Lydia's Birthday

This is much belated. Jaw surgery has trumped regular blogging. But I did want to post some pictures from Lydia's birthday. We can't believe our little girl is 4! She is turning into such a nice young lady, and says the funniest things too! Our friends Rich and Leeann at Chang2Studios(chang2studios.com) took some pictures at our celebration, so we wanted to share them! Lydia had an Angelina Ballerina birthday cake as she is really into ballerinas these days! Lydia, we love you and and pray that as you grow older you understand even more, God's great love for you!


Lydia opening her Mr. and Mrs. Potato head from her Aunt Nikki

A pretty pink tiara to go with her ballerina dress

Cake time!

My very domestic Saturday

Marc was helping his dad for the day, yesterday, and I didn't really feel like taking the kids anywhere, so I decided to have a baking Saturday. I was inspired by reading another blog, here.

I pretty much was at work all day. I also managed to get our front closet switched over from winter mode to spring/summer. And of course I had the kids to feed, and tried to take some moments to read and play with them as well.

This is what I accomplished:


1) 4 batches of waffles (split among three freezer bags)

I got the recipe from Moneysavingmom's blog. You can find the recipe here. Instead of whole wheat flour, I did half whole wheat flour/half all purpose flour. I also used half milk/half water, and half oil/half canned pumpkin puree. I quadrupled this recipe since I don't really like to clean the waffle iron, it's quite the task. In fact I hardly make waffles because I hate cleaning it. The waffles turned out great! They do taste a bit "healthy" but we had some for breakfast this morning (they even fit in the toaster!), and they were enjoyed by all!


2) Cinnamon rolls (I just made the rolls to freeze for now). I used this recipe. I only made the rolls (will make the frosting later, as needed). When the rolls were cut, I put them on a cookie sheet and stuck them in the freezer for about an hour.

Then, I put them all in a freezer bag, and when we want to eat one, we can take out however many we need and bake acording to the directions on the recipe. I've made these before and they are oh so good!


3)Pumpkin Banana Bread I followed this recipe exactly, but also added about 3/4 cup pumpkin puree (left over from the waffles!). This is my go-to banana bread recipe, as the flavor is soo good!

4) 4 Chicken Pot Pies I quadrupled this recipe. The kids have eaten this one before and loved it, so I thought it would be good to make extra. I didn't follow this recipe exactly. I put the chicken in the slow cooker on high and let it cook for 4 hours. Then I let it cool and shredded it. I put the veggies in some chicken broth and boiled them for 15 minutes, and then mixed them with the chicken, as seen here.

While the vegetables were cooking, I was making the sauce.

Then I filled the pie crusts (some day I will try to make them from scratch, but yesterday was not that day!). Then I covered with another pie crust and poked holes in it.

The crusts are a little hard to manipulate, so they didn't all turn out looking so nice! Then I stuck them in the freezer, and wrapped up later (less messy!)


Now we have a freezer full of breakfast foods, and a couple of dinners. Yay!

Most of you know I'm due to have surgery the end of the month. I'm starting a "jaw blog" meant to update others, journal and document progress and the process, and encourage others undergoing the same procedure. If you're interested, check it out at dripslurpchomp.blogspot.com.

Our huggable, lovable, squeezable Joe is 2!

I remember being pregnant with Joe and wondering/worrying, "Will I able to love this child as much as I love Lydia?". I now can see how silly that thinking was, but it was a fear I did have. Now he is 2, and oh how we still love our little boy! His smile and laugh bring an extra amount of joy to our family. His birthday is tomorrow, but I wanted to make sure i did a little blog entry to commemorate Joe's 2nd year. We celebrated last weekend, as we have Awana tomorrow night. Happy birthday Joe, we love you!

Update

This entry is really more for myself, so I apologize if you find yourself here and get bored from reading, or if you feel like you’re reading a Christmas letter. ;) So what have we all been up to? Well, Joe, since Christmas has really been into opening and closing doors. In fact, whenever we go to leave the house, I have to make sure our door the basement is kept open, so Simon, our cat, has access to his food and litter. It never fails that after we’re all bundled up and ready to go, and I go to open that door, Joe follows me and immediately shuts it. I think he feels it’s his duty because he is very serious about it. He loves elevators and we get the comment often, “I think Joe is going to be a doorman”. LOL. We’ll see.  Joe is talking more, though we don’t usually know what he’s saying. He also likes to sing “Jingle Bells” and a few of our favorite worship songs. It is so fun to listen to him. He has recently taken more of a liking to books, and also loves to help mommy put the silverware away. He is also into emptying things out (the bookcase, the shoe shelf, baskets full of toys, etc. and it is very common to find piles around the house. He is easy to laugh, easy to cry, AND easy to throw a temper tantrum! He makes us all laugh, and keeps me on my toes! Lydia is getting to be such a big girl. She has been exerting more and more independence. A good thing, and a trying thing! Far gone are the days when Lydia didn’t have much of an opinion about what to eat, what to wear, where to go, etc. She still has a great love for books, and sometimes we’ll find her in bed (long after her bed time!) sitting up with a book while she struggles to keep her eyes open. Lydia is in Cubbies at church this year, and is learning a ton of scripture, and having loads of fun. There are not many places she’d rather than be than Cubbies. It is so sweet to hear her speak God’s word, and sometimes sing it too! Speaking songs, she is an avid fan of Veggie Tales and doesn’t tire of Larry, Bob, Mr. Lung, Junior, etc (though mama does!). She loves watching me cook, bake, and is always asking “what are you making mommy”. She even helps out with the stirring, pouring, and tasting sometimes. As for me, I’m chomping at the bit (no pun intended) to have my jaw surgery done and behind me, and getting these braces off! I’ve figured it out, and by the time they’re off, I will have been in braces for 15-20% of my life. As much as I want the surgery done, I DO want it to be the right time and I’m trying to be patient.  I’m using the extra time to research different kinds of pureed foods and yummy smoothies. Marc has been really busy with work, as they have a big release coming up. He and I both, will be happy when things slow down a bit. So that’s what’s up with us. Thanks for reading.

Thanksgiving and Christmas 2011

The last few weeks(months) have been spent preparing for and celebrating the various holidays that fall this time of year. It has been busy busy busy! I’m always a bit sad when it’s all over, but it also is good to get back to routine. I'm going to attempt to summarize what we've been up to the last few weeks. This Thanksgiving we stayed around Illinois.

THANKSGIVING
We ran a 5K, the Frozen Turkey on Thanksiving morning. We dressed the kids up in their costumes for extra warmth and went to run. We all had a lot of fun, and Marc and I were happy with our times as well. We ate Thanksgiving dinner with Marc's extended family at Marc's aunt and uncle's home in Round Lake.

CHRISTMAS
Our Christmas festivities started with our MOM's Christmas Tea at church. My friend Kristin came and we together, provided the music for the program. That following weekend, was our Christmas program at church, which Marc and I (and Lydia) participated in. Marc was the projector guy for the program and I sang with the choir and helped with the kids, as well as helping lead worship. It was a busy night, but were blessed to have parts of both of our families(and Debbe, a long-time family friend!) attend. Here's a pic of the kids at home after the program that night.

The following weekend we went to Marc's Christmas work party, celebrated our 6th anniversary with a nice breakfast at Walker Bros., and then we drove up to WI and had a family reunion/Christmas gathering at my cousin, Jenny's house. It was so fun to see everyone, especially around Christmas. Here's a pic of all the Wise's

Here's a pic of my family (Tom Wise & Company (minus Andy & Amanda)

And here's one of our family

Big thanks to Jon's dad for taking all the photos! The next day we went to Marc's aunt Sharon's for another pre-Christmas celebration. Sharon has a kazillion Christmas decorations throughout her house that light up, sing, and move. The kids, of course, loved it! The week leading up to Christmas Lydia and Mommy did some cooking/eating in the kitchen. Lydia helped me make the peanut clusters I usually make!

At the end she got to lick the spoon!

Then the week before Christmas we had a chance to wind down before winding up again. We do our family Christmas(Marc, me and the kids) Christmas Eve day, so the night before we ate pizza, opened one gift (PJs for the kids) and then watched The Nativity Story. Joe really just played instead of watching, but Lydia intently watched it the entire time. It was so, so neat seeing her make the connections from all we had been teaching her throughout December (about the birth of Jesus)to the movie. Christmas Eve morning we did our thing (Cinnabons for breakfast, singing Christmas carols around the piano, reading the Christmas story, opening gifts, playing with the gifts). I had to take a picture of the cinnabons, as I was so happy to finally find a great recipe for these. This was pre-frosting.

In the evening we headed to Marc's stepbrother Mark's house for the Revoredo/Howard Christmas. It was a great time of catching up with everyone and being together. Then on Christmas we headed to Marc's mom's for a Woerner/Revoredo Christmas. There was lots of gifts, food, and fun! I love that we always get a family picture in.

Then later that night we headed up to WI for our final Christmas(and birthday celebration for me) with the Wise's. Was great to see everyone there and hangout together. Joe loved eatint the rolls for my birthday dinner and was "cheesing" it up for the camera!

Door County Vacation

Marc, the kids, my parents, and I had the privilege of visiting Peninsula State Park in Door County and camping there for 5 days. We were blessed with gorgeous weather the entire time!!!
We all had a great time! The kids loved sleeping in the camper with Grandma and Papa, and Marc and I enjoyed an extra hour of sleep each morning in the tent. (The only down side to the tent were the raccoons we could hear rustling around each night.) We drove up on Labor Day, stopped at Bay Beach on the way, and arrived to our campsite around dinner time. We quickly set up camp before the sun went down.

We enjoyed many activities during the week including biking, hiking, eating ice cream, driving around watching a sunset, playing at different parks, walking in the sand along the beach, reading (I even finished the book Hiding Place - a great read!), cooking dinner over the campfire, roasting marshmallows, star and moongazing, and even more! Joe had lots of opportunity to practice his walking on all different kinds of terrain, which he loved! Marc and my dad even went into town one night to catch the Packer's opening game! Because the kids were off schedule, but still needed sleep, we took a longer car ride each day, and they were able to get their zzzzzzz's. We thoroughly enjoyed Peninsula State Park, and will most likely return there sometime in the future.

Stopped at Bay Beach on the way, the kids loved the lady bug ride!

Empty campsite!

Look at all that stuff.

Kids having fun so far!

Walking along shore - Lydia's favorite pasttime!

Beautiful vista we saw while on a hike!

Self-taken of course.

Yogurt - num num num!

A bunch of pictures from Door County Bluff Headlands Park - we saw many interesting rock formations that reminded us of Stonehenge.

Lydia loved pretending she was an explorer on a one mile hike we took in the woods.

Beautiful sunset on our last night there.

SMORES!