Lickin' the beaters!

The best part about baking with Mommy? Licking the beaters!
Ever since Matney "helped" make (ok, eat) HK's birthday cupcakes she's asked to cook with Mommy. And we all know that licking the batter is the best part. I've tried to find some healthier alternatives for things we normally buy already made and I've tried to pick things without eggs so that she can nibble as we go. This day was yummy whole wheat blueberry muffins. If you're coming over any time soon don't worry, what Matney helps cook I promise not to serve you!

We Escaped!

Guess who finally got to go on vacation!?!?! The Healds! Monday morning I woke up not looking forward to another week of illness because Matney was still up every night sick. While getting us ready to go back to her dr we got a call from some great friends. They had a condo on the beach in Panama City for the week and were not going to be using it...so, if we wanted to we could pack our bags and it was ours! You know what I decided? If the choices are be stuck at home sick or stuck on a beach sick, pick the beach! I called Jared at work and amazingly enough he was able to clear enough of his calendar to leave the office with no notice (that never happens). So, without thinking about it we ran to Walmart, packed our bags and hit the road early Tuesday morning. Oh my goodness, we are beyond tired but we had the best week!

We'd talked about taking the girls to the beach this summer and decided to wait until next year. Halle Kate does NOT travel well, the girls don't sleep well out of their own beds which makes for LONG days and nights, etc. However, when a free week on a beautiful beach lands in your lap (especially when we had been wanted to get out of town so badly) YOU PACK QUICK! Not having time to stress about packing, sleep arrangements, etc made things easy...and we may have gotten HK her own DVD player so that she could watch "Bar-Bar" (Barney) and hopefully not scream the entire ride.

I have tons of fabulous pictures to upload but I am exhausted. It has been a long time since our girls were both asleep before 8pm but tonight they crashed. So, if you called or emailed us this week and haven't heard back we'll get caught up soon. Right now we are headed to bed and dreaming of the water!

Backyard Water Fun

Here are a few snapshots of our summer fun in the backyard. The only way to survive outside this time of year in GA is to play with water!

Homemade Marshmallows!

If you've known me long you know I don't want a cake at my birthday, I want Rice Krispy Treats. YUMMY! Two years ago Jared took the time to make me homemade marshmallows but I never even tried them. And for two years I've acted like I did. EEEK! I was pregnant and super sick at the time and the thought of anything sweet made my stomach turn. I knew how much time (they take hours) he'd put into it so I've just always said they were really yummy. Last weekend they somehow came up and I finally fessed up. Jared immediately set out to make them again. Matney loves "helping" in the kitchen right now so she and Daddy played in sugar for hours.






And they were really great. J let me lick the bowl and I was covered in marshmallow goo, especially after I poured rice krispies in the bowl and just grabbed a spoon. Nothing like several types of sticky sugar to make a weekend with sick kids a little more tolerable! Thanks honey, your homemade marshmallows were SO GOOD. I am sure that they were great two years ago too! PS - don't worry. I don't think I have any more secrets, I really did try that coconut soup you made when we dated :) Love you!

Stuck home

These are random pictures from last weekend when we were stuck home for days. Matney and Daddy got yummy ice cream from the McDonalds drive through. Life looks a lot like this again. Matney's fever turned out to be croup and she's been miserable. She woke up 2 nights ago unable to breathe well and the more upset she got to worse her breathing got. The first time it happened I was so scared and ready to scream for Jared to call 911. Apparently being upright helps open her airways back up so my picking her up was enough to help and as she calmed down she got better. For the past 2 nights we've repeated that cycle. I think I slept two hours night before last and 3 last night. We're crossing our fingers that HK doesn't get it but it is highly contagious so I'm not that optimistic. Welcome back to the sick house!


Halle Kate and Duck Daddy got rid of some extra energy rolling around on the floor.


Oh my goodness, I love my house but we were so ready to get out beyond these walls!

Germs, germs go away!

Germs, germs go away. Come again another day...or NEVER! Funny story from last week. It was pouring rain on Friday when we were getting ready to leave and meet Jared for dinner. I watched the radar and knew it was about to stop (stop quickly and for good). I took her to the back door and we looked out. M heard the "rain, rain go away song" last week on Dora so we started singing it. Within 2 minutes (and MANY verses of the rain song later) it totally stopped and Matney was beside herself. She's talked for days about how she sang the song and the "rain cloud went away". Ha! Now I don't know what we'll do next time it rains, she sings and nothing happens but for now she is very impressed with her abilities!


This is a picture of Halle Kate last week when she had big sores in her mouth and wouldn't swallow. We changed her shirt more at least every hour because she was soaked.
Wouldn't you know that we're sick again, just when J and I were talking about taking a trip next weekend. We're not going anywhere, although it isn't because of the girls. However, next time I wake up and both girls wake up well and still feel good at lunch I am packing our bags, throwing the girls somewhere and heading to J's office. I'll just kidnap him and we'll be off. I am fairly confident that just talking about a trip makes my girls go lick something germy so that we can't leave. Ha!
Today Matney had a fever by early morning and was pitiful by lunch. She said her "chin, nose and hair hurts". I assume that means a sore throat, stuffy nose and headache. I thought she did a good job trying to explain "hurts" to me. Sweet baby girl. Who bets we've got about 24 hours before HK has a hurting chin and hairs too?!?!

Presents from Target...for me? Again?

I think these are some of my new favorite pictures. Thanks to Mom, Dad and the WR Target the girls have been going wild with these cute new bean bags. Aren't the adorable? Both the bean bags and the girls!

Sick of these 4 walls!

We've spent A LOT of time in this house during the last week. Sickness stinks. Thankfully, the adults have avoided any illness but our girls were certainly pitiful. Matney did catch the bug but she seemed to handle it better than HK. I forgot to mention that Friday night M was bouncing around in her bed and pulled her elbow out of joint again. I didn't realize that is what it was at first but at 2am when she and I were downstairs because she was hysterical I knew there was a big problem. Saturday morning I was ready to walk out the door to run to CHOA Urgent Care when J decided to try and pop it back into place one more time...and it worked! Whaaa hoo!!!
One day when HK was finally taking a nap Matney spilled on her clothes. I didn't dare walk up the stairs because I was scared the noise would wake her up. I had on two shirts so I put one on Matney. Oh my, the child loved it! She wore it all day and tried to talk us into letting her wear it to bed. She is so silly. My big girls loved making messes this week and playing with every toy in the house. And how cute is this? They are just starting to play together. I LOVE THEM!

Dad, Mom, does this scare you???

Look Mom and Dad! I found Matney "cleaning up her Strawberries" before naptime last week. Do you think she's related to her Mama? She was putting them in a line and kept switching their positions around until she had just the order she wanted.





For those of you who didn't know me at M's age those were my Strawberry Shortcake dolls. My dad saved them and gave them to Matney last year when she fell in love with Strawberry. My parents like to tell people the stories about how I had to line them all up on my closet shelf at night, in a particular order, before I went to bed. I promise she did this all on her own. I keep those Strawberries tossed in a bag now. Like mother like daughter, huh?

She also loves to load them all into her dollhouse minivan and push them around the house. I asked her not long ago where they were going and she immediatly said "to get pizza!". Ha! That is my girl!