My mom has been taking my kids 4 days a week for 3 hours each day. It has revolutionized my life. I am eternally grateful. Even if she decided tomorrow that she was done, I would never forget the changes in myself that have come forth during this experience. Here are a few that I can think of:
1. I actually like my life.
2. I feel good about life and myself, so much so that I try to not wear pajamas when it is not appropriate.
3. I want to listen to music. I turn on the internet radio at home all the time.
4. I don't sit around watching TV all the time, trying to tune out the kids. I haven't actually watched TV in a month.
5. I look forward to my husband coming home, instead of equating it with another person vying for my attention.
6. I actually want to hang out with him instead of co-exist with him.
7. I'm actively searching for something to do with myself - something productive.
8. I've taken up gardening and landscaping the yard.
9. Even though I (remarkably) have not acquired more patience for the kids, I do enjoy them so much more.
10. I feel like myself, the me that I honestly have not felt like for the last 6 years.
Did I mention that I'm enjoying life again?
Thanks Mom!

Going East

What can I say? I was not born to blog...

It's been about a month now, but the memories are still fresh... These two are basically the reason that we have friends. When I was pregnant with the big one our college friends had just had their big one so we latched on pretty hard to eachother. In a small town, at a Christian college, there are few couples having kids, so the similar lives and experiences were a welcomed support.

Our trip was dreamed up when my friend wrote something on Facebook about us coming out East, though it was surely a joke. It inspired me to check ticket prices and though they are usually $400-$500 I found a way to use flexible dates and found tickets for only $117! We had to fly out of St. Louis (a 3 hour drive) and into Hartford (a 2 hour drive from their home) totalling 12 hours of travel each day. But the big one was on Spring Break and I didn't have any plans that I couldn't change, so we packed up. The girls were going on Spring Break!

But it was certainly not the kind of Spring Break that inspires legends, it was a little too cold for that!

We did spend a day at the beautiful beach.

We toured Providence and ate Dunkin' Donuts.

The little one learned some important skills that only little boys can teach.

We taunted our seafood before enjoying it in a coastal feast.

And in the end we came back a little weary but a lot cooler, just from having visited the East Coast.

Spring Cleaning 1

This is what I found this morning. It's (hopefully) our last snow of the winter. The big one said that she felt like we'd fast-forwarded through Spring, Summer, and Fall and were in Winter again.
But, it's still Spring and we have been doing lots of cleaning. I cleaned out the camera, for one, and here's a few highlights of what I found:

The little one turned two at the end of January. Surprise! She has been acting very 2-like. She likes to dictate the house and demand her way, but she's just so little and cute. She is however, sleeping all night in her bed and is starting to use real words, other then, "EHHH, EHHH!" while pointing.

On our trip to St. Louis we came across this cool tree at the Art Museum.

The girls are such tree-huggers, or at least fake-tree-snugglers.

While on vacation, the little one got a nice shiner. She was in a street fight with some other kid in the line for Ben and Jerry's. The kid loves her ice cream.

The big one hijacked the camera. Again. And took more artistically riveting photos like this one. Again.
The cleaning has spread from the camera to the house, actually from the house to the camera, but I'll (maybe) post more on that later.

Last weekend we went on "vacation." It wasn't a real vacation because it wasn't relaxing, but it was nice to do something different (even if it was more exhausting than real life.)
We went down to the St. Louis area, our old college stomping ground. The whole trip was, in my opinion, an elaborate ploy to revisit all of the delicious food that we loved when we lived down there. We started at the pizza joint in our college town and were sorely disappointed by the lack of cheese. Our next attempt was the Thai restaurant that we have been faithfully returning to since 2000. There we received the harshest blow: the cook had left and apparently taken all of the deliciousness of Thai with her. Thankfully (and I do mean that only God could have provided us this opportunity) there was a waitress that sort of remembered how to make #33 (or #36 according to the new menus) and she wrote it down for us (in English.) It is almost embarrassingly simple, but it's a real treasure. Our last visit was the old 24 hour truck stop that didn't disappoint. The chocolate chip pancakes were as fabulous as ever. Pepper those events with odd encounters with weird people, 5 hours of zoo time, swimming, and bad mattresses and you have one exhausting weekend! But maybe even better than a vacation that you hate to end is one that makes you eager to get home.

We started the big one on TV at a very young age. We'd place her in front of Baby Einstein videos while she was swinging or in a bouncer. As she grew she continued to be enthralled with video entertainment, moving on to BooBah and Sesame Street. At one point I remember cancelling our cable because she would actively watch whatever we were watching.
The little one is very different. She has never cared about TV. She won't sit and watch the flashy colors of Baby Einstein or the oddly gastric BooBah. That is, until now.
Enter Melmo.
Or Elmo.
Melmo, as she calls him, has entranced her little mind to the point where she watches the DVD constantly. Elmo plays almost back to back to back either on the computer upstairs or the TV downstairs.
But honestly, I can't complain. In fact, I LOVE IT! I love MELMO!
Yesterday I was in the kitchen and I suddenly realized that I could do anything. The big one was busy playing, the little one was watching her movie, and I was free! I went in the bedroom and read a book. DURING THE DAY! I almost read the whole chapter. It is amazing.
You know how people always say that when kids digress they're just preparing to take a big developmental leap? Well, this kind of falls under that category from a mother's perspective. The turmoil of a sick, nursing, non-sleeping 2 year old has suddenly given way to a (semi)independently entertained, fairly well, sleeping all night (I shouldn't even say it, lest I jinx it) 2 year old.
*Sigh*
:)

Wow, it has been a long time since I last posted! I kept thinking that I should change that previous post so as to move along the great picture of me after giving birth to the little one. But not even that got me posting.

The last few weeks have been riddled with illness (like the rest of the winter), warm spring-like days, and lots of food.
I recently tried a recipe that I found on foodgawker for the world's easiest bread.
You mix:
3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 T yeast
1 1/2 T kosher salt
6 1/2 cups flour
in a huge bowl (just stir it together.) Then you let it sit out for 2 to 5 hours. Then you refrigerate it up to 2 weeks. When you want to make something, you tear off a hunk, shape it and let it rest/rise then bake it.

When I made it I used whole wheat flour, so I used more water and I also added olive oil, just because. I just guessed on the measurements, but I went for a wet bread dough consistency. The resulting goods were a bit salty, so next time I'll reduce the salt to 1 T.

Overall it was tasty! I made donuts and rolls out of it. (Given the chance we'll fry anything at least once!) The flavor is a little fermented, but really good and bready. The consistency is spongy in the middle. For the effort, it was great. It only lasted 2 days in our fridge (becuase I had use for it,) but I like that you could have it accessible for a long time.

Today my little one is 2. Just like every other mother out there, I can't believe how fast the last 2 years have gone. She's changed so much from the quiet, observant, peaceful baby that she was when she came out.

She was born underwater at 12:55am. I had the privilege of using the newly-approved birthing tub at my hospital. Once I was in there, it only took about 3 1/2 hours before she was born.

Her big sister has always loved her. Even now, when she's deep into the "MINE!" stage and regularly a pain, her sister still loves her.

Now she's two and she can tell you she's "doo." She loves jumping and cd's and being naked. She talks as much as her sister ever did, except you can't understand most of it. She started potty training before she could walk (while she was still scooting.) She loves to set the table for supper. She loves clothes and shoes. She has a special preference for high heels. She's a real pill, but she's so darn cute that she can do just about anything.