One Year

I wrote this 2 weeks ago and forgot to post it... oops!

You know you are neglecting your blog when even your dad tells you it needs to be updated :o) I love that my daddy reads my blog, I love that my daddy says things like "Oh I saw that on her facebook status" not that he has a fb account but he is a super duper closet fb stalker and he reads moms :o)
So here you go daddy and the rest of my adoring fans, a fresh new outlook on what has been going on in the Z world.

Amelia Renae, "Mia Nay" (Annie), squish, squisha, squishy, squish face, baby chakes, chakes, chake, chakea chake, mia, mia mia, sis, bb, namesake (Kara) and finally "Little Kate" (grandpa neal) :o)
At one year old the child has no shortage of nicknames. She is my tiny little brown beauty. At one year old she has decided to take some steps although she is not serious about it and doesn't choose to very often. She claps for herself and tries pat-a-cake, so big and pointing one finger when you ask her how old she is. She is always, always smiling and wrinkles her nose when she does. She charms everyone even though she is not usually putting on a show. She is finally sleeping through the night after about 10+ months of not and she still takes 2 naps a day most days. She is a happy baby, easy going and along for the ride. She is still a cuddler and I LOVE it! She has 4 teeth and not much hair although its getting longer in the back and when its humid it curls around her neck. Wouldn't it be nice if she had nice, dark, wavy hair like Nels and Beth? Too bad they were both born with more hair that she has at one year old! She says DaDa, and occasionally Mama, dydy and waves for byebye. She will sing along with her sister in the car sometimes and it is absolutely adorable! She gives big open mouthed kisses and I love it!
She weighed in yesterday at 17.3lb and 28.5in. just 5 oz smaller than her sister was at a year! I can't believe I have two tiny babies. The pedi yesterday said less than the 5% was fine she is just petite like I was!! Hahaha! I was a HUGE child! 10lb at birth and 21 at 1 year! These children do not take after me... ok maybe her looks to because I was watching a baby video of me yesterday and she really does look a lot like me only my hair got lighter as I got older and hers is staying dark.
I threw her a little family 1st birthday party and I was really excited to make this cake I saw online.

It was surprisingly easy to make, took waaayyyy too much icing (5 cans of store bought icing to be exact!) But it inspired me to go a little further with the rainbow theme. I hung rainbow balloons although some of them popped and I had to replace them with colors out of the traditional rainbow order which really bothered my OCD self. I told myself to calm down and just enjoy the day inspite of the off colored balloons and then my stinkin big sis had to walk in the door and point out my improper color spectrum. I punched her for noticing and then punched her again for bringing it up :o) Don't worry punching is good for someone with chronic illness it takes the focus away from the kidneys :O)I bought m&m's (yes skittles would have made more sense but m&m's were on sale) made a salad with red tomatoes, orange carrotts, yellow cauliflower, green lettuce, & purple cauliflower. I thought about throwing some blueberries in but yuck! I even co-own a Longaberger basket that is rainbow colored that I used for napkins and utensils (kris is it your year to have it?) I dressed the birthday girl in her rainbow dress and honestly I was pretty proud of myself :o)

They wanted to swim even though the weather was perfect but too cold for swimming so they sat and shivered for a while.

Stream of Consciousness

I shouldn't be blogging right now. I should be getting ready for work. Here are my thoughts jumbling up my brain.

Mia is almost a year old! I love it!

She took 2 steps for her Daddy yesterday (or so he claims, I didn't witness it)

She (FINALLY) has a second tooth on the bottom and has her two top ones driving her CRAZY trying to poke through.

Have I told you all that Annie says "Moo" instead of "New" and she says it 100 times a day! I love it. Currently my favorite is "Mama wanna sing moo happy day?" and then she sings "OH, moo happy day, moo happy day, I never wanna chaaaaange" I think it should be her theme song :o)

I was looking at this adorable tutorial on how to make a clutch this morning. Not that I would make my own clutch because I don't have a sewing machine but I LOVED the clutch. Before I had kids I only carried a purse because I had to. I never got into what they looked like and I kept the same one for years. I was excited to carry a diaper bag because it was large enough to carry everything I needed and then some and I didn't have to worry about a purse.
Now I believe I have grown up a little in the past 2 1/2 years and I love cute clutches but I lack a free hand to clutch anything other than a pumpkin seat and a sticky little hand!

Day In The Life Of Us Part II

I swear Annie knows when her father is in the house and doesn't take as good of a nap. So after a very short 1 hour nap she was up (and whining that she was houuuungry). However cousin Carter was coming over to play (save the day!) Our afternoons are so much different than our mornings. Afternoons are survival mode, make it to bed time, kill or be killed if you know what I mean. :o)
While Joe worked on homework and Mia slept like a good little girl, Annie, Carter and I went to "Mr Burry's Park" which would actually be our wonderful neighbors Beth & Barry's swing set. They have a wonderful piece of property in a flag lot behind our house and let us use their play yard whenever we want! The best part is that it is completely shaded, I foresee many hours spent here in the summer when it is ridiculously hot to go to the park up the road.

Blowing bubbles on Grams Deck after dinner

While Daddy & Uncle Noon build a new pool deck. We are SO excited for summer. Gram got 2 new big umbrellas for Mothers Day. Bring on the hot sun & new pool!

I had intended to take pictures of the dinner making process as well, however I forgot and after the process began it was every man for himself, there were tears & spankings & bribes and sadly it is one of the easiest dinners in the world to make! Ill leave you with my "recipe".

Calzone's (or Stromboli depending on how you roll it out)

1 Frozen bread dough (purchased at Kroger)

Favorite Pizza toppings

Favorite Marinara Sauce
Olive Oil
Minced Garlic, Parmesan, Sea Salt, Favorite Italian Spices, for topping

Let dough rise in a warm place according to pkg directions (I left mine outside on the deck all day and it overflowed & fell, don't worry it still works!) Preheat oven to 400, roll dough out into either one large rectangle for stromboli or several smaller circles for calzones. fill half of dough with cheese and favorite toppings (I just do cheese, pepperoni & leaf spinach). Roll along the longest side for Stromboli and place seam side down, for calzones simply fold over and press dough onto itself along the sides. Brush with Olive Oil and sprinkle with minced garlic and sea salt & Parmesan if desired. Place on preheated baking stone or cookie sheet until top is browned about 10 min. Heat Marinara and serve alongside as dipping sauce. YUMMY!!

I prefer Calzone's because the dough is easier to roll out in small pieces and each of us can have the fillings we prefer.

Day In The Life Of Us Part I

Its a

Jump on Moms Bed in your Woody Jamies

Drink your milk on Mamas bedroom floor

While Mama packs away 3-6 mo clothes

Play with one hand, chew with the other

While your sister reads a circa 1950's book by the window

Laundry to go down

Laundry to go up

Squirt your sister through the screen door

Play with a "squeezy squeezy" bottle

While Mama makes baby food

Sweet Peach Tea

Crawl in the grass

Pose for a picture

Swing on the tire swing for the first time

Teach the baby sister how to blow a dandelion
kind of morning around here
we will catch up with you after our nap!

Wits End

I am at it! Please, ANY advice is welcome here because I am not sure what to do.
Every morning Annie wakes up and says "I'm Houuuungry" "Mama I'm Houuuungry!". She used to eat breakfast very well. I always let her decide what to have for breakfast (as long as it is a breakfast food) because I only keep things in the house that she is allowed to eat and then I just have what she is having. We have done smoothies, yogurt parfait, oatmeal, pancakes, waffles, cereal, eggs, toast, all of that is served with her choice of fruit as I at least always have frozen berries or bananas.
Lately she has been choosing what she wants, always excited about helping me make it even if it just means pouring the cereal into her chosen bowl. However she has stopped eating it. She takes maybe one or two bites and says "I want dipent somsing" (which, by the way, I love that she asks for something different like that).
I understand that 2 year olds can go through times of eating only one thing, I also understand that they will eat 2 bites and be more interested in playing than eating, or eat 2 bites and be full. I don't have a problem with that. Its that she is still starving and simply wants something else to eat! I don't let her, I tell her that if she is hungry she has her food waiting for her at the table. I have been listening to her whine about wanting something else until lunch time! I have been sending her to her room unless she stops complaining. I have also been making her wait until Mia is done with her bottle to fix her breakfast so that she is more hungry (there I go starving my children again :o)
I am wondering if there is a simple breakfast that I haven't already thought of that you make for your children. maybe she is just bored with the same stuff. I know I get that way.
Now of course as I type this, a pancake has been sitting on the table for 2 hours while she tells me "I can't wike it!" however she just climbed up onto her chair and ate a few bites saying "mmm Mama dis good" AAARRRGGGHHH
Oh well, thanks for your sympathetic ear. Breakfast Ideas are still welcome ;o)

Announcement!!!

That got your attention didn't it?!? Now that I have I would like to take this opportunity to say that I have fed my baby a BOTTLE every 3-4 hours (aside from night time hours) since she was born to this very day. What I meant in my last post is that I fed her nothing in addition to the bottle. You know that transition period when you are introducing solids, and there is no real rhyme or reason to when you give them said food for a little while until you eventually start giving it at a set time and they begin to rely on it. Maybe I am the only one who does it like that, so feel free to pick on me for my method but please don't be alarmed, I feed my children.

I guess I will forgo my post on the fact that all my 2 year old cares to eat is fruit snacks and salad and some days I wonder if she has eaten anything other than the M&M she gets when she poops on the potty!!!

For Aunt GG: The tiny hiny in the skinny jeans bowling with her dada.

Love you all.

Stream of Consciousness

• I took the duvet cover off of my comforter to wash it and pack it away in order to get the lighter weight quilt out for the season... then it was 40 degrees last night so I left the down comforter on in its stark white nakedness. I love stark white, my whole bedroom could all be stark white with bright accent colors and as long as the sun was shining in I would be a happy kid.
• Speaking of happy kid, that is how I woke up because the aforementioned sun was shining in the bedroom windows and my comforter was stark white! (I have lost my mind, I know)
• Speaking of loosing it, I tried multiple times to log in to blogger and it wouldn't work because I couldn't get my shift button to work. It just wouldn't capitalize! Oh NO! What am I going to do with a broken shift bar??? Oh wait, maybe the caps lock is on and the shift bar is functioning at full capacity... oops.
• Annie calls Pee "wet" I think its funny and I thought you would too.
• Mia says "aaahhhh" now when she lays her head down for a hug sometimes and I love it, you would too.
• Mia ran a fever sunday afternoon into monday morning and I have no idea why. She was pretty stinkin fussy (for her anything fussy is out of the norm) Monday she tortured my poor mother-in-law with her fussiness and tuesday morning it occurred to me that I hadn't fed her anything but bottles since Sunday afternoon, no baby food... hmm do you think its sufficient to say that she was just hungry? Oops, please dont tell her when she gets older that I tried to starve her to death as a baby!
  
• Speaking of my baby she will be one year old in just a little more than a month!!! I can't handle it (except that I enjoy older babies vs infants). I am trying to decide how to celebrate. The only thing I know is that I want to make cute cupcakes and do separate parties for each family since both our families are so huge I DO NOT feel like combining them... however it will be June so we could be outside.... oh man back to the drawing board!