First Day

Well today was my first day leaving E in daycare and heading to my "other job". It was only a half day today, so I was more confident about leaving her. L dropped her off, and later told me that she did well - no tears, etc. When I went to pick her up, she looked pretty tired (and D, the daycare lady, told me that E was laying down on her and probably would have slept, but she was trying to keep the kiddo awake since I was due to come soon).

E loved sitting on everyone's lap, shutting the door (her obsession right now), and listening to all of the stories that were read to her. This made me feel so much better, and now I'm not as concerned about tomorrow. Of course, my kiddo does NOT nap well in other places, but maybe she'll be so tuckered out from playing with the other kids that she'll crash? Here's to hoping.

My day went well - pretty uneventful. I realized that there appears to be much less paperwork up here (and about a 1/4 of caseload as downstate), and the services seem better, too. The system is just completely different here, so it'll take a little getting used to. It does seem to be a very family friendly place to work, which is a relief, too. C, my boss appears very laid back. Yay for that.


Anyway, other than that, life is same ol' same ol'. E did have her very first taste of corn on the cob over the weekend. She enjoyed it, though she had a hard time holding on to it properly (it kept slipping from her hands). She seemed to enjoy it raw more than cooked, but ate it both ways. We're corn lovers in my family (in fact, my siblings and I worked at a corn stand our entire jr. high/high school career), so it seems like E is enjoying its yumminess, too. Though, in this picture it looks like she's kissing the corn, doesn't it?

Blueberry Fun

Yesterday was busy, but my dad and I fit a couple hours of blueberry picking in the afternoon. It was fun and relaxing, though I was hot and hungry after we were done. We were able to grab 13 quarts before we left, so it was a good feeling to know we have some local berries for the winter. I thought about taking the kiddo with me, but after our strawberry picking adventure, I knew that she wouldn't have the patience to be there long enough to pick the desired about of blueberries. Maybe we'll take her again before the season is finished.

So, obviously we've been doing a lot of freezing today. We've already filled one gallon bag of blueberries, and MANY more to go. We've also frozen green beans and peas (thanks, Dad!), too. It's been a busy food day, but it's fun watching our freezer fill with lots of goodies, knowing our tummies will thank us later. :)

And We're Back

We made it through the weekend in one piece. Actually camping went much smoother than what I pictured it my head (one advantage to looking at the glass half empty, I guess). The kiddos did struggle a little bit to sleep (and E barely napped), but it could have been much worse than what it was.
It poured the first evening we were there. And I mean POURED. We ran into the tent, and tried to wait until it subsided. This is a terrible photo, but you can see the large puddle of water until K, R, and M's tent - it felt like you were on a water bed each time you took a step inside of it. We managed to get into the car and get to a restaurant, and by the time we got back, the puddle was gone. Crazy.
This is just a cute photo from the our day trip to the falls. E was pretty tired, but kept pushing forward.
The beach at the campground was gorgeous. The first day was extremely windy, and the waves were huge, so it felt like we were at the ocean. We all enjoyed the beach - M chased bird after bird after bird, E was spent much of the time in the sand and found a log that she rode like a horse. I think that we'll be finding sand for months to come.

This was the sunset we were able to enjoy the last night we were there. Wow. God's creation is just breathtaking. The nature, the company and the memories are just priceless. I'd say E and M's first camping experience was a success. Good times.

What To Do, What To Do...

E is all girl - she is OBSESSED with shoes. She calls them "eet" (feet), and is constantly asking me to put my shoes on her, L's shoes... pretty much anyone's shoe. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I only have like three or four pairs of shoes to work with, so she gets bored, and wants to walk in Daddy's boots. Right now she's wearing some slippers we got for free that are one size too big for her.
E is 16 months, and a very busy toddler. It appears that she's down to one nap - from two or three the past month and a half. The more awake time means we have to come up with more activities for her to do. We've been going to the beach a few times a week, but she appears to be growing tired of it. Yesterday we went to the playground at the elementary school, and wow... she fell in love. Even after two hours of hard play, she had a mini tantrum when we left. Guess where we will be spending much of our upcoming days?

What are some at home activities that you guys do with your kiddos? What are your child's favorite at home activity? At the moment my kiddo loves books, play dough, dried beans or oatmeal with cups/spoons, markers and finger paints. Any ideas will keep our days moving in a good direction. :)

And....

These are some flowers that we cut from our yard on Saturday. They died on Sunday. At least we got to enjoy them for the afternoon/evening, and L managed to get some photos for his class. Ah well.

Well I found out that I got the job. This is good news, since I was expecting an offer. :) This seems to be a "God thing". A month or two ago, I decided to start looking for something part time - to get out of the house, etc. Found hospital job. Interviewed hospital job. Hated hospital job. Didn't find anything else, so I took it as a sign that staying home was for me unless a social work job that I would enjoy opened up. There aren't many social work jobs at all, let alone part time ones.

So I go to the garden I volunteer at once a week (it's amazing they let me around plants, but that's another story). M, the gardener, asks me how family life is, and if I was planning on working outside the home or not. I tell him that yes, I had just re-entered the job hunt, but it was unlikely to find anything social work related. He asks me if I've ever heard of Early On. Yes, that's where most of my experience is. He says, well my girlfriend is the coordinator of Early On, and they have a position opening up. I ask if it's part time, he says he doesn't know. Later that day, we check out the website, and find out that it's part time. And the pay is good. And the hours are flexible. And the staff is laid back.

So I took the job. And it just so happens that the wife of one of L's co-workers runs a daycare.
And she's a Christian, and has been running a daycare for 28 years, and just recently had a part time slot open up. So I'm hoping that this will pan out and be the "perfect" place.

Enough prattling on with my overabundance of "ands". I'm excited, nervous, scared, but looking forward to the challenge. Thanks for all of your prayers. Please continue to pray as we hunt for a daycare and that I'll deal with the guilt I'm already feeling.

It's a Tough Job Being a Mom

Sometimes I have a hard time properly modeling how I want E to act.... and it's really beginning to bother me. Boy, it's hard work being a mom - and at the moment, I'm overwhelmed. There were so many things that should have been handled differently over the past week.

I'm a firm believer that actions speak louder than words, and my actions this week weren't that great. As mentioned earlier, the kiddo and I have been dealing with a cold over the past several days. Poor little thing has been miserable - uncomfortable, having difficulty breathing properly, tired... just on edge. She needed more cuddles than I gave her. She deserved more understanding for sure, since I was dealing with something similar, but with the advantage of cold medicine. Yet still I got frustrated and short on patience.

And since I wasn't feeling well, the television was on FAR too much this week. Ugh. I remember being a TV free family, and now I'm thinking that perhaps we need to get back to that. Her interest is starting to grow in the silly thing. I don't care how many educational cartoons they put on that screen, there's no substitute for playing and learning in real life. Yet, how can I say, "Well, E, you can only watch 20 minutes of Elmo in the morning b/c you need to explore life, but I will watch whatever I want whenever I want"?

The TV thing of course leads to the fact that I didn't play with her as much as she deserved. We did get outside a fair bit, but come on - it's summer! We should basically live out there! We didn't read as many books together as we normally do. Or do puzzles, or craft projects.

The TV thing leads to my eating habits the past few days. We were doing well cutting out the caffeine, and it's ridiculous how much we consumed this week. Oh, and the sugar. We may be consuming a lot more fruits and veggies, but the amount of sugar has skyrocketed. Thankfully E has much better eating habits than we do - she loves peas, asparagus, carrots... really mostly all fruits and veggies. I'd like to keep that trend up. She does want what we're eating, and again, it's a "do as I say, not as a I do" sort of thing.

More importantly, my quiet time has really been weakened over the past couple of weeks. And today I nagged and picked at L for no reason. Of course, I want E to know how important a relationship with Christ is, and how important it is to act/speak with love and respect toward your spouse. If I'm the woman E is looking up to for spiritual, emotional, physical and relational guidance, she's been sorely disappointed lately. And that makes me feel very disappointed too.

Thankfully God gives us grace to cover all of our sins, and strength to help us in our weakness. It just shows how MUCH and OFTEN I need to be on my knees daily, begging for guidance, patience, strength, and love. Hopefully E will learn what it means to be a godly woman and see what I've done right, and not so much what I'm doing wrong.

Because seriously. How cute is this kid? She deserves the best.

Berry-licious!

So we've been swimming in strawberries since we picked a few days ago. I have frozen most of our strawberries for future use. We've been eating a lot of berries as of late, and so we've enjoyed Strawberry Spinach Salad (yum), berries and cream, smoothies and most recently:

Smoothie Pops!
Yogurt
Bananas
Strawberries
Milk
Put ingredients in blender and mix. Pour into ice cube trays and freeze, after the molds have started taking shape, put Popsicle sticks in molds, and continue to freeze.
Enjoy!

Just Because...

she's beautiful, and because her dad's a pretty talented photographer. Thank you, God, for all the good things in life.

Berry Good

Early this morning we went berry picking. E was tired, and wanted to nap, but my mind was made up to find some strawberries and pick as many as possible. Who could resist this glorious goodness above? I'm hoping to freeze most of them, and possibly make some jam, if I'm feeling ambitious. We'll see.

E did well for the most part, but she melted down at times. This would be a great little outing for kids a little older. What a great way for children to see where their food comes from, and a great way to keep them involved. I'm noticing E loves to help out, and feel like a "big girl". :)
Here sits the 10 pounds of strawberries that we picked. I have no idea to know if this is enough or not, but it'll do for now. Yummy deliciousness is what this is. :)

Mint Tea Punch

Since I bought mint at the farmer's market, it's been fun trying to incorporate in different recipes. I tried a punch over the weekend, and it was a hit amongst family. It's kind of a like an iced tea (which I don't like), but much better. :)

I found it on allrecipes, but here is the recipe:

Mint Tea Punch:

3 c. boiling water
12 sprigs of fresh mint
4 tea bags
1 c of white sugar (adjust to taste)
1 c orange juice
1/4 c lemon juice
5 c of cold water

Place tea bags and mint in pitcher, and pour boiling water over them, letting them steep for about eight minutes. Remove and discard tea bags and mint leaves, squeezing out any excess liquid. Stir in sugar until it's dissolved, then stir in orange and lemon juice. Pour in water and ice cubes.

Some Outdoor Fun

We spent as much time outside as we could this weekend. What beautiful weather to welcome the first day of summer! I hope summer stays FOREVER. :)

Every time I see this picture, the word "joy" just pops in my head. This photo (all were taken by L, of course) just made me realize how blessed we are to have such a wonderful life, and such an amazing daughter to remind us of that!
E's footprints in the sand. Aren't those little feet cutest little feet?!! So precious. :)
This is E's favorite thing about the beach. Rocks. She loves picking them up, feeling them, throwing them in the water, putting them in her mouth, carrying them around. She's so curious. All of the time.

Hope that you all had a lovely start to summer!!!

Farmer's Market Junkie

I love farmer's markets - really I could go every day of the week, and just enjoy all of goodness surrounding me. Of course, it wouldn't be budget friendly for me to do that, so it's a good thing it's not an option. This is what I bought at the BC Farmer's Market... I'm looking forward to CVX starting their market soon, so it'll be more convenient to go.

I bought rhubarb, spinach (which is SO yummy), tomatoes, mint, and green garlic. YUM.

Garlic-y Goodness

This was a meal that I made initially for a family in our church. It was a simple dish to make, and it called for six cloves of garlic-y goodness. What could be better? It is a vegetarian dish, which could quickly be remedied if you added chicken.

I did use fresh spinach that I got from our local farmer's market, but quickly ran out so I had to go out and buy from the store (which did NOT look as nice by the way). Anyway, the dish was yummy.

Please forgive the poor photo - my photography skills are limited, and the babe was on my heels. :) Here is where I found the recipe. Enjoy!!

Ugh.

I think I'm over complicating the decision to go back to work. Part of me is just ready to get out and back into the professional field for a little while, even if this position isn't related to social work at all. Another part of me wonders if this is the best way to spend my time. I've been thinking a lot about precious time is, and if this is how I want mine to be spent... My reasoning isn't financially driven, so in some ways, I'm having a difficult time justifying the decision to go back. Of course sanity is important, too, sooo...

Seriously. I think TOO much at times. Maybe I should wait until I actually get the job before I stress out, right?

In more interesting news, E loves to water her flowers, and so that's been fun for her to do. Granted, she loves to just play with water, in whatever capacity she can get it. It's so fun getting her involved in projects now - from cleaning to planting flowers to art projects. This is such a great age.

Life

This is a photo that L submitted as part of his photography class. It made us chuckle, because it's a shadow of E with my shoe on her hand. Random. Who needs shoes on their feet, when you can wear them on your hands?

In completely unrelated news, I got a call from the hospital, and it seems they want to interview me next week. That's good news. Of course, now it means I might have to start looking into daycares/babysitters, and coordinating schedules with L more often. I'm already starting to feel guilty about returning to work part time. Ugh. Guilt. We'll have to see what the schedule entails before any decisions are made (provided the job is offered to me, of course).

And yes, the cloth wipes are going well, though I still need to make a few more and get my set up organized (waiting on a couple of things). I haven't noticed any reaction from the solution I've been using on her. I just made up this solution on my own, and will try others to see if it makes any difference.

This is the solution I've tried so far:

- Squirt of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Soap
- Couple drops of Lavender Essential Oil
- Couple of drops of Tea Tree Oil
- Water

I'll post others as I try them, but this one does smell nice, and I'm a sucker for nice smelling things. :)

Dinner Last Night: Turkey Chili. I know it's more of a winter dish, but I'm not convinced that summer has arrived just yet, as it was freezing yesterday.

One Year Ago This Month

It was around this time last year that we sold our house. It was a long, 16 months as we waited for the "phone call". It was difficult to be patient, and to continue holding out hope during the thousand (slight exaggeration) showings that we had. It was the most difficult to wait when we moved, as our lives were being built in a new place, but we still felt like home was somewhere else.

It may not seem like a big deal to sell a house, but it can be a very emotional process. It was difficult to move out of our house with our dear friends helping us load the moving truck, trying not to cry. Those people were our family there, and we didn't realize how much they meant to us until that day.

It was difficult to move out of a house and to see it empty, after that place was our home. It symbolized our family structure in a sense; where we decided to plant roots for a little while. We were newly married when we moved in, and so much changed by the time we left. So, it was difficult to move out, knowing it was still ours yet it wasn't at the same time, as our life was going in a different direction.

It was difficult to move to a new place, yet the place you own was somewhere else. It was even harder to answer each time a person asked about any activity on our house. "Nope, nothing yet." was probably mentioned a thousand times. It was difficult feeling so helpless.

And it was difficult to trust God at times. And more difficult to be confident that we heard Him correctly.

But of course, He heard and He did answer. Not on my schedule of course. And not at the price we wanted. Still, He answered. Signing those papers and being free from that obligation was probably one of the most freeing moments I'd ever experienced. Just to have that weight lifted was answer enough, as at the end of the day, it was all we needed, and so much more.

Seeing our house one last time before we sold it made us realize how it just wasn't ours anymore. It felt like we were walking into someone else's place. And I knew that it we had made the right decision.

So, a year later, and hopefully a little wiser, I am thanking God for a huge answer to prayer.

Locally Grown Food = Healthier?

Yesterday was our first meeting regarding our CSA (Community Shared Agriculture). Our CSA is unique that it's a working farm - meaning everyone has to volunteer every week. This allows the cost to be much cheaper than a typical CSA. I'll chat more about this later, but we had a round robin discussion of what made us choose to join the farm.

Someone said that they read something unique, and it caused them to join. They read that our bodies are designed in such a way that it requires the nutrients found in our local climate. That foods that can be grown in locally are more important to us than foods that can be grown in a different climate structure, as our bodies are craving the "local" nutrients.

Now, I don't know how much validity there is to that statement - I'd have to do more research on that. Still, I couldn't help but wonder if that is how God created our bodies to survive and thrive. And really, it just made me shake my head in wonder of how amazing our God really is, to make everything work in sync. Only a God with an abundance of power could make everything work so beautifully. It's just awe-inspiring.

The photo above really doesn't have anything to do with the above post, except that God also created beautiful landscapes for us to enjoy. Just another bit of awesome-ness from our Father.

Happy Father's Day

I actually had another photo chosen for this post, but E started clapping, laughing and saying "Dad-deeeeeee" when she saw this one. So since this my Father's Day post, it seemed fitting to let the babe choose. :)

Speaking of E; she just loves her Daddy. She loves looking for him when she first gets up in the morning. She hates it when Daddy leaves for work, and closes the door behind him. Oh, she certainly doesn't like that. She gets extremely excited when the door opens at the end of the day and Daddy's standing there. Probably most of all, she loves playing and snuggling with Daddy on the couch.

It's been such an honor to watch L become a father. Some of my favorite moments are of watching him play with E - getting her to laugh, reading her a story, playing with bubbles in the bathtub. Watching them have fun together is such a joyful time for me. I pray that God would continue to provide many more moments like the one pictured above.

So, L, thanks for all your hard work providing for our family, and still coming home with enough smiles to have a little fun. Happy Father's Day! We love you!!!

Climbing

Ever get a spontaneous urge to do something out of the ordinary for you? E and I were outside yesterday, crossing our fingers that it wouldn't rain, and E stopped, pointed above her and said, "TEEEE!!!!", which, roughly translated, means "tree". :) And for some crazy reason, I had this desire to climb the tree... And I haven't done that since I was REALLY young, when I didn't have any fear of falling.

Of course this tree was HUGE, and I didn't even know how to get to the first branch, so I took the more practical option - staying firmly planted on the ground. But really, don't you just love old trees? They always make me feel like I'm in a magical place.
We've gotten a lot of comments about E's new sippy cup. It's a Klean Kanteen, stainless sippy cup which can convert to a regular water bottle when she's older. L was looking for a stainless steel water bottle for himself (he ended up with a SIGG), and when we stumbled upon these, we couldn't resist. :) They are certainly more pricey than regular sippy cups, but we got ours on a pretty good discount, so it wasn't so bad. The most beautiful thing about it (besides it's BPA free for sure) is this: it doesn't leak. Praise the Lord.

I love the stainless steel look, even if it doesn't look very "child-like". Anyway, it's fun, and she drinks out of it just fine. Happy Days. :)

Cloth Wipes

Other than some, most people don't know we use cloth diapers for E, and have since her birth. She seems to have a sensitive bottom, so the cloth is gentler on her skin. We do use disposables when we're out and about - it's easier (in my opinion), and more socially acceptable. I generally don't talk about my cloth diapering experience, unless someone asks. And really, not many people ask. :)

I have noticed, though, that when she does get a rash, the baby wipes I use irritate her skin. I've used all sorts of different brands, but end up using just a washcloth with water. Of course, this means we're out of washcloths by bath time, so something needed to be done. After months of dealing with missing wash cloths off and on, I've just decided to switch over to cloth wipes completely.

So the photo above is one of the wipes I made. After I organize my system a little bit, I may show my set up. I might also adjust the photo for betting lighting, but probably not, so sorry for how dark it is. :)