Friday, August 31, 2012

Shopping Day

Today started my hubbys 96 (4 days off for the holiday). We all slept in, then after breakfast Jeremy thought he should retutn his running shoes, get a different pair and get me a pair. I've been wanting to take up running for quite some time now, but what with having a new baby and all I really haven't been able to. Plus, I had no running shoes. Well, I do now! Zero drop, barefoot Merrells.
I can't wait to start!

We went to Panera's for lunch and Natalia had some avocado from Jeremy's salad. I'd squish it onto my finger and she'd suck it off. Made it difficult for me to eat, but she looked so proud of herself *smiles*

From there we went to Target, I wanted to get a toy bar for Natalia's carseat for our upcoming looooonnnnggggg journey, plus a few other things. Leilani got a new pair of shoes
and I got a new diaper bag, my old one was all raggedy and falling apart (it is five years old!), and my new one looks designer-ish and definitely not diaper bag-ish :).


Last night Natalia and I ran to the store while Leilani got ready for bed with Jeremy. The redbox actually had the Hunger Games so I grabbed it, I also got the new VegNews magazine...I'm super excited to read it - Vegan Cheese issue!!!! And the city we're moving to is incredibly vegan friendly, so I imagine finding these cheeses there is going to be fairly easy!

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Thursday

I'm having trouble coming up with creative blog titles. So for now, we'll just go with the day of the week *smile*

We switched back to a lightened school workload today, and things went So. Much. Smoother. Natalia had a nice go at Leilani's homework

I found my lesson planning book (thank goodness) so I've planned out next weeks school. Fortunately, my hubby called earlier and reminded me that Monday's a holiday. Otherwise, I'd have completely forgotten.

We're still trying to eat through all the food in the pantry, fridge and freezer, so my shopping list is basically just fresh produce and milks. It does make shopping easier and quicker! I really should make it a habit to shop my pantry all the time, instead of just sometimes or when we're gettin ready to move.

I have no idea how to get Leilani to go to sleep at night, we've tried so many different routines, but it just doesn't seem to work. The past several nights, she's not gotten to sleep until around 11pm, and has a low-grade fever today. She just hates sleep and I've no idea how to help her drift off. This has been a problem, though, since she was a baby. And Natalia seems to be the same exact way.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Wednesday

Today was some better than yesterday. I still have a headache trying to emerge, but thus far I've managed to stave it off, with a mixture of tylenol, tons of water, and sleep. I just hope it waits until the weekend when Jeremy will be home all day, that way I can curl up and not need to do anything.

There wasn't as much fighting about school, but I think the increased workload isn't going to work. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. We'll go back to the regular workload next week, and at least we're a week ahead *smiles*.

Natalia definitely does NOT like being set down, but needs to be held almost all the time. And while I love holding her, it certainly doesn't help the housework. I just keep remembering that poem "quiet down cobwebs and dust go to sleep/for I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep". And really, in 10 years, who's going to remember the mess? But the kids will remember the love and the cuddles. And that's the truly important thing.

I also can't believe Natalia's nearly 4 months old! She's a big baby, too - 26 inches long and 17 1/2 pounds. Apparently, I make really good milk *grin*. She's already wearing some 6-9 mos clothes.

After I weighed Natalia, I set her down on the bed to run and do something, I came back and saw this:
Leilani may not be able to read it, but she had it memorized enough to tell it to Natalia. I love it when they have little bonding moments :)

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Can I Have a Do-Over?

Today looked like it was going to start off well – Natalia and I had a nice lie-in while Leilani watched movies. But then I felt a headache trying to rear its ugly head – I took some Tylenol to head it off (I don’t want to take anything harder, since I’m nursing). It seemed to help, we all had some breakfast, then Leilani and I tackled school. We butted heads quite a bit, she had absolutely NO interest in school today – AT ALL! Natalia was super clingy and fussy. All in all, not too great. I didn’t keep the best lid on my temper, either.

This evening we went to the ballgame. Thanks to MarineWeek we got a suite. There were a few Marines including my dh,plus my daughters and me, and a few other people. The Marines presented a bunch of the Indians PR with some certificates of appreciation, which was pretty cool. I must say, if I ever go to a game again, it has to be a suite. Not being much of a basrball fan, I'm sure I didn't appreciate being on the field or anything :). I kept thinking how much my sister would have LOVED to be there, on the field, at the game, in a suite...

Anyway, we got home and Leilani's exhausted, so had a complete meltdown :(.

I'd really like a do-over....anyone know how to get one? Oh, and the headache's back.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Monday

Today, despite Natalia and I sleeping in a bit, we managed to have all our school done – even with the increased workload – by noon. Leilani did fantastic with the extra work, really, it didn’t take us that much longer than the “normal” work! We’ll see how the rest of the week goes, but I’m pretty optimistic at the moment. Of course, my optimistic mood may have something to do with the rain. It’s been off and on all day, and when it’s been on, it’s been a downpour!

After she got all her school done, Leilani watched our newly found Cars movie. Despite the many scratches and pauses, she enjoyed watching it.

I’ve been reading Color Me Vegan, to learn more about nutrients in plants. As the author, Colleen Patrick-Goudreau says, why go through animals to get the nutrients found in plants? So I’m learning more about all the different phytonutrients and antioxidants in the different colors. It’s really exciting!

Tomorrow we're going to the ballgame, it should be interesting since Natalia really does terribly in crowds. Yesterday was a friend from church's graduation party and Natalia had a complete meltdown. It took me a loooonnnngggg time to get her calmed and eating. She's never really liked crowds, even in utero she wasn't too crazy about the loud noises and all at Awana and other places. So we'll see how it goes.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Forced Fun

If you have anything to do with the military, you probably know what the post title means. For everyone else, well, it's basically what it sounds like. The "official" name is Family Day, and it's for all the members of the unit and their families to get together, mingle, meet new friends and have fun. Only it rarely works that way. Usually it looks more like all the members of the unit playing some sort of ball, the spouses with kids watching after the kids, and the ones without sitting off to the side texting. We stayed for a little over an hour, Leilani enjoyed the bouncy thing and the playground. There was food, but it was more a meat-atarian paradise than anything else. I'm glad Leilani and I ate before we went.

After we got home, Leilani and Jeremy were going to go swimming, so Natalia and I ran to the store to get some nursin pads, daipers, produce and a few other baby foods. Leilani and Jeremy were still home when I got back, having decided to try this other pool and needing my car to get there. While they were gone, I made yummy cassoulet. Leilani ate quite a bit of hers, then the girls took a bath and I made some peach-blueberry-almond milk sherbet. Both girls loved it. Also, Natalia loved the broth from my cassoulet. It may be cheaper feeding her than I thought *grin*.

Enjoy the pictures!






Friday, August 24, 2012

First Food

Natalia had her first food this evening! After trying to filch bites from my food for the past week, I decided she's trying to tell me "hey! mama! get with it, I'm ready to start eating like all you big people!"

It didn't go too badly, I gathered all the supplies (bib, food, spoons, bumbo seat and tray and a towel for the floor). We kept it nice and clean though, so the towel was a bit overkill. Especially for the whopping four teensy weensy bites she took. If you opened the jar you wouldn't be able to tell any'd been eaten. And, although she seemed to love the actual eating part, she wasn't too keen on the pear part. Unfortunately, the brand I'm using (until we move and I start making my own) was only in pea or pear at WalMart when I bought it. And they only had pear in stock. Go figure. Hopefully I'll make it to the store soon to get some different flavors.




The Yummiest Art Lesson

We started school today with art. I mean, when you're going to be finger painting with chocolate icing, why would you wanna wait? The lesson originally called for chocolate pudding, but I had no pudding mixes and couldn't find a vegan recipe using ingredients on hand, so I switched it out. Leilani loved it. The making it, the painting with it, but mostly the eating it. She first covered the paper, then used different kitchen utensils to make designs. I used the icing as an excuse to make cookies *grin*. (don't bother looking for the logic here, there is none)






Todays lessons had lots of coloring, which you would think is a good thing, right? Nope, Leilani is NOT a fan of coloring, at least not when it's "color the picture" or things like that. She much prefers freeform :).

Natalia "helped" in the kitchen. She was in the moby, trying to grab everything. Natalia and I had a nice lie in this morning, then a nap for her/rest for me this afternoon.

I'm having us go through all the food in the freezer, fridge and pantry instead of buying food. I really don't want to move food all the way across the country when we move next month. So tonight we're having leftovers I froze from a couple weeks ago. We're also going to have salad with homemade dressing :). I really do feel so virtuous using everything up *grin*.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Late Night + Early Morning = Tired

For whatever reason, Natalia did not go to sleep until almost midnight again last night. And Leilani got up fairly early, so I did too in hopes that Natalia would wake up (she did) so we can hopefully get to bed at a decent hour tonight! She was acting tired, so took a fairly early nap. Fingers crossed for an early night! But consequently I'm feeling very bleh today.

We got all our school done by noon, so Leilani got to watch some Shrek, again. I made some yummy sandwiches for lunch - yves veggie cuisine chicken and ham, non-dairy cheese, Ezekiel 4:9 bread, vegan mayo, lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers. I was trying to clean the oven, but not only would it not clean, it wouldn't unlock! It finally did, so I baked some sweet potatoes for supper.

I've been taking the fish oil (can I say blech again?), and it does seem to be making a difference. I also got a book called Color Me Vegan which will help me make sure we're eating all different colors and getting all our phytonutrients and antioxidants. Obviously, it's best to get them from foods, so that's my goal.

Natalia and Leilani played a bit. Leilani was sitting next to me and Natalia was being held by me, so we played "attack of the giant baby". Natalia doesn't have great control of her hands, so it was an almost zombie-like grab she was making towards Leilani, who would cover her face and say "I won!" They both seemed to enjoy it.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Natalia's Sensory Play

"Look at all these to play with!"

then she dumped them over....

and tried to figure out what to do with them.

She started putting them back into the container

and continued, until she got tired of that.

So I put them on her arms and legs, in hopes that she would try to figure out what was on her, but she'd lost all interest :)

So, I put them all away in their container

and the girls had a nice little cuddle

This has nothing to do with Natalia's sensory play, but Leilani loves her new outfit, and looked so cute doing her book work :)








Monday, August 20, 2012

Cloud Dough, Cleaning, and Happiness

I can't wait for fall! I pulled out some of Leilani's fall baby clothes and dressed Natalia in them today. It made me so happy - until she poo'ed and it went out her diaper a teeny bit. Oh well, at least I got to enjoy it for a bit.

We started off the day with some couscous and brown sugar/cinnamon. It was quite a hit :). After Leilani got all her school done we went to WalMart because Leilani needed some new pants. While we were there, I found some super cute skirts and shirts for the girls to match. They won't be wearing them until October or so, since they have the rib bones, candy corn and other halloweenish things. The skirt is pink with black lace over it. I can't wait to dress them in it!

After we had lunch, I made some "cloud dough" as a nice sensory game for Leilani. It's just like the stuff at childrens' museums. Leilani's been having a blast with it.
After she was done I asked her to put the lid on and sweep up her mess and she did it without any argument, really very cheerfully. We had a nice talk about being good while we were in the car. She asked me, "mommy, do you want to make me be good?" I think I shocked her when I replied "no!" I went on to say "I want to guide you to make good choices, telling what the options are and let you make the choice." She really is a mature little girl, and I've found that when I respect her autonomy and talk things through with her, she usually does the right thing because she chose to. Being able to make the choice makes all the difference in the world!

I got some scrunchies while at WalMart to make a little sensory game for Natalia, too. I'll wash them, we'll use most of them for Leilani's hair, and then the others will be in a container for Natalia to explore the different textures and colors.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Wheatballs and Movies

I'm going to borrow my sister-in-laws formatting for today and write out todays positives

1. As I was cleaning I found a lot of veggie tales that had gone missing, so we watched Pistachio, The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's, God Made You Special and Jonah. Leilani thoroughly enjoyed getting reacquainted with them.

2. Natalia and I had a nice nap on the couch.

3. We had wheatball sandwiches for lunch. I made the wheatballs yesterday, and they were really delicious!

4. I read some Aesop's Fables to Natalia. She kept grinning, so I think she enjoyed it.

5. Leilani and Natalia had a nice little cuddle.

6. Natalia played on the floor for a bit today. She has great neck and back control. She'll be sitting on her own before I know it!


It was a nice lazy day. We're going to spend the next couple weeks cleaning thoroughly and getting ready to move.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Saturday

leilani

Leilani decided she wanted to type her name, so, up above this line, there ya have it :). I really can't believe how grown up she's becoming. This morning she entertained herself while Natalia and I slept in. She watched some movies, got some food and water, played with legos and kept busy. Natalia, on the other hand slept and ate all morning.

Leilani got another package in the mail today - her flutophone case (yesterday the flutophone arrived). I figured she'd like getting her very own packages, so had them addressed to her. She really did enjoy opening them - and I had her read her name on the label so she could see they were to her :). My fish oil came today, too. We'll now see if it works. My essential oils came yesterday, so I took a bath with some of them. Nice and relaxing.

We're probably going to spend the next week cleaning and packing. We'll be going to DC for a couple weeks, then from there back to here to pack and moving to out west. And this is the main reason I'm homeschooling this year, anything else, at this point, just wouldn't be feasible!

We watched Shrek - I really think those are Leilani's favorite movies :) She sings along with nearly every song.

Jeremy's due back this evening - the flight's running a bit late thanks to mainteance issues.

Friday, August 17, 2012

More Randomness

I love these kinds of books!


true-ness *grin*


I KNEW there was a reason I love fairy tales :)


so that's where all my energy went....


a good reminder!


incorrect punctuation...


this is so me!!!


Thursday, August 16, 2012

Thankful Thursday


This week, I'm thankful for:

- our new curriculum arrived

- I came up with some ideas to help me get through this PPD

- we started off today with a walk up to the store to return some movies to the redbox. Both girls loved the walk, Natalia was happily looking all over and Leilani was chatting a mile-a-minute and thoroughly enjoying herself :)

- Jeremy made it to Seattle safely. He says it's beautiful (like I knew it was) and now I'm even more excited for our move!

- I found a way to get Leilani to eat her lunch! I bought somelunch containers and pack her a lunch the night before, not ony does she eat almost all of it, but it makes it easier on me, since she's usually hungry right when I'm nursing Natalia.

- I've cut all dyes out of Leilani's diet and there's been a huge change, she's MUCH calmer. Thanks to my sil, Shannon, for the tip!

- cheap and easy meals :)

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

New Curriculum

Today we used our new curriculum. It was fantastic! Everything is scripted, which basically means I just say what's written and waalaa - lesson done. Leilani seemed to enjoy it, too. Different books for each subject, a page or two in each, actually, she enjoyed it so much, she asked for more work to do! We'll see how long that lasts *grin* I have a flutophone coming for music with Leilani.

It's been a lovely, rainy day. I must be strange, because the longer it rained, the more I felt my spirits rise. I've always loved rain though. I'm also totally ready for fall - so to get in the fall spirit I made a "Great Northern Apple Cake". The surprise ingredient? Great Northern beans. Next time, I'm going to add a touch more cinnamon, and it'll be perfect! The whole house smelled like fall while it was baking! Apples and cinnamon - does anything (besides pumpkin) scream fall more loudly?

Leilani played some Angry Birds for a while. I put the timer on and told her "when the timer beeps, then time is up and you need to stop playing." Leilani replied "I don't want time to be up, I want it to be down!"

Natalia is officially a thumb-sucker. She sucks it like it's going out of style. No matter what, she will NOT take a paci. I've given up, which was a pretty easy thing to do, since it's just so darn cute looking :). She's also grabbing EVERYTHING. She grabbed the camera and knocked it down, she reached for my drink that I barely got out of the way in time. She's grabbing hair, clothes, basically anything within reach. I can't believe how grown up she's getting already!

Last night, I got on amazon and ordered some fish oil (I know, it's anything BUT vegan). I'm hoping it will help me get rid of this PPD...I'm tired of not fully being here for my girlies, and I'm willing to do anything (except meds, since I'm breastfeeding) in order to be here for them. I want to enjoy this time in our lives and not be stressed and in a fog. It's not fair to them or me. Or my husband. I also ordered a bunch of essential oils, for mood boosting. Oh, and as a treat, I got myself some marmite. Marmite on bread = delish :).

Monday, August 13, 2012

First Day of School and Three Month Pictures

Today was our "official" first day of school. Since our curriculum still hadn't arrive as of this morning, I decided to just use what we have and do it religiously. Then, this afternoon, the curriculum arrived! I spent the whole afternoon going over books and working out a bit of a lesson plan for the rest of the week. I think, right now, I'm more excited than Leilani. The curriculum has everything I need for Leilani's kindergarten year - phonics, history, science, Bible, mathematics, handwriting and art. The only thing I'll be adding will be some Spanish. I've figured out how much we should do each week, so we're off to the races tomorrow.

Leilani with her new Hello Kitty backpack


I also took Natalia's three month pictures today, a little late, but better late than never :) Here's a small preview:




Saturday, August 11, 2012

Birthday

Today, I'd like to wish my husband a very happy birthday :). We celebrated by first, spraying for ants, then running by work to get some stuff he forgot, then driving around saying "what should we do?" We decided to run down to Columbus to see Jeremy's Uncle Dorr. We got to Columbus and went to Panera Bread Co, then Uncle Dorr took us to the zoo. Leilani LOVES zoos :). We didn't have a whole lot of time to spend there, so we looked at the elephants, a few other Asian creatures, and the penguins. Leilani's a bit obsessed with penguins, and kept calling one of them Skipper :). I think, though, that she expected them to do some amazing thing like the Penguins of Madagascar.

Uncle Dorr then took us to Olive Garden for dinner, then we swung by his house and saw Tim and Danielle. Natalia really took to Danielle :).

Enjoy the pictures :)