Making muffins with my little muffin.

We had one half dozen over-ripe bananas to use up so Benjamin and I took the kitchen by storm and made some Banana Chip Muffins (see link for recipe below). Since Ellie has come along it's gotten a bit harder to carve out time for just Benjamin and me, so when I saw there was baking to be done and Jeff was home to spend some quality time with our baby girl I seized the moment. The prep time for these muffins is 15 minutes. Of course with a 2-year-old assistant chef the prep time doubled, but so did the fun. I love having time with both kids, but it's always special when I can devote all of my attention to one of them every so often.

So helpful.

My little chef.

Sugar.

Enjoying the fruits of his labor.

Here's the link to the Taste of Home recipe for these Banana Chip Muffins. Pretty tasty as you can tell by the looks of that face the the empty plate.

We had ourselves a Merry Little Christmas.

I had a wonderful Christmas. I love, love, love Christmastime. I get caught up in the trees and the lights, giving gifts, listening to Christmas music and baking of course. Celebrating Jesus and spending time with family are two of my favorite things and during this time of year they are wrapped up into one beautifully fun holiday.

Jeff had several days off from work which was such a treat. We were all glad to have him home with us for a few days. Benjamin was a hoot with his excitement over the stockings and decorations. He fell in love with the lights on a house down the street. They were flashing stars so I named them Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Every day, several times a day, Ben would ask about "Ginkle Ginkle Yittle Star". He was totally captivated by them. If we went to get the mail he had to go with us so he could see them. If we were driving home we had to go by slowly. Once we got out of the car he had to say night night to them. It was pretty darn cute.  Watching Ben open presents this year was a real hoot too. He was tickled by the process and enjoyed every last thing he received from his train tracks to his individual size box of Goldfish crackers. And of course this was Ellie's first Christmas. I'm not sure why that makes the day seem so special, but it does. Maybe it's the cute little outfits and the first gifts, or maybe it's just that I remember that I have been blessed by a sweet little baby during the past year.

This year we had a visit from Jeff's folks as well as my brother-in-law and sister-in-law. It was really fun to have a full house and to watch Benjamin entertain them all.

Here are a few pictures from the Christmas season.

Christmas 2012

Benjamin

Ellie

Ellie's Christmas outfit from Grandma Kitty (and her Uncle Ryan)

Cuddles with Papa Kitty

All clean!....for now.

Snow bunny.

Jeff reads Ben The Story of Christmas

Ben opens a box of vehicles that came with his train set.

New train set = happy boy.

Digging in his stalking.

Photo collage for Jeff's folks.

Thanks for the new car, Uncle Cam and Auntie Jess.

Ellie "opens' her blocks. I got them for $2 with clearance and a coupon. Love me a good deal.

My new cake pan for Ellie's birthday cakes! Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Kitty.

Ben gives Ellie a present (It's her Where's Ellie? book....yes, it finally arrived!)

Skyping with Cam and Jess.

Ellie naps with Grandma Kitty and her new purple kitty.

My loves enjoying Christmas morning.

Ellie and Auntie Kim. Love this picture of the pretty girls in stripes :)

Benjamin and Grandma Kitty coloring. This could go on for hours.

Story time.

A new ornament....one of our traditions.

Ben takes a rest on the mat he got from Uncle Ryan and Auntie Kim.

Christmas baby.

Waiting for Christmas Eve service to start.

My girl.

The business of coloring.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas and wishing you a Happy New Year.

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Luke 2:14

All aboard the potty train

Jeff and I are trying to get this potty train moving. "Chugga Chugga Poo Poo." There have been about a half dozen times when Benjamin has asked to go potty and has been successful in the past 2 months. Of course there have been dozens of other times he has asked to go and nothing has happened. But he likes to sit on the potty and one of his favorite books is a potty book. We figure he's at that age and has shown some interest, so "All Aboard". Let's get this thing rolling.

Last summer we bought a seat to place on the toilet when Ben started asking to go. As I said, he has had some success in the recent past. While the seat works fine it's a bit of a nuisance with a child who isn't actually trained. We decided to buy a potty chair to make the process easier and hopefully more successful. And here is where the events of the afternoon began to unfold.

Went to Target.
Found potty chair. Sesame Street. On clearance for $12. Bonus.
Ben asks to hold potty chair.
I tell him it's too heavy.
Pull into garage.
Ben asks where potty chair is.
I respond "the trunk".
Get inside house.
"Where is potty chair?"
"In the trunk. I'll go get it."
Remove potty chair from packaging.
Place potty on kitchen floor where we are coloring.
Ben wants to try. Good.
No potty. Okay. We'll try later.
"Do you want to wear a diaper or underwear?"
"Underwear."
Put underwear on.
Color.
Make lunch.
Eat lunch.
One hour goes by.
Underwear still dry!
"Do you have to go potty?"
"No. I just color."
Text husband with excitement over one hour of dry undies.
2 minutes pass.
"Oh I go pee pee."
Clean the floor.
Change undies.
Ellie starts to cry. (She's was napping)
Pick Ellie up for feeding.
Discover Ellie has had a blowout all the way up her back (2nd blowout of the day).
Wash Ellie off.
Change clothes.
Go back to kitchen to check on Ben.
"It's naptime, buddy. Go pick out your books."
"I go poopy."
Ellie's hungry and crying.
Change Ben.
Wrangle Ben into his room for books, songs, and a nap.
Feed Ellie while wrangling.
Tuck Ben in.
Put Ellie in jumper.
Clean poo off of clothes. Thank you Spray & Wash.
Get Ellie.
Lay her down for nap.
Start laundry.
Blog about it.

There you have it. Two hours of my day....in a nutshell.

P.S. This is not a very good potty seat for boys if you know what I mean.

First Christmas

It's always fun to celebrate baby's first Christmas. And, of course, one must document this occasion with a photo. Despite our best efforts we could not fish a smile out of Ellie for her Christmas picture even though she spends most of her waking time grinning. I suppose her lack of enthusiasm could have had something to do with the present she had deposited in her diaper while sitting for pictures. At any rate here's a comparison of the kids from one of our favorite times of year.

Benjamin 2010

Ellie 2012

Golden!

This weekend my folks will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. How awesome is that?!?!? Fifty years is a long time to spend with somebody. Heck, sometimes 50 minutes can be a long time to spend with a person. This afternoon as I was perusing anniversary cards trying to find just the right one I had a revelation. My parents are celebrating their "golden" anniversary. How precious and valuable is gold! What a perfect description for an anniversary such as this one. And from my point of view, when it comes to marriage and my parents....nailed it. It's not just that they've been married for 50 years. It's the way that they have spent the past fifty years together...in love, faithfulness, generosity, peace, laughter, gentleness, and devotion. The list could go on and on. I don't want to make it sound like I think my parents are perfect. They're not (sorry mom and dad, you're the ones who taught me Romans 3:23). But my mom and dad are pretty amazing people, and together they have built a beautiful life, loving one another and loving God.

I love you, mom and dad. Happy Golden Anniversary!

Love is patient,

Love is kind.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, 

it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.^.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects,

always trusts,

 

always hopes,

always perseveres.

Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8a

Where is "Where's Ellie?"...a little book's journey across the midwest, to the south and back

Christmastime is here. Our mailboxes are brimming with Christmas cards and our doorsteps are being littered with packages. I made most of my Christmas gifts this year which made for a lot of fun, but I ordered a few presents online. We have received every item except for one. I found this little book for Ellie. How fun is that?!?!?

It was supposed to arrive sometime before yesterday, but alas, I am still waiting for it. I suppose it doesn't really doesn't matter if it gets here in time for Christmas since Ellie will be just as happy without it as long as she is fed, diapered and snuggled. Still, we'd like to get it sometime. This morning I began to wonder where's "Where's Ellie?"....kind of funny, eh? We ordered Benjamin's train set from the same company on the same day and it was dropped off at our door over a week ago. This afternoon I set out to track the package. Turns out the reason it's taking so long for Ellie's book to arrive is that it has gone from Illinois to Missouri to South Carolina to Missouri to Illinois to Missouri again. No joke. You can see the tracking information below. The package was in St. Louis last Wednesday. Seriously, United States Postal Service? Seriously??? I live there! I live right there in the St. Louis Metro area. I could have hopped in the car, driven down the road about 25 minutes and picked it up. But for some reason that I cannot fathom, the package was sent all the way to South Carolina only to have it return to Missouri (Hazelwood, MO....also 25 minutes away) and then be shipped back to Illinois, the state from whence it came. I see now, USPS, that my baby girl's Christmas gift is in Ballwin, MO. That is the suburb right next to mine. I can literally walk two blocks from my house and be in that city. Would you be so kind as to not send her present out of state again? I'd like to give the book to Ellie this Christmas rather than next.


19 Dec 2012 05:48     Received by the local post office     BALLWIN, MO
17 Dec 2012 07:16     Package en route for delivery     BELLEVILLE, IL
16 Dec 2012 23:07     Package processed by local post office     HAZELWOOD, MO
13 Dec 2012 12:38     Shipment Acceptance at PO     HAZELWOOD, MO
13 Dec 2012 10:10     Package en route for delivery   AIKEN, SC
13 Dec 2012 07:05     Received by the local post office     AIKEN, SC
12 Dec 2012 12:29     Shipment Info Received by Post Office     SAINT LOUIS, MO
Dec 13 2012             Package transferred to Post Office     ST LOUIS, MO
Dec 12 2012             Ready for post office entry     Kansas City, MO
Dec 12 2012             Package received by dest MI facility    Kansas City, MO
Dec 11 2012            Package transferred to dest MI facility     Carol Stream, IL
Dec 11 2012            Package processed by Mail Innovations     Carol Stream, IL
Dec 10 2012           Package received for processing          Carol Stream, IL

Perspective

On heart-wrenching days like this one we are given the gift of perspective. All of the dozens of little things that you and I get worked up about like traffic, bad customer service, kids throwing tantrums, holiday preparations, forgetting to put out the trash on garbage day....they don't seem to matter so much. And the things that are taken for granted much of the time like how your mom calls you honey and your dad calls you darling, or how your husband husband holds your hand in the car, or how your little boy throws his arms around you when he tells you goodnight, or how your baby girl flashes an enthusiastic smile when you pick her up....they seem to matter so much more. Even as recently as this morning I allowed myself to get caught up in the stresses of everyday life. Now I sit here in front of my computer with tears in my eyes as I grieve for families I don't even know, waiting for my kids to wake up from their naps so I can hug them, and praying for our broken world.

Perspective.

Black Tie Optional

My standard uniform :)

A little over a week ago I found out that Jeff's work was hosting a Christmas party for the staff. Alright! I like parties. I like food. I like Jeff. I like Christmas. Then I found out that the party was "black tie optional". Black tie? Black tie?!?!? These two little words weighed heavy on my mind. And although the invitation said "optional" I was fairly confident that didn't mean I was welcome to wear my postpartum stay-at-home mom uniform of sweatpants, sloppy t-shirts and a Moby wrap. I mean lately throwing on a pair of jeans to go to Target feels like dressing up (I say Target because for Walmart I may or may not stay in sweats). It's not that I don't like to wear nice clothes or that I don't enjoy dressing up for a night out. I do. It's just that when you get puked, pooped and snotted on all day long you'd rather not have it be on the one pair of jeans that fit your post baby body. You gotta save those for outings. Anyway I'm in that place where my pre-pregnancy clothes are way too small but I really don't want to buy anything in the size I am right now because I really don't want to be this size right now. I am not one of those girls who has a baby and walks out of the hospital wearing regular clothing so my wardrobe is very limited. So back to the point. I didn't have anything to wear to this "black tie optional" event. Nothing. Literally nothing. I'm not just saying that like women do when they stand in front of a closet full of clothes and say they have nothing to wear. I had nothing to wear to the party. So I went shopping. Fun, right? Wrong. I looked for hours. I tried on dozens of items. I had one unpleasant encounter with the dressing room mirror after another. I was completely discouraged. Truly. It seemed like nothing fit, the numbers on the tags were much bigger than I hoped they would be, and I felt terrible about myself. Really terrible. My eyes burned with tears as I left the store and made my way to the car. The combination of dealing with my post-baby body in the dressing room mirror, lack of sleep, and the pressure of trying to measure up to some ambiguous black tie optional standards got to me. Of course when I came home all out of sorts, Jeff was wonderful and had all kinds of loving, sweet things to say that helped cheer me up. He took me out shopping the next day and I found a dress in no time at all. But I can't help thinking about that first shopping trip and how it totally rocked my world. There are still lessons out there for me to learn about who I am and from where my self-worth should come. I want to be healthy and fit, no doubt. And I'm not gonna lie, it would feel really good to be skinny again. But the truth is, even when I was at my thinnest (a bit too thin in retrospect) I struggled with my body image.  Simply being thin is not the solution. If my journey with weight loss, babies, and my many battles with the scale have taught me anything it's this: I will never be satisfied with my body, my appearance, or myself if my value does not stem from something more than my measurements. I must remind myself that my worth is in Jesus. That I am fearfully and wonderfully made. That God made me in His image. This is not the first time I have felt this lesson being impressed upon my heart, and it probably won't be the last. So I will chip away at these unwanted pounds all the while remembering that I am more than just a number. And guess what...so are you.