Author: Amy

Vacation at Home

Posted on by Amy
For the past week, my husband has been on vacation.  Usually when he has time off work, we go somewhere.  We live far away from our families, and think it’s important to see them as much as possible, so we are often traveling to visit someone.  This week, for the first time in a long time, we vacationed at home.  It was wonderful.
We got to spend lots of great quality time with the Daddy.  He was able to come to Miss’s gymnastics class and to the girls’ music class.

 I think he really enjoyed observing both classes.  Miss has really blossomed in her gymnastics class and both girls really get into their music class.  Miss loves to sing and play the instruments and Lass is a total ham.

Today we went to brunch, where we got to carve pumpkins for Halloween.  Miss and Daddy did all the work on our pumpkin.  Last year the Daddy did it all by himself, but this time Miss was able to really participate.

She helped scoop out the guts

and decide what type of face to draw for the Jack-o-lantern.

 Lass enjoyed wandering around and looking at some of the other pumpkins.

 Miss was even able to help cut out the pumpkin face.

 She was pretty happy with the finished product.

We also spent lots of fun time with Daddy at home.  Tonight Miss got to try out her new dot markers by drawing with Daddy.

They drew snakes and faces and lots of grapes and blueberries.

It has been a great week.

It’s a Girl!!!

Posted on by Amy
Yesterday, we had our ultrasound and got to see Baby.  We were thrilled to see a healthy little one, growing and developing right on track so far.  We were also able to be able to find out Baby’s gender.  Though I was pretty convinced that this baby was a boy, we were very excited to see that we are having another girl.  Miss and Lass will be having a Sis!  I’m so happy to imagine how wonderful it will be for all my girls to grow up with sisters so close in age.  Though I don’t have a sister, I’ve heard they’re pretty great.  I love that my girls will have each other.  I’m picturing some pretty fabulous tea parties, slumber parties for which we don’t even need to invite any guests, and lots of great girls’ days out.  They can do each other’s hair and share clothes and be each other’s best friends.  I love having girls.
And just in case you’re feeling badly for my husband, swimming in a sea of estrogen and nail polish… Don’t.  He is thrilled to have another girl, if maybe slightly terrified.  One of the first things he said after our ultrasound appointment was something about needing to build a 20-foot wall around our house.  But he loves having girls too. He’s gotten very good at playing Care Bears and dress up.  And our ladies are total Daddy’s girls, especially Lass right now.  
We may or may not someday have a little boy.  Of course we’d love to have a boy, though we would be perfectly happy with all girls too.  And even if we never have a son, I’m quite certain my husband will never feel like he’s missing out on anything.
Our girls love to watch football with him on Saturday mornings, 

though he is not terribly happy with their choice of teams.  So far Miss has expressed her preference for “Go Blue.”

For the record, when I bought these shirts for the girls, I wasn’t in search of Michigan wear.  I was shopping online for a few things for Miss for school and I happened to see these on Old Navy’s website.  I actually did look for Iowa shirts on there too (I’m not entirely sure I would have bought them, but I did look).  No Iowa shirts at Old Navy.

And in case anyone was wondering, when Michigan and Iowa play each other in a few weeks, the girls will be wearing neutral clothing.  Maybe I’ll just dress them in Maize-colored shirts, since both teams share that color.

We try to keep our rivalry all in good fun around here.  But I have to admit I was very excited that Miss burst out singing the Michigan fight song, completely unprovoked, in Target a few weeks ago.

Whichever team our girls choose to root for (it’ll probably end up to be the Badgers anyway…), we still all love to watch football together.  And they love to be outside with their Daddy.

They don’t mind getting dirty or playing a little rough.  Miss loves to try to climb trees.

Yesterday we were taking a look at a house on the water.  Miss went out on the dock with her Daddy, and when he told her it was time to leave she said, “No, I want to fish.  I don’t want to go!”  My hubby will teach them to fish and even to hunt if they are interested.  Miss had her first archery lesson yesterday.

I was really bothered the other day when Miss was looking out the window, watching my hubby shoot his bow.  She said something like, “If I was a boy, I could shoot like Daddy.”

I was quite upset by this statement, and puzzled, because I have never said anything like this to her, nor have I heard anyone else make such a statement to her or in her presence.  So I don’t know where she came up with the idea that she would have to be a boy in order to shoot a bow, or do anything else.


Right away I told Miss that she didn’t have to be a boy to shoot a bow or do anything else, that she could certainly shoot with her Daddy, she just needed to get a little bit bigger.  My husband was so upset when I told him what she’d said, he took her out the next day to shoot with him.  I guess she didn’t need to be bigger, at least to watch and get the sense that she was doing it.

We will always teach all of our girls that they can do or be whatever they want, if they work hard.

And they will learn to do all sorts of fun things with their Dad.

So definitely don’t feel badly for my husband.  A few people have made comments like, “Oh how exciting that you’re having another girl!  But your poor husband!”  Of course, they mean this with all good intentions and kindness.  But, hell no he’s not poor!  To quote a song by Greg Brown: my husband is “a man who’s rich in daughters.”  Yes, we are very rich indeed.

Little Sister’s Day Out

Posted on by Amy
After dropping Miss off at school today (with no tears, by the way, hooray!!), Lass and I had a special morning out.  We started out visiting a local cafe where they have a big play area.  At first we were the only ones there and she almost didn’t know what to do with all these toys to herself.

Almost.

It is so fun to spend some special time just with Lass.  She has the funniest little personality and it feels good to be able to shower all my attention on her.  She seems to just eat this up and really shines during our mornings together.

After playing for a while and having a snack, we went to our favorite local library story time.

The children’s area of this library is wonderful.  Lass loves the huge stuffed animals they have (yes, that is a stuffed dog) and the cozy sitting area with bins of board books just her size.

During the story time the kids and moms sit in a circle on the floor, do lots of songs, and of course hear a story.  Lass likes to stand in the middle of the circle and dance during the songs.  She is such a little ham!  Then the librarian brings out lots of books, balls, blocks, etc. for the kids to play with for a while. It’s a great time for her to play with kids near her own size and for me to get to chat with some other moms.

My littlest (for now) and I had a wonderful morning together.

A Long-Lost Friend is Found

Posted on by Amy

Have you ever found a long-lost friend?  I mean, truly lost touch with someone dear to you and then found them again after many years?  This happened to me.  Eight years ago, I lost contact with a dear friend, “C,” due to phone problems and cross-country moves.  I tried to find her several times.  Back then, I don’t think she really did much with email.  Not sure if she even had an email address, so I couldn’t just send her a quick message with my new number and address.  I tried good old-fashioned snail mail, and that didn’t work either.  When Facebook came out, I searched for her with no luck.  I even searched the friend lists of people I  thought she would surely be friends with if she were on FB.  Nothing.

Yesterday was another friend, “S’s” birthday.  I popped over to S’s FB “wall” to wish her a happy day, and whose name did I see there also sending her birthday wishes?  Yes, my long-lost friend, C.  I just about fell out of my chair in my haste to send her a friend request.  Then I waited nervously to see whether she would accept my request and “friend” me.  See, I’m not a huge FB user.  I don’t choose to be “FB Friends” with everyone I ever knew.  I don’t necessarily want to be found easily on FB, so I don’t put my maiden name in my profile, nor do I use a photo of myself as my profile pic.  And due to one of the many and seemingly arbitrary changes that FB has made recently, you can no longer send a little message when you request to be someone’s friend.  So, I was nervous that C wouldn’t know who I was and wouldn’t friend me.

I needn’t have feared.  The next time I checked my FB page I saw a happy and heartfelt message from C that just about made me cry tears of joy.  Evidently, she has missed me too.

The last time I spoke to C, I was finishing my internship at the end of my doctoral training program.  I wasn’t married.  I didn’t have kids.  She was already married and had four little ones. Now her kids are so big.  One just graduated from high school!  So much has changed for both of us.  I can’t wait to hear more from her and get caught up on everything that has happened in the last eight years.  My heart is so happy because I have found my dear friend again.

Although I don’t use it a ton, right now I am thanking Facebook with all my might.

Rainy Day Ride and a Recipe

Posted on by Amy
Today was rainy.  The girls were a little stir crazy after dinner tonight, so the Daddy brought in their wagon for a little ride.

They thought this was just about the coolest thing.  Then it broke, and they had fits.  But we colored and read books and did puzzles the rest of the night, and all was well.

On a totally unrelated note, several weeks ago I posted about my last “Chopped” ingredients.  If you recall, these were Duck breast, Avocado, and Gouda cheese.  I used the ingredients to make dinner a couple of weeks ago and have forgotten to post about it.  I made Duck and Gouda Hoagies with Avocado Spread.  I didn’t write down the recipe, thinking I would post about it while it was still fresh in my memory.  I have a pretty good memory, but this one might be a little fuzzy.

My ingredients:
4 duck breasts, skin removed
1 avocado
Gouda cheese, sliced
Salt and Pepper
Flour
Vegetable oil
1 Shallot, finely chopped
Maybe one or two cloves of garlic?
About a half cup of dry white wine
Mayonnaise
Hoagie Buns
One apple (optional)

I started by slicing the duck breasts crossways into about 1/2 inch-thick pieces.  Then I dried these, sprinkled them with salt and pepper on both sides, and coated them with flour.  I heated my pan over medium high heat, added about a tablespoon of oil, and put in the first batch of duck pieces.

I browned the duck pieces on both sides, then removed to a plate and continued with the other pieces in batches (adding a bit of oil with each batch).

After I got all the duck pieces cooked and set aside, I put the shallot in the pan to soften.  I can’t remember if I added a couple of pressed cloves of garlic after the shallot was soft.  I think I did.  If so, I would have waited until the shallot was soft, then added the pressed garlic and stirred it around until fragrant, about 30 seconds.  Then I added the wine and scraped all the browned bits from the bottom of the pan.  I let this reduce a few minutes.  Then I put this mixture into the blender with the avocado, some mayo and some salt and pepper and tried to puree it to a really smooth texture.  I should have used my Magic Bullet, because the blender didn’t do a very good job of pureeing the small pieces of shallot.  So, the final outcome of this avocado-mayo spread was a little lumpy.  While I was working on this spread, I preheated the broiler, put some duck meat into a each of two hoagie buns, topped it with slices of gouda, and put it in the oven.  Once the cheese was melted, I pulled them out, put the avocado spread on the top of the bun, and it was done.  I should have used a lower heat to melt the cheese, because my buns ended up getting burned, but the result was still good.  I also should have toasted the buns beforehand, because the bottom bun was a bit soft relative to the super crispy top bun.  Oh well.  I was in a hurry…

On my hoagie I put slices of apple, which I thought added a crunch and sweetness that was very yummy.  My husband is not a fan of apples on sandwiches, so I left them off his.

This was a successful meal, if not the most dazzling thing I’ve created.  The best part was the way I cooked the duck.  I relied on a strategy learned partly from my dad and partly from my cooking class in coating the duck with flour.  This really helped to hold in some of the moisture and the result was very flavorful, tender, and moist duck meat.  Score.  The least successful part of the dish was the avocado spread.  It ended up a little bland, and the chunks of shallot didn’t do anything for it.  If I made this again I would probably skip the shallots and pan deglazing all together and just use the avocado, some mayo, and some fresh herbs, maybe a little lemon or lime juice to brighten the flavor of the spread and keep it smooth.  My apologies for the haphazard “recipe.”  This is the best I can recall, several weeks later.

My husband has been working nights for the past two weeks, so we have been neglecting to select the ingredients for my next challenge.  Tonight is his last night to work (hooray!!), and we finally remembered to choose the goodies.  What did I end up with?  Tuna (canned), Panko bread crumbs, and Tomato paste. I already have a good idea what I’m going to do.  If it works, I’ll try to bring you that recipe with a bit more precision.

The Well-Dressed Belly

Posted on by Amy
This is what Miss wore to school yesterday.

Adorable, yes?

Why is it that I can find such wonderful clothes for my children, and yet it is so difficult to find simply practical, comfortable, and attractive maternity clothing for myself?  Set aside the fact that I spend much more time and am much more interested in finding fabulous things for my kids.  That’s a given.  But, I should still be able to find decent stuff to help me look nice through the 6-ish months of my pregnancy when I can’t fit into my regular clothes anymore.  Right?

Now I will concede that I have found some nice casual and everyday work clothes for this pregnancy.  I refused to spend much money on maternity clothes when I was pregnant with Miss, which resulted in me buying mostly junk that is no longer wearable this time around, and the clothes I have from my pregnancy with Lass are mostly not appropriate because of different seasons.  So, I had to buy some new maternity clothes recently.  Plus, with this being my third pregnancy in three years, I really was just sick of looking dumpy.  This time I invested in a few nice new items, and some great jewelry (check out this Etsy shop), so that I will be a little more comfortable and stylish for the next 5-6 months.

Unfortunately, I have never needed, and have not wanted to invest in a maternity business suit, so when I got the call two days ago that I needed to appear in court to provide expert witness testimony today, I had nothing to wear!  I went to every maternity store nearby and several department stores with pitifully small maternity sections.  I couldn’t find a suit, though I’m not sure I really expected to.  I would have settled for a nice blazer that I could wear with the black maternity pants I already have.  But no.  I found one jacket that was horridly ugly and much too short to wear over any other maternity shirt without it hanging out the bottom (and one can’t exactly tuck a shirt in to maternity pants).  I didn’t have time to find and order anything online.  I was frantically searching the stores for other nice business attire and was shocked to find how casual most of the “business” maternity clothing out there is.  Now, I suppose for many work situations, the things I saw would be fine.  But surely there are pregnant women out there who have to wear a business suit or at least a jacket to work on a regular basis.  Right?  Where are these elusive suits?  Why is a maternity blazer so horrid-looking?  These are the questions I was asking myself as I walked into court this morning wearing my black pants, a button up shirt I purchased when pregnant with Miss (couldn’t even find a nice one of these in the past two days!), and a black cardigan sweater that sort of, very loosely, approximated a business-jacket-type look.  I felt woefully underdressed.

Fortunately, my testimony went well.  I’m sure no one else was nearly as concerned about my lack of a suit as I was.  And most importantly, my girls looked adorable today.

Happy Fall

Posted on by Amy
Fall is my favorite season.  I love the crispness of the air, the colors of the leaves and their lazy floating to the ground.  I love pumpkins and apples and squash and chilly morning trips to the farmer’s market where all the season’s bounty can be found.  I love open windows through which cool breezes bring the scent of burning leaves.  Fall makes me feel cozy and productive.  Like I want to snuggle up with my Loveys, but also to get out and go do stuff.
Last year around this time, we went to a local farm where they have pumpkins, apples, animals and a big rustic playground.  We had a lot of fun, though I ended up a bit overwhelmed at the end of the day, struggling back to the truck with a newborn wrapped to me, a toddler and a big bag of apples in one arm, and pulling a wagon completely loaded with pumpkins with my free hand.  Thank goodness for the kindness of a stranger who came to our rescue.  Here we are in a photo from last year. 

We went back to the same farm yesterday.  My how things have changed.  We’ve upgraded our equipment,
and the girls have grown so much.  They were both charged with the task of picking out our pumpkins.
Lass took a relaxed approach to the job.
Miss, on the other hand, was all business.
She searched through all the pumpkins and even hauled the ones she chose toward the wagon.
We met up with some good friends, and had a wonderful day.
Back at home in the afternoon, we took full advantage of the glorious weather and the mass of leaves fallen from our beautiful oak tree.
 

The girls had a blast jumping and rolling in the leaves.  Daddy got down in the leaves with the girls too, and even got buried.

And yes, I got buried too.  I don’t know the last time I played in a big pile of leaves. I was a little shocked by how wonderful the leaves smelled and how the scent transported me instantly back to my childhood.  I had completely forgotten that smell.  It’s a fantastic smell!
Happy fall to you!
 

Sidewalk Chalk Paint

Posted on by Amy
Today I got some cheap white pumpkins for the girls to paint.  I had been meaning to make sidewalk chalk paint with my $1 tub of sidewalk chalk from Target for quite a while.  It was a gorgeous day for painting outside, so we took full advantage. 
This was Lass’s first experience with painting.  I knew it would be messy.  I was just hoping to keep her from spilling or eating the paint. 
 
That didn’t work out so well for me.  Oh well.  We made more green paint.  And she didn’t eat much of it…
Miss was really showing her creativity.  Both girls did a great job with their pumpkins.

Lass had as much fun playing with the tub of chalk as with the actual painting.

 But Miss really encouraged her to paint, so they did it together.

And then Lass dumped over my bucket of water and the painting was abandoned for splashing and swirling water.

I love painting outside.  Especially with a 13 month old.  This was a Come-in-the-door-take-clothes-off-immediately-and-put-them-directly-in-laundry-room activity.  And we all had fun doing it.

And if getting messy once today wasn’t enough, well, Lass enjoyed the mac’n’cheese’ for dinner tonight.

Thankfully it was bath night tonight!

Finally! Giraffes

Posted on by Amy
Yesterday, I lost my Mommy Mojo.  I was adrift on a sea of preschooler tantrums and disobedience and toddler crabbiness.  I couldn’t seem to do anything right from nap time to bed time. Miss wouldn’t listen to a thing I said.  She didn’t take a nap, so she was cranky and whiney.  My attempts to redirect and/or to discipline her left both of us frustrated and frayed.  I could not seem to find my usual groove with my big girl, and to top it off, my normally sunny, cheerful Lass was a crabby mess.  By the time I took Lass up for her bath, I was in tears.  I managed to rally and get Miss bathed and in bed happily and without struggle, but I ended the day exhausted and unhappy with myself.  I vowed to get it right today.
Today, Mama got her groove back.  Today, we went to the zoo with some friends and had a blast.  Both girls were wonderful.  Lass even sat in her stroller the whole time with minimal protest!

Miss was fantastic.  She listened well, helped with her sister, and was my usual happy, if sometimes slightly mischievous, girl.  She had so much fun.  Of course, there was plenty of goat feeding.

Lots of excitement over the big llamas.  These were thankfully fairly well groomed and free from matted, poo-crusted fur (click hereif you missed the post about matted, poo-crusted fur).

Lass made a new friend.

Miss played chase with her friend all over the zoo.

She was really interested in this tortoise.  The poor thing kept trying in vain to fit through these posts, and Miss was calling to it, “Come here big turtle. Come here so I can hold you.”  It was kind of pitiful.

And then.  After months of asking for them.  Three “zoos” and many animal encounters later, we finally saw the giraffes.

Initially Miss was timid about feeding them.  She wouldn’t do it herself, until she saw Baby Sister do it.  My little fearless girl.

After she saw her Sis do it, Miss gave it a try too.

The tall guys were definitely the highlight of the zoo.  It was a great day with friends.  And to top it off, both girls stayed awake for the entire hour-plus drive home (right at their usual nap time) and took fantastic naps after we got here.  That never happens.  It must have been some cosmic freebie to make up for yesterday.

But really, yesterday probably wouldn’t have been so bad if I had just managed to pick my battles a little more wisely and maybe count to ten a few times.  Yesterday I was not my best Mommy self.  Okay, let’s be honest.  Yesterday I was an ugly mess.  Today, I got myself a little perspective, took a deep breath, and got my Mojo back.