Sand and Stones

At the end of the summer we took a trip to the beach with Joel’s family. This year was pretty eventful. A couple days before we were supposed to leave I had to go to the ER for a pain in my side… what I thought was maybe bad gas soon turned into black-out, keel over pain. Turns out I had a kidney stone. And I couldn’t pass it. SO our trip looked like this…

Spend days before departure at doctors visits and on pain meds. Drive to beach with the kids for two days. Leave the kids with grandparents and drive back to get a Sonic Wave to break up this pain-in-my-side stone. Return to the beach for some R&R and try to put it all behind us.

This past beach trip wasn’t what I had been expecting. They think dehydration (maybe from nursing) brought it on. And now I’m going to have to have regular check ups because they saw other stones and they are part of my medical history now. But I am so aware of how God cushioned everything to help me deal with a bad situation a little easier. I couldn’t have been taken care of without all of my family stepping up to watch my kids and drive me to so many doctors visits. Thank God they all live so close and are so so willing to help. Joel works for himself/with his dad so he could take time off to help me. I couldn’t have gotten to rest with my toes in the sand without picking a beach so close to home (which Joel and I were not origonally thrilled with). God saw it coming… yes I had to still deal with the pleasure of a kidney stone but I saw how He lined everything up for me to be taken care of. I felt His care and that of everyone around me. Anyway… I don’t have many pictures but here are a few. The majority are pictures from Frontier Town… that was probably the highlight of O’s trip.

Summer

This summer flew by and fortunately I was able to snap a couple of pictures to show you our highlights…

And the ever popular first laughs…

Carnival ’13

Yes, this post is way over due… as are the others that will follow. Yes, I’ve dated them for July rather then our actual current month December… I like things to be in their place. Get past it.

Almost every summer we have gone to the local carnival around my mother-in-laws birthday… its getting to be more fun now that O can participate in the rides.

Lucky kids

Joel, you are an amazing dad. Not only are you fun and playful but you put in the hard work to discipline and train our kids as well. Your patience and tenderness encourages me to raise my standard. The constant time you invest in explaining things and helping Odin to think through questions is making a big difference. He is thoughtful and discerning and that’s a testament to the time you two spend talking. I love how eager you are to cuddle and play with Dagny. Thank you for all the times you have taken our fussy girl without being asked. You have no problem dropping what you are doing to walk with her and give me a break.

Our kids don’t know how lucky they are. But I do. Happy Father’s Day my love.

First Bites

Tonight was the big rice cereal debut for Daggers. It did not go over well…

Better luck next time.

Accessorizing

I’m loving that I have a baby girl to dress and accessorize. A little while back my mom gave me these two flowers. Maybe she thought they were clips? That’s what I thought when I first saw them. But turns out the backs looked like this…

That’s kept me from using them for a while. Actually there are a lot of things out there made to accessorize with that are just so impractical. For instance, I love to put the headband below on my bald girly. The elastic is cute and they stay on pretty well. But the flower isn’t quite my style and they leave these dents in her head where they’re glued on. So to make it work for us I got crafting…

First I snipped the foil doily off of the back and was left with round felt. Then I got out the hot glue gun and glued the elastic on the back of the felt as flat as I could. And last I covered it with a round scrap of fleece. I didn’t need to use fleece but it’s the softest material I had in the house and I don’t want anymore of those awful dents in her head.

 

Then I got to work on my light pink flower. I had another headband I could have done the same project on but I decided against it. I used it in Dagny’s birth announcements and I’m feeling sentimental. Besides, that headband has a bow that I think is just darling the way it is. So instead I started thinking down the line. God willing, some day Daggers will have hair and when she does I want her to have some clips to use. With that in mind…

I did some quick stitches to secure the clip to the felt and voilà! Flower hair clip. Too bad my hair is so stinking thick because I would totally wear this.

M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

A couple of weeks ago my family put on a birthday party for my two nephews Josh and Bennett. My sister Tessa had just had her baby Evelyn a week before hand and didn’t want her boys to miss out on celebrating their 4th and 2nd birthdays. So my mom, sisters and I stepped in and took over the party. My mom handled the location and cake. My sisters Brie and Laurin took care of the food and drinks. And I called dibs on the decorations and the games. Letting my creativity flow was a lot of fun and thanks to Pinterest I had a ton of ideas.

While there was plenty of sweat equity on my part, there was only a little originality. I would have had a much harder time if it weren’t for another blog, which I down right copied in most cases. I made the “Toodles” as a chart for the party games. The birthday boys got to pick which games they wanted to play, saving the mystery mouse-ca-tool (pinata) for the end. It made it a lot easier on me having a place for all of the kids to congregate before and after each game and it was a great decoration.

The music notes represented a cake walk, or “Hot Dog” song walk. On the outside deck I placed a picture of each of Mickey Mouses friends in a circle. The kids walked from one picture to the next while the Hot Dog song played. When I stopped the music I’d call out one of Mickey’s friends and whoever was standing on that one got a sticker. This was supposed the be the simplest game but it was a flop. The papers were moving all around the floor, the space wasn’t big enough and most of the kids kept forgetting to walk in a circle. It was confusing. But the kids didn’t seem to notice, they were just happy to be getting stickers.

The next game the boys chose was Pluto’s Bone hunt. This was probably the best game of the night. I cut out bones out of yellow cardboard and made envelopes on each one. Once the kids found all of Pluto’s Bones they ripped the envelopes open to find pieces to a Mickey Mouse puzzle. All of the kids helped put the puzzle together and the birthday boys took it home. Did I mention that I found that puzzle for $1 at the dollar tree?

The last game was Pin-The-Ears-On-The-Birthday-Boys. And you guessed it, it’s a total rip off of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. The winners of this game got a sheet of stickers… although we found out a little late that the first three kids could see under the blindfold, thus explaining their VERY accurately placed Mickey Mouse ears.

The most original I got with this party was in making the pinata. My sister-in-law suggested I decorate it with small strips of crepe paper and I like it better than the circular pattern they showed on this tutorial.

I would be remiss if I didn’t include pictures of the cupcakes my mom made. She used to make cakes for a living and around every birthday we all get to benefit from her mad skills. I thought her Mickey Mouse was over the top! Good job mom- I seriously loved the Mickey face.

foooooooood

This past week I’ve had some great meals and some not so great ones. The worst was my attempt at Shrimp Scampi Linguini. At only the third step into that recipe, adding oregano, I burnt it and the whole dish turned out charred tasting. Oh well. I can’t win them all. Cooking the shrimp was a breeze and the sauces thickness was perfection so I will definitely try that meal again… once I can forget how bad the first try tasted. But onto the successful food…

First up, I had Roasted Cauliflower as the side to that Shrimp Scampi Linguini. That turned out great! After choking down a couple bites of the linguini, I swapped in chicken nuggets and Joel, Odin and I ate up all of the cauliflower. Did I tell you how rare it is for Odin to eat all of anything? Well it’s rare. So this side dish is a MUST repeat in my book. Husband rating (7 stars) *******

The next meal was made this past Friday but we had some friends over for some spontaneous grilling so I didn’t even get to eat it until today. Let me tell you, even cold and right out of the fridge this dish was a hit. And the fact that it’s super easy to pull together makes me love it more. Crock Pot Beer Chicken, we’ll be seeing more of you in our future. Husband rating (8 stars) ********

On the night of our grilling I wanted to make sure I had some control over the amount of Weight Watchers points I was about to eat. So I made a side dish at my mother-in-laws suggestion. I just kind of threw this one together but our friend Nick gave it such high reviews that I made up a recipe card for it so I wouldn’t forget it the next tome we grill. The ingredients are few and the steps are simple but some days I forget to shave both legs before heading out the door so don’t laugh at me for taking the time to type this up. FYI- this would also be awesome if you’re out camping and want something easy to make over the campfire for breakfast. Husband, and Nick, rating (9 stars) *********

The last recipe I want to share is one I made for dinner tonight. I LOVE stuffed shells. I blame my friend Amy (http://fedelifam.blogspot.com/). She brought me stuffed shells after I had my son Odin and ever since then I’ve had a craving. It’s one of those ultimate comfort foods. It’s worth the time it takes to stuff each shell and it’s almost worth all of the calories. BUT with this recipe you don’t have to make that choice. It’s lightened up and even sneaks in a great vegetable, all without sacrificing taste one bit. It was a BIG hit. Husband rating (8 1/2 stars) ******** */2

 

If you’ve taken the time to read this far then please make sure that you checkout each recipe card for where I got these recipes. They’re not mine and I wouldn’t want you to think they are. The genius belongs to someone else, I’m just happy to stuff my face with good food.

4 months of Dagny

Yesterday we had Dagny’s 4 month appointment and she’s doing great. She weighed 12 lbs, 12 oz (40%) and a measured little over 24″ long (60%). According to those measurements our girl is almost completely average. I guess she’s just making up for that with her big personality. Our girly has a switch inside her. She can be the sweetest, most content baby for most of the day and if you look at her wrong (or in my case, look away from her) she’ll flip out. She goes from giggles to inconsolable screaming at the top of her lungs. We’ve tried to come up with a cute nickname for it but we’ve settled for landing on these accurate-yet-not-so-flattering shorthand’s: “switch”, “bi-polar” and “diva”. We are open to suggestions. One thing’s for sure though, the nickname “daggers” does perfectly suit her hysterics.

I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. Life with Dagny is not drudgery. If anything her screams just get mixed into our already loud household. I think we’d be more concerned if she was quiet all the time… there’s just no way Joel and I could have an introvert. Whatever she’s doing, she’s all there. In this past week she went from no attempts to roll over to completely rolling over twice! And now she’s even found her thumb and that seems to be her favorite pastime. I wonder if that will be a lasting trait. And even as I wrote that last sentence I’m struck by just how much I love this season of life with our little girl. We get to watch her day by day as she learns new things and reveals who she is to us. It’s such a happy mystery. I’m so glad we get a lifetime to figure it out and help shape that. Happy 4 months little girl- I love you more than I can express.

Losing it

So we’ve been trying to lose weight over here. Well I have been while my husband has been kind enough to let me go crazy trying new recipes even if it means that he “has to eat healthy too”. It’s actually been fun. Well, more fun then I thought it would be. It’s been a couple of weeks into Weight Watchers and I’ve gotten used to smaller portion sizes and reaching for an orange rather than chips doesn’t feel like depriving myself. I feel like I’m over the initial hump and the next step is to find delicious things to eat so I can stay on track with this program.

Now I hesitated to let this weight loss be a public thing. I mean it’s embarrassing to say that I need to lose to weight. But let’s face it, anyone who has seen me face-to-face has seen the situation and the need for weight loss would come as no surprise. It’s not really a surprise for me. It’s just… life. For a long time I felt deprived and sorry for myself if I couldn’t eat a Big Mac or have more ice cream. But it’s not about deprivation. Sure I can have those things! But if I eat them all willy-nilly and without restraint then I’m gonna have to get okay with my huge butt. That’s life. Those are the choices people have to make. And I’m choosing to eat better to rid myself of this extra padding. Hopefully it’ll keep paying off 😉

Now to get back to how this weight loss has been “fun”. Turns out I really like to cook. I like that I can make something that leaves me feeling healthy and full. I like that I can create something that makes my mouth water and dinners linger. So I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting with dinners. My sister (http://poundsandpersistence.wordpress.com) has changed my life by explaining her rotating dinner menu to me and I’ve set out to make my own. Of course it might take a while to have some consistency to that menu because not every meal I try is a home run. But Joel and I just laugh it off and keep leftovers from successful meals handy. I figure I’d post some of the successful meals on the blog because if I have appreciated anything, it’s all those bloggers out there who have made finding good healthy dinners easy on me. To all of you: Thanks. Here are some of my favorite recipes from this past week…

Joel LOVED this Cajun Spiced Flounder. He said it would be good with any kind of meat and I agree… but since I’m trying to get more fish into our diet I will use this to dress up an otherwise boring fish. Husband rating (7 stars) *******

And the next success was my favorite so far. I really love fettuccine alfredo but the cheese sauce is just out of the question while I’m trying to drop the pounds. BUT I found this recipe online and gave it a try. I swear people it tastes like the real thing so don’t let the strange ingredients keep you from trying it. Husband rating (7 stars) *******

And last but not least is a recipe I made up myself! It’s just a simple Mexican Pizza but I’m pretty proud that it all came from me. Husband rating (8 stars) ********