Sunday

I know moms who take pictures of their families every Sunday, before or after church. It’s a great idea…Everyone is dressed nicely anyway. But sadly, I’m not one of those moms. I want to be. But mostly I’m yelling at the kids to hurry up and “get buckled in” so we won’t be late…so pictures usually don’t happen. But this past Sunday I thought Rosie looked sooo cute in her yellow dress I just had to snap a pic. And since it was after church Adam was with us and he took the picture for me.

P.S. I knew my shirt was wrinkled when I put it on…but I didn’t think it was that wrinkled! How embarrassing! I even gave the closing prayer in sacrament AND conducted relief society! Whoops!

Oh, and the one picture I just had to post because Adam could not get over how ridiculous I looked. He made more than one comment about my outfit… meh…it was comfortable.

Zoo Day

Today was a free day at the zoo. So we took advantage of it and spent 3 hours (!) there today. We walked around and saw animals, played at the nice playground (where Siena got hurt and wanted to stop playing immediately) and then capped off our time there was a solid hour of time at the splash pad. Everyone had a great time, especially Judah. He LOVED looking at all of the animals! It was super hot so I’m sure the kids loved cooling down in the water.

Siena and Judah are my toughest kids these days. Between Judah screaming to get what he wants to Siena crying because she’s unhappy with what’s happening to her, the house is very loud. I put Judah in timeout for screaming (in his room, for shut for 1 minute since he’s 1 years old) but I’m pretty sure it’s having little to no affect on him. He goes to timeout multiple times a day lately. So I don’t

know. Summer feels like it is flying by, but some days it feels like ours lasting forever! Luckily I love my kids and every day I thank my lucky stars for them.

Rosie’s neck

I took today off from running. And I plan to take the rest of this week and next week off. Hopefully these again splints clear up quick. I’m doing everything I know to do to work them out, so we’ll see. But today Rosie woke up with a stiff neck. She held the side of her neck all day. Poor girl! She refused to take any medicine for the pain because she was convinced it would make her throw-up.

Adam came home for lunch and held her while the others climbed all over him.

Shin Splints

I have shin splints again and it is the worst. I can barely walk today. They’ve been coming on for a couple weeks now, and in hindsight-and for the future-I know what I need to do to try to prevent them in the first place. It was around this time last year that I dealt with the same thing. It took a couple months to admit to myself that I needed to take time off running. It’s just so hard to do that. But this time, I know, right this second, I need to stop running. My plan is the rest of this week and next week, no running. I have a half marathon at the end of July that I’d really like to do, so now is the time for me to rest. My goal for that half marathon is under 2 hours. I think it’s completely doable-but perhaps I’ll need to work a little harder since I’ll be resting for nearly 2 weeks. To be honest I wouldn’t be as concerned about my diagnosis of it weren’t for the race coming up. I’ve been researching the heck out of the topic, so I feel pretty confident in what I need to do. I’m just hoping my body cooperates. I ran 6.5 miles this morning including hill-repeats. It all felt okay…not perfect, but pretty good. And last Saturday I ran a glorious 11 miles. That felt super great. So I was a little bummed my shins hurts so bad.

Day 0

It was after my third baby was born that I first realized I was a stress eater.  Siena, my newest baby, hated car rides.  One particularly bad car ride I found myself opening the newly purchased bag of oreos and eating one after another.  After polishing off at least six oreos I realized I didn’t taste any of them.  I was trying to drown out the stress with food.

Even though I recognized my problem, it did not stop me from repeating it…over and over and over again.  (That’s what raising young kids can do.)  Plus, I like food.  I especially like treats…cookies and brownies are my biggest weakness.  I have a sugar addiction.

However, I’m not completely naive on what I should and should not be eating.  I subscribe to the school of thought that vegetables and lean proteins are best, dairy and grains should be kept to a minimum, and refined sugar is no-good.

So, on this Day 0 I need to put it in writing that I will be changing my eating habits–a lot.  I hope to change my family’s eating habits too.  Little by little we will all be eating better, and consequently feeling better.

Photos to take…

Every month I want to start taking specific pictures of the girls. Here are the categories I hope to do: portrait, picture with mom, picture with dad, new skill, bath time, got woke up from a nap, siblings, playtime.

Since Liliana is out with daddy, I was only able to get the littlest two…and since it’s the first time, I used my camera phone.

Here’s portrait…October 2015

Surprise Annoucement

We are expecting a third SURPRISE baby in April!

I gave birth to Rosalyn in March.  Even though she was exclusively breastfed my period came back when she turned 3 months.  (Incidentally, the same was true with Liliana.  I guess I’m not one of those women that don’t get their period while breastfeeding.)  Not a big deal, and I didn’t think much of it.  I went about my business raising two kids, and continued to breastfeed.  So when my period didn’t come back the next month I just figured it was because I was breastfeeding.  Then another month went by and no period.  But really, I didn’t think anything of it.

Then one morning I woke up not feeling great–not terrible, but a little sick.  I was supposed to go out with my husband that night and we were going to have a friend watch the kids.  She asked if we were still going out, and I responded, “I’m not feeling well, but I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow.”  Then “tomorrow” came and I still felt sick.  But I didn’t think anything of it.

A couple days later my friend came over and I was telling her how I felt and she said asked if I could be pregnant.  And of course I thought, no way…I JUST had a baby!  But later that day I got to thinking, and I told my husband we should probably pick up a pregnancy test.

I took the test while Adam was putting the girls to bed.  I cried a little when the test immediately came up positive.  My whole world changed in an instant.  Everything I was “planning” (i.e. losing weight, get back to working out, not being pregnant for a while) no longer applied.  I didn’t sleep at all that night.

That was short lived, because now I’m more excited this time around then with the first two.  I still worry all the time.  And I think, for me, that’s the hardest part of pregnancy (the worry and anxiety).  But my doctor has assured me that the chances of complications due to the closeness in pregnancy is really low.  I was slightly embarrassed to have to tell my OB and the girls Ped that I’m pregnant again, because at first I felt like we were irresponsible or something.  But both doctors were very, very nice about it.  They said it happens more than you think.

I really love being a mother, and I can’t wait to have another!

Mystery Solved

I got discouraged after making a couple loaves of bread only to have them fall when baking, so I stopped baking every day.  But then we decided to have a faux Thanksgiving dinner last week and I wanted to make the rolls from scratch.  I went with Parker House Rolls (they’re famous apparently).  And after watching a couple youtube videos about them, I decided to make Martha Stewart’s version.  I kneaded the dough for ten minutes, and my shoulders hurt!  But they turned out beautifully!  I was so happy with the outcome.  They tasted great too!  I forgot to take a picture of them though!  =(

After the success of the rolls I wanted to bake something else, so the next day I tried the King Arthur Classic Sandwich loaf.  I kneaded it for 8 minutes and it turned out perfect!  Liliana and I ate most of it that day, and Adam took the rest with him to school.

So I guess that’s the key…knead long enough to create enough structure in the gluten.  Anyway, my confidence in baking (all by hand) is increasing.  I’ll be sure to take pictures of my next baking adventure!

Culinary School

I love baking and cooking, and I told my husband anytime we have an extra $50,000 laying around I’d like to go to culinary school.  To which he said, “you don’t need to go to culinary school to be a good cook.”  And he’s not wrong.  There are plenty of excellent chefs with no formal training.  Some of these chefs even have their own show on Food Network!  So, with that in mind I’ve decided to bake the heck out of my kitchen.  I don’t own a stand mixer (which I desperately want) or a bread maker, so I’m doing everything by hand.  I have a couple of go-to bread recipes that usually come out quite nicely, but I want to mix it up.  So I’ve deiced to try a ton of different types of bread recipes and do them over and over until they come out the way I want.  Yesterday was my first attempt.  It was a sandwich bread recipe from The Bread Bible.  It has a lot of steps, and requires a lot of rise time.  I hadn’t read the recipe completely through (my fault) so I mismanaged my time.  I made the Starter the night before, then started again just before 7am the next morning.  We go to church at 9:30 so I didn’t have a lot of time.  The result was very disappointing.

It fell–a lot.  I read there are at least 3 reasons why my bread could have fallen.  First, I didn’t knead it enough.  Which is possible, because the dough was very sticky and I had a hard time kneading it.  Second, it rose too long.  Again, because of my mismanagement with the time it did sit rising for far longer than the recipe called for.  And third, too much yeast.  It’s possible, I think.  As I was putting in the amount of yeast it called for, I felt like it was a lot.  The taste is great.  My husband likes it, and Liliana loves it.  (She loves anything homemade I make).  But I’ll try the recipe again soon, but for now I have the King Arthur Sandwich Bread rising on my counter.  We’ll see what happens with that.

Little Frankenstein

We tried out our costumes at a “healthy” trick-or-treat at our local Children’s museum.  The place was packed and Liliana was more interested in playing.  But here is a picture of my little Frankenstein.  (Yes, Frankenstein is a girl.)

We also just came back from a short trip to Kansas City, MO.  We had a ton of fun visiting a farm, the Sealife aquarium, and other stuff.  Our biggest concern when traveling with small children is how well they’re going to sleep.  Luckily, they both slept as well as we could have hoped–so that made our trip extra enjoyable.  Sleep changes lives!  It was a happy coincidence that the World Series was being played the same time we were down there.  There was Royals support everywhere.  This was one of multiple fountains that was turned blue in honor of the Royals.  Spoiler alert: we let our kid get away with a lot.  So when she asked to touch the water–we let her.