He did it!!!!

It's official! On Friday Shane found out that he passed the bar!!!! We probably danced around for about 2 hours after we heard the news. It's been a LONG wait and we're soooooo excited to have it done! That night we got a babysitter and we went out to eat at an indian restaurant with some friends of ours to celebrate.

On Monday Shane and my brother (who also passed the bar) are going to Frankfort to be sworn in and officially become licensed to practice in the state of Kentucky. He's going to continue to work in the office he is at already. Instead of being a law clerk, he will be a lawyer! Woo hoo! He's working as an immigration attorney and really loves the field. I'll make sure to take some good pictures of the swearing in ceremony and post them on here. Love you all and thanks for all the congrats so far!

Peanut Work

When Kelly was a baby we attended a small branch in Georgetown, KY. There was a family in this branch that had 5 girls -- YIKES! Their kids were amazing... very well behaved and very personable. We commented all the time about how good they were. The parents, however, told us something that has stuck with us ever since. They said all girls, no matter how cute and sweet, go through the "brat" phase. After raising two little girls of our own, we have come to realize they were pretty much on target. Our girls are notorious for throwing major fits and tantrums any time we go somewhere. They are the sweetest angels at home, but as soon as we get into a public place they turn nasty. We've really been getting fed up that every time we try and do something as a family, the kids end up screaming and crying the whole time. SO, we tried just about everything we could think of. We tried spanking -- that didn't work because their immediate response is "but God said our bodies are temples and that we shouldn't hurt our bodies!" Yeah.... so that's out. We have always tried teaching them how to properly express their anger or frustration, but I don't think they cared to learn. We also tried taking away their "special" things -- Kelly has a teddy bear that she's in love with and Isabelle won't go anywhere without her princess pillow. All that seemed to do was create a bigger "freak-out" and the girls never seemed to get the message. (We tried this tactic for about 6 months and we got zero progress) We also tried taking away privileges, but gosh darn it they never cared. So one night out of complete desperation Shane and I sat down trying our hardest to think of what to do. That's when it hit me! I remembered reading somewhere that there was this one family that made their kids shell walnuts every time they got into trouble. So, we decided to make the kids shell peanuts during their precious "free time" if they acted out inappropriately. Wow.... I just want to say "wow." I can't believe how well it has worked. It will stop a tantrum in its tracks. After school Kelly only has an hour and a half of free time before she has to start doing chores and homework, so she really loves her free time. Shelling the peanuts and then cleaning up afterward takes about an hour, so she REALLY doesn't want to have to do it. It's great because it's not so bad that you feel like you're torturing them, but it still makes a big enough impact on them to keep them from wanting to do it again.


Click here to see a video of the girls "working"

Close encounters of the Isabelle kind

Did you ever see that 70's movie with Richard Dryfus called "Close encounters of the third kind"? Today Isabelle was working hard on a craft. I told her to stop using so many foam shapes and I started to put some back when she said "Mommy, I need to make this... it's a mountain!" She was so adamant about making the mountain it reminded me of the part in the movie when Richard Dryfus' character was obsessed with making the mountain out of clay and mashed potatoes. And what's even funnier is when he gets all frustrated when he can't get it right and kinda messes it up.... well, just like the movie, so did Isabelle:

I'm telling you, if I hear any weird musical notes outside my window tonight, I will just assume some aliens took Isabelle. This is just freaky...

Hummus

Have any of you ever had the Tuscan hummus at the California Pizza kitchen???? It is seriously the BEST hummus I have ever had (although, admittedly, I haven't really tried too many different kinds of hummus). Well, I decided that I just HAD to have some one night and I came up with this recipe that's pretty similar:

Ingredients:

• 1 tbl minced garlic
• 1 150z can garbanzo beans
• 1/4 cup reserved liquid from beans
• 1 15 oz can great northern beans
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 1/4 cup tahini
• dash of ground red pepper
• dash of paprika
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• olive oil
• salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:

Reserving 1/4 cup liquid from the can of garbonzo beans, rinse and drain both cans of beans. Place in food processor along with reserved liquid. Add remaining ingredients. Mix in food processor until smooth. Make sure you stop food processor and scrape the side atleast once during the process to make sure all ingredients are incorporated. Store in a container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Serve with pita bread or veggies

Kelly lost another tooth!

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad that Kelly finally lost this tooth. It is her 4th tooth she has lost, but by far the nastiest looking one!!! lol. The tooth underneath was pushing on it in a way that caused it to twist and stick out in a very funny way. Now she's got the cutest little toothless grin!

Before


** I still can't figure out why my pictures keep coming out blurry. For now I'm going to blame it on the camera and not the photographer.

First try

So for the past month or so I have been a secret fan of a blogger named Candace (Sparkle Power). She's a friend of Keri's (whose a friend of mine), found her website, and have been inspired to try my hand at sewing again. Before, all of my attempts at sewing have cost us more money than it ever would have been to buy -- AND it would look worse! Well, with her inspiration and love for all things vintage, I have been on the pursuit to create something cool and cheap. On her website I found a link to another website called My Half of the Brain. It's this great website where they try to find crafting tutorials on the web. A few peaked my interest:

1. Montessori by Hand -- Children's smock.
   
2. Making a child's dress out of a Men's button down shirt (can't seem to find the link)

I stayed up late last night to try and finish them both. Here's how they turned out:




















This was the children's smock. I found the fabric at a thrift store and got it for 25 cents. Normally I would never buy fabric that looked like that, but I thought "what would Candace buy" (nerdy and weird, I know) and thought "what the heck -- it's cheap." The pattern for the dress was not done very well and since my kids were already asleep, I couldn't have my daughter try it on to see if it was going to fit well. Fortunately for this one I will be able to adjust the dress with minimal stress to fit Kelly. When she tried it on today she just LOVED the colors.

Okay, here's the other one:

This one I was really disappointed with. I was so tired that I was having a hard time following the directions and there was NO pattern to use. Basically, you take an old Men's dress shirt and use the back of the shirt to create the dress front, and then use the front of the shirt to make the back of the dress. However, all measurements and such were basically a guessing game. Once again, since Isabelle was asleep I couldn't use her as a reference to see if I was making it big enough. The dress turned out really cute, but it's at least two sizes too small for her. Oh well.... the only thing I paid for was the pink lace, the shirt was a really old one of Shane's. I'm going to try again and this time not attempt it at 2:00 in the morning!

Isabelle's 1st play date

Poor little Isabelle is so shy that she has really had a hard time making any friends. The few "friends" she has are older girls at church. We finally had one of the little boys from nursery come over to play (along with his little sister) at it went really well. At first she didn't like it. She was confused and didn't really know what to say. fortunately Moses was really good at getting Isabelle involved and doing things that she wanted to do. By the end they were playing together really well and I can't wait to have him over again!