Trip to the Park with Baby

It's exhausting being a mom!

A day with friends....

that moved away and left us. :D We went down to visit our friends the other day and Katie had so much fun playing with a big girl!

Riding in Miss Cherie's fancy car with a DVD player built in! Pleased ignore the sock holding the headphones on my child's head. :D


Playing dress up. :) It's exhausting being a bride. Katie loved Taylor's bed...she didn't want to leave it!

It's so humiliating.....

K Family Christmas

Let the toy-fest begin! I have no idea where I'm going to put it all but Katie made out like a bandit. She was so funny when she opened a present...it had to be opened all the way. No leaving anything in the box to come back to later. Made for a long morning but she had fun. Here's Daddy helping her open up some new babies.


I thought this was funny...Katie next to the pile-o-paper and boxes...


Mommy got slippers!


Katie cookin' up something yummy in her new kitchen :) She also had fun painting on her new easel! Yeah we had a busy morning.


The Christmassy masterpiece...


Opening gifts at Grandma and Grandpa K's. I was horrible and didn't get any other pictures! :( I was in a tryptophan stupor most of the evening.

Christmas Eve festivities!

Grandma and Grandpa K. and Aunt Julie came over for dinner, the below mentioned cookie decorating and to go to church. We had a wonderful night and I was especially happy a) because my food didn't make anyone sick (that I know of) and b) I had my yummy Cheesy Potatoes. :D Here are some snaps from Xmas Eve.




Grandpa's really excited about his Jammies!


After Santa came, I snapped a couple of pictures of the goodies!

Adventures in Gluten Free Sugar Cookies...Part 2 & 3

Part two is the actual rolling, cutting and baking of the cookies. This was the part I was most terrified of! That rock hard ball of dough crumbled into a million peices as I tried to roll it and I serioulsy almost cried. How can you fail when you do something exactly like the recipe? I always find a way...but I kept on and realized that it sort of stuck together as it warmed up and if you just kept it in smaller peices. So I was VERY excited to get something that looked like this!


"One of these things is not like the other..." But can you tell which one is GF? I can't..thank goodness I remembered.: And the GF ones actually taste good! I am giddy and doing the happy dance at this point. :D


Part 3 is the decorating! The fun part! Katie had a goopalicious time. Sorry about your sprinkle shakers Grandma! They were a bit clogged after Katie got to them. :)



So, I think I got a thumbs up from the Celiacs in the family, which made my day!

Merry Christmas!!!!!!!

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. We hope each and every one of you has a WONDERFUL holiday. We love you!

The man cold....HAHA!

No honey...you NEVER act like this when you are sick. :)

My funky monkey

Adventures in Gluten Free Sugar Cookies...Part 1

So most of you that know me know that Keith has Celiac Disease, which sucks. No regular breads or pastas basically. They do make nice GF (gluten free) alternatives though, which if you are lucky and rich (these suckers are pricey!) you can buy them at your grocery stores. We are very lucky because our store carries tons of stuff so I don't ever really need to make anything from scratch. When the holidays come around though it's much harder because while most people stuff their faces with pies and cookies....Keith can't unless they are specially made for him. SO...I am attempting my first batch of GF sugar cookies to decorate on Christmas Eve. I also made a regular batch...because, well let's face it...GF cookies just aren't the same. Sorry Keith!

The sad part is that I SUCK in the kitchen. I don't think I inherited any sort of cooking gene from my mom, who's pretty good in the kitchen and enjoys it to some extent. I think she gave all that to my brother, who is an EXCELLENT cook. So, my attempts are pretty pathetic and I usually screw up some thing or another. This lack of cooking skills puts me at a great disadvantage when it comes to GF cooking/baking because the flours are very finicky. Oh well...I trudge on.

The set up...I'm a messy cook...things are everywhere


The main differences between regular and GF cookies


SOmewhere in the middle of the recipe...who knows if this looks right? Not me!


I think I screwed it up because it said to mix until it separates pulls away from the side of the bowl...well it was a crumbly mess from the beginning to the end....but it did form a ball! WOOT! Also...this is supposed to make 20 cookies?


The final products chilling in the fridge...I'm slightly concerned because I just moved the GF one and it's as hard as a rock....not exactly sure how well it's going to roll out. hmmmm


My trusty assistant....hopefully she inherited her cooking skills from her Grandmas :D By the way this is what I get when I say "Katie look at Mommy!"


Hopefully some positives results to post tomorrow! Fingers crossed!

Holly Jolly Randomness

Playing outside...so purdy


Presents from Grandma and Grandpa were delivered today!!!!


Christmas Stories...

One word...."Bassetti!!!"

And for those not well versed in toddler-speak...."Spaghetti!!!"

So excited!

Katie's going to have another second cousin any time now, if not already! We can't wait to hear the good news!!

Edited because Jace Russell arrived last night! YAY!!!!

More D300 adventures...

Holy Overexposure Batman...need to fix this pronto, but the subject is cute!



this one was ok...


Today we went to the Houston Children's Museum with the some friends. That place is cool! Way cooler than our sad little Woodlands one. But I brought the D300 which had somehow been switched to centerweighted metering and I was going crazy! It wouldn't lock focus...or so I thought because it wouldn't beep. R probably was wondering why such a moron bought a camera like that! haha! I hardly got any pictures because I couldn't figure out what the heck was going on. :( Oh well. Here's Katie and her new cutie boyfriend....jealous Jackson, Andon, Jerah, Job and Ayden? Man...Katie's got a lot of boyfriends! :) They are conducting very serious physics experiments...


Hehe...love this...


A few from the other day....not looking good. :( The color is WAY off...so much to figure out!


Cali proved to be a more willing subject :)