Sewing....

For lack of a better title (i haven't had coffee yet and already today i have been pooped on...) i am going with sewing because that's what i have been up to.. I love love love to sew but since i don't actually have a sewing room of my own my sewing machine (which is currently on the fritz) gets packed away in the closet in the office/guest room until i pull it out. Then i sew as much as i can in a day or two (at the dining room table) until it gets packed away again because it drives my husband crazy... Someday i dream of having a sewing/craft room all my own. It can double as an office so we can all hang out in there together.. (i have serious dreams for this non-existent room),, and on that note here are a couple things i did in the past couple weeks...

I also made another seriously adorable diaper & wipes case and some burp cloths for a friend who is having a little girl in December but since i didn't finish them until about 5 mins before the baby shower i also didn't manage to get any pics... anyways...

{Diaper & Wipes Holder}

{Rice Heating pack & Cover}





{Kiah's Happy Birthday Banner}

30 Days of Truth ~ Day 5

Day 5 ~

Something you hope to do in your life...

I hope to go back to school someday... I don't know what i want to do.. i have always wanted to be a mom and i wouldn't change my life for anything. I am so happy with my little family. I would like to add one more but that's it. Once the kids are grown though i haven't figured out what i want to do.. i have had some fun ideas, like owning my own b&b, we live in the perfect place for something like that.. I always though i wanted to be a nurse... I put some thought into being an ultrasound tech... or maybe a teacher? I guess the answer to this one is that someday i hope to do something. how's that for an answer?

Flashback Friday

{Cousins on Halloween 2009}

{The Boys}

{bobbing for apples}

{sneaky sneaky!}

{Zeke the Elephant}

{Kiah the 22 day old Lion}

Before & After

No time for words must go shower while i can! Here is Zeke :)

30 Days of Truth ~ Day 4

Day 4 of 30 Days of truth asks,

Something you have to forgive someone for.

Right away i know where to go with this, because it is something that is on my mind alot.
My Father.

My parents were married young and divorced by the time i was 3. I get that, i believe in marriage forever but at the same time i understand what happened and i don't hold the divorce against my parents. My mom is now happily married to a great guy who i am happy to call my dad and who has been there for me whenever i need him for the past 10 years.

Even so i still have this need to know my father. The first time i remember talking to him was when i was 11 years old. He lived in Utah and we were in Michigan but we talked all the time, he mailed us presents and letters and even sent plane tickets for my sister and I to fly out there to visit him. It was the best week of my life, i remember him telling us how much he missed us and loved us and how he always carried around a picture of us with him. When we came home the letters and phone calls came less and less often and then one day they were gone. At 16 my parents, my sister and I drove to Utah where i was able to visit my grandparents (that was the last time i got to see my Grandmother before she passed away) I was there. He knew we were there and not once did he make an attempt to see us. I was heartbroken.
I didn't talk to him again until i was living with Chris, everything started of the same, we talked all the time, shared stories about what our life was like where he had been. Then again he disappeared out of my life.
When i was pregnant with Zeke i again contacted him because i thought he should know that he was going to be a grandparent. Again everything was great, he sent presents for Zeke and we talked all the time life was great then the usual happened.. It's been like this all my life and yet i still have this need to know him.. We have talked again since then and he has seen pictures of Zeke and i found out that i now have a half brother. Who i will probably never know. I don't know if he knows about Kiah or not and as much as i would like to say that i don't care i do. I still send him messages every now and then but i don't know if he even gets them.. I know I should just let go and forgive him for not caring about his daughter and i think i am trying but it's so hard... I couldn't imagine not knowing my boys, letting them grow up without me? It's an impossible thought for me... I have no understanding of what goes through his head.. my only hope is that someday he will wake up and realize that even through it all i am still his daughter and i still love him.

Wordless{ish} Wednesday ~ Boys at the pumpkin patch

For a good friends birthday last weekend we met up at the farmers market with her 3 boys and some other friends & family to do the hayride again. This time around just Zeke and i went because the poor little peanut Kiah was not feeling great and needed a nap.. that's okay with me though because i love getting to spend some one on one time with Zeke :)

{Mr. Zeke playing in the pumpkins}

{The boys rolling their pumpkins up the hill}

{Tag! Your it!}

{Conquering the pumpkin mountain}

{Zeke & Noah checking out the cows}

{Watching the cows eat}

{priceless}

{Hiding from the tractor}

Paper Mama Photo Challenge ~ Black & White

Okay so maybe it's not completely black and white but it counts right? I love this shot, Kiah loves his puppy :) Every time Moses would lay down Ki would toddle along after him and snuggle right up to him. Probably the most adorable thing ever.

Check out some more great black & white shots over at the paper mama

Monday Monday and 30 Days of Truth

Monday. wow.. where did you go? I just woke up and it was Monday morning.. i am sure of it! Some how it is already Tues afternoon... This is what happens when you are just in survival mode.....

While sitting and enjoying service in church on Sunday an usher who is also a close friend of ours walked over to me and very seriously said "we need you" and then turned and walked away, i panicked because normally when a parent is needed they just flash our number on the screens in the front, standing right behind the double doors there stands a nursery worker holding my baby boy who is covered in what she thought was chicken pox. I felt so bad! I noticed a couple bumps before we left but it didn't look like anything more than an irritation and because he has pretty sensitive skin i just assumed it was a reaction to something.

Since it was spreading i decided to call the after hours service for our pediatrician and they said they weren't sure what it was and we should take in into the ER just to be safe so off we went... After a couple hours there, with a 1 year old who wants nothing more than to run free wherever he may be, we finally talked to the doctor who informed us it was related to a virus that he had and there was no way to tell what it was... awesome.

Fast forward to Monday... I was supposed to take him in to see our Doc whose office was busy all morning so by the time i got to talk to a nurse it was already noon and Ki's skin was mostly cleared up by then, so they told me i didn't need to bring him in. Awesome.

And then came Tuesday.... Now the poor little peanut is "sick to his stomach" (weird thing about me, i can't stand to use the "d" word...) and to top it all off we are out of diapers.... this week can not get any better...

Onto better things....

My house smells like pumpkin, I made a pumpkin cheesecake with a close friend this morning for no other reason than we found a recipe and wanted to.. plus it's a win win that i only had to buy half the ingredients and i only have to keep half the cheesecake.. i would otherwise eat too much and then throw the rest away to avoid temptation..

I climbed on the scale the other day to find that i had put on almost 3 lbs.. not good.. i am DESPERATELY trying to lose weight and i only want to see the scale going down... so after some good old fashioned diet and exercise i am back to what i was... which still leaves me with 50lbs to lose.. 70 if i REALLY want to make myself happy.. but i am trying to set realistic goals and i think that losing 50 would put me a healthy weight and one that my body will stay at.

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas.... I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas time and with it being less than two months away now i am so ready to start breaking out the decorations! I will resist, only because i finally have collected some cute fall stuff.. But trust me when i say that the day after Thanksgiving i will be packing up the family to go out and pick out our Christmas tree ( I ONLY get real trees, i LOVE the smell!) and out will come the plethora of snowmen, right down to the plates, bowls, coffee cups & glasses! I promise to share pictures of my obsession when the time comes.

Speaking of pictures, i seem to have misplaced the battery for my camera... broken though it is i still need it! It might not take great pictures but in 20years i won't care that they weren't great i will just be happy to have those precious moments captured!

30 Days of truth ~ Day 3

Something you have to forgive yourself for

This is not easy for me to admit but in those times of my short temper i have lost it and lashed out on the people that i love.. It has been a long time since i have done anything like that but every time i feel my blood pressure rise i remember.. Just because i don't really know most of you personally that doesn't mean that i don't want you to see me in the best light all the time, the wonder of having a blog is that i don't have to share the bad. I can hide from it and you would never know the difference.. I don't want to do that though, i spent long enough hiding from myself and i want people to love me for who i am, flaws and all..

Homemade Baby Food

If you know me at all you know one thing that i was really passionate about making my own baby food for Kiah, with Zeke i did the jarred stuff and at the time i was doing the best i knew how to do. However we have struggled with his eating habits and i really believe that it is a direct result of what i fed him as a baby, when given the choice between something processed and something fresh he ALWAYS went for the processed stuff and i know to some extent that that is normal for toddlers, but i want better for my kids, i want them to grow up healthy and never have to experience the weight problems that i had to. So, with Kiah i started making my own food from the very beginning. I went in knowing that that was what i wanted to do but had no idea where to start. Turns out the whole process was 1000x easier than i could have ever imagined! On top of that he was able to taste foods that you don't normally find in the basic jarred baby food.

I'm sorry i don't have any photos for you but the process really is simple. When he was 4 or 5 months old we started with the simple things, green beans, sweet potato, peas, squash.. if you have babies you know the drill. We started with a tiny little food mill from Munchkin just ground up the food fresh everyday. Once he had all the basics by themselves and he was starting to eat more though we needed to make more to have on hand so a close friend of mine (who has a little girl who is 5 weeks younger than Kiah) and i got together every couple of weeks and made big batches of 2 or 3 recipes each, then we would split it all in half so we had plenty of options in both fruit & veggies. I took it home and froze everything in ice cube trays and then transferred that into labeled freezer bags. Then every night i would take out 2 cubes for each meal that Ki would eat the next day and put them into Tupperware in the fridge so they were defrosted and ready to eat by morning! I added a little single grain oatmeal to the fruits for breakfast and single grain barley to lunch & dinner and Ki LOVED it! I loved knowing exactly what he was eating and how good for him it was. Now he is growing up and he doesn't eat baby food anymore, that doesn't change much in my process for feeding him though, the only difference is now i don't have to run everything through the food processor! On Mondays i cook up a few different options for the week (squash, sweet potato, baby carrots cooked until soft, pasta,black beans, garbanzo beans ect.) Rather than reaching for "snack" foods i reach for those when he is hungry and frozen peas are always a favorite of his.

The point of this post is to share some of my favorite recipes for those of you who might be interested in trying this or even encouraging someone else who might be considering it!
Don't forget to taste these yourself!
Enjoy!


Butternut Squash Soup

3lb butternut squash
8 carrots peeled & chopped
2 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth
1/2 tsp fresh ground ginger
nutmeg to taste

Cut squash in half and remove seeds, bake cut side down in hot water at 400* for 40 mins or until tender.
Boil carrots in water until tender
puree everything together

(for freezing place in ice cube trays then transfer to freezer bags once frozen)

Potato & Turnip w/ Pear

2 pears
2 lg potatoes chopped
1 turnip chopped
2-3 cups applesauce

Bake pear slices until soft
Simmer potato and turnip in water until soft
Puree everything

Rice w/ Apple & Squash Puree

1 Squash (your choice)
1 cup cooked brown rice
1/2 cup applesauce

Cook squash (400* for 40 mins in pan with water)
Puree squash then add rice and applesauce adding water to obtain desired consistency


Sweet Potato Apple Mash

2 Sweet Potatoes
3 Apples

Steam or Bake together until soft
Puree

Apple Pumpkin Oatmeal Breakfast

1/2 cup applesauce
1/2 cup pumpkin
1 1/2 cups cooked oatmeal
dash of cinnamon, nutmeg, & or ginger

mix together


Carrot Ginger Soup

1tbsp olive oil
1 small onion
2 stalks celery
2 tbsp fresh grated ginger
1 1/2 lbs carrots sliced and chopped
2 cups low sodium chicken broth

Saute onion, celery, & ginger in olive oil until soft
Add carrots and broth
bring to a boil and simmer until carrots are tender
Puree until smooth


These are just a few of our favorites and i really hope some of you will give them a try and please let me know what you think! If you don't have a food processor don't let that stop you! There are at least two recipes on here that you don't need one for and there are plenty more out there! Thanks for reading everyone!

Flashback Friday

I don't know if i have mentioned it or not, (being that my little bought with "blogger's block" has pretty much prevented me from mentioning much of anything at all...) but, my husband is a hockey player. I LOVE that about him, he started playing men's league this fall and winter league started Thursday night, i have been to nearly EVERY game, it's costing a small fortune in babysitter fee's (thanks mom for filling in and saving us some money every now and then!) however, it is totally worth it! He is a great player, and looks pretty good while doing it too!

So my flashback today is actually more of Chris's flash back, we recently got a bunch of photos from his parents and this was in there, Chris at 10yrs old. Don't you just love it?

Before & After

I know these aren't the greatest shots (I'm sure i will be making that apology for a while) but i still love family shots, especially mine.. *smiles* I really didn't do a whole lot of editing i just cropped and messed with the color a little but i still think it's frame worthy and i am proud to share my awesome family with you.

The Paper Mama Photo Challenge ~ Fall

My handsome guys on one of our hikes, i love walking our woods in the fall, there are so many leaves on the ground that sometimes that's all you can see! I know this isn't the best quality picture, but my camera is on the fritz and I'll be saving up for my new camera for a while. Even so with the bad quality i think it's an awesome capture, these two are the most amazing things to ever happen to me and i don't for one second ever want to forget that.

30 Days of Truth ~ Day 1 & Day 2

I ran across this 30 days of truth on a couple of blogs that i follow and really found it interesting, I tend to devote this blog mostly to photo challenges and my kids and even those tie together. I don't talk about myself all that much and honestly even in my everyday life that holds true, my kids are my world but sometimes i wonder who i am anymore. I mean i know i am a mom that will always hold true but it might be nice to find out some other truths about myself while i am at it.....



Day 1

Something you hate about yourself

I am going to steal a page from the paper mama here and say that i don't really HATE anything about myself I also prefer to save the label for something really deserving of such a strong emotion. However there are plenty of things i don't like about myself. My short temper is the one thing that i am going to focus on to share with you today, i have such a hard time keeping it reined and more often than not the simplest thing will set me off, I have been known to yell at the kids (please don't take that the wrong way, i mean more like raise my voice in frustration but never yell at them) when no one is obeying and momma just wants to get out the door/get the house clean/ sit down for 5 seconds w/o someone needing something. I am working on it and hopefully my husband who takes the brunt of it can attest to the progress that i have made.
I am a work in progress!

Day 2

Something you love about yourself

These two days really seem to go hand in hand, well for the self esteem anyways. Love is also a pretty strong emotion but not one that i feel needs to be held back, i am a lover! About me though? Lets see.... really I'm not stalling here... (please note the intense sarcasm here....)

Okay i got it! I love that i am a giver. I would gladly give anything i have to someone if i knew that it would make them happy. Christmas is one of my favorite times of year because i have an excuse to give to everyone, not that i need an excuse mind you but it's still nice to be able to! I love to plan gifts that i know will bring a smile to someones face!

What's for dinner.....

Week one in my goal to make one new meal every week! Keep an eye on my recipes tab for more!


Week 1
Tex Mex Mini Meatloaves

2 hand fulls tortilla chips (crushed)
6 Tbsp Salsa ( I used my homemade salsa which i think made it even more amazing)
1/2 can black beans (rinsed)
1 egg
salt & pepper to taste
1lb hamburger

Mix Tortilla chips, salsa, black beans, egg, salt & pepper in a bowl.
Add Hamburger & Mix well
Bake @ 400 in a mini loaf pan until done ( I always overcook everything because i have a paranoia of undercooked meat and the recipe said until firm, which means nothing to me, we are going to go with done...)

The Verdict

LOVE IT! This was so yummy and i loved that even the salsa was homemade and i really think that it gave it even more flavor. I wouldn't change a thing! I'm sure you could think of something a little more inventive to go with it, but this time i just went with mashed potatoes.

Monday Monday.....

I have a bit of writers block lately... not that i was ever much of a writer to begin with but still... it makes the whole blogging thing a little difficult!

Anyways...

• Being that it is Monday we had Preschool this morning and we worked on letters D,E, & F. The theme this was was Nature so we had Dirt, Earth & Feathers ( I think.. you'll have to double check with Nicole, she's the mastermind behind all this..) The kiddos colored their letters and practiced writing them which is so awesome to watch.. Then we did crafts, they glued sticks, leaves, feathers and pieces of felt (blue-clouds, green-grass, & brown-mud) onto paper and added some glitter for an extra touch.
  
• I stopped at the resale shoppe in town and picked up some brand new footie pj's for Kiah for $2, i love a good deal! The kid manages to take his socks and pj pants off almost every night and doesn't quite get how to pull the blanket over him yet so he wakes up freezing and i feel so bad for him! So i am stocking up on footie pj's to solve our problem! I also found some adorable little boots for a friend who is having her baby shower this week.
  
• Speaking of the baby shower, the best thing i EVER got was homemade burp cloths, they were the only ones i ever used and now whenever someone has a baby shower, you can bet i will be making them some burp cloths! I went to Joanne's this weekend and picked up some adorable flannel fabric for the front and hot pink terry cloth for the back, I'll add pictures later, I'm too tired for that now.. sorry!


• I am also going to try my hand at making a pacifier clip, how hard can it be?
  
• For a while i was doing so good at making at least one new recipe a week and lately i have been slacking on my cooking and we have been doing a lot of pasta and sauce (Alfredo, pesto, spaghetti) from a jar... I feel like i can do so much better than that so my new goal is to make at least one new meal a week, and to make sure i do it i am going to add a recipes tab right after i publish this post! So keep an eye out for that! Tonight's dinner was Tex Mex mini meatloaves, so yummy!


• Kiah cut another tooth this weekend so hopefully he will be a happier little boy now that he got that through!

I think that about covers what i can think of for now! I know there are at least a MILLION other thoughts going through my mind somewhere.... I'll leave you with a couple pics of the boys from one of our outings to the farmer's market..

Night out here i come!

I am so looking forward to my night, My parents are here (well my dad is here and my mom ran out for an errand but is on her way back....) And Chris & I are headed out to dinner with some friends. I have showered, straightened my hair, and put make-up on. I have a bottle of wine ready to go and an amazing husband to take with me.

Have a great weekend everyone! We'll be doing a second trip to the pumpkin patch for a another hayride and some tasty veggies for the week... I'll leave you with a couple of pics of the boys, these were taken by Nicole over at Another Day Another Diaper.
Thanks Friend!

Flashback Friday

I am flashing back several years to before Chris & I had kids.. When we used to be able to sleep in until noon on days off, go out w/o having to find a babysitter, when i used to be able to shower at anytime of the day... Yes i will admit it, i miss those days, i wouldn't trade my amazing kids for anything but i am kinda looking forward to school days when i will have just a little me time during the day, as it is i will suck it up and put my dirty hair in a ponytail and go play with my awesome little boys until nap time....

{ Chris & I in Hawaii 2004}

{ A wedding some time ago... haha}