Whew, glad that's over...

It's amazing how many hours are spent planning and preparing for something that is over so quickly! Ellie's birthday party took a lot of work, but it was also a lot of fun. I think it went better than I could have expected, with 9 kids between the ages of 10 months and 5 years old. The theme was "Ellie's Garden Party." We played a couple of games - "stick the bee on the flower" (like pin the tail on the donkey) and "find the critters," a hunt throughout the play area for little frogs, snakes, and caterpillars that Jason hid. They LOVED finding all of those. I had another craft planned involving gluing pieces of tissue paper, but it was just too windy and the kids were having fun just playing, so we skipped it.

The food (my favorite part!) was awesome. We had water and lemonade to drink, and the lemonade was in a watering can instead of a pitcher. Our lunch consisted of fresh fruit and veggies, tortilla chips with guacamole and salsa, and sandwiches cut into flowers and butterflies. But the best part was the cake! I made a chocolate cake, with chocolate butter frosting, and decorated it to look like a garden. I used a garden trowel to serve it, which was really cute, but it didn't really work very well :) I also made a cupcake caterpillar because I was afraid of running out of cake.

Here are some pictures:

Ugh, I spoke too soon!

All the signs were here. Green grass, sunny skies, children playing outside. We even contemplated transplanting all our indoor plants to our garden plot. Good thing we didn't! Yesterday, it began to rain, which has not been unusual for the past couple of weeks. It became unusual when it began to snow! Lots of it too, not just little random flakes. Hopefully it was just the "last hurrah" of winter, because we don't need any more snow!

It's birthday season in our house! Jason just celebrated his a couple days ago, he is first out of our family in our 2-month birthday season. I made him an ice cream cake (like a jelly roll but chocolate cake w/ice cream rolled up inside), and our neighbor watched our kids so we could go see a movie. Tomorrow we're having a birthday party for Ellie. This will be her first "real" party, with little friends and everything. The theme is "Ellie's Garden Party" so I really, really hope it's not too cold to be outside! The forecasted high is 62 degrees, so hopefully it won't be too chilly. I can't wait to see how her cake turns out; I'll be sure to put pictures up on here!

Hmm, is spring finally here?

After snowing one last time a week ago, I do believe that spring has arrived in Madison. Yippee! Yesterday was a really warm day, with a high of 73(!) but it's mainly been in the 50s. We're starting to work in our garden plot, which is a lot of hard work, because it had dead plants all over it. In order to plant, we have to get out all of the roots, so that means lots of digging. In fact, my wrist has been hurting since I last went out there two days ago. Too much spading! We can finally plant some things though, so that will be exciting. Right now we have some plants indoors that we started from seeds. Jason has an acorn squash plant that is HUGE and needs to get into the ground. Here is a picture of our highchair garden :)



The kids are great; Rowan is cruising on everything, but I think we're still far from walking. He can walk using a push-toy, but he doesn't have the balance yet to stand on his own. Thank goodness! Ellie is having lots of fun now that it's warm enough to play outside with the neighbor kids. I've also started watching two girls (different from last semester) in our house about 20 hours a week, so the kids are having fun with that. And, our neighbor kids come over every once in a while too. We've been busier, but it's mostly been fun :) Here are some pictures of the kids. I need to work harder on getting a good one of Ellie!

Rowan "helping" with his diaper laundry


A good belly-laugh


Ellie's beautiful outfit


They love each other!

Silly kids

I only have a minute (Rowan is sick again, yuck!), but here is a video I made of sneaking up on Ellie in the bathroom. She loves to make funny faces in the mirror!

Also, we went to the YMCA yesterday, and it was great! We put the kids in the childcare, and Jason and I shot some hoops in the gym. Oh, and the high temperature yesterday was about 43 degrees. It's amazing how quickly we have acclimated to this weather, because we didn't even wear jackets!

It's been a long time!

Well, things have begun to slow down again. My neighbor is out of the hospital and has healed super-quickly, so she no longer needs my help. Thank goodness! It was a lot of work; I do not know how moms do it when they work outside of the home! I was exhausted not being able to do laundry, pick up the house, clean the kitchen, go grocery shopping, except for after the kids went to bed. Not to mention having so many kids together at once. I am sincerely glad that we never had twins or triplets. Yikes!

The family is doing well. All of us have been sick lately except for Jason, but we're all healthy for the moment :) It's still snowy and cold here, but there haven't been extreme temperatures for the past week or two. It's a little depressing when temps in the 30's sounds warm!! Especially when those of you in Arizona call me to let me know it's 80 degrees out. Thanks so much.

Rowan is no longer the easy, always happy, you could leave him playing on the floor for hours, baby you all know and love. He is now a VERY mobile baby! He crawls, 50% of the time on his hands and feet instead of hands and knees. And I am no longer surprised to walk into a room and see him standing somewhere, where he was previously sitting. He also now has opinions about things and isn't afraid to let you know. We have finally seen his tears! For the longest time I wasn't sure if his tear ducts were working because I had never seen tears on his face. But he really has a sweet personality, with a smile for everyone. Oh, and he loves to show off his two new top teeth :)

Ellie has been quite a handful lately, in good ways and not so fun ways. We have been trying really hard to find ways to have her play with other kids, because she really needs that social stimulation. I'm looking into a part-time preschool for her next school year, but it is expensive! We really don't have ANY extra income right now, so we'll see what happens with that. She has an unending thirst for knowledge, which is awesome, except when she asks you a million questions at inconvenient times. We have always been seriously thinking about homeschooling our kids, mainly for the educational benefits, but now it seems we almost have to so Ellie can continue to advance at her own pace. I know socially, as a 2-year-old, she is nowhere near ready for kindergarden, but intellectually she is at that level. She can read basic books, like Hop on Pop; knows all her colors, shapes, numbers; can do some basic addition, count past 20; etc. Learning is just something she's always liked to do. I always feel I have to make a disclaimer to other moms though, that there are other areas that she may not be as good at, since it doesn't interest her as much. For instance, I don't think she can catch a ball. Or throw with aim. Those just aren't things that we have practiced with her.

Other exciting things:

- Jason received a grading position through school, so he will be making a little extra money grading papers for two classes. Yeah!

- We're applying for YMCA membership, hopefully with financial assistance. They have some really neat classes, especially for Ellie's age. Not to mention free childcare, so Jason and I can get a break and get some exercise!

- One of our neighbors and I are sharing a garden plot this year at our community garden. We've been eating A LOT more vegetables lately (thank you Deceptively Delicious, so it will be great to grow our own. I can't wait for the snow to thaw!

Ok, now some pictures.

We will not be leaving the house today!

Not a good weather day today. Right now it is -9, feels like -34 with the windchill. Yuck! This past Wednesday was the "Storm of the Decade" as all the news reports called it. We had up to 21 inches of snow in some places, almost beating a record set in the 90s. I'm not sure if this was national news or not, but over 2000 cars were stuck on an interstate for over 12 hours Wednesday afternoon/night! I still can't understand how or why it happened, but they COULD NOT MOVE for 12 hours. Something about semi-trucks not being able to make it up icy hills on the road. Can you imagine? Most people didn't have any food, ran out of gas (which meant no heat in snowy weather!), how did they go to the bathroom? I cannot imagine the people with small children sitting there for 12 hours with no food! Finally they sent out the national guard to pass out food and give people gas who needed it. Here is a link to an article: http://www.madison.com/wsj/home/local/271390

Rowan is feeling much better, but he does still have a horrible cough. I wouldn't be surprised if that lasted for weeks; Ellie still has it. He also has a new skill, being able to push himself up to sitting from lying down. But still no crawling! He also has two top teeth to add to his two bottom ones. He likes to grind them together, which sounds terrible! Ellie is really enjoying us watching our neighbors kids, since she has the four year old boy to entertain her. Next week will begin the really busy time, since I'll be over at their house for 9 hours a day.

We had our very first date night since this summer! We swapped childcare with another neighbor couple who has 2 young boys (3 & 1), so we were able to go out to dinner. Ellie loves their mom and Rowan loves everyone, so they had a great time and so did we :) This week we'll be watching their boys.

Busy times

We're going to be busy this month! Our neighbor across the hall went into the hospital yesterday to have surgery done, and she'll be there for about a week. Guess who is watching her kids during the day? She also watches another baby boy, so I'll have 3 babies under the age of 1, a 2 year old and a 4 year old. Yikes! Luckily Jason will be home during most of the hours, so I can send Rowan or the two older kids over to him if it's ever too much. But I'll also be helping her out during her recovery, so we'll be doing this for the whole month of February.





The kids have been sick this past week, Ellie had a mild version first and passed it on to Rowan. He was sooooo sick! The first night I didn't sleep at all because I had to hold him up on my chest for him to breath while he slept. Even then he was coughing and gagging all night. The worst part was that he was barely keeping down any milk because I would feed him, sit him up, and then he would cough until he threw it all up. Luckily he is now a lot better, although he still has the cough. To top that off, he now has his first black eye! He was rolling around on the floor and bumped his face on the bottom of our tv. Doesn't he look like the most miserable baby?

And then beautiful Ellie (with a beautiful juice mustache)

"Drink"

Rowan learned another sign! The sign for "drink" is making a thumbs-up and putting the thumb to your mouth. Can you see his little thumb? Awwww, so cute!

Come on spring...

It has been ridiculously cold here lately. Like, highs of 5 degrees or less. Yesterday some schools were closed because the temperatures with wind chill were close to -20 degrees! Last Thursday it was -8 degrees when Ellie and I had to take the bus that morning. Luckily it's supposed to be more like 5 degrees this morning.

Jason is a week or so into classes, and liking them so far. He thinks that this semester will be easier than the last. Because of that, I was looking into a part-time job outside of the house that I could do in the mornings. I found the PERFECT job for me, but unfortunately they filled it before I was able to interview :( I'm being pretty picky about what job I take, so we'll see if I start working this semester or not.

Ellie goes through weeks where she picks the same movie to watch every day. Let's see if you can figure out what last week's movie was. She now enjoys drinking up all her milk, holding the cup up in the air, peering into it, and saying, "Oh bother. Empty again." If that didn't give it away, she also often asks for "just a smackeral" of something to eat.

Rowan has learned his first baby sign! I was floored when I saw him doing it, but I am not surprised at all by what sign it is, "milk." I put him on the floor one day to change his diaper before a nap, and he was not happy to be put down. His little fist went up in the air, slowly opening and closing, until I realized that he was trying to sign "milk!" I've been practicing that sign with him since he was 3 months old, but not expecting him to get it until more like 10 months old.

Ok, that was just a quick update, because the kids should wake up any minute now!

It's official...

Rowan is a big boy! He's in the 90th percentile for both weight and length: 21 1/2 lbs and 28 in. long. Everything went well at his check-up; he's perfectly healthy and on track with his development. And even though he received 4 shots and went without a nap, he was still charming everyone at the grocery store after his appointment :) He's not really interested in baby food, but he does enjoy eating food he can hold in his hand, like banana in a mesh feeder. Here's a picture of him "feeding" himself rice cereal.

Ooh, guess what I saw today as I was driving around Madison...Texas Roadhouse! Although, after looking at their website today, I'm not too surprised because they have hundreds of locations in 44 states. There's even one in Yuma! We'll be going soon (well, sometime this semester...maybe) to have some of their delicious rolls and a loaded baked sweet potato!

Back in chilly Wisconsin!

Well, I was so excited to be able to see parts of grass when we returned; I guess a lot of the snow melted while we were gone. I seriously thought we wouldn't see the ground until spring. Most importantly, our parking space was completely clear, and I expected that to be completely buried! Well, now it's covered again :( At least this time there wasn't a huge ice storm immediately following the snow, so we can shovel out our spot easily.

We had a lot of fun visiting family, but it's good to be back (especially after our loooong ordeal at the airport and an unexpected overnight stay in Vegas). If only we could bring our family with us! It's so nice for all of us to have our own rooms, 4 people all on different sleep schedules sharing one room is not fun! It's nice to get some sleep again. Rowan is sleeping through the night again, oh, and I forgot to mention on here, Ellie has been binkie-free for about a month now! Jason (and myself as well) is very glad that her teeth will be able to form unimpaired. She did pretty well getting rid of them, but we did have a few rough nights.

Rowan has his 6 month check-up on Tuesday, so I'll be sure to update after that with his stats. I unofficially weighed him in Iowa and he was 20 lbs, but we'll see what the official weight is. He still isn't real interested in eating food (at least baby food), but he's been willing to try the baby rice cereal the last couple of days. And, he's getting up on his hands and knees and rocking. Yikes, here comes crawling! He can get into anything already by rolling and scooting, but crawling will just make him that much faster.

My first niece!

I haven't had much internet access or time to update this blog, but I just have to announce that my new niece, Ashlyn Makylee, was born on New Years Eve. She's so beautiful! Congrats to Zane, Tara, and big brother Bryson!

Rowan's room

Okay, the second post of today. Rowan's room is the only room that is pretty much decorated, and here are the pictures!

His closet

His changing table morphed into a storage unit for all his cloth diaper stuff!
Flannel star sheets I bought for $1 off craigslist!
Set painted by Grandma Hoffman - Rowan will never forget his name, that's for sure!

Goodbye snow ...

Hello sun! This is what we are leaving behind as we visit Arizona:

Let it snow...

Ugh, it has snowed over a foot in the past week. The first snow was 1/2 foot and this city was not prepared! There were lots of issues with streets not being plowed quick enough, and many people downtown park on the side of the road, so the snow had no where to go after plowed! Not to mention we had an ice storm the same night of the snow, so all the snow is now stuck under a layer of ice. Yuck! I don't see this snow going away until spring. Right now it's 1 degree out. 1 DEGREE! The other day as Ellie and I left in the morning it was below zero. I have some snow pictures that I will try to put up later today or tomorrow. There is also snow predicted 3 times in the coming week. A gigantic thank you to my great friend Autumn who sent me her down jacket to use this winter! If it worked hiking the mountains of Nepal, it definitely works here. Welcome to winter! We can't wait to get to Arizona in a week and a half...

So, I made the brownies from Deceptively Delicious. In case you didn't know, these brownies have spinach and carrots in them. Yep, sounds disgusting. Tara was interested in these as well, so I bit the bullet and began steaming the vegetables. The first thing to mix together is the melted chocolate with the pureed spinach and carrots. As I held the bowl of steaming green spinach soup poised above the bowl of chocolate, I thought "What a waste of good chocolate." It was not a pretty sight! After mixing together all the ingredients (with whole-wheat flour and some flaxseed meal thrown in, these brownies are quite healthy!) I couldn't resist tasting the batter. Hmm, not too bad... The recipe warns not to eat the brownies warm, but to let them cool completely so the spinach has a chance to disappear. Well, of course I couldn't resist at least tasting them straight from the oven. Wow, still not bad! And after they cooled... let's just say Ellie did not resist gobbling her large brownie right up after dinner. I wouldn't say they are the best brownies I have ever had, but I definitely wouldn't think there were vegetables in them! If you like cakey brownies over fudgy (I prefer fudgy, but I'll take my chocolate either way), you'd definitely like them. And if I added frosting, there's no way you would be disappointed. Well, who wants me to bring brownies for their holiday dinner???

Deceptively Delicious

I just added this book, Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld, to my Christmas list! I made the chicken nuggets, which weren't too bad, but tonight I made this recipe for mac and cheese and it was great! The only difference is I used whole-wheat pasta. We've been having trouble lately getting Ellie to eat her dinner and she gobbled this right up. She even asked for seconds! Little did she know it was laced with butternut squash... ha ha ha!!!

Home sweet home

We had a great time visiting family for Thanksgiving, but it's great to be home! Besides the fact that we have no food in the house...

The kids were GREAT on the drive up and back. We were most worried about Rowan since he doesn't fall asleep really well in the car, since he's used to sleeping on his stomach. But once I moved back and squished in between the two car seats, he was an angel. Ellie took a nap and watched a movie on the way home, so she was great too.

I just have to say, in complete honesty, Rowan did not cry at all while we were in Iowa! He fussed occasionally, when he was tired, but he never cried. Jason and I really lucked out with him! He now has two bottom teeth and can roll across the floor to get to anything he wants. And he's as smiley as ever.

Ellie was not so well-behaved. Partly because that's just how she is right now, but I think a big part of it was that she ate a lot of junky foods. So did I, but I think I controlled my temper a bit more :) My Dad and I went shopping early morning on Friday, and Ellie was NOT HAPPY to find me missing in the morning. The relatives were entertained though with her songs and stories. She told me a very fascinating story about how she was bit on her bootie at Grandma Knapp's house (a nursing home) by a bad man who was screaming (there really was a man screaming there). She also impressed them with her reading skills. She can read many 3 letter words by sounding them out. Now we just have to teach her the combinations (like th and sh) and tricky sounds (like the silent e).

Jason has only 3 weeks of class left, which means he's super-busy finishing up all his schoolwork. I'm amazed at how disciplined he can be, he starts his papers weeks, even months in advance! I always waited 'til the night before pretty much, but I never had to write over 100 pages in papers. I have only 3 weeks left of watching the two girls during the week. We won't be watching them next semester, mainly because the work is not really worth the extra money. Those girls are hard work! I feel a little bad because the older girl is Ellie's best friend, but we'll have to find a new friend for her. I'll still be taking Ellie to the boy's house on Thursdays, and Ellie loves going there.

It snowed over Thanksgiving, both in Madison and where we were. The snow is gone now, but I'm sure more is to follow soon. Ellie LOVED playing outside in it; we just have to get her some better gloves to play with. And I'm adding long underwear to my Christmas list!

Turkey time!

I know what I am thankful for this year. Food! It's so nice to be able to make yummy, healthy meals easily. In Jordan I had to hunt down ingredients and devise some way to cook them with only a stovetop that was always on high heat. Here is a menu of our tasty meals in the last week:

Parmesean-crusted Tilapia; Spinach salad with blue cheese, candied pecans, and craisins

Turkey burgers and sweet potato fries

Mini meatloaves and broccoli with cheese sauce

Whole-wheat couscous with beans, veggies, and salsa

Whole turkey with rolls and baked acorn squash


Most of these meals we wouldn't have been able to make last year. And we can't wait until the Thanksgiving meal! Too bad Rowan isn't quite ready for food, because his first tooth broke this morning and I'm sure he'd enjoy it!


Rowan gnawing on a teething biscuit:

And how mad he gets when he loses it (this is the only time he cries this hard!):

Flashback

These are from one year ago, November 2006. She was 1 1/2 years old. My how she has changed! One is a repeat, but I believe the first one is new to this blog.

Santa Claus is coming...

Yippee, time to start thinking of Christmas! We pretty much missed out last year, so this year will be fun. We're flying to Arizona Dec 19th through Jan 9th. 3 whole weeks! A bunch of people have asked us for Christmas lists, so here we go:

Rowan
- socks size 6-12 months, 12-18 months
- kleen kanteen sippy cup
- full-size sheets for his futon, any blue or brown colors
- these blankets: http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5854569
- Little People sets, we currently have Baby Dino Land and a small zoo one. We'd love to have the nativity set (hard to find) and the Busy Home playset (or any others)
- he really doesn't need many clothes, shoes, or toys as we have lots of hand-me-downs except for long-sleeved tees (not snap at the crotch), any colors in size 18 months. Maybe size 18 month one-piece summer outfits? just leave on the tags in case he's in 3T by then :)

Ellie - some of these could be for Rowan too
- kleen kanteen cup
- size 3T dresses, dressy clothes
- size 9 and 10 shoes (size 10 for summer, 9 for winter)
- music cds, Laurie Berkner, kids songs
- tea set, not plastic if possible
- chapter books to read to her, like Boxcar children
- socks and undies (Undies 3T, socks for size 9 shoes)
- painting smock
- kids digital camera
- play laptop - some sort of educational one
- science toys?
- board games - cariboo, candy land

Jason
- game cube games, especially Zelda- Twilight Princess
- books- Ender's Game series #4-8
- wool socks (he wears size 10 1/2 shoe)
- long john's (to wear under jeans) He wears size 33x30 in pants
- thin waterproof gloves
(He needs all this warm stuff because he's determined to ride his bike to school if possible!)

Kirsten
- cloth napkins - forest green, white or cream
- clothing gift cards
- size 9 cute snowboots
- kleen kanteen cup
- subscriptions to magazines - Real Simple, Everyday Food
- a babysitter in Wisconsin???
- long underwear
- cookbook Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld

I'll keep this updated and add more as we think of them!