No Match-ups This Week

I have decided to take a week off from my MARTIN’S Top Deals Post.

We have had a busy week and have enjoyed catching up with family and friends in addition to reflecting on the true meaning of Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ.  This is also a busy time for us because it is Natalie’s birthday.  (My oldest daughter.)

We have been really trying to avoid adding more clutter and things to our home. I have been purging clothes and toys for the last month. In an effort to cut down on things being brought into our home we were trying to focus on spending time together, and making memories. We have season passes to Busch Gardens and were able to take the kids down to Busch Gardens Christmas Town and enjoy lunch with Santa. Here is a family picture that we were able to have taken in front of Santa’s fireplace before the kids got to talk to Santa. The kids had a great day, enjoyed the shows and loved the decorations.  We were even able to catch-up with family and friends who were also there for the day. When we got home Natalie and Megan both told us, “Thanks for a great time and a fun lunch with Santa.”

 

Check back next week for match-ups, but until then have a Happy New Year. 

~Ann

My first night alone with Michael

I had to share a story about the night I had Wednesday night.  Steve and the girls went to church and I stayed home alone with Michael.  I really didn’t expect any big issues, if it was my first baby I would have been freaked out about being alone with an 8 day old baby, but with Michael being my third baby I am thankful for a few moments alone with him. 

**I am going to warn you before you continue reading this that I am going to be discussing a topic that many moms are familiar with – nursing my baby.  If you are not comfortable with this topic just skip the rest of this post.**

It was time for me to nurse Michael, which we are doing really well with.  I successfully nursed Natalie for 8 months and Megan for a year.  (You will probably laugh when you realize that part of the reason why I continued to nurse them past the minimal recommendation of 6 months was because formula is expensive and breast milk, besides being good for them, is free!)  I picked Michael up and noticed that his diaper was wet.  No big deal, I changed his diaper.  I got him positioned and was trying to get him to latch on when I felt something warm.  He had peed again and somehow it came out the side of his diaper – all over his little shirt, the nursing pillow, and me.  I was evaluating the situation and starting to take off his wet shirt when I felt something wet on the front of my shirt.  I looked and realized I was leaking on the side that I was about to nurse from.  I grabbed a nursing pad and got that taken care of.  I stripped Michael down, put a dry blanket over the wet area of the nursing pillow and we were able to get the feeding accomplished.  I went to burp Michael after I finished feeding him and he spit up a little bit – on my shoulder and it was on his face.  I cleaned the little guy up – again.  I finally got him into a clean shirt (his fourth outfit for the day) and cleaned up everything from before the feeding.  I had to laugh, it really didn’t bother me.  I found it rather comical.  I thought to myself if this had been Natalie (my first baby) I would have panicked and probably called Steve and cried on the phone to him.  I looked at this as just another day and was thankful that it was just the two of us and not the craziness of having my two “helpers” involved.

The story continues.  Right before Steve and the girls came home I thought I had things under control when I heard Michael have another blow-out.  I went to change him again and realized that he had also peed again and this time got the front of his shirt wet.  He was now on his fifth outfit for the day.  I started a load of laundry for him.  (I just did all of the laundry yesterday.) He wet the other three outfits he had on earlier today along with the sheet in his crib this morning and his play mat this afternoon. He got that wet during a diaper change, and thankfully I escaped that “shower”. 

The poor little guy didn’t last long in the fifth outfit either.  Steve picked him up shortly after they arrived home because he was a little fussy and the girls wanted to tell me about what happened at church when Steve told me that he was wet again and that the bassinet sheet was soaked.  They sheet got added to the laundry and Michael ended up in his sixth outfit for the night which thankfully he managed to stay in until the next morning.

I am sure I will have more stories and that life will get even crazier for me in the coming days, but I do want to end with another cute picture of three of the reasons why my life is crazy – in a good way. 

Baby Brother is here!!!!

I just wanted to post a quick note to share that we now have two handsome guys in our family now.  Michael Stephen – aka “baby brother” was born on Tuesday, August 10th.  He weighed in at 8lb 1oz and was 20.25 inches long.  I am doing ok.  I had to have a third c-section so my recovery is slow and not always comfortable, but I have a handsome healthy baby to show for it.  Michael is doing really well.  Steve is being a huge help and big sisters Natalie & Megan are in love with their new brother. 

I am not going to bore you right now with baby picture overload, but this is one of my favorites that Steve caught of the girls visiting us in the hospital Wednesday morning.

 

We are so blessed!

Preparing for Baby #3 – Part II

I am doing a mini-series about preparing for baby #3’s arrival in less than a month.  Here is a link to part I to get you up to speed.  

I left off finishing up my first trimester still feeling yucky but relieved that we were expecting a healthy baby.

Valentine’s Day weekend was at the beginning of my second trimester.  Steve and I decided that we needed to get-away for a few days to spend some time without kids so that we could really talk and “digest” all of the changes that were to come.  We ended up finding a nice place with a weekend package in Washington, DC and found a great sitter to come over and stay with the girls for two nights so that we didn’t have to worry about packing them up.  It was a good thing for us.  I was able to get some extra rest without little ones waking me up and I was able to talk with Steve about the emotions I was feeling about having another baby.  I was really struggling with feeling selfish.  I was only looking at how this new baby was going to affect me and my daily life.  I was having trouble seeing past those sleepless newborn nights and all of the challenges a new baby can bring.  I wasn’t seeing the big picture of the happiness, joy, and love that this new little one was going to bring to our family and those around him. 

It was at this point that we were ready to start sharing our news with people outside of our family.  We actually shared the news with Natalie over dinner one night.  We knew that she wouldn’t understand that the new baby wouldn’t be here until late summer so we held off telling her until we were ready to tell others.  She was very excited and actually told lots of people about our new baby.  The day after we told her she went to school and told her teachers and then went to Ukrop’s and shared it with the employees in all of the different departments that we were going to have a new baby.  It was interesting to see people’s response.  Some people would look at me and say, “really?”  and some thought she was talking about getting a new doll and then later asked me if she meant a real baby.

I began to pull out the bin of maternity clothes I had and received bags of clothes back from friends who had borrowed my clothes during their pregnancies.  The world of maternity clothes, it is a love/hate relationship.  They are so comfortable at first because your regular clothes are getting too tight, but they are really too big for early in the second trimester so you feel like you are just trying to hide the fact that you have put on some extra weight.  I fell in love with anything with an empire waist.  It helped to hide the growing baby bump without making me feel frumpy and they were long enough to cover up the fact that the only pants I was really wearing now had an elastic waistband.

I was finally starting to feel good, the yucky symptoms of my first trimester had finally gone away.  I started to feel like I had energy again. 

We found out at my 20 week appointment (that coincidentally was April 1st) that we were having a baby boy.  Steve and I really thought it was going to be another girl.  We also found out that there was one possible problem – he has a two vessel cord.  Babies are suppose to have a three-vessel cord.  This is a very minor problem and with monitoring really doesn’t result in any long-term problems.  Babies with two-vessel cords can be on the smaller side, and sometimes the kidney on the side that isn’t getting as much blood flow can show some problems.  They also sometimes have to be delivered a little early because they seem to have low levels of amniotic fluid.  We have friends that had a healthy little guy in September who went through the same issue, so it really didn’t worry us.  It just required me to see a neo-natal specialist every 4 weeks until 36 weeks for an ultrasound to make sure he is still growing well, and that his kidneys and liver are doing well.  It has allowed us to see his little profile more often and have more ultrasound pictures of him.  Thankfully he is doing fine and the two-vessel cord thing isn’t slowing down his growth.  He has been measuring 95% on the growth charts and two weeks larger than he should be.

We were able to take a short family vacation in early April and meet some of my family in Washington, DC for a few days so that we could visit the National Zoo and the Smithsonian.  It was an incredibly hot for April but they had fun. 

I started getting into the swing of things again.  In mid-March I was in charge of reception honoring a missionary couple from our church who served in Europe for 40 years.  My mom, sister, and I started to plan a bridal shower for my brother’s fiancé for late May (they got married in early July).  I was in charge of a ladies luncheon at our church the Saturday before Mother’s Day.  I started to think about and plan out how we wanted to celebrate Megan’s second birthday.  Steve had a business trip to the UK and we talked about it and talked with my doctor and made plans for me to join him there for part of the trip.

During all of this Steve and I realized that one of the things that we needed to do was start to do was to look at our priorities again.  We had several commitments and things that we were involved with at our church.  The transition from Ukrop’s to MARTIN’S was taking place and we knew that that would affect my work schedule.  We talked and prayed about it and realized that we need to take a temporary leave of absence from our duties with the college students at our church.  We realized that with soon to be three children 4&1/2 and under that we wouldn’t be able to invest the time that we had in the past.  We talked to the youth pastor at our church about it and agreed that it would be best for us to step down in early May before the majority of our students who go to school outside of Richmond came home.  That way we wouldn’t have to get caught up with summer activities and then leave in the middle of the summer.  We decided that we would talk about going back to that ministry in January.  We figure that it is going to take us a few months to figure out what our “new normal” is going to be with three kids.

I will talk more about my third trimester and the list of things I have or want to get done before our little guy arrives in another post. 

I’ve been fighting a war – against laundry stains

It appears that no one in our house, including myself, is able to keep their clothes clean.  My pregnant belly is just a huge stain catcher.  Add in a four-year-old and an almost two-year-old and you have a recipe for disaster.  Evidently being a stain catcher is contagious because in the last few weeks I have had to double check all of Steve’s clothes.  In his defense it is not always his fault.  He became Megan’s napkin the other night when we were out to dinner with his parent’s for Mother’s day.  He had a nice jelly handprint on his shoulder.  :) 

Here are some ways that I have been able to treat and remove most of our stains:

• Pre-treat the stain as soon as possible.  I have had lots of success with a Spray ‘n Wash Stain Stick or Shout Advanced Gel.  I keep a stain stick upstairs so that we can try to remember to treat the stain when we change our clothes.  (I really like the Shout product because it is in a spray bottle and can really saturate the stain.  All you have to do is spray it on, rub it in, and let it sit and do it’s magic.)  I have successfully removed strawberry stains with the stain stick and grease spots with the spray gel.

 

• Soak the clothing.  There are some things that my girls get on themselves that I just need to soak right away.  I actually keep a bottle of detergent upstairs.  When I need to soak something and laundry day is a few days off I just pour a little bit of detergent on the opposite side of the stain and rub it in.  I then just let the clothes soak in a bathroom sink for at least a day or until the next laundry day.  (I have double sinks in both of our upstairs bathrooms so it isn’t a huge inconvenience to lose a sink.)

 

• Let the really dirty or just dingy looking clothes soak overnight.  My washer doesn’t have a soak cycle, so I created my own.  I sort the laundry that has been treated or that needs to soak.  The night before I am going to do the laundry I fill my washer with the water, the laundry detergent, and Tide Stain Release liquid.  When the washer is almost filled to the water level I selected I add the clothes.  I close the lid for about a minute so that all of the clothes can get pulled into the water with the agitator then I open the lid to stop the cycle and let them sit overnight.  The next morning I just close the lid and let the cycle finish.

 

• If I have a small load of mixed colors I add a Shout Color Catcher to the load.  I have found that I can successfully wash lights and darks together without the colors bleeding onto each other if I use the color catcher. 

 

• I always double check the clothes before moving them to the dryer.  I always give everything a double look to make sure that it looks clean before I move it over.  If I am unsure if something came out, like a grease stain, I just let the item dry on a drying rack.  That way the heat doesn’t set the stain or make it harder to remove on the next round of laundry.

 

If all else fails here is a sure-fire stain removal tip from a friend of ours who has spent 30+ years in the dry cleaning business.  “Get a pair of scissors and cut out the stain.”  :)

How about you - do you feel like you are always fighting a stain war?  Do you have any stain fighting products that have worked wonders on stains?  Do you have any special techniques that work for removing stains?  Feel free to share any tips that work for you.

**The products that I mentioned are all products that I have purchased and use per the package directions a regular basis.  I have not received any sort of compensation for reviewing or using these products.**

A little of this & that…

I have had a crazy last two weeks.  We had one impromptu and one scheduled meeting that went late (like after 10PM) last week and my 15 hour shift on Saturday put me in a downward tailspin.  The extra 13 hours (over two days) I had to put in this week to learn a new pharmacy computer system for MARTIN’S this week didn’t help.  So, enough of my whining.  I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday that allowed me to have a babysitter watch the girls and give me some “me time” (in addition to seeing some more pictures of the little guy who looks healthy and is growing like crazy.)  I was able to relax a little after the appointment with a manicure and pedicure, hit CVS & Walgreens, met Steve for dinner, and then we headed to a baby class.  It was nice to be out of the house without going to work and without kids and to have a quick meal with Steve to talk and catch-up without little interruptions.

Our neighborhood is having a community yard sale this weekend and I am debating about participating.  Because of our busy schedules the last 2 weeks I haven’t really pulled much out, but I do have some things that I have pulled out in the past that I would like to unload.  I am also considering selling some of my unopened stockpiled toiletry items.  I realized I have TONS of body wash, shampoo, toothpaste, and razors.  My rule of thumb is that I don’t spend more than $1 after sales and coupons on these items.  I was thinking about marking them $2 and then figuring out what I want to do with the money.  I found out that one of my neighbors’ husband and daughter are going on a missions trip this summer and she is using her yard sale to help fund their trip.  (She called me and told me she has lots of little boys clothes if I wanted to come check them out.)  I may look at doing something like that with our profits.

I have had a chance in the last few weeks to find some little boy clothes on sale at different children’s clothing stores.  I have an Old Navy credit card and last week was part of the “stuff the bag” promo they have about twice a year.  This promotion gives you an additional 20% off your entire purchase including sale and clearance merchandise.  I found lots of little boy clothes in an assortment of sizes.  (Our girls were larger babies and this little guy is already measuring by ultrasound a week larger than he should be so we won’t need many little clothes.)  Some of the things were so cute I couldn’t pass them up – like the oxford shirt and sweater vest.  I also found a few things at The Children’s Place for the little guy.  Natalie actually helped me pick out a few things.  She is getting excited about having a baby brother and she picked some clothes and said “Ohhh, won’t he look so cute in this.” 

Here are pictures of the baby clothes I got at both stores last week (I couldn’t squeeze it all into one picture):

I got an assortment of pants, tops, and some pajamas at Old Navy that were originally $283.50 marked down to $137.69 and an additional 20% off for a grand total of $110.17 (before tax).  That gives me a savings of $173.33 or 61%!

I got a pair of overalls, a few shirts, a sleeper,and some socks at The Children’s Place that were originally $45.50 marked down to $19.96.  That gave me a savings of $25.54 or 56%! 

I now have a few baby boy clothes.  I have several friends who have offered up some clothes to us and I will probably check out my neighbor’s yard sale tomorrow.  I am sure he will end up with more than enough clothes!

My Crazy Week – Part II (The Circus)

We got home from DC Wednesday afternoon, took afternoon naps, then headed over to church Wednesday night.  Steve went back to work on Thursday and I had an appointment that morning and a friend let me drop of my girls to play with her 3 kids for a few hours.  I spent the afternoon trying to find our house underneath all of the stuff that had accumulated in the last 2 weeks while I was suffering from allergies and had to work. 

Friday morning I had my women’s Bible Study and then I took the girls to get haircuts.  We ended up getting lunch while we were out and running a few other errands.  We got home in time for naps because we had a big night ahead of us – we had tickets to go to the circus!  My parents came up to Richmond to go with us and my brother and his fiance’, who are students at Liberty University, were on their way home to Gloucester for the weekend and stopped in Richmond to go to the circus with us.

• On a side note – I stick with my motto to always shop around for things.  We found a discount code on-line (“mom”) that allowed us to get $24 seats for $11 (We did have to end up paying ticketmaster fees that made the final cost ~$16 each).  We ended up with lower level seats and we saved a total of ~$8 on each of them. 

They allow you to arrive an hour before the circus actually starts and go down to the floor and interact with the circus performers.  The girls loved watching the acrobats and the clowns up close.

Natalie got to help pull the rope against one of the strong men.

 

This is really how close we were during the preshow.

I was showing Natalie that the elephant would come out during the circus and put his foot up on the platform.  (I didn’t realize how much I resembled the elephant.  :))

Steve got a shot of the first part of our row – Megan is sitting on my lap and Natalie is sitting on Geoffrey’s lap.  I love the expression on Megan’s face.

Geoffrey and Audri – during the intermission

We were waiting for Geoffrey and Audri to get to where we were parked so that we could all grab a snack afterwards.  Natalie was on the look-out for them by standing up through the sunroof.

We had a great time and I really think the rest of our family had a good time.  The girls also enjoyed hanging out and getting spoiled by family at the restaurant afterwards.  It was a late night for all of us, but a memorable one.

My Crazy Week – Part I (Easter & Washington DC)

It must have been a crazy and adventurous week if I have to break it up into “parts”.  I mentioned earlier that we left Richmond mid-afternoon this past Sunday after a wonderful Easter service at church. 

Here are a few pictures of the girls checking out their Easter baskets before church.  I didn’t want to give the girls lots of candy (but everyone needs a chocolate bunny and jelly beans) so in addition to some books and granola bars I put new sunglasses, bracelets, and hair bows in their Easter Baskets. 

 

 

Here is a shot of how cute my girls looked in their Easter dresses after church with their babysitter Sarah and a friend she brought home from school also named Sarah.  Even Bitty Baby got a new dress to wear for Easter. 

 

After we got home we packed our last few items and the car and headed up I-95 to go to DC.  We got up there after a few minor traffic delays around 5PM.  We checked-in to our hotel, got ourselves settled, and then decided we wanted to get some dinner.  We found a restaurant we wanted to go to on-line that was about a mile away from our hotel.  We knew that the walk there would be entirely uphill.  So we opted to introduce the girls to the Metro (Washington DC’s subway system).  Because we were taking the Metro we knew we wouldn’t have to walk very far and decided to leave the stroller behind.  The girls were a little scared when the first train came into the station from the loud noise and the gush of wind that it brought.  When they realized what was going on they were fine and were waving good-bye to it as we waited for our train to arrive.  They really liked riding the Metro during our visit.  Natalie even became a pro at getting on and off the escalator. 

This shot is really from Tuesday afternoon.  Steve was on the escalator beside us balancing the stroller while I had both girls with me.  (How do you like that farmer’s “burn” I got the previous day visiting the zoo.)

 

We caught up with my parents, sister, brother-in-law, niece, and nephew at the National Zoo on Monday and enjoyed a hot and crowded day there.  The girls had lots of fun and they got to see the panda bear, the zebras, a tiger, an orangutan, the elephants, and several other animals.  There is lots of construction and remodeling going on at the zoo right now so some of the attractions weren’t completely open and some of the animals have been sent to other zoos while their homes are being remodeled.

Here are a couple of pictures from our day at the zoo:

Trying to pose with the Panda statue

Emma, Ethan, Natalie, & Megan with the Prairie Dog statue

Natalie looking at the map with Aunt Heather and asking what animals can we see next. 

 

A crowd shot with our gang – Aaron is in the blue striped polo, Heather in the black dress, Emma in the blue t-shirt, my dad in the green shirt with a baseball cap, me in the pink shirt pushing the stroller, Megan is in the backseat of the stroller, my mom is behind me in the light colored shirt holding Natalie’s hand.  (Ethan and Steve were missing from the shot).

Playing on a hill during our lunch break.

The only picture I could find of Steve – holding Megan while they look at the tiger.

Exhaustion – she fell asleep in the stroller during the 15 minute walk we had back to the hotel.

 

On Tuesday we got to ride the Metro again (this time with a double stroller) and we headed over to the Smithsonian Museum of American History.  It was a really hot April day in DC (mid 80’s) so we were thankful to be inside with air conditioning.  I think lots of other people had the same idea as us because it was really crowded at the museum as well.  Nonetheless we still had a fun time and got to see some of the exhibits and enjoy our time there. 

The American History Museum has been completely renovated in the last few years and museums have shed the “look but don’t touch” image I remember them having as a kid.  Natalie got to be a scientist in a section they call Sparklab which is an entire interactive area for kids.

Here is Natalie the scientist (they even gave her goggles to wear) doing an experiment dealing with color filtration.

We got to build structures with a model kit – we built a tower around Natalie.  (Megan wouldn’t stay still for us to accomplish this with her.)

Steve and Natalie got to learn and see for themselves how hard it is to balance and hold a windsurfing sail.

On Wednesday we slept in some and then packed ourselves back-up so that we could get back to Richmond before the traffic nightmares got bad on I-95.  We had a great time together and enjoyed Steve being able to take off a few days from work to spend it with all of us. 

Stay tuned for Part II of our crazy week. 

Megan is doing better :)

Thanks for the concern for Megan and understanding about my match-ups being later than normal this week.  She really had us worried last night.  When we got to the exam room at KidMed (a pediatric Urgent Care Center) they took her temperature rectally and it was 103.6.  They quickly brought us a dose of Tylenol and by the time we were leaving (about 2 hours later) her fever was down to 102.  The doctor ran several tests but all of them came back negative for a bacterial infection, so we are treating it like it is a virus and monitoring her fever.  She still has a slight fever today even with the medicine on board, but thankfully not as high as yesterday. 

I can’t say enough about how nice they were to us at KidMed.  This, thankfully, was our first trip there.  They brought Megan juice boxes and popsicles to calm her down between the tests (and to get some more fluids in her).  They also had flat screen TVs in the waiting room and in the exam room turned to Nick Jr to help entertain and pass the time.  I hope that we don’t become regulars at KidMed, but it is great to know there are options beside the ER and Patient First when the pediatrician’s office is closed.

Match-ups are delayed....

I am sorry that I still haven't finished my weekly match-ups.  We had plans this morning to meet some friends for lunch and pedicures.  While we were out Megan (my 21-month-old) started to act rather clingy and actually fell asleep on our friend at lunch - definitely outside of the norm for her.  When we got home I took her temperature and it read 102.  I gave her some Motrin and laid her down.  After a nap and being up for a little bit I checked her temperature again and this time her fever is up to 103 - 3 hours after giving her the Motrin.  So, needless to say we need to take her to the pediatric urgent care and see what is going on.  I will hopefuly be home later tonight and can finish them then.  Sorry for the delay.

The Adventures of a Family Road Trip

We haven’t really taken our girls on that many long road trips.  Our normal road trips are to visit family about an hour away.  We decided to take a trip to Philadelphia because Steve was given free tickets to a suite for a Philadelphia 76er’s basketball game (against the Boston Celtics).  One of our babysitters, actually our first sitter she started watching Natalie when she was 3 months old, goes to school outside of Philadelphia so we saw it as a chance to visit her at the same time.  We looked at the maps and saw that it should take about four and half hours to drive the trip.  We knew that we were going to be going through some high traffic areas, like DC and tried to plan accordingly for traffic and necessary stops so we figured it would take us about 6 hours.

I made sure we had water to drink in the car and some snacks so that everyone would stay happy in between stops.  I even packed empty ziploc bags in case my nausea and a car ride didn’t agree with each other.  (That was probably one of my best ideas.)  We loaded up the car (we were only going to be gone one night so we didn’t need that much stuff) and left Richmond around 10AM.  We were “on track” for getting to the hotel around 4 and the girls were excited about seeing Sarah.  We had the GPS set with our final destination and we were ready to go. 

Then around 11 – I had to go to the bathroom.  I encouraged Natalie to come with me, but of course she had decided she didn’t want to wear her shoes in the car and it took me longer to get the sneakers back on her than to actually make the bathroom break.  We decide that since we had to drive 2 miles off the interstate to find the Wawa and that the GPS showed the interstate only another 3 miles up the road we would drive through Spotsylvania for another 3 miles listening to the GPS tell us where to turn to find I-95 again.  We get back on the interstate and continue heading North.

We got near DC – thankfully it was around noon so the traffic was not horrible, but the GPS started having problems on us.  We realized the problem was because so many of the roads ran parallel that the GPS (through Steve’s blackberry) couldn’t decipher for certain what road we were on and it would tell us too late that we should have been on an exit ramp.  We ended up going 495 and I don’t know what happened through this portion because somehow we again ended up in a suburban area.  We finally found our way back to an interstate around 1 and at this point I had pulled out goldfish to hold the girls over until we could find a place to stop for lunch.  I had been feeling nauseous for the last hour and had cracked and closed the window numerous times.  Somewhere between the combination of turning around to hand out goldfish, the way the sun was coming into the car, and my stomach getting empty I really started to feel sick.  I cracked the window again and ate a handful of goldfish then quickly realized that was not a good idea.  Thank goodness for the ziploc bag!  Poor Steve, the girls were hungry and fussy, I was sick, and he was trying to find a place we could stop and just get out.  I know he was wondering what did I get myself into?

Thankfully we found an exit in the next 10 minutes and they even had a Panera.  I could not handle the thought of greasy fast food and getting back into the car to ride for several more hours.  We stopped got lunch, got some fresh air, and then packed up everyone again in hopes that the girls would take naps.

Megan must have been worried about missing out on something because she just would not give it up.  We tried everything, a DVD, a CD, “quiet car”, she just was not going to go to sleep.  “Quiet car” did help Natalie go to sleep.  Megan did finally crash as we drove into downtown Philadelphia, about 30 minutes from our hotel.

We did have to make one more stop before we made it to the hotel.  Because of all of our suburban side trips during the day we realized we may not have enough gas to get all the way to the hotel and instead of play the where is the closest gas station in an unfamiliar area we stopped before we hit Philadelphia (and were able to squeeze in another bathroom stop).  We finally arrived at our hotel right at 5PM.  An hour later than we had anticipated, but we made it there safe and sound without any more excitement.

Sarah watched the girls Friday night for us so that we could go to the basketball game and they had a blast hanging out with her at college.

Here are a few pics of the girls with Sarah on Friday night and Saturday morning when we took Sarah to breakfast and visited the town near her campus.

  So excited to see Miss Sarah!

The first time they slept together – they look so sweet and innocent when they are sleeping.  :)

Exploring the town together – Megan loves her big sister so much that she copies everything Natalie does.

Thankfully our trip back home wasn’t as eventful and we were able to stop by Ikea so that Natalie could play in the kid’s area (Megan wasn’t big enough) and we could check out a few things.  We made family memories, but I don’t know when we will plan the next family road trip.

Menu planning progress

….or lack of.  I had a few good weeks of sticking to my menu planning and enforcing the eat at home challenge I came up with in January.  Then I lost my momentum – again.  I think one of the things that really got me out of the habit was that my sweet and wonderful husband took me away for the weekend of Valentine’s Day.  We obviously ate out and left money and take out menus for the sitter and the girls. 

The other roadblock is that although I have been trying to “push through” and “be a trooper” morning sickness and exhaustion have just seemed to really knock me down.  (Side note: I guess now is a good time to share that we found out in mid-December that we are going to have an unexpected blessing arrive mid-August.)  I had in my mind that by mid-February I would be at the end of my first trimester and starting on the best stage of pregnancy - the second trimester.  It hasn’t worked out quite like that, at least not yet.  The exhaustion has been horrible and sometimes just the thought of walking into the kitchen to fix anything other than water and crackers is more than I can handle.  I don’t like feeling so useless, but I keep telling myself that I am older and that I have two little ones to chase around and clean-up after.  (I won’t even comment on the state of the house.)  Steve is great and has tried to help me and be as encouraging as he can be.  He will try to handle the girls after he gets home or help me knock-out a task if I get a spurt of energy.  He has also been willing to either eat cereal for dinner, leftovers (not his favorite), or offer to take us out or bring something home so that I don’t have to worry about cooking.  He has even become a bit of a sous chef for me.  I have had a real aversion to touching any sort of raw meat, and the smell of something like hamburger browning has been enough to cause me to run out of the kitchen, so he has been a great help with prepping stuff in advance. 

I am trying to get back into the swing of menu planning again.  I know it sounds crazy but having a simple thing, like what you are going to eat or fix for dinner that night really reduces some of the everyday chaos around the house.  I know that Natalie also really liked having a menu plan.  Last week when I didn’t make one but still had the previous week’s posted on the refrigerator she asked me, “What is for dinner tonight?”  I told her, “I don’t know.  We will come up with something.”  Her response was, “Mom, look at the chart on the refrigerator.  It will tell us.”

A positive thing has been that with my overflowing pantry that we have had plenty of things to choose from for dinner and some of the convenience mixes (that aren’t my favorites) have really worked out great for side dishes or lunches for the girls.  The bags of frozen veggies have also been a lifesaver to rounding out a meal.  I am going to attempt to make a roast in the crockpot today and try to make bread.  I haven’t made bread in about 3 weeks.  I am thinking the roast will work for at least 2 maybe 3 meals, and we can talk about our weekend plans over dinner tonight. 

Another positive thing is that although we haven’t completely enjoyed home cooked meals, we have still been eating together and spending time together as a family.

My first batch of Christmas cookies for 2009...

My Assistant - she helped to flatten the cookies after I rolled them into balls.

Our finished product:

 Sugar cookies dipped in white candy coating and sprinkled with crushed candy canes.

Yummy!

Coffee

We had just gotten in from a morning out and I had put down my travel coffee mug on the kitchen table. (Side note - I got free Starbucks coffee today by bringing in a specially marked empty bag of Starbucks coffee.) I ran upstairs for a few minutes while the girls were playing downstairs. When I came back downstairs the girls seemed to be playing well together. They are right now fascinated with the Christmas ornaments. We wound up a few and were listening to the music. Then I looked at Megan's shirt (a white turtleneck) it was brown all over the top. I asked Natalie what was on Megan's shirt. She looked at me and said "coffee". I then asked, "Where did she get coffee from?" "Your mug," Natalie replied nonchalantly. I then walked into the kitchen and noticed the mug sitting on its side and in a different spot. I asked Natalie how Megan reached it. She said. “I gave it to her, we both like coffee. I didn't spill any, but Megan spilled it on her shirt and on the floor." I looked on the floor and sure enough - there was a coffee spill.  Just another day in the life of a mom.  :)

The things kids say...

Tonight I was able to go out and catch-up with some girls from church. While I was out Steve took our girls upstairs to get them ready for bed. He went into Natalie’s room. She has a knack for destroying it rather quickly; I call her the Tasmanian Devil. Steve said, “Natalie, your room is an utter mess.” Natalie looked up at him with her big brown eyes and said, “Dad, that is an opinion; not a fact.” He explained to her that although she is right, as her dad it was a fact.

The things kids say....

Tonight while we were eatting a late dinner I was talking through what our week was going to look like. I mentioned that I was hosting the November meeting for my WMF home group Monday night. Natalie asked if she got to come to the meeting. I told her no, she started to fuss. I told her that she and Megan were going to go out with Dad for dinner. She was still upset. Steve piped in. "Natalie, you don't even know where we are going for dinner. Where would you like to go?" Natalie looked at him and said, "I would like to go to The Melting Pot." We both just started laughing. Steve broke it to her that they probably wouldn't go there for dinner.

Halloween Pictures

It was unusually warm on Halloween this year.  It turned out to be a really warm day - I think it was a high of 78 for the day, and really humid. That was not the best weather for the fleece costumes I bought the girls last year the week after Halloween. Being the bargain shopping mom that I am - I got the cosutmes for $5 each.  I really don't think I could have made them something for less. 

They were really excited about going out to the neighbor's houses.  We practiced a few times with ringing the doorbell and saying "trick or treat" and to say "thank you" when they got candy.  I also told Natalie she could say "Happy Halloween" when she was leaving the houses.  She was so excited that when she got to the door she said, "Happy Trick or Treating!"  Megan, really liked trick or treating.  We found out that she loves candy.  (She is my daughter.)  The neighbors thought she was so cute and little they just held out the bowl of candy and told her to take a piece.  She reached out her little hand and didn't just take one piece, she took 3 or 4 pieces - at everybody's house.  She actually came home with more candy than Natalie.

Here are some pictures of us carving our pumpkin with a Noah's Ark pattern and the girls in their costumes:

 Cleaning out the pumpkin "guts"  I was standing on a stool to make it easier to reach inside the pumpkin.

The cat & the mouse ready to hit the neighborhood.  This is the best picture I could find of our finished pumpkin.

Megan was sad that she couldn't eat her candy yet.

The mouse got into her candy - notice the chocolate around her mouth.

Pumpkin Patch Pictures

Natalie, Megan, & I got to go with her preschool to a local pumpkin patch a little over 2 weeks ago.  We had great weather and a great time.  We found the perfect pumpkin to carve and put by our front door and we picked up a few more pumpkins for decorations and for us to try to use for baking and roasting pumpkin seeds.

Here are just a few of the pics from that morning:

Getting ready for the hayride to the pumpkin patch.  The teachers made tie-dyed t-shirts with pumpkins on them for all of the students at the school.  Natalie loved her pumpkin t-shirt!

We found our pumpkin.  The little boy with us is in Natalie's class.  His mom told me that he talks about Natalie all the time, and she talks about him quite a bit.  Is it possible that this is a preschool crush?

We found a cool pumpkin that still had some of the vine attached.

We washed up and enjoyed a snack after we found our pumpkins.  (Natalie is in the middle on the right hand side, you can't see her face.)  Megan liked sitting at the big table with all of the kids.

Playing in the straw.

I couldn't get all of our pumpkins & the girls to the car so I borrowed a wagon from the pumpkin stand to take them and Megan to the car.  She really enjoyed her wagon ride.

Trying to turn lemons into lemonade -

My sister's birthday is this week and it wasn't going to work out for us to see them this weekend. She invited us to come down for the day because her kids were out of school today and they would have fun with my girls.

I stayed up last night getting things together, packing lunch & snack for the girls, gathering up things that I wanted to drop off with my family, etc. I got up this morning got dressed, got both girls dressed, gave them a to-go breakfast of cheerios in a baggie with a drink, loaded up the car, and headed out. We went to the school where I vote so I could vote, then we were ready to hit the road. It is a little over an hour to get to my family so we had talked about taking a car trip and who we were going to see. Natalie especially was excited, but Megan seemed to know what we were doing as well. I called my sister when we were leaving the polls to see if there was anything they wanted me to bring down. She answered the phone and sounded horrible. I found out that she woke up sick this morning. I found out she had sent her kids to stay with her in-laws and that she felt bad all over. I told her if that was the case I didn't want to come down and get her germs.  (There was a miscommunication she thought Mom was going to call me, Mom thought she was going to call me.)

I broke the news to Natalie & Megan. Natalie got really sad, she even had the sad poutty lip. I told her that we would still have a fun day today. We ended up going to Target and we got a snack at the cafe. They think that is the coolest place to eat for some reason. We shopped for a little bit, then we headed home.

I realized how warm it was outside and thought it would be fun to eat the lunch and snacks I packed outside and have a picnic. I checked the grass it was still rather wet from the rain the last few days, so we just used the patio set. The girls thought it was fun to eat outside. It also helped that they had some of their favorite things. Natalie looked at me while we were eating and said, "This is the best picnic ever!". We wrapped up our time outside by playing a game of tag.  (Side note: I enjoyed keeping my kitchen clean by eating outside, and the game of tag helped wear them out for an afternoon nap.  :))

Here are a few pics from our picnic:

The Picnic Spot

Natalie with her stylish shades enjoying her PB&J

Megan with her shades chilling with her Go-gurt

The things kids say...

Today Natalie & Megan were playing with a Noah's Ark Little Tykes toy. They were really having fun and it was cute listening to Natalie try to tell Megan the story of Noah's Ark. They came into the room where I was and she asked me if they could get baths. (It was ~11AM and they were already dressed.) I told her that they would get baths tonight before bed. She was ok with that. I asked her why she wanted to take a bath. She said she wanted to take her Noah's Ark in the tub with her. I told her that I didn't know if that was a toy that she could put in the tub. She looked at me and said, "Mom, it is a boat. It is meant to go in the water."