Etsy Shop Debut!

I have been working on some projects for awhile now but have only just recently gotten them listed on Etsy. Please take a look and let me know what you think. Click on the picture to view the listing for that item.

I really would love feedback since I'm still getting started. I may have a giveaway coming up sometime. Keep an eye out for future posts!

Cupcake!

I can hardly believe that my baby girl is one year old! It doesn't really seem like it has been a whole year since she was born. I can still remember taking a walk around our neighborhood while I was in labor and crying to Isaac that I didn't think I could make it. ;-) It was a short two hours later that our beautiful baby girl made her entrance into this world!
So much has changed since then! Christine brings such joy to our lives. My kids sure know how to keep me busy. While the days are often unbearably long the years seem to pass so quickly.

This weekend our families joined together to celebrate Christine's first birthday together. What a blessing to be loved and supported by so many.

I got inspiration for the pretzel butterfly cupcakes HERE. Thank you Martha Stewart. ;-) The mini flower cupcakes were done with candy coated almonds. Being the bargain hunter that I am I got almost everything for the party on Easter clearance. I love the Target dollar spot!
Christine was far too reserved with the cake! She gave it a good grab and got it all over her fingers but then proceeded to just slurp it off of her fingers instead of making the giant mess we were expecting.
The present opening was fun of course. She got a lot more clothes than the boys usually do. Lets face it: girls are more fun to shop for than boys! She got several really cute outfits from her grandmas and aunts. I have to say that her favorite gift seemed to be her dolly. She held it like a baby and everything. Then she chewed on its arm.
As always we are very thankful that our family is close and we can celebrate our special occasions with one another. Its great to get everyone all together once in awhile. I should have taken a picture of the whole family - both sides... but you know how it goes... I was lucky to get the pictures I did manage to take amidst the chaos! ;-)
Thanks everyone and Happy Birthday to my beautiful baby girl!

Marriage Matters

”We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things, all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness'." - Susan Sarandon in Shall We Dance

Friday Confessional w/ Mamarazzi

I confess: Yesterday I carefully coupon matched and saved $85+ (the receipt said I saved 32% off my total purchase) on my grocery bill, which is a big deal for me. - that is not the confession part, I'm just setting the scene here - After all that I get home and am depressed because I've watched that stupid Extreme Couponing show and it kept me from feeling satisfaction in the work that I did and the money that I saved because it wasn't "extreme" enough. :-P

I confess: I get depressed whenever I have to fill out paperwork regarding my children's developmental delays, go to big doctor's appointments, etc. I think a part of me is still in denial - or wants to be in denial that they are and may always be special needs, handicapped, disabled, or whatever you want to call it. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever get over it.

I confess: I am one of those people that sits on my couch with a bowl of ice cream while I watch Biggest Loser. I know, I should be eating carrots or doing crunches through the whole show or something. But no. Not me. My chubby butt is too tired after a long day!

I confess: My husband is very gifted musically. I on the other hand, am terrible. Ok, maybe not terrible... but definitely not good. I wish that we were a little more balanced in this area. He loves me and it doesn't bother him any... but I think it'd be nice if we had a talent that we could share.

I confess: I'm bad at these confession things. I never know if I should be serious, or funny... and I end up creating posts and deleting them because I think their dumb or too personal. But what the hey.

I guess that is all for now. Hope you all have a fantabulous Friday!!

Spring Break Recap!

Well... its been almost two weeks since we got back from our road trip. I think we're almost back to "normal". I wanted to do a really detailed account of our trip but here I am ending up doing a brief summary instead. Such is life.


So, the trip included Isaac, myself, Nate (5yr), Joe (4yr), Christine (almost 1yr), my sister Shan & her son Wy (9mos) and our friend Jess. On Thurs we finished packing and loaded the van. (We were so blessed to borrow one of my parents' 15 passenger vans for the trip.) When Isaac and Jess got back from work around 7pm we loaded up the kids and headed out. Because we had four drivers we chose to rotate every few hours and basically drive through to ABQ without overnighting anywhere. We were able to designate the back bench as the "sleeping bench" which helped a lot with the driving situation. I still was anticipating the drive to be a day and a half to two days since we were traveling with four kids under 6yr old (two of which are nursing). Along the road we stopped at a Route 66 Museum in Oklahoma, and on the return we saw the Worlds' Largest Rocking Chair. We made much better time both coming and going than we expected.

One of the things that we enjoyed most about the trip was the food. Big shocker. ;-) We had a wide variety of cuisines while on our trip. We tried both Indian and Greek food on top of the various contemporary and New Mexican dishes as well. In particular we visited two diners that were featured on the Food Network show Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. We ate at both The Standard Diner in ABQ and Zia Diner in Santa Fe. We highly recommend the Bourbon Butter burger at The Standard and the Blue Corn Enchiladas at Zia Diner. Amazing food people!!

We were able to take in some of the local attractions around Albuquerque while we were in town. We visited Explora, the National Petroplyph Monument, the flea market, Old Town, the ABQ BioPark Aquarium & Gardens, and others. We took the Rail Runner train to Santa Fe one evening and walked around town for awhile before having dinner at Zia Diner there. And of course we were excited to spend some time with my family that lives in the ABQ area. We do not get to see them often enough!

The cons: Nate and Joe both threw up our first night in ABQ. Yuck. Joe might have had a small concussion from falling off of the hotel bed. We missed our original train and instead of spending the day in Santa Fe we ended up spending just a couple of hours. The day we chose to drive up the beautiful Sandia mountains ended up being the only rainy, yucky day the whole trip.

The pros: We got to visit with our family that we do not get to see often. We were surprised at how smoothly things went, all things considered. We still liked each other at the end of the trip. The kids behaved pretty well. The food was great. We took an extra adult so we were not outnumbered by the children - thank goodness! We have finally tackled a big road trip and now future trips will not seem nearly so daunting! ;-)

4yrs Old!

Sunday we celebrated Joe's fourth birthday with our families. We kicked off the party with a guys against girls (who's idea was that?) puzzle race/contest. Sadly, the boys beat us girls. sigh... we blamed it on them having an easier puzzle and one of the guys mixed up our pieces... but regardless of the reasons they still beat us. ;-)

I was pretty proud of the "Ham" & "Green Alien" cupcakes that I made (with Isaac's assistance) for the party. You can find tutorials for the pig cupcakes HERE and the green alien cupcakes HERE.
Joe had such a blast. He really enjoyed having all the family around. He hopped around the room with such a big smile on his face the whole afternoon.
Isaac helped him with the presents and of course the paper was more interesting than the presents but we're getting used to that! He did get some really great gifts though. Eventually the tissue paper ended up being used to pellet Pappy.
After awhile the kids settled down for naps and quiet play and the lingering "grownups" played Kemps. I haven't played this card game since youth group - many many years ago. I forgot how much fun it is. And how bad I am at it. ;-)
Anyway, it ended up being a really nice day with our families. Thanks to everyone for helping to make Joe's birthday special! Love you guys!

Ladies Retreat

This past weekend was my church's annual ladies retreat. I was privileged to be a part of the team of ladies who helped to plan and execute this event. Lots of work over many months went into this. We had a fantabulous speaker (my friend Leah's mom) who shared some of the hills and valleys that she has been through while traveling the Path that is her life. She has a wonderful heart for God and a lot of energy.


She got us all playing some really crazy fun junior high games. Its so great to see church ladies let loose and have fun together!!
It was a real blessing to spend the weekend with all these wonderful ladies.

Christine's latest

After what seemed to me a very long and frustrating couple of months Christine has finally started her First Steps therapy. We are blessed to have the same physical therapist that we had for the two years that Joe was in First Steps. And the new OT seems really great. I'm glad to be getting things moving with both of them.
Same as Joe's post: Yesterday we visited a physical therapist on a consultant basis. She doesn't take our insurance but she came highly recommended by a family member and our old First Steps PT, so when my aunt was able to make arrangements for us to get a consultation with her we were thankful for the opportunity. She had some suggestions for supplements and treatments that could help with Christine's development. So we will probably be pursuing orthotics, new supplements and potentially getting craniosacral therapy.
Recently we have noticed Christine becoming more interactive, more interested in toys and babbling more. She is still happy go lucky most of the time but she has begun to have some separation anxiety at times. Its been encouraging to see these new skills emerging in her. She has been gnawing like crazy as a result of cutting a couple new teeth in the past couple of weeks - two in the last day! She's up to seven now (four top and three bottom). Its changed her smile so much! I love her toothy grins! So cute!

Whats Goin' On with Joe

Joe had had a busy month or so. He had his annual visit with the opthalmologist at Riley (because Joe has the RBI gene we have to have regular checkups to make sure he is not developing tumors in his eyes). Once again we are thankful that the opthalmologist gave us another good report regarding Joe's eyes.
We had his IEP at school and that went about as expected. He still qualifies for the same services, developmental preschool M-F and PT, OT and Speech therapy 45min each per week.
Yesterday we visited a physical therapist on a consultant basis. She doesn't take our insurance but she came highly recommended by a family member and our old First Steps PT, so when my aunt was able to make arrangements for us to get a consultation with her we were thankful for the opportunity. I think unconsciously I had high expectations for this visit. A part of me was hoping that she would have some miraculous insight that would give us the"real" answers that have seemed to elude us thus far. But she did not. She did however give some suggestions for supplements and treatments that could help Joe's development. So we will probably be pursuing new orthotics, new supplements and potentially getting craniosacral therapy.
We are currently awaiting the completion of Joe's new wheelchair. The one he is using right now is a hand-me-down and doesn't fit him at all. We went from a second hand chair that was much too small to one that is much too big. We are looking forward to having one that was made for him.

Update on Nate

Recently Nate has lost his first and second tooth. Pretty exciting stuff around here. I am a bit in denial that my oldest is getting old enough to be doing big boy things like losing teeth.
Nate is continuing to do well homeschooling with me. Some days are better than others but for the most part we are both learning as we go. We are a part of a local homeschool group and we meet weekly for two months in the fall and two months in the spring for classes for the kiddos. Nate has enjoyed being a part of this group. I think it has helped us both that we already knew some families in the group that go to our church.

Another Yummy Recipe Post

Breakfast:
I am not a fan of getting up early or of cereal. I like real food for breakfast but rarely have the time to do it int he morning before getting Joe on the bus. So I like to have things that are quick and easy already made. I often make a double batch of french toast over the weekend and then toast a piece or two in the morning for Joe. Another thing I've been doing is making muffins and eating them for breakfast over a few days. I really enjoyed this Banana Oatmeal Muffin recipe.

Lunch:

I found this Grands Tuna Melts recipe. We make it a lot for an easy lunch. I like to add some shredded carrots to the mix too. Easy way to slip in some veggies!

Dinner:
The Sneaky Chef has a lot of recipes using baby food to add veggies to different dishes to make them healthier. One that we do often is the spaghetti sauce. What a simple healthy change that usually goes unnoticed!

Dessert:
I've been watching Hungry Girl's show from time to time. She has some great swaps to have healthier versions of foods we love. I've already tried a couple of her recipes including these Brownie Muffins - the secret ingredient is canned pumpkin! She has easy two ingredient solutions for yummy desserts!Anyway... there you go. A day in the life of our kitchen! Hope you try out some of these yummy recipes!