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Caitlin is a snooze alarm type of girl.  Every morning I go in early and "try" to get her up.  She will always say, "Five more minutes".  And I come back in 5-10 minutes.  This morning I go in to "wake" her.  I ask if she needs five minutes.  She immediately gets out of bed.  I turn to walk out of the room and she falls on the floor.  I say, "Caitlin what happened?"  She doesn't answer.  I say, "Do you need a few more minutes?"  As she drags herself back towards the bed she says, "yeah I think a few more minutes would be good".  Crazy girl!

Happy Valentine's Day!

The girls LOVED getting Valentines in the mail from all the grandparents yesterday.  Thank you for sending the cards and the goodies.  They each loved them!!

These are the goodies we (meaning I) made for Caitlin's class.  She didn't want to do the easy dipped marshmallows again.  She wanted to do cake pops.  I vetoed that and instead tried oreo truffle pops.  I wasn't sure how they would fare on a stick, but I think they did pretty good.  She was excited about handing them out, at least.

"I Want Self"

Alaina is a very picky eater.  So when she wants to eat something healthy, we have to take advantage of the opportunity.  Saturday, she wanted to eat some yogurt.  And she wanted to do it all by herself.  I had just gotten her out of the bath, so I thought it was perfect.  She wouldn't get it all over her clothes.

Every time I tried to help her, she would say. "I want self!"

She did pretty good.  Only dropped it on her belly a few times.

Later that day, we went to Menchie's.  She was SO excited.  She ran in screaming, "Menchie."  She liked the free 3D glasses they gave her.

Also, she recently had her 2 year checkup.  She was 85% in height and 51% for weight.

Getting things done . . .

I had a productive Saturday.  I cleaned out my closet recently and finally logged everything and took it all to Goodwill.  7 bags of clothes and a basket full of shoes.

I ordered these vinyl sayings probably TWO years ago.  I couldn't figure out how to hang them.  It was very frustrating.  Well, I finally tried again and for some reason had no problem.  I'm glad I didn't get frustrated and throw them away.  I love how they turned out.  This one is over our front doow.

And this one is in my studio.

I also reorganized my props and backdrops.  Love it!

The new fort

This is what Caitlin's bed looks like 99% of the time.  It was SO frustrating for me.  All I wanted was her bed to look nice.  But she loved sleeping like this.  She stole Alaina's toy turtle that lights up and shoot star constellations on the ceiling (thanks Becky!) and now sleeps like this each night.

So a permanent solution had to be found.

Thanks to Google, I found an easy solution.  A tension rod and a twin sheet and Voila! 

She LOVES it because it can stay up permanently.  I LOVE it because it is so neat.

I do think I need a more sturdy tension rod, though.  This one bows in the middle.

Yummy!

So I made two new recipes to take to Emily's for the Superbowl get together.  They both turned out SO good!!  So I thought I would share.  Your welcome!

Garlic Chicken Puffs
Ingredients:
* 4 ounces, weight Cream Cheese
* 1 teaspoon Garlic Powder
* ½ cups Cooked, Shredded Chicken
* 2 cans (8 Oz. Can) Refrigerator Crescent Rolls

Instructions:
Mix cream cheese, garlic and chicken until well blended.

Unroll crescent rolls and cut each triangle into 2 triangles. (When you unroll the crescent rolls, 2 triangles are attached, making a big square. You can just cut from there, following the perforation for one cut, and make another cut from the other corners, giving you 4 little triangles.)

Place 1 teaspoon of chicken mixture on the center of each triangle and fold the corners in over the creamy mixture.

Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 11-14 minutes.

Cookies n Cream Cheesecakes 

42 Oreos, 30 left whole and 12 coarsely chopped

2 pounds (32 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup sour cream
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 275°. Line standard muffin pans with liners. Place 1 whole cookie in the bottom of each liner.

Beat cream cheese at medium speed using an electric mixer. Gradually add the sugar, beating until combined. Beat in vanilla.

Drizzle in eggs, a bit at a time. Beat in sour cream and salt. Stir in chopped cookies by hand.

Divide batter evenly among cookie-lined cups, filling each almost to the top. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until filling is set, about 22 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Refrigerate at least 4 hours (or up to overnight). Remove from tins just before serving. Best served really cold! You can garnish with fresh whipped cream and crumbled Oreos if desired.

Makes 30 cheesecakes.

Studio Fun

Someone is a little obsessed with my studio.  Every time we go in there, Alaina says "Pictures" in her cute little way.  So I've been using her as my guinea pig trying out some new settings.

I bought a few pieces of fabric to simulate some wallpaper walls.  A cheap fix but I like how it turned out!

And here's some of Caitlin . . .

Drastic times call for drastic measures!

We are tired of getting Alaina up from bed and finding her diaper off!  She has figured out how to undress herself and likes to do that at naptime or when she wakes in the mornings.

So we are now at the point of duct taping her diaper on (and needing to focus on potty training).

I know it looks like we are torturing her with the duct tape.  She just didn't want to lay down so I could take a picture.  (Just another form of torture, I guess).  I know - mom of the year!

She's definitely TWO

 Last night, we went to CiCi's Pizza for some dinner with the Sutherlands. The girls like to play in the little arcade after they are done eating and we always sit where we can see them.  After about 15 minutes of them playing, Caitlin runs over to me and says that she lifted Alaina up to see the basketballs (in the Pop-a-Shot game) and then she climbed in and wouldn't come out.
 

Where you see her here is where you shoot the basketballs into.  She had crawled under where the basketballs come out and got into the game.  You couldn't just grab her out - we had to coax her back under.  I tried being upset about it, but then each time I looked at her in her little jail, I just laughed.

She was raised by animals and almost died . . .

Today, the girls and I were eating lunch and I look over at Caitlin and her mouth is crammed full of food.  She had stuffed it full of the last of her lunch and could barely even chew.  I, of course, started to lecture her on manners and why it was rude to eat like she was raised by animals.  I take another bite of my lunch and then Caitlin starts choking.  She was seriously choking.  There was panic in her eyes.  I jumped up, hit her on the back, put my arms around her for the heimlich.  I think I squeezed 2-3 times.  I don't even think my hands were in the right place or was anywhere close to the right technique but finally the food came out.  I just had to sit down, hug her and cry a little.  There had been a split second of panic where I thought, "This isn't working.  I can't handle this!"  And then it was all over and everything was fine.  I've been saying some extra prayers of thanks today!!

New pictures

I had to set my studio back up this weekend after doing a wedding so I used Caitlin and Alaina as my "models".

Then today, in between client sessions, Alaina wanted to take some more pictures.  She loved to pose and then look at the camera at herself.

Can you tell her shoes are on the wrong feet?

She likes to put them on herself.