Creative stuff

I had such a blast making this dollhouse for Isabella, my niece. Original idea was on Pinterest... I just loved how this turned out! I think it took about 12 hours for the furniture and about 8 hrs for the two binders. That ended up being some time each day during naptime for about 2 weeks and time on the weekend that Eric managed the kids. I think Barbie plastic dollhouse furniture could be found used if the time was a show-stopper...

Best parts about this dollhouse vs others - it stores more compactly than other dollhouses and it's expandable with more "rooms." Verdict is still out on how durable it is in the hands of a 4-year old... Guess we'll see. :). And the obvious price factor, too.

Here's the steps!

Step 1-get decorative binders (Target, $4 each)
Step 2- raid the scrapbook box for ideas and decorations for the walls
Step 3- find free printables online for decorations (fire, boxes in kitchen, etc)
Step 4-use lots of hot glue and fabric to make furniture (I used styrofoam saved from old packaging material as a base)
Step 5-decoupage the binders for a little more durability

Link to original idea...
http://southerndisposition.blogspot.com/2011/12/diy-three-ring-binder-barbie-dollhouse.html?m=1

I'm really enjoying having time to do these kinds of things. Not every day... Some days we're just doing good to have food on the table and not be in our pjs. But naptimes are sweet when both kids sleep well and I get to be creative! :)

Recipes from mom - and a Quinoa Hummus Salad

Taking a page out of mom's "lessons learned" book. I'm writing down recipies I'm trying! I have never been very good at following recipes... That's not the way mom cooked. When asking mom for a recipe for some delicious dish from a few days ago, the response was usually "Well... I had this leftover chicken, part of a pepper, the last of a jar of some homemade plum sauce... Actually, I don't remember. Sorry." Not helpful, mom! :)

Several years ago she started writing down recipes. A little more helpful, but she still rarely follows her own. She's a very talented cook but I find my memory must not be as good as hers.

So here's my recipe for today, my attempt to keep track of what works and what doesn't in the kitchen.

Quinoa Hummus Salad with Chicken
Note - all measurements are approximations, made about 6-8 adult sized servings)

4 chicken breasts (boneless skinless)
1/4 c red wine
1/4 c lemon juice

Fresh Cut Greens - I used Kale & Swiss chard from the garden (much milder flavor than store-bought) and Spinach
1/2 can chick peas
1/4 c feta cheese
1/4 c sun dried tomatoes
1 c dry quinoa
2 c hummus
Fresh diced oregano
Balsamic vinegar
Olive oil
Sprigs of basil for garnish

Chicken- cook chicken with Wine & lemon juice in crockpot for 4 hrs on low. When finished, slice & brown in frying pan, set aside

Quinoa - cook quinoa with 1 c water and 1 c broth from chicken crock pot

Dressing - take remainder of broth from chicken, add diced oregano, garlic, balsamic vinegar, olive oil to taste

Assemble as below. Greens around outside topped with warm chicken, chick peas, tomatoes, feta. Quinoa in center (still warm, not hot) with hummus on top. Serve with warm dressing.

Review:
Eric gave this one a 10 for presentation and 6 for flavor & fillingness. Not sure if I would keep the hummus & quinoa combination next time. Maybe just more hummus & serve with bread.

Happy 60th Mom!!

I've been having fun with creative outlets I haven't had time for before. Coming up with a creative "chemistry" gift for mom's 60th was really fun!

Chemistry 60th Birthday Puzzle / Scavenger Hunt Gift

Background: Mom's 60th birthday, mom was chemist in her early days and loved playing with chemistry in the kitchen and as a school career day volunteer as we were growing up.

Plan: using chemical elements, make a puzzle with a message for her to unscramble.

Designers: Me, Eric, & Tim, with input from Elizabeth, Lynnea, Amanda, and Ben

Gifts, each wrapped in the color of the element and delivered with the periodic table symbol associated with it:
(He) Helium - helium balloons
(Au) Gold - gold wrapped chocolates
(P) Phosphorus - tracer rounds
(Pt) Platinum - Kenra Platinum hair styling cream
(I) Iodine - Iodine tincture
C60 buckyball - kids "buckyball" toy

Message : HAPPI 60th!

How it went down:
We started the game on Friday night. We gave her 2 sheets of paper-the rules and a periodic table as reference material. Rules were:
1. No other reference material
2. Yes or no questions only
3. Must think outside the box.
4. Must have fun!

She got 3 gifts on Friday as we had cheesecake to celebrate her birthday and was thoroughly confused. She had no idea how they might fit together or even if they did at all. :)

The other 3 came on Saturday while the daughters & daughters-in-law were out getting fun pictures taken and getting coffee. We all had a great time together as mom tried to figure out the message. Some of my favorite wrong guesses before she had all of the cards were...
1. Phi (her college sorority)
2. Chip
3. "Should I use 'Au' or 'Gold'?" (she's so smart! Wish I would have used that idea for 'Golding'!)
4. 'Help!'... But I'm missing an L! :)

The response: She loved it and figured it out pretty quickly after getting all the gifts! Happy 60th birthday to my brainy momma!

Life at home

I've got to be honest. I'm really enjoying being at home, but some days it's really tough. Abby cries a lot, although we're working with a few remedies that have seemed to be helping. Caleb has his ups and downs, I just need to remember that he is 2... and just turned 2! It's easy to have too high of expectations for him. But most days, we have fun! We go on outings, we go to the park, we work in the house together.
He loves to help with laundry... He helps match socks ("Same one!"), he uses the laundry pile as a beanbag ("me fall on the laundry! Big pile right there!"), and uses the laundry basket as a boat in the ocean (aka hardwood floors) and as a bed.
He loves to paint with our homemade watercolors. (cornstarch, water, food coloring).
He loves to help make food, especially biscuits. ("me wear apron!")
He loves to dig and scoop ("me dig that right now!")
He loves garage sales ("Garage sale! Me see toys and people!").
He loves his baby sister ("Baby Abby super happy now!")
He loves his car bed and really loves his binkie. ("me have it the binkie!")
He loves the trampoline. ("me jump on the 'camp-o-leen'!")
He loves his trains.
He loves to watch TV or my iPhone... especially Shawn the train, cars 2, sesame street, & Thomas train videos.
He loves to go on walks.
He loves playing with his cousins Mo-mo and Na-na.
He loves seeing his friend Quinn, especially at the zoo.
He loves eating, all the time.
He loves Bible school.
He loves his new friend/babysitter Genesis.
He loves to talk about anything and everything... All the time.

We are settling into some sort of rhythm, but we are not there yet. We're still experimenting with late afternoon meltdowns, Mama's patience, and balancing rest and keeping up with all the other things that demand attention.

Here's some pictures of Caleb & Abby for your enjoyment!

2 weeks old

2 weeks into parenting two children...  and it's like we've always had both of them. It's hard to imagine life without Abby now that she has become part of our family.

We're so thankful for Grandma Cindy coming to help the first week and Grandma Sue coming this past week.  That has allowed me to recover more fully from labor and delivery and also allowed Eric to go back to work sooner than we had planned.  Tomorrow will be my first day on my own with both kids...  wish me luck!  I'm feeling pretty good and am ready to take on the challenge of being an at-home-mom with two kiddos!  :)

We celebrated Caleb's 2nd birthday yesterday.  Here's a few pictures from the party.  He did great and it was good for him to be the center of attention for a little while after the adjustment to sharing attention with his new little sister.  Thomas and Cars were the themes, and he hasn't stopped talking about it yet.  :)

Abigail Dawn Swanson

Abigail Dawn Swanson was born on Sunday, July 1st at 12:00 PM at 1 week overdue. 9 lbs, 9 oz, 21 inches long. We’re all doing great! Caleb is excited about his new baby sister Abby and enjoying some time with Grandma Cindy while we recuperate in the hospital. We're hoping to be able to go home this evening if everything continues to look good for recovery.

We're so thankful for a great birth team - for our roommate Sara's support, for our midwife & nurse's experience and knowledge, for Mark and Sarah taking Caleb during the night and day, and for a great hospital to give birth in just in case of complications.

And for those of you interested in the birth story, here's some more details below the pictures.  If you're not interested, that's ok too.  :)

 


******************************************************************

Stephanie started feeling contractions at about 8PM on Saturday night.  This had been happening all week, so it wasn't surprising but was a little more intense than earlier in the week.  We started timing them around 10 PM and decided to go to bed to see what would happen.  Stephanie woke up Eric at 1AM to tell him that this was different and we needed to pay attention.  By 2:30AM, Mark was at our house to watch Caleb (Thanks Mark!!) and we headed to the hospital to get checked out.

When we arrived, Stephanie was already dilated to 5cm and progressing quickly.  This was GREAT news for us because with Caleb she hadn't dilated past a 4 naturally before having to be on Pitocin.  We got checked in and got to see our midwife, Katie, right away.  Sara (our roommate) came and joined us at the hospital and we continued with natural labor for several hours and continued to dilate but baby's head didn't move down.  Katie suggested that we break the water to make things progress more quickly sometime around 9AM, which we decided to go ahead and proceed with.  After that things got a little easier right away, then much more intense as we moved from "Active" labor into "Transitional" labor.  Sara and Eric were incredible birth partners in their emotional encouragement and physical support (Eric spent much of the day supporting Stephanie's weight in different laboring positions).

At around 10 AM Stephanie was checked and the baby had not only not descended, she had turned her head sideways and probably wasn't going to progress very quickly. At this point we decided that an epidural was needed, and good thing!  As soon as the epidural kicked in and Stephanie was able to relax between contractions, things started progressing much more quickly.  We had the same anesthesiologist as we had with Caleb.  He did a great job balancing pain management with necessary feeling - too often epidurals end up taking away all of the feeling so it is difficult to know which muscles to push with.  Within 30 minutes, it was time to push.

Katie and the nurse (Pam) did an incredible job with the delivery.  5 other babies were born yesterday on the floor, one only 20 minutes after Abigail.  After a challenging and a little scary bit of time where she was stuck and turning blue, Katie was able to deliver her successfully with no trauma to baby or mom.  Also incredibly, they still allowed her to be immediately placed on Stephanie's chest to regain her color naturally and start crying, which she did very quickly.

 She's big, healthy, and we love her!  :)

40 weeks tomorrow

Well, here we are! Our midwife thought the baby would be born sometime between last Monday and Thursday, but alas, here we are and I am still pregnant.

We are enjoying every day that the baby isn't here yet as "stolen" time with Caleb - only one child who sleeps very well, is a lot of fun, and is growing and learning so much every day!  He surprised us this week with a few new talents - singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," made a joke of his own with a play on words and thought it was hilarious, and has developed full sentences on his own such as "Mama please (insert item)"   and saying "thank you" and "excuse me" without prompting.

He's also doing great on his potty training!  He is in underpants all the time (including sleeping time) and accidents are few and far between - maybe only about once per week.  This is good news for mama as we were not interested in having 2 children in diapers!  :)  We're hoping he won't regress after baby sister is born, but are ready and willing to tackle whatever kinds of interesting dynamics adding a new little one to the family will bring.  Caleb is VERY excited to have a new baby sister.  He talks about her often, pointing at mama's big belly, the swing, the crib, the high chair, the car seat, or anything else that is for baby sister and says "baby sister!"

June 2012

Here's hoping to the baby in the next few days...  but if not...  she'll be here by July 8th at the latest!

A new chapter

We're almost there!  8 more days until my due date.  I've got bets on the 19th, 20th, and of course those who are less friendly who want me to have a July 4th baby.  ;)

Thursday was my last day of work at General Mills. It was a great day, complete with lunch with some great coworkers, cake with my department, and several people dropped by to say bye that were really encouraging.  I'm sad to leave it, a bit scared of the ambiguity of this new adventure, relieved to let go of the stress associated with the job, and thankful for the 3 1/2 years that I had there working with some great people.  I learned more in the past 3 years than I expected - in my technical/manufacturing knowledge and skills, time management, people management, working with difficult people, multi-tasking...I could list out a million things.  I'm really glad we were able to make it work for both of us to continue working even after Caleb was born.  It has been a difficult 2 years with managing parenting, working, and school, but Eric and I have grown so much closer as a result of it.

Now onto the new adventure of being a stay-at-home mom.  We decided that I need a "vacation" between jobs, so Caleb and I will not be working on cleaning, dishes, house projects, laundry, etc. any more than absolutely necessary in the next few days.  We are going to have fun hanging out, waiting for baby girl to come!  Everybody needs vacation time.  In fact, stay at home moms almost never get vacation time away from children and home responsibilities, so I am embracing this next week or so until baby girl comes to enjoy having just 1 adorable child, catch up on sleep, and do whatever it is we feel like doing.  :)

In baby news, at the doctor last week they said baby is currently around 8 to 8 1/2 lbs and long.  If she comes 2 days past my due date like Caleb did, that would put her right about 9 to 9 1/2 lbs.  Tested negative for gestational diabetes this time again, so I guess I just grow big babies.  That's thanks to Eric.  Grrr.  Thankfully, Caleb's delivery was pretty smooth so we'll trust that will be the case again.

We'll keep you posted when we go to the hospital!

T-Minus 3 weeks & 2 days

Not that I'm actually counting down...  but really, it's getting close!  I went to our midwife today and she is guessing baby girl to be in the 9-10 lb range at birth.  According to her, "Not enormous, but probably big."

Caleb is getting very excited to have a baby sister.  He regularly comes up to me and pats my belly, says "Baby!" and tells me that she is going to come out and sleep in the crib in his room.

We are getting ready for baby girl, as much as we can be, and are excited for this new transition in our family.  Besides adding another member to our family, we also made the decision a few months ago that I would be staying home with our children after this baby comes and General Mills has been very supportive of that decision.  I have 6 more days at work - two weeks on my part-time schedule.  My last day will be June 14th.

It's been a very busy several months between Eric's classes & work, my work, and family events - in March we traveled to Chicago to visit my Grandma and Grandpa (who has Alzheimers) and Eric presented for his research project at the Structures Congress in downtown Chicago, in April my Grandma on the other side passed away and my cousin got married, and in May we visited Eric's family and Grandma!  All this in the midst of 3 major project startups between March - May for my job as well as wrapping up everything I've been working on for 3 1/2 years at the plant.  Whew!

We are getting ready to close this chapter and see what this new season of our lives will bring.  Two children and one career + school is significantly different than 1 child and 2 careers + school!  We have no delusions of the ease of being a stay-at-home mom or balancing finances on 1 income, but we are definitely excited about the possibilities of the additional home time that we will gain with the change.

Here are some pictures from our family photo shoot a few weeks ago.

Maternity 5-2012 Photo Shoot

We'll keep updating here over the next few weeks through when the baby comes!

And in other news, Amanda & Spencer had their baby last night!  Whoohoo another baby boy in the family - grandbaby #9 for my parents.  And the oldest one isn't even 4 years old yet.  Wow.   :)