Cody at Three

Where does the time go? I cannot believe my little baby boy is going to be four this summer! It is so bitter sweet, because he is my last, my baby, and he is growing up way to fast for me, but at the same time I love who he is growing up to be, such a great mix of sweetness and toughness! His heart is so kind, he always says he loves his family and loves his sister. Every night at dinner we do what is called high/low, every one gets a turn of saying what their high (happy thing) was for the day and what their low (sad thing) was for the day, it is sooo cute because every night Cody's happy thing is the same "that we are all eating dinner together as a family" and it is all him, not once did any of us ever tell him to say that or said it before, it literally comes from his heart! On the other note he loves playing army guys, he however calls it "bad guys" he gets all dressed up in things that does not even come close to relating to army stuff, but in his mind it does, The shower cap is his bad guy hat, he has this brown coat that is his bad guy coat and black snake skin cowboy boats are his bad guy shoes! haha His smile is my favorite thing other than his heart, It is the cutest little smile that brings such joy to my soul! A funny story about Cody is one time in the summer my mom was up visiting and Cody was learning to potty train, it was hot we were all out side in the back yard playing in the little kid pool and jumping on the trampoline. when ever Cody had to pee I would just let him go pee on the tree or somewhere outside. Riley then for some reason thought it was cool that Cody could pee outside and asked if she could, haha I didn't care it was just me and my mom and we have a privacy fence so I said go ahead I don't care, plus she was all wet from the pool and I didn't want them going in and out of the house anyways. so she just pulled her swim suit to the side and peed and Cody walked over with this look of amazement and confusion on his face and he walked all around Riley and looked up at her and said "but sissy how? you don't got one?" ahahahaha I am sure you can assume what he was talking about sissy not having one!

Funny things Riley has said!

As I'm laying on the floor with a terrible stomach ache, Riley comes up to me and says Riley: mom is your tummy hurting that bad?
Me: no honey its just a stomach ache, it will pass. Riley: do you need to sit on the potty and fart?!!!!! hahahaha

When Riley was little she loved the movie Shrek, but she couldn't pronounce Shrek right, when she said it, it came out as fuck! and when ever we were out in public and she would see a Shrek poster or picture about the movie, she would just start screaming in excitement Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! and people would just start staring at us in disbelief, and I would always have to explain "shes saying Shrek! hahaha

Another pretty funny story was the day when Riley's preschool teacher came up to me and asked if I was her biological mother or her step mother, and I said I'm her biological mother, me and her father are still married? why do you ask? And she told me that Riley talks about her "other mother" that lives in Seattle! I laughed and said she is very imaginative and I swear I am her only mother! hahaha

Riley has this little white bear that use to have this black jumpsuit on it, and because of that she always called it her black baby, well she had lost the little black jumpsuit for the white bear but she still called it her black baby, and it was just funny to see peoples expressions when she would talk about her black baby while carrying around this white bear!

she always made up her own name for things also, like Avocados, I don't know why but she has always called them flamingos and to this day she still calls them flamingos! She would call the remote control for the T.V a camode! A lawnmower was a mowlawner, Spaghetti was Bahsghetti, motorcycles were cyclebikes And the cutest was when she would always say when you would copy her is " Quit peetin what I say"! hahahaha

Rileys new found love!!!!

So we have tried so many things with Riley but she never really showed any interest. Track was a total flop, I really hoped she would have like that because it was one of my favorite things especially high jump, but sad to say she hated it! Gymnastics was "okay" but still there were days she didn't want to go. So when she mentioned to me that she would really love to take horse lessons I thought "oh great something I know absolutely nothing about and we don't even have a horse?" I called around and found a stable that would start her off with the basics, I didn't want her to go into it without fully understanding the dangers and how powerful these animals are! They started her off just learning about the different names and breeds and how to measure and how horses saw and heard things and it was alot of her just watching and taking notes, I thought she would be bored because it wasn't actually riding yet, but she wasn't! she fully listened and was completely interested in it! After a couple of weeks of just literature learning she was able to move up to learning how to care, feed and groom horses, and after a couple more weeks of that she moved up to leading horses! Then FINALLY after a month and a half of learning all of that she was able to move up to riding! She LOVES it!!! her horses names is Val and he is a horse that belongs to the stables that she can use while taking lessons there. He has helped her in so many levels, he has taught her patience and focus. Riley has a hard time with focusing, she has been diagnosed with epilepsy and suffers from high temporal spikes in her Brain, which makes focusing for her difficult. Her neurologist has said that along with this he thinks she suffers from non hyperactive ADD. But Val has been very therapeutic for her in this case. I am very resistant to the idea of prescription drugs because I saw and still see how they affect my twin sister (who also suffers from epilepsy), so we (as in me and Corey) would like to try different focusing techniques and exercises along with diet before we resort to medication, but never did we think it would come in the form of horse lessons!! Her instructor makes her constantly have to think about where her hands are, to sit tall, to keep her heels down, which leg needs pressure on which side she is wanting Val to go and it really works her focus to a level that when she is done with a lesson she is mentally exhausted, which is great because it is working in the areas of focus and concentration! This weekend Gammi and Papa came to visit and see Riley at her lessons, she was very excited and proud that they came to watch her, she even got to give little brother a ride on Val! She loves Val dearly and gets very upset if we forget to bring him a treat of some sort!

Gluten free Apple cake with Cranberries

This was a very yummy recipe courtesy of Gluten free goddess at glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com. I modified the recipe just a little because I only keep White rice flour and bobs red mill all purpose gluten free flour in my house. The ingredients I used are as follows: dry ingredients
1 and 3/4 cup of bobs red mill all purpose gluten free flour
1tsp Xanthum gum
1tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tsp of Cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 cup of brown sugar
wet ingredients
1 egg
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup of applesauce
1/2 almond milk
1/4 tsp of lemon juice
2 table spoons of honey
2tsp of vanilla
add ins
2 rounded cups of chopped apples
1/2 cup dried cranberries

Pre heat oven to 350degrees.
grease 9inch round pan

In a large bowl combine your dry ingredients with a whisk.
In a smaller bowl combine your wet ingredients.
Add the wet into the dry ingredients and stir till smooth batter forms.
Add half of the apples and cranberries and stir into the batter.
scoop the batter into the greased cake pan and smooth out.
Add the remaining apples and cranberries on top and kinda press them into the batter.
optional to sprinkle raw sugar on top.
Bake 40 to 50 min
use a metal fork, knife or cake tester to see if done
let cool but be sure to enjoy some of it slightly warm!!!

Me and my family loved this cake, it was very harvesty so I am sure it would also be wonderful for a fall desert!!!

Rileys horse lessons

If you are having trouble viewing this video, click on the link that says Rileys horse lesson and then hit the play button and then the actual video to play, I dont know why I have a hard time with videos on here and help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

So I will completely admit, I am a total DORK during St. Patricks day, but I cant help it, I absolutely love this holiday!!!! We made the traditional corn beef and cabbage, and the kids did what they thought was Irish dancing! It was totally corny but I loved every minute of it!!! Also seeing the kids faces when they found something that the "leprechauns" turned green and what they did to their rooms was sooo funny!!!!

Tricky little leprechauns

Wow, those leprechauns really got us this time, they completely trashed the kids rooms, peed in our toilets turning them green and turned our milk and apple juice green!!

Daddy's Birthday

We had a very simple but fun birthday for Corey! It was just him, me and the kids, while the kids were at school I baked a gluten free cake with the new cake pan that Melissa had given me and then when the kids got home they helped me decorate it and then they each picked daddy out a present at the dollar store, it was very cute! We topped it off with root beer floats! Happy birthday honey, we love you!