Organizing Frenzy!!!

Nesting season in my pregnancy has hit! I'm going nuts trying to get many things accomplished before our baby arrives in a few months. Today I was cleaning the back closet by our garage and putting all kinds of things in order. One thing I'm really excited about is that I took an over the door pocket shoe holder and placed it on the door to our laundry room, which is right by our garage door entry, and now it houses some of our shoes as well as hats & mittens & other random things. I love it and it has cleared a LOT of clutter from the closet & the floor! And the other great thing is that I already had the shoe holder from my grad. school days. I'm glad I hung onto it! Something which I'm slightly embarassed to say is that I still had several boxes with 3 ring binders full of notes and papers from college and grad. school, and I have been going through and keeping only the few things which might be of use to me in my teaching now. That has eliminated a LOT of paper clutter, for which I'm thankful! It was a lot of fun going back and reading some of my papers from college, because they sort of give a glimpse into that stage of my life and what I was thinking about, dreaming about and living. I loved college and grad. school and I'm thankful that I had such wonderful teachers and opportunities to learn and grow.

Another fun thing is that we're getting ready to decorate a "big girl room" for Kristi, and I'm so excited about it. I have spent many hours looking for just the right toddler bedding and bed, and contemplating whether or not to keep her in the crib and get another crib for the next baby...or put her in the toddler bed...or just put her on a twin size mattress on the floor...but I really feel like we're doing the right thing to try the toddler bed. She'll be two in May, and I want to get her transitioned before Baby Boy comes into our world in July. So, we're hoping to get all painted and decorated in her room in the next few weeks and start the transition. The toddler bedding that I found for Kristi is just adorable, and it has a tea party theme. We're planning on putting polka dots and tea pots painted on the wall here and there to make it more whimsical and inviting in her room! And I'm hoping to sew some curtains too. Here's the link for bedding, and this company has so many awesome things to choose from that are not "character" related... which I think is really cool.

Erik is busily scraping wallpaper goop from our kitchen and we're hoping to paint the kitchen soon too! Exciting times for decorating are here. He is such an amazingly resourceful, talented and helpful man, and I'm very thankful for him!!!

Oh, and Baby Boy seems to be doing fine in my tummy. Kristiana has been saying "Baby Brudder in Mama's tummy" and then she comes up and kisses me and pats my belly. It is very cute.

Blessings to you all.

Raspberry Lip and Other Adventures...

Wowsers, I haven't posted in a very long time, but there are a lot of great reasons for that! Life has been so full and busy and I'm thankful for the things that have happened. Erik & I had the wonderful opportunity to take a long weekend vacation to Charleston, South Carolina the last few days of February and first few days of March. It was just great to be together and to see a lovely old city with so much history! The weather was AMAZING for us...sunny every day and it got up to 65 degrees, which felt so nice! When we left Minnesota, it had been only about 13 degrees, so it was a huge shock to our systems to be in the warmth. We saw Fort Sumter where the Civil War began, we walked along the beach on the little coastal islands where we saw two washed up jellyfish & some dolphins swimming in the wake of a huge freight ship, we went for a carriage ride in old Charleston and learned a bunch of historical and fun trivia and saw gorgeous old homes and other establishments, we walked through the famous Charleston market and saw ladies weaving sweet grass baskets, we went to the beautiful Magnolia Plantation & Gardens where we toured the plantation house and then also saw the gardens and swamp area that are now maintained the by Audubon Society...and I think we saw probably 5 alligators, which was great! I had never seen alligators and really really wanted to, so that was a fun highlight for me. While we were at the plantation garden place we met the wife of Kevin Costner's photo stand in, and they are a really neat Christian family. There were some connections that Erik was able to make with them from his past, and that was cool. Didn't get to meet the photo stand-in guy though because he was off working on a new Kevin film in the Charleston area. I'll have to see it now! We also ate at a bunch of amazing restaurants and each probably gained 5 pounds over the weekend. I felt like a beached whale when we were flying home that Sunday! The food was AMAZING! We had some good southern favorites like fried green tomatoes & crab cakes, and I also had some fresh North Carolina stream trout - that was incredible. One of the restaurants we ate at was called "High Cotton" and it was really fancy. Good thing we went there for lunch and not dinner, because I don't think we would've had the appropriate attire for dinner. If you have seen the film "The Notebook" there is a dining room restaurant scene that was filmed in that restaurant. Now I'll have to watch that again too. All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. We felt so footloose and fancy free, and decided that it would be fun to have this "babymoon" before our little baby boy comes in July. Thanks to my parents for watching Little Bug while we were gone. She had such a great time over there and we felt so content knowing that she was being well cared for.

About the raspberry lip, that was today's adventure! Kristi & I were downstairs and as we were getting ready to come back up, she fell and landed her cute little mouth on the hard cement floor, causing her to bite her lip pretty hard. There was blood everywhere, and I didn't know what to do! We've never had an incident like that. So, I called calm & collected Daddy & asked him, and he said (while daughter is screaming in the background), "just put a cool washcloth in her mouth & maybe have her suck on an ice cube, or put the ice cube inside the washcloth." So, I did that, and it really helped. I tried giving her a popsicle but she didn't want it because it was "too cold." Anyway, her teeth are still intact, and her raspberry lip is puffy and there, but she's doing okay. A little Tylenol & some teething gel spread on her lip did the trick and she's outside playing in the snow right now with Daddy.

Well, enough of my adventures for one day. I'll try to post some pictures soon. Blessings to all of you.

Hubby is Home!

Erik got home last Saturday from a 3.5 week work trip in Asia. He goes usualy twice a year to many many countries in the Asia Pacific region, and I hear lots of cool stories about the people he meets and works with, as well as foods and places that he gets to see. Of course, he is doing work almost the entire time he is gone, so there really isn't much time for sight seeing. One really great thing from this trip was that Erik got to spend some time with our friend in India who was an exchange student of sorts here at the University of Minnesota. Thanks to our friend for showing him around the big city and taking him to lots of fun places, as well as a good traditional Indian lunch!

I'm so glad to have my man back home! We missed him a lot.

Cravings...

Pregnancy makes a person crave really bizarre things...like the traditional pickles & ice cream. Of those two, I have more often craved the pickles, probably because of the salt. And then there is my craving for grapefruit! I had that in my first pregnancy and I have it again this time. The iron craving happens to me at least once a week, if not twice, and I have to restrain myself from going through the Wendy's drive-thru lurking for a juicy cheeseburger. But I do give into that craving probably once every few weeks, the Wendy's burger craving that is. :) TONIGHT, I was craving chicken flavored ramen noodles! The bad for you, full of MSG, yummy tasting nooddles that I simply cannot get enough of lately. Once again, I think it is the salt that I'm craving. And it is precisely the salt which I should probably be monitering. My blood pressure is really great right now, but in my first pregnancy when I started to have some complications due to Preeclampsia, I had to virtually eliminate salt from my diet. It was SO hard! But I learned how to use really great herbs and spices in my cooking, and that helped. Seriously though, our nation is terrible with the salt consumption, and I'm one of those consumers! One of my friends who has to watch salt intake told me that we eat several times more salt, as a nation, than most of the rest of the world. No wonder we have so many health problems. Anyway, I need to make it my goal to make myself eat a healthier snack than chicken ramen noodles next time that craving calls! Apple, anyone?

English Muffin Pizzas!

YUM! I just made English Muffin Pizzas for lunch today and Kristi and I both gobbled them up! If you've never made these little wonders, I encourage you to try them sometime. They're a really easy and quick meal and can be quite nutritious if you choose for them to be that way.

I cut the muffins in half, spread them with pizza sauce or spaghetti sauce or tomato sauce with herbs & spices sprinkled on it, then put your toppings on. Mine usually include turkey pepperoni, mozzarella cheese and any variety of vegetables...some fun ideas are fresh spinach chopped up, shredded zucchini, shredded carrots, chopped tomatoes, chopped green peppers...whatever you like. Other toppings could be grilled or baked leftover chicken pieces, pineapple, mushrooms, olives...you get the idea.

Bake the pizza muffins at 350 degrees for approx. 15 minutes.

ENJOY!

Cleaning!

Today I really have felt the urge to clean and clean some more! I haven't been diligent about vacuuming and scrubbing floors since we've moved to this new house, but the time has come...dun dun dun (hear the music)...and I HAVE to clean or I'll go crazy!!!!! I get into these spurts sometimes and then I cannot stop cleaning. It was really funny tonight because Kristi said to me, "Thanks for vacuuming, Mama!" I had to giggle about that. She is normally terrified of the vacuum, but tonight she seemed to enjoy following me around and seeing the vacuum do job.

I hope to stay more on track with cleaning...now back to scrubbing floors, doing laundry & dishes!

Old House

Some days I really miss our old house, but I'm thankful for the new house too. We haven't taken pics of the new house, but here are some of the old house...