Success!
This weekend went very smoothly and I would say that our family had a great time.
Wednesday was a little chaotic for me. I was finishing up some of my cooking that I had promised my mom I would do for dinner that night. It's a little hectic when you have a 15 month old running between your feet. That trickiest part was getting the pies in the oven, transferring them from rack to rack as I adjusted the temperature and their place in the oven. Baking two pies at once can be challenging. My oven didn't do such a great job last year. I think it took me almost twice as long as it was supposed to take. This year was different, thankfully! My pies turned out beautifully in the proper amount of time!
Andrew made it home from work just in time for the three of us to pile in the car, load it up with all the food I had made, games and other essentials and head to my parents house for the Kefgen Thanksgiving dinner.
Jacob and Megan were there along with my Grandma as well. We did some finishing touches on the dishes we had all prepared and sat down to a beautiful and delicious meal. Everything tasted fantastic.
Judah refused his dinner as he has been doing lately. He's not into it for some reason and I'm not sure why. He loves breakfast and usually eats a good amount at lunch. He has two snacks during the day and drinks a lot of milk as well. I'm wondering if he is eating too much at his other meals and is too full by dinner...
Anyway, Judah was ready for bed at about 6:30. I went ahead and gave him his bath and put him down at about 7. He slept great over there! Us adults were able to play this fun game that my parents got at some 2nd hand store for about 50 cents. It was really entertaining! Megan's delicious pumpkin pie followed and then we kind of just sat back and let our tummies digest everything we had put into them.
I was getting so tired by about 9:30 since I had gotten up with Judah around 5:45 that morning. We decided we had better head out since we had to take my Grandma home too. We got everything loaded up into the car and I think we made it home by around 10:30 or 11.
Thanksgiving day was spent with Andrew's family. We headed over to Rick and Cheryl's after Judah got up from his nap around 2 pm. Andrew's Grandparents, his aunt and uncle and Erica and Paul were over there as well. We were missing a few family members of course, but we had a nice afternoon and evening. Football was watched, turkey was eaten (over and over), boys played together, boys fell asleep super easy. All in all, it was a nice Thanksgiving. We were pooped again around 9 so we headed out.
On Friday we started our Christmas decorating. We spent the morning listening to Christmas music and putting up a few of our decorations. Judah liked the addition of the garland and string of lights in the living room. Andrew and I had a chance to have some alone time together in honor of our anniversary. Judah was dropped off at Rick and Cheryl's in the early afternoon. Andrew and I went to see A Christmas Carol in 3D. It was a fun Christmas movie. We walked around the Everett Mall a little bit too and it was very surprisingly not busy at all! It was probably like any other "busy" Saturday for them. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing at home, ordered a pizza from our favorite place - Romio's, and watched Four Christmases. I got to sleep in the next morning which hasn't happened in ages! We decided to get a little Christmas shopping done before we went to pick up the boy. We decided to go to Target first to get some Christmas lights and ended up doing all of our shopping there. No need for the crazy mall! Once again, we shopped in Everett and therefore Target was hardly busy at all and very easy to navigate. Picked up the boy in the late afternoon and spent the rest of the evening straightening up the house and putting some Christmas lights outside on our patio. Now there is a warm glow outside. Can't wait to have that same glow inside the house when we get our tree put up next weekend!
Today was a rough day for me. We made it to church finally!! It's so frustrating to me how few and far between our trips to church are. Life is just so much more complicated when a person has a child.
I was so uncomfortable today! It literally felt like Audrey was dancing on my bladder. I kept having to go to the bathroom but when I would go I really didn't have to go at all. My pants felt way too tight and it hurt me to sit in church for as long as I did. I was squirming the whole time and I was really tired too, so I kept having to pry my eyes open. I couldn't wait to get out of there, which is ridiculous because we haven't been in weeks and weeks! When we got home, Judah was ready for a nap so I decided to take advantage of that and take a nap at the same time. I ended up sleeping for 3 hours! I must say that the nap was the highlight of my day. It felt amazing to sleep that well. When I got up it was time to head over to Rick and Cheryl's again for Josh's birthday party. I still wasn't feeling great. Just uncomfortable and yucky in general. The thought of trying to put on something other than my pj pants sounded terrible so Andrew told me to stay home. I didn't really want to miss out on hanging out with the family, but staying home just sounded like the best thing. So I did. I couldn't stop thinking about chocolate so I decided that for dinner I would go get myself a blizzard from DQ. Oh the things you can do while still wearing your pjs! The drive thru is one of them!
It was a long weekend, which was very nice. I like having time with both Andrew and Judah together. Tomorrow it's back to the daily grind!
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
It's Thanksgiving Time!
I was so excited to get started on my Thanksgiving baking and shopping this year! I love making pumpkin pie. It's one of the highlights of the holidays for me. This year, since we are celebrating Thanksgiving with my family on Wednesday and Thanksgiving day with the Michels, I will be making several dishes. I am taking a cranberry orange chutney, candied yams, and mashed potatoes to my parents' house on Wednesday. Thursday I will be bringing two delicious pumpkin pies to the Michels' house.
With all of this cooking, I had to start early. This afternoon, while Judah was taking his nap, I started on my pie crusts. I am so happy because I came up with two new techniques that proved to make the job much easier and more efficient.
I used my food processor to blend the flour mixture with the shortening and butter instead of doing it by hand. The dough ended up being much more evenly blended and there wasn't a pile of flour at the bottom of the bowl when I was done mixing the rest of the ingredients together. Then I rolled the dough out on a sheet of wax paper which kept my counter top from getting too messy. To place the dough into the pie plate, I simply inverted the wax paper and pushed the dough into the plate. Quite simple and much less mess!
Now my crusts are freezing until Wednesday when I will assemble the pie fillings and bake the pies.
Tomorrow I will make the chutney and the yams so that I have minimal work to do on Wednesday.
I love holiday cooking and baking!
Tomorrow is also mine and Andrew's 3rd anniversary. At times it feels like much more time has passed than just 3 years, only because so much has happened. These 3 years have been the best of my life. I wouldn't trade them for anything. I can't wait to see what the future holds for Andrew and I and our little family.
With all of this cooking, I had to start early. This afternoon, while Judah was taking his nap, I started on my pie crusts. I am so happy because I came up with two new techniques that proved to make the job much easier and more efficient.
I used my food processor to blend the flour mixture with the shortening and butter instead of doing it by hand. The dough ended up being much more evenly blended and there wasn't a pile of flour at the bottom of the bowl when I was done mixing the rest of the ingredients together. Then I rolled the dough out on a sheet of wax paper which kept my counter top from getting too messy. To place the dough into the pie plate, I simply inverted the wax paper and pushed the dough into the plate. Quite simple and much less mess!
Now my crusts are freezing until Wednesday when I will assemble the pie fillings and bake the pies.
Tomorrow I will make the chutney and the yams so that I have minimal work to do on Wednesday.
I love holiday cooking and baking!
Tomorrow is also mine and Andrew's 3rd anniversary. At times it feels like much more time has passed than just 3 years, only because so much has happened. These 3 years have been the best of my life. I wouldn't trade them for anything. I can't wait to see what the future holds for Andrew and I and our little family.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Richly Blessed
I feel so blessed in life. Sometimes I can't believe how much God has given me. I was scanning through some old pictures of our family tonight. Every day I am filled with more and more gratitude for my little boy. He brings so much joy and delight to my life and to my husband's life as well. Every day that I get to spend with him is such a blessing. He brings a smile to my face and it is impossible not to be happy when he is around. He is such a sweetheart.
I am of course saying all of these things as a biased mother. I just can't help but feel so grateful to God that He gave Andrew and I this precious, healthy, happy, smart, lively little boy to take care of. The most joyous part of being a parent is having the opportunity to watch your child grow and develop. These past few months have been so much fun with Judah. He learns new words all the time and I just love hearing him practice. Right now he has learned to say "God!" and "car". He has been saying "ball" for about 4 months now. That is by far is favorite word. He also loves to say up. He loves to go UP the stairs, he loves to climb UP onto the ottoman, and most of all he loves to run to me, wrap his arms around my legs and say UP! It just melts my heart. He is working hard on saying kitty, but when he can't get the full word out, he calls our cat "Dee" for short.
He really has his own little language that he uses to communicate his point to us when he is trying to tell us something. It's so funny to hear him jumble together words and sounds when he is telling us that he wants more of a particular food. It's so obvious what he is trying to say, but he just doesn't know how to put it together.
I could go on and on.
I just feel so blessed and so thankful to God for my son. He is a light in my life. He is living proof that God loves me. He is evidence of God's grace, mercy and blessing. I feel so privileged that Judah has been entrusted to my care.
I was thinking tonight as I noted my ever increasing belly that this baby girl is going to be just as precious as Judah. It's so hard to imagine my baby when she is inside the womb. I don't know her personality or her face or her likes and dislikes. I just know that I love her and that she too is a gift. One day soon she will be doing all of the same things that Judah is doing now, but with her own style and grace of course. When she arrives, our world is going to change again so drastically. It is hard to remember what life was like before Judah arrived. Everything will be turned upside down when our sweet little Audrey June comes into the world. We won't remember much of what it was like to just be the three of us. It's going to feel like we are really a little family with four members.
I have less than 90 days to go! I will be holding her and loving her sweet little self before I even know it.
I am of course saying all of these things as a biased mother. I just can't help but feel so grateful to God that He gave Andrew and I this precious, healthy, happy, smart, lively little boy to take care of. The most joyous part of being a parent is having the opportunity to watch your child grow and develop. These past few months have been so much fun with Judah. He learns new words all the time and I just love hearing him practice. Right now he has learned to say "God!" and "car". He has been saying "ball" for about 4 months now. That is by far is favorite word. He also loves to say up. He loves to go UP the stairs, he loves to climb UP onto the ottoman, and most of all he loves to run to me, wrap his arms around my legs and say UP! It just melts my heart. He is working hard on saying kitty, but when he can't get the full word out, he calls our cat "Dee" for short.
He really has his own little language that he uses to communicate his point to us when he is trying to tell us something. It's so funny to hear him jumble together words and sounds when he is telling us that he wants more of a particular food. It's so obvious what he is trying to say, but he just doesn't know how to put it together.
I could go on and on.
I just feel so blessed and so thankful to God for my son. He is a light in my life. He is living proof that God loves me. He is evidence of God's grace, mercy and blessing. I feel so privileged that Judah has been entrusted to my care.
I was thinking tonight as I noted my ever increasing belly that this baby girl is going to be just as precious as Judah. It's so hard to imagine my baby when she is inside the womb. I don't know her personality or her face or her likes and dislikes. I just know that I love her and that she too is a gift. One day soon she will be doing all of the same things that Judah is doing now, but with her own style and grace of course. When she arrives, our world is going to change again so drastically. It is hard to remember what life was like before Judah arrived. Everything will be turned upside down when our sweet little Audrey June comes into the world. We won't remember much of what it was like to just be the three of us. It's going to feel like we are really a little family with four members.
I have less than 90 days to go! I will be holding her and loving her sweet little self before I even know it.
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