Counting my blessings.

Yesterday...

I spent the morning creating "dinner" with play dough while having my morning coffee.

I shared a late morning snack of blueberries, and strawberries.

I made sand animals.

I played in the water at the splash pad.

I made a pink and purple tinker bell bubble bath.

I had a tea party.

I did a puzzle.

I read winnie the pooh 3 times before prayers.

I ate an imaginary dinner.
I loved every second of it!

I realized yesterday while enjoying every single second of my day with my daughter how blessed I truly am! Not only am I able to spend 4 days off with my sweet girl, but I enjoy and look forward to those days. Thinking of fun ways to spend the day with a very brilliant, imaginative 2 year old!

While running around the splash pad yesterday, I quickly realized I was the only adult playing with my child.. I also realized that so many parents use events or places (or movies etc...) as a babysitter. How sad? Our kids are kids for such a short amount of time. Why waste that time? There was one mom sitting on her rump eating Mc Donald's and smoking her cigarette, while occasionally yelling demeaning commands to her children. Another set of women sat in the shade 30 feet away from the splash pad gossiping. 2 other parents read their books in the comfort of their air conditioned car.  REALLY???  And we wonder why our kids crave that connection and attention.

I was so saddened by this, that I haven't stopped thinking about it all day today. I truly just love playing and being with my daughter. I love to watch her learn, and grow. I've been able to spend the extra time in the floor with her doing a puzzle. Or getting messy with a ton of paint. I'm so thankful for that!

I love planning things to do on our days off  and vacations packed with fun filled activities that she will be thrilled with. Instead of shipping her off for a week, so that I can enjoy doing nothing. (Which can be nice in very very small doses,and very far in between!)

By all means, I don't spend every waking moment with my child. I have 4 hours of un-working/un-Anisten time each week. I can get in my shopping, appointments, cleaning, and workouts, all in this planned scheduled time off. Every Friday night she goes to "Me Maw"'s house to spend the night. So my husband and I have a night off once a week. I usually work or run Saturday mornings, and pick her up after.\Things like clean the house, and bills, and blog I still do,while she's home. She knows how to play independently very well. So please don't think I'm a full time entertainer. Lordy knows, no one has the energy for that!  --Nevermind the fact it's not healthy! Nor does it mean that every day is a perfect day. We have days with melt downs, and lots of tears. These are "grow" days. We're learning new boundaries, and acceptable behaviors on these days.



After seeing this, and hearing from other parents who always seem to be "getting rid of the kids" all the time, I just realize how blessed I am to enjoy my child so much! She's a ball of sweet energy. Perfect for our little family. =)

I just can't help but feel heart broken, knowing that this time will never come back and that I need to savor ever second of it.

love.my.girl.

When life gives you snow...Make ice cream!

We had record breaking snow fall here in Oklahoma yesterday!

We found lots of things to do!

Got caught up on laundry and house work ... And started working on cleaning out and organizing our guest room.

While in the process of organizing, we decided to go ahead and convert Anisten's crib to a toddler bed. We decided to take most of the things out of her room, to discourage her from getting up to play with them, and for safety. She is still under 2, so it seems kind of young -- But she has climbed out a few times, and I didn't want to risk her getting hurt!  So we did it! And she acutally stays in bed-- we are 3 for 3 now!

She loves her "Binkerbell" bed!

Of course, we got out in the snow for a few minutes. Hubby had to take out the trash, and decided while he was out he would "attempt" to shovel the driveway. I think he had fun jumping in the 5 foot snow drifts at our front porch too!

We also wanted to make some snow ice cream. SO yummy!!!! 

Scooping 4 cups of snow

Now we are stirring in a half can of condensed milk and some vanilla. Of course tasting it here and there.

Voila!

 We all LOVED it! We just made half the recipe since there is only 3 of us. Served immediately. It's a different texture and super sweet! YUMMMMMMMMMMY!

Makes a perfect side to some warm chicken nuggets for post nap lunch!

Our meals were certainly winter snow blizzard comfort food! Including cinnamon banana pecan pancakes for breakfast, some slow cooked pot roast for dinner, of course the snow ice cream -- Hot Cocoa from scratch. MmMmM.

Not to mention the naps, re-runs of House. Reading, Yoga, bubble baths... Over all a relaxing day! 

Hope you are all staying safe and warm! Enjoying the family time so much! Sometimes it takes a mean winter storm to make us STOP and enjoy life.

Christmas 2010

Just a quick run down.. The pics pretty much speak for themselves.. We had a week of Christmas!  We had Christmas with Scott's Dad, and Teri. And shorty headed over to Scott's mother's house after. So we spent all of Christmas eve opening presents! It was a late night getting to bed. Oh, but when Christmas morning came!!!!!! Anisten was in TOY heaven!!! My mom and dad made it down this year. They missed Christmas last year due to the weather. =( So we made sure to make up for that this time! We then spent the whole day at my Grandma's house with the extended family. Feasting and opening gifts! Anisten got SO much this year, and was so tired from opening presents- But she loves everything she got! It was perfect! Thank you all for everything. We love you and hope that you all had wonderful times as well.

There sure are a lot of presents buiding up here...

Merry Christmas to you and yours!!!!