Audra's Wonderland

Today Audra and I went outside to water our garden. I was greeted by one of my broccoli plants pretty much demolished. I had just checked on it yesterday evening and had not seen anything unusual but a few holes. That is pretty common because I don't like to use pesticides. I looked at one of the last decent looking leaf and found this little guy.

MY POOR POOR PLANT! 

How could something so small destroy a big plant. I wanted to smash him, but Audra was already excited. So instead we put it in her bug holder and she is thrilled. She says it is adorable and so tiny and cute.

The caterpillar had to set by us at lunch so she could keep and eye on it. As she was looking in she looks up and said...

"Mom, I am going to say it is a girl."

"Ok, What are you going to name her."

"Humm.... What about Leila? If it was a boy I would name him John Xavier."

"Oh like Ms. Caitlin and Aunt Kim's babies?" (Leila and John Xavier are the names of their babies they are pregnant with)

"Yeah, but it is a girl. I will name it Leila, but I will call it something different when it turns into a butterfly though."

"Why is that?"

"Because when something changes it gets a different name. God changed people's names all the time in the Bible when they had changed. I think the caterpillar will need a different name then."


Say what? Is she really FOUR? Sometimes it is so hard for my to remember how young she is with the way she reasons and thinks. I have never gone into much detail about name changes in the Bible. We read stories about and from the Bible, but I do not have theological discussion's with her in great depths yet. She just took stories and processed it and came up with the correct reason someone got a different name in the Bible.

Of course I am brought back to reality that she is four when about five minutes later she is trying to be superman and jump from couch to couch and I have to remind her to stop so she doesn't get hurt OR she decides taking out every book from her book shelf to read is a lot more fun than one at a time. But I just know that God has gifted our child with something special. She is just insightful beyond her years and I know it is going to be used mightily if she lets God direct her. She is going to do great things. I feel hugely blessed that Ryan and I have the privilege to raise her and see her grow each day into a young lady. My mini Theologian.

Maternity Pictures I Will always be Thankful to Have!

When I was pregnant with Audra I never got Maternity Pictures done. Something I regret, but obviously can not go back and recreate. Since Adiah is our last baby, it was really important to me that I get a few. While I was in San Antonio for my sisters wedding one of my dearest friends took pictures for me. I can not express how much they mean to me and how gorgeous they turned out. Especially since the day we took these I was running about two hours of sleep and cried all morning because I had been looking at different maternity pictures and just knew I was to fat to look good. I did feel better by the time Kim had done my make up and my sister had done my hair. Pregnancy hormones can be brutal sometimes. 

THANK YOU KIM KIM!!!

 Ready to Jump! 

Hooray! 

Only thing sad is I didn't get any pictures with Ryan \since he was still at home finishing his med school semester. Bummer! 

Adiah's Four Monthday!!! (Saturday)

Little Adiah is Four Months old as of Saturday!

He is the most precious little boy! All I can say over and over again is how sweet and happy He really is. 

He just smiles and coos. I can't get enough of his precious gummy smiles. 

My favorite is when he notices I am looking at him and he does what I like to call the "whole body smile". He literally beams. Ryan says he has me wrapped around his little chunky finger.... maybe he does a little. :)

Audra and Adiah have the best relationship. Adiah loves his sister. He is always watching her. I can tell he wants to play so bad. He is very protective of Audra. One day We were all in his room playing. Ryan and Audra were "wrestling" (read as Ryan pinned Audra down and tickled her). Adiah went from laughing to pure and sudden sadness. He started crying. Ryan immediately let go of Audra and she ran over and said, "Don't worry bubbie, I am fine. We are playing." He began to smile again. So Audra went to tackle Ryan again and he started tickling her. Adiah went full on ballistic. We decided that wrestling would have to be done away from him for a bit. 

 Audra sings Father Abraham and He laughs and giggles the whole time. That is his favorite song. 

Adiah really completes our family.  

First's for this month:

rolling over since he became chunky

found his precious little feet. When he grabs them it melts my heart

took his first road trip down, we went to San Antonio for two days

Got to see his Great Papa and G.G.

We celebrated his fourth month with family and friends. We love you Adiah and are so thankful for you! 

Master of Disguise

This months Book Club meeting= AWESOME!

This month we read The beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King. A Mystery novel with a retired Sherlock Holmes... or is he. You should read and find out. It brought me back to my Nancy Drew and Boxcar Children Mystery reading days.  This post really isn't about the book though. 

It is about the meeting. 

My friend Cherine hosted it this month, and to go along with the book she set up a game. Anyone who knows anything about good old Holmes, KNOWS he disguises himself. Well we each had to come up with a disguise and get this... Show up at Wal-Mart searching for everyone else. 

Rules were:

We had to text everyone when we got in

The game started at 8 PM sharp

We had to take a picture if you spotted someone and then text them they were found

If you were caught, you had to text everyone and let them know and head directly to the make up area

The one last one standing won

It truly was SO fun. We all got funny stares, but who cares. We had a lot of laughs as well. I had a zone area I stuck to and am pretty sure I was being watched for suspicious behavior. I mean first off I looked ridiculous and second I was looking over my shoulder every few seconds to look if someone was watching me. I had two Wal-Mart employees who were walking past me quite frequently. I wanted to say out loud "I promise I am not stealing anything. Search ME!" 

Afterwards we went for ice cream and talked about the book. I feel like I have the best book club! 

Granny is watching you! 

All of us! Didn't we all look great! 

If you love books, I would highly recommend you join a book club or start one. It is one of the most anticipated activities I look forward to monthly. What's not to love? 

Books + friends + discussions = My kind of party

Do NOT Read If You Are On A Health Kick!!!

First off, I am just warning you now that if you are a health nut and do not want to be tempted from your healthy ways. STOP NOW! Ok so you have been warned.

Ryan was talking to me the other day about how he had this craving of what I like to call a little piece of heaven on earth! What is this, you may ask? Well an egg, cheese, and sausage slapped between two yummy pieces of pancake... You may have guessed by now that I am talking about the McGriddles at *smackdonalds* (my granddaddy used to call it that).

Normal people would just go get one, but for reasons personally in our family we do not eat at McDonald's anymore. So we decided to make one ourselves. I am just going to say that this was WAY better and so easy to make. We will be making them... sometimes. They are not the healthiest meal, but its healthier homemade without all the preservatives and cheaper. WIN WIN!!!!

I thought I would share with you how we made ours. I am sure other people may have their own ways of making it, but if you would like to try it, Please do and don't blame me if you fall in love with it too. :)

Each sandwich will need:
a sausage patty (we used maple)
egg
cheese
two pancakes
and REAL maple syrup

I made my pancake batter up first. I make it from scratch using this recipe. It makes some GREAT pancakes, but if you have your own recipe or want to use the mix, I am sure it will be close to as good.

Preheat your griddle to 350 degrees. Then you make your sausage patties. They take the longest to cook. The key is to try to have every part done at the same time and hot. Once the sausage patties were done. We pushed them to the side of griddle to keep them warm.

I then poured two pancakes using a 1/4 cup to measure. They turned out to be the perfect size. Also, started the egg... in the sausage grease. Salt and pepper the egg to your liking. Before you flip your pancake to cook on the other side drizzle maple syrup on top of the batter so that when you flip the pancake it cooks into it. Flip the egg and pancakes. Cook thoroughly.

Next assemble your awesomeness!
Pancake
egg
cheese
sausage
pancake
YUM!

Grab a cup of milk or coffee and enjoy! We did!