Recent life

Excuse me. I was doing awesome at blogging frequently and then went out of town and got out of the habit.

So I'm here to update you.

Thanksgiving was great! It was lovely to see family, have the kids see family, eat a mindful but still indulgent meal, and go on a weekend get away with the love of my life.

helping grammy make dressing

Our anniversary was wonderful, and I can't believe it's been 6 years (but on the other hand, how has it only been 6?).

We decorated for Christmas!

St Nicholas came!

The kids saw santa.

We made gingerbread houses as a family!

My birthday was nice. Hubby made me a pumpkin ice cream roll/cake, it was super delish!

Nothing too fancy, but the following weekend we partied it up at my husband company's district meeting and Christmas party. It's always like an extension of my birthday because it's around that time every year. They treat the wives nice for a day and I got a catered lunch and a painting party (the kind with food and drinks). Then he was recognized for 5 years with the company, we had dinner and (way too many) drinks. I did not feel good the next morning. I will just be honest. I rarely imbibe and there were many contributing factors to this particular evening. Anyways, just being honest. Life has dealt us a pile of poop lately, it seems, but everyone in this family is trying to be happy and positive for the amazing things we do have!

realizing now how unflattering the dress was. meh. $13 at kohls FTW

My wonderful mother in law came into town to watch the kids....they of course got sick while she was here! G threw up and spiked a fever, and by the end of the weekend J was not doing good either. They are both still under the weather...and this non-medicinally inclined family is giving J every 6 hour doses of fever relief because even with it he's hovering around 103. Sucks. Bad. Say a prayer for the birthday boy. thanks!

smiling & making cookies we were supposed to take to a kid's Christmas party before it all went south (viruses come on fast!)

Before J completely tanked, grandma took him on the santa train! G was supposed to go but was too ill to make the journey.

While she was here I also utilized a morning to go to the orthopedic doctor because of my on going ab and hip issues.

So onto that story. See next blog.

Green Pancakes DYE FREE! Recipe

Happy St Patrick's Day!!!!!
This is my favorite holiday, so I try to do it up big.

This year we had fun science experiments with our church friends, then a wife of my husband's co-worker had some wives/kids over for playing and fun green lunch.

Oh, and I started us off right with some GREEN PANCAKES :-)
of course they were clean eating, which means no dye, because who wants that ruining their festive eating? not us!

Here's the recipe my friends!

Green Pancakes - clean eating & dye-free

2 cups whole wheat flour (or white whole wheat works great too...I actually used a combo)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2.25 cups almond or grass-fed dairy milk
2 cups (or "handfuls") baby spinach
2 eggs
4 tbsp melted grass fed butter (or coconut oil)
1 tbsp agave nectar (or honey)

Combine first 4 ingredients in a mixing bowl. In a blender combine the milk and spinach until pureed. Add eggs, melted butter, and agave--blend away. Combine wet and dry ingredients. Pour onto hot griddle in desired size (silver dollar pancakes are perfect for SPD) and flip once they start to bubble. Serve with pure syrup, agave, or honey and fruit. ENJOY!!

Halloweenie

G was a smart cookie

And j was a mizzou tiger

We had lots of fun this year :)

Life Lately - Wordless Wednesday

running in the warm fall weather 2 weeks ago at my mom's house

loving the 'Halloween' tunnel at my mom's school's party

 

She's started asking for her picture to be taken 11/3/12

Me and baby boy at 33 weeks!!

one of the best parts of moving back, much closer to our BFFs!!

Oreo Brownie Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cake {America's Birthday Cake}

No, this isn't red, white, and blue...but it's the cake I made for America's Birthday--that is, our Independence Day feast.

If that doesn't make you salivate...we do not have the same taste!

It was pretty easy, you just have to let some layers freeze between adding them so that it turns out as good as possible (so it is kind of a long process). Of course, you can sub in a different flavor of ice cream to suite your desires.

Our Three Day Weekend

My husband had three days off, in a row, and it felt like a real vacation. We had planned to do some outdoorsy-naturey things, but G ended up getting sick...such is life.

We did go for a jog and to the park on Friday afternoon, because my husband got home from work a few hours early. We went to a new park on Saturday morning on our way to the Farmers' Market. I made my cheesecake in the afternoon and the other two played. We had awesome grilled steaks for dinner that night.

My husband marinated and grilled our fancy steaks.

thought my dad would enjoy a photo of our Bean Crock :-)

Sunday is when the illness struck. She had a runny nose when she woke up and church was borderline-WWIII. It actually started out really nice and I thought we were going to have an easy time....HA. Starting around the Sanctus she started having a meltdown, so I stepped to the side with her. I tried to go back to kneel...fail. My husband took her to the back and returned around the sign of peace. We made it to communion as a family but then I took her out because she started screaming. She kept screaming, despite me letting her walk around the fountain area outside. It was clear something was wrong. I blame her Prevnar shot that she got on Thursday. She always has a reaction to that shot. Always. And it's always a few days afterwards. I'll be writing a post about it soon. Long story short, Sunday was pretty much a bust. We all took a long nap in the afternoon and then went out to eat. Dinner out is always a treat, but this wasn't as much of a treat since she wasn't in the greatest mood.
Monday was going to be our day to hit up a regional park or see Mt. Diablo...but G was in a royal mood all morning. We considered ourselves lucky to get in an afternoon jog. We grilled out again and watched the latest episode of Mad Men (which was one of the craziest they've ever made, in my opinion).

does not like cheesecake, even if it has strawberries in it!

It was a really relaxing weekend...until G started being super crabby and sick. Hopefully she kicks it soon because I'm doing solo parenting at the end of the week while my husband has a business trip. I had plans to fill our time, but if she is still sick....let's just say I might go crazy from being home-bound with an irritable 15 month old.

{My 20th} Seven Quick Takes

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This time next week, we will be in Kansas City! It's just a short trip back required by my husband's job, but G and I are tagging along (at our cost) to visit some friends and spend extra time with daddy. He doesn't have anything to do on Friday, so we are hoping the weather allows us to go to some outdoor attractions we never saw when we lived there. We have direct flights both going and coming, but that doesn't make flying with a baby easy, so I'm crossing my fingers for the least amount of stress possible. I'm really excited to see loved ones we haven't seen in nearly 2 months, and the comfort of the midwest has been calling my name since we left. EXCITED!

--- 2 ---

Guess who's been sick this week? Yup, the poor baby girl. We had a short play date at a park last Friday, and the little boy we met there had a runny nose. Apparently it leached onto G and she's been fighting some kind of respiratory illness since Sunday. She spiked a fever Wednesday evening but it's been low enough not to warrant medicine or a call to the doctor. Hopefully she kicks it before the beautiful weekend we are supposed to have.

Crafty Momma (2): G's Homemade Easter Dress

I've written a few times about how I got the crazy idea to sew G's Easter dress...and you may remember I explained how my mother is an amazing seamstress but I never really took the time (and she got kind of frustrated with me on several occasions) to master her craft. I have her old sewing machine. This past Christmas I did use a pattern under her direction to sew my husband a pair of boxers for Christmas (complete with dorky holiday print fabric). I've hemmed a few things and I made some curtains for our kitchen, and you may remember the crib rail covers I made. I suppose all of those things gave me the courage to jump right into dress making (which is probably the hardest thing to start out with).
I'll let the pictures take it from here:

I was off to a good start, despite miscalculating the amount of fabric needed

this pattern may have been in English, but it was not easy to understand

St. Patrick's Day changed my life

I'm not making it up; without St. Patrick's Day I wouldn't be married to my wonderful soul mate.
Five years ago, as of 2 am central time, I met my husband at a St. Patrick's Day party. You can read more about our story in the post I did for Valentine's Day about Our Love Story. If you like romantic movies, I think you'd love our story. I really think it's better than at least half of the Lifetime movies out there.

While it's not our wedding anniversary, I will always think of St. Patrick's Day as 'our anniversary' because it's the day our lives changed completely. Neither of us were looking for a spouse, but that's exactly what we got.

I love green, I love Irish, I love the lack of snakes in Ireland, and I love St. Patrick's Day.

Most of all I love my husband!

Shamrock tattoo (the words are Italian "forever")

To my dearest husband #WW #linky

We didn't plan to do anything fancy for Valentine's Day, although we did have a very nice dinner out with the baby on Sunday. I made a nice dinner for the actual 'holiday' and made my husband a homemade valentine. I also got him some candy.
Last week I briefly mentioned that I wanted chocolate covered strawberries...but didn't think I was going to get anything and that was just fine. I was really surprised when my husband walked in the door with a little white bag. He got the GOOD kind!! (half a dozen from Russell Stover)
I'm eating them all tonight A)because they don't have a nutritional facts label so they are calorie free & B)because they won't be nearly as good tomorrow!!! :-) LOVE HIM!

Link up your wordless Wednesday posts below!

Holiday Travel - Seven Quick Takes (vol 5)

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Last year my husband and I were gone for a week around the holidays--and we said we'd never do it again. If we had gone to one place and stayed there it would have been different, but we hit up several towns and family members.
Did we learn our lesson? No...We did the same thing this year.
Holidays are really tough with a baby--everyone wants to see her! I was worried how she would do in the car, but she completely blew us away with her great attitude. She took two short naps on the 6 hour drive to my parents, and pretty much occupied herself the whole time she was awake by looking at her picture books. We stopped once to change her diaper and eat lunch. She was a tad fussy as we pulled into town, but who could blame her. Six hours is a long time in a sport wagon.

On the two hour drive from my parents to my grandpa's house she slept the whole way! From my grandpa's house to my in-laws she played with toys and I think maybe fell asleep a tiny bit, I can't remember. That drive was a little over an hour, but she started getting fussy at the very end again.
On the last leg of our trip, the three hour drive home, she took a good nap for half of it and played well for about 20 minutes. Then we had to stop. We had to change a huge (and I do mean HUGE) diaper explosion, including her clothes...it was disgusting. The last hour wasn't very fun for anyone, we played baby song tapes and CDs to calm down the very annoyed G. We were never so glad to see our front door as we finished our holiday travels, although we loved spending time with our families.

Handmade Christmas #WW #Linky

My husband has made me an ornament every Christmas since we've been together (the one Christmas before we got married, he made me a jewelry box).

Happy Birthday Jesus and Momma

Sunday was Christmas, but also my momma's birthday! I had planned to post that day, but decided I preferred taking some time off to enjoy my family's company.

We were gone for almost a full week. We went to my parents, and also to my in-laws. I don't think we will ever to the full circle again...it was too much traveling with a 10 month old and ended up being kind of stressful. It was really nice to see everyone though.

I love spending my mom's birthday with her, and it was nice to have G's first Christmas with my parents and sister. The generosity of our family toward us and our baby girl was so great. Thank you all! G got a lot of toys, several books, and even a bit of money. We got more gifts than expected, plus some money! We were shocked, to say the least. I now have a new diaper bag, baking supplies, gloves, clothes, gift cards, running shoes, and my homemade ornament. My husband got literally everything on his list; so now I don't know what to get him for his birthday!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas - #WW

This Sunday we decorated for Christmas. I love Christmas decorations, Christmas music, Christmas cookies, and all things of this wonderful time of year. I am the kind of person that doesn't believe Christmas is over until the Church says it's over...which is in January, so you can believe Christmas decorations/music/food are here to stay in our home until then. Hooray :-) I don't usually like to decorate this early, but with an early Advent season, I couldn't wait to do so. Baby G didn't know what to think at first, with all the festive activities going on! She desperately wanted to help though! She also really likes Christmas music--especially Jingle Bells and when I sing Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.

 Baby G likes to be "helpful"