Christy Needs . . .

I am so far behind in blogging. I still have not blogged about our Valentines day, Caroline's 7 month "birthday" and Katherine's birthday weekend. We also have a new cousin who arrived today. So, be watching for a lot of catching up this week.

So, this has nothing to do with the kids but a fun little game I saw on Facebook and a few blogs this week. You go to Google and type in your name followed by "needs" and write down the first 10 things that pop up. It is totally silly and pointless but I was bored and just chilling after a busy weekend. My commentary is in italics. So...

1. Christy needs to blog. Google, how well you know me. I do seriously need to blog. It is my therapy and I am so far behind.
2. Christy needs help. Hmmm. How should I interpret this. I do need help in so many ways. I need help cleaning out my house. I need help in motivation to work out. I need help in staying sane some days.
3. Christy needs to take her opinions elsewhere. I probably need to keep my opinions to myself a lot more.
4. Christy needs more pop video on AOL video.
5. Christy needs a new computer. My computer is only about 18 months old but this weekend it is driving me crazy and going very slow. Maybe this is prophetic.
6. Chirsty needs an intervention video.
7. Christy needs to take a good hard look at the mirror. Does this mean it is time for a new haircut? I know I need to lose some weight. Are you trying to tell me something Google?
8. Christy needs to know where her inventory is located at all times. I am always losing things or forgetting things.
9. Christy needs all of her course readings in electronic form.
10. Christy needs to stop putting these men before her kids. This was a news story about Christy Brinkley. Not really applicable to me. I feel like I need to not always put my kids at the top of the list.
11. Christy needs a little more humility. This was #11 but I thought it was the best one. I do need more humility.

Just out of curiosity and a little boredom I thought I would see what Sam, Katherine and Caroline needed. Here is the #1 on google for each of them.

Sam needs a little getting used to. He is a little quirky. He wore some 70's Elvis sunglasses on our first date just to see what I would do.

Katherine needs some rules to follow. Google, this is so true. We were just talking about how we were being too lax with her and we are reaping the results of that.

Caroline needs to lose some weight. This is not at all true. At just 15 pounds she is growing. Caroline is not a fat baby at all.

Fireproof

This weekend Sam and I went to see the movie Fireproof. It was a wonderfully wholesome and uplifting movie. Those are not easy to find these days. It stars Kirk Cameron as Caleb Holt, a firefighter (come on ladies, you all know you had a crush on him in junior high school when he was in Growing Pains). His wife Catherine is a PR rep at a hospital. Their marriage is struggling. It is about to end when Caleb's father issues him a 40 day "Love Dare". The things that Caleb is asked to do in this Love Dare are things that we should all be doing in our marriage, struggling or not. It was a great reminder to me of some areas where I am weak.

The allegory of marriage withstanding a fire is powerful. The tagline of the movie is "Never leave your partner behind." This is true of Caleb as a firefighter and he learns it to be true of the marriage covenant. In our day and age of marriages being temporary though vows of "for richer, for poorer, for better for worse, in sickness and in health" are taken, it was great to see a movie that upholds marriage as the way that God intended it to be "to death do us part".

The movie will not be a blockbuster. Wholesome movies, especially those with a spiritual message never are. But, I encourage you all to see it. Both because it is a wonderful, entertaining movie and because I think it is great to support such films so that more will be made in the future.

Reading the website for the movie I learned that it was actually produced by a church's movie and media ministry. All of the actors except for Kirk Cameron were pretty much local people and even church members. The writers of the movie have also authored a book The Love Dare as mentioned in the movie that they say is great to use whether your marriage is hanging on by a thread or healthy. The music was also great featuring two of our favorites, Casting Crowns and Third Day along with others that I was not familiar with. You can purchase songs from iTunes via the Fireproof iMix. I think I may just do that right now.

Friday's Random Blog

I have a few random things for today.

First of all, it is summer and it is hot. We have all read about the tragic deaths of children who are left, usually by accident in a car. Two years ago, while Sam and I were watching the American Inventor on TV, we had an idea for a product that would help prevent this kind of accident from happening. We did not tell anyone about it but we did not make it either. Well, someone else did. In fact, the Child Minder is pretty much exactly what we had in mind. There is a sensor that you put under the pad of your child seat and then it has a partner on your key chain. If there is a baby in the carseat and the key chain travels more than 15 feet from the carseat than a reminder alarm sounds. Dang it, we got beat to the punch on this invention. What do you think about it? On one message board it was criticized a lot. On another blog I read an interesting take on the fact that parents can forget their children in a car, especially when a routine has changed like a different parent taking the child to day care. Didn't Mary and Joseph lose Jesus for 3 days? If the parents of GOD could have a miscommunication or forgetful episode, how much more could I?Second piece of randomness. A few posts ago I had photos of Caroline, some on a colorful blanket that I crocheted. Many of you commented on how impressed you were at my skills. Well, here is a photo of the blanket. Are you still impressed? Notice how the sides are not straight and it is not finished, thus the ball of yarn hanging off one end. I was just very strategic in how I wrapped it around Caroline to get the photo.Third, do you remember my new beautiful bathroom? Well, after reading how Holly has started to shower with Bree to save time and make things easier, I started having Katherine shower with me. While I am washing my hair, etc., she is playing with her letters and crayons until it is her turn to soap up. Doesn't my bathroom look lovely now?

Internets - I need your opinion please!

We are going to start remodeling our master bathroom this week. This is something that we have been toying with and talking about for years. Our bathroom appears to be in pretty much original 1971 condition. The carpet is actually "newer" but ick - carpet in a bathroom is pretty disgusting.

We will be tiling the floor, taking out the existing cabinets and counter and replacing with a furniture style vanity, getting rid of wallpaper and painting the walls and then replacing all fixtures, mirrors, lights, etc. We will also be redoing the dressing room and turning it into my craft room.

The thing that really has always bugged us about our bathroom is the fact that the master bathroom is the only one (of 3) that is accessible for guests without going through a bedroom. It is the first door you reach when coming down the hall. That is just a little odd. We originally thought we would gut the entire bath and dressing room and move all the plumbing to create a 1/2 bath off the hall and a full bath off our bedroom. Well, the price tag for that was prohibitive so now we are just going to seriously face lift what we have without moving the plumbing.

So here is where I need your help. We do have the option of removing the door from the hallway to the bathroom and making that a wall. This would make our master bath more like a master bath. Right now there are two doors that open into the bathroom and it makes for quite a crowded room, especially if we are both in there at the same time. The downside is that now when guests are over they would either go through our master bedroom to get to our bathroom or they would go to the bathroom in the office. The office is not our cleanest room but we could work on that.

So, what is your opinion? Many of you have been to our house and so you know the layout and where these bathrooms are. Is it too weird or awkward to walk through a bedroom to get to a bathroom? Should we leave it with a door to the hall or should we close it off. I would really appreciate your input and your comments. I have to decide this week as they will be starting soon!

I am a procrastinator

I just filed my taxes 2 minutes ago - on April 11th. I guess it is not as bad as going downtown to the 24 hour post office on midnight of the 15th or filing an extension but it is pretty last minute. We are getting a pretty fat return which is fun but not wise. I hate giving the gov't an interest free loan for the year. My dad is a financial planner, I know better. I do not know how TI calculated Sam's taxes so off. All of my jobs (small as they are) did not hold out taxes at all. Maybe we had more deductions than we realized. I would rather get a return than owe though. One year when I was single I owed $8 in taxes. That was about as close to exact as you can get. With our fat return I hope to remodel our bathroom. We are in the process of getting bids and deciding what to do. I just hope we can get it done before Squeak arrives.



What do you plan to do with your tax return (if you are so lucky)?

Purpose

The idea of my life purpose has come up twice in one week, once at Community Group and once at my new Bible study (CBS). I really liked how Josh and Tracey expressed their life purpose as making Christ known. As I thought about that, I was challenged that really that is my purpose as well. I realized that as Christians we all are to make Christ known to those around us. In different seasons of life that will look different. When I was in my single season, I took a lot of mission trips. I went every summer. I went to Russia twice, Spain twice, Guatemala and Japan.

Now I am in a different season, one where I am not going on summer mission trips. Hopefully that season will return at some point but for now I need to reconsider where I am and how I can make Christ known. When we were living in Norway most of the people that I spent time with were not Christians. It struck me as how at home I am in such a bubble and it was really refreshing to break out of it. I am trying to broaden my circle of influence now that I am home by becoming involved in activities where I will meet people who are not exactly like me.

In my current season my main sphere of influence is with Katherine and other toddlers. What an amazing charge to parents to influence our children in such a way that at some point they will make a decision on their own to know Christ. It may not be as glamorous to minister to two year olds as it is to go to far off exotic places but it is where God has placed me right now and I need to embrace it.

One way we have been influencing Katherine is in the area of prayer. We have tried to be consistent about praying with Katherine at meals and at bedtime. She actually has been one to remind us if we forget. I know that at barely 2 she does not totally get what we are doing but she knows that we all get quiet, close our eyes and talk to God.

I am trying to include Katherine more in praying throughout the day for specific needs. When she has been having a horrible tantrum or if I have lost my patience I ask her to pray with me. It is amazing how it can calm her down.

Monday before I dropped her off at school I asked her if we could pray for one of her friends who was having an MRI and blood work done. So we prayed together in the car. When daddy came home I asked her to tell him who we prayed for today and she told him right away. Tonight we received the answer to that prayer and in the morning I need to share with her the answer so that she can see that God answers our prayers.

Most of the time she listens to us pray but on occasion she has wanted to pray. She does not know what to say so she will repeat after us. Tonight at dinner she said she wanted to pray so I said a short prayer that she repeated phrase by phrase. Then in the middle of dinner she wanted to pray again. This time she began to pray on her own. This is what she said"

"Dear Jesus, Dear God, thank you for a day. Thank you for daddy. Thank you for mommy. Amen."

It was so sweet. Mark it down in the baby book as a new milestone - First Prayer.

My prayer is that she would become a girl and woman of prayer and that she would learn to trust God to take care of her needs. It is such a huge responsibility to teach our little ones these important lessons. I need to remember not to keep my spiritual walk and relationship with the Lord private but I need to include her in those things.

So, I am trying to embrace where God has me in this season of life. Where does He have you?

This post is a part of Mammablogga's March/April Group Writing Project.

Go speed typer go!

80 words

Speed test

How fast do you type?

My political day

Well, as an update to my post this morning, I decided to vote for the candidate I actually wanted to win as President. I voted in my party primary. Then this evening, as a result of the curiosity I had from Mitch's comments, I went to my precinct caucus.

When telling Sam about it, I told him that part of me felt like a very empowered citizen and part of me feel like I wasted an evening and it was pointless. Here is what I observed. First of all, only 10 people from my precinct showed up. I am not sure how many are in the precinct but 150 voted today. That does not include early voters. I was the youngest person caucusing by at least 10 years. It bugged me that the person runing the meeting really was inefficient about it. I don't think he had read the procedures or agenda before the meeting started. That kind of thing is very annoying.

We nominated delegates to the Senate district convention later this month. Our precinct is allowed 15 delegates so we all were automatically delegates. I am not sure if I will actually attend but I might.

We then opened the floor for resolutions. One lady brought 2 resolutions. That was interesting. One was basically to keep the 2006 GOP manual the same. I thought it was a little pointless but I am pretty clueless about politics. The other was concerning the Trans Texas Corridor and the North American Union. She basically wanted to propose that the candidates and elected officials make their platform on these issues be known and that before those issues proceed they be taken to the voters. I agreed with that but for some reason we spent about 30 minutes discussing the larger isues which we were not voting on.

So, that is the outcome of my day in politics. It was interesting. Thaks for your comments this morning.

Warning for all mommas

Do NOT use one of these seats when in a public restroom! Today when I was at the mall, Katherine and I went to the restroom. Lately she has been so curious and trying to touch everything in the stall while I am doing my business. It is so gross Well, today the restroom had one of these child seats. I put her on the seat and stretched the harness over her head to buckle between her legs. When I pressed the buckle into the seat, the seat collapsed and she fell to the ground with the strap over her head and thus around her neck.

Luckily in our case this occurred when I was strapping her in and not when I was taking care of business so she was not left to dangle for even a second. Also, since she is older, her feet actually touched the ground though she did lose her balance. If it was a smaller child who would not reach the ground or if the mother was in the middle of other restroom activities and not right there it could have been a lot worse.

Katherine just had a red mark on her neck for about 10 minutes. Another lady in the restroom said that the same thing happened to a friend of hers a few weeks ago. I saw mall security and told her about it and that it needed to be removed. Then we joined Janna, Robert and Laurie Jane for lunch and playing. Katherine retold them the story of "neck, hurt, fall, baby seat" over and over again.

When I got home, I did check the website to make sure that the problem was not that Katherine was too heavy. It says that a properly installed seat holds up to 150 pounds. Katherine weighs only 22 pounds so we should have been safe.

Be warned mammas!

Random Ramblings

There have been a number of things in the past few weeks that have just baffled me that I thought I would share and get your thoughts on as well.

• Why do drive up ATM machines have the directions in braille? I hope that someone that needs braille would not be driving a car.
  
• In looking for Birthday party stuff, I am so frustrated with the commercialism of "character" themes. I did not want Barbie, Bratz, Care Bears, Elmo or any other liscensed product. Not easy to find so I made my own invitations and bought paper goods at Target in the grown up party section.
  
• In looking for Barbie items for my niece's birthday I notice that there are very few Barbies or outfits that I would consider appropriate. I was not allowed to play with Barbies as a child and have not decided what we will allow for Katherine but why does Barbie have to dress so inappropriately?

• In a similar way, have you all seen some of the clothes that they sell for toddlers? I was in JC Penney and Dillards last week. Not really places that I would think of to get "mature" clothes for my toddler. There were shirts that looked like they were from the junior department - low cut, babydoll waist, silky material. The picture I found online below is not that bad but still, very grown up looking. And there were shoes, in Katherine's size, that had a 2 inch heel! I am not very good at walking in 2 inch heels can you imagine a two year old walking in them?

How in the world will I combat the clothing issue when they sell these type of things for toddlers and when the toys they want to play with do not dress appropriately either? I do not look forward to the time when Katherine starts wanting to choose her clothes. Right now it is easy to dress her as a little girl because I buy her clothes. Each morning I pick out two choices for her so she thinks the is choosing her clothes but in reality I am still choosing them.

Book Review

I love to read. I was one of those kids who would read any chance I got. That meant at night I would sneak a flashlight under the covers so I could finish a book if I was supposed to be asleep. I never cared if I was punished by being sent to my room because I could read. Long car trips were not so bad if I could read.

As an adult I still love to read. As a mommy, I do not have as much time to read and I feel I am often reading books for content (ie parenting books) and not for pleasure.

I just finished reading a book for fun that I though I would share with you all because I so thoroughly enjoyed it. It is A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. He also wrote The Kite Runner which you may have read. It has been out for about 8 months now so many of you may have already read it. I planned to read it this summer but it was just too busy. I almost bought it in Norway but it was just too expensive. Upon returning home, I had to wait for a copy to be returned at the library.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is set in Afghanistan over the last three decades. It chronicles two generations through the pre-soviet era, Soviet invasion, the rise of the Taliban and the post-Taliban reconstruction. Honestly, I know every little about Afghanistan and what I do know is mainly from post 9/11 news stories. Of course those are not going to give me the best picture of the country of the people that live there.

This story of two women, Mariam and Laila, whose lives become intertwined, gives a more human view of Afghanistan over the last 30 years. Most people are normal, struggling to survive, wanting the same things for themselves and their family as you and I want. Not everyone in the Middle East is caught up in the politics and issues that make so many Americans so prejudice against them.

This book reall helped me to both learn more of the history of Afghanistan and to see the people of the Middle East, especially oppressed women, in a new light. I highly recommend this book to all of you.

A complicated relationship

First of all, I want to welcome all my readers from the Motherwear "Carnival of Breastfeeding" readers. You are in the right place. For my regular readers who are unsure what that may be, I have written a short essay on the topic of "beginnings and endings" relating to the nursing relationship. Other bloggers wrote on the same topic and as a part of the carnival you can read their essays as well. Their links are at the bottom of this post. Now, for the essay:

I never realized how complicated the nursing relationship could be. When Katherine was born, my goal was to exclusively nurse for 6 months, continue to a year and see what happened after that. It was what the AAP recommended, what I saw suggested in all the books and it sounded like a good goal.

I read books on breastfeeding and really wanted it to work. I had great examples in my family and friends of people who nursed their babies. I was lucky and we did not struggle with any of the common nursing issues. My baby was made to nurse.

I had read that to establish a really good nursing relationship you should wait to introduce the bottle until 6 weeks so that is what we did. Well, Katherine took a grand total of 3 bottles in her entire babyhood. It was partly our fault. When she was hungry we just could not stand to hear her wailing so I would give in and nurse her. I was not away from her often at that point so there was not really a need to force the bottle issue. It did become more of an issue later though when I wanted to be away from her for more than 2 hours but could not due to nursing.

Katherine loved to nurse and I loved to nurse her. I never had schedules for her though that surprised many of my friends. My parenting style and my personal style were at times different. Nursing on demand was our method. With my goal of seeing what would happen after a year I never imagined that I would nurse as long as I did.

Katherine is now 23 months old and she has been weaned for one month. The process of weaning her was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I knew it was time. I had never intended to nurse a toddler. It was becoming awkward in public when she would grab at my shirt and say “milk”. She was eating well and some days would go all day without nursing so I knew that she no longer needed it as food.

My husband and I went away for one night for our 5th anniversary. Katherine stayed with my parents. She did fine without nursing and did not even ask for it when we returned. We decided we would try to wean at this point and see what happened. The next day was harder. There were a few times that she would crawl into my lap and almost become desperate to nurse. I would distract her with snacks or books or daddy. It was the week of Christmas so we were busy with family and easily distracted. It was good that we were with so many family members so that Katherine had enough attention when mommy was not nursing her. The hardest part for me was that for about a week I felt like I could not cuddle with Katherine. Anytime she was in my lap she would want to nurse. I hated being distant from my sweet little girl. I cried often.

For three weeks she still asked to nurse every day. Toward the end, it was funny, almost a joke to her to ask. I never gave in though I was tempted many times. I sure missed that sweet time with my baby girl. We have now replaced our nursing times with other sweet things. Every morning we either read or snuggle on the bed to watch Sesame Street. After nap we sit at the piano together, read or watch a video. My little girl seems to be more snuggly now that she is not nursing. I guess that is because before, when she was done with her milk, she would get off my lap to move to the next activity. Now we are able to enjoy that time in different ways.

The other day one of my friends was nursing her baby. I was not sure how Katherine would do. I halfway expected her to ask to nurse. She stated matter of factly that her friend was eating milk, went over to watch and was not bothered about it. What surprised me was how sad it made me. I was the one that was jealous. Long after nursing is no longer a memory for Katherine, I will always remember it fondly as one of my favorite aspects of parenting.
I am due with our second child this summer. I am looking forward to nursing them like I did Katherine. I have no idea if it will go the same way or what my goals will be the second time around. I guess we will just see what happens :)

Please visit these other Carnival participants at their blogs (list will be updated as I receive links).

The Breastfeeding Father

Mama Knows Breast

Weaning a Toddler

Breastfeeding Mums

One Mom's Story

Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog

Inauspicious Breastfeeding Beginnings

Breastfeeding Beginnings

Weaning while pregnant

BPA free sippy cups

I am sure many of you have been hearing of the issue of BPA in the plastics. BPA or Bisphenol A is an estrogen-like chemical used to make plastic. It is found in many products, disturbingly many baby products. Of 5 popular baby bottle brands Avent, Dr. Brown’s Evenflo, Gerber, and Playtex ALL were shown to have unsafe levels of Bisphenol A. How do companies get away with this harmful chemical in baby products? Each one smugly knows that their specific product contains levels that are considered safe. The problem is that we use many of these products. It bothers me that so many baby products have this harmful chemical in it and there could be a cumulative effect on their tiny bodies. You can read more about the effects of BPA here.

I have been bothered by this but have not really done anything about it. I felt lucky in this one regard that Katherine did not take a bottle thus she was at least protected from BPA from bottles. She also was not that into her teething toys though she did chew from time to time. But, she now uses sippy cups all the time. I have been lazy and have not really taken the time to research the non-BPA plastic options out there.

Well, lazy no more, the research has been done for me by. Nature Moms has done a review of BPA free sippy cups. There are actually quite a few out there including the Nuby brand which is one of the ones that we use. They are certainly the most affordable. Even better, they are giving one of the nicer ones, the Safe Sippy away. Just go to the link above to see how you too can enter to win the BPA free sippy cup.

Do you Netti?

Our household has really been suffering for about a month with a sinus infection. Being pregnant I am more limited on medication but I don't think it has mattered because everyone else is having just as much problem getting over it.

We have the humidifiers and air filters going. We are taking cold pills, Vitamin C, Juice Plus+, Allerplex, Airborne, anything that we can think of that I am allowed to take. This week at my chiropractor, she suggest that I use a Neti Pot.

Hmmm, I have slightly heard of that. So, I bought us a set of Neti Pots at Central Market. What is a Neti Pot you may ask? It is a ceramic pot that looks like Aladdin will jump out if you rub on it. You fill it with salt water, put the spout in one nostril, tilt your head a certain way, pour the saline and it comes out your other nostril thus clearing your sinus passages.

Night before last we tried it. I did pretty well the first time except that I held my breath at first instead of breathing through my mouth. We thought we would spare you photos (we did not even take any) but we will say that it was not attractive having a stream of water and other substances draining from your nose. It did work though and I could tell that my passages were more clear.

I went in the other room to get ready for bed as Sam tried it. All of a sudden I heard choking and gasping for air. I ran in and laughed so hard. He said he could not think of the last time he saw me laughing so hard. He just could not get the proper head tilt and timing down. If you are tilted incorrectly, then it drains into your throat and mouth. He has practiced more and is better at it now.

So, in this season where it seems that everyone is suffering from sinus or allergy issues, we recommend the Neti Pot, or as Sam calls it, the "Snot Pot". I am curious who else uses one.

I am becoming a "Sneaky Chef"

For Christmas I requested the book "Sneaky Chef" by Missy Chase Lepine. Katherine is not a terribly horrible eater any longer but she still could use some improvement. It seems that we get stuck in ruts of bagel, waffles, or pancakes for breakfast (lots of grains). For lunch and dinner it seems we rotate through the same things over and over again - macaroni, peas, green beans, bananas, peaches, grapes, applesauce, yogurt and cottage cheese. It is not a horrible selection of food but just gets boring. She does not particularly like meat so most of her protein comes from dairy and some beans.

I read about the Sneaky Chef some time ago and actually subscribed to her blog (linked on her website). I receive periodic articles on kid's nutrition. Then I heard that there was another book out on the same topic, Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld (Jerry Seinfeld's wife). It is funny that when I mention that I have this book to people they always ask if it is the Seinfeld book, even at the bookstore. The thing is, Sneaky Chef came out months before, it just did not have the celebrity name and Oprah interview to go with it. That is, in part, why I asked for the Sneaky Chef, not Deceptively Delicious. She did it first and I have been a faithful blog reader.

So, I have had this book since Christmas and have been reading the beginning chapters (93 pages actually) about the logic and method of sneaking foods into your kids foods.

Tonight I finally made my first recipe. My mistake was that I started the recipe from stage one and completed it all in one evening. I made "Sneaky Baked Ziti". It has a "Saucy Meat Sauce" that is supposed to be made ahead and in that sauce, there are 2 make ahead purees. Well, since I had not made these "make ahead" purees ahead of time, it was a longer process than usual, not difficult, just long.

So, here is what I did:

Step One - I made the orange puree consisting of sweet potatoes and carrots and the "white bean" puree consisting of cannelloni beans. I boiled the veggies and used the Magic Bullet and produced enough of each puree for this recipe and at least two more.

Step Two - I made the pasta sauce. I pureed an onion and cooked it with a pound of beef. Then I added tomatoes and tomato paste, some spices, some of the orange and white puree and some cheese.

Step Three - boil noodles (finally something very easy)

Step Four - mix the pasta sauce, more cheese and pureed tofu.

Step Five - mix noodles and sauce in a casserole, top with cheese and bake.

One of the bummers of this process is that we met a friend at the park and Katherine decided that she wanted to have a goldfish addiction. She ate about a third of a bag. Then when we got home and I was trying to cook, she wanted yogurt and applesauce - together. She calls this "both". By the time we were ready to try the sneaky pasta dish, she was full.

Sam is just as picky in some regards so I asked him what he thought. We both agreed that it was good but needed a little more zing to it. As is typical of dishes prepared for kids it was kind of bland. We would add more spices for us. I asked if he could tell that there were sweet potatoes, carrots, tofu or beans in it and he said no.

Luckily Katherine did eventually climb into my lap and try it. She liked it too.

My next endeavor will be peanut butter and jelly muffins.

I am not sure what I think of all of her philosophies on food and sneaking healthy foods. Here are some quotes from the book that made me go "Hmmmmm".

• It's all about control. Kids can't control much in their young lives but they can call the shots about what goes into their mouths.
• From the chapter "For Their Own Good" - Being a "sneaky chef" is simply hiding something from our children for their own good. This is something we do as parents all of the time to protect them from information they're not old enough or sophisticated enough to handle. [Hiding food] works because they aren't sophisticated or practiced in the art of deception. Also working in our favor is the fact that our kids haven't learned to be suspicious yet. At times, we have to use their gullibility to our advantage. This is something that really makes you think. I don't like the idea of being sneaky or lying to my child. I want to be honest. Luckily Katherine does not have major food aversions at this point and Sam and I were talking about all the veggies in the dish in front of her so we are not being totally deceptive.
• Being a sneaky chef is no substitute for teaching good eating habits and continuing to educate our children about the benefits or smart eating. Now you can serve small amounts of brown rice and vegetables along with the [healthy] chicken nuggets. I would hope that sneaking stuff into foods is in addition to all the other good foods that Katherine eats.
• [I try to] make peace between the two camps of food-as-medicine and food-as-pleasure. You cannot convince a child that he should like what's on his plate simply because it's good for him.
• Every recipe in this book is dedicated to making healthy foods taste decadent. To be brutally honest, it is to make healthy food look sort of unhealthy.

There are very helpful lists of the most important foods to buy organic, foods that are not as contaminated so there is little need to buy organic, the popular foods kids usually like, foods they don't like and foods you need to have on hand for the sneaky chef recipes.

There are 12 methods of the Sneaky Chef.

1. Puree food so it can be hidden in another recipe.
2. Combine refined and unrefined grains so that you are using more unrefined grains.
3. Use foods that hide well. For example, baby spinach has almost no taste on its own so it can be hidden in things like brownies.
4. Substitute nutritious liquid for water when boiling foods such as use pureed blueberry juice in jello or oatmeal to boost it.
5. Combine foods that nutritionally compliment each other such as legumes and whole grains.
6. Identify foods that kids are likely to enjoy straight up.
7. Alter the cooking method to avoid frying.
8. Cut the effects of toxins or fats by diluting the ingredients with something healthier. This one will be hard for me. They suggest mixing sardines with tuna because there are lower levels of mercury. Eeeeew!
9. Cut calories and increase volume with low-cal, nutritious "fillers". Do things like add hidden vegetables to meat sauces.
10. Use slower-burning foods to avoid blood sugar "spike and crash".
11. Use visual decoys to make food look appealing and fun.
12. Use kid-friendly flavor decoys to distract kids from what's underneath, things like cheese, ketchup and ranch dressing.
13. Use kid-friendly texture decoys.

If anyone has "Deceptively Delicious" or has also used the "Sneaky Chef" I would love to hear your thoughts. Also, if you have any tips for getting toddlers to eat more healthy, I am sure that others would love to read them in your comments.

2007 in Review

I am a few days behind on my reflections of 2007. Oh well. Here are some highlights of our year.
January
We welcomed in the new year with a beautiful 10 month old.

We spent a weekend in California with Christy's family for a late Christmas and baby shower.

Katherine experienced her first snow (a very small one, but snow nonetheless!)

February

My brother and his wife, Jaime, had their first baby, Sophia Marie on February 16th. Isn't she a beauty?

Katherine celebrated her first birthday on February 22nd.

March

Katherine and I went to meet Sophia for the first time. She was (and still is) adorable.

April
We went to the zoo, arboretum, the lake and lots of play dates. We also celebrated Easter with a few egg hunts. Katherine also really learned to walk.

May

May was filled with more fun with friends, including our first trip to the sprayground.

Our entire family was together for a few days when Pops had heart surgery. We are so thankful that they caught the problem and were able to fix it. He recovered quickly and it back to normal.

June
More time at the zoo, arboretum and playing with friends. Will, Jaime and Sophia came in for a weekend visit as well.

While Sam was in a wedding in Mexico, Christy and Katherine went to Pittsburgh to visit one of Christy's close childhood friends, Alison, and her family.

July

Our family had a wonderful time at our church's family camp in Colorado. It was a great week away from the hustle and bustle of home, a time to relax and reconnect.

Christy also had a mini-reunion with some of her close friends and sorority sisters. Ashley was in town from Colorado and we met up with Sandra and Diana for dinner. Sam stayed home and babysat the kids.

August

By far the biggest event in August was moving to Oslo, Norway for 14 weeks. If you have been a reader of this blog for any amount of time you have already heard more about that trip than you ever cared to know. It was a great experience for our family.

September

We celebrated Christy's birthday in the Telemark region of Norway on a weekend trip. Then Christy's parents, Nana and Pops came for 10 days. While together, we all went to Copenhagen Denmark for a weekend and for a weekend trip to the fjords of Norway.

October

We continued life as usual in Oslo. It started getting colder. We took a weekend trip to Helsinki, Finland where it was really cold.

November

We took a final trip to Stockholm, Sweden. Christy's close friend Anita returned with us for a visit in Oslo.

We spent a lot of time getting ready to move back and spending time with the friends that we made while in Norway. All of us will miss our special friends.
Right before we returned home, we found out that we were pregnant with baby #2, Squeak, due in late July. We are so excited.
A week after returning home, it was time to celebrate Thanksgiving. We went to Sam's parents for a quick visit.
Then Christy's family got together. Katherine and Sophia are the same size (though a year apart) so they had a lot of fun playing together this trip.

December

This year we celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Time sure flies. We had a great celebration with a night away and a fancy dinner.

We spent December the way most Americans do, celebrating Christmas festivities. This year we tried to make Jesus the focus of Christmas since we are teaching Katherine what it is all about. I think we did a pretty good job but can do even better next year.

We look forward to seeing what God has in store for us in 2008. We know it will be a big year with a job change for Sam and a new baby on the way. It is exciting.

What do you think about this?

I have an opinion but I am curious what my readers think. Outsourcing business to India is a huge issue in many industries. I never thought about pregnancy being one of them. Take a look at this article and let me know your thoughts.

Comparing Cousins

Katherine is blessed to have 5 cousins. Emily is 5 years older than her at 6.5, Nathan is 4, Ty is 5 months older, Hanna is 6 months younger and Sophia is 1 year younger. It is a lot of fun that she has three cousins that are within a year of her age. The funny thing about cousins is that since they share grandparents, they share half of the same genetic make up. Take a look at the photos of Katherine, Hannah and Sophia. It is obvious that Katherine and Hannah are cousins. They both look just like their dad and their dads (brothers) look a lot alike. They look more like sisters than cousins. But look at Sophia. She looks like her daddy who is my brother but she and Katherine don't seem to share any of the same genes. They look like strangers, not cousins.


Hannah

Katherine

Sophia

We're off and we're home!

I wrote this email as we were getting ready to leave but hit "save" instead of "post" so it is a little behind. I did update it though with how our travel day went.

Well, we are headed to the airport. So excited and yet also a bit sad to be heading home. Yesterday when I was coming back from Hilde's house I couldn't help but think it was the last Oslo bus I'd ride and the last time I would walk past all the shops on our street. I was getting a little sentimental.


Overall we had a great experience. There were things that were hard, frustrating or just different. But, we learned a lot about ourselves as we basically moved to a city where we knew no one and started over, if only for 3 months.


I feel like I made some true friends which I did not really expect. I will really miss them. I will miss certain aspects of urban living though I do look forward to having a yard and a car again.

I am not sure that we ever would want to move overseas for a long term assignment but it was a fun adventure for three months of our life.

As you are reading this, we are either at the airport or on the plane. Please pray for our day. I am dreading it.

Update: Well our day of travel was pretty uneventful considering we were traveling with a toddler. We had a great stay in our hotel. There was a wonderful buffet breakfast which was more than the usual toast and sandwich meat and cheese served as a Scandinavian breakfast. We ate as much as we could knowing that we would be surviving on airplane food for the rest of the day.

We saw online that our flight to Newark would be leaving an hour late so we took our time walking across the street to the airport. We figured we would rather spend the hour at our hotel than in the airport. That ended up being a little mistake as we were the last people to check in and even though there was a long line in front of us it seemed to be a problem for the workers. In the Oslo airport we changed most of our money back to dollars, got a few drinks and went to the gate. We had our tickets and passport checked five times between arriving and boarding.

It was a smaller plane for international travel with only 3 seats on each side of the aisle. We were not able to get a bulkhead row so it was a bit of a struggle to get the carseat in and to keep Katherine from constantly kicking the seat in front of her. Our flight left at noon and was 8 hours long so it was not really when you would be sleeping. Katherine did take a 2 hour nap. She really did well though she was active.

In Newark we cleared customs, rechecked our bags and traveled to the new terminal and gate. By this time it was past Katherine's bedtime. Did she sleep - NO! She was wired and wanting to run all over the airport. Our flight was delayed an our which made things worse. Luckily as soon as we got on the plane she fell asleep and slept the entire flight.

At the airport we were met by my mom and our good friends Jen and Richard. All of our suitcases arrived (unlike when we went to Oslo). When we got home, Hooligan was very excited to see us (be watching for a video in the future). Our friends who stayed in our house were still here so Katherine had fun playing with Jaden, Caleb and Andrew as well as all of her toys. It was like Christmas morning.

It is good to be home and to sleep in our own beds!

A day in Norwegian News

Today there were two articles in the English version of the local newspaper that were interesting.

First, I found out that as of today it is recommended that we boil all water used for drinking, cooking and brushing teeth. Apparently there has been a parasite found in the water supply that causes stomach illness. Oh joy! Add that to my list of things to do.

Enjoying my new hobby of boiling water.

Second was an article about a debate over "play" in the local barnehages (Kindergartens). (I did not put the type of play because I don't want Internet searches to link to my blog). Take a look at the article. I guess I am glad now that we did not find a place for Katherine in a barnehage if this is the attitude towards this kind of thing. I would say let me know your thoughts but I have a feeling I know my readers pretty well and know your thoughts on this one. Feel free to comment though.