To Train or not To Train

You know those people who say things like, "I just lost weight too fast after having babies. Do you know any high-calorie foods I can eat to put some weight back on?" or "I just don't know what I'm going to do with all this money... it's just too much!" Well, I'm about to make one of those statements. Feel free to let the eyes roll.

I think Grace is trying to potty train herself. Not only that, but I'm not terribly happy about it.

I know, I know, I know. Some people have 4 year olds who refuse to do their business on the potty and they'd give their left kidney to be finished with diapers, and here I am complaining that my not-quite-20-month-old is figuring it out on her own. What can I say, I'm just crazy.

It's funny, too, because when I potty trained Lily she was displaying approximately zero of the "I'm ready to be potty trained" signs that all the experts say to look for. But I was bound and determined to get her potty trained before Grace came along, so we soldiered on. It took a few months (longer than it should have... partly because she wasn't actually ready, and partly because I went the pull-ups route) but we finally got there.

Grace, on the other hand, is gung-ho enthusiastic about the whole process. First of all, Lily never cared one single iota if she was wet or stinky, but Grace will tell you as soon as she's pooped, and even tells you she wants a diaper change when she's only wet sometimes. Also, whenever Lily uses the potty, Grace will start saying "pocky!" and want to sit on the potty herself. This is actually how it all started, and occasionally she would even tinkle on the potty. Now we've progressed to the point where when they were at a friend's house the other day, Goo pointed to her diaper and said "poop poop", but her diaper was clean. So then Goo pointed to the potty, and when my friend set her on the toilet, she went poop. Also, just this morning I came downstairs to see that Grace had pulled off her pants and her diaper and tinkled in the middle of the living room floor. To me, that says that she knows when she needs to go, and knows that she needs to take off her pants to go... it's just the getting to the potty that seems to present a problem.

But here's the thing, I'm about to have a newborn and the last thing I want is to be jumping up to run a baby to the potty every 15 minutes, or worse yet, having to clean up mess after mess because I wasn't fast enough because I was nursing or whatnot. Oh, and I don't want to be constantly scolding Grace for playing in the potty seat, because you know she thinks it's a toy and that the pot part is a hat. No thank you. Even if your baby is "ready" to be potty trained, it's still work and you have to be ready at a moment's notice to take a kid to the potty, and I'm just not there. I want to happily change diapers on my own time for a few more months until I have my new baby sea-legs and then start potty training. Grace seems to have other plans, though.

So I don't know what to do. I don't really want to discourage her from using the potty. I don't want to half-train her and leave her in limbo (all or nothing, folks!) I don't want her to be taking off her diaper and peeing all over the house because she's ready and I'm not. But most of all, I really don't want to potty train her quite yet.

Hey I have an idea!

I'm about to have a baby. Jim is about to be home for a couple of weeks.

Jim can potty train Grace!

Ok, problem solved folks. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Instagram: My New Obsession

Yesterday I jumped on the bandwagon and downloaded the Instagram app for my iPhone. In case you're not hip to the latest trends, Instagram is an app where you can take a picture or use a picture already on your phone and run it through various filters that make it look vintage. It has very quickly become an obsession for me to scour my Camera Roll on my phone for good pictures and then play with them in Instagram. I think I would highly enjoy being a photographer or graphic designer. Manipulation is my kind of creativity. :)

Anyway, my kids are already the cutest kids in the world, but taking my kind of crummy phone pics of them and making them look all old-fashionedy makes them look even cuter (if that's even possible). So here are a few of my Instagram experiments so far.


This was Goo this morning.
Easter cousins!
I love that sweet face!
Another pic of Goo from this morning (she's just too cute!)
The girls eating a snack on the couch yesterday. Lily's face makes me laugh every time.
My sweet dress-up Lily.
Sassy-face!
Christmas sisters!
Go Eagles!
Yet another Goo pic from this morning (the pigtails were irresistible).
My crawly baby.

Checklist

Washed and organized all the baby clothes: CHECK
Hit the 37 week mark, which is term: CHECK
Cooked and froze 15 meals: CHECK
Went on One Last Date with the Jim: CHECK (twice, in fact)
Have my hospital bag packed: CHECK
Had my baby shower: CHECK
Got my hair colored: CHECK

Ok, so whatcha waiting for, baby Clementine?

I do have to tell you about a couple of things. First of all, on Saturday Jim and I went on One Last Date, which was a ton of fun. We finally got around to eating at a local restaurant called The White House, which is Greek food and known for the insane amount of garlic they use. In fact, on the outside of the building is painted the message, "You love garlic and we love you." I'd heard from a bunch of people that it was a really good restaurant, but Jim had heard from a couple of coworkers that it was too garlicky. I was a little skeptical about the whole "too garlicky" claim (I have yet to taste food that is too garlicky) so I kept pushing for dinner at The White House. Well, we went there on Saturday and were not disappointed at all. The food was fantastic, and just as garlicky as we could have hoped. SO yummy! We got fried feta for an appetizer, then Jim got a Chilean Seabass Risotto, and I got Yesil Makarna which was delicious shrimp and mushroom linguine with a creamy pesto sauce. After that, we went to see The Woman In Black, in hopes that a scary movie would jump start my labor. It didn't work, but we had a nice time at the movies.

Secondly, my sweet friends, Katrina and Kara threw me a baby shower on Sunday! Obviously I don't need a bunch of baby clothes, so I asked for home made gifts and registered for a few odds and ends. The party was super fun! We played the game where you melt candy bars into diapers and then have to guess which candy bar is which. It was pretty funny watching everyone stick their noses in what appeared to be nasty dirty diapers. I also got some wonderful gifts! I got a few new cloth diapers (yay!), some busy bags for Lily and Grace to keep them occupied while I'm indisposed with Clementine, several swaddling blankets, and quite a few beautiful home made blankets and bibs and such. I don't know if you're allowed to choose favorite gifts (or maybe it's just not polite to admit to it) but I have to say that the beautiful heirloom afghan that Linda knit for me (the yarn color was called "Clementine"!) and the aprons (one my sized, and then three matching little girl sized aprons) that Marci made were pretty high up on my list. I can't wait for us all to don our little aprons and bake some cookies together!

So here I sit, still waiting. I know that technically I still have two and a half weeks until my due date, but have I mentioned I'm impatient? I think I have. I'm ready to hold my little bundle in my arms and see her little features and decide who she looks like and to cuddle her up and never ever ever let anybody else hold her because she's all mine.

Ok, maybe you can hold her... but you might have to bring me chocolate. :)

What We Do For Fun

I'm at the very tail end of this pregnancy, and I haven't been motivated to get out of the house much. The weather had been blah and it just takes so much effort and energy to go anywhere, that by the time we get back I'm super cranky and short with the girls. So we've been laying low and staying home most of the time. But we do try and have fun sometimes!

In the past when we've done Play Doh, it's been primarily a Lily activity. Grace just wants to eat the Play Doh and make a mess and pull the table cloth off the table. But I was brave last week and let Grace in on the action, and she did great. She did stick some Play Doh in her mouth, but decided it didn't taste great and never actually ate it. After an hour or so of sitting in the hard kitchen chairs and helping roll out Play Doh, this mama was tired and sore! (I know, it doesn't take much!)

Making cakes!
Tasting the local fare.
Stabbing her Play Doh with a fork.


Then today I was feeling guilty that we never do anything fun anymore (my words, not theirs) so I decided to do some bath tub painting! I didn't have bath paints and I wasn't about to waste all my energy on a trip to the store (that's an event in and of itself), so I looked on Pinterest and found a DIY bath paint recipe. You take a muffin tin and in each hole you put 2 Tbsp. of corn starch, 1/4 cup baby shampoo (or baby wash, which was what I had), 5 drops of food coloring, and a couple of Tbsp. of water and mix it all up. If I do it again, I'll make a big batch of the plain paint, pour it into the cups, and then do the food coloring. It was a pain to individually mix each cup every time, especially when I'm at that point in pregnancy where my arms fall asleep and my hands go numb all the time. Mixing the paint was rather painful. But anyway, after I mixed up the paint, I stripped the girls down and put a couple of inches of water in the tub, gave them both a brush, and let them have at it.

Painting the tub and each other. (I don't know if you can tell, but Lily is holding her nose. The baby wash I had on hand was very perfume-y (I bought it on accident and never returned it) and she didn't like the strong smell.)

Goo painting herself.
I like painting in the tub!
Check out the nasty murky water after 30 minutes or so.
Then when they'd mixed all the colors and had their fill of tub painting, I turned on the shower and rinsed everything out. I also gave them a cleaning rag and let them wipe down the tub. I'm resourceful like that.
My big girl with her giant towel head!

So anyway, that was our fun for the day! The girls seemed to enjoy it, and it killed an hour or so of our morning. Oh, and they got a bath in the end, so it even served a purpose!

In case anyone wants a pregnancy update, I'm still pregnant! I'm 37 weeks today (yay term!) and ready to be finished! Everyone says, "Oh, I don't think you'll go until your due date!" but that's just one of those platitudes people say to make you feel better. They really have no idea. The truth is, I haven't been having nearly as many contractions as I had with Grace at this point, so I'm not holding out hope for delivering any time soon. Maybe Leap Day. My hope is that I'll go into labor instead of having my water break. I had the group B strep test the other day and was positive, which means that if my water breaks, I need to go to the hospital pretty soon so that they can get a couple of rounds of antibiotic in me before the baby comes. That's not the worst thing in the world, but in the past my water breaking doesn't send me spiraling into labor like it does most people, so I'll probably end up being at the hospital longer if my water breaks, than if I go into labor and get to labor at home for a while. I'll still need to be there about 4 hours before I deliver (like anyone can really plan that) for the sake of the antibiotic. I was strep B negative with Grace, and didn't make it far enough along for them to test with Lily, so they gave me the antibiotic prophylactically with Lily. I didn't like being hooked up to the IV every 4 hours, but I do remember that when she was born she smelled like the antibiotic and I kind of liked it because it was her smell.

Oh, and here's one more complaint for the record books. As I mentioned earlier, my arms are starting to fall asleep at night. Argh! This is one of my least favorite things because I wake up every morning between 4 and 5am with a painful dead arm... or two. And at that point my arms are all swollen and I can't just turn over and have it go away. It takes about 5 minutes, and they're asleep again. Not just tingle-y asleep, but PAINFUL asleep. Then, during the day they just ache all the time (especially my right arm) and things like blow drying my hair, or painting Lily's finger nails, or blogging will send them painfully asleep again. No fun!




One quick funny Lily story. When the girls were in the tub, Lily let out this HUGE fart in the water. Then she held up her Buzz Lightyear bath toy and said, "Darn it, Woody!" I laughed so hard! (And then when I stopped laughing, I did the responsible thing and told her that "darn it" isn't a nice thing to say.)

Three Ages of Woman

I ran across this painting on Pinterest the other day and fell in love. It's called "The Three Ages of Woman" and (if you couldn't already tell) it's by Gustav Klimt. Gustav Klimt holds a dear place in my heart. He was from Vienna, and I got to see his most famous piece, "Der Kuss", at the Belvedere on my birthday when I was in Vienna. But, even though I was vaguely a fan of Klimt, I'd never seen "The Three Ages of Woman" until yesterday.

What I love about the painting is just the perfect beauty of the mother and child sleeping together. Maybe it's because I have a little dark-haired curly-headed baby girl myself, but it just seems so perfect and serene. I know the image of the old worn-out woman should put a bit of a damper on the painting, but for me it doesn't. It just makes me want to "gather my rosebuds while I may" so to speak. I'm not really the artsy-fartsy type, but this is one of the few pieces of art that actually makes me tear up because it's so beautiful.

I hope you enjoy this painting as much as I do.

Cook and Freeze

Tomorrow is my traditional Pre-Baby-Cook-And-Freeze-Day. Is it a tradition if it's only the second time you've done it? I planned on doing it for Lily's arrival, but was a day late and a dollar short. So yeah, we'll call it a tradition anyway. I mentioned I was doing my cook and freeze day on Facebook and had a couple friends request the recipes I'm planning on making. I'm always happy to share recipes, but I figured I'd just do it on my blog, rather than send them out individually. First of all, here is my planned menu:

Casseroles:
Lasagna
Poppy Seed Chicken
White Chicken Enchiladas
Red Sauce Enchiladas

Soups:
Zuppa Toscana
Cheeseburger Paradise Soup
Tortilla Soup

The casseroles will all make a 9by13 pan or two square pans. The soups will each make two 1-gallon ziplock bags of soup, except that the Cheeseburger Paradise Soup might make more because the recipe makes a TON of food.

Several of these are actually recipes I've shared on my blog in the past, so that makes it pretty easy! I'll link to the ones I can, and just type out the rest. Happy cooking!

Lasagna:
(This is one of those dishes that I've never used a recipe for. I just make it. But I will tell you how)
1 lb ground beef
2 jars pasta sauce (I always buy Ragu: Mama's Special Garden Sauce)
Veggies for sauce (mushrooms, onions, zucchini, yellow squash, spinach... whatever floats your boat)
Lasagna noodles
1 16oz container Ricotta cheese
1 16oz container cottage cheese (rinsed and drained)
Mozzarella cheese- a couple of cups

-Brown ground beef along with veggies and drain. Add jars of pasta sauce and let simmer together.

-Cook lasagna noodles until just softened, do not fully cook. Drain and soak in cold water until you're ready to assemble lasagna.

-Mix together cheeses in a big bowl. I had lasagna that my cousin made last weekend and she added sour cream and a little cinnamon to her lasagna... SO GOOD! So give it a try if you want!

-Spread a little sauce on the bottom of a greased pan, then layer noodles, sauce, cheese until you fill up the pan, and make sure you top with cheese. If you've run out of your mixture, just use more mozzarella. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes or until cooked through and brown and bubbly on top!


Poppy Seed Chicken:
Cooked white rice (3 cups or so. You can use minute rice, but it's much yummier if you use a quality rice like Jasmine rice)
6 cups cooked chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
8oz sour cream
2 rolls Ritz crackers
1/2 cup melted butter
Poppy seeds to sprinkle on top

-Mix soups and sour cream. Add cooked chicken to mixture and set aside.

-Crumble Ritz and toss with melted butter. Set aside.

-Spread rice into the bottom of a greased 9by13 pan. Spread chicken on top of rice. Sprinkle crushed crackers on top of that. Sprinkle top with poppy seeds.

-Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

White Chicken Enchiladas:
This was a recipe I found on Pinterest, and loved. It was the enchilada recipe I'd been searching for my whole life! Ok, that's a bit dramatic, but it really is good! HERE is the link to the website where you can find this lovely recipe. Oh, and if you're not hip to the new shredded chicken tip that is all the rage these days (which I also discovered via Pinterest), check out THIS site and see how she shreds her chicken. It really works and is the most amazing thing ever!

Red Sauce Enchiladas:
This is a recipe that my high school friend, Holly, sent me and it's super good. Just so you know, I use flour tortillas in all of my enchiladas, even though some people (ahem Amber) might just call them smothered burritos if you don't use corn tortillas. I just like flour tortillas more than corn. I can't help myself! :)

1lb ground beef
1/2 onion, chopped
4oz can green chiles
1 can chili beans (not a can of chili, not plain beans, but the chili beans... you'll find them)

Sauce: (mix ingredients together and simmer in a small pan)
1 can tomato sauce
2 tsp. garlic salt
1/4 tsp. chile powder
1-2 tsp. creole or taco seasoning

6 or so tortillas
grated cheddar cheese (2 cups at least)

-Brown together the ground beef an onion. Drain and add green chiles and chili beans to the mixture.

-Spoon some of meat mixture into tortillas, and add cheese. Roll up and place in greased pan. Repeat until pan is full.

-Pour sauce over top and top with cheddar cheese.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.



Zuppa Toscana:
I know I've mentioned this soup on my blog before, but I don't believe I've shared the recipe. It's a knock-off of the Olive Garden's Zuppa Toscana, and it truly one of my favorite meals that I make.
1lb Italian sausage
1 Tbsp. olive oil
2 lg. potatoes, diced
3/4 cup onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp. chicken soup base
1/2 cup celery, chopped
2 cups kale, chopped fine
4 cups water
1 cup heavy whipping cream

-Brown the sausage and drain. Remove from pan and saute in olive oil the onion, celery, and garlic. Add potatoes, soup base, water and sausage. Simmer until potatoes are tender. Add the kale and cream and heat through.

*Note: One time when I was buying ingredients for this, the grocery store was out of kale, so I used collard greens instead. I liked it so much that way that I always use collard greens when I make it now. Give it a try! (Collard greens are super nutritious.)


Tortilla Soup: I got this recipe from a Simple and Delicious magazine a coworker gave me several years ago, and it's seriously the easiest and yummiest soup ever. I found the recipe HERE on the Taste of Home website so I don't have to type it out. Yay! The only improvement I've really made on this one is to add chicken broth instead of water. Also, you can add green chiles, or some jalapenos if you like them.

Cheeseburger Paradise Soup. This is another Taste of Home recipe (link HERE) that I've shared on the blog before. It's so thick and hearty and creamy and yummy. I know you'll love it!



Also, if you're cooking and freezing, here are a couple of tips.

1. If you use metal disposable pans, line them with parchment paper first, otherwise your food may end up tasting metallic. And don't worry, the casseroles bake just fine with the parchment paper in there, and when you go to eat the food it comes right off.

2. For the soups, fill a gallon ziplock freezer bag with soup (not too full), and seal it. Put that bag into another bag... just in case. Lay them flat in the freezer and they'll freeze nice and flat and stackable!

3. When you take your casseroles out of the freezer, either take them out the day before, or early the morning you want to cook them and set them out at room temp. to thaw. If you forget and don't set one out in time, you can put it in a cold over and turn the oven on. They will thaw ok, but will take quite a bit longer to bake. NEVER put a frozen glass pan in a hot oven (unless you like cleaning up shattered glass...). If you do forget to set something out, I suggest soup for dinner because you can put a bag of soup in a pot of hot water and it will thaw pretty quickly.

4. Also, you can buy those little glass containers with lids (I think they sell a big set of them at Costco... I'm not sure if they're Pyrex or a knockoff brand) and you can put your soups in those and freeze them as individual servings to bring to work!

Butte!

Last Sunday my aunt Vicki broke her leg skiing. She had planned on traveling down to L.A. to go to Disneyland with Britni and Johnny and Stella before they headed back to London, but her plans were thwarted by the broken leg. So instead, Britni decided to come up to Butte and help her out around the house for a week or so. When Britni was in Butte in November and December, I wasn't able to make it over to see her and baby Stella, so when I found out she was going to be nearby, I really wanted to go visit! Of course being 35 weeks pregnant, Jim and I went back and forth, but we finally decided to go!

So on Friday Jim got out of work early and we made the 4.5 hour trek to Butte. 4.5 hours is about the limit of a pleasant trip with two little ones, so it wasn't too bad. We had a lot of fun visiting once we got there, and letting the second cousins play. When I got home, I realized I'd only taken pictures of the kids, but luckily I'd swiped a couple of pictures from Britni's phone, so there's at least a little variety!

Goo enjoyed pushing Stella in her Jonny Jump Up
She also enjoyed kissing baby Stella.
The girls tortured the cat with a flashlight for most of the visit. I think both Lily and Grace are convinced that they need a cat.
Stella chewing on her Jonny Jump Up.
This was our attempt at a photo shoot with the girls. This was probably the best shot with the most girls looking at the camera, and even possibly smiling!
Grace was so excited about baby Stella! Lily is a little mommy.
Both girls loving on Stella.
More baby kisses!
Stella loves her baby bjorn, so Jim took her off of Britni's hands for a bit and let her have a little nap.
Me, Britni, and Stella at lunch.
I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror and it was so funny, that I had to take a picture of The Belly. This shirt has elastic at the bottom so it really accentuates the shape of my belly. So for your viewing pleasure, I present to you: Crazy Torpedo Belly.

The Home Stretch

Oh, the home stretch is so LOOOOONG! It's just no fair when your first child came 5 weeks early, and once you hit that mark in your subsequent pregnancies, you think anything could be labor. Any day could be The Day. You play mind games with yourself. You weigh every contraction on the scale of "Braxton Hicks" to "I Don't Care If The Doctor Isn't Here, I'm Pushing." Was that a real contraction? Should I start timing? Should I start pushing? You obsessively check the pH of your bodily fluids to make sure it's not amniotic fluid. Oh wait, was that too much information? Is it just us scientists who have litmus paper on hand at all times? Maybe so. And although I've experienced The Gush (twice, in fact) I can't help but wonder if maybe I'm leaking just a little bit, and should I go have my midwife check? It never is anything. Probably I'm just peeing myself.

After delivering one baby really early and the other baby moderately early, and now expecting to deliver early, I'm sure I'll be sitting around mid-March with my contraction timer and my litmus paper... waiting... waiting... waiting....

Yeah, the home stretch is long.