A Day in My Life

I'm playing along with Owlhaven's fun game A Day in My Life! I chose yesterday for my day and since it was my hubby's birthday it's more like a semi-normal day around here but you'll get the picture. I still did my 3 loads of laundry even though I spared you those pictures (except the laundry basket that you see sitting in the family room ALL day!) along with the dishes from the dinner the night before that didn't get done until after lunch!

Since I'm not all tech savvy like many of you I couldn't get a link to put the slide show right on my blog using flicker or flash so hopefully the following link will work!!!!
MY DAY!
UPDATED: to add that if you let your mouse hover over the pictures in the slide show you'll be able to see the titles of each picture, otherwise for some reason they don't show up!

Since I'm a nerd I'll also tell you a bit about our day too. If I get long winded, just watch the slide show since it's just stuff I want to remember too. Like the word of the last few days is "zoinks" and I have not a clue how he came up with that one. Cute though!!

Our days pretty much always start the same around here; we get up, let the dogs out of their crate and feed them, fix breakfast - today's was waffles for hubby's birthday but usually it's more like scrambled eggs or cereal topped with yogurt. Then it was time for a bit of TV - Caillou today.

Some days my son is going through that "my self" phase so he gets undressed and dressed with minimal help. He'd been asking to go to the park for days so I told him we could go for 10 minutes today. I had to make a trip to our local coop for some items for hubby's birthday dinner as well as a few other things that we were out of so I picked a nearby park. I don't think I even lasted 10 minutes and as you can see there was still a dusting of snow in the shadows - I think it was about 40 but the wind was chilling!

I actually left the camera in the car at the store but after my son found the "just for me" shopping cart I had to go and get it. I'd never even noticed that they had them there before so we both had fun - yeah it took a little longer but it was worth it.

I guess when you take 173 pictures in one day your kiddo will turn his sippy cup and multiple toys into cameras saying "smile" throughout the day. While I did the night before and all morning/lunch dishes he played happily running between rooms. When I was done all pillows were stripped off the living room couch and he had made a little fort between it and the coffee table. He also was jumping on the couch which I'm still not sure if that's allowed or not but I left it alone for today! He did more playing with his trains and puzzles while I collected ingredients for the birthday cake.While the cake was baking we rested and read books for a quiet time.

I found a terrific recipe for chocolate cake and I have a little story to go with it but I'll be posting that later in the week with the recipe- yes it's from scratch! LOL!

We normally don't eat this fancy but dinner was red rainbow trout with lemon butter sauce, beets and garlic bread. Some of Daddy's favorites. Daddy's little boy picked out the Elmo candle to go on the cake for "my birthday too" I'm pretty sure that Dad was OK with sharing.

Bed time is pretty much the same every night: he takes a bath (4-5 nights a week) or sometimes a shower, gets into PJ's, brushes his teeth then picks out 5-8 books to read (enough to last at least 15-20 minutes or so). I usually read the books and then hubby will come in for prayers, I'll kiss them both goodnight and turn out the light. Hubby sings a few songs and puts him into bed. Since today was one of many days without a nap he was asleep in no time, sometimes he'll sing or talk to himself for awhile too.

Then picture me in front of the computer and then out by the TV folding clothes and that's my day!!!

The make Make it From Scratch Carnival is up and there are some yummy and cool recipe's and instructions!

I'm at a loss for words tonight and need to go scrub my favorite (Read as the only ones that fit very well.) maternity pants again. In the same day they got chocolate milk and permanent red marker on them - both of which seem to be fading from the light khaki background. Contrary to the permanent marker's name it WILL come out. Suddenly I'm reminded of Macbeth - time to scrub and maybe to bed!

I had to start wearing maternity clothes just before 15 weeks - I'm sure that's a detail I forgot to mention and all of you were just dying to know!!! Seems a bit early to me but my hubby tells me I'm supposed to get big and fat and it's beautiful - so that's what I'm going with!

Blog stuff

Life sometimes goes awry here and I take completely unintentional hiatuses from this blog. Day after day I think about post after post (or my hubby will say laughing "this is going to end up on your blog!") and they just don't get written.

Part of the reason is that life just happens and we go with it. Another part could be that we made 5 batches of homemade pasta on Friday - borrowing my super duper bestest friend's pasta roller thingy (technical term) thanks AM!!! The biggest part of me becoming a lurker on my bloglines and not commenting on all of my favorite blogs (yours!!!!)as much as I like is that I've been working. Thankfully from home, but for 5 hours a week or so I'm doing stuff on the computer that's not blogging and by the time I'm done with that I'm ready to get off the computer for awhile and do my other wife/motherly duties and or play! That's pretty much that until I get used to my new routine.

There's also a ton going on this week in bloggityville that I don't want to miss out on but despite making an insane amount of pasta on Friday I neglected to get a post about it in for Stephanie at Stop the Ride! She's doing a make it from scratch carnival now!!!! I'm really excited about it since the first week every month it's something you've never made before and the other weeks can be anything from scratch. On my list of stuff I've never made before:puff pastry, fruit leathers, re-cushion and upholster our dining room chairs, make roman shades. I'm hoping that this keeps me motivated to do one new thing each month. If your interested in participating the guidelines are here. The cut off for emailing her your posts are Sundays and she'll post the carnival on Tuesdays! Should be lots of fun!

Another event of the week is going on at Owlhaven. Mary's having "a day in my life" in pictures we can all share bits a pieces of our days. It can be any day between now and March 2nd. Then on the 2nd we'll all go link up w/ Mr.Linky. Anything that requires me taking insane amounts of pictures of my kiddo sounds like fun to me and you can check out the details here.

Then remember that this week starts the fun of 5 Minutes for Mom'sUltimate BlogParty which starts on March 2nd through the 9th. I'll be there especially since my birthday falls between those dates - great that they are having this big bash huh???!!!

First Snowman!!!!

Our snow is usually the dry powdery stuff so when I woke up this morning and saw the huge wet snowflakes coming down I knew what we were going to do this morning. My son has been asking for snow lately anyway so I knew when he saw it we'd be outside right after breakfast!

He had fun rolling and picking up "Frosty's head". "I can do it all by self." was fun to hear right before..."Heavy Mommy! Help with the head! No fall!" So he did it mostly by himself!!!

"Snowman eating rocks Mommy!" Since that's what we used to make the eyes and mouth. We tried to arrange the leaves that stuck in as buttons down the front! Then, he stood back and looked saying "eyes, nose, mouth, arms. I know a hat!"

What frosty is finished without a hat - the first one I found was the one my hubby uses to mow the lawn - it seemed to do the trick.

Then we had fun throwing snowballs and walking around the block. Since there wasn't much snow left in our front yard!

Seeing Ashlee's post the other day about Frosty in her freezer reminded me of something we used to do as kids. We'd put snowballs in the freezer and get them out on the 4th of July. They become more like ice balls in the freezer but it was always fun to play with them while they melted in the summer heat! So we'll be doing that this year too!

My Mama!

Stephanie at Adventures in Babywearing started a photo tag. She thought it would be fun to see the Moms behind the Mommy bloggers, so here's mine!

Meeting my son for the first time....

Reading books on a visit this past fall...

I wrote a post about her here.

She's so crafty, she just finished this beautiful sweater that my son is handsomely modeling. She knit it on the tiniest needles I've ever seen. He loves it already and it just came in the mail two days ago. It truly is wonderfully made, terrific! Thanks Mom!

More food!

Last night for dessert I made my husband a Quick and Easy Banana-Caramel Tart courtesy of Emeril. Let me tell you it is so good, it tastes incredibly heavenly, and it took like no time to make.

Like the recipe says, I used a store bought puff pastry but next time I'd like to make my own - maybe if Stephanie has another "make it from scratch" I'll make some. When I looked at the recipe I just couldn't see myself spending that much more time in the kitchen after the tamale fun the day before.

With the ease of it I just couldn't help sharing it with you all, the next time you are in the mood for something wonderfully fruity and sweet and (best of all) easy keep this one in mind!

Wordless Wednesday: Good till the last lick

From Scratch!!!!

Now that I'm all caught up on my list and much more it was time for a day of fun!!! (Well, still hard work but worth it!)

I'm playing along with Stephanie of Stop the Ride she's having a contest. She has challenged her readers to make something from scratch that they've never made before. I choose tamales since I want Mexican food every day lately and I've always wanted to try my hand at them.

I cooked a chicken and shredded the meat - you can see in the pictures that my idea of shredding is a little more chunky but it still tasted great. We soaked the corn husks and mixed the masa - by hand.

I added some spices to the chicken (garlic powder, chili powder, cumin, salt & pepper and a little olive oil.) and mixed it very well. Then got all set up to make the tamales.

I found lots of different recipes online for tamales and followed parts of a few of them to try to fit our tastes. Each one also had different instructions for putting the masa on the husks and rolling the filling. I wasn't very exact and they didn't look the best but that's what you get when they are homemade I guess! (At least in this house.)

After they were all rolled, I put them into my pasta pot with a strainer that fits inside and steamed them for what seemed like forever. The problem that I had was the pot only left room on the bottom for about an inch of water and I kept having to interrupt the process every 15 min or less to add more water to the pot. It took the first batch about 2.5 hours too cook and boy were we ready for dinner when they were done. I thought they turned out good, I think my masa wasn't quite the correct consistency for that batch it was too moist - which was certainly better than too dry in my opinion. My hubby made guacamole when he got home and we pigged out!!!

I also made a batch of sweet tamales that I just took out so hopefully those will be as good as the chicken ones. Thanks to Stephanie for having this contest it was so much fun to try something new and my hubby is now super thrilled that there are tamales going into the freezer for many future meals!

Now to get caught up

Thanks for all your kind words. Speaking for myself I feel SO much better today than I did. It's been over 24 hours since any one's you-know-been-sick. (She says with fingers crossed.) We aren't taking any chances and are still eating relatively mild foods for good measure.

List for the day: 1) get caught up on all the laundry - I'm wearing miss-matched socks since I looked through one of four clean piles of laundry that haven't been put away.
2)Put said piles of laundry away.
3) Finish doing taxes.
4) Actually make some dinner for my husband for the first time all week. (He actually ate cereal for dinner twice this week - so sweet!)
5)Since my dog just did something completely unmentionable and may make a liar out of what I said in the paragraph above, steam clean family room carpet!

I think that might be enough to keep me busy for the rest of the day!!!

Spoke to soon - puke up to my shoulder and all over the bathroom floor (thankfully) - took a shower and can't scrub the smell out. Ugh... Hope you all are having a wonderful day -it's nice to read about other days when mine is - well, a bit less wonderful!

Some Updates

We seem to be on the up swing of this illness!! After one night of sleeping in the rocking chair and on my sons floor I was so very grateful for the 3 hour nap we took together yesterday. I was even more grateful for the long and good nights sleep I got last night!

I've been wanting to post about this ever since she posted about it last week but our fellow blogging buddy Ashleehas started her very own business!!! It's called Nest and boy do these slings look awesome!! I've never seen more stylish slings and I'm putting it on my list for the new baby! (The Chocolat is my favorite, hint hint! LOL) Anyway, go and check them out if you or someone you know is having a baby. And if you need some reasons why babywearing totally rocks she's listed a bunch here!!! Thanks Ashlee and best wishes on your new adventure!!!!

Some updates on the compact pledge. After a month of really not buying much new I'm much more confident that we can really do this for the year. We did purchase a new duvet cover. Our old one had needed replacing for awhile. I'm sort of considering this in the delicates department since my hubby definitely wouldn't go for a used duvet cover since in the summer we really don't use a sheet just the comforter. - I may just be justifying here :)- Anyway, my brother and SIL gave us a gift certificate to Linen's n things and the duvet was on sale for $33 so we only paid $18 out of pocket. Not too bad in my opinion!

I did find a used baby monitor on Craig's list that I bought since ours would wake us up during the night and randomly get all staticy. This one is older but works great and was $10. (Roughly one-fifth the price we bought ours for just over 2 years ago.) I might not buy many new things again!!! I'm also looking at some maternity cloths too!

The only other new things I've purchased (besides food etc.) is some diaper covers for my son. The ones I had purchased a few months ago shrunk and ripped, and one just disappeared somewhere. These were recommended by Stephanie at Stop the Ride and work wonderfully. I love them SO much I'm so glad that she blogged about them right when I was getting fed up with the one's I had. If my son's size had been available on eBay I would've purchased them there used. I was just desperate and I think it better to keep cloth diapering then wait until some used come available!

If your still with me - my apologies if this got long a boring!!LOL. BUT be sure to go and visit Nest!

Forever a Perfect Fit

I am weak but thou art strong - Jesus keep me from all wrong;

In the just over three years that my son has been with us from conception, God has never been more evident to me. Since He let the miracle of life begin those three short years ago I've been ever more grateful with each passing day. Never have I been more convinced that God brings specific children into our lives for a reason just as he brings specific moments, chance meetings and wonderful people.

I'll be satisfied as long as I walk dear Lord, close to thee.

Today, we rocked as you lay on my too quickly growing belly and snuggled in close breathing me in as I you. If ever I thought about how I would rock you and snuggle you as you grew now I know that I'll always find a way. All the learning about zygotes and chromosomes and DNA and RNA just can't do this justice. I can't always find the words to say just how amazingly insignificant all that science became after seeing the evidence of God's hand at work in my womb.

Just a closer walk with Thee - Come Lord Jesus hear my plea;

God gave you to us to care for, raise up and train to fly because he's all knowing. He knows that you make our family more complete. You've actually brought our family closer to God than we've ever been and closer to each other. I'm repeatedly amazed at the lessons you teach and the thoughts you provoke in me. The things about life you make me question when you ask me "why?." Sometimes I cannot find the answer I want to give for awhile and by then you are on to something else. Then I pray that I'll hold the answer until you ask me again.

Daily walking close to Thee - Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.

Now that my role as a Mother will be expanding in 6 months or so I know that God has this child planned just for our family. The next one will bring even more fullness to our lives and more wonder and joy. For an instant I wondered if we'd still have these moments together when you awoke wanting more Mommy time while your long sweeping eyelashes gently tickled my neck. I'm confident that God will give us these as we need and many other moments of catching each others eyes from across the room and you giggling saying "silly Mommy."

Through this world of toil and snares, if I falter Lord who cares?

I am suddenly and truly feeling a calm and peaceful reassurance from above that I've been trying to force myself to feel since this pregnancy began. I realized that although I said I trust whatever God had planned for us it wasn't fully in my heart yet. I relied on our first ultrasound to relieve my fears but that lasted for about a day until thoughts and doubt crept in. The second ultrasound also brought more comfort and reassurance but not a day later I began to feel more doubt sneaking into my daily thoughts.

Who with me my burden shares? None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.

Learning how to trust and be close to God is not easy for one like me that tends to resist and enjoys my illusion of control. The lack of reassurance after those Dr visits is a good thing even a great thing because now I honestly can feel peaceful and trusting wholly in my Savior!

When my feeble life is o'er, time for me will be no more;

I'm most grateful that God used my sick child today as a reminder to slow down and let this song come back through my head. Tears of joy landed on soft sandy hair as I sang sitting with him by the fire as his fever chilled him knowing that we'd always have this feeling for each other and always be two neighboring pieces in the puzzle of life, no matter where God leads him.

On that bright eternal shore I will walk dear Lord, close to Thee.

Craziness!

I was just over at 5 Minutes for Mom reading a post about how they didn't realized they were nominated for the Share the Love Blog Awards. I thought now would be a good time to go and vote myself. As I was going through the voting I realized that one of you amazing people nominated lil' old me in the happiest blog category. Can I just say how sweet you are!!!

I appreciate all the support and love that all you bloggers give. You are the best group of people! Thanks, you just made my day which didn't start out the happiest this morning!

There are so many wonderful choices in each category so if you haven't yet voted head on over and do so. Thanks to Heather at One Woman's World for Sharing the Love!

Is my kid the only one...

...who gets sick in the middle of the night very stealthily and goes back to sleep afterwards????!!!!!!

Seriously here peeps, this is gross and can I tell you the Mama guilt going on that I didn't even hear my own kiddo getting sick in the middle of the night!!

It's one thing to clean up puke it's another to clean it up hours later when it's dry and crusty.

He really doesn't seem worse for the wear now that he's using his "just in case" bowl for a hat.