Saturday, January 27, 2007

Sorry

If you've called or emailed me in the last week, and I haven't responded, I'm sorry. I've got some medical stuff going on. The doctor ran a bunch of tests but I won't go back for another week to see if they know anything. The worst symptom is I am dizzy and having vertigo all the time. I spend most of the day feeling like I just stepped off an amusement park ride. I have medicine I can take for it, but then I can't drive and it makes me pretty sleepy, so I won't take it when I'm home alone with Amelia. So anyway.

I'm hoping to be back posting more and reading all your blogs again soon.

We did have Amelias birthday party today, my baby is now 2. Where does the time go?

Monday, January 22, 2007

Sunday, January 21, 2007

I think I forgot to post an update on the fruit leather. It turned out really good. It looks like the fruit leather that you'd buy in the store. It's just cheaper and probably a little healthier. Anyway, my friend's kid loved it, mine didn't. LOL Oh well, I guess I made some snacks for playgroup. Maybe I'll distribute them at her birthday party. LOL

I worked on one of the shopping cart covers last night. I gave my sister the one I originally made for me, so I am making one for myself now. When I first decided to make these, I bought a pattern. But, while it's functional, I don't like how it's made. So of course I have had to change it all around to how I want it to be. So apparently I'm not just making covers, I'm designing as well. So it's taking me longer to make. I'll post some pictures when I get done with it.

Okay I'm off to grocery shop now.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Mama and Yeah-yeah



Jeff took this of Amelia and I earlier today. I can't believe how quickly she's growing up. (If you click on the picture you can see it a little more clearly. I'm too lazy to upload and edit right now... )

Sewing again


I went to the fabric store today. I love the fabric store. It's filled with endless possibilities. I feel like I can make anything. Today the goal was to find fabric to make some shopping cart covers. -Yes the fabric covers for those anal mom's like me who are afraid their child might touch something dirty. Or in the case of my child, they might flop around and hit their heads. Yes that happened. That's why I make well padded shopping cart covers.-

So anyway, I found a few fabrics I really like, and I'm going to make a few covers and then decide what I want to do with them. Jeff thinks I should have an at home business making them, but right now it's fun. If I have to make 300 of them, it won't be fun anymore. Not to mention the fabric and stuff to make them was not cheap, I would have to sell them for a lot to make any money. I think I'd rather make them here and there for friends or whatever. We'll see.

The dragonfly fabric aboce is one I bought today. It's so much prettier in person though.

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Oops

I tried to put a couple of Google ads up on my page, I thought I'd have that be one of my good things, and then I could send whatever I made to a charity.

Well apparently my content is questionable, and I have been denied. HA HA.

Maybe it's my posts about potty training and poop?


On another note, today Amelia has gone in the potty twice. No accidents so far. Could potty training really be this easy???

She is hilarious though, she has to get a book before she will sit. I think she has been watching daddy too much.


Edited to Add: While I was writing this she tried to go poop on her potty by herself. Maybe diapers aren't such a bad thing??? LOL


Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Do something good


I used to be so good at doing good things. I volunteered, I gave blood, I did stuff at the food bank. Then I got married, had a kid and a lot of those things are harder to do now. I don't have a babysitter, and a lot of those things are inappropriate to take a toddler to. I was so excited when I heard about Small Change. Beth at Diary of a Playgroup Dropout started Small Change, you can see her blog for more details. Basically it's a bunch of people who read her bog who are going to try and do something little every month to help someone else. Amelia and I are going to make some cards to send to sick kids through Make A Child Smile.

Go check out her blog, the more people who join the better.

What's for breakfast Part II

Thanks for responding to my first question guys. But I think I should rephrase the question, what are your kids having for breakfast? I don't think Amelia will do coffee yet. HA HA

Today she had apple cinnamon pancakes.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Trying something new

I did it! I finally switched over to the new blogger. So far so good.


Breakfast and lunch today were not very exciting. Amelia had oatmeal, applesauce and bananas for breakfast and the second meal of the day was toast with peanut butter, pear yogurt and some peaches and carrots.

But we are making something new today, fruit leather. I have a couple of books that tell how to make baby food. I made almost all of Amelia's baby food, not only because they tend to put unnecessary junk in jarred baby food, but also because it was so much cheaper. The price difference is amazing. And it was actually really simple. Anyway, I have rediscovered these two books since I quit working. They have great recipes for toddler and adult food as well. I've been trying out different recipes here and there. The project today was strawberry and applesauce fruit leather.

The only problem, is I am THE MOST inpatient person in the world. The fruit leather is supposed cook for 1-2 days. And I'm only supposed to open the oven every few hours to check on the progress and let the moisture out. That's going to make me crazy over the course of the day, since I don't even have a working over light so I can peer in on it.

Here's what it looked like when we first put it in the oven.
The strawberries smell wonderful.



The fruit leather was great. :-)

Monday, January 15, 2007

This is an interesting video that a few people have sent me about schools.

Animal School

http://www.raisingsmallsouls.com/ is the website it comes from if you want more information.

What's for breakfast...

So I'm curious blog readers,( I say that like I think I have a plethora of readers :-) ) what's for breakfast at your house today?

In the our house we had egg beaters with cheese,strawberries, oranges and grapes, and Amelia and Jeff also had whole wheat toast.

I'm trying to get back in the habit of making breakfast for all of us before DH leaves for work. It's nice for us to sit down together for a meal, and that way if Jeff doesn't make it home for dinner at least we had some time together in the morning. And since Amelia is generally up at the crack of dawn, it should not be difficult to have breakfast ready by the time Jeff is out of the shower.

But I'm running out of ideas for healthy breakfasts. I'd love to hear what you all have for breakfast.

So far all I can come up with is Oatmeal, French Toast, Apple Pancakes, and eggs. On the days I make something a little higher in calories than I need, I just have a veggie burger on whole wheat toast, which is actually my favorite breakfast. :-)

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Aww


Jeff sent me flowers. I wonder if he read my blog this morning?? lol

Some days...

I just wanna go back to work.** I want to put my kid in day care, with 30 other kids who are probably all sick, I want to leave me house early in the morning, and come home to find it still picked up. I want to feel like I accomplish something every day (besides laundry and dishes and errands and cleaning up and cooking and playing with the kid)I want to come home to dinner made for me. I want to have the joy of making my own money, and having the extra money a job would bring. I want to have a cleaning crew again. I miss having a life outside of my kid and husband and house. I miss the person i was before I was just mommy. Sometimes I think I've lost myself a little. Like I'm just Mommy, wife, cook, cleaner etc, I'm not Steph anymore.

I know I'm totally delusional, and working would probably suck, since Jeff isn't into the whole we both work full time and both have to do half the house hold stuff. That's a big part of why I quit working the last time. I couldn't work 12 hour days and do all the laundry and cooking and clean up after him too. But still. Some day's I miss working.









** This does not mean I totally love my daughter and my husband, and I know I'm lucky I can stay home with her, and still have a pretty nice life. I just need to find some balance and do some things I enjoy.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Conversations with yeah yeah...

If you ask Amelia to say her name, she says "yeah-yeah".

I was finishing breakfast this morning when Amelia noticed that I had food and she didn't.

Amelia- I'm hunree Mama. (While trying to take food out of my hands)

Me- You're hungry?

Amelia- Nope. Is it goo?

Me- Yes it's good. Do you want some?

Amelia- Nope. Wanna bite? Yummy. (Now she has climbed into my lap and is again trying to take food out of my hands. I give her a bite of my veggie burger and some corn.)
Amelia- Tankoo mama. Is Yummy. ( Gives me a hug and takes off to go play.)


I love my "job".

Monday, January 08, 2007

I'll be back...

later to do an actual post, for now I leave you with Amelia's first ride on the teeter totter.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

I've calmed down now. I don't think Kaiser is evil anymore. ( Well maybe a little bit. LOL) I just have to get better at navigating the big system. I guess I got spoiled having a small doctors office group in Aliso Viejo.

They're evil I tell ya!


I have decided that Kaiser Permanente insurance is evil. When we switched companies, most things stayed the same except health insurance. We went from a wonderful enhanced PPO, to the worst kaiser plan there is. ( You know, $40 office visits, $200 a day co pays to be in the hospital) And we pay twice as much for this as we did the Cigna plan. I can deal with all that. Yeah it sucks to switch pediatricians but I can deal.

Then I tried to call and get an appointment. Do I get to call the office? No I call an 800 number and speak to someone who is probably not in this state or maybe the country, they make appointments for the OC. I am told for the kiddos 2 year check up, we don't get to see a doctor just a nurse. I requested a doctor and was told no. It took me about 45 minutes to make the appointment, the lady had to check 3 different facilities to finally find a nurse who was available for her 2 year check up, which is over a month away. That really bothered me that we couldn't see a doctor, so I called member services this morning. The lady was nice and she called the office for me, put me on hold for a half hour and told me all I had to do was ask if I wanted to see a doctor. ( The fact that I asked 3 or 4 times yesterday didn't matter.) She gave me the name and number of who to call to get an appointment with a doctor.

I called this local number and ended up being transferred to the same call center I called yesterday. I told the lady what I was told by the previous person at member services. She said "well there is no way I can help you. I'm in a call center. We don't have a direct line in, I have no way to know who that person is." So I'm back at square one, except my BP is a little higher and I want to scream. Poor DH, I called and yelled at his voicemail that he needs to find a new job with better insurance... I did call back and apologize and tell him to not listen to my message...



I'm sure part of the reason I'm so irritable today is because our neighbors alarm went off sometime during the night. It went off until the contractors working on the house got here at 830 this morning. Did I mention their condo is attached to ours?

Oh well at least my kid is cute. :-)

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Double Trouble



Aren't they cute? They definitley got into some mischief together. Most of which involved Amelia clobbering Emma. I guess she was making up for the last trip where Emma got Amelia most of the time.
Brianna tagged everyone who reads her blog with the 2006 Meme!

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before? Celebrated my child's first birthday.

2. Did you keep your new year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?I don't do resolutions. If I had one it would be the same as last year, to get more healthy.


3. Did anyone close to you give birth? My sister. She lives far away but I was there when it happened. And my friend Stacy. There are lots of pregnant people around now though! 2007 will be a longer list. :-)

4. Did anyone close to you die? My dad. Jeff's friend Travis. My Grandpa Earl. Yup this year sucked.


5. What countries did you visit? Oregon is a seperate country right?? lol It's sure different than the OC. ha ha ha


6. What would you like to have in 2007 that you lacked in 2006? Better organization, less stressful stuff.

7. What dates from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?I don't really like this one but I guess January 27th, Amelias first birthday and April 9th, the day my dad died.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Becoming a stay at home mom and surviving.


9. What was your biggest failure?I don't know.


10. Did you suffer illness or injury?I'm sick right now. No inuries that I recall.

11. What was the best thing you bought? I'm not sure. New furniture I guess?


12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Everything Amelia does gets celebrated.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Britney Spears. Whats up with that chick?
14. Where did most of your money go? housing. Our biggest expenditure every month by far is housing.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Amelia turning one, all my trips to Portland, not having to drag my kid to work anymore

16. What song will always remind you of 2006? Dixie Chicks, not ready to make nice.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? happier
b) thinner or fatter? about the same. I gotta lose more weight!
c) richer or poorer? I guess poorer. I'm not working. Although our expenditures went down drastically when I quit working ( Who knew cooking meals at home saved so much money lol!!) and i think we're doing better financially now.



18. What do you wish you'd done more of? Spending more time taking Amelia to see my dad.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Not paying attention to what I was eating.

20. How did you spend Christmas? With jeff and Amelia, and my mom, and my sister and brother in law and my nieces.

21. Did you fall in love in 2006? With my new niece Lilly. She is the happiest baby I have ever met.
22. How many one-night stands? None.

23. What was your favorite TV program? Grey's Anatomy, Bones, Numb3rs...

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? Nope.

25. What was the best book you read? Your first quilt book (Or it should be!) Great instructional book, even if you already know some sewing quilting.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? IPOD. ( Thanks Jeff!!)

27. What did you want and get? Ipod, dvd burner, new hard drive...

28. What did you want and not get? can't think of anything

29. What was your favorite film of this year?I Don't know, I'm not much of a movie person. Ask Jeff. LOL

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I was 26 and it was last February. I don't remember what we did. Must not have been much I guess. LOL

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Not sure. I had a pretty good year. i guess not losing the people we lost?

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2006? Fashion? I am a stay at home mom. Getting out of the house in clean clothes that the kid hasn't smeared food on is my concept! lol

33. What kept you sane?Jeff and Amelia. And my friends. :-)

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Not sure.

35. What political issue stirred you the most? The banning of gay marriages. I'm bothered that people spend so much time and energy on harassing other people.

36. Who did you miss? My dad.

I don't know who will read this and actually do it,(and hasn't already done it) so I'll tag Sarah and Kathy and Michelle as well as anyone else who reads this blog.