Faces and Fitness

Savannah's new thing is "Mommy, take a picture of this".  

In other news, I've been working out at Surefire Fitness this week and it's KILLING ME. I have sore muscles where I didn't even know I had muscles. I think I'm probably the weakest and worst one in all of the 3 classes I've gone to, but it is fun and I feel "good" afterwards.   I actually really really like it, but there's only time in the day for one Pierce to be hooked on working out, and I don't have the drive for it to be me.  Probably more on this later. 

Eat You Heart Out

(Thanks to Clint and Miranda for getting this for Savannah last summer.  Hey- that's two shout outs in a row for you guys!)

Road Triiiiip

Travis was home for spring break last week so we took what has become our annual spring break trip - to the outlet mall by Iowa City.  I know, fancy, right?

They have pretty good deals there.  

Savannah did better this time than ever before.  She brought her own clothes in to dressing rooms and tried them on, and helped me pick some things.  And after we went to a few stores and she obeyed really well, we took her to Toys R Us.  Her first time in a Toy store.  She's getting really good at knowing she has to leave most of it behind in the store but it's fun to look.  Travis let her pick out a toy to buy this time though.  First time we've actually purchased a toy for her from a store that was more than $5.  I can't believe we made it this long off of hand me downs and gifts!  He gave her a choice between a Cinderella doll with tons of little pieces and a light saber - guess what she chose?  Yep, little pieces all over the living room right now.  

 I thought this was funny.  I was talking to someone in Old Navy and then looked over to see this - She fits right in.

 We also had the luck of having lunch at McDonalds with our friends Clint and Miranda Robinson.  We miss them.  I'm glad they could meet us.  I love that Savannah knows who they are even though they live almost 2 hours away now.  Here she is being sassy at Micky Ds.

Oh yea, and she was running in Gap and hit her head on the wall divider.  Pretty funny.  I always laugh first, then react with concern when she does stuff like that.  Is that okay?  Well, it's how I am.  She's fine.  It just bruised.  But she insisted on wearing this huge band aid for two days, now she's dealing with the rash the band aid caused.  Oh well - gotta love Savannah Sue.

TwinLawapolooza

Travis' twin brother, Greg, and his family came up to see us for a few days during Travis' spring break, which is this week.  Greg and his family are moving to India for 4 years in June, so it's good to soak in as much time with them as we can.  We were super thankful that they made the trip up here.  

Greg's a pretty funny guy.  You know he's funny when he still makes his wife of 8 years laugh at his stories.  

 Here's a pictures that perfectly describes how Savannah felt about sharing her new/hand me down swing set.  It was really tough, but for the most part she was good about it.  I don't have a lot of pictures of her crying face, but it's pretty precious.

 Here's all 3 girls in the tutu's that Grammy (Travis' mom) sent down for them.  The girls pretty much played and played and played non stop for 3 days.  It was cousin heaven.

Gown Upsy

 Travis and Wendy Pierce done gone and grown up a little bit!  Until today the most we've ever paid for a piece of furniture was 30 bucks.  Since we have people over all the time, and really love for people to feel welcome and comfortable in our home, we saw buying a new couch a worthy expense for this year's tax refund.  Ladies and Gentleman, I give you, the transformation.

 The sectional is from the Redeckers outlet store in Boone.  We actually paid for it a couple weeks ago and when we went to pick it up today we noticed they had jacked the price up.  It felt good to know we'd gotten the better deal.

I also got to pick out a couple new pillows for the couch.  For the record, Walmart.com has tons of pillows for pretty cheap and ways you can search through them without looking at every one.  And they do "sight to store" delivery so you don't have to pay shipping.  You just pay online, then go to the local Walmart to pick them up!

We're SO excited!

This blog is VOID

So the other day a friend of ours posted on my facebook and said,  

"Your blog entries are entirely void of pretense. I really like that." 

Wanting to receive the complement correctly, I then googled "void of pretense" - only to come up with websites that said things about contracts and loans.  So then I tried just the word "pretense" - also no clear answer.  Then we texted a friend of ours who's really smart about words and sayings and he told me that it means "not pretending to be something you're not". (he also said that the person who originally said that term was void of pretense when it comes to words...but that's a whole other web for me to unwind)  If you know me, you know I'm not pretending to be this awesome. 

So, here's a picture of Savannah in a ball gown and an old lady sweater, clutching on to her hand made (in Panama) purse, trying to eat her burnt, homemade granola before Brisco gets it while sitting in a cow folding chair.  Hope it's void enough for you - friend. 

Face It.

Love this messy little face. 

Totally Glam...

Savannah and I live pretty glamorous lives.  Especially on days like today - when we can just drive around doing super fun, super posh stuff.  

 Savannah slept in until 8:30 this morning!  I know, crazy.  So we got a late start.  We had plans to go out to play with some friends at their house (kinda in the country..wide open space to run and run),  but before we did that we got the car washed.   It's a little freaky when soap is covering all the windows.  I almost alway lock the doors when we're in there.   I mean, talk about the perfect place to murder someone.

After our play date (no photos, sorry) we went to the  flower store to pick up our monthly FREE flower bouquet.  Savannah loves the one day a month we go to the flower store.  They always have new gifty type stuff for her to look at.

And after the flower store, we always go to the near by pet store.  She likes to play with the puppies and look at the fist the most.  This is actually a really fun FREE thing to do with kids.

Last stop on our GLAMOURS day was for two happy meals at McDonalds.  I mean, we had to finish all off on a high class note.  Right?

Taming the Wild

I put the "soft" edges on this pictures to contrast the wildness within Savannah that I'm about to talk about.   I have been realizing that Savannah is not only "active", but also a wild child.  She doesn't walk anywhere - she runs, skips, hops, drags, or crawls most of the time.  She is hands on - to EVERYTHING.  She talks, constantly, about everything.  And for the most part  - it's really awesome and really fun.   However, it has come time in some instances to TAME THE WILD.  Here's what we're doing:

1. Spanks.  We believe that to spare the rod is to spoil the child.  Early on we taught Savannah what it means to Obey and what happens when you do no Obey.  If she does not obey she gets spanked on her bear bottom with a wooden spoon.  Sounds harsh to some people, but it only takes a few spanks a week (most weeks) to keep her in line with what we want her to do, and usually what's best for her.

2. Whinning in her room only.  If she is genuinely sad about something that we've enforced and feels the need to cry it out, she can go to her room and sit in a chair and cry about it. But we don't put up with crying fits out in the open to attract everyone's attention.

3. New Grocery store game. I got this one from our friend Ranel.  When I take Savannah to the store I have her obey certain actions depending on the aisle.  Some times she has to ride in the cart the whole aisle, sometimes she has to just walk and keep one hand on the cart, sometimes she can just walk freely, sometimes I have her hold my hand.  By changing it up every aisle it keeps her from getting bored and causing pandaemonium and it also keeps me in control.  SOMETIMES she gets a reward at the end of the visit (candy or a cereal she wants).  But not every time.

So that's how we're rollin right now.  She's one special kid!

Coconut Rum Cupcakes

I saw on this muffin blog one day about making a little photo studio for the food you take pictures of with white paper, and tin foil  This picture of animal crackers was my test shot of my studio. :)

So I made these awesome coconut rum cupcakes last night with Jasey.  They are super light and fluffy and really "grown up".   First we blended everything together in my Ninja - I'm going to blog all about the Ninja as soon as I figure out some more things I can do with it.  Just know, it's awesome.

I thought this was interesting too - before we frosted/glazed the cupcakes, we put this syrup on them.  It kind of hardened before we put on the glaze and coconut.

My photo studio didn't work out so great since it was dark when we we got done with the cakes, and my kitchen is well lit with florescent bulbs, but you get the idea -

Coconut Rum Cake (Doctored Cake Mix Version)

For cake:

1 white or yellow cake mix (not prepared)

1 stick butter, cut into 8 pieces

Coconut milk to replace the water, reserve excess for icing (1 can should be enough)

3 eggs

2 cups sweetened or unsweetened, shredded coconut, divided (1 cup for the cake, 1 cup for topping)

For syrup:

¼ cup dark rum

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup water

For glaze:

2 tbsp. butter

About 2 cups powdered sugar

Reserved coconut milk

Place 1 cup of the coconut in a food processor. Process until finely chopped. Add the cake mix. Pulse. Cut the butter into 8 pieces. Add to the cake mix. Pulse until it looks like cornmeal. Add the coconut milk and eggs. Process until smooth and thick. Bake as directed. (I used one ten inch pan.) Let the cake cool on a wire rack.

As the cake is cooling, bring the sugar, rum, and water to a boil.. Let cool slightly. Place the cake on a serving platter and poke holes with a wooden skewer or fork in the top of the cake. Brush or drizzle the rum syrup over the cake and let it sit for about 15-30 minutes.

Prepare the glaze by whisking together the butter, powdered sugar, and coconut milk until it's runny enough to drizzle.

Toast the remaining 1 cup of coconut in a 350 degree oven until golden brown.

Drizzle the glaze over the cake and sprinkle with toasted coconut. Serve.

Here's to Friends, Fridays and Electric heated blankets. 

and she's in...

I knew it would happen sooner or later.  And I'm hoping she wasn't the first........
Yesterday I had a few things going on at church, which meant that Savannah had to put in extra hours playing in her class at church and also just entertaining herself in the church foyer while I met with someone.  She spends a lot of time at Cornerstone church and I'm always looking for ways to make it fun for her so she doesn't hate going out there.  So I let her bring her Tricycle in.  She had a blast following me around on it while I walked all over the building.  I was starting to wish I could just have her ride behind me when I go to the grocery store.  It would be awesome.

So anyway, what happened?  We have this baptistry/water feature thing at our church.  It's like an above ground little wishing well type thing with a bridge over it.  All the kiddos love playing on it.  A couple other kids were running around on it with her and yea, she fell in.  I didn't see it but another kid acted it out for me.  I guess she tripped.  Pant and shoes were wet, but she was fine.  I just knew it would happen one of these days - for those of you with kids at Cornerstone, you know what I'm talking about!  At least no one was really around.  Maybe this will prevent her from doing it on a Sunday when the whole church is watching.... probably not.