Memoir from Grandma #2

June 25, 2012

So, my sweet little girl... today is your five-month birthday! How'd that happen? You are such a little stinkastew! We love you so much!



Your mommy bought you a really cute little swim cap the other day -- a really little one, actually, and when she put it on your little head (not really so little), you looked like you'd been smooshed! You had been! She took it back, after posting you all over facebook in it, that is. She needed to exchange the 6-12 mos size for an 18-24 mos size, or so she thought. She ended up purchasing a 3T-4T size and IT WORKS! You look so cute in it! I'm not sure if you'd prefer to wear it or eat it... the jury's still out.

I told Mommy today that you have definitely discovered your tongue! (like she didn't already know that!) and... you're right on schedule! 

Love, Grandma

Letters to Liza (8 months)

Dear Eliza, (written around 9/25/12)

Just this week I've had several people comment to me that you are "almost 1" Um, I beg to differ. There are still 4 more months before your 1st birthday and we will not be celebrating 1 day sooner. In fact, your birthday celebration may have to wait til the day after your birthday since you were born at 10:42pm... and I just can't bear to make you grow up any faster than you already are.

This last month I have watched you change and grow in ways I originally thought would just break my heart. But with each new thing you do, I reazlize that I love you more than the day before and would never wish you to go back in time even for a second. You are growing, learning, loving and stealing your Daddy's heart and mine more and more each day.

All month long I was sure another one of your teeth would be coming through as it seemed there was a large portion of the month you were in a rather cranky mood. Though, cranky for you is still pretty happy :) Your favorite new thing to play is "empty the basket" in which I have 4 baskets of toys that I switch out for you and you promptly empty the whole thing to decide just which toy you would like to play with the most ;)

Your reach has gotten better, meaning you like to lean waaaaaaay over to get things not quite within reach and often fall over and end up on your tummy in the process. Once on your tummy, let the rolling begin. In fact, just the other day you rolled over to your new favorite tissue box and began pulling lots and lots of tissues out until Daddy discovered this and stopped you ;)



You're learning and growing more and more each day! I love you baby girl :)

Love,

Mama

sugar free

Sugar is my worst nightmare... as well as my best friend. Well, I guess "best" isn't the right adjective, since our relationship is so love/hate.

I am a Class A Sugar Addict. I swear. I am not kidding you.

Hi, my name is Amanda, and I am a sugarholic.

I have faced this problem many times in my life. Like, seriously faced it. Head on. With a take-the-bull-by-the-horns and you-will-own-me-no-longer type of attitude! And at times it's worked out well. I really have a lot of self-control... I just have to choose to use it. I think most of us are like that really.

At any rate, I have come to face the ugly truth again. It was 1 week ago today that I went to visit my brother's girlfriend. Whereupon I wolfed down half a large pizza as well as the most delicious dark chocolate peppermint bar ever. I was full less than half way through this quest, yet I kept eating. Mainly because that delicious sugaryness just kept calling my name. Haunting me almost!

I recall a time when I was leaving work and had planned to go to the gym. There were however, 2 cookies left at my house that I desperately wanted. Instead of doing the rational, reasonable thing which would be go work out and then go eat cookies, I went to eat the cookies plus nothing. I felt like a drug addict! It was a force so strong that I just would NOT say no!

So here I am, facing the ugly truth. This is unfortunately not a situation that can be remedied immediately by moderation. Not for me at least. I had to go cold turkey. I gave up sugar completely 1 week ago and for the first 2 days had a headache, heartburn and extreme tiredness. Oh ya, and an insatiable desire for SUGAR! But hallelujah I have made it to the other side of that. Now it's a little easier to say no, and complete avoidance is a whole lot easier than trying to rationally decide what is ok and what is not. I have 1 more week of abstinence from the white goodness... whereupon I have to make a solid plan of where to go from there.

I initially planned to ONLY eat things that were unrefined. So raw sugar, raw honey etc. However, I know myself all too well and if I don't plan for *some* things that are just plain wrong I will slide down the slippery slope greased with all things chocolate and delicious quickly. I have to see if I can come up with a logical approach to this that has very clear boundaries... because for right now, I just can't be trusted!!!

Happy Birthday to me ;)

Even if my birthday was almost a month ago, I'm still not going to waste an opportunity to share such adorable pictures of a little half naked baby helping her mama blow out birthday candles ;) no, no I am not!

This was good practice for when she has her very own birthday in *sniff sniff* 3 months! WAAAAA! I can't believe it.

We had my favorite meal evAR. Pot roast with mashed potatoes, peas and yellow cake with chocolate frosting. nomnomnom!

time marches on

Day after day I find myself thinking the same thoughts. Doing the same things. Making the same resolves (or is it resolutions?) For example:

thinking I should get up during nap time and clean my bedroom floor as the pile of clean and semi-clean laundry mounts higher and higher. Why don't I just fold it? Or put it away once folded? Why can I not just throw things away, why do they need to sit on my desk or on the counter unattended to for literally months until they are useless and then I feel justified getting rid of it.

Tomorrow I will clean this room. I will sweep this floor. I will start brushing the baby's (now 4!) teeth.

Amidst all this, I get mentally constipated thinking there is something more important I should be doing. And that is watching my baby grow up. Sometimes I feel like a lazy oaf, because I honestly prefer sitting with her or holding her and watching her learn and grow and helping her along the way than doing anything "important." Because in my mind, doing those things is more important than all the other things.

I still kick myself though. I want to balance my life and not have regrets. But the truth is, what will I regret more? Never really having a clean bedroom, or not being able to remember my baby at 8 months 4 weeks and 1 day old.

Every night when I nurse her before bed I get emotional. Like literally. No, I'm not mentally unstable, I don't need psychiatric help... err, well, let's not go there ;) But seriously, I look at her hair and how it has grown. How it has lightened. How her head is so much bigger. And she is so long. But yet, she is still a baby. My baby. I cannot get time back... it is impossible. And anticipating another time is a waste of time. The only thing that makes sense is to enjoy every.single.second. Take it all in.

I never quite finish all my projects. You might come in my house and find some very friendly dust bunnies (they are our favorite pets). The windows I'm afraid have never been cleaned and I don't often make my bed. But I'm ok with that because time marches on, and I refuse to live with regrets.

Instagram phone dump 4

Too many pictures, too little time! Lately that's how I feel. Well who am I kidding, I always feel that way!
It's a good thing I have my camera phone, because if I didn't I really wouldn't take many pictures. Thankfully it's always on hand and takes relatively good photos in good light... and regardless of the quality, at the end of the day, I'd rather have a blurry/grainy/dark picture than no picture at all ;)

This was taken on one of our morning walks... it's pretty exhausting getting out in the morning an all, ya know, right after you've just slept all night ;)

A few weeks ago Alicia and Jacob came for an overnight visit. Just like old times... except not. Because now there are babies. Hehehe :)Oh, and a husband. HA! She went to the dentist the next morning and Eliza and Jacob had playtime together. Which involved watching Baby Neptune since they were both crying at the same time and that was the way I was able to get them to stop. What would I ever do with twins?!?! Jacob and Eliza played together quite nicely... meaning they mainly stayed out of the others way but if one happened to interfere with the other there may have been a look or two passed between them saying, "um, I don't know who you are or why you're here, but this is my toy and I am playing right now, so uhhh, move along please." ;) All that to say that they pretty much just did their own thing with little regard for the other :)

For some reason Eliza really loved the show So You Think You Can Dance this year. She would watch as attentively as she watches her Baby Einstein videos, which is *ahem* very attentively. Here she is watching the season finale.

Food is a continuing adventure here! This little girl loves her food. She is almost always happy to eat whatever I put in front of her... unless it is pea soup. Which, I have to say I don't really blame her. I think it's just meh, ya know, good if cooked right, but I did a bad job on this batch of pea soup. But she has been eating more and more chunky solid food. In fact, earlier this evening she ate more than half a raw peach! I peeled the skin off and she took bite after bite of it, I was blown away at how much she packed away. Keep in mind, she did this with the peach after her normal portion of dinner as well as a quarter of an avocado... LOL She is constantly eating new things and learning how to feed herself better and better. Here she is eating stinkastoo casserole that Daddy is feeding her as well as some plums :)

We were going on morning walks quite regularly for a couple weeks ;) This one pretty chilly. It's getting cold here! Luckily we have ways of keeping a baby stinkastoo nice and cozy ;)

My friend Carrie said that she loved when her daughter became more independent in the bathtub she would use bathtime to clean the bathroom. What a good idea! So I have started doing just that :)

Eliza's love for reading continues. She absolutely loves to sit and read, looking at the pictures, turning the pages :) One of our favorite places to spend Sunday afternoon is at Grandma's house... warm by the fire reading stories... ahh, a little baby stinkastoo life ;)

Early on, Eliza showed us that she preferred to have her face buried when snuggling. I am glad that she still does this with me sometimes ;)

A beautiful dahlia from my Dad's garden!

As I've mentioned before, emptying baskets is one of Eliza's favorite things to do :) Laundry baskets are no exception to this rule. But I have a feeling that if she is old enough to stuff her own diapers, it may be more than time to potty train ;)

When she was a tiny baby I would put her on the couch for naps often, now she almost always sleeps in her crib. The only time I don't put her in the crib is if I don't want her to be settling in for a long nap, so when she just couldn't stay awake any longer this one morning, I laid her on the couch and then couldn't help but pull the other pictures together for comparison :)

I came home one night to my baby girl all tucked away into bed :) I just love to see her so happy and content in there, makes me happy too.

Again, another sleeping picture. I just can't help it! She's so gosh darn cute when she sleeps! The hilarious part about this though is that when she gets sleepy, she will find something to hold onto (if her elephant Eleanor is around, she will snuggle that, but if not any random object will do) and she will roll kinda on her side and clutch said object close to her face and make grunting noises... like she's making a surprise, but she isn't. And then all of a sudden, before you know it, she's laying there asleep. It's the most adorable thing ever. And hilarious the toys that she snuggles to sleep sometimes ;)

One day we went to PetSmart to visit the doggies and kitties. The doggies all play in a room together behind a big wall of plexiglass so everyone can see in. Eliza just thought that was the bees knees. Seriously, she was shrieking for joy at the sight of so many friendly pups! Then we went to see the kitties, and she was so happy to find a kitty tha couldn't run away from her ;) She was reaching out and petting the glass and one little kitten in particular was rather fond of Eliza and patted the glass right back. So sweet!

You might remember my fall decorating win from a few weeks ago. Suffice it to say, this is the fall decorating fail version of that project. :-/ I was sad :(

 

green for my smoothies

Well, green smoothies to be precise. That's what this post is about. Why drink a green smoothie? Well, there are a ton of health benefits to adding a handful of fresh spinach to your diet. And what easier way to do it than in a smoothie? Just in case you ever wondered, spinach is a significant source of fiber which aids in digestion, prevents constipation (tmi i know!), maintains low blood sugar and helps curb overeating! (probably because noone really wants to eat too much spinach ;)

I've been adding spinach to smoothies for a couple of years now and have constantly run into the problem of keeping the spinach fresh. It stays for about a week before looking kinda wilted, but when I'm really the only person eating it, well, that's a lot of spinach to eat in 1 week ;)

I've gotten different kinds over time, but the Wegmans organic club pack is the best as far as I'm concerned. Lasts the longest and is the best value. Plus, it's organic!



So what made me think to do this is making Eliza's baby food. I add spinach to her meals daily and I did it by blending fresh spinach in the food processor with breastmilk and froze it in ice cube trays but only filled them a little bit. Because once the spinach is broken down it is so dense, you don't need much.

Once I realized I could do the same thing for my own food it was like DUH! Why haven't you done this sooner??? :) I did 2 things differently than her food. I used rice milk and I made bigger cubes (because I'm bigger, ya know ;)



I keep the vanilla kind on hand for smoothies as well as the original coconut milk. I threw a bunch of spinach in the food processor and added the milk and blended away.



I fit almost the entire 11oz container of spinach in the smaller bowl part of my food processor. I could have added it all, but i saved some out for a quesadilla ;) nomnomnom

Then I spooned it into the ice cube trays and froze it to save for later!



The rest of the smoothie situation is as follows (aka what I put in my smoothies!)
1C vanilla rice milk

1/4-1/2C original coconut milk

about 1/2-3/4C frozen desired fruit
1/4-1/2 frozen banana
1 cube spinach (or a big handful fresh)

Blend in a blender and then enjoy :) I find these refreshing and energy boosting. I will get into a rut where I have one for breakfast every day, but then I switch out and go to cereal for awhile. Depends on the mood really. But if I am having a day where all I want to do is eat chocolate chips, well, this is what I *should* do instead ;)

Bears

It wasn't long after I met Steve that I found out marrying him meant adopting the Bears. Even Bears that did not exist yet. You see, Steve and his family have an affinity for all animals stuffed. The kind with lots of fluff and hugs. It may seem silly to some (though I think those who think it is silly might need to relax a little) but we just love our Bears.

Right now, at our house we have two special Bears. Below you see Coconut on the left and Roary on the right. Coconut is officially Eliza's that we made for her before she was born, and Roary is Steve's who I made on our first Valentine's Day.



Although Coconut officially belongs to Eliza, she likes to sleep with Steve and me. She often finds our way into our room and consequently into our bed... and when Coconut gets in, so does Roary. We don't mind though. They're good company and require minimal care and take up only a small amount of space ;)

Well, the point of telling all this is to remember an incident the other night. A night that the Bears were sleeping with us again. It was around 2am when I woke to see Steve pulling Coconut out from deep within the covers. She had worked her way down there since it's warmer you know. I said sleepily that she was trying to attack him, and in his drowsy state he replied, "no, she just wanted to snuggle more."

The next morning, as I recalled this, I realized that we are truly and completely out of control. We may have a serious problem on our hands with these Bears ;)

a trip to the park

In Lititz Springs, PA. We took a day trip here to meet up with Mike and Gabrielle while we were visiting Steve's parents in PA. The other reason was to visit Amish country... which I'd never been to! Steve had, but apparently had gone on a Sunday and said everything was closed... hmmmmm... LOL!

Anyways, we saw a couple buggies and went to a pretty great buffet full of the best homemade food, it was simply delicious. Eliza ate her carrots and spinach and then proceeded to try and fall asleep sitting up in the high chair... Grandma R rescued her though and she was able to take a nap while the rest of us finished lunch ;)

Here is a view of the duckie river walk. Well, that's what I call it :) There were LOTS of ducks! And Eliza likes ducks. The truth is, she hasn't met an animal that she doesn't like yet. I'm sincerely hoping that her enthusiastic animal love isn't ruined by some nasty dog one day, or some other unfriendly pet :/

 

We paid a quarter (or two) in a gum ball style duck food dispensing machine so that we could feed the ducks some treats. They had clearly been eating a lot that day as they weren't super interested in what we had to offer. That, or the "duck food" was really guinea pig food and the ducks were just holding out for stale bread ;) Regardless, Eliza seemed to enjoy the quacking, and so did we :)



Eliza doesn't mind being in the grass. She will sit in it or roll around. She is happy whatever the case. And if she comes across a leaf or weed, she is most happy to taste it and possibly ingest it. Sometimes she comes inside and I notice the heels of her socks are dirty... from all the kicking she does when she's excited about all the treasures she finds... LOL!



Our visit was the perfect type of weather. It was cooler, but not too cool. And on the same token not too warm either! It was basically ideal :) We also visited the Wilbur chocolate factory and got some goodies... nomnomnom!

trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house

It was two weekends ago already that we made another visit to Grandma and Grandpa R's house in PA. Both Steve and I forgot our cameras! So I stole the ones posted on facebook for this post :)

This trip down was probably the easiest we've had so far as far as longer road trips go. She is finally sleeping better in her car seat, although still doesn't sleep much longer than 30 minutes. I'm not sure if it's just because she is a light sleeper or if she's not very comfortable, but putting her in the car seat has never been a sure fire way to get her to sleep ha! She screamed the whole way home from the hospital in fact...

At any rate, while we were there, so were Sarah and Devin. We went to Lititz Springs on Saturday which is in Lancaster County and there are some pictures of that in a separate post. The Saturday evening we spent just hanging at the house and watching a movie and eating good food :) Good memories being made! That night was also when this happened ;)

 

As you may be able to tell from the picture above, Eliza loves her cousins Calli and Clover. You should see how very excited she gets when they walk in the room. Especially after it's been a few weeks since she's seen them ;)

Clover really does like Eliza and gives her lots of kisses, but you'd never be able to tell by this picture... since she looks like she is a 5 year old only posing for the pic under threat of torture.



Uncle Devin and Eliza played together and it was adorable. There really isn't much more to say that these pics don't!









 

Auntie Sarah just loves the little smoosh! I am so happy that Sarah is able to see her so often, even though they live on Long Island I would say we've been able to see each other about once a month (or more!) since Eliza was born! Do you see Clover's paw on the right side of the picture above? HA!



Ahh yes, the family picture ;)

 

Grandma and the grandbaby and grandpets ;) this always makes me laugh :)

pumpkin tastes like squash

As fall begins to settle upon us, the pumpkins have returned! I just love pumpkins. They are tasty and delicious as well as super cute decorations... they truly mean fall :) And currently, fall is my favorite season.

I am pretty terrible at actually documenting things that I want to blog about at a future date. What usually happens is I have a picture and think oh I will blog about this. But what I would like to do is be totally with it enough to take detailed pictures and post "how-to's" even though I don't really give a care if anyone reads it, it's just fun to me!

Anyways, all that to say, the other day when I was making up some pumpkin puree for Eliza, I actually had the thought to take a few pics... and there's only 3, with no evidence of the final product. Deal.

I started off pre-heating the oven to 350. I then cut the pumpkin in half, scooped out the seeds and set it on a cookie sheet with about a half inch of water. I made sure to pick up the pumpkin halves so that water could get on the inside and create the steam that would make it soft!

 

I threw it in the oven (ok, so I didn't throw it, because that would have been a hot mess, but rather I gently placed it in the oven) for around 45 minutes, I didn't set a timer because I forgot.

When I looked in and saw that the pumpkin had caved in on itself I figured it was done. And it was!

So I scooped out the insides with a spoon and put it in the food processor.



I have a KitchenAid food processor and it has a smaller bowl with smaller blade attachment that sits in the top of it. It is amazing and perfect for making baby food! If I had to use the big section of the food processor I would have to make larger portions to make it puree properly. But this smaller bowl is great and lets me make just the right amount.



So basically I pureed it all up which didn't take very long because it was so soft and then scooped it into ice cube trays and froze. It tastes exactly like butternut squash. I am serious. Seriously, the only reason I think people don't make that association is because pumpkin is usually prepared as something on the sweeter side. Well, add pumpkin pie spice to some butternut squash and voila, same taste again. So weird.

instagram phone dump 3

I love these phone dumps because it gives me a chance to document more day-to-day type things that I may not really think to do a whole post on.

So here we go again!

::



Here we have Eliza hanging out in the cargo compartment of our new jetski! Don't worry, it's not like we won the lottery and all of a sudden can afford this super fantastic toy ;) It doesn't run, needs a lot of work. But hopefully Steve will have it all fixed up by next summer and we will be cruising around the lake! Eliza is very interested in everything related to this jetski though, including helping Daddy diagnose the engine problems ;) Too bad it will be quite a few years before she will be allowed to ride it!



Lately, as part of my initiative to get Eliza to take 1-2 longer naps instead of 3-4 short ones, we have been going on a nice morning walk. She usually chills out majorly, to the point of almost sleeping, but usually not actually going to sleep. This is proof of her enthusiasm each morning ;) She really does enjoy the walks, we have a lot of fun.



Bath time has become a lot more fun around here now that she can reliably sit up on her own! And since she loves the water, it has now become a time where I set her in the tub with a few toys and sit outside the tub reading or whatever. But we chat some while she's in there, in between splashes ;) She is a hoot!



In my efforts to keep her up longer in the morning and extend her midday nap (which has been working by the way! Several days in a row of 2 hour + naps = success) I have had to wake her several times. It is a very sad time for her when that happens, so I try very hard to not let her actually fall asleep. However, this is a time that she did indeed fall asleep and I was trying to wake her. She was very unhappy with me... but she gets over it so quickly, and then I see a face like below ;)



Another picture on our morning walk :)



Meet Bait and Eleanor. They are two of Eliza's best friends. And the two that receive the most "love." She chews and sucks on them constantly. They are quite crusty. So they received baths and were all clean and presentable for our trip to Grandma and Grandpa's last weekend :)



Daddy reading stories to Eliza at G & G's house before bed. This book has a scritchy scratchy hedgehog in it, which makes it my favorite boook. I think it might be Eliza's favorite too ;)



Then on the way home from G & G's Sunday afternoon she took a much needed long(er) nap. Normally in the car, she will nap for no more than 30 minutes. It is so frustrating at times. However, this one she managed to squeak out an hour and a half and that made me happy... because she is not a happy girl when she doesn't nap long enough :/



I've already posted half of this picture, but I decided I wasn't going to leave out any of my instagram posts. I quite like my fall decorations. I just remembered I have a glass pumpkin I'll have to bust out too and fill with some sort of goody goodness aka delicious candy.