It's Snowing!

We got snow earlier this year, but it was very little compared to friday. I felt like we were having a blizzard!! I worked Friday until 4 and then still had to go into town and fill a prescription for HB for her ear infection that we had went to the doctor earlier that day. Needless to say by this point it was really coming down. Dad drove me into town and by the time I got on the road to come home, it was very scary!! I made it to the driveway and got halfway up and started spinning!! Dustin had to cut me a path to the garage and then help push my car into it.. haha! Soon as I got out you would have thought Dustin was five again and was saying how some of our friends wanted to come over and play in the snow together. We had some people over and had snow ball fights and attempted to sled on a trash can lid old school style... well that didnt really work :/ I sat HB at the window and let her look out into the snow and she was just facinated by it... but by the time it stopped snowing and I wanted to get HB out in it (bc of her ear) we decided to take her over to my parents house the next day where they had one of the boogie board sleds. I got one or two on my camera, but mom has some great ones of us that I hope to add soon :)

Snow Day 10

8 Month Pics

You can only imagine (and see!) how hard it is to get these pictures accomplished now!!

8 Months

8 Months

Well here it is... it has totally snuck up on us! Hailey is now 8 months old. She is changing more and more everyday, looks, attitude, and accomplishments. She has really taken off in the past couple of days and week. Starting the Sunday before last she up and crawled over to me. It was he most amazing thing that I have experienced in a while. It is so powerful and makes you feel so accomplished for her. You could just see it all over her face that she was so excited to be coming over to me without any help from anybody! She has been up on her knees and looking like she was doing push ups since way before Christmas, and started moving one hand about two weeks ago. She got sick last week and was not doing any better on Sunday, so I decided to keep her home form Church to not get any of the other kids sick (and there are a lot of them!). She was still very happy and all smiles. We were sitting in the living room watching t.v. and she, like always, got up on her knees... well this time she started moving her legs AND arms! I was so happy, but also upset because Dustin had already left! So I immediately grabbed the camera and started shooting. She has now gotten good enough to get into things before we can get over to her. She has gotten into the dog food, the dish washer, and the DVD player in the living room (all harmless!)
She is also saying "hey dada" all the time, and the funny thing is, she has yet to do it when "dada" is in the room! haha, but at least others have heard it so I am not just being 'that' mommy! GG swears that she says "hey there" every once in a while... and you can hear it if you listen real closely. She now thinks that naps are overrated and for the weak hearted. She has been letting them get shorter and shorter and sometimes only taking one long or two short naps a day. Of course mommy wishes this could go back to the 2 hour naps... because that is the time a mommy lives for!
Her adorable chubby thighs keep growing and somehow get even cuter. I keep telling her to enjoy this now, because it is sure to be short lived. She is now up to 17.5lbs (thanks to a sick visit) and is right there in her %'s. I think she is one of the only kids that I see get so excited in the doctors room. Now I think this is mostly because she is almost naked and LOVES it! That and the fun paper that rattles everytime she slaps it.
She still loves her bath time and gets so excited every night when we go in there to start her bath. She sits on my lap and watches me get it ready. I hand her the bath toys and she throws each one of them into the tube. She splashes and laughs the whole time she is in there. She is the most excited right when she gets out. She kicks and yelps and starts hitting notes we haven't ever heard! It is a site to see.

Hailey loves hanging out with other babies and kids. She just smiles and laughs at them. As I have said before we have a lot of babies in our church that are the same age as her, and we get together every other wednesday and Sunday for church, so she gets to have her play time. She has gotten close with a boy already and dad is keeping his eye out!
We bought her a walker for Christmas, and it didn't exactly work out because it was too tall. So I found one on Craig's list that was in good shape and HB LOVES chasing the dogs around the house in it, banging into the walls, and getting into everything she can find. She has gotten really good at walking in it, and will all but run to you when you put your hands out and tell her to come to you! She gets so excited, but like crawling, it is because she is doing it all by herself... such a big girl! The flower in her hair in this pic is one of my most recent projects. I have made her a couple of hair bows like this and plan to buy some waffle head bands to attach them too. She looks so adorable in these big hair accessories!
I am going to be taking her 8 month pictures on Wednesday, but these were some of her most recent ones :)

Menu Monday

Well I had a yummy meal in mind for today, and at the last minute, changed it up! Why you ask... well my goal is to give easy recipes that are fast and can be done with kids/mulit-tasking. I am living proof of how easy it is to multi-task while making this delicious meal... I woke hailey up, fed her with one arm, checked Dustins online banking (while still feeding HB!) and talked on the phone while cooking this meal. haha! Now of course it did not have to be this complicated... but when do we ever make things easy at the Floyd house! Here it is...


Sausage (Grnd turk!) Corn Bake
6-8 Servings
Prep 15 min Cook time 30-40 min

1-1/2lbs bulk pork sausage (i subst grnd turk)
1 md grn pepper, chopped
1 md onion, chopped
4 tbls butter, divided
3 tbls all purpose flour
1/2 tspn white pepper
1/2 tspn salt
1-1/2 cups milk
3-1/2cups (10 oz) egg noodles, cooked and drained
1 can cream style corn
1/4 cup shrd cheddar cheese
1/2 cup dry bread cumbs

IN a large skillet, cook the sausage, grn pepper, and onion over md heat until no longer pink; drain and set aside. In a large saucepan, melt 3 tlbs butter over md heat. Stir in flour, salt and pepper. Gradually add milk; stirring until smooth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 2 min or until thickened. Stir in corn. Add corn mixture and noodles to sausage mixture. Mix in cheese.
TRANSFER to a greased 13x9x2 baking dish. *Melt remaining butter; *stir in bread crumbs. Sprinkle over casserold. BAKE, uncovered, at 325 for 30-40 mins or until heated through.
*Two things that I did different and to make it easier is, we like crunchy toppings and french fried onions are cruchier and a little tastier than bread crumbs... so if you want this texture, try those. To skip a step, just sprinkle bread crumbs without melting butter and use spray butter once you have topped casserole.
**You can also add bread crumbs and mix in the casserole to give it a thicker consistency... we liked it much better this way.
***If you are feeding a family of two and thinking this recipe needs to be downsized.. here's a tip: Go ahead and make the full serving size and bake half now and place the other half in a foil baking pan and freeze it for up to 3 months! (don't sprinkle bread crumbs until thawed and ready to bake)

Enjoy!

~**~Nicole~**~

Menu Monday

I have been enjoying trying a lot of new recipes lately and have decided to start Menu Monday! I love going to different sites where people have a certain day for certain things.... and so I came up with Menu Monday. I will try (and don't hold me to it EVERY monday!) to put a new recipe up every Monday. Most of these will be easier recipes that don't take too long or you can BAKE, my favorite!! Being a new mom has provided new obstacles for me in the kitchen, so I love new recipes that are easy to do! I found this recipe at Kraft Foods

Cheesy Chicken Italiano
Prep time 10 min Total time 20 min
Makes 4 servings
You will need:
3 cups rotini pasta (or whichever is your favorite!)
4 small boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1lb)
1 jar (14oz) spaghetti sauce
6oz. VELVEETA pasteurized prepared cheese product, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

Make it:
COOK pasta as directed on package
MEANWHILE, heat large skillet sprayed with cooking spary on medium-high heat. add chicken; cook 2 min on each side. add sauce; cover. simmer on low heat 10 min, or until chicken is done (165 degrees) add VELVEETA; cook and stir until melted.
DRAIN pasta; top with chicken and sauce.

ENJOY!

~**~Nicole~**~

We're on the move!

It's now official.... HAILEY IS CRAWLING!! We have been waiting for this for a while since she has been up on here knees since before Christmas. We knew it was just around the corner, and it is now here! We are so excited and anxious at the same time. Needless to say we haven't been on the ball about "baby proofing" the house... so there is much to be done now. She is still a little wobbly, but she is doing so well getting to where she wants.(yes I am being that parent!) She just started doing this today. She has been moving her hand since wednesday, but not really getting any where. She would move one and then go to move the other and fall on her belly. But she is now going all the way across the living room! I got a video of it so that everyone could see. I am home by myself tonight because Dustin is downtown helping dad break down everything at the World of Wheels from this weekend.. so the video is a bit close... I am sure there will be many more to come!

I can feed myself mommy!

Hailey is turning into such a big girl. She has been doing better and better everyday with eating her food. She has been trying all kinds of new treats and is loving all of them. As you saw from past videos, she is not to fond of the veggies, but we are working on it. In fact, tonight we had peas for dinner. I usually have to mix applesauce with them to get her to eat them, but I just had it ready on standby just in case she wouldn't eat the peas by themselves. I had to coax her the first couple of bites and show her that mommy liked them too! She was loving them by the third or fourth bite and ate the whole thing gone! yay for HB! Can you tell that mommy is excited that she is finally eating well now?!? I usually give her some puffs as a "dessert" because she loves them so much. Tonight I tried letting her feed herself and showing her how to put them in her mouth. After about the fifth try she had it down! We got a video of her putting one in and after each one she would give me a "high five"! She was so proud of herself and it was too cute :)