Tell Me

How can...

A little boys laugh... Make me so happy?

"We love him, because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19

What a Gift

The secret is out!

I can shout it to the world!

Sherri's having a baby!!!

I'm so excited!

Congratulations to Sherri and Jesse who are expecting a baby in April!

I think it's a girl. =)


But i'm going to let Brittany take it from here. She said I could share her post from yesterday with you all. She says it so well. I just added a few pictures. The words are all hers!

If you haven't visited Brittany's blog yet you're in for a laugh. She has a way of taking every day mishaps and events and turning them into hilarious blog posts!

Enjoy!


"On Saturday, I got a visit from one of my best friends in the whole wide world.

You know, the kind of friend that knows everything about you and still loves you any way?

Yeah, that kind of friend. Sherri and I have been friends since we were kids, raised in the same town, by parents who home-schooled us both.

We have, together, survived it all, along with our third partner in crime, Melissa, who was right there alongside us, growing up in Central Florida, taking flute lessons and attending band practices, and throwing sleepovers and pigging out on junk food.

We were inseparable.

And as adults, while real life did separate us, placing us in different cities and even across the Atlantic Ocean from each other, we've still always been able to re-unite at important moments and in important times. We were bridesmaids in each others' weddings; we've celebrated holidays together.

We've cried and laughed on the phone, in person, and over e-mail more times than seems possible considering the miles of water and land that have sometimes separated us.

We talk, incessantly at times, about everything.

About husbands; about families; about households, and for the last year especially, we talk about babies.

We talk about wanting them, having them, conceiving them, not conceiving them, struggling with the thoughts of raising them, crying at the thought of not having them, loving the ones "we" already have (Melissa's two beautiful boys,) and praying for the ones we've lost.

As weird as it sounds, the state of our collective wombs has, at times, been the biggest worry and the greatest source of joy for all of us over these last two years or so.

And still, on Saturday, when Sherri ventured two hours north to come visit me, I didn't think anything of it, other than fact that most likely, we had a long day of talking ahead of us.

Until she cleverly hid a little surprise for me by my kitchen sink...
...letting me know that on April 7, 2010, I was going to be an "aunt" again!

"We" are going to have a baby.

Quite literally, I felt my heart soar.

Because while it's technically not "my" baby, it is a child I have wanted and prayed for right along with her. We all have.

So I feel blessed. I feel happy. I feel so very thankful for this gift.

I will get to watch another one of my best friends become a mother. I will get to celebrate her growing family right alongside her and her husband.

I will get to cuddle her new blessing, thank God for him/her, and worry over him/her over the next few months while she holds that baby in her womb and later, as he/she learns to walk, talk, run and move out into the world, away from all of "us."

Because yes, it is not my child, but she is my best friend. And "we" are having a baby!"

Gift List

Continuing to add to my gratitude gift list from last week...

I'm thanking God for His gifts...

#11 Gentle Breezes and the sound they make in the leaves
#12 Bird songs
#13 New babies and babies on the way (more on this later. And no, i'm not pregnant)
#14 Glowing candles to brighten up the longer evenings now
#15 Frozen french fries (for teething babies!)

Elijah's contributions...
#16 "my toys"
#17 "your flute"
#18 "lights"
#19 "sunshine"
#20 "rocks"

You know my husband is really feeling bad if he misses work. Both he and Elijah came down with something over the weekend. He actually got up and ready for work and went in but he was home within an hour. He's in bed now and I'm hoping another day of rest will help him feel better.

We didn't go to church yesterday and we had to reschedual our meeting tonight. It's set for November now. November is going to be a busy month!

How are you all doing today?

"Blue" Photo Challenge

This photo was taken in August at a farm show here in Northern Ireland when my sister in law and my nephews and niece came to visit.

These are two of my nephews climbing on the blue and orange tractor.

Brittany, i took a picture of this Gator colored tractor just for you!

But it fits into this weeks challenge too!

He's Back!

My sweet Ethan is back!

Someone took him on Sunday and replaced him with a very grouchy version. It was a rough week! He wasn't himself at all!!!

I'm blaming it on teething but have yet to see any new ones come through!

Then yesterday he started smiling and laughing again. It was sooo good to see! It was like "quick! grab the camera to capture his first smile!" all over again.

Please ignore the poor darling's scratches on his face. Like i said, it's been a rough week.


We were planning on getting Elijah's hair cut today but he just caught a cold yesterday so he's a sneezing, coughing, runny nosed mess. I don't want to subject any poor hair stylist to that! So... he'll have his crazy mane for another week...


We didn't have any meetings this week. Monday will be our next one. It's in Ballyclare this time.

I hope you all are enjoying your Saturday!

How to add the Share This button to your blog

Have you ever come across a video or an article (like Alicia's post yesterday?) and wanted to share it or link to it? Now there is an easy way to link to it and post it to your blog, twitter, facebook, myspace, basically anywhere!

Look for this button...


Just click on it and it'll add the link to where ever you want!

And you can add it to your sidebar or even better at the end of each of your posts to make it easy for your readers!

Here's how:
Go to this site and get the button.

Then add the code to your Blogger template.

Need a step by step tutorial like i did? click here

Let me know if you try this and if it works for you. I just did it and it worked so if you need help let me know!

Peachy Keen!

Hi everyone! Melissa asked me to do a guest post on her blog about how I make my own baby food for my almost seven month old. I was thrilled to be asked to do this..I am passionate about providing my baby with the freshest of foods and knowing that he isn't getting any added sugars, juices or preservatives. A major plus! So I am gonna take you step by step showing you the way I make my baby food, as well as how I store it all.

First off, I will say that so far I have made peaches, plums, cantaloupe, mangoes, pears, apples, green beans, peas, sweet potatoes and acorn squash. I will continue to make a variety of other fruits and vegetables as my baby grows and is able to try new things....blueberries is next on my list! I also plan to make chicken, turkey etc for him as well.

To begin, I will tell you that I shop at Costco for all of my fruits. I buy in bulk so that I can make large quantities so that I always have a variety of foods available daily. Last night I made peaches, so for me, my puree machine can hold about three peaches when cut and pealed.

So here are my peaches all washed and ready to go....A tip here is to always use the fruit or veggie the way that you would eat it yourself, even if its extra ripe that always makes for a more abundant flavor of the food.
Next is to get all of the tools ready that you will need. A cutting board, knife, peeler, fruit of choice and your puree machine/food processor or pans, whichever you choose.
Go ahead and peal your fruit. Getting every bit of skin is not necessary, just try to get the majority. I will say with veggies, I sometimes will buy it frozen so that it's ready to go and not needing to be pealed and cut, just washed...depends on how much time you have.
All pealed and ready to be cut!
Then, I cut up all my peaches into cube sizes.

Here is my baby puree machine. I was blessed that my parents gave us this to make baby food. If you are interested in this sort of thing, go to the Williams-Sonoma website. I have to add in a bit about this machine. You can steam and puree all in one thing! Easy clean up and it will even do meats when I get to that point! But, you can easily use crock pots to steam/cook, or just steam your fruits and veggies over the stove and use a food processor or blender to puree to your baby's liking. So here are my peaches ready to be steamed....
Steaming away!
The nice thing about fruit is that there is always a lot of natural juice left over. The juices left from both veggies and fruit, are what contain all of those good extra vitamins. I try to always use some of the juice. You can see I poured the extra juice into the green bowl. For fruit, I usually add a tiny bit back into the fruit. For veggies, like sweet potatoes they tend to need all the juice plus some water to make it creamy. Of course it also depends on whether your baby can chew chunks of food as well. For my baby, he needs it to be pretty smooth and without chunks at this stage in his eating.
All pureed! It's beautiful!
Now for the storage! I got this tip from this website called Wholesome Baby Food. This site has great tips and recipes!

So you can grab an ice cube tray and your pureed food. Each ice cube is about one ounce. So for my almost seven month old, I use three cubes for one serving.
Pour the food into each cube and put into the freezer to freeze overnight!
Viola! The next day, take the ice cube trays out and remove each cube. I usually need to use a butter knife to get them out. They are the perfect size!
Next, you label a freezer bag....
This is what my freezer looks like right now! This is the freezer door. The fruits are on the top shelf and the veggies are on the bottom one.
Each night I take out what I will be feeding my baby the next day, so that it can thaw in the fridge overnight. But, if you forget you can always just put the cubes in a bowl and thaw over a bowl of warm water for twenty or so minutes.

The outcome?? Is a happy, healthy, well fed baby like so...

He is open mouthed and ready!

It's so yummy he has to lick it off of his bib! :-P
And officially the end result! Happy baby!
I hope this all made sense and gave you a good detailed explanation of how I go about making baby food! You can find me at Our Little Guy, if you have questions!

Happy baby food making!!

Deals

I haven't been out shopping in a while. I'm doing more and more ordering on line. I found Land's End Not Quite Perfect section that i think it wonderful! =)
See the shoes i ordered below....

_________________________________________________

Some of you have probably already heard of Swagbucks.

I'd been seeing it being used on some of the blogs i read and a few weeks ago decided to give it a try.

Basically it's just a search engine you use to do your regular searching on the internet and once in a while it'll reward your search with a Swagbuck. You save them up and redeem them for a prize of your choice. You can get the swagbucks toolbar so that makes it really easy to remember to use it when searching.

I joined a few weeks ago and now have 48 swagbucks. Enough to get a $5 gift certificate to Amazon. So it's not instant money and you won't get a buck on every search but it's great because you get rewarded for doing something you would normally do anyway.

You can redeem the points for gift cards, books, tv episodes and seasons. Or you could really save up and get air miles or electronics!

Click on the banner below to sign up...


Here's another deal for you...

Did you know Land's End has a Not Quite Perfect section of items where they "feature items that didn't quite meet our demanding Lands' End® quality standards. In most cases, the flaw is undetectable to the untrained eye."

I just ordered these...


These shoes were $39.50 now $14.99- use promotional code: SEPT22 and pin: 2110 at checkout to get FREE shipping!

Jump

With my camera battery dead and our charger not around i was going into picture withdrawal! =)

One of the first things i did when we got back to our house was put it on to charge.

And then with the rain outside and two energetic boys cooped up inside we took pictures!

Now you can call me a bad mom if you want but yes, i happily let my three year old jump off the furniture.

Ready...


Set...

that's a crazy look in his eyes!


JUMP!!!




And again!

I think he had fun, what do you think?He slept well last night.