The Hermann Family

Book Review: One Thousand Gifts

2012-01-30T13:41:00.003-06:00

January was a month of reading for me. I finished book #3 on Saturday while sitting in the ER with Jeremy, and I'm partway through three more books. One of those I'm purposely only reading one chapter a week so it will be a few months before I finish that one.

Anyway, book #3 was One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp. I promise I don't LOVE every book that I read, but so far in 2012 I have loved every book I've read. However, One Thousand Gifts is the first book that I feel the need to buy and add to my permanent collection. It is so loaded with good stuff that it's just not possible to retain it all on the first read through.

The book tells the story of Ann's journey with the Lord as He taught her that He is good, all the time, no matter what. God showers us with grace and good gifts and we only need to open our eyes to see and receive. Ann writes with great imagery and helps you to see things in a way you maybe never have before. (Honestly her style is one that I'm not used to and I struggled with it at first, but it grew on me.)

The last half of 2011 was quite difficult for me as a parent. I really struggled to feel joy in my calling as a mother and I became painfully aware of my sinfulness, the depths of which I have never felt before. God and I are still on a journey that is helping me to embrace my calling as a mother and to love my children well and this book was probably one of the best that I could have read to help me along on that journey.

Book Review: Choosing to See

2012-01-11T13:28:00.003-06:00

Last night I finished my second book of 2012. It only took me about 72 hours to read! What can I say... I guess I like memoirs.

It's called Choosing to See by Mary Beth Chapman (Steven Curtis Chapman's wife). You probably remember that their 5-year-old daughter died in 2008 after being struck by a car in their driveway. I had this book on my list to read last year and I think I was scared to read it because I thought it would be too sad. So this year I put it on my list again and, as luck would have it, it's one of the few books I could get my hands on at the library right now. I cracked the cover Saturday evening after the girls went to bed and I'm so glad I did.

The book is really about Mary Beth's life and her struggle to let go of her ideas of what her life should look like and instead let God write the story of her life. Most of it isn't sad, and several times I was actually laughing out loud, but do have a box of kleenex handy when you get toward the end of the book. As I was reading Sunday night, tears were streaming down my face for several chapters.

Despite the fact that their hearts were breaking, the Chapman family responded to their tragedy in a way that was so honoring to the Lord. It was a blessing to me to read it and I definitely recommend it to anyone.

Book Review: The Dirty Life - On Farming, Food and Love

2012-01-04T17:38:00.007-06:00

Every January I like to make a list of books that I want to read that year. I think it helps me focus. Plus I love being able to look back and see what I've read recently. For example, I looked back at the list of books that I read in 2011 and was a bit surprised to find that most of the books were about parenting. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised considering that the second half of 2011 was especially challenging for me as a parent. I must have been looking for some help!

I just finished posting my 2012 reading list and already I have finished reading one of the books. Jeremy picked it up from the library last Friday evening and I finished it this morning. So it probably goes without saying that I loved it and found it to be a very quick read! It's called The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food and Love by Kristin Kimball. It's her memoir of being a city girl who fell in love with a farmer, married him and started a farm/CSA with him.

Over the past couple years I've become very interested in what I'm eating and serving my family, wanting to know where our food is coming from, wanting to eat fresh whole foods and such, and with that I've had a growing desire to move to the country and grow/raise more food for ourselves. And maybe somewhere deep down I have a crazy dream of being farmers.

Well let me tell you, this book takes all romantic notions of farming out of the picture and slaps you in the face with the harsh realities of what it takes. The things that the author has done (and has eaten) definitely make me think I could never do it! Farmers are amazing!

But the book was fascinating and entertaining to read. I couldn't put it down because I always wanted to know what crazy situation they would encounter next. If you have any interest in food or farming, I'd highly recommend reading this book.

December Meal Plan

2011-11-28T15:42:00.004-06:00

For November I decided to try planning our dinners out for the whole month instead of one week at a time. And it turns out that I really like doing it that way so today I planned out our meals for December. My method this time was slightly different - each day of the week was assigned a "theme." Sunday is pizza night, Monday is slow cooker recipes, Tuesday is for new recipes, Wednesday is mexican, Thursday is soups, Friday is pasta and Saturday is miscellaneous. It worked out so great! I'd recommend it.

Here's what we'll be eating for December...

1- Chili in bread bowls, raw veggies & dip

2- Spaghetti carbonara, salad, garlic bread

3- Stuffed peppers, dinner rolls, salad?

4- Caramelized onion & prosciutto pizza

5- African stew over couscous, veggie?, dinner rolls

6- Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, chips, fruit

7- Mexican lasagna, applesauce

8- Cheeseburger soup, salad, biscuits

9- Spaghetti w/meatballs, frozen veg, garlic bread

10- Shredded turkey sandwiches, sweet potato fries, fruit

11- Pepperoni/pepper/onion pizza

12- Perfect pot roast, biscuits

13- dinner at small group

14- Texas chicken quesadillas, chips & salsa, fruit

15- Chicken meatball soup, corn bread

16- Lasagna, garlic bread, salad or veggie

17- Homemade chicken nuggets, mashed potatoes, veggie

18- Pepperoni & sausage pizza

19- Slow cooker beef stroganoff, veggie or salad

20- California chicken wraps, chips, fruit

21- Tacos, fruit

22- Chicken noodle soup, biscuits, salad

23- Pasta w/white bean sauce, veggie

24- in WI

25- in WI

26- in WI?

27- Meatballs w/peppers and pineapple over rice

28- Chicken fajitas, chips and guacamole

29- Taco soup, biscuits

30- Homemade cheeseburger helper, veggie

31- Sweet & sour short ribs over noodles, frozen veggie

Many of these we've had before and liked, but some are new. I hope you find some you like!

November Meals

2011-11-03T11:46:00.002-05:00

So I had a request or two for my November menu. I'm trying out planning meals a month at a time and so far I love it. Here's what on tap for this month...

Carrot & Potato Casserole

Beef Barley Vegetable Soup, biscuits

Risotto primavera, chicken breasts, salad

Butternut squash soup, bread

Garlic chicken alfredo pizza

Manicotti, salad, garlic bread

All Day Stew, biscuits, salad

Crock-pot chicken, acorn squash, salad

Chicken wild rice soup, salad, bread

French dip sandwiches, veggies & dip

Scotch eggs, toast, fruit

BBQ Chicken pizza

Chili in bread bowls, veggies & dip

Corn/ham/noodle casserole, biscuits, veggie

Chicken cacciatore, salad

Cheeseburger soup, salad, bread

Lasagna, veggie, garlic bread

Moroccan chicken & lentils, salad

Caramelized onion & prosciutto pizza

Stuffed peppers, biscuits

Fettucini alfredo, broccoli

Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, chips, fruit & veggies

Slow cooker beef stroganoff, salad

Italian chicken stew, biscuits

Couscous w/African stew, biscuits, salad

That's a meal for almost every night. It's inevitable that some nights we'll have leftovers instead or eat at a friends house, etc. Anything not eaten in November will be the start of December's meal plan. About half of these are tried and true favorites of ours and the other half are brand new recipes we've never tried before. I hope you try some and enjoy!

Lola - 18 months

2011-09-15T14:30:00.003-05:00

My dear sweet little peanut, you are 18 months old now! Lately I am very aware that you are growing up quickly and that I need to savor what remains of your baby-ness before it's gone. These are some of my favorite things about you at 18 months.

The way you pronounce words. Oh my goodness, your words are so stinkin' cute! And you are a total parrot. You copy everything you hear. These are just a small portion of the words that you say now...

wish = fish

winnie = windy

moke = milk

omit = open

manna = banana

app-oh = banana :)

wing = swing

box = socks

nack = snack

orn = horn

am-en-uh = airplane

pay-dough = playdoh

dide = outside

ca-wah = Clara

be too = me too

Your fine, wispy hair. Right now your hair is so blond and so baby soft. At it's longest point it is about at your shoulders. It has grown so much in the past six months that now it is in your eyes a lot. Recently we have started giving you a little ponytail on top of your head, which is super cute.

Running down hills. We have a small hill in our front yard and you like to run down it. You get excited and want me to watch you run. Then you take off running and usually for a few seconds you have a panicked look on your face because you are going so fast for your little legs that you must think for sure you will wipe out. Sometimes you do fall, but more often you make it down the hill just fine and then the smile returns to your face.

Da-da-daaaaaaaaaah! This is what you say when you've accomplished something and you're very proud of yourself. I can't do it justice with written words. You say it so loud and you build up to such strength by the last syllable that you're pretty much yelling at the top of your lungs. And of course with a smile on your face and often hand gestures too for added emphasis. It's definitely a favorite thing of ours that you do.

Kisses and hugs. You are a busy lady, but not too busy to give Mommy a fair amount of hugs and kisses. And your hugs are just the best. You wrap both arms around my neck and squeeze with all you've got. There's no way to be in a bad mood when you hug me. And sweet kisses on the lips too.

Humming at bedtime. Ever since your big sister was a baby we've always hummed the same song to her and now you at naptimes and bedtime. Now you hum with us. You don't perfectly follow the tune, but you're darn close sometimes.

Calling for your friends. When we get you out of bed you often want to bring all your stuffed animals out with you. We'll pick up you and buddy and then turn to walk out of the room only to have you pointing at your bed saying "bear, bear, bear!" Then we get bear and turn to walk out of the room and hear "orse, orse, orse!" So we go back for horse and then hear "baby, baby, baby!" so we go back for baby and hear "mickey, mickey, mickey" and so on until the bed is empty and your arms are overflowing.

Mo, mo! You love music and know how to ask for more. Whether we're in the car listening to a kid's CD and a song ends, or Clara is singing to you as you guys try to fall asleep at night, or a song is playing on one of your toys, the instant it stops you start hitting your fists together (sign language for "more") and saying "mo, mo!"

I'll probably think of more favorite things which I'll have to come back and add later, but this is a great start. You are just so cute and sweet and fun right now and I'm already grieving the loss of your babyhood. I hope that writing these things down will help me to come back to them years from now when you're a big girl.

Play kitchen

2011-09-01T12:59:00.003-05:00

Here it is... the reveal of the play kitchen we've been working on! It's not totally done yet, but I couldn't resist sharing pictures of the progress because I'm just so happy with it and so impressed with Jeremy's skills.

This is what we started with. The little nightstand from my sister is going to get a fresh paint job and a door so the girls can use it as their fridge, but that has yet to be started. The brown bookcase was one we already had and weren't using.

Jeremy turned the bookcase into this!

It definitely needs some accessories, but isn't it so fun already?!

I'm going to make a curtain to hang under the sink.

The faucet handles and the stove/oven knobs really turn!

Way to go, Jeremy! You're the greatest!

Maker's Diet: The Final Day

2011-07-01T13:31:00.002-05:00

Okay, so call me weak, or a quitter, or whatever else you like, but we decided yesterday to stop The Maker's Diet altogether. Sticking to such a restrictive diet is harder than I thought it would be, especially since Jeremy was never fully on board with me. And ultimately I wasn't planning for us to stay on this diet forever so I started wondering if it was really worth it. Perhaps there are other changes we can make that will work better for us.

The four days that it lasted were good in that I learned some things...

1. I can get by on less food than I used to eat.

2. My kids will sometimes eat things that I wouldn't have guessed they would eat- like carrot sticks with guacamole or almond butter- so I need to be more diligent about offering them those healthy options rather than being quick to run to things like graham crackers and Cheerios.

3. I did feel better on the diet, so leaning more toward that will probably be good for me.

And going forward I'm working on a list of things to implement (or at least try) in our diet...

1. Making bread and other things with sourdough starter. I've been working for 2 1/2 weeks on making my own sourdough starter and I think it might be close to being ready!

2. Making kombucha and getting Jeremy and I to drink it regularly. We'll see if the girls will like it.

3. Making water kefir because I know the girls like this one (at least Clara does... Lola hasn't tried it).

4. Learning how to sprout/soak grains and legumes before cooking with them. This makes them more digestible and your body is better able to absorb their nutrients.

5. Seeking out more healthy snack options for all of us.

6. Learning how to ferment vegetables. And ultimately lots of other things too, but I'm trying to start small and not overwhelm myself.

7. Trying really hard not to use the microwave anymore.

8. Getting rid of our plastic food storage containers. This will have to happen slowly as I can purchase glass to replace them.

There's more on my list probably, but I'm trying to be reasonable. Baby steps.

Although we quit the diet, I do think it was good as a mini-detox for us and I think it's something we might consider again in the future.

Maker's Diet: Day Four

2011-06-29T21:22:00.002-05:00

We made it through another day of phase one. Though I will confess for Jeremy that he broke the rules. He had lunch plans today that were on the calendar prior to us starting this diet, so he took the opportunity to eat a hamburger (with the bun) and french fries. And he said it was the most delicious burger and fries he had ever eaten. :)

I haven't cheated yet today, but the fact that he cheated makes me almost feel justified in cheating myself. A bowl of cereal is sounding pretty good to me right now!

Seriously though, we might start phase two tomorrow. I haven't decided for sure yet, but I'm considering it. I told Jeremy from the beginning that I'm okay with shortening phase one and the book says doing phase one for even just a few days is beneficial. We'll see what happens when we wake up tomorrow.

Here's what I ate today...

Breakfast- fried eggs and turkey bacon

Snacks- grain-free blueberry muffin, almonds, strawberries

Lunch- carrots w/guacamole, cherries, grain-free blueberry muffin, hamburger patty

Snack- cherries, almonds, sunflower seeds

Dinner- stuffed green pepper, coconut flour bread w/raw honey

This one's for Uncle Jeff

2011-06-29T21:20:00.002-05:00

Thanks for the cute outfit, uncle Jeff!

I really do like it, despite the fact that I'm crying.

(My sister probably just stole a toy from me.)

Summer fun day!

2011-06-29T21:08:00.004-05:00

Last night I was driving home from a Norwex party and I was just feeling the urge to do something special and fun with the girls today. The best ideas I could come up with were the free zoo or strawberry picking. After looking online to see where the strawberry farms are, I called my cousin at 8:15 this morning to ask if she wanted to meet us at one between my house and hers. She said she had plans to watch her niece and nephew, but that she's be up for it if her sister could come along to help. Everything lined up so we left at 10:00 to meet up for some strawberry picking!

Four of the six kids picking strawberries. Somehow I didn't get any pictures of Clara picking. :(

Lola was confined to the stroller, but she occupied herself very well eating strawberries!

And after awhile she did get annoyed with the stroller, but I didn't trust her not to tromp all over the plants.

They had this "cow train" at the farm and the whole time we were picking berries the kids were asking to ride the train, so when we finished picking we did oblige them. It was fun, but that was one bumpy ride!

After 2 1/2 hours in the sun and not leaving the farm until almost an hour past naptime, of course the kids passed out in the car.

After naps and snacks we headed out to the deck for this summer's first swim in the little wading pool that I recently bought. The kids absolutely loved it! And I loved that I got to sit under the shade of our patio umbrella and read a book while they splashed around for an hour.

Summer days like this are just the best!

Maker's Diet: Day Three

2011-06-28T21:32:00.003-05:00

Day three was definitely better than day two for me. No signs of detox today!!

Here's what we ate:

Breakfast- I made grain-free waffles using almond flour. They were only okay. We ate them with almond butter on them and strawberries and blueberries on the side. They were kinda dense, and of course dry since we couldn't use syrup on them. I don't think I'll be making them again. At least not while we're banned from maple syrup. They did fill me up though. I always snack in the morning, but today I didn't need to.

Lunch- leftover omelet and chicken sausage from breakfast yesterday, and some cherries

Snacks- almonds, cherries, 1/2 of a blueberry muffin

Dinner- bunless hamburgers, side salad of lettuce/spinach/carrots, strawberries

Bedtime snack- grain-free blueberry muffin, another strawberry or two and a couple blackberries and cherries

You know the saying "The silence is deafening"? I'd like to coin a new phrase since starting this diet... "The lack of being really full is definitely noticeable." I don't think it will catch on, but it's true. I've realized that I usually reach for food at the first sign of possible hunger. The past three days I wouldn't say I've been hungry, but I've never felt stuffed, and unfortunately it's been a strange feeling. So that's one lesson learned from this experience- I probably used to eat too much.

The other thing I've noticed is how easy this diet is on the digestive system. My stomach has felt really good (aside from that detox period)! I'm hoping this continues as we add in more foods when we enter phases two and three.

Also, Jeremy was kinda grumpy at dinner tonight and sarcastically asked me if there was anything he could eat while I was gone for the evening. I think the lack of variety is starting to get to him. And I don't think he appreciated having to eat his burger without a bun.

Maker's Diet: Day Two

2011-06-27T21:27:00.000-05:00

Day two was definitely more difficult than day one, at least for me. I slept fine last night, but when I woke up this morning I felt kinda awful. I dragged myself out of bed when the girls started crying and I just could not wake up. Physically I felt like I could barely get up and do anything. My head was so foggy and my stomach felt weird. I don't really know how to describe it because it was unlike anything I've ever felt before. Phase one of this diet is designed to detox/cleanse your body and I think what I was feeling this morning was the effects of that.

Jeremy was kind enough to make breakfast for us, which I think did help me some and by late morning I was able to get going and start being a productive member of the family again. By this evening I'd say I pretty much felt back to normal again. We even went for a bike ride to the park after dinner.

Honestly, when I felt awful this morning I was seriously questioning this diet and wishing I could go back in time and never decide to do it. But now that I'm feeling better I have a better attitude about it again. I can definitely see benefits from it already after only two days.

I've eaten way more vegetables in the past two days than I used to. I've never been anti-vegetables, but it was just easy to choose other things because of convenience or cravings. And I'm also finding myself offering foods to the girls that I otherwise wouldn't have. Like yesterday Clara had carrot sticks with guacamole instead of ranch dressing.

What did we eat today?

Breakfast- omelets (no cheese, no milk) with onions and green peppers, chicken breakfast sausage, strawberries

Lunch- large salad (two kinds of lettuce, baby spinach, carrots, sugar snap peas, green peppers) with grilled chicken and all-natural ranch dressing, cherries

Snack- today I made grain-free blueberry muffins with almond flour- they were quite yummy so I ate two of them this afternoon, plus snacking on cherries here and there

Dinner- salmon, broccoli, acorn squash seasoned with butter, nutmeg, cinnamon and raw honey

Dessert- I pureed some strawberries, frozen blueberries, frozen raspberries and some coconut milk beverage (I think this is actually not approved, but I used a small amount... it ended up like a melty sorbet kind of and it was yummy... Lola agreed wholeheartedly! I also had another of those yummy blueberry muffins! And I'm thinking about a handful of almonds before bed.

So really I don't feel deprived because we're eating lots of good stuff. We'll just be glad to have more variety when we enter Phase Two. We'll see how tomorrow goes. I'm hoping for no more detox.

Intro to The Maker's Diet and Day One

2011-06-26T15:13:00.002-05:00

Today we started The Maker's Diet. If you haven't heard of it, you can read more about the author's story here. I read the book in May and knew right away that I wanted Jeremy and I to do his 40-day cleanse, but it has taken me until now to get up the nerve to take the plunge (and to convince Jeremy to do it with me).

It's set up in three phases, with phase one being the most restrictive and with each new phase you can add back more foods. The first two weeks are phase one, the second two weeks are phase two and the remainder is phase three. And the author advocates staying on phase three forever. It starts out so restrictive for the purpose of detoxing your body.

Because it starts out so restrictive and I question our willpower, I'm strongly considering having us do phases one and two for just one week each. I guess we'll just see how this week goes and make a decision when the time comes. The author even says you can start at any phase you want, but he recommends everyone do phase one for at least a few days to detox, so I take that to mean doing only one week of phase one instead of two weeks would still be very beneficial.

So why are we doing this? Primarily because of Jeremy's lyme disease and my long history of having a not-so-good stomach. This diet is supposed to help inflammation, which Jeremy definitely has a lot of from his lyme disease. And it's also supposed to help with digestion and gut health, which I apparently need.

After we finish this 40-day (or less) cleanse, my current plan is to just move us into more of a whole-foods, traditional foods diet. We've always felt like we eat fairly healthy, but I know there's lots of room for improvement. I especially want to learn about lacto-fermentation of foods and how to incorporate them into our diet because they are so good for gut health, and therefore overall health. I'm currently working on making a sourdough starter to kick things off!

So that's that. I decided today that I want to blog about this Maker's Diet adventure, mostly so I will have a record of how it went, how we felt about it, the struggles, and hopefully the joys of it.

So what did we eat for our first day of our new diet?

Breakfast - eggs fried in coconut oil, peppered turkey bacon, organic strawberries

Lunch - large salad of mixed greens, baby spinach, green pepper, carrots, sugar snap peas, tomato, and grilled chicken... Jeremy ate some salad dressing that I mixed up, but I wasn't crazy about it so I broke the rules and had a bit of all natural ranch dressing... we also tried the coconut flour bread that I made today, with a bit of almond butter on it

Dinner - stuffed peppers (green peppers stuffed with free-range ground beef, zucchini, tomato, onion... really yummy), guacamole with carrot sticks and sugar snap peas

Dessert - smoothies that weren't very good (mixed frozen berries, coconut milk, vanilla, almond butter, water, Jeremy added goat's milk yogurt into the second batch), we ate them but they were kind of disappointing... I'll be searching out some better recipes

Snacks - fresh berries, almonds, coconut flour bread

For the most part it was all really yummy and healthy-feeling. I ate more veggies today than I do most days, by far. I definitely had some cravings though, for things like tortilla chips with the guacamole, a salty snack, a sweet treat after lunch. I'll be interested to know how long it takes for cravings like that to go away.

Oh and we're not putting the girls on this diet. They're obviously eating some of the same things as us, but I'm not yet making any drastic changes to their diet.

Easter

2011-05-13T21:55:00.004-05:00

Here's a peek at our Easter celebration...

Some pictures of the girls in their nice dresses before they got all messed up.

Aren't these cheeks just so irresistible?

And those big blue eyes! Combine that with the fact that she's still kind of a baby and hasn't yet entered the "terrible twos" and oh my... this girl just steals my heart a million times a day.

Attempting to wrangle the cousins before setting them loose for our first ever (and definitely not the last) Easter egg hunt.

Jeremy helped Lola and she actually really got into it.

Clara was so totally excited about the hunt! I've got some cute videos of both of them that I'll put on my Facebook page.

Listening to Oompa read the Easter story.

And opening some special Easter gifts from Nana and Oompa.

March recap

2011-04-06T10:31:00.002-05:00

Here's a recap for myself of what March looked like in relation to my New Year's Resolutions...

1. Daily Bible reading - I finally felt like I was getting into the groove of waking up before the girls and spending some time in the Word and then we started putting Lola in Clara's room overnight and that totally messed up our early morning routine, and thus my Bible reading habit. It used to be that if Clara woke up before 7:00 I would change her diaper and get her a few books and make her stay in bed. But since we put Clara and Lola together they wake each other up and then Lola will often just cry in bed because she doesn't understand the concept of looking at books until I come to get her. So this is an area that needs some work again.

2. Work on my 2011 reading list - I didn't read a ton in March, partly because I was trying to venture away from parenting books, but really all I want to read right now is parenting books. Eventually I decided just to go with it and I picked up Simplicity Parenting. I'm almost done with it and will plan to write a brief book review of it here soon. Then I think I'll be moving on to Last Child in the Woods.

3. Get into a habit of having family devotions - Yay! We finally improved in this area in March! Several of the evenings that Jeremy was home we would clean up after dinner and then we'd put blankets on the living room floor and sit down together to read a Bible story and then sing a song or two. Clara really likes it. Lola wanders around the room sometimes, but at least she's hearing what's going on.

4. No TV or internet for us between dinnertime and the girls bedtime - We're decent with this, but not 100% committed.

5. Work on Kitchen Stewardship's Top 10 Foundational Habits - I have to say I don't think about this one very much. I know there are improvements we could make in our diet, but I'm choosing to spend my limited time on other things right now. Though in March I did place an order for some organic, free-range chickens to purchase this summer from a friend of my cousin. My biggest motivation in doing that is to make homemade chicken broth.

6. Potty train Clara - well we're SLOWLY but surely working on this. We have a sticker chart on the wall and she gets a special treat when she goes potty. Honestly I'm not diligent about it at all. She mostly will go #1 on the toilet after she takes a bath. She has yet to go #2 on the toilet because she has a complete fit if we try to get her to. Maybe someday soon I'll work harder at this and try to get the job done once and for all.

7. Work toward a routine for me and the girls - I did write up a daily routine awhile back, but we didn't do so well at following it in March. And now that the weather is getting nicer it will probably change to include lots of outside time. Plus we recently joined Life Time Fitness so I'll need to work that into our routine as well.

8. Have two Norwex parties per month - well we've actually decided to up this to four parties per month so we can hopefully make extra payments on our school debt. In March I just did two parties, but in April I have four on the calendar!

9. Take the girls outside on every nice day - This was a non-issue in March because there weren't many nice days. I think we got outside maybe 3 times. This month will be a different story though. We've already been out a few times, including this morning.

10. Do more crafts - My mind might be failing me, but I don't think I crafted much in March. Yesterday I did some sewing though!

Starting my own business

2011-03-22T21:10:00.001-05:00

In my post the other day about our office renovation I mentioned that I'm starting my own business. A few of you have asked about that so I thought I'd just link you back here for more info.

The office reveal!

2011-03-21T14:20:00.003-05:00

Well I've been wanting to redo our office for months! It was ugly and a mess and just really not functional for us. My wise husband said we had to wait until we got our tax refund back so I waited (not always patiently) and waited and I'm glad I did.

Two weekends ago we painted and picked out furniture. And just this past weekend we put things on the wall and took care of the finishing touches, so to speak. For the week in between we disagreed on how to decorate and what colors to use for accents, but finally we were able to come to an agreement that we're both very happy with. If you know us well you might be surprised to see how modern it is. I'll confess I'm surprised too because that's not what I usually gravitate toward, but I took a chance on Jeremy's ideas and it paid off.

So here he is painting the ceiling...

There used to be shelves above my desk, but we took them down before I thought to take pictures.

Ta da! A pretty, freshly painted, organized and highly functional office! I like to call it "the IKEA special" because pretty much everything is from Ikea - desks, printer cart, chairs, wall file, shelves, cubby bookcase and the fabric that we put on canvases and hung on the wall.

We got a cubby bookcase that has tons of storage space so we're still figuring out how best to use it, but we're well on our way. And we painted the walls a very pale gray that I think turned out really nice. It's subtle and neutral and great!

Especially since I'm starting up my own business it feels really good to have a nice, organized space that I can walk into and feel motivated and ready to work. Thank you, tax return money!

Happy 1st Birthday, Lola!

2011-03-09T10:11:00.003-06:00

My dear sweet, darling girl.... you are ONE today!

At 6:00 AM on March 9, 2010 I was largely pregnant with you.

And at 12:49 PM we got to meet you and see your beautiful face!

You wasted no time in stealing our hearts. Since the day you were born you have been nothing but sweetness and joy. Okay, maybe not EVERY moment, but pretty close. Almost without exception everyone who spends time with you tells us how sweet-natured, happy and smiley you are.

You are getting to be a big girl now. Not so much a baby anymore, which makes mommy a little sad at times. I will miss the cute little baby things you do.

Like the time you were playing in the living room and you literally just put your head down on the floor and passed out asleep.

And the way you scooted everywhere on your bottom rather than learning to crawl.

And your yummy, chubby cheeks! I could kiss them all day long!

You aren't taking any steps on your own yet, but for the past few weeks you've been pulling yourself up to standing by the furniture. You've gotten very good at it, but it seems like you sometimes don't know what to do once you get up there.

You don't have many words yet. You say "ba" for "bye" and if we ask for a kiss you put your hand up to your mouth as if to blow a kiss. You make other sounds like "da" and "ga" and "ma" but they still seem to be just jabber rather than real words.

We are beginning to wonder if you might be really easy to discipline like your mommy was. If you're going after something and we tell you "no" you usually stop right away and just start crying.

You really like when we put sunglasses on you. You'll sit there just looking at us with a silly little smirk on your face, as if you know you're super cute.

You have six teeth now and no more patience for pureed foods of any kind. I can occasionally get a little spooned foods into you, like oatmeal or cottage cheese, but for the most part you definitely prefer anything that you can feed to yourself with your fingers. You eat lots of banana, Cheerios, graham crackers, apples, peaches, pears, dried prunes, avocado, lunch meat, turkey hot dogs, cooked carrots, potatoes, bread, cheese, pancakes, toast. I'm not sure if there's anything that you don't like right now. This morning mommy had a piece of coffee cake and you were very quick to scoot over, open your mouth and say "ahhhh" and beg me for bites. You loved it!

We are SO happy to be your parents, and your big sister loves you SO much (even if she does steal toys from you all day long)! Happy birthday, Lola!

February Recap

2011-02-28T13:05:00.002-06:00

So this is mostly for my own accountability, but read on if you're interested. I'm reviewing how I did with my New Year's resolutions this month.

Daily Bible reading - this month was better than last month, but still not as good as I'd like. I read probably half of the days this month.

Work on 2011 reading list - I finished Professionalizing Motherhood and I read Steady Days. Both good books, but I really loved Steady Days. I do plan to write a summary of them on the blog, soon I hope. I was hoping to get one more book done this month, but I ended up devoting a lot of time to Clara's quiet book instead since I knew we'd be going out of town this past weekend and I wanted her to be able to use it in the car.

Get in the habit of family devotions - we're still struggling to make this happen, though there were a handful of days that we did something really intentional.

No TV between dinnertime and Clara's bedtime - I feel like this one has fallen off our radar a bit this month. I need to talk to Jeremy about this and not be so quick to push that 'on' button. But hopefully before too long it will get nicer outside and we'll naturally want to be out there rather than watching TV.

Work on Kitchen Stewardship's Top 10 Foundational Habits - yep, we're still slowly working on this. Several of them I do already, but I have yet to try making homemade yogurt or bone broth. Someday this year I will. At least the broth for sure. For some reason the yogurt kinda scares me still!

Potty train Clara - we actually made some progress on this in February! She is showing a bit more interest and has actually worn underwear for a small portion of a few days. She's gone potty in the toilet five times in the past week and a half!

Work toward a routine for me and the girls - we've made some progress on this too this month! Steady Days helped give me some ideas and fresh motivation so I did write up a routine and post it on our fridge last week and we're trying it out. It's not drastically different from what our days looked like before, but it's working pretty well I think. And I know it will change once the weather is nice and we start playing outside more too.

Have two Norwex parties each month - totally didn't meet that goal in February. I had no parties, but I do have two on the calendar for March and I'm hoping for more.

Take the girls outside on every nice day - totally didn't do this either. I think we went out for a walk once. They've been sick a lot so we've been indoors a lot. A lot. I'm so longing for health for our family again.

Do more crafts - I did! I worked on Clara's quiet book a lot, plus I made some Valentine's decorations.

Good-bye February, hello March!

Proof of a Quiet Book

2011-02-22T13:49:00.002-06:00

Have any of you noticed the button in the sidebar of my blog that says I'm working on a quiet book? It's been there since last Spring I think. We'll here's some proof that I truly am working on a quiet book. It's one of those projects that takes quite a long time so I work on it in spurts. I hadn't worked on it for several months, but then a few weeks ago we took a road trip to Wisconsin and I was wishing I had gotten more of the book done so we could have brought it for Clara to play with in the car. Knowing that we'd be taking another road trip this weekend I resurrected the project and have made some good progress on it in the past few days.

Here's the cover. Obviously I'll be making one for Lola too some day.

A gumball machine that has gumballs that velcro onto matching colored circles that are sewed down.

A place setting with a bag of food. I'm planning to make more food, but for now it's enough to use these pages.

Noah's Ark with finger puppets.

Back cover.

And some pages in progress...

A doll that will have clothes for dress up.

and a tree that will have flowers, summer leaves, and fall leaves that snap onto it. When they're not in use they will be stored in the "grass" pocket.

I'm also working on a mailbox page that she'll be able to put notes into.

I got inspiration and some templates from Serving Pink Lemonade and Homemade by Jill and How to Make a Quiet Book. The great thing about quiet books is that you can really do whatever you want. If you Google "quiet book" you'll find all sorts of examples of different ways people make quiet books. It's all personal preference.

When I first started this book for Clara I was intending to sew it all by hand with cute stitching, but now I've decided it will take FOREVER to do it that way. I'm now doing some by hand, but a lot by machine. I've even used a bit of hot glue in a few spots! So it's totally a project that you can tailor to your skill level, amount of time, and budget. And whatever you make, your kids will love.

Valentine's Day Prep

2011-02-13T21:43:00.002-06:00

So this year I've resolved to do more crafting because it's good for me. And I've resolved to use some of that crafting desire to decorate our home. And to top it off, the crafting needs to be very budget-friendly.

So here we go for Valentine's Day...

A heart garland made out of felt, inspired by this lady.

Construction paper hearts taped on the wall. Took me about 15 minutes total and I love how it turned out. Clara loved it too when she woke up in the morning and saw it!

3-D paper hearts inspired by this lady. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, though it was definitely more time-consuming than the other projects.

And then a couple days ago I came across this tutorial for these kind of funny-looking heart guys and I just had to make them for the girls for Valentine's Day.

I didn't have to buy a single thing for any of these projects because I just used whatever I had on hand, so I like to think they were free even though at some point in the past I did buy the supplies.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Daddy's Packer Girls

2011-02-09T13:16:00.000-06:00

Full disclosure

2011-02-09T13:08:00.002-06:00

Lest I ever give the impression that my home is always spotless and perfectly organized, here is my desk at this very moment...

Ugh! I hate it to the core of my being! Sadly what you see here is very normal. Our office is next on my list of rooms to overhaul because it is driving me absolutely crazy. It desperately needs some organizational help. The only thing lacking has been the funding needed to do what I want with it. In the meantime, I need to triage this awful space right away while the girls are napping!

January Update

2011-01-30T20:53:00.003-06:00

Remember my New Year's Resolutions? Well I was thinking since it's the end of January maybe I should share how well I've been implementing them so far.

Daily Bible reading - not so good. I think as of today I'm about 12 days into the reading plan when I should be 30 days into it. It's a shameful confession. I know that I need to read every day, but for probably a lot of lame reasons I often just don't do it. I need to work harder at that one in February.

Work on my 2011 reading list - that one has been going great! I finished Bringing Up Girls, which I had started in December. And I read Don't Make Me Count to Three, started and quit The Poisonwood Bible 'cuz I didn't love it, and now I'm 2/3 finished with Professionalizing Motherhood.

Get into the habit of having family devotions - we kinda fell off the bus on this one too. I think one of our stumbling blocks is the fact that Jeremy works probably 8-10 nights a month so if we get in the habit of evening devotions there are several nights that he's not with us, but if we get in the habit of morning devotions we struggle because we're so tired that often one of us gets up with Clara and the other sleeps in a bit. Need to focus on this more in February.

No TV or internet between dinnertime and when Clara goes to bed - we've done pretty well with this I think, but not perfect.

Work on Kitchen Stewardship's Top 10 Foundational Habits - I confess I haven't thought about this one in the past couple weeks so I'm glad to be reminded of it again.

Potty train Clara - we borrowed a DVD called Potty Power from the library and she has watched it several times and loves it. And as a result she's been talking more about potty-related things, but she still doesn't seem to want to actually go potty in the toilet much.

Work toward a routine for me and the girls - this one is still rolling around in my brain as I try to formulate what it will look like and as I wait for Lola to get just a bit older

Have two Norwex parties per month - I did one fabulous party and one okay trade show

Take the girls outside on every nice day - ummm....it's not nice yet so we haven't had to implement this one

Do more crafts - I did! I haven't taken pictures of them yet, but I made a Valentine heart garland, I patched two pairs of my jeans, and I have started a set of Christmas countdown blocks. It feels so good to make something with my own two hands!

Now on to February...

New things!

2011-01-25T14:05:00.002-06:00

I've been wanting to rearrange the girls' bedroom for awhile now and since we removed a crib and added a toddler bed yesterday I decided today was a good day for a whole new room!

Come on in...

(yes, Clara actually sleeps with ALL of those "friends" that you see in her cute little toddler bed...and I think we're even missing a few of the regulars in this picture!)

So this is the sleeping side of the room, plus nice, organized toy storage...

this is the shopping/cooking/eating area...

and the baby corner...

And this new beauty is in our living room. The toddler bed and this toy storage thing were hand-me-downs from my big sister's girls and we LOVE them!

For some time now I've been wondering what to do with the lesson sheets that Clara gets in church on Sundays and I think today I might have had a great idea. We have a couple corkboard strips that have been sitting around in our house and I might see about hanging one of them above this toy bin so we can hang her current lesson sheet so we can review it thru the week, maybe a favorite picture or two that she has recently drawn, and my "tot school planning form" for the week.

I came across a couple sites recently (like this one and this one) that talk about "tot school" and I think it's a great idea that I want to try and implement. The concept really isn't much different from things we already do with Clara, but I like the idea of putting a little more planning and intentionality into it.

Thanks West's for blessing us with a sweet new bed and a sweet new toy storage system!

You're the best!

Book #3: The Poisonwood Bible

2011-01-22T10:57:00.002-06:00

Yesterday we went to the library and I picked up one of the few novels that I have on my 2011 reading list...The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I've read one or two other books by her and liked them so I expected to like this one too, but I just didn't.

I'm not exactly sure why. When I got to page 30 and still just wasn't feeling sucked in yet I decided to give up. I've decided that life is too short and my reading list is too long to force myself to keep reading a book that I'm not enjoying. Plus this particular book is over 500 pages long so it would have been a lot of hours of forced reading to finish it. Maybe another time I will pick it up again and give it a second chance.

Simplify and Organize

2011-01-21T13:47:00.003-06:00

This has been the theme of my life lately. I've always been anti-clutter and pro-organizing, but at the same time I've grown up in the culture of "bigger is better, if I want it I should have it now, stuff will make you happy" and I know at times I allow that type of thinking to take hold.

But really, how much stuff does one little family really need? Not as much as we have, I'm quite sure. So over the past several weeks I've been going through our stuff, gathering lots to donate and some to throw away (like socks with holes in them). And boy does it feel good!

I've gone through things like cookbooks, toys, toiletry items, socks, piles of paper. You name it, I've probably gone through it or else I will soon. Honestly, how many cookbooks do I need when I usually just search online for recipes? And how many pairs of underwear do I need when I do our laundry within 7-10 days of wearing it? And how many old magazines need to sit on our coffee table never being read?

Yeah, it feels really good to get this clutter out of our house and out of our lives. My focus right now is to simplify, organize and streamline our home life in order to make way for the best things like family time, teaching our girls about the Lord, playing outside (once it warms up), loving our neighbors, loving my husband, cooking healthy food, and serving at church, among other things.

I'm so thankful that the Lord has given me the "organizing gene." It really energizes me to make these changes in our home. I know that's not the case for everyone though. So if you're someone who doesn't enjoy organizing and you'd like some encouragement along the way, let me know. I'd be more than happy to come alongside you and encourage you in that.

Book #2: Don't Make Me Count to Three

2011-01-21T13:24:00.002-06:00

Last night I finished my second book of 2011 -- Don't Make Me Count to Three by Ginger Plowman. I read it when Clara was a baby and I liked it then. Now that she is two I thought it would be helpful to read it again. It's a quick read - only 133 pages of very practical information. If you've read Shepherding a Child's Heart you'll probably like Don't Make Me Count to Three. I feel like Shepherding talks about the big idea of how to discipline your children and Don't Make Me Count to Three talks about how to practically carry it out.

One of her main points is that it's not enough to address the behavior...you have to also address the heart that's behind the behavior. And it's not enough to communicate that something was wrong...you have to also teach them what would have been right behavior in that situation.

Dealing with sin in our young children many times every day it can be easy to take the quickest route and just spank or give a time out and say "that was naughty." This book was a great reminder and encouragement to me to take the extra couple minutes and help Clara (and soon Lola) to understand why she was being naughty and how God feels about that and what He expects from her in the future.

She lists some traps to avoid when disciplining our kids...

- Repeating yourself - I totally do this, but it trains our kids not to obey the first time.

- Raising your voice

- Worldly techniques, such as counting to three. "Children will rise to the standard that the parents set."

- Tolerating small acts of disobedience - yep, I do this because I get so weary of training

Another thing she said that stood out to me is that she would ask her kids "How does God want you to obey?" And she taught them to say "Right away, all the way, and with a happy heart." That seems like a good mantra to me. And this is important because learning to obey their parents is a step toward learning to obey God. God expects our obedience to be right away, all the way and with a happy heart.

Okay, that's my book review. I do own this book and I'm happy to lend it out. Now I'm moving on to Professionalizing Motherhood. I'm several chapters into it (they're short chapters) and I'm liking it already.

Book #1: Bringing Up Girls

2011-01-06T14:16:00.004-06:00

The other day I finished my first book of 2011, Bringing Up Girls, by James Dobson. To be honest, I read most of it in December of 2010 so maybe it's cheating to say I read it in 2011, but it's my blog and my resolutions so I can do what I want, right? Right.

This year my plan is to write a brief summary/review of each book that I read, mostly for my own benefit because my long-term memory isn't so good. It will be nice to be able to look back and remind myself what I liked or didn't like about certain books.

I did enjoy Bringing Up Girls; however, I didn't feel like it contained any new earth-shattering information for me. Probably because I myself am, in fact, a girl. I may be approaching thirty in a few short weeks, but I still remember what it's like to be a school-aged girl. That being said, I do plan to read this book again when my girls are a bit older because I think it will be more helpful to me then as we navigate the pre-teen and teen years with them.

I'm guessing most women would agree with me that this book isn't full of brand new information, but I think for fathers it could be an amazing help as they raise their daughters. There are three chapters specifically dealing with the impact that daddies have on their girls. The one that is probably most impactful is a transcript of Dr. Dobson talking with a group of college-age women about their own fathers. And the last chapter in the book is where he wraps it all up and talks briefly about what the Bible says about spiritually training our children. If Jeremy only reads those four chapters for now, I'll be pleased.

I do own this book so if anyone is ever interested in borrowing it, let me know. I'm happy to lend my books out as long as they come back in a semi-timely manner in order to be available to others.

Next up, Don't Make Me Count to Three. I've read it once before, but I think that was before Clara was even one so I think it would be very beneficial to read it again now that she does more than just sit in one spot on the floor and play with some toys.

A fresh start

2011-01-01T20:39:00.003-06:00

I love this time of year! I know not everyone gets into the whole "new year's resolutions" thing, but I definitely do. I love the feeling of a fresh start. I admit it may be silly because we should be able to start afresh at any time of the year, but somehow it just feels natural to me to find new motivation on January 1st.

So for the last several weeks I've been pondering what my 2011 goals would be. Part of the pondering has been trying to keep it realistic and not overwhelming. I keep reminding myself that I have two young children who take up a lot of my time, so I don't want to be too over zealous in my goals, but at the same time I think it's good to push yourself to be better.

So here is my list, not necessarily in any particular order...

1. Daily Bible reading. Jeremy found us a chronological reading plan that has you read one chapter each day so we're both going to follow that. One chapter a day feels manageable to me with two little kids. Anything beyond that will be a bonus.

2. Work on my 2011 reading list. I posted this on the sidebar of my blog recently. In 2010 I read about ten books I think, so my list for 2011 is definitely ambitious, but I'm okay with that. I started my first book a few weeks ago so I'm off to a good start already!

3. Get into a habit of having family devotions. We're not sure yet exactly what we're going to do for this, but we know we want to do it. Given the age of our kids it'll probably be just a few minutes each day.

4. No TV or internet for me and Jeremy between dinnertime and when Clara goes to bed. I confess we give too much of our time to these things and this will help us have some better quality time with our girls as a family.

5. Work on Kitchen Stewardship's Top 10 Foundational Habits (found here). We don't eat too terribly I think, but at the same time there is so much room for improvement. In order to keep myself focused and not get overwhelmed I decided to start with this list. My plan is to just work my way down the list, implementing one new thing at a time. A few of them we are already doing.

6. Potty train Clara. Pretty self-explanatory. I think she's probably ready. I just need to work up my own motivation and find a time when we can really focus on it. It helps that Lola recently decided to quit nursing.

7. Work toward a routine for me and the girls. I'm hoping Steady Days will be of some help to me in this area. Given how young Lola is I feel like it's kind of hard to have much of a routine other than meals and naps, but I definitely want to work toward one as she gets a little older.

8. Have two Norwex parties per month. If I can meet this goal I should be keeping my business moving in the right direction and providing us with a little extra income, without taking me away from my family too much.

9. Take the girls outside on every nice day. Now I know that "nice" is a relative term and I also know that there will be nice days when we have too much going on to go outside and play, but I wanted to aim high on this one because I think it's really important for all of us to get out and enjoy nature as much as we can. I don't want my girls to be couch potatoes.

10. Do more crafts. :) This is very vague, but I just know that crafts are good for my soul. I've started a list of some seasonal projects that I'd like to work one, mostly Christmas crafts but a few others as well. Now that I'm not nursing Lola all evening every evening I think I might be able to get a few crafty things done once in awhile.

And that's it. It was tempting to make my list so much longer, but stopping at ten items seemed wise. Now for some tea and toast and a fresh notebook to get myself organized for the coming week.

I went there today...

2010-12-23T19:50:00.002-06:00

to my happy place, that is. The land of organization and labels! It's such a wonderful place. Every time I go there it makes me giddy with excitement!

Last night my parents came over and gave their Christmas gifts to our girls, which was mostly toys that now need to find a home in our house. So this afternoon I set to work finding a place for everything, and everything in its place.

This bookcase is currently in Clara's room, but it will move to the living room when we take the Christmas tree down. Toys are sorted....

and bins are labeled. :)

This cubby thing is also in Clara's room. Again, toys are sorted....

and, drumroll please..... the shelves are labeled with fancy labels from my BFF, the labelmaker!

Seriously, looking at these pictures makes me so excited! I'm ready for her to wake up tomorrow and pull out all the toys and make a big mess with them so I can sort them all and put them back in their rightful spot. :)

A Christmas Tradition...frugal style

2010-12-23T12:31:00.002-06:00

When I was growing up, one of our traditions was my parents gave each of us a new ornament each Christmas. The idea was that when we became adults and we moved out on our own we'd have some ornaments to start our own tree with. We always eagerly looked forward to finding out what our new ornament would be. Because I loved that tradition so much I wanted us to do that for our girls too.

This year Lola got a "baby's first Christmas" ornament from Hallmark, which I justified splurging on because it's a photo frame ornament and I really like being able to see what my baby looked like on her first Christmas.

However, I couldn't justify splurging on an ornament for Clara because the bucks are tight around here. Plus she's young enough yet to not notice the difference in ornaments, or even to realize that Lola got an ornament. I wanted an Elmo ornament for Clara because when I think of her at two years old, I think of the fact that she really likes Elmo and Sesame Street.

So to get to the point here, I made her an Elmo ornament out of felt. And it actually turned out cuter than I thought it would. And she loves it! I gave it to her this morning and let her put it on the tree.

One Elmo ornament made using supplies we already had on hand... $0!

Bath Time

2010-12-21T19:53:00.003-06:00

Lola needed a bath one morning and we've been using the kitchen sink. Of course Clara wanted to be in on the action to help, so it seemed like a good photo opportunity!

What Clara is doing right now...

2010-12-06T15:43:00.000-06:00

Advent with a toddler

2010-12-06T15:34:00.003-06:00

This year Clara is old enough to start to understand what Christmas is about, so after dinner we've been spending some time with one of her two kid-friendly nativity sets and reading the Christmas story from either our Bible or her toddler Bible. So far it's been a big hit!

This set was Jeremy's when we was a kid. His grandma and grandpa made it.

I love that she wanted to put everyone up on the roof.

And then she lined them all up outside the stable.

She calls the shepherd "leopard."

What about you? What fun things do you like to do with your toddler during the Advent season?

Coffee table fun

2010-12-06T15:30:00.001-06:00

Clara playing at the coffee table at eight months old...

Lola playing at the coffee table at almost nine months old...

Clara

2010-12-01T22:15:00.003-06:00

In November, Clara learned about carving pumpkins...

And she hung out with her sister...

Experienced her first full ponytail...

And once she ate her snack at the toilet. Totally gross, I know....but hey, she's a kid.

The girl talks pretty much all the time. She makes us laugh a lot. At the moment I can't think of the funny things she says, but I'll try to write them down as I hear them and share them later.

She's a total mini mommy. She nurses her baby dolls, changes them, puts them down for naps, walks them in her stroller, puts them in Lola's car seat, burps them, and just generally takes care of them. She also loves to read books (or rather have them read to her). She loves Sesame Street and especially Elmo. She wants to do anything mommy is doing...washing dishes, cooking (which she calls "making"), giving Lola a bath, brushing teeth, brushing hair, etc. She thinks it's fun to pretend to take naps in our bed. She can climb into the cribs, but it hasn't occurred to her yet how to climb out even though we leave the side of her crib down all the way. She doesn't understand the concept of time or weather, so she will ask to go the park at any time...darkness, rain, snow, winter wind. She loves her sister very much, but occasionally will tell me to put her on the floor so I can give her my full attention. If she is ever sad about anything she wants her "buddy" as her comfort item. Now she thinks that anyone else who is sad needs their buddy too. And any time she is telling us something that she doesn't want to do she adds "right now" to the end of it. For example, "Don't want to go doctor right now!" And the girl has an unending appetite. She asks for snacks all day long. And the way she's asking you'd think she was starving to death and hadn't eaten in days. She's a crazy-maker and a sweet, darling all in one.

A visit from Grammie

2010-12-01T22:12:00.002-06:00

Jeremy's mom came out to visit for Clara's birthday! We shopped, went out to eat, played, and shopped some more. And this time we actually got a decent couple pictures of the girls with Grammie. Last time she came to visit the picture-taking session was a disaster with both girls crying and Clara trying to get away. We've come a long way!

Clara's 2nd Birthday

2010-12-01T21:42:00.003-06:00

Clara turned two at the end of October and we had a little party for her. A little Elmo party!

My mom made her an Elmo cake.

And she got to play with Oompa before the rest of the guests arrived. Oompa is always fun!

We read birthday cards, which you can see she wasn't too excited about.

She got some new things for her baby dolls and had to try them out right away.

Daddy got to assemble baby furniture.

And Clara got to play with her friend, Joshua, who lives next door. She calls him Ja-sha-sha.

Attempting a picture with our birthday girl. This was the best one we got.

And the happy birthday girl with her special "birt-day cake!"

And Lola enjoyed the Elmo balloons.

It was a fun little party, but I guess I failed to take pictures of the rest of the decorations, the birthday lunch and some of the guests. Clearly our family photographer (my older sister) was not at the party since she was expecting a baby any day and couldn't make the trip.

Happy birthday, Clara! We love you!

Lola likes ice cream

2010-12-01T21:31:00.001-06:00

Jeremy shared some ice cream with Lola and she LOVED it! I think she would have jumped in the bowl if she could.

The Zoo!

2010-12-01T20:55:00.002-06:00

Back in October I scored one of the library's free passes to the Minnesota Zoo. Jeremy had a Friday off work and it was a gorgeous 80 degree day so it was perfect for the zoo. Clara loved it and she still randomly says she wants to go to the zoo. Maybe next year we can afford to buy a membership and make it a regular field trip.

She really liked watching the ducks and flamingos.

And picking up little rocks and sticks and such on the paths.

We went to the farm and saw the baby animals. The goats were very friendly and they quickly came over and stuck their heads through the fence to greet us. Clara was a pretty good sport about it, but was glad when we moved on.

It was an awesome outing! We spent a couple hours there in the morning and then had lunch and loaded up the car just in time for the girls to pass out with exhaustion.

A new business venture

2010-12-01T20:41:00.003-06:00

Has it really been over a month since I last posted anything here? That's pretty pathetic. I guess I'll use the same old excuse that life as a mom of little ones is busy. Lola is finally starting to go to bed earlier in the evening, which has been so nice because it allows me to get some things done before I go to bed...like blogging.

I'm sure I have tons of pictures of the girls to post from the last month, but for now I want to let you know about a new business venture that I've started (in case there are any of you left that don't know by now).

As of September of this year I am officially an Independent Sales Consultant for Norwex Enviro Products! They are a home-party based business (similar to Mary Kay or Pampered Chef) whose mission is to improve quality of life by radically reducing the use of chemicals in personal care and cleaning.

Over the past year or so I have become more and more passionate about reducing the amount of chemicals that my family is exposed to and I had switched many of our products over to "greener" alternatives. But this still meant spending lots of money on various cleaning products and personal care items. Now I clean my house primarily with microfiber cloths and water. It's amazing! It's cheaper, faster and healthier for my family and the environment. What could be better than that?

So even though I don't have the typical "salesperson" personality, I decided to give it a go because I'm so in love with their products that I knew I'd just naturally be telling people about them.

If you'd like to hear more about the company or the products, let me know. I'd be happy to tell you how great they are and how they'll revolutionize the way you clean!

2010-10-26T23:07:00.001-05:00

And my personal favorite...

melt my mommy heart!

Completed Kitchen (nearly)

2010-10-20T14:19:00.003-05:00

Welcome to our new kitchen! Let me show you around...

The new expanded entry as seen from the living room...

Our cozy little round table that I love because of how it improves traffic flow in this heavily-used room, new sliding door (minus the awful vertical blinds that used to adorn it)...

Beautiful new cupboards, sink, faucet, countertops. And valance that needs to be shortened by me at some time in the future.

And our almost-two-year-old standing at my feet whining because she wants to see in the camera.

And just to remind you how awful it looked before...

Jeremy (and some friends and family and a little professional help) did an AWESOME job!

I love it!

Kitchen Reno, Almost Done!

2010-09-30T14:00:00.002-05:00

Kitchen progress has been much slower the last couple weeks. Jeremy has only had some evening and weekend time to work on it, plus we went to visit his family in Wisconsin for a four-day weekend.

And I'll confess we hired a contractor friend to put up the beadboard backsplash for us yesterday. Jeremy totally could have done it, but it was a nice treat for him to just go to work for the day and come home to find it done. For now we'll be leaving it white, but someday we might paint it. We're not sure yet.

So basically all that's left is to paint the trim around the window and the sliding door, do a bit more wall painting, put up the baseboard trim and the toe kick, hang the microwave, put the remaining two cabinet doors on and their hardware, and I think that might be it. Sounds like a long list, but it's all little finishing stuff. The vast majority of the job is done! As you can see from these pictures I took today...

What a change from how it looked before. Thanks, honey, for all your hard work!

Kitchen Reno, Part 5

2010-09-11T23:03:00.003-05:00

Today Jeremy got one wall of upper cabinets installed and we painted the soffit. It's a green color, but you can't see too much of it in this picture. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get a bunch of stuff unpacked into those pretty, new cabinets!

Kitchen Reno, Part 4

2010-09-08T22:58:00.002-05:00

Well Jeremy was up until 2:00 last night working on the kitchen plumbing, but still didn't have it finished. Between the two of us we went to the hardware store four times this morning to get various plumbing supplies, plus Jeremy went there two or three times last night. Wow! I think it's safe to say he'll be very glad to stay away from plumbing projects for quite some time.

We now have working plumbing so I was able to wash dishes today and run a load in the dishwasher! The flooring is complete except for installing the threshold piece into the living room. All appliances are back in their rightful spot. The main things left are hanging the upper cabinets, installing a bead board backsplash and painting the walls. Those will have to wait a little while though because Jeremy needs a rest, plus he has to work a lot this weekend.

We're feeling quite good about things though. The house is feeling a lot closer to normal and we can even have breakfast at the table tomorrow. It's been a TON of work for Jeremy, but we're both happy with how things are turning out. The kitchen already feels so much more bright and cheerful.

Here's what it looks like tonight...

Chicken Reno, Part 3

2010-09-07T22:33:00.003-05:00

Yes, we're still working on the kitchen here. And yes, I know I wrote "Chicken Reno" in the title of this post. "Kitchen" is one of Clara's newest words, but it comes out "chicken." Cute, huh? It was making us laugh today. That and the fact that she was calling Jeremy by his name rather than calling him Daddy.

Anyways, we went to church Sunday morning, then Jeremy and a friend worked on the kitchen the rest of that day. Monday my cousin's husband graciously offered to come and help again (he was here all day Saturday too) and today Jeremy has been working on it since about 8:00 this morning and he's still going now at 10:30 PM.

These pictures were just taken about fifteen minutes ago.

When I took them Jeremy was behind the dishwasher, under the countertop, working on hooking up the dishwasher. We haven't had any plumbing in the kitchen since Saturday morning so he's determined to get that done before he goes to bed tonight. I'm hoping it doesn't take him much longer because I know he's so exhausted and really needs to go to bed.

So right now you can see that the flooring is about 85% installed. All that's left is the entryway and under the fridge. Once that's done the fridge can come back from it's temporary home in the living room.

Also all of the base cabinets and the pantry cabinet are installed and all but a small portion of the countertops are installed. The only piece left is the one that goes on that one cabinet to the left of the stove. As of this evening our stove is operational again as well. Clara was the first to break it in with scrambled eggs for dinner (she ate them, not cooked them!).

I'm proud to say that I helped a bit with the flooring installation yesterday and I put on some of the cabinet hardware today! I've even started unpacking just a tiny bit. The basic pots and pans are put away, along with silverware, towels, cookie sheets and mixing bowls.

In the top picture can you see the space to the right of the sink cabinet? The dimensions of our kitchen didn't exactly match the dimensions of the available cabinets so we ended up with about a five inch gap on either side of the sink cabinet. My clever husband made them into cubbies for cookie sheets and such. I love them already!! They don't have doors on them so I'm imaging they might be kid magnets for a season, but I also think they'll be so convenient for quick and easy storage of those big items.

I'm totally loving how it's all coming together, though for Jeremy's sake I wish it were all just done now. He's ready for some rest I think. He'll be back to work (at his non-kitchen job) tomorrow and I know he's got a busy weekend this weekend so it might be awhile before there is another significant chunk of progress to share, but I'll be sure to post pictures when there is.

Kitchen Renovation, Part 2

2010-09-04T21:46:00.003-05:00

Well two mommies and four kids ended up not coming today, but the house was still hoppin' with activity. The men worked fast and furious on framing the expanded doorway...

If you've never been to our house it's probably hard to tell in pictures, but we widened this doorway by about two feet and it makes such a big difference. It's going to be great for traffic flow as well as for letting more light into the living room.

They also got a bunch of electrical work done, patched some low spots in the floor, insulated some holes in the walls, did some plumbing for the sink, brought in all the base cabinets and even got a good half of them level and screwed down.

And even Clara was able to get in on a bit of the action...

This is what it looks like this evening, though Jeremy is still working on it right now trying to get the dishwasher hooked up again.

More to come tomorrow, Lord willing!

Kitchen Renovation, Part 1

2010-09-03T22:07:00.004-05:00

This week Jeremy started our big kitchen renovation!!! We're both so excited, but considering how much time I spend in the kitchen every day I'm thinking I'm probably allowed to say that I'm more excited than he is.

This is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in last October...

Clearly outdated, but in good shape, right? Not exactly. Somewhere along the way a previous owner had done some hokey rearranging of cabinets to accommodate a dishwasher. A couple of the drawer frames were broken so the drawers would tip and fall out when you opened them. A few of the doors wouldn't stay closed. One even had velcro at the top to try and keep it closed! And that brick backsplash...yeah, it's faux brick and it had a chunk missing.

I was very thankful for a large kitchen, and it definitely worked well enough for us, but I was looking forward to the day we'd be able to update it, and that day has come!

This was the kitchen yesterday afternoon...

Wednesday after dinner Jeremy removed all the upper cabinets. And yes, that's a big whole in the wall. The contractor was here yesterday replacing our sliding doors.

This is what the kitchen looked like this morning...

Jeremy was excited to take a saw to the awful countertops.

For many months we have talked about widening the doorway from the living room to the kitchen because it's kind of a pinch point. It was our plan to do this whenever we renovated the kitchen. Then a few days ago Jeremy was feeling like it was too much to take on right now so he cancelled that plan. Well, you can see that tonight he decided it just had to be done and that poor wall didn't stand a chance.

And this is our kitchen as of about twenty minutes ago...

Tomorrow we've got some family coming to help for the day, along with their wives and kids. We'll have eight adults here and eight kids under age four. Should be wild and crazy, but hopefully productive and safe as well. The men are hoping to get the flooring down and the base cabinets and countertops installed. I'll take pictures!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

2010-09-03T22:04:00.002-05:00

Clara is deep in the throes of the copycat stage of toddlerhood.

This is what I found her doing the other day after I had finished nursing Lola.

Yep, she's nursing her baby. With her shirt lifted and everything.

And she did this with no prompting from us. Hilarious!

Corn on the Cob

2010-08-26T12:18:00.003-05:00

Last night we had corn on the cob with dinner. At first I didn't give any to Clara, but she seemed intrigued watching Jeremy and I eat ours so I asked if she would like some and she said yes.

I was going to cut it off the cob for her, but then I thought why not let her at least try eating it off the cob, fully expecting she wouldn't be able to do it and she'd get frustrated and throw it across the room (yes, she does things like that when she is frustrated).

So I cut a little chunk of the cob off and stuck the holders into it and she just went to town on it no problem.

Oh, and see that little pink thing that looks like it's protruding from her head? That's a hat that's on the back of her chair.

Partway through the eating of her first ever corn on the cob she decided it was a hat-worthy event.

Isn't she the cutest?

Mismatched or the Latest Trend?

2010-08-21T20:59:00.002-05:00

Clara has a bit of an obsession with shoes lately. She wants to wear them all the time, even when we're in the house. She's pretty good at putting them on herself, though sometimes they end up on the wrong foot or she has trouble and she throws a fit because she's frustrated.

This morning I told her we were going to the store, so as usual she took off running to her room to get shoes. I was busy getting the diaper bag and Lola ready to go and a couple minutes later she came in the kitchen dressed like this...

Even though they didn't match each other, I have to at least give her credit for picking two shoes that did both match her outfit. :)

Placemats...Not Just for the Table

2010-08-21T20:46:00.002-05:00

You see that new pillow on my couch there?

Here's a close up...

Would you have guessed it's a placemat? Yep, it's a placemat.

I'll confess right off the bat that I did not come up with this genius idea. I stole it from someone else in the blogosphere, but I love it. $3.99 for a placemat at Target, plus about $1.50 worth of stuffing and voila! a pillow. Genius!

$30 Fan Makeover

2010-08-21T20:34:00.002-05:00

This week we have started some work in our kitchen in preparation for the big cabinet/countertop/flooring renovation coming next month. Last night Jeremy gave the ceiling a fresh coat of paint and hung a new light fixture. Today we had to tackle the issue of the ceiling fan that was above our table.

Jeremy wanted to just trash the fan and buy a chandelier, but I was lobbying for just giving our fan a facelift in favor of saving some cash. I convinced him to let me try because I told him we'd only be out $6 for the can of metallic spray paint if it turned out terribly.

So this morning we bought the supplies and came home to tackle the project. It was kinda going to be my project for the day, but Jeremy ended up doing most of it, which was fine and it probably turned out looking nicer that way anyway. I get too impatient; he's the perfectionist.

So here's the before and after...

Total cost $30..... $6 for the nickel finish spray paint and $24 for three new glass shades. We already had the white paint that we used on the fan blades, but that cost us $1 when we bought it a few months ago. A brand new chandelier would have probably cost us $80 or more so I figure we easily saved $50. And Jeremy did say the thrifty makeover turned out better than he was expecting.

The after picture looks very white, but that's because we haven't yet painted the walls the lovely "village green" color that we picked up today. I'm super excited to crack that open and get some on the wall!

Hot Summer Night

2010-08-16T13:55:00.002-05:00

This is what we did one night after dinner a couple weeks ago.

Clara played in our thrifty sandbox. Cost: $1 for the sand toys. I already had the container and we got the sand for free at Menards using a rebate coupon.

Mommy got to admire these gorgeous curls. :)

And this gorgeous, happy face!

And Clara played with our thrifty water toy. Cost: $1 for the sponges. We had the bucket sitting around the house and then I brought out a few plastic dishes and things to play with in the water. She thought it was great!

Children's Museum

2010-08-16T13:45:00.002-05:00

A couple weeks ago we met some friends at the Children's Museum for a morning of fun!

Waiting for our friends to arrive. Clara didn't want to sit for a picture...

because there were these big fun balls to play with in the lobby.

Dropping pennies in the spinny thing.

Working at the grocery store. The girl does love to push buttons!

Driving the bus.

Even Lola got in on some mail delivery action with Daddy!

Splashing at the water tables.

Running in tunnels.

We had a great time and now we want a membership there. We'll probably wait until later this winter though, when Lola is getting closer to being able to walk. There is so much to do there we barely covered a fraction of it!

Pics of Lola

2010-08-12T12:26:00.002-05:00

Some recent pics of Lola, in no particular order...

Those black things on her tummy are hair binders. I guess Clara thought Lola needed some.

Lola at her cousin's birthday party. She's not sure what to think about that crown.

Pics of Clara

2010-08-12T12:12:00.002-05:00

Some recent pictures, in no particular order...

Using her foot as a phone. :)

Playing in the "johnny jump-up"

even though she's way too big for it.

Dressing herself in Lola's shirt.

At the neighborhood wading pool.

Playing at the park - a very favorite pastime of hers.

Sporting some pink pants with camouflage accents, courtesy of Nana and Oompa.

Swinging in Lola's swing. :)

Grammie, this one's for you!

2010-08-03T08:14:00.003-05:00

Weekly Menu

2010-06-27T17:38:00.004-05:00

I'm working on my menu and shopping list for the week and thought I'd post our meals here.

Breakfasts

Homemade granola with nuts and dried fruit

Egg bake

Whole-wheat waffles

Cold cereal

Smoothies and peanut butter toast (we make smoothies whenever we have overly-ripe bananas)

Dinners

French dip sandwiches, coleslaw, chips and fruit

Slow-cooker meatloaf, potatoes, coleslaw

Pasta with tomatoes and mozzarella, salad

Carrot soup, french bread

Homemade sausage pizza

Something on the grill (ribs, brats, burgers, etc)

Snacks

Homemade cheesy crackers

Blueberry bran muffins

Hi-fiber cookies

Fresh fruit

Clara - 20 months

2010-06-27T11:44:00.004-05:00

Clara is 20 months old today!

She likes to...

-play outside

-look out our windows and point out the cars, dogs, neighbors, etc.

-watch Sesame Street (mostly the parts with Elmo)

-eat anytime, anywhere

-be tickled by Daddy

-play in the bathtub

-climb

-brush her teeth

-attempt to dress herself, but she thinks everything should go on like pants...even Lola's little onesies...and she gets really upset if she can't make it work

Her vocabulary...

-bush (brush)

-huzzat? (what's that?)

-mo mo (more)

-side (outside)

-tallow (towel)

-up (she uses this when she means up and when she means down)

-num nee (yummy)

-nee nee (meeting...she knows this word because sometimes Daddy has meetings)

-cookie

-uh oh

-noom noom (zoom zoom...this is what she calls cars)

-and several other words that I can't think of right now

She is full of energy and pretty much moves all day long. She's a good sleeper and a good eater. She loves her sister, who she calls Lola, Lolee, Lulee and Lulu. She's learning new words every day and is showing signs that she wants to potty train. She's great and we love her to bits!

May

2010-06-08T13:26:00.002-05:00

This is how you survive the heat in our house since the AC is broken...

This is just because I like to watch my babies sleep. :)

Family time at the cabin

That's about all I have time for. Clara is refusing to nap and Lola is waking up from a nap. Gotta go!

Are these girls sisters or what?

2010-05-08T21:54:00.003-05:00

Lola at 2 months and Clara at 1 month...

More pictures

2010-05-03T22:13:00.003-05:00

I can't believe it's been almost two months since I last updated my blog! Obviously I just had my second baby. After Clara was born I posted pictures and updates all the time. Now that I have two kids to care for it seems like I never have time to sit down and update the blog anymore. Someday I'll do better. Here are at least some pictures, in no particular order.

My sister had a baby girl about three weeks after us. This picture was taken shortly after we brought Lola home. Lola is sitting on her cousin. :)

This one was taken in the hospital.

I love this picture! This was on Easter Sunday. My girls are on the right. My sister's kids are on the left. Their little girl was only six days old.

Happy Easter, little sister!

Cousins - what fun they will have as they grow up!

Why Lola?

2010-03-10T09:49:00.012-06:00

Well I tried several times yesterday to get another post up here, but between feeding myself, feeding Lola, and having family and doctors and nurses in and out of our room I never was able to get something fully written. Now we are home, Clara is playing and Lola is sleeping so I'm trying again.

We have lots more pictures that we can share, and of course the birth story for those of you who are interested in that, but I thought it might be nice first to share why we chose the name that we did for our little girl.

My philosophy on naming our kids is to choose a name either for its meaning or to name them after someone significant to us. Clara was named after my great-grandma Clara and Jeremy's great-grandma Josephine, but we chose the name for this new baby based on its meaning.

Lola means 'crowned with compassion and grace.' We heard it on a TV show one night and thought it was cute so we looked up the meaning and loved it! Jeremy was pretty sold on it right away, but I still had another name or two that I liked a lot. Over time I came to like the name Lola more and more, but then we couldn't agree on a middle name to go with it. Then last week a friend of mine suggested using my name as a middle name, which we hadn't thought of at all. When I told Jeremy the idea he liked it a lot. We didn't think Lola Cristina sounded right so we went with Cristine instead, which means 'follower of Christ.' So that's how she got her name.

A Few More Photos

2010-03-09T17:49:00.003-06:00

A special thanks to Cristina's sister, Angela, who was able to capture these precious moments for us, in the midst of much hustle and bustle.

Clara already learned the first rule of being a big sister; if you cry, I'll cry with you Lola.

Welcome to our world!

2010-03-09T15:02:00.004-06:00

Here is the first picture of miss Lola Cristine Hermann! Born 12:49 pm, 7 lbs. 8 oz. 20 in. long! The cameras will be firing soon enough, so we'll post more photos as we get them.

The delivery went very smoothly and both mama and baby are doing great! Praise the Lord and thank you for praying with us! Clara was very excited to meet her little sister, though she wasn't too sure what to do when Lola started to cry, so Clara cried with her! Hopefully we'll be able to get some sweet videos of the two of them up later on.

We'll be in the hospital for the next couple days while Dan and Brenda watch Clara. This is a much different experience than we had last time, but we're thankful for both.

Stay tuned, and thanks for your support! We love you all!

First PB & J

2010-02-17T13:39:00.002-06:00

Today for lunch Clara had her first ever peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And actually it was her first sandwich of any kind. I've given her bread with various toppings before, but never put together like a sandwich. Considering that she prefers to use her fork whenever possible this was a new experience for her.

She definitely thought the pb&j was yummy!

Can you tell in this last picture that she speared the whole piece of bread with her fork?

Coloring - good, Stickers - bad

2010-02-17T13:05:00.002-06:00

I'm a big girl! I like to color! And I've grown up enough now that I'll actually color for a bit and not only focus on eating the crayons.

What is this that you gave me, mom? It's a sticker? So I'm supposed to stick this on the paper? This is interesting. I'm not sure what to think of this.

Okay, I've decided I don't like stickers! No matter how hard I try I can't seem to get them off my fingers. Please don't make me play with stickers!

Helping daddy

2010-02-17T13:02:00.002-06:00

Clara very much wants to be part of the action lately. Last night Jeremy was washing some dishes after dinner and Clara wanted to help. Or at least she wanted a front row seat to see what was going on up there in the sink. They looked so cute together I couldn't resist taking a few pictures.

My grocery shopping / menu planning strategy

2010-02-09T09:46:00.003-06:00

Since some of you have asked, today I'm going to share my basic strategy for how I approach our grocery shopping and meal planning. At least for this month, I'm trying to keep our grocery spending to about $30 per week. For those of you that do the grocery shopping in your family, you know $30 doesn't go very far so this takes a little planning before I hit the stores.

Step 1:

I gather the paper ads or look them up online and make a list of the best deals and also any staples that I know we need that week. I will usually look at Rainbow, Cub and Target for sure. Sometimes also Walmart and Aldi. I know that's a lot of stores, but I like to know what the best deals are and then I can always shorten my list later.

Step 2:

Next I scan my fridge for anything that needs to be used up that week before it spoils. It's always a bummer to throw money away because you let something go bad and had to throw it out.

Step 3:

Then I sit down with my calendar and plan our meals for the week, focusing on using what's in our fridge as well as whatever is on a great sale that week. For weekdays I just plan our dinners. For weekends I plan lunches and dinners. (I'm planning another post with more tips on choosing your meals.)

Step 4:

Next I search my coupon file and www.hotcouponworld.com for any coupons that I want to use that week. You'll see in the picture above that I bought a newspaper this week with our grocery money. They always put a flier in there for a discounted subscription so we're going to try it out and see if we like having it delivered. It is only going to cost us $.99 per week so I'm sure it will be worth it because I'll save more than that using coupons that come in the paper. I also like www.hotcouponworld.com because they keep a database of all the coupons that are available online, so each week I take my shopping list and search for the items on their website and often I find some coupons that I can print off.

Step 5:

This is probably the hardest part of the process. My final step is to take my shopping list and start trimming it down until it's within my budget for the week. It's pretty much inevitable that there will be things I will have to pass on, but I try to remind myself that there will always be good deals again in future weeks. And God is good - we have never even come close to going hungry!

Sunday is when I usually do all my planning because that's when the new ads come out for the week. This past Sunday I think the above process took me an hour or less. Sometimes it takes longer than that, depending on how focused I am and whether or not Clara is wanting my attention. That might seem like a lot of time, but I guess it's worth it to me because we just have to stick to our budget. Maybe I'll get faster over time!

After I was finished with all the planning, I left Jeremy and Clara at home and I ventured out to do the shopping. It took me an hour and 15 minutes to hit up Walgreens (for a great diaper deal), the bank, Rainbow and Cub. They are all within probably two miles of our house so I do think it's worth it sometimes to visit multiple stores in order to snag great deals. I don't do that every week though. Sometimes I'm just not up for all that running around so I decide to spend slightly more on something for the convenience of only making one stop. It's all about weighing things out and deciding what works best for our family that particular week.

And what did I get for my $30?

Cantaloupe $1.98

Green pepper $.50

Red pepper $.98

Tomato $1.67

2 1/2 lbs bananas $1.24

2 1/4 lbs grapes $2.94 (a savings of $3.88)

2 lbs sweet potatoes $1.85

3 lbs Chicken breasts $4.98

10 lbs Chicken leg quarters $3.90 (a savings of $8.09!)

cottage cheese $1.25 (50% savings)

2 packs of cheese slices $3.09 (50% savings)

Can pineapple $1.35

2 loaves of bread $3

Sunday newspaper $1.75

I spent a total of $30.38 and saved over $18 (Cub doesn't show savings very well on their receipts). I was able to get us a bunch of fresh produce and 13 pounds of chicken!

Now you want to know what we're eating for dinners this week?

M- Steak, baked potatoes, fresh steamed broccoli

T- Sweet & sour chicken skewers, brown rice, frozen veggie

W- Leftovers or sandwiches (Wednesdays we bring dinner to church and eat w/Jeremy)

Th- Pork chops, sweet potatoes, frozen mixed veggie

F- Spicy black bean burgers, tator tots, apple slices

Sa lunch- Homemade sausage pizza, orange slices

Sa dinner- Burritos (using tortillas I got for free last week on double coupon day), chips and salsa, applesauce

Sunday- Not sure yet what our plans are...it's Valentine's Day!

So Monday's broccoli and Saturday's burritos were chosen because they were items that I already had and needed to use before they spoil. I chose sweet potatoes for Thursday because there are on sale this week. And I chose the chicken skewers for Tuesday because it's a new recipe I've been wanting to try and it uses red bell pepper, which is on sale this week.

Now that this post has become quite long I'll wrap it up, but more tips to come soon.

35 weeks

2010-02-05T19:03:00.002-06:00

I'm 35 weeks today, which means we are rapidly approaching the finish line. Or the starting line...however you want to look at it I guess. :)

The pregnancy is going well for sure. I have the typical heartburn, back pain, Braxton-Hicks contractions, etc, but really nothing to complain about considering the complications that some women experience. At this point in my pregnancy with Clara I was taking naps on an almost daily basis and enjoying the ability to rest whenever I wanted. That definitely isn't happening this time around since Clara is keeping me quite busy, but I'm still hanging in there.

At my appointment today they estimated the baby to weigh about 5 lbs. 6 oz. which would put her on track to weigh about the same as Clara if I go full-term.

Preparations for this baby are moving right along. I've got about 14 meals and a few side dishes stocked away in the freezer for those first few crazy weeks. I'm hoping to get some more made, although I'm definitely slowing down and losing my motivation for things like that now. Clara's closet has been reorganized to make room for another person's clothes, and a load of our smallest baby things have been washed and put away. The cradle is out and we've got diapers to get us through the first 3-4 weeks. There are plenty of other things that it would be nice to get done before she comes, but at this point if I went into labor tonight I wouldn't be too stressed. Although I haven't yet packed a hospital bag and Jeremy and I can't seem to agree on a name, so hopefully she waits a little longer before she makes her grand entrance. :)

Clara had to be included in this picture because otherwise you would have seen her little crying face down in the corner and her hands reaching up for me. For some reason she wants me to hold her a lot lately. Unfortunate timing considering my belly is getting bigger and bigger every day!

Grocery shopping and menu planning

2010-02-03T14:07:00.004-06:00

I've been thinking about reviving my posts about grocery shopping and meal planning, at least sporadically on the weeks that I feel like I'm up to it. Then last night my mom saw my meal plan posted on the fridge and she said I should really be posting that on my blog each week so she can take ideas from it, so here goes.

Now that we've had a few months in our new house and we're getting a feel for our increased expenses related to that I'm feeling the need to renew my efforts to keep our grocery bill as low as possible. At least for this month, my intent is to spend only $30 each week on groceries. That does not include baby items or household items - just groceries.

So this week I went a little over and spent a grand total of $37.05 which means I'll have to make up for that in the coming weeks. I went to Aldi, Target and Walmart earlier in the week but I wasn't able to take a picture of those shopping trips because I didn't have access to my camera then. The picture above is just from today at Rainbow. Wednesdays are double coupon day there and I decided I probably need to try and take advantage of that again. I haven't done a double coupon day in quite awhile. I spent $15.54 there, but without sales and double coupons all that would have cost me $30.45. That's a savings of almost 50%!

And here's our meal plan for this week:

M- Leftover taco soup, bread w/butter

T- Love soup (terrible name but it tasted good), homemade bread

W- Red beans & rice, cornbread muffins, orange slices

Th- Salmon, roasted broccoli spears, baked potatoes

F- Spaghetti & meatballs, salad, homemade french bread w/garlic butter

Sa lunch- Tuna melts, chips, apple slices

Sa dinner- Steak, baked potatoes, steamed veggie

S lunch- leftovers or maybe omelets

S dinner- homemade pizza, veggies and dip

Several friends have asked me how I pull off spending so little on groceries. I definitely don't have all the answers and I know there are plenty of people that do better than me on this subject, but I'll try in the coming weeks to share some of my strategies here.

Stinky feet!

2010-01-27T07:13:00.005-06:00

For many months now my mom has played this game with Clara where she smells Clara's feet and then makes a big deal of the fact that they stink (they don't really stink though). Clara has always thought it was really funny, and recently she has started to play the game with herself. The other night I was able to capture it on video. A lot of her words these days sound very similar, but we're pretty sure she is saying "smell" as she lifts her foot to her nose.

Long overdue - Clara's birthday!

2010-01-15T13:08:00.002-06:00

Our sweet girl turned one at the end of October! I know I'm very late in sharing pictures, but we had her party just a week after moving into our new house. Now that things are finally settling down I feel like I can catch up on posting some of these events.

She opened presents (with a little help)...

Her Nana (my mom) made her a panda bear cake. This is my family's tradition for first birthdays. The birthday boy/girl gets the cake all to themselves. Typically they demolish it, once they realize that it's not a stuffed animal.

Clara, however, did not demolish hers, as you can see. She had a few little tastes of it and then she decided it was more fun to feed it to daddy. This is her cake after she was finished with it. Nana, we hope you don't feel like you wasted your time making it for her. We did enjoy eating it later in the week.

And since we had her party on Halloween we finished by dressing her up in her costume. It was too cold to go trick-or-treating, but we did go next door and say hi to the only neighbors we had met so far. They gave her a mini candy bar, which mommy and daddy ate.

Happy birthday, Clara! We love you!

Reaching new heights

2010-01-03T10:12:00.002-06:00

Clara has recently taken an interest in our kitchen stool. She's discovered that she can climb up onto it all by herself and get into a standing position, which she finds very exciting! Don't worry, grandmas and grandpas, I don't let her stand there unattended (unless I want to take pictures of her).

We are definitely realizing more and more that she is becoming a "big girl" and learning new things all the time.

And this picture just cracks me up...

I found the two of them like this yesterday morning. Clara isn't really playing, although she thinks she is. She loves anything with buttons so she thought it was pretty great when daddy took the battery out of the controller and let her use it.

30 weeks!

2010-01-03T10:04:00.002-06:00

I can't quite believe we're already to 30 weeks in this pregnancy! Between taking care of busy little Clara and settling in to our new house I've been so busy I haven't been able to focus much on this pregnancy. Our little girl should now be about 15 1/2 inches long and weigh almost three pounds. Jeremy asked me the other night if I'm growing another wild one in there and I had to say yes. This little one moves just as much as Clara did I think!

Pantry Challenge: Week 5

2009-12-27T12:33:00.003-06:00

Yep, I never posted the pantry challenge update last week. I guess time just got away from me as we were getting ready for and then celebrating Christmas. So this is week five and the last week of the month. It's been a good exercise, but I've found it's hard to not stock up on great deals each week. So as a result I think I've spent more on groceries this month than I intended at the beginning, but I guess I'm okay with that. I did still make a noticeable dent in our food supply.

Here's our menu for the week:

Monday

Parmesan potato soup, salad

Tuesday

Corn, ham and noodle casserole, cooked carrots

Wednesday

Meatless burritos, chips and salsa

Thursday

Leftover potato soup, salad

Friday

L- Hash brown quiche, toast, fruit

D- Baked spaghetti, green beans, garlic toast

Saturday

L- sandwiches, chips, carrots and dip

D- Rice medley, apple slices

Sunday

L- White chicken chili, biscuits

D- Meatloaf, baked potatoes, creamed corn

Peekaboo!

2009-12-21T21:41:00.003-06:00

Recently we have had several different people on different occasions tell us what a funny kid Clara is, what a great personality she has, and how expressive she is. But the funny thing is that Jeremy and I are both so mellow and calm we're really not sure where she got this from. We do enjoy it though! She keeps us laughing a lot. And she keeps herself laughing a lot too!

This video was taken a few weeks ago. Jeremy had just gotten home from work and Clara couldn't wait until we were done at the dinner table before she started playing with him.

Clara's first artwork

2009-12-21T14:49:00.002-06:00

The other day Jeremy and I were working on some things around the house and Clara was just wandering around playing with toys, reading books and generally getting into things. While we weren't looking, she went into the kitchen, reached up on the table and got herself a pencil and then proceeded to think it would be a good idea to scribble on the wall. Why she would think of that I have no idea, other than the simple fact that she's a kid and the wall was available. Thankfully she picked the one wall in our entire house that is unfinished so it really doesn't matter that she scribbled on it. And isn't her artwork pretty?

Amazing!

2009-12-21T14:31:00.002-06:00

So we moved into our new house in October. It had been vacant for two years and needed a good cleaning. On the day we moved, a dear friend offered to clean our bathroom. She scrubbed on hands and knees and made that room sparkle for us! However, the shower and tub had a layer of grime on the lower half that just wouldn't come off no matter how hard she worked at it. Then another friend recommended I try the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser because she said she has had good luck with those in the past. I bought the product pictured above and I was so thoroughly impressed with it that I just had to blog about it. It cut through that scum so easily it almost seemed too good to be true. It is by far the best product I have ever used for cleaning the tub. And it even smells good too! So if you ever need to clean a grimy tub, get the Magic Eraser for kitchen and bath. You won't regret it!

Snow!

2009-12-21T13:46:00.003-06:00

Yesterday Jeremy went out to shovel our driveway and he decided it would be a good day to introduce Clara to sledding! So I bundled her all up in her snowsuit and we went outside. At first she didn't like the snowsuit, but once we got outside she got over it.

We put her in this little wooden sled that Jeremy's mom used when she was a kid. Our street was packed with snow so Jeremy just pulled her down the street and around the cul de sac. She thought it was fun!

I did take some video of her adventures, but it's taking forever to load on here so maybe I'll try again another day.

Pantry Challenge: Week 3

2009-12-17T14:52:00.002-06:00

It's kind of late in the week to post this, but I'm doing it anyway. It's week three of my pantry challenge. Here's our menu:

Monday
Turkey log (I was going to make it last Sunday, but Jeremy wanted homemade pizza instead while we watched football), biscuits, steamed veggies

Tuesday
Cheesy broccoli strata, toast, homemade canned pears

Wednesday
Leftover strata, fruit

Thursday
Steaks, scalloped potatoes, glazed carrots

Friday
Dinner out with a friend

Saturday
Lunch and dinner at my family's Christmas gathering!

Sunday
L- grilled cheese, tomato soup
D- White chicken chili, cornbread

We did stock up on some chicken this week because there was a great sale at Rainbow, along with a couple bags of frozen veggies, but otherwise we already had everything for this week's menu. On to week #4!

Pantry Challenge: Week 2

2009-12-09T09:51:00.004-06:00

Our menu for the week:

Monday
Shake & bake chicken, baked potatoes, salad

Tuesday
Pasta w/meatballs, garlic toast, caesar salad

Wednesday
Jambalaya, biscuits, apple slices

Thursday
Going to a Christmas party

Friday
Leftover pasta w/meatballs, steamed veggie

Saturday
L- leftover Jambalaya, biscuits, fruit
D- homemade pizza, salad or carrots w/dip

Sunday
L- omelets, toast, orange slices
D- turkey log (not a very appealing name, but hopefully it tastes good), biscuits, steamed veggie

I did buy a few fresh produce items for this menu, but everything else I already had. So far it doesn't even feel like I've made a dent in our stock of food here. Maybe I can go longer than a month with this challenge! We'll see.

Baby Update

2009-12-09T09:46:00.002-06:00

Wow, the second pregnancy goes so much faster than the first! I've been so busy with taking care of Clara and trying to settle in to our new house that I hardly have time to think about this pregnancy. This friday I will be 27 weeks, which marks the start of the third trimester already. I'm feeling pretty well lately, though I definitely am aware that I am pregnant and getting larger all the time. Baby girl is supposed to be about 14" long and weigh about 1 and 2/3 pounds right now. She's a busy little girl who likes to move around a lot, which I am thankful for!

Pantry Challenge

2009-12-01T15:31:00.002-06:00

Wow, it's been a long time since I last posted! But I have many excuses. Much of October and November the three of us were sick with colds. We moved into our house at the end of October. A week later we had Clara's birthday party. A couple weekends in a row of house guests. And last week we went to Manitowoc to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas with Jeremy's family. So am I off the hook for not posting for so long?

This month I've decided to present myself with a pantry challenge. I'm going to attempt to keep the grocery purchases to a minimum and use up as much as I can that we already have on hand. I thought it might be a fun challenge, plus it will encourage me to use up some of those things that have been in the cupboard for a long time, hopefully cut down on my time spent running errands, and leave us with a little extra cash at the end of the month.

So for this week's menu...

Monday
L- turkey sandwiches, coleslaw, cranberries (all were Thanksgiving leftovers)
D- leftover pizza and pasta, applesauce

Tuesday
Turkey hash, biscuits, cranberries

Wednesday
Summer Sausage soup, biscuits, kiwi

Thursday
Chicken enchiladas, apple slices

Friday
Pork chops, baked potatos, salad

Saturday
Dinner out w/friends

Sunday
Dinner at a Christmas party

I did buy the kiwi and the apples today, along with a few other fresh produce items, but otherwise I already had everything I needed for these meals.

Anyone else want to take on a pantry challenge this week/month?

Introducing...

2009-10-12T11:46:00.002-05:00

Clara's sister!

That's right...it's another girl for the Hermann's! We had our ultrasound this morning and everything looks great with the baby. We were under the impression that they would be able to look at the baby's esophagus to see if he/she might have the same birth defect that Clara did, but it turns out they aren't able to. All they can really do is look to see if there is fluid in the stomach, which they said is the best indication that everything has developed as it should. They were able to see fluid in this baby's stomach, but they were also able to with Clara so that didn't really provide the assurance to us that we were hoping for. They did, however, look pretty closely at the baby's heart. Clara was born with a small VSD (hole in her heart) which puts any additional children that we have at higher risk for heart defects. They saw nothing abnormal about the baby's heart, but they want us to come back in four weeks to look again when the baby is a little bigger. And since we'll be coming back for that they'll go ahead and look at the stomach again to see if that still looks good.

So we are very pleased with the results of the ultrasound and now we're getting excited thinking about having two girls. I'll probably pull out the baby name book this afternoon and start looking for ideas!

Thank you for your continued prayers for our little baby girl who is perfectly formed yet weighs only about 8 ounces right now. God is so good!

(What you see in the ultrasound picture is the front of the baby's face, with a fist below it. The rest is uterus, placenta, etc.)

Cookin' up some fun!

2009-10-10T21:15:00.002-05:00

I've noticed recently that Clara has begun to outgrow the "baby toys" that we've accumulated for her so I've been watching Craig's List for an inexpensive play kitchen. Most of the ones I'd been seeing were still around $60 which wasn't cheap enough for me. Until today. Someone had posted one last night for $25 and it looked cute and in good condition so I jumped on it. We picked it up this afternoon and Clara's first reaction to it was pure delight. I didn't get a great picture of her with it yet because she was constantly on the move checking everything out. It makes noise when you play with the faucet, push buttons on the phone, and turn the pages of the cookbook. And the burners on the stove light up like they're hot. Now we just need to buy some play food and dishes and she'll be set for hours of fun!

18 weeks

2009-10-10T21:01:00.002-05:00

Since I've put a few new posts on the blog recently you can probably guess that I'm starting to feel better finally. I'm definitely not 100%, but far better than I was a couple months ago. I've got quite a bit more energy and eating has gotten a lot easier too. I'm 18 weeks now...almost halfway to the end! We have our big ultrasound on Monday morning and we're hoping to find out whether we're having a boy or a girl. This will be a level 2 ultrasound, which means it shows more detail. My clinic doesn't routinely do level 2 ultrasounds, but because of the birth defects that Clara had they want to look at this baby more closely. We'll be sure to post results of the ultrasound later on Monday.

Hidden treasure

2009-10-07T08:54:00.003-05:00

Clara started walking about two weeks ago. Now she cruises all over our little apartment, exploring all the nooks and crannies, crumbs and fuzzes, cords, cupboards, books, appliances....anything she can possibly reach.

This morning I pulled out my mixing bowls to make up a batch of pancakes and I found this...

The picture turned out a little bright, but that's a pacifier in there. She loves to open this cupboard multiple times a day, but I didn't realize that she had decided it would make a good hiding spot for her treasures. It made me smile!

Big game!

2009-10-06T09:26:00.002-05:00

Before the big game:

After the big game:

Well, we don't actually have an "after" picture. When the game ended, Clara was sound asleep in her bed and Jeremy was not a happy camper. Who wants a picture of that? Better luck next time, Packers!

2009-09-22T08:50:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time since I've posted much here. Sadly I can't seem to find our camera so this post will be without pictures, but nevertheless I thought an update might be nice.

The past two months have been quite challenging for us since I was hit with all day, every day "morning sickness." I don't know why they call it that when it lasts all day. We've definitely been living in survival mode, meaning I wasn't cooking, cleaning or running any errands. My family has helped us a TON (I would not have survived without them!) and Jeremy has picked up a lot of my slack. Thankfully things are starting to turn around and I'm able to contribute more to the household operations now. I'm not yet feeling as well as I would like, but way better than two months ago.

As for the baby, as far as we can tell everything is great with him/her! I'm almost 16 weeks now so I expect to start feeling this little one moving soon. I felt Clara at 18 weeks, which is right around the corner. Because of Clara's birth defects we will be having a level 2 ultrasound this time so we can check out this baby more closely. As far as we know this baby doesn't have any higher chance of a birth defect like Clara's, but they want to check him/her out more closely just to be sure. That appointment is scheduled for October 12th and we do plan to find out the gender again. I'm too impatient to wait until Spring!

Clara is almost 11 months old now, which I can hardly believe. She is walking all over the apartment holding onto furniture and getting into everything! We expect her to be walking on her own by the time her birthday rolls around. She's getting closer every day it seems. She has eight teeth, and judging by the amount of finger chewing that has been happening for the past several weeks, more teeth are coming soon. She loves to dance to music and wrestle with her daddy. Recently she has become more snuggly, which I love. She'll come up to me and give me a hug, or snuggle her stuffed animals, and one of my favorites is when she lays on a pillow and says "ohhhhhh." So cute! She seems to learn something new every day. We are definitely loving being her parents.

As for the house that we mentioned several months ago, that has been a rollercoaster in and of itself! It's way too long of a story for me to tell here, not to mention I probably wouldn't remember most of it anyway, but the good news is we expect to be closing sometime next week! We are super excited to get in there and start cleaning and painting and getting settled. It's going to be so nice to have more space, and to have a yard and a garage and...oh, I'm so excited! We'll keep you posted on that.

Beyond those things I'm not sure what else to report. With me spending most of the summer feeling sick we didn't get to do many of the fun summer things I had hoped to do this year. And if we do indeed close on the house next week the month of October is going to be crazy busy. I'll try to post some pictures sometime soon, but for now I can't find our camera.

Praying you all are well!

Daddy Daughter Weekend!

2009-08-23T14:58:00.001-05:00

Hanging out with Daddy is tiring! It's been a long weekend and there's
so many new things to do that I don't like to slow down to sleep. But
the car got the best of me and out I went.

Our family is growing!

2009-07-31T16:17:00.002-05:00

Jeremy and I are expecting another baby! I had my first appointment today and everything looked great. I'm due mid-March so I'm about 7 1/2 weeks right now. We hadn't planned to have babies 17 months apart, but we're definitely excited. Judging by the way Clara responds to her new little cousin, Zion, I think she'll be thrilled to have a baby brother or sister!

I'm definitely not feeling well right now so we've kicked into survival mode, which means I probably won't be blogging a whole lot for the next several weeks. I'm praying the Lord allows this yuckiness to pass quickly, but I know it's for a good cause.

Thanks for your prayers for our new little bean!

Weekly Shopping

2009-07-15T11:46:00.002-05:00

Have you noticed I've strayed a bit from the weekly $45 grocery budget recently? I've decided maybe I can vary my weekly budget to stock up on great deals, as long as I still stay within the monthly budget. So today I went to Rainbow and only spent $15.59. It was double coupon day so I scored some awesome deals. Both packs of shredded cheese and both frozen yogurt parfaits were FREE! The baby wash was $.50 and the shaving cream was $.59. I love double coupon day! I spent $15.59 and saved $23.06.

Baby Zion!

2009-07-14T13:32:00.002-05:00

My sister (Brook) and her husband just got back home with their new baby, Zion Christopher! We got to see him last night at a little celebration dinner at my parents' house. He is the sweetest sweetie you ever did see!

Nana will take as many grandkids as she can get!

Cousins meeting each other. Clara doesn't really understand "gentle" but she did quite well with Zion, as if maybe she could sense the need to be gentle with him.

Don't you just want to eat him up?

Menu Plan Monday

2009-07-13T20:47:00.002-05:00

Here's our menu for the week...

Monday
Dinner at my parents to welcome our new nephew, Zion! (Pictures coming soon)

Tuesday
Pita pizzas, salad

Wednesday
Church picnic

Thursday
Breaded shrimp, baked potatoes, frozen veggies

Friday
Pasta w/meat sauce, green beans

Saturday
BLT sandwiches, tomato soup

Sunday
Egg bake, fruit, toast

We also have some cherries that we need to do something with this week so if you know any good recipes, let me know!

Six-month pics

2009-07-07T10:42:00.006-05:00

Clara is over eight months old now, but back in May my sister took some six-month pictures for us. There were so many good ones, but these are some of my favorites.

Put me back on the blanket! I don't like the grass!

Mommy makes it better!

Okay, maybe the grass isn't so bad after all.

Oh, yes it is! The grass is bad! The grass is bad!