Reminder to Myself

Reminder to myself:  blog about Gisèle's prayer once this headache goes away,  Going to lay down now.

Gisèle-isms, again, again

 "In a Jessie's day old."  (In excelsis deo - from Angels We Have Heard On High)

"Tweak, tweak" (to the birds)

"Rip creen" (whipped cream - "It's a kind of cheese!")

"No matter how your heart is gweepy!"  (No matter how your is 'grieving', from some Cinderella song lyrics)

Cheese

Gisèle:  "My feet are cheesy!  Do you want to smell my cheesy feet?  They're stinky like cheese!  Do you want to smell my stinky cheesy feet??"

Dewberry Farm

Back in November, we made the trip out to Dewberry Farm and spent a day enjoying the beautiful Texas winter weather.  Gisèle, especially, had a wonderful time!  Warning - this is a picture-heavy post!

Gisèle soon got the hang of the rope bridge... and Miles cheered her on!

Jamie's expression here is 20% fun, and 80% pain - those slides are rough on your butt bones!

Gisèle had a great time watching the singing chickens show while she ate her goldfish.  She sang along on some songs, and was content to sit through the entire show.

The corn maze was all dried up, but we still went in.  

It was nice to wander around for a little while in the quiet!

Miles enjoyed getting out of his stroller to walk around the toddler play area.  This was before he was doing much walking on his own!

 

Gisèle made some instant friends in a couple other little girls.  They helped each other roll the tube up the hill, climb in, and roll down.  Over and over and over again!

 Her last act of the day was digging in the sandbox.  

She was worn out, and didn't move from that spot for a little while!

They both fell asleep on the ride home.  We'll do it all again next year!

Scarlet Fever

Gisèle is back at school today after getting over a case of scarlet fever.  You'd think I could have spent part of the last two days at home with her uploading pictures and getting a new blog post ready, huh?  whoops.  Guess we were just too busy playing princess!

Marshmallow Brownies

Technically, I guess these are blondies, not brownies.  This is a recipe I picked up from Baked Perfection, and they're oh-so-yummy!

Marshmallow Brownies

1 cup butterscotch chips
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
2 cups mini marshmallows
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

-Heat the oven to 350, and grease/spray a 9x13 baking dish.
-In a sauce pan over medium heat, melt the butterscotch chips and butter, stirring constantly until smooth.  As soon as the butter and chips are melted, remove from heat and transfer to a mixing bowl.  (Do not over heat.)  Cool to room temp.
-Using an electric mixer, beat the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, vanilla, and eggs into the butter/butterscotch mixture.  When blended (will be pretty thick), mix in the chocolate chips and marshmallows.
-Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan.  Bake 25 minutes.  Let cool 2-3 hours before cutting, or they'll be very sticky.

Gisèle Waking Up From a Good Nap

Update

*The pajama pants have been found!  I repeat: The pajama pants have been found!  They were in her laundry basket all along.  They had been turned inside out, and somehow we all just missed them.  I'm happy to have them back, but I was kind of enjoying the mystery!

We had a busy weekend, capped off with a friend's princess-themed 4th birthday party.  Gisèle was in heaven.  She wore her Cinderella costume, tiara included, and I put her hair up in a bun.  She decorated a pink tiara with lots of sparkly jewels, colored a picture of princess Aurora, ate chocolate cake with pink icing, and chocolate ice cream with sprinkles and pink marshmallows, and played lots of games with her friends.  She won the "Kiss the Frog" game - she was blindfolded and spun around, but she managed to plant her paper lips directly in the center of the frog's mouth. 

Miles is turning into quite the little chatterbox.  He loves to make animal noises, and has started saying "please" and "thank you" in sign language unprompted, and at the appropriate times.  He eats non-stop, and his favorite toy in the world is still Gisèle.  They have a blast playing together!

I have pictures uploaded to the computer (though none of the party!), but haven't found the time to put them on the blog yet.  Soon, I promise!

Missing Pants

Gisèle's pajama pants have gone missing. 

The other morning, I left the room while she was still in pajamas.  She was told to take off her pajamas, put on her outfit (which she had already meticulously laid out on the floor) and then come out to the kitchen. This is our normal morning routine, and it's always gone off without a hitch.  She got dressed and came out to the kitchen ready to go to school, and everything went along swimmingly.

When it was time to get ready for bed that night, none of us - Gisèle included - could find her pajama pants.  Her pj shirt was on top of her dresser, like usual, but the pants were MIA.  We searched everywhere - her closet, every dresser drawer, her baby bed, between every cover, the laundry basket, Miles's room, our room, everywhere.  EVERYWHERE.

At one point, I sneakily checked inside the waistband of the pink pants she was still wearing from that day, in case she had accidentally put them on over her pajama pants (it's happened before with underwear!), and she turned around, laughing - "Mama, the pants aren't in my bottom!!"

So if you find a cute pair of brown and pink-striped pajama pants, size 3T, laying around your house, let us know.

Tortillas

They may not look like much, 

but for a first attempt at flour tortillas, 

thrown together quickly on a whim after work, 

I'm proud!

Stay-at-Home Fantasy

This makes me feel like a bad mother, but my current fantasy is to be a stay-at-home mom that still sends my kids to daycare part-time.  Or three-quarters-time.

I find myself thinking about everything I could get done - cooking, baking, cleaning, organizing, decorating, stitching, working out, crafting, learning to sew/paint/draw, taking and editing photos...

I wouldn't be able to do all of that with the kids at home (though I'm sure I could do some), and I would also go crazy having them at home with me full-time.  But I would LOVE to have some extra time (HA!  What an imagination I have!) to try to do some of that.  sigh.  Here's to dreaming.


Well, I'll have plenty of time to devote to that in 18 years or so.  Until then, I'm going to soak up every moment I have with my two adorable, loud, sweet, hilarious, loving balls of energy!

Radiating Happiness