Henry's First Birthday Slideshow

I think I finally have this video uploading figured out (now that Henry is 18 months-LOL) We hope you enjoy. It cuts out at the end because it's not the original video. Luckily we have the original saved on a external hard drive. We've had a few computer issues over the last couple of months.

 

 

 

Chocolate Chip Cookie

I've been on a quest to perfect my chocolate chip cookies. I don't know why other than the fact that it bugs me when I spend time and money on ingredients and they don't turn out. Plus, I have two cookie monsters!!!

So here are my three little secrets..................

 

1) I bake all my cookies on Silpat mats. They are a bit pricey, but totally worth it! The pros use them and you can get them at Bed Bath and Beyond for $25.

2) I use Crisco (butter flavored) baking sticks. Forget waiting for butter to soften. These babies are soft and ready to go. Plus, I believe it makes the texture of the cookie better.

3) I use dark brown sugar instead of light.

I always follow Nestlé's recipe, so I can't take credit, but these tweaks truly make the PERFECT cookie. They are slightly crispy around the edge and ooey, gooey in the middle!

 

 

 

Now go bake some cookies!

I'm Back!!!

A good friend of mine over at Sassy Classy and Always Fabulous reminded me over the weekend that I haven't blogged in FOREVER. I guess I've been busy being a Mommy, but it is definitely time to start posting again. A lot has happened since September! Henry is now ONE. My how time flies. My little sister had a baby girl, and I turned 30!!! As a present to myself I did the Advocare 24 day challenge. I lost 6 lbs, which doesn't seem like a lot, but I dropped 2 pants sizes and I feel wonderful. I can't speak highly enough of this product. I'm continuing to eat clean as well as go to the gym 3-4 times a week. I'm actually running. I never thought I would because I usually hate it, but I actually love it now. I'm up to 2 miles. I'm proud of those 2 miles. Zac is doing well at work and Fenway and Rueben are loving life at the lake. Life is pretty good. I'm not sure where to even start, but I've had a few requests to see the slide show that we made for Henry's birthday party, so I figured I would start there. I get very emotional watching this. For real, cannot watch it without crying. "Forever Young" pretty much sums up how I feel about Henry. We could not have chosen a better song. Huge shout out to the (best show on TV) Parenthood for having this song on their soundtrack.

 

Sooooo apparently I cannot load the slide show. I'm going to need to figure out a way to do that, but in the meantime,  here are a few pictures from Henry's photo shoot. I really like how they turned out. Many thanks to Rachel Lund Photography!

 

http://rachellundphotography.wordpress.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin Patch

Props to HyVee!!! They created an awesome pumpkin patch in their parking lot. Honestly it's nicer than a lot of pumpkin patches that we've been too. We were really impressed. There's all kinds of activities for the little ones and the pumpkins are cheap! I might bring Henry back once a week until Halloween because we had so much fun. We started out the morning with pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks and a little shopping at Target. We stayed at the pumpkin patch for an hour or so and then went home for lunch. Then we went to the outlet mall to walk around, just because the weather is absolutely perfect. We had such a great Sunday!

 

My sweet baby boy!!!

 

Its a sandbox of corn!

 



 

It lasted until he started eating it.

 

 

We let him go down the slide (while we were holding him).

 

 

My amazing family. I am the luckiest girl on earth.

 

 

Love this picture!

 



 

Getting Henry to look at the camera when there is so much to look at is next to impossible.

This picture cracks me up! He looks like a full blown farmer!

 



 

All smiles!

 



 

 Mom.... please!

 

 

Sitting on the front porch :)

 

Our family of pumpkins. I had to get the white one! I think I might paint it. I also plan to go back and get more. They were so cheap.

More Life at the Lake

This past Saturday some of the Mom's I met through a support group at Mo Bap came down to the lake for the weekend. One of the Mom's parents has a house down here, so she invited us over. We left in the morning and spent 4 or 5 hours lounging, playing, and eating :) It was a blast and Henry got to spend time with other babies around his age. I'm so glad, because I hate that he's not getting the socialization he probably needs. We are trying to remedy that though by finding things for us to do during the day. That's been a little difficult because there's not much to do, but hopefully we can find one or two activities. We sat out on the boat slip while Henry chilled in the baby pool. He loves the water!

LOVE THESE TWO!!!

Big Boy Bath

We finally ditched the Fisher Price tub and thought it was time to put Henry in the big tub. He of course loved it. There's not much that this kid doesn't love. He has quite the assortment of sea creatures to play with. We have a few more bath toys on his Christmas list because he really enjoys playing in the tub. It has been a part of his nightly routine since his little cord stump fell off :)

This face cracks me up!

Park

We found a local park with an infant swing in Osage Beach and its close to the house. Thank goodness because I LOVE to swing and I have been dying to get this baby in one. We had so much fun. My goodness I take too many pictures. I can't help myself. I have no idea what I'm going to do with all of them.