This year's going to be different

Or at least that's what I think. I love Christmas! It's definitely my favorite holiday of the year. I think it's because of all the great traditions I had as a kid. First was decorating, mostly it was my mom and I but my dad helped with getting the outside lights up and my dad and brother would occasionally help decorate the tree. We went shopping for the Christmas tree as a family, usually at Home Depot. Decorating the tree, reading the bible as we set up the manger, getting together with family, going to church on Christmas eve and sometimes driving around the neighborhood at night to look at all the lights were all great memories. Then came Christmas morning. I can't remember at what age I realized Santa didn't exist, it was when I figured out the writing on the presents belonged to my mom. I wasn't devastated as some kinds might have been, in fact I remember kind of laughing inside, how would that big ol' guy get down the chimney anyway?

On with the story, I usually woke up first, some years I even heard "santa" filling the stockings late at night. I'd wake up usually around 4 or 5 in the morning and go out into the den to the fireplace that would still have coals burning. I'd take all the presents out of my stocking and lay them neatly on the fireplace bench. Then I'd go out to the living room to look at the presents under the tree. Sometimes I'd plug the lights in and just sit there looking at the tree. I even fell asleep on the couch next to the tree once or twice. If I just couldn't wait any longer I'd go wake up my brother and he'd get all his stocking presents laid out and then we'd wake up our parents. Stocking presents came first and then the real presents. After everything was opened, my parents made breakfast while my brother and I played with our presents. Of course, some of these changed as my brother and I got older, like getting up early to open presents, but we kept most of our traditions.

I've had no real traditions since leaving home. Some traditions Jon and I have started and kept since being married are getting a real tree, usually at Home Depot, and giving each other gifts early....sometimes like 2 weeks early!! We still have that child-like giddiness of not being able to wait! Now with Hadley we have talked a little about traditions we'd like to start with her, although it's hard this year just because she's so little, she can't really participate.

What's going to be different you may ask? For one, I'd like to not focus so much on the gifts. While I don't see ever getting rid of that aspect completely (and I don't feel it's necessary to eliminate completely) I'd like to have our focus on what's important. Very cliche I know, but it really is a desire I have and one I want for our children. I think one way to make this happen is to just cut back on the number of gifts we give each other and other people. I'd also like to make sure there is a giving spirit that my children have, and not so much in material things, although adopting a family may be a different story, but giving in their time and energy.

One other tradition I'd like to start is lighting an advent wreath and reading scripture. I created a wreath and hope that this weekly act of worship as a family will keep us focused on Christ and not presents. Once Hadley gets a little older I'd like to make an advent calendar that includes actions (read, sing, give, create, etc) to keep us focused on Christ and maybe some candy for each day. ;)

I don't foresee preventing Hadley from experiencing Santa or not filling a stocking for her to discover, however I hope that the traditions we set will be Christ-centered and they will be ones that our children will keep with them always. May you and your families be blessed this Christmas!

There's a new salad on the block

This is one my absolute favorite recipes that I've found in the past. It's called Apple Almond Crunch. By the way thanks to all those who shared their recipes on the last post...keep 'em coming.

I'm not going to put exact measurements because I think with salads it's really all "to taste".

Romaine Lettuce

1 Granny smith apple, cubed

Slivered almonds

Golden raisins

Feta cheese

Raspberry vinegar dressing

Red Onion

Simply mix all the ingredients together, adding as much of each as you like! Enjoy!

Oh Waiter! There's a fly in my soup!

This is what customers would say if I were the chef because I'd probably think it was one of the ingredients! Ok not really, I've gotten better at cooking since being married, but when you make cookies with confectioner's sugar instead of granulated sugar....you've got a problem! There are things I can make really well....grilled cheese sandwiches, pancakes, blueberry muffins are among the few. So a goal of mine while I'm now staying at home is to build my repertoire and skills of cooking. My poor husband has been such a trooper. Although I haven't burned too many dinners, the variety has been fairly limited. In hopes of getting some delicious, simple, and fairly healthy recipes from fellow friends, I wanted to share some of our favorites (selfish I know).

This particular one is from a cookbook called "Make it in Minutes" (my kind of recipes):

Pasta Fagioli

1 jar (26oz) Ragu chunky gardenstyle pasta sauce

1 can (19oz) white kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 box (10oz) frozen chopped spinach, thawed

8 oz ditalini pasta (also called salad macaroni), cooked and drained. (reserve 2 cups of pasta water)

1. In 6 qt. saucepot, combine Pasta sauce, beans, spinach, pasta and reserved pasta water; heat through.

2. Season if desired, with salt, pepper and grated parmesan cheese.

Makes 4 servings

Variations: I've added chopped zuchini which will require a little more cooking to soften it, or you can pre-cook the zuchini and add it to the mix. I've also used white (navy) beans in place of the kidney beans just because I couldn't find the white "kidney" beans at the time. You also may want to use more pasta sauce if you'd like to have more of a "soup".

There it is! If you'd like to share a recipe I'll take it!! ;) Either leave it in the comment section or write it in your own blog for others to copy. Stay tuned for next week's recipe....my new

favorite salad!

*A note: the sugar mixup happened pre-marriage so Jon avoided having to taste those cookies!

Month 6

Today is the 6 month mark of when we welcomed our little girl into the world. I'd always hear so many people say, "it goes by fast, before you know it they'll be out of the house and on their own." I could never wrap my head around it but now I can. These 6 months have gone by sooo incredibly fast and while they have been the hardest 6 months as far as a "job" goes they have been the most exciting and fulfilling months ever.

Not much to report on these 6 months. I have certainly taken the time recently to hug and kiss her as much as possible and thank God for her. She truly is a blessing to us. She's started some other foods aside from rice cereal. We've tried Golden Delicious Apples, which she thinks are, in fact, delicious. We've also had butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and pears. Next on the list: bananas and peas. So far she likes them all! Fortunately, we were given a baby food maker that makes making baby food a snap! (could you follow that?) So I've been able to make all her baby food thus far mainly because it's fun but the freshness/nutrition is an added benefit. She's getting close to sitting up on her own and definitely does not like it when we leave the room. So in honor of her half birthday here is a photo timeline.

At the hospital

1 month

2 months

3 months

4 months

5 months

6 months

Hand-made flowers

Here is my latest sewing project step by step or at least close to it. I made flowers out of fabric to match Hadley's bedding as some decor for her room. I did my best to document with photos.

Step 1: Cut out a pattern.

Step 2: Fasten Pattern to washed and ironed fabric. I folded the fabric in half (right sides facing each other) so I could cut out the front and back of the flower at the same time. (and eat a cookie while you do it)

Step 3: Cut out pattern. I left about a 1/4" allowance around the edges for the seam.

Step 4: I marked one "petal" on both the pattern and both pieces of fabric to keep the edges matched up.

Step 5: Create a pattern for the center of the flower and fasten to fabric. (The center is only one layer.)

Step 6: Cut it out leaving approximately 1/4" seam allowance.

Step 7: Using fusable webbing and the center pattern cut out another circle, no need for a seam allowance.

Step 8: Place fusable webbing in the center of the right side of the flower. Place fabric center on top of fusable webbing. Using steam and an iron on low heat, iron the center, making it adhere to the flower. This helps keep the center in place when you sew it on. If there is a seam allowance on the center fabric, you'll fold it under as you iron. I found out this seam allowance was more of an issue than a necessity so on my next flower I didn't bother with it.

Step 9: Using a zig-zag stitch, sew around the edge of the center. I made the width of the stitch as wide as possible and the length very short to create a close stitch.

Step 10: Place fabric flower on batting and cut out. Another personal choice at this stage is whether to have a seam allowance on the batting, I didn't, hard to say if it would've helped. I used 3 layers of batting to create a puffy, 3-D look.

Step 11: Using the markings on the one petal of the fabric (from step 4), match the edges back up and then fasten to the batting. Make sure the batting edges match up also since the fabric petals will be a unique cut.

Step 11: Sew along the edges with a regular straight stitch. I left one "petal" unsewn so I could flip the batting and fabric right-side out. Use your hand to push on the edges from the inside. I found it easiest to have the fabric on the bottom and the batting on the top so the batting doesn't get caught on the feed dog. (No pictures of this step.)

Step 12: Using a needle and thread that closely matches the main fabric color, do a whip stitch to close up the open pedal.

To the right is the whip stitch, hardly noticeable.

Step 13: Staple to the wall and enjoy! ( I don't have them all stapled to the wall obviously but they're all done!)

This picture makes these flowers look awfully weird and uneven, while they're certainly far from perfect around the edges they don't look as bad in person.

I created the two smaller flowers to accompany the big flower following the same steps (odd numbers are more pleasing to the eye right?). I then used regular staples to hang it on the wall. They were easy to hide close to the seam and they don't leave huge holes in the wall! There were a lot of things I may do differently if I did this over again but overall it was a fairly easy project. And again, while the flowers are do not have the perfect rounded petals they do closely resemble the bedding which also adds a more "kid-like" flavor to it.

Month 5

Yay! All Done!

So month 5 has come and gone, it went so fast. The biggest thing this month was the weight issue, which was explained in like the last 3 posts so feel free to read those. We did a weight check this last Friday, mainly for my peace of mind. Hadley was spitting up so much I thought for sure she had lost weight but turns out she gained 4 oz! So she's up to 11lbs 13oz and we're doing weight checks every two weeks now until the 6 month check up.

Rice cereal is going well, we're doing that twice a day now. She still is using her tongue a little too much to push the food out but we manage to get 95% of the food down. We got some literature from the Ped. that kind of alluded to not giving anything but rice cereal until she's 6 months but I think I may try a veggie or two in about another week, it'll be close enough to 6 months! She's still a great sleeper, although I think she's getting to a point where she wants to stay up a little longer during the day which is totally fine with me as long as she isn't cranky!

She's getting better at sitting up although I think we're still a ways off from her sitting up on her own. She's a rollin' over fool, mainly just from back to front. She can roll from front to back but I don't think she sees any real importance in doing that right now so she just doesn't.

Jon and I are loving being parents, and we finally went out on a date this past week. We did the baby dedication at church this weekend, this is not a baptism for those who are unfamiliar with it. It's where we go up on stage and dedicate in front of the church, family, and friends that we are going to raise Hadley up with godly principals and pray for her. The church gives you an envelope with a picture of your family in it, a "first bible", a certificate, and a card. It was very nice.

Family photo shown in church for the baby dedication

Yet another update

Here's an update on Hadley for those who are interested.

We've been doing weekly weight checks, longer feeding times, rice cereal (we just recently moved to two times a day), and added a 5th feeding at 4am. All this combined is helping her gain a consistent 3 oz each week. That puts her on the 5th% curve for weight and is keeping her on the curve which makes the doctor happy. The doctor would rather she be gaining more weight but he's happy that she's at least being consistent and gaining better than she apparently was.

She's still sleeping a lot which seems to puzzle the doctor a little bit but I think she's just a sleeper. We were given the green light to go to weight checks every two weeks until her 6 month check up but she has just recently started spitting up a lot (which had decreased for a short amount of time). I didn't know if it had anything to do with starting rice cereal but when I mentioned it to the doctor he didn't seem too concerned. Although he said I could keep my weekly weight check for this week in case the spitting up got worse he really thought it shouldn't effect her weight and therefore not a problem.

So...she's up to 11lbs 9 oz, rolling over like crazy, laughing a lot and loving rice cereal. I'm not so freaked out about this anymore, because she's developing fine and content when awake. Not to mention...she's almost 5 months old....WOW!!