My Latest Project

So, I know for many of the moms that I'm friends with this is nothing new to them, but to me it is pretty fun and exhilarating.  I've decided to make my own baby food for Lucy.  With all three of my others I just bought the jar food, but this can get pretty costly, and with a family our size and with me being the stay at home mom, part of my job is to learn where we can save money and cut costs.

So, let me nerd out on you a bit and go into some detail.  Baby food stage one comes in a two pack.  This two pack costs 88 cents.  Lucy goes through 4 a day, two for lunch and two for dinner (breakfast and bedtime she has cereal).  This roughly comes to $52.80 per month.  That is a pretty hefty chunk of change for a one income family.  So, this is why I took on this endeavor.  I'd love to say it was for the health benefits, but that just ended up being a secondary perk...

So, I decided to puree my baby food.  I did peas, carrots, sweet potatoes, broccoli, butternut squash, bananas and pears.  I used the magic bullet and food processor.  I found that the magic bullet worked better than the large food processor because I could work in smaller portions and add more water or add more food as needed, whereas with the big processor if I messed up I would have lost the whole batch, and it also made a MUCH bigger mess to clean.

There is a shot of the sweet potatoes.  They look pretty gross, but I actually tasted them and I couldn't believe how yummy they were.  They were NOTHING like the jarred kind.  Once I tasted how good these meals for Lucy were and once I realized how much fun I was having making them I was hooked.  I wish I would have done this with all my others.

After I pureed the food I froze it into ice cube trays.  Two cubes equal about one jar of food.  So, after I was done with all the veggies, I counted how many meals I had and how much it cost me.  The total cost of the veggies came to $5.48, which if I would have purchased equal amounts of Gerber jar food it would have cost me $24.64, so it was a total savings of $19.16!  Score!

After the cubes of food were frozen, I popped them out of the ice trays and sealed and labeled them in ziplock baggies, to pull out for easy servings.  Lucy LOVES the food.  The cool thing about this is I can also puree leftovers of my own meals as she gets older and she will all ready be used to the flavor of our cooking!  I even pureed some leftover chicken noodle soup the other day and froze them into cubes (she is not quite ready for that yet, but I will have it when she is ready for the next stage!)

This project was so much fun, I thought it was going to be a huge chore and not worth all the work.  It is a bit time consuming, but it was actually fun and relaxing, and I loved knowing how much money I was saving and exactly what was going into Lucy's meals.  I'm totally converted and will never buy another ounce of jar food again!

Lucy's Birth

Lucy was born on Monday August 24th at 5:51pm.

Many have commented to me that they wanted to know how everything went, others I'm sure don't want all the gory details, so go ahead, feel free and turn away now.

We arrived at the hospital at 7:15am, my induction was scheduled for 7:30 but I was eager to get there. They immediately got me to my room and all set up. She checked me and my cervix was at 2cm. About 8:30 they started my pitocin drip. We sat there and just waited for the contractions to begin.

We told my nurse that I usually go fast (Myah - my first - was a 8 hour labor, Brett was 5 hours and Evie was 7) but all came within thirty minutes to an hour of my water breaking, so once I go I REALLY go. So about thirty minutes later the delivery team came in and set everything up early just so we were ready to go.

Mom and Ashley arrived at the hospital sometime that morning. The next time the nurse Amy (she was AWESOME by the way) checked me I was at a good 3-4cm. This was around 11:00am. She asked me about the epidural and I went ahead and said yes. The pain was not unbearable, but considering I went from 4cm to 10 with Evie in a matter of about 45 minutes, I didn't want to gamble going through pushing without an epidural.

They came in and gave me my epidural, then doc came in and broke my water. This was around noon.

We waited.

And waited...

And waited....

2pm I was STILL at 4cm, and contractions were all over the place. Nurse Amy helped me get things going by switching the position I was sitting in. We all start to take bets on the time she will be born and the weight of the baby. The nurse even gets her bet in.

About and hour later I was between 5-6cm. This lasted for a while. They upped the pitocin. During this time Aaron arrives at the hospital and we discuss them going to meet the kids at the house when they get off the bus. My cousin Treasure has Evie, so we don't need to worry about her for a while. A&A leave to go get the kids. The school calls Brett had missed the bus. So now we call A&A and have them go to the school and pick up Brett.

Myah calls a few minutes later from home (she has a house key) in a frantic panic that her brother got left at school. Daddy calms her down and lets her know we have it all under control.

During this time my contractions became regular and STRONGER. By stronger I mean pretty unbearable. I thought I had an epidural to avoid this? I found out later these are called "breakthrough" contractions meaning the pain is so intense they break through the epidural. Nice. Didn't know these existed.

The anesthesiologist comes in and gives me more epidural. By now I'm at a good 8cm. The kids get there and I get to give them hugs and kisses before I deliver Lucy. The doctor comes in and we send the kids out in the hall with Aunt Ashley and Uncle Aaron. Now I'm ready to push. I hit my epidural button one more time just to make sure I won't feel anything (I find out later this was QUITE unnecessary I was numb for HOURS into the night).

Lucy comes out without a hitch, two pushes later. She is gorgeous and totally healthy! Doc exclaims "she has more hair than her daddy!"

My ten hour labor. The longest of them all. Who would have guessed that? All things considered it went well, but it was definitely harder than any other one I had experienced. I am so glad though to have my little girl here with us. She is a total sweetie.

Oh, one last thing I forgot to mention. Jamin comes home to get the kids ready for bed that night and the dog (the suicidal one) is all bloody and scratched up again. Just couldn't be a Miser birth without a kid missing the bus and a doggie suicide attempt...

The Wedding Day

So this past weekend was my brother in law's wedding. Now, normally you expect wedding days to be a little bit complicated and have some issues, but nothing major usually happens.

Unless you are part of our family.

My morning started out with my sister in law, her kids, my kids, and our hubby's sitting around the breakfast area by our arcadia door. All of a sudden a duck flew into our back yard. What are the chances? One in a million if you are anyone else on the planet, but if you are the family that owns a beagle chances are pretty high that the duck will wind up in your yard.

Of course the dog started howling at the duck. The duck laid down flat on the ground like it was dead. Finally we were taking bets on wether the duck was dead or just playing dead. I brought the beagle in the house and I went out to go poke the duck to see if it was alive. I got about 10 feet from it and it started flapping. Me, being scared of birds screamed and ran back into the house.

About half an hour later the duck was still in the yard, but I needed to let the dog out. So, there we are and all of a sudden WHACK. The duck hits the arcadia door with a HUGE thud. All the kids and girls scream, my sister in law dumps her coffee everywhere because of the fright.

So, this should have been an omen to me as to how my day was going to go.

Here is a short list of the other wacky events that happened that day:

My daughter took her diaper off like ten times today. She ended up peeing on the kitchen floor.

The dog (our beagle) was vomiting all over the house.

The family members that were decorating the church accidentally locked themselves out of the room that had all the tables in it for the wedding.

We forgot the sash to the brides dress at home and had to stall the wedding while I came back home to get the sash.

The AC in the sanctuary got turned off to avoid the candles from blowing out: caused PROFUSE sweating.

The dog (the beagle, of course) comes downstairs eating a dirty diaper.

My niece poops her pants.

My other dog (the normally well behaved one) jumps up and grabs a chicken leg out of my sister in law's hand and eats it.

Now for the icing on the cake, the part of the story you have all been waiting for.

My son floods the church during the reception. Yes, let me repeat that again, MY SON FLOODED THE CHURCH.

Let me tell you one of the worst possible noises in the world that someone can hear is the sound of GUSHING water where there should be NO gushing water.

Come to find out my son was in the handicap stall in the church. In that stall they have the toilet and a sink attached to the wall. In the next stall over is my nephew. I don't know what happens to my son when these two get together but trouble just seems to find them, and my son absolutely looses his mind. Typical boy, he decides to stand on the sink and peek over into the next stall to be funny and irritate his cousin.

This causes the pipe in the wall to break, the sink to fall off the wall and hundreds of gallons of water to begin gushing out of the pipe. I don't ever think I'll forget the look of terror on my pastors face while this event unfolded. I'm certain at this point we are going to have to find another church to start attending (ok not really, our pastor is a SUPER cool guy and we have an AWESOME church).

This is the point in time where I melt down. The shear embarrassment of the entire situation just broke me down. Luckily the water got shut off, and the men did an excellent job of cleaning up the water disaster, and a plumber came out and fixed the pipe before service tomorrow. It COULD have been much worse.

I swear to you that this is the complete truth about my day. I can't possibly make this stuff up. I have witnesses that can account that this is my "normal" life.

One day of drama in our household is equivalent of what some people only get in a lifetime.

I need an organization intervention.

I'm on day four, yes FOUR of sorting through bags and boxes of children's clothing. I know, I can feel your eyes rolling and all the sighs coming from my friends who are sitting in a cubicle right now, but seriously I think at this moment I would trade places with ANY of you.

I'm TERRIBLE at organization. Positively terrible.

Side note:Now, don't get me wrong, I'm totally and completely thankful for my friends, neighbors and family who have given us clothing. Thanks to all of you, are needs are totally met and we have to buy practically nothing. That being said, read on.

My previous method of organization was to just throw it all into a plastic sack, label it with a sharpie and toss it into the garage/attic. This method was not working well for several factors, pets, and kids both would rip open the bags that had not yet made it into the attic, and the clothes would get filthy, also thus by being in a not so accessible bag in the attic, I'd forget about them.

The other day I ripped open a bag FULL of adorable 24 month and 2T dresses from my cousin Treasure. I didn't even KNOW I had these. I was sure I had gone through everything that she had given me but obviously not. Now I'm frantically washing clothes hoping to get Evie into these dresses before summer ends. I think literally there are enough dresses that she could wear one a day for the next month and never repeat. It's so sad I will never get through all these adorable clothes.

Another issue I have is not all clothes are the same size. They may SAY 3T on them, but as any mother knows not all 3T's are the same. So then it is my job to evaluate these sizes and determine if she will indeed wear them this winter or not. Do I keep them down for winter so I don't forget about them, or put them in a box? If I put them in a box I will surely forget about them, but if I leave them out I'm creating clutter. I'm supposed to "judge" how much she will grow between now and fall/winter? Then do I sort by size only or by size and by season? The problem with that is we have bi-polar weather in Oklahoma that can be warm until November, with a few cold days mixed in. Oh, and don't even get me started on March weather here...so if I pack all the winter clothes up I could be shooting myself in the foot.

It's enough to make a normal woman go insane, for me, it's putting me in a state of helplessness. You remember, I'm the girl who can't even decide on what size macaroni to get, much less figure this crap out. Here I am, sitting on the floor pregnant and pitiful with piles and piles of clothes around me, unable to make a decision at all as to how to organize these.

So, finally I came up with a plan and created a "staging area". I now have two dressers in the girls room. One in the actual room for clothes they wear now, and one in the walk in closet that is "staging" for winter/fall and the next size up. That way they are accessible, but yet put away somewhat. Everything else is going in labeled boxes, NOT plastic sacks. (this was my husband's doing).

So I just went through my last bag of clothes from my cousin and I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Then I realized I have about six, yes SIX boxes of clothes in my garage from our friends who just moved to Nebraska. SIX BOXES.

Dear God, I'm going to be in the looney bin when this is all over.

Payback

When I first had the kids (Myah and Brett) I was concerned about getting payback for how much of a picky eater that I was. Surprisingly though, both Myah and Brett never really put up too much of a fuss with meals. They tried to as they got older, but now they will pretty much eat anything. Salad, veggies, you name it, they will eat it.

All I could do was just thank God that he is not vengeful and he truly blessed me with such wonderful eaters.

God does however have a sense of humor. He was laughing because he knew Evie was coming. He just waited until I was older and more patient to deal with it.

She will cry through whatever it is she doesn't like, until she gets what she does like (sweets). Green Beans, Peas, anything with meat in it, even Mac N Cheese she hates. She only likes the sweet veggies (carrots, squash, sweet potatoes) and bananas and applesauce. Hates pears, peaches, will sometimes eat prunes depending on her mood. I tried Mac n cheese for the first time tonight. She screamed through it, so I gave up. I then went to peas. She ate it but she sure put up a fuss until they were done (this one she would at least swallow and not gag on). Once I busted out the applesauce for dessert she was just fine.




A photo of my picky eater.

"I'll eat it but I won't like it."