Menu Plan Feb 8

Here's what I'm planning to make for dinners this week:

Monday: Spaghetti w/ meat sauce, veggies, bread

Tuesday: Chicken Cacciatore, pasta

Wednesday: Beef Stew w/ potatoes, carrots & onions, and TX Toast

Thursday: BLT's & Soup or leftover Stew

Friday: Salmon, Quinoa, and Fruit Salad

Saturday lunch: Rice & Beans / Saturday dinner: out! :)

Sunday: Bean & Cheese nachos and/or leftovers

Oh yeah, I forgot I have a blog!

Well, if it hasn't been 2 months since I've posted a blog entry! If it weren't for the Company Girl Coffee invitation every week, there's no telling whether I ever would have blogged again.

Since it's been so long, I will not try to update everything that's happened since then, because that would take too much time. And I think I hear Elizabeth crying. Yep, that's her.

Okay, I'll be back in a little while.

A few hours have passed and the kiddo is back asleep in her crib. She's been out for almost an hour, so I might have to do the 10 minute version here. But who wants to read the hour-long version anyway?

Lizzie (as we now call her) will be 8 months old on Monday (8th). She has accomplished quite a lot in the past 2 months:

• She is now a "speed racer" when it comes to crawling. Can't leave her alone for a second!
• She stands unassisted for several seconds at a time. In fact, she can stand longer than she thinks she can; while doing something with both hands she will stand for quite a while, but the moment she realizes that she's not holding on to something, she wobbles and sits down or grabs for support.
• She eats pretty much anything we give her. Except baby cereal; she hates that stuff. Last night she was eating small bites of chicken, rice, and sweet & sour red peppers. And loving every bite. Cheerios ("O's") and yogurt are her favorite things to eat. She drinks water/juice in a sippy cup.
• Her two bottom front teeth have come in and they're super cute. They make her smile that much more incredibly adorable.
• Lately she has taken to "growling" as her new method of communication. She woke up from her nap on Wednesday afternoon growling at the cats and dogs. Not sure where that came from, but it's downright hilarious!
• After borrowing a book from the library called "Baby Signing 1-2-3" which uses American Sign Language as the basis for teaching infants to communicate before they can talk, I have started teaching her some of the words a little person like herself would find important: milk, change, more, all done, fan (because she loves the ceiling fan), mommy, daddy, etc.
• She takes 2 good naps nearly every day. Her favorite time of day is bathtime right after dinner, and her least favorite time of day is going down for naps. We let her 'cry it out' because it's the only way she'll ever sleep. At bedtime she is very good and will sleep without any fuss.

As far as Sam and I go, things are pretty much the same.

I'm trying to figure out how to be a mom, wife, housekeeper, dog letter-outer, chef, and child of God every day. I realize that I waste far too much time on the computer doing stupid stuff like playing on facebook and my "born in June 2009" online forum. Then I complain because I didn't have time to have a quiet time or exercise or go to the store. Wah, wah.

I did come to the conclusion that I don't have to spend lots of time in "devotions," I just need to focus for a few minutes, and then have reminders through the day of that time. I also realized that I don't usually process things unless I'm writing it out. I suppose that's the way that I "meditate" or "ruminate" on what is before me. Sadly, I have hardly written anything in a long time, which kind of means that the depth of my spiritual walk has been puddle-like. But it's alright as long as I go somewhere from here.

At New Year's I decided that my "resolution" would be to run a 5K race before Lizzie's 1st birthday (in June). So far I have been able to exercise most days for the last two or three weeks. We have found a race we'll do on April 17th, Lord willing! Sam has been working out for months now, trying to get in shape and lose weight. I'd been struggling to get to the point where I could even take the 10 minutes to get on the treadmill or use the Wii Fit.

Do you know what my secret is to getting active again? I cut my hair all off. It's in a little "mom bob" now. See, the reason I wasn't working out is because I didn't want to sweat, because if you sweat, you have to wash your hair, and it takes too long to wash long hair, so it's not worth it. At least that's the way it went in my head.

Sam is working 4 days a week again at the HVAC company and we are thankful that he still has a job. He has his one last class to finish before he graduates, and then he'll never be in school again, hallelujah!

On Sunday we are hosting a Super Bowl party, and it sounds like we have a pretty good bunch of people coming over. It will be fun, and I don't know quite how we'll pull it off or where we'll all sit, but I'm glad we're doing it. I don't care anything about the game or who wins or any of that, but I do enjoy the commercials, and it's a great excuse to have friends come and snack for a few hours! With the baby, it's easier to invite people to come see us than it is to go out in the evenings when she goes to bed at 7 each night. That has lately put a damper on our social life, but we're figuring it out as we go along. It's a season, and this too, shall pass.

If I have time later I'll put up some pictures or give an update on our trip to Texas with the baby and the dog for Christmas. The short version is that it was a lot of fun and so worth the trip; it was also easier than we expected it to be - both Lizzie and Lady were excellent travelers. The grandparents were thrilled to spend a week with their little granddaughter, and we thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Sam's family.

For now, though, it's time for me to throw dinner together. This did turn into the long version, but it's a fairly good summary of what life looks like for now.

Friday, Crawling. Tree. Cards. Thanksgiving. Graduation. Waffles.

Good morning, it's Friday! I have French Vanilla decaf to add to the regular Folgers today, PLUS the Pumpkin Pie Spice creamer stuff in the fridge. You don't necessarily have to put them together, but it's not bad together! Good stuff.

Elizabeth is going to be 6 months on Tuesday, and for the last 2 weeks she has been crawling. Seriously, what is her deal that she wants to do everything already?! She sits up, crawls, puts her paci in and out of her mouth, babbles, tries to drink out of a sippy cup, pulls up onto toys, and can stand against furniture and toys for quite a while. She is growing up so fast!

Here is a short video of her from last week. She is getting better at crawling now, but this is so fun because she's cracking up as she goes.




We put up the Christmas tree on Saturday, which is the earliest I've ever put a tree up. I think I was so antsy to put it up because we didn't have a tree up last year. The combination of morning sickness and traveling left me un-enthused about decorating. We took a stinkin' adorable picture of Elizabeth on Sunday, which I already made into a Christmas card and put in the mail. I don't know what's gotten into me that has me ahead of schedule as it relates to Christmas. I have never had the Christmas cards out the first week of December, either. Weird.

Here is our Christmas card:



I uploaded it to Costco and picked up 100 the next day for only $29! Envelopes, and all! I did go through nearly $40 of stamps, though. I'm hoping to hand out a bunch at church this weekend, though, and anybody I miss Sunday will be mailed their card on Monday.

We hosted Thanksgiving here last week, which was delightful. We fried a turkey again, and everybody contributed to the meal to share the load. We invited my parents and brothers, plus a family from church: Josh & Becky and their two boys, 5 and 3 years old, who don't have family in the area. The boys set up a huge city of blocks on the coffee table, and had a great time playing with Lady in the back yard.

It is kind of a family tradition to "adopt" people who don't have family nearby, since we don't have family nearby, either. Besides, holidays are so much more fun when you share them beyond just your family.

I'm still coasting on having the house clean from Thursday. It's starting to look like it needs to be picked up and cleaned again. I also haven't gone grocery shopping this week, except for an abbreviated trip through Walmart Friday night. If we can hold out through Sunday, I'd be happy. And if that means we have to pick up something over the weekend, I'd be that much happier. Ha!

Since the house was clean and we were free, we invited Scott & Stephy over for brunch on Saturday morning. I made waffles (using the waffle maker they gave us) and a potato/ham/egg frittata. So delicious, and we had a great time having them join us. I think that may become a tradition: post-Thanksgiving brunch!

The bummer of the month is that Sam did not make the deadlines he needed to for his senior project, which means he will have to complete it next semester. So, unfortunately, he will not graduate this month, and it will be next May. This may mean that he can continue working part time as an intern through the HVAC company he's been working with for a couple of years. It also lets him stay a student, allowing him to stay at the school where he has his foot in the door with different companies who will be pursuing graduates. It could be what gets him a job in a few months. We will see how God provides.

I should be getting off the computer and getting my butt in gear while Elizabeth finishes her nap. Lately she takes 2 naps, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Fortunately she goes down without a fight anymore (not usually) and will sleep for at least an hour. It has changed my life! She also goes to bed at around 7:30 PM and sleeps pretty well through the night, usually up around midnight once, and sometimes one more time around 4 or 5. Last night she slept from 11:30 PM to 7 AM! Getting up earlier is a little rough, but it's great to be up and at 'em before 8 every morning.

All the more reason for the coffee.... :)

Quickie

Gonna be a short one today.

There is not a whole lot new here this week; Sam is working on homework (is actually not going in to work this week or next, to get his projects done). Elizabeth is sleeping.

E has been getting better at sitting up on her own. She can actually stay up for several minutes, until she wants to go somewhere else.

Speaking of going somewhere else, she can get around pretty well now. She still does her little army crawl, but can get her knees up under herself and push forward. Lately she has started to scoot backward, too, which frustrates her. She doesn't quite know what she is doing.

Sleep has not been as much of a struggle lately; I've been feeding E around 6 or 6:30 (solid food), then giving her a bath (a necessity after eating), getting her ready to sleep, then giving her another chance to nurse. By 7:30 or 8 she is in bed, and is out till about midnight. At that point, she sleeps till sometime between 3 and 4, when she wakes up hungry, and then wakes up for the day between 7 and 8. That works out really well for her to take a nap at 9:30 or 10.

I've figured out that the morning nap is the only chance I get to accomplish anything. I wish I was good at kicking myself into gear.

Wednesday afternoon was spent mainly working on my revised chore list, where I laid out the weekly tasks in month calendar form. I had one of these set up long before Elizabeth arrived, but of course with a new baby, everything except survival flies out the window. Now that we have regular naps and bedtimes, I can actually try to get more of a handle on things to keep myself and the house under some semblance of control. The advantage of this list is that I have things marked down on certain days - some things a few times a week. Ideally, they will get done on the day they're listed. But since I am not that fond of any of this cleaning business, I will most likely not do all of the things. In fact, I have not done any of them since I made the list a couple of days ago. And the beauty of this set up is that if I miss it on one day, I know I can catch it the next time it shows up on the list. There are things listed that must get done for the continuation of normal life (groceries, laundry, etc.), and they are the main goals for each day. Then there's the other stuff - sweeping the floor, or exercising.

Well, the old dog is fussing to go outside, so I should probably listen to her. It makes a good stopping point for me to quit and post this for now.

But first, here is my current favorite picture of Elizabeth:

The plan for the day

Good morning!

I just put Elizabeth down for a nap about 25 minutes ago, and I am going to try to get a few things accomplished before she wakes up. Hopefully I'll get another hour out of her.

First, I want to get some chicken started in the oven. Going to try to just lay it out on a pan and roast it - it's a whole chicken cut up (totally worth the extra $1 in my mind). Normally I have a solid plan for every meal for the week, but this week has kind of been a mess in that regard. I don't know quite what happened. I guess we will eat baked chicken tonight (with veggies and rice or something), and tomorrow I can start some chicken soup. I think that's what I'll do. We'll see.

Then, it has been my goal for the past week to clean the bathtub. It has been way too long since it was cleaned last, and it's embarrassing to think about it. Fortunately, I've put it off long enough that today if I do it, I'll get points (ha! maybe that was my subconscious excuse for not doing it - aside from the fact that it is my least favorite chore in all the world).

Off topic - what is the chore that you most detest doing?

If I still have time afterwards (not likely), I will drag the glider/rocker out of the garage and clean it up. We picked it up from somebody's curb, and threw it in the back of the Suburban a couple of months ago - apparently they were cleaning their garage. It still will need a new cushion for the back and seat, but I'll be that much closer to having something I can sit in to rock Elizabeth.

On another note, Elizabeth is now 5 months old on the 8th. I can't believe how quickly it has gone by! For some reason I kept just anticipating when she would reach 3 months old - I'm not sure why - and so that made me relieved, and now every month and every milestone after that I have been so thrilled!

She sits up, kind of wobbly, but for longer periods of time each day. She also scoots herself with a pretty good "Army crawl", where she drags herself along by her elbows and pushes with her feet if she gets some traction. Every once in a while she puts her knee down and pushes off, like a real crawl "step," but she hasn't learned to anticipate the forward motion to catch herself with her hands, so she throws her face into the floor. Fortunately, she doesn't seem to mind the nose dives.

Last night Elizabeth ate a whole container (2.5 oz) of Prunes, and she ate more at one sitting than she ever has (of solid food, that is). The reason I bought prunes was because she had been having some issues getting the solids to come out.... well, those prunes work wonders! I'll have to remember, though, that even though she loves them, she should not eat a whole container in one night. Or maybe they should be mixed with something else. Like bananas.

Twice this week I have gone for a walk around the block, which is a 1.1 mile loop, about half of it involves some uphill climbs. The weather has been perfect, and Elizabeth loves to sit and look at everything. It helps to wear her out, too. The great thing is that I am finally getting some exercise. It's something I need to work into my routine. I think that if I schedule it, I should be able to make myself exercise at least two times a week - three would be ideal.

We have finally gotten a sort of routine down for the day. Elizabeth goes to bed around 8 PM (more or less), and she still wakes up twice during the night. I could definitely live without the middle of the night feedings, but this too shall pass. She wakes up for the day around 8 AM. Then she goes down for a nap between 10 and 11 AM, sleeps for about 90 minutes (on average), then goes down for another nap around 1 PM. When she wakes up around 3 or 4, she is up for the rest of the afternoon, unless it gets to be a really long day, so she'll take a short nap later. During that afternoon nap, I try to work on dinner, and then I feed her some kind of solid food, and out of necessity I give her a bath, let her play while Sam and I eat dinner, then nurse her and put her to bed again. This has worked pretty well for the past week, with some deviation once in a while. I could definitely get used to having a solid routine!

I just made waffles, because my dear friend Stephanie just gave us the waffle maker that they were given for their wedding and never used. We are thrilled. There are 4 or 5 waffles sitting out that need to be packaged and put in the fridge or freezer (as if they'll make it to the freezer), so we can throw them in the toaster for breakfasts for the weekend.

Well, I hear Elizabeth crying, but she needs to go back to sleep. I will go turn on the white noise and see if that calms her down.
Maybe I will get my plans accomplished. Maybe not.

Off I go! Have a good weekend!

Company and Coffee and a Confession

Welcome.

I am taking a break from imagining that I am going to clean the house while Elizabeth sleeps, and posting a blog entry. Instead.

Tonight a friend from San Antonio, TX, is flying in to visit, join us for the weekend, and help us with the annual Harvest Festival that our church hosts in downtown Lawrenceville. It will be fun to have company with us again (for the second time this month), but at the moment, I'm rather consumed by the responsibility of finishing my list of tasks before going to pick her up at the airport tonight.

Tomorrow (Halloween) will be the Harvest Festival's 11th year, our 3rd year being involved, and our 2nd year having the bulk of the event be our church's responsibility. It is a God-sized task, that a small-sized church is crazy to get into, except that every time it has been an amazing success. Common sense says that 120 (more or less) volunteers and a church with only about 100 people can't host an event for 3,000-4,000 people to attend free of charge. But we have to remember to factor in miracles.

This is somewhat along the lines of what my heart has been (slowly - very slowly) learning over the last week or so.

The blog entry here posted on the Home Sanctuary site hit me after I was able to consider it for a day, as it applies to our family situation. The gist of it is that I have not been looking at the future in faith, and have not been counting on the provision of God, the King of kings, the One who has all things at His disposal, and all government, economy, and nature at His disposal. Yeah, I was sort of doubting His ability to meet all our needs. Sure, I was able to foresee Him fulfilling all our needs, but only in the way that I think they should be met. Not in any other way.

Sam is a month and a half from graduating with a degree in Construction Project Management. It is not a good decade to be getting into construction. But God has been faithful to provide for us while Sam has been in school these three years, and it seems to be the way we have been led. But over the past year or two, Sam has been playing with the idea of going into a totally different career path, which is not a career path that I would have chosen. I have told him, every time he brings it up, that I have not had peace about it, and just flat out don't like the idea.

Over the past few weeks, I have begun to see my own stubbornness in regard to listening to what Sam has been saying. I have refused to budge, and really refused to pray about the possibility. As Sam has talked to me, and I have turned around and listened to him, it isn't sounding quite as bad as it had originally been in my mind. The likelihood of his actually being hired is slim, so if he were to apply and be hired, it would be essentially miraculous, and an obvious indication from God that Sam was supposed to work in this field.

While Sam was out of town last week, he talked with a couple whose insights and perspective we value, and they were positive toward the whole concept. Hearing their feedback helped me, as well.

This morning I also picked up our copy of Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest. The entry today was about Faith. Here is just one part of it:

Common sense is not faith, and faith is not common sense; they stand in the relation of the natural and the spiritual; of impulse and inspiration. Nothing Jesus Christ ever said is common sense, it is revelation sense, and it reaches the shores where common sense fails.

So my heart today is humbled, and I am actually more joyful having come to the realization that I have an opportunity to live my day in faith, rather than in a failing attempt to control my life and that of my family. And with that said, I am more energized to go about my business.

Anybody want to help me with cleaning the bathroom?

Babies and Candied Apples

Friday is here!
It's so good to have Sam back home. He was gone for a full week (Wed-Tue) and I don't know how single parents do it, but I have a great amount of respect for them. One week of single-handedly caring for an infant was enough for me. It actually wasn't the baby that was so tough, it was the baby plus the dogs.

Funny story of when we went to pick up Sam at the airport:

The airport is about 45 minutes away (without traffic), so it's quite a long time for a person who hates to be confined to be strapped into a carseat. Fortunately, E was happy and then she fell asleep shortly before we got to the airport to pick up Sam at the curb. So when he got in the car, he was so happy to see her, that he talked to her and woke her up. I can't blame him, she's stinkin' cute and he missed her a lot, probably more than he missed me. That was all fine and dandy for a few minutes until E got pretty frustrated that no one was picking her up. Great, we have a screaming baby, and 30+ minutes before we're home.
Well, Sam had bought me a caramel/chocolate/candy-covered apple in one of the stores in the airport, and it was conveniently cut into wedges, so we could eat it without getting it all over our faces. Brilliant, and delicious. Seriously, that was the best apple ever, and it was so sweet of him to get it for me.
About 5 minutes into the screaming baby ordeal, I have an epiphany: give her a slice of apple to chew on! I told Sam to lick the candy off of it so all she gets is the apple, and he does so, and says, "there will be some residual, though." Of course, that's fine. I had given her plain apple slices to gnaw on before, and she's loved them, so I knew this would appease her until I could get home to feed her.
A few minutes later, she starts squalling, and I glance back there to ask Sam what's the matter.
He's laughing. "She only wants the sweet part. She has candy all over her face!"
"What?! Babies aren't supposed to have caramel or chocolate or candy! You're supposed to lick it all off!"
"Well, oh well!" Sam just continues to be amused. "She's advanced, she can handle it. And she really likes it."
Of course she does. If she has a sweet tooth later in life, it's because she got started early on caramel. But the next slice of apple we gave her, I was sure to bite off all the sugary coating. A hardship, I know.

Here is a picture of the little stinker with her candied apple and caramel all over her face. And the big stinker, who got so much entertainment out of it.