February/March 2014

In February and March we...

• Had another snow, so they shut everything down for 3 days and daddy got to work from home! 
• Enjoyed a Valentine's day party at church with the mom's group.  Maddie passed out cards to all her friends and she got her own buckets of cards.
• Went down to Niceville for a long weekend. We visited Grandpa Hart for his birthday, went to the zoo with Granny and Papa, and mommy and daddy got out for a shopping date. 
• Celebrated mommy's 31st birthday with a lunch date and some shopping.  Daddy was out of town, but we meet Uncle Brett and Aunt Jen for dinner when he got back.
• Hosted a Dr. Suess play date at our house for the mom's group at church.  We had a lot of toddlers/preschoolers here for a very fun morning.  We did activities, had a story time, and made pizza for lunch!
• Visited the cookie factory with the mom's group.  
• Is obsessed with stickers!  She will sit at her little table forever and stick stickers all over pieces of paper.  
• Loves arts and crafts.  She loves to stamp, play with stickers, and color at her little table.  This is usually what she does while I make dinner each night.
• Loves story time at the library.  Her age group meets on Monday and they have a craft each week.  She loves going there to hear the stories and make her craft which we hang in her play room.
• Loves Kindermusik.  We are now in our second semester of Kindermusik and she still loves it.  Thursday is always an exciting day!
• Goes to the nursery every Friday morning for mom's group.  She is much better now about just walking in and playing with her friends.  She has her own backpack and lunch box that she takes with her. 
• Still loves to dance and sing to everything! Toddler tunes are always on in the car and at the house.  She loves to have dance parties in the living room!

Maddie and Helena waiting for their lunch at the church Valentine's party

Lunch time!

Maddie's getting ready to pass out her Valentines

So excited about everything in her bucket!

Heading back to AL from Granny and Papa's house

Laptop time

Dress up Minnie

Elmo Sing-a-long

Coloring time

Finally had a nice day above 40 so we went to the park! 

Noah came too!

Saturday afternoon lunch!

At the zoo!

Helena and Maddie at the zoo

Dinner at church on my birthday

Birthday dinner with my girl...daddy was out of town - boo!

More friends came to visit!

 Dr. Suess playdate with our moms group from church

 Lots of fun activities and we all wore our pjs!

Cookie factory tour!

Maddie did not enjoy riding on the train

All the kids from church who went on the tour

Maddie wanted to eat lunch in daddy's tent

Jump Jump house with Bella

On the way to mom's group at church...9am and already digging into her lunch!

Just being cute!

Showing off her robot from story time at the library

Park time!

Showing off her sheep from story time at the library

Chicken Hat from story time

Daddy gave Maddie chocolate pudding for the first time...guess who was super excited!

 Helena came over to play one morning

Maddie loves to read

Lunch with mommy

Popsicles after our birthday dinner for mommy

Happy Valentine's Day 2014

Happy Valentine's Day from the Hart family! 

Snowpocolypse 2014

This past winter was long for everyone including us down here in Alabama!  Having lived in Florida our whole lives, Shawn and I did not know what to expect especially since we still live in the deep south.

January 28th, 2014 was one CRAZY day!   The southern snowpocolyse made National headlines  and painted quite a picture for Birmingham and Atlanta.

To sum up our day...Shawn stayed at work after they closed the office because he could see from his office window that people were just sliding all over the hills (Birmingham has quite a lot of hills!).  He decided to stay until it looked better.  Maddie and I were out and ended up getting stuck in the middle of the road.  After getting out of the ice I decided to pull into the nearest parking lot which happened to be the library.  We sat in the car for a few hours until Shawn called me and said that the Rec center near by was open as a shelter.  I bundled up, put Maddie in the stroller, and started the walk to the Rec center in the 18 degree cold....brrr.  The people there were so nice.  They had made pizza for everyone and had a whole nursery area for kids to play.  We ended meeting other moms there and made friends. :)  Just before dark, Shawn decided to come get us at the Rec center.  We had no one to take care of Noah, so we decided to make a run for it and attempt to get home.  We managed to get into our neighborhood (about 2 miles from home), but there was no way we could go any further.  We parked Shawn's truck, bundled up, and started our walk home (2 miles in the snow and up hill....no joke!).  Not even 5 minutes into our walk a man on a 4 wheeler pulled up and offered to take us home.  It was the greatest feeling ever!  We finally managed to get home about 7:30pm.  The entire city was shut down for the next two days.  The temperature didn't get above freezing and Birmingham does not have snow plows and salt to treat all the roads, so everyone was just stuck where they were.  Luckily, we made it home and got to enjoy some snow the next day.

In February we had another snow, but luckily everyone learned from the previous storm and things closed ahead of time.  We enjoyed watching the snow fall from the inside of our house with the fire on. :)

Hanging out in the car watching the snow

Heading out to walk to the shelter.  It was 18 degrees and we were not ready for that! 

Snow!

Our house after the snow

The February snow....

Making a snowman in mid February...not what we are use to. :)

snowman hugs!

The things kids say

We all know that kids say the darndest things and my daughter is no exception.  I thought I would amuse everyone with some of the highlights from lately...

Maddie was in the bathroom while Shawn was getting ready for work and putting on his tie...
Maddie:  "Daddy wearing a scarf!"

Eating breakfast after Shawn left for work...
Maddie: "Daddy be back"
Me: "Yes, daddy will come back"  "Daddy went to work and he has a meeting today"
Maddie: "Like George and the man with the yellow hat" (We like the book, George Gets a Job, and he has a meeting with a producer in this book)
Me: "Yes, like George"
Maddie: "Daddy going to ride the bus"  (George rides the bus in the city in the book)

After Kindermusik in the car...
Me: Singing along to Raffi songs in the car
Maddie: "Good singing Mommy"

In the morning...
Maddie: "Where's daddy"
Me: "Daddy is in the shower"
Maddie: "Daddy take a bath?"
Me: "Yes, honey"
Maddie: "Daddy have bubbles?"


All the time and to anyone or anything...
Maddie: "What are you doing?"



And some pictures...

Yummy Waffles

About a year ago I started becoming aware of what was really in most of the food we eat.  I didn't do a huge change initially, but the more I read, the cleaner my pantry got.  We are not a poster family for clean eating, but we are working our way step by step.  

Ever since Shawn and I started dating he has always like to eat a big breakfast.  Every weekend we have a nice family breakfast.  This morning I decided to get up early and break out the waffle iron.  While Shawn was eating he said, "This is the best waffle you've ever made".  Little did he know, there was no sugar or butter in it...hehe!   He always jokes with me that when I find a new recipe I never write it down and never make it the same again.  Well...that's pretty much true.  I decided I would share with everyone, so I will remember to make it again! 

Whole Wheat Waffles with Berry Maple Syrup

Here is the actual recipe:

1 1/2 cups of Whole Wheat flour

2 tspn baking powder

1/2 tspn salt

2 tbspn sugar

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk

1/3 cup melted butter or vegetable oil

My adjustments:

2 tablespoons of honey instead of the sugar

1/3 cup of coconut oil instead of butter

vanilla extract (I didn't measure this, sorry)

some cinnamon

I used coconut oil to brush onto the waffle iron

Syrup

fresh strawberries and some frozen organic mixed berries

some (again, I don't measure well) 100% maple syrup

I mixed this together with my hand blender (a must own kitchen appliance) 

No pictures, sorry...it was that good!