Tuesday 27 January 2009

A Natalie Funny

I meant to post this earlier but kept forgetting.

We were sitting down do dinner the other night and I had already dished out the plates and had them ready on the placemats. Well Robbie starts to dig right in and doesn't way for the blessing. Natalie offered to give the prayer and I asked her to ask a blessing on what Robbie already ate.

So this is Natalie's prayer, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this day. Thank you for this food and bless it to nourish and strengthen our bodies and please bless that Robbie doesn't CHOKE! I say these things..."

It was so hard to not crack up right in the middle of her prayer. The way she said it was almost funnier than what she said, with attitude and sincerity all at the same time.

Anyway, my kids are always coming up with silly things they do and say and if I don't start writing them down, I know I am going to forget them!

Friday 16 January 2009

I found the coolest diapers

It almost makes me more excited for baby Penelope to get here so I can try them out! I've been contemplating for a while changing over to cloth this time around and while I was doing my research on which kinds to use, I came across a friend of a friend's blog and found these...



These are called gdiapers and they are a hybrid between cloth and disposables. I know how I am and I NEED something that is going to be convenient but I hate that we've thrown so many diapers in the garbage over the last 5 years (probably close to 12,000)! Americans put over 20 billion disposable diapers in the landfill every year and it takes 500 years for those diapers to decompose. Gdiapers are great because the dirty liners can be flushed or composted (well the wet ones can be composted), and if you do have to throw them away, they only take 50-150 days to decompose as opposed to 500 years. This saves on washing which uses up a lot of water and energy with traditional cloth diapers.


What sold me though is that in this friend of a friend's blog, the poster mentioned that her sweet son has had severe diaper rashes for almost the whole 1st year of his life and the last one contributed to a 2 day quarantined hospital stay for MRSA. Since switching to the gdiapers, they had only had one major diaper rash.


I am seriously wishing I had heard of these before and could have been using them sooner. I may even get Robbie a set to wear at night until he is dry completely through the night.


Anyway, here is a link to the website... http://www.gdiapers.com/. Go see for yourself how cool they are, and they are cute too!

Thursday 15 January 2009

Dad's Yummy, Fresh, Homebaked Bread

A year ago for Christmas, Shawn got me one of those fancy and expensive Kitchen Aid Stand Mixers. I wanted one because it was my intention to bake more and we could have yummy fresh bread. Well, I've used the mixer for pie pastry, pizza crust, cakes, and cookies but I have yet to bake bread. I just found the whole thought of it totally too overwhelming and didn't want the mess to clean up when I was done so I kept making excuses why I couldn't be bothered.

Well just after Thanksgiving (when I used the mixer for something, I think pumpkin pie), Shawn decided that he wanted to give it a go and bake bread. I was grumpy at first because in my mind I am thinking, "Yeah, you go and bake bread and it will be a disaster and I will have a HUGE mess to clean up and I'm just going to resent you!" So I begged him to wait. A couple of days later he asked again. This time I told him he was welcome to bake bread, but I was NOT going to clean up after him and if he ever wanted to be given permission to EVER do it again, I had better have nothing to clean up afterwards. It seems like I am always feeling like I am being punished whenever he is given free reign of the kitchen. So he started with an easy recipe that you put in the refrigerator overnight to rise. It was the recipe recommended in the instruction book that came with the mixer. It turned out to be pretty good. Well, we haven't had store bought bread since. Shawn has been quite the baker and he is graduating onto more ambitious recipes, such as this beautiful loaf you see below which is whole wheat. It's made using wheat that we ground ourselves. This is by far the best tasting he's made so far and look at how beautiful it turned out! I am so proud of him! He's even made yummy dinner rolls and the best homemade pizza crust I've ever had. Maybe he's found his true calling in life? Oh, and I have yet to have to clean up a mess as a result of his baking adventures, everyone is a winner.


Sunday 4 January 2009

30 Weeks!

Never before in my two previous pregnancies have I felt like I had the beach ball syndrome. When I got pregnant with Natalie I weighed 220 pounds and I weighed 190 when I went to deliver, and at the end of the pregnancy, I just felt like I looked fat. Then when I got pregnant with Robbie, I was back up to 206 and again weighed 190 when I went to deliver and felt the same way, just fat.

This time around I started out the pregnancy at about 185 and right now I weigh about 160ish, I've taken most of the weight off in the first trimester and I only put on 2 pounds from my 16 week and 28 week midwife appointments. If I look in the mirror front on, I am feeling pretty good about myself and you can barely tell I'm pregnant and from the side, you can definitely tell it's all baby. I can actually see my collarbones again and I haven't been able to see those in about 7 years and my legs aren't rubbing together when I walk anymore! I just hope and pray that I am able to keep the weight from coming back on after little Penelope comes. I'll just have to keep up the increased activity! Natalie's school is 1/2 mile away and we walk so I've been walking 2 miles a day and starting Tuesday I'll have to make the trip 3 times a day as Robbie starts afternoon preschool. I wonder if this will help at all during labor? We shall see in about 10 weeks!