you CAN have too much of a good thing

i've recently gotten into a pattern of putting on a video for sweet pea while i'm making dinner. don't judge me. it's also important to know that she only sees about 45 minutes of tv a day. 20 minutes in the morning for sesame street, and then the video i put on for her that she half watches/half helps me make dinner. she has become QUITE the elmo fan and also quite the little tech-savvy toddler. she now knows that the video machine also takes dvd's. what she doesn't know is that they go in 2 different slots and when you put the elmo dvd in on top of the elmo video it makes a horrific wheezing sound as the video player tries to turn the dvd. she came screaming into the kitchen but i already knew something was up. i heard buttons pushing and the video player clacking then the scary wheezing noise. i think she thought she killed elmo. luckily, she didn't kill elmo OR the video machine. and i don't think she'll try to double up on elmo anytime soon.

marvin prayed it. i believe it.

last night i took peanut forward at church to be prayed over. i have only done that with our little kiddos. i would never dream of doing that with kids old enough to comprehend what's going on. but i told marvin, our little prayer warrior, that i wanted to pray for what's best for him, but that selfishly, i want to pray that we are what's best for him and that he doesn't go anywhere else. and marvin prayed that "peanut is where he needs to be and that god will protect his spot and keep us as a family." and he didn't pray that "if that's god's will" or "if that's what's best". he prayed it as if that IS what's best and that's what WILL happen and you know what-i haven't worried ever since. i think he's ours.

forgot about these

i would like to add to my reality post that i will also not feel jipped if i never get to experience cracked nipples and tearing. omg ladies, you know what i'm talking about. will. not. feel. jipped. on that at ALL!

snow!

it snowed this week. these pictures crack me up.
tatum the abominable snow dog.
paul came home early one day to go play in the snow with sweet pea. she LOVES "fmow"!

we have this little tree out front of our place. it's about the size of a cherry tree and it's just so cute in every season. here it is covered in snow. love this little tree.

reality

now that we have 2 kiddos in the house i am starting to question...do i really want to get pregnant or am i just being stubborn? do i really NEED children from my own womb? i think about my desires and wonder: are they selfish? are they dwindling? are they really still there or is it now just the dream that is there and eventually that too will fade? will it ever completely fade away or will the ghosts of the freckle faced children always be standing in the shadows of the corners? i think about all the positives and i think...gosh...do i really even want to keep trying to get pregnant? i won't be passing down my fair-easily-sunburnt skin. i won't be passing down my possible ADD, which, i might defend, comes in handy when multi-tasking is a necessity. my butt won't expand to never ever return to its before-kids state. my boobs won't ever have stretch marks. my stomach won't ever have that gooey bagel shaped pooch all birth-mom's complain about. but then there's the tiny things....will my kids be artistic like me and paul? i'll never have kids with paul's beautiful cheek bones. or his handsome dark skin. oh wait. yes, maybe i will have children with his beautiful dark skin. and maybe they won't have his beautiful cheek bones, but they'll still be beautiful.
god promised me a quiver full but he never said anything about where they would come from. and if i had one of my own, and it was the baby of the family, would sweet pea and peanut always say we favored that child because it was a biological child? or would they say we favored them because they were the baby? and then i think about my own family. on my mother's side i don't have any blood related cousins because so many people are adopted. and would i have felt differently if someone would have had a biological child? i have biological cousins on my dad's side, and i'm not as close to them as i am to my cousins on my mom's side. i've never felt jipped in any way. it's just always been how it was. in fact, me and the cousin i grew up playing with could walk into each other's houses and totally redecorate and it be EXACTLY how we would do it. we think the same. we pick the same things. we like the same stuff. we're both artistic. she is MUCH better with hair than i am since i seem to have only one hair cut-the mountain range bang cut. i don't know. all this to say-i'm not sure i still want to try. i don't know that i don't. i'm just saying-these are the thoughts that have been going through my head for the last month since peanut's been with us.
and then there's the question of how many is too many? i always thought 3 was the perfect number. but now that i have a perfect girl and a perfect boy....do i really want to upset this apple cart? what if i end up with a sibling that could be the that sibling in the mix? *sigh* i don't know. i have a basement full of baby clothes-both girl AND boy now-that i'm not willing to even think about parting with in hopes that someday i will have someone to wear them again. not someone from my belly....just...someone.
as i look around the dinner table at all the chubby and growing faces i have to wonder what is it, exactly, that i think i'm missing out on.

developments-it happens SO FAST!

sweet pea now LOVES to set the table. we have a video and it's really too cute, but you can see her face in a couple spots AND it's too big for blogger. she KILLS me with her cuteness. i use a small fork and paul uses a big fork. so when she sets the table she usually put's the big fork at paul's chair and the little fork at my chair and then her toddler fork at her place. SO cute.

on saturday paul's parents were up for his birthday and paul was holding peanut and i bent over and started cooing and talking to him and he turned his face and eyes to me and smiled a tiny bit. he's already recognizing my voice! i was so thrilled! he loves me. i just know it. we will get to give him a middle name and we will call him by that name. i know i'm not supposed to but sometimes i call him by that name now. i'm not ready to come out of the closet on it just yet. we're still debating, but it's pretty much 99% decided. it's just that tiny 1% that makes us never settle into the prospect that eventually he WILL be ours that keeps us from committing all the way. continue praying for that situation. the family member that has stepped forward, i sort of found out today, is kind of hard to get ahold of. pray that continues or makes itself evident early on in the case that that person won't be an option. all i have is hope at this point.

Paul's Birthday

yesterday paul got his birthday present. it's the P90X workout video set. he loves it. i'm so excited. today he went out and got the tools he needs to do it. i couldn't really buy them because i didn't know exactly what he'd need. we sat down and watched a little bit of it to see how hard it's gonna kick his butt. sweet pea LOVED watching it and tried some of the moves. ugh. this baby kills me! i LOVE the way she puts her hands behind her back like this and i LOVE this little outfit. i know-it's too short now-but i just am not ready to pack it away just yet. i know once i do, she'll never wear it again. and i don't know that i'll ever have another little girl to wear it.

Soooo....court was yesterday....

and i don't know how to feel about it. there is a family member that has stepped forward for peanut but not for sweet pea. she is too far along in her case. however, it opens up a little bit of a pandora's box that i had no considered. this family member will be required to come to visits (not all of them, but probably one a week or something), and they will have to take parenting classes since they have never had any children of their own. they will also have to complete, and pass, the home study. and it's my understanding that just because all of these steps are completed doesn't mean that peanut will GO there, but i have a hunch that if all of these steps are completed that it's a pretty competent person and he'll probably go. what i had not considered when accepting this placement was that if he does go, and sweet pea stays....how will i deal with her disappointment. she is VERY bonded. they have a chemistry. she knows they are connected. and then further down the road how do i answer the questions of her staying and him going. so. i don't know. a lot of questions. but a lot of steps have to be taken and completed before i have to cross any of these bridges. last night i had a little cry about it. the thought of him going. the thought of actually handing him over and saying good-bye possibly forever. as i write this sweet pea climbed up on the couch to kiss peanut. *sigh* how will i ever get through this?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!

Sweet Pea and I have been having crafty time every week. Last week I let her finger paint with green, then this week we cut it out into shamrocks and put on the glitter and glue. She LOVES crafty time. And I think my house will never be done glittering.

naps are important when you have a toddler on a schedule

with the time change we've been kind of fudging nap times and bed times and wake times. it's all adding up and evening out but you know what REALLY throws a wrench into our schedule? there is one day a week where the visit schedule falls RIGHT over nap time. our typical day is lunch at 11:30, nap from noon to 3:00, but sometimes we can fudge it by an hour and go down from 1:00 to 4:00. what we can NOT do is go down at 11:30 and wake up at 12:30 otherwise we spend our whole time laying in our crib singing and kicking the side of the rails. we can also, sometimes, take a nap from 2:00 to 5:00 but that does NOT work, apparently, if you have an over stimulating morning like we did today. mental note: on tuesdays we MUST stay home in the mornings in order to get nap time to stretch out until 2:00. UGH. so today we went to the museum...it was fun. then took peanut to his visit, came home crying, attempted to eat lunch, cried all the way through it, then took a 20 minute nap where sweet pea was conked OUT. i went into her room and all i saw was her quilt wrapped up in a ball. i went to uncover where i thought her head was and for a second thought she was playing hookie and had climbed out her window. i continued to uncover and uncover and uncover until i peeled the quilt completely back to find her in a ball so far asleep i could have set off a bomb in the next room. i HATE waking her up when she's that far asleep. i took her to her visit, then came home and took a 20 minute nap of my own and then our CASA brought both kids back and i put her down for nap #2. silly me. that did NOT work. she was singing so loud peanut could hardly sleep in the next room WITH his white noise bear blaring. so i finally got her up and we did a quick craft and then made dinner for support group pot luck. i hate potluck. tonight it was a sliced apple with carmel sauce, 2 pizza hut pizza's, a veggie tray, some store bought cookies and then my homemade chicken fettucini alfredo. every time i go to the effort of making something really good to take there's nothing else to eat. frustration. anyway, then we came home and sweet pea went to bed an HOUR late. jeesh! luckily she stayed in good spirits all the way to bed. but in case anyone is wondering if we can do something on tuesday mornings, if it will take longer than 20 minutes, the answer, sadly, is no.

SeRiOuSlY loving staying at home

this is my day today:
8:00 woke up and fed peanut one more time (he's sleeping better this week)
8:30 sweet pea woke up and we headed down for breakfast (cream cheesy eggs & bacon)
9:00 cleaned all 3 bathrooms with a toothbrush! LOVE clean!!!
then a shower for me and baths for both kiddos and out the door by 11:30 to have lunch with a friend
12:00 lunch with a friend
1:00 headed home for naptime (oops-an hour late but all is good)
put the kids down and finished putting away the cleaning supplies then tore into the front closet. WOW. LOVE IT! i can even squeeze the stroller into it. i should have taken before and after pictures because i could have a career in organizing.


then i started my oven cleaning concoction. you turn the oven on to 200 for 15 mintues, then turn it off and put 2 cups of amonia in a 8x11 pan on the top rack, 2 cups of boiling water in another 8x11 pan on the bottom rack and let it sit for 2 hours. then you take the amonia, add 1/2 cup of baking soda and 1 cup of white vinegar and wipe the oven down with that mix. let that sit for 15 minutes....or just keep scrubbing (which is what i can't help but do) and wah-lah, it's like a brand spanking new oven.
3:30 peanut woke up for a feeding
4:00 sweet pea woke up and we loaded up the stroller (from the closet), took snacks for sweet pea and chicken livers (from last weeks crock pot chicken) for tatum. we are working on getting her used to the dang stroller. for some reason when she stands still next to it for more than a second it freaks her out as if it had just appeared there. ???? that dog puzzles me. took a looooong walk. threw the ball for tatum then...
5:00 came home and started making dinner. pork stir fry with brown rice
6:30 paul came home and we ate dinner then
7:15 started heading to bed for sweet pea
7:30 i finished cleaning the oven and it looks brand NEW.

8:15 sat down and started blogging
I LOVE BEING A STAY AT HOME MOM!!!! I think I've thanked Paul every day since I started staying home. i LOVE it!

family heirlooms

my grandma, mudders, makes quilts for each grandchild. a couple years ago she finished my cousin's quilt and sent it off to the quilters to be quilted and she just recently found out that they can't complete it. not sure why it took so long to decide...but it did.
so she asked me to quilt it. i'm so excited. it's a really beautiful quilt with fall/jewel toned colors and real earthy. so i headed to the library to get my favorite book, 1000 Great Quilting Designs by Luise Roberts. It's got tons of ideas. but i wandered into the wrong isle and found Pattern Motifs, a Sourcebook by Graham Leslie McCallum. Oh. Dear. if anyone ever wants to send me books-send me books on motifs. it has ideas, not many but VERY good ideas. i can't WAIT to get my hands on my cousin's quilt and get it whipped out and quilted. i've been organizing the house like crazy last week because i don't have any quilt projects and just wanted to take a bit of a break. but now, the basement is 80% done, and all i have left is the front closet (which is a den of confusion, helmets, coats, scarves, board games, light bulbs. you name it, if it shouldn't be in a closet together it is behind those doors) and lastly, my basket of bathroom-ish supplies in our closet. i need to get those sorted out and organized. but seriously-i'm talking 2 or 3 days MAX of naptime entertainment for me.

i thought i would like being a stay at home mom but i was wrong....i LOVE it.

anyway-here's a couple of my ideas for the quilt. my grandma likes the first one. (i'm not really taking votes, just posting because i love to see them.)
sorry for the glare on this one....

i really liked this one...but at a diagonal. however, the quilt is lots of squares so i think this could turn too boxie so i think i agree w/mudders that the one above will be the keeper one:

and then this for the border...but i would tweek it a little. i don't like the way the vine lays. i think the one that falls over the top should fall underneath and visa versa....i would switch it up so the did the opposite....i don't know that i'm making sense to anyone but me though:

anyway-still looking through books to make sure i'm sold on this border. i'll know more once the quilt is in my hands and i get a few stitches on it.

mountain range bangs

i don't know why i did it. i should have known better. not because i've done it before to sweet pea, but because i've done it to MYSELF and it was horrible.

i cut her bangs. i'm NEVER to be trusted with scissors. i cut them yesterday and thought "darn, that doesn't quite look right. i'll fix them." that's when i should have put the scissors down and STOPPED. but i tried to fix them today only making the mountain range even higher up on her forehead. now she has to go to visit looking like she cut her own bangs. and the most horrible part about it is she didn't....I DID! and i don't know if i should tell the case worker that i just got a bad super cuts cut, or tell them the truth. ugh!

i don't know how my cousin merry does it. she looked like such a china doll when merry cut them. now...she looks like a french pixie. why? WHY?!

happiest baby on the friggin block!

i've heard about happiest baby on the block numerous times but since peanut isn't fussy i really didn't think i'd need to actually get it. but the other day i had some time to kill between visits so me and sweet pea went to the library and i found the video. even though i'm on the waiting list (confused what the point of THAT is) i swooped it up and brought it home and watched it. wow. today i swaddled peanut like they say in the video and holy moley is he one contented baby. he's not fussy to begin with but he's even MORE not fussy now. i can't wait to go to bed tonight and see if he sleeps longer like they say in the video. come on more than 3 hours of sleep!

Sunday night we went out on a date night and went to a Nuggets game with Paul's work...free tickets, so we couldn't resist making it into a date night. Well, me and my good friend Suma went out to get treats and they took our picture. She posted it on Facebook today and I realized how much weight I've really lost. I don't see it because I look at myself every day. I weigh myself, so I know the numbers have gone down (20 pounds since Christmas of '08)...but I didn't realize until I saw the picture how much I've really lost!

baby cheeks

he's getting fatter by the day and i love him. just had to get that off my chest. he makes the cutest noises too.

groceries etc

now that i'm a stay at home mom we are working really hard to stick to a pretty tight budget. we've done it before. we've lived on a lot less and had a lot less wiggle room than we do now. but that was when we were in student mode. nonetheless, i'm kind of enjoying the challenge. it's pretty fun to come up with recipes through out the week that are cheap cheap cheap and go to the store and bargain hunt for the very few items i need and i'm making recipes that are huge and cheap and then freeze the rest for weeks to come. this is how this week is gonna play out:
monday-whole fryer chicken in the crock pot with carrots and potatoes. all i need is the potatoes.
tuesday-chicken chili. mmmmm! all i need is lime juice and sour cream.
wednesday-empenadas that i made last week. i'll serve it with guacamole so all i need is the avacado and tomatoes.
thursday-chicken tacos. poor paul will be chickened out at this point but not me-i love chicken-and i love mexican. all i need is lettuce and more tomato, possibly more gaucamole.
friday-pizza night-i already made the crust, i just need cheese and i'll see what produce is on sale for the topping.
we already have deli ham left from last week for lunches. sweets will eat hot dogs and leftovers, i will eat leftovers and pb&j's so we're good to go for lunches. we have tons of cereal, i'll get bagels for variety. i already have various fruits for snacks and graham crackers and some cookies made so there's plenty of snack food for the week. and that's it.
i should get out of the store for under $35. woohoo! last week i did it for $45 and had tons to freeze! and if the newspaper is still having deals i'm gonna sign up for just the sunday paper for the coupons. i can't wait to start couponing. i am LOVING being a stay-at-home mom.

on wednesday sweet pea and i were making cookies when all of a sudden there was a huge CRASH at our feet between us. she was up on her step stool and i was kneading the empenada dough. i turned and looked at her and she was COVERED in flour. i looked at the floor and it was COVERED in glass!!! i made an awful "hold still" noise that was quite effective, i might add. i realized that while i was kneading she had been swooshing her arms back and forth and somehow in all the flour excitement and mess she swooshed the glass bowl straight off the counter and onto the linoleum floor. needless to say i needed a new mixing bowl so the next day i went to the thrift stores and found a set of 2 (metal this time-i'm a quick learner) mixing bowls for $4! that's a steal since my glass one was $10 by itself.

ooo-and i might add-since Paul never reads my blog-i got him his birthday present for a fraction of what he thinks it's going to cost and i got it in the mail today. i won't say what it is just in case he decides to finally read my blog-but his birthday is 2 weeks away and i have NO idea how i'm going to keep myself from giving him his present. i went to wrap it and realized we're out of birthday paper so i wrapped it in brown paper-it was the core from some christmas wrapping paper-and then i decorated it with my paintbrush markers so it looks super cute and birthday-ish. i even made a brown bow to go with it. LOVE saving money. he'll be so surprised-and it didn't cost me a thing to wrap it. heehee! am i embracing this or what? i feel so cheesy frugal!

sugar sugar

i found out this week that sugar makes me really angry. like 0 to 60 angry in 1 second. i didn't ever notice it before but i know my family thinks i have a short fuse. they have alot of opinions about me that are wrong. yes, you do. you know who you are and i'm not going to fight with you about it. i get an oreo for that. (that was always our reward when we were little.)
anyway-this week i got really mad at tatum. we were getting ready to go for our daily walk and i put tatum on her leash and connected it to the stroller, then sweet pea was sitting in the stroller and peanut was in his carrier on my tummy and i stepped away to put on my shoes. that dog. went NUTS trying to get away from the stroller. like all of a sudden when i wasn't standing right next to it she went HAYWIRE! oh i was so mad at her. i grabbed her by the collar and said "SIT!!!!!! STAY!!!!!!" and she did for as long as i was standing there and then she went crazy AGAIN! OH. so mad. we finally got out the door like a three ring circus and took our walk but i was so mad i coulda drop kicked that dog a mile away. and she's my BABY! i couldn't believe i could get that mad at her. once we got home and all undone she moped over in the corner for a good hour. but it made me wonder if sugar is what made me get that mad that fast at my little goofy baby puppy dog!

Sweet Pea's Quilt

I'm finally done with Sweet Pea's quilt and she could not be more anxious for it. Too bad she's already in her crib for the night. Here's pics. Sorry I haven't updated the blog this week-a LOT has happened I just haven't had time to sort it out and figure out how to make it blog-appropriate.

If you click on the pictures you can see a closer picture.

Here's some of the detail work of the stitching.



I'm going to go cover her up with it now so she'll be surprised with it when she wakes up in the morning. She's been hugging it for months!