Love For 817

I am watching the Mavs game right now (all by my lonesome, Kyle is away at a retreat). This means that I dont have him commentating (or sometimes yelling) next to me. He has the uncanny ability to say exactly what the announcers to about 3 seconds before they do, he wonders if he missed his calling. This is about the only time you ever see my calm and collected husband come undone. Needless to say these last few close calls have made for some tense moments in our household. We're very excited for the MAVS and feel that this is "our" year. I include us because clearly they wouldn't have gotten this far without us :) 

So 817 is the area code of my hometown. You can tell I am clearly still attached because I have not lived there in over 10 years but still retain the area code. Cant give up my roots. I have been slightly nostalgic lately baking some of my favorite childhood goodies from some of my favorite 817 bakers. 

I have no picture but sausage, cream cheese and rotel=amazing game time snack! We've been eating ours with tortilla chips but Kim Lawler (one of Amelia's fairy Godmother's...and mine) serves hers with green chilies, chedder cheese in a bread bowl, I am lazy and mouths around me might suffer. :) 

My favorite cookies are Meltaways. They are goodness from Lis Buchwald's kitchen. Although I'm sure Paula Deen dreams about them considering they are the equivalent of baking a stick of butter and frosting it with cream cheese icing. Lis is one of my mom's dearest friends and might be the kindest person I know. I love my time with her because like her cookies she is just so sweet. I've been taking her cookie and adding different things, i.e. lemon zest. I want to try a raspberry jam and around Christmas maybe I'll get crazy with some spices...who knows how far I will take this 

Mix 2 sticks of softened salted butter (yep, this is not low fat), 1 C of flour, 3/4 Corn Starch, and 1/3 Powdered Sugar (mix till it all comes together like cookie dough, so a few minutes).

bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes

Frosting 

mix: 4 oz of Cream Cheese, 1/3 powdered sugar and 1/2 tsp of vanilla

let frosting set.

Mom thanks for texting me the recipe (that's right, she texts...email still a little tricky for her but texting she has down!)

Side note: Single Moms are super hero's. Every now and then Kyle will leave for 48 hrs or so and I'm always exhausted when he returns. I realize the key for a single mom is a great support team (which I have thankfully, Court is taking A while I work), planning ahead and the ability to function well on 6hrs of sleep. 

I however doubt my ability to function on less than 8 which means I'll have to read about the end of the game tomorrow. goodnight

I have vaca pics to post in the near future, get ready to meet Santa Fe.

 

Oh Deer

I recently told someone that it is never boring being a Bender. 

And in that vein I'll give a quick update:

So Kyle totaled his car last Wednesday when a "deer hit him" on 360, he was going 60 and this beast of a deer walked away. SO we are down to one car and then yesterday my car died but Kyle was able to fix things with a new battery.

last weekend we went to the zoo with The Bourlon's and Amelia couldn't have seemed less impressed. Although she roared like a lion all the way home and snorted (kinda like a pig) the way Julie Anna taught her. She did like the train ride and getting to play with Jo.

kisses

Amelia in general is very shy and reserved in nature. It takes her a bit to get comfortable to cut loose the way she does at home. We think she's a riot, she is constantly making us laugh with the random things she does. Her new favorite things are to sing "oh-oh-oh" Beyonce style and she even does her hand and wrist the same. She doesn't perform for the camera so this is the best clip I could get, not her best but you get the idea

She also loves running around on our bed and doing somersaults.  She is growing up so fast and doing so many "big" girl things! She eats with utensils (I'm not saying its a clean effort by any means but she refuses to be fed most times). She understands everything and is talking so much! She is very serious about her hygiene (teeth brushes, bathing etc...) she loves it! As well as cleaning, she cleans up after herself after mealtimes (which takes some time after her messy eating).

She's been taking swim lessons sporadically and getting good at kicking, splashing her arms and blowing bubbles.  We went swimming at a friends house last week and she showed off her skills. Pretty sure she'd sink to the bottom if he let go but we're getting there. 

 She cant decide if she wants to drop her morning nap. If she doesn't go down she's beside herself from 10:30-lunch. Also she doesn't sleep near as good later in the afternoon and be toast by 6:00, although she revs up again when dad gets home (its the changing of the guards) and is a little delirious by bedtime. She wont then wake up till 9:00-9:15 the next morning.

So I used to (still do) rip magazine pages out of things that I love and file them accordingly in a notebook (something my mom does, the difference is she has volumes and then hundreds (not exaggerating) of magazines that she has yet to "go through." Although I love my binder of "one days" I have discovered the on-line version in Pinterest

I am loving it, once I figured it out (Poor Lindsey and I were trying to figure it out one day, I even enlisted my tech savvy cousin, Johnny, who is Lindsey's husband, Johnny pretty much created the internet (not really but I'm sure he could have if he wasn't 4 at the time or something close, he speaks 1's and 0's, ha it could be a pun...he speaks in code...:0 I'm laughing out loud to myself thinking this is a whole conversation that should have stayed in my head).

Easter

I'm terrible I know. Its just that updating is so low on my list, if I could figure out a quicker way to do it, that would help. I'm sure there is an app for that.  But I'm sure people's expectations of frequent posting have long since disappeared. Either way I dedicate this post to Amelia's Aunt Kari who has been dying for an update.

 I figured I'd start with Easter. We had a blast this Easter! I spent the week leading up to it teaching A how to hunt eggs. Girl is a fast learner! Every afternoon we would go in the front yard hunt eggs and then color on the sidewalk till Dad got home. Here's a few from the practice rounds. 

 She picked up the concept immediately and has a great eye for the sport.

 You can see here she's got a real future in egg hunting. The determination in her face.

 Her love for the game helps too :) However, stamina not so much. She's a 3-4 egg hunter and then she is content to come sit in my lap and practice opening and closing them. She also stopped when the advance skill of picking up one egg before placing the previous egg in the basket caused her to topple over and spill her bounty. Maybe next year but for now Amelia you're a 1 egg at a time type of girl. 

The big day came Saturday at Perry Park. We went with the Bourlon's to their neighborhood hunt. This event provided a couple of game changers that Amelia wasn't quite prepared for. 

1. The Easter Bunny was there. She is very weary of large over-sized bunny prancing around, something about it was very unnatural to her...

Amelia meets the Easter Bunny from Morgan Bender on Vimeo.

2. The mass number of kids. She was unaware of the "race-factor" and froze to inspect the chaos.

She eventually picked up 2 eggs and then realized there were shiny things inside. This halted any further hunting. She was much more content to hold her shiny prizes. The guys pushed the girls on the swings and then they played awhile on the playground.

 Court and the ladies

so serious

We then came home and planted an orange tree that we got the day before. It should start bearing fruit around September. I cant wait. Cuties are a favorite with Amelia and so I know she will die when she sees them blooming on her tree. 

She wasn't as big of a help with the planting as I thought she'd be. She doesn't like to get dirty. She however has no problem getting wet. We are working on her pouring skills. She is content to just dump the water on herself (which she needs no help growing, she is currently in the 110% for height at 33 in and in the 95% for weight at 27lbs. She hasn't gained a pound since January. Which I'm skeptical about and have the most adorable naked pics of her swimming to prove it, unfortunately I just dont know how I feel about posting pics of her in all her glory)

While we were planting we got a surprise visit from our friends Leigh, Julia and a pair of adorable Easter bunnies who came to deliver Amelia an Easter basket. The basket she loved however still weary of the bunny and now concerned that it knows where she lives and that they can travel in pairs. I'm sure next year she will give a much warmer greeting. 

The next day, Easter Sunday. After church we had the most amazing lunch at the Austin Country Club! I think I ate 5 or 6 courses. 

Julia and Hannah dressed Amelia up with some flowers, I kinda think that she looks like she has Shrek ears.

 Look at all that hair blowing in the wind!!

We came home and Amelia went swimming in her pool. She loves the slide that is on it. 

There are so many more great pictures from this afternoon, next time I will make sure she is in a bathing suit so I can post them. 

I'm going to make this post even longer and leave you with some of my thoughts.

1. I've had the stomach bug so I'm limited to broth and all I can thing about is

TACOS!!! I really want to eat tacos!

2. And its finally raining, what a blessing!

3. Bin Laden is dead. I'm so honored and humbled with the service of our troops. I'm glad that one's wicked ways have been stopped and I hope that this is the beginning of dismantling an oppressive group's evil, however it will never be natural though to celebrate someone's death, no matter how much pain they have caused.

4. I'm feeling terrible because I missed my grandmother's birthday and she is the most wonderful person you could ever know, and she never misses a birthday! Grandma, I am so sorry. I love you.

gotta go and call grandma