. Maybe it's because Avery is wearing a Christmas dress under a Birthday cupcake dress all sealed together with a velour track suit, red UGGs, and a pink patton leather headband. Punky Brewster style. Or, maybe it has something to do with Avery chowing down on nachos and Dalton sucking down a Dr.Pepper at 9am. I don't even care, because it meant I got to sleep until 9am and then leisurely drink coffee and sit outside in our 70 DEGREE weather waiting on them to come home.
I heart this weather and am SICK that it's just a teaser. SO wish it was going to warm up soon.
Happy Saturday!!

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5 Months

Sawyer is 5 months old today ... He can't believe it either.






He is eating four 5 oz bottles a day, usually sleeping from 8-8, with 2 big naps during the day. He really is the most happy and content baby ever. We love him so much and are so happy he's in our family. God is so good.


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Twinkies

Maybe they do kinda look alike when you cover up Sawyer's fro-hawk! :)
This is Dalton at around 3 months ...






And Sawyer at almost 5 months. Of course D is way bigger than S. I wish I had the other pic I had of D this day ... Rolls all down his body! Ha! I used it for his baby dedication. Love these boys!







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Location:Twinkies

Mo Schnow and Pot Roast

I've been holding off on blogging this week because Sawyer's baby dedication was Sunday and my camera was MIA. Aaron's mom took pics and I was waiting to get them so everything would be chronological ... Because I'm a little OCD about stuff like that. It's just one of my mental illnesses. I'm going to overcome it I guess ... but it's really a stronghold.
Anyway ... It's snowing again today and we're supposed to get several inches. Yay. Don't tell my kids, but I'm way over it. I'm kind of over winter all together. The hunting, the sickness,the tons of extra clothes, the inside play ... over it. Well, except for one thing: the food. I LOVE winter food. It's kinda manly, meat and potatoes stuff. I consider myself a girly girl, except when it comes to eating. I would 100x rather have ribs or a cheeseburger than a salad. No way Jose. So winter food makes me happy, it's just naturally heartier. Love.
SO, I'm making the roast out of the LRJL's cookbook, Big on Little Rock. It is beyond yummy, and your house smells divine all day. You might think, "melt in your mouth good," can't apply to meat but it can. And it's a very good thing. :)

I'm passing on the recipe in case you want to try it. Thank me later. :)

Roast Beef with Burgundy Mushroom Gravy

1 (4 lb) boneless chuck roast
salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
2 onions, sliced
16 ounces mushrooms, stems removed and mushrooms sliced
3 large garlic cloves, sliced
1 cup burgundy or other dry red wine
1/2 cup cognac or good quality bourbon
2 cups beef broth
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 sprig fresh tyme
1 sprig fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Toasted crunchy french bread

Pat the roast dry with paper towels and season with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the roast and brown on all sides. Remove the roast to a plate.
Add 2 tablespoons butter and the onions to the drippings in the Dutch oven and saute` for 5 minutes or until the onions are tender. Add the mushrooms and garlic and saute` for 2 minutes longer.
Stir in the wine and cognac and bring to a boil. Cook for 1 minute and stir in the beef broth and tomato paste. Return the roast to the Dutch oven and add the tyme and rosemary sprigs. Bring to a boil and cover.
Place in the oven and roast at 350 degrees for 3 hours or until roast is fork- tender, turning it after 1.5 hours. Remove to a cutting board. Discard the tyme and rosemary.
Place the vegetables and cooking liquid in a food processor and process until smooth. Return the mixture to the Dutch oven. Blend 1 tablespoon of butter with the flour in a cup with fork. Add to the Dutch oven and simmer until thickened, stirring contantly.
Slice the roast and serve on the bread. Spoon the gravy on top.

I sometimes toss baby carrots and cut-up new potatoes in some olive oil, toss them with Cavenders and bake for an hour on 350 with this. However, it's pretty hearty on it's own.

Hunting Widows

This weekend Aaron was off to the woods again (as well as my bros-in-law and dad), so I hauled my crew over to my mom's to spend the night with all the girlies. Mom cooked a yummy dinner and then my Aunt Tamra and her boys came over, as well as one of our Fav new friends Leah Jacobs! (I say "new" but "rekindled" is prob a better word!)
Anywho, we ate dinner, watched silly tv, and passed babies around. It was a fun Girly night. :)

Here are some random pics from Dede's.




Before Pop Pop left for the woods.




Bubby napping ... I do love a sleeping baby.




I laid Sawyer on Dash's new bed and he fell right to sleep. Then my mom almost had a heart attack seeing this so he was quickly moved to Dede's bed.




Love, love, love this girly girl.




Dede got out Emerson's old train set ... An instant hit.













Now we're home sweet home and ready for Daddy to get home!

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Blessings in the Chaos

The last 24 hours-ish have been somewhat ... Hellacious. Completely overwhelming. I imagine that when people are contemplating having kids and they go through pros and cons, days like today run rampant in their brains before they decide, "I'm not ready."
I can't even tell you what all made it overwhelming ... Maybe the looooonngg night preceding the day. Maybe the stir-craziness of cabin fever setting in from several snow days. Maybe that Sawyer seemed to cry all day today and just really was only content being held. Maybe it was that everyone napped at different times, so I never really had a down moment. Maybe it was Aaron telling me this afternoon he had a 6:30 meeting tonight and 8 o'clock b-ball practice.
I'm not sure. But it was a hard day. However, as I sat down on the bathtub for what I was sure to be an emotional breakdown I felt myself get wrapped up in a wave of thankfulness for a million different blessings. And of course very close to the top of the list were my three favorite yayhoots. Avery. Dalton. and Sawyer.
Sawyer finally did pipe down, take some Tylenol and go to sleep. I ordered pizza for A & D because I didn't even have the energy to put a frozen pizza in the oven ... Much less clean up the kitchen ... Again.

And then, With the craziest of days behind me, I lit a firelog, curled up on the floor with Avery's ladybug pillow pet while my bambinos ate their personal pan pizzas and turned on "The Princess and the Frog," and told God how thankful I was for the chaos.




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January Snow

Saturday afternoon we knew a big snow was on it's way! Aaron went out to go to the grocery store (one of my favorite things about Aaron Boone is he likes going to the grocery store ... Love my man). Anyway, he filled up the cupboards with all our "snow food," plus plenty of diapers and formula and we waited ... By Sunday night we had almost SEVEN inches of snow! It was beautiful and so fun! Maw (Lynda, Aaron's mom) stayed with us so she could get into work because she lives in Hot Springs Village where the roads get treacherous. We had the best few days and ate quite an array of comfort food- PW's roast and veggies, duck stew, big breakfasts, pork chops and beans and cornbread. Something about snow makes me LOVE to cook even more.
The kiddos LOVED the snow! It was pretty dry so we couldn't make the best snowmen or snowballs, but it sure was fun to play in! Here are some pics from our snow days!































































































































































And then all the fun was over and we went back to "school" Wednesday ... It was 19 degrees when I dropped them off. Here is our little diva all dressed up for school. M-E-S-S!!!








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Location:January Snow!!

Cereal Update

Here's my fav pic of him from a couple days ago to remind me how sweet and cute and delightfully darling he is ... Even if it is 4am. He looks like a little who from who-ville. Oh, I heart him.











And here's another one because I'm mildly obsessed with him and think he needs two ...











After feeding Sawyer his cereal at 6 and a big bottle at 8, I put him to bed at 8:30 in high hopes that this would help him sleep through the night. However, he just woke up at 3:15 and was WIDE-EYED. And since Aaron let me go to sleep at 8:30 as well, I was pretty wide-eyed myself.
I heard him start fussing around for about 10 minutes and knew it was not a "find my paci" cry ... I got him out before he woke all my other hoodlums up and walked him alllllll around the house. He looked and looked around and didn't even think about giving it up and falling back to sleep. We rocked, sang, sat and even watched the Food Saver infomercial for about 15 minutes ... They almost got me this time. I'm starting to think I might need one. To be greener ... :)
Finally, I gave up and fixed him a bottle. Usually he would fall asleep after about 4 oz. He didn't. He sat big-eyed through the whole thing. I made a few more laps through the house and then laid him back in his crib. Awake. He grunted around a few more minutes and I think after my 12 minute blog post at 4:14 am about absolutely nothing in a weak attempt to stay awake he might finally ... be ... asleeeeepp ... zzzzzzz ....


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Firsts ...

I am preparing to do a big post on our BIG snow the last few days and haven't found the time yet. BUT, in the mean time I wanted to make sure I put these up. Tonight I gave Sawyer cereal for the first time. I really was going to wait a little longer, but after Mandy telling me Sam was sleeping from 8:30-7 since she started giving him some I quickly changed my mind. He loved it!!









I also wanted to post this pic of Bubba that Aaron sent me while they went on their first "snow hunt." Aaron said Dalton sat perfectly still and quiet an was such a big boy!!!





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Bubs

I am trying out my Blogger app and wanted to test out the uploading a pic dealio ...
This is Dalton riding a cow at the Museum of Discovery today. He has deep love for any and all animals! :)

Recipe Co-Op

Genius, pure genius. I've always heard tales of these "dinner co-ops" but have never tried them out until now. Usually it's 2-3 gals who join together, each picking a night of the week to cook meals for the other 2 families. So two nights out of the week people are bringing you a meal!
Tonight I made a Mexican Lasagna, while my friend Michele made homemade salsa and guacamole. Then we swapped! I gave her half the Lasagna and she brought me big containers of the dips. Deee-wish-uss as Avery would say. Next week we're each going to take a night and make an entire dinner and bring it to the other. I think my sister is going to do it with us every other week. I am way excited about this because I think it could easily change my life-ha!

The Mexican Lasagna turned out really good! I'll post the recipe in case you want to try it. I've never made a lasagna before, but it was super easy and really yummy!

Mexican Lasagna

2.5 lbs ground beef
2 pkg taco seasoning
1 can enchilada sauce
1 can diced tomatoes (or Rotel)
1 4oz can chopped green chilis
1 jar salsa
1 can black beans
1 15oz container ricotta cheese
1 egg
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese for filling
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese for top
1 bunch of cilantro
juice of 1 lime
1 pkg no boil lasagna noodles

Beef Layer:
Brown beef and Drain. Add in taco seasoning, enchilada sauce, black beans, salsa, and diced tomatoes.
Cheesy Layer:
Combine ricotta, shredded cheddar, egg and 2/3 of the chopped cilantro.

To assemble the lasagna spread the bottom of a 9x13 pan with half of the meat sauce, cover with the lasagna noodles, then top with half of the cheesy layer. Repeat with the same layers- meat sauce/noodles/cheese mix. Then sprinkle the remaining cup of cheese and cilantro on top.
Cover with foil and bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes.
Garnish with sour cream/salsa/guac or whatever sounds tasty!

Muy Bien!

A Year in Review ...

I have so wanted to be better at blogging this year but I've just failed miserably ... I'm sure it has nothing to do with all these dang kids I've been having. HOWEVER, I'm thinking about a peace offering ... A Year in Review through pics. I'm stealing the idea from mother-of-the-year Mandy Osborne. I frequently ask myself in parenting situations (WWMD- What would Mandy do?) and it just so happens she'd scrapbook the year in photos ... Great idea Mandy, here goes:

JANUARY


We started out the year with a BANG finding out dun ta da dunnnn ... our foursome was becoming a party of five. I fell into my usual nausea-fest for the next several months and January especially wasn't very eventful. Since duck season was still underway, we spent most weekends at Mom's since we are all hunting widows, and it's always more fun to be together.

This was one of my favorite pictures that month ... I love having sisters that love to love on my babies. This was one of our girly,husband-free weekends at Dede's.



FEBRUARY

The first few months of the year are such a blur ... I stayed so nauseated with my pregnancy, but I'm SO thankful for everyone in my family and my in-laws who go above and beyond for us! We had some snow this year and this is a pic of Av and Dalton sledding with their Uncle Emerson whom they love to pieces.



MARCH

We finally started getting out of the house a little in March and the kiddos LOVED this park in Bryant. I'm so glad they have each other to play with and keep each other entertained ... they really are best friends!



APRIL

Easter fell in early April this year, and every Holiday is getting more fun and more special as Avery and Dalton get older each year!



We also found out in April that Sawyer was a B-O-Y and had so much fun picking a name and preparing for another little rough and rowdy boy in our house.

MAY
I still can't even believe it, but Avery celebrated her third birthday in May. The kiddos were having a double party in June so we did some of Avery's favorite things on her actual b-day like waking up and heading out for donuts, meeting friends at Chuck E. Cheese, and eating dinner at her fav ... IHOP ... only the best for our kids. ;)



May also kicked off the LAKE which we look forward to every year! The kids begged to go all summer- they love it as much as me! This year Mom and Dad rented a condo for June and July and it was so nice to come and go ... already counting down until Memorial Day so we can do it all again!

JUNE

In June my sweet baby boy turned 2 ... sniff, sniff! We had their birthday parties together at The Wonder Place which was really fun! This is not a great pic of any of us,but Glory Hallelujah we're all 4 in the same shot!



June was FULL of pool days! We pretty much woke up, packed lunches, threw on our swimsuits and headed to the pool every day in June ... loved it so! It was such an easy way to entertain them while getting to lounge in a chair with my feet up. Super nice.



JULY
It was a HOT July to be preggo ... even at the pool. We spent almost every weekend at the lake and even some times during the week ... one of my fav summers ever.



AUGUST
OBVIOUSLY our biggest news in August was the birth of our precious lamby on August 26. But, a BIG event was Avery and Dalton starting Mothers Day Out twice a week ... which we call "school." I cried and sobbed and blubbered in the parking lot for 30 minutes the first day I dropped them off. But it has turned out to be THE biggest blessing Aaron has ever given me.
This is a pic of their first day. I couldn't not put a pic on here ...


AND THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sawyer McKinnon Boone was born August 26, 2010! He was 7 lbs 12 oz and 20.5 inches long. He is just the happiest, sweetest, most delightfully darling blessing in the whole wide world and I have been just giddy over his sweet self since minute 1. Love.



SEPTEMBER
September was quite a low key month. My recovery was a little harder with Sawyer and with the other twodemanding so much attention, I just didn't have energy to do anything but take care of them. I was SO blessed by friends and family who delivered meals 3 times a week for all of September and most of October. I was so spoiled. This is just a shot from my phone but kinda sums up the month as a whole. :)



OCTOBER
We were just settling into a routine and enjoying home life in October. I was so blessed to have MDO twice a week, my bible study one morning a week, my mom help me one day a week and my sister help me one day a week. It's all hands on deck over here. We did a lot of fun fall things, spent lots of time outside visiting pumpkin patches, parks, and lots of playtime with their Daddy.
Halloween fell in October and Avery was Snow White, Dalton was a Knight, and Sawyer was a frog. With three kids picture-taking is quite crazy if you're trying to get all three to smile. So here are Avery and Dalton at my mother-in-law's church festival. Too cute.



NOVEMBER
November was a very fun and memorable month. We had planned a girls trip to NYC early in the year but after much deliberation I decided to not go because of baby Sawyer. HOWEVER, when my sister Rachel's boyfriend decided to fly up to NY and propose I couldn't miss out. We hurriedly made all the secret arrangements a couple weeks before they left. My Aunt Tamra was going to keep the baby, but came down with a terrible virus several days before we left so Sawyer ended up tagging along and did wonderfully! It was the most fun ever and we're already planning our trip to go back next year!


Me and Sawyer in Central Park!


Rach and Ben right after getting engaged on the Bow Bridge!



Thanksgiving was wonderful too! It was so fun to talk to the kiddos all about Thanksgiving and have little feasts for our playdates and start off the Holiday season.



DECEMBER
Christmas time is always so special but with little ones it is seriously the most. fun. ever. We had lots of parties, playdates, and plans this year and we loved every one. Some highlights were school Christmas parties, meeting Santa to give him their lists, Garvan Gardens Christmas lights and even a carriage ride around downtown Hot Springs. It was a very, Merry Christmas




2011
This next year I am praying for a lot of peace and patience with the busyness of all these little ones. I'm hoping to be much more focused on some bible studies and less time on on-line shopping. I'm beyond THRILLED to see my sister get married in March. (I'm also nudging my already married sister to make me an Aunt ... I hope she takes the bait. )
Happpppyyy New Year!!!