muffins

Today has been a day of questions. Eislynn is FULL of them. Which is perfect because she's almost 4 so I'm glad she is interested in learning. It is cold and rainy and blueberries are on sale for .99 a pint so pretty much nature forced my hand at making muffins. What's a girl to do really? So a trip to the grocery store was deemed necessary. With a toddler and a baby you only go to the grocery store when necessary. Today Eislynn REALLY wanted to pay for groceries. She got her purse ready, filled it with some change, told me I was not supposed to bring my wallet because she was buying, but then I had to tell her that I was probably going to have to buy them. "BUT MOM, I never ever, in my whole life, ever have got to buy groceries" Ok grab your purse lets go. Throughout the store which is hard to navigate at the moment since it's in total reconsturction mode she had 101 questions. I answered most. At the checkout she pushed ahead of me "mom, I need to give them the money I need to stand over there." Well, her $1.30 in change wasn't going to cut it. So I slipped her a $50 and told her I took it from her piggy bank so she was still paying with her money. Just so we are clear...I don't steal money from my daughters piggy bank. She pays the lady and we are off. We get home and I realize I forgot eggs...so off to a DIFFERENT grocery store we go because 1. we ARE making muffins today and 2. I can't go back to the same one how embarrassing.
Here comes the learning experience, for both of us. Eislynn gets to learn about measuring, what a 1/3 of a cup means, how to crack an egg, how to zest and orange, how to mix without making everything fly out of the bowl. I get to learn patience, that a mess can be cleaned, and to just let go a bit. I would say that some people that know me imagine I LOVE to bake with my child. I actually sort of hate it, not because of her, but because I am too type A. I clean as I go, put ingredients away as soon as I use them, that sort of thing. She loves it though and I need to do these things with her while she actually still wants to do them with me. She was SO proud of herself for cracking that egg. Meanwhile we have questions. A million. What does cinnamon smell like? Saying cinnamon is not enough.."well does it smell like toast? a waffle? a dog? peanut butter? I think it should smell like peanut butter" At one point I had to say I need to think for just one minute so I can't answer questions. I needed to read the recipe and couldn't with all the questions. She says "oh, right, yeah...you need to think. What are you thinking about, being a kitty?" This is where I have 2 options. 1. I say no and then she proceeds to ask what I am thinking about or 2. I say yes. So yes, I am thinking about being a kitty. She laughs and says "Oh yeah that would be so funny, when we would go to the store people would say hey that girls mom is a kitty" If I had made these muffins alone we wouldn't have had that moment. In that moment I am reminded of just how awesome she is. If she was watching word girl instead we wouldn't have had that.  While I was cleaning up Graham woke up so I asked her to go talk to him for a minute so I could clean up and then get him. She went into the toy room where he had been napping and pulled out her little piano and sang him a song about how much she loves him. Goodness I love those two.

While making my muffins a friend text me a question about baking. I was happy to get this text because it said to me "Hey, I think you aren't a total mess and know things about things" However, my answer was as follows "hmmm not sure the last time i tried to make a healthier muffin even a squirrel wouldn't eat it in a snow storm...literally that happened" I was flattered none the less. For real though, once during a storm I was baking and the muffins just didn't turn out. We saw a squirrel out back digging through the snow looking for food. We tossed him a muffin and I think his exact words were "no, I'm good I found some dirt"

Our muffins turned out yummy today. Here is the recipe if you want some too. http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/blueberry_maple_muffins.html
and here is Eislynn ready to go to the store and pay with her very own money. She insisted on wearing pjs..whatever.

my heart:

evolution

I saw something on facebook recently about moms. It was something like "25 quotes about moms" something along those lines. Anyways, one of them was "If evolution really worked, how come mothers only have two hands" by Milton Berle. Well dear sir women can most certainly do enough with the two hands they do have and any more would run them into the ground :). Let me explain. I thought of this while I was feeding G the other day. He was laying in my arms and I was holding his bottle with one hand. E asked me to play with her and I told her I couldn't at the moment because I was feeding her brother. That's when she pointed out that I could actually play with her because I still had one hand, the one under G. So she put a little people princess in my hand and we played. This got me thinking about all I do or feel I need to do. It's no secret that women are generally better at multi-tasking then men, but lately I have almost been amazed at how many things I can do at one time with only two hands. Sometimes I feel like I should be doing more. I think if I had more that I would feel I should be doing even more yet and there in lies the answer to Mr. Berle's question. At least with only two hands there is a limit to what a mother can do. She must take time to slow down and only do the 25 things she can do at once instead of trying to do 50. G likes to be worn in a wrap. I have found that when I am holding him in his wrap which frees up both my hands I can do quite a bit. One evening, the evening I realized I was doing too much, I was wearing G, baking muffins (from scratch not a box), making chicken alfredo with sauteed mushrooms and green peppers, and doing all the dishes as I went a long so I wouldn't have to do them after I did all of this. This was actually quite a lot to do while having a baby strapped to the front of me, however, I did it and survived. Anyways, mothers not having more hands is a matter of survival. If I could have been doing more things I would have, and maybe not survived ;) In a way I guess I'm proving that evolution does work? or not? I haven't had enough sleep to really know what I'm talking about, what I do know is God knew what he was doing and made us exactly as we are supposed to be.

Photo Post

Whoa, lots just happened in a month! Graham was born, we fly to North Dakota for my brother's wedding, Graham was baptized, we flew home again and almost got stuck in Denver, just life. Things are finally slowing down there have been about 100 different blog posts I have thought about writing over the past month. So many emotions and so much going on. Instead I am going to just post lots of pictures. :)

Love these two with all my heart


Pure Joy

A love like no other...great grandma


The best friend a girl could have

First easter

baptism blanket made out of his Great Grandma Rose's wedding gown

Baptism

brother's wedding

one of my favorite pics, when I took it my first thought was "God is good" I already knew this but something
about how sweet and innocent the photo is only affirms it. :)

Love:

The quilt his great aunt made for him!

Professional pics:
  
 

Less than 12 hours to go, we've got this.

I just put my "baby" girl to bed as an only child for the last time. So weird. I have been trying not to focus on "lasts" lately and keep in mind all the wonderful "firsts" that are about to come our way instead. I did still soak up every last minute with her though. We read an extra book and talked a few extra minutes. Then I sang her "Night Mantra" by Renee and Jeremy and rubbed her back and belly. Just when I thought she was sleeping she whispered "Sing some more, sing the song about me" which is just the tune of "Left and Leaving" by the weakerthans but with my own words all about how she's such a good/sweet girl. I may have missed my calling as a indie music children's cover writer...or not. She likes it though.


Silly story time. Because the next few weeks are going to take a toll on me physically and mentally I need to record this story so it doesn't get lost in the memories because it's sort of a gem, to me. The other day Eislynn came up to my room and asked me if she could have some gum. She has never had gum. I have told her in the past she couldn't  have it because it would hurt her throat. As I imagine choking is not good for your throat, so this is mostly true! I figured since she is 3 1/2, pretty smart for her age, and with her grandma that sure she could try a piece of gum. I said "Sure, but just so you know you can't swallow it. You have to chew it and then when you are done you spit it out." She looked at me all serious and said "Oh, that's too hard I HAVE to swallow" I said "Well you can't swallow the gum but you can swallow in general" she said "Oh no that's too hard, remember you don't let me have gum, I don't want gum anymore." Then she thought for a moment and said, in her cute way with hand gestures "MAYYYYYBE I will chew gum after I go see like a gum teacher?" I laughed and told her there isn't such a person and that her grandma or I could most certainly show her how to chew gum. She said "No, I will just wait till I am older and have a gum teacher. Not a teacher made out of gum, but a teacher that teaches gum." She is outrageous. She keeps us laughing all the time. It is so crazy to me that tomorrow I will have another child and that I will love them and think they are just as awesome as she is because she definitely sets the bar high. I am pretty excited.

One month

One month from today is the big day! Unless he decides otherwise we will meet out little man exactly one month from today. I am at that point where my belly is so big it's humorous and apparently my dryer is shrinking all of my clothes. I should get that thing checked out. It only seems to be shrinking my stuff. The little guy is still really active. It's so weird because E wasn't really even half as active as he is. She moved, but he is crazy.

Today is Valentine's Day. Last year's Valentine's day was HARD. It was my grandpas funeral. It was beautiful in that it is a day for love and my grandparents were the perfect example of love. It is a day to be with the ones you love and we were surrounded with loved ones. Saying good bye is still very hard. This year I wanted to have a happier day. E and I went to my doctor appointment and then out for lunch and frozen yogurt. My doctor appt was long but E was awesome the whole time. Baby is measuring in the 60 percentile with an estimated birth weight of 8 lbs. He is measuring a week a head so 36 weeks instead of 35. Considering he will be taken out at 39 weeks being a week a head is much better than behind.

Thanks to some great friends Cole and I got to go out the other night for my birthday/Valentine's Day. We went to a place we hadn't been before, The Rythm Kitchen, it was delicious. I had a salmon blt and now I just want another one hehe :). Today C text me and asked if Eislynn had given me anything special for Valentine's Day. She hadn't, infact she told me she forgot to get me something. A few minutes after I got that text she came running screaming HAPPY VALENTINE"S DAY and had a fake rose with glitter and a bag of m&m's. She told me it was hidden under her bed. She was so proud. She got to pick it out herself. She loves to have surprises for people. She has something for my birthday tomorrow and if I mention my birthday she gives Cole a silly look or whispers "don't tell her we got anything". It's adorable.

35 weeks

We finished off the day by making homemade pizza for supper. We have decided to call it "punch" pizza because you have to knead the dough or "punch it" to make it tasty :)