Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Top 3 Things to Try just because Megan said so.

I've come to love the following resources over the last few months and I just had to share.

1. 3 Month Food Storage Plan: Emergency preparedness has been on my mind a lot the last few months. I've got that nagging little feeling in the back of my head that I'd better not put it off any longer. I will not take any credit for this idea, its 100% my very resourceful and organized sister-in-law. In order to figure out what and how much food she needed for a 3 month supply she created a simple meal plan for 1 week of food. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Each meal contains foods they regularly eat. She determined how much of each food item she'd need for her 1 week meal plan. Then multiplied that by 6 and then 2 to get 12 weeks of food. She wanted to keep the meal plan very simple. When I did mine it ended up being a little more complex but it worked.

Here is the cool part, every week you eat 1 of the dinners on your meal plan. That means every 7 weeks you're eating every dinner once, thus cycling through your stored food. Its so easy! This approach to the 3 months supply of food has saved me so much time and stress. Thanks Michelle! To see my 3 month food storage plan leave me a comment and I'll email it to you. If you make one for yourself be sure to keep a hard copy to use as a ration guide if needed.

2. Simplifysupper.com: I heard about this site on Studio 5 and I almost love it. (By the way, this guy at work always tells me how much I look like Brook Walker on Studio 5. I think its the big teeth. What do you think?) The site allows you to create an online meal calendar and then automatically creates a weekly shopping list for you. The site's recipes are very simple and have all been delicious! Most of the recipes have less than 5 ingredients and go together really easily. I normally shy a way from recipes where you simply open a few cans because they normally don't taste too good, but I've been surprised. These are delicious. My only beef with the site is that you can't enter your own recipes. I'm going to email the creators of the site to see if they can add this functionality.

By the way, I've saved about $100 a month planning our meals in advance. I love knowing what I'm going to be making for dinner and I really love saving money.

3. Mint.com: Speaking of saving money, this has been on my mind a lot the last few months and I know I'm not alone. "Recession" - blah. My whole cognizant life I looked on the struggles of the past 100 years and felt that our society had advanced to a point where we were immune to such problems. I was naive. Economy aside we've had a significant lifestyle change at our house with the addition of our little cabbage patch kiddo. I took a significant pay cut to be able to work from home part time and with our lost income Dave and I have spent hours and hours looking over our budget, trying to stretch every dollar as far as possible. Its hard to go backwards in one's spending habits.

Dave tried out several personal finance softwares to help us understand exactly where our money was going and when the grocery budget,for example, was gone. We love mint.com because:

  • The software is hosted online, not on a computer, so Dave and I can login from either work or home, even simultaneously.
  • They have lots of pretty graphs that show me exactly where we are with each budget every month. Before I head off to the grocery store or the mall (I'm not totally disciplined yet :))I login to see how much we have left and what else has to come out this month. This alone has kept me from spending lots of money we didn't really have.
  • The software integrated beautifully with our banks' and credit card's online banking systems. We didn't have this same experience with the other softwares we tried.
  • Oh yeah, its FREE!
Change is hard but refreshing. The changes we've gone through over the last several months have been so difficult at time, but have enriched our life. I'm really happy. Not all the time, but in the depths of my heart I'm happy. What more can I ask for?

I hope these resources are helpful!

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Mi Familia

My oh so talented friend Tiffany took family pictures this last week and they are fabulous! Too many good ones to choose from! Here's a sample:












Here's a link to Tiffany's site.

Thursday, November 20, 2008

If you see a little bunny...

and his little nose is runny...please don't think it's funny cause it'snot.

Has it really been since Nov. 1 that I last posted?! Where has the time gone? I know, we've been sick. Actually, I was only sick for a few days, Dave was only sick for a few days, but Sol has been sick for 3 weeks! Geesh! Poor kid, we had a bout with the flu and now the snottiest nose cold ever! Really, he woke up the other morning with snot caked all over his sweet little face. Sad. He is that little bunny. I guess its our initiation into winter. I think he's feeling better, he's been more smiley lately.


We also took a fun weekend trip to my sister's in Grand Junction CO. We had a great time celebrating Mason's birthday and hanging out with everyone!


Happy 3rd Birthday Mason!
Lots of Grandma spoiling
Sol LOVED wresting with Grandpa...
and Mason.
We went to (and survived) church
More Grandma spoiling
Mason got a new bike for his birthday, Sol took it for a spin.
And loved it!
And we wrested with Grandpa some more.

Thanks for such a great weekend!

I'll try to not go another 20 days before I post again. Thanks for reading.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Halloweeeeeeeeen!

Friday, October 31, 2008

Happy Halloween from Dave!

Click on the title to see how Dave spent his Halloween.

Yep, thats him! To see more videos search for Space Ghost @ OMTR.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

What's up with that?

Something is wrong with this situation. Sol is asleep, Dave is asleep, Ella is asleep, and this semi-sleep deprived mommy has not slept a wink tonight. What's up with that? Does someone have a large sledge hammer they can knock me out with?! sigh...

This has become a regular occurrence lately and I'm not sure what to think of it. The only other time in my life I've been an insomniac is when I broke off an engagement and I think that was because I was feeling just a little guilty for ripping some poor guy's heart out and stamping it into a million pieces. Pretty good reason to not sleep.

However now I have every reason to sleep. Any suggestions? I tried the following:
-counting sheep (yes for real)
-reading scriptures
-reading blogs
-watching tv
-deep relaxation
-journal writing
-2 benadryll

Any of you mommy's gone through this before? Is it some weird hormone thing? A sledgehammer sounds really nice right now. ...sigh...

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Little Pumpkin

Friday, October 24, 2008

That is so funny!

Orange Streak


My bf/hubby is so rad. A couple weeks ago he took me on a date, our first real date since baby joined several months ago. Dave pulled up in a Pontiac Solstice, whisked me away up Provo Canyon, through Midway, up and over the mountains on an incredible fall drive. It was so much fun! I've never been in the mountains in a convertible, its like you're not in a car at all. Incredible. The leaves were breathtaking. We stopped and ate at Porcupine Pub and Grill and it so happened to be the first day of Oktoberfest! "The beer flowed like wine." We ate yummy food followed by a big chunk of German Chocolate Cake, my favorite.


For Grandma...


I'm so behind on posts so stay tuned... but for now here's this delight taken yesterday. Miss you!

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Six months ago today...

I'm posting this a little late. Sol was actually born six months ago yesterday.

Dear Solomon,
Six months ago today I woke at 4:00am with gas pains, that kept coming.... and coming ... and coming... every 10 minutes. Daddy woke up and created a spreadsheet to track the frequency and length of each contraction. We're kind of nerdy. :) I had to call my boss and tell him I wouldn't be coming in today or anytime for the next 3 months. I spent the morning emailing clients to tie up loose ends and reorganizing your baby clothes.

Six months ago today Daddy and I hung out in bed all day. It was a windy day and I kept the windows open because the breeze felt good. I could hear our wind chimes all day and wondered if you could hear them too. I wondered if you were scared because your little home was squeezing you tight and pushing you down, or if you were excited because you could tell things were changing and you were about to start your biggest adventure, your life. Or if Heavenly Father was holding your hand whispering peace in your sweet little ear. Now that I know you better I bet it you were feeling all those things. Most of all you were excited to get here, to start growing.

Six months ago today Daddy and I went to Village Inn at 3 in the afternoon for one last meal. The contractions started to get stronger and I was so happy I'd be meeting you soon. I ate pancakes which came back up later that night, right before things really got exciting.

Six months ago today Daddy and I packed our bags and went to the hospital. It was still windy and cool, it felt good as my body was working so hard. The contractions were intense. The people at the hospital were very nice but we weren't in the labor room very long. You were determined to come and you wasted no time.

Six months ago tonight I started to feel overwhelmed by the strength of the contractions, I was scared how intense they were. Daddy had to coach me and tell me what a good job I was doing. I was scared, it hurt bad, and just when I was ready to give up you started to help me. All of a sudden you were pushing your way out! The nurses were running around saying don't push, how could I not? It wasn't me that was pushing. Soon they let me help push and you were out in 20 mintues. You would have been here sooner if the doctor didn't slow you down a little. You barely made it here before midnight, on Tax Day.

Six months ago tonight I opened my eyes and there you were all white and wiggly. You looked at my with those big black shiney eyes and blinked. I think we just stared at each other for 20 minutes. You were here.

I love you baby. Daddy loves you too! We're so glad you're ours. Happy birthday!

-Mommy

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Sunshine

I got some great comments with advice and encouragement from my last post! Thank you, and fear not, I'm not crumbling under the pressures of mommy-dom. I have my moments, they usually occur when my when my number of REM cycles per night is low. :) But in general I've never been so happy or felt so complete. This is hard, but incredible. Amazing. Wouldn't trade it for anything, ever. I love my Sol because he really is that, my Sunshine.loves, loves, loves.


Monday, September 29, 2008

he finally stopped crying

I've been looking at some yummy pictures to help me feel better. I thought I'd share...


Oktoberfest

Dave's Grandparents

chillin at home.

We're working on a schedule so that he has consistent nap times and bed time. Its hard on us both. But it think its working, I'll keep you posted.

My cup feels empty, its been a good, long day. I'm glad its over.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

5:00 AM

Yes I'm up (I wouldn't call this awake) at 5:00am today because after his 5:00am feeding, instead of going back to sleep, which is our normal routine, Sol looked up at me wide eyed, smiled, and let out a squeal. sigh. too cute. maybe if I close my eyes and rock him for a while he'll think i'm asleep and follow suit. nope. he just starred at me waiting for me to crack my eyes to see if he was asleep and then smile and squeal some more. Then he started wiggling out of my arms to get up and play. sigh. really Sol? 5:00 am? This had better not become a habit.

While I'm up I figure I should post about our most recent excursion to Eugene Oregon to visit Dave's parents. What a ball we had! We were all worn out by the time we got home. Here are some pics and a travel log:


We flew on a plane, Sol cried a lot because his ears hurt.

We played and played and played with Grandma.


We all played mini golf and ate pizza by the river to celebrate Lynn's birthday. Happy Birthday Lynn!

This artsy fartsy picture was not staged, in fact the red ball was in motion and just happened to line up with the others right when I took the picture. Lucky shot!

Sol hung out with Grandma.

We went to the coast to remind our selves how small and insignificant we are in the big big world and to smell the ocean breeze.

Handsome boys.

We wrote Sol's name in the sand. Don't worry, he's chewing on his toes, not eating sand.

And then Mike had to have a turn too. Don't worry he's chewing on his toes, not eating sand. :)

Us.

We ate Sweet Potatoes, mmmm...

We went rafting down the McKenzie river which was incredibly beautiful by the way. Our guide just happened to be my long lost 1st cousin once removed. Steve Hurst!

We had so much fun, we even both took a turn in the rubber kyack. I thought it was really exhilirating to be so close to the rapids. Scary and tiring but fun.

Hottie hubby.


We visited Crown Point in the Gorge where it was very windy.


Sol was such a great travel buddy! I think he loved seeing all the new places.

We flew back home, Sol in his Bob onsie and Cowboys beenie.


Thanks for such a fun time G&G!