Another Day, Another Miracle

Can you even believe it?! (also, OAMC part 3)

2012-01-26T22:21:00.000-06:00

Yes, well, I finally have a working laptop again (it hasn't worked properly since September and actually died in October - so much for that Mac theory!)… BUT praise the Lord and pass the ammunition folks because I am just on overload now. I don't know what I would have done without a smartphone! Can you imagine life before constant access? (Sad, isn't it, how dependent we are? hmm…)

Before I lose my mind since January is almost over and my freezer is starting to clear out already, I wanted to update with another foodie post (I'll get to the grand holiday stuff later - it's tardy already anyway). Mostly, I just want to share with you a couple of new recipes that rocked my socks off. Yep, rocked 'em right off. Shall I start with my absolute favorite? I suppose then you have no reason to work to the end? ;) I'll do it anyway, and you can just trust that they are all good. Okay, so here was my list for January - followed by links/photos of the new additions that were important enough to earn a highlight on homework night.

1. Breakfast cookies (duh)
2. Frozen fruit cups (I know its winter, but my kids think its dessert, and its just fruit!)
3. marinated dump chicken (2 bags!)
4. Meatloaf/meatballs (2 pans of meatloaf, 4 bags of meatballs)
5. Meaty Manicotti (2 - 8x8) (NEW!)
6. Lasagna (2- 8x8) (NEW!)
7. Three cheese baked mac (downgrading from the spicy mac due to a complaining 5 year old!)
8. Yogurt (NEW!)
9. Granola Bars (NEW!)
10. Idaho Sunrise (NEW!)
11. Breakfast Bagels
12. Garlic bread
13. Cheese Scones (NEW!)
14. Chinese pot roast
15. Italian pot roast
16. Waffles - have yet to get a batch to the freezer.. Need to make them at night instead (duh)

Idaho Sunrise

Okay - first, the Idaho Sunrise. My new favorite I think. I love quick, easy, good-for-you breakfast, and I think this is fairly good for you? You make a nest of hashbrowns (with a little cheese mixed in), bake it a bit, then crack and egg in, top with parsley, a little bacon and cheese. I don't like whole eggs, so I scrambled them and then poured them into the 'nests', but same idea. I flash froze them, then put them in a gallon sized bag. I was nervous about reheating these in the microwave. I waited SOIMPATIENTLY for the toaster oven on the first morning. NOT a quick route at all. But WHOA was it worth it! The girls started asking for bites too. Even my picky bird, E! So then I put one in the microwave and did a nervous dance not wanting to ruin one of these precious treats. And it tasted just fine! YAY! So in 1:30, you have an amazingly fresh tasting breakfast, and its easy and filling and YUM. One seems to be enough, but I tend to want more. Uh oh… These are going to be a staple for sure. Plus they require so little bacon it works well with the bagel sandwiches. TRY these. It would also be a great breakfast/brunch item served fresh if you are having company over. Use a dark pan - you want these to get brown on the bottom or they fall apart when you try to get them out.

Manicotti (We put sauce on top too)

Manicotti - and lasagna.. we LOVE pasta. We actually tested out the Wal-Mart brand "oven-ready" lasagna noodles and the recipe right off the box, which we had never tried before - and put it to the freezer test right off the bat. It works, if you thaw it overnight. It actually wasn't bad, even with Steve making it - I tend to flavor things a bit more than he does :) Nice job! I like the Target box recipe better - they add more cheeses, but I think we could toss in more variety and it wouldn't matter.
The Manicotti was, again, a recipe we had never tried. It needed a little more spice, but it froze well.

This inspired my yogurt..

This pinterest find was actually for smoothie packets, but it got me thinking about gogurt… We buy gogurt all the time for Josiah's cold lunch - to freeze and then you stick it in the lunch box and it thaws in time for lunch… And just in general I guess, I always hate that he begs for the cartoon kind and I always am having to explain why I don't want to buy that kind for him - we get the "natural" kind - but even so, its not very natural I suppose (just a bit more?).. So why not make our own! Now, on www.onceamonthmom.com, they have a post showing how they make their yogurt into gogurt tubes. I am not about to attempt that (yet). And I haven't yet tried making my own yogurt, though after this we did talk about doing just that. But we bought some good-for-you yogurt and some flash-frozen fruit and we dumped it all in the processor. Then I stuck it in portion-sized gladware cups and froze them. So he has gogurt cups now, but he LOVES the taste, and I love that its REAL. So we'll work on the packaging (I'll put a sticker on it or something).

I made my Cheese Scones heart shaped, but these are okay :)

Ah yes, cheese scones. These turned out yummy. Its more like a biscuit because its savory and cheese-ish, but it makes a nice snack or side item for my kiddos (or I will steal one too). And I wasn't being an over achiever in making hearts, it was the smallest cut-out I had!

Well, hot dog...

2011-09-19T21:29:00.001-05:00

(a working title…)

This blog post has been stirring in my heart for months, rolling in the back of my mind as I debated whether or not I wanted to cross THAT line. I'm a line crosser, as you know, but I try to step carefully whenever possible. Boldly only when I have to. When I started my latest grad school endeavor and thesis writing was being discussed the idea hit me like a smack in the face. And as I sat across the table from a dear friend sharing our passion for good food and our hearts for this discussion, I had to wonder why I had waited so long to share my heart about this with those around me but I was jumping in wholeheartedly for a team of professors and conference attendees (fingers crossed!). I have several theories about that, but we'll save that for later.. For now, I just feel like I need to share my heart on the issue.

Motherhood has become a competition. And I hate it. Lets just throw that out on the table. Hang with me here. Today more than ever, we are blasted with society's expectations of what it means to be a "good" mother. News media, advertising, blogs, commercials, magazines, tweets, and Facebook. All day long, we as mothers are bombarded with other people tellings us how to perform our role. Whether or not we should breastfeed our child (and if so, how long we should continue to breastfeed). Should we use cloth diaper or disposables. Whether or not you should homeschool. Whether or not you should practice babywearing. Only feed your child organic, scratch-cooked foods. Which language you should teach your child. Whether or not you should make your own cleaning products. Whether or not to spank your children. The list goes on and on. Every single aspect of your role (my role) as a mom is thrown at you by all of these sources of media (and our friends!) - and what is the result?

The result is that -like it or not- this is hurting moms all around us. A mom shouldn't be made to feel like they are any better or worse of a mother if they choose to put their baby in disposable diapers or if they choose cloth. A mom shouldn't be looked down on because they send their child to public school, or they send their child to private school or if they choose homeschool. If I serve organic foods only half of the time, I shouldn't be made to feel like I am poisoning my kids, or that I am any less of a mother than someone that serves only organic, local produce. If I choose not to spank my children and I have solid Biblical reasoning for that, I should not be told I am wrong because you have found verses to support your choice.

NO mother should be frowned upon for their choice about feeding their child. I feel like I should say that ten million times. Some mothers have no choice - some mothers cannot make any/enough milk and cannot breastfeed. Some mothers make the choice for formula for other reasons. But it is their choice. Research that I am looking at right now has shown that this one single issue has led new moms to serious depression, loss of joy, feelings of guilt, etc. - all because they feel shamed by the fact that they either were not able to do what they were told by society was expected of them in terms of infant feeding, or shamed by the fact that they chose formula. It makes me so sad that as women we are making other women feel that way - when as new moms they should be at the height of their joy! Just because something is the right choice for you and your child, does not mean it is the only choice or the right choice for the lady next to you. (phew..)

I think what is so tricky about these issues for us as women is that we are so incredibly passionate about them because, well, we are passionate about everything, but because we are so passionate about our kids. When we get on to these topics we dive in so eagerly. But what we don't realize is that we tend to come off as though we are pushing our agenda instead of simply sharing our ideas. I recently read a great post by my friend Vanessa who wrote about her decision to homeschool, and I was just so proud of how she framed that discussion. She came right out and said she was so hesitant for these very reasons - and this is really what got my wheels spinning!

Let me tread very carefully here, but please hear me out: I feel like as Christian women, we can tend to be that much more passionate about our beliefs and child rearing or homemaking practices - and without even realizing we are doing so, we tend to be trying to one-up those around us (posting amazing facebook statuses!), or at the very least rather than "humble ourselves", we try to make it known that our practices are clearly the superior ones. I have never felt more judged than I have in the small, fishbowl town I recently moved back to. For wanting to work outside the home, for not homeschooling, for not breastfeeding, etc. I feel like at times we can hold our religious beliefs as an air of superiority, when in truth we are all heiresses in the same right.

And rather than trying to convert one another to a different team, what we should be doing is supporting one another no matter what. Unless something wild and whacky is going on, it really is going to be okay if you and I and Jane down the street all make different choices about what kind of kindergarten we send our kids to. Instead of competing with one another, lets be honest with each other. The fact is, this is a tough job! If we could get down and real with each other and truly come alongside one another in prayer and do life together - wow. Doesn't that sound so much better? It kind of sounds like a beach...

Thing One and Thing Two - and Three :) Happy August!

2011-08-29T21:19:00.000-05:00

I need happy thoughts today, and this post is one in a line of a few that are overdue, so I figured I would take a break and get a couple posted! There haven't been too many moments to spare around here lately, so when you are ordered to take one, you probably should? ;) Well, just for a few minutes at least…
August will forever be a crazy month at our house! Steve and I were married on the 10th. Our twin daughters, Hannah and Eden, were born on the 13th. Delia was born on the 28th. If we left it at that, we could be busy I suppose. We also wanted to do some sort special thing just for Hannah. This year, we had decided we could do a joint birthday party since the girls are so young (I had such a hard time doing that!), but that was all the more reason for us to do a separate thing for a memorial of sorts. Then, being racked with guilt over their birthdays being event-less, I made Eden and Hannah a cake anyway and we spent the day at the lake swimming and letting Eden call the shots. Delia's day came two weeks later, though she wasn't feeling well, so there was more napping involved and less cake since she had residual cupcakes leading up to her big day and I was still feeling like a bad parent over how much frosting she consumed from her smash cake! At any rate, the crazed month of August has come and gone and it was a pretty big success. I haven't yet gotten a free minute to take down the remaining banners, but the house still feels festive. I'm just not inviting anyone over yet so I don't need to feel embarrassed ;) (and excuse the jumbled pics, my foggy head isn't ready to create collages or organize them better right now. Maybe later!)

Three Stooges.

Our first event was the actual twins' actual birthday. (I say that because people always think Eden and Delia are twins and we are constantly having to explain that they aren't). So, on the 13th, we woke Eden with the traditional candle-lit breakfast (technically, she was already awake, but she was still in her bed - we know not to wake babies!) and we all sang happy birthday to her. We started this tradition when Josiah turned one and it is so fun. Especially with Josiah - whom we actually do wake up for daycare or school, and he is so caught off guard by it, the videos are hilarious! Eden LOVED this and Delia giggled from her crib too. After breakfast we let her open a little present and then spent the day at the lake swimming and letting Eden be the boss, dictating what we should do (who am I kidding - this girl thinks she runs the show all the time!). It was a really fun day! We capped it off with her fish cake - per her request, she wanted a "geen and pink" cake, and Steve decided it should be like the shape of a goldfish cracker. I made an executive decision not to actually carve it in the shape of a fish and just piped them on instead. She loved it though.
And at dusk, we went out on a pontoon with my parents and my sister's family and in the middle of the lake where Hannah's ashes were sprinkled, we sent these up. It was so beautiful. Eden kept shouting at the "full moons!" You could see them for miles. We only dropped two onto the water, but they looked pretty burning their too - so it wasn't a loss at all. Definitely doing this again next year.

I LOVED these lanterns. This was just plain amazing.

THEN came the joint party for the girls. It took some arm twisting, but I was able to be convinced to do a combined party this year. I don't know, for me, birthdays are a big deal. I love to make a huge deal out of my kids, and go crazy over birthdays - and I think especially for the girls its going to be important to keep them separate because it would be so easy to just "lump them together" because the dates are so close together. (If you have a similar situation throw some thoughts at me, I'm curious!) At any rate, this was fun and it turned out well, chaos and all!

I LOVED the Dr. Seuss theme! I could have gone [even more] crazy with this theme! It was just plain fun. And it just seemed to fit. Our girls were turning 2 and 1 and people always thought they were twins, so we made Thing One and Thing Two shirts, and there you go! While my intention was to go hog wild with the food and label everything with Seuss-related names, life got in the way. Our red fish/blue fish were obvious. Our oodles of noodles, just plain noodles.

I did, however, make red and white layered cupcakes resembling cat and the hat (they happen to be on the backside of this stand, blast!), and then green eggs and ham. I intended to cover my chocolate cupcakes with blue cotton candy thing hair, but I am a cotton candy machine nin-com-poop, and I could not figure it out, even with a good tutor. SO, they were just yummy chocolate. Which I like better, because I don't like cotton candy, but it doesn't look seuss-ish. The kids didn't know either way :) The adults had some delectable chocolate cake. For some reason they shy away from green food.

Hannah's Balloons

And last, but certainly not least! Delia's actual birthday! Delia flipped out about her good morning greeting! It was just hilarious! I am so glad we capture these on video each year. After she scarfed down three pumpkin chocolate chip muffins (she is serious about good food!), we opened her little gifts. (We decided a joint party called for a joint gift and found a great deal on a play kitchen. It has since taken over our lives. But they love it so we are coming to terms. Sort of.) You can see that Eden was a diva during present time, not enjoying that these were not her presents! Too funny. I loved that Delia made a funny face while holding a lemon. Ironic, since she has no idea what it was. And she was WAY excited about the book. Even though she has yet to sit still for an entire story. Ever. Thought that was hilarious too. This girl cracks me up at least once every couple of minutes.

An Update on Miss BeDelia...

2011-06-30T21:46:00.000-05:00

Today was our big day. And it was crazy HOT! We ended the day with the whole fam swimming in our pool - such a sweet relief after the stress of the day and the HEAT! And then Miss BeDelia let us know that she had HAD it, so off to bed. Did I mention she woke up the minute we snuck out of bed at 5:30? We left her bedroom door open to keep air moving (no central air here!) so she heard the first whisper this morning and JUMPED up. And off we went.
The morning went well. After dropping off Eden And Josiah with my sister (thanks!), we listened to Delia's angry hunger screams most of the trip. The girl likes her food! We got to the hospital and up to her room and it turns out the lovely nurse we first met knew Steve's relatives out west. That was an odd coincidence ;) And then came the ugly gown and booties. And then - the hospital crib and that blasted monitor. It kind of comes rushing back. The nurse did her best to rush through that part, bless her for that ;) Delia was a riot. She wanted to make a jungle gym out of this crib. So we took her down to the play room and she was just in lala land. She loved it! It was so great to have her to laugh at to keep us distracted :)
I brought her in to the MRI room because they wanted her to see one of us as she went to sleep. She didn't really care. She was so exhausted (likely from being so hungry), she passed right out. The anesthetists were hilarious, and it was great to have them be so light-hearted. They saw my knee-brace and offered to have me do a ride along MRI. Awesome. Turns out that that was a joke ;) They couldn't find a vein in her chubby hands, so they couldn't administer the hard-core anesthesia meds - and luckily they didn't need contrast for the pictures. They were kind enough to stop after three tries! Because of this, they just kept the mask magic going and she woke up much faster, so things moved much more quickly than anticipated with no 'recovery' period or whatever. It was literally like 45 minutes instead of 2 hours.
She came up Miss Crankypants! Totally thirsty and hungry. The amazing CRNA carried her all the way up to her room because she didn't want to lay on the bed they thought they were going to wheel her back on! What a guy! They gave us the okay to give her crackers and juice, and she angrily chowed away. She was groggy, but fine.
We left after a couple more checks of her vitals and got some lunch - then back to see the neurosurgeon and check out the pictures of her brain. Let me just say its kind of odd looking at your child's brain on a screen! Anyway- first they measured her head circumference and found that it has, in fact, grown since her 9mo check up which was in early June. Her line on the growth chart is not a curve, but its starting to make a straight line almost - going up, not over so much. Then the doc came in and showed us her scans. He said that her three ventricles are all larger than "normal", with her third ventricle being the puffiest of the three. These ventricles are filled with spinal fluid, and he gave us all kinds of details I won't bore you with here. At any rate, He showed us that her brain is clear of tumors or cysts - so that is not what is causing this fluid build up - Thank God! He said that the size of the ventricles is currently right on the border of being cause for surgery - so he is comfortable with us waiting to see her pediatrician at her 12 month check up in August since it is so soon. If her head circumference increases or plateaus only slightly, he would do the surgery. If it happened to go down toward the "normal" curve (back toward everyone elses head size), he said it would be something we would leave alone and just monitor for awhile since we do have this in our family history, we won't just ignore its presence.
THEN - there are two options he mentioned as far as procedures. One is a shunt - he would go in and put in a shunt which would create a path for this fluid to drain into her stomach and then it would get absorbed by her bloodstream. The problems he mentioned with this procedure are that kids can grow out of shunts - meaning more surgeries to put in bigger ones - and also they can get blocked or infected, meaning more surgeries to put in new ones or treat infections, etc. However, this procedure is the commonplace thing, standard option, etc. The second option has a really long name he breezed over, but basically it would be a procedure which would create a larger opening for the ventricle in question so that it could flow more on its own. This is a one-time fix and she would never have to worry about this issue again. The downfall is that based on her size, she would have to be "accepted" as a candidate. I like this option because its a one time thing - but it is more risky, according to this guy. He also openly said he doesn't do the procedure and we would have to go to a younger, newer doc to have it done. Well, then I would go to a younger, newer doc either way?? Yikes. But he actually would send us to a pediatric neurosurgeon for that procedure which they don't have in Fargo, so then I could go back to my comfort zone anyway.
He said that he would send his notes to our pediatrician by the end of today so she could call us and discuss that or set up an appointment to review it. I am SO blessed to have been referred to a great pediatrician - I know she will call me personally ;) (Thanks Gretchen!)
I don't know. On one hand, I am SO, SO, SOOO thankful. I am praising God that there are no tumors in this sweet baby's head! No major cysts or blockages to be found. The test went amazingly well! No complications with anesthesia! Oh my goodness somanythings to be thankful for!
On the other hand I have so many questions still without answers and I just hate limbo! This diagnosis has made me doubt myself so much as a mother - how many signs have I missed because I stopped looking for milestones??, etc.. And I just was going into today needing a PLAN. Not a wait-til-August-and-repeat-this-day-plan. But a solid its-here-or-its-not-and-we'll-do-this-tomorrow-or-not-at-all plan. On paper. That I could put on my fridge. Bleh. Now what? Shall I carry a tape measure in my pocket to check my sweet baby's head every day just in case? Check her pulse through her soft spot to make sure the pressure hasn't gotten more intense on her fragile brain? silly, I know… but spewing…. plus the air conditioner wasn't working in the van, so I'll just throw that in there too ;)
All of this to say, the good definitely outweighed the bad - BY FAR - today. Oh man, did it ever. But in the end, we are still in a place of LIMBO. Please keep Miss beDelia in your prayers. Perhaps God will surprise everyone and her peers will catch up with her head size by the time she turns one.
"I see that the Lord is always with me. I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me. No wonder my heart is glad, and my tongue sings his praises! My body rests in hope." Acts 2:25-26

If this is what it takes to praise You, Jesus bring the rain..

2011-06-24T01:24:00.000-05:00

I sing those words. I cry through the song. I cry out that I will "praise you through the storm"… but will I? Do I? Oh, Lord knows there is a storm rocking my boat this very moment. Truth be told, I sat with Steve this afternoon and we both finally admitted our 'secret' frustrations that it seems as though the storms haven't stopped coming - we haven't seen peaceful waters in who knows how long (in our hurting hearts opinions).

Crazy hair Bedelia

On Tuesday, Steve and I took Delia to Fargo so her and I could both see the doctor - me to see if we could get a decent idea as to what was wrong with my knee, and Delia because her pediatrician wanted to have an ultrasound of her head because it continues to measure SO far off the chart. We went into this thinking my appointment was going to be the kicker, considering that the doc from the ER had told me his best guess was that I had sprained my knee and tore my ACL on Friday. SO, when the orthopedic doc told me he thought that I had popped my knee cap (he had a fancy term for it) after a very thorough exam which had me drumming the exam table and doing the labor breathing I had never used!!!, things weren't all that bad. A little confusing - it didn't seem like that should be so painful, but whatever. I got a new brace, Delia went for her ultrasound and we headed for home. I didn't praise immediately, even then. I should have - I may not need surgery after all - but I still don't have a definite answer to this issue and that stinks. The praise came, but should have come sooner….
When her pediatrician called me personally the next day to tell me that she and the radiologist had reviewed the ultrasound and had determined that Delia in fact had mild hydrocephalus and that she would need a fairly urgent MRI and appointment with a neurosurgeon?!?! panic set in. Did I praise? Absolutely not. I wept. And then I swept it under the rug as my son walked in from his day at VBS. And I put a smile on my face and wiped my tears and couldn't crack though my husband could read my eyes, so I avoided eye contact until I made up an excuse to send Josiah up to brush his teeth in the middle of the day. He's a smart kid, so this was difficult. And I wept some more. Did I praise then? Nope. Sorry, not then either if I'm being honest. And then he came charging down the stairs and out came the happy facade again. And then I sent out text messages. My dear friends know me well - I cannot call in states of emergency because I am a weepy mess when things get raw and I refuse to be a blubbery blub on the phone. So they have to love me even though I sent out this via text. (thank you)
Not long after they called to say they fit her in for an MRI on June 30. My mind starts racing - is it so soon because of the urgency? Or they happened to have an opening? Ugh. I hate how the mind races. And they have us scheduled with the neurosurgeon that same afternoon. The MRI will be 2 hours long - she will be under full anesthesia for the procedure - which I understand, its far too long for her to hold still, but SO scary for me to have my babe go through that, even though we've been down that road with Eden before. Barring no complications she will be released later that same day, and then the neurosurgeon will look at the images and will be able to give us an idea of the plan of attack. BLEH. Doesn't that sound like barf? I didn't feel like praising after than phone call either.
I woke up this morning and it hit me like a ton of bricks, a thought that hadn't dawned on me until now and I have no idea why: my oldest sister Laura was stillborn due to hydrocephalus. Of course that had been the thought on my whole family's mind yesterday upon my breaking the news, but for some reason I hadn't put two and two together. A whole new wave washed over me today.
I know that we were told this is "mild". I know that Laura likely did not have a mild case. However, as a mother, there is nothing mild about having something done to your child's brain. When the pediatrician tells you that the way to fix this is most likely putting a shunt in to drain the fluid - that is a procedure, an operation on her brain. That isn't a tea party. That isn't anything mild. Its petrifying.
Sometimes its ridiculously hard to want to praise when the storm is raging. Especially when the storms keep coming, and doubly especially (doubly especially?!? ha!) when the storms deal with your babes. How can one be expected to praise God when there is a storm raging with my child and all I want to do is hop over on my crutches and hold her instead? And yet? We are supposed to? And yet…. we need to.
"Bring me joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings You glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain" (MercyMe - Bring the Rain)

Progress Report: Communication Meltdown/Weird Words

2011-05-26T22:59:00.000-05:00

Eden was approved for weekly speech therapy through her early intervention program! This is such a huge and amazing thing because it should not have happened (long story which I won't post). At any rate, God allowed it, and it is so. She is meeting with an amazing speech therapist every Friday morning at our house and Eden just loves her. She helps me put the toys away when I tell her that "Miss 'J' is coming" because she knows that a new basket of toys is coming to be played with :) So fun to see.

At any rate, the story begins with these glasses. Steve got them as a gift for his 30th birthday, and they seem to have prompted Eden's first real word. Sure, there have been mutterings. Grunts. Sounds we couldn't begin to decipher or for the life of us understand. But on May 15th, 2011? Eden said "gasses". No joke. And she wanted "waffles" for breakfast. The girl with NO words chose THESE words. I would say I never would have imagined - but in all honesty, you can't put anything past this girl.

Miss J comes and sings crazy repetitive songs, over-emphasizes words/sounds/syllables, and grabs Eden's attention like nobody else has been able to do. And Eden soaks it right up. If you were a fly on the wall in my house (when I am alone, of course!) you would think I am a nut too. I go down the stairs with this girl and on every step you will hear me say "down, down, down!", over emphasizing every down in a very sing-song voice. Every single step folks. No joke. She will say "down" if I am lucky, so I keep trying. We make up songs for everything because Miss J found that Eden responds SO well to music. We say everything with sounds first- Ba-Ba-Ball? "Eden, do you want m-m-milk? I sound like I have lost my ma-ma-marbles ;)
We are still doing simple sign language along with things as well. Its hard to know sometimes what is helpful - some of the sounds she says with other words, she won't say for things she knows the sign to. She has said "mama" (only twice, mind you!), but has not once attempted to say the word "milk". She will still only sign puppy and has not attempted to say puppy or dog, etc..
Along with this sudden language breakthrough, she has decided to also show me that she knows how to say her letters. For quite some time now, she would point to letters when I would ask her "which one is …?" but I had no idea she had this in her too! I don't know how many she actually knows! I am excited to get out her letter cards over the weekend and sit down with her to see what she will show me in a one-on-one setting. She loves "her" letter of course, and she gravitates toward the letter "n" which is funny. But she has spoken at least 10 letters to me in the past two days! We haven't had her letter cards out since moving into this house two months ago, so her recent exposure is from the books we've read and the fridge magnets!
The past week has just been amazing. This is not to say that we haven't still had the fits and all of that - somedays are worse than before, some days are better. But in between the bouts of whining or shrieks, I am hearing her actual voice! I feel like I can actually start communicating with her! It is just such an incredible thing! When I catch her starting to get upset I can tell her to calm down and use words! It doesn't work most of the time but she seems to get it - and I have hope. And thats what I needed.

Filling My Freezer Round Two: Armed and Dangerous

2011-05-26T22:31:00.000-05:00

Okay, let me just start by saying that I was so blown away with Round One that this turned into an obsession of epic proportions! Oh man. And then I will say this. I had a weekend set aside this time (YAY me!) but then I got invited to see Beth Moore with a free ticket (YAY friend!) that same weekend. SO, once again, I ended up starting my OAMC on a Sunday afternoon (like 6:30pm). Why not put it off another week, you ask? By the time the big surprise party for the hubby came around the weekend before, I had depleted my supply of breakfast and lunch items. That means a whole week had now gone by of impromptu grocery store runs right before bed, eggos, etc…. I was SO stressed out EVERY day because none of my meals were figured out and I felt awful going back to feeding the kiddos mystery meat every day - meaning Steve was running to the store again because we didn't want the same mystery meat each day. I got back from this amazing, refreshing conference and wanted nothing but rest! But I knew that I would go to rock bottom the next morning if I didn't get it done. So there we were. My lovely cousin came to help with the big shop and cooked with us that night which was a ton of help too.
All of this to say - after going to bed at 1am the night before, I hadn't showered. There are no pictures of this amazing cooking event. There should be. It was a beautiful process and I should have taken pictures. The thing is - when you have three people cooking a hundred meals at once, the kitchen doesn't look picture worthy. I think the pictures would look like junk even though the food looks amazing! Just picture the food in your mind. Here is the breakdown!
I spent $320. I know. Quite a bit more than last time, but I think I have 2+ months of breakfasts in this, not just one. This also includes restocking my pantry with bags of flour, sugar (white and brown), etc. Oh - and this includes a pizza meal from the walmart deli for cooking night (two pizzas and breadsticks!), all of our fresh fruits, etc.. The only thing not included is one pound of flank steak which I have to pick up from the butcher because none of the grocery stores have it and this amazing looking recipe calls for it and I now have all other ingredients for it. Oh - and this dollar amount includes ingredients for a huge amount of mixes - I am taking up making my own mixes for pancakes, waffles, muffins - preparing the dry ingredients ahead of time and freezing because they have whole wheat flour, then adding wet stuff when you go to make it. Here is what else we made for the money:
1. Individual Mac-n-Cheese (a big hit from last time - double batch again!)
2. Homemade Pizza Dough (onceamonthmom.com): New this time. Excited to try this one! She has ideas for grilling pizzas on her site, which I've never tried before, and I am all about trying new foods all of a sudden ;)
3. Burritos (onceamonthmom.com) with cilantro lime rice (twopeasandtheirpod.com): New this time. The burritos made 14 instead of 8 and still look huge, so that was awesome. And they smell delicious when you cook the filling, so you know they are going to taste yummy. You make the rice fresh on the night you serve the burritos, so this weekend when we pull out the burritos we will test that recipe - excited to try it!
4. Poptarts (onceamonthmom.com) - big hit last time, double batch again. This time used all natural filling, no added sugar, etc. Feeling much better about that ;)
5. Tacos in a sleeping bag (onceamonthmom.com) - YUM! These are incredibly easy and honestly, the grown-ups that tried them (dipped in salsa and/or sour cream) liked them just as much as the kids. Double batch!
6. Pizza Croissants (onceamonthmom.com - again, big hit, double batch again! Used chunk pepperoni this time to trick Eden into thinking it was hotdogs instead of mini pepperonis and it worked!
7. Banana Sour Cream Bread (GoodCheapEats.com/allrecipes.com) added chocolate chips! This made four loaves and WOW, this is the best banana bread I have ever had. Coming from a girl that doesn't eat bananas, won't touch bananas to make the bread (Steve did it!), it is incredible. This is a snack item in our freezer. Definitely a keeper!
8. Sour Cream Noodle Bake (pioneerwoman.com) - Repeat! SOO yummy, adding more green onion and tons of garlic! 2 8x8 pans!
9. Meatballs/Meatloaves (goodcheapeats.com) - repeat, so good and so versatile! We make this into 2 meatloaf meals (1lb each) and the rest into meatballs (bagged by meal size). I pull out a bag of meatballs and put it in whatever sauce to heat them up. So easy and the sauce soaks that flavor into them too.
10. Roasted Vegetable Pasta (onceamonthmom.com) - OMG!!!! if you try anything, try this one!!! We had this last night and it is quite possibly my new favorite pasta! Incredible flavor, and the veggies are amazing, even after being frozen! Peppers, asparagus, tomatoes and mushrooms all fire roasted and garlicky! YUM. Check it out! Oh - this made 3 giant freezer bags full, and each is one meal's worth.
11. Frozen Fruit cups (onceamonthmom.com) - basically its like little yummy cups of fruit frozen in fruit juice. This recipe wouldn't work as a popsicle -its too slushy - but its YUMMY. Its a great summer snack or even a breakfast on a hot lazy day on the deck! The kids gobbled them up. It made 24.
12. Upside down baked oatmeal (thepieholeblog.blogspot.com) OMG. These bars are SO good. And if you skip the chocolate chips, they are actually really good for you. The website lists weight watchers points. I don't care for baked fruit, so I put in a sprinkling of mini chocolate chips. I added maple flavoring and vanilla and they are incredible. I made a double batch and I am going to make another double batch to have more in the freezer. I could easily do that with the groceries I still have. This made 24 breakfast bars.
13. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins (goodcheapeats.com) - new this time! I love baking (can you tell?) I wanted to have more snacks on hand, especially with Josiah out of school, but with Delia eating solids too now, I want to have things in the house that are made - not the cheez-its ;) So I'm loving these, which I made into mini-muffins, more portion appropriate for my kids. I also used half apple sauce instead of all of the oil and half brown/half white for the sugar. They are amazing. Josiah requested these instead of his packaged snack for school his last week! We got about 150 mini muffins from one batch!
14. Breakfast Cookies (onceamonthmom.com) - repeat, doubled the double batch! Kids love them, and I love them too. Two of these make the perfect breakfast for me. Sometimes Eden eats four, but thats on a really crazy day ;)
15. Corn dog muffins (onceamonthmom.com) repeat, doubled the recipe. We all enjoyed these (yep, I love corn dogs!). I cut the hotdogs pretty small for the girls, I add a tiny bit of brown sugar and extra milk to the recipe… so yummy.
16. Pizza Casserole (onceamonthmom.com) new! I added garlic, some onion salt and extra oregano to this. We used Wacky Mac - not only is it fun for the kids, but its veggies! ;) We are having this tomorrow and I am excited - I know they are going to love this one!
17. Apple Chicken Nuggets (onceamonthmom.com) new! I know, it sounds odd, gross even. These are seriously good. I mean SERIOUSLY good. The only one that didn't eat them was Eden and she is currently not eating much of anything, so I'm not giving that much weight at all. Steve and I and Delia loved them. Josiah said they were "pretty okay". He thought they should come from a bag ;) But he ate them right up! The flavor was so great. This made like 30 or 40 nuggets.
18. Whole wheat Freezer waffles (goodcheapeats.com) new! goodbye eggos! We made up a bunch of these and put them in freezer bags separated by wax paper. Then you can heat them in the toaster oven or toaster (or microwave for Delia).. Pretty good stuff!
19. Mexican Verde Casserole - (onceamonthmom.com) repeat! 2 8x8 pans, and again, this was delicious. Definitely would recommend this, or have you over for dinner to eat it :)
20. Make ahead garlic bread (goodcheapeats.com) This has become a staple in our house since we are all garlic bread junkies. Probably not a good thing! But its the most amazing garlic bread! (with a bunch of extra garlic of course!). We made 4 of these!
21. Mix and Match Muffins (goodcheapeats.com) this is a mix to freeze, though I also bought two containers of blueberries so hopefully I will get one container before the kids eat them all and make some muffins to freeze for breakfasts or snacks.
22. Multigrain pancakes (goodcheapeats.com) another mix, ready to go! Have buttermilk waiting for fresh pancakes this weekend!
23. Dump chicken #1: Paula Dean's Vidalia Onion Honey Mustard salad dressing - half a bottle dumped onto a package of raw natural chicken tenders. Marinate in the fridge overnight then freeze. Took this out and grilled it tonight. AMAZING. Use the rest of the dressing to dip if you wish, but we didn't need to. SO tender and full of flavor.
24. Dump chicken #2: Same as above except I think it was caesar?
25. Dump idea but with pork chops and dressing is Italian. Oh - and all of these have garlic added :)
26. Italian Flank Steak Pinwheels (onceamonthmom.com) - cannot wait for these this weekend! This can be fresh or frozen. Ours might be half and half.
27. French toast sticks (onceamonthmom.com) repeat. 5x the recipe - Those texas toast loaves are so large! I use two loaves and it is so much bread when you cut it up! I got a bazillion sticks.

Phew. Its so funny because You get all of this stuff done (by Tuesday night since I did it in bits and pieces here and there) and then when you dip into it for the first time it hurts just a little! But it is just such an amazing feeling to know that I will not have to worry about meals for a LONG time. My big eaters right now are Josiah and Delia, so snacks will be different especially with Josiah home from school. I am hoping that the muffins, fruit cups and that kind of thing will do the trick. I have found some great sneaky chef type recipes to use for popsicles that I will try when my snack supply gets depleted but it should last well into summer!
I was bummed that I didn't have more time to do couponing this time. With the party planning I was so preoccupied. Next time! But I saved $18, so I will just be happy with that. When I look at all that is in my freezer, and the fact that other than milk/juice, and fruit we really won't need groceries until who knows when, I am really impressed. A lot of these I could make more of with what is left in my pantry (staples that are still stocked). And I can't wait to go down the salad dressing aisle to try more flavors for chicken/pork! It is so fun to be expanding my search - trying new recipes, testing out the concept of making my own mixes for things, not buying them, etc. I prefer to make things from scratch, just because I like to, not because I'm a cooking snob!! - but with the loudest little one who wakes up very hungry, we need to be able to eat breakfast FAST - so scratch breakfast items don't work. And when Josiah asks to bake something, sometimes there is only time for a mix, so this would be perfect and way cheaper!

DO try the roasted veggie pasta!! And the Paula Dean dressing as a marinade! And the oatmeal bars with chocolate chips! And the pumpkin muffins! there are just too many good ones…

Party Food Means We Need More Reasons To Party

2011-05-15T20:02:00.000-05:00

Last night I threw Steve a surprise party in honor of his big 3-0 milestone and I must say I was thrilled to have an excuse to make good party food! For some reason, there are foods that only come out at party time - its just not fair! These foods should have more time to shine, right? ;) At any rate, several people requested recipes for the various delectables so I thought it might be easiest to compile them in one place rather than creating several facebook notes. A couple of these are recipes others have passed on to me and some I have adapted for the sake of my need to make things easier/spicier/etc… Enjoy!

BLT Stuffed Tomatoes
What a better way to enjoy a tomato than stuffed with bacon?! And wow, this would make a great spread on a pita with a big slice of tomato too! YUM!! You will totally eat a few while making these, so make extra.

50 Cherry or Grape Tomatoes
2lbs bacon, Chopped and cooked (or crumbled - its your preference, I leave mine in small chunks)
1/2+c chopped green onion (I lean toward a whole cup, use less for less kick)
1/2c MAYO (You may need to add more than 1/2c if you add the extra onions if your mix gets too thick, just add another heaping spoon or 1/4c, no need to be exact!)

Halve all of the tomatoes and scoop out the insides - set aside. In a medium bowl, mix the bacon, mayo and onions. Spoon the mixture into the tomatoes and refrigerate until ready to serve.

*NOTES* When picking the tomatoes in the store, pay attention to how skinny they are. Fat ones are way easier to stuff. Also, this recipe just doesn't taste the same with Miracle Whip. This is one time I actually break down and buy mayo, trust me on this!

Cheese Tortellini and Pesto Dip - Courtesy of Kelly Hyer ;)
Pretty sure I called/emailed my dear friend Kelly half a dozen times for this recipe before I finally remembered to write it down. Its so simple but SO good. Thank you for sharing!

1 large container of refrigerated tortellini (like Bertolli)
1 large container whipped cream cheese
1 container pesto sauce (from that refrigerated pasta section in your grocery store)
Juice from 1/2 lemon

Boil noodles according to directions, rinse and drain well and let them cool. Be sure to separate the noodles - I spread them out on a paper towel or wax paper lined sheet pan (so I don't dirty the pan!) then put them in the fridge in a ziploc or lovely container. In the midst of all of this, mix the cream cheese with the pesto and then start adding the lemon juice. Add a little, mix and taste. Add more if you wish - some like more/less lemon, so its your call on that (see how we give you options here?!) Thats how we roll.

Bruschetta
So fresh and so garlicky - fabulous on toasted baguette slices, pita chips, regular chips, pretty much anything. I LOVE bruschetta. The best part about this is that the garlic gets stronger as it sits and gets to work out its awesomeness. So it just keeps getting better and better (if it lasts that long).

3 Roma tomatoes, deseeded and diced (super important to get the soupy guts out)
2T Fresh Basil
1T Fresh Parsley
4 cloves GARLIC
1t Olive Oil
Parmesan Cheese (optional, I add enough to make it look like an equal ingredient)

*Notes* The rough thing about this recipe is that these ingredients are all "to taste". I always add way more than the recipe calls for, and WAY more garlic! Also, after the munching on this last night I realized that it needed more olive oil - when you start with a giant bag of tomatoes and there isn't just a "3 cups of diced tomatoes" type of recipe, its a learning thing I suppose. But you'll notice this tastes a bit dry - just add a little more EVOO.

Fresh Squeezed Lemonade With Strawberry Lime Ice Cubes
I'm pretty sure we've always tripled this recipe - if you are going to go through the effort to make real lemonade, you may as well go all out. This is our favorite summer drink - definitely not just a party treat at our house!

2qts Water
1 1/3c sugar (more/less to taste)
1 1/3c fresh lemon juice (yep, squeeze it!)
1 container strawberries, chopped/diced
1 11.5oz can strawberry margarita or plain margarita frozen concentrate mix

Put the chopped strawberries into ice cube trays filling 1/3 to 1/2 full. Mix the concentrate and 1 can of water in a pitcher and pour to fill the ice cube trays - freeze. Combine the 2qts of water and sugar in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to combine. Reduce to a simmer and stir until sugar is dissolved - takes just a minute or two. Take off the heat and let it cool a little before you put it in a pitcher to chill it. Makes 8 cups.

Knock You Naked Brownies - Adapted from Pioneer Woman
These brownies were amazing - and the name was a riot and provided great conversation starters and jokes all evening long. I adapted the recipe slightly to make it easier as I am not a double broiler kind of girl, nor am I about to sit and unwrap 120 caramels. If you are up for that type of thing, check out her version on her website.

2 pkg German Chocolate Cake Mix (I know, I know, just buy this flavor. Its lonely anyway)
1c margarine, melted (she uses butter, you can too if you so fancy)
1 12oz can evaporated milk
3 bags Kraft Caramel Bits
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 c finely chopped pecans (I left these out as we are no-nuts-in-brownie people)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees In medium bowl, mix cake mixes, melted margarine and 2/3c of the evaporated milk. Add the nuts if you are nutty. The mixture is going to be super thick - no worries! Divide it in half - spread one half in the bottom of a well greased13x9 baking dish. Bake for 8-10 minutes. In medium saucepan, melt caramels and the remainder of the can of milk (just over 2/3 cup if you feel the need to measure) on medium low heat for about 3-4 minutes. After a minute or two, get a quick whisk in to break up the remaining clumps. Pour the caramel over the first layer of brownie that you just pulled out (I saved out about 1/2 -2/3c because it looked full). Then dump the bag of chocolate chips on top. Then, you take the remaining dough and it needs to go on top. My first attempt on Friday was not quite as pretty as I would have liked - however, since I got a second attempt today for Steve's birthday Round Two, I tried a new trick, so this is what I would recommend: WAX PAPER! I baked this in my pyrex pan and in the first go, I just formed the dough in the lid and tried to flip it over on top. Not so hot. This time I lined the lid with wax paper and it came off perfectly, impressing even me ;) After you have the top layer on, this pan of delicious goo goes into the oven for 20-25 minutes. When it comes out, let it cool and THEN, you have to let it sit in the fridge for several hours so the caramel can gel the two layers together so it doesn't all fall apart when you cut into them, etc. After you've let them sit for several hours - like 3 or 4, seriously - take them out and dust the whole thing with a good coating of powdered sugar. I was going to drizzle the remaining caramel on top but I totally forgot! Then cut into them and scoop them out onto the platter or into a tin to give them away. You do not want these sitting in your house ;)

DQ Cake and Knock You Naked Brownies ;)

*NOTE* Make this in an 8x8 with one pkg cake mix, 1/2c margarine and 1/3c evap milk. Then for the caramel sauce I would use 1 bag of the chips, 1/3 cup milk and only use half bag of chocolate chips for that goo layer...

You say Yes, I say No, You say Stop, I say Go: Communication Breakdown

2011-04-18T14:16:00.000-05:00

Lately, things have been a little [understatement] frustrating with my dear and darling [monster child], high spirited child, Eden. Considering her rocky start, we knew that we might encounter some road bumps in her development, but hadn't really dealt with any. Sure, she didn't walk on her first birthday, but she was still walking by the time she was corrected to 12 months (way ahead of her older brother's timeline, I might add!). And sure, she hated textured foods in her mouth at first, but we gave her a brownie and some ice cream, and she's loved food ever since. She might need glasses once she turns three, but they make cute glasses, and she is loving the sunglasses we are buying her to practice with now, so in the big scheme of things this is really no big deal.

What is starting to be a big deal, however? Eden is not talking. Pretty much not communicating AT ALL. She is 20 months old now, and while they still would adjust her age a little bit, I think they would only adjust it to like 18 months or so? Not quite the full 4 months as they would before.. So still. She should be saying words. By this age Josiah was saying sentences. Comparisons aside, Eden herself is going backwards. a couple months back she was signing more words than she is now. She would tell me what she wanted when she wanted something - signing "please eat" when she was hungry, or "please milk" when she was thirsty... now she signs "please" nearly all day long and if you cannot immediately figure out what it is that she wants, she launches into tantrums. I'm not talking mild crying. I'm talking lying prone on the floor screaming, following you from room to room and then returning to her position on the floor if again you don't figure it out when she signs the word "please". At the very least she used to point. Not any more. Its freaking me out.

And you can tell that Eden is getting more frustrated to. You can tell that Eden knows exactly what it is she is trying to communicate and she is upset that she can't. She is so smart and yet these words are just trapped somehow it seems. I'd like to throw my own tantrum about it, just a little...

We meet with the early intervention teacher through the school district but not specifically with a speech therapist, which is what I think Eden needs. Yet, for whatever reason, its so hard for me as a parent to have that voice. Or maybe I just need to be putting my foot down about it. The problem is its a tiny team and you have to work with all of them, so I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings in doing so - which is totally unavoidable. But this communication thing is beyond frustrating for me - and clearly for Eden.

And honestly, its raising the level of frustration in the house. When I have to listen to and struggle with a screaming toddler all day long and try to play mind reader, I will be the first to admit it makes me snap quicker at Josiah. Thats not fair at all, not one bit. Its not his fault she is struggling. Its not his fault I am struggling. But I can't figure her out.

And her is what really gets me. She will repeat animal sounds - but only a couple. She will quack like a duck, but no longer will she sign duck. She will no longer sign pig, or say oink. She will sign chicken. She will say moo. She will sign puppy but will not repeat the barking noise or the word puppy/dog. She will say "baaa" but will not sign/say sheep. She will still not repeat any sounds after me or steve. She will, however, say "choo choo" when she hears a train go by or when she is playing trains with Josiah. She will say "voom" when she hears a loud car or when she is playing cars with Josiah. ONE time, Josiah got her to repeat "mamama" but it was not intentional as my name (ie she had no idea/did not direct it at me, etc).. It was SO exciting that she was talking!! I was thrilled!!! But these words are NOT communicative words! They do not help me know what she wants or what she needs or how to make her stop screaming!

One of the speech therapists had said that once kids reach the age of two, they start to worry if there aren't sentences forming, etc.... we are only 4 months away from that... and people keep telling me "but she is a preemie" - but at the age of 2 they don't adjust for that any more, she is just 2... and either way, somehow, I need to be able to communicate with her. Clearly, she understands things. She can follow instructions, she knows her shapes, she can point to "her letter" on a shirt or the magnet on the fridge, etc. She is such a smart kid. But somehow, those words need to come out. Help!!

Once a Month Cooking As Defined by Me

2011-04-14T14:39:00.000-05:00

I have been dreaming about doing this for a few years now. Several years back, a friend and I would visit a store in Rochester (www.dishituprochester.com) where you can select recipes from their monthly menu, prepare the meals from their stocked/prepped stations with their dishes, load up all of these wonderfully yummy packaged meals into your laundry basket, wash your hands, leave the mess for them and go home and load them into your freezer. We'd have meals for a month - and NO stress! It was such a freeing thing to come home from work knowing that we didn't have to deal with the question of what to do about dinner because something was waiting to be popped in the oven or taken out of the crockpot, etc.
I started researching cookbooks on the topic, thinking I could just do this myself at home. The problem I ran into is that the books I found were filled with recipes I knew my family would never eat. Never did it dawn on me that you didn't necessarily need special recipes just because you were freezing something. There might just be a few certain things you shouldn't freeze.. Fast forward to now.. I have less free time, and yet somehow more mind wandering time if that makes sense? Tami is in dire need of a project! I am going out of my mind not having a massive undertaking (not that raising these three tykes isn't massive, I can attest to that!!)... But I need something to research, plan, make lists, etc.. So I add on a few side jobs if you will, and this happens to be one of them. I started checking out a few different blogs of other moms that do once a month cooking (OAMC). It took quite a while to stumble upon good ones, but once I did, it was a gold mine of good information and so far, great recipes. Even better, because they are also moms of young kids, they also share recipes that are kid-friendly, which is very helpful.
So whats the plan? Well, if you are organized, like I intended to be, you set out all of your information first. Gather the recipes, create the master shopping list based off of that, and get the shopping trip out of the way prior to cooking day. Some people shop well in advance, depending on pay periods, etc. Some do it the night before, if you have a certain weekend set aside for cooking perhaps. For me, things got crazy. This was the weekend when I had said it had to happen and it was Sunday AFTER church and it still hadn't happened, so Steve was getting groceries at like 4pm. But whatever works ;) They also say to start small - like with 6 meals or so. We went a bit beyond that - but the beauty is that you can multiply things easily, especially by taking things that are meant for 13x9 pans and putting them in 8x8s if that is better suited for your family (like it is for mine right now)... which is not only more economical, but also means more variety. By the time you eat the same leftovers for the third night in a row, everyone is bored of it!
They say to plan the cooking day to be like an 8 hour marathon - to wear good shoes and have something planned for the kids. I forgot to wear shoes, and I regretted that later. Do make arrangements for the kids though - you'll get things done faster and they will have way more fun! We only spent about 5 hours cooking - and that included Steve making a few extra trips to the store because he forgot a few things on the list ;)
Okay - so here is what we made (enough rambling Tami, get to the good stuff!!):
1. Sour Cream Noodle Bake (recipe here: Pioneer Woman). This recipe is Fabulous! My additions: GARLIC! I LOVE garlic, so I add heaps of minced garlic to just about anything. I added extra chopped green onion too, but otherwise, it was her recipe. OH - and as with anything that goes into a 9x13, I put this into 2 8x8 pans. It heated nicely - as with anything from the freezer, allow extra cooking time. I put a sticky label on my containers and put how much time I thought things would take (the first time through is going to be all guess work - I left a blank spot on my actual recipes to write the truth!)... This one took about 40 minutes I think.. YUM. And pretty kid friendly ;)

Add caption

2. Mexican Verde Casserole (Once a Month Mom). And YUM again. This one kind of had me nervous. When you put it together it looks blah and green and blah. But wow its yummy! I cheated on this one - the recipe involves her making her own salsa verde - I bought some. She also cooked chicken breasts and then cubed them. The price was actually more expensive for raw chicken the day I was at the store, so I bought the frozen cooked/cubed stuff. Hey - it was going to be cubed and frozen anyway! Skip a step! You will be so pleasantly surprised with it though. Try it. And again - two 8x8 pans.
3. Grown up Mac-n-Cheese (SweetAnnas). This is Annalise's Spicy Baked Mac-n-Cheese which Josiah has now labeled Grown up Mac - he claims it isn't for kids, but other kids have tried it and liked it, so have yours give it a try ;) The only change I made to this recipe to make it a complete meal in a dish is to again add another bag of that wonderful frozen cubed grilled chicken breast to it before scooping all of this cheesy goodness into the 8x8 pans to cool before freezing. This recipe quickly became a favorite in our house. LOVE.
4. Four pounds of ground chuck became this: Meatballs and Meatloaves. I mixed it all up with the same recipe (adding a ton of garlic!). Then one pound became Greek Meatloaf - add greek seasoning, half a jar of salsa, and a small container of feta cheese. Save the other half of the salsa for when you are ready to bake. Easy! Another pound was left as regular meatloaf which will be an E-Mealz recipe getting a sauce when we bake it - its brown sugar, vinegar and mustard.. These were both made into small loaves - two per 8x8 pan - you pull them out of the freezer the night before you want to make them, then bake for about 40 minutes. The remaining 2 pounds were rolled into meatballs and baked. We cooled them and divided them into meal sized portions and bagged them. We will then use them for spaghetti, meatballs and gravy, etc. Easy!
5. WAY Easy!! Ranch Chicken Strips: Raw chicken tenders (don't use chicken breasts, they are not nearly as yummy!) dredged in buttermilk ranch and then firmly pressed in crushed sour cream and onion potato chips. (Do NOT use the baked kind! Sounds healthy, but we've tried it, and they don't work, not sure why)... Its super easy, and while it might not be fat free, they are not nearly as processed as those fake nuggets the kids might get from the freezer section, so they love 'em and I feel slightly better serving them ;) You can layer these in a freezer container with wax paper - then just pull out however many you need, bake at 400 degrees for about 6-7 minutes on each side. YUM.

Doesn't sit still, but loves lunch ;)

cheap vacuum seal!

6. Homemade Easy Mac: (Once A Month Mom) This one made me nervous because every attempt I had made at homemade mac had been disastrous (prior to Sweet Anna's above).. But I dug in because I hate how much Josiah begs for me to buy Easy Mac - even though I have only bought it for him ONCE and also because I hate the fact that every time I make macaroni and cheese, I put the powder in and hate thinking about whats in the powder. So lets just learn how already Tami! It was super easy, even though I didn't have the patience to wait for it to thicken, I did. And these are incredibly yummy, though I'm not big on plain mac-n-cheese. Tip - use a light colored muffin pan. For some reason, the one pan I had that was dark got too hot and the liners got way soggy. The solution in my head would be to use those ultra strong tinfoil liners, but then you couldn't microwave the cups after freezing them... maybe double line the pans if you've only got dark pans? Also, I put a couple drops of milk on the cups before I heat them up just to make sure they stay extra creamy. The kids scarfed these down though!

finishing dessert!

8. Poptarts: (Once A Month Mom) This scared me, but these were so easy I almost hate to include it here! You could make your own pie crust and your own filling and then you'd have a hard recipe I suppose ;) But buy refrigerated pie crust, cut it in squares, put in some preserves (use healthy stuff -ha!), seal, bake, cool, flash freeze and bag! I skipped the icing and they loved them anyway :)
9. French Toast Sticks: (Once A Month Mom) I almost went with her sneaky chef toddler version, but thought I should try the standard fare first ;) These are yummy. I used a huge loaf of texas toast so that they would be sturdy - which also meant i tripled her recipe off the bat, but thats okay, considering how quickly my kiddos will eat them!
10. Garlic Bread: (Life As Mom) There really isn't much to say about this. Instead of paying $3 per loaf to have a few on hand, I can pay $2 to make 3 loaves to have on hand in my freezer. Its a pretty good deal. And it tastes better because I can load it up with more garlic. mmmm Garlic.....

The Third Time's the Charm

2011-04-01T21:44:00.000-05:00

Ahh, this one... our surprise. After nearly a solid two months of feeling like junk, and my doctor scratching his head when his tests came back normal, I finally took a pregnancy test because I had one left over for whatever reason. Knowing that we "didn't get pregnant without intervention" and "had no medical need for birth control" we hadn't rushed to get back on the pill after the girls were born. We were waiting to see how the endometriosis would play out to see if I would end up going back on it or not since we weren't using it for actual birth control in the first place. Let me just say this: I had been pumping for several months and had one very sketchy i-wouldn't-even-call-it-a-period period since giving birth. And the test came back positive. Steve was outside and I pounded on the window and slammed the test up to the window and made him come over to see it. Well crap. How in the world does that even happen? (yes, folks, I get the birds and the bees. My birds and bees aren't supposed to work that way!)
It gets better. I called my OB the next day to let him know I had taken the test. The nurse said not to worry, that there was no way I could be more than 5 or 6 weeks since I just thought to take a test. I said, well, I haven't had a period in months having just had a baby, etc. She went to speak with my doctor and called me back and they got me in the next day instead of at the end of the month. Well duh. We went in to this appointment and I was expecting to see the little peanut on the screen, but I suppose I knew better. There she was, fully formed - 12.5wks already. OOPS! I had just missed my entire first trimester. A bit further and I could have been on the "I didn't know I was pregnant" show. Just a week later and they could tell us that we were having another girl! We were just in panic mode the entire time. A state of constant shock. At this point we were still taking Eden to frequent doctor visits herself and I was barely back to work. Pretty funny stuff God! ;) (side note - the actual due dates were 10 months apart!)
This pregnancy was pretty smooth though. We were monitored like a freak show again, of course, so we got all kinds of pictures and of course I got shots every week in the bum to prevent preterm labor. Because of the classical/transverse cut (the up and down cut) on the uterus prior, they would not let me go past 36 weeks in this pregnancy, so we had a c-section scheduled for 36 weeks. I actually ended up in the hospital at 34w4d with contractions and when they didn't slow down and nothing changed by the time we got to 35weeks, they decided she was ready to come. They couldn't send me home in that condition, and she was eager to come out it appeared. They also couldn't keep NOT feeding me "just in case!". BOO! so lets just do this already!
Prior to this, My OB had arranged a consultation between me and the anesthesiologist who would be working with the team during the procedure (since it was scheduled, he knew who was on call). I walked him through the horror story of Josiah's birth and the repeated pokes by the student, and then having to be put under with the twins, and I said I needed some options so this would not happen again. We talked through a whole list of things that he could do so that being put under would only happen if there was an emergency - but there were so many other things to try first, I knew that wouldn't happen. And he assured me there would be no students allowed. Its a teaching hospital, but you can request that there not be a student, and I didn't know that the first time around. I felt SO much better! And he did a total exam of my spine and made all kinds of notes so he knew going into it what he would need to be looking for too. Peace!! Even better - he happened to be on even though we went a week earlier than planned :)
So the whole team came into our room to talk with us before the operation. It was a Saturday night - very slow on the floor. This is a group of people that I have known for a few years - isn't that weird? I could name them for you, but it wouldn't mean anything to you, I suppose. They know me on a first name basis - they were students when I started, now they have moved on to being fellows or chief residents or whatever, and then the actual staff physicians, they all know me personally. I love that feeling! And here we were all just chatting and laughing so comfortably around the hospital bed talking about the procedure before they prepped me and took me down. One last time making sure I knew what was going to happen. Tubes being tied? Check! Spinal? Check! Give me the warm blankets and I'm set! What an amazing difference from the previous experiences I'd had.
The OR was the same atmosphere. The spinal went in on the FIRST TRY. I don't remember any pain at all. I'm sure it hurt, but I blocked it out or something. It took instantly! Praise God for that. They laid me down and the laughs began. Seriously, this was just the best time you could imagine being had in an OR. Probably people have had better, but it was great. Maybe that was after the baby was out and the important stuff was over, probably, now that I think about it..

Delia Grace 8.28.2010

Steve checking the measurements

We decided on her name just shortly before being wheeled down. We tossed around so many names and finally this came out of left field - Delia Grace. But by the Grace of God! She came into this world 5 weeks early weighing in at a hefty 6 pounds, 11 ounces!!! 19 inches long... and the best part?? Breathing all on her own! I keep telling my doctor he may have been off on those dates, but he is certain he wasn't - she is just that big. (And I suppose if you look at her now, he's probably right). She was chubby and beautifully red when I kissed her. Steve immediately left my side and went to love on her and snap pictures and I got the amazing nurses to cover me with the warm blankets and make me laugh while the tubes were tied. I think she asked me at least 5 times before she went and actually tied them. It was just a bunch of girls left in the OR and it was maybe the drugs or maybe it was just being giddy about never being pregnant again? but I remember it being fun... strange.
The best part about that night was that because because she was doing so well, they let me snuggle with her in the recovery room for over an hour before she had to go up to the level 2 nursery for the night. She had these amazing cheeks, even then, you just wanted to squeeze them. She was trying so hard to open her eyes and stare but she was so sleepy - you could see her fighting it. And such a relief after my most recent experience - having the spinal this time - I had pain meds flowing through me and I could just enjoy her! LOVED this time with her!

Snuggling with my fresh babe

From there, she spent 10 days in the nursery because she was a pretty lazy eater.... it was rather frustrating just because she was a full sized baby and it was so hard to fathom why on earth she wasn't walking out the door with us! But she eventually got her act together and clearly got the eating thing figured out ;)
The moral of the story? You live and learn I suppose. But perhaps even more so, you really must learn that life doesn't always work out the way you want it to. There are so many things that we don't end up having control over - the way our kids come into this world might end up being one of them, and HA - our child spacing just might end up being another! For my second delivery, I didn't have the opportunity to have input or make any choices - it was an emergency situation and those choices get made for you by people that you just have to trust at the time. I'm glad that I didn't fight that, as stubborn as I am. But for my third delivery - I'm glad that I did ask questions and get certain things done differently. It was a much more peaceful experience than the first go-round, and I wish I would have known what questions to ask going in to the first one.

PS - I feel a bit guilty that Delia doesn't have a lengthy story.... but I suppose its a good thing that hers isn't as drama-filled as the previous one was, right? This one was really smooth sailing. We literally got through the pregnancy in shell shock and then the delivery was a dream. She has, however, made sure that she has a voice amidst the chaos of our family ;)

Birth Story Number Two: We'll call this one the whirlwind..

2011-03-22T19:52:00.000-05:00

As Josiah was approaching two, we started to get questions as to when a sibling would be along. The truth was we didn't know if/when we'd be able to have another child, so after having Josiah, the doctors at Mayo started actually trying to figure everything out, though they are still scratching their heads to this day. After another year, we decided we would go ahead and use the help of fertility meds - simply because I've never had regular cycles with the weird female parts I was born with, and this should regulate things, etc. Well, no luck there. We then decided that we wanted to try an IUI because we knew that with my anatomy issues, the actual meeting up part was next to impossible (like I said in the previous post, Josiah was a BIG shock!). The first round was unsuccessful. They increased the dose of the medicine to try it again - on an ultrasound after this, they saw too many eggs reaching the right stage, so they said it was too risky and didn't proceed with a second IUI.... Well, on April Fool's Day 2009, we took a pregnancy test and what do you know? No IUI needed that time ;) We took a picture that day with a pair of pregnancy tests side by side just in case... and sure enough, two weeks later at our first ultrasound, there were two sacs clear as day.
This pregnancy was a journey from the beginning. Being a high risk preggo anyway, carrying one baby in each half-sized uterus knocked me into a crazy record book. Believe me, I looked it up many times. So did those fun doctors of mine ;) But through every scare of mine - they were all scares of mine. Those babies were totally healthy and growing just fine the entire time. I got to see them wiggle almost every week! I heard their heart beats every Friday! True, I also had to get a shot in the bum every Friday, but the heart beat made up for it ;) We found out at about 14 weeks that they were both girls and we were thrilled. We were hoping that at least one would be a girl, figuring that bringing our family to three all of a sudden, we would surely be done, especially with how difficult the getting pregnant process is on us. We spent the hot summer in the pool with my big ol belly and a few trips to the hospital, but again, the babies were always fine.
And then the birth story begins! (this is going to be long, first because the process started like 12 days before the actual birth and because I am being detailed for my own benefit - so brace yourself!) The last weekend in July, we made one last trip 'home' to the lake. I was 22.4weeks pregnant and we knew we wouldn't travel after that. That Saturday, 8/1, I started to bleed again - which had happened often during this pregnancy. Steve and I eventually decided that this was bad enough we would leave Josiah there and head toward Rochester just to get closer to our doctors. By the time we made the 10 minute drive into town from the lake, there was no question we had to go to the local hospital. We called our doctor and they told us to go in right away. They hooked us up to the monitors and could only find one heartbeat. I was just in unbelief. I remember nurses saying not to worry about it because its often hard to find them at first, etc. But time and again, she couldn't find a second one. Another nurse tried. Then a doctor finally arrived. I'll save my exchange with him for a different story. Needless to say I was not willing to believe what gathered family was listening to these people say. I heard a solid heart beat and I knew that all I could do was maintain my composure and be calm as to not give this baby any added stress. At one point I was given an oxygen mask I think? I guess I was having a hard time slowing my breathing...
I told Steve we needed to get to Mayo, and the doctor here kept telling me he had to keep me here until the baby was viable because I wasn't stable. (I didn't realize at the time that viability varies not only between hospitals but even different doctors have differing ideas. This guy wanted to keep me here until I reached 25 weeks.) I begged Steve - just call Mayo. He walked back into the room only a minute later and said they are coming to get you. WOW. Can I just throw that out there? They are amazing. Okay, back to the story. So then everything went into a tizzy because they first were thinking we were going to be on the helicopter and this was making everyone panic. They were weighing steve to see if he could go with me. I was just in a daze listening to the beeps of the heart monitor. Then they sent the jet instead and all was well.
These lovely people showed up - Tracy and Steve I think? - and they took over everything. Packaged me up on a lovely cot, got me on an ambulance and brought me to the local airport. They got me settled in to the bed on this awesome little jet and then got Steve strapped in. They warned me that this would be a strange sensation - laying down, taking off on this tiny, super fast jet... This thing takes off way faster than the planes we are used to flying on, and laying down feels so funny! It was odd! But the flight was a quick 30 minutes - and then we were loaded into the hospital and they were just monitoring my belly the whole way. Too bad we didn't get a picture on the plane! (ha!)
We got to the hospital and were brought to the labor and delivery floor at first. Multiple ultrasounds by doctors I trusted, and they confirmed that they could only find one heartbeat. As this began to set in, I was just so determined to not let it hit me. I had to protect my other child from feeling any stress - so I did whatever I could to avoid feeling the situation. I'm not sure if that was right or healthy or not, but in the moment, thats what I had to do. Also strange, this baby had moved into the living baby's uterus. This was freaking everyone out which was making me panic. The risk of infection went up by a whole lot with that happening and no one knew how it had happened (which I think was what was more fascinating to them?). Infection meant that our other baby could die or would need to be delivered, and she definitely needed more time to cook! They got the bleeding under control and overnight the baby that had passed somehow got back to her own apartment (Thank you God!). We were kept in the hospital for a few days, given two doses of a steroid to give super powers to the surviving baby and then sent home on light bed rest.
During the early morning hours of August 13th, I started to feel pain on my left side - which is where Eden was (we had finally named them at that point!). At this point, we knew that the right uterus, where Hannah was, was already contracting, the placenta was delivering, etc., but nothing too aggressive. However, we had been told that if anything happened on the left we should check it out immediately. Well, off and on through the night I would notice this and sort of think maybe I should call? It was happening every couple of minutes but it was pretty minor pain. I had been told that labor was just beneath a kidney stone on the pain scale. Having had a kidney stone in the past, thats what I was waiting for - this was nothing! So I got up about 6 and told Steve. We called and decided to shower and go in to just have it checked in case. We got in at about 7:30 and it turns out that I was in labor and was dilated to almost 3! Oops! I was freaking out - I think I actually told one of them (they knew me by name) "you're joking, right?!)... They seriously left the room for two seconds and came back with scrubs on. This was no joke. I said WHOA! Wait a minute... So they found my doctor, and he said that based on the fact that my heart rate was elevated and Eden's heart rate was elevated, there was a risk that we were both showing early signs of infection - so they needed to deliver immediately. They had earlier said that if I went into labor they would deliver Hannah and then close things up and leave Eden in if possible. Guess not! Within an hour of arrival, we were in the OR. Steve and I were literally freaking out. This is not at all what we were expecting - and we knew that Eden was definitely not ready to be out in the world. And guess what? All of those checks and exams and contractions suddenly become a million times worse when you are in the midst of a panic attack (my version of one).
They tried their darndest to give me a regular c-section, spinal and all. The spinal would not take. I tried SOHARD to pretend like I could not feel the test scratching of the knife or whatever it is they scratch you with when they test it. In the end I figured pretending wasn't smart. They waited as long as they could but they finally had to make the call that for the best interest of Eden and myself, they had to put me under completely. No big deal, right? This not only means that I would not be awake to meet my babies, but this meant that Steve would not be allowed in the operating room. This is a rule I do not understand, and still don't really understand. I vented a bit as I was falling asleep - I'm sure they cared. It also means that you don't have pain killers mixed in. The spinal has pain meds mixed in. When you wake up from this method - you have PAIN. Add that on top of everything from before and it was a bum deal.

Our first non-cell phone shot of Eden

But alas, shortly after waking up, I got to see this teeny, TINY, spec of a creature hidden in a ball of cotton in a little incubator on a cart they wheeled over to my bed. They let me touch her briefly before they whisked her off to her hospital across town. She was dark red and very veiny. I could not fathom how tiny she was and yet somehow she looked like she was supposed to.
Meanwhile, our other daughter was being cared for by some amazing nurses. For some reason I had decided that I would hold off on Hannah being brought in to my room until our family was close to town (they were racing from 4 hours away) so that we would all be with her at the same time. I have often wondered if this was the right choice - waiting so long - but alas, hindsight. At any rate, back to these amazing nurses. They washed Hannah, and made these precious molds of her teeny feet. They are so perfect - you can see the wrinkles in her ten tiny toes! They dressed her in a tiny, handmade purple outfit, which would likely fit a very small doll. A volunteer group makes these clothes and small blankets for just these situations, what a blessing. They wrapped her in this miniature handmade quilt and placed her in this basket with a knit hat on and brought her in so that we could hold her.

Hannah's perfect feet and tiny toes

A moment we will never forget

Over a year later I would admit to Steve that up until that day, I truly believed that God was going to give us two living babies even though one heart beat could not be found that Saturday. This baby was still in my belly, still connected and there was still plenty of room for a miracle. Holding her broke me to pieces. Thats a whole separate blog, friends. But it was somehow sweet all the same. We sang songs to her, and somehow squeezed out prayers while it was just Steve and I. They brought in a photographer and he took pictures for us. She deteriorated so quickly, it was so hard. By the time our family got there, it was hard for me to look at her. I wrapped her up even more, but they were able to hold her and say their goodbyes. All too soon it was clearly time to have the nurse take her away. The only way we survived that day is because we have no doubt that our child is in Heaven and that we will see her again!
The rest of that day included me getting an overdose of a variety of pain meds (remember how I mentioned that because they put me under I had no pain meds when I woke up?!) so nothing was getting on top of the pain... and everyone was fighting over who had to sit with little old me and who got to go see Eden ;) They set up a camera on Eden for me so I could just turn on my TV and watch her squirm - and squirm she did! - so I didn't feel too awful not being there. I was seriously just trying to fight my way into a deep pain med sleep... as much as I wanted to be with her, I needed some serious rest - probably more mentally than physically even with the pain I was fighting.

Mama's first visit to NICU

The next day I finally got to take an ambulance (seriously) over to see her. I cupped her in my hands and yet somehow still marveled at how big she was. When you see these preemies on the outside, you still can't fathom how something that big can grow inside of you - its odd. We put Steve's wedding ring on her as an ankle bracelet. She was just so small, and yet so incredibly perfect.

Love at first sight

The rest of her story you probably know. This was my least favorite c-section - but I learned after getting off of the crazy pain meds that next day that this crazy pain was because they had to make a cut in the wrong direction (i forget the medical term) because of the hurry. Basically, the uterus likes to be cut across - going with the grain, and one of mine had to be cut up and down, going against the grain. This equals a whole lot of pain. This also means that there would be no chance of vaginal delivery in my future. Well, I told my doctor we would not be trying to have any more kids... after all we had gone through to get pregnant and all we had dealt with during that pregnancy, we were done.
And God said stay tuned for the next installment....

A Birth Story of a Different Variety

2011-03-19T19:25:00.000-05:00

I have read so many wonderful birth stories lately and for a few weeks now I have been pondering how best to put mine into words. Mine are so very different from the kind I have been reading about and somehow don't seem like they belong in that same collection of stories! But in the end, I think I've come to the conclusion that as a mom, its important to write the story - not only to pass it on to your child, but to once again relive those moments. And as a child, one day, it will be so precious to have that story, no matter what flavor it was. I also feel like its important to share because, lets face it, not everyone ends up getting the water birth they dream about after seeing it on A Baby Story. I always figured it would be me, but in the end, I didn't have that choice. I think its wise to go into the situation with the understanding that only God knows your birth story - you may have your birth plan mapped out, but that baby is going to come how he or she is going to come... I learned that first hand (more than once!)... now on to the story..

Our first pregnancy was a surprise in itself. About 2 months into our marriage, I went into the doctor for something somewhat routine and somehow ended up finding out that there was some sort of anomaly with my female organs (they didn't know quite what at the time) and we were told that we would not be able to get pregnant and if we did by chance get pregnant, we would not carry the baby to viability. Huh. Imagine that in a new marriage!

Fast forward four years and we had just moved to Rochester, MN and begun looking into the reproductive issues to see what kind of trouble/process it would actually be for us to try to get pregnant.... and wouldn't you know?! There we are - pregnant! What?! We were followed obnoxiously closely by the high risk perinatologist team at Mayo (and I am so thankful we were - ultrasounds almost weekly!). At our first ultrasound at 8 weeks, they gathered a team of about 9 people in the room and Steve was blushing SO hard as they did both kinds of ultrasounds and checked everything out - everyone in awe of the lady with weird parts and no one knowing just what to do with me. The doctor restricted me from any exercise and said we needed to get to 17 weeks and then go from there. Our next goal was 24 weeks... All of these milestones came and went! I had a book of ultrasound pictures to show for it ;) In the end, their team debated as to whether or not they should let me try to deliver vaginally or not - they weren't sure if it was possible due to my anatomy. Well, Josiah answered that question and showed up breech at 34 weeks. Because he was in a half-sized uterus, the doctor said it was too risky (and too painful) to try to rotate him, so he scheduled the c-section for 39 weeks.

The morning of the operation I was bouncing off the walls, and a bit fiesty (I was so hungry!). We were scheduled for 8am, but they had 2 emergency sections come first, so we didn't get in until 1pm. Hungrier yet! We hadn't decided on a name yet and the debate continued. Its a big deal, naming a person! They brought me in to give me the spinal and I couldn't understand why Steve couldn't come with. Why is that? But I didn't know to ask. (I learned after this round!) This spinal was the worst thing! The site numbing shot took NINE tries. NINE!! If you've had one before, you may know, but that is so awfull! Then the spinal kicks in and its totally fine, but still! I was squeezing that poor nurses hand right off. I cannot focus on curving my back "just right" so that it doesn't hit the wrong spot, and holding still while you continue to poke me! It would be much wiser to allow the husband in, dear nurse! Then the legs go numb and the world is happy again. They laid me down, got my upper half some warm blankets and thats all I really cared about :)

They brought Steve in, all decked out in his scrubs and cameras. They sliced open the belly, said I might feel some pulling but I didn't feel a thing. Then they warned us that the baby would be out in a minute - so we said "quick, what is his name going to be?!" and Steve said "Josiah?" and I said "sure" (we had a list of three) and out he came, peeing everywhere. They showed him to me over the "keep you from puking everywhere" curtain and then Steve vanished for quite some time. I chatted with the lovely nurse who had forgiven me for squeezing so hard. Steve came back after a bit and gave me the measurements and left again, returning a few minutes later with Josiah in hand and I got to hold him and kiss his red face. Pure Bliss.

Little did I know I was swelling up like a balloon! Pictures from the recovery area and from that day in my room show me with 20 pounds I didn't have from the moments before the operation. Clearly I took those IV fluids in or something! YIKES. SO I don't display those at home! But I was up and walking that afternoon, and enjoying every minute with this new, peaceful little bundle. Steve changed his first poopy diaper and wanted to video tape it! Those are the moments you want to remember. We sent Josiah to the hospital nursery that night knowing that it would be our last night of sleep for years to come. We talked about that nursery bill for a few years after that ;) Because I recovered so quickly, they sent us home a day early - and we both were so nervous, that they were allowing us to go home with this new baby. A little life we were now responsible for?! All they gave us were a few papers as a means of an instruction manual?! Somehow, we all survived :)

I have often said that I am glad I had a c-section, and I think that is really the truth. I don't know that I would have elected one, but perhaps for me it was good that I needed one? ;) I felt no pain - while I have a pretty high pain tolerance, I was able to be totally relaxed, laughing, chatting up Steve and the staff, etc. Another reason it worked well for me is that I recover well from surgeries - I was able to be up and moving that same day, which of course aided the recovery. I was able to cut my LOA short when I ended up going stir crazy, etc.. Had I been able to exercise during the pregnancy, I probably would have bounced back into my jeans better too ;) But truthfully, knowing I was not a candidate for the water birth I wanted, I don't think I would have wanted it any other way. I don't mind going through life not experiencing 48 hours of labor, not experiencing my water breaking, etc. I'm SO happy and thrilled for my lovely ladies that get to experience all of that!!! But I am content to live vicariously through all of you ;)

Library Books, Babies, Parking Tickets...

2011-03-03T22:38:00.000-06:00

And updates on this blog! Things that are long overdue. I cannot believe it has taken me a month to get a post up. Actually, I can. The past month has been a blur. My head is foggy and my speech has literally started to slur a little. Meh. Lets get this party started! First, let me note that it is 10:00pm. I am watching a commercial for the cremation society and there is a group discussing what they are going to do with their savings over dinner with jazzy music in the background. One is vacationing in Hawaii. They are all just a little TOO excited to be saving this much money by choosing cremation. Creepy. I haven't been up this late in a while. This is my disclaimer, you have been warned - back to business.

Delia: Delia is six months now and is 18lbs 8oz. No joke. She is 88% for weight but is slowly catching up for height... I think it was closer to 20% now. Her head is off the chart still, just like her brother. She is a big girl! She is so happy though, shoving anything and everything in her mouth, babbling like crazy, and winding her body around like the hands of a clock. She is starting to sit up on her own, but not really into rolling yet (its a lot to roll!). She is eating like crazy now! She started off with cereal pretty tentatively, but once I gave her actual veggies, she just loved it! She has tried all kinds of things now and seems to love all of them. Her current obsessions are food, fists, and really anything in her mouth!

Eden: Eden is 18 months now and 22lbs. She is 10% for weight - she made the chart :) She is ridiculously smart - we just continue to be in awe of how smart she is! She loves to read I Spy books. She will point at items on one page and find them on the opposite page with no help. She is walking everywhere, getting into everything and thinks she runs the show. When daddy is home, she probably does :) She has become much more interested in her little sister and likes to sit by her and "play with her" now which is fun to watch. Her stubbornness and attitude is still very present. She still isn't talking so we continue to work with a speech therapist... Her current obsessions: Socks (she finds socks anywhere and will hold on to them for an entire day!), books and blankets (will walk/trip around the house with one for long periods of time).

Josiah: Just turned 5! Crazy! He is in 90% for height and weight! The doctor looked at him yesterday and said he must just be pure muscle because as much as he weighs there is no fat on him! Crazy. We had his teacher conferences tonight and she was so impressed with his sight words. He is reading his Spiderman books and he is just so proud! I am ready for more variety, but I can't complain ;) He just finished swimming lessons and got bumped up a level - he has become quite a fish in the water, which is so fun. We are definitely eager for spring to get him outside to burn off more of his crazy energy :) His current obsessions: Trains! Legos! Trains! Legos! Trains!

We sold our house as of today!! Praise God for that! It is such a sad thing - or mixed feelings I suppose would be a better way to say it. Our first house, and we LOVED that house. But its also such a bummer to give up something you really had such feelings for in a housing market such as this one :( In the end, we are selling the house for less than what it is worth. The sale price is more than what we owe, thankfully, but with fees and closing costs, we won't come out ahead by any means - and it just stinks that we have to end our time with this cherished home on a sour note. I think thats what it is that is making it hard..

We are moving this week! Our cousins have been completely renovating a house in Fergus Falls and we've been helping with the finishing touches and will be moving in and renting from them. SOO excited to finally be able to move in and have a space to ourselves and get settled! I think it will be great for the kids - Josiah in particular - to have that as well. Anyways, there are a million reasons why it will be wonderful to be settling in. We plan on renting for about a year I think... we'll see what God has in store ;)

Also - medical update! I have switched medicines and I have not had a crazy headache episode for about a month or so now! I am able to drive again! Praise God for that! It has some odd side effects, but so far, the trade off seems to be worth it. Thank you all so much for your prayers!

Steve is still loving his job. He enjoys the commute for the most part, though it makes for longer days on the homefront. We'll rent for this year and see what we think about the commute after that - then decide if we want to live a little closer to his job...

The internet is crazy slow tonight out here, so I will have to try adding pictures tomorrow - sorry! And wow. Its almost eleven now. I can't believe my eyes are still open ;)

I get by with a little help from my friends...

2011-01-27T00:34:00.001-06:00

Somehow even being laid up doesn't equal any down time, so I am just now finding time to get to this little note about my wonderful weekend with my lovely ladies. Miss K and Miss S, you are incredible friends. Thank you so much for being such blessings in my life - and exactly what I needed in this season.

Is this creepy or what?

Okay, so I flew out of the big 'ol Hector International Airport on Friday. Why do they call it that, by the way? You cannot fly international from Fargo unless you are going to Winnipeg. The name is quite a reach, a bit pretentious to say the least. Walking through security was quite a riot. After passing through, the "guard" came around to the two people in front of me. He pointed to their suitcases, told them where their liquids were and said to make sure they remove them next time. Is there any other airport in the world that would let you walk through with anything liquid hiding out? I've been called out for lipgloss before - and that was in a purse which they then took out and personally inspected. They didn't even open these suitcases. SO I'm feeling pretty safe... My mom got me there in the beginnings of a snowstorm - I was so paranoid that this weekend of respite was going to be cancelled by stupid snow. I got to MSP and my connecting flight just in time. My husband was coming home connecting in MSP to fargo and got turned back to Sioux Falls. He ended up on a cot in the airport. I was much more fortunate ;)
I got my first dose of culture from the driver on the way to Miss K's house. We jammed out to Spanish radio with random bursts of "Single Ladies" while he tried to tell me all kinds of things I couldn't understand. He got me to the right place though, and I only briefly held on to the handles in fear ;) And waiting for me was this lovely girl:

Love this girl.

We went to this great Italian place for dinner that night. Lots of catching up and excellent food. We got into pajamas and began a weekend of crime show marathons. I've recently become addicted to crime shows after we came to live with my parents. Now I can't get enough! So this was perfect. Other than making sure Steve got on/off his plane, I turned off all communication. Silence was so great, and just what I needed.

The convertible we dreamed of....

The next day we slept in. My version included waking up multiple times thinking I should be hearing babies wanting to be picked up, but still. It was bliss. I eventually got up and lounged with a book. A BOOK! Loved it. Then we headed in to "town". I kept calling it town which she laughed at every time. We walked. A LOT. I kept thinking about how much Josiah would love all that we were doing. The subway. The Taxi. The bus! He would be overjoyed.

On the Little People bus.

Me with Spiderman's bum in the background.

What does this have to do with cancer??

We saw all of the main attractions, which I'd seen before but it was fun to not be there just to be a tourist. We went to this amazing Mexican restaurant called the Lime Jungle. It reminded me of a Chipotle, only a bigger menu and I must say, the food was much better! We passed the Chipotle on the way there and I was so tempted to get a burrito since I no longer have easy access to those - so glad I walked those ten extra blocks! We went to all of the necessary shops including Anthropologie (YIKES, a new addiction?!?!). We went to FAO and happened to show up at the BIG piano just in time for a show. Did you know that they perform shows on this thing? It was incredible. And these kids get paid to jump around on this piano all day. Nice. Again, I walked around thinking about how Josiah would be drooling through the whole store. And then to ToysRUs - another Josiah paradise. We just had to ride the ferris wheel - it was worth the wait in line surrounded by all the little kids. I must admit I was slightly annoyed that the girl in front of us got the Barbie Convertible though! We were stuck with the Little People school bus. It was worth it though....until the ride never ended. They switched operators in the middle of our ride and I am pretty sure they forgot about us. We were on this thing FOREVER. Every time we would come down we kept saying "this must be us" and then it wasn't. We started to get a little freaked out after ten minutes on this thing! Eventually they let us off and we then went to get some very important pictures for my boys. Bigger than life Chewbacca made of legos, and real-life Spiderman and Ironman. Turns out the real-life guys won't let you take their pictures for free, so we walked away a few feet and K set up a shot with them in the background. Good enough for me.
In Times Square we found all kinds of 'culture'. See the picture of the guy in florescent underwear? There were three of them, one was some kind of leader. They were out in freezing cold weather acting like they were shooting some sort of exercise video? He kept hollering about how "ya'll were feeling that burn" and telling some mysterious audience how to stretch it out. They had two little guys (clothed, luckily) with signs about how cancer affects so many millions every year. I am not making light of cancer, by any means... but what in the world does this scenario have to do with cancer?
We walked not even 100 feet when we were stopped by this lovely gentlemen who gave us this great offer: "Ladies, how about we get drunk and make bad some bad decisions?". So tempting - HA! If only I would have busted out the camera for a pose with this guy. Next time.
We got some cheesecake from Juniors - famous for a reason. It was delicious. And then, THEN we went to see Mary Poppins on Broadway. I had never been to a Broadway show, and of course my girl Friday knows where to get great tickets for great prices, so we ended up in the 12th row! I had goosebumps when Mary Poppins flew off over our heads with her umbrella. It was AMAZING! I still get giddy just thinking about it. I can't wait to see another show. Or see that one again. Either way I am hooked. All in all, it was an incredible day.

Hello cupcakes. Love at first bite.

The next day we went to SoHo. Random place for lunch which we made fun of the rest of the day. Then we started our cupcake tour. Those little pieces of heaven are everywhere these days and it was just necessary that we would taste test them all and compare. Our favorites were this little cart on some random street "Cafe Angelique's" where this fairy godmother handed us scrumptious bites of the moistest cupcakes ever - Red Velvet and Chocolate Cannoli. Second place was this incredible french toast cupcake - not nearly as moist but such a good idea for a cupcake! I'm pretty sure my little town needs a cupcake cart. It would make the world smile. We tried 4 places in all. (Because you have to make sure your sample size is large enough or your test results aren't really valid).

Peanut Butter Cup(cake). Not our overall winner, but delicious.

We then went to Old Navy. I know, I felt a little lame asking about Old Navy being surrounded by such great stores. But I knew they were having this amazing sale, so she humored me. AND we ended up getting these great pea coats for $10!! We found a few fabulous CHEAP things there, so it was worth it. And then we went back into the city to hit up all of the stores from the day before. Well, not really, but for some reason I am the kind of person that loves something in a store and talks myself out of it... only to be haunted by it all night and then drag everyone back the next day because I should have just bought it in the first place. Oh man. This pitcher at Anthropologie was just beautiful and I had birthday money so it wasn't even like I was paying for it ;) And then we hit up the Lego store for a treat for Josiah and Steve and then another cupcake store (HA!) and got treats there for the girls. We left fairly early and got pizza and pajamas (we had our box of dessert samplings from the cupcake store!). Miss S arrived shortly after and we spent the evening catching up in between bad jokes on the Golden Globes. It was so great. These are ladies I can just be lazy with and go months without seeing (unfortunately) but feel like it was just yesterday. And these are ladies that can make me LAUGH. This weekend was just such a God-thing. He knew exactly what I needed in this moment and provided for me. Yum.

Lunch. Mmmm.

The next day we got a great lunch and went to get mani/pedi's at this little mini-spa. It was great - even though by this point by foot was in so much pain I was fighting tears with every step. Boo. We got our hands and toes all pretty and it was great. I can't remember the last time I painted my nails. I haven't painted my toes since before Delia was born. It just feels so nice to be 'pampered' and also just to have these perfect purple nails for a day (managed to get my first chip that night racing for the plane! boo). We then found our final cupcake shop on our way back to K's house to get our stuff. ;)

Self portraits on the subway.

We were WAY late leaving for the airport...and then we got lost... We are two very smart individuals. We were looking at all of the signs and following a GPS. I swear there wasn't a sign! I got to LaGuardia after the plane had already started loading. Oh crap. I had initially asked for assistance (ie wheelchair), but she looked at my ticket and said we wouldn't make it unless we ran. So run we did. She pushed me to the front of the line for security, and luckily I wasn't checking any bags. And then we ran to the gate (her running, me hopping and cursing every time my toe hit down). I was the last person to board and off we went. Phew! (Although I don't think I would have minded missing that flight - staying a little longer would have been fine)...
Planes were delayed on the way home, and then there was yet another snow event, so I didn't get home until about 2am. I was so very happy to see those 3 smiley faces the next morning, but I couldn't help but think about how loud it was! And so chaotic! Clearly, I need these getaways more often. You come home to your family - and I'm not cold-hearted, of course I missed them - and life just hits you in the face instantly. Wouldn't it be great if there was a recovery room? Like after surgery you get to warm up to facing reality with heated blankets and ice chips? Sometimes I wish I had a room like that in my house.
I can't wait to go back ;)

Looking Through a Glass Onion...

2011-01-21T22:53:00.000-06:00

I find that for most posts, most things in life really, there is a Beatles song that fits the bill. (I am aware that most of the truly applicable ones are from the later, drug 'enhanced' albums, but so it goes).
I spent last weekend in the big *town* of NYC. I'll get to that in a separate post, because it deserves its own and this one is reserved for a rant all its own. At any rate, we spent the weekend exploring and taking in all of the *culture* (you'll see that in the other post) and suddenly I had this outrageous pain in my foot. Annoying, but whatever. I figured I'd sleep on it and it would be fine.
By the time I got to the airport - where they had to RUN me through to catch my plane - I was literally cursing every time my tiptoe hit the ground. So, clearly, I had sucked in a ton of culture, eh? ;) I have a pretty high pain tolerance. The one time I experienced heavy labor, I thought it was no big deal and went in casually after taking my time to shower, etc. The one thing that brings me to my knees is kidney stones. That became my "10" on the pain scale. This blasted foot was seriously a 9+. What in the world?!
So, I happen to be a bit stubborn and I decided I didn't need to go to the doctor for this. I thought for sure it was something I just needed to rest and it would go away. Maybe walk it off, whatever. Today I finally caved and allowed my nagging mother to bring me in. (Disclaimer, my mother is not a nag, but nagged me about this foot all week. The downfall of living with your mother as a grown adult is she is still mothering! HA!) Alas! X-rays revealed a big 'ol fracture. What in the world? I couldn't stop choking on the foot in my mouth long enough to ask her how on earth that could have happened without me noticing an actual incident to cause it, but how crazy is that?!
I went in thinking I'd be sent home told to take some ibuprofen and ice it a bit. Instead, I have a boot. I am not allowed to put any pressure on it. And the kicker? Youth-sized crutches. No joke. She didn't size me for them or anything, just seemed to know how short I am. Nice touch. And it gets better - she said it can take 1-2 months for these things to heal (ie no walking on the blasted foot for the duration). Um, doc? This doesn't exactly fit into my schedule?
I left there with my mother, who was loving the glow of the "I told you so" moments, and all we could do was laugh. Right now, God? Seriously? You chose this time to let me have this experience? Do You want to have a little chit chat about the million other things I have going on right now and how there is NO room for this today? Because I would, God!
Lets review (for my sake, bear with me). I have three beautiful, free-spirited, highly energetic, independent thinking children. My only reason for partial sanity is that my mom is currently unemployed and is therefore home with me most days. In the past week, we have both been in tears due to frustrations with my eldest. This transition has turned him completely upside down and it is just heartbreaking to be dealing with this version of him - knowing that somewhere in there my sweet boy is stuck and confused and anxious and doesn't know how to talk about that and so acts out instead. He is bored and doesn't have days full of structure, etc. He is about to turn 5 and I am at the point where I feel like I need to get us back to the relationship we had prior to this move before I lose him forever and turn around and he is 15 and still acting out and refusing to talk to me. And I read this amazing book that had a character that had Aspberger's and oh, my mind went nuts. Oh, and my husband has serious ADHD and this recent stuff with Josiah is bringing every possible worst-case scenario to mind. UGH. Miss E shares so many of his awesome characteristics and then some. She is walking/running now and wow does that mean trouble - and also means we are constantly running to catch her from hurting herself/her sister/the dog/shutting off the washer mid-cycle/etc. And Miss D is a roly-poly smiling angel, trying to survive her two older siblings. She still needs to be walked/bounced occasionally.
Okay. So this has been a full-time job for two halfway able-bodied adults. Now I need to be resting and elevating my leg? In addition, I have been very good about getting to the Y at least 3 times each week - determined to get my body back. What in the world can I possibly do to lose weight now? It was already hard enough with this other crazy junk going on. I have to wear a swimsuit at some point. Bleh. I think that might be the most frustrating part - I can get help with the kids, but nobody can lose my weight but me.
God? I totally agree that I needed a lengthier vacation. I think missing the plane would have been a much better solution. Just sayin.

(rant over)

On the eve of 25...

2011-01-11T13:06:00.002-06:00

Tomorrow is the *big day*. If you ask Josiah, he will quickly tell you that I am going to turn 24. I have brainwashed my child from a very young age to believe that mommies never get older than 25. For a time I even instructed him that mommies could then get younger again, but he took that too far and soon I would be younger than he was, so it just didn't work. I'm okay with that - I can be 24 forever. The problem comes when I now have to actually think about how old I am going to be because I am so used to saying 24 all of the time. Oops!
I have a love/hate relationship with my birthday. Turning 25 (the first time) was really hard on me. For some reason when you are in your early twenties, you seem to think you are invincible to aging. The big 2-5 meant I was no longer in my early twenties - and rather, I was approaching 3-0 and that was just NOT okay. Thirty has always seemed so old (shudder). The age where you stop being young and fun and start wearing mom jeans and old lady reeboks, no longer able to do childish things like play Super Mario and shop at Old Navy. There must be a certain age where it will no longer be appropriate for me to buy jeans at American Eagle; where I must stop preferring clothes from the juniors section and cross over into misses. I wonder if at that magical age, the large supply of holiday sweater/turtlenecks/bedazzled sweatshirts suddenly looks appealing? I never want to get to that age! I know, 40 is the new 20, and so on, but that doesn't make it any more appealing to me!

Last time I turned 25.

I will never forget the day - about two years ago - when Steve and I were looking through old photo albums and he said "wow, you look so young in this picture!". Yep, he actually said that, darling husband of mine. I panicked! How did my skin start looking old? I immediately went to purchase a few great anti-aging or age-reversing creams! He'll never live down the comment, but I have received compliments on the skin since then, so it might have been worth it. Only a little.
On the other hand, I love my birthday. I love cake and candles (yep, still do!) and going out for a nice dinner, doing something fun in honor of my being born. My one selfish day where its okay to make things about me. Its nice to be pampered! But I am still such a kid at heart in this regard. I don't know that I will ever grow out of the need for the birthday cake and blowing out candles. Its just plain FUN, and there has always been something almost magical about that moment. Opening presents isn't nearly as big of a deal at this point, especially with a birthday so close to Christmas - but the surprise aspect is still fun.

Josiah's 3rd Birthday

Eden's First Birthday

Steve's 29th

This is why I try to make birthdays so magical for my kids. I want them to have this big, awesome day where we just celebrate only them. We go into Josiah's bedroom to wake him up with his birthday muffins with a candle burning in it, singing happy birthday to him. We let him open one present right away - before rushing around to start our day. We let him pick the theme of the party - and I get just about the same thrill as he does picking out all of the matching stuff. I make a cake to go with it - and I'm not talking the cake in the pan with candles. I'm talking 3-D Lightning McQueen style. Its just SO much fun to make a big deal out of them. Not that we should only do that once a year, but on their birthdays especially, we make a point to go all out.

Josiah's 4th Birthday

Steve is out of town for my birthday this year and I'm pouting about that just a *little*. It kind of takes some of the fun out of it for me, even though I know we'll be celebrating later. But maybe what I miss is the little kid part of the birthday, where everything is over-the-top and magical, and you just can't sit still all day in school because you know you'll get to pass out your cupcakes and play 7-up just after lunch and then your little friends are coming over for your party! All of it is just too much and you bounce off the walls all day in anticipation.
I'm pretty sure when the blasted 3-0 comes for me, it will be done at Chuck E. Cheese with Rainbow Bright plates and matching napkins. And balloons. LOTS of balloons.

Eight Days a Week....

2011-01-10T09:50:00.000-06:00

Life is just busy! There is a random set of things itching to be typed, so hang with me on this one.
Last Thursday I registered my sweet boy for Kindergarten. I had to fight off tears- to the point where I called Steve at work to vent about it. I absolutely cannot believe that Josiah will be 5 in less than two months - and will head off to kindergarten in the fall. Where does time go? He is going 5 full days - and I know this will be great for him as he is so bored with preschool and is beyond ready for more of a challenge- BUT kindergarten is kind of the beginning of the end. It seems like once they are in school, time flies so much faster somehow. Life gets busy in other ways - activities, programs, sports, candy sales, etc. Plus it officially marks the end of 'little-kid-dom' - the stage of innocent, cute, pudgy faces and baby teeth. While he has already started to think he is smarter than us, this will only grow more rapidly now. Soon he will be doing multiplication problems instead of the simple adding and subtracting he does now. And I'm sure they will do math totally different then, so even if I am good at math, mine is 'old school' and won't help him. He will be reading his Freddy chapter books all by himself and need. me. less... (sigh). Yes, signing my name on the registration form was tough! On the bright side, Josiah will be in school all day, surrounded by kids his age, with lots of structure - he will do so well in that environment! And there will be more opportunities for the teachers to provide him with a challenge, which is exciting. And I have to admit, this 2.5 hour preschool stuff is kind of annoying - someone is always missing a nap to get him there/home, so it will be nice to not have that weird break in the day.

Delia is teething, if only in the very early stages. This marks the end of another chapter for us - she is no longer an infant, and we won't get to go through any of that again. Its been mixed emotions as she grows out of the cute new-baby habits, because we both know we won't experience that again until we have grandchildren. It even brought us to the conversation of reversing the tubal ligation! Don't worry, we ended that conversation with a resounding NO, but its been weighing on both of us as we deal with these "lasts". She is such a happy baby now - amazing what this past month has done for her (and lots and LOTS of prayers!). She is rolling from her tummy to her back, and halfway back to the tummy, but not quite there yet. She is exploring her vocal chords in a much more excited fashion than either Eden or Josiah did - but it makes me laugh out loud every time, even when she is squealing in anger. She is starting to giggle- the new-found kind of baby giggle that is kind of grunt-like. And she has the biggest smile! She likes her exersaucer now, and likes to be propped up or sit in her bumbo seat to get a new view of the world around her. She laughs at the ceiling fan. and she sleeps! She sleeps a lot like Josiah - sometimes taking 4-hour naps during the day and still sleeping 12 hours at night! LOVE it! For the most part she is putting herself to sleep and that is just awesome. We had her 4-month check up last week and confirmed that she is a chunky girl ;) She is just shy of 16 pounds (Eden is only 20!), and her head is almost off the chart - yet her height is only the 10th percentile. Too funny. We call her TubbyWubby - which we know is only appropriate and non-confidence-smashing for a short time ;) So many exciting firsts mixed in with so many 'lasts'.

Eden is in a category all her own. She is walking now - but only when she wants to. We still classify her as a 'walker' though - because she walks across rooms, down the hallway, etc... However, she will mostly only do this when there is someone there cheering her on. She likes to selectively do things when she can make people clap and say "yay" for her. Such a diva this one! And there we are like dummies, encouraging the habit by clapping and hollering when she walks to(for) us - but its just so hard not to when the thought that crosses your mind is "she wasn't supposed to live and now she is [fill-in-blank-with-any-new-accomplishment]". And so we'll keep clapping. We met with her new early intervention teacher last week and she was just in awe of all that Eden is doing. Even though Eden isn't saying words yet, she is signing a few and her motor skills are "amazing", so there are really no concerns. Its bothering ME that she won't talk yet, but the teacher is a speech therapist and saw all of the early communication skills and basic signing so she was thrilled with that. Phew! And then over the weekend we got "mamama" a few times ;) I'm still going to work on that one! She is just hilarious though - she has the biggest, or perhaps most vocal, attitude ever. She snorts when she is mad - or when she can get people to laugh at her, she has the biggest, crooked-tooth grin I've ever seen. She laughs hysterically at the dogs, or at Josiah, or when you tickle her - a deep, belly laugh that makes everyone else laugh too. Her favorite trick right now is sneaking treats to my parent's shitzu - she thinks it is the funniest thing when she hands him one of her goldfish and he bites it out of her hand! All you have to do is say his name and she laughs. Too funny. Most days she is still taking two good naps, and she sleeps so well at night - but she is anther early riser. She is up by 6:30 every morning. Usually this gives me about 30 minutes with her where we sit on the couch and read book after book before hunger kicks in. She LOVES books!

Steve is in AZ for his evaluation and graduation from this crazy training period. It will be so nice to have this over with! He is still loving his job, but the past few weeks have been stressful with all of the extra training criteria. He is definitely missing these kiddos, and I don't mind handing them over the minute he gets in the door :) He is anxious for more free time to master Rock Band 3 and the Lego and Green Day rockbands he got for Christmas. Boys and their toys!

And then there is me! I was supposed to be starting school next week, but it isn't looking likely due to a mix up at the admissions offices. They received my transcripts at the undergrad office instead of the grad school office, and it has taken them more than a month to get them to the right building - just a block away! This is beyond frustrating, since it should have been such an easy, instant fix and is now likely to prevent me from getting in this semester at all. Not only does that suck because I so badly wanted to finally get back to school, but because that leaves me home at least until fall. If you know me or you've read the previous posts, you know how I feel about that! So I'm trying to figure out what to do now. There are a couple of job openings in the HR field in neighboring towns that I would be qualified for, but do I want back into that field? And do I want to work full time? The whole idea of doing school now was that it would be like a part-time job until the kids were all in school. Plus if I go back to work full-time that means full-time daycare, which is fine, but expensive! So I am just praying that God will point me in the right direction. Back to uncertainty instead of knowing "come January I will have school and be fine". I'm not a fan of the unknown, but I have to trust. and wait. and I hate waiting ;)

There you have it, sports fans. I can't wait to get back to speedy internet so I can put pictures on here without wanting to toss my laptop across the room! I'll try that again tonight maybe....

Getting into the spirit of things...I resolve to:

2011-01-01T22:53:00.000-06:00

I'm not big on New Year's resolutions. Most of the time (for most people), they end up being big promises that one dreams up and quickly forgets about. Often, this would then bring a wave of guilt for not seeing it through - taking one more cigarette meant you might as well give up on quitting, eating a donut means you've wrecked your plan to fit into your red bikini, etc. I fall in with the vast majority of resolution-makers here. I'm looking at things a little differently this time around though, so here is my list. I'm not even going to bother calling them resolutions. They are major life projects, but here is what I am jumping into this year.
1. Get back to healthy self. I know, everyone starts dieting on January 1. My dear friend Heather loves to discuss how much she hates her gym in the month of January because of all of the people that flood the place due to their resolutions...by February, they are mostly gone ;) BUT - to be fair, I started this project long before the first of this year, and in earnest about a month ago. I am not saying I want to "weigh this much" or "be this size". I just want to feel good. I don't want to be a toothpick, and pretty sure I would look like a freak if I ever ended up that skinny ;) I plan on tackling this life-change by continuing to visit the Y at least 4 times each week - making sure the other friends that go there are harping on me to go, pushing myself to do harder things/workout longer, etc. And yes, chocolate in moderation - HA!
2. Get back to happy self. In the midst of all of the chaotic punches thrown at me in the past couple of years, the past 6 months in particular, I've let myself get caught up in the stress of it all at times, instead of rolling with the punches and staying in a place of peace. My oldest child is handling this transition with great difficulty, and I am matching his stress level instead of showing him how to calm. I read a great blog a few days back (thanks Vanessa!) about how we can choose to let our kids steal our joy - or not. I can choose to respond to a freak-out by matching the frustration level and freaking out myself, OR I can choose to remain joyful, calmly talking him down from this and getting us both back to using our "nice words" to figure out why he is actually upset. Also, as his mom, I am well aware that this is not "him", and therefore should be confident that this is only temporary - so, I should be able to hang on to that truth and respond to the boy I know he is rather than who he is acting like. Make sense? And yes, I do have two babies at home. Thats stressful, sure. BUT things are getting much better (thank you for praying!), and I am learning to be constantly reminding myself to breathe first, and then respond. I am getting much better at tooning out the toddler that is screaming because she didn't get her way and letting her get over it on her own - amazingly enough, she does every time! At any rate, this change will be accomplished through a number of things. I am currently reading "The Busy Mom's Guide to Spiritual Survival" by Kelli Trujillo. I HIGHLY recommend this book, for many reasons, but the biggest is that it is proving to be an honest, practical book that actual has deep biblical truths - not one of those frilly "mom needs chocolate books" that don't teach you anything. At any rate, I plan to finish and then re-read it, implementing as many of the practices of spiritual discipline that I can. I cannot be a healthy/happy mom without the One true source of strength - and scheduling time to foster that relationship is part of my agenda now. Another thing that is going to be key is getting OUT! Getting out with the girls at least monthly (thanks girls!), getting out with my husband, by myself, whatever. As often as is possible, I will have breaks and allow myself to be recharged.
And I think the last thing on my list is going to be to waste less time. Now, I am not about to jump on the wagon of folks who say vegging on the couch with a mindless tv show is bad for you. I actually would beg to differ - I think its healthy to veg out now and then. BUT it seems that we have fallen into a pattern in that by the time we get the kids tucked in, we are exhausted and just pass out on the couch and get sucked in by the tv. There are so many other things we should be using this time for - not every night, but finding a good balance between various things. Reading good books, finally putting together Eden's caringbridge book, compiling home movies, scrapbooking, playing games with my hubby, the list goes on. My brain will be a little less mushy, and I will feel better about things knowing I am being more productive -sometimes. I will still allow nights to veg - because lets face it, there are days when that is pretty much all you can do ;)
Less major things I will tackle this year: a spa weekend (already in the works - so maybe two?), trips away by myself (ie NYC, Magic City, etc!), I may try running (sounds gross, but I'm debating!), take my kids camping/hiking at least 3 times (sounds puny, but I'm thinking its going to be quite a task to get three kiddos loaded up!), take more pictures, PRINT more pictures, get scrapbooks up to date, and learn at least 20 new recipes (only good ones count!).... The list is totally editable, of course, and I'm not about to feel guilty about the progress of these come 2012. I suppose, perhaps, the best resolution of all is just to commit to making the year ahead better than the last. Committing to choose joy... I'm in.

Hit me with your best shot, fire away...

2010-12-09T22:45:00.000-06:00

I am fully aware of the can of worms about to be opened. I'm going to open it anyway because thats just the kind of gal I am. I welcome the lively conversation that should ensue, and I look forward to comments and personal insights. This is a topic that has been hotly debated since Rosie and WWII: The stay-at-home-mom versus the mom that works outside of the home. Can opened.
I have always known that the position of stay-at-home-mom (SAHM from here on out) would not be for me. No, I do not look down on those that choose that position. No, I do not think I am better/stronger/smarter/more productive/etc than any mother that chooses to stay home full time with her children. However, I would like to say very LOUDLY that staying at home is not for everyone. Some moms (or dads) have to work (most families now require at least two full time incomes), and that is perfectly understandable and yet still frowned upon by many circles. Some moms simply are not meant to stay at home full time with their children and for whatever reason, people just can't seem to grasp that concept unless they are of the same mindset.
I am not a SAHM. I had my first go-round when I was on maternity leave with Josiah. Steve stayed home with me for two weeks and then I spent a week visiting my family before returning home to be "on my own" during the day. I called Steve at work almost nonstop. I shortened my maternity leave by two weeks - I was that anxious to get out of the house again. I.WENT.CRAZY. No joke.
We recently made this huge move and career change and I so quickly realized that this is not where I am supposed to be. I kept telling myself that it was only for a couple of months until January when I start classes again. Even so, it feels like forever.
Does this mean I love my children any less than the amazing mother that is thrilled to be at home? Nope, not a chance. It simply means that I am fully aware that I am a better mother when I have a job outside of the home. This week I have been overcome with guilt - hating this trapped feeling and then hating myself for hating it. Its a nasty cycle. The truth is, I shouldn't feel guilty. I love my kids something fierce. I just can't stay home with them 24/7. And that should be okay.
Being a SAHM is an amazing task. When I run down my day to my husband as its coming to a close, his jaw is dropping over all I try to accomplish in a day (with the help of my mom right now, thank God!). Its exhausting just planning out the day. Get kids up. Diapers changed. Make breakfast. Wipe kids up. Get kids dressed. Keep kids from hurting each other. Try to clean up breakfast before the dog gets it. Rescue baby from older sibling. Get babies to nap. Get babies up. Change diapers. Make lunch. Clean up lunch. Naps. Feed.Change.Help.Play.Change.Feed. Somehow you try to fit in 5 loads of laundry, washing/vacuuming the floors, something educational. BLEH. It is a very exhausting job, and I am the first to pipe in and vouch for the position of SAHM being a very tough career, under-appreciated, etc. But it isn't for everyone and that needs to be something that everyone can accept.
We've come a long way as a society in terms of accepting women in the workplace. The glass-ceiling phenomena is still present, but has been opened in many fields. Equal pay isn't quite there, but approaching albeit too slowly. People accept women in the workplace when it is a necessity. I am here to say that it should also be acceptable when women choose to work, even if they don't have to. I am no less a mother than anyone else for wanting to work outside the home. I honestly believe that my son does better in the daycare/school environment because his energy level thrives on solid structure, routine and constant activity - something I cannot give him when I am home with two babies. Is that me saying that someone else should have the task of raising my kids? Absolutely not. I am their mother. As such, I 'train them up in the way they should go', I set the example I want them to follow - and part of that role is also choosing the people I allow to have influence on them (ie daycare provider, etc) (all of this along with their father, of course).
People assume that I am struggling right now because of the extra obstacles being thrown at us right now. "She's exhausted from having a baby that screams all day", "She's stressed out because she has two very needy babies at home/her 4yr old is hyper/she has freaky migraines/etc". Let me just tell you that is not the case. It is exhausting and stressful to be dealing with all of these things, for sure. However, the root cause is that I am feeling trapped and feeling guilty about feeling that way. I want to finish my next degree. I want to be a professor. AND I want to be a mother. I should be able to do all of the above and not be made to feel that I am doing a disservice to my children. They will continue to be amazing, I assure you. And they will feel loved and not lack for attention. And my daughters (and Josiah!) will see me be a wife and mother and professional and I am so excited to see their dreams take root and encourage them to conquer their world too. If they should grow up and decide that they want to be SAHM's I will encourage them in that choice just as much as if they told me they wanted to be a surgeon. And I will make sure they know that either choice is okay because its THEIRS. And doing whats best for them will result in them being their best for their family.
Fire away..

These are a few of my favorite things..

2010-11-22T19:58:00.000-06:00

In light of the looming holiday season, I figured it was time to dedicate a few minutes to think about those things in my life that I am thankful for. Not because I want to create a brag list about how perfect my life is (it isn't) or because its almost Thanksgiving so its obligatory. For me, this is more of a needed reminder - in the midst of this chaotic, exhausting valley of recent weeks, there is so much to be thankful for.
I am thankful for my family.
For my parents, who are letting us invade their home while we hang out in limbo for another month until getting our own place. They haven't said a word about us overtaking their space with piles of baby toys/gear/clothes and filling their garbage with an endless stream of diapers. For being there to help with the kiddos and for taking turns bouncing my screaming babe for hours on end.
For my sister, who has been a load of help during this crazy time of me not being to full function (or any function). Driving Josiah to school, letting us invade her space and sharing lunch.
For my cousin and a dear friend - who both have driven me to Fargo for appointments for myself and Delia, dropped their days to be here helping me and reminding me this won't last forever.
For Josiah. We have been blessed with such an amazing boy! He is so incredibly smart, perfectly healthy, and has a great sense of humor. He melts my heart when he gets so excited about certain Bible stories or hears something that reminds him of one of his verses he memorized at school. He sings his heart out and loves to dance.
For Eden. We've had her home for just over a year now - and I am constantly in awe of her even being alive, much less being so incredible. Her life and her perfect health is a blessing beyond words. She entered this world about the size of her current 'hambone'! She looks out the window across the room and chuckles at the birds - reminding me that her eyes are perfect! She hears every tiny noise. She is THISCLOSE to walking on her own two feet, with her own chubby legs! I am just in awe of how powerful God has shown Himself to be through every battle He's brought her through.
For Hannah. I don't know how one can be thankful for the loss of their child, and I still have many days where I ask God those BIG questions. But I am so thankful for what she has taught me. About cherishing your children. About faith. About Heaven. Losing her brought me to the book "Safe in the Arms of God". If you haven't read it, please do. I am thankful for the months I got to spend with her in my tummy and every crazy kick and summersault. I am thankful for the minutes I got to hold her tiny body after she had already been given a healthy Heavenly body. I am thankful for all that I KNOW God is going to do in our lives having brought us through this experience. I am thankful for my sweet little boy who often talks about his Hannah in Heaven. For my chubby-faced Eden, who daily gives me a glimpse at how beautiful Hannah is right now.
For Delia. I am so thankful for this surprise in our life. God gave us this one child with no struggle with my fertility issues. One child we didn't wait years for, didn't cry over not being able to have on our time table, didn't need to have medicines or medical procedures to have. There she was. I am so thankful for one last pregnancy, with minor complications. One last round of baby kicks and wiggles in my belly. One last new baby cry fresh from the womb. I am so thankful that she came to us healthy and huge ;) And I am thankful for every smile and coo that I am catching in her good moments. I am thankful for the hours when the only place she will sleep is on my chest.
The list goes on. Of course, I am thankful for the standard things. We have food, shelter, income, family, friends and the majority of us have good health. We live in a country where we have good doctors for those of us that need them ;) I am thankful that even with all of the chaos and uncertainty surrounding this recent move, we are close to friends and family - and our nieces and nephew especially, so we can be closer to them watching them speed out of childhood.
I am thankful for my God, who is far Bigger and more powerful than anything I am facing or will face in the future. I am thankful for His love, His forgiveness and the evidence of His miracles in my life. But perhaps if I had to pinpoint one of His qualities which I am currently most thankful for (is that possible?) - right now it is that His arms are strong enough to carry me through anything. He gives me another ounce of energy when a child needs me and I am beyond exhaustion. He puts people around me to be strong when I can't - drive when I can't, hold my babies when I can't, etc. He has carried me and this family of mine through so much already, and I know He will carry me through this season as well. And OH, the peak after this valley!!! I can only imagine what is in store :)

The in-between

2010-11-11T08:25:00.000-06:00

(I wanted to be sure to add some lighter notes too)

This girl keeps us laughing. She is truly fascinated by dogs, dog tags, dog noises, dog movements, dog ears, pictures of the dog... Anything related to dogs brings out her belly laugh as she chases them around. She finally popped two more teeth on top so we might have a teething break AND as an added bonus she no longer will look like a jack-o-lantern since she's evening out the front now ;) Daylight savings time has not found her yet - she is ready for bed by 6 and up by 5 no matter what! But she wakes up so happy (and SO hungry), you can't really have a better alarm clock!

And this girl! I don't want her to get a bad rap just because she has some crazy tummy issues :) Yesterday was a fairly good day for her and we were able to have some awake time that was happy! You can just tell that she is a happy baby trapped inside this crap stomach. She slept through the night twice this week! She is starting to babble and has such a great smile - when she is able to smile it melts away so much of the stress from her other personality ;)

And our little man. He reminds us every day that time goes too fast! I don't know when he got so big, so smart and so independent. He needs our help less and less these days ;( But he is a jokester. He loves to play tricks and make up jokes, and he is ticklish beyond belief!

I am so thankful for the in-between. The moments where we have been able to take a quick breath and see one of these smiling faces. That is all the silver lining we need ;)

Helter Skelter

2010-11-10T08:56:00.000-06:00

So Steve leaves tomorrow for 3 days out of town followed by a half day at home and 6 more days out of town. Panic has set in.
Delia screams all day long. Something is wrong but nobody knows what. I need to get her to a certain pediatrician in Fargo who will then likely suggest a GI visit. Seriously. Screams. All. Day. Long.
Eden is a one-year-old. A perfect one-year-old. Perfect one-year-olds are trouble. Crawling/Scooting everywhere. Opening every cupboard, finding every non-babyproofed area at Papa's house. Always wanting to be where she shouldn't be. Popping multiple teeth. Chasing the dogs and wanting to poke their eyes. Laughing/crying hysterically (amazing the mood swings of a toddler!).
Josiah is in crisis mode. This transition hit him harder than I could have imagined. He had an extra, unexpected week off before starting his new school, which means an extra week of no routine. He does NOT thrive with no routine.
The underlying current which makes all of this seem impossible to me is that I am currently fighting some unknown issue which doctors are trying to figure out. My family doctor thinks I may have had an onset of MS during this last pregnancy. I cannot drive without panic setting in - driving tends to be where these episodes start. I lose strength in my arms which makes me petrified to pick up my kiddos - unsure if my arms will hold them. They feel like bags of packed wet sand rather than functioning limbs. And so, during the past months, I haven't gone anywhere alone - Steve has to drop me off/pick me up. I don't stay alone with the kids because if this happens to set in, I don't know how I will make that work. It is scary. Some days I don't have the physical ability to bounce my screaming infant for hours until she finally settles for a 15 minute nap. I can't drive her to visit a doctor. I cannot constantly be chasing/picking up my one-year-old - especially not if I have my infant in my arms because I'm constantly gripping my other hand to make sure an arm doesn't give out. How am I going to get my preK kiddo to school with my husband now starting work? How am I going to get anywhere for that matter? I feel trapped.
We visited with a neurologist in Fargo last week and I go in for a very extensive MRI tomorrow - covering three different areas with and without contrast for each. Sounds like a very nice, overdue nap to me! Another option she mentioned is that theses symptoms could be from very severe migraines even though I am not having the headache associated with them? Either way, I need an answer, I need it fixed and I need to be able to function. It is making this transition seem impossible to have this going on along with everything else. And I'm pretty sure we've had enough happen in the past couple of years - is one more crisis really necessary? What life lesson are we supposed to be learning - like we are missing it each time so we keep getting another crisis thrown at us to try again?
I KNOW I cannot win this battle on my own. I cannot handle the baby that screams every waking hour on my own strength. I cannot handle the used-to-be-precious little boy throwing ridiculous tantrums every day on my own strength. I cannot function as a mother on my own strength. The question then becomes - at what point do I excuse myself from the real life of the day to spend time with the One who can give me that strength? Where is quiet even available for that matter?! If you've found something that works, please let me know ;)

Taking the long way...

2010-11-05T22:27:00.000-05:00

AAAGGGGHHH! Totally not grammatically correct, but can you hear me screaming?! Today we had to go to Fargo for a doctor appointment and THEN we had to drive to Rochester to do a final cleaning of our house. Of course, we are kid-free for this lovely ride but OH MAN is it a crazy long ride! I am going van crazy - and that is even with this ridiculous mobile broadband card which is allowing me to wrack my mind for random things to look at online to keep me occupied. My eyes are bugging out. Steve is screaming the song "Too many beans" at the top of his lungs. He's jealous that I get the fun seat and all he gets to do is shove swedish fish in his mouth. The drive was long enough when it was Rochester to Fergus - that extra hour added in there is just torture even for two semi-adults!
We've been playing this game trying to drive the other crazy with grating voices/noises. I don't get bothered easily ;) But I do hate the smell of swedish fish! Blast.
Our first week in Fergus was NOT a success. Love seeing family of course - has nothing to do with that at all. Lets do a brief rundown since I have nothing better to do.
1. Delia is back to the version which screams 80% of the day. No joke. I hate it because something is wrong, she is clearly uncomfortable, but of course our doctor said she didn't see an issue. We switched formulas- got rid of the milk protein - this bought us a few days reprieve, but she is back at it in full swing this week. It is physically and emotionally exhausting for both Steve and I - and this is with both of us home dealing with it. When we get it worked out, she is the happiest thing! But in between its miserable.
2. Eden got sick. We went in initially and the doc (whom I didn't really enjoy) said it was likely strider/croup. No meds, just use a humidifier and keep her room cool. Done. Turned into a nasty cold (hopefully just a cold). THEN she falls on her face (once every 10 minutes) and lands on the knob of the entertainment center, slicing her gums open and gushing blood which would NOT stop. One positive thing about it - it FINALLY cut her other front tooth through! But it was awful. Then she didn't want to eat or touch a cup to her mouth for another day afterward as I'm sure it hurt like crazy. PS Eden is now waking before 6am daily!
3. Josiah is going through what I can only hope is a terrible transition phase. It is AWFUL. He threw a fit on Halloween like we have NEVER seen before. Over eye drops. Because something was in his eye and it was terribly irritated and looked painful. Then we have had this same fit repeated almost every single night at bed time. He is not a fit-thrower! He is typically so well-behaved. It is beyond frustrating. Maybe mostly because I feel like it is our fault - pulling him out of 5-days a week full time FRIENDS his age and school - structure and constant socializing, taking him to a new place and being stuck home with mom and dad who are busy dealing with the drama his baby sisters are putting us through right now.... we don't have nearly as much time as he needs from us. I had the best of intentions. We bought fun supplies to do projects and activities from a cool science workbook we found. These projects would be done daily during the girl's nap time. Huh. What nap time? Who is napping these days? Maybe Eden if we are lucky. Poor guy. So instead he is lashing out and turning into this crazy person. In the midst of these fits I'm caught between wanting to yank him and put him on his bed versus grabbing him and hugging him so tightly and assuring him(me) that its going to get better. It has to get better. UGH.
This road trip is the perfect cap to our week! Feeling like a Debbie Downer, but thats really how the week went. I can't make this stuff up ;) Hoping that this little break gives us all a chance to recharge and figure out a new/better plan for next week. Only a few more days of Steve being home with us and after the week we just went through his words were "I don't know how you could possibly do this by yourself". I'm thinking now I will likely put Josiah in daycare of some sort in the mornings before he has school (three days per week). He needs kids his own age and to be kept busy. He has watched more tv this week than in the past year combined and I'm not a fan. I think it would really be best for all of us if he got his time away from the girls. There is just too much of an age gap between him and Eden - and too little of one between the two girls - for him to be happy right now. I need my happy boy back!

And now back to the road trip. Its a good thing we still have our sense of humor :) Steve is now breaking out the steering wheel drum so its clear he's gone long enough without my interaction - HA! Does your spouse sing along to songs slurring through all of the words he doesn't know? Do you find it endearing?! When we stopped for gas a few minutes back, I locked him out of the car. He danced his way around the van and I proceeded to let him back in. We saw this on America's Funniest Videos once where the wife took several videos of her locking him out of the car until he would dance. We still think its funny and dancing the entire way around the car was even better. Of course when he left the car the next time he took the keys. Bummer dude.

Extended Vacation, I am in love with you.

2010-10-21T11:41:00.000-05:00

So, as you now know, we are moving! Steve has accepted a new job and we are packing up and heading "home" to Fergus Falls, MN where we grew up. Steve ended up turning in his notice to his previous employer earlier than planned to help me get the house ready to sell.. And when you leave one financial institution to go to another one, they do not let you continue to work for your two-week notice period, but rather they give you a severance and send you on your way. SO! Steve has been home with me since October 5th! Of course, initially our fourth honeymoon was spent furiously cleaning our house to get it ready for a photographer to come from our realtor's office. However, since then, we've been able to do several mini-adventures, taking in many of the activities and sites of the area before we move away (since we never took the time to be adventurous before?!).
We went to a great pumpkin patch. We'd been there before, but it is probably my favorite pumpkin patch so I had to get in a last visit (though we'll probably time a doctor visit to get here again!). Our niece Daphnie was with us for her birthday weekend, and the little girls were at their aunt's house - which worked out well considering all the running the bigger kids did.

We took a day trip up to Como Zoo. We haven't been there since Josiah was one. Eden was just barely interested in the animals (only the ones that moved a lot). Delia slept through the whole thing, as expected. We got a ton of stares for having two babies in our stroller. Welcome to the freak show, ladies and gentlemen!

Josiah checking out an ape skull.

Delia sleeping through lunch.

Eden eagerly awaiting her turn to lick the ice cream.

Josiah snapping a picture of me.

We took another day trip to Whitewater State Park, about 30 minutes from here. We'd never visited but had heard it was a great park to check out and a good place to camp. Well, we aren't quite ready to take our babies cool-weather camping, so we just went for the day. We had our first geocaching experience, and once we got our GPS figured out, it was a lot of fun. Josiah enjoyed it because he had his "own" camera to take pictures of the trip. I haven't developed those yet, but typically half of them are thumbprints ;) Eden slept about half of the time but enjoyed the walk while she was awake, and Delia slept the whole time. This was quite the feat as Steve was new to the Moby wrap and kept getting it halfway off while walking. I'm still not sure how he managed that. The best part was that we got to enjoy this awesome day out with the family AND when we logged our exercise into our daily tracker, it turns out that hiking with a 20lb pack burns a TON of calories! .....and then we went to DQ.

We took another trek out to Carley State Park - about 30 minutes in the other direction (I think?). Steve and I took the girls while Josiah was in school - which ended up being a good decision as this park was way less "park" than the previous one. We did the geocaching thing again, though it was much easier this time. It was such a beautiful day - so nice to be getting out and enjoying this before the dread of winter hits.

This hike was a tiny bit creepy - it was very much 'wilderness', with no one around but the squirrels and a random guy that drove through very slowly in a beat up green taurus. All of the old campfire horror stories came drifting back to mind. Steve said not to worry because he has a great ninja kick. I'm sure that would do the trick, honey!

Eden seems to enjoy riding along in the Beco carrier - and it is super comfy for mom or dad to wear too, which is nice. The Moby wrap has seen its days I think - it was great when Eden was so tiny, but already its harder to use with Delia. Though there are hundreds of people who have figured out how to use it for bigger kids, I think we are going to spring for a second carrier instead - we found ourselves racing to "call" the carrier - to not have to be the one stuck wearing the wrap ;) Steve did much better at keeping it on this time though, and of course, Delia slept through the whole hike.

And now the second babe is awake so I'll have to wait to post the rest of our vacation adventures. I am so loving having this free time before we make this big transition! And now Josiah is done at daycare so he will be home with us for more adventures too. Love this season of our life - too bad it is going to be so short ;)

The day has arrived...

2010-10-13T23:14:00.000-05:00

Tomorrow is the big day. Things will be even more final. Big changes. Pretty much throwing the parachute out the window of the plane. Oh man. When the dust settles, I'll be sure to update you - fill you in on our littleBIGnews.

In other breaking news, Steve and I have joined Sparkpeople.com. Yep. Because we are done having babies now and therefore we are now going to embark on a lovely little journey to rid ourselves of the baby weight. We are on day three of the ever-enjoyable plan - exercising and eating reduced calorie diets... Tracy Anderson has this "method" and is sharing it with us in her post-pregnancy workout. You may think its silly that Steve would do this workout with me as its a post-pregnancy workout - but a) I need a partner so I will be motivated and b) it kicks his butt just as much as it kicks mine. At any rate, things are going well. And then tonight, the chocolate cravings kicked in. I am a chocolate girl. It is my coffee for all of you coffee addicts. After a meal at least one bite is required. And I haven't had any for 3 days. So tonight we looked up the nutritional information for oreos. Steve felt my duress and went to the store to buy a package of them (double stuff!) for us. We promptly added 2 oreos to our day's intake and more exercise to match. I'll do another 15 minutes of that crazy tracy and her blasted "method" for chocolate any day. A perfect world involves me getting back into my pre-baby jeans AND eating chocolate.

Ode to the New Addition

2010-10-08T21:33:00.000-05:00

Its happening. The newest addition is bringing out all kinds of "I-haven't-caught-my-breath-in-a-year-and-this-should-work-fine" parenting tricks. With the first baby, we were ridiculously cautious. Never fed the baby a bottle that had been sitting out more than 45 minutes. Always held him with two hands. Always held the bottle, never propped it on the blanket to have a free arm. Always ran to him at the first cry. Bathed him nightly. Rocked every night for an hour. Read five hundred stories. Lullabies. Never fed him "don't-have-time-for-this-to-warm-up-more" milk. Had outfit changes daily, from a ridiculously extensive and adorable wardrobe, sometimes because he puked, but mostly just because he had great clothes. Spent maternity leave holding this one almost constantly (though not necessarily by choice). Took 500 pictures daily (so it seemed).
The second time around was a much different story. Of course, there were special circumstances which forced us to be more careful about some things. Had to mix vitamins with certain amount of milk. Had to mix this much milk with this much formula. Had to apply this cream here. Had to check temp daily, weight weekly. Changed outfits regularly - because she puked a ton but she had such an amazing wardrobe - girls are WAY too fun to shop for. Had to take a million pictures because her followers were antsy and everything was amazing. Spent months doing nothing but cuddling with her. Still had an extra arm.
Oh, but how I feel for our newest addition! Miss Delia, you have been brought into such chaos! We take your bottle out of your mouth so that with the other arm we can unbuckle the highchair straps and lift Eden down. We change your diaper one-handed so that the other arm can keep your siblings from crawling on top of you. We prop your bottle up almost always because there is never a chance for that blessed free arm and there is always something that other arm needs to be doing. We don't get to rock with you because by the time you are ready for bed, Eden is already sleeping. You don't care if we sing or not, though we still do. Instead of bedtime stories, you have heard Daddy read Harry Potter. (To be fair, Josiah got the Chronicles of Narnia during his middle-of-the-night wakings). We do take pictures of you, I swear! Somehow I just can't manage to take 'enough' while keeping your siblings off of you or off of the camera. Maybe you'll understand because I am saving you from imminent danger? Probably not. I remember how many times I got upset with my parents about how my sister, the lovely firstborn, had 10x more pictures in the albums. Oh, and some days you stay in your pajamas all day. At this point, you are still sleeping so much, so it isn't terribly crazy that you would be in pajamas, but still. And you are wearing all hand-me-downs- aside from a couple great things you received from others, your closet is courtesy of your big sister (luckily she had great stuff and its still in style!). Its not a bad thing - its saving a ton of money, and as your Daddy keeps reminding me, you don't care at all at this point. But, as a second child myself, I know how much I hated getting so much of my sister's stuff and not a ton of my own. Not nearly as much cuddle time as Mommy or Daddy would like, though you do get a good amount of being held, don't get me wrong. But maternity leave this time also included your big sister being home with us. Neither of you enjoyed sharing my arms.
Delia, the sweet baby of the family, you have a lot to deal with already. Your brother had 3 1/2 years all to himself and developed somewhat of an only child attitude. Your big sister came out of the womb feisty as all get-out and hasn't slowed down since. Its a lot to tackle, I know. I think you can hack it though ;) And do know this: even now, in the midst of juggling babies and the utter chaos of the big changes happening here, we love you more than anything in this world. You are a miracle no less amazing than those that joined our family before you. You shocked our socks off from the first (of five) pregnancy tests, and the denial stage that followed. How could this happen? A pregnancy with no doctors helping us out?!?! Clearly, you were God's plan, my dear. God chuckled a little bit the day we found out you were coming, I just know it "HA! - bet you didn't see this one coming, eh?!".

All of this to say, that its hard being the baby of the family - especially in this family, especially right now. But we will steal every cuddle, every kiss, every quiet moment that we can to enjoy you while you are still so new. We cherished every kick, every roll and punch because I knew it would be the last time I would feel that life inside of me. And likewise I will cherish every stage you go through now - the last one to have those baby coos, the 'hungry bird' face searching for your bottle, the last one to sleep on my chest. You might have to bonk your big siblings on the head so they hear you say it, but you are crazy special too.

Oh man.

2010-10-05T21:31:00.000-05:00

So the wheels are in motion. The first domino has started knocking down the million to follow. OH MAN. Its big. HUGE actually. Its pretty life-changing. Earth shattering stuff.

And.
I.
CAN'T.
TELL.
YOU.

I don't deal well with that. AT ALL. I don't like having big news and not being able to tell everyone and talk about it freely. A few of you know, sure, but here I am still stuck. AND it actually has been my excuse for not getting to this blog for the past few days. A good excuse too. But I can't tell you about it.

OH MAN.

PS: Last night I managed to take a break and spend a few hours with a good friend while she cut the boy's hair and then colored mine and cut it all off. ALL of it off. I have had long/lazy/pregnant lady/mom hair for 2 years now - by choice, because I've been desperately tired and overly lazy due to hormones/preemies/new babies at home stuff. But now I decided I was pretty tired of it and chopped it. I was going to wait until I lost the lovely weight that is attributed to the above-mentioned pregnant/hormones/life of chaos, but I'll just have to get another new cut when that happens to because this couldn't wait. I need to take pictures and I'll do that soon....

Mission accomplished

2010-09-30T15:13:00.000-05:00

I have been incredibly hesitant to venture out of the house with the two babies on my own. I have come up with a list of excuses why I cannot do it. They nap at different times so I would have to wake one up to go out. I'm still under lifting restrictions after the c-section so I can't lift them both at the same time, thus can't get them into the stroller/car. If one of them freaks out on the walk, there is no second pair of hands to take her out of the stroller and carry her/feed her/calm her while we continue. The list keeps growing.
But it is BEAUTIFUL outside this week. Seriously. And I HATE winter and know that it will be here all too soon and am really getting bummed about not being able to soak up every minute of warm sunshine because of my dumb list. SO! Today we did it.
After lunch, they took turns getting dressed (hey, its okay to lounge in jammies for the morning nap!) and diapers changed and then it was time to figure out the transfer. Here is where the problem lies. My stroller is in the garage (detached from our house). There is not an option of me carrying both babies to the stroller and getting them in simultaneously. So, breaking those lovely rules of lifting restrictions, I put Delia in her car seat for the transfer. This made her WAY more heavy. With a 20lb babe in the other arm. Then we had to get out of the house. Our entry area has a really funny set up. There are 4 doors to open from the kitchen to get outside. FOUR doors. Can you just try to picture how ridiculous this was? But alas. I got through three of the four and was able to set Delia down (still in her car seat) in the sunroom. Eden and I walked to the garage and got the stroller and then parked it right outside of the 4th door while I put Eden in and then got Delia. Did I mention I also had my phone/keys/water bottle/camera in my hands? Just absurd.
But we got OUT! We walked about a mile before Eden decided she was ready for her nap and we headed home. The weather was beautiful and it felt great to be out....and its quite lovely now that they are both sleeping at the same time after all that fresh air!
It was much needed stress relief. Eden is cutting 4 teeth all at once - great because we get them over with all at once, but man is she a terror! She is so incredibly moody - it is seriously like living with a 13 year old girl! Her aunt will love having her for the weekend ;)
for some reason this tool is not letting me add pictures today so I'll have to come back for that later :)

Oh no...

2010-09-29T15:48:00.000-05:00

I missed a day! Maybe I'll do a double post to make up for it? ;) Its quite comical. Off and on throughout the day yesterday I was thinking "ooh, I need to get a post done!" and then a child would cry/poop/puke/fall and I would be distracted. Its amazing to me how spacey I act these days! Living my days with 24/7 distractions makes me appear rather ditsy. I'm not, I swear!

Yesterday, at the end of the day, I had to sit down with Josiah and try to tell him (in a way that a 4 year old would understand) that our life will not always be like this. That one day very soon, these babies will be a bit older and Mommy and Daddy won't be running around like chickens with our heads cut off. And we'll be able to do more fun things because they won't be needy all the time. Actually have fun with Josiah instead of him wanting to escape to his own world of legos.

Thats not to say that we don't hang out with him, we do. But I feel like its so not enough lately - or maybe it can never be enough, and maybe its also compounded by the fact that I see the girls all day but don't see him as much. Either way, we need more time with him. And frankly, babysitters are expensive when we do take him out by himself - and then I feel guilty for leaving his sister with a babysitter.

Truthfully, I feel kind of bad for Josiah. As the older sibling - and there is a 3.5 year gap between them - its a rough position. He plays way too rough to really play with Eden, and his toys are too small/choke-worthy for her to play with him. He wants to be a helper with his sisters - SO badly - but again, isn't gentle enough, but also thats just not what I want for him. I don't want his childhood to be spent caring for his siblings. I want him to be a kid!

But alas, right now things are hectic and it seems like Steve and I just play tag-team with the babies all the time and Josiah gets the raw end of the deal. Sounds like I need to plan an outing just for the big kids! That will be a nice break for me too (no offense girls!).

How do you balance your time? I wish there was a manual for this ;)

And then came YOU.

2010-09-27T12:41:00.000-05:00

Miss Eden (I have a feeling you will demand you be called this very soon),

You are a rather....interesting...child. Sometimes we call you our monster baby. I believe my dad called me this as a child, but it was for totally different reasons I am sure of that.
You have the most...unique...attitude. You want to be the boss at all times. You are fine playing on your own - until you aren't in the mood for that and then will scream if we set you down or turn our head the other way for a second. You do everything on your schedule and expect others to fall in line. I can see a little bit of Margaret in you (from Dennis the Menace!).
You are...aggressive...it sounds harsh, baby girl, but you are. You attack everything. When you crawl, your hands pound the floor so hard with each movement. When you play with your activity table, you don't merely push buttons, you beat on them. I'm surprised more of your toys haven't broken by now, to be quite frank. You attack food. You put everything into your mouth with mucho gusto. Or, on the flip side, spit it out with mucho gusto as well. You have more bruises in any given week than Josiah ever did before he turned 2. You think everything is a good thing to pull up on. You've tipped your piano and barn over on yourself more times than I can count - but you just keep playing as you lay there with it on top of you. You attack strings. Any kind of strings. One of your favorite toys, for sure. Strings on my sweatshirts, strings on shoes. Strings on my pants. Straps from your highchair, from your car seat. You yank on them and shake them like mad. You shove them in your mouth, of course, and then return to shaking them with all your might. You have chewed every beautiful edge off of your crib. Mommy and Daddy had a little talk when we were worried about you getting too much of that finish in your mouth!
You are exhausting. No sitting and playing for you. You are everywhere, constant motion, and trying to find trouble - I swear! So Mommy and Daddy are constantly chasing after you - closing doors, picking up anything from your path. Keeping you off of things, getting things out of your mouth. I can't sweep the floor enough times in one day for you!!
You are the most curious child! You have to check out everything, and are most curious about the very places we forbid you to go (of course!). The bathroom is highest on your hit list. You are bound and determined to make it all the way from the door to the garbage can on the other side of that little room without being spotted and swooped up. This feat has yet to be accomplished, but one of these days I'm sure you'll get us.
You are sweet. You have the most beautiful, redemptive smile out there. God blessed you (me) with this on purpose, I just know it. Your smile is infectious; your laughter contagious. Making you giggle is one of our favorite pastimes. Ah, but your favorite is your brother. Anything Josiah does is incredibly hilarious to you. The two of you will be great friends in the years to come.

You make me smile even in the worst moments. When the very thing you need is a nap, and yet I hear you jumping in your crib singing a song at the top of your lungs, it makes my heart melt. When its late you refuse sleep because you aren't feeling good (or just plain don't want to give in!), rocking with you is the most wonderful thing. I swear you remember me singing to you while you were still in the NICU. 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' is still the one song that gets you to calm down.
You are so BIG! I'm not sure how that happened! How can you go from one pound to nearly 20 in the blink of an eye?! In the midst of the hardest moment, God is gracious to remind me that you are such a miraculous gift.

What I've learned from living with a four-year-old...

2010-09-26T16:30:00.000-05:00

Disclaimer: My four-year-old may be different from yours. Also, despite the challenging points listed here, I love every piece of him.

Mine is ALWAYS right.

Mine will argue about anything if he gets the impression you are saying he isn't right. About anything.

Mine still needs naps but will assure you repeatedly that he doesn't. Meltdowns may ensue.

Mine truly thinks he is/should be the boss. About everything.

Mine has learned the art of complaining. "I don't like that soup" "That makes me puke" "I'm allergic, I swear".

Mine has learned the art of manipulation. "Mommy said I could do this" (when Mommy said no such thing). He will move on to the next parent/adult in the room immediately after one says no - right in front of you!

Mine has lost most of the baby features about him. It makes me sad when I notice this across the dinner table.

Mine is all boy. 500% boy. Wrestling. Ninja. Transformers. Star Wars. Dirt. Battling of any kind.

Mine is mischief. He doesn't know who knocked his sister down/peed on the floor/broke the toy, but surely it wasn't him.

Mine is a protector. Constantly checking on his sisters' whereabouts and making sure they are okay.

Mine is sweet (yes, despite all characteristics listed above!). He says "I love you mommy/daddy" before leaving for his day. He still offers hugs and kisses freely. Still says he loves me more than dinosaurs or chocolate - or, my favorite, anything in this world. His prayers before bed make my heart melt, even when he prays for dinosaurs.

Mine is smart. The words that come out of his mouth are impressive. He's covered the basic addition, telling time and is figuring out reading.

Mine is brave. So many new things tackled this summer. Fears overcome. Growing up before my eyes.

We're back!

2010-09-25T14:51:00.000-05:00

In the midst of pure chaos all around us right now, we have decided to take another crack at keeping up with this blog stuff ;)
At the moment, the house is quiet - three kids napping all at once! But it won't last long, and so for now, just a quick run down of the news (pictures to follow).

Josiah is now four and a half and seems like he's all grown up. Somehow, as much as we try to prevent it, there comes a day when a child wakes up and is no longer your little boy (girl) - but now a full fledged kid. He doesn't look like a little guy any more - the baby features are fading fast. Sigh. He is currently in a great preschool program called KinderChallenge - we had a very proud parent moment when they tested him into this class even though he wasn't quite old enough for the test. He is loving school though. He goes to daycare/preschool in the morning and then to his school in the afternoons - definitely exhausted by the time he comes home! He is very busy mastering his bike and now that there have been some cold/rainy evenings again, he's been working on the wii skills with Daddy too. And of course, he's busy 'taking care' of his little sisters too.

Eden turned one in August and she is our wild child by every definition of the word. She has a very strong personality and is such an aggressive kid - such a difference from Josiah at that age! She is hilarious and exhausting all at once. Right now Eden is home with me while I am on maternity leave. This has been an adventure, to say the least! She isn't quite sure she likes having another baby in the house! She is crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything she can find. Her favorite food is probably ice cream, but don't worry - we don't feed her treats every day ;)

And our newest addition, Delia Grace, joined us on August 28th. She was born at 35 weeks but was still a solid 6lbs 11oz and 19 inches long! Good thing we didn't go full term with that one - yikes! She has been a great baby - a good sleeper, of course, and generally just content unless she's hungry. We've gone on a ton of walks with her and Eden in our new double stroller and she just passes right out. I'm sure there will be some interesting arguments between these two ladies as the years go by: "I'm more special, I was in the NICU longer than you", "No, I'm more special - I was a medical miracle" - that sort of thing. And if Delia's personality is anything like Eden's, it should be quite the ride for the rest of us! Here's hoping she is our one calm child ;)
There you have it sportsfans. More to follow...

Legos

2010-01-26T23:51:00.000-06:00

I should have known. I should have listened to my wife. I didn't think ahead 4 years into the future when I decided to dump all my legos into one big ol bin. I didn't realize how frustrated my three-year-old would be with me when it takes me hours(no I'm not kidding) over a course of three days to build a lego train. Have you ever tried to find a 1x1 square piece in a pile of 1000 other lego pieces? I used to like legos and I remember the days at Paul Hintgen's house building legos for hours on end with a big bin 'o legos. I realize now just how much time we had to devote to legos. I didn't own a watch back then or play a lot of sports other than baseball. Josiah luckily is still very interrested in the train but won't be playing with it for probably another 3 days. I think I owe it to the little guy to finish the stupid train due to the fact that we utterly crushed him by not getting this $80 yellow train he saw at Toys R Us that was within eyesight of the return counter a few weeks before Christmas. I will finish the train. I will sort the legos. I won't be buying any more legos for a long time.

Randoms

2009-06-12T18:25:00.003-05:00

It turns out that being pregnant with twins is totally different than being pregnant with one baby. Go figure. Fascinating and horrifying all at once.
For starters, I'm roughly the size that I was at 25-28 weeks last time around - and I'm just finishing week 15. All of those fun things that nag at you like crazy in the last months of pregnancy start much earlier - the sore lower back, the tired, over-stretched muscles, tossing and turning all night, the waddle, the belly button popping out... Crazy. I'm blaming it all on the fact that I'm having twins plus its the second time around so things are already stretched - ignoring the fact that I started this round a wee (ha) bit bigger than I was when I started round one. Round one had me in a string bikini for the first 3 months - what in the world?
Its rather interesting to watch how people react to you confirming that you are expecting more than one baby. Yesterday an employee said "What are you going to do with that?! You'll need so much help!". Such reassuring words! A co-manager made this comment two weeks ago: "You know, I hate to be personal about it, but with as big as you are this early - wow, I can't imagine how huge you are going to be!" So encouraging. Lots of people are excited of course, and they jump right into name suggestions. Will you do matching names? Names with the same letter? Names that rhyme? Can we make a game about it for employees to play?
We ended up in the hospital last Wednesday with a scare - they checked us out, put us on bedrest for 5 days and then re-checked this past Monday. Everything had settled for the most part. I tore a ligament - a wee bit painful. They said to expect more of that due to where the babies are located. The doctor peeked at the between-the-legs parts and we got a confirmation on one of them, but the other was questionable due to crossing the legs (again). We go in again on Monday so we'll see if we can get a better glance. It seems like once you know the sex you can just get started. For me it makes it seem so much more real for whatever reason - and I can start planning and all of that fun.
I'm researching cloth diapering systems and make-your-own baby food methods. Though my main reasoning is selfish - I need to save money - its nice that it will also be benefiting the environment. People think I'm doing it to be all eco-conscious, but I can't really say that was what prompted me to do it. I'm still up in the air about the milk business. That whole "Josiah slept through the night at 7 weeks" reminder keeps bouncing around in the head. Especially with two of them now, I will need them to sleep all the way through as early as possible! But on the flip side - a HUGE $$ savings. We'll see.
At any rate, today I had a quiet night to myself and wanted to rant just a tiny bit :) I swear I'll try to limit it to stories about the kiddos and pictures in the future :)

It seems we're always playing catch-up!

2009-06-04T08:25:00.005-05:00

So here we go again! It turns out that being on bed rest is boring. When you are stuck on the couch for several days, you run out of things to do. I finished the last season of the Gilmore Girls last night - and now am devastated to find that while I had entertainment in watching that yesterday - today I am stuck with whats actually on TV - which is NOTHING during the day. Also, there are only so many things you can search for/research/look at online. My ideas are running slim. The book I am currently reading, while fascinating, hasn't been able to pull me in during this couch period. So hey - we'll take a crack at updating this blog (getting rid of the holiday background!). I'm also thinking I might just have to tackle that photo project - finally ordering prints of all of those digital pictures we've taken in the past year. Yeah - they tend to pile up between print orders.

So lets bring this up to speed. Currently, I am incubating the next additions to our family - twins - who should be making their debut this fall. Totally scary and exciting and exhausting and crazy all at once. Twins do not run in my family, and while we were getting "help" in this area and knew it was a 'risk', I don't think either of us expected it. But they are in there, cooking away and are now looking like people instead of those goofy alien-like creatures they start out like. Having two babies tumbling around in your belly is much different than one - a rather fascinating/odd experience. I can't wait until you can see them kicking through the belly. That should be quite entertaining.

Josiah turned three back in March - and continues to amaze us every day. He's so smart and also so cunning. He is now working on tricking us, learning to lie, bargain, negotiate and talk back. Its such a great age though - even with all of these new skills. He tells jokes, makes up stories, makes us laugh constantly and is always on the run. We recently got him a powerwheels 'Hummer' (cheap, at a garage sale). This has been hilarious to watch. The first night when he got on it, it was still in need of a little tinkering - it was stuck in high gear. He sat down, buckled up and hit the gas - and freaked himself out by how fast he took off. Then Steve, who was going to walk alongiside him, had to take off running because the thing was going too fast for a leisurely stroll. It was highly entertaining to watch. I'll get a video posted one of these days.

And there you have it sports fans! We're now just gearing up for summer - enjoying the warm weather, the pool, the lake, etc. I've got myself a nice new chair to lounge outside so I can still be "resting" but enjoy the activities and sunshine. One of these days, we'll master this whole "keep the blog updated" business.. :)

Whoa, we have a blog

2008-10-14T23:18:00.005-05:00

So this is my first entry into our blog. I figure I'd give this a try since I've been wasting my time putting stuff up on Myspace and only one person I know uses it. Facebook is a leeeetle confusing for me, and I'd like to think I'm ok with new websites and whatnot, but I somehow always end up installing some random digipet application or something that doesn't make any sense which in turn covers up/moves down/eliminates the thing I came in to do in the first place which is look at my stupid pictures; and now the site laughs at me after I log in. It's not really the mwhahahah laugh that you'd expect. It's more of a laugh that wants you to help it get out of its cage, but can't stop mocking you at the same time. Whatever, facebook, we're through. Anyway, I hope to be putting some more stuff on this site (it's got a nice little 'new entry' button that doesn't require me to take care of any more digipets) that'll probably just make my wife roll her eyes(like right now) and taint the timbre the Vigesaa blog, but hopefully it'll mildly entertain you or just flush 2 1/2 minutes of your life down the crapper. Anyway, it's a leeetle late, so I'll blog you soon! Bloggy blog!

Adventures in raking

2008-10-14T21:21:00.004-05:00

Well, fall is upon us and that means piles and piles of leaves. Eventually I think we'll just switch to fake trees in our yard, because the real ones that we don't kill are too much work. At any rate, we have had two afternoons of raking (the same section of lawn) and there will be another round as soon as a big wind comes through. we had fun though - we'd make a big pile and Josiah would drive his bike into it, or we would roll through them or bury someone in them, etc. We also discovered that it is impossible to find a child's sized rake. Josiah was a riot and fully armed and dangerous with a full-size rake. Here are some funny photos from the efforts.

Getting lost in the maze...

2008-10-13T20:25:00.002-05:00

We have now made 2 trips to a local pumpkin patch - they call it a pumpkin patch but it 6 different "areas" to visit that are each chalk full of a zillion things to do. For those of you that are familiar with the preschool-age crowd, you know that they would never last for the full monty. So, fortunately, you buy a ticket and you can use it for however many days it takes to get through each area.. Sweet. So we took two trips there along with friends of ours and we had a blast. We tried the kids maze (the easiest of the 3), and with 4 adults and 3 young children, we got stuck. No joke. It was laughable. Very disappointing though - because it was then determined that it was not a good idea to try the real thing. (This wasn't even a corn maze!) So, that was a bummer. But it was a ton of fun. Josiah and his little girlfriend Lily enjoyed all of the games, crazy climbing structures, sandboxes and pumpkins. There were also about 100 of those pictures with the faces cut out that you stick your head through - it took us several tries before the kiddos figured that out! Here are some fun photos from the adventures out there. (I'll fill in July - September later!!)

Interesting dilema - the bikes are too big for Josiah, and too small for Daddy. They later got on one bike and I think that was even worse.

These two are the best of friends, and pretty much betrothed to be married....I think this would make a nice invite.

This was the "its been an exhausting day and I'm sick of pictures and I need to eat and take a nap" point in our day.

The wagon ride to the pumpkin patch - they were thrilled by the tractor pulling us...

This was the best one, seriously. With preschoolers, you'll find that it is much more common to get good pictures of the back of their heads rather than the face - its because you are in a constant state of chasing them around.

I'm going to the zoon Mommy!

2008-06-30T20:21:00.003-05:00

For Father's Day, we drove up to the Minnesota Zoo with good friends Heather and Adam. Josiah loved the "zoon". He was equally (sometimes more) excited about the constant airplanes overhead and the "BIG TRAIN!" (aka the zoo's tram). Here are a few fun pictures from the "zoon".

Josiah had no fear of feeding the baby goats. Notice that he had to open his mouth extremely wide - either trying to get the goat to mimic him, or in total nerves. Note to mommy: Remember lots of change next time.
The new exhibit "Russia's grizzly coast" makes the entire trip worth it. Not that the rest of the zoo isn't fun, but the zoos in MN aren't all that exciting once you've been to a great zoo. This exhibit actually shows an effort to catch up and make this a competitor. We were mesmorized - child and 4 adults alike. No, perhaps the adults more than the child. First you get to sit in a small cave stadium and watch the otters swim and play. The glass puts you inches from the otters - and goes from above ground to the bottom of their pool - so you have a total view of everything. So cool.
Note that the empty seat next to my boys represents pass #2 through the exhibit. Do not visit the zoo on a holiday, nor on any weekend day. We waited in line to get into the exhibit, and then waited our turn for a seat in the little stadiums. Well worth the wait - but keep in mind that everyone wants to spend their whole day in the lull of watching the animals swim.
Yes - next it is the bears. A much bigger area, and a much bigger glass wall. This is my kid about to do a high-five with the bear. (Thanks, Heather, for actually snapping a shot seconds later when the high-five happened). This was amazing. The bears were swimming and playing in the water or chasing the fish for the duration of our two visits to see them. They are amused by the dropped jaw folk staring at them and come right up to your face and give you a show. Once again, inches from the animals. SO cool.

At any rate, we took a ton of pictures and had a wonderful afternoon at the zoon. I can't get him to drop the "N". Two bummers - Josiah is going through a phase where he is afraid of loud noises. In the aquatic area, there is a water feature (where you can touch the starfish) that drops a zillion gallons of water every couple of minutes. He cried and clutched me so hard I had bruises. Secondly, the arena for the dolphin show is incredibly small. You had to wait for more than an hour to get a spot - and they don't have enough shows for everyone to get a chance. So no dolphin show. A bigger bummer is that there is no way to view the dolphins other than the show - so that was unfortunate.

We learned a few lessons for next time, but will definitely be back. On a random Tuesday morning with a bag of ice water packed.

Catching up a tiny bit...

2008-06-02T21:54:00.002-05:00

Life has been a tiny bit hectic lately. We have put our first house up for sale- it is heartbreaking because of the work we have done and the fact that we love this house - aside from the fact that it was our first house, etc.. But at any rate, its going to be good and its keeping us very busy. Here are a few pictures from the past month or so.. i'll get more on here, I promise!

This is Steve and Josiah pretending to be frogs. We have moved on from kitty now - and are more concerned with frogs and tigers. Some days he wakes up and instead of "good morning mama" or "i want toast" all we get is a "ROAR!". The best part about Josiah's frog impression is that he does it in a monster-type voice - a growling scratchy thing like the scariest frog you ever saw. He won't do it when the camera is on though.

Another "ribbit"
This is Josiah sharing the wonderful pink cake that I made to celebrate AudrieAnne's first birthday. It was a great cake - and quickly devoured by all of the kiddos. Grandma was thrilled to have these "sticky hands!" in her lap. The house sure fills up with all of the kids and all of the running, and oh, the running. It is exhausting to keep up with them all!!
Josiah talked about going fishing with papa all weekend long. He was so excited to catch a big shark. He did NOT want to catch a fish - "NO mommy. I catch a big SHARK!". Then we go home for opening fishing weekend and guess what - Fergus Falls was still having winter! So here he is, turning his fingers into popsicles catching the fake fish because it wasn't even worth putting bait on. He was thrilled though and totally enjoyed catching the red fish over and over again until we had to drag him in because it was too cold. Then it snowed. Meanwhile back in Rochester it was a balmy 65 degrees!

We are keeping so busy with this little man. He is an amazing kid and makes us stare in wonder at least once a day. We are keeping a journal for him of all the random things he does - adding notes here and there when things jump out at us. Its comical to read through it and imagine him getting this earful when he grows up. Today I wrote three pages about him THROWING UP ON ME AT TARGET - and how this is not appropriate behavior.

He love to play, loves the parks, loves animals and worms. Find him a worm and he will carry it around for an hour (until it is completely torn to shreds and he needs you find him a replacement). He LOVES helicoptors - which we get to see a lot of here by the hospital. He shreaks with glee. He loves toast and would eat it for every meal.

Last week he got to be the chef at preschool. Steve and I got to go to have lunch with him - he had picked the meal and helped make it. Meatloaf - what?? We don't really have that at home, but the kid gobbles it down. It was adorable to see how excited he was to do this for us and his friends. I'll get those pictures up soon.

He has a whole dictionary in him. Today he told me he bounced on the teeter totter. He loved to say "o-noxious" when I told him that the book we read a million times a day (a look and find) is obnoxious. He likes to way "watch this" and do a trick of some kind. He is very tricky and will be the king of pranks from an early age. He reminds us at least 20 times each day that he is a big boy. You cannot call him anything else.

He has totally taken over.

I know, I know

2008-04-14T20:14:00.002-05:00

We haven't been keeping up, I know. Life is chaotic and sometimes, something has to be sacrificed - clearly in our case, this often ends up being internet time. Which I can't really complain about I suppose. We decided when Josiah was born that if he is awake, the tv and computer are going to be off - helps us keep our priorities in check :) (And also allows you to treasure that tiny bit of down time after he goes to sleep!)

At any rate, Josiah and I made brownies over the weekend - and I decided this was a good excuse to take a picture to post everywhere. So here is brownie face, clearly thrilled about this treat right before nap time.

Josiah continues to impress. He can count to 12! He has learned phrases to books now - most painfully Green Eggs and Ham - and it no longer works to skip a page. He also knows verses to his songs. So no singing them out of order!!

Last week I taught Josiah that there is a heart in his chest. Then I told him that Jesus lives in there. His response? "Jesus in there? Jesus in 'Siah's heart?" I said yes, that Jesus lives in Josiah's heart. He then said "David too!" "'Ke-us (Zacheus) too!". Try explaining to the child that no, not everyone lives in there - its only for Jesus (and mommy). So we got down to just the one occupant. That evening, I was showing off this new knowledge to Steve and after shouting that Jesus was in there, Josiah proudly stated "Moses in there too!". Oh brother.

Here is a quick peek...

2008-03-19T19:52:00.003-05:00

A couple random shots of our basement project - which is finally nearing completion! Don't get scared of the green shade- the photos are deceiving. There is a dark green in the main space and then a lighter green by around the corner.
This big hole now has a new tv in it...
The view from the corner that now holds Josiah's climber and our treadmill. Not sure what to do with this corner yet.
This is the view from that same unknown corner facing the stairs.

The view from the stairs - Except we have rearranged the furniture so that the chair is right against the wall now - leaving a big huge open corner back there. We are looking for a fun chair to add to the mix. Oh - and the big plastic wrapped thing is the tv that is now in the hole.

Privacy, please

2008-03-10T21:22:00.003-05:00

So we've discovered that Josiah likes to visit the coat closet to do his "business". It was funny the first time, with his diaper on went he went in there to poop. The second time, however, he was in his little undies and peed all over my slipper. Still hilarious, but gross this time. At any rate, no more hiding in the closet during diaper-free time. Anyways - a random tidbit from our recent adventures.

Here are a couple of pictures of our new basement - or better yet, Josiah and Daddy's train room. Luckily they have their own space for this and it doesn't take over the whole place! It is something they both are obsessed with right now. Josiah likes to reconfigure the train cars and Steve messes with the layouts. Oh boy.

The big event...

2008-03-03T21:18:00.003-06:00

So the big event came and went. We had a grand old time as you can see by the attached photos. I think we may streak his hair permanently - its a good look for him.

A fun visit in overdrive...

2008-02-18T20:04:00.007-06:00

This past weekend we drove up to the cities to the Kube residence where the Stumbo clan had also trekked. We had a lot of fun - we hadn't seen little Miss Ava for a long time - my how big she has gotten! It took a lot of coaching for Josiah to call her Ava - he thought she was Ben and that Ben was Ava. We debated this for quite some time. Then we tried to add "Jen" to the mix, but that was too much. We got there at bedtime, so Josiah enjoyed two hours of hyperdrive before we finally put him down. Boy was he a crazy man! He also enjoyed seeing baby "Buckle" (aka Brooklyn) and trying to show her way too much love and affection! All these girls around already! Things could get interesting :)

We got Ava a vacuum for her birthday. (We missed the party due to the pink eye infestation of 2007). They sat mesmerized and drooling with anticipation while Ben tried to fight the twistie ties and get the thing out of the box.

Josiah was so excited to see "ER-CA" and Josh again - he talks about them all the time (and is very proud to know their names).
Steve and I hogged baby Buckle a bit - he cashed in on the fact that I have a bum arm - so he got her way more! She is growing like a weed- these kids sure have that growing thing figured out!

Hey! It's out of the box! Then Ava had to run away, dragging the vacuum around the island while Josiah yelled vacuum and tried to steal it. We love learning how to share!

I don't have any pictures of the big event - the traditional Pictionary game. It's always a bloodbath, down to the wire. LOVE to play these games! And there were some amazing drawings - like the "zit face road" (dirt road) and the "valentine" (meow). Game time is serious stuff. We discussed the possibility of a wooden spoon collection for our next gathering - spoons is a great game except for pregnant people. When you are pregnant, you seem to the a big target for spoons. (thanks erik)

I cannot believe its gone.

2008-02-14T20:40:00.004-06:00

Invitations have been sent out and supplies have been delivered. It appears as though year number two has come and gone and we are about to celebrate its passing. It is the most difficult thing to be a parent facing the years passing and a child growing. It has got to be the biggest struggle where emotions are pulling you fiercely in two directions and there is no middle ground. On one end, I am thrilled. Josiah knows his letters, his numbers, his colors and most shapes. He talks in sentences, he tells us about his day, his teacher brags about him, he behaves well for others, he plays on his own (sometimes), he can play with big kid toys (sometimes). He amazes me every day, his memory, his imagination, his sense of humor, his trickery. On the other hand, already (he's only 2!!) the list of things he needs help with has dwindled drastically. He can do it by himself and he lets you know thats the way it will be. He doesn't beg to jump in your lap and have you read to him - he tells you to sit down by him (while patting the floor) and he reads it to you (his own version of course). The cuddling days are gone. It happens so fast! You want to be excited for them to grow up and experience new things - but you want to hang on to your baby forever.

At any rate - in observance of the unsettled excited-nostalgic thing going on with my heartstrings - here are a couple of photos to show you how far we've come... and I am so excited to see what becomes of cake number 2!

Wow, what a day

2008-02-06T19:17:00.000-06:00

So what a funny story. The evening was going so well. We all got home early, played with trains (what else), we played play-doh for a very long time, ate a well-balanced meal and then went down to play more trains. We came upstairs because Josiah was doing theatrics while attempting to poop. (Sorry, but parents talk about this kind of thing.) We got him undressed only to discover this was a huge fake (and I mean huge - he had put on quite a show). So we figured we might as well give him a bath since he was now nearly naked. We put him in the tub, we're all playing VanGogh with his tub crayons and covering the tub with amazing works of art. And then come the bubbles. I said "Steve, watch his butt, he's blowing bubbles". Steve says "its just bubbles". And suddenly, the tub was full of poop. No joke. All varieties. Steve freezes and screams "gross!" and looks at me wondering what he should possibly do. I tell him he might want to think about lifting Josiah out of the tub. So he does. Then he leaves him standing there while looking at the murky water wondering out loud what he is to do with that. I suggest first getting Josiah a towel?? Like why did your brain go on vacation just because someone poops? Wow. Steve and I laughed for quite some time after this - I mean come on, once you get over how gross it is and the fact that someone (Steve) has to clean it up, all you have left is to laugh. It was bound to happen sometime, I suppose. The rest of the night was business as usual. We looked at his 'look and find' book, ran through the alphabet, and read a train story (what else) before he calmly climbed into bed. And then Steve began to scrub the tub.

Bringing in the new year

2007-12-31T12:48:00.000-06:00

Well, it looks like we may have to settle for being sporadic bloggers! The holiday week was quite a blur for us. We headed back to Fergus for a fun week with family and instead found... GERMS. Tami got the flu on Christmas eve, Josiah got double pink eye, then Steve got the flu, then Josiah and Tami got sinus infections and Steve got a sore throat. Jake is not sick at this point, but was acting a little depressed yesterday so we had to go buy him a new toy to destroy. An eventful week overall. Needless to say, we cut our trip short, missing out on the fun visits with our friends and family and even Ava's first birthday party - and we came back to Rochester to let the germs have their day. We are on the mend.

Josiah had a pretty wonderful Christmas though - he got lots of markers and crayons with different books and is always ready to color. He also came home with several new trucks and cars and has kept us busy watching him line them up. We got him a new "bike" (a spiderman hot wheels) but he can't quite reach the pedals. Soon enough. He also got some "choo choo jamas" and a new train set. Those GeoTrax sets are pretty neat - although I think Daddy was having more fun that Josiah.. But now he wakes up begging for "choo Choos again!.

Oh- that is one piece of exciting news - Josiah has upgraded to a big kid bed! Technically, its a toddler bed, but not a crib at any rate. He is doing surprisingly well. He actually has been staying in bed once he wakes up until we finally come in the room - I was wondering if he'd stay in it at all! He has only fallen out one time- we lost the screws for the guardrail, so the first night he went without. The next morning we made a trip to the faithful Lowe's and bought the screws. Not that it woke him up or anything!

We also broke down and purchased some fancy underoos for him. He was thrilled to have cars on his butt while dancing in them. He is getting excited about the potty chair and hopefully he'll be converted soon. Steve keeps asking me if he's going to have a lot of accidents. Brace yourself, honey!

So I guess we are good at this, eh?

2007-12-06T20:06:00.000-06:00

How exciting it was to start a blog and how committed we were to keeping up with this. Ha! Oh well. Life is busy here- that is our excuse for now. We have been trying our darndest to get the basement up and running again. Yeah- so its been 5 months and its still not done. The stress levels will be enough pressure to keep Santa out of our chimney this year. I think we might be getting there. I made Steve set an appt for the mudding/taping guy so that it would force us to finish the sheetrock. Then I will do a marathon paint and we can have the carpet installed- this is the only thing on my Christmas list this year!! We'll see. I'm crossing my fingers nice and tight.

Josiah is his own little man these days. He is learning his alphabet and loves to do these fun flashcards that I found while on a "work" trip. He also is mastering the words "octopus" and "hippopatomus". (No, seriously). These are his two favorite cards. He gets excited about his favorite shapes which are currently the heart, star and "ball". He used to say circle, but I guess ball is the new slang. He currently is just thrilled to repeatedly list the members of his family. It must be an age thing, because his girlfriend Lily is doing the same thing right now. Its funny though because his family currently includes "mommy, daddy, siah, jake, pizza". And of course, this isn't something you say quietly. There are always several exclamation points with extra volume. Oh yeah- and he does numbers but refuses to say the number "1". I'm thinking this must be an age thing too, since Lily is also facing the same dilema - lets hope he isn't just missing some gene that allows him to vocalize that number.

We took him to Steve's work to see "Santa" tonight- which was actually Steve. Josiah spent the night hiding from him. He sat with him only when I sat down too. But if Dad/Santa was in sight, he had to be either holding on to me for dear life or hiding behind my legs.

Music time at preschool

2007-10-07T14:23:00.000-05:00

Josiah started preschool this fall and they have a music teacher that comes in twice each week. Here are some of the pictures from the most recent class- she said he sat still for 15 minutes! That is definitely a record!

Something to ponder

2007-10-07T13:48:00.000-05:00

So today at church we listen to a message about suffering and what could possibly be the reason for it. There were members of the congregation that shared their stories of being struck with cancer and the emotions that were swirling through their minds through that time. We looked at various principles found in the bible of the purposes of suffering. Having just finished reading the book of Job myself, I thought this was pretty good timing. One couple said that they had just finished having a discussion of how blessed they were and how God had only poured blessing on them so far, and hadn't really ever tested them- days later she found out she had breast cancer and it had spread to her lymph nodes. Ironic? Definitely. Coincidence? Probably not. Purposeful? of course. She said that this has given her a new joy, a new passion for life, and a new reason to share her faith. Of course, not everyone experiences healing, and for those that do not, what is the purpose then? Obviously this wouldn't fall into the category of displaying God's power and glory- if there is no miraculous healing it isn't much a display of the almighty power of God. Some die in tragic circumstances or after bouts of suffering. I found it odd that each of the four "stricken" members of this panel were all dealt the cancer card, and were all healed. What about those that are not healed? What about those that die and the ones they leave behind?
Suffering is an interesting phenomena. I truly believe that it is purposeful, and that God can use it for his purposes if we will allow him to do so. Why would God choose to allow someone to be stuck with a constant thorn in their side? Think of all the life lessons that could come from that.
The service ended with the story of the writer of the song "It is well with my soul". His only son had just died. He and his wife and 4 girls were to go to England for a trip. He got caught on business, so the wife and girls went ahead. The boat was struck by an iron liner and sank in minutes. Only the wife survived. She sent word to him, and immediately he traveled to England to bring her home. On the way there, he wrote this song. The song filled the sanctuary and I held back the watery eyes. It is amazing what God can do if you let him. To go through such suffering and still sing praise. On the other hand- if you are not a believer, how could you ever get through? Interesting things to ponder on this oddly dreary day.
We then proceeded to Home Depot where Josiah squealed "PIZZA!" at every box of floor tile we passed. I guess anything that comes in a flat cardboard box is now pizza and this is very exciting. A constant reminder of God's power right there in that squealing miracle of ours.

Jumping on the bandwagon..

2007-10-04T19:30:00.000-05:00

I guess it is finally time to join the masses and start our very own blog. Will I keep up with it? Perhaps. Likely, I'll fall terribly behind and then have to spend my Saturday trying to catch you all up on the three new children and the winning lotto tickets, but I'll give it my best shot. Actually, if there was a winning lotto ticket, I wouldn't really bother with a blog, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
Tonight was "Hurry up and clear the 2o bags worth of leaves off the grass before the neighbors turn us in to the authorities" night. I helped for about an hour, and thats pretty much the maximum that can be expected. Its hot out, good tv is on tonight, starting a blog was calling me, etc. Tried to put leaves in those cheesy pumpkin bags that I can't get over and each one of them ripped. I love Target, won't shop anywhere else, but their pumpkin bags are crap. Can you even say crap here? After the second one ripped, I figured I had Steve hooked on the whole "clean the lawn so we don't get kicked out of the neighborhood" thing, so I abandoned my post and left him to it. This has proven to be quite effective. I even told him he wouldn't have to sit through Grey's Anatomy with me tonight as a reward. Not that he can do much else since our basement is out of order. At any rate, this round of leaves is mulched and bagged, and we'll have a day or two before we need to do it again. I know the blasted red maple is pretty- you all oooh and ahhhh over it- but come on folks- its 40 bags of leaves to pick up! I say knock them all down and put out some fake ones. They would add a nice asthetic effect, and you could spray them with the scent of your choice. A much better option and hassle free.
I suppose I should mention Josiah, since 95% of you will only read this for updates on him... He continues to amaze us. Today he was wiped by 5pm and in bed shortly after 6. They had the music teacher at preschool today and he actually sat still for 15 whole minutes! I told her I may need proof of this, as it sounds like make-believe. He loved it though. He now does actions to 2 different Wiggles songs. We love the Wiggles. Steve gets a ton of funny looks when he does the actions while driving. Josiah is also obsessed with tractors, trucks and busses, but mostly tractors. Luckily for him, (and no one else) they tore down this huge flower shop across the street to make a new high-rise so there are tons of tractors working there daily. He squeals everytime we get close and knows they are coming. He's also starting to use his imagination, which is really fun to watch. He'll talk on his real-fake phone, and drive his bathtub trucks and trains and make noises, etc. Its great to watch him grow, but he definitely isn't losing any speed. We are exhausted each and every day.
To conclude this broad overview/update on everything pertaining to us, we are moving forward (while at a turtle pace) on the basement remodel. Luckily we haven't gotten any more water after the past 2 weeks of more rain. (Thanks to those that helped with the landscaping to fix that!). We priced out new flooring, measured, etc. And we are bringing in The Fireplace Guy; our happiness (mine) is hanging on his every word. We'll find out Monday if we are going to be able to accomplish our ultimate plans for that, or if we have to settle for plan "D". We are both excited for the work though- that kind of stuff is sort of fun. I'm sure my dad is excited to spend his free weekends showing us how to fix everything too.
Thats it for now. I need to get ready for the Office and then the tivo'd Grey's Anatomy. And yes, Steve will join me. He's a sucker for the soaps.