Revision

Luke wearing Leta's shower gifts =)

Luke has revised Jesus Loves Me. He no longer wants us to sing "Jesus Loves Me", instead we have to sing, "Jesus Loves Luke".

Body & Soul baby shower for Leta!

The wonderful ladies in my Body & Soul class had a shower for Leta and I this past Monday. I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't prepared for what I got! It turned out to be a huge shower, with tons of yummy healthy snacks and way more generous hearts that I thought possible. Leta basically got all clothes (a few books and a blanket, too) and they were all SO CUTE.

Here is Luke holding Leta's mouse. It goes with the book, "If You Take a Mouse to the Movies"

Some of the gals. The girl in front is Kerri and she made the WONDERFUL diaper cake pictured below. That's her little boy, Jack, whom Luke loves. He's just a few months younger, but makes a good partner in crime back in childcare.

Sara (from Nebraska) and her three boys. Talk about determination to attend a baby shower!!!

Our wonderful childcare workers. Hope and Vicki, whom Luke calls "Bicki". Hope has her son Matthew with her much of the time and Luke loves them all. "Go Body Soul. Play Bicki. Play Hope Maf-ew".

I will say this for all of us. We just got done sweating for an hour...none of us has on make up, so trust me when I say, none of us are pictured at our best!

Ruth Ann Dreyer. My partner in crime.

AND THIS WASN'T ALL!

GORGEOUS!

Like Mommy

Luke and I at Leta's shower my Body and Soul girls threw for me.

Luke wearing Leta's tutu. Kyle was NOT impressed.

Luke was coloring this morning and dropped his colored pencil. He bent to pick it up and let out a huge grunt, "Aaaaggghhh" when he stood up, the looked at me and said, "Like Mommy."

So yeah. This is what being 31 weeks pregnant has done to my family.

Luke's 2 yr pictures

Click on the following link to see even more of the pictures Johnny took.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2041156&id=168302471&l=1baa5bdce0

Merry Christmas Luke!

Kyle and I decided to get Luke an activity table. We had thought to do it for his birthday, but decided to get him the trike instead and BOTH was too much Soper Dollars. So MERRY CHRISTMAS LUKE! This is his main Christmas gift, which he will get as soon as I go get him from his nap here in a few minutes. We decided to let him have it early since we thought the "joy" of it might be lost on him since it's not a toy. (Side note: The boxes arrived this morning and as I hauled the little one in and Kyle the big one, I asked Luke what he thought could be in the boxes...and in his cutest most hopeful voice he said, "A fire truck?!?") So, as you can see, this very nice child sized table will be a let down since it is clearly not a fire truck.

I'd been watching CraigsList since before his birthday for a child sized table and chairs and never could find anything I wanted. They were all the plastic ones, which are all well and good, but I knew this one would be in our living room until Luke is willing to play in the playroom upstairs by himself and I wanted something nicer looking. So, I finally found this one on Hayneedle.com and it had free shipping.

I put it together ALL by myself. I didn't have to redo anything nor did I put any parts together backwards, 2 huge accomplishments for me in the assembly department.

I imagine Luke will have fun coloring and playing play dough and trains on his table. At least I hope so ; )

New Meal Plan that I'm not quite to yet.

This is Amelia, my niece. Isn't she just the cutest thing you ever saw?!?

I made a meal plan and went grocery shopping last Tuesday because Kyle was going 4-wheeling with Brandon this past Wednesday and Wednesdays are the day I normally try to go grocery shopping on the weeks I need to go. I wasn't quite done with my previous meal plan, but close enough, I figured. Well I STILL have 2 meals left on it. I haven't made the Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup or the White Chicken Chili Enchiladas. They'll be the first to go this week.

I did brown up a ton of beef and venison and I did a turkey breast in the crockpot. I got 9 cups of turkey, so I put it into 4 (2 cup +) baggies for future use. I'll use one of them for the Enchiladas.

I had a friend and her three boys over for lunch one day so I made Shanna's Pumpkin Cheesecake for dessert and it turned out GREAT!.

So. This meal plan.

Chinese (using the new sauce I bought at An Affair of the Heart)

Ricotta and Ham Stuffed Chicken

Ravioli Lasagna

Chili (making it with all deer meat)

Beef and Black Been Burritos

Tac-a-roni

Easy Chicken and Pasta

Crockpot Tomato Basil Chicken

Calzones

Spaghetti

Extras: cookies to restock my freezer supply.

The baked Ziti from my last meal plan turned out really well. It was a recipe I found through a blog and will be one I'll definitely make again.

Baked Ziti

1lb ground beef

1 c chopped onion

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 (32oz) jar spaghetti sauce

1 cup chicken broth

1 tsp. oregano

1 (16oz) pkg Ziti, cooked just shy of al dente

2 c mozzarella, shredded

1 c Parmesan, shredded

Preheat oven to 350. In a large skillet brown beef, onions and garlic. Stir in sauce, broth and oregano and simmer for 10 minutes. (I used a 28oz jar of sauce and used water to make up the difference and it still turned out great). Stir 1 c of sauce into cooked ziti noodles ( I used Penne, any short cut pasta would be fine). Put 1/2 of ziti into a 9X13. Sprinkle with 1 1/2 cups mozzarella and 1/2 c Parmesan. Top with 2 cups sauce, remaining ziti and then remaining sauce. cover with foil and bake 20 minutes. Uncover and top with remaining cheese and bake until cheese is melted.

Shanna's Pumpkin Cheesecake

Vanilla wafers or graham crackers

1 c ground pecan pieces

1 stick melted butter

___________________

2lbs cream cheese, softened

1 cup brown sugar

6 eggs

1/2 c heavy cream

1/2 c flour

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups pumpkin puree

Preheat oven to 350. Combine crumbs, pecans, and butter. (I used the teddy graham crust recipe that I like instead). Press into a 12" spring form pan (this is a HUGE recipe!!) Mix cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar and blend. Add eggs one at a time until incorporated. Add heavy cream. Add flour salt, cinnamon and vanilla and blend until smooth. And puree and blend. Bake 1 hr 15 min or until set. Serve with whipped cream.

This cheesecake turned out so well. I only have a 9" spring form so I filled that and still had a ton leftover. I had a packet of oreo crumbs so I made that up into a crust in a glass pie plate and pured the rest of the cheesecake mixture into that. So I had a 9" traditional cheesecake and a 9" "pie" cheesecake. TONS of cheesecake. More than we needed. I wasn't thinking when I didn't even send Sara home with any! (BTW...I met her at Body and Soul and she's from Nebraska...so we're Husker fans together down here!) I also used the pumpkin that I had pureed myself earlier that was in the deep freeze. I still have some left so I guess I'll just have to keep baking =)

I LOVE JESUS!

Last night Luke and I were playing on the floor when he yelled, "I love Jesus!" So we take turns yelling, "I love Jesus!". Very cute. I think to myself, "I need to post this on the blog. This is too cute."

This morning at church, during the sermon--when all is quiet, Luke yells, "I LOVE JESUS!" Cute, but would've been cuter if the people surrounding us could've understood what he was saying. But, yelling out in church is not to be encouraged, so I put him in my lap and tell him we can't yell in church, and if he yells again, I will give him a thump. He yells, "I LOVE JESUS!".

So I thumped him. Yes. I thumped Luke for yelling that he loved Jesus in church. Let's just hope he got that it was for yelling.

This makes me think of Luke's 15 month well baby check up when I was concerned that he didn't have any words yet. So I voiced my concerns to Luke's pediatrician. His response? "Good. This way you don't have to teach him to shut up." Ah, those were the days.

Visit to the Fire Station

After lapsit this morning at the library, Luke and I stopped at the fire station to look at real fire trucks and real firemen. There were 3 trucks at the station and Luke had to "drive" each and every one. He was pretty timid at first, but then got more comfortable and ran all around each truck pointing at everything and saying, "What's that?" I couldn't get him to smile at the camera.

This morning on the way to the library Luke said, "I miss Solomon. I miss Grandma."

A few days ago in the car. Luke sneezes and says, "Luke sneezed. Like Daddy."

Knock Knock Night and Trick-or-Treating

This past Wednesday evening we decided to visit Quail for their Knock Knock Night. Different people/groups decorate the doorway of the classrooms and hand out candy. Luke snagged a sucker as soon as he could and he was good to go. They had a chili dinner beforehand and we ran into the Osburns. They had a baby boy, Bodie, the day before I had Luke, in the room next door at the hospital. Here's a picture of the boys now:

Luke at 2: 24lbs 32" tall. Bodie at 2: 38lbs 36" tall. REMEMBER! He's an ENTIRE day older than Luke. So he has an advantage =) The Osburns just had a baby girl a few weeks ago, so their baby, Gentry, and our Leta will be close in age, but not as close as the boys.

Halloween morning Luke helped me make him a carmel apple for his afternoon snack.

Then while I was gone for CPR training, Kyle gave it to him for his snack.


I guess he kept saying, "I like it!" But would only eat one bite.

We went trick-or-treating with Alyssa and her husband Kris and two of their kids Samuel and Camdyn. We went in their neighborhood and they had a hayride to drive the kids to the next house. It started early, at 5:30, which is when Luke normally eats supper. I figured he'd get a sucker early on and then be fine until we actually ate. Well, he did NOT get a sucker early on, and DIDN'T understand why he couldn't eat every piece of candy when it was given to him. He was the youngest trick-or-treater and couldn't keep up with all those big kids so Kyle and I ended up carrying him to most of the houses. At one point he got ahold of a Hershey's Bliss, still in the foil and bit it in half. We only had one meltdown. "Want Mommy 'ope' that one." "Want to eat it!". He was pretty starving by the time we ate supper.

We ate with Alyssa and Kris at their house and had pizza and then watched most of the OU game. Samuel has a bunch of trains WITH TRAIN TRACKS! I think Luke had just as much fun playing at their house as he did Trick-or-Treating, which he did really enjoy despite the kind of dismal event I just described it as. We let Luke stay out past 8:00 *gasp* because of the time change hoping he might sleep in this morning and get on the new time schedule. But he didn't get the memo and did NOT sleep in this morning. We'll get there eventually. Tonight might not be the most fun =) He was pretty cranky this morning. We'll see.

Things should be slowing down for us for a while now. Not so many "fun" activities coming up for us in the near future.