Our boxes are packed & we are moving!

But it's just blog sites, so no worries!  The new Stemme family blog is going to be over at http://manysleeplessnights.wordpress.com/.  So far, I'm still getting everything set up and adjusted the way I want it but I hope that you all (yes, all 14 of you) will come and check us out.  I sincerely hope that you will continue to read our blog and love us.  For those of you that are wondering, it is super easy to add a non-blogger based blog into your reader.  When you are logged into your blogger dashboard, scroll down to the bottom of the page.  It should look similar to this:

On the bottom left there is a button labeled "Add".  Click this button & it will bring up a screen that looks like this:

Inside the URL box, type in: http://manysleeplessnights.wordpress.com/.  It will ask you how you wish to follow the blog (either anonymously or with a profile) and that's it!  You should be able to see all of our updates in your blogger reader.  (If this doesn't work, please let me know so that I can find an alternate way for you to follow us!).

Our wine country getaway, Part 2

On Sunday of our wine weekend getaway, we decided to just wander around Hermann and see what the lovely city had to offer.  Here is the highlight reel.

Simon's on the Waterfront.  We were (inaccurately) told by the sweet old lady at the Visitor's Center that it was a "fancy" restaurant.  It was fancier than Arby's but it made Applebee's look like a gourmet restaurant.

See what I mean?  Klassy.

We saw this place when we first arrived in town and decided that it was a definite must-stop on our tour. 

Inside the restaurant, there were games.  Like this horseshoe/ring game that Greg was determined he could beat.  He was wrong.  (I'm pretty sure it was dysfunctional, though.)  But he redeemed himself on the

fit-all-the-balls-in-the-correct-spot game.  He did it twice.  Look at how proud he is!

I have a somewhat debilitating fear of heights.  I believe that I have passed this onto my son as he cannot sit on his father's shoulders without clutching Greg's face and nearly gouging out one of his eyes.  One of the things that makes Hermann ideal for vineyards are the hills.  Huge hills.  Hills so steep that when Greg had the minivan sports car floored, we were barely making progress up this damn thing.  Good gosh.  How in the world do they get around in the winter?

This is the bridge that crosses the Missouri River and leads directly into town.  When I was in high school and we had to travel to Hermann to get drunk for sporting events, this bridge was the scariest damn thing.  It was so narrow that you ran the risk of either hitting your driver's side mirror of the car in the opposite lane or hitting your passenger's side mirror on the bridge.  Also?  There were huge holes in the floor of this thing.  Holes so big that at any given speed you could look down and distinctly see the river.  Mmmmmm hmmmmm.  I still pucker my ass just thinking about that damn thing.

A view from the riverbank at dusk.

Our Belgian waffles, strudel & sausage at the B&B.  Yummy!!

We stopped at a few other shops while we were walking around town where we bought gifts for the kids, my sweet ass apron, some delicious jelly, the chocolate shoppe (OMG--that place deserves it's own post.  Seriously), but Greg was getting slightly annoyed with me for being so "tourist-y" so I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to.  But we had such a nice time and it was nice to have just a little weekend away.  If you live in the area (or not) you should definitely go and check it out.  It's such a cute little town and they have TONS of wine so even if you don't want to party at The Bank (a bar) or eat at Simon's, you can always get piss-ass drunk off of the local beverages!

Our wine country getaway

One of the things on my 101 things in 2002 days list was go to a winery for a wine tasting.  Greg took it to another level and bought two tickets to a wine trail in Hermann, MO and reserved us a room at a B&B in town.  (Brownie points to the hubs!) 

Here we are at our first stop on the trail; the Robller Vineyard.  Unfortunately, we didn't find any wine here that we liked.

The sample of foods they had prepared that goes well with their Norton wine.

Our lovely souvenir glasses.

There is a funny story behind this one (of course).  Greg loves to go to garage sales.  More than that, he just really loves to find a good deal.  The weekend before we went to Hermann, Greg picked up a "wine stopper" at a garage sale.  Brand new, in the package, for 50 cents.  (It is supposed to be better than cork-sized one by holding in the flavor.  I think.)  He found this one at a gift shop at the Robller Vineyard for $15.  I'm pretty sure that was his favorite part of the trip!

This was our second to last stop (Adam Puchta Vineyard) and by that point we were sooooo tired of Norton wine (we are not big fans of dry red and lemme tell you, Norton is a very dry red.)  This sweet gentleman behind the counter (wearing bib overalls!) was describing a new wine glass that had just be patented and was specifically designed for drinking Norton wine.  As I downed my sample I listened absentmindedly, I didn't notice the sweet old lady coming toward me with the bottle of wine.  To give me a refill.  When I look at her with my eyes wide, she said, "I know.  Isn't is soooooo good?!" 

I think, "Mmmm hmmmm," was about all that I could muster before I downed it like a champ. 

Stone Hill winery was the last on our tour and it nearly deserves its own post.  We were able to tour the cellars where they age and store the barrels of wine, the grounds are beautiful, and at the end of our tour we were able to sample close to 30 different wines.  Some were definitely better than others and we bought a bottle of our favorite.

He always looks so annoyed that I'm taking his picture.  He's such a party pooper!

The giant containers that they cool the liquid in (it's not quite wine at that point.)

These were bottled just after Prohibition was repealed in the US.  The tour guide told us that 20 years is about the maximum that you want to let wine age (and that's really pushing it for some varieties) and since these have been in the bottle since somewhere around 1933 . . .  I'd say they taste something like rotten vinegar.  Bleh.  But, they are a cool piece of history!

This storage barrel was one of the originals that was in use after Prohibition.  The owners harvested their grapes approximately three times per year.  Each time (before it could be used again), a person had to crawl through that tiny hole (by Greg's right leg) with a bucket of hot soapy water and a mop and scrub the old 1-inch thick wine sludge off the inside of the barrel in order to control the quality of the next batch.  Also?  The person inside doing the cleaning usually got pretty drunk from the wine fumes.  Mmmmmmm . . . can I add that to my dream job list?! 

Breathtakingly beautiful.  You can even see the Missouri River to the left in the distance.

Strong-arming Doogie Howser, M.D.

At the beginning of last week, I picked the kids up from the babysitter's house and she met me with, "I think Adrianna has a virus.  She has been fussy & warm and . . . . tugging at her ears."  Well, shit.  I hoped for the best but expected that we would be making another trip to the pediatrician.  I knew this would mean another round of antibiotics, another yeast infection and many more sleepless nights.  We decided to wait and see if she was better on Tuesday.  She was a little better so we thought maybe she was getting over it and we had dodged the ear infection bullet.  By Wednesday her symptoms continued to improve but was still needing Tylenol fairly frequently.  On Thursday afternoon, I had had enough.  She was barely able to keep anything down the entire day and had run a fever as high as 102.

I couldn't get her in to see her pediatrician until Friday at 4pm but as soon as we saw him, he started talking about setting her up with a pediatric ENT to discuss surgery to place tubes in her ears.  He wanted to go ahead and start her on another course of antibiotics though just to help her get over this ear infection.  Since the Rocephin shots worked last time, that was the course we decided to go with again.  After the shot and waiting for nearly 30 minutes to see if the hard & increasingly red spot would go away on it's own.  It did not.  She got Benadryl.  It still didn't go away.  Then she spiked a fever from 100.3 to 103 within 20 minutes.  She got Tylenol.  It didn't go away as fast as the pediatrician would have liked.  Then he declared it an official allergy.  Theeennnnnn, he said that we would have to do another 10-day course of oral antibiotics.  We were scheduled to see the pediatric ENT for Monday at 2:30.

When we arrived at the ENT's office, Adrianna was (of course) in a great mood because she had been on the antibiotics over the whole weekend and she was probably one of the healthiest people in the waiting room.  After we were called back, we waited in the exam room and I could not believe my eyes.  Doogie Houser, M.D. himself walked into the room.  Okay, not exactly Neil Patrick Harris, but still.  He looked like he was about 12 and the look on my mother's face was quite comical.

He visited with me for a few minutes and reviewed all of the symptoms she has been dealing with for over 2 months now and said, "My audiologist is in clinic today.  Would you like to see her?"  Um, yes please!  The audiologist is an important piece to the puzzle because she is the one that can tell how much (if any) fluid is on the ear drum as well as if there is any hearing loss.  Which there was in Adrianna's case.  Fluid on both ears (duh) and nearly 50% hearing loss in both ears which Doogie described as "possibly" reversible.  Then he proceeds to tell me that he thinks we need to wait another month before we consider tubes.  My mama bear instincts immediately kicked in as I felt my face flush.  My first thought was to tell him that I would call him every time she wakes up in the middle of the night because her ears hurt so bad.  And when she is alternating screaming/clamping her mouth shut 3 times/day when I have to force feed her antibiotics that smell like rotten eggs.  And when she's screaming every single time I have to change her diaper because she has a yeast infection from being on antibiotics for nearly 2 months straight and her poor little skin is like raw hamburger.

After I impolitely told him that I understand that he needed to cover his ass from a legal standpoint and I also understood if he didn't want to do the surgery.  I also told him that I would be lying if I said I wasn't at my wit's end with all of the hassle that goes along with a sick baby but I was completely telling the truth when I said I was much more concerned for her sake than mine.  I was not willing to subject my daughter to another month of ear infections and all of the secondary things that have gone along with it and the treatment (yeast infections, sleepless nights, developing antibiotic resistance and allergies, etc.)  Not only that, but she already has a 50% deficit in her hearing and I was not willing to risk that getting worse.  So, if he would not help us that was fine.  But I was going to find somebody that would help her get better.

At this point, I really began to feel bad for Doogie.  He began stammering and stuttering and finally we came to the agreement that if I was insistent (his word, not mine) that she get the surgery, he would check his OR schedule and let me know what he had available.  We took the first available (noon next Wednesday) and he gave me some information to review. 

As we were standing up to leave, I apologized for my aggressive behavior (my words, not his) to which he responded, "Oh, don't worry.  You are just looking out for your kiddo."  And he's right.  I never thought I would be "crazy mom" that insists her children get preferential treatment.  And I still don't feel that way.  However, I do feel that it is my job, as a mother, to be the voice that my children don't yet have.  It is my #1 priority to keep them safe & healthy and to teach them how to (eventually) do it for themselves and for their own children.

Jogging

A few days ago I ran for the first time in probably 2 years.  Why?  Because after having two children within 2 years my poor old body is looking pretty . . . ghastly.  I don't want my kids to grow up & I'm still claiming "baby fat" as my excuse for my chunkiness.  I want to instill healthy habits in them from an early age and I don't think it's fair to take the "do as I say, not as I do" approach to eating and exercising.  My biggest problem is that I'm not a runner.  Never have been.  Even when I was in the best shape of my life in high school and we had to run 2 miles every day before practice, I loathed it.  My body never got used to it.  I never reached that point where I had a lightbulb moment and went, "Hey!  This is actually fun!". 

But I'm trying.  I'm going to give it my best shot.  Thursday night I ran around Steven's Lake Park (the small track which is only 0.8 miles) and I thought I was going to die.  Seriously.  I only had to stop and walk twice (and for no more than 30 seconds both times) but my lungs were on fire.  My legs were jello.  I had a stitch in my side that I thought was never going to go away.  Did I already tell you that I only ran 0.8 miles?  Hmmmm, methinks it may take awhile to get #2 crossed off the list.  I'm also considering keeping a food journal which will force me to be accountable for the crap that I shove into my mouth.  Then I can take a look at what I've eaten during a day and realize that I didn't eat any fruits or veggies that day and it will force me to get off my arse and run after work when all I really want to do is snuggle in my pjs with Greg and the kiddos.

I'll keep you posted with my progess.  Hopefully I'll make some.  Oh, and I'm thinking about posting pictures of myself each week-ish so I (and you!) can see the progress of my (hopefully) decreasing love handles.

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 . . .

 . . . . . .

 . . . . . .

 . . . . . . drumroll . . . . . .

 . . . . . .

 . . . . . .


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.