Freezer Cooking Take 2

This morning we headed to the grocery store to buy what I needed for another freezer cooking venture. Thankfully boneless, skinlesss chicken dropped to $1.99/lb at the grocery store today. I had planned to buy Doritoes as they were on sale (50% off), and I was even more encouraged to do so when I saw the bags said "Go Steelers." I knew my dad would approve! :-) Today I made 2 batches of Sassy Sloppy Joe's, 1 batch of almond chicken, and 2 batches of tuna noodle casserole. It wasn't easy since Ian was in a "I want to be held all day" mood, but I know I'll be grateful in the next few weeks. I also made a batch of chicken enchiladas after I put Ian to bed at 7pm. Since I made applesauce and apple crisp on Tuesday and manicotti, egg salad, and lasagna yesterday, I've done a lot of cooking these past 3 days!

Today I mixed sweet potatoes in his bottles this morning and bananas this evening. That worked better than cereal because the cereal kept clogging up the nipple. I am happy to say he stayed in the same outfit all day because the poop stayed in his diaper. It came close to the edge in the back a few times but never got on his clothing. YAY! The poor guy has diaper rash around his tailbone area.  I'm going to try feeding him with a spoon again tomorrow. I'm hoping it will go better now that he's had food flavored milk the last two days.

The pictures in this post were the poses I didn't order any prints of from Ian's photo shoot on Monday.

As for the phone call to the RE's financial counselor, I was relieved to find out that the fact we switched insurance won't be a problem. She thinks Blue Shield will pay for the intitial testing as well as the bloodwork and ultrasounds just like the insurance we've had the past 6 years. I was surprised as 6 1/2 years ago I was on Blue Shield and had trouble with them even paying for bloodwork or ultrasounds after I had an HSG. This was before I ever had even an IUI let alone IVF. The other good news was that the cost went down slightly. The price for most of the procedures stayed the same, but it actually dropped (surprise!) for ICSI (used both times), assisted hatching (did for Nadia not for Ian or the first first transfer), and embyro freeze (did for Nadia not for Ian). We haven't decided yet whether we're going to try ivf again, but we're talking about it. I am praying that the Lord will give us wisdom as to whether we should try for #3 via ivf or not.

A wonderful evening

Tonight was a balm to my soul. Two couples that I've been friends with since 1996 came up to our house for dinner. The last time I saw any of them I was pregnant with Nadia. We had a most delightful 4 hours together. In the past we've played games (which I always love to do), but since we hadn't seen each other in so long, we just talked the whole time. It was wonderful to be able to introduce them to Ian and Nadia. Nadia gave all four of them LOTS of hugs. :-) I worked with Rosalie, and Kay was the principal of the school before me. It was a wonderful night.

My mom suggested putting cereal with bananas in Ian's bottle to try to "constipate" him a bit. His poop has become green and a bit thicker. He only soiled one outfit today. I'm hoping that maybe this will help him get used to the taste/flavor and maybe he'll start eating cereal with a spoon.

26 Months Old!

Over the past month here are 12 ways Nadia has changed:

1. Her sentences continue to get longer. She is almost always able to communicate her thoughts in sentences. For example, this morning I handed her happy meal doll to her, and she said "cut the tag off, please." She's also saying more things accurately. For example she now says "Oh, Daddy where are you" whereas she used to omit the word "where" from that phrase. She's also singing more of the words in many songs. Her use of pronouns is improving although she still says "you" sometimes when she means "me."

2. She now LOVES to count to 11. After 11 she cycles back to 8, 9, 10, and 11 - every time. It's so funny!

3. She's averaging one accident every 1-2 weeks (almost always on Tuesdays). That's a big improvement compared to last month. One bathroom habit I hope she breaks is her love of porta-potties. She has to use it every time we go to the park even if she just went at home 20 minutes earlier, and normally she goes hours in between going at home. I do limit her to using it once per trip to the park. When we get to the park and I ask her what she wants to do first (swing, slide, or seesaw), she says "potty." Oi vey! :-)

4. She's interacting more with Ian. She wants him to join in with what she's doing, and she gives him hugs and kisses - so sweet!

5. She correctly identifies most colors now - pink, red, blue, green, yellow, purple, and white.

6. She's learning to eat her veggies. I can't say she's crazy about them, but she usually will eat them before her dinner (rather than for breakfast or lunch the next day).

7. She can correctly identify more flavors. If I giver her oatmeal or yogurt and ask her what kind it is after she's taken a bite, she can usually tell me the correct flavor (peach, blueberry, etc.).

8. She's always loved hugs, but she's really been saying, "I need a big hug" a lot lately.

9. She's really been focused on emotions lately - hers, Ian's, VeggieTales characters', etc. She usually says she's/ they're either happy, sad, not sad, not scared, or scared.

10. She's come a long way with self- feeding. She definitely hasn't "arrived," but she's made great progress.

11. She's just started to play with dolls. She likes to feed them at her kitchen.

12. She got 2 more teeth! Her bottom 2 year molars came in.

8 Month Portraits

I think most people have their children's pictures taken at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months old. I have been doing them every 3 months, but I've taken him at 2, 5, and 8 months. I plan to get our family Christmas photo done in November, and I'll have a couple of poses of Ian and Nadia separately and also together at that time. I plan to take Ian in December for his 1st year photos (without a Christmas background). I am definitely going to take Ian to Sears in December as I want him to pose with the big white number one like Nadia did. Walmart doesn't have those big numbers. The other reason I wanted his pictures taken now was he couldn't sit independently in May, and he can now! I'm assuming he'll be able to stand for his photos in December. I'd like to get our family pictures done at Sears also because it's easier to get a good deal there. I'm really hoping that Karen (who took Ian's pictures in February and May) will be working at the other Sears in November and December. It would be worth the drive in my opinion. Walmart's prices (if you order them at the store) are twice as much as at Sears! The upside to Walmart is their prints are far more reasonable if you buy them online. So I ordered very little at the store today and then came home and ordered more online. Over the past 2 months they've enhanced their website and you can really play with the prints (crop them, enhance them, etc.) on your own (no charge!). Had I known that I would have paid less than $9 total at Walmart today. The one pose (of the 2 of them) I did order 2 sheets of at the store because I thought it looked nice with a red border. Turns out I could have done the red border myself on their website and saved myself a lot of  money. Lesson learned. If I go back to Walmart again, I'll only order the $7.99 package (plus the free 10x13), and then I'll order everything online at home.

I had Ian dressed in the outfit I wanted him to wear in the pose with Nadia. I thought we'd do those first, and then I'd let Nadia eat some crackers and read her Clifford book while Ian had his pictures taken. She did pretty well. The problem was Ian. Go figure. I just assumed we would have no trouble getting him to smile. I guess 3:00pm wasn't a good time to pick. He fell asleep in my arms at 4pm while I was picking which poses to buy. I picked 3pm to work around Nadia's nap. Hopefully I'll pick a better time for our family shoot in November. This was the best we could do since Ian wouldn't smile. Then I changed his shirt. He started crying. I got him settled down but it took forever until we got him smiling. Thankfully she's a really patient photographer (she's the same one who did Nadia's 2 year old shoot in June).

I had promised her a trip to McD's if she was a good girl. She definitely earned that as we were in the photo studio for 80 minutes! Next year there won't be as many trips to the photo studio - June for Nadia's 3 year pictures, November for our family photos, and December for Ian's 2 year pictures. We shall see if I end up going to Walmart next year or Sears. If I go back to Walmart, I need to remember that we should go to the McD's that is about 2 minutes from Walmart rather than the one inside the store because the one inside the store doesn't give a small ice cream cone with a happy meal like most McD's do. I let Nadia have some ice cream once we got home (a VERY rare treat).

The 5 photos in this post are the ones I ordered some prints of. I'll share some of the other 8 poses later.

Changes

In the past week or so Ian has shown a huge improvement with his reflux. YAY! I typed that around noon today. I have been leery to write about this in my blog as I thought it might be like washing your car (then it rains). Wouldn't you know that around 7:30 tonight he had a HUGE incident of projectile vomiting milk - soaked himself, my shorts, the couch, and the carpet! So we aren't totally out of the woods yet, but at least these incidents are not happening anywhere near as often as they did for months.

I would have thought this would mean he'd be wearing fewer outfits each day, but as the amount of changes needed due to "chucking" has decreased, the amount of changes needed doing to poop going up his back has increased. Aside from when she was a newborn, Nadia has almost always pooped once a day. I would say Ian probably averages at least 5 times a day and even if his diaper is fairly dry, the poop often doesn't stay in his diaper. It goes up his back. If it weren't for Zout, Oxi-Clean, and stain stick, most of his clothes (and some of mine) would have large yellow stains. I've tried Huggies, Luvs, Pampers, and Parent's Choice. It doesn't make a difference. Any suggestions? I hope he outgrows this problem in the near future, or I'm going to be counting down the months until I can potty train him. Never thought I'd say that, lol! He also sometimes leaks at night. Nadia didn't have that problem either, but she also didn't consume anywhere near as much milk before going to bed as Ian does. On nights when he wakes up and is fed once more (such as at maybe 8:30pm) I change his diaper again and then it doesn't leak. I'm going to try putting him in a size 4 diaper overnight even though he's "only" 19 lbs. If that doesn't work I might need to try overnight diapers, which I've heard are much more expensive, but that would be better than having to launder his sheet so often!

This morning a friend of mine who had lived in VA for the past year (while her hubby did his fellowship) came up to our house with her 3 kiddos. Our youngest boys were born while she was in VA. Melanie is exactly 2 months older than Nadia, and Ryan is 3 months older than Ian. Michael is 5 years old. Nadia did a great job of sharing her toys - much better than when Olivia was here for a playdate last month. She wanted to give the kids hugs when they left, but Melanie was too sure about that. Nadia loves giving and receiving hugs! At some point we'll have to work on the concept that we don't hug everyone.

Little Things

Many times it's little things that make my day. I can think of two things yesterday that were my favorite parts of my day. The first was when I got an email from the Director of Teaching and Learning Enhancement at Lamar University in Texas. Dr. Pourciau wrote me an email to let me know that he enjoyed one of my articles, and he let me know that he had referenced it in his blog post. In that post he refers to a "terrific article by Ruth Kennedy." That put a huge smile on my face! Yesterday evening after dinner I pushed the kids in the stroller to the park. I have done it every day this week. I'm trying to lose some more weight before school starts, and it's the easiest way for me to fit exercise into my schedule. Ian is not a fan of swings (yet). I am guessing he'll feel differently about them next summer, but I did discover yesterday that he loves the seesaw! I put Nadia on one end and had him in my lap on the other end. Nadia was smiling, and Ian was laughing. I can't really describe in words how much I enjoyed sharing a fun experience with my two precious children. Thank you, Lord for these two adorable blessings and also for seesaws!

My favorite moment thus far today was when the man cleaning the air ducts and dryer vent gave me a compliment on my style of parenting. I think the words he used were "firm but loving." It's so easy to see one's flaws as a parent. His words were very encouraging to me. I think my second favorite thing today will happen this evening. I'm going to a Phillips, Craig & Dean concert tonight with a friend. I haven't been to a concert in over 8 months. We were going to also have dinner together, but she called last night to cancel our dinner plans. I've enjoyed listening to their music for about 18 years but have never heard them in concert before. I am sooooo excited! The concert venue is less than 30 minutes from our home, and my ticket was only $15. I can't wait!

Eating and Sleeping

It seems that when children are really young a mom is very attentive to their sleeping and eating habits (as well as the elimination of what has been consumed). Ian stayed on a four nap a day schedule longer than Nadia did, but Nadia took longer to transition to two naps a day. This week Ian has gone from 3 naps a day to 2 naps. The problem has been that his naps are still usually only 30-45 minutes long. I put him down later for his morning nap (10:10am) even though he had been up since 5:50am, but he still only slept 40 minutes. I put him down at 1:30 for his second nap, and I was really hoping that he'd take a longer afternoon nap. He woke up at 2:00. I gave him some milk, and he fell back asleep! He slept in my arms for quite awhile, and then I put him back in his crib since Nadia woke up. He ended up taking a long nap (for him it was super long). I am hoping that his naps will each be at least one hour long on average. I also wish he's sleep in a little longer. He usually gets up between 5:45-6:00am, and it's not that I put him to bed super early. For example tonight he went to bed at 7:40pm. Last night I fed him around 1am, but usually he's sleeping at least 10 hours straight, which is a big improvement although it's hard not to recall that when Nadia was 8 months old she was sleeping 12 hours straight at night on average.

Nadia likes peas! I was so relieved that we didn't have a battle over eating veggies tonight. I called them French peas (from VeggieTales), and she gobbled them up before eating her spaghetti.  Ian only likes milk. There was a time when he'd eat carrots or sweet potatoes. Not now. If I get some cereal in his mouth (oatmeal or rice cereal), he gags until he throws up. Same goes for Cheerios or puffs. If he sees a spoon coming in his direction, he turns his head away from me and cries. When he's sitting on my lap while I'm eating, I have to work hard to keep everything away from him. He wants to grab it with his hands, but he doesn't want any solid food in his mouth. I use one hand to hold his hands (or he grabs the spoon from me), and I use the other hand to put the spoon in his mouth while holding his face in my direction. It's tricky. I go through a lot of work to get a tiny bit of food in his mouth. This happens with fruit and veggies. I'm going to call his Pediatrician to see if I need to be concerned about this or not. I've been trying to get him to eat solid foods for 3 full months now. Since I'll be teaching 3 nights a week in the near future, I've given up the evening feeding as far as nursing him. We're down to just one feeding a day (first thing in the morning). I'm hoping we can keep that one going for at least 3 more months. We shall see.

Back to School Shopping

 

In the last 2 weeks I bought 3 things, which I've dubbed my "back to school" purchases. The first two were carseats. I've had two in my car, and Paul has had none. One of those I purchased 5.5 years ago, and the other was a hand-me-down from my sister. On Sunday Paul installed the 2 new ones in my car, and sometime over the next 10 days or so he needs to install the 2 old ones in his car. When Sarah watches the kids while I'm at school, I'll drop them off at 3pm on my way to work, and he'll pick them up at 5pm on his way home. Therefore we need 4 carseats for the first day of school, which is August 30 for me. The 3rd item arrived today. I bought an easel for Nadia. It's for two children so Ian will also be able to use it in the future. It has a clip on both sides to hold paper (fingerpainting will be much easier!). One side is a magnetic dry erase whiteboard, and the other side is a chalkboard. I am not going to buy dry erase markers until I'm certain she won't use them on the walls, furniture, etc. It also came with a ton of magnetic numbers and letters. She put some on the refrigerator and some on her easel. Paul took the swing down to the basement since Ian has outrgrown it, and the easel is now where the swing used to be.

I am actually looking forward to the start of school. I didn't think that would be the case since my online class only finished a few days ago, but I haven't actually been on campus for 7 weeks. I do enjoy my job. I've decided what I don't enjoy is teaching online, at least without some help with the children. Teaching online seemed ideal since I could stay home, but it was really crazy trying to take care of a 2 year old and a 7 month old while teaching a class with 32 students. I graded over 900 discussion board messages in addition to the assignments, quizzes, and exams that I would have graded had the course been held face-to-face. Plus I received far more emails than usual. I also missed the face-to-face interaction I have when I teach on campus. I am not sure if I want to keep working FT after this coming semester, but the thought of teaching PT until Paul graduates sounds perfect at the moment.

I'm trying to accomplish a lot of other stuff during my 2 weeks off of school. The first task completed was the garbage disposal installation. The master bedroom painting was begun on Saturday and hopefully will be finished today. I had planned to do the painting, but Paul said it was better if he did it (since he was a professional painter at one point). The color is a bit darker than we were wanting, but we still like it. I'll post pics when it's done! Today we went to a lawyer and gave him the information so he can draw up our wills, living wills, and power of attorney paperwork. Fun, Fun, Fun! Well actually although the topic is rather morbid, he was a very pleasant fellow, and we were in and out of there in 30 minutes, which is probably good as I imagine his hourly rate isn't cheap! We go back in a couple of weeks to sign the documents. I'm hoping the documents aren't actually needed for at least 40 years. :-) On Friday someone is supposed to come and clean out our air ducts. Usually things are much cheaper up here than where my parents live in MD, but in this instance we'll be paying 10 times more than my parents pay to have their air ducts clean. This is an expensive but productive week! I guess we're doing our part to stimulate the economy, lol.

It's been a full year since I've had a professional manicure so next Saturday (28th) I'm going to have a haircut and manicure at a place right here in our town. I've never been to this salon before. I'm hoping I like it and that can be my regular place to go. I'll paint my own toenails. I think it will be a great way to prepare myself for the new school year. :-)

News

Bad - Nadia had an accident in her crib last night.

Good - She had gone 14 days without an accident = a new record! Hopefully she'll go even longer this next time.

Bad - Ian had a rough night last night. I got less than 6 hours of sleep and woke up with the headache I'd had a reprieve from lately. He's been fussier than usual today. Maybe he's teething? I'm going to give him Tylenol before putting him to bed tonight.

Good - Gabby came over for one hour while Nadia was napping to watch Ian so I could take a nap. If someone had told me 3 years ago that I'd spend $5 so I could take a nap, I would have laughed (as up until when I was pregnant with Nadia I never liked to take naps). I've had a very different attitude toward naps the past 2+ years, especially the past 8 months when naps have been hard to come by.

Good - Yesterday morning Nadia only took a few minutes to decide it was better to eat her 3 carrots than to delay eating breakfast. Last night she ate her 3 carrots at dinner time. Progress!! This means she didn't eat any veggies for breakfast today, lol. The plumber was here while we ate dinner so I gave her a reprieve. She ate chicken, applesauce, and pierogies for dinner.

Good: I got a lot of exercise yesterday. I walked the kids to the park = 40 minutes of pushing a double stroller. Then after they were in bed I mowed most of the lawn. I stopped at 8:35pm because it was getting too dark.

Bad: All that time outside is not good for my allergies. Ugh.

Apples and Veggies

Yesterday I picked more apples. I was correct in my previous estimation as to how few apples were left on the tree with the red apples. I underestimated how many were left on the tree with the green apples. I picked quite a few more off that one, and there are still quite a few left on that tree. Yesterday I tried another apple crisp recipe. I liked it better than the first one I tried mainly because I like oats in my apple crisp. I am planning to make this second recipe again next week when we have company. I bought a apple peeler/slicer/ corer on eBay last week, but it hasn't come yet; so today I asked our neighbors if I could borrow theirs. It does a great job of slicing and coring - if you don't mind thin slices that are connected in such a way that it closely resembles a slinky. As for the peeling, it depends on the apple. This device was made for fairly round apples. I had read somewhere that someone said they could do a bushel in an hour with this device. Not me. I am not exactly sure how many apples are in a bushel, but it still took me quite awhile to make another large batch of applesauce tonight. I also went through the apples and threw away a bunch of them. I decided to be pickier about the ones I kept in part because I wanted to make sure I didn't feel like I had to keep cooking all of them ASAP, and I know if there's a bad apple in there, it could spoil many of them. So between cooking and throwing apples out, I am down to one box (I'd guess about 40 lbs worth). Hopefully when I taste this applesauce I'll be motivated to make some more over the next two weeks. I definitely want the apples out of the house (given away or cooked) by August 29. I am enjoying the apple butter on my English muffins. It has a slightly different flavor than usual since most of the apples I'm using are Granny Smith apples. I don't have any desire to make more apple butter this summer though. Time, energy, and freezer space are all too valuable to me.

Nadia had a reprieve for a few days as far as eating carrots or green beans because we had pizza and then corn on the cob. She liked the corn on the cob and salsa (that was for the enchiladas but she also put some on her corn, lol). Yesterday I served her 3 green beans, and she refused to eat them so she didn't get dinner even though she really wanted the pierogies we were having with cranberry chicken. I also only let her drink water since she loves milk. This morning she refused at first, but after she had been up about an hour she came to me and said "eat beans." I was thrilled that she ate her beans and could have breakfast and LOTS of milk before heading to church. Unfortunately we experienced deja vu this evening over 3 small carrots. I let her pick carrots or green beans, and she picked carrots but didn't eat or drink anything at dinner. Hopefully in the near future she'll figure out it's better to eat them for dinner rather than for breakfast the next day. She can be pretty stubborn, but I can be even more stubborn if need be!

It amazes me every day how much longer her sentences keep getting as well as the words she knows that I didn't know she knew - such as "manatee." I love that her favorite song to sing is "Jesus Loves Me." Of course her second favorite is the VeggieTale theme song. I wish her love of watching veggies would spill over into a love of eating them, ha ha! Although sometimes she says things I wish she wouldn't say (like a really defiant "no I won't"), she also says some REALLY endearing things like "I love you." I love it when she says that of her own initiative!!! I also love it when she asks for a hug. She even asks for hugs from some of the ladies at church. They love it too. I love how she is so encouraging. When Paul was blowing up the new swimming pool, she said "Good job, Daddy. You made the pool!" This morning when I came down after I had gotten dressed for church, she told me "you look so pretty, Mommy." That made my day! I was wearing a dress for the first time in over a year. It hit me that since I am not nursing many times a day, I could wear a dress to church again. I've been sticking with skirts in light of nursing (and I didn't have any maternity dresses either). She can be a sweetheart! :-)