Peanut Butter Cookies

I had some baking to do on Tuesday night, since Tuesday nights are one of the nights a week that Wes is at the Fire Hall, it was just me and Kassi. We were in need of a gluten free recipe for one of the people I work with and I wanted to make something fairly easy and quick so Kassi's patients did not run out. I remembered a recipe I found in a parenting magazine a few months ago for the easiest peanut butter cookies that don't take any flour. So that was what we decided on. (When I say easy, I mean easy - depending on how many you want you use 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar and 1 egg, bake at 350 for 8 minutes and walla you are done!)

Kassi of course was the biggest help in the mess, and clean up departments. She helped clean up the spoon and spatula used to gt the peanut butter out of the tub, got peanut butter everywhere and then grabbed the kitchen towel and cleaned it up.

1st Camping Trip of the Summer

This weekend was our first camping trip of the summer. Other than the water heater not working in our camper and it pouring down rain on Sunday we had a really great time. Family picture time! Kassi was having too much fun running around to sit still for very long, but she did take time to help me set the camera up.

Kassi got into the true spirit of camping and was covered in dirt from head to toe on Saturday. That night we also let her have her first smore. She took a few bites then gave it back. You see as much as she likes to play in the dirt she does not like it when her hands get real dirty and especially when they get sticky. I bet she asks to wash her hands at least 10 times a day.

First Bubbles

One of the neighbor boys came over to play with Kassi this afternoon and he taught her how to blow bubbles. It was really cute. She would blow some and then chase after them saying "catch" and "wow".

Mother's Day

On Sunday we decided to take a drive and ended up in Yellowstone. When we decided to go I said I had better pack a bag. Kassi decided she did not want to wear diapers so she brought me pull ups and a few other things. Then Wes said to look over at her, and when I did she was packing a bag as well. She had some soup, malted milk, pull ups, ponies, tomatoes, coco powder, potatoes and a book.

This was Kassi's first trip to Yellowstone. We saw about every animal you can in the park with the exception of a wolf. Unfortunately not many of them were in good camera range.

There was a lot of snow still up there. In many some places where they had plowed it was deeper than the pickup is tall. Kassi kept wanting to get out and play in the snow. She did really well being in her car seat for as long as she was and kept resisting falling asleep so it did end up being a short nap day.

We stopped at Fishing Bridge and ate lunch. Kassi even ordered her own meal and said please and thank you to the waitress! Then we bought a few trinkets for her and we headed off to Old Faithful. She had a lot of fun there. This was one place that was fairly clear from snow and there were not many people so she was able to get out and run for a little while, more like 2 hours! When the geyser went off she was saying ooh and pointing and smiling. After this we ate the supper we had packed and headed home.

It was a great day and I couldn't have asked for any better present than the time I got to spend with my family!

Getting ready to go to Yellowstone!

Really deep snow! Notice in the next pictures Kassi is wearing different pants...she decided to sit in the snow and the puddles!

Old Faithful

Watching Old Faithful with Daddy.

New Pictures

The new thing to do...wear Mom's boots and shirts. There are some days that is ll she will wear.

First pair of Nike's!

Another new thing...trying to do somersaults!

What a pretty girl!

Updates

A few family updates:

-We bought a camper! I am so excited, it is an older one, but it is just perfect for the three of us. The only thing we have to figure out is how to get Daisey in and out of it. She has gotten so blind and is so stove up that it is hard for her to even get up the stairs and get into the house anymore. It is hard to believe that I have had her for 11 years.
-Wes received his official certificate for his ASE Certification. He has taken two more tests for his Master Technician and will be taking a third next week. There are a lot of tests that he is going to need to take over the next few years to get this.
-We survived another year of Fire School!
-Wes is still taking his classes to be a Fire Officer, and is still a Rookie Training Officer.
-Kassi is no longer sleeping in her crib! We took it down and she is now sleeping on her mattress on the floor, until we are confident that she is not rolling off of it. Which so far she has not. She actually really seems to like it and sleeps a lot better this way.
-Kassi's memory is amazing. She recognizes places we've been and what we do there. For instance she knows that when we turn the corner a couple of blocks away that we are almost home and will say that we are "go home". She also remembers things that we tell her throughout the day. We can tell her that she can do this or that after supper and as soon as we get done with supper that day she will remind us what we had told her.
-We now have 6 motorcycles and one 4-wheeler. I'm not sure why when there are only two of us that are big enough to ride these things?
-Kassi still has two fish, one of the originals and the new black fish. Everyday I think the black fish is about to die, but he keeps on ticking. I've never seen a fish go belly up so many times and stay alive! He's a fighter.
-I continue to put outgrown clothes, toys, furniture, utensils etc. away. I had our downstairs spare room cleaned out at Christmas time and now it is very full again?? Funny how quickly that happens. My cousin was a dear and took a ton of clothes, receiving blankets and other girl things for her little girl. We also filled another friends pickup with gender neutral and boy things, since they had a boy in January. So I don't feel right bombarding them with a whole lot of other things, but they may just get a few more surprises on their doorsteps one of these days!


I think that is about all of the updates I can think of right now...
Oh I guess I could give an update on me. I have been fighting my asthma for the past few weeks and am really tired because of it. I hope to get it back on track soon. It is hard not being able to keep up with Kassi and having to try and explain to her that mommy can't play chase because she can't breathe. I have started a lot of projects that I am slowly finishing up. The first one completed was Kassi's room makeover. The next one I hope to finish is the conversion of our upstairs spare room into Kassi's toy room. Our house is a little overrun with toys, books and little girl things so it is time to make a place to keep it all.

19 Months

Yesterday was Kassi's 18 month check up with her doctor. We ended up a month behind awhile back due to their schedule, so she is actually 19 months. She got her last immunization until she starts school. She weighs 27.5 pounds and is 33 inches tall. At each of her check ups he has given her a book. When he brought it in yesterday she said please and thank you to him. I was so proud of her! We did have to laugh after this, because she also remembered that this is where she gets suckers, so as soon as he was done listening to her heart beat and looking in her eyes, ears, etc. She started to cry and said "sucker". We all laughed and he reminded us that as we could tell this age was when they start to really build a memory!



Of course he went through the normal can she do this, does she do that, and when he got all finished he said she was actually rather advanced for her age! I try not to be the parent that is always bragging, but that was really encouraging and exciting to hear! We do not have her around many other kids her age and we don't see what other toddlers are able to do or say etc. So it was nice to hear that she is actually ahead of where she needs to be.



We asked him if he had any good suggestions on when he thought it was best to transition to a toddler bed and how we should do it. He said one way to look at it was as a safety issue, you don't want her to fall out of her crib if she tried to climb out, but then you don't want her to roll out of a toddler bed either. So he asked if the side rail of the crib was to end up pushed down, or to fall down to it's lowest setting could she climb out of the crib, we said yes, she can almost climb out with it all the way up. He then said that it was time to make a change then, because that could be a big safety issue, her trying to climb out and falling. While I still have reservations about making the switch I think he is right we should do something. He also told us that what they did was just put the mattress on the floor so if she rolled off it wouldn't hurt her. He said to then watch and when we notice she is not rolling off of the mattress anymore we could put the mattress back into the toddler bed frame. Wes and I talked about it and we think we are going to make this transition very soon. I wasn't sure what Kassi would think about this so I tried it yesterday. I pulled the mattress out of her crib and laid it on the floor. She instantly ran over climbed up on it and said "night, night".

Project

After months of taking 30 minutes here and 30 minutes there I finally finished Kassi's room re-decorating. Since we only had a few hours to prepare for Kassi's arrival we didn't get a chance to really do anything with her room. So now 1.5 years later I finally did. She loves the color purple so I found the only toddler bedding I could that was purple, Tinker Bell, and fortunately she loved it so I had a theme to work with. I really wish I had taken pictures when she first walked in and saw the finished room. She had some of the cutest expressions! She even said it was "pretty".