What I do everyday.

I feed the children, and clean up the kitchen. Rinse and repeat three times a day. My hands are chapped from having my hands in water so many times a day. Hands in the water to get the washcloth ready to wipe faces and hands, wipe up the table, wipe up counters, and doing dishes that don't wash well in the dishwasher. When we get to remodel the kitchen I am seriously thinking about installing two dishwashers. One for plates and cups and such. The other for pans and heavy duty stuff.



I don't buy many other cereals besides Kix and Cheerios. I am not able to get past how much sugar is in everything else! I do buy some over-sugared cereal once in awhile and let Erin have it in moderation. However, I find that when the supa-sugar cereal is had for breakfast she gets hungry again fairly quickly which leads to more food prep, feeding, and cleaning up.

I do find it odd that there is a generic for nearly EVERY cereal out there, but not Kix. Hmmmm....very interesting.

This is my stress relief. Not just bread necessarily, but baking and cooking. These beautiful loaves of bread were so so very good, that I was sorry that I have a freezer of bread from the bread store. These are incredibly easy and cheap to make. They taste so much better than store bought bread. Also, they are full of wheat flour and flax seed. Flax seed is a great source of Omega 3's! I used a recipe from another blog that I read. the Frugal Girl http://www.thefrugalgirl.com/2009/03/wednesday-baking-whole-wheat-bread/

I adjusted the recipe to make three loaves because I have three bread pans. =)



I also like to embark on culinary adventures. Trying things that I haven't attempted before. Since I have mastered the White Wine Cream Sauce (which gave me some trouble for a long time) I have turned my focus to the baking world. The baking world seems to be a lot more temperamental than the cooking world.

Pictured above is my first Lemon Meringue Pie from scratch. I was surprised how very few ingredients are used in this pie! Basically the only thing I needed to buy was lemons! The biggest trouble I had was pre-baking the pie crust. Having never done it before I took the pie weights out too soon and when it went back into the oven, it slumped....a lot. It still tasted good and the rest of the pie hid my slouchy crust.


Some of my trees! I love having oodles and oodles of trees that I own. Our first house had 2, which is a good amount when you live in town. It just boggles my mind to think that I can't count how many trees I have here. I absolutely LOVE it and feel so very fortunate and lucky to have what we have at 30 years old.

We had a week where there was such dense fog at night that this is what our landscape looked like in the morning. A frosty wonderland....gorgeous!

This is one of Scott's favorite things to do with our babies...rock with them. Especially in front of a fireplace. It is the one place he can get Erin to sit still, and Izzy loves to watch the flames dance while being snuggled. If he can swing it he'll put the legs up and snooze with them. However, that is a near impossibility with Erin. That girl never sits still. ONCE and only once since she passed infancy has she fallen asleep rocking with Daddy. I came downstairs to have him nod his head toward her. She sleepily opened her eyes and asked me to put her in her bed.

Izzy has started on solid food! She wasn't too sure of it at first, but she has really warmed up to the idea. Once she got the hang of not pushing it all out with her tongue that is!

I like to make my own baby food. I think it is fun, inexpensive, and I know there aren't any weird things in it. I just made sweet potatoes today and Izzy adored them at first bite. I put a little on a spoon, and into her mouth. She just looked at me and smiled and opened her mouth wide for every bite after that.

I steam the veggies/fruit because it leaches vitamins and minerals the least. Then I put them in the food processor and add as much liquid from the steaming pot as needed to get the right consistency. Once it looks good to me I pour it into ice cube trays, freeze, then pop them out into freezer bags. I just have to nuke one or two cubes and it's ready!

Erin was under the blanket, and when she came out this is what I saw! She had snitched one of Izzy's pacis and was checking it for quality control.

Erin has always been weird about toys. She hasn't and doesn't really play with traditional toys that much. Instead she grabs onto the most interesting things and decides they are her play things. Like this pop-up hamper. She LOVES this thing. She uses it like you would use a sack in a sack race, jumps into it, and . . .

puts it on her head and runs around in it.

Izzy's "I'm not so sure about this solid food thing mommy" face.

So far she seems to be a more energetic eater than Erin was. Let's hope it stays that way!

Matching outfits from Christmas. They look adorable in them.

I like noticing how different they are. Erin has white, very sensitive skin. Izzy seems to have a perma-tan and has barely had any diaper rash at all! Her skin tone is a lot like her Uncle Ben's. Must be the Croatian coming out.

If you can't tell...Izzy loves her big sister like crazy. She watches her all the time and want to grab her and gnaw on her. Erin handles is all pretty well, sometimes getting annoyed, but overall does really well with Izzy. I'm proud of my girls!

Christmastime 2009

Our first Christmas as a family of four! Erin was at the PERFECT age this year for Christmas. All that she learned and now believes about Santa Claus came from TV shows that she watched. At first she decided that Santa was going to come out of the fireplace just to give her hugs and kisses. Eventually presents got added into the story.

She was, however, disappointed on Christmas morning because Santa didn't wake her up to give her a hug and a kiss. The presents made up for it I think.

Izzy had a good Christmas too. She just loves being around us and her sister. She got a lot of clothes for Christmas and is going to be headed into 6-9 month fashion in STYLE!

Scott and I didn't do presents for each other this year. We have been trying to save as much money as we can so we can save up to do the roof this spring, pay for our lawnmower, among many other needs/wants.

We did get this great game for Christmas from Scott's sister called Cook or be Cooked! Food Network put it out and you get to cook things on the Wii. We have had a lot of fun with it.

Another great Christmas present is that we refinanced our home and locked in at 4.75%. We had to get the house appraised again and the appraisal came back $50,000 more than last year!!! So we got to drop our mortgage insurance which was costing us $143 a month! Total savings from our refinance $279 a month! Merry Christmas to us and to our roof!

Our Christmas picture. There were some Christmas decorations in the direction that Izzy was looking. I was doing the picture with the tripod so there was no one over there to get Izzy's attention.

Daddy and Izzy during the decorating of the Christmas tree.

Erin's favorite spot to hang the ornaments. There were many in that spot!


We let Erin stay up a bit later to keep decorating and this is what happens when she is getting tired. Meltdown City!

We were able to get her to smile one more time before we put her to bed. She had such a fun time discovering all the different kinds of ornaments to put on the tree.

Mr. Snowman. . . rolled up on Christmas Day. Erin was adamant that he have a carrot nose!

Batches and batches of spritz and Russian Teacakes. . . I'm still eating them! Someone help me!

I like to try new things in the culinary area so I tried my hand at truffles. They really weren't that hard and these were mocha and so very yummy!

The cookies we left out for Santa. Erin made a smiley face with the cookies.

She was so enthralled that the milk and cookies were gone the next morning!

Bowling set from Izzy.

Having kids around for Christmas makes is so so much more enjoyable. She just unwrapped her inflatable trampoline!

Balls to go in the trampoline.

Izzy on Christmas morning, isn't she gorgeous with those sleepy eyes.

My brothers playing video games on Christmas Day. It reminded me of the Christmas that we got our Nintendo. . .the original with Super Mario Bros. Now THAT was a great Christmas. When we were learning to play and we would jerk the controller around to help Mario jump. . . ahhhhh memories!

Uncle Ben and Katie holding the Izzy baby. . . who is tired and crabby. But she warmed up to everyone after she had a nap. A good Christmas had by all!

Growing.

Here is our beautiful sleeping Izzy. Speaking of sleep, she has finally been doing a lot better in that department. For the first 5 months she did not nap well, which made for long days for me. It did not give me much time to have a break or sneak in a nap. Especially with Erin running around, if I wasn't able to coordinate naps, then no nap for me!

Izzy is still mostly a lump. She can roll from her tummy to her back, and just recently she discovered that she has feet. Who knew so much amusement could come from grabbing one's toes? Other than that she is starting to scoot around the crib by arching her back and pushing off the crib railings, but nowhere close to crawling or sitting up. By contrast a friend of mine from our ECFE classes has a baby about a month and a half older than Izzy and she is crawling all over the place and even able to walk by holding onto things!!!

Erin didn't crawl until she was 9 months, or walk until she was 15 months, so I'm not worried. Izzy has been experiencing some teething symptoms, but none have shown up yet. She gets fussy and her cheeks get bright red, but no teeth.

Izzy has become much more attached to me and I am loving it. She just beams at me when she sees me and smushes her face into mine. She likes to snuggle into my neck and just be close to me. It is much more rewarding than the newborn stage where they can't interact with you much at all. She also LOVES Erin and loves to watch her!


Izzy also greatly enjoys snuggling with Daddy. Whenever she hears him talk she looks all over for him.

Erin got her first haircut at a salon. Her hair is so straight that any mistake I might have made would have been so obvious. I just didn't have the heart to give her a bad haircut. So I took her to a salon and she did so well. We cut off a few inches, but it was getting stringy at the ends anyway. She is starting to look so grown up.

The horse is a toy that she borrowed from a friend. She has played with and carried it around non-stop! She has me make little lassos out of yarn that she leads (drags) the horse around with. She also found a little stuffed unicorn that she has and dubbed it the horse's baby.

Isn't she gorgeous! We are finally falling into a routine with her and it makes life so much easier, and I get more sleep at night too! I like routines, I know what everyone needs when we go by one. The girls do better with them too. They are fed and rested and healthy when we stick to a routine. By routine I mean a sequence of events not a strict time-table.

Erin's smile when she is trying. So cheesy! I try to get her to say something silly instead so I get a real smile instead of cheeseville!

Scott with Izzy and his brother David with their new baby Aubree. My babies get soooo chubby. I love it!

Babies!

Babies, babies, babies!!! These are the recent additions to Scott's side of the family. The chubby girl in the pink is our little Izzy baby. The head-full-of-hair boy in the middle is Chase, Scott's sister's baby. The tiny baby girl on the end is Aubree, Scott's brother's baby!

All the fun doesn't stop there. . . another baby is due in July of next year from Scott's oldest brother. That baby will make 8 grandchildren on that side of the family with Erin being the oldest. She will be 4 when the 8th is born!!!

And why stop at 8 when 10 is better!!! Both of my brothers are now expecting babies next spring!!! One is due on my birthday June 13th!!! The other is due in August!!! I'm glad that they are having babies now, they will be close enough in age to my babies that they will be able to play together.

So this coming spring/summer will be full of birthdays!! We may have to just throw one huge one as they babies get older. . . who knows.

Hospitalization #7

Scott Kuglin (my hubby) seems to be the opposite of a good luck charm when it comes to me spending time in the hospital. Let me explain. . .

Six months after we started dating we were involved in a car crash and I was his human cushion. He walked away with a little bloody nose and I got an ambulance ride because my left arm broke clean in half.

This broken arm refused to heal and I could bend my arm in a place it shouldn't be able to bend for 8 months, when I finally decided it was enough and scheduled some surgery to have them repair it.

I kept the substantial hardware in my arm for a year, but one of the screws that have nasty cutting tips on them was all the way through the bone and poked in my arm on the other side. It caused me enough grief that I had surgery again to remove it.

A few years later I was pregnant with our first daughter Erin, and at 33 weeks I went into labor. I spent a week in the hospital on a magnesium drip to keep the little punkin in.

Four weeks later I gave birth to that punkin. Granted this was a planned hospital stay, it still was a result of having Scott Kuglin in my life.

Three years later, I was pregnant with our second daughter Izzy, and made it to 36 weeks of pregnancy and went into labor. I was far enough along that they didn't stop later, even if my midwife would have preferred to.

Three months later, what I thought was the stomach flu turned out to be gallbladder attacks. On our way home from a vacation in the Dells, the pain became overwhelming and even brought me to tears! I tried to hold on until we could make it to Rochester, but we ended up in the Lacrosse ER where they gave me some pain medication. Finally some relief. I guess generally once they get the attack to stop they send people home and let them decide on whether or not to have their gallbladder out. Generally they are able to prevent additional attacks by limiting fat in their diet. However, in my case the pain was not going away and the attack was not stopping. So they sent the surgeon my way and we decided to go for it and just get it out.

Lo and behold a sneaky little gallstone had escaped the gallbladder and become lodged in my bile duct. Most likely the culprit of the ongoing pain. So instead of being an outpatient, I was fortunate enough to undergo an additional procedure the next day to dislodge the sneaky little gallstone. With the endoscopic procedure that was used there was a 1 in 100 chance of me developing pancreatitis. Apparently I should play the lottery more often because I did develop it. Normal numbers for pancreatic enzymes are from 40 to 100, and my levels were in the thousands. Let me just tell you that the pancreas is NOT an organ that you want to anger. It is extremely painful and pain medication isn't always that helpful!!!

So by my count that is number seven. Seven hospitalizations in 6 years of marriage. A few planned, most not. Maybe I should get out while I can!!! If I didn't adore him so much I could consider it.

Where do I start?

Life is going by at lightening speed and I have so many ideas for posts than have never been written. So where do I start?? With all the ideas I have it seems like an impossible task to do all the posts I want to do and keep up with all the new things that are happening. I also don't want to do one super huge post and hit people in the face with a wall of text. Perhaps I should do a mainly picture post with captions. Everyone loves pictures! I believe that may be my best solution. Thank you for letting me work that out in blogspace with you. =) She here goes!

When I first saw this in the middle of my kitchen floor my response was annoyance. Then I asked Erin why the vacuum was on the floor with the blanket on it. . . "I put it night night" she responded to me. Instant anger melt.

This is the scene I happened on at 5 am, the catch. . .I didn't take this picture. In addition to this mess the refrigerator door was open and that package of cookies was on top of the fridge!

Erin documented the scene of the crime and the loot herself with our camera. Safe to say our camera is 3 year old user friendly! I am happy to report that this was one of the last middle-of-the-night wanderings. At least this one wasn't her on the roof holding a bottle of Tylenol. No that is not just a random example. . .

Our trip to Kenosha and the Jelly Belly factory.

Auntie Connie looked hungry so Erin felt it her personal duty to remedy.

You have to love the hats. They also make some amazing saltwater taffy in a plethora of flavors!

My little jelly belly standing on the big Jelly Belly! And for any Harry Potter fans they have their own line of Everyflavor beans, though they are called something else. There is vomit, pencil shaving, and the infamous ear wax to name a few. I was not bold enough to try them.

Izzy enjoying some snuggle time with Auntie Connie. Our visits renew her decision to keep waiting in the "I want babies" department. Babies are exhausting! Incredible. . . but exhausting.

A picture of the sisters. I am very much looking forward to seeing how sisters interact. I had brothers and a half sister that lived a state away, so I'm not sure what it will look like. So far Erin is very loving toward Izzy, and I want to do everything I can to ensure a close relationship for them. . . especially if we choose not to have any more babies.

It went from summer to spring to summer to a few hours of fall to winter. We really love having a fire in our fireplace. Although when we lost power in the random snow storm where we got 4 inches very quickly we didn't have heat or water since our well pump is run by electricity. All of this would have been fine if we didn't have the girls. So we packed them up and stayed at grandmas along with the rest of the grand kids that happened to be spending some time there as well. A full house it was! And to think we add one more grand baby before Christmas!!! That will make 7!

Our sweet Izzy princess. A very happy baby! We are battling thrush still!!!! I'm so tired of it!

Erin thought it was pretty cool to have this clip on her tongue. Silly girl. She is slowly but surely settling down in her tantrums and able to listen better. I am doing better at remaining calm when she loses it and doing my best to help her work through it all. She also started dance class and has her second class tonight! She looks so cute in her leotard and tights!

Erin showing the camera her red spot from having the clip on her tongue.

Such a pretty girl!

Someone has to take pictures of me with the baby or I will not exist in our pictures!

Goozo Fraba

If anyone has watched Anger Management with Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson, then they will understand the title of this post. It is the little mantra that is taught to the anger management students to diffuse their rage. I have found the need for it a lot recently while raising my 3 year old. It's either mumble nonsense words to myself, or duct tape my daughter to the wall.

Here I thought that laying all this wonderful ground work during her second year of life would translate into an easy transition into 3 and 4 and so on. I was mistaken. The "terrible twos" really aren't that terrible. Three has catapulted us into a war zone that I didn't see coming. Erin is a strong willed child (aren't they all) and now that she is three she seems to want to exert that at every turn to subdue the enemy into letting her stay up later, watching more TV, eating chips and chocolate and using all the soap in the bottle of hand soap to wash her hands. . . once.

I've been told several times by several different people that you can't show them what makes you angry because then they know what button to push. NOT GET ANGRY??? So when she is spitting her juice across the floor as if she were a sprinkler and I tell her to stop and she just smiles at me and keeps on keeping on I'm not supposed to grab her juice cup, chuck it across the yard so hard it makes my shoulder hurt, and drag her to her room to sit in a chair???? Goozo Fraba, goozo fraba. . .

Now Erin has also been testing the limits of bed time. We can get her there easily enough, but now the excuses to get out of bed have started. "I need to go potty, I need to go poop, there's a moth in my bed". . . Not only that, but she has started getting up in the middle of the night and wandering around the house. One night I found her in Izzy's room, another she was hiding under a blanket on the couch. I think the scary thing is that she is getting into stuff she shouldn't like eating chocolates and filling the toilet with toilet paper. It's the medicines and cleaning products that I worry about. I just need to find something and lock it all up before something disastrous happens.

It doesn't help that I have to get up at night to feed a newborn so I am so tired that I hardly hear her. Like now, I put her to bed an hour ago and I can hear her bouncing around in her room!!!! GOOZO FRABA!!!!

What's up?

I wonder sometimes if I only do this blog for myself, or if anyone (besides Vanessa) reads it. I don't think it really matters that much to me because I do enjoy blogging and being able to look back 3 years now to what was going on in my life at the time.

Things are a lot different then. Scott and I were first time parents with Erin. We have changed cities. We have also added another baby to the family and gotten rid of the cats. My life is a lot busier, but mostly a good busy. This really is exactly what I want to be doing right now in my life. It is a TON harder than I had imagined it would be, but I'm happy.

I like the stay at home mommy thing. . . for now. There are a lot of other things that I would love to do. I'm sure I'll be going back to school at some point, or points. For what. . . well I have my eye on some culinary schooling, agricultural schooling, maybe even some healthcare schooling. I just haven't decided what I want to be in my next life (after I don't have to take care of children full-time).

I love having my babies and I'll be sad when they are gone, but I find my self looking forward to having some time to myself and time to pursue the things that I enjoy. I hope the future holds a lot more travelling for me as well.

The biggest question of the moment is. . . When are we going to stop having kids??? Is two enough for us, or will I always regret not having more? If pregnancy wasn't so hard on me I'm positive we would have more. . .but it is wretched for me. There might be a few weeks in the second trimester that I enjoy, but that's it! Izzy doesn't scream like Erin did, but newborns are still a lot of work. Then there is my age to think about and how long to wait if we decide on another baby. Too big of a question right now. . . I think that one is going to have to wait to be answered.