Stupid Silly Bands!

I find you everywhere!

Regression or Something Shiny?

I finally got a bumper for Zack's crib last week. We kept finding him with a leg or an arm hanging out between the bars.

Since the new addition, almost every night we go to put Zack down to sleep, we find Kaitlyn has crawled into Zack's crib and curled up with his quilt. She brings along her own pillow and stuffed animals. Apparently, she has decided his crib is cooler than her toddler bed. She is such a stinker.

Free Rice!

I was on the Pioneer Woman's website today and she posted a link to this website, FreeRice.com. FreeRice is a website where users play various educational, multiple-choice games in order to fight world hunger. For every answer the user answers correctly, 10 grains of rice are donated. The games include English vocabulary (the game the site began with), multiplication tables, pre-algebra, chemistry (basic and intermediate), English grammar, basic foreign language vocabulary for English speakers (French, German, Italian, and Spanish), geography (world capitals and country identification), and identification of famous artwork.

I've already been donating while relaxing.
It's a win-win situation.

Yummy, Yummy In My Tummy!

Excuse me, Seffner Publix? Why have you been holding out? Why was I not informed that you have gelato in your freezer before now? I have been a patron of your store since I was a small child. What do you have to say for yourself?


After all, you have been missing out on years of profit from my gelato addiction. And the Talenti Raspberry Sorbet had me flashing back to Chantilly, France. Sheesh. You should be ashamed of yourself.

That Crazy Gene Pool

It is amazing that two siblings could be so different!

Kaitlyn has always been skinny and high-energy.

While Zack has always been pudgy and easy-going.

It will be interesting to see them grow side-by-side.

This Must Be Love

I love this face. It is the sweetest, pudgiest, smiley face ever. This little man has been smiling this big for the past 4 months. He smiles so big his tongue curls! He likes to smile like this when he is in his bouncer. Zack loves his bouncer.

He finally caught his nemesis, the blue frog. He decided to celebrate by eating him.

And doing some more bouncing.

Zack loves his bouncer so much, he falls asleep in it without making a fuss.

Sweet little guy.

I could just eat him up!

Unwelcome Visitors

Living in Florida, we are surrounded by many of God's creations. Since we live near a wooded area, we are more likely to see all kinds of wildlife while going about our daily routine. For some reason, this week, they have decided to come visit us in our home.

On Tuesday, Miss. Spider came by for breakfast. I wasn't planning on seeing her, so when she showed up unexpectedly, I did quite a bit of squealing. Sadly, her unplanned visit resulted in both herself and last month's issue of Parents magazine ending up in our garbage.

A couple of days later, while trying to put Kaitlyn down for a nap, I heard a "splat" in her bathroom. When I turned to see what had fallen, I saw Mr. Snake scurrying to the nearest hiding place. Needless to say, the panic attack given to me by Miss. Spider on Tuesday ending up being nothing compared to the massive heart attack I had while trying to figure out how to contain this sucker! After I barricaded him in the bathroom I was frantically calling my Daddy. He came to our rescue and got Mr. Snake out from under the kids clothes hamper with a pair of grilling tongs. Mr. Snake's unwelcome visit also resulted in his demise.

Thanks to both of these unwelcome visitors, I am officially paranoid when I enter any room in my home. It gives me the heebie-jeebies just to think about it. ACK! Is something crawling on me?!

So Far This Year...

We have been keepin' pretty busy!

Getting used to juggling two kids consumes most of our time, but living near both sets of our families fills in the rest! We've been lovin' it!

My Dad turned 50 this January!
We had him flocked with 50 flamingos in his front yard!

The Carrs had a super-cute Valentine's Day Party!
Clearly, Kaitlyn enjoyed the sugar cookies.



Zack loves to sit in his walker.
Look at his cute little feet! They can't even touch the ground!
You can also totally see his little elf ear in this picture.

Zack has also started grabbing either side of his face with his hands when he is really upset. Does it remind you of anyone?






Zachary James Crosby was blessed on February 28, 2010
at his Grandparent's home in Dover, Florida.
Those who participated in the circle were:
Jacob Crosby (his father), James King, Sr., Robert Crosby, Mark Riebow, Jared Crosby, Jonathan Crosby, Matthew Riebow, and Joshua Crosby.
It was a beautiful day!



The New York Crosbys were down for over a week!
We loved seeing them because we rarely get to.
Kaitlyn and Gwen got in some play time together, and we all got to catch-up!

One day, Mom had scheduled family pictures and we got some lovely shots.
My favorite is this one of Zack and his Grandpa King.
They have the same hands, so we were trying to capture that but Zack wasn't cooperating.
Grandpa King did great though!
I love, LOVE this shot!

This past weekend we went to Disney World! Woo Hoo!

Kaitlyn got to take some pictures
with some of her favorite characters.
She loves, LOVES, Lilo & Stitch.
She gave them each very big hugs!

And she actually had us get out of line for Dumbo to go stand in line to see Tigger & Pooh. I think Tigger is her favorite. He loves to bounce and she loves to jump!

Kaitlyn is a very lucky little girl. She has already been to Disney at least a half a dozen times because her Nana had season passes. So, when Jake and I took her she had already ridden almost everything. However, she hadn't ridden on the Tea Cups. As you can tell by her facial expression, she LOVED them! She and her daddy were spinning the tea cup as fast as they could!

We have a few more Disney Trips coming up because we took advantage of the Florida Resident $99 - 4 Park Pass. We also have a family wedding (my cousin Kelli) on the horizon.
We'll keep ya posted!

Tomorrow's Forecast....

a perfectly winter day filled with cold and rain. So, I highly recommend pulling out your stockpot and whipping up one of these babies!

The first, is a delicious Ham and Potato Soup. I have previously blogged about this fabulous dish and my addiction to Bennigan's Baked Potato Soup that started back in college.

The second is a new recipe found by my mother and craved by my husband. It is a perfectly hardy soup in need of some nice crusty dippin' bread! The recipe is for Italian Sausage Soup. The following makes 6 servings:

Ingredients

• 1 pound Italian sausage
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 2 (14 ounce) cans beef broth
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can Italian-style stewed tomatoes
• 1 cup sliced carrots
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can great Northern beans, undrained
• 2 small zucchini, cubed
• 2 cups spinach - packed, rinsed and torn
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. In a stockpot or Dutch oven, brown sausage with garlic. Stir in broth, tomatoes and carrots, and season with salt and pepper. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer 15 minutes.
2. Stir in beans with liquid and zucchini. Cover, and simmer another 15 minutes, or until zucchini is tender.
3. Remove from heat, and add spinach. Replace lid allowing the heat from the soup to cook the spinach leaves. Soup is ready to serve after 5 minutes.

Enjoy!

I had totally forgotten.

So, it has been almost 2 months since my last blog. A new born baby, in combination with a two year-old who is determined to get her way, is ridiculously time consuming. Who knew? I keep giving myself hurdles to get to. Such as, when breastfeeding started back up, I started a mantra, "Just 10 days Give it 10 days. Ten days for the searing pain to go down." And it worked! Then it was, "Just 2 months; two months until I can sleep again. Surely, in 2 months Zack will be sleeping solid in his own bassinet." WRONG!

I had totally forgotten everything I had learned with Kaitlyn from the wonderful Ms. Tracy Hogg (who sadly had passed away before I ever even discovered her). Jacob is the one who brought Ms. Hogg into our lives. He is an avid researcher anytime we invest in anything. He grew up in a home where the "Consumer Reports" subscription was regularly renewed, and I am grateful for it. You can imagine, when we found out we were pregnant for the first time, there was a good deal of time in bookstores. Jake found this book one day at Borders, "The Baby Whisperer".

Hogg informed me of a great many things, but the most important was EASY. No, seriously, she titled the cycle of events your child should go through as "E.A.S.Y." She said we shouldn't be rigidly clinging onto a timetable, more a cycle of behavior. E: Eat, A: Activity, S: Sleep, Y: You time. Somehow, I had totally forgotten that from baby #1 to baby #2. I had also forgotten that you have to 'teach' your baby how to sleep in their cribs. I had been randomly placing Zack in his bassinet hoping he would take to it.

Nevertheless, we are now back on track, teaching Zack how to sleep by himself and continually going through the cycle of predictable events of E.A.S.Y. Even though I am still not sleeping as much as I would like, and Zack still hasn't fallen completely in love with his crib (He is sleeping pretty solid from 9p-3a. Then it's anyone's guess when he's going to fall back asleep.), I know we will get there... thanks to Ms. Hogg.