Melanie.

Happy Birthday to my sweet niece, Melanie!  I love you! 

FINALLY...I finished it.

finally...

It took one whole week.  I wanted to get through it.  I wanted to know what all the hype was about.  I wanted to read it before I saw the movie.   Did it really compare to one of my favorites To Kill A Mockingbird?

It took a lot to get it read.  I lost some of my much need 8-9 hour sleepful nights, I turned on SpongeBob more than I ever wanted to, and I missed out on a week's worth of my husband's late night funny stories.  All for The Help.  I still have a lot of things going on in my mind about it.  It really wasn't that long ago it all really happened.  And it did happen.  This book, along with To Kill a Mockingbird, let's us remember.  And we should.  We shouldn't walk around pretending it never did.  And I forget.  I do.  Until I read books like The Help.  Although it hasn't been long ago, a lot has changed.  And I am truly, very thankful it has.

The Victorius and Jeanette Cooking Show

Kate and I pretended we were on a cooking show (she loves doing this A LOT) as we rolled out our biscuits for dumplings.

The Victorius and Jeanette Cooking Show features Easy Chicken and Dumplings for Saturday dinner.

First, boil three chicken breast for six hours in your crockpot.  Next, add 1 container of Swanson chicken broth.  Then, roll out two cans of biscuits with flour and add to the crockpot in fourths.  Let cook for one hour.  Enjoy!  From Victorius and Jeanette!

katerbee.

Kate was buzzing around like a bee this morning with her MRS. V's BUMBLEBEE shirt on!  She was super excited to go to school for her bear party.  Her backpack was stuff with her BUILD-A-BEAR bear, three bear books, bear gummies, teddy grahams, and her library book.   It was also Ll show and tell and she took her La La Loopsy doll plus she had two barbies to play with in the new barbie townhouse center!  She kept saying is her loudest, smiling voice,  "Oh mom, this is crazy heavy!"  Ha!

Every morning I drop her off at school and EVERY SINGLE MORNING I still get super teary as I pull off.  I miss her so much whle she's gone.  Hoping she's ok, hoping no one is being mean to her and hoping she's taking my continual morning advice of "Be a good friend, Kate." I love spending every moment I can with her because it's all going by so fast and she'll be off to college before we know it. I hope that little girl has a great Bear Day with her kindergarten friends! :-)

bar stools

I keep debating in my head which barstools to get for our kitchen bar.  It's decisions like this that I will probably NEVER get my house decorated.  I'm always second guessing my decorating skills.  Where is Sara Richardson when I need her???  Ha!  Anyhoo, I'm pretty sure these are the ones.  They swivel and match the lighting and fixtures.  Now the big debate of how many??? 

my girl.

Kate came home yesterday with her report card!!  She did great!  Mastery in most of the required skills and only one (-) for not asking questions when she's not sure about something!  Hey, I'll take that!  So proud!  We celebrated with homemade sundaes and ice cream but I didn't get a pic quick enough because her and Drew devoured them! (and me, too) HA!  Happy Hump Day!

January...67 degrees!!!!!

So we were outside doing a lot of this...

Where is winter, anyway????

Funday Sunday!

Steve really wanted to take Drew to his first Hunting and Fishing show today.  It's at the Civic Center so Papa, John, Steve and Drew are headed down to enjoy all the displays and get their manly man fun on.  Bows, arrows, guns, ammo, camo...all that manly stuff packed in one area is bound to bring lots of joy to these fellows:

I can't wait to see what they will bring home and hear all about Drews experience!

Kate and I are headed to another type of hunting and fishing...for GIRLIE stuff!!! Yep, we are in need some need of girlie things (even though this morning she said, "Mom, I tooted in the bathtub and it made a HUGE bubble!) Gotta love her. We are going to have our girl day while the boys are out exploring.  Looks like we will be headed to Justice (with coupons! Yippee!) and Claire's and I'm sure a trip to the candy store will take place!  I can't wait to spend some alone time with Kate.  We have a lot to talk about including her upcoming birthday which by now I would have already had everything planned, ordered and wrapped but this year we are doing something a little different.  No details yet but I'm sure she'll be happy!

Have a great Sunday! :-)

toofless

Oh I never want this to end...

huh? what? nothing unusual?  maybe this is better...  :-)

Happy toofless Saturday!!!

T.G.I.F.

I'm sooo glad it's Friday. It's been a crazy week. Drew is on his way from recovering from a bad case of strep. Kate came home from school yesterday because she was crying uncontrollably saying she missed us...but I think it was more lack of sleep from hearing us up with Drew. She was much better this morning and was excited for Hh show and tell. She took her Barbie Horse show Granny got her for Christmas.

Today, Drew and I are headed out to get birth certificates. With the move, it's hard to tell which box or container we've put them. T-Ball sign-ups are tomorrow so we have to have them. We also might stop at the laundrymat to do some bedclothes. So much quicker than doing it here.

I'm also going to research a vacation for this summer. Someplace, sandy, hot and fun.

Happy weekend! :-)

drew.

I took Drew to his pediatrician yesterday and he has strep.  And he is not thrilled AT ALL about taking his medicine and it's even flavored.  He is drinking his diet Sprite thank goodness and having popsicles. Steve and I have been up all night with him and we are T-I-R-E-D. I've had to get up early to volunteer at Kate's school selling basketballs for PTO (Go WVU) the past two days and Steve has to work six days this week.  We have a busy weekend planned for him with his basketball game on Saturday then Steve and his brother are taking him to the Hunting and Fishing show in Charleston on Sunday.  So, I hope this little boy starts feeling better.  He looks so pitiful and hasn't eaten much in two days. 

P-dub is back.

Pioneer Woman's, aka P-dub, show on Food Network returned on Saturday and boy did she cook up some yummy looking food.  Steve and I were ready to tackle the entire menu.  Monday was MLK Jr. day so he was off and so were the kids.  We found a local meat market in our new neighborhood and got busy cooking while they did this:

Kate and Karlee fixed brownies via Easy Bake and did a lot of Just Dance 3.  Performace at 7!

This little fellar was here all day.  Not feeling good at all.  Poor thang! 

 
PW woman's-Pulled Pop Pork  So easy and fun to make-requires two cans of Dr. Pepper also know as velvet in our house-a delicious rarity.  I also got to use my new dutch oven courtesy of my sister-in-law!  So pretty!

Next we tackled Cilantro Slaw minus the jalepeno peppers.  Divine!

Then we started the Perfect Potatoes Au Gratin  These were the crowd favorite.

Steve made his famous green beans!  I've been dying for these bad boys.  So delicious!

We invited some family over and had a nice little feast and fun conversations! Thanks P-Dub!