Miscellany

• I love Christmas, but I'm glad it's over. It's like going on vacation but being glad to sleep in your bed when you get home. It's chaos, glorious chaos, but makes you appreciate the routine days throughout the rest of the year.
• I finally got all of my decorations put away. 
• I'm nesting. Bad.
• This is a good thing as Evelyn's room is finally getting some attention and our basement is getting more organized by the day.
• I'm a little freaked out by the fact that I'm having a baby in two months. That is not enough time to get everything done. I'm trying really hard, but not being very successful.
• Rob has been hearing yet another round of layoff threats. This one sounds legit, but when you hear them at least once every four months you begin to ignore them. God will take care of us.
• I don't think Rob would be disappointed to have to find a new job considering how much he dislikes his. Maybe this is God telling him to move on?
• I am finding my job harder and harder. My body is protesting sitting all day staring at a computer. I feel tired and frustrated. I miss teaching. I miss my baby. 
• Evelyn has begun with the tantrums. She's attempting to scream/cry and fall on the floor when she doesn't get her way. Fun, no? At this point, we are both just completely ignoring the behavior or telling her that when she is ready to be kind we can do an alternative activity.
• I'm struggling with the idea of Evelyn weaning (yes, she's still nursing). She is beginning to drop morning sessions and I've noticed changes in her habits as my milk changes back to colostrum (aren't our bodies amazing?). Outside pressures make me question how I'm handling it, but I know deep down that it's a positive part of our relationship and that someday she will wean and I won't have these moments anymore. This may be a whole other post in and of itself though.
• Parenting is hard stuff.
• How the heck am I going to handle two?
• I often feel like I don't devote enough attention to certain activities. I stink at remembering people's birthdays and sending cards. I want to take more pictures of life and keep my photos organized. I want to be crafty or keep my house cleaner but I feel like I can never keep up. I think this is common with moms. But, it's hard when others seem to make it look so easy. 
• Example: I'm 3 years behind on putting our family photos into our annual ornaments. Also, I desperately want to make a photo book for Evelyn's first year, but I feel like I have to be doing so many other things that I can't focus on it. I think the part of me that can't stand to start a project and not finish it in one sitting is my greatest detriment in this department.
• If people call me a procrastinator, I'm not sure what I'd label Rob. His incessant habits of procrastinating are grating on my every last nerve right now. I can't get going on Evelyn's room because his desk covered in his crap is still in there and I, obviously, can't move it. Also, him and trash is probably topping my list right now. Is it really that hard to take two steps to throw the wrapper of a piece of candy away? Also, when I ask you to take the trash out (because you yell at me when I do it - being pregnant an all) that means actually taking it outside and putting it in the can, not setting it in the garage for morning. And then not doing it in the morning either. I might as well have just done it myself.
• Thankfully though, when he does get motivated, there's no stopping him. He's been working hard on the basement and it's finally getting there!

Evelyn June: 18 Months

Even later than planned since the internet stopped working over the weekend. But, what a milestone! You are such a big girl too. The way you change before my eyes every day is astounding and I love you more and more every passing second.

Overall, you are awesome! So well-behaved and loving. You are so sweet and kind and love to give kisses and hugs. Spending Christmas with a toddler was both exhausting and refreshing. Nothing like the joys of Christmas through the eyes of a child! We went and saw Christmas lights and you sat on my lap in the car while we drove through the park. After the initial curiosity about the front seat wore off, you spent the whole time trying to stick your head out the window saying "Oh, wow!" It was amazing. Christmas morning was even better. You slept super late (that's my girl!) and when you got up and walked down the hall you immediately spotted your baby doll stroller and made a bee line. I don't think you've stopped pushing it around the house since! You enjoyed pull-apart cake for the first time and loved it (who wouldn't?) and were a trooper through the rest of the day's festivities. Even without a nap you kept going until about 9:30 pm. Crazy. The following week we spent the day at Maw Maw and Paw Paw's for Christmas and you were thoroughly enjoying playing with your cousins. Overall, it was an amazing holiday and I can't wait for next year.

{Santa came!}

{Not sure what's up with her face in this picture, but it's hilarious} 

{Loves her stroller! And the headlamp, very fashionable} 

{Pull-Apart Cake!!}

You still eat so well. Unfortunately, we've had to cut most acids out of your diet to try and avoid diaper rashes. This includes tomatoes, strawberries, pineapple, etc. all of which you LOVE. I actually considered trying elimination communication, but gave up pretty quickly. I must say, you looked pretty cute on the toilet though!

{You'll kill me for this one day}

You'll eat just about anything and I think the only thing I can really name that you dislike is sweet potatoes.

{You are certainly comfortable at the table. And the baby belly? Dead.}

You have started throwing some little tantrums here and there, but I feel like we're navigating them well for now. I think a lot of it boils down to communication. You want to talk so badly but just can't find the words all of the time. We joke that you talk all day and have nothing to say because it's a lot of toddler jabber. Your vocabulary has definitely grown to include Oliver, bye bye, yes, wash, and a. You can correctly identify the letter "A" as well as make sounds for and identify dogs (woo), monkeys, snakes, and elephants. You love to go through your picture books and look for things I ask for at which point you say "there we go!" and clap for yourself.  Speaking of books, you love to read. You would read all day if I had time to sit with you!

{We read Jingle Bells at least a thousand times!}

You still sleep amazingly, though we've had a few hiccups here and there. I mostly attribute it to when your schedule is a little off. The other night after you had woken for the 3rd time since I put you down, I picked you up to comfort you and while sitting in my lap, in between sobs, you let out a giant fart and said "there we go!" It was so pitiful and hilarious. I laid you back down and you slept the rest of the night! Generally, you are down at 7:30 and up at 8 without any wakeups. You go to sleep well and we broke the pacifier this month! You love to sleep with your blanky but I've had to put "bed only" limits on it since you were wanting to take it everywhere with you.

{Christmas Morning}

{You slept till 9:30 this morning!}

{Gotta have the blanky}

{Bedhead! I love you in the mornings. So sweet}

I can't get enough of your smiley personality and I'm enjoying every last second of these fleeting moments I have with just the three of us. We're going to rock your world in a couple of months and I only hope my sweet girl sticks around through it!

Pull-Apart Cake - My favorite meal of the year

This is a recipe that I have enjoyed on Christmas morning every year growing up and continued with our family after we got married. It. Is. Amazing. Seriously.

Most of you will recognize it as "Monkey Bread," but I've yet to find a recipe that quite matches this one. 

Here goes!

20 Frozen Rhodes Rolls, cut in half

Be careful! This can be dangerous! I've found that it is helpful if you let them thaw for about 5-10 minutes, but don't let them thaw too much or they will get squishy and start to rise...

You'll need a greased bundt cake pan

1/2 Cup white sugar + 1T Cinnamon (to make cinnamon sugar), 3/4 cup butter (melted), 1/2 Cup brown sugar

Take each 1/2 roll and dip it in the melted butter

Roll it in the cinnamon sugar

And place "randomly" in the bundt cake pan.

 I tend to have a method to my randomness

Sprinkle the remaining cinnamon sugar over the top of the rolls

Then comes the secret ingredient: Butterscotch pudding mix. Now, I know my picture shows instant. I bought the wrong kind. In the past, I've always used regular. I will say that the instant didn't ruin the recipe though.

Sprinkle the entire package of butterscotch pudding mix over the top

Mix the brown sugar with the remaining butter. Let me clarify this a bit. The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup butter. I've found that it's never enough to really mix with the brown sugar. So, next year (and what I listed earlier) I'm going to try upping it to a cup since I always end up needing to melt more. So, we'll call it 1 cup for the whole recipe.

Anyway, mix the brown sugar with the remaining butter.

Sprinkle/pour the butter/brown sugar mixture over the top and cover with greased cling wrap.

Let it sit overnight to rise, about 6-8 hours. If you get up in the middle of the night, you might check on it and if it's rising too much you can stick it in the fridge. Bake on 325 for 35-45 minutes or until golden brown. Let sit for 10 minutes, then invert onto serving dish. Enjoy!!

Here's the recipe all in one place:

20 Frozen Rhodes Rolls (cut in half)

1/2 Cup granulated sugar

1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

3/4 Cup Butter (melted)

1 pkg Butterscotch pudding

1/2 Cup firmly packed brown sugar

Grease bundt pan. Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Dip frozen dough balls in butter and roll in sugar mixture. Place randomly in bundt pan. Sprinkle remaining sugar mixture over rolls. Sprinkle dry pudding over rolls. Stir brown sugar into remaining butter & drizzle over rolls. Cover with plastic wrap & let rise overnight to top of pan (about 6-8 hours). Bake at 325 for 35-45 minutes until golden brown. Let sit for 10 minutes, then invert onto serving dish. Glaze will be runny. 

Deck the Halls!

One of our favorite family traditions is decorating the house for Christmas the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We get up and eat a yummy family breakfast then dig out all of the decorations and go to town while watching Christmas movies and listening to Christmas music. This year I couldn't wait until Evelyn got up from her nap to see the finished product.

{Table Set Up - While it lasts...} 

{The stockings were hung by the Breakfast bar with care - can't wait to see another up there next year!}

 {Just because I loved Evelyn crashing this one}

{Christmas tree!} 

{Evelyn's Nativity} 

We also are avid Hallmark ornament collectors. I often think that I would like to just go and get some pretty uniform ornaments, but every year when we put them up on the tree I remember why I love them so much. This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas - reminiscing about the life events we remember by them. I love that I feel like our tree tells a story. Note to self: get out the good camera. I can take better pictures than this, I just thought I'd see how our little point and shoot would do....

 {One of Evelyn's favorite books}

{Evelyn's first Christmas Ornament from last year} 

 {This one is relevant this year too!}

{Celebrating our growing family last year!} 

{Evelyn loved the snowman} 

{No really, she loved the snowman}

We wanted to take video of Evelyn's first real Christmas decor experience. She wasn't as excited as we thought, but there is some classic Evelyn cuteness in there!

Ready. Set. Go!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! I am so excited! My first Christmas as a married woman. We've spent a lot of time discussing where we're going and when, but I think we've got it figured out. There are so many things I'm looking forward to.

1. Making pull-apart cake for Rob and I on Christmas morning. Yummy! I only get it once a year!
2. Watching Rob open his presents. I didn't get him anything exciting, but one of my favorite things is giving people gifts!
3. Giving James his gifts. I got him a guitar for Christmas! He's been asking for one for ages (he watches us play guitar hero) so I thought, why not? Maybe he's a guitar prodigy... ;)
4. Seeing Isabella's first Christmas! She is so cute and fun. I can't wait to watch her reaction to all the festivities. It's going to be great!
5. Dinner!!! I'll be helping to make and eating dinner at my parents' house first and then heading to my in-laws'. I love holiday dinners. It's such a good time to get together and converse and be thankful for everything we've been blessed with.
6. Fellowship. I love just sitting around with the family on Christmas and enjoying each other's company. Everyone is happy and smiling and we forget all of our stress and problems for the day. I wish everyday was Christmas!

Tomorrow I'll be cleaning my house, doing laundry, and wrapping the final presents to put under the tree! Then, the hubby and I will watch "A Muppet Christmas Carol" and go to bed. I love starting new traditions!

If I don't get to post again before Christmas, I hope everyone has a good one!

Christmas Cards...

Check!!! Woo-hoo! They're done! Now onto the wedding album... this is going to be fun!

Some Saturday...

:::SIGH::: This was quite a Saturday. I've been caring for my sick husband all day. :(

We're still not sure if it was the Chinese food last night, or a stomach bug, but -without going into detail - it wasn't pretty. I got quite a bit done though. My motives? The looming possibility that I might get sick... please, Lord, I don't want to get sick. When I wasn't caring for Rob today, I was getting caught up on housework all the while thinking about what wouldn't get done around the house that needed to if I get sick. I have so little faith, don't I? Maybe it's just the men in my life, but it always seems that when they get sick, everything stops for them (I'm not complaining about caring for Rob!). But when we get sick, it just keeps right on going. I think it's one of those rules of nature.

Though I didn't make it to the to the store today (for groceries anyway), I did manage to get a lot of my Christmas cards done. I'm doing two different groups, family and non-family. The non-family cards are some nice ones I bought at Target since I didn't think those at my church really cared to have a picture of Rob and I with the dogs staring at them. For the family, however, I made a little card in Photoshop that I'll be picking up tomorrow at Costco. Check it out:

I'm pretty happy with it. It took Rob and I several tries to get a decent picture in front of the tree with the boys. Oliver, for once, actually looks pretty good. I think Dudley, on the other hand, was too busy trying to eat Rob's hand... :) What do you think? Any suggestions for next time?

Next on my list, COOKIES!!!

We're also expecting some snow on Sunday night and Monday. Snow day? Mmmm... I hope so... :). I could do stuff I've been wanting to do for ages!! Can you tell I'm still basking in the glory of being done with school for the semester? I'm loving it!

Christmas Pre-lims

I was planning on making a big Christmas post with video and everything, but my computer is wheezing as I type this. It just can't handle much anymore and until my darling Hubby lets me have the new laptop, I'm stuck... :o)

So until then, I have a picture from our Christmas decorating extravaganza. We spent an entire Saturday watching movies, listening to Christmas music and spending some great time together decorating the house for the first time. It was so awesome to start thinking about our own traditions as a new family. I'm content. :)

Here's Rob and I hanging "Our First Christmas" ornament on our first Christmas tree in our first house as a newly married couple... life is good.

Another happy bit of news, I have one more final tomorrow and I will officially be finished with general undergrad classes! I passed my college algebra exam (I tested out of the course) and I student teach next semester! I am SO nervous! I have my placement at a middle school close by my house and my cooperating teacher seems really nice. But that doesn't cover the fact that I'm envisioning vomit and hives (TMI... sorry) the few days before it starts in January. I just keep praying that God will be with me and everything will be perfect.

I'm so afraid I'm going to get there and hate it. That I'm going to go through my student teaching thinking to myself, " Why did I do this? Why did I decide to be a teacher?" Am I going to be a good teacher? Will I be able to find a job? Ugh... I'm just so nervous. Someone tell me it will all be okay. Are my fears completely unfounded? Oh well, I've reached the point of no return. Suck it up, Stephanie. Suck. It. Up.

Christmas is 14 days away!!!

Belated Valentine's Day

Rob and I have always celebrated Valentine's Day, but never on the day itself. It usually works out that way with most holidays and occasions. We figure that just because the calendar says it's on February 14th, doesn't mean we have to celebrate it on that day.

We didn't do anything major this year, but I did want to share Rob's gifts for me. I'm so freaking happy!!!

First, he got me a pair of earrings. They are beautiful and if I weren't a lazy bum, I'd pull them out of my ears, take a picture, and post them, but I don't feel like it. I lost one of my diamond earrings he gave me a couple of years ago (I was so upset!) and he felt like he should make an effort to replace them... they're beautiful.

My favorite gift? Not that the earrings weren't amazing.... You may remember that Rob got this fancy new piece of technology that allows him to paint on his computer. Well, I asked him to paint me a picture. 2 1/2 months later, it's finished. And, it's is unbelievable. I LOVE it.

The big reveal.....




Isn't it awesome? It looks ten times more amazing in real life (18x20). The detail is incredible and he put so much work into it. He wants to sell his art and I definitely think he should. Happy Valentine's Day to me! (and everyone else...) :o)

Christmas Scrapbook Page

Just wanted to post the Christmas Scrapbook page for my Oliver/Dudley scrapbook. Enjoy!

Chronicling Christmas

Here is a chronicle of the Scott Family Christmas... We had a blast! It was so much fun to watch James open his presents and it felt so good to spend some quality time with family. I love Christmas so much and am so sad it's over! For a little visual on our Christmas morning, I've included a slide show (I hate uploading pictures to Blogger, it takes forever and they are annoying to move around). Just picture - James' reaction on every gift, :::Gasp::: "WOW!!" It was too cute!

Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas from the family! I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday! Just wanted to share a few family pictures!

Yes, all of these people live in my house - except Rob of course...

I'll be back tomorrow with more pictures and, possibly, a new "New Year's" look!

Christmas Traditions

I LOVE Christmas and a big part of it is the traditions, of course! You know, those things that only come once a year, but it's soooo worth it? For example:

• Pull-Apart Cake (A.K.A. Monkey Bread) - We get this once a year on Christmas morning and I LOVE it! It's absolutely, hands down one of my most favorite things about Christmas!
• Getting new PJ's - This sounds ridiculous, but I love getting new PJ's every Christmas. I've always gotten them and it was so exciting to me! Check out this years...

In this material:

• I also love sitting around the house in my brand new PJ's all day until it's time to go see family. It's the one day a year I allow myself to do this!
• Another one of my favorite traditions is decorating the tree. We are Hallmark ornament fanatics (you should see our basement...) and, call me cliche, but I enjoy putting them on the tree and remembering what the ornament is for and when we got it. It's such a great time!

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I love Christmas! I hope everyone has a happy and safe Christmas!

Christmas!

Real quick, I wanted to post a couple of pictures of our Christmas tree! I LOVE our Christmas tree. It is SOOOOO beautiful. These pictures do not do it justice.

With the Flash...

Without the flash...
(yes, it really is that bright!)

Merry Christmas everyone!