Broken Computers and Old News

**I wrote this post a week ago, however our laptop has battery issues and turns off whenever it wants, which is often, and I acquired a virus on the desktop that my husband is in the process of fixing, hes wonderfully handy like that. So therefore its a little delayed in getting posted**


Mia is walking around the house begging for "ashy". She wants someone to play Ring Around the Rosie with her. I get seriously dizzy and nauseous when I play "ashy" but I get serious guilt complexes when I have to tell her no more than once or twice, so I play a couple of times and then convince her sister to play with her which normally ends up with Mia crying... its torture.

We celebrated christmas yesterday with my family. It was as fun as it usually is however a condensed version since the only night we were all free was a weeknight and we usually celebrate on a sunday all day!

Annie got a new baby doll dressed in riding clothes from my parents. She was so very excited and even received a change of clothes for her from Krissys family. She also received dress up shoes which she has been wanting and she got into bed with me this morning wearing the heels and carrying the baby who's name is "Cowboy Baby" (no there is no convincing her that it might be called Cowgirl) because she rides horses of course. She said "I'm so happy I opened a baby doll, I love my new baby doll". However tonight after trying to fall asleep for 30 min she was crying and I went to her room always ready for her creative complaint and tonight it was "I can't want to have a new baby doll for Jesus birthday, she is too hard she's hurting me!" I just told her we would lay her on the other side of her pillow and she could play with her during the day and snuggle with good old soft "Pink Baby" at bedtime :o)
The thing about "Cowboy" is that she has long hair, I openly admitted last night when the girls opened their dolls and immediately wanted their hair let down so they could play beauty shop with Elly's new hair-do kit that it was going to give me heart palpitations to watch their nice new shiny hair get frayed in a matter of minutes! However I stumbled across this little blessing tonight without ever even thinking about it. I tried it and it works!!!

Mia has been singing "up on the housetop" nonstop for the past 2 days. She walks up to me and declares at the top of her lungs "Ho Ho HO!" and expects me to sing the rest of the song so that she can sing ho, ho, ho again and pretend to snap when I say click, click, click :o)

Annie and I have conversations about having a "happy heart" quite often. Sometimes all I have to say is "Annie, have a happy heart" and Its my way of summarizing the frequent talks we have about doing everything without complaining and choosing joy in all circumstances, even when it may not be something she wants to do/hear. Before Christmas extravaganza even started I spoke with her about having a happy heart because she seems to struggle when she is around a crazy group of naturally selfish children.
However I thought it was an all time low when after nap (rarely a happy heart time of the day) she awoke to find that Elly and Porter had arrived and Grammy had baked a Birthday Cake for them to decorate complete with a manger scene cake topper! Port was handed Joseph, Elly got Mary and Annie got to put "My Jesus" on the cake. She was ecstatic as the video camera rolled until she was corrected by Elly saying in a confused tone and in the corrective eldest voice "He's not just your Jesus, he's every ones Jesus" to which they got bombarded with 3 mothers finding a teaching moment declaring all at once (very educational, I'm sure they were all ears) "that's right, Jesus was born for everyone" To which Annie responded with tears, flinging of her body and screaming "no, He's my Jesus!". Oh the fun parenting times. I guess I should probably break it to her that the moon is not just hers either.

Big Dreams

I dream big dreams like:

Being an amazing gift wrapper- which I am not. I LOVE to wrap presents, especially if they are in a nice box with square sides that are easy to do, then I get my creativity on with the bow making... until the bow flops and it ends up being a mediocre bow as far as bows go. I admitted to my husband that I am a gift wrapping novice and it saddens me as I hold up a combination of 2 gifts wrapped in identical adorable paper and tied nicely together with an almost cute bow, the design on the bottom package going horizontal, while the paper on the top package is wrapped vertical throwing the ENTIRE premium wrapped gift into a downward tailspin of disappointment. After consulting with my husband whether Santa wraps gifts or not (he didn't have the time, energy, desire, (?) to wrap ours when we were little and I never knew the difference) I ended up wrapping a certain gift in the same paper that I wrapped all the gifts under the tree in. I informed my husband that in years to come please remind me to wrap with a Santa specific paper.

Being an amazing mother who does fun activities with her children all day long- instead I see cute ideas and thing "i should do that" and then never do them because it seems too messy, or that Mia will ruin it, or I dont have the energy, etc. I have been feeling a little bit of cabin fever lately which is scary considering its only December! Anyway I had to meet my Dad at Sams yesterday to pick up some essentials and I decided that since we were out we would do some window shopping. I let Annie decide how many stores we would go to and how long we stayed in them. After coming home and having dinner all the while muttering, yelling, promising many threats and discipline scenarios that go on in a home with 2 toddlers I was putting Annie in bed and while going through her bedtime routine where she has to kiss my chin, mouth, nose, eyes, "ahh-bar-ows" forehead, ears and hair we were giggling a bunch and she threw her arms out and said while still giggling in a very soft voice "you are the best mommy ever" - yep, who needs fun activities?

Lately

Stupid tired on the way home from church. So I threw back a fully caffeinated 12 oz coke and headed off the the grocery store all. by. my. self! I was back home in under 45 min!

Haven't been to the grocery store in 2 weeks! I love when that is ok because we just finished off the milk yesterday and a dear friend gave me some fruit to last us until today when we could get to the store and those 2 items are my signal that its time to go stock up.

This morning however went something like this.
"Annie we don't have any milk, do you want just plain cereal and juice in your cup?"
"No...Ill have milk in my cereal"
"We don't have any milk for your cereal"
"Ill have it in my cup then"
"Ahhhhh! We don't have milk to put in a cup or in your bowl!"
"waaahhhhh, I don't want cereal then!" (after I have already poured it) "Ill have peanuts"
"You can't have peanuts how about some peanut butter crackers?"
"No ill have wheat thins"
Its sunday morning and we are supposed to leave in 45 min we just rolled out of bed and Daddy and Mia are still there, "you get wheat thins and last nights cup of juice for breakfast! You're welcome!"

Yesterday I worked and so I stole a few slow minutes of the day and snuck off to Triage to visit my good friend Allie. She is the one who did both of my girls deliveries and is on call for when this one decides to arrive as well. We grabbed the doppler and listened to the baby's heartbeat for a while, a fun perk when you work where I do :o) It was SO good to hear, especially because I have been feeling a ton better lately and so now there is nothing. at. all to make me feel pregnant, so its nice to have a fun little reminder that there is something growing in there :o)

I have 2 babies constantly growing out here as well. These two love to play dress up together!

Christmas Memories 2011 #3

Every time there is a lull in activity during the day Annie says "Lets make snow flakes!" She tried cutting some herself but she prefers to watch me cut and then unfold them for the unveiling and tape them to the window since tape is currently her obsession. Therefore I must say after 29 years of making snowflakes (ok maybe I didn't make them the first 6 years of my life) I have gotten pretty darn creative. These aint your basic snowflakes girls! Annie is always impressed so that is all I need, plus this Mama likes filling the hours and decorating the windows!

Christmas Memories 2011 #2

Today I decided that for the first time ever I would allow my children to make Christmas cookies all on their own, no expectations, no preconceived notions, no help whatsoever...mostly. Come on! They're only 1 & 3 years old! There was much spoon licking, much batter tasting, much flour on the floor and much fun. Especially that there was no refridgerating the dough, 8 min of baking, cooling while we made one batch of green icing and Mia was done with the process before we even said the word sprinkles which made Mama happy :o)

I am so sorry for the crappy photos, I just don't have time to care about picture quality when there is flour being flung :o)





Have I mentioned I am in love with a certain 3 year old???

Christmas Memories 2011 #1

Last night Joe surprised us by suggesting driving to look at Christmas Lights. I love that man :o) He also wanted to go to Festival of Lights at the Zoo because it was raining and there wouldn't be many people there... yeah I turned down that offer ;o)
Anyway, just some highlights for my own memory.

• We were a little surprised at how well Mia could see them and was impressed by them. We said "Mia can you see the pretty lights?" "Uhh Huh, ohhhhh!"
  
• Annie prefers the purple lights and to find Mary & Jofus at every house that has them.
  
• You can buy ANYTHING in the form of a Christmas lawn decor. One of our neighbors has a blow up trailer with Rudolph and elves hanging out the back window and the door pops open and Santa comes out! It is the most elaborate blowup lawn decoration I have ever seen and been impressed by. One person even had a light up hippopotamus! Turns out they DID get a Hippopotamus for Christmas!
• The man's house in Knollwood that was always the "piece de resistance" of my childhood Christmas light looking is still there and Alvin, Simon & Theodore are still dancing and singing away, however the Soldiers no longer march and it turns out his display isn't the most Gigantic thing in the entire world. Although I knew it would be to a 3 year old's eyes so I did my duty and got her out of the car and stood on the sidewalk in the drizzle and watched and listened and remembered when I was a small wonder. :o)

Family gathered for a Christmas photo shoot and I love these little girls dancing in the kitchen in their Christmas dresses and little girl tights :o)

Craving Conundrum

Ahhhhh! I am seriously about to die of Craving Confusion! I want something I can't figure out! Its like an itch I can't reach! Its cold, and icy but not sweet especially not fake sugary sweet like an icee, Frisches type ice has been tried and I have drank myself silly trying to quench this unexplainable thirst. Homemade smoothies with a lot of ice come close because I can control the sweetness. I thought maybe it was Club Soda and cranberry juice with lots of ice, and I finally remembered to pick it up at the store but that was SO not it I almost threw up! I am now thinking maybe Fresca or Squirt... with lots of ice of course :o) Do you see my colossal problem!?!?

ND

Joe's family are HUGE Notre Dame fans. His grandpa is alumni and I swear the man owned everything from housewares & clothes to a shoe horn with ND on it. Joe usually goes to a game every year between his Grandpas (before he passed away) and now his step-sisters husbands season tickets.
I, have never, been a football fan of any kind. None, nothing, never watched a game in my life, not even on T.V. However Joe has always said he would take me to a ND game and this year was my golden opportunity :o) I was NOT looking forward to it at first. I was worried that it would be freezing cold, freezing rain or snow. I decided to do a heart change and look forward to spending time with the man I never get to see. I LOVE road trips so the 4.5 hour drive too and from was fun to me. I was convinced by Aunt Reg that I would LOVE the whole experience and if I didn't I had strict orders not to tell her lest I break her heart.
I was finally looking forward to it and I even watched a game on TV the week before just to ask a few questions and learn a little about this game that I was pretty sure I hated.
It was intriguing enough but I learned very, very little. Like something about only trying to get 10 yards at a time, and having about 4 tries (lame) and a whole lot of flags and pushing and shoving and well whatever, I am a people watcher, I will have something to do at the game. ;o)

Here we are after the big Win however a boring game (as stated by my husband)

Decent seats made me happy because at least I wasn't trying to watch Ants run around, it was hard enough watching them do what they do.

Chicago was the half time show playing along with the Band (which by the way is huge and a very big deal) and later there was even an appearance by Bon Jovi I believe the band played livin on a prayer...I can't recall.

Joe took me all over the AMAZING campus. Everyone was right, I did love it.

From the outside, and inside of the dome.

We followed a student into the Law building (who had to swipe a badge) and peeked in a courtroom. I also chose to use the facilities here seeing as how my other options were all port-a-potties and in here I do believe I was sitting on a solid gold toilet seat :o)

Good ol Regis signing his book in the bookstore (which is also an amazingly huge building) I can't handle this man, he drives me crazy. He wasn't even wearing blue or gold, he was in purple! Purple?? What kind of ND fan do you call yourself??!! I love how they lady with him was all but signing the books for him!

After the day was over I was very glad I went. I wasn't too nauseous and enjoyed the experience as a whole. I concluded that I do indeed not like football but understand why others do. I am too ADD for all the stopping and starting and just when something good happens all these little yellow flags go flying and ruin everything! I don't understand why one guy attempts to run through a wall of 4 others and why they take 10 steps back before throwing the ball laterally across the field and gain a whopping yard!! Its so frustrating!
Anyway I definitely got into the whole spirit of the thing and enjoyed that part. I will stick with the other more fast paced sports that I also do not watch like Basketball and Racing :o) Those have a lot of spirit too :o)
Oh, and I did land a super cute zip up fleece jacket as an early Christmas gift from my hubby to commemorate my trip!

p.s. no I did not get any pictures of touchdown Jesus because I didn't realize that you could no longer see him from inside the stadium since they added on more rows of "seats" (I use that term lightly, I was not sitting next to large people and I had to sit with my shoulders sideways bc I didn't fit and surprisingly enough, sitting like that for hours makes your shoulders hurt...who knew?)

"Belly, belly, belly"

That is what I say to Mia when she walks around with her little pygmy belly sticking out while she scratches it, "Belly, belly, belly, belly, belly..."

Anyway these were some pictures I tried to capture one evening after a no nap afternoon and early rising (all events out of my control) and 2 babies in awful moods. I was super tired and the very most nauseous I have ever been. That's right blog world, I am nauseous. Bring on baby #3!

"Girls you sit on the couch and we will chat about how exciting it is that there is a baby growing in there and Annie you make real exciting faces and we will see if we can get Mia to do the same and it will be real cute"

Hehe, well, Annie cooperated anyway. :o)

Due in July, about 7 weeks along, more nauseous than I was with the girls but no puking which is good :o) I have my first appointment with the OB on tuesday and will get an ultrasound then so stay tuned for pictures of the bean sprout.

Today 11-11-11

Our small group has been challenged to list 5 things every day that you are thankful for in the month of November. This morning I was thankful for Mia and that she is beginning to be a fun playmate for Annie. As Joe and I were in the kitchen fixing lunch we could hear these two telling stories. Here is how I found them :o)


Earlier this morning I asked Annie to go to her room and clean it up so I could vacuum. I have never sent her on a task like this before (all of her possessions were on her floor) however she has been pretty good at cleaning up small messes so I figured I would give it a try, plus she loves the vacuum so I figured she would have some motivation. When I went to check it out I found this...

Pretty nice huh?

-

-

-
Oh wait...

Thaaats more like it! Oh well, I could still sweep :o)

Annie-isms

I have been letting Annie play doctor with my stethoscope. Yesterday her Daddy gave her chips and cheese for lunch when I was at work (which she thought was their special secret because Daddy is the only one who feeds her junk like that!) so when I came home and she wanted to play doctor I listened to her belly and told her that I could hear chips in there. Her eyes got real big and since she knows that you can hear a heart beat then I must have heard her belly beat also. So then today she told me she was so hungry her belly was "beeping so hard" :o)

Tonight at dinner when I told Kara about her belly beeping Annie said "yeah it beeps because I have a diamond inside there" I was very confused but Kara realized she meant "I have a Heart in there". How adorable is she?!? Ill tell you, the answer is very adorable :o)

Its a good thing her mother feeds her healthy foods :o)

Last night I was putting her to bed and I prayed with her. I finished up our prayer saying "thank you Jesus, for dying on the cross for us to save our sins so that we can go to heaven" and before I could say Amen she says "what heaven?"
"Oh let me tell you a story about Heaven, its a wonderful place you will go when you die..." She interrupts "I don't want to die"

"Oh don't worry, you don't have to die right now, just some day... and I will go too, and Daddy, and its like a big party where we are all celebrating Jesus and we will say "Hallelujah! He Reigns..." she interrupts again "But Mama, I can't like to get in the rain"

"Oh no not that kind of rain, you see God is the King, and he has a beautiful castle in heaven for you to live in because you are his princess..." "can I be Belle?" she asks

"... and it will be so pretty with Gold, and Silver, and Beautiful diamonds..." once again she breaks in "will there be sand? AND SHOVELS? I want sand and shovels!"
"Well I don't think so, but I will read about Heaven again and let you know"
"No mama" she says "Just ask God, He will tell you."

And with that she went to bed :o)

And then there's this girl, who I can't even handle the cuteness :o)

A "New" Recipe

So I am not really a new recipe "tryer" when cooking. However in the baking department I am 2 ways, either I make good ol' Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies or I make something totally new that I have never made before. I love to try new recipes. I have sometimes repeated them, although not often, I usually get too excited about something else and am off to the next best thing. Or I quickly realize that I have NO patience to repeat the experience- hello Cake Balls, what a mess of a process!!

Anyway I don't think I have ever accidentally made the same recipe twice without realizing it, until now which means thank heaven for Pintrest because that opened up a whole new world of recipe finding, all with pretty little pictures!
About a year ago I made these and followed her botched recipe because they looked simply irresistible and I was trying a new healthier baking technique inspired by the blog writer herself!

About a week ago I was looking for a granola bar recipe and remembered that a friend had stated on facebook that she was trying one a few weeks ago and promised to let us all know how they were. So I looked back and there was the recipe she used and all the helpful comments from friends on how to successfully make chewy granola bars (these promised no corn syrup).
So, I tried it too! And they were wonderful! I didn't have any coconut oil on hand but I had butter so I thought I would try that and they tasted amazing. Not anything you should eat the whole pan of (like I remember doing when I made them the last time following the botched recipe).
Here is the recipe that I used however I made it again and changed it a bit because 300+ calories for a granola bar was frightening me when that was about a fourth of the calories I am eating right now and they were sooo gooey that I had myself convinced that there was some wiggle room with these.

Chewy Granola Bars (adapted from Heavenly Homemakers)

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil or butter
1 3/4 cups of oats
1 1/4 cup of "extras" - which I used 1/2 cup toasted almonds, 1/2 cup coconut & toasted sesame seeds, flax seed, wheat germ enough to fill the 1/4 measuring cup :o)

Melt PB Honey and Butter
remove from heat and add oats and "extras" (if using choc chips wait until mixture has cooled or you end up with the "botched recipe" from above).

I found that now with the extra cup of dry ingredients you can put it in a 9x13 and it makes 15 nice sized servings and brings the calories down to around 200.

cover the dish with plastic wrap and press the mixture firmly with your hand to pack it all together. I have never had issues with them sticking to the pan at all. I cut them into the serving size and keep them in the fridge for a week now and they stay nicely.

I am going to have to take a break from making them again though because it is becoming too tempting to eat more than one a day!

Sorry I don't have any pictures to tantalize you with. :o(

Today

I have no idea what time Annie woke up this morning, she is supposed to stay in her room until her clock comes on but I think she has been getting up so ridiculously early that she just doesn't have the patience. When I woke up at 7 she had turned off her noise maker turned on all of her lights, all the bathroom lights, used the bathroom, taken her wet pull up off, put it in the diaper pail and was headed back to her room in a tangle of her footy jamies. I untangled her and put her back to bed after turning her lights off telling her it was still dark outside so she couldn't get up yet... hehehe yeah right. That lasted about 15 min. So then I told her that she needed to be quiet and not turn all the lights in the house on if she needed to use the potty and then go back to bed next time.... of course later in the day when she was throwing a fit for the 100000th time I yelled at her and told her I was going to take all of her lights and lock her in her room so that she was forced to not get up so early and therefore need a nap by 10am! ok, ok maybe I wasn't that harsh, but I did mention something about sleeping a little more. It didn't help that her daddy let her stay up until 10 watching baseball! He wont get away with that one again!

So here we are, up before sunrise making oatmeal with raisins for my 85 year old daughter :o)
Speaking of Jamies, how funny are these, I did realize a problem last night though, she still fits in a 2t but her feet are jammed inside those things! Her poor 3 year old feet are just too big for them :o(
So we head off to pick up some produce and she falls asleep in the car, when we get back home she wanted to know why we didn't get produce and wouldn't believe me that she slept through the whole thing. So when we get home, although riding to the tune of only one child babling was nice, I still wanted/needed some mommy time to, you know, blog & excercise. So I sent her to her room for some quiet play time and she took an apple with her. She called me up to her room and handed me this

That girl really enjoys her apples!

We also tried to recreate the fall decor we saw on display at the Livingston household but Annie was a little too young/tired/crabby/rotten to help with the leaves, so she colored the letters for me then we strung them up. We first put the letters on backwards and I had to take them off and redo them. All the while Mia was stepping on, and pulling on, and tearing up paper, and stealing my scissors every.time.I.put.them.down! So needless to say this project ended in spankings and tears and frustrations and a 10:30 lunch!

But its still pretty cute! I got tired of trying to figure out where we could hang it without my husband having a fit and chose the kitchen wall... I might be in trouble but Ill blame it on my mom, I can remember my dad not being completely happy with things she let us do all the time, although he just went with it after she would convince him that it was all for fun.
Love you Daddy ;o)

Lately

Things have been the usual stuff around here lately. We have been enjoying the extended summer, overdressing in the morning and then sweating our tails off by afternoon! The girls are so much fun lately. Mia has been saying a lot of "words" lately. She may have been saying them for a while now but I am just picking up on them.
I think she calls Annie "is" as in Sis without the S, the verdict is still out on that one.
She says daadaa for dog
Ahh Die is all done, which I find amusing.
shishy, shishy is fishy fishy
She says Bite & signs for "more" I would love someone to tell me who taught her that because I certainly did not.
We call socks sockie lockies because Elly Beth did and whenever we get near her sock drawer she sounds like a chicken clucking as her tongue sticks in and out over and over trying to say it.
Kris tried to teach her "nose and eye" however failed because she points to her nose and says "eye, eye, eye, eye, eye, eye" and then points to her ear and does the same, she rarely gets it right :o)
She can say her cousins "Bryce and Maggie"
Baa baa is a cup of milk and if its milk she wants you better not hand her a cup of water!
Today I asked her if she was singing and she ran out into the middle of the room, started turning in circles saying "ashys, ashys, ashys" Cute!
I wish I could describe to you how adorable it is when she says "awww baby" have you ever seen this movie? It is one of my all time favorites from when I was a kid and bless my lucky stars she says Baby just like those adorable little boys! "Ahhh Baaby"

Annie says crazy new words and phrases so fast I can't keep track of them all, you will just have to take my word for it.
Today I was teaching her "half & whole" using a pizza, later she ripped a sticker in half and I said "look Annie this is half, what is it when we put it back together?" she replies "A Pizza!"
She likes to exclaim "what in the world" and takes great effort when she does.
She enjoys going for a Country Drive (I am teaching her well) however saying the word is a bit of a challenge and I love to hear her labor over getting out "Conchie Drive".
I think she has officially decided that her sister is something lower than a plebe. She has zero regard for her feelings both physical & emotional and I have caught her doing really mean things to her! Today she was walking through the room carrying her little chair and completely mowed her sister over as if she wasn't a human being standing in the middle of the room, with plenty of room to go around her! Well this may be the beginning of a lifelong relationship but buddy while I am around things are going to get a little bit nicer!

I can't remember if I mentioned the demise of the original "fishy fishy" however he was quickly replaced with 4 more at a whopping 14cents a piece. Well Joe flushed the first 2 without Annie knowing, however I got rid of the 3rd one to kick it and unbeknownst to me she was behind me in the bathroom as I tossed the poor little guy in. She yelled "wait, don't flush him in the toilet!" as he went round and round, only the little guy didn't go down with the water, he stayed swirling around the bowl as it filled back up. And Annie watched him the whole time going "whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa..." I felt really bad having to re-flush him. However now Annie tells everyone that we flushed our fishy fishy down the "tolet" and laughs obnoxiously! We have seriously scarred her!

On to a lighter and much more fun note, Annie and I made these pumpkins today and I thought they turned out quite cute! I saw them on pinterest however the pin wasn't even for them it was about the candles next to them, I liked these much better than the candles!
And yes, that is a picture of my grandpas dog Lacy in the background, he sent it to annie in the mail because he thought she would like to have it. How cute is he? I am not surprised though, that his favorite great grandchild would be the offspring of his favorite grandchild.