Not a happy day!

I took Gracie to the doctors for her school physical today. She has to have one before she can go to pre-school on Tuesday. I thought they would just look in her ears, nose, eyes, etc... Oh no! They pricked her finger and then squeezed a ton of blood out of it. It's one of the worst feelings as a parent, to sit there and hold your child while they are crying and asking you to make it stop. Just when we think it's all over the doctor comes in. She looked over Gracie's immunization records and decided today would be a good day to start her round of hepatitis shots. I DID NOT want to have to tell Gracie that she was going to get another shot. Of course she panicked, and I had to hold her down. She cried so hard. The nurse felt bad for her and loaded her up with gifts. She got two stickers, a grape flavored tongue depressor, bubble gum flavored Motrin, and a trip to the treasure chest. You can see in the picture that she is holding all of her treasures and her stickers are on her shirt. She also has two band-aids. Poor little thing! She told me she missed her blood, and she didn't want to be healthy. But when I told her she couldn't go to school without doing these things, she quieted down. She can not wait to go to school. We had a meet and greet with the teacher last night. Grace didn't want to leave, she wanted to stay and play with everything. I'll post pictures on Tuesday of her first day of school. I probably shouldn't wear mascara that day, because I know I will be a little sad to see her go. :(

I'm addicted to blogs

Scottie and I were having a discussion the other day about Gracie's obessive nature. I said that she gets it from him. Of course he wanted to know why I felt this way, so I began to list his obessions: pens, lint rollers, the color gray... He said that I had obessions as well, which I quickly denied. He pointed out that I am addicted to reading other people's blogs. Well, he got me- I am totally addicted to reading other people's blogs. I think it's fun to read about other people's lives, get ideas from them, look at pictures of their children doing funny things. Does it really matter that I don't know half of them? Maybe. There are several spouses here at school that blog for their friends and families. I love their recipes. A few of them post recipes on their blogs with pictures to go along with them. I love it! So I will try and pass along some of these great recipes. I don't take the best pictures, but you get the point.

Here is a recipe for : Tuscan Garlic Chicken

I thought it was pretty good. The chicken was fantastic!

-6 boneless, skinless chicken breast

-1T garlic, chopped

-1 1/2 c. flour, plus 1 tablespoon

- 1 red pepper, julienne cut

-1 T. salt

-1/2 c. dry white wine ( I substitued chicken broth for finacial reasons)

-2 tsp. black pepper

- 1/2 lb. whole leaf spinach, stemmed

-2 tsp. Italian seasoning

-12 0z. heavy cream

-1 lb curly or regular fettuccine

-1 c. parmesan cheese, grated

-Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, pepper, and italian seasoning in a shallow dish. Dredge chicken in the mixture, shaking off any excess. In a large, ovenproof skillet, add 3 Tbsp of olive oil- and saute chicken in batches over med-high heat for about two to three minutes on each side, or until golden brown and crisp. Add additional olive oil for each batch as necessary. When finished, transfer the skillet to a preheated oven at 350 degrees. cook for 10-15 mins., or until cooked through. Cook pasta according to package directions. While pasta is cooking,heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a sauce pan. Add the garlic and red pepper, cook for approximately one minute. Add remaining 1 tbsp. flour and stir to combine. Next add the wine and bring to a boil for one minute. Add the spinach and cream and bring to a boil. The sauce is done cooking when the spinach becomes whilted. Complete by stirring in the parmesan cheese. Drain pasta and partly coat with sauce. Transfer to a large bowl (or individual dishes). Top with chicken, remaining sauce and extra parmesan cheese.

It finally happened...

Yes, she finally did it. Gracie chopped her hair off in the front. I was cutting out some school stuff for my friend yesterday. I had to go to the bathroom so I put the scissors down (BIG mistake). We have had several talks about scissors and how she has to have permission to use them. Her OCD got the best of her and she had to cut something! I heard her cutting in her coloring book and I told her to put the scissors down. Being the smart child that she is- she knew I couldn't make her since I was in the bathroom. She ran upstairs with her coloring book and scissors. I thought she was just going to cut a ton of pages out. Wrong!!! As soon as I came out I saw her coming down the stairs. She had a strange bulge in her underwear and it looked like there were strands of hair hanging out of them. Then my eyes looked up and saw a giant chunk of her hair missing! I just sat there in disbelief for a while. I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. I asked her why she did that and she replied " I wanted to be like Rapunzel." I yelled " what? That's the opposite of Rapunzel!" (I think she is refering to the Barbie movie where the mean lady cuts Rapunzel's hair so the prince won't recognize her) Regardless, she now has very choppy bangs! Then I looked at her underwear, she had stuffed all of her hair in them. I tried SO hard not to laugh, but it was too funny. She started crying, but I couldn't stop laughing. When she pulled them down it looked like she had put a wig in there. There was so much hair!

Her hair doesn't look terrible, but it's going to be hard to pull it back. We are going to have to go buy more clips. The pictures don't really show how short or how much she really cut. It seems we have passed another childhood milestone. I hope she has gotten it out of her system. Heaven help us!!

Why My Husband Could Fail Medical School

My mom got Scottie a Wii for his birthday/christmas present. She will probably never have to buy him a present again! He LOVES it! He's actually become quite addicted. Last week he rented a game and he couldn't stop playing it. He finally had to make himself take it back so he would study. It has been good for him in some ways. It's a nice stress reliever. He has finals next week so the Wii playing has slowed down quite a bit. After finals are over we are going to try and have a game night for him and his friends. I just hope they don't break anything. People can very physical with the Wii. You should see Gracie! She is pretty good at the golf game. I hope this doesn't mean she will want to join the golf team in high school. I can't think of anything more boring to watch. -My father-in-law is going to hate me for saying that. Sorry Jeff! :)

Trip to Iowa

We went to Iowa this weekend to visit with Scottie's family. His Aunt Cindy and Uncle Gary live about 2 hours from us. His mom, dad, Aunt Joy, and his Grandparents drove over from Indiana. We had a really nice weekend. Friday was our 5th wedding anniversary. It worked out perfect because we had babysitters, so we got to go out that night. Otherwise we would have been ordering pizza at home on our anniversay! On Saturday we drove to his cousin's house. They have Tanner, who is getting ready to turn five, and Ashley who is 2 1/2. Gracie had so much fun there. They had lunch and then went swimming. Gracie created a little course for herself: up the stairs, down the slide, run to the pool and jump in feet first. She was so funny. The video below shows her and Tanner racing into the pool. Tanner is conquering his fear of water and he did a fantastic job! Afterwards we went back to Cindy and Gary's and had dinner. The kids had a blast playing together all night. They had so much fun jumping on the air matress, even though I was scared it was going to pop. You would have never known that Gracie hasn't grown up with her cousin's. This is only the third time she has ever seen them. Hopefully we can get up there more often so they can get to know each other better. Oh- what did Scottie and I do while the kids were playing? We took turns reading chapters from the last Harry Potter book. It is soooo good!!!

Life in the V'ille

Here are a couple of pictures of our beloved wading pool. For all the negative things I say about Kirksville, here is a big positive. They have wading pools in all the parks in town. This one has a lifeguard on duty all day. The best part about the pools are that they are FREE!!! It is so nice to be able to going swimming without having to pay each time. Grace loves going to the pool! It's only two feet deep at the deepest end, but she is still able to swim underwater. She is like a little fish! The first picture is her playing with a little girl she met the other day, and the second picture is her catching a ride from a nice lady. People are so generous with their toys, everyone shares. It's a nice way to spend the afternoon. When we got done eating lunch the other day we looked over and Kingsley had jumped up on the chair. He is getting really brave with his begging. Well, actually he wasn't begging- he was trying to help himself!