merry christmas!

happy christmas eve! 

we are visiting with family in wisconsin for the holiday. we had a good drive over here. the first night was rough. our little one was awake from 12 - 5 am and we could not get her back to sleep. we ended up heading out into the 18 degree weather around 4:30 am and taking a drive around the city to finally get her to sleep. it worked. and last night was significantly better, so things are looking up. 

this afternoon i made our family's traditional christmas dessert. it's a 9x13 pan with a layer of oreo crust, then a layer of peppermint ice cream, topped by homemade chocolate sauce. yum. my girl and i had a great time smashing all the oreos this morning and then i put it all together this afternoon while she's been napping. it's not the healthiest of desserts...but if there's a day we can splurge, i think it's christmas.

tonight will be our little family gift exchange and tomorrow morning there will be a service of lessons and carols at church. how exciting to again be celebrating the birth of our savior.

merry christmas!

play kitchen

in my last blog post, i mentioned that we made a christmas gift for our little girl. we made her a little play kitchen!

over the summer, i decided that our little girl needed to have a play kitchen. after researching wooden kitchens online (expensive!), and coming across several cabinets turned into play kitchens on the internet, i was inspired to create a kitchen for her.

we found the perfect cabinet at a used furniture store in september. it was exactly what i had in mind and it cost $43. over the last week, jeremy and i transformed it into a little kitchen and it's just perfect for her.

here's a before picture:

jeremy used our jigsaw to make a circle in the top to hold the "sink" (an old metal dog food dish that we had in our basement). we attached the sink with caulk. i bought two small wooden plaques and a package of wooden toy wheels at the craft store and painted them red for the burners and oven and sink knobs. i drilled holes into the cabinet and installed them. the knobs really turn, which makes them extra fun. i was stumped for a bit about how to make a faucet, until i came across a metal drawer pull at the local hardware store that looks very much like a faucet. it fits in perfectly.

and that is our daughter's kitchen. i love that it is simple, leaves a lot up to the imagination, is wood instead of plastic, has a lot of character, and doesn't take up a lot of space in our house.

cabinet: $43
sink: free
wooden plaques for the burners:  $1.58
package of wooden wheels: $3
caulk: $5
paint: free (already had it)
drawer pull for faucet: $3.50

total cost: about $56.50

to go along with this gift, we also invested in some wooden pots, pans, and plates and some wooden pretend jars of condiments. i started making felt food in the summer, so by the time we gave her this gift, i had made quite a collection. i will have to take a photo of all of the food (there's a lot!), but she has a chicken, baked potato, lots of fruits and veggies including an amazing banana, an ice cream cone with four different flavors of ice cream, an assortment of breakfast foods, a s'more, a donut, and a pop tart (organic and sweetened with honey, of course - haha!), some sandwich fixings, and a few more things i am sure i'm forgetting. her food is in wooden crates that fit inside of the cupboards (we already had the wooden crates).

of course, at the last minute, i decided that she really needed an apron to wear while she cooks, so i sewed one (i just made it up and it turned out to be really cute). i used fabric i had in my stash. i also made a little felt potholder and two napkins. we couldn't wait to give her the kitchen (and we've also been trying to spread her gifts out a bit), so we set up the kitchen so it was all ready for her when she got up from her nap on sunday.

all set up for her to see when she got up from her nap.

and her little table set... (sorry about the lighting, it was getting dark outside)

i brought her downstairs and she was SO excited. it made this mama and daddy very happy to see such a happy girl! she has hardly stopped cooking since. what fun!

our happy little cook!

advent

it's been rather quiet on the blog these days. although this month has been quite busy, in many ways i have been trying to slow down and enjoy the season. now that jeremy is done with finals, it is much easier to slow down and we have been enjoying an abundance of family time.

last night i made pizza and we watched part of miracle on 34th street while we ate. our first family movie night. it really felt like fun, special, christmas time together. and i tried a new technique with my pizza crust and it was agreed that it was the best pizza i have ever made.

jeremy and i made a christmas gift for our little one. pictures will be shown on the blog when i get around to uploading them. we are very proud of it.

we have been doing advent devotions most nights after dinner. it is a special family time, although it is sometimes quite chaotic depending on the little one's mood. we close devotions every night by singing her favorite song, "hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah!"

i think i'm out of energy to write much else, but at least that's a little update on things here. i hope you are having a good advent season as well.

thanksgiving

happy thanksgiving!

we spent last weekend on a retreat with our youth group. it was full of laughter, junk food, the outdoors, songs, games, and fun. it was also very cold. and speaking of junk food...despite my best efforts and a stash of healthy food that i brought along, for dinner one night our daughter ate cheetos, twizzlers, gummy worms, and cookies. probably her worst dinner ever. but one night's not going to kill her, and that's what we get for spending the weekend with teenagers.

my belly popped this weekend, and now it feels like all my insides are being squished upwards, because...well... they are.

we are headed out for thanksgiving this afternoon. it is sunny and cold here today, a good day for traveling.

this past year of our lives has been very difficult and often full of sorrow as we each lost a young parent to cancer within less than six months of each other. jeremy's family will be missing his mom at their thanksgiving table, and my family will be missing my dad. it was actually one year ago today that my dad passed away.

despite our loss, we have much to be thankful for.
- jeremy's mom and my dad are healed and are in the presence of jesus.
- we have hope of eternal life.
- we have a beautiful little girl who brightens our life every day and is healthy, smart, and joyful.
- we have another child who is growing inside of me.
- we love each other and love living life together.
- we have family and friends who love us.
- our needs are provided for.
- and the list could go on for a while actually...

have a happy thanksgiving celebration!

leaves, candles, and the little beat

we've been quite busy these days.

we planned and organized a progressive dinner murder mystery party for our youth group last saturday evening. it ended up being a lot, a lot of work, but the evening was a smashing success, so it was totally worth all of the work.

a recent evening power outage forced us to realize how unprepared we were for such events. we had two small flashlights (at least both had batteries), but only a few candles. jeremy had homework to do, so he used the laptop (thankfully the battery was charged to begin with), and i sat and read with a flashlight. it was a nice change of pace for the evening. thankfully, the power came back on just as i was getting tired of reading by flashlight. and now i know to stock up on emergency candles.

our little one is starting to show an interest in the potty. in fact, she has pooped on the potty twice in the past week. we give her a lot of praise after she goes, and she is very proud of herself...but she really seems most excited about the fact that daddy has to clean it up - and she specifies that daddy has to clean it up. i'm just glad that i'm not the parent she has chosen for that task.

i had an appointment with the midwife today and we got to hear the baby's tiny little heart beating for the first time. amazing.

the leaves have almost all fallen. about a week ago, we spent a lot of time outside raking and doing yard work. of course, now that it's a week later, more leaves have fallen and it looks like we haven't done any yard work at all. our girl was thrilled when the neighbor's cat come over for a visit while we were raking. she loves all animals - especially ones that she can hold. the cat was very patient and let itself be carried around for a little while. our girl was beaming! thanks cat.

first snow

little one is napping. i am sitting with my feet up and a blanket on my lap. i am missing a mug of tea, but will soon have one in hand as i visit with a friend who is coming over in a bit. the best part about this scene is the SNOW that is coming down outside.

i always get excited about the first snow. when i woke up this morning, just knowing that it *might* snow today made me want to make special pancakes for breakfast, so i did. and they were good. the little one thought they were good too - she ate four of them, twice as many as i did! no wonder she wasn't really hungry when lunch came around...

we drove out to the farm this morning to pick up our milk, always something i look forward to doing. i marvel at the changing seasons as we drive...we watched the leaves grow, the corn get taller, and now the leaves have mostly fallen and the corn stalks are gone. we listened to mozart along the way, which made the drive even better.

and now i feel like listening to christmas music and putting up christmas decorations, but i will try to hold off for a bit yet. thanksgiving comes before christmas, and i love thanksgiving just as much as christmas, if not more.

some exciting news!

as you've probably noticed, it's been a bit quiet on the blog front these days. there's a good reason, and our little one wants to tell you why...

that's right - she's going to be a big sister!

i'm almost thirteen weeks along and am due right around mother's day. we found out that i was pregnant on jeremy's birthday, which made it even more special.

i have been feeling really, really exhausted (hence the lack of blogging and craft projects), but i've been feeling more energetic the past week or so, so i think i will soon be enjoying the energy of the second trimester. we're so excited!

little owl

we're not that into halloween over here, but it will be nice to spend tomorrow evening at a little halloween get together with some friends. there will be pots of soup, trick or treaters, costumes (on the little ones, not us), and most likely a lot of fun. i was inspired to make a costume for our little one and decided to turn her into a little owl. for the homemade owl costume, i just used materials i had in the house. i think it turned out to be so cute! when i tried it on her yesterday, she walked around saying, "hoot, hoot!"

 

 

isn't she the cutest owl you've ever seen?

on a friday night

we just returned from a beautiful walk in the park. as we walked, leaves fell from the trees all around us and our feet crunched leaves on the ground. little one ate an apple in her stroller and then played on the swings and slide. it was in the seventies today (!), so we even took off her shoes and pants and let her wade for a bit. we threw rocks in the water and chased the ducks. a perfect start to the weekend.

we have been quite busy these days. things at our church are going very well. we are really enjoying the young adult book study we are leading and we enjoy the youth group as well. it is fun for us to be working together to lead those groups and we are seeing how our strengths and weaknesses really go together very well.

in other news, my hubby ran over and killed a squirrel the other day. it was the squirrel's fault because it ran out in front of our car and then stood there trying to figure out which way to go. but, the whole experience was a bit traumatic.

aside from another batch of waffles, i haven't made any sourdough recipes in the past few days.

next week is a bit on the lighter side schedule-wise, so we are planning to take the little one to a pumpkin patch.

i realized i haven't taken any photographs this entire month, so i need to change that.

and that is all for tonight.

muffins, tortillas, and apples too!

yesterday i made a double batch of sourdough english muffins. half plain, and half i added cinnamon and raisins to (those are my favorites!). they turned out wonderfully and we have been enjoying them.

yesterday when my husband looked at the weekly menu i posted on our fridge, he said, "oh good! it doesn't say boiled eggs for breakfast everyday!" oops...maybe i got in a bit of a rut for a while there. this morning we had toasted english muffins for breakfast. the beauty of english muffins is that there are so many ways to eat them - we ate them for lunch yesterday topped with pizza sauce and cheese. what a treat!

for supper, i made my first batch of sourdough tortillas, which we filled with beans, cheese, corn, and tomatoes for "tacos". oh my goodness. the tortillas were so, so, good.

i also made a batch of applesauce, which really made it feel a bit like fall around here.

waffles and apples

i made my first sourdough recipe yesterday! we had sourdough waffles for breakfast - they were so so yummy!

we toasted the leftovers for breakfast this morning. yummy again!

in case anyone is wondering, the sourdough course i am taking online is here. i am really enjoying it and finding it easy to learn from. i was encouraged by the waffles turning out so well. this week i plan to make sourdough tortillas, english muffins, and maybe pizza crust. if anyone lives close-by and wants to start using sourdough, i will happily share some of my starter!

yesterday we went with our youth group to an apple orchard. it was supposed to rain, but thankfully it didn't. we got home almost an hour late, but a good time was had by all. 

this morning my hubby preached in a nearby town. this evening he is preaching in another nearby town. a busy day.

wild rice chicken pilaf

i decided it's time to share the recipe to one of our favorite meals.

wild rice chicken pilaf
(based on a recipe i ripped out of real simple magazine years ago...the original recipe was for wild rice stuffing, but i modified it to make a main dish)

ingredients:
1/2 cup wild rice
1 1/4 cups brown rice
enough chicken broth to cook the rice in (or some chicken broth and some water)
1 stick butter (or less)
1 small onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, finely chopped
1 cup chopped nuts (whatever you have on hand...pecans, walnuts, and cashews are all really good)
1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped
1/2 cup raisins
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
oregano, basil, and thyme to taste
2 cups cooked chicken, shredded
splash of lemon juice

1. soak rice in water with a splash of apple cider vinegar for eight hours (optional)...makes the rice easier to digest/more nutritious
2. preheat stove to 350 F.
3. in a pot, put broth/water needed to equal amount of liquid needed to cook rice. add rice. bring to boil, reduce to low heat, cover. Simmer about 45 minutes or until rice is finished cooking.
4. melt butter in large skillet, add onion and celery and cook for ten minutes. add rice, spices, nuts, fruit, and chicken and mix. add splash of lemon juice.
5. place in buttered casserole dish. cover and bake at 350 F for about 25 minutes.
6. enjoy!

this pilaf tastes great with a simple side salad, or the other night we ate it with cooked peas and that was really yummy! this recipe is very forgiving, and really you can use whatever you have on hand. that's the great thing about a pilaf!

this recipe will serve 6 to 8 people - we always have a lot of leftovers when i make it.

odds and ends

little one had her first cup of tea this morning. i brewed a pot of decaf black tea, added some milk and honey to hers, and told her she could have tea just like mama. it warmed my heart to drink tea with my girl. i look forward to many more tea times together as she grows.

i have found several thrifting and curbside gems lately.

a like new rocking horse for $10 at a thrift store. it wags it's tail! i looked it up when we got home and found that this horse sells for $100 to $120 new!

a {free} spice rack from the curb. i washed it and it's now filled with spices.

a {free} playground from another curb. it is the perfect size for our porch and our girl. we have already spent many hours enjoying this find.

other things i am loving...

i am taking this sourdough ecourse. i really enjoy it. my starter is six days old today and is thriving. i'm going to start cooking with it soon. maybe this weekend!

this salad. yum.

our walk this morning. we went right after breakfast, in the crisp morning air. it was quiet and lovely.

i'm not loving the fruit fly problem we are having right now. but i am loving the solution i found somewhere online. pour some white vinegar in a bowl, add a small amount of dishsoap, and fill the bowl with water (do this quickly so you get a lot of soap suds on top...that's the crucial part of the whole thing, i have learned). they are attracted to it and drown. it really works.

and these little toes.

diy: bath toy holder

in our house in california, our bathroom had a nice little shelf where we stowed our little one's growing collection of bath toys. when we got home, we had nowhere to store them or let them dry out. i checked out the options at a few nearby stores, and found that the cheapest bath toy holder i could find was $8 (the most expensive was $30!). i did not want to spend that kind of money and decided to come up with something on my own. it turned out to be very simple and inexpensive.

(please ignore the dismembered doll...trying to keep her from getting moldy!)

i purchased a lingerie bag for $1.49, found some ribbon in my stash, and sewed it through the top of the lingerie bag to make a hook.

the finished hook...i just used a very large needle and sewed through several times in a few different places.

then i filled it with bath toys and hung it in the shower. we already had two hooks that were in the perfect place for me to hang this, but if you don't, you could just install some 3M hooks, or try suction cups.

i actually love this better than the options i saw in the store. it is simple, it allows the toys to dry, and i can easily throw it in the washing machine if it starts to get dirty. i call this a success!

activities with a toddler, and other things

it is so good to be home. the adjustment is taking much longer than i expected it too, but it gets a little better each day. yesterday i stocked up on some essential grocery items and right now i have a chicken cooking in the crock pot. after we eat some of it for supper tonight, i will shred and freeze the leftovers for use in future dinners and i will make chicken stock with the bones. that makes it feel a bit more normal around here. yesterday we drove out to the farm to get our raw milk and eggs - oh how we missed them this summer!

i have had a crazy urge to organize everything in our house, so i have been doing quite a bit of that. it seems a bit silly because {confession} i still haven't even unpacked all of our clothes from our summer. but...it makes me feel good about being home and it makes our house more organized, so it's actually a good thing.

my hubby had a couple of pre-semester classes this week, and he officially starts his new semester next week. i am going to be taking a class at the seminary as well! it is a class about photography and spirituality...definitely sounds like something i will enjoy. i'm also going to be taking another class specifically for spouses of seminary students, as well as taking a music class with our little one. so...with all of that going on, next week we will really start to settle into a routine.

i am loving this age with our little girl and am so excited that she is so interactive and communicative these days. since we've been home, i started doing a "special activity" with her each day. at the beginning of the week, i plan out an activity for each day and write it in my planner. if i need any supplies for the project, i will write that in there as well, but my goal is to keep the activities simple and to use things we have in the house as much as possible instead of buying supplies. we usually do our activity after breakfast and reading time, but i find that i wake up looking forward to it. when i say that it is "special activity time", our girl gets a huge smile on her face - i know i'm doing something right! i will share about some of these special activities on my blog from time to time (maybe weekly?)...hopefully they will be an inspiration for someone else. some of the ideas for activities come from my head, but many of them come from the toddler's busy book by meadowbrook press. we received this book as a gift (thanks brent and jenny!), and i find that it is a great resource for simple activities to do with a toddler.

wednesday's activity was "sticky feet" - i taped a piece of contact paper on the floor sticky side up, and we walked around on the sticky floor. it was quite fun!

on thursday, i used masking tape to make a road on the floor. this activity was a hit. i was surprised when she drove her car down the road without any prompting! we also walked on the road and she walked her wooden duck push toy down the road. she tried so hard to stay within the lines, it was cute.

i love seeing her learn through these activities, and it is also fun to have something specific to do with her, as well as having some more structure to our days.

it is so hot and humid here today. baby has been running around in just her diaper. we spent a short amount of time outside this morning. we don't have air conditioning, so it is just as hot inside our house as outside. despite the heat, i was working in the kitchen for a little while this morning, so to keep the little one occupied, i filled up a couple of plastic bins with water, gave her some towels, kitchen utensils, and her toy animals and let her at it! she had a good time.

and her curls. oh the curls!

home!

we are so thankful that we made it home safely. we pulled into our driveway on friday afternoon and it was such a strange feeling to actually be at home. i was expecting to be giddy with excitement at being home, but found that i actually felt very disoriented.

we found the house to be in pretty good order. there was a telephone line down in our driveway, which jeremy picked up as he walked up to the house. that prompted a lot of screaming from me as i thought it was a power line. it seems that someone stole our city garbage can. who would do such a thing? and the most disappointing find of all was that someone broke into our garage and stole our grill and all of our grilling accessories. that is a huge bummer.

but in the grand scheme of things, those are all relatively minor challenges. our house is still standing and we are thankful to be safely home. we put 5800 miles on the car this summer and the only car trouble we encountered was a leaking tire, which was fixed for free!

we are slowly settling in and feeling less disoriented. it was wonderful to attend our church this morning - we felt so welcomed back! and last evening was spent at a nearby fair with some of our friends who we missed all summer. the demolition derby was definitely the highlight of the day! jeremy doesn't go back to school until the end of this week, so aside from a few meetings he has over the next few days, we have a slow start to the week to get things in order. unpacking is happening at a steady pace and all of the stuff we hauled in from our car is slowly disappearing into the drawers and cupboards where it belongs. we took our house off the market for now (due to a variety of reasons), so it is nice to be settling in without having to worry about that at this time.

i think the fact that i was away from our house all summer really took it's toll - i'm full of inspiration for little things i want to get done around the house! my first priority was giving our little one an improved play space, which i have already begun working on. we actually rearranged some living room furniture today, despite the unpacking and putting away we have yet to do. i am excited about her space, and about having a house and furniture of our own to work with. photos will come when her space is put together.

i am tired tonight and i think i will spend some time relaxing on our couch. ahh...home.

on the road again

we are on the way home. today marks the halfway point in our nine day trek towards home. so far, we have been through five states - three of them i had never been in before.

in between staying at the wigwam motel...

 

stopping at the albuquerque  balloon museum...

visiting the ghost-town of cuervo, new mexico...

and doing some spray painting at cadillac ranch...

...we've been putting lots of miles on the car and taking in the scenery. we've also been listening to a lot of old mcdonald, which is a frequent request from the backseat. the little one calls out "yiyiyi-o!" until we put the song on. while she is napping, we've been listening to tim mcgraw and some other country music - it just seems to fit. we make quite a few stops throughout the day...a four hour drive can easily take us seven hours. we always find interesting places to stop and let the little one run around. she is so, so cute and she just seems to get cuter every day. we both love this stage with her, and these travels are fun, though stressful at times. 

we are settled into our hotel for the night. tomorrow will be another full day. goodnight!

moved out

we are officially packed up and moved out of our "summer house" and are spending a few days visiting with family before we head for home. ahh...home. we are ready to see you.

the highlight of the day was meeting our brand new nephew. sweet baby boy. we are in love with him.

and our girl has a thing for glasses. even glasses that don't fit.

saturday date night

we stayed in. appetizers while baby ate dinner. 

 

the main course after she was in bed.

and then dessert!

banana peanut butter smoothie shake

i went to make smoothies for breakfast this morning, but felt like making something a little different than our usual blend. i threw a few things in the blender and ended up with a wonderfully yummy treat that i will definitely be making again in the future!

ingredients:
frozen bananas (mine were peeled and cut into chunks before freezing...makes them easy to throw in the blender) - it was probably a total of two or three bananas
ripe (non-frozen) bananas - i used two
cocoa powder
peanut butter
whole milk

i often don't measure when i'm making something, so i don't know how much of each thing i put in. i just tasted it a couple of times to get it right. this totally tasted like a peanut butter banana shake. it was so good!