Hodge Podge

1. This is what we had for dinner tonight: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Salisbury-Steak/Detail.aspx with cheddar mashed potatoes left over from making these: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pierogi-Polish-Dumplings/Detail.aspx and green beans. It was a tasty dinner. I have come across quite a few tasty recipes lately...I think I'll start posting one or two each week. I'd love to hear some good recipe suggestions from the lot of you as well. We get tired of eating the same old things every week.

2. This is the kid outside on Wednesday. We were doing our best to enjoy this ridiculous snow. Nana told us that if you blow bubbles outside when it's cold enough they will freeze and therefore last extra long before they shatter. Not so much. Maybe it wasn't cold enough?!

The only other thing I have to say about this crazy weather is thank goodness for kind neighbors with shovels and snowplow drivers with exquisite timing for getting our van from the two feet of snow it was firmly planted in. I wasn't getting anywhere fast with my makeshift mop bucket!

3. Here is the kid enjoying her favorite song from The Music Class.



We joined a few weeks back and it is one of the best classes that we have come across and participated in. Sofie really enjoys all the singing, dancing, and instrument playing. She is especially fond of the scarves that we use during our free dance each week. I wrote a memo to the Easter bunny asking if he might fill her Easter basket with scarves instead of Easter grass. We'll see if he comes through! Anyway, Sofie makes this song request about fifty times a day and over and over and over again in the van where we listen to the CD from class. Warning: Don't watch the video too many times or you will find yourself with this tune stuck in your head at the most inopportune times!

4. I swear there's a Sponge post and a belly shot on its way. And I also swear that Sponge's ultrasound pictures are not sitting precariously on top of the refrigerator completely unprotected. Only a terrible mom could have failed to put them in a safe and special place for so long!

5. ...and I just came across the name Evany. What do you all think of Evany Grace?

Feeding the Chickadees

We took a family outing this weekend to a local nature center to "feed the chickadees." Apparently I am delayed in the nature arena because, as we planned and prepared for the trip, I was picturing a big pen of baby chicks in the nature center low to the ground so the kids could stand and throw seed at them. Lo and behold, there are actual birds called chickadees that live in actual trees outside in the woods. At this particular nature center they have been hand fed by visitors for many years and are quite happy to come and take a bit of birdseed straight from your hand...how cool is that! Unfortunately, the experience required a short hike through the snow to the nature center, standing out under a tree in the cold, and remaining very still and quiet. Sofie didn't last too long, but all in all it was a pretty interesting way to spend a morning.

Here's Sofie checking out a display of birds inside the nature center. Personally I thought the stuffed birds were sort of creepy, but Sofie seemed to like them!

Here we are all bundled up and waiting, sort of patiently, for a birdy to come sample our seed. Sofie was happy to sample the seed herself...just to make sure it was suitable for the birdies of course!

And there's a chickadee! I actually had them land in my hand several times, but we weren't fortunate enough to get a picture of that.

Here's Sofie in the car on the way home showing us how she really felt about that cold and miserable experience...

...and five minutes later, out like a light!

New Table

We were fortunate to recently get rid of our old clunky television and entertainment center and purchase a new flat screen television and TV stand which (with a bit of rearranging) cleared up some space in our home for a full sized table and chairs. The table from my childhood has been waiting patiently in an attic for years and years and years and now FINALLY it has a new, hopefully a little less dusty, home! With the advent of the new (old!) table Sofie has graduated from a high chair into a booster seat as evidenced here...

She's not quite sure about the new seating arrangement, though she does like to climb up on the chair next to hers and look for scraps of leftover snacks. For awhile she was even sneakily climbing up on top of the table and using it as a stage (we've nixed that habit thank goodness!) In this next series of pictures she was having a good old time scavenging and playing, "Boo!"

What a booger!

Baby Names

Trying these ones on...

Evelyn Grace (I know it makes you think of an old lady...but stop and consider it for awhile. It might grow on you like it has grown on me. Incidentally, this baby has a great great grandma Evelyn and a great grannie Gracie. My middle name is also Grace. And we would call her Evie or Eva with an Eh, not an Ee or an Ay)

Anya Grace (For no particular reason...I just like it. And we might call her Annie, which I love.)

And for a boy we're pretty stuck on...

Gray Benjamin

And look at this cute outfit I bought for Sofie!

Also, make sure you check out the videos that I was FINALLY successful at loading on the post below...

Sofie Reads

Sofie has begun to help us read some of her favorite books. It is awfully cute and we've been trying to catch a good video for awhile now. Following is our most recent attempt. The silly looks from daddy and mommy's giggling are due to Sofie's hammy behavior. She will fly right through the book right on cue until you put a camera in her face and then, magically, she transforms into a little ham. Oy! You'll at least get the idea...

Meet Sponge

Well what do you think of that? There is a real live miniature baby bouncing around in my belly! It is only 54 millimeters (a little over 2 inches) long, but it has wee little arms and legs that it's wriggling around all day long. I'm completely flabbergasted!

My due date has been moved up to July 29th, making me 12 weeks pregnant today, which means maybe (oh please!) I'll be feeling less exhausted sometime soon.

We're awaiting Auntie DeAnna's professional ultrasound tech opinion on the whole nubbins business and we are, of course, anxious to hear a definitive answer at our 20 week ultrasound. In the meantime...I'd love to hear some suggestions for little girl names!

Snow Bunny

We just happened to get a whole bunch of snow this weekend, and while lots of snow often makes me itch with cabin fever, this time it was a perfect opportunity to bundle Sofie up in her winter gear and go play! We didn't last too long out in the cold since it is particularly hard to walk when the snow comes up to your knees and a 16-month old will only tolerate so many faceplants...but we did have a fun short romp in the white stuff!

Edited to add: If you click on the picture to blow it up you can see a hint of Sofie's two front teeth.

The Sponge

Let's see...where to begin?!

We learned of Sponge's residency on the day before Thanksgiving. I keep track (I guess more loosely than I thought!) of my periods on a nifty little website called mymonthlycycles.com. Usually, they are about 27 days apart and occur towards the end of the month. It was the end of the month. I was going to be travelling. I thought perhaps I ought to find out when my little friend was due to arrive. So, I logged on and was quite surprised to discover that it was day 31. "Hm?!" thought I..."the last time I made it to day 31 was when I was pregnant with Worm. Perhaps I should take a pregnancy test." And so I did...and it was positive. I called Ben at work and blurted out, "I think I'm pregnant!" He said, "What?! Are you sure?!" So I took another pregnancy test...and it was positive. And that was that.

We kept the news from the fam until Christmas-time just as we had when Sofie was conceived and announced it in quite a similar fashion as we did the last time. My side of the family learned the news at our annual Christmas party. We've cut back the gift giving quite drastically to the point that only children receive a gift and the gift is given by their parent. So, I ordered a board book called Waiting for Baby and wrapped it up as part of her present. Nana ended up helping her open the present (quite fortunately!), discovered the title and figured it out right away. Two years earlier Nana had received a book from Santa's toy sack titled Here Comes Grandma! It took her quite awhile to figure out just what that could mean. This time, with that as a reference, it clicked immediately. GranDebbie's Christmas car organizer came complete with a binky in the pocket (we gifted her a pair of booties two years ago) and Grampy Dan, as you all saw, got another "Baby Tree" to plant in his yard.

Our first prenatal appointment, as I mentioned, was this past Monday and I was excited to schedule it with the midwife who delivered Sofie. (She didn't really remember us until she started to read through her report from my labor...which incidentally was very interesting to hear from her perspective...but oh well! I guess I can't expect her to remember every delivery!) She seemed excited to see Sofie and we compared notes a little since her grandson Jackson was born just a few days after Sofie. The appointment went very well. Everything seems to be progressing nicely and we got to hear Sponge's little heart beating strong and steady somewhere in the 160's (166? I don't know...I'm terrible at details!) Our due date is tentatively August 3rd although we will be having an early ultrasound next Wednesday afternoon for dating purposes. Most likely that due date is accurate, but for several reasons (that I will spare you the details of) I have a strange feeling that I might be a month further along, and since my pregnancy went so overdue with Sofie it was felt that we might as well take a peek and confirm. I'm really looking forward to that!

My pregnancy symptoms have been similar to last time with Sofie but different. I've had quite a bit of all day nausea, which has been letting up a bit in the last week or so. I'm very very tired. I keep wondering if I'm more tired this time around or if it's just that I didn't have a toddler to chase around last time! Something new this time is my aversion to some foods. I really couldn't eat sweets for awhile there. The thought of them completely grossed me out. I also had a hard time cooking meat. That seems to be waning also, but we did a lot of prepared foods and eating out for a couple of weeks! I also have a rotten taste in my mouth all the time...pretty gross.

I'm excited but nervous (I've never been part of a family with more than one kid before!) and already planning planning planning. I've been reading up on potty training and weighing my options for big girl beds. I've been browsing the wide variety of double strollers and thanking my lucky stars that we bought a van this summer. And we're off on the roller-coaster of pregnancy and parenthood once more!

FINALLY!!!

Well folks I've finally gotten around to posting this long awaited guide to the fruits of my late nights of Christmas crafting. Perhaps you'd like to get yourself a snack...this is going to be a long one! I'd like to start out by saying that this Christmas season, following the worst Christmas season of my life, has probably been one of my most memorable. I really enjoyed every minute of time I spent dreaming up the perfect crafty gifts and executing their construction. Although I'm not sure I'll ever have the time to construct Christmas to this magnitude again I will definitely be making some heartfelt gifts a part of my Christmas routine in the years to come! Without further ado...

Let's begin with a couple of cheats. This little apron was actually constructed for my second cousin, Marlo's, third birthday which was the first week of December. It totally counts because we all know that Christmas comprises the whole month of December and a week or two of January as well. I was quite proud of how well this turned out considering that I didn't have a pattern for it!

This is the toy box that Daddy made for Sofie this year. Originally I had plans to paint it to match her crib quilt but Daddy was dead set against me covering his nice wood up with icky paint. Just to be sure I wouldn't RUIN it he dragged out the construction over several weeks and didn't bring the completed project home until around 10PM on Christmas Eve! What a stinker!

Now on to the non-cheats! This is a little house that I made out of these great cardboard sheets that arrived along with our order of Sofie's one-year portraits. Unfortunately, I'm not always the brightest bulb in the box and this one has already found a new home in the dumpster :(. This was the last craft I completed and I assembled and painted it late into the night on Christmas Eve in the middle of the living room. After Christmas, when I was working on tidying up the hurricane that is post-Christmas I realized that it was too big to fit through the door to Sofie's bedroom. It had a brief stay in the living room followed by a visit to the kitchen underneath the coat rack where we piled our coats on top of it because we could no longer reach the coat rack. It was a brave little house, but alas, it couldn't stand up to the pressure exerted by the weight of all those coats piled on top of it and the roof finally caved in. Oh well...good thing it was practically free! Next time I'll remember to make my cardboard constructions a bit more flexible!

This next one is probably the present that I was most excited about creating this year. It is an advent calendar that I made for the Vance family. I was so excited about it because of my intentions to start a little family tradition with it's help...send off the calendar to Auntie Sam sometime in November and get it back by the first of December all full of treats. Doesn't that sound like fun! I'm already collecting goodies to fill up all those little pockets!

This is a car organizer that I made for GranDebbie. She is the proud owner of a brand new car and I thought she might like to have a fun organizer to keep it neat and tidy!

This is an ornament that I constructed for Kyle and DeAnna. It is a replica of the new house that they recently purchased. Maybe if you're lucky I'll go fetch an actual picture of the house for you so you can grade my handiwork! I also made a decorative throw pillow for Kyle and DeAnna out of the fabric from the bridesmaid dress that I wore at their wedding in October. It was made to match their new bedset. Alas, it is the only craft that I failed to take a picture of. Maybe (again if you're lucky) a little fairy will take a picture of it for me and send the picture to my email so I can post it for you!

This next one teaches a valuable lesson...If you're going to try your hand at a few crafts you had better leave lots of room for hiccups. This was my big hiccup this year. I should have known better!!! I wanted to grow a little herb garden for my mom who has often remarked in the past that she would love to have some fresh herbs growing in her kitchen. The problem is that my thumb is decidedly ungreen. I have been working on keeping these dumb herbs alive since way back in October. As you can see, three of them are sort of alive, and the fourth never even bothered to sprout!

These salt dough snowmen were a fun and easy project that was also with my mom in mind. She collects snowmen and Santa figurines which she displays in her curio cabinet each holiday season.

And last but not least...this was our gift to Grampy Dan this year! He received a similar gift two years ago to announce the impending arrival of Miss Sofie Bean Claire Worm. (I really thought I had posted a picture of it on this blog way back when, but it turns out that this blog didn't come about until January of '07...after Christmas!)

This is also the REAL reason that I have been dragging my feet on this post. I wanted to wait until after our first prenatal appointment, and the reassurance that everything is progressing normally, to make the announcement that we are expecting Baby #2, The Sponge! We trekked out this morning, all three of us, to visit the midwife that delivered Sofie sixteen (short!) months ago and had ourselves a little heartbeat party...BA-BUM! I have a LOT more to say on this topic, of course, but for now I think this post is long enough!