Ice Ice Baby.....

So, for some reason I think I need pictures to post on here....BUT, after getting a new camera for Christmas...thank you Travis...I'm a little slow at downloading, etc. I need help in the technological field.

Anyway! I have lots of pictures to post from Christmas, etc., but it won't happen tonight.

So, our little family is about to say our nightly family prayer when Sydney starts ....well...she starts rapping. I wasn't sure what she said, but Travis was like..."what are you teaching our daughters? What are you guys listening to?" (he is totally chuckling), so Sydney keeps doing it and Travis says.."She's doing Vanilla Ice". Of course, I was like "No, honey, I haven't listened to Vanilla Ice in a long time, so she can't have heard him". Then I remember......I RAP IT TO MY KIDS! I'm such a dork.

She was saying "I'm back with a brand new addition".

You're all probably thinking I'm a big dork too, but it works....you should try this when your kids won't listen....just start out with Vanilla Ice, and then make up whatever you want to say to them by rapping it....seriously, it works...here is an example of what I do....

"STOP! Collaborate and listen, Mommy's back with a brand new addition. GET in your car seat NOW, so we can go to Grandma's HOUse".

They start giggling and then get in their seats...seriously, try it.

You can thank me later.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope you all have a wonderful time and Santa treats you well. :)

Here are just a few pictures of some things we've done this month to celebrate the Christmas Season so far.

This is Sydney the night of her Christmas dance recital.

Sydney's pre-school class played the bells during a church service at the Lutheran church where the preschool is held.

Addyson wanted me to take a picture of her during the service as well. :)

Sydney and Addyson got to have breakfast with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

And they got to have their faces painted.

Addyson is devouring a candy cane.

Some friends of ours were there too, which made it even more fun!

Sydney and I were invited to a mother/daughter Nutcracker dinner/ballet party. We had dinner at around 5:00, then the girls all got their own nutcracker, had the story read to them, then changed into their pretty dresses and we went to see the ballet of the Nutcracker at the Gwinnett Event center. It was so perfect. The girls all loved it.

We didn't head home until after 10:00, so the girls zonked out in the car....which is pretty much unheard of for Sydney to sleep in the car. I had to take a picture of it for Travis to believe it. :)

FINALLY!

I've been waiting for this for almost 2 years....my girls are finally playing together NICELY!!
I've been worried about my girls getting along ever since Addyson could walk. They just didn't get along. Mostly because Addyson would always mess up Sydney's stuff. But now, that Addyson can talk and play without totally frustrating Sydney, it's GREAT!!!

Now...I just hope that I didn't just jinx myself by writing this!

So, are you noticing the music? Yes, it's probably one of the most annoying songs in the world to some of you, but to me....it's my feel good Christmas song. It makes me laugh, and I can listen to it over and over....like I am now.

Enjoy! :)

My girls latest sayings and Thanksgiving...

So, my girls say certain things all the time that I think are kind of funny. I had to write them down.

Sydney:

"That's SO SO cool".

"Um, I have a better idea."

"Can I tell you something? Let me whisper it in your ear".

"Um, yes, I think we need to do this".

"Mommy, I need some gum".

"It's game day baby!"

"Addyson, do you want to sing the Scooby Doo Christmas song? I'll teach you".

"Addyson, I need some alone time."

"Mom, you're not so smart sometimes." - okay, this one has started to make me feel bad, but I realize that I try to make her think I don't know how to do something, so she can do it and feel like she is smart...yeah, it's backfiring on me...now she' thinks I'm a dummy!

Addyson:

"No Way Ninnee!" (Ninnee means Sydney)

"MY mommy" (if someone even looks at me, she says this to them).

"It's late!" (with both her hands on her cheeks)

"bootball!" (football)

"mo lights!" (more lights....Christmas lights)

"I DID IT!"

"Cute".

"Push Play mommy".

"nigh-nigh geen light." (night night green light, to her smoke detector light)

"on noooo!"

"Annie house?" (Annie is what she calls my mom)

"Addie do it." (she calls herself Addie)

"Addie hold it."

"no mine, no mine, no mine" (really fast)

She's also learning how to negotiate...the other night I had made brownies, and she wanted one, so this is what she said....

A: "mo bownie?"

me: "no more"

A: "ONE bownie?"

me: "no"

A: "baby one?"

Travis and I just started laughing. It was so cute.

Thanksgiving

Yeah, I gots skillzzz...haha. j/k. It was fun to make this turkey cake for Sydney's pre-school "Thanksgiving Feast". The Feast consisted of turkey & cheese sandwiches, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows on top, green beans, juice boxes, chips, apple slices, cake and cookies. The kids had a blast.

The kids were the indians and the parents were the pilgrims. Sydney made this had for me and her teacher wrote my last name on it. She left out the last "r", so it's Jarrad instead of Jarrard. Why does everyone do this? Do they think there are too many "R's" in our name, so they just leave one out? If it was spelled like this, it would sound like "Jared"...which about 60% of people pronounce our last name anyway, if they are just reading it.

The little indians....my little Indian looks scared in this picture! haha. Her indian name that she named herself was "Shy Raccoon"....haha. yeah right!

We had another great Thanksgiving. It was just my parents, Travis, the girls and I, and my friend Shellie and her two kids, Kate and Dallen. Her hubby, Chad, had to work...bummer! I made the pies, Shellie made an awesome raspberry salad and my mom did the rest! Kate and Addyson are the same age and Sydney and Dallen are just a year apart, so they had so much fun together.

Honestly.....Thanksgiving always just seems like another meal to me. It's an awesome meal, and I LOVE it. It's special b/c we have things we don't normally have, like, cornbread dressing (it's a southern thing), sweet potato souffle' and turkey. The other things we have quite regularly...green beans, biscuits, mashed potatoes and gravy, etc.

So, is that bad? Should I feel like it's more special than I do?

This year, however, Sydney had a list of why she was thankful for Annie, Poppy, Daddy, Mommy and Addyson. It was cute.

I guess because I am blessed enough to see my Mom and Dad all the time and eat big dinners at their house all the time, Thanksgiving isn't much different. I get excited for it and I love it, but I love all the big dinners we have at my Mom's house. :)

Here Sydney is helping Grandma make the dressing...she's putting in the dry breadcrumbs before she does the cornbread. She was very proud of herself for helping.



After the "feast" my mom played 'go fish' with Dallen and Sydney.

So, as soon as Thanksgiving was over...the day after it was over....we got out the Christmas tree and the girls helped me decorate it. They had a blast. Sydney loved hanging the ornaments, and Addyson loved playing in the empty big tupperware bin that the ornaments were in. Sydney also helped me hang up all of our elves. But, like a loser, I didn't take any pictures. I did, however, take pictures of the girls helping my parents decorate their tree. I love tree decorating. It's so fun!! I also love that we always have eggnog when we decorate the tree. So yummy and festive. I love Christmas and am TOTALLY in the Christmas spirit. This year will be really fun now that Addyson is a little older.

Decorating Annie and Poppy's tree.
Cleaning up the MESS the styrofoam popcorn things made after getting all the ornaments out.

7 Things

I have been tagged by my friend Angie to come up with 7 random things about myself that you may not know. I feel like I'm an open book, however, so this will be hard for me to think of anything "unknown".


Here it goes....

1. I used to play the piano and guitar fairly well. It's been so long, however, that I think I've completly forgotten how to play the guitar. My girls won't let me play the piano on my own, so I never get to practice that anymore. I'm going to take lessons for guitar someday and rock the house, yo!

2. If uninterrupted I could sleep for 12 hours straight any given night, and still wake up feeling like I needed more sleep, or like I've been run over by a truck, or that I'm being unnecessarily woken up. :) I would LOVE to wake up "refreshed"...just once in my life. I hear about it (from Travis especially b/c he always wakes up refreshed), but I have never experienced it. I don't know if it's due to allergies, hypoglycemia or what, but mornings totally suck for me. They are physically painful for me.

3. It's always been a secret dream of mine to be a movie star or a rock star.

4. I grew 1/2 an inch in college.

5. I was really skinny until I was 14, and then I became a bulimic and after I tried to "quit" being bulimic, I gained a lot of weight and was heavy (for me) from about 17 until I was 23. Then my metabolism finally evened out. To give you an idea...I'm 5' 51/2 " and usually weigh between 119 - 124. During the years 17 - 23 my weight fluctuated between 128 - 148!! It was craziness. Rachel H. knows all about this, though, so it's not unknown!

6. In elementary school, I was the fastest runner in my class.

7. I'm afraid of heights in a kind of insane way. If I believed in past lives, I think I must have been a bird b/c when I'm close to the edge of something extremely high (like the edge of the Grand Canyon), I have the strongest urge to run and jump off. Not b/c I want to die, but b/c my body feels like it can fly. This makes me incredibly scared of being high up b/c I don't feel like I can trust my body. I explained this once to my grandfather and he had the same exact feelings and fear that I have.....dum dum dum....

So here are the rules:*Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog. (yeah, I don't know how to do that)

*Tell seven random facts about yourself on your blog* Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs *Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog


Ok - tag, you're it: The Rachels...Rachel D., H., J. and M., Amanda W., DeDe, Michelle W. and Sherry D.

Halloween Pictures

I'm finally getting these posted! Sydney was, of course...Scooby-Doo! And Addyson was her favorite animal....a "meow" as she calls cats. They were both so excited to dress up. They loved their makeup, but Addyson's ears kept falling off.

We started a tradition last year of going trick-or-treating with the Kudlas family. Sydney and Aidan have been friends since Sydney was just a year old.

L-R: Brenna, Sydney, Aidan, Addyson, and in front, Carsyn

My Mom wanted to make sure that Addyson knew what to do, so she practiced trick-or-treating with the kids a couple of times before we went out.

Addyson took full advantage of Daddy pushing her in the stroller. It's a good thing he brought it along, though, b/c not long after we left (2 minutes maybe) she was saying "home, night-night". She made it through the night just fine, though, and was so thrilled when people would just give her candy. She thought that was the greatest thing ever!

Here are a couple of "action" shots. :)

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween! It's just so much fun with little kids!

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