Stimulus

I found this on another blog that I enjoy, and decided I'd post it on my blog as well.
The first big stimulus package amounts to about $10,000 of debt per household. For those that voted for Obama, they are welcome to pay my share.

- Sorry, just had to vent. Isn't anyone else frustrated with the whole mess?

Flashback

When Emily was Meredith's age (about 21 months) this is what we were doing.

In this picture I had just had Meredith not too long ago, and Emily was coming to see her baby sister for the first time. Sadly, this is about as close as she got to her. In the middle of the night the night before I had to check into the hospital to be induced, I woke up to a terrible cough coming from Emily's room. :( She was sick, so I wouldn't let her very close to the baby. I still tried to make sure she was included and after a couple of days she was much better so we could let her enjoy her baby sister.

She was always pointing at the baby. "Baby, baby," she'd say. It was so exciting to her. My sister did her hair and dressed her. She did a great job. Nathan was definitely thankful to have my sister do it. :)

This picture I had to add because Meredith makes this same face. LOL. Emily would just close her eyes when we told her something she didn't want to do or she didn't want to hear. Meredith does the same thing now.

This is why I still call Meredith by the nickname "Muffet". I had a hard time putting my baby on the lights. I knew she had to do it, but I just wanted to hold my baby. So, to make it easier on myself I would say, "I'm putting the Muffet on her Tuffet" and then say the nursery rhyme to her when I put her on the lights. I know it sounds silly, but it made it easier on me.

My Talker

Meredith is quite my little talker. Tonight Emily was being difficult and Meredith asked her, "What do you need?" Meredith also asks me to sing certain songs. She says "Beam" for "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam", "Walking" for "I Often Go Walking" (a Mother's Day Song we sing as a lullaby) and "God" for "I Am a Child of God" and "Birthday" (this one she gets from Emily because Emily is always asking me to sing all of the Birthday songs in the Primary Hymnbook. And I do mean ALL of them. Emily is completely fascinated with Birthdays. I had a board covered in a plain color of wrapping paper for my piano students' game that I play with them and she upwrapped it. She thought it was a gift or something.)

Meredith says "diaper change" to me all the time. It's not because she really needs a diaper change. She LOVES to play with the buckle on the diaper changing table. She just discovered it was there. I don't use it because I've never really needed it (no worries, my children are safe, I don't just leave them there). This afternoon I was putting her down for a nap and she asked me for a diaper change, after I was done she said "diaper change" again. Haha. I don't think so.

FHE - Wise Man and the Foolish Man

For FHE we learned about the Wise Man and the Foolish Man. Here they are building houses out of blocks which they promptly knocked down.


I posted the lesson (pictures and everything) Here on my FHE blog.

Bread Crusts - How do you eat them?

I finally got tired of Emily not eating her crust. That wastes a LOT of bread, so now I make her eat the crust or she doesn't get any more food. This is how she's been eating it lately. Pretty darn funny. She leaves it in one long peace (I fold one piece of bread over to make a sandwich), dangles it in front of her and eats it. Hey, I don't mind how she eats it. I'm thankful we've finally made the wonderful attempt at eating our crust. :) Yay!

On the same topic of eating our food, Emily is eating her vegetables. I make a veggie tray for lunch and/or dinner and I let her choose out of 3 or 4 options which one she'd like to eat. I also let her have some lowfat (or nonfat) ranch dip. I think nonfat ranch isn't very tasty, but nonfat sour cream with the dry ranch dip mix is ok. I'm still worried about Meredith and choking hazards though, so I keep her veggies cut small and cooked. I'm so glad the girls are eating vegetables. I guess all I needed to do was make a better attempt at it.

Free Subs

To all my good friends out there, here is a free sub . Quiznos is giving away free subs. What a wonderful, cheap date night meal this will make. :) They'll be gone soon though, so hurry.

Fun Activities for Kids (Coloring Pages, Learning, etc.)

So, there's so much fun stuff on the internet. I just thought I'd share some of the stuff I've found.

Tracing Letters Emily loves to have me help her trace the letters

Coloring Pages

Preschool Flashcards

Create your own handwriting worksheet (Emily loves to write her own name. Try this one out.)

File Folder Games (on to-do list)

File Folder Games (on to-do list)

If you've found some things like these, especially some fabulous Preschool stuff, I'd love to hear about it.

HUGS!

Meredith is learning to give the best hugs. I'll ask her to give me a hug and she gives me the biggest little bear hug right around my neck. SO CUTE! Lately she's also been saying, "Hold you," anytime she wants me to hold her. I think it is just adorable. I've been holding her more often lately between being sick and teething and her being able to say, "Hold you."

I RAN to my camera for this one. I'm so glad I got it.

Sweet Girl Practice

For the most part I have really sweet girls. Every once in a while they forget and it ends them up in a time out so they can remember, but that doesn't happen too often. (Of course "too" sort of has a different definition for everyone :) This picture Emily tucked Meredith in "bed". She was doing this earlier when they were in their bedroom. Emily was tucking Meredith into Emily's toddler bed. Then she came out to me and said, "Meredith is sleeping."

And here's my ham. Anytime the camera is out they just look at it and say "cheese." All I want is to catch them at what they are doing. Then again, I like it that they'll pose for the camera the rest of the time.

Tonight I asked Emily if she'd smile for me (she wasn't very happy and I was trying to get her to smile so she could have a cookie.) She didn't even smile she just said "cheese" without smiling. I thought it was pretty funny since any other time we say "cheese" it's either asking for some to eat, or they are very enthusiastic about saying "cheese" for the camera with great big grins.

Birthday Day (Me)

Nathan made me a birthday cake. The two big bunches are for every decade I've lived and the one candle is for years. We may or may not have 23 some odd candles, but he just stuck these in. He also made me a yummy dinner.

I'm also excited about my new little decoration. I just had to take a picture. The Family sign I found at a nice little store here in Tucson. I'm definitely going to go back. They had some great deals!

My Movie Lovers

And who says you can't watch 3 movies at once. There was already a movie in there and Emily tried to put in 2 more. :)

Bedtime

We had a group of friends come over to play the day I took this picture. Emily fell asleep within a couple minutes of tucking her in with the light on. She looked so beautiful and peaceful, I just had to take a picture.

And this was Meredith. Who's tired? She's been putting up some fights lately about going to bed. Oh, joy!

Happy Birthday to ME

So, today's my birthday. My parents and brothers came to spend some time with me. It was fun. Emily couldn't wait for Uncle Matthew to get here. I wisely waited until the morning of to tell her. She was glad to help clean up after she heard the news. My parents, Nathan and I went out to eat at Claim Jumpers and then my mom and I went shopping. We found something cute for my Living Room (when I find my card reader, or use Nathan's computer, I'll post a picture) and my parents also gave me a beautifully embroidered bag to take to the temple.

Nathan fed me breakfast this morning and is currently making dinner and a cake. When I got home from church I found a surprise birthday present from the girls. A set of shelves for our food storage to put in the garage. I actually bought Nathan's gift to me about a week ago. When we get a free weekend (hopefully soon) we're going to go try out the hiking carrier. I can't wait to go hiking. I miss it. We've only been once since having Emily and haven't been brave enough to try it without a hiking carrier with two of them. So, hopefully I'll get to post about a fun hike soon. In the meantime, Meredith loves being in it and it's really quite comfortable.

So many people remembered my birthday. I'm truly blessed with wonderful family and friends. Thank you.

Squash

It's amazing to me just how long it takes to get over a negative view of something. Anytime I had seen anyone eat squash it had always looked really nasty and like mush. I was even slightly amazed at how firm it was when I finally decided to cook it for some purees (I was expecting mush, and yes, I know that sounds really silly). It was just like zucchini squash and smelled similar to pumpkin. Brace yourselves, I even LIKED the smell and it smelled even BETTER after getting it out of the oven. I finally ate some, cooked just perfect yesterday at Claim Jumper. I think it was grilled and was perfect. I like my carrots to be slightly crunchy still when I cook them (I like carrots best plain, but I don't like soggy carrots.) So, after trying some perfect carrots and some perfect zucchini squash (I've already mentioned before they I really like zucchini squash) I tried something else that sort of looked like the zucchini squash but without the green outside. It was yellow squash, and I LOVED it! Hah! It took me almost 23 years to figure that out. I figured it out the day before. Anyhow, I just thought it was funny. I'm one of the nutty people that actually LIKES the stuff. :) Zucchini squash is still my favorite though. (Who knows, maybe that'll change too.)

Sleepless Nights and Teething

I have been blessed with extremely good sleepers. Of course, any time I don't get my full amount of sleep it is a shock to the system (I'm sure it's a shock for mothers who don't have really good sleepers either.) Meredith just finished cutting one of her molars. The top molars were just fine, the first molar on the bottom was fine, and then there's the other molar. We gave her tylonel and she still ended up in bed with us, but she couldn't sleep, so after I had a try at it Nathan took her and was up till 4am (have I ever mentioned he's the best husband in the whole wide world. What husband will stay up with a child for that long, it was even longer than what I had her for.) The next night I decided that we'd have a better chance of sleeping if she just started out in bed with us. She refused to sleep between us though, so in the middle of the night I had to catch her just before she fell to the floor. Scary. That's been the roughest teething we've had so far. The next night we tried her in her own bed since she slept so well the night before with us. She fussed a little bit, but she was tired and slept through the night. Boy, I just don't know how I did it when they were newborns. I don't think there is a "how to do it" I just think you do it. You get through it without thinking about it. Which is good, because with no sleep you can't think :) Here's hoping for smooth roads once more.

Grilled Cheese or Grilled Squash

I'm not a yellow squash fan (I like zucchini squash). I don't know if I've met anyone that does like it, but I'm sure there are people out there who like it or don't but will eat it for the sake of eating healthy and gardening. I've now tried several recipes from the Deceptively Delicious cookbook and have liked a few, but we just tried the Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and yuck. Let's just say it was wonderful for my diet. I really didn't eat much and had plenty of vegetables. The girls seem to be eating it though. The recipe calls for mixing yellow squash or butternut squash into the grated cheese. We're using butternut squash. I'm definitely not a fan. To make it or not to make it. I can stand it, just don't really like it. The girls are having yellow squash into their diet. Nathan definitely won't be going for this recipe. I just feel bad feeding the girls that yucky stuff. So, I don't think I'll be making it again. They're not too bad, I just expect a grilled cheese sandwich when I make a grilled cheese sandwich, not... something else. On the flip side of things though, I like the ice cream sandwiches (which is really just lemon yogurt frozen) and the popsicles (which is again the same plain yogurt that you mix berries into). Yummy.

Celery!

Emily ate a small stick of celery, which she chose to eat, without being asked to yesterday. She didn't want to eat dinner and so she chose to eat a celery stick instead so she could have some chocolate milk. She didn't even cry about it. Just ate it. When Nathan told me she'd done it (I was fixing a yummy, healthy dessert) I was ecstatic and made her some chocolate milk. (I don't give her a whole glass of chocolate milk. Half of a cup is enough.) They loved the ice cream sandwiches that I made from Deliciously Deceptive.