Thinking about making a change

Lately I feel . . . restless.  With the blog.  I feel more or less like I've outgrown blogger and have been thinking of switching over to wordpress.com (which is where my 101 things in 2002 days list is).  I really like several things about wordpress that blogger doesn't have but I have a few dilemmas.

1. I need a name.  Obviously stemmefamily.wordpress.com is out because that is the one that I (stupidly) used for my 101 things list.  ::kicks self::

2. Would you still love me in the morning after I changed websites?  I know when people move their blogs around they tend to loose followers and at my meager number of 14 devoted people that love me enough to add me into their RSS feed, I would hate to loose any of you!  Feedback, people.  I need feedback!

3. I really don't have a third point but I feel that an argument is much stronger with a third point.  Soooooo, I guess my third dilemma is what should I make for dinner tonight.

Any and all comments are appreciated!

And the winner is . . .

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 . . . . . . drumroll . . . . . .

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Ruby Red!  Congratulations to Ruby who is now the proud owner of a $25 gift certificate to ecomom.com!  Shoot me an email at bfftsk07@hotmail.com to claim your prize!  Thanks so much to all of those that participated and hopefully I can do another giveaway soon.  Even if you didn't win the gift certificate, I strongly recommend going over to ecomom.com and browsing their online store.  They have tons of cool products for the entire family and all of their products are eco-friendly!  Save the earth and support an awesome company!  Win-win!

P.S. Just so you all know, #7 was the winning number as chosen by random.org and comment #7 was entered by Ruby.

We have lettuce (sprouts)

Thanks to all of the rain we got this weekend (it has been raining for 5 days now.  Seriously.), we have lettuce sprouting in our garden!

In case you were wondering it is Black Seeded Simpson which is a loose-leaf lettuce (rather than head lettuce like iceberg).

Our tiny lettuce leaves next to our pepper plants.  Yay!

Ta-dah! It's time for a giveaway!

Way back in the beginning of March . . . you know, before Adrianna had RSV & a recurrent ear infection and our lives weren't centered around nebulizer treatments, oral antibiotics that didn't work, our pediatrician that forgot to call in our prescription which landed us in the ER & a stretch of 7 days that included 6 visits to some sort of health care provider.  Do you remember that far back?  Anyway, before all of that mess, I had been in contact with Jody over at EcoMom.com, (formerly Sproutbaby.com) about doing a product review.

Before I get into the review, let me just say how amazing their site is.  It is focused on baby products (but there are tons of other things too!) that are all earth-friendly.  And since it is Earth Week, what better time to promote such amazing websites!  Even if you don't have kids, don't know any kids or don't even like kids, there are plenty of other earth-friendly things you can spend the $25 on!

When I began e-mailing Jody I told him that we had recently began cloth diapering and that I am always looking for ways to be more eco-friendly. By the way, if you haven’t been over to Eco-friendly Baby products-EcoMom, you should go. They have tons of awesome eco-friendly products as well as a blog that has tons of tips and ideas for keeping not only your baby but your entire family healthy while using earth-friendly products. They are doing great things over there! Seriously—go check them out.

A few days after Jody & I had e-mailed each other, I received a jar of the Earth Mama Angel Baby Bottom Balm  to try out and review. I was so pumped because we had been cloth diapering Adrianna for a couple of months and while I love creams like Desitin or Boudreaux’s Butt Paste, they are pretty oily and would end up staining her new diapers. I was also excited because I have heard nothing but good things about Earth Mama Angel Baby products from various other mommy blogs that are eco-friendly. I was so anxious to test my new product that I would slather it on her bottom if I thought she looked even the slightest bit pink. While it definitely didn’t hurt anything, I didn’t really notice a difference because I wasn’t putting it on an actual diaper rash. (When I re-read things like this I realize how neurotic I must appear to people.)

Since I received the product, Adrianna has battled RSV as well as a horrible recurrent ear infection that required 3 antibiotic shots to resolve. Needless to say, her poor little body has been through the ringer lately and has thrown her entire system out of whack. Over a week ago I noticed that she was getting a diaper rash. While I was not happy about her getting a diaper rash, I was happy that I would finally be able to use my new product for its intended use! So I began to coat her little bottom with the stuff. The next day it was worse. By that evening, her hind-end looked like hamburger and she would wail every time I would put it on her. By the end of the second full day, I decided that I would go back to my trusty butt paste & deal with the stains later. And you know what? The rash is finally clearing. The worse part about this whole thing is I really wanted it to work. I really want to be able to cloth diaper my children full-time and have a product that isn’t going to permanently stain the inserts. Unfortunately I will have to keep looking. That being said, I’m not trying to drag the Earth Mama Angel Baby products down, but they just didn’t work for us.

And since the folks over at EcoMom.com are so cool, rather than making me host a giveaway for a product that didn't work for us, they are letting me giveaway a $25 gift certificate to their website! 

Here is what you need to do:

(leave a separate comment for every thing that you do in order for each thing to count!)

This entry is mandatory, so do it first!

1) Head over to EcoMom.com.  Come back here and post a comment and tell me something that you learned about their website, their products, or anything else that peaked your interest. 

(These entries are not mandatory but they will improve your chances of winning!)

2) Follow my blog publicly and tell me who you are :)

3) Write a blog post about my blog and leave me a comment with the link!

4)  Friendster me! (aka: add me as a facebook friend).  If we are already friends, leave me a comment and let me know!

5) Follow EcoMom on Twitter!

6) Become a fan of EcoMom on Facebook!

7) Join EcoMom's newsletter!   

Remember--you need to leave a separate comment for each thing that you do so I can count each entry in the drawing.  I will close the drawing Tuesday night (April 27th) so hurry up and get your entries in & good luck!  The winner will be selected via http://www.random.org/

And because EcoMom is so awesome, they are offering a 15% discount on your first order!  Just enter: SBBL277 as the discount code.

Photo evidence that my child is a vampire

Since little miss Princess has finally cut some teeth (she has TWO now!), I decided it was time to try and get a picture of the sharp little boogers (so so SO glad I'm not breastfeeding anymore!). 

P.S. It's her 9-month birthday today!  Cannot believe how quickly the time goes once they are out of the uterus ;)

Obviously, this angle was not going to work.  She was more interested in eating my camera.

This approach was also problematic.  She was much more interested in pulling herself up to a standing position.

You would have thought this would have worked.  Except, my daughter is the hungriest baby I have ever seen.  Every time I would put my thumb on her bottom lip, she would stick her tongue out to try and lick me.  Apparently I taste good.  Or I'm just fun to nibble on.

"Nom nom nom.  Momma's fingers are sooooooo tender and delicious!"

Almost got it!  If her pudgy little hands wouldn't have been grabbing my camera!

Success!  You can barely see them, but there they are!  Her left bottom one came in first, quickly followed by the one on the right.  I have to say, she is a much happier baby now!  She can devour other children her food at lightening speed which means that she can now safely eat table food!  She is much more interested in eating what everybody else is eating rather than baby food so she is pretty much weaned from those tiny jars and is loving the fact that she can shovel food in her own mouth now.  Her favorites right now are anything with carbs.  Seriously.  The kid will eat anything if it is starchy.  Last night my bff and I went to Olive Garden and the kid was in heaven.  She ate almost an entire bread stick and several bites of my 5-Cheese Ziti.  And, since she is eating more solid food, she is beginning to wean herself from her bottle. 

Happy 9-months sweet baby girl.  Your daddy and I love you more than you will ever know. 

Photo shoot

This past weekend while Greg was slaving away in the garden, I decided to have an impromptu photo shoot with my sweet angels.

They had other ideas.

 

Like running away from Momma...

...and eating Cheerios...

...and taking naps...

...and yelling "Dadadadadada!"...

...and throwing sand out of the sandbox...

...and eating grass.

Okay, okay.  In this one she was actually cooperating.  Well, that's not entirely true.  She was actually watching a car drive by, so she wasn't really trying to look sweet.  She is just so nosy that the car driving by

was enough of a distraction for me to get a cute picture!

These three were some of my favories of the day.  She was in love with my straw hat that I bought for gardening and finally, I gave up and plopped it on her.  And I don't think it's biased at all when I say that I have the cutest kids ever!

In these pictures, I was trying to get a picture of her teeth (which I finally did!) but everytime I would hold onto her, she would grab my arm & pull herself into a standing position.  ::deep breath::  Did you read that correctly?  No?  Let me repeat it for you.  My not-even-9-month old is pulling herself up into a standing position.  Uh yeah, it scares the crap outta me to think that in no time I will have two children that are fully capable of running away from me.

Brock was so proud of his acorn that he found, he insisted that I take a picture of it. Then he planted it in his sandbox.  I think he needs a lesson in botany :)  Also, he is at that age where it is more fun to run around and play & ignore momma than it is to sit still so I can take his picture.  I had to take the opportunity to take his picture when I had the chance.

I may have an obsession

Have I mentioned lately how much I love love LOVE The Pioneer Woman?  No?  Well, I do.  I imagine that we could be friends in real life except she is much more accomplished than me and she is living my dream so maybe it's better that I admire her from afar rather than meet her in real life.  Also?  She is teeny tiny.  Like I'm afraid I would crush her if I hugged her too hard.  Another reason that we couldn't really be friends.

Anyway.

I was scrolling through my google reader this morning browsing all of the blogs that I follow and I came across The Pioneer Woman's latest entry.  Scroll past the photography tips and what do you see?  The picture is of a Cheese Zip from Mugs Up right here in good ol' CoMo!  I couldn't believe it!  I was super excited and I ran out and told all of my co-workers and, of course, they didn't understand me (they never do--that's okay.  That's why I have a blog.  To spout off about the ridiculous things that I think are absolutely wonderful and most people don't give a rat's patonkiss about.).  As it turns out, the piece was actually written by one of P-dub's contributing authors for her photography section, who I'm sure is equally as sweet and wonderful.  But still.  CoMo rated high enough to make it onto The Pioneer Woman's blog!  Yay!

Yes, I know that I'm a huge dork.  You may begin mocking me . . . . . . now.

Our first garden

It was almost a month ago when we decided to start a garden.  After much hem-hawing about exactly when and where in our yard, we finally picked our spot.  One big problem that we encountered already is the fact that we are the first people in a very long time (if not the absolute first people) to till that spot. 

After much sweat and tears (no blood was involved.  Not much anyway), our garden was tilled.

Then it had to be raked.

Brock hauled away all the big dirt clumps (that Greg left behind) in his Tonka truck that Nan and Papa Jimbo got him for his 2nd birthday.  He is so helpful!

Hey look!  I found an acorn, mom!

This was Adrianna's contribution to the garden preparation.  She ate grass.  And bugs.  And a little dirt.  Despite my very best efforts to keep all of nature's finest things out of her chubby little hands.

As soon as Greg and I would a row planted, Brock would go behind and water for us. 

Okay, fine.  This is a lie. 

We gave him the watering can so he would stop pulling up our tomato and pepper plants and stop trying to find the seeds that we "hid" from him.  In this picture he was watering dirt. :)

Now they are actually watering stuff!

The finished product of the first stage!  We planted tomatoes, bell peppers, canteloupe, watermelon, strawberries, squash, zucchini, carrots, peas, green beans and sweet corn.  Hopefully something will grow and we will have fresh veggies later this summer!

First impression don't always count

After we were done with cases yesterday, Dr. D pulled me aside and said, "When you get a minute, come into my office.  I want to tell you something."  Normally he is fairly high strung but I've worked with him long enough that I'm beginning to recognize the tones of his voice and I knew with a fair amount of certainty that I wasn't in trouble about anything.  I did my best to hide my internal panic and followed him to his office where he said, "This is a prime example about why you should never talk bad about people."  Now?  I'm in full-blown panic mode.  I am a professional about sticking my foot in my mouth and have yet to learn my lesson.  Except about asking if a woman is pregnant.  That mistake I've learned the hard way. 

At any rate, he is kind of smirking at me watching me squirm around as I rack my brain trying to think of something that I may have let slip about him to the wrong person.  Here is the story that followed:

"Back when we were still looking for a nurse in our department, your name came up for consideration.  I don't remember now who it was, but somebody said something negative about you.  I cannot remember exactly what it was but it was something along the lines of, 'Oh, that Tara.  She's bad news.  She is sorta hard to get along with and isn't all that bright'.  Well, naturally we don't think that about you at all and we are delighted that you are working with us.  But, I will admit that for the first couple months that you were down here, I was holding my breath, waiting for something to happen.  And you just never did live up to my expectation of you--which, in this case, was definitely a good thing."

::and breathe::

I honestly wasn't even all that upset that somebody had said something bad about me because I know that there are people in this world that are not going to like me no matter what I do.  But it definitely did make me think about how many times I've had preconceived notions about people and have written them off without giving them a chance to show who they really are. 

Life lesson: 1.  Tara: 0

Something I never thought I'd say

"Hey, buddy.  Did you remember to tuck your weiner back into your underwear?"

We were working in the garden this weekend and, of course, Brock had to 'go pee-pee osside'.  From my vantage point it didn't look like he had tucked himself back in and I had to ask.  He was completely unfased as he answered me with a very quick, 'yep'.  Greg on the other hand, gave me the strangest look and shook his head mumbling something about how much therapy is gonna cost us later in life.  I don't see the problem.  I asked a legitimate question and Brock knew exactly what I was talking about.  Is it strange that sometimes my almost 3 year old understands me better than my husband?  Wait.  Don't answer that.

THIS is why my daughter is still not sleeping through the night

Because when she fusses at 4am and her daddy gets up with her, he puts all of her stuffed animals in a huge pile in front of her and plays with her.  Spoiled much?

"Heh heh.  Mah daddy will do whatevah I want because imma princess!"

"Scuze me?  Are you making fun of the princess?  Would you like me to tell my

daddy?  Hmph.  That's what I thought."

Happy Tax Day!

Also, happy birthday to my sister-in-law, Melissa who turns . . . well, I guess I'll keep it a secret.  After all, it's not polite to tell a woman's age (or something like that).  At any rate, I hope that everybody got a refund on their taxes this year and if not, I hope that you didn't have to pay too much!  And to my friends that are accountants, would you like to come to my house for a drink tonight?!  I do not envy you at all.  Love you but do not envy you.

Tough cookies

Despite my best efforts, I am not a pastry chef.  My problem is that I think too highly of myself and my abilities.  I follow The Pioneer Woman's blog and I LOVE it when she posts food entries.  Partly because I love to clean drool off of my keyboard because the pictures she posts along with the recipies are to die for and partly because I want so desperately to be the mom that makes the best cookies and all of my kids' friends want to come over after school because I make the best lasagna and they are hoping there are leftovers in the fridge. 

::sigh::

Don't get me wrong.  My family is not starving because of my lack of cooking ability and I do have a few strong dishes that are my go-to meals.  For example, I make a mean lasagna.  I don't even like lasagna and I like mine.  Another one?  Stuffed pork chops.  Oh.  Em.  Gee.  The stuffed pork chops deserve another post entirely.  However.  Greg and I were flipping through my Betty Crocker cookbook a few weeks back and he was happily flagging all of the dishes that he thought he would like to try and one of them was Apple Crisp.  Sounds easy enough, right?  Well, I made it this weekend and there were several problems.  A few examples: there was too high of an apple:crisp ratio, it wasn't sweet enough and it wasn't "syrup-ey" enough.  Hmmm, not exactly the most constructive criticism, but I may have found another version of it that I will try so I may be able to redeem myself.

Now for the real heartbreaker.  Last week on The Pioneer Woman's blog, she posted a recipie for petite vanilla bean scones.  I'm warning you now, if you click on that link, you may think you've died and gone to heaven.  You have not.  But I'm pretty sure that they will be serving these tasty little treats up there as an appetizer at a new-arrivals mixer.  Where was I going with this . . . oh yeah how my inadequacies continue to stack up when I visit The Pioneer Woman's website.  So I got the hairbrained idea that I was going to make these sweet little things this weekend.  I even bought vanilla beans (which I was afraid I was going to have to go to a specialty store and pay something like $4/bean, but I actually found them at Hy-Vee and they were only about $1/bean).  I got all of my ingredients together, I painstakingly scraped out the cavier from the vanilla bean, I made sure I had enough counter space to roll out the dough.

A very important fact to remember about scones is that they require lots of flour.  Not to be mixed into the dough but because mine were VERY sticky and I didn't use enough flour on the countertop and the dough stuck to that.  It also stuck to the rolling pin.  I thought I was going to make it through without too many tears and then?  Then, I began to peel up the beautiful petite triangles.  And those sweet little triangles that I had hoped would win me a Mother of the Year award began to fall apart.  And I don't mean a little stretching of the dough here and there.  There was more dough left on the counter and stuck to my floor than there was actually in the oven.  Also?  Scones are supposed to be thick.  Mine were thin like sugar cookies.

Once I got the scones out of the oven, the directions said to let them cool completely before glazing them.  This part I actually accomplished.  The letting them cool part.  Not the glazing part.  That part comes next.  I mixed up the glaze, dunked the scones and set them on the drying racks to dry.  I even remembered to put a cookie sheet under them so the glaze wouldn't drip all over the countertop.  About an hour later, I checked them and the glaze was still a little tacky so I had the brilliant idea to let them sit overnight.  As it turns out, when a pastry that is glazed is left sitting out overnight it turns into a brick.  A brick that is now glued to my drying racks. 

I guess my kids' friends will have to make do with lasagna and stuffed pork chops because I may never get the hang of pastries from scratch.  But I will continue to try and subject my family to eating my kitchen experiments!

Easter

I realize that this post is over a week late, but who cares?  It's full of pictures of my sweet babies!

Thoughtfully studying the contents of the Easter baskets from Great-Grandpa & Great-Grandma Moore

On the hunt for some Easter eggs!

Mom!  I found some over here!

Army crawling his way across the table to get each egg . . .

... and another one bites the dust ...

...and another one gone, and another one gone.  Another one bites the dust!

"CHEESEEEEEEEE!!!!"

Hmmmm, maybe I want some of HER eggs . . .

Daddy keeping a close eye on Brock's wandering eye

Sharing a sweet moment

Haha!  Brock was asleep and Adrianna got ahold of his basket.  Luckily, she didn't get any of the eggs open but she had fun nibbling on them and shaking them!

Cute story alert:

On Saturday night, we filled Brock's Easter basket and set it outside his bedroom door so it would be the first thing he saw on Easter morning.  Per his usual wake-up call, he came flying into our bedroom at 5:30ish screaming, "The Easter bunny left me Easter eggs and candeeeeeee!"  Then we promptly explained to him that the Easter bunny is like Santa.  They are both friends of Jesus and help make the holidays more fun.  But they are not the reason that we are celebrating.

First time eating Pop Rocks.

He picked up this skill rather quickly!

After we ate candy for breakfast, we went to the sunrise service at church then stopped by my parent's house and the kids played with their new toys.

Since Adrianna is crawling EVERYWHERE now, I didn't want her to ruin her beautiful new dress so we stripped her down to a diaper.  She would normally be happier about being naked, but she was at the start of Hell Week (more about that later) and wasn't feeling well.

Brock got a Thomas the Train set from Nan and Papa Jimbo

Trying to play with Brock's new toys

My smooches usually make her feel better but poor baby girl was so sick :(

A little help from dada with his tie

This is about the best we can do anymore for a family picture.  At least nobody was crying.  Parents included.

Sweet princess with Papa Dabe.