Summer Colds - Boo!

Yes, we are all four fighting off a bit of a cold right now. So what do I do to make us all feel better?? Cook! I'm just finishing off a batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies which are mighty tasty if I don't say so myself. They are quickly disappearing off of the cooling rack by little Lucas hands. Grilled black bean and sweet potato quesadillas for dinner with most likely a side of refried beans and lettuce salad for Mark and I. My kids' comfort food is beans!!! I'm pretty sure they share the two love languages of being completely drenched in water (usually by a hose or pool)and eating beans. Ahh...their mom must have been from Texas!

Swim Lessons

Today was Luke's first day of swim lessons with Ms Shelly. I was a little concerned when Lucas said he would just sit in the car, he didn't want to get out of his carseat, he wanted to go home and take a nap, he couldn't swim because he had and ouchy on his knee, his legs were broken, may have been more excuses. These were all given to me on our two minute drive from our house to shelly's house!! Thank goodness Jackson is taking swim lessons with him and that Shelly has a cute little dog to coax Luke in the door. She had the two boys watch a safety video before getting in the pool. I obviously wasn't paying attention because about 20 seconds after getting outside I was taking off my cover-up and Kailyn jumped in!! She is fine, but it was a little embarrassing after just watching the video. This is something that Kailyn does daily at Colony West so I didn't thing too much about it. She doesn't mind going completely under, she actually prefers to be submerged. Back to the boys- they both did a great job swimming. They were learning to kick, use their arms to swim, and blow out through their noses. They also did a little playing and jumping in! KC, of course, was doing it all with them. When the boys were instructed to put their faces in the water Kailyn would be the first to do it!! It was fun - Mommy is very tired and so were the kids (sleeping right now, ahhh!). I'm hoping I won't get the numerous excuses on our way tomorrow! I don't think I will, he had a lot of fun and got a popsicle after his lesson! I will hopefully get some pictures in the next couple of weeks.

Tex-Mex Mondays

My family LOVES a little Tex-Mex for dinner so we have made it happen every Monday (and sometimes more!). I've been trying make something new and different just to mix it up. This week was okay. I made orange-chipolte beef ribsand Oaxacan grilled corn. The ribs were not great because the meat was so fatty, I guess the nature of beef ribs?? I've never bought or made ribs before so I wasn't sure if it is just ribs in general or the particular ribs I had. Please leave me a comment if you have any advice or answers! The grilled corn turned out AWESOME. I will definitly post the recipe on http://taggartcookin.blogspot.com. I am having so much fun with these meals! I will keep you posted on all of my future meals!

More pictures from the party

Luke's 3rd Birthday Celebration!

One week until my baby boy is THREE!! Where did the last three years go? We decided to have a family pool party for his birthday and then pizza after a day of swimming. I would have loved to fix up a bunch of Tex-Mex, but Lucas wanted pizza. I guess he made it easy on me. Lucas ended up napping and missing the afternoon of swimming, but he soooo needed this nap and enjoyed his party and swimming this evening. He got a lot of great toys - thank you everyone!!! He is sleeping with his new Chick Hicks and Sally cars.
Lucas had a John Deere party per his request. Believe me, I did try to encourage another theme, but he was persistent. It turned out really cute! He had his John Deere birthday shirt from Megan (thank you) and coordinating cake/decorations. He loved it!
Lucas is such an awesome little boy. Mark and I are so blessed that God has entrusted us with these two little children. My mother-in-law recently told me that God made us the perfect parents for Lucas. Wow, this is so true! People can give you advice or parenting tips (which we gladly accept and are so grateful for), but no one understands our children like we do! We are so proud of our little man.

Luke's Birthday Celebration!

Luke's actual birtday is July 3, but because of the craziness of the holiday we choose to have his

Muddle Puddle Stomping

I'm all about letting kids get dirty (at appropriate times of course). After all of the rain we have had lately our driveway was full of muddle puddles (as my kids call them). They had the best time running, stomping, sitting (kailyn), etc. Their huge smiles and contagious giggles are priceless!!

A little Lovin

Lucas and Kailyn gettin lovey so had to break out the camera

Happy Father's Day

We celebrated our Father's Day on Monday since Mark worked the weekend. I picked up a new Mexican recipes magazine and let Mark choose whatever he wanted for dinner. He chose a spicy hot shrimp and pineapple kabob paired with coconut rice and I added a mango/avocado salad. HE LOVED IT (and so did I). He even called Larry and Rosemarie to come by for a taste test. That was definitely the best part of his Father's Day gifts. He also got couple of shirts and ... what for it....I moved two of his movies to the top of Netflix queue. If you know me at all you know how hard it was for me to allow Star Trek and Transformers get to the top! I tried to suffer through both of these movies - went to bed halfway through Transformers and fell asleep on the couch during Star Trek. Anyhoo, I think Mark had a great day (at least I hope so). He is an amazing husband and an awesome father. The kids get so excited when he gets home from work. Kailyn cries at his feet until he picks her up and Lucas has usually already tackled him. The kids absolutely adore their daddy and love it when we get to spend all day with him. That usually means we get to do something fun and LT almost always get to go do "guy stuff" with Mark. For example - go to Lowes, yardwork, etc.

So Cute

I pray that Lucas and Kailyn will grow up to be the best of friends. I know they will have their moments like all siblings do, but I pray that they will grow up always playing together and just being there for each other. Today at lunch Kailyn said, "done" so I let her out of her highchair to play until Luke and I were finished. Kailyn marched right over to Luke and said, "play, play, play". He smiled, patted her on the head and said, "I's not finished eating yet Stinker". He quickly finished and ran into the living room and said, "ok sissy, I ready to play now". Melted Momma's heart!!

Crazy Kailyn

Little Kailyn is giving me a run for my money. She is much more talkative then her older brother was at this age. Which is good and bad. She can say enough to let me know what is wrong or what she wants which is good. For example, she says a lot of key words - ouch, drink, snack, eat, milk, MINE (we hear this one a lot these days), hot, help, stuck, story - and many more words! Today we were at the grocery story and the entire way down the cracker/cookie aisle I heard E....A....T....!!!!!!! Hmmm... Guess we took our trip a little too close to dinner time. At the pool this afternoon she was lounger with her alligator tube. She was actually lying on her back with her hair dipped in the water and toes/feet sticking up to. It is like she is floating on her back, but is hanging on to her float. It is hysterical to see such a small person lounging like that. Today, she was doing her usually back float until I hear STUCK!!! She did not have the strength to push her feet back down to the bottom of the pool - so funny. I really need to get this on video! I could go on and on with Kailyn stories. I like to document them here so we will have them later. It will be fun to read back through these one day.

What's For Dinner

It's all about cleaning out my pantry and freezer today! Mark and I purchased 1/4 of a cow so are needed to use up some of our roasts. BBQ beef arm roast is in the dutch oven. We will also have some oven fries (need to use up some potatoes). I am not overly crazy about potatoes so I often have to throw them out. I'm still deciding on our veggie, probably salad for Mark and I and leftover steamed veggies for the kids. I really enjoy cooking and LOVE to try new things. I bought a magazine that is entirely Mexican dishes. Mark is flipping through it right now deciding on his Father's Day meal. It is turns out fantastic I will put in on the recipe blog. Check it out at http://taggartcookin.blogspot.com.

First Family Bike Ride

Mark had the day off so after breakfast we loaded up the kids for our first family bike ride. The kids had a great time. I had KC behind me and she chattered away the ENTIRE tme. She was pointed out squirrels, birds, dogs, cars, etc. Mark was trying to talk to Luke, but wasn't getting a response. That's when I noticed the little red helmet bobbing up and down - the child was sleeping. Why did I get the noisy one!! The kids really did enjoy it so there will be many more bike rides to come. I think we will need to invest in a hitch for the car so we can take the bikes to Shelbyville and beyond (can you tell that I have watched Toy Story a lot lately!). After our bike ride, KC took a nap while Luke and I met some friends at the Gables for Market Days. We had a great time walking to all of the shops and enjoying the beautiful weather. Funny story - one store had some jewelry displayed in a bowl of uncooked rice. Lucas was very excited about discovering the rice and tried to eat some. When I said it wasn't to eat he responded, "But I's hungry mommy". I thought it was cute, but after typing it out it actually wasn't as funny as I thought it was at the time. Anyhoo, after our shopping trip we got some lunch and headed off to the pool for a couple of hours. It's been a fun day!! KC starts Music Factory tonight with Miss Maddy and the boys might take another bike ride.

Great Night

Mark and I got to go out to eat with some friends tonight - osaka!! Gotta love the hibachi grill! J.T. and Amy dropped their two older children off at camp today so Jackson came over here to play while we went out. We did have a babysitter by the way, we did not let the three year olds watch KC. Dinner was wonderful and the company even better. The boys had a blast (just being boys). They played with trucks, trains, watched Curious George, had a snack, caught lightening bugs, did some dance moves for us on the driveway, a little break dancing from Jackson (loved it), and most of this after we got home from dinner. As Lucas was waving goodbye to them from the window he said, "Jackson is my best friend". I received a message from Amy saying that Jackson said, "Mommy, I had a great time". Those boys are so much fun!! After our friends left Lucas was getting ready for bed and really wanted Daddy to help him (it's the routine). Mark started having this weird sneezing fit in the midst of their bedtime ritual so Mommy had to take over for Mr. Sneezy Pants (as Luke and I so lovingly called him). When I asked Lucas who/what he wanted to pray for this evening it was, "Mommy, Mr. Sneezy Pants, and the boo boo on my leg". Love that kid!!!

Camping Milnes Style

I decided that it would be "fun" to set up our tent in the basement and have all four of us try to sleep in it for a night. Some friends of ours have been wanting to go camping so I thought this would be a good trial to see if I was up for the challenge. The kids had so much fun playing in the tent and Mark even put the inflatable mattress in there for us. Kailyn started running a low grade temp and was a little crabby that day so we deciced to just have her sleep in her bed and not even attempt the tent. Mark and Lucas climb in around 8:00 pm (Luke's bedtime), lights out, and going to bed. I did try to lay in there for about 20-30 minutes (it was probably 5, but let's not talk about that), but I could just not go to bed that early. So....I went upstairs to read and.....since I was already there....slept in our bed. I wanted to be closer to Kailyn (yeah, Mark didn't fall for that one either). Mark and Lucas did sleep all night in the tent and loved it!!!

Memorial Day

Memorial Day was full of celebrations with the Milnes family. We celebrated Granny's birthday as well as Derek's graduation. It was a fun afternoon eating good food and visiting with the family.

Rough Week

I was in Schaumburg all week attending a review course for my boards. It was helpful but soooo long. We started at 7 am every morning and finished between 5:30-6:00 each evening. We were sent home (back to our hotel rooms) with a 120 question exam that took about 2 hours. So....it was a litte frustrating being sooo close to exceptional shopping and not having time to do much. I did dash over to woodfield so I could get my Nordstroms fix (and a few others - anthropologie, jcrew, disney,etc). A trip to Schaumburg would not be complete without stopping by Ikea!

Mark's week was also a little stressful. He went into work later than usual and home earlier to take care of the kiddos. We had amazing babysitters - grandma (how could you go wrong) and Lauren (we love her). Poor Lauren is going to need a break from Lucas and Kailyn for a little while. Two and half days are a whole lot of little Milnes!!

We are spending the weekend just trying to catch up on some much needed rest. Mark was, of course, exhausted and so was I! I think the kids were a little worn out after the week without mommy too.

side note - Lucas thought I was gone all week working (yeah kind of), but the kicker is ...he thought my job was SHOPPING! BA HA HA HA!!

Precious Moments

For the past few months Lucas has been climbing in bed with me around 6-6:30ish and sleeps until Kailyn wakes up. Mark leaves for work around 5 so Lucas just makes himself at home on his side. Yesterday morning I woke up to my little man prying my eyes upon saying, "it's wake up time"! then he opened my mouth and pretended to pour coffee in my mouth saying, "here you go, here's your coffee"! Is it sad that he thought I needed coffee to get our of bed or funny? I think a little of both. I do treasure these moments with Lucas. We get a little bit of time each day to snuggle before KC wakes up! I know these morning won't last long. He is growing up soo fast - almost 3, fully potty trained, starting preschool in the fall!!