Watch your toes mama....

When Ryan moves her step stool closer to the sink to brush her teeth, she always says so sweetly "mama, watch your toes please" and then I say "thank you Ryan for being so thoughtful" and she says "you're welcome mama".  Melt my heart.  Love. Her.

Back that a*s up.....

If Reese had a motto, that would be it.  The girl is on the move, only we're talking backwards here.  All around the floor, scooting backwards....

I have found her under most every piece of furniture in the family room at this point.

Anything Reese does, Ryan wants to do as well....

Shake-shake

Thank you to the Pioneer Woman for two great cooking feats yesterday:  for dinner, I made her pasta with tomato cream sauce - it was delightful, sinfully fattening, but oh so good.  Both Ryan and Grant ate it up, 3 for 3 at dinnertime is rare and a big success in my book.

For dessert, we made the most heavenly sugar cookies I have tasted in quite some time (let alone made, all by myself, and from scratch!) ---- 'all by myself' would be a lie, little Ms. Ryan was right there with me to help smash the dough down and put a little 'shake-shake' on top (sprinkles).

Sadly, all of this happened yesterday because precious, little Reese has been home sick with a fever the last few days.  Thank you Reese for taking one for the team and allowing mom to be home with you thus giving us edible meals again!   Part of the fever culprit would be those two little puppies that popped up in her mouth - you can somewhat see below in this pic - you can tell in her eyes she isn't feeling well....It just makes you want to grab her, head to bed and cuddle - the one positive of a sick babe, they sure do want to be around and love on mom:)

A glimpse into life on a Monday afternoon...

I could clean* this house 100 times a day, but 5 minutes after the girls get home, it turns to this:

*By clean, I of course just mean vacuuming and straightening up.  Don't fool yourself into thinking we're washing floors or wiping baseboards clean....come on now.  

Not quite Giada, just yet.....

Well, dinner wasn't a total success but it was definitely better than Martha's sorry excuse for a meal.  I was very proud of myself b/c the meatloaf looked good and smelled great but it was only so-so in taste.   The mushrooms, on the other hand, were delightful.  They will make a tasty little leftover snack today.

Thank you Ella!

For saving the Stiff family from more dinners like last night....  Martha freakin' Stewart, quite frankly, sucks (pardon my french).  I attempted to make some deceptively delicious looking casserole dish from her magazine and it was, in all honesty, the worst. thing. ever.  So on a wet, dreary, cold autumn day; a day in which a hot, bubbling casserole would have been oh so lovely, Ryan and dad set out to save dinner with a little fast food.  Anyway, my mother-in-law sent me the link to this website and as I type, we have some mushrooms simmering away down on the stove and a lovely meatloaf is about to be prepared for dinner.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/

An update on dinner to come later.....I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but Ella, you may have just saved this family from cooking mediocrity.  Thank you!

Because this is technically a blog about the girls, a random photo for your viewing pleasure:

Mama did a bad thing....

This is my version of confession....so I did a few things this week I'm not all that proud of, but am willing to share.

1.  I let myself watch 15 minutes of the Real Housewives of New Jersey - I've never seen it before but if Anderson Cooper likes it (and he does!), then I figured it wasn't all that bad.  Two minutes of some Jersey botox and I was sad I wasted a few moments of my life away.

2.  I parked in an 'alternative fuel / carpool' parking spot at work.  As much as I'd like to pretend the ole Mazda is friends with the environment, it's not.  Nor am I carpooling unless you count the two empty car seats as occupants?

3.  Ryan was home sick the other day and I couldn't resist the urge to get McDonalds for lunch.  I'm sure somewhere, somehow a '#2 with a coke' is healing. 

4.  Now that Ryan is an able bodied little person, I asked her quite a few times to retrieve the remote control or phone for me so I didn't have to move.  Lazy, with a capital L. 

5.  Even though Reese was crying (ever so slightly), I made her stay in position so I could capture the image below.  How the child has the strength to perform such moves is beyond me.  Plank baby, plank!

Do it yourself pedicure

Crazy chicas rockin' a Tuesday night....

They sure do enjoy each other - it makes my heart melt to watch Reese completely light up when Ryan is around.  Even if Ryan is up to no good, Reese is still enamored with her.  Good sh*t.  

That damn Blackberry keeps dropping my calls!

Don't you hate it when you're trying to call the ex-boyfriend and your calls keep getting dropped.  Grrr....

Ryan and Reese....Live

You think somebody likes to have all the attention?  

Neighborhood BBQ

The fun folks of Hill Drive had their annual block party this past weekend.  It's always fun attending functions with a 2 year old going on a 20 minute nap all day and a teething 6 month old who only wants the quiet comfort of her bed.   The real joy was at the end of the night when Ryan was so wired up on sugar she was doing laps around the house, shaking her glow sticks and practicing her rebel yell.

Bud Light and ice cream - what could be better? 

Cute pics of the babes (aka - too tired to blog)

It's Sunday, I'm tired, and it's a school night so this will be short and sweet:  

Goodnight!

The next Pele?

Negatory.  Ryan had her first dabble into organized sports and I use the term 'organized' loosely.  Basically we paid a nice chunk of cash for Ryan to run around a hot, indoor soccer stadium for 45 minutes.

Staged, soccer photo shoot:

So sassy...

Getting instructions with dad - don't be fooled, she sat still for all of about 7 seconds...

Wait, what?  I have to actually play?

I'll at least go through the motions, just to humor you. 

In all honesty mom, I'd rather just pretend this is a hula-hoop...

At least somebody got into it....

Can we go now?

Reesey is a scooting machine....

Her daycare teachers are predicting a crawler by the 7 month mark and at the rate she is scooting all over the place backwards & up on all fours rocking back and forth, I think we need to do a refresher course in babyproofing...

The good ole days of laying low, thumb securely in mouth:

 We're shocked the weight of those cheeks isn't hindering
her ability to get off the ground

Potty Presents

Who knew potty training could be so exhausting.... No, not the frustration of a strong-willed toddler going when and where she pleases, but the pressure of finding potty toys to reward doing the deed on the potty.  When can we stop?  The girl just went 4 times in a 20 minute time span - all of which for potty toys.  Master Manipulator (or M&M as mom my calls her).  I seriously think she goes a little, gets a toy and purposely goes back on to finish the job for yet, you guessed it, another potty toy.  We're stretching for 'toys' at this stage (since she isn't 100% potty trained yet we're still giving them out) - we've recycled old toys, given out Tupperware, flashlights, tonight dad got savvy with some coasters, stickers, old credit cards, ice packs, a Cardinal's foam finger, etc....As I'm typing, she has taken off her pull-ups for a 5th time wanting to go potty.

I think it's time to pull the plug on potty toys.

PS - the best part of the whole deal....if she stumbles upon you going potty, she gets all sorts of happy for you, claps and asks you if you want a 'potty toy'.  There's nothing like hearing her asking daddy at 6am if he wants a potty toy....

These boots are made for walkin'.....

One thing we've learned with Ms. Ryan is to pick our battles...so if girlfriend wants to don her rain boots from last year on an ice cream outing, well, so be it.

One of Ryan's more famous lines..... "ugh my hair"*

*cute story alert:  "ugh my hair" has become one of my favorite Ryan-isms.   A few months back she was dating a boy at her old daycare, Eamon, she used to 'talk' to him on the 'phone' (an iPod charging station remote)....one day as she's talking to him, head perfectly cocked to the side holding the phone to her ear, she says:  "Hi Eamon.  I hit Reese.  Said sorry Reese", she then walks in front of the hall mirror, takes one look at herself and says "ugh my hair" and proceeds to tousle her locks.   

Friday Night Lights (on a Sunday)....

In true Texas tradition, Ryan watched her first Cowboys game of the year.  Sadly, the outcome failed to live up to the hype.  To remind her of her parent's penchant for the Cowboys (Dad's being legit, Mom's really only because she once thought she had a chance with Troy Aikman, before dad of course), Ryan learned the finer points of the game.

Touchdown!

It's not football without some hard core tackling....