easter! and our news...

the news is...we are moving! to the state of south carolina. we have never been there and certainly never considered living there...to be honest, we've never really given that state much thought. but now, here we are...looking up things to see and do, looking for housing, and imagining our life there. jeremy will be doing a fifteen month program to become a chaplain. it is all quite exciting. and the logistics are quite stressful. we have known for about six weeks. six weeks that have been filled with caring for two kids while cleaning/purging/organizing, pricing moving trucks, prepping our house to go on the market (which will officially happen next week), and jeremy working more than full time at his current job. it's been crazy over here. only to get more crazy once the house is actually on the market and has to be ready for showings at any time!

anyway, in the midst of all of that, i realized the other day that i haven't done any preparations for easter! i know that love can understand the basic idea of easter and decided to look for a book that we could read with her that would help her understand. i was surprised and disappointed to find that the selection of children's books about easter seems quite small and lacking. it's surprising, considering the significance of the holiday in our lives. anyway...after feeling quite inspired to write and publish an easter book myself (since i have so much spare time these days), i finally settled on a book.

i chose "easter surprise", a lift the flap board book, by howie and maclean. i am quite happy with this book...it is an accurate telling of the easter story beginning with palm sunday, it doesn't get into the gory details, but it does say that Jesus died and shows the three crosses from far away. the people aren't white with blue eyes, and it's fun for kids to lift the flaps as the story is read. love really enjoys the book as well.

we also got a set of resurrection eggs this year. i was going to make my own, but i was having trouble finding some of the pieces to put in the eggs, and i just didn't feel like it was coming together nicely...so i decided to purchase a set that we can use for the future as well. the eggs came with a little booklet, so love and i went through it together earlier today. she really enjoyed opening the eggs and finding what part of the story was inside each one. we will probably continue to use this over the next week or two and then we will stash it away for next year's use.

we have a "way of light" wreath, which can be used for both advent and lent. i didn't get it out for lent this year though...maybe next year.

does anyone who reads this have any other books to recommend? how do you observe lent and easter in your home with little ones? any suggestions for us?

ten months!

oh, they just keep growing.

jobot hit the ten month mark this past week. ten months! where has the time gone?

he is quite the boy. at his doctor appointment a couple of weeks ago he weighed 25 pounds, 12 ounces and was 31.25 inches - off the charts for both height and weight (he's always been off the charts for height, but this was the first time he was off the charts for weight too!). he is wearing size 18 - 24 month clothes. this would all explain why i actually seem to have size-able biceps for the first time in my life. seriously.

he is starting to talk. he appropriately says "all done", "uh oh", "banana", "mama", and "dada". he waves and claps. he is working on his fourth tooth. he cruises on the furniture and stands on his own. he is getting very close to walking! he likes to bang things on the coffee table. he is mischievous...he knows he is not supposed to bang on our glass cabinet, but he crawls right over with a toy, looks at me with a giggle, and bangs it on the glass. i say, "no no", and move him to the other room and he thinks it's a game and goes right back to the cabinet. whew...keeps me busy!

he is napping much more reliably these days. one good nap a day...usually in the morning, but sometimes he takes an afternoon nap too.

he is such a joyful and happy baby and fills our home with so much joy. i love having a son...so different than having a daughter. i love having a girl, but there's just something special between a boy and his mama. and wow, he is just so cute.

three!

our amazing little love turned three on sunday. three!

there's something about three...it seems so much older than two. i have to admit that i felt a bit teary on our little one's last day as a two-year-old. although some days feel so long, these sweet years seem to be passing too quickly.

she was so excited for her birthday this year! papa (jeremy's dad) was here from california for her birthday, so that made the day extra special for all of us.

there was a special birthday donut for breakfast (the sprinkles were all licked off first, kid-style). 

three tulips from daddy (per tradition...each year he gets her the number of flowers of the age she is turning...he's such a great daddy).

there was a special mama-made button to wear to church.

a mama-decorated cake (we made the cake together the day before). this girl is into anything that has wheels, and the construction themed cake was a real hit! we had a few friends over to share cake and celebrate our girl with us.

there were some new puzzles, a new game, and a few other fun new activities.

we ended the day with homemade pizza and watched the movie "cars". she loved it and it was a fun end to the day.

so much has happened in the past three years, yet in some ways, march 17, 2010 seems like it was just yesterday.

it has been such a joy to watch love grow from a baby into a little girl. she is sweet, witty, incredibly bright and intelligent. she keeps us laughing, tells us she loves us as we tuck her into bed, and loves to sing. she has really started to hold up her end of conversations, and often initiates conversations with us. she has an incredible memory and often shocks us with what she remembers or knows. she usually asks politely for things ("pretty please mommy?"), and she exercises her dramatic side numerous times a day. she loves trains, school buses, construction equipment, legos, "gummies", butterflies, books, snowmen, and ballerinas. she loves her little brother and {usually} makes him laugh. he looks up to her and follows her around during the day. she still sleeps in a crib (we will see how long we can keep that up!) with a washcloth in each hand and the little blue stuffed bunny that her daddy used to sleep with when he was little.

love is such a delight and we love her so very much...more than words could ever say. we thank God everyday for her life and her place in our family.

as we currently have written on the chalkboard in our kitchen, "the Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy!"

love must have thought that her birthday was a lot of fun, because she informed me the next day that she was ready for another birthday. not so fast, girly! this mama can't handle another birthday for at least a year! four can take it's time in coming.

fast real food: lunch simplified

lunch used to be a chaotic meal...especially on days when jeremy worked and the kids and i spent the morning out. if we were out, i found that i dreaded going home knowing that i would be faced with hungry children, a diaper change, trips to the bathroom...and the task of making lunch in the midst of it all.

jeremy takes a lunch to work with him everyday, s o i decided to just start making lunches for all of us the night before. we didn't have enough small containers for everyone's lunches and it was getting complicated, so i ordered a set of these containers...and they are perfect.

each night, before a workday, i make lunches for each of us. (jeremy's lunch was already gone when i took the photo above). that's a pretty typical lunch around here... for me: snap peas, tomatoes, ranch dip, cottage cheese, and sliced strawberries. for love: applesauce, cottage cheese, tomatoes, sliced strawberries, and veggie straws. for jobot: half an avocado and applesauce. the lunches vary slightly, but this is pretty much what they have looked like lately. jeremy always takes some almonds and a string cheese to work for snacks, and they fit in the container with his lunch as well.

when lunchtime comes, i no longer get stressed...instead...i reach into the fridge, take out these containers, and we eat. it's so easy, and healthy. and there aren't a million containers to wash. i often don't feel like making lunches in the evening, but knowing that it will make the next morning easier is good motivation for me.

last week, i decided to take the kids to meet jeremy for lunch...so we just brought our lunches from the fridge and had an easy lunch as a family. i look forward to continuing this system this summer and being able to have spontaneous picnics with the kids, because lunch will already be made and packed!

these days

we've hit the mid-morning lull at our house. well...as much as things ever get to be a lull around here. the kids are deep in play (for the moment, anyway) and i am sitting down and catching my breath. last night's dishes have been put away, the breakfast dishes have been washed, today's batch of formula has been made, both kids are dressed, we've played with playdough, and played several rounds of go fish and hi ho cherry o. i've fixed love's lego "wall of jericho" more times than i can count (apparently it's not quite as strong as the real thing was), and i'm ready to sit down and have a little break. 

jeremy has been working full time plus plowing snow, so we've had some long days around here with him gone. i haven't been having the greatest patience with parenting lately, but i've really been trying. getting asked the same thing over and over and over and over again really starts to wear on me. the constant demands from little people and the lack of time to do things that i want to be doing are hard. it's hard to sacrifice so much. the other morning i woke up in a really crabby mood. jeremy had been out plowing all night and stopped by the house for five minutes before he quickly left for a full day of work (what a wonderful guy, right?!). despite me being crabby, he was very patient, loving, and encouraging (as he almost always is). after he left, i had my first cup of coffee and gave myself an attitude pep talk. things looked up after that. it was more the coffee than my pep talk...amazing how much a little coffee can do. the rest of the day wasn't perfect, but it was ok.

i have found some time to do things that i want to do, and i've been making some really good things lately.

i made a batch of this granola (without the protein powder). in a bowl with greek yogurt and sliced strawberries it was a yummy, healthy, and easy weekday breakfast. we ate the whole batch, so tomorrow i plan to make some more.

we were getting a snowstorm the other day, and that always puts me in a baking mood...so i made a batch of these cupcakes (didn't use the xantham gum, or the protein powder - just added a bit more almond flour and some vanilla extract). they have been on my "things i want to make" list for a while. they are so, so, so good! i think they might actually be the most delicious cupcakes i have ever had in my whole life. 

i also knit a pair of slippers! i can't believe it...i've never been a knitter. i have knit a couple of scarfs, but always with a lot of frustration. i just never found knitting to be enjoyable and had given up on ever knitting anything else. then...i was inspired to try a pair of slippers. i pulled out some yarn i had from some other project that i couldn't do, found a really good tutorial online, and went to work. it was an easy, quick project that i found really enjoyable, relaxing, and satisfying. i was so inspired by the fact that i actually did it. i've already started another pair.

 

love has been playing with trains lately. a lot. we set up the train tracks...and then spend the rest of the day crying, consoling, and fixing when little brother grabs the layout and destroys it. (or sometimes i just say no to setting up the tracks because i don't feel like going through all of that everyday!). 

love turns three in a little over two weeks. three!?!?! how did this happen? she is definitely acting like a three year old...there is lots (and i mean lots!) of drama in our house, demands for things she wants, occasional tantrums, and opinions about things. some days are very, very challenging (and each day certainly has it's challenging moments at the least). at the same time...jeremy and i were talking last night about what a good big sister she is, how smart she is, and how she is really starting to come into her own little person. we love her so much..."terrible" threes or not! 

i recently came across a poem that i wrote down and posted in our house so i see it everyday. it reminded me so much of this stage of life with her and i found it encouraging. it's titled, "our lady of perpetual demand" by emma walton hamilton.

"i want, i want, i want! 

you say,

when can i have it? when?

another day it's

no! i won't! and no, no, NO! again.

i sigh. 

i ask for manners.

counter, "i don't want to hear it!"

but in my heart i celebrate

your dazzling strength of spirit."

a couple of weeks ago i got out our rice bin for love to play with. it was a cold, winter day and we were all feeling a little stir crazy! i gave her strict instructions to keep the rice in the bin...left the room for less than five minutes...and came back to find that the dump truck had removed almost all of the rice from the bin and dumped it in another part of the kitchen. of course, i couldn't get mad...that's just something that a kid would do. anyway, it was easy to clean up.

and then there's this kid...he is 9 months old already!

last week, he started pulling himself up to a stand. this week he is cruising all around the furniture and pulling himself up on everything! he is so proud of himself, and we are so proud of him too! unfortunately, this has resulted in a lot of falls, which is just what happens when someone is learning how to stand up, but still no fun. he is getting his third and fourth tooth this week as well (the top, front teeth). he's been handling these two teeth coming in pretty well...better than the bottom two.

last week, jeremy taught him "so big!" he holds up his hands when we ask him how big he is and we say, "so big!" he is so proud that he can do it. it's so cute. i remember love doing the same thing. this age is so much fun with him.

and one last photo from a recent expedition out into the snow. perhaps jobot is crying because he is wearing pink? or maybe because he is wearing my mittens on his feet because we don't have boots in his size? or maybe because he is so bundled up that he can't sit up? seriously...there could be many reasons. oh, the things we do just to get a little fresh (cold!) air in the winter in michigan. poor kid. good thing he won't remember it.

p.s. that mid-morning lull i wrote about at the beginning of this post? yeah...it lasted less than ten minutes. a naptime initiated, a train track built, and a gazillion interruptions later, and i am ready to publish this post. such is this life.

valentine's day

happy valentine's day!

it's not a big holiday around our house, but we try to make the day just a little bit special.

we started out the day with a special breakfast of cinnamon rolls, eggs, and strawberries. i made them last night from this recipe. they are low-carb, gluten, and sugar free. the first batch was a terrible disappointment. they smelled delicious, but were as hard as rocks! i baked them too long and also learned that i needed to add more almond flour than the recipe says. the second batch turned out better. not perfect, but good enough that we were able to enjoy them for breakfast this morning. i put heart stickers on toothpicks and stuck them in the cinnamon rolls to add a festive feel this morning.

we exchanged valentine's cards. always homemade at our house.

and the other day i made some truffles, because i knew the day wouldn't be complete without chocolate. (the recipe is from a book i recently got from the library: sensational stevia desserts, by lisa jobs). they were quite a lot of work, but they are delicious and definitely satisfy a desire for chocolate.

a day in my life: saturday, feb. 9

{i thought it would be fun to record some days from our life...so here is the first one. the disclaimer is that i am not this productive every day and our kids are not this cooperative or portable every day either. this is really long, but i want to remember it. i always enjoy reading similar things that other people post - maybe you will as well? if not, that's ok}

5:30 am. jobot wakes up. i get up so that Jeremy can keep sleeping until the alarm goes off (at 6:30). he is really tired from snow-plowing for ten hours (!) on thursday night. jobot and i go downstairs. i change his diaper, get him dressed, and nurse him.

love wakes up crying at 6 am. jobot and i go into her room and get her out of bed. apparently she thinks it is still night-time. she is crying and i can't figure out why she is so upset. we go downstairs and she stands in the middle of the living room crying. she refuses when i ask her if she will come snuggle on the couch with me. jeremy comes downstairs and she goes up to snuggle with him in our bed. she comes downstairs in a much happier mood. it seems she wasn't quite ready to get up yet.
i give jobot a bottle. love has her juice (she gets one small cup in the morning and then no more juice for the day, so she really enjoys her juice in the morning).

jeremy makes breakfast (a "stack" of a slice of uncured canadian bacon, a fried egg, and a slice of dubliner cheese). love gets a fried egg and some banana slices. jobot has his usual 2/3 of a banana mashed with some rice cereal, raw milk, and cinnamon. he also gets some egg pieces from my plate.

7:35. jeremy heads out the door for a full day of work. first he has to shovel all the snow that the plow has left at the end of our driveway. i get love dressed and cleanup from breakfast.

the kids are playing really well together, so i do some work in the kitchen. i make the day's batch of raw milk formula, throw a chicken carcass and some veggies in the crock pot to make a batch of chicken stock, sweep the floor, and double check my grocery list. i break up a few squabbles.

jobot starts to get tired. i somehow find motivation and decide that i am going to try to work on a house project while he naps. the kids and i head upstairs. i set love up in her room with a snack and the ipad (she watches veggietales). i nurse jobot, he falls asleep, and i lay him in bed. i check on love, who is doing just fine, and start the project...removing the caulk from the shower. (a project that we knew we had to do soon, but after a big piece broke off on friday, it wasn't something we could put off any longer, so it moved up in the priority list to this weekend. jeremy was planning to work on it when he got home from work, but i figured that it would make the day easier if i could at least get some of it done before he got home).

jobot wakes up after twenty minutes (the usual length of his nap). i have made some good headway on removing the caulk. i bring the exersaucer upstairs and put it in love's room. he is happy to sit in there for a while. when he starts to fuss, i bring the exersaucer into the bathroom and buy myself a few more minutes to work.

i think that jobot must be getting hungry, so we all head back downstairs. love's movie isn't quite finished, so we watch the rest of it while i give jobot a bottle. i make sure the diaper bag is packed with what we need, take love to the bathroom, and get boots, coats, and hats on everyone. we are headed to get groceries and meet jeremy for lunch at costco on his lunch break.

i get the kids out the door and leave love on the porch while i take jobot to the van to put him in. his door is frozen shut. so is love's. what a surprise. this happens almost every time we go out on these cold mornings. so...i put both kids in through the front seat. not easy, but it works.

love chatters the whole way to costco. she wants to listen to her kid's cd, but it won't work because it is too cold. it finally starts working.

we arrive at costco. i am there at just the right time and get a front row parking space. i get a cart. hurray - love's door isn't frozen anymore. it makes things much easier. we walk through the store getting the things we need. love samples a variety of foods (her favorite part!). the kids are very well behaved (which is not always how those trips go...especially since they sit in the cart together and can really annoy each other)!

shortly after noon, jeremy calls and says that he is on his way to meet us for lunch. we buy our groceries, and there he is waiting for us. the kids are both excited to see him, and so am i. my mom often sends love $10 to "take her parents out for a treat", which usually means lunch at costco or a trip to starbucks. jeremy and i both get salads and love gets cheese pizza. jobot eats the applesauce i brought for him. we sit and enjoy time together as a family. love eats almost all of her huge piece of pizza(!), with a potty break halfway through. jeremy has to leave before she is done eating, so we kiss him goodbye and sit for a bit longer.

i debate about just going to the grocery store to get the rest of the groceries i need (not very many). i hadn't planned on stopping at both places, but the kids are doing so well that i decide to just get it over with. and both doors on the van are working, so it's much easier to get the kids in and out of the van! on the short drive to the grocery store, jobot falls asleep.

we get to the grocery store and i try to figure out how to get groceries with a one-seat cart, a sleeping baby, and a two-year-old. i feel like a genius when i put our detachable stroller seat in the back of the cart, transfer a sleeping jobot into it, put love in the seat in the cart, and pull a small cart behind me as i go about my shopping. we stop by the bakery desk and get a free cookie for love. jobot wakes up in the produce section. we are almost done with our shopping trip. he happily sits in his seat in the back of the cart and eats snacks while we finish our shopping. we check out and then i realize i forgot something...so we head back to get it. the kids are fading a bit, it's good we are done.

we drive home. love chatters away. when we pull into the driveway, i realize that she has fallen asleep. i bring all the groceries up to the porch, get jobot and then love out of the car. i bring a sleeping love up to her room, lower her into her bed, and she suddenly wakes up and announces, "i want to play!" knowing that's the end of that nap, we head downstairs so she can do just that.

i bring all the groceries into the kitchen and then sit down to nurse jobot. after he nurses, he has a bottle. when he is done i change his diaper and then i start putting the groceries away. love plays and jobot crawls around on the floor playing with various items he finds in the grocery bags. i clean a few things out of the fridge and wash a few dishes.

i decide to try to get some more done in the bathroom, so i bring the kids upstairs. i set love up with another veggietale movie and leave jobot in her room in the exersaucer. he fusses, so i bring his exersaucer into the bathroom. he plays for about fifteen minutes and starts fussing. i'm almost done and i really want to finish, but his fusses soon turn into screams, so i stop and we all go back downstairs. love finishes her movie and i get jobot's dinner ready - homemade pureed butternut squash mixed with some rice cereal and raw milk, mashed up raspberries, and some wheat-free puffs.

the kids and i play on the floor for a bit. then...jeremy comes home! everyone is excited. after some playtime, jobot is getting tired. jeremy gets his pjs on, i nurse him, and jeremy brings him upstairs to give him his last bottle and put him in bed. i get started on supper. we have homemade pizza. low carb and sugar and gluten free (more on this some other time).

after we eat and have devotions, love has her mug of warm milk before bed while i read to her. (we do this almost every night and we usually read poetry. she loves it.) jeremy washes the dishes during that time. then it's on to love's extensive bedtime routine (it's complicated, but it works for her and us)...

she cleans up the toys and gets a sticker on her chart. she brushes her teeth and gets another sticker. and finally, she gets her pajamas on and gets another sticker. she chooses two books for us to read to her, says goodnight to me (i'm in the kitchen putting my freshly made chicken broth into mason jars) and we sing our song twice ("all praise to you my God this night"). she does two flips (she runs to jeremy and he flips her over his shoulder and around) while i watch and cheer, and then jeremy takes her up to bed.

after i wash the dishes from the chicken broth project, i make some chai tea for us and we collapse on the couch. we drink our tea, eat a brownie (low carb, sugar, and gluten free, of course...and it even had cauliflower in it!), and watch an episode of alias, our show for this winter. we had planned to work on the bathroom, but realize it would make a lot of noise while the kids were sleeping upstairs, and we were both exhausted anyway, so that didn't happen.


we sit on the couch, jeremy gives me a backrub (as he does just about every night), and we relax a bit. we start a second episode of alias, but jeremy starts to fall asleep, so we turn it off. we head up to bed and i read for a few minutes in bed, but start drifting off after a couple of pages so i turn out the light and go to sleep.



whew! what a day.