Back from my hiatus

Alright, I finally found some time to sit down and get caught up on the blog.  We’ve been keeping pretty busy these past couple of weeks.  Before I begin, I have to put this picture of Tommy in first.  Peyton wanted Tommy to play with her one day…

Princess Tommy

 So, I went for my weekend Walk To Emmaus!  I can’t really share too many details with you about what happened there.  It was definitely an awesome experience and I would do it again if I could.  I can’t wait to be able to sponsor somebody to go and to also serve on a Walk.  I will share a couple of things that I got from the walk.  The first thing that I realized was that I had never really forgiven myself and accepted God’s grace for the past.  That was a big thing for me, and I feel a ton lighter these days now that I’ve dealt with it   I also finally learned what true agape love is (since I was pretty clueless about it before my walk).  The last thing that I learned was that Josh is quite capable of handling both girls for a weekend  

Like I said, we’ve been keeping pretty busy.  Amanda’s daughter, Abbie, had her first tee ball game a couple of weeks ago.  Here are a couple of pictures that I got of the girls.

Hanging out

 

Playing Catch with Brent

We decided to celebrate Lily’s birthday with Amanda and Dan, the Sunday before it actually happened.  We didn’t do too much.  I made a cake and we went over to their house for dinner and had some cake and ice cream afterwards.  Here are some pictures.

The Birthday Girl

 

 

hmm...this isn't my cake

I’m not exactly sure when this one was taken… I think some people (Daddy) were being pretty sneaky with the frosting.

Being sneaky...

Here is a picture of the cake.

Here is the before picture:

Waiting patiently...

The strategic move:

The aftermath:

That was yummy!

Then on her real birthday, I made some cupcakes to have after dinner.

I know what to do with this

Here is Lily enjoying her birthday gift from Grandma and Grandpa Bound:

I think that pretty much brings everybody up to speed on what we’ve been up to lately.  Now that things are getting back to normal around here, I should be updating the blog more regularly. 

Easter 2009

Alright, so maybe not Easter 2009…but we pretended it was since the girls were sick a week ago on the real Easter.  Here are some pictures that we got of the girls in their dresses before church.

Lily and her Easter bonnet

 

Here is the best one we could get of the girls together.

Take a picture...quick!

 

Here is Peyton smiling pretty in her Easter dress.

 

Okay, I was determined to get the girls into their Easter sweaters.  It was a good thing it was a little chilly that morning   One thing I learned (among many things) is that you should always measure the person’s arm and not rely on the pattern…enough said.

 

Here is Lily in her’s…yes she fell asleep before we got her to church  

Happy Spring!

Woohoo!  Spring is finally here!  Yet here I am inside blogging   Oh well…in my defense it’s quiet time here   Last Saturday, Josh and I decided to take the girls to the Sciencenter in Ithaca.  We had heard it was a really neat place for kids and that it had a lot of hand-on things for the kids to play and experiment with.  It was pretty awesome.  We can’t wait to take the girls again when they get another year older or so.  Here are some pictures we got of the girls while we were there.  There were two sections to the Sciencenter.  The outside had a giant wooden ramp with a variety of things to play with.

I think I can...

 

 I can with Daddy’s help!

Thank you Daddy!

 

 For those of you that are aware of Family Game Night that we have on the weekends with Dan with Amanda, we use to be “addicted” to Clue.  However, we have evolved…and now we are into Rock Band 2 with wii.  We have our own band!  It’s very exciting.  I should take some pictures of us all.  There is nothing better than a bunch of 30 year olds getting together to rock on!  Amanda is our singer, Dan plays the lead guitar, Josh plays bass, and that leaves me to be the awesome drummer!  Why am I telling you this?  I decided to take the opportunity while at the Sciencenter to train Peyton to be my lil drummer.

I look like Mommy!

 

Here is good picture of Daddy having some fun.

 

Poor Lily   Next time we come you’ll be able to get out and play the drums also.

When do I get a turn?

 

 Here are Daddy and Peyton playing the xylophones.

 

Then we went inside and did some exploring.  Here is Peyton learning about dams and what the result would be if she launches that big ball into the pool of water…

 

Our next stop was the vacuums.  They had a bunch of different vacuums that the kids could play around with and experiment with picking up styrofoam pieces.  So, I may have a little too excited about teaching Peyton how to vacuum…

 

Here is Peyton playing with the vacuums.

 

Sunday was Easter!  I was able to finish both of the girl’s sweaters in time for the big day!  Peyton had other plans for the day though   She woke up with the stomach flu.  Josh ended up staying home with both girls while I went in and braved our early 2 year old class solo.  I’m going to put the girls in their outfits this coming Sunday, so you can look forward to those pictures in the future.  We still had a little fun though, even though Peyton wasn’t feeling too well.  It was the first Easter that she was able to look for an Easter basket.  She found her basket and then went and helped Lily find hers

I found my Easter basket!

 

Here is a picture I snagged of one of those rare moments:

zzz...

This last picture is of Lily at church in the nursery.  She has become the “poster child”, and a bit spoiled by everyone.  Everytime we go into the nursery or walk by, somebody is playing with her   They took this picture of her and hung it up in the hall.

Catching Up

We’ve been keeping pretty busy the past couple of weeks here.  Josh has been successful at keeping Emmaus a secret.  I am looking forward to going in a couple of weeks, but at the same time, I’m a little hesitant.  I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to handle being away from the girls.  We are still trying to figure out what is going on with the laptop and why it isn’t recognizing the disk drive   I think I just have to bite the bullet and install the software onto the desktop, so I can upload the videos.  I’ve taken a lot of pictures of things that we’ve been doing lately.

Doing our yeast experiment.

Our edible bird nests

Last weekend, we went up to Rochester to spend the day with Chris, Tiff, and Claire (who is now 2 years old).  We walked to the park that is near their house and let the kids play at the playground for a bit.  Here are some pics of them:

Wheee!!!

 Here is Peyton:

I want to go Super High!

 Here is a cute picture of Claire with her mommy

Say Cheese Claire and Tiff!

After playtime in the park, we headed back to Chris and Tiff’s house.  We let the girls play outside for a bit and we got some really cute pictures of the girls   Aww…I wish we lived closer.

Hold my hand

 Peyton is talking up storm:

You know what I mean?

 What do you hear?

Claire! I think I can hear them growing!

 Let’s go this way:

 

 It was a fun day together.  We were blessed with nice weather too   I wish we were able to get together more often.  The girls had a blast. 

This past Saturday, we were invited to go to an Easter egg hunt at the local Methodist church.  The girls had a lot of fun.  They had a band that played some music for the kids and put together a little children’s sermon before the hunt began.  The lady that is holding Lily is Mrs. Hurd.  Her husband, Dick,  is the pastor at this church.  He married Josh and me, and Mrs. Hurd (who was my department chair back in the day) walked me down the aisle.  I’m not sure who enjoyed the Easter egg hunt more…Mrs. Hurd or the girls.  I do know she loved spoiling the girls and introducing Lily to the wonderful world of Jello jigglers!  Now all of us girls here are addicted to jigglers!

Okay Lily, we're going to show you how to go Easter egg hunting!

 Here’s another one of Lily:

Go ahead and pick it up Lily!

 Here are Peyton and Daddy looking for some eggs also:

Let's put the egg in your bag Peyton.

Yesterday afternoon, we were able to get the girls outside in the back yard to go on the swing set while Daddy did some yardwork.  Here is a picture of Daddy pushing Peyton before I was able to get Lily outside also.  But, both girls had a blast on the swings yesterday.  

 

I need to get a video of Lily on the swings so you all can hear her giggle up a storm.  She really really likes swings

I finally was able to finish Lily’s Easter sweater!  Yay!!!  I’ve already begun to work on Peyton’s sweater.  Peyton’s sweater will look the same, only it will be a pistachio color.  I have no worries about being able to finish hers on time.  Here is a picture of Lily’s sweater.  The arms are suppose to be big.  It looks really cute on her in a dopey kind of way   I can’t wait to get pictures of the girls in their Easter outfits with matching sweaters. 

Lily's Easter sweater

I’m thinking of trying to teach myself how to knit.  I found a lot of really nice patterns that are free online:  http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en/kategori_oversikt.php.  These look like something you would find in a store!  It would be really neat if I got good enough to knit my own clothes

Well, I think I’ve covered everything that we’ve been up to for the past 2 weeks.  This Tuesday night, we are suppose to go over to Dan and Amanda’s to continue the Knaisch-Jamison tradition of coloring eggs!

The Newest Video

I finally got a new video uploaded of Lily crawling   You can find it here http://www.vimeo.com/3548098 .  As you can see, she is able to get around pretty good now.  She is still getting over her ear infection, but is improving every day. 

Peyton is doing well also.  We are continuing our baking unit through this week   We got a little behind last week and had to take a couple of days off to help Amanda prepare for Abbie’s birthday party.  But, that is one of the nice things about homeschooling, it is very flexible.  This past Saturday, Abbie (Amanda’s daughter) celebrated turning 5.  She decided on going with a Tinkerbell theme.  Instead of getting Abbie a present, I thought it would be neat to make the girls flower crowns and the boys – Peter Pan hats.  Thursday night, Josh and I sat down in the living room and we made the crowns for the girls   I wish I had gotten a picture of Josh making his crowns.  Friday night, we went over to Dan and Amanda’s so I could help her go to the store and pick up everything else that she would need and also, so she could teach me how to sew…so I would be able to make the Peter Pan hats.  (I know…I may have been a little over ambitious here…taking on a project that required sewing).  Amanda taught me, and we figured out how to make the hats.  Saturday morning came, and I still had a lot of work to do before the party started that afternoon.  I got up and decided to get right to work on the Peter Pan hats.  Well, part of this project requires you to sew a feather onto the side of the hat.  I took the scissors and tried to poke a hole throught the fabric for the feather…something you should never ever do…and I almost cut my finger off!  Seriously!  Of course…chaos results…Josh made a homemade gauze thing for me to wrap around my finger to try to get it to stop bleeding…since we didn’t have a firstaid kit (we do now though!)  It took us over an hour to get the bleeding to slow down enough so we could put a bandage on it.  During that time, Josh ran to the store and picked up a first aid kit.  Unfortunately, I lost quite a bit of time that morning with my injury.  I know you’re all thinking…what about the hats!?  Not to worry, Josh came to the rescue.  He picked up the needle and thread and he finished all of the hats by himself!  They came out pretty good also.  Here are some pictures of the kids wearing the crowns and hats.

I see you!

This morning, Josh has a meeting at work which will hopefully shed some light on when the meetings are going to be later this month.

I’ve finally decided what my next project is going to be, now that I’m not working crazy hours tutoring.  I had already picked up the girl’s matching Easter outfits last year when everything went on clearance.  They are just little jumpers, nothing poofy this year.  I’ve decided I would try to crochet them matching pink sweaters to wear over them…it should be interesting to see how they turn out…if they turn out at all…  Anyway, I hope everybody is enjoying the beginning of March and staying dry

PB&J Day!

We are still continuing the potty training process   It is going much better this time around.  Peyton is having a lot more successes than she was a couple of months ago, which has made it a lot less frustrating for both of us. 

I ended up taking Lily to the doctor’s on Monday.  She had gotten a cold from Peyton last Thursday.  Sunday night, Lily had a really hard time sleeping because she kept coughing and she was really congested.  She was extremely cranky yesterday, especially in the waiting room   She wouldn’t stop crying, so the one receptionist went back to see if we could get right in…and we did   Once we got into the room, she was fine.  It turns out she has a double ear infection in her right ear.  The doctor asked me when she had had her last ear infection.  I looked at him and said that Lily has never had one and Peyton had never had one either.  He didn’t believe me!  I grabbed her charts and looked at them and said “You’re right”…”let me check her ears again”.  We both had a good laugh over it.  He put her on an antibiotic to take care of it.  Hopefully, her appetite will come back soon.  She hasn’t been interested in eating since Monday, only nursing. 

Peyton was able to give the doctor her thank you card that she made for him last week.  She painted a picture for him, and I gave him a picture of her wearing her “doctor hat” that is here on the blog   She was really excited about giving it to him.  He seemed happy about getting it   Hopefully it brightened his day a little, I know they have been really busy…tis the season.

I’m going to ask that you keep us in your prayers for the next couple of weeks.  Corning Inc.  is going to go through another round of layoffs here this month.  We aren’t sure if Josh’s job is secure.  So…who knows what will happen…  For some reason, I’m not concerned about it.  I know God has a plan for us and He will provide for us.  Maybe this will be our cue to move

This week, we are focusing on baking!  How fun is that?  Yesterday, we made chocolate chip muffins…which Peyton kept stealing when I wasn’t looking…good thing we only made 6.  Here are a couple of pictures of Peyton making them.  Notice the cute baker’s hat we made and how big Peyton’s flowers are getting (they in the bottom right of the pictures) 

Today, we will be making zee muffins

Combine everything into the bowl, and mix!

I think that just about sums up everything that we’ve been up to this past week…  I’ve cut my tutoring hours back.  Now, I am just tutoring 7-9pm Monday through Thursday.  It was getting to be too much for me.  I’ve been enjoying the hour reduction quite a bit.  Now, I am able to work a little and to also spend some time with Josh at night.

Oh, I almost forgot the most important part…today is PB&J day in Georgia!!!  Woohoo!!!  It’s time to revert back to your childhood and break out the peanut butter and grape (yes, I said grape…who doesn’t like grape) jelly, slab them on the bread…don’t forget to cut off the crusts   Enjoy!

Doctors and Rainbows

I figured I would sit down and do the “weekly update”   My brother-in-law came home from the hospital this past Wednesday and he is doing good.  This week, we focused on Doctors and Rainbows…I know it’s an odd combination   Peyton doesn’t seem to mind it though.  She enjoyed making/finding rainbows.  She turned a DVD over one day and got all excited because she discovered she could see a rainbow whenever she tilted the DVD.  During out week on doctors, we made a doctor hat for Peyton to wear.

Dr. Peyton reporting...

 

Is this how it goes?

This week we also started getting Lily use to using a sippy cup with her meals. 

Is this the right end?

I wasn’t able to get a video made of the girls from this past week.  Mostly because I didn’t know how to change the video discs in the camera   Josh changed them for me, so I’m hoping to get one made of Lily crawling and pulling herself up.

Peyton caught a bad cold from Sunday School last week.  She woke up Saturday morning with a small fever and a runny nose.  Unfortunately, it turned into the croup Saturday night   She still has a small fever, but she seems to be doing alright this morning…energy-wise.

I suppose I should end this and get things going with Peyton for the day   I heard the cardinal singing the other day…Spring is just around the corner

Valentine’s Day Extravaganza

Happy belated Valentine’s Day to everybody!  This past week, Peyton and I have been doing little crafty things that revolved around tea  parties and Valentine’s Day.  During this time, I’ve found myself questioning what Valentine’s Day really was.  I finally did a search on it, and it was pretty interesting…  You want to know?  Go ahead and look it up   I took some pictures of Peyton while she was making some things this week:

Peyton while she is making a purse with feathers.

Here is Peyton showing off the heart wand we made.

Here is a picture of Lily posing for the camera.

We had a rather quiet Valentine’s Day this year.  We decided to just spend the day together as a family.  Josh wanted to make pancakes for breakfast.  Here he is, making his special Valentine’s Day pancakes.

Special Valentine's Day pancakes.

Lily has been getting around pretty well these days…sometimes a little too well.  She is now crawling, no more inch-worming it for her   She has also gotten pretty good at pulling herself up on the furniture.  She hasn’t figured out how to cruise…yet… (she can take her time on that one)  I’ll try to get a video uploaded of the girls this week.

Peyton and I planted some flowers this morning   We got a VeggieTales Learning Garden yesterday.  We have them sitting on the counter, and hopefully they will bloom in a week or two

Checking in…

I figured I should check in with a new post, since it’s been a few days…okay maybe a week.  So, Peyton and I have been homeschooling.  We’ve been having a lot of fun with it.  This is our third week on it.  Here is a picture of what we did the first week of homeschooling:

The results of Peyton's first week of homeschooling.

 

Lily is growing fast also.  She is working on trying to figure out how to crawl.  She does an inch-worm move to get around these days.  She now has 3.5 teeth also.  The two front bottom ones and one of the top front ones are in.  She is currently working on getting the other top front one in.  Here are some pictures that I got of Lily this week.

Look at me!

This week, Peyton and I have been focusing on kittens for our theme with homeschooling.  Monday, we made kitten ears and pretended we were kittens.

Meow

Other than that, things have been pretty much the same here.  We battled through the nasty flu bug last week.  Luckily, the girls were spared.  I was lucky too since I let myself get dehydrated, but my loving husband was there to take care of me and the girls   I learned that Josh has “ultimate love” for me  

I was excited to learn this morning that Briana finally started her own blog on here   If you look to the left sidebar here and scroll down, you will come to my blogroll.  There is a link there to Briana’s blog for you to click on

Oh, and Peyton finally noticed the Christmas tree is gone!  This past weekend, we were hanging out in the living room.  All of a sudden, Peyton whipped around and said “Oh no!  Where did the Christmas tree go Mommy?”  Josh and I exchanged looks and we burst out laughing.  I’m sad to say, but I’m afraid Peyton inherited Mommy’s oblivious gene.

I do have an update on my brother-in-law.  His doctor’s appointments were moved up and he has surgery scheduled for February 13.  Please keep him in your prayers.  I also have an update on Terry and Connie’s mom.  She had her last chemo treatment last week.  She will finish up her radiation treatments on February 6.  She turns 75 on February 9, which is also when she will go back and see the oncologist and discuss if any further treatment will be needed.

I guess that’s about all the news that I have for now.  I learned an important lesson today.  I should never try to make popcorn and blog at the same time…enough said.

Turning 30

Tuesday was my 30th birthday.  Unfortunately, I spent it comatose on the couch in the living room, sick.  I have been sick since Saturday.  I decided to go to the clinic Monday night.  The doctor seemed to think that I had mono again, but she decided to give me some antibiotics to try out in case it wasn’t mono.  She told me to come back towards the end of the week if I wasn’t improving to get tested for mono.  The good news is that the antibiotics finally started to kick in today for me   I’m able to actually move around and interact with the girls and Josh.  Josh was a little too happy this morning to be able to finally return to work (he’s been staying home to take care of the girls since Monday)…go figure.  Me being sick though, didn’t stop Josh from trying to make the day special for me.  He got me ”Change of Heart” by Jodi Picoult to read.  Josh and Peyton also decided to “surprise” me by baking me a birthday cake.  Of course, I could hear Peyton in the kitchen getting all excited about it being a chocolate cake and singing happy birthday.  Here are some pictures of Peyton getting the full experience of baking a cake with daddy. 

mmm

Here is a picture of Peyton enjoying the chocolate.

I love chocolate.

Here is a picture of Lily looking leftout of eating the cake batter.

When do I get to have some chocolate?

Here is a picture of the cake that Josh and Peyton made.  It was a double layer, with frosting inbetween.  I was impressed, too bad I wasn’t able to taste it

 

What is up with those candles?