The next Rachel Ray?

Lana surprised Paul by being a huge help in the kitchen while Paul attempted to make Betty Crocker's brownie/cookie concoction pictured here. She told him where the handmixer was kept (I keep it in the hall closet due to the lack of storage). She also could tell him which container held the flour and which held the sugar. Impressive since the containers are identical. She can also tell you that Rachel Ray loves to cook with E.V.O.O . - Extra Virgin Olive Oil -(granted, I don't think she knows what it is, just that Rachel Ray says it a lot). I look forward to her making me gourmet meals in the future!

Tanner on the phone while watching the Colbert Report

Other than the fact he doesn't quite get the phone to his ear he loves to have chats on the phone. Although when we put him on speaker phone with daddy he gets a little weirded out because he can't see him.

Tanner loves to have conversations. He's constantly babbling to himself and talks to everyone as though he can be understood. He genuinely looks sincere when he's conversing, it makes me smile every time.

And excuse the unbuttoned pant legs, we were in the middle of getting ready for bed when the video opportunity occurred.

Mmmm, yogurt

I can't say I'm a huge fan of the messiness of it all, but it sure is cute watching him feed himself. Plus if you click on the second picture you get a good shot of one of his molars coming in.

My Readers

Such a sweet moment, I'm glad I caught it. Lana was never such a reader as Tanner is. Lana was more interested in eating the books when she was Tanner's age rather than read them. She just needed to grow into her love for reading.

My helpers

I have a hard time getting other than face shots with this kid because he is like a magnet to the camera everytime I pull it out.



Nice hand shot.

Sweet girl!

Adios movie cases!

On a typical day at the Judson house, this is what my family room looks like. And this, people, is only 10:00 AM. It makes me want to pull my hair out every time I look. The movie cases were about to get the best of me. In our Madison house we had these oh-so-convenient drawers we had specially made to fit all of our dvd's in. Here I'm stuck with our 7 year old $10 Walmart tv stand that really lacks, well, everything. (It was once used as a house for my sewing machine and once for a night stand in Lana's nursery so it's been around.)



Both Tanner and Lana love to pull the movies off the shelf and push them around the floor. The new game this week that pushed me over the edge was called "take the inserts out of the cases and see how far they will spread through the apartment".




Well, this morning I happened to be checking out Thrifty Decor Chicks Blog who's hosting an Organize and De-clutter party today. There were a couple of posts about organizing movies and one girl had taken all her movies and put them into a large cd case sans their plastic cases. Perfect! What do I need the plastic cases for other than for the entertainment of my children and torture of myself? So I sauntered down to Target to see what they had to offer. When I located their cd cases, I noticed these super cute cd storage boxes on sale for $10. They had red or brown, I opted for the brown since my throw and throw pillows are maroon, not red.



30 minutes later, a nose full of dust, and voila! I feel so much lighter and happier when I look at my goober-covered-chipped-up-really-needs-to-be-retired tv stand. I only bought one box, not realizing how many movies we really had. I also didn't take into account that many movies come with multiple discs (ugh!). So I think I'll be making a trip back for another one. The movies on the left of the photo are the "You couldn't pay me enough to watch these again" movies (any takers??). And while I was taking the movies out of the cases, I was just throwing the cases into a pile in the middle of the floor. Tanner was actually rolling around in the pile having the most fabulous time in the world. Wish I'd gotten a picture of that, it was so cute!

We have a Sunbeam!

I cannot believe our baby girl is a Sunbeam already! We've been talking it up for quite a while and she's been belting out the song "Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam" at least once a day. I had the chance to be with her during singing and sharing time because I was filling in for the primary piano player. She wasn't that excited to be sitting like that for so long and was super fidgety, but did pretty good. They separated for classes and when I went to go pick her up, she was so happy and excited. Her teachers (I couldn't ask for more fabulous teachers!) said she did good. She was happy to tell us what she learned and show off her pretty crown they made. We are working on learning her teacher's names. Everytime I ask her what their names are she says "Jesus".

Being frugal

I love being frugal. There's something about getting a lot for little or nothin' that makes me all warm and fuzzy inside. Well, living out in the sticks makes it a little bit harder to get fab deals frequently so that makes them all the more sweeter when I do. Tonight our night consisted of a free movie rental from Redbox movies, free dinner from Mickey D's thanks to Grandpa Jerry, and 2 Ben and Jerry's Pint-size icecreams for $1.70 each. Love it! You can share in the love with the Ben and Jerry's too with the coupon link found on Being Frugal is Fabulous. We purchased ours at Walgreens only because that's where the Redbox movie box is, so you might be able to get them for even less or free!

Hello?

Tanner's new thing is answering the phone. It is so hilariously cute, I've been trying to catch it on video but the camera is way more interesting than the fisher price phone. I make the phone go ring, ring. Tanner picks up the reciever and says "hawoah?!" in a high sing-song type voice, like he's imitating the way I answer the phone. I love it! The kid cracks me up more and more each day. He also loves to mimick people when the sneeze. It's especially funny when were in the middle of sacrament meeting when it's dead quiet and someone sneezes. Then you can hear Tanner's faint "-chew, -chew".

Happy New Year (redneck style)!

Paul's superintendent was nice enough to let us come and light off our fireworks in his back yard since we don't have one (well, we do, but it's quite a drive north). When we got there they had 2 pickup trucks backed up to the fire.



Here's our nice warm bonfire complete with wood pallets for fuel. It was pretty cozy and a nice way to keep from freezing (yes, it's actually chilly here right now).



If you look closely at this picture then you will see that the kiddos did not enjoy the loud fireworks. I think we were too close for Lana and Tanner just sat in my arms and whimpered until he fell asleep. (It was pretty late.)














You know, living in the south you can get some pretty awesome fireworks.



It took a little creativity to get Lana to play with the sparklers. They had to be Tinkerbell wands.

All in all it was a good new years. Dave came down and Paul almost burned off 2 of his fingers lighting off fireworks. Good times!