High Rise

While visiting my sister, I discovered that Rhodes, who makes the YUMMIEST rolls, also makes frozen loaves of bread. I decided to give it a try. It's so easy...set it out and as it thaws it does it's rising thing. Well, I let mine rise a bit too much. I almost had to take out the top rack in the oven. :)

It was so good...a bit huge, but still very good.

Our Christmas

Brian, Ben, and I had an absolute blast being at my parents for Christmas. I was able to spend some time with friends, which was so nice. It's crazy how we're all married with kids or prego. Ben was so cute Christmas morning! Do you see how excited he got just opening his stocking? He's holding a tube of tooth paste...yeah, he was pretty excited.

Ben loved his new trike...
(I couldn't crop it down, sorry for the pic quality.)


And his new basketball goal...


Every toy he opened he wanted to play with it before opening another present. He was so excited over everything. Our families were so generous and really enjoyed spoiling him...and Brian and I. :)

Computer Problems

Our computer is on it's last leg. It has a virus...it's five years old so I don't mind getting a new one, I just don't want to lose all our pictures. Hopefully Brian can get an external hard drive tomorrow. I'll post pictures as soon as we figure all of this out! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Little Update

Ben had started waking up in the middle of the night and coming to our room crying. While we were out of town, our friends told us that getting their daughter in a bigger bed (not a toddler bed) really helped out with her sleep. We tried it and I think it's working. The kid goes horizontal on the queen sized bed. I think we're going to try to find a full for his room. Speaking of his room, Brian calls it the room we never use b/c Ben doesn't sleep in there anymore. At least it stays semi-clean, right?

Only a week until Christmas!! I'm so excited!

Santa the Social Worker

December is one of the busiest times for case workers at CPS. We send out our kids' wish lists in November and around the middle of December, the gifts start rolling in. Delivering these gifts takes a small army. Our tiny 10x10 offices are PACKED. I will admit...I want to open them all just to see what my kids received, but so far I've been able to restrain myself. :) People's generosity truly stuns me. These are kids that aren't used to extravagant gifts. Their histories cause them not to have very high expectations. Offices, churches, and individuals "adopt" our kiddos and purchase the gifts on the wish lists. I've had sponsors call me so excited to be "Santa." I really encourage you guys to do the same for a child this year and every year. I have seen the difference it can make in a child's Christmas.

Frozen Veggies

I've already mentioned that it snowed the last two days. Of course, it was back up in the 60s today and the snow is gone. I went out to get dinner last night and came back to find Brian in the backyard building a snowman like a crazy man. The finished product was a four-foot high snowman with bar-b-cue tools for arms. Of course I didn't have any coal or carrots on hand (Brian actually asked if I had them) but I did have a bag of frozen veggies. Our frosty had a broccoli nose and two eyes made out of...cauliflower. :) It really was a good looking snowman.



Ben wasn't too sure about the snow. I think it was too cold for him.



After warming up, Ben entertained us with some DANCING! He's got some moves, although he mainly just jerks and jumps a lot. :)

Bubbles and Snow

Ben was home sick yesterday and we decided to keep him home one more day b/c he ran a fever again last night. I always feel a little guilty when I have to stay home from work for two consecutive days. Silly, right?

Over the weekend, Ben had his first bubble bath that he wasn't afraid of the bubbles. My mother surprised him with bubble bath once at her house and he FREAKED! Anywho...he loves it now.


When we woke up this morning, we realized it had snowed. We live about an hour and a half from the Gulf, so snow isn't that common. Of course it was rapidly melting snow, but still snow, right? Kind of random I thought. (It was also very very windy.)

Happy Wednesday!!

Ay-Chihuahua!

I have always heard that chihuahuas are horrible with kids. Even in the books we got after we got our two chihuahua's there was a child figure with an X over it. :) I'll admit that Ben and Maggie do not always get along. But our little Annie is addicted to love. She just wants to be petted, rubbed, held all the time. Annie is starting to understand that little Ben is a source of attention, not just ear/tail pulling. I walked into the living room and found this:

Ben told me he was petting her. When he would stop, she'd paw at him until he started again. He was so excited. I don't know if I've introduced our puppies yet. This is Maggie, about 3 pounds ago, which is quite a bit for a chihuahua.


Ever since Ben started on table food, leading to food on the floor, she's puffed up.

And this is Annie:


Introducing our attack cat, Tony. You do not want to get on his bad list, let me tell you!

Sugar Shock

Brian, Ben, and I spent the weekend in San Antonio with some friends. I was a bad picture taker and don't have any good ones of Ben and their little girl Abby, but they had a good time. Brian calls Matt, Mateo. Ben couldn't say it so he just called him potato the entire time. They took us to a great, you guessed it, Mexican restaurant on Saturday night. Naomi was just raving about the bean soup. I was very skeptical but kept it to myself. Let me tell you, the most INCREDIBLE soup ever! During the weekend, I was determined to have my friend, who bakes a lot more than me, help me make some fudge. I had previously used an easy, microwave recipe that did not work. Granted I didn't put butter on the foil so if you wanted to eat any, you'd have to be ok with eating a tad of metal. Anywho...so we found a recipe and made some fudge. And I must say, it was delicious. I still don't think I got the texture right, but at least I have more of an idea. Did you know you use marshmallows in fudge?? I sure didn't.

We also made Oreo Balls. Basically you put an entire bag of Oreos in a blender and mix to a fine powder (not as easy as it looks!). We had some issues with it all getting stuck around the sides so there ended up being small pieces of a wooden spoon in the mixture. :) After you blend the Oreos, you add a package of cream cheese and blend it. You make the mixture into balls and dip them in melted almond bark. Almond bark was also a fun discovery this weekend...I have never had the stuff. Well, I probably have but I just didn't realize it. Put the Oreo Balls in the freezer to store. I swear to you, those are the best desserts you will ever have. Seriously, an easy recipe to try. Below are pictures of our sugar adventures. Presentation wasn't a priority.



I just re-read the blog and realized that it's all about food. :)

Losing my MIND!

I have lost one of Ben's blue shoes again. I'm about to lose it!!!!!!!

No night-night

Ben is going through a phase where he will only go to bed for Brian. Tonight, Brian was out running some errands and I was determined to take my time and get Ben to bed by myself. The kid was actually trying to stall, asking for a banana and ice cream. 45 minutes of stories, crying, reading, crying later Brian came home. Ben was in bed and quiet in less than 3 minutes. It's exhausting! I know friends whose children stay up until like 11 p.m. and fight them the entire way to not go to sleep. I honestly don't know what I'd do.

Work has been absolutely crazy. I drove 550 miles yesterday and worked late the last two nights. I have five court hearings in two different counties tomorrow. I'm quite the whiner, aren't I? :)

In other news, Mom bought Ben the cutest wooden nativity set. He loved it! Thanks, Grammy!

The kid refuses to cooperate when taking pictures. He looks kinda mad in this one.

Practical Jokes

I know I have mentioned before how funny I think my husband is...he's stinkin' hilarious! He's the funniest person I know. He also loves playing jokes on people, mainly me. One time he put a dirty diaper under the seat of my car, to which I poured a glass of ice water on him while he was in the shower. Anywho...he was watching YouTube and showed me a video of this guy putting baby powder in his wife's blowdryer and then filming her getting it all over her. Last night, right before going over to some friends' house for dinner, he told me I really needed to hurry up and blowdry my hair. I went in the bedroom, slightly noticed that he had a camera with him. I shut the bathroom door and turned on my blowdryer. Powder went EVERYWHERE, except on me. Brian was very disappointed that he didn't get it on camera and that it didn't get on me. I admitted it was a good joke, but was not too happy when my blowdryer would not blow warm air any longer. :)