Big Girl Bed

Charlie has been sleeping in Tessa's big girl bed at Jill's during the day for about 2 months now. Jill said she does really well in it and usually just lays down and goes to sleep. Since she has climbed out of her crib a few times already, I decided to change Charlie's crib into a day bed last week.

This is what we found the first morning....

Uh oh!! Where's Charlie???

That isn't where we put you!!!

The next few days she stayed in her bed, but lately she has taken to sleeping on the floor again. I guess we will give it another week and see what happens. At least she doesn't wake us up!

Happy 50th Birthday Grandpa Schroder!!

Happy Happy Birthday!! We love you so much!

Grandpa's 50??? Wow!

Christmas Pictures

Dad did it again....Here are some of my favorites!!

Becoming a Domestic Goddess is a Learning Process

I have been attempting to be more domestic at the request of my husband. It isn't that I don't like doing domestic type things, I just don't usually make time for it.

I was doing pretty good in November and I made 2 sets of curtains (with the help of my wonderful mother!)

Bedroom Curtains

Living Room Curtains

Since my curtains turned out relatively well, I thought I could move on to baking. Well, kind of baking. No oven was required, but I am still going to call it baking. Anyway...I went to my good friend Jeanne's house last Tuesday and she had dozens and dozens of practically perfect homemade chocolate covered cherries. I watched her make a few and though "I could do that!" So she shared the recipe with me and Saturday morning I got all the supplies I needed. When Charlie went down for her nap, I started what I thought would be a pretty easy process.

After 3 hours of putting chocolate in the molds as carefully as I could, letting it cool, adding the cherries and fondant and covering with chocolate again, I ended up with a lot of theses....

UHG!!!!

Yes...that is the bottom of the chocolate cover cherry that fell out when I was trying to pop them out of the molds. Don't worry...this didn't just happen once or twice. More like 2o cherries ended up like this! Not only did the cherry's break, the ones that didn't break were not practically perfect like Jeanne's. They do not sit flat because I could not get the chocolate on the bottom even. So most of my cherries are a mess like this....

After 3 hours of this extremely frustrating process on Saturday, I gave up. I did learn somethings from Saturday, so my Sunday cherries did turn out better. Nick was my taste tester and he approved of even the ugly cherries. He said that it is the effort that counts.

My advice to anyone who wants to try these for the first time....although they are not nearly as good...Walmart has Chocolate Covered Cherries for 97 Cents a box!

Storybook Island

We went to Storybook Island to see the lights on Saturday with Jill, Chad, Tessa, Liam and Patty. I couldn't believe how cold it was. It was a pretty quick trip because the kids weren't thrilled about being so cold (and neither were the adults!) But it was still worth it to say we went, and the kids really enjoyed the lights. I took several pictures. However, I am apparently not skill in photography with mittens on. So most of the pictures were of my fuzzy purple mittens. Here are the few pictures that kind of came out.

Two Little Monkeys

I am seriously behind in some of these posts, so I am trying to catch up a little. Cadeance (our niece) was out for Thanksgiving. Before they came out, we had found out that she was a monkey for Halloween too so we asked them to bring her costume out. It turned out that she had the exact same costume as Charlie!

Snow Pictures

Here are the snow pictures I promised. I did get her boots on Saturday. They are a little big, but they will work!

Charlie wanted to touch the snow. When she realized how cold it was, she decided that wasn't a good idea and started crying. Instead of comforting my sweet child, I took a picture of her pain. I am such a terrible mommy!

No Snow for Charlie

I know that Charlie is small for her age (she still wears a 3-6 months in some things!) but she is the toughest 15 month old girl I have met. However, aparently only children with a size 5 boot or bigger should go outside in the snow.


I have been looking for snow boots for Charlie for weeks. This past weekend Jenn and I went to every store in the mall we could think of to find snow boots for my little girl. We received the same response everywhere we went "A toddler 3 or 4? No, they don't make them that small." It was so frustrating. So Sunday morning, after Charlie pointed outside and signed "please" for over 1/2 hour, I let her go out in just regular shoes. We weren't outside for more than 10 minutes since I was worried about her feet getting cold and wet, but she had the best time. (hopefully I will upload those pictures tonight and get them posted)



So I got Nick in on the snow boot hunt. He is an ebay whiz. I thought if anyone can find her snow boots, it would be him. No luck. Only size 5 or bigger. I know that my kid is not the smallest 15 month old on the planet. I can not believe that it is almost impossible to find her snow boots!


Yesterday I lucked out. Childrensplace.com had 1 toddler size 4 left. The boots are as ugly as can be, but they will keep her feet warm. So now all we have to do is wait for them to come and cross our fingers that they fit (or at least fit with 5 pairs of socks on!) I can tell you this, I will be frequenting childrensplace.com now that they have saved my Charlie's winter!