How we make it through our mornings...

I often find myself getting ready in the morning with small children at my feet or Tyler asking if he can join me in the shower..... (Um yeah, I know he's getting to old so this stopped about 6 mos. ago but he still alway's asks.) If the door is locked, all I hear is him pounding on it until I come to his rescue. I don't know about everyone else but I always have found this time challenging. Tyler is getting to the age that my privacy is becoming more and more important and Sydney is still so small that I have to watch her very closely...

Once out of the shower it's on to getting myself looking halfway decent.

Tyler is in and out the whole time and always comes in with a question: "Mom, can I watch a movie?"... "Mom, can I go outside?"... Mom, can you play with me?"... Mom, can I go to Derek's?"...

All the while Sydney is now on the move and climbing up my legs or getting into my cabinets, etc. I often put her on the counter with me and give her my makeup bag to go through. She loves dumping it out and putting everything back in. Then that gets old so she migrates to the floor where she now starts going through the cabinets. All my hair stuff get pulled out and strung all over the bathroom and bedroom. Then I see her sticking her fingers in her mouth trying to get the hair out of her mouth.. OH GROSS.

I am always so thankful to move on to breakfast where a whole new set of question's/challenges occur.

Sydney and her toothpick!

Sydney found a toothpick on the floor of the family room the other night and we didn't know it. Braden just happened to look down at her and she just had it in her mouth like anyone else would. It was too funny.

Also can you tell Easter is coming....

Like father like son.

Tyler absolutely loves to be outside with his Dad. With the weather getting nicer daddy is starting to work on the Cherokee more. While I ran to the store this is what Tyler was doing with Dad. Last year he had a little tiny jack and now he has graduated to the big one!

The orange bucket

Just thought these pictures were worth posting.

She is growing up so fast. Sydney is now 9 months old and she is has quite the personality. She loves watching her big brother do anything. He is just the most entertaining thing around this house!! She now has two bottom teeth coming through and the top ones are almost coming through too. She weighs in at just over 15 lbs. and is in the 5Th percentile for her weight. She's a small peanut. She is in the 20Th percentile for height. Her hair is starting to come in a bit more with every passing week and the red is still predominate. She is going to be a blue eyed, red head gal. She is rolling everywhere but not quite crawling yet and she loves to stand. I love her so much and cherish every minute with her since I know she is my last...

Tylerism's

The other day we were in the car riding to grandpa Paul Kemp's house and Tyler was kicking the back of Braden's seat (which he loves to do) and I turned around and said "You better shape up" and his reply to me was "No, I can't turn into a different shape".. LOL
Braden and I had to turn the other way to let our laughs out. It was so funny.
Just had to share.

My sleepy boy

Tyler is getting to the age of not taking naps. Some days he does and some he doesn't. Today was one of the days he didn't take one. He played most of the day with the neighbor boy. They played pretty hard. They were in and out of the house all day long. At dinner he started getting naughty and we could tell that this is all because of no nap. You know how it is.. the whining, crying, nothing you do is right. Well he hauled up and hit me in the side and he was taken to time out right away. Our time out is the bottom step. I set the timer for 3 min. and walked away. He cried for a moment and then there was silence. Silence in this house is never good. Either he is doing something he shouldn't or .... oh my gosh... he fell asleep on the step. It was the cutest thing ever. He was just exhausted. It was only 6:45 but we knew he was super tired so we carried him up to bed and got him dressed in his jammies. Hopefully this doesn't make for to early of a morning.

Cafe' Rio sweet pork salad

This salad is one of my all time favorites when I visit Cafe' Rio. I got a whim and decided for Super Bowl Sunday I would attempt to make these oh so yummy salads for Braden, myself, Chris and Megan (Braden's brother and sister-in-law). I researched online and found many different websites that all had there own take on it. I landed on a blog that grabbed my attention. Her recipes sounded the best to me so I went for it. I was so amazed. It tasted just like Cafe' Rio. I followed the website pretty close and only made a few changes. I will be adding this one to the recipe box. I highly recommend this one!!

The changes that I made were: not marinating the pork for a few hours and I did a mix of pinto beans and black beans other than that I followed the recipe.

Here is a link if anyone else is a big fan like us.

http://favfamilyrecipes.blogspot.com/search?q=cafe+rio