Sunny Saturday...

A sunny Saturday in late February... It was the first nice weekend day we've had in a long time. Seth and the boys took a walk, and after they got back, Seth parked his little bottom at his plastic picnic table and said, "I want to have a picnic!" He proceeded to stay there until David made his lunch and brought it out to him. We all had some time sunning ourselves on the deck, and I was filled with gratitude.

See, I'd been out house hunting with a couple of friends of mine during the morning. They are looking for a house in our area in our price range. Their options aren't the greatest. We bought this house a year ago, and even with the market still depressed, I'm realizing exactly how much of a miracle it is. This kind of square footage and yard is very unique here for this price. If you're reading this, family who sold us this house... thank you. You might've been able to sell this house for more, but you didn't haggle, were wonderful about fixing things, and you made it possible for us to live here.

But I digress... here are some pics of the boys on a lovely day. We finally got to get out the roller coaster we bought for Seth on Craigslist for his birthday. He LOVED it. He can probably get more air if we put it out on our sloped driveway in the cul de sac. Maybe in a few days...

"Well, hello there! Anybody casting for a musical anytime soon? I suddenly have an unexplainable urge to be a part of 'The Music Man.' Hmmm....."

Gadget gal...

I'm a gadget gal. There... I admit it. I love a good kitchen thingamjiggy. My bread machine has to be the best birthday present my mom has ever given me. I keep it busy making dough for rolls and pizza weekly, and my Zojirushi has been going strong for about 6 years now. Love, love, love it.

And then there's the Cuisinart food processor I scored from Craigslist for $35. Yes, you heard that right. And it came with about 12 extra cutting blades. I'm not sure I need my onions to be shaving bits, but if I want them to be, they will be. That gadget has really sped up the prep time for making my soups and sauces.

And now there's another beloved gadget in my life. It appears that I'm unable to cook more than one cup of rice on the stove top without messing it up somehow. I've tried and failed far too often. And so my mom got me a little rice cooker. I love it. No stirring, no watching the rice to make sure its not boiling over or cooking too fast. But... it was getting a little bit small.

Enter my sweet sister-in-law Terri and her birthday gift to me. It's a big ol' rice cooker (not the one pictured, but similar).. with a steamer basket! I'm going to be using this thing just about every night of my life. I have been steaming veggies on a plate with a little water in the microwave for awhile now. But this does it so much better and more easily! Tonight we had rice, and I steamed Trader Joe's potstickers in the basket right on top of it. They were the best steamed dumplings I've ever had... so much tastier and healthier than following the package directions to make them. I'm in love...

Good thing I have lots of cabinet space in this house... =) Anybody out there got a kitchen gadget they just can't live without?

Sad for my dear friend...

Hi, all. I had a lovely birthday weekend. My parents spoiled me rotten, as they always do when we visit the Ridge. But this post isn't about that...

Whenever I go down the long driveway at my parent's house, I instinctively look to the left. That's where you'll find my baby's tree. (See the post in the sidebar called "Our Tree" for a picture). Each time I see it, it looks a little stronger and a little bigger. It's a reminder of the saddest, darkest days of our journey to parenthood, and its a reminder that those days were not the end of our story. I love watching it bud and bloom. It still lives and thrives, and so does our sweet one in heaven.

I call it Jacob's Tree. When we found out that we were pregnant for the first time, I was sure that it was a boy. I just had a feeling. I've never had that strong of a feeling about gender with either of my others, and now I wonder if God gave me that feeling because I wouldn't get to hold him on this earth. As I lost him, I kept seeing a beautiful newborn hand in my mind... a hand pulling away from me. I wanted to grab it and hold on to it to keep him from leaving. I begged him to stay. But he wouldn't, and I've never understood why. It's one of the things I want to ask Jesus about when I reach heaven.

My little Jacob has a new friend that just joined him in heaven. And there is a mama that is grieving just like my heart hurt when I lost my littlest one. Please pray for my Sarah today.

Easy Peasy Valentine's Day...

Another no stress Valentine's Day.... I've read a few places that people are tired of hearing the same old advice that you HAVE to have date night's, or your marriage will go to pot. Well, if having date night's means that you HAVE to get a babysitter, get dressed up, drive to a restaurant or movie, spend a couple of hours, and then come home... I completely agree with them. Those things aren't necessary to spend quality time together... if your kids go to bed pretty easily and sleep pretty soundly. And since ours do at this point, we like to spend Valetine's Day at home.

This year I actually bothered to iron the tablecloth (on low heat on the table =), put out the nice china, and stuck a bunch of construction paper hearts on the mantel. We'll be eating after the boys go to bed, so that means I wanted something easy, tasty, and a little different for us to eat. This meal from Trader Joe's is better than most Chinese takeout around here. Put it with a simple salad and a bottle of bubbly, and I think I came out for about $15 for the meal for us both. We'll sit by our own fire after dinner and talk about Valentine's gone by...

Our dating anniversary is on Valetine's every year. And this year it's been 11 beautiful years together. I love you, babe!

Lollipop Sugar Cookies...

I may have mentioned before that I'm a MOPs small group leader. Well, this year, we were encouraged to do a little something for the gals in our group. I saw this recipe online, and I got so excited! It fired up all my baking juices. Go here to the Idea Room for the full recipe.

If you can make playdough snakes, you can do this. And besides looking very pretty, it's the best sugar cookie dough recipe I've ever tasted. I think it probably has to do with the bit of cream cheese in there.

I tinted my dough with red gel food coloring. It took a little bit of doin' to get it three acceptable and different shades of pink. That probably was the most complicated part of making this recipe. If you're making the primary colored lollipop, you won't have this problem.

Then I made three small, equal sized balls, probably about 3/4 of an inch apiece. I don't think it matters how big you make them, as long as you make all the cookies using the small sizes so they bake evenly.

Then I smashed the balls together to make one big ball. After that, I rolled this ball into a long, thin snake on the clean kitchen counter. It was about a 10-12 inch snake, probably. Then you roll the snake up, stick a sucker stick in there (you can get those and big lollipop sticks at Michaels), and bake!

I made a dent in the top to sort of make a heart, but I didn't think it looked that great in the final analysis.... so the rest of them I just made as pink lollipops. If you're feeling inspired, you still have a couple of days to go and do this yourself. Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!

An ordinary day...

These images are brought to you courtesy of the Nikon D50 manual, p. 18, where I finally figured out how to turn the automatic flash off on my camera. Yes, I read it before. No, I couldn't understand it. Now I do. And now I have these! Yippee!

There's a video making the rounds on YouTube these days where an experienced mother of two boys reads and letter and shows pictures of her little boys growing up. She concludes by wishing that she'd found more joy in the ordinary days when her boys were little... taking a walk, picking a flower, pushing on a playground swing.

I thought about it, and I realize that I don't think I'll have that regret when my boys are packing up to head off to college. I really have sincerely savored these ordinary days. Maybe infertility gives me a greater appreciation than I would've had otherwise because there were days when I honestly thought I'd never have this. So I get grumpy like anyone else, and I spend too much time on the computer, like lots of other women I know. But I also drink deeply in the moment. I know there will be days when I want this back. I just hope I remember it well...

Two little boys in a toy strewn room... one who has just learned to sit up, and another who has just learned to cut.

A smile between bursts of tears, framed on the back of the red velvet chair....

Tiny legs and tiny toes, splashing in the bath.... I hope you all find a few moments here and there to enjoy an ordinary day.

Embroidered baby bib...

"Can I feed Evan ice cream, Mommy?" And so he does. Poor baby opens his mouth wide for the spoon and then gives me a pitiful, confused look when there's nothing in it. If only pretend ice cream tasted as good to him as it does to his big brother. But he still opens his mouth wide every time, despite the disappointment.

Things have gotten easier around here. I don't know when it happened exactly. It just crept up on me gradually. I woke up one day recently and thought, "Hey! I'm enjoying my life and my bitty boys without that undercurrent of stress and exhaustion that has been gnawing at me for so long." It's wonderful.

So I'm back to my old crafting and cooking ways with more delight than I've had in awhile. When it snowed over Seth's birthday, I embroidered this bib for a friend's baby. It took all of 45 minutes, and it was so easy. This is the picture before I washed the marker outlines out, but it still looks pretty good. I just drew everything on freehand with Crayola washable markers, fine tip. It washes out very easily; no need to soak. The embroidery thread is 3 ply strands, and I got the info on how to the do the center of the flower here from Sublime Stitching. I made one for Evan afterward, and I did the outline of a star for him. You can buy a pack of these cloth bibs from Babies R' Us, and I think they make cute gifts. Basic embroidery doesn't take a lot of time or skill, so it's perfect for me these days. =) If you try it, please comment and let me know how it went for you.

Painting popcorn...

A sunny, cold morning, and I wanted to try something new with my big boy. After spending some time with trucks, we moved on to... painting popcorn. I saw it on Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family. You just put food coloring in some milk, stir it up, and give them a paintbrush. The recommendation was for sweetened condensed milk, but I didn't have any of that, and regular milk worked just fine. He picked blue. He likes the color blue these days.

I wasn't thinking of this when I decided on this activity, but just watching the popcorn pop was a big deal for Seth. I pop it on the stove in a heavy bottomed, non stick pan with a little canola oil. You turn it up to high, put in one kernel, and watch for that to pop before putting in a couple more handfuls. I picked him up to look when that kernel was getting ready to go, and he thought it was awesome. "LOOK AT THAT, Mama! LOOK AT THAT!" How long has it been since I sat in wonder to watch popcorn pop? It's a treasure to see it again for the first time through his eyes...

Cheaper breakfasts and lazy granola...

I'm sitting here eating my first bowl of Lazy Granola today. It's delicious! And it really was very easy.

I think that the price of breakfast cereal is kind of outrageous. We tend to buy the off brands of corn flakes and wheat chex, and its still pretty pricey. My husband is probably like many of yours, though, and he's eaten cereal for breakfast just about every day of his childhood. This means that he balks at eating something else for breakfast. =) So what's a frugal gal to do?

Well, try the recipe linked above, for one. And beg him to give a less cereal life a chance for a couple of weeks. And then make a big batch of waffles to pop in the freezer for him to toast in the mornings... Enjoy!

Update: After my big grocery shopping trip at Wallyworld today, and after using kitchen conversion charts online and a calculator, I discovered that one of our daily portions of this granola is about 7 cents more expensive than one of our daily portions of Cheerios, name brand. Sigh. If I was really serious about saving money, I'd have to buy it in bulk and find someplace to store 50 lb. of oats. As I'm not that serious about it, I will be making granola for our family for the taste and health benefits (fiber, no preseratives, etc.), but I will not be busting my hump to do it all the time to try and save a buck. The end. =)

A Young Lutheran's Guide to the Orchestra...

I'm reading Garrison Keillor's "Life Among Lutherans" I love his books, except the ones with lots of swearing, of which there are a few. But this one seems fine, so I can't resist giving you a few quotes.

I come from a very musical family. My mom was an opera singer. No, I'm not kidding. =) And I spent many, many years in good choirs as a 1st soprano. And no, I can read music well, I was not a 1st soprano because I could only read the melody line, I was one by virtue of my high melodious voice. Ahem. So I appreciate good musical humor...

"The second violinists sit with the percussionists right behind them. It's like having a gun to the back of your head. And you play accompaniment. That's what you do. You're a thoroughbred hitched up to a beer wagon. Somebody has to pull it, and you're the one. The curse of the second violins: any of these people can go home and play the Beethoven Concerto perfectly; they just can't do it if anybody is listening."

"The brass include a number of men who used to be in the construction trades and went into music because there's less dust. The tuba player is the only member of the orchestra who bowls over 250 and gets his deer every year and changes his own oil. In his locker downstairs, he keeps a pair of lederhosen for those freelance jobs. But there's only one tuba, and he's it- and these guys never die."- p. 12

Morning at the children's museum...

This morning, the schools were on a 1 hour delay. Another mother, smarter than I, mentioned that it would be a good day to avoid swarms of 3rd graders, whooping and hollering, on their field trips. (I dread field trippers around small children; they make them cry and cower.) So off we went to the children's museum. I remembered my tiny camera that I got for days such as these. And I remembered that I have never regretted taking a single picture of my children. I should take more. So here you have an ordinary day in the life of a mom of two tiny boys who has a museum membership to a wonderful place to take small children on a cold morning in N.C.

Little Worrywart and his smiley mother, who put on makeup this morning, but did not wash her hair. That sweater is one she inherited from her father, a man who did not ski, but somehow ended up with a skiing sweater 'round about 1975. It's one of my favorites. No, I'm not giving it to Goodwill. Don't ask me again, Mom.

Look, Mom, I found a hat and a gigantic steering wheel and I'm concentrating very hard on my driving. Don't bother me; I have people to run over...

They have a new exhibit upstairs that I love. It's supposed to be about money and banking, but it really isn't. There's this thing, and you load balls into the apparatus, and then turn the wheel, and they go up, and then they bounce down again. It's very, very fun. But my favorite thing is the giant pink pig bank hanging from the ceiling that opens its bottom and drops balls into the ball pit below whenever you get enough in there. It's also very, very fun. I'm glad I have children so I can play at this place...

Stop the world. No, really, just reach your hand out, put it on there, and it'll stop. I promise. Now, stop whining, or you won't get a granola bar when we get back to the car.