I Love The Smell...

...of a freshly bathed baby!!!

Cucumber and green tea bath soap combined with lavender and chamomile baby lotion is absolutely heavenly!!

'Deceptively Delicious'

I got this book as a birthday present this year (thanks Bryan!). It just came out about 2 months ago or so. It's written by Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry. And I am SOOO looking forward to actually trying out the recipes. So far I've just been "reading" it. Sidenote: Bryan finds it extremely odd that I like to read cookbooks. Anyways, the whole point of this book is how to add veggies and fruits into your child's diet without them really knowing it. She uses all different sorts of purees (kind of like if you were making your own babyfood) and then adds them into all sorts of dishes. Honestly, I will have to try some of them before I believe that you cannot taste the puree, such as, Brownies with Carrot and Spinach. But some of them actually look pretty good, I can't wait to try the Creamy Potato Soup with Cauliflower and butternut squash or carrot.

The cookbook shows you how to make the different purees (11 vegetable; 6 fruit). It also gives you a basic nutritional guideline for children. And then it breaks down the recipes into categories, breakfast (12 recipes), Mealtime (39 recipes) and Dessert (25 recipes).

Anyways,as you can tell I'm excited about this cookbook! I think it's probably one of those little magical treasures for mom's with picky kids (or wives with picky husbands!)!!

Muggles and Mudbloods and Wizards, Oh My!

I did it. I finally broke down and started reading the 'Harry Potter' series.



I'd already seen the first two movies when they were in the theaters. In my opinion they were really good, so I'm kind of surprised that I've never become part of the 'Harry pandemonium'. Honestly, I've wanted to read them, but I just never got around to it. Part of the reason was probably because my husband and I were Youth Pastors for three years and I guess I was afraid what some of the people in church would say if they'd found out (I've been criticized for stupid things before). A lot of people in the charismatic movement in the church think that Harry Potter is evil. That it's trying to lure kids into Satan worship and witchcraft. In my opinion it's just really great fantasy. I love the whole world that is created in the books. They are very well written and are VERY hard to put down. Case in point, I bought the first book last week and made myself only read a few chapters here or there and then yesterday I got the second book and as of last night when I FINALLY put the book down and went to bed, I was already more than halfway through the book. It's too bad there are only seven books in the series! The good thing is that they seem to get thicker as you go!!

I Love A Messy Child!!!

Okay, so my belief is that a child should be a child and being messy is part of that! Why are some moms SO overly concerned about their children getting a bit messy. Maybe it's because most of the time the moms have to do the cleaning up! I try to keep in mind that stains on clothes are okay as are marks from pens on the body. So what if I have to stick my child in the tub one more time that day. So what if I have to wash another load of clothes or, heaven forbid, throw a shirt away (which, by the way, I've NEVER had to do). Life is too short to be so concerned with this. I love the memories that are made when my daughter gets down right messed up! Of course she won't actually remember any of this, but that's what my memory and cameras are for! The pictures and the smiles on my daughter's face are SOOOO worth the extra 10 or 15 minutes of cleaning that I have to do. So I challenge you to bite the bullet and let your children get messy!

Here are a few instances where Audrey had fun getting messy:

This was chocolate pudding!!




This was Pop-Tarts!!




This was highlighter!!


Notice how if I think ahead of time I'll strip her down to just her diaper to save the clothes!!