We Have A Birthday Girl

We have a three-year-old now! I can't believe Winnie is three, even though she usually talks like she's 15. I don't ever want her to grow up, but I also enjoy her more and more all the time.

We had a fantastic day. It included a trip to our favorite park, pizza, dinosaurs, doll houses, new books and new dresses.

The cake (you're looking at 10 eggs and 1 1/2 pounds of butter right there).

The candles

The presents. (Someone should brush that poor girls' hair--or at least wash her face. What was her mother thinking?)

The dolls on the cake go to this doll house.

A set of sporty red wheels.

Winnie got a bucket of dinosaurs from her cousins. I think they were her favorite toy of the evening. Even still, she told everyone they could chose one to take home. Only Luke took her up on the offer, though.

As Winnie went to bed tonight she was singing "Happy Birthday" to herself.

And my baby is

On Luke's first birthday he. . .

weighs 23 pounds.

isn't very interested in learning to walk.

says about 10 words.

is almost all smiles--even when he's sick.

loves blankets.

is very patient with his sister, who often isn't very patient with him.

Meal Planning

One of the goals I made in 2009 was to start making weekly meal plans and shopping lists. Having a meal plan for the whole week has definitely cut down our trips to the grocery store, wasted groceries, fast food lunches at work/school, and dinner-time dilemmas about what to eat. Coming up with a meal plan is still a struggle sometimes, though. I've gotten a lot of ideas from other blogs I read, so I've decided to post my meal plans on my sidebar. I get a lot of recipes online and will post a link when available. We try a lot of new recipes, so I can't vouch for every dish, but most of the new recipes come recommended by someone.

Rambling recent developments

A few weeks shy of 1 year old and Luke has finally decided he can sit. To clarify, he's been able to sit for months and months--he's just had no desire. If you tried to sit him down on the floor he'd immediately arch his back and refuse to bend. A couple of months ago he started kneeling on the floor when he was playing and now he's started to sit and kneel about equal amounts. I can't believe he's almost 1!

Winnie got a very cute haircut Saturday and I thought I had good pictures of it until I looked at them on the computer. On the computer I could see that Winnie had a goopy nose and some left-over soup on her mouth. We'll try again tomorrow.

Matt took the bar last week and we're now all enjoying a life of luxury with no studying in sight. No job in sight, either, but let's try to stay positive, shall we?

On a slightly related note 261 E 100 N went under contract on January 29th, right after I had settled on a fabulous "black bean" paint scheme. It had been on the market somewhere around 8 months! Couldn't it have waited a couple more months??? Who buys a house with broken windows in the middle of winter, anyway? I've been obsessively checking the county recorder's documents to see if anything has recorded showing that the sale has gone through. Nothing yet, so I still have a slight hope that the sale will fall through and we can snatch it up! I haven't been able to bring myself to drive by for fear I'll see vinyl replacement windows going in. Oh the horror.